He took one quick look to get his bearings and struck out for the shore.
95
They took Thor Larsson home to rest alongside his ancestors in a treeless, windswept graveyard that lay atop a headland overlooking the Norwegian Sea. At its centre stood a church, a simple construction of white-painted wood with a modest spire at one end. The houses of the village where Thor had grown up were wooden too, coloured deep russet red, yellow ochre and green: gaudy bursts of brightness against the featureless landscape of scrub and sand and the constantly shifting whites, greys and blues of the limitless sky and the sea.
Carver wore the suit he'd bought for Larsson's wedding and a black tie he'd bought at Heathrow.
Maddy was waiting for him by the churchyard gate. They didn't say anything at first, didn't even shake hands.
'I didn't think you'd be here,' he said. 'I expected you to go home.'
'Oslo was safer. It was the one place I knew he wouldn't be. And Karin needed help with, you know, everything. So…' She shrugged, and then said, 'I would have told you if you'd called.'
'No phone,' he explained. 'Tyzack took mine and I never got round to buying another. Had other things on my mind.'
Carver's words blew away on the breeze coming in from the sea. They faced one another in an awkward, unaccustomed silence.
'Oh Christ,' she said, 'don't just stand there.'
And then they hugged.
'I thought I'd lost you,' he whispered, holding her tighter to feel the soft press of her body and breathe in the scent of her hair.
'You had,' she murmured, her mouth against his shoulder.
'And now?'
She didn't answer, but stepped out of his embrace, running her hands through her hair to push it back into place.
'I saw you on TV with the President,' she said. 'Him shaking your hand as you were sitting up in that hospital bed.' She smiled. 'I was proud of you.'
'You were?' he said, as if he couldn't quite believe his ears.
'Uh-huh.' She grinned. 'Even if the news guy said you were just "a bystander, injured in the bombing".'
Carver laughed. 'Yeah, I heard that too.'
'You're all right, though?'
'Sure. They just insisted on keeping me in overnight for observation. That reporter kid was in the same ward as me. He spent the whole time on the phone to his agent. Every time it rang, he got a little bit richer.'
'Well, he did a very brave thing,' said Maddy, taking his arm as they slowly walked up towards the church. 'So did you.'
'That's what Roberts said, too. Well, almost. His exact words were, "Son, you must have cojones of steel if you think the way to save a president is to shoot at him.'"
She giggled. 'The President said that? Really?'
'Absolutely. But very quiet, with his head right by mine, so the reporters wouldn't hear.'
Carver felt as if they were getting back to their old selves. They still weren't all the way there yet, nowhere close. But give it time.
Maddy held his arm tight against her. They couldn't talk any more now, because there were introductions to be made and condolences to be expressed. Carver murmured all the proper expressions of sympathy as he was introduced to the family, but he knew they must resent him for being alive when their beloved Thor was dead. Everyone had been told about his heroic self-sacrifice. No one knew about the betrayal that had come before.
It had been Karin who had insisted on Carver speaking at the service. She came up to him now and told him, 'Say all the good things, like you would have done at… at our wedding. Tell the jokes, even if they are rude. Make him live for me again, just for a few moments… please.'
When the time came for him to speak, Maddy gave his hand an encouraging squeeze. He stepped up to the lectern, past the coffin in which Thor's remains lay, offering a silent prayer that he be allowed to get through his words without breaking down. As he looked out over the congregation, he paused for a moment to collect his thoughts and gather his strength, and it was then that he saw, right at the back of the church, a flash of golden hair beneath a black hat. The woman beneath the hat must have sensed his gaze upon her for at that instant she raised her face and her clear blue eyes looked straight into his. He felt his stomach flip and told himself it was only natural that Alix should be here. She and Thor had become very close. There was nothing more to it than that.
Carver swallowed hard, coughed and thanked God for the fact that his emotion would be read by the congregation as understandable nervousness. He felt their eyes upon him, and the weight of their expectations. Somehow he had to find a way to acknowledge the loss they had all suffered and the joy they had taken in the person who was gone. He thought of what Karin had said: 'Make him live for me again.' So he set aside the notes he had made and stepped back down from the lectern. Then he stood beside the coffin, looked out at the people crammed on to the hard wooden pews and told them about his friend.