The Andalucian Friend (50 page)

He waited, listened, his right foot twitching impatiently. The sound of the door to the room opening. He looked at the time on the surveillance equipment — four hours ago — footsteps and voices that he recognized. Gunilla, Anders, and Hasse, chairs being pulled across the floor. Gunilla’s voice was strained, she was talking about the break-in, then Hasse muttered something in a low voice. Lars concentrated, it was about Trasten, that Hasse had been waiting for a chance to go in, that Sophie had turned up with an unknown man, that three unknown men, probably Russians, had gone into the restaurant. The sound quality was poor, maybe because of the air-conditioning struggling to supply cool air. Lars pressed the headphones to his ears: just more inaudible talking from Hasse, then, after a while, it got clearer.

“Then what?”
Gunilla’s voice.

“There were two men lying dead on the floor when we went in. The third member of the group was the one who was found dead in the kitchen. The German from the hospital and the big Russian were in the restaurant.”

“And Sophie? Where was she?”

“In the same room.”

“And Ramirez has left the country?”

“Yes
.
”

Lars heard a sigh from Gunilla.

“And the money? The transfer?”

There were several seconds of heavy silence. Anders cleared his throat:
“I tried, but Hector was being unreasonable
.
”

“What do you mean, ‘unreasonable’?”

“He said that things had changed as the result of the shooting and the dead bodies …”

“And Carlos … the owner? Where’s he?”

No answer.

“Aron?”

“No
.
”

“That lawyer? The one who looks after everything, Lundwall?”

“Don’t know
.
”
Anders was whispering.

“What did you say to Antonia Miller and Tommy?”

Lars wrote “Antonia Miller” on his sheet of paper.

“Nothing
,
”
Hasse said.

Lars paused the equipment and got up from the bed, went over to his laptop on the desk, logged in, went online, and tapped in the address of one of the daily papers. A big photograph of Trasten. He read the article, nothing of interest, police reluctant to say anything, unconfirmed sources suggest three people dead. He moved on to the evening tabloids.
SLAUGHTER
was the heading on one of them,
UNDERWORLD SHOOT
-
OUT
on the other. Same thing there, no information, just unconfirmed reports of three dead.

Lars shut the laptop, looking in front of him. He realized they were going to try to murder him, that he had a price on his head now. He felt scared in a way that he didn’t recognize; the fear led to one feeling, which led to another, which led to a third — terror and panic were the main ingredients, and this mixture revived the little devil that stuck pins in his soul, shouting at him to take some medication …
for God’s sake!
And all the while, behind that: the pain, the physical pain that sent little cramps throughout his body … Cramps that twisted and squeezed Lars Vinge’s entire nervous system.

He took a bar of chocolate from the minibar, then walked aimlessly around the room, eating and taking deep breaths. The chocolate didn’t taste of chocolate, it tasted of sugar and fat. He ate it anyway, the sugar helped the withdrawal cravings for all of twelve seconds.

Lars stopped at the window and looked out across the water of Nybroviken. He saw the bench where Sophie and Jens had sat talking. Where he had photographed them from his position over on Skeppargatan. It felt like another life. What had he realized since then?

One of the Vaxholm boats sounded its whistle three times and backed away from the quayside. His thoughts were somewhere else, on some other level, deep down where he couldn’t reach them. Lars went back to the bed and started again. Lars read through the thick ledger, looked through the files, read through the notes. A mass of numbers, maybe amounts — big ones, millions. He went through all the documents, a bank with a French-sounding name based in Liechtenstein. Huge amounts. Lars kept going, more figures. The account-holder’s name wasn’t on the withdrawal slip, just a number.

Lars scratched his scalp hard, thinking, then leaned across the bed and got the black notebook and started to read … started to read carefully. Five years before:
Handelsbanken Uppsala, three million kronor
, it said in pencil, then a bunch of strange words and reflections. He kept reading,
Christer Ekström
and a bunch of figures, up in the multimillion class. Strange reflections there, too. Lars went on:
Zdenko,
it said, the King of the Racetrack — every police officer knew who Zdenko was, he died in Malmö five years before, shot out at a racecourse. Lars kept going, more names, more amounts.

Something was trying to get out of Lars, up, out, into the light, to be born, it was a thought, an idea, an idea that he hadn’t even come close to. It started to work its way up from the depths of his unconscious, the thought that was the answer, the answer he had been seeking since he had written the first words on the wall back home in his office, it seemed obvious when it came to him. He put his feet down on the floor, took two steps across to the desk.

He surfed quickly, logging onto the internal police server and typing in search terms from the first piece he had read, then found them in the text that appeared on the screen:
Uppsala Handelsbanken … Robbery … Two men convicted … Third suspect found dead one year later … eight million kronor still missing … Investigating officer: Erik Strandberg.

He typed
Christer Ekström
in the search box. He read that the financier Christer Ekström had narrowly escaped prosecution due to lack of evidence. Head of preliminary investigation: Gunilla Strandberg.

Lars typed in
Zdenko
and found masses of information on the police server. He identified a preliminary investigation stretching over several years, with Gunilla Strandberg as the officer in charge. Lars read:
Zdenko was murdered by an unknown man at Jägersro in Malmö … Zdenko’s money in Sweden has not been located
.

He leaned back, staring at something that his eyes didn’t register. If his mind hadn’t been so tired, his body suffering such abstinence and his heart so dark, he would have burst out laughing. But there wasn’t even a glimpse of humor left in the world for Lars Vinge.

When they landed in Malaga
and made their way through passport control he walked a few steps ahead of her. They emerged into the heat and headed toward a multistory garage.

Their footsteps echoed metallically under the low concrete roof of the garage as they walked toward a small car parked on its own among the pillars. Hector took a set of car keys out of his briefcase and gave them to her.

“Would you mind driving?” he said.

She got in the driver’s seat, adjusted the position of the seat, started the engine, put her arm on his seat, turned around, and reversed from the parking spot. Her eyes, which had gotten used to the gloom in the garage during the short time they were in there, were dazzled when she got back out into daylight. She followed the signs, found the slip road, and pulled out onto the highway.

They let themselves be carried forward, let the new world show itself to them. She could feel herself relaxing, turned toward him and was just about to say something when a sudden ear-shattering noise hit the car. He was quicker than her to realize what it was.

“Faster!” he shouted.

As if in a haze she accelerated, driving like a maniac, cruising between the cars. More shots were fired, she ducked, glass rained down on her, she saw the motorbike, the car drove into the barrier — chaos.

Hector kicked out his window, leaned out, and fired. How many shots she had no idea, but after repeated thunderous noises the weapon just clicked. She got the impression that he was venting his shock rather than seriously thinking the shots would hit their target. He dropped the magazine on the floor and pulled another one from the open glove compartment, swearing quietly to himself as he loaded the pistol and slid the bolt back.

There was a rattling sound close to them and a shower of bullets, the rear window exploded in an inferno of glass. She screamed, and in the corner of her eye she saw him move oddly.

“Hector?”

He shook his head.

“I’m OK,” he said, and aimed the gun through the broken back window, fired four shots, and the motorbike pulled back again.

Sophie kept on driving, angry horns blasting as she swept past other cars at high speed. She peered off into the distance ahead of them and thought she could see a traffic jam building up. Their options were shrinking.

“What should I do?” she shouted.

Had she already shouted that? She couldn’t remember. He didn’t answer, just kept staring backward. The line up ahead was getting clearer. Hector made a third call on his cell, searching for the motorbike the whole time. Finally he got an answer.

“Aron. Listen, I can’t get hold of Dad or Leszek. We’re being shot at on the way from the airport, we’re driving toward Marbella, Sophie and I, in the car.”

Hector listened as Aron asked questions.

“I don’t know. Two men on a motorbike … Listen to me. Tell Ernst that the power of attorney goes to Sophie. …”

Hector listened, got annoyed.

“It’s my decision! Power of attorney goes to Sophie Brinkmann, and you are hereby a witness to that. Get hold of Dad or Leszek. Warn them!”

Hector ended the call. She looked at him; he waved away the question that she hadn’t asked, coughed, and turned around. The motorbike was coming at them again; he emptied his pistol once more, the rider braked, the same story each time. He grunted something to himself that she didn’t understand, and inserted a new magazine.

“Slow down, draw them in, then put your foot on the brake when I say so.” His voice was hoarse, he was dripping with sweat.

Their pursuer was unshakeable, zigzagging between the cars behind them, lying low on the curves. Hector aimed, fired two shots, and was countered by a hail of bullets at the same instant; Sophie screamed, they both ducked instinctively. Hector stuck his head up and the gunman on the pillion seat aimed again and fired. The shot whistled past them.

“Now!”

She slammed her foot on the brake, the car’s tires shrieked, Sophie and Hector fought against being thrown forward.

For a short moment the world stopped, their thoughts hung there weightless inside the car, their fears got a brief respite, their eyes met … And then they were sucked back to reality: the sound of the submachine gun rattling, the sound of the bullets hitting the car, the sound of the motorbike, the sound of the world around them. Everything merged into the same audio picture. Hector threw his arm up and aimed at the rider, who swerved quickly and assuredly, overtaking them on the inside.

“Drive!” he shouted.

Now the situation was suddenly reversed, Hector and Sophie were chasing the motorbike. The gunman on the pillion seat kept looking back, Hector leaned out of his broken window, fired two shots, the motorbike kept going toward the traffic jam. He was holding the pistol in his right hand, letting it rest against his palm, then aimed and fired three more shots, one after the other … Missed again. The line was getting closer, Hector emptied the magazine again … Nothing happened.

The motorbike was about to slip in among the cars. He put the last magazine into the gun, took half a breath, aimed, held his breath, and fired repeatedly, emptying the magazine. … As if by some miracle one or more of them found their target, the motorbike suddenly lurched sharply to one side, tipped over and up onto its front wheel, throwing the rider and gunman off as it spun around. The rider slammed into the barrier in the median, back first. The gunman was thrown over it, onto the opposite lane of traffic; a truck tried to brake and swerve but failed, and bounced over the man.

They were yelling as if their football team had just scored. It was absurd, but it was the same feeling, the same sense of release. …

Sophie veered off up a slip road at the last moment, her hands were shaking and her breathing was shallow. She wanted to throw up.

He was working intently. Neat piles on the bed,
reports, transcribed surveillance recordings, all the material transferred onto various forms of memory device. Masses of photographs of Sophie, Hasse, Anders, all of them. Bank papers from Liechtenstein, together with Gunilla’s cases, her notes. Anyone who read them would understand what was going on.

He was sitting at his computer, transferring the surveillance files from Brahegatan to a USB stick, gathering everything he had.

Lars looked over at the bed, he had done a good job, he felt satisfied. He hadn’t had that feeling for a long time. His internal reward system was shrieking for attention. The minibar was first prize. He drank a beer. It was cold, slipped down his throat in a matter of seconds. He waited a while, then worked his way back through the whole fridge, stupid little bottles of spirits, a half bottle of red wine, a half bottle of white, Champagne.
Party time
. It all went down.

Lars glared out across Nybroviken, the minibar was empty, he was drunk. But the intoxication soon began to fade, and it wasn’t giving him what he needed. Alcohol was overrated. One leg started twitching nervously, he was grinding his teeth, trying to keep his hands still. Lars walked around the room, scratching at his scalp, this room was making him itch so badly, he wanted to get away from there, wanted to get out.

With the sports
bag in his hand he walked quickly along Strandvägen, staying close to the buildings, then turned right into Sibyllegatan and made his way up to Brahegatan and the rental car. He put the equipment in the back, checked that it was getting a signal from the microphone up in the office, then locked the car and headed back the same way. But instead of turning left onto Strandvägen and going back to the hotel, he walked quickly along Nybrokajen, up Stallgatan, past the Grand Hotel and across to Skeppsbron. He was heading toward Södermalm with a sense of purpose.

It was dark
inside the apartment, it smelled musty, there was still a faint smell of paint. He went straight into the office, unlocked the drawer, dug out what he wanted, pulled down his trousers, and did what he was good at — shoving in a few suppositories and pulling up his trousers. He didn’t bother to fasten them, and sat down on the office chair, spinning around slowly … at the same rate that well-being began to caress his senses. But the pleasure was short-lived, and merely flickered past. He repeated the procedure, squatting down, another one, then took something else, rifling through the drawer, gulping down whatever he could find. Fear, angst, resentment, and melancholy all lit up, then vanished just as quickly. Everything became soft again, no corners or edges for his warped feelings to catch themselves on.

Lars got down from the chair and lay on the floor, he didn’t fall asleep — he just switched off for a while.

It was as they were approaching Marbella
that she noticed how pale he was, almost white, with the sweat on his face like a lacquered film. His breathing was labored and shallow, she put her hand on his forehead — cold and clammy.

“Hector?”

He nodded without looking at her. She let her hand slip down over his neck and throat, he was soaking.

“What is it, Hector?”

“Nothing, just drive.”

She looked down at his body and asked him to lean forward.

He hesitated, then leaned forward cautiously some five inches or so. She saw blood all over his back, the seat, and dripping onto the floor.

“Dear God!” she said. “Where’s the nearest hospital?”

He coughed.

“No hospital. Drive me home, there’s a doctor there.”

“No, you have to get to a hospital, you need an operation.”

Now he roared: “No! No hospital!”

She tried to stay calm.

“Just listen to me, you’ve lost a lot of blood, you need proper care … otherwise you’ll die.”

He looked at her, trying to stay just as calm.

“I won’t die … There’s a doctor at Dad’s, he’ll look after me, if I go to the hospital I’ll end up in prison … and die there. So there’s nothing to discuss. You drive, I tell you the way.”

She drove fast through Marbella and passed out the other side, heading upward for a while before turning back down toward the sea again. Hector had given her directions to start with, then he started to nod off. He explained where to go, where to turn off, described the whole route to her, then he got groggy and slowly started to fade. She realized what that could mean.

“Hector!” she shouted. He waved his hand to show that he could hear her.

“You mustn’t fall asleep! Do you hear me?”

She kept looking between Hector and the road ahead. Sophie drove fast. One hand on the wheel, the other on his shoulder, shaking him.

“Do you hear me?”

He nodded weakly, then drifted off again.

A car was coming toward them on a bend and she swerved quickly, and the car’s horn disappeared in a Doppler effect behind them. She shook Hector, talking loudly, trying to get him to listen to her. He couldn’t keep it up, and sank into unconsciousness. She shouted at him, she slapped him, he was out of reach. Sophie tried to memorize the directions he had just told her.

Dusk was starting to fall as she drove up a long road that wound its way up to the house between neatly trimmed grass lawns. The garden was bigger than she could imagine, it was like an endless park. The vast sea spread out to her left as she pushed the car to its limits.