by Mark, David
He had expected that. ‘The girl for the painting?’
Conrad nodded. ‘Whatever happens, no exchange can be made.’
No exchange... ‘Why?’ He knew it was a stupid question, as soon as he had uttered it. What he hadn’t expected was what Conrad said next.
‘We need the painting back.’ Conrad turned to Almquist, leaning forwards slightly. ‘I have to do whatever is necessary to stop any trade taking place.’
‘You want me to give the painting to you?’
‘I can’t allow them to have the painting.’
He looked into eyes that told of forgotten wars and people in faraway places, of hostile people and new duties in the wake of tragedy, times he would rather forget.
Baron’s face became serious. ‘If you make any trade, they’ll take the painting and kill the girl, if they haven’t killed her already. You’ll only be putting more lives at risk, yours included.’ Then he leaned forward, dropping his voice. ‘It just isn’t an option.’
Almquist frowned, ‘Why are you telling me this?’ He knew Gotfridsson had burned those women; he just had no idea whether he had killed them too.
‘Because I am out of options.’
Other forces forces were at work here. ‘Why are you here?’
‘You know why I’m here. What you want to know is, what is it I want?’
Almquist thought about that, taking his time as he looked out at the strip of the high street that wasn’t a high street at all, a quiet place few people ever came to. A dead place. He turned to Conrad Baron again. ‘What do you want?’
Last vestiges of light swallowed by black clouds. Another gust shook the trees, lasting longer than before, crowns bent forwards. A storm was brewing and he knew where it was coming from. Events in 1982, missing people... explosions in Copenhagen last year. And now, all this, relating to Anna and Gustav Kron. He felt an ice-cold chill, raising a hand to disguise his discomfort. There was no denying the possibility someone was going to extreme lengths to remove vestiges of... some trail going back in time, though the details eluded him.
‘I want them to go away.’ He tapped Almquist on the shoulder, ‘Just like you. They are in danger.’ He leaned forwards, his head closer, lowering his voice. ‘So are you.’
The surge, that feeling: Of having words catalyze that which had been kept stable, confined. ‘I could have you arrested,’ he said.
He almost lurched with the realization. The painting was part of removing that trail. It had been conceived to remove the trail. But how? He felt annoyed by the way that Conrad Baron laughed, a dry laugh as he settled his head against a worn headrest, another brief gust of wind shaking the car.
Almquist glanced out at the darkening sky. ‘Rain is coming.’ He turned his head. ‘I can’t give you what you want. Whoever killed Denisen, it matters not.’
Conrad sat up. ‘Then it’s best for you, if you looked after yourself.’
Almquist looked out of the windscreen, head full of possibilities. ‘Are you telling me the police might be involved in this?’
‘I’m not telling you anything.’ He leaned close again. ‘Leave, while you still can, detective. These people can do much worse than poking people’s eyes out. Take my word for it, you need to keep this to yourself and get the fuck out, now.’ He raised a clenched fist into the air. ‘By the time anything happens, I’ll be gone.’ He opened his hand so all fingers were widely splayed apart.
‘Why should I believe you?’
‘Because I hate to see a good man wasted.’
Good man wasted. It almost sounded like the name of a film. Almquist turned back to look into Baron’s still eyes, dark and impenetrable; a solid, hard, unmoving wall of reality. He had had his suspicions and nodded, resistance crumbling. ‘Perhaps I should thank you then.’
Conrad Baron snorted. ‘Your security police are involved. The word is out you’re going to be taken off the case.’
That was the second surge. ‘When?’
‘Today.’
So it was the security police Oskar worked for.
Almquist looked up, concern showing in every crease, every wrinkle of his fifty-something face. SÄPO... ‘is the information good?’
He nodded.
That was all Almquist needed to hear. In a way, it meant he could relax. He looked out at the sleepy hamlet, at the houses, at the trees swaying lazily by the lake, eyes glazing over. ‘There’s a lot of ill feeling around here.’ He tried to smile. ‘Been going on ever since, well, ever since people have been praying.’ He turned back to Baron. ‘Outsiders never understood, never will. The women that died. They were found burned on Kron’s property.’
Baron didn’t know that. He looked confused for a moment. ‘On his property?’
‘He was killed himself before the last two murders, so he wasn’t the one who killed them. I think he knew the person that did.’ He also knew Sturla had been involved. ‘And now Denisen, the only male in the sequence.’
‘Is that important?’
Almquist nodded, expression pensive, thinking of Oskar’s involvement, ‘Yes, I think it is. It breaks the pattern...’
‘So you don’t think it’s one of us then?’
‘Not anymore,’ he said. ‘If what you tell me is true, then what I think doesn’t matter anyway.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Almquist leaned back, exhaling. He ran a hand through his thinning hair and looked out at dark troubled skies. ‘I was investigating a case. More a lead.’ He looked across. ‘It lead to Copenhagen.’
Baron blinked twice.
‘You’re from Copenhagen.’
Baron’s mouth evened out into a line of tension.
‘Does the name Eklund mean anything to you?’ He saw how the blood seemed to leave that face, whitening momentarily.
‘What kind of investigation?’
‘The police kind. Look, that’s not important...’
‘What kind of investigation?’ Baron said, leaning forward closer now.
Almquist looked back out at trouble. ‘Background checks concerning... I worked the case from time to time, in my spare time. The Draugr case.’
‘Eklund... and he is?’
Almquist took his time, looking back to study his face. Baron opened his mouth to speak, cut short as Almquist continued. ‘I’ll save us both the trouble. Eklund was murdered in 1982. The investigating police officer was killed in an explosion to his houseboat, last year. Eklund’s apartment was blown up in the middle of the day, the summer before last. It must have been all over the Copenhagen news, so don’t treat me like a fool.’
Baron closed his mouth. ‘Yes, we knew about the explosions. It was all over the press.’
‘But not Eklund?’
He looked across. ‘I’ve never heard the name before.’
Almquist paused, taking that it. ‘What I’m trying to say is,’ he tried to calm the wild beating in his heart, tried to control his breathing, ‘when did you first get involved in this?’
Baron shook his head, looking briefly outside. ‘Spring.’
‘When in Spring?’
‘After Justin’s neighbor fell to his death.’
‘So it wasn’t staged?’
Baron sent him a pained look. ‘That’s not the way we work.’ He shook his head. ‘Someone pushed him. We don’t know who.’
‘That was...’
‘Beginning of April.’
‘The neighbor fell on the seventh, correct?’
‘Something like that.’
Almquist nodded, the sickening feeling subsiding for a moment, replaced by the burn of acid. He turned around to look him full in the eye. ‘I need a very good reason why I should give you the painting back.’
Eklund. The name sent a surge of electricity through Conrad’s body. Eklund’s name had been mentioned so many times in the fragments of files that should never have existed. A look of frustration passed behind his eyes. The name surprised him. Not only did it surprise him, it worrie
d him. When Almquist was finished he denied it. Denial, keep to denial. Denial can never get you into trouble.
‘They were here before the start.’
‘They?’
‘The security police. Oskar Lindgren.’
How the hell did he know? Conrad nodded.
‘Then he is security police.’
Conrad didn’t know how to respond to that.
Almquist turned away, there being little more to say on that matter. ‘So what else do you know?
Conrad thought about that. What did he know? It occurred to him he’d never really stopped to ask himself the most pertinent of simple questions. ‘Not as much as you think I might. Something strange is going on I need to get to the bottom of.’
‘Something strange has been going on for a very, very long time,’ Almquist admitted.
Conrad wasn’t sure what he meant by that. ‘I know Anna was involved. Is that what you mean?’
Almquist seemed distant. ‘No, not really... there’s been strange things going on here well before you or I were ever born. What has this got to do with Anna?’
‘My people wanted her brought in.’
‘Karl Oskar Eklund: Is he connected with Anna?’
Conrad shook his head. ‘I’ve never heard the name before.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘No.’ He flicked a hard look in Almquist’s direction to make it convincing. ‘I never heard the name before.’ Denial. If in doubt, deny then deny again. He hoped it would throw the older man off the scent.
‘Why do you say brought in?’
Conrad looked out at the sky and frowned. He noticed the trees had started moving; he felt an odd premonition and felt something descend, a veil of foreboding.
‘Why Denisen? They took out Denisen because he knew something.’
‘Denisen fucked it all up,’ Conrad admitted, ‘when he got the bloody thing forged.’ Something as simple as a little greed, and even the best of plans get well and truly hammered. ‘I can’t tell you anymore than that because that’s all I know. He should never have been involved. Yes, Lindgren is SÄPO; he’s my contact man. I only came here for Anna. Who was Anna Kron?’
Keep him talking. How the hell did he know about Eklund?
Karl Oskar Eklund had been a Swedish archaeologist. He had been murdered in 1982. If Almquist was onto the Eklund connection that meant... he dreaded the thought. Denisen’s death because Almquist knew too much? He felt the blood drain from his face. He knew too much. He had to battle to keep track of Almquist’s question. ‘I don’t know anything about her. But I do know you need to get out of this.’
Almquist was hiding more. And yet, how could he ask about something he wasn’t supposed to know anything about? That Eklund’s apartment had blown up in the middle of the day, four years after he’d been murdered, but for what?
Almquist leaned over, retrieving an envelope and handed it to Conrad. ‘I want you to give this to Ash.’
Conrad took it, wondering why on earth he’d be interested in Ash.
‘It is a clipping from an old newspaper article concerning Gotfridsgaarden,’ Almquist said, as if reading his mind. ‘I found it in the Police archives. He will be interested. And... Ulrika.’
Ulrika was a fucking reporter. She was getting nothing. Baron accepted the cutting, folding it up and putting it into his pocket. He still needed Chivers. ‘Bring me Chivers and give me one or two hours with him and I’ll let you know.’
‘I’ll think about it, that’s the best I can do.’
‘You have to act, now,’ Conrad spat, feeling time slipping away.
Almquist was a stubborn man, he shook his head. ‘I have more pressing matters to deal with,’ he said finally.
‘No, I...’
Almquist raised his hand. ‘I have to leave. Now, I said I would think about it. There is still time... today. You have today.’
Conrad paused, containing his anger. They were done... the old detective was way out of his depth. With a sigh he reached for the door handle. ‘Well, at least I tried. It’s your life.’ Then he opened the door, he was about to get out when he paused, ‘Joachim Agard was friends with Karl Oskar Eklund. Same age, both archaeologists. The painting used to belong to Eklund. It was never supposed to have survived the fire in his apartment. We had nothing to do with it. That’s all I know.’ Then he got out, dreading what the old man knew, but obviously wasn’t telling.
It had started raining. Almquist had made it as far north as to within five kilometers of the highway junction leading right towards Örrebro. He pulled over into a lay-by beside the eastern lake shore and pulled the hand-brake, engine turning over with a clatter. He bit his lip and looked out of the window, without even looking at the view, or the steeple of Æsahult church or anything else in particular, feeling deeply troubled.
He raised his hand and looked down at his watch. It was a quarter to ten in the morning. It felt later than that. Baron had known the name. That bothered him.
Something strange has been going on for a very, very long time...
He reached forward and turned off the engine. Baron had known about Eklund. It had been written all over his face. He breathed a sigh of relief. In a way, it made life easier for him. It seemed to make sense now. Eklund was never supposed to have existed.
So why was Anna and Gustav Kron involved?
The name Eklund had cropped up in the Kron interview, he recalled. He’d been one of a group that had visited Tiveden in the thirties the newspaper article said. Now he knew. Eklund was an old friend of Joachim Agard. Two archaeologists holding what secrets? He’d been murdered in Copenhagen. Agard’s painting surfaced out of the blue having been stolen years previously. From here. Eklund came here. What the hell was it about this place that brought such odd characters from far and wide? He thought about that as he wound down the window.
He sat for a while, looking at nothing in particular. He listened to the sound of a myriad of droplets; a constant hush of tiny moments extinguished by the soft earth. It was broken by a rising gust of wind that made the trees moan. He closed his eyes and let it wash over him, freshening him. It was entrapment, the feeling. Like he was suspended in a void he couldn’t escape from. A droplet hit him in the middle of the forehead, then another.
Christ, what have I done?
He could have told Elin. Should have told Elin. She would understand. God knows how he needed someone to talk to.
He turned around, towards the compact VHS-C camcorder lying across the back seat. The tape was still inside. He reached out, taking it in one hand, turning to sit looking forward, raising it to his eye as he pressed the on button.
Ash’s face looked around, filling the screen. ‘Am I finished then?’
He removed the camera, pressing the rewind button, watching the rapid, jerky movements that was Ash’s talking head, until he reached the place at the beginning of the last interview. He pressed play, head bowed forwards as Ash’s voice greeted him, sounding thin and tinny, as if coming from a radio a long way away. He waited until he arrived at the interesting part.
‘The Pastor, he told us there was this ritual. The sacrifice of the blot he called it. I guess blot means blood, right? He said it followed some old ritual.’
Almquist pressed pause and moved his eyes towards the quiet Police radio. He rested his head. Threads, lines in the dark. So many, like a spider’s web. So who was the spider? Was he the fly? He sat up and placed the camera back to his eye, pressing pause a second time, the tape continuing.
‘He painted a ritual?’
‘What do I know? There’s the motif – hanging himself then being consumed by fire. That could be to piss off the church, or something...’
‘Why do you say that?’
Ash looked into the camcorder, looking disappointed, then scratched his chin absently. ‘Dunno.’
‘We need something a little more... solid, than that Ash.’
Ash looked away.
Almquist listened a li
ttle longer, then pressed stop. Dead, all dead; black dead, like a piece of petrified coal. He moved to the side, replacing the video camera on the back seat. What did the British Secret Intelligence Service have to do with a long-dead Anna Kron?
He had a day.
Frowning, Almquist reached forwards towards the transceiver and picked it up, calling Station. The familiar voice of the duty sergeant greeted him. He waited for Elin. He took a deep breath. ‘I will soon be asked to wind it up. Over.’
Vikland’s voice entered and filled the confines of his familiar world smelling of stale tobacco. ‘Current ops? Over.’
He heard the concern. He heard the rain, heavier now, as he looked up at the slate black sky, feeling the unease settle deeper upon himself, like a thick veil of coal dust. He spoke in a measured, quiet voice. ‘I have good reason to believe so.’ Almquist sighed and waited, then pressed the handset to speak. ‘I’m going to be relieved of active duties.’ He felt the tension drain from his body, closing his eyes. He swallowed before talking. ‘We’re running out of time. Spend the next hour accessing all public records. I need a briefing on the store owner Alvar Bok. Prepare the conference room for...’ he glanced at his watch again, ‘I should be able to get back in an hour. By 10:45. Over.’
‘It won’t take that long...’
Almquist looked out of the window across the lake, back to the tiered form of Æsahult church and made his mind up. ‘I’ve got something to sort out first. Gather everything you can. Use the time, what we have left.’
Almquist signed off. This was it. The moment of no return. He had left some of his latest notes in his personal organizer in his office. He had to cover his tracks, prevent Elin from falling into the same trap he had.
He needed to lose it.
In truth, he felt relieved. There was still time for one last nagging doubt to be resolved.
Fabian looked at her watch and waited. She kept waiting, and when she thought it wasn’t going to come, she opened the door of the Range Rover, getting out. She turned to the wind. It blew into her face, even though she stood in the shelter of a forest. She stayed like that, barely moving, the smell of pine-needles faint, providing little comfort.