Page 20 of The Unlikely Pair
Fuck. Only Harry Matheson could survive a plane crash looking icy cool and then proceed to work like nothing ever happened.
While I don’t like giving Harry any opportunity to feel superior to me, there’s no way I can concentrate on energy emission targets right now. My laptop remains firmly inside the non-combusting plane.
Instead, I poke around the clearing. It feels like a scene from a Nordic fairy tale, with mossy rocks and a few daring wildflowers amongst the grass, adding a splash of color to the fifty shades of green.
“Kade told us not to go away from the plane,” Harry says.
“I’m just having a look around.”
When else will I get a chance to experience the Norwegian wilderness, after all?
But it’s not just curiosity that has me edging closer to the end of the clearing and peering into the forest.
It’s something else. Some kind of uneasiness.
I mean, I’ve just crash-landed, so it’s understandable I’m not completely Zen right now. But there’s something else. Something that started even before we landed. Something iswrong, even though I can’t pinpoint what it is right now.
I’ve always had a strong gut instinct. My mother used to say I was ruled by my emotions, and it’s true I’ve always struggled to separate my head and my heart.
Oliver always asked me for my analysis of any situations we faced because he trusted my instinctive reactions to things. Over the years, he learned my gut is seldom wrong.
And my gut is churning right now more than it’s ever churned before.
I just need to work out why.
It’s an old forest, one you can easily imagine the Vikings crashing through. When I peer in, I discover the trees are less densely packed compared to the forests of England. I guess the extreme winters here don’t provide optimum growing conditions. It’s like the Norwegian trees are supermodels—tall, skinny, and dressed in needles, quite the opposite of England’s trees, which are more like friendly locals: shorter, rounder, and leafier.
As I’m coming back through the clearing, a flash of color catches my eye.
It’s a discarded can, half-buried in the dirt, so old and rusted that I can barely make out some faded lettering.
I dig it out of the earth so I can hold it in my hands. The soldered join of the metal reassures me. We can’t be too far into the wilderness if there’s human rubbish around.
The faded lettering is in a language I don’t recognize. It’s not Norwegian, that much I’m certain of. I spent three months on secondment to the Oslo office while working at McKinnan’s, and that was enough time to gain a basic grasp of the language. These letters are definitely not forming any words I know. I squint at the can, tilting it to catch the light. It takes a moment for the realization to hit me, but when it does, it’s like a punch to the gut.
The letters are Finnish. I’m no linguistic expert, but I’ve seen enough Finnish vodka bottles to recognize the distinct double letters and the use of ä and ö, which is characteristic of the Finnish alphabet.
“Um…Harry,” I say.
Harry glances up. “What is it?”
“I found this,” I say.
Harry stares at the can, his forehead furrowing. “All right. Do you want congratulations for using your time productively?”
I ignore his jibe.
“It’s just that I’m fairly sure the writing is Finnish. Not Norwegian.”
Harry has refocused on his laptop and doesn’t bother looking up. “So?”
“So, we shouldn’t be in Finland.”
“Kade said he was skirting a weather system.”
“That still shouldn’t have taken us this far east.”
Harry’s gaze begrudgingly leaves his laptop, narrowing as his eyes flick between my face and the can in my hand.
