by Alex Archer
He adjusted the rearview mirror, keeping the cameraman in view as he tried to struggle into a sitting position. It was almost impossible, given the way Tostig had jammed him down behind the seats, especially without the use of his hands. He hadn’t gagged the man, but for now he was silent. Perhaps he wasn’t stupid, after all.
Tostig took the same road he’d taken the previous night, then picked up the trail that circled the lake. This was another part of the country he was intimately familiar with. He recognized the holiday homes that dotted the countryside like a braille pattern. His grandfather had lived in one of them. That was his strongest tie to the region, but by no means his only one. It didn’t harbor the pull of sentimentality. He’d hated the old man.
He drove on until at last he saw what he was looking for—a unique spire pointing like a finger through the trees.
The white church stood alone, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
It was still in a good state of repair.
This was a Lutheran church, a house of God for the fishermen who lived around the lake—part place of worship, part sanctuary.
The old church hadn’t changed in the slightest since Tostig had last been there more then twenty years before. As he’d expected, its doors were open. There was a heavy iron key hanging on a hook just inside the door so that it could be locked at night. There was an iron spike on the outside wall beside the door where the key would hang through the night in case anyone came seeking shelter. No one was ever turned away. No one would steal from the old church because there was precious little of value to steal.
Tostig assumed there would be no one inside, but he could afford a few more hours’ patience to be sure, even if it meant moving his passenger to the trunk. The stain left behind by the Serb would no doubt give the cameraman food for thought.
He drove the car up along the track, following the curve away from the road and stopped the car on a patch of ground beyond the church. The spot was out of view from anyone who should happen to glance toward the white spire as they drove along the road.
“I am going to give you instructions to live. Listen to them carefully. Obey them and you might survive. Move and you’re a dead man,” Tostig said. “Make a noise and you’re a dead man. Do anything I don’t give you explicit permission to do, and you’re a dead man. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
That was all that Tostig wanted to hear.
Despite what had happened back at the hotel, the cameraman was no hero. The proof of that was plain in just how meekly he was accepting his fate. Perhaps if he knew exactly what Tostig had planned for him he might have been a little less accepting.
He got out and closed the car door softly behind him. Not that he expected anyone to be around. The church was as remote a place as could be found within an hour’s drive of the city. But slamming doors startled birds, and a flock of birds erupting into flight drew attention from miles around.
He went inside.
The old church was empty.
The layout of the building was simple enough, as were the furnishings. Most of the interior was given over to the congregation with wooden pews lined up to face a sturdy pulpit beneath a stained-glass window.
Tostig had sat in those pews as a child.
Being forced to suffer through those insufferable sermons had given him a healthy loathing for all things spiritual. The only salvation he was after came in the form of excellence, the only release in death. The two together were the only religion he needed.
The lone door led to a small vestry with a locked cupboard where the pastor stored the components for sharing the Eucharist.
He sat on the first row of pews, and looked at the cameraman’s phone, pondering exactly what he was going to say. As in all things, preparation was important.
He wouldn’t fluff his lines.
25
“Annja?”
“I need a favor.”
“Don’t you always?”
Garin wasn’t her first choice as a go-to guy, but there was a refreshing honesty about their relationship, and it was a while since he’d tried to kill either her or Roux, so perhaps there’d been a thaw in the immortality relationship stakes. Despite that, and despite the fact he could be a pain at times, she liked him and, perhaps surprisingly, given their history, trusted him.
He was certainly her best hope for getting at the files inside Lars Mortensen’s laptop. As she’d told Una, if he couldn’t do it, he almost certainly had people who could. That was Garin Braden. He surrounded himself with people who could. It didn’t matter what it was, only that they had areas of expertise he could exploit down the line, preferably for monetary gain.
“Where are you?”
“I could ask the same.” He sounded like he was at a loud party. “I’m in Sweden,” she replied.
“Ah, yes, the Beowulf thing, correct?”
“That’s it, ‘the Beowulf thing.’ What’s all the noise?”
“That, my dear, is the collective sigh of thousands of people losing an awful lot of money and enjoying it. I’m at the races. Longchamps. If you weren’t up to your knees in mud, I would have asked you over to join me.”
“I’m sure you’ve got half a dozen beautiful women hanging on your every word.”
“I do, but they are not you, Annja Creed. You should know that by now. I’d give them all up for an afternoon with you.” He oozed false charm like oil. Annja couldn’t help but smile. Some women obviously fell for it; after all, he’d had a lot of years to perfect his seduction skills. Couple them with his muscular sportsman’s physique and long dark hair and that dangerous charisma of Garin’s and it was no surprise women flocked to him. And no surprise he reveled in their beauty and flesh at every hedonistic opportunity.
“So this favor? What do you need?”
“I’ve got a laptop that I have to access, but it’s password protected.”
“Shouldn’t be too much of a challenge, but next time try picking a password you can remember.”
“It’s not my laptop.”
“Oh, well, things just got a little bit more interesting, didn’t they? You know, Annja, you really shouldn’t go prying into other people’s things.”
“He’s dead,” she said, refusing to let Garin get under her skin. “His mother wants me to see if I can get into it for her.”
“Hmm, so it’s all completely altruistic, then? I’m sure that I know someone more than capable of cracking it. I mean, I’ve got my own private army, after all,” he joked. “I’ll send someone over right away. Where are you staying?”
She read out the address from a sheet of hotel letterhead on the desk.
“Leave it with me.”
He hung up with the briefest of goodbyes. Annja was still cradling the handset to her ear.
She didn’t know what she’d expected—some techno miracle that would allow him to hack into the laptop from France, opening it up for Annja at the touch of a button, perhaps? How foolish.
Annja passed the time waiting for him to return her call by reading the notes she’d made about the Beowulf segment.
Micke had been right; it looked very thin, and would continue to look very thin unless the dig was reopened. And even then they’d need to find something. Otherwise, it was just another show about chasing shadows. Doug wouldn’t like that. He wanted glamor. He wanted success. He wanted discoveries that would draw in advertising dollars. He didn’t want Annja filling the silence.
Two words written in red ink stood out: Interview Thorssen?
Not that he’d ever agree.
And even if he did, he’d want way too much control over what went into the final cut. People like Thorssen were often more trouble than they were worth.
But then, in a week his star could be falling if the election didn’t go his way.
What then?
Maybe he’d be grateful of a few minutes of airtime to spread his hate?
Perhaps she could sell it to him with the promis
e of letting him put forth the background, linking Beowulf as a hero to his own ideology.
Maybe he’d buy it.
Maybe he wouldn’t.
There was no way of knowing without asking.
Tomorrow.
After an hour of adding thoughts to the notes, she tried Johan’s number again. It went straight to voice mail, which was more disconcerting this time, as he should have been back in Gothenburg hours ago. Maybe he’d retreated straight to his room after the long journey and turned off the ringer so it didn’t disturb him. She didn’t know him well enough as to whether that was typical behavior for him, or if it was out of the ordinary. Surely he’d see the missed calls on his display and think to check in, though.
Annja was on the verge of going to try his door, even if she risked waking him, when her phone vibrated with an incoming text.
It was from Johan.
Can’t talk now. Meet me at the Church of Saint Peter’s of the Lake in an hour. This is important. I’ve got what we need to nail Thorssen.
She tried calling him, but it went straight to voice mail. Evidence? What had he found in Stockholm? The smoking gun? She didn’t bother leaving yet another message.
The rack of tourist information leaflets had a small map of the area with sites of interest clearly marked.
It was hardly surprising that Skalunda dominated the brochures with various guided tours. The standing stones around the barrow appeared in all of the leaflets. Annja scanned through the literature for churches, figuring it had to be a significant one for Johan to not bother with any landmarks in the vicinity. The most obvious one turned out to be the cathedral in central Gothenburg. There was no mention of any Church of Saint Peter’s of the Lake in anything she could find.
She picked up the hotel phone and dialed through to reception. “Good evening, Miss Creed.” She recognized the woman’s voice on the other end. “How can I be of help?”
“Actually, I’m trying to find a church—Saint Peter’s of the Lake. Have you got any idea where it is?”
“Certainly,” the receptionist said. “It’s an old fisherman’s chapel about an hour north of here, out near the lake. There’s nothing of any real interest out there, though. The cathedral here has a lot more history on offer.”
“It’s really Saint Peter’s I need to find,” she explained. “I need some footage for the program I’m making.”
“Ah, well, it’s easy enough to find once you get onto the lake road, but I’ll print off a map for you. You can pick it from reception whenever you need it.”
Annja thanked her and hung up. Why would Johan go out there? It didn’t make sense, unless someone had tipped him off. She started to speculate about what he could possibly have unearthed up in Stockholm, and wished he’d just used the phone before he went dark to fill her in.
But, oh, no, boys will be boys. They have to be all mysterious and have their fun.
Garin still hadn’t called back, but she was going to have to leave now to make it out to the old church on time, so cracking the riddle of the laptop’s password would just have to wait until she’d heard what Johan had to say for himself.
26
As promised, the map was waiting for her as she entered the reception area.
Annja left it as late as she could before heading out, hoping that Garin would ping her with a plan for how to tackle the laptop. Best case, reasonably, was to think it would be the morning before anything happened with it. Which gave her the evening to entertain herself—and the main feature seemed to be a trip out to a little lakeside church in the middle of nowhere. She almost called Micke to ask if Johan was usually this cagey about stuff when they worked together, but didn’t. Micke trusted him, Johan had delivered for her every step of the way, so why doubt him if he said he’d found Thorssen’s secret?
She was already out of the door and in the rental car before she thought to ask the receptionist if she’d seen him, but that wasn’t the only thing that was bothering her. Call it gut instinct, call it whatever you wanted, Annja had a nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right here even if she couldn’t put her finger on it. But at least she wasn’t walking into the lion’s den unarmed. She never did these days, not since Roux had first come into her life on that mountaintop in Lozère. Joan’s sword was never more than a thought away.
As promised, the map was easy to follow once she understood how to get out of the one-way system and onto the main road to the lake. After that it was a simple matter of keeping a lookout for the white spire of the Lutheran church. The traffic was steady, but the worst of the rush hour had long since moved on home. She couldn’t help but marvel at the juxtaposition of modern and old Germanic architecture the city had to offer, with the ugliest glass carbuncles squeezed in right beside some wondrous piece of Hanseatic relic.
There was a glorious array of colors on offer, too, with the facades plastered oranges, reds, yellows and umbers, while the windows were surrounded by white plaster and wrought iron, transforming the old buildings into rows of strangely Gothic faces watching her leave town.
A couple of times car horns blared behind her as she slowed a little too much to get a sense of which lane she needed to be in to follow the traffic out of the city; some drivers were the same the world over. Annja ignored them, letting them work themselves up into a lather before roaring out around her to pass at the first opportunity.
Annja looked for the mile marker that would indicate where she needed to turn toward the water, not really sure what she was looking for. The map said mile marker, not signpost, so it probably wouldn’t be a big metal arrow pointing the way.
As it was, the mile marker was actually a faded rune stone with an elaborate Ouroboros and the name of the village she was looking for, so she swung a left onto a much narrower winding road. Within fifty yards she realized there was no street lighting along this stretch of road. The hedgerows grew high on either side, but occasionally broke to offer glimpses of the countryside beyond. She’d been following the narrow road more than fifteen minutes without passing another car when she finally spotted the white building set back behind thick trees. Even knowing it was there she almost missed the track that would take her there.
Annja pulled off the road, scanning the area before she drove any closer. There wasn’t another manmade structure for hundreds of yards, and the few that were even that close were down by the lake clustered along the waterfront rather than set back on the hill where the church stood sentinel. Through the trees on the lake side of the road Annja could see the glimmer of the failing sun trapped in the ripples, but that was the closest she came to seeing any signs of life.
Again, the same questions surfaced in her mind: Why would Johan want to meet out in the middle of nowhere like this? What part could Saint Peter’s of the Lake play in Karl Thorssen’s story?
She put the car into gear and drove down the narrow track toward the church until it opened out into an open patch of ground in front of the building. There was a wooden bell tower outside the church, which she’d seen at a few churches in Europe before. Beyond the bell tower she could just make out the plain white crosses marking generations of the dead.
It was a simple structure, built for the local fishing community. It had a parish of perhaps two hundred people. More than anything it offered a tranquil resting place for those who had lived beside the water.
The door of the church stood open.
There was no other indication that anyone was inside.
Annja continued driving slowly off the track onto a patch of ground that served as a makeshift parking lot and pulled up the hand brake. The engine idled as she stared at the open door for a moment. Finally, she turned the key and the car fell silent.
The temptation was to sound the horn to see if Johan emerged, but it felt somehow wrong to shatter the silence. If he wasn’t here, or if something was wrong, not sounding the horn wouldn’t change things. She waited instead, assuming that the sound of her arrival would hav
e carried inside the old church.
He didn’t emerge.
That was the second warning sign, the first being the remote location.
The sound of birdsong surprised Annja when she stepped out of the car. Even only fifteen minutes from the freeway, she felt utterly isolated. Despite the scattered holiday houses along the road in, it felt as though civilization proper had been left behind.
Maybe Johan had picked the spot for some atmosphere footage. It was a good location with the backdrop of shimmering water and the white crosses on the hillside. Even the bell tower had a nice feel to it that could fit with the segment.
But none of that had to do with Karl Thorssen.
Was this little church linked to the murders somehow?
Was that it?
There was only one way to find out.
Annja took a deep breath and made the short walk to the church door.
She stood inside the tiny porch with its row of coat hooks and a metal umbrella stand showing signs of rust at the bottom where water had been left to eat into its base. There were no coats hanging on the hooks. The umbrella stand was bone dry. No one had used it for a while. A red fire extinguisher stood beside it, ready to extinguish the flames if one too many candles were lit.
Annja crossed the threshold.
Light diffused by grime came into the body of the church through tall arched windows. No amount of cleaning could have scrubbed the crust from the stained glass. It left the interior in a weird half gloom.
There was no sign of Johan.
There was no sign of anyone at all.
And no sign that anyone had been in the old church in a very long time.
It smelled odd—old, stale, but of something else, too.
“Johan?” She called his name, though the word came out as barely more than a whisper.
There was no response, but she thought she heard a rustle of movement. The building was small, offering no place to hide. She checked each pew as she went up the aisle. Nothing. No sign of the cameraman. She was almost at the front of the church before she spotted the door in the far corner behind the pulpit.