Three Dog Night (37 page)

Afterwards he sat in his car to collect his thoughts. His head was still buzzing after the chase and he was desperate to track down the black saloon. But it was hopeless. He couldn't go to the police. They wouldn't understand. They would waste all their resources on him rather than on looking for Felix. He was the last person to see her. He had spent days with her, after claiming they didn't know each other. With his background he would be their prime suspect.

He rolled down his window and let in the frost. A Falck roadside assistance vehicle drove into the car park, to where a middle-aged couple were waving. Car batteries suffered in the frost. Older cars conked out and all roadside assistance services were working overtime.

Watching the couple's old Å koda being given the kiss of life, he wondered if he should have acted differently. Felix had been washed up on his beach like a castaway. Yes, he'd taken her in and nursed her, and yes, he'd tried to prod her memory when he realised that she had recognised Ramses. But if he hadn't done that, she might not have been abducted. Perhaps he should have left her alone.

He leaned back. The Falck mechanic was sitting inside the hapless Å koda now, but no matter what he did, he couldn't get the car started. He went back to his own vehicle to get some jump leads.

Peter almost felt the electric charge as the Å koda was resuscitated with a roar and it also kick-started his own need to act.

He opened the Camel carton, took some cigarettes out of one of the packets and inserted the rolled-up banknotes. He removed a whole packet at the bottom of the carton and replaced it with the new mobile. He closed the carton, took out his mobile and called Matti.

‘I need a favour.'

Desperation has never been a very strong basis for negotiation. He tried to hide the tension in his voice, but Matti wasn't fooled for a second.

‘What's happened?'

Peter told him about Felix's kidnapping.

Matti sighed.

‘OK. What do you want?'

‘Fifteen minutes in Horsens. In half an hour's time. No cameras and no recording equipment of any kind.'

‘Cato again, I presume?' Matti said.

‘Cato,' he confirmed.

A few seconds passed, then Matti said: ‘I can't promise anything.'

‘That's not good enough, Matti.'

That was all it took. He didn't have to remind him what had happened while they were growing up at Titan Care Home, him and Matti and Cato and My and all the other broken spirits. He didn't have to list all the occasions he had taken punishment for Matti and the others because he was the only one who could cope with being locked inside the Box. He didn't say anything, but he might as well have.

‘OK,' Matti said. ‘I'll take care of it.'

‘Thanks.'

Afterwards he sat holding his mobile while the Falck vehicle left the car park and the Å koda reversed. He had called in favours he never thought he would need and had never intended to use. He had done so without a second thought and without feeling ashamed. He was already slipping back into his old ways.

F
ELIX HAD TRIED
to work out where they were going, but they had soon blindfolded her and forced her to lie on the rear seat. As she could no longer see where they were going, she started counting minutes to calculate the distance. But at length she had to give up. It was an impossible task and they might easily have been driving around in circles simply to disorient her. In the end, everything was blurred and she lost track of time and place.

‘You won't get very far. I was supposed to be meeting someone.'

She tried to say it with conviction, but the driver merely told the man in the back to shut her up – which he did with deeds, not words, forcing a rag into her mouth. She fought against the urge to retch. She heard him unroll sticky tape. Then he tore it off and slapped it across her mouth. It felt like a tight-fitting mask and she panicked. Her chest heaved convulsively; sobs gurgled in her throat. She lunged at the man, but he grabbed her arms and bound them together with what felt like a plastic tie, the kind the police use to arrest protesters and round them up.

The two men were very different and yet they seemed to understand each other's every move. The driver was the boss. She realised she would have to appeal to him. Even though she couldn't see him, a distinct feeling of authority and solidity emanated from the front of the car. She could hear it in the man's breathing and sense it in his movements, when he changed gear or turned the steering wheel or simply shifted position. He had considerable physical presence.

The other man did as he was told. He seemed smaller, but he was strong. She had discovered that for herself when he tossed her into the car like a sack. He was like a watch spring: he could be at rest, then someone would wind him up and he would perform actions you wouldn't imagine him capable of.

A boss and his gofer. Both parties seemed happy with the arrangement. They formed a united front.

All this was going through her head as her body reacted in shock. She was shaking, inside and out. One moment she would be freezing, the next sweating with fear. She knew she was in the same car that had tailed her from Hjortshøj. She should have recognised it, but it had all happened so quickly.

She wasn't sure whether she had seen Peter's van pull into the car park or not. Maybe she was just deluding herself, or it was wishful thinking. Nor was she sure what the driver looked like, even though she knew she had caught a glimpse of him in the confusion. Dark, she seemed to remember. She had seen something dark. That was all. She had also thought she'd heard a car following them, but she was beginning to doubt herself now. They had driven hell for leather at first, screaming round bends and roaring past cars. The conditions weren't right for such high speeds. She only hoped they were stupid enough to attract the attention of the police. If a patrol car had suddenly switched on its flashing light, pulled them over and asked to see a driver's licence, she would have been overjoyed.

But soon the bends gave way to what must have been a main road, possibly a motorway. After a while, she didn't know how long, they started twisting and turning again, snaking along smaller roads. The car skidded a couple of times and the driver swore and muttered something.

She sensed they were nearing their destination when the car bumped up and down, going down a dirt track perhaps, where the snow had only been cleared in places. She heard the crunch of ice as they drove over holes in the road.

They came to a halt, and the two men got out and slammed the doors. She heard their voices, but she couldn't make out the words; all she knew was that one gave orders and the other obeyed. The car door was opened again; she was pulled out and dragged along like a rag doll. The snow was up to her ankles, the icy wind cut into her and, quite irrationally, she thought she was going to die from pneumonia. Perhaps it didn't matter. Perhaps now she would be reunited with Maria.

She clung on to this thought and her longing for her daughter when a door or a hatch was opened and she was pushed into a dark room. The smell was dank and stale and foul and clammy, and if she hadn't been so terrified, she would have protested as they pushed her further in. Then they sat her on a cold cement floor and she could feel a thin mattress she could huddle up on. Someone took her arms and pulled them apart; her wrists were attached to something in a brick wall, forcing her to sit as if embracing the world. Then they did the same with her legs. She felt ice-cold metal close around her ankles as the shackles clicked into place. Sitting with her legs apart, she felt the cold penetrate and creep up her abdomen.

They left her like that, without a word. She wanted to cry, but couldn't manage to sob without hyperventilating, so she made herself think calm thoughts and visualise a beautiful, blue spring sky above a green meadow, where she and Maria were walking hand in hand. She imagined the fragrance of fresh grass and dandelions and the lilt of a young girl's light, carefree voice singing a song. But the illusion was shattered by the cold setting in with a vengeance and soon she was shivering so much her lips couldn't even form the word ‘help'.

H
ORSENS HADN'T CHANGED.
The winter seemed endless here as well. The prison shivered in the snow drifts, hoping for warmer weather, and even the strong steel mesh around the perimeter wall seemed frozen in time, as though it might shatter at the first gust of wind.

It was always windy here, but the fence held. No one had the pleasure of slipping away before the end of their sentence from what was intended to be an escape-proof prison. There were very few pleasures here at all. However, some pleasures were held in high regard, as evidenced by Cato's expression when Peter pushed the carton of Camel across the table to him.

‘Is it my birthday or do you bloody want something?'

‘I just wanted to see you happy for a change.'

Cato feigned a big smile, revealing bad teeth destroyed by drugs, cigarettes and infrequent visits to the dentist.

‘Don't open it until you're alone.'

Cato opened the carton and peeked inside. He moved a couple of packets and flashed a genuine smile.

‘A mobile phone. Jesus. How did you get away with that?'

‘Shut the carton. We've only got fifteen minutes.'

Peter checked his watch. Three minutes had already gone.

‘Felix has been kidnapped.'

Cato tore his eyes away from the carton and looked at him.

‘I'll do whatever it takes to find her, do you understand? I'm here because of her husband,' Peter said. ‘Erik Gomez. Who was he visiting in prison?'

The answer was just one word. Cato whispered it.

‘Grimme.'

The name was a kick in the solar plexus.

‘Why?'

Cato played with the carton, turning it around again and again on the table.

‘Anyone listening?'

His voice was still low. Peter shook his head.

‘What were Erik Gomez and Grimme up to?'

Cato slid further down the blue institutional chair, tilted back his head and looked up at the ceiling as if the answer could be found there.

‘Ten kilos of heroin. Street value of seven million kroner. Someone tipped off the cops. Grimme and Brian went to prison. Erik went nowhere. Grimme concluded Erik was the mole.'

‘So what was Erik doing here in Horsens?'

Cato shrugged.

‘He was in fear of his life. Of Grimme's revenge. He came here to clear his name.'

‘Because Grimme thought he was the mole?'

Cato shrugged his shoulders again and pulled a cigarette from his own half-squashed pack in his pocket. The cigarette bobbed up and down in his mouth as he lit a match and inhaled the smoke, sucking in his already hollow cheeks.

‘I don't think it worked. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out, does it? After all, Erik is dead.'

‘And what happened to the stash?'

Cato sat up straight in the chair.

‘No idea. Brian, Grimme and Erik had their fingers in lots of pies. Grimme and his henchmen had contacts in Poland who could get them the drugs, Brian had a boat and Erik had become addicted to the high life and owed money all over the shop. He was their link to the dealers and he also sold drugs to people in his own circles – at great risk and for large sums.'

‘But then it went tits up? The police found out?'

Cato nodded.

‘It really went tits up. Everyone panicked, thinking the others had leaked the network to the cops.'

Cato waved his hand in the air, scattering ash.

‘Everyone started blaming everyone else.'

Peter visualised it: three men who had dreamed of the big time in their own individual ways only to see it fall apart. Three inflated egos who thought that together they could acquire wealth, if not glory or honour.'

‘But if none of them had tipped the cops off, who had?'

‘How should I know? Someone who doesn't frighten easily, that's for sure.'

‘Can you find out?'

Cato looked uncertain. He flicked ash on the floor and shifted his gaze to where the warder usually stood. But the officer was on the toilet with a stomach bug and in his rush had forgotten to request a replacement.

‘I don't know. Something is very wrong, if you want my honest opinion.'

Honesty had never been Cato's forte, but in his own way he spoke the truth. Like now – Peter could tell from his face that he knew nothing.

‘What about the ten kilos then? What happened to them?' Peter asked.

Cato squirmed. Peter could see he wanted to make off with his loot.

He nodded at the carton.

‘Prepaid phone card,' Peter said. ‘And there's more where that came from. But you've got to give me more.'

Cato finally found his voice again: ‘How the hell should I know where the drugs are?'

Peter saw his expression change; Cato's face changed like the weather.

‘Listen. The men who took Felix think she knows where the ten kilos are.'

Cato took another drag on his cigarette. He seemed nervous.

‘And does she?'

Peter studied him. Cato could easily have been working for Grimme. You had to watch yourself around people prepared to sell their own grandmother.

‘No,' Peter replied. ‘She knows nothing.'

‘Do
you
?' Cato asked carefully as though tiptoeing across broken glass.

‘Who wants to know?'

Cato didn't reply.

‘Who's running this show?' Peter asked. ‘If it's Grimme, then tell him I know something. But he has to let Felix go.'

Cato's nervous swallowing had stopped. His only reaction was a twitch in his left eye. Peter breathed out. They looked at each other, he and Cato. Blood brothers with no blood ties.

‘If it's not Grimme, tell him he and I have a common enemy. The man who double-crossed him is the same person who kidnapped Felix.'