The Steel Spring (7 page)

He left both guns lying there, put a ballpoint pen and a new notebook in his pocket instead, donned his coat and hat and went out of the flat. On his way downstairs, he threw his torn overcoat down the rubbish chute.

Inspector Jensen walked with measured steps, cutting across the car park and children’s play area. The playhouses looked like transparent plastic igloos. The only problem with them was that there were hardly any children in the area, even under normal circumstances.

The front entrance door and the narrow stairwell were identical to those in the block where he lived. The lighting was not working. Nor was the lift. He set off up the cramped, winding stairs. Stopped halfway to get his breath back. Listened. He knew there were people in a few of the flats, at the very least, and that the block was as shoddily built as his own, with very thin walls. Even so, he could not pick up a single sound to indicate human life.

On the seventh floor he stopped, looked all round and tapped very lightly on one of the doors. No reaction.

Jensen waited for a while, then knocked again. Harder this time. There was still nothing to be heard.

Jensen thumped the door heavily with his fist and said:

‘Police. Open up.’

This time he thought he could make out a sound from inside the flat. It sounded like a stifled sob. Or perhaps just a short, gasping intake of breath.

Jensen looked at the door. He could probably get it open. Under the alcohol law now in force, the police had formal
authority to enter private property. On his key ring he had a number of universal tools with which he ought to be able to open conventional locks to standard housing and places of work. The law had a whole series of supplementary paragraphs, exceptions and special provisions, all formulated in the vaguest of terms. It also outlawed the fitting of bolts and special locks to apartment doors. This applied under normal circumstances. Where the dividing line ran between normal and other circumstances was never clearly stated, but there was a very simple rule of thumb to help in the decision-making process. This was a normal residential area and a normal door and he was very probably capable of opening it. But before he could do so, he had to suspect that a crime had been committed.

There were sudden sounds of activity from the flat. Large, heavy objects were dragged across the floor and thumped against the door from the inside. The people who lived in the flat were barricading the entrance.

Jensen turned and went back down the stairs. Even three floors below, he could still hear something, presumably furniture, being shifted and piled up.

The door opened inwards. He was convinced he could have forced it anyway.

The rain was still drumming outside, peaceful and soothing. The mistiness persisted and the cloud height seemed no more than two hundred feet.

Inspector Jensen paused briefly and looked about him. The patrol car was where he had left it the night before.

The patrol car was intended for police use only, and built for the purpose. It was bulletproof with unpuncturable tyres. It could be locked from the inside and had two sets of radio equipment, a built-in tape player and a specially tuned engine.
Jensen was very familiar with its construction. He went up to it, unlocked the door and sat behind the steering wheel. Tried out the tape player. It was working, but there was nothing recorded on the tape. He fiddled with the radio equipment for a while. That worked, too, to the extent that he could hear a faint buzzing in the ether on the police frequency. That was all. He switched off the set, started the car, drove up on to the motorway and carried on northwards towards the city centre.

Although he had the highway to himself, he did not hurry.

When he had been on the road for about twenty minutes, he heard the blare of a horn. A white ambulance came into view in the rearview mirror about fifty metres behind him. Jensen did not accelerate and the other vehicle approached at speed and continued sounding its horn. When it drew level with him he could see two men in white coats in the front seats. The one at the wheel signalled to him with impatient gestures, but Jensen ignored him. The ambulance did not overtake but started forcing him over to the side of the road. The manoeuvre was not executed with much skill, and it was a good two minutes before he was obliged to brake and stop to avoid a collision. The other vehicle stopped, too, at an angle across his path. Jensen turned off the ignition, but remained in his seat. He saw now that this was no regular ambulance, but a delivery van that had been painted white, with crude red crosses on the sides and the rear doors. The two men got out and walked towards the patrol car.

They were wearing blue armbands, but were otherwise dressed entirely in white. White coats, white trousers and white clogs.

One was tall, with his hair brushed back and a short, neat,
dark beard. Grey-blue eyes and black horn-rimmed glasses. His expression was solemn and his look was earnest.

The other one was small and weedy, with a thin face and straight hair combed over to one side. A stray strand of dark hair had fallen down over his forehead. His full lips were stretched in an unsure, artificial-looking smile. The look in his brown eyes was distant and seemed fixed on something, presumably the other man’s shoes or a point on the ground.

The tall one tried to pull open the car door. He couldn’t. He made another impatient gesture and started to say something. Jensen pointed to the other side of the car, reached out a hand and pressed a button. The side window opened about ten centimetres. The men from the ambulance went round the car.

‘Are you sick or healthy?’ demanded the tall one.

‘Healthy.’

‘We need to take a closer look at you. Get out.’

Jensen didn’t reply. The man gave him a severe look.

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Yes.’

‘Get out.’

The man whose eyes were looking the wrong way plucked at his colleague’s coat sleeve, pointed vaguely and said something. His voice was so quiet and indistinct that Jensen could not make out the words. The tall one listened, and nodded gravely.

‘Why are you driving around in a police car?’

‘Because I’m a policeman.’

Jensen showed his badge.

‘Then you must be sick,’ the tall man said categorically.

‘We’ll take care of you,’ whispered the other one, not looking at Jensen. ‘It could be serious.’

‘Yes, it could be serious,’ the tall one reiterated firmly.

‘I’m healthy,’ said Jensen. ‘Who are you?’

‘Doctors.’

‘Can you show me your ID?’

The two men moved as though synchronised. They produced two laminated plastic cards and held them up. Jensen nodded. Their ID appeared to be genuine.

‘You’re breaking the curfew,’ said the tall man. ‘We must take you in hand.’

‘We must take you in hand,’ whispered his colleague.

‘I hardly think so,’ said Jensen. ‘I’m a police officer.’

‘What’s your rank?’

‘Inspector.’

‘The police have no authority. And in any case, you’re sick.’

‘Who is in charge, then?’ asked Jensen.

‘The medical authorities.’

‘Who is your immediate superior?’

‘The chief medical officer.’

‘The chief medical officer?’

The man with the smile and the cowed look whispered something else indistinguishable.

‘Quite right,’ said the tall one. ‘We don’t need to answer your questions. There’s a state of emergency in force. You’ve broken the current regulations; you’re a hazard to public safety.’

Jensen said nothing.

‘You’re seriously ill and we are going to take care of you. Don’t be afraid.’

‘Don’t be afraid,’ the other one repeated in a low voice. He fished in the pocket of his white coat and brought out a syringe. Fingered it and said in a pondering tone, as if directing the question to himself:

‘What’s his blood group?’

‘What’s your blood group?’ asked the tall one, sterner than ever.

‘Rhesus negative,’ said Jensen.

The man with the syringe appeared to brighten up for a moment.

‘Excellent,’ he said to himself. ‘Excellent. Now make him get out.’

‘Get out,’ said the tall one.

Jensen sat there in silence.

‘We have extraordinary authority. The epidemic must be stopped. I’m sure you understand that. Do as we say. Obey.’

‘Where are you going to take me?’

‘To the main hospital,’ said the tall one.

‘Section C,’ mumbled his colleague.

‘I can find my own way there.’

‘Come on out now. We haven’t got time for all this.’

‘Rhesus negative,’ mumbled the little one, fingering the syringe.

‘We’ve got more important things to do,’ said the tall one.

‘Fine,’ said Jensen. ‘Goodbye.’

He reached over and pressed the button.

The window slid upwards and closed. The man with the syringe jumped, and then started to wrench wildly at the door handle. His colleague with the severe look took him by the arm to calm him down, and began to walk towards the ambulance. The little one looked back over his shoulder with a crafty expression.

The two doctors got into the front seat without shutting the doors and started doing something. A moment later, Jensen saw the bearded man holding a microphone up to his mouth, moving his lips.

He immediately flicked a switch on the dashboard to activate the frequency finder. Within fifteen seconds, he had located the right wavelength. It was apparently less time than the man in the ambulance had taken to get through.

‘Main hospital, over. Main hospital, over … Damn, they’re not answering. No wait, here we go.’

There was a sudden blare from the radio. A male voice said in a distant croak:

‘Main hospital here. Over.’

‘Vehicle 300 here.’

‘Yes? Where are you?’

‘South motorway, at …’

Loud crackling. Jensen lost contact. He retuned. It took about thirty seconds, but then he could make out their voices again.

‘A police car?’

‘Yes.’

‘A police inspector?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bring him straight here.’

‘He refuses to come.’

‘Are you armed?’

‘Yes. We’ve got a pistol. But …’

‘Yes? But what?’

‘We don’t know how to use it.’

‘Idiots.’

There was a brief pause. Then the voice said irritably:

‘Okay. We’ll send a sanitary patrol. Keep him there.’

Jensen started his engine and backed rapidly away from the ambulance.

‘He’s clearing off,’ the ambulance man said in dismay.

Jensen was already passing them. In the rearview mirror he saw the white van start to move.

‘He’s getting away.’

‘Which way’s he heading?’

‘North.’

‘No problem. Follow him. He’ll have to stop at the entrance to the communication tunnel. He won’t get any further.’

Jensen stepped on the gas and the ambulance disappeared into the drizzle. At the next exit he turned right and left the motorway.

A quarter of an hour later, he heard another exchange on the radio.

‘That policeman …’

‘Yes?’

‘He’s vanished.’

The voice was graver than ever, but seemed to have lost some of its severity. This time it was a woman who answered.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘He can’t get into the restricted zone, whatever happens.’

‘We need to get back now.’

‘You do that. Don’t sound so worried.’

Inspector Jensen avoided residential areas and the main through roads. He crossed extensive industrial areas and scrubby expanses of undeveloped land that the speculators had not yet been able to exploit. All the factories and workshops looked deserted, and the only living creatures he saw were birds. The route he had chosen took him past, and at one point through, the central refuse tip, and the closer he got, the more birds there were. Mainly black and white ones. He was a policeman, not an ornithologist, and could not work out precisely what species they might be. There was nothing out of the ordinary, however, about their presence there.

Despite the rain, fires were burning here and there among the piles of refuse as usual, and the stench was disgusting. As soon as he had passed through the areas, the number of birds decreased.

The radio was still on, but he had heard nothing more. It was possible that the ambulances and the hospital communicated on a number of frequencies.

Jensen drove through a stretch of woodland littered with sparse, stunted conifers. A large number of the trees were dead, and only the tops of those that were still alive were a dull, dusty green. The road was narrow and potholed. It was rarely used these days, and nobody bothered to maintain it. He slowed down, and when he reached the edge of the wood he braked to a stop.

Jensen knew exactly where he was. In the Twenty-First police district, just on the city boundary. If the city centre really was shut off, this would be the critical bit of the journey. The road led uphill, to an elevated stretch. Beyond it lay a standard housing area consisting of six blocks of flats, a bus stop, a little supermarket and several kiosks. The buildings were lined up along one side of a wide street. Along the opposite side ran a high railway embankment, with tracks leading to the refuse tip. Officially, this was a dead end, but it had a link through to the road Jensen was on. Everyone who lived in the district knew about it. Everyone with any pretensions to knowing the layout of the city ought to be aware of it, too.

Jensen got out of the car and locked it. He left the road and walked uphill. On the brow of the hill there were a few straggly bushes. He stopped behind them and looked out over the area. The six sterile tower blocks stood mutely in the drizzle. The supermarket windows had been smashed, and there was an abandoned bus parked at the terminal stop. He could not detect any signs of life, either in the apartment blocks or in the short, wide street, whose whole length he was able to see. There was no roadblock there, at any rate, and he knew it was practically impossible to block all the roads leading to the centre beyond that point.