The Absent One (47 page)

They sneaked past the first house and noticed a sign on the door with many exotic-sounding names on it.

‘Over there, too,’ Assad whispered, pointing at a door sign on the next house. ‘Do you think actually he’s keeping slaves?’

Probably not, but it certainly seemed to be something like that. It resembled an African village in the middle of the estate. Or shacks lying in the shadow of some giant Southern-state mansion before the American Civil War.

They heard a dog bark not far away.

‘What if he has dogs running loose on the grounds?’ Assad whispered worriedly, as if they had already heard him.

Carl glanced at his partner.
Easy now
, his face said. If there was anything he’d learned on the ploughed fields of Vendsyssel, it was that unless ten angry fighting dogs were coming at you, the human was in charge. One, well-timed kick usually established the pecking order. If only they didn’t make such a bloody ruckus.

They ran across the open stretch by the courtyard and saw they had a good chance of getting behind the main house that way.

Twenty seconds later they stood with their faces pressed flat against the manor’s windows, behind which there was absolutely nothing going on. What they saw resembled a conventional office with mahogany furnishings. There were rows of hunting trophies on the shelves. Nothing that suggested anything untoward.

They turned around. If there were any irregularities in the vicinity, they would have to find them fast.

‘Did you see there?’ Assad whispered, pointing at a large cylinder that extended from the massive glass hall a good way into the forest. It was at least fifty yards long.

What the hell is it?
Carl thought.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s check it out.’

The face Assad made when they walked into the hall ought to have been immortalized. Carl felt something similar. If Nautilus was a shocking sight for animal lovers, then this was ten times worse. Cage after cage after cage containing frightened animals. Bloody, flayed hides in every size hung to dry on the walls. Everything from hamsters to calves. Fierce fighting dogs were barking, probably the ones they’d heard earlier. There were big, lizard-like beasts and hissing minks. House pets and exotic animals in one great menagerie.

But this was anything but Noah’s Ark. It was the opposite. No animal would leave this place alive – that much was instantly obvious.

Carl recognized the cage from Nautilus standing in the middle of the hall, a growling hyena inside. A large ape screamed in the corner, a warthog grunted and sheep baa’d.

‘Do you think Kimmie could be in here then?’ Assad asked, walking a few paces further into the hall.

Carl’s eyes wandered along the cages. Most of them were too small to house a human.

‘What about here?’ Assad said, pointing at a row of deep freezers that were humming in one of the side passageways. He opened the first one.

‘Ugh!’ he exclaimed, with visible shivers of disgust.

Carl stared into the freezer. A stack of flayed animals stared back up at him, empty-eyed.

‘It’s the same in all these.’ Assad opened and closed lid after lid.

‘I would imagine they’re mostly used to feed the animals,’ Carl said, sizing up the hyena. Any kind of flesh would disappear in no time down the throat of a hungry creature like that. A gruesome thought.

It took five minutes for them to confirm that there were no humans in the remaining cages.

‘Look, Carl,’ Assad said, pointing inside the huge pipe they had seen from the outside. ‘It’s a shooting range.’

It was true. If the police had such a thing at headquarters, people would be lining up to use it all day long. With air nozzles and everything, it was state of the art.

‘I don’t think you should go in there,’ Carl warned, when Assad headed into the cylinder. ‘If someone comes we’ll have no place to hide.’

But Assad wasn’t listening. He had his sights set on the large targets at the far end.

‘What is this then, Carl?’ he called out, beside one of the targets.

Carl glanced over his shoulder. There was no cause for alarm behind him, so he went to see what Assad was talking about.

‘Is that an arrow, or what?’ his partner wanted to know, indicating a metal rod that had bored its way through the centre of the target.

‘Yes,’ Carl said. ‘It’s a bolt. The kind used with crossbows.’

Assad looked at him, confused. ‘What did you say just there, Carl? With what? Crossbows?’

Carl sighed. ‘A crossbow is a bow that’s loaded in a special way. It shoots with tremendous force.’

‘OK. I can see that. And it’s precise, Carl?’

‘Yes, very precise.’

When they turned around, they knew they’d walked into a trap.

Down at the other end stood Torsten Florin, his legs spread, and behind him Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen and Ditlev Pram. Pram was holding a loaded crossbow, aimed directly at them.

You’ve got to be kidding me
, Carl thought. He shouted: ‘Get behind the targets, Assad!
Now!
’

He drew his pistol from his shoulder holster in one fluid movement and aimed it at the group of men at the same instant Ditlev fired a bolt.

Carl heard Assad hurl himself behind a target, just as the bolt rammed Carl’s right shoulder and his pistol hit the gravel.

Strangely, it didn’t hurt. All he knew was that he’d been flung backwards half a yard and was now pinned to one of the targets, with only the bolt’s fletching visible in his bleeding wound.

‘Gentlemen,’ Florin said, ‘why are you putting us in this situation? What are we going to do with you?’

Carl tried to force his beating heart into a calmer rhythm. They had pulled the bolt out and sprayed a solution into the wound, which nearly made him faint, but at least it stopped the bleeding, more or less.

It was a dire situation. The three men were not to be swayed.

Meanwhile, Assad was fuming at how they’d been forced back into the hall and down on to the floor with their backs against one of the cages.

‘Don’t you realize what happens when you do something like this to police officers in action?’ he yelled.

Carl carefully nudged Assad’s foot. It quietened him for a moment.

‘It’s very simple,’ Carl said, each word pounding throughout his upper body. ‘You let us go now. Then we’ll see what happens next. You don’t have anything to gain by threatening us or holding us hostage.’

‘I see!’ It was Pram. He still held the crossbow ready in his hand. If only he would point it the other way. ‘We’re not stupid. We know you suspect us of having committed murder. You’ve named several incidents. You’ve contacted our solicitor. You’ve found a connection between Finn Aalbæk and me. You think you know everything about us, and suddenly some so-called truth emerges.’ He came closer and positioned his leather boots in front of Carl’s feet. ‘But that truth involves more than just us three. If you’re lucky enough to convince people that your suspicions are correct, thousands will lose their livelihood. Nothing’s simple, Carl Mørck.’

He pointed round the hall. ‘A vast number of assets will be frozen. Neither we nor anyone else wants that. So I repeat Torsten’s question: what are we to do with you?’

‘We have to make it very clean,’ said the big man, Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen, in a quivering voice, his pupils enormous. There was no mistaking what he meant. But Torsten Florin was hesitating, Carl could tell. Hesitating and thinking.

‘How about we give each of you a million kroner and let you go? Just like that. As soon as you drop the case, the money’s yours. What do you say?’

Of course they had to say yes. What else could they do? The alternative certainly wasn’t much fun to think about.

Carl looked over at Assad, who nodded. Wise man.

‘And you, Mørck? Are you as amenable as Mustafa here?’ asked Florin.

Carl gave him a hard look. Then he, too, nodded.

‘But I am sensing that it’s not enough. So we’ll double the amount. Two million to each of you for your silence. We’ll do it discreetly. Are we agreed?’

They both nodded.

‘There’s just one thing I need to have clarified. I want an honest answer. I’ll know if you’re lying, and then there will be no deal. You got it?’

He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Why did you mention a couple on Langeland to me this morning? Kåre Bruno I can understand, but the couple? What does that have to do with us?’

‘Meticulous investigation,’ Carl said. ‘We have a man at headquarters who’s followed cases like this for years.’

‘That has nothing to do with us,’ asserted Florin.

‘You wanted an honest answer. Meticulous investigation
is
the answer,’ repeated Carl. ‘The character of the assault, the location, the method, the time frame. It all fits with you.’

It was at this point that the gang remembered what it was capable of.

‘Answer me!’ Ditlev Pram shouted, slamming the shaft of the crossbow into Carl’s wound.

He didn’t even manage to scream before his throat contracted in pain. Then Ditlev struck again. And again.

‘Answer me!’ Exactly why do you think we’re connected to the assault on Langeland?’ Pram yelled.

He was about to hit Carl even harder when Assad put a stop to it.

‘Kimmie had the one earring,’ he exclaimed. ‘It matched the other one found on Langeland. She had it in a box, in which there were other things from your assaults. I guess you know that.’

If Carl had had any strength left in his body he would have made it crystal clear to Assad to keep his mouth shut.

Now it was too late.

They both recognized it in Florin’s face at the same moment. Everything the three men feared had suddenly become reality. There was evidence against them. Concrete evidence.

‘I take it there are others at police headquarters who know of this box? Where is it now?’

Carl said nothing. He just looked around.

From where they sat, it was about ten yards to the gate. From there to the edge of the woods was at least an additional fifty yards. Through the woods was almost another mile, and behind them loomed Gribskov Forest. That would be the best hiding place. But it was just too far away, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, around them that could serve as a weapon. Two men with crossbows stood over them. What could they do?

Absolutely nothing.

‘We’ve got to do it here and now, and do it clean,’ Dybbøl Jensen sniffled. ‘I’ll say it again: we can’t trust these two. They aren’t like the others we bought off.’

At this Pram and Florin’s heads turned slowly towards
their friend.
Not smart to let that slip out
, their faces clearly said.

As the three men conferred, Assad and Carl exchanged glances. Assad apologized, and Carl forgave him. What the hell did it matter if Assad made a little mistake when their deaths were being decided at this very moment by three thoroughly unscrupulous men?

‘OK, we’ll do it, but we don’t have much time. The others will be here in five minutes,’ Florin said.

And with no further ado, Dybbøl Jensen and Pram threw themselves at Carl, while Florin covered them at a few yards’ distance with his crossbow. Carl was taken totally unawares by their efficiency.

They placed gaffer tape over his mouth, pulled his hands behind his back, and taped them, too. Then they yanked his head back and stretched the tape over his eyes. He twisted a bit so the tape caught on his eyelids and pulled them up a fraction. It was through this narrow slit that he saw how Assad began protesting violently a moment later, kicking and punching so one of the men fell to the ground with a hard thump. It was Dybbøl Jensen, he could see, now completely paralysed by a karate chop to the neck. Florin tossed aside his crossbow and came to Ulrik’s aid. And while the two were busy subduing Assad, Carl got up and began running towards the light coming from the entrance.

The way he was bound, he wouldn’t have been able to help Assad in a fight. He could only help by escaping.

He heard them shouting to one another that he wouldn’t get very far. That their work crew would catch him and
bring him back. To share the same fate as Assad. Inside the hyena cage.

‘Look forward to the hyena!’ they yelled.

They’re insane
, Carl thought dizzily, as he tried to orient himself through the narrow slit of light.

Then he heard the cars up at the main gate. There were a lot of them.

If the people in the cars were just like the ones in the hall, he was done for.

As soon as the train lumbered out of the station and the sound from the railway sleepers settled into a regular rhythm, the voices in Kimmie’s head started up. Not noisy and insistent, but persevering and self-assured. By now she was used to it.

The train was streamlined. Not at all like the old, red Gribskov ‘rail bus’ that had brought her and Bjarne up here last time, many years ago. Much had changed.

Those had been wild times. They had drunk, snorted and partied all day, from the moment the landscape changed as Torsten had proudly showed them around his new acquisition – forest, marshland, lakes and fields. The perfect spot for a hunter. So long as one made sure wounded game didn’t cross into state land, it simply couldn’t get any better.

They had laughed at him, her and Bjarne. To them, nothing was more comical than the thought of a man trudging about in green, laced, rubber boots. But Torsten didn’t notice. The forest was his, and here he ruled over every kind of wild creature in the Danish countryside worth shooting.

For a couple of hours they had hunted and killed roe deer and pheasants and finally a raccoon she herself had procured for him at Nautilus. A gesture he’d appreciated. And afterwards they had followed the ritual and watched
A Clockwork Orange
in Torsten’s home theatre. An average, mind-numbing day where too much coke and even more alcohol made them sluggish and sapped them of the energy needed to go out and find new victims.

That turned out to be the first and only time she ever went to Torsten’s. She remembered it as if it were yesterday; the voices made sure of that.

They’re all there today, Kimmie, you realize that? This is your chance. The opportunity has arrived
, they chanted incessantly.