Dag 982: Snowblind II

Before going to bed I hooked up my iPod to the sound system installed in my isolated cabin in Northern Sweden, turned up the volume and listened to some Kent while I unpacked all my cases and started to assemble the scientific apparatus I had brought with me. As I fitted the pieces of equipment together I felt excited at the thought of the work I would be undertaking over the next 7 days and the time flew by. As midnight passed and the song Månadens Erbjudande was coming to an end I realised how late it was and how tired I was from the long journey that day. I went to bed and was asleep before I had even had chance to turn the bedside light out.

The next thing I was aware of was the alarm on my mobile phone going off and interrupting one of my often recurring dreams with a start. I got dressed and went into the lounge expecting to be able to continue setting up the apparatus. However, this was not going to be possible, for it lay in pieces all over the floor. It had been smashed to smithereens while I had slept.

I stood motionless for the next five minutes, though it seemed like much longer as the questions piled up in my head. Who could have done this? How did they get in? Why didn’t I wake up from my sleep in the next room? How did they find this cabin? Its location was not only secret, but no one should have even known I would be going there at this time. The one question that bothered me most, though, was why somebody should want to prevent me from performing my work here?

I examined the door, but it was still locked and there was no sign of any forced entry. Likewise, all the windows were locked shut, again with no evidence of any tampering. The only possible explanation was that someone had a key to the door and had locked it on there way out after committing this surprising deed. But the lock had been custom made and I should have had the only key that would open it.

I unlocked the door and looked out. It had snowed after I had arrived so there was no sign of my footprints from the day before, but there was single set of fresh footprints leading up to the door and a single set leaving at a 45 degree angle to the ones arriving. I put on my outdoor clothes and started following the footprints that led away from the door. They led towards a large boulder that was about 400 metres from the cabin, and passed around the left side of it.

I followed them around the rock but there they came to an abrupt stop.

A few feet away from the last footprint there was a patch of red snow and next to the red snow was a man lying face down and not moving. I looked around but could not see anyone else or any other footprints; however I found that 2 words had been written in the snow and the fore finger of the man’s right hand was still in the indentation of the last letter of the second word.

This message was the last act of the dying man and must mean something to someone, but it didn’t make any sense to me. The message was simply “Red House”. Was this the complete message and who was it meant for?

I turned the body over and saw that the blood was coming from a hole in the region of his solar plexus. I felt in his pockets to see if I could find any identification. I found a passport, a wallet, a copy of the key to the door of my cabin and small piece of torn canvas. The passport was in the name of Professor Guy Dubh from Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis and his wallet contained some currency, a mixture of Euros and Swedish Krona) and the boarding passes for a flight from Malaga to Stockholm from 3 weeks earlier and then Stockholm to Luleå from 2 days ago. The piece of canvas looked like it may have come from an oil painting, but it looked very old and the paint was cracked. On second inspection I saw the name Laury painted onto it in feint strokes.

The name Laury meant nothing to me, but something else reminded me of a strange incident that had happened when I was on holiday in Spain a few months before.

The Spanish police had come to the door of my apartment one afternoon asking me if I knew anything about the man who was renting the apartment next door. I said I hadn’t even been aware that anyone was staying in that apartment and wasn’t able to help them. I later heard that it was being rented by a Professor of Art from Brighton who had been murdered by a single shot to the solar plexus. He had managed to crawl across the floor to the coffee table in the room in which he had been found, and had picked up a postcard from the table, which he was clutching in his hand when the body had been found.

The postcard showed a green field on a bright sunny day and in the middle of the field was a single building.

It was a red house.