A Conspiracy of Faith (72 page)

Drowsy, he pulled himself upright on the sofa and turned onto his side to see if he had been bleeding.

He nodded to himself, satisfied with his work. The wounds seemed to be dry and healing. Not bad for a first attempt.

He got up and stretched his limbs. There were cartons of juice and canned food in the kitchen. A glass of pomegranate juice and a piece of crispbread with tuna would give him sustenance after losing all that blood. A quick bite, and after that he would go down to the boathouse.

He switched on the light in the kitchen and peered outside into the darkness for a moment before drawing down the blind. No need to advertise his presence if anyone should be out there. Safety first.

Then suddenly he paused and frowned. What was that? A noise of some kind. He stood motionless for a moment. All quiet now.

A startled pheasant, perhaps? But what would startle a pheasant in the dark?

He pulled back the blind and stared intently in the direction he thought the sound had come from, standing stock-still.

And then he saw it. A shape in the dark. A figure moving.

Whoever it was, was at the outbuilding, and then gone.

He darted back from the window.

Now his heart was beating faster than he cared for.

He pulled open the drawer in front of him and picked out a fileting knife. With the right positioning, the intruder would never survive the thrust of such a long, thin blade.

Then he put on his trousers and crept outside into the night in his bare feet.

He heard the sounds from the boathouse clearly now. As though someone was pulling the place apart inside. Grating against the timber.

He stood for a second and listened. Now he knew what it was. They were at the chains. Someone was jimmying the bolts that fixed the chains to the wall.

But who?

If it was the police, then he would be up against weapons better than his own. But he knew the terrain. He knew how to turn the darkness to his advantage.

He slipped past the outbuilding and saw right away that more light was escaping from the door than was supposed to.

The door was ajar now, but he knew he had closed it behind him after he had been down to check the temperature in the tank. He was certain.

Maybe they were more than one. Maybe someone was in there now.

He drew back against the wall and considered what to do. He knew this place like the back of his hand. If anyone was inside, he could knife them before they realized what was going on. One lunge at the soft spot beneath the breastbone. He could take out more than a couple like that in only seconds, and he would not hesitate to do so. It was either them or him.

He entered swiftly with the knife extended in front of him and scanned the empty room.

Someone had been there. The stool was in the wrong place, and his tools had been messed with. The monkey wrench was on the floor. That was the noise he had heard.

He picked up the hammer from the workbench. It felt better in his hands than the knife. More familiar.

He moved stealthily down the path toward the water, the slugs slimy between his toes. Bastard things. He would exterminate them as soon as he got the time.

He leaned forward, craning his neck to see, and made out a faint light in the crack of the boathouse door. He heard hushed voices from inside. He listened hard, but he was unable to make out who they belonged to or what they were saying. But what difference did it make?

Whoever was inside had only one way out. All he had to do was steal forward and bolt the door, and they would be locked in, with no way to escape before he fetched the jerrican from the car and set the place alight.

The blaze would be seen from a long way off, but what option did he have?

He would set fire to the boathouse, gather together his documents and money, and head for the border as quickly as possible. It was the only way. A man who couldn’t adjust his plans deserved to perish.

He tucked the fileting knife into his belt and moved cautiously toward the door. But at that very moment, it opened and a pair of legs came into view.

He darted aside. Now he would have to deal with the problem more directly.

He watched the figure as its feet made contact with the ground, the rest of the body still stretched into the boathouse.

“Where are our parents?” he heard the boy say loudly all of a sudden, his question answered immediately by urgent hushing.

And then he saw the dark-skinned policeman draw the girl out through the door and into his arms, stepping backward toward him in the process. The same little Arab from the bowling center. The one who’d rugby tackled Pope. What was he doing here?

How had they found him?

He turned the hammer in the air and brought the flat side down hard against the nape of the man’s neck. He fell without a sound, the girl on top
of him. She looked up with empty eyes, long since reconciled to her fate, and then closed them. One forceful blow away from death. But it would have to wait. She was no threat to him now anyway.

He looked up, preparing himself for the second policeman to come out.

Legs appeared in the door opening again. He heard the man assuring the boy that everything would be all right.

And then he struck.

The policeman slid to the ground.

He let go of the hammer and stared at the two unconscious men, listening for a moment to the wind rushing in the trees, the rain against the paving stones on the path. The boy was alerted now, his movements inside the boathouse audibly agitated. But otherwise there was no sound.

He picked up the girl in his arms and heaved her back into the boathouse in one seamless movement, slammed the door shut, and fastened the bolt with the split pin.

He straightened up and glanced around. Apart from the boy’s protests, all was still quiet. No sirens. No sounds that didn’t belong. At least, not yet.

He took a deep breath. What might he expect now? Were more police on their way, or were these two working off their own bat, trying to impress their superiors? He needed to know.

If they were on their own, he could carry on with his plan. But if they weren’t, he would need to make a getaway. Whatever the circumstances, he would have to get rid of all four of them as soon as he knew one way or the other.

He was back at the outbuilding in leaps and bounds and snatched up the baling twine that hung behind the door.

He had tied people up before. It didn’t take long.

There was a commotion from inside the boathouse as he secured the unconscious men’s hands behind their backs. It was the boy, yelling now at the top of his lungs, demanding to be let out. Screaming that his parents would never pay if he and his sister didn’t come home.

He was a fighter. He’d give him that.

And then the lad began to kick at the door.

He checked the bolt. It had been years since he had fixed it to the door, but the timber was still good. It would hold.

He dragged the two men away from the boathouse, so the light from the outbuilding would illuminate their faces. Then he pulled the larger of the pair half upright until he sat bent double on the path.

He got down on his knees in front of him and slapped him hard and repeatedly in the face. “Hey, wake up!” he commanded.

Eventually, the detective came around. His eyes rolled in his head. He blinked a couple of times and tried to focus.

They stared at each other. The roles were reversed now. He was no longer the suspect questioned at a table in a bowling alley, having to account for his whereabouts.

“Bastard piece of shit,” the officer mumbled. “We’ll get you. Backup’s on its way. We’ve got your prints.”

He stared into the detective’s eyes. The man was clearly still stunned. His pupils reacted too slowly when he leaned aside and let the light from the outbuilding fall suddenly on his face. Maybe that was why he was so surprisingly calm. Or was it because the man simply didn’t believe he was capable of killing them?

“Backup. Nice try,” he replied. “But let them come, by all means. You can see all the way to Frederikssund across the fjord from here,” he said. “We’ll see the blue lights as soon as they hit Crown Prince Frederik’s Bridge. Plenty of time to do the necessary before they get here.”

“They’ll come from the south. From Roskilde. You’ll see fuck all, you bastard,” said the policeman. “Let us go. Give yourself up. You’ll be out in fifteen years. If you kill us, you’re a dead man, I promise. Shot by police, or else you’ll rot away serving a life sentence. Same difference. Police killers don’t survive in this system.”

He smiled. “You’re talking like someone had hit you on the head. And you’re lying. And if you don’t answer my questions, you’re going to be in
that tank over there in the outbuilding in…” he glanced at his watch “…let’s say twenty minutes from now. You and the kids, and your mate there. And do you know what?”

He thrust his face into the policeman’s. “I’ll be long gone.”

The banging from the boathouse intensified. It was more forceful now, and more metallic. Instinctively, he glanced toward the spot where he had dropped the hammer.

His instinct was right. It was gone. The girl must have picked it up without him noticing before he carried her inside. Shit. She hadn’t been as far gone as he’d thought, the sneaky little bitch.

He drew the knife slowly from his belt. There was no alternative now.

Strangely, Carl wasn’t frightened
. Not because he doubted that the man in front of him was insane enough to kill him without a moment’s hesitation, but because everything around him seemed so very peaceful. Clouds drifting across the sky, blotting out the moon. The gentle lapping of the fjord. The smell of the earth. Even the hum of the generator behind him felt calming. It was odd.

Maybe it was all still down to the blow he had been dealt. At any rate, his head was throbbing, shifting all focus from the pain in his arm and shoulder.

Then came the banging from the boathouse again. Louder than before.

He looked at the man. He had taken a knife from his belt.

“You want to know how we traced you, am I right?” Carl said, sensing some feeling return to his hands that were tied behind his back. He glanced up into the drizzling rain. It was the wet, making the twine expand. He needed to gain time.

The man’s eyes were cold as stone. Then came a slight twitch of the lip.

He was right. If there was one thing the bastard wanted to know, it was how they had found him.

“There was a boy once, a boy called Poul. Poul Holt, do you remember him?” he asked, soaking the twine in the wet grass behind him. “He was a bit special, was Poul.” His hands were working now, twisting and straining indiscernibly.

He allowed his words to hang in the air and nodded reflectively. There
was no hurry. Regardless of whether the twine held or not, the longer he kept the killer’s attention, the longer they would remain alive. He smiled to himself. It was interrogation in reverse. How ironic.

“What about him?” the man demanded to know.

Carl laughed. The intervals between hammering from the boathouse were longer now, but the blows sounded more precise.

“Long time ago now, isn’t it? Do you remember? That girl in there wasn’t even born then. Or maybe you never think about your victims? No, of course you don’t.”

At that, the man’s expression changed, and a shiver ran down Carl’s spine.

In one swift movement, the man sprang to his feet and pressed the knife to Assad’s throat. “You answer me now. No more bullshit, or your friend here will be choking on his own blood. Are you with me?”

Carl nodded, his hands working. The guy meant what he said, no doubt about it.

And now he turned toward the boathouse. “I’m going to make you suffer before you die, if you keep that up, Samuel. Believe me!” he yelled.

The banging stopped for a second. Carl could hear the girl sobbing inside. And then Samuel continued.

“Poul managed to send a message in a bottle. You should have chosen a better place to shut people away than a boathouse over water,” Carl said.

The man frowned. A message in a bottle?

Now the twine began to give. “It turned up in a fishing net off the coast of Scotland some years ago. And eventually it ended up on my desk,” he went on, his wrists working purposefully and without pause.

“Too bad for you,” said the man, though clearly his curiosity had yet to be satisfied.

It wasn’t hard to read his thoughts. How could a message in a bottle possibly harm him? None of the children he had held captive in the boathouse over the years had any way of knowing where they were. How could a message in a bottle change that?

Carl detected a movement in Assad’s leg.

Stay put, Assad. Sleep on. There’s nothing you can do anyway
. The only thing that could help them now was if he could loosen the twine around his wrists sufficiently for him to get his hands free. And even then there was no telling what would happen. The man was strong and unscrupulous and brandishing a very nasty-looking knife. The blow to Carl’s head had undoubtedly slowed his reactions. All in all, there was little hope. If only he
had
called Roskilde for backup, so their aid would come from the south, they might have had a chance. But the Frederikssund police could hardly avoid heralding their own arrival. The bastard was right about that. As soon as they hit the bridge, the sky would light up blue. That would be in a couple of minutes at the most. And then it would all be over. He realized that now. The twine was still too tight.