The Other Son

by Alexander Soderberg

  They changed cars, and all got into the Passat that Mikhail had stolen.

  Lothar turned around as they drove off, and watched as hospital staff came rushing out and crouched down next to his father.

  Sophie was sitting in the passenger seat. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She closed her eyes, tried to bring her pulse rate down, tried to breathe calmly. She managed to call Leszek’s number, and he answered after two rings.

  “We’ve left Hector at the hospital. You should get there right away.”

  “Lothar?” he asked.

  She ended the call.

  Shock at what she had been through crashed over her like a tidal wave. Sophie’s hands began to shake. She tried to stop them by holding them tight.

  Sonya turned into the big garage in front of the hospital. She pulled up a little way from the entrance.

  Leszek and Aron left the car and hurried into the building.

  They stopped in the large entrance hall with no idea of where they should go. They looked at one of the plans on the wall, but it wasn’t very clear. They quickly decided to head to the emergency ward. Chaos there. A car accident had occurred, many cars involved. Relatives thronged at the reception desk and wanted answers. A lonely confused nurse tried to oblige. Leszek and Aron crept past. They found the corridor where the ORs were. But the glass door was locked. Access code needed. Aron looked around, stressed, glanced at his wristwatch.

  Doors to the right of them opened with a bang. Two EMTs came in with a stretcher, a nurse ran alongside and held up a drip bag. They came toward Leszek and Aron. The nurse called out four numbers to Aron. He pressed the code, the door swung open, they hurried past with the bloody patient. The door closed itself.

  Aron looked through the glass, waited until they disappeard into an OR with the patient. The corridor was empty. He pressed the code again, went in with Leszek.

  Hector was in OR number 7. He was lying on a gurney under sterile green covers. Dazzlingly bright lights were shining down on him. His eyes were closed, he was sedated. The trauma team around him was wearing green gowns and caps, with masks over their mouths. Three of them. A surgeon, an anesthetist, a nurse. They all stared at Aron and Leszek.

  The surgeon protested behind her mask and told them to get out.

  Leszek pulled an automatic pistol from his jacket pocket and stopped by the door.

  “Sew him up now,” Aron said, glancing at the time. “You’ve got two minutes.”

  —

  Dressed in green surgical outfits, Aron and Leszek pushed Hector into the corridor outside the operating room, then found an empty hospital bed and wedged it against the door to the OR behind them and locked the wheels.

  They pushed Hector in the opposite direction from the one they had come from, hurrying through a glass door to a lobby containing stairs and two wide elevators.

  The elevator arrived. The doors opened; it was empty. They pushed Hector inside. Leszek pushed the button for the ground floor and the doors slowly closed.

  Rapid footsteps outside, an arm pushed between the doors, which opened again automatically.

  The man who stepped in was out of breath, and smiled gratefully. A bicycle courier, rucksack, tight clothes, helmet on his head. A strange look. Something about his eyes.

  He stood where he could find room, by the edge of the bed; he looked down at Hector, then up at the ceiling.

  The elevator slowly made its way down.

  There was a brief moment of nothing, a moment of mental relaxation, and Leszek looked down at his shoes.

  Suddenly a quick movement from the courier.

  “Pistol,” Aron said. He pronounced the word calmly and clearly.

  Leszek grabbed Koen’s wrist with both hands, forcing it up and back. Aron took hold of Koen’s left hand and they forced him down onto his back, still holding his arms up. Aron put his left shoe on Koen’s throat and pushed with all the strength he could muster. The elevator was approaching the ground floor and Leszek pressed the emergency Stop button. The elevator stopped with a jolt.

  Aron pressed down with all his body weight. Koen de Graaf struggled in vain. After a minute the pistol fell from his hand and he tumbled helplessly into the dark depths of hell.

  —

  The ground-floor lobby was empty as they pushed Hector out. Sonya was waiting at the back of the hospital. They lifted the unconscious Hector into the car and Aron got in beside him in the backseat, while Leszek got in the front. Sonya pulled away.

  Aron turned to Hector and checked his pulse. It was regular but weak.

  He sighed, then rubbed his face with both hands.

  “What a fucking mess,” he muttered as he looked behind to see if anyone was following them.

  “Hector’s alive,” Leszek said.

  Yes, Hector was alive. But Hasani was dead. Because of him, perhaps, Aron thought. He settled into his seat.

  Sophie, he’d been so close.

  Thoughts swirled through his head as Sonya drove steadily out of the city.

  Why Malmö? He asked himself.

  They made their way through the traffic and emerged onto the motorway to Copenhagen, then headed across the Öresund Bridge on their way back to France. Aron went on pondering as he looked out at the flat Danish landscape.

  Denmark and Jens Vall. He had been there today, at Sophie’s side again. Denmark and Jens Vall…there was a common denominator there, but what? Aron was stressed, his thoughts confused, he tried but couldn’t find the right memory.

  Aron sighed loudly, then rubbed his face again.

  “Leszek,” he said.

  Leszek half-turned around.

  “Help me. Denmark and Jens Vall? What’s the connection?”

  They both thought hard. Leszek got there first.

  “Do you remember when we first encountered Jens?”

  “The ferry in Rotterdam harbor last summer, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Leszek said, and went on: “After the shootout with Mikhail…We went out to the ship, then we dropped Jens off on the west coast of Jutland, when the rest of us left the ship.”

  Aron remembered. That was it, he should have remembered. Jens had called his grandmother from the ship. She lived on Jutland.

  Sweden was behind them, Denmark in front of them. Aron weighed things. Exhausted or not, he wasn’t done, and now he had an idea.

  “Drop me off there,” he said, pointing toward Kastrup Airport, up ahead of them at the end of the bridge.

  The boys were swimming in the pool, even though the air temperature couldn’t have been more than fourteen degrees Celsius. Raimunda was watching them from a lounge chair as she read a book.

  Angela was by the window of her room upstairs, looking on as Andres splashed water at Raimunda, who put her book down, stood up, pretended to be angry, and walked toward him. He laughed in panic and swam off. Fabien did the same in the shallow end, hooting in delight and fleeing even though he wasn’t being chased.

  Angela left the window, grabbed the two packed suitcases from the bed, and quickly made her way downstairs, where she stashed them away on top of each other in a cleaning closet. She stopped for a moment, took a deep breath, then walked across the cold marble floor of the hall to the heavy oak front door and unlocked the three locks, then walked into the living room with its wall-to-wall carpet.

  The French doors to the pool area were open, and the linen curtains fluttered in the afternoon breeze. Angela stopped in the darkness of the house, looking out into the daylight. Raimunda was now sitting at the edge of the pool with her trousers rolled up and her legs in the water, splashing the boys, who tried to do the same back.

  Angela glanced at her watch. A minute or so passed. Then she heard the front door open carefully, and footsteps moved inside the house.

  Angela didn’t turn around; she knew whose they were. Instead she went out into the sunshine and forced herself to smile.

  “I’ll take over now, Raimunda. Thanks. There’s some lunch for you in the
kitchen.”

  Raimunda stood up from the edge of the pool.

  “Thanks, that’s kind of you,” she said, then turned toward Andres, who was still in the water, and faked a stern expression.

  “And that little monster needs to learn how to behave.”

  Andres laughed, and any sternness on Raimunda’s face melted into a smile. She walked off.

  Angela waited until Raimunda was inside the house, then she beckoned the boys over and fetched their robes from the table they’d been left on. They protested. She made it clear that now wasn’t the time for that, and they were taken aback by her sudden harshness. They did as they were told, got out of the pool, put the robes on, and took their mother’s outstretched hands.

  Angela led them into the house through the living room, wet footprints across the carpet. Police officers were moving around inside the villa.

  “Mom?” Andres said, looking around curiously.

  She didn’t answer, just guided the boys with her through the hall and past the kitchen. Two uniformed officers were watching Raimunda, who was sitting on a chair at the kitchen table. Angela met her gaze, there was a mixture of derision and security in Raimunda as she looked at Angela. Derision because Angela was the traitor. Security because that was precisely what Angela lacked.

  Angela found Gustave Peltier in the dining room. He looked just like she remembered him: harassed, in a jacket, jeans, calfskin shoes, mid-length graying hair, a scarf around his neck, the scruffy vanity of the middle-aged.

  “Angela, everything’s been arranged. Where are your bags?”

  “The cleaning closet under the stairs.”

  Gustave snapped his fingers at a uniformed officer and gestured to him to fetch them. He shepherded Angela and the boys ahead of him, out through the door to a waiting police car.

  A plainclothes officer was already sitting at the wheel, a young man with a look of intense concentration in his eyes.

  Gustave got in the front. They drove off at once, and Gustave began talking quickly into a walkie-talkie. The villa was already behind them.

  They headed west through Denmark. Sophie’s phone vibrated in her pocket.

  “Yes?”

  “What happened?” Roland Gentz’s voice was unmistakable.

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “Is Hector alive?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was he alive when you and the boy took off?”

  “Where’s Albert?”

  “Answer my question.”

  “Answer mine,” she said.

  “Albert’s OK. Is Hector alive?”

  “He was alive when we left. I want to talk to Albert. Why didn’t you bring him to me?”

  “Where’s Hector now?”

  “I don’t know where Hector is. We had an agreement, and you broke it.”

  She was trying to stay calm. “Give me Albert now,” she begged in a low voice. “There’s nothing to be gained from this. I want my son back….”

  “We need to know if Hector’s alive.”

  “What for…?”

  “We’ll be in touch.”

  Her cell phone went quiet. He’d hung up.

  She was shaking inside. An overdose of grief and despair, frustration, and rage was taking complete control of her whole existence with paralyzing force. She let her discomfort wash over her and push her down. Let it hurt, torment her, suffocate, and sting. Sophie just kept breathing and waiting, there was nothing else she could do.

  “There’s a police officer looking for you, Sophie,” Mikhail said.

  She didn’t follow.

  “What did you say, Mikhail?”

  He looked at her in the rearview mirror.

  “A Swedish police officer has been looking for you, a woman, Antonia something, she wants to talk to you.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “From Rüdiger.”

  Antonia, Sophie thought. Antonia Miller. She remembered the policewoman who had been investigating the murders at Trasten. Antonia had visited her at home in the villa in Stocksund, asked questions. She seemed reserved but curious.

  “What did she say?”

  Mikhail sat back, then glanced in the mirror again.

  “Don’t know. Rüdiger just passed the message on.”

  “She called him?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say to her?”

  “Nothing, I guess.”

  Mikhail felt in his pocket and pulled something out, then reached his hand back toward her, a note between two long fingers. A Swedish cell-phone number.

  Jens had turned around. He didn’t say anything; perhaps he was waiting for a decision.

  Sophie put her cell phone in her lap and looked out the window, searching for an answer.

  “Call her. Hear what she’s got to say, you’ve got nothing to lose.” Jens turned around again.

  She dialed the number on the scrap of paper. It rang twice, then a woman answered.

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve been trying to get in touch with me.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  The woman sounded almost relieved.

  “What for?”

  “Where are you?” Antonia asked.

  The world racing past outside the car, it was all a blur.

  “I’m going to hang up if you don’t tell me what you want,” she said.

  Another silence, as if the woman at the other end was considering what to say very carefully, afraid of saying the wrong thing, afraid of missing her chance.

  “I’m on the run as well,” Antonia said.

  “Explain.”

  “Things are happening.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “You know Lars Vinge?”

  “What about him?”

  “You know who he was?”

  “Yes.”

  “He left a bag. And I’ve got that bag.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’re rather over-represented among its contents.”

  Antonia’s voice became steadier.

  “I need to know why, so I can put an end to this.”

  “Put an end to what?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You said you’re on the run. Who’s after you?”

  “I’ve gone to ground. I can’t say more.”

  “What do you know?” Sophie asked.

  “A bit.”

  “What don’t you know?”

  “A lot more.”

  Sophie’s eyes met Jens’s.

  “So what do you want my help with?” Sophie asked.

  “I need to get a clearer picture.”

  “What of?”

  “The people who died six months ago, what happened to them, what they knew, what you know from Trasten. What happened there. There are two of us in hiding now, we’re both police officers, and we’re onto something big.”

  She thought for a moment.

  “Sophie?” Antonia sounded like a friend now.

  “Yes?”

  “What do you need help with?”

  “I need to find my son,” she whispered.

  Leszek and Sonya had been traveling nonstop after dropping Aron off. The ferry from Rødby to Puttgarden, then straight through Germany to its southern border, across the Alps, and down toward Lugano. Hector woke up there. They pressed on through Italy until they reached the Mediterranean, then turned west toward the French Riviera and Villefranche. A journey of twenty hours.

  Considering the circumstances, Hector felt reasonably OK. Soon Raimunda would be able to look after him.

  Villefranche was asleep when they arrived early in the morning. They drove up the winding road toward the villa.

  Leszek looked up at the house, scanning the façade. A blind pulled down in one of the guest rooms facing the road: a signal that everything was OK…in the afternoon. But not now, not early in the morning. Now the blind should be pulled up and a nightlight switched on inside. That was what they’d agreed, and
Raimunda was a very conscientious person.

  “Keep going. Drive past,” he said to Sonya. “Hector, lie down and take cover,” he added.

  They drove past the villa. Leszek couldn’t see anything else unusual, and they kept on going up the road and stopped at the crown of the first hill.

  “Wait for me here,” he said, then got out of the car and disappeared into a garden.

  He made his way quickly back down to the villa. There he climbed over the wall and landed feet first on the lawn beside the pool, where he stopped and listened. Complete silence. Toys and an inflatable mattress floated in the pool. That never happened. Raimunda usually kept things tidy.

  Under cover of the trees and bushes in the yard he made his way around to the front. There was a car parked there. The little Peugeot Raimunda used when she went shopping. Leszek kept going, to the side of the house, where he crouched beneath the big living-room window, then peered into the gloom. All the furniture was exactly where it should be. He moved on to the dining room. Same thing there, just dormant furniture in a peaceful room.

  Leszek crouched down again and went on to the kitchen, and peered in cautiously. There was someone sitting at the kitchen table in the darkness, the red glow of a flashlight gave the man enough light to read a book by. Beside him on the table was a flask, a mug, a French newspaper, and a glistening black pistol.

  Leszek craned his neck. Two people were asleep on the floor over by the kitchen cupboards, in sleeping bags on top of camping mats. One of them had a black rucksack beside him. It had the emblem of the Police Nationale on it.

  Leszek backed away, then ran off silently, across the wall, through the neighbor’s garden, back up to the car.

  “The police are in there waiting for us,” he said as he got into the backseat next to Hector.

  Sonya started the car and drove off.

  “The others?” Hector asked.

  “I didn’t see any of them. It looks like they left in a hurry.”

  They all thought hard.

  “How did the police find us?” Hector asked.

  “Raimunda or Angela?” Leszek replied.

  “Angela,” Sonya said. Neither of them disagreed.

  “What does she know?” Hector asked.