by Mark, David
She raised a hand to her mouth.
‘I guess, I got caught up in things; something I didn’t have much control over.’ He sighed. ‘If Stefan had lived, none of this would have happened. I would have been a stronger man.’
Steffan. She should have asked him about that, more. She could have helped him deal with it.
‘Gustav knew what had been going on: The guilt of his knowledge drove him to despair. Gustav saw them. They knew he had been there. He’d seen lights on the shore. He often went fishing at night, wondered what was happening.’
The tape: None of this had been mentioned in the tape.
‘The woman... he had known her. Seeing her body all burned up like that.’
What woman was he thinking about?
One of the draugr killings?
Hasse sighed. ‘That was the last drop. Twice at the same place. A pattern: A pattern that had to be kept from the investigation. So, they tried to buy his silence too.’
He was speaking in riddles. Who was he? Elin watched the battle, she could hear in his voice. She was with him, with the sound of the wind. And the sound of his voice.
She was with him.
‘Gustav knew what he was up against. He knew the consequences.’ He shook his head, ‘I just wish the hell I had.’
She pressed pause and looked away, seeking solace for a moment. They had been lead by their noses so many times, they had no idea they had been lead at all. And in all that time they had also been lead by their own false expectations, all of it being a complete waste of time. When she was ready she returned to him, releasing him and preparing herself.
He drew in a breath, the microphone distorted by a rush of wind. ‘I guess... I guess I saw myself as a victim.’ He shook his head. ‘What have I done?’
She saw him take a series of breaths, speaking very slowly. ‘After they killed the women, after, they told me they would keep my record clean. I accepted and lost my self-respect.’
Not Hasse. Who was they? What was he saying?
Lindgren had said, she recalled now, the memory of what had happened inside the church already so distant. What had Oskar said? A backhander, his expression was, insinuating Hasse had been on the take.
‘I was told to look the other way.’ He shook his head. ‘I was on my own.’ He snorted in frustration. ‘They killed the first two women by burning them alive. And, instead of doing anything about it, I walked right into it. Instead of bringing them to justice, they offered me a promotion.’
She watched the image, her eyes no larger than slits, fighting against the sedative as it overpowered her will to stay awake.
Hasse had been paid off. And he had paid for that with his conscience ever since...
‘It was only later when they offered me money, I realized I was in too deep.’ He paused for a moment to grimace in pain, catching his breath.
She felt so drowsy and closed her eyes for a moment.
‘Denisen was set up. Conrad Baron is MI6 Elin. He has contact with... Oskar works for SÄPO, I’m sure of it. National security is a dirty business and dirty business requires dirty tricks. With Denisen, someone made sure a crime had been committed. To get the painting into Police custody...’
How could he have reasoned anything if SÄPO had needed a crime? That was the only explanation for Oskar Lindgren’s involvement. And for that, they had needed Hasse. A tear of frustration fell down her cheek. So there had never been any path to follow. It had never been possible to solve anything. No fair shot, no chance to even rationalize any way out if it. The investigation had been rigged from the start, taking out Denisen in the process, most likely because of who he had dealt with... when he became involved.
‘The painting, Elin. Chivers told me something. It was a stolen piece, from Eklund.’ He picked up the camera to look into it. ‘Eklund’s painting. Eklund was Agard’s friend. They visited here. There’s more to it than... well, I think someone stole it from him for a reason. And somehow, it ended up in the care of Justin’s neighbor.’
A red battery light appeared as the tape played.
From beyond the descending veil she heard Hasse laugh, but he ended up coughing. He was right though. He had always reasoned his way through all his cases in the past.
‘And they managed to use it to get Justin involved, a cover...’
The world shouldn’t be allowed to work this way. There were all the draugr killings; she still had leads to follow.
I think she’s following a lead concerning the disappearance of a reporter...
‘... through him, Justin, Denisen forged it, dancing to someone else’s tune.’
And a reporter had probably been murdered. The thought of it sickened her. She hoped Ashley Vileranda had managed to do what she had asked him to do.
‘Then they made sure I was involved. None of this had anything to do with the old murders, or Gustav Kron. Thomas Denisen had nothing to do with the others, killed by a game I don’t know any more.’
No, because it was all part of a conspiracy, Hasse. And you were part of it.
‘Destroy it Elin. I think you should get rid of it.’ Then Hasse Almquist smiled into the camera. ‘Meet a nice man Elin. Have a...’
The camera beeped once and the picture went blank.
This wasn’t the end of anything. Poor Hasse could never have it figured it out. None of them had. But she was bloody well going to try.
Ash looked around the top of the monolith. ‘Gustav lived next door to old Gotfrid. They called his place the clog factory.’ Ash stood up. Taking a last look down at the homestead, he walked to the end of the rock and turned to his side looking down at Ulrika. He felt something stir, something other than his passion. There, hidden between the trees he saw it. The run-down ruin of a house still ruined by an old fire. It was missing its roof, blackened rafters showing between the tufts of twisted pine trees.
Ulrika stood up to join him, brushing the moss from her legs. She walked across and linked her arm inside his, both looking down at what had to have been Gustav’s place. ‘So this is why you came here?’
He nodded, wondering what Gustav’s story might have to do with the computer he’d removed from the back of Vikland’s car, buried inside a plastic bag in the ground, covered with leaves. He wondered why hadn’t even mentioned it to Daniel, realizing he’s need to speak to Vikland first, before telling Daniel – or Ulrika. Nobody, she had said, and to that at least he had obliged. He wondered what had happened to her and hoped she’s pull through.
The hangman wasn’t Odin, had never been Odin. That had all been part of the grand plan, to lure Justin away from Copenhagen. Just as she had told him. He regretted he hadn’t believer her. It was true, all of it, everything she had said, even Gustav’s old place.
‘I lied to Justin.’ She’d told him the Hangman was an invention of minds more advanced than his own. ‘I lied to you.’ He laughed a little laugh, ‘Hell, I’d even lie to myself if I gave a fuck.’ There was so much I want to tell you. In the dealings with Justin, Ash has been told not to mention anything. He’d been the poor spider who’d help spin the web to bring poor Justin in, and the thought of it was killing him. He’d been used. They’d all been used. Perhaps Justin was the only one who hadn’t told anyone a lie. No, they’d all lied. He thought of Justin and what he had agreed to, reminding himself he had to pay Justin’s wife a visit when he returned to Denmark.
Ulrika nodded, a new energy entering her so perfect face. ‘What else did the tape say?’
The question shook him free of his thoughts. ‘A word, Helvegr. Gustav Kron was an old man. He mentioned five archaeologists who claimed to have found the road to hel, right here on the top of the monolith.’ Ash said quietly, looking deeply into her eyes, his mind clouding.
‘Hell?’
Ash nodded, trying not to think of dead people, of demiurges or dark places he never wanted to see ever again.
‘The Pastor mentioned Hell.’
‘The Pastor?’
She was frowning now. ‘What did he say? Something about seven, the seven was the spirit of God, or something, in all living things and in fire, did they gather into the forces of light and darkness.’
He stared at her.
‘That was it, and in fire shall they be reunited, or something like that.’
‘No – go on,’ Ash urged, watching her recall.
‘... and in their union, shall they break down the gates of hell, or something.’
Ash remembered Almquist’s clipping and knew this was the place where the photograph had been found. This was where Gustav Kron had come with the four other archaeologists. He took another look around, then looked down at his feet for a long while, remembering the word again. Helvegr. ‘Almquist left me a note.’ He looked around. ‘He said this place was an old site of sacrifice. Belief; one myth, two beliefs.’ He looked up and met her eyes. ‘That’s your story.’
She was confused. ‘This is where they brought them, the women. Fire, Ulrika.’ He stamped his foot. ‘This is where they burned them. The draugr victims Almquist spent so many years trying to solve. Road to hell, helvegr, gate to hell...’
Seven was the spirit of God. He had seen seven, seen them on a page from a book, burned at the edges. That book had been owned by someone who had once been Agard’s friend. What was his name? The man who had never believed in God or anything remotely godly in his entire life. It all started and ended with Agard, not Eklund. Eklund had been Agard’s friend, he recalled. A light entered those perfect eyes, filling them with new purpose.
‘He was covering right-wing hardliners, they had a hand in it.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘It’s a long story. I’ll need to fill you in when we get to Stockholm.’
He nodded down the hill to the place that used to belong to Gustav Kron. ‘Whatever Gustav had, they wanted him taken care of as well.’ Eklund, Gustav Kron, one of the five archaeologists.
‘Will you help me?’ She asked.
He looked into those eyes and knew there was no way out, not so far down the line. Shit, she was drop-dead gorgeous. What did the hell did he have left to lose?
Anna Kron was long dead. Conrad could almost have laughed as he looked high above them, the light fading as Bok got back inside his car.
Bok had entrusted the list to him, old names. Gustav Kron’s list of unofficial cold war operations. Of all the things he had done in the name of Queen and Country, this was the oddest, maddest thing he had ever been involved in. He suddenly became aware of the cold entering his clothes, chilling him as the breeze stirred the trees. Television? With a sinking heart he realized the news wasn’t going to be good. He sighed. He was supposed to bring back Anna and her list. All he did was get a lot of people killed. All for an old list – written by a man who belonged in a past, in a war no one really have a damn about anymore. At one time he’d wanted promotion. Now he realized that wasn’t what he wanted anymore. More than anything else in the world, he just wanted to get the hell out of this place.
He watched Bok reverse his car. Whatever he was going to say he never had the chance to hear, the words coming unexpected, surprised to his own voice saying them. Alvar Bok, his dubious contact from Swedish Intelligence, only to be used in case of an emergency. He ran forward to the driver’s side as Bok completed his reverse. ‘You were there, weren’t you?’ He said suddenly, seeing the picture; how it fit. ‘Come on Bok, they sent a whole hit-team to get that list back. It was Gustav’s list.’ He leaned forwards. ‘Almquist had to be involved. You know more... Why use Agard’s painting? There has to be a reason?’ Conrad felt it. There was no information, no intelligence to base anything on. Just the look in a man’s eye and a feeling in his gut. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? Here, just in case it went pear-shaped. Denisen fell. Dead or missing, he was going to be a problem wasn’t he?’ Then he felt something, recognition; as if he was only hearing things he already knew. ‘They played me to play you Bok, that’s the truth of it.’
Bok seemed to give that at least some thought, engaging gear. ‘You said no one ever heard the Devil’s side of the story, since it was God who had written the books. Martin Luther said, without the Devil and the threat of damnation, there really is little need of Priests and Pastors or any church.’ He sent him a look that turned him to ice. ‘There is a lot of truth in that. The only answer is the one I have already given you. The painting is a bridge between two worlds,’ he looked into Conrad’s eyes. ‘You know how to get hold of me.’
Bok was working with people above him. So here he was, isolated, standing alone on a lower rung of the ladder with a list of old names.
Bok reached for the electric button, the glass of his window sliding back into place, cutting off any more communication. Then he engaged gear and pulling on the wheel, left Conrad Baron standing on his own to watch the car move away.
A bridge between two worlds.
Each world existed separately. The painting in itself was all there was to breach them. He thought of the black woman he had seen in the church; she had been sent, in case things went wrong? A safe guard to keep it from spinning out of control. If there was one, there could have been others, other pros called in as observers, or to take over, in case she was taken out too. He’d been involved in enough operations in Ireland to know there was always a second team.
He stopped and looked around. He was probably being observed right now. Bok had bought them time, time for the church to burn. Soon the place would be crawling with the press and he’d be in the middle of an international incident. He watched the car bounce over the puddles from yesterday and waited for Bok to pull out into the road. The car stopped, long enough for him to look down to the tree where Almquist had hit, the car removed as if nothing had happened at all. He waited until Bok pulled out into the road, then started walking back towards the house.
Ulrika was a journalist. She’d been in the way. She knew something and had to have been taken care of as well. It had been well-planned even if the execution left a lot to be desired. He clenched his fist and turned his back on the carpark, turning towards the black lake and the stone rising silently from still waters with new work to do. He felt uneasy.
The prints... Almquist had to have taken prints from the axe victim. Bok didn’t need the ones sitting wrapped in paper inside his pocket. And the list... it was worthless, a list of old names that might not be of any relevance to anyone anymore, other than those who had placed the names there in the first place. Of course. It meant nothing, nothing more than a list of people long dead and buried. An incident, Bok was alluding to. There was going to be news, something else had to have been going down. For what purpose? Tactics, diversions, all part of the great power game. Was that it?
The answers were always so simple in the end. He had to laugh, looking around as he neared the homestead, seeing Ash and Ulrika on the top of the monolith. What would happen to them? Bok had only mentioned they should pack their things, that a car would come by in the afternoon to pick them up. It had been a vague instruction, now he thought about it.
Conrad felt a lurch in the pit of his stomach. The police officers had been knocked out by gas. Almquist had been taken out because he was about to mess it all up, the hit team maneuvered into position to take out the car, to take out everyone left at the homestead. They hadn’t waited for Almquist at all. The timing had to be perfect. And Chivers, he was an accessory to be taken care of. The call had come out of the blue. A contact had been made with Chivers, an arrangement made to meet at Æsahult. He had been informed it was imperative to apprehend Chivers and find out what contact he had had. Except it had been a trap. Chivers wasn’t followed. His position had been given away.
They were manufacturing an international incident.
If it was made to look like an operation from the East, there would be pressure, pressure to clamp down. People were unhappy with the limitations treaty to be signed at the end of the year. Something was stirring he was no part of – and here he
was stuck in the middle of nowhere. They knew lives would be lost because they’d been set up to lose in the first place. All they had to do was tell some story about the painting, that it contained a liquidation list from the war involving communist spies or some other shit the Russians were desperate to get their grubby dirty fingers on, what few they had left. Could it be that easy?
A bridge between two worlds.
They had played everyone, while the news of another incident awaited him no doubt provoked by an equally useless piece of information. All in exchange for a bunch of fingers that were his only means of him getting anything out of this at all. That was one world accounted for. All he could do was wonder at the other. Or the other professionals he felt had to have been called in to cover the tracks, to keep things from escalating out of control. Always. Spin the story well enough beforehand and everything had to fall in place. He looked down at the folded list of names in his hand. That was one half of it. Almquist was the other, both parts of a dark world where the only light was a piece of paper hidden in the back of the Hangman, this piece of paper with a list of names. That had been enough to bring them out into the light of day. Conrad tossed his head in a gesture of frustration. If that were so, why had they not prevented Almquist’s murder? Because they had probably pulled the trigger. Or was he just being paranoid?
Conrad turned back to the monolith torn and divided, just as he was. Something still didn’t feel right. That was the nature of this job, feeling not knowing. In this game, the thing was, you just never knew. You never knew at all.
Ulrika looked around, following the horizon. Who would have known, old Gustav was neighbors with old Gotfrid? I’m game for it if you are, she wanted to say.