Alphabet House

by Adler-Olsen, Jussi

  But now it didn’t suit him any more.

  He registered something familiar the moment he stepped into the hall. But before he managed to make out what it was, he felt a deep stab in his side. As he was tumbling into the room, he sensed the same familiar thing again. It was intense now.

  Suddenly the pistol was kicked out of his hand and the light switched on.

  The only thing Bryan could see above him was Lankau’s silhouette. The ceiling light surrounded him like an aura. Bryan was blinded and rolled instinctively to one side, into something hard and irregular. In one movement he snatched and flung the object up at the silhouette’s head with all the strength he could muster.

  The result was enormous. The figure toppled over with a roar.

  Bryan sat up with difficulty and tried to pull himself over against the wall as fast as he could. The contours and arrangement of the room came to him in a flash. Lankau lay on the floor in front of him, staring at him maliciously. He was still holding the knife, but wasn’t ready to jump at him yet. It was easy to see why. A short, deep gash over the bridge of his nose had exposed bluish-white cartilage.

  Bryan felt a jab of pain in his side and looked down. He’d been stabbed underneath the third rib. If he had made it an inch further into the room, the thrust would have perforated his lung. Two inches, and he would have been dead. Then and there.

  The blood was only trickling out of him slowly, but his left arm was locked in position.

  Just as he discovered this, Lankau started crawling towards him. Bryan groped around and found another piece of wood similar to the one he’d just hurled at him. As Lankau leaned forward, slashing at him, Bryan whacked his arm and both the wood and the knife flew out of sight.

  ‘You swine!’ Lankau roared, forcing his heavy body up on one knee. Both of them were breathing heavily as they glowered at each other. There were only a couple of yards between them.

  ‘You won’t find it!’ he snarled, as Bryan started scanning the floor. Bryan’s eyes moved fast. Neither the knife nor the Kenju could have landed very far off. Then he stiffened when his eyes spotted the lighter he’d given his wife only two months previously. A variety of Laureen’s small possessions littered the floor. Turning his head, he caught sight of the feet of a bound figure and got the shock of his life. At that moment he knew what he had sensed upon entering the room, something pervasive and insistent that should have warned him. The enticing whiff of the perfume Laureen had used every day for nearly ten years.

  Perfume he had bought for her himself.

  The gasp he was about to utter upon seeing his wife bound and gagged, her face white and eyes blank, never got a chance to pass his lips.

  In that unguarded moment Lankau threw himself forward with such colossal force that the wound in Bryan’s side started bleeding more profusely.

  With his nose damaged, Lankau’s mouth was open all the time, spewing nauseating breath and sticky saliva. He was concentrating solely on his attack, his entire physiognomy inflamed with the lust to inflict pain. Bryan’s hands sought feverishly for a way of warding him off and mounting a counterattack. He had to duck punches, intercept slashes and parry kicks from Lankau’s feet and jolts from his knees.

  Centrifugal force flung the interlocked bodies across the contents of Laureen’s bag – packs of cigarettes and tampons, eyeliner, make-up compacts, notebooks, and other indeterminate bits and pieces. The men banged into furniture, tore the curtains down over them and overturned black wooden carvings from Kenya. A quiver of Zulu arrows broke like matchsticks.

  Just as Bryan managed to wriggle one arm free so he could grab out after Lankau’s crotch, the big man rolled onto his side and pushed Bryan away.

  They sat a couple of feet apart, each weighing his options as they recovered their breath. An old man who knew what there was to know about killing and a middle-aged doctor who knew luck was not eternal. Lankau was looking for anything that might serve as a weapon. Bryan was looking solely for the Kenju.

  Lankau was the first to succeed. Bryan never saw it coming. The hallway sideboard hit him hard on the collarbone, knocking the wind out of him. Instantly the big man flew at him as if he’d grown wings.

  Punching him in the stomach with one arm, Lankau slid the other around Bryan’s neck and seized the neck hairs that Laureen had so often tried to make him trim. The grip of the arm, huge as a pillar, nearly broke his neck. Then Lankau got up and flung Bryan with inhuman force against the wall with all the antlers. One of the trophies was at chest height. The small, sharp points shred Bryan’s jacket as if it had been mouldering for centuries.

  Laureen’s scream made Bryan turn his head for a second. The next thing he felt was the collision with Lankau’s total weight. One of the antler’s points broke off on Bryan’s backbone with a snap, making Lankau roar with delight and intensify his attack.

  It may have been pain that made Bryan stretch both arms into the air, or intuition. In any case his hands brushed against the bony armour of another of Lankau’s trophies.

  Warm blood was already streaming down his back. With all the weight and strength he could muster, he wrenched the antler off the wall and swept it downward in a single movement, with such force that its points bore deep into Lankau’s thick, muscular neck. The broad-faced man instantly jumped backwards in astonishment, the deer’s skull sticking up above his head like some kind of deformity.

  The effect was clear. The man tottered another couple of steps with a swaying movement characteristic of someone about to lose consciousness. But as he teetered backwards towards Laureen, Bryan realised Lankau had yet another ace up his sleeve.

  Before he could react, the heavy man had moved behind Laureen and was standing semi-upright, leaning against the back of her chair. His right arm already lay poised across her neck, his hand gripping her chin. It wasn’t hard to figure out what could happen next. A single jerk of that arm and it would be the end of her.

  Lankau said nothing. Breathing heavily and staring Bryan straight in the face, his left hand groped for the antler that dangled from his fleshy neck. Bryan detached himself from the wall at the same moment as Lankau yanked his left hand upward. Their roars of pain were indistinguishable.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ Lankau screamed, as Bryan took a step forward. ‘One wrong move and I’ll break her neck!’

  ‘I don’t doubt it!’ Bryan knew it was no empty threat.

  ‘Bring the twine from over there. You know where it is!’

  ‘I’ll bleed to death if I don’t bandage my back first!’

  Lankau’s bad eye opened a trifle as he raised his eyebrows. There was no mercy to be had from that quarter. Both of them stood still, sizing each other up.

  The expression in Laureen’s eyes was heartrending. The grip on her neck made the tendons stand out in taut lines. Breaking her neck would not mean the end of the fight. They both realised this, so Bryan could afford to defy him and slowly remove his pullover. The knife stab in his side was pumping blood slowly and steadily over his thigh. He felt carefully across his back. The wounds caused by the antler tips were jagged, the gouges deep. He stripped all the clothes off his upper body.

  The bandaging job was extremely provisional. Lankau smiled as Bryan tore his shirt into strips and attempted to patch himself up with almost acrobatic dexterity. Finally Bryan slipped the pullover back over his head and fetched the twine.

  ‘I’m afraid all that bandaging won’t do you much good,’ laughed Lankau, putting his hand to his neck.

  Bryan ignored him. ‘And now I’ll bet you want me to tie myself up.’

  ‘Start with your feet, you bastard!’

  Bryan bent down with difficulty. ‘You realise you won’t get away with this, don’t you?’

  ‘Who’s to prevent me?’

  ‘People know I’m out here!’

  Lankau looked at him indulgently. ‘Oh, do they, really? And I suppose there’s a whole cavalry regiment stationed out there on the edge of Münstertal?’ He laughed
again loudly. ‘Maybe there’s already someone behind me, ready to shoot. Is that going to be your next practical joke?’

  ‘I told the clerk at the hotel where I’d be this evening.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ Lankau sneered. ‘Then thanks for the information, Herr von der Leyen. We’ll have to find a reasonable explanation for your disappearance, won’t we? That shouldn’t be too hard, should it?’

  ‘My name’s not von der Leyen. Can’t you get that into your thick skull?’

  ‘Tie up your feet and quit talking!’

  ‘You know she’s my wife, don’t you?’

  ‘I know many things! Oh, yes. That she’s deaf, for example. Also that she can’t say anything unless she’s gagged. Then she manages to talk quite well. And I know her name’s Laura, but in reality it’s Laureen, and that she comes from Freiburg, yet prefers living in Canterbury. You happen to live in Canterbury, too, I would imagine.’

  ‘I’ve lived there all my life except for the few months during the war when you know very well where I was!’

  ‘And so you two turtledoves thought you should come over here on a little tourist jaunt? How cosy!’ His sarcastic smile vanished and he drew a deep breath. ‘Have you finished yet? Have you tied it tightly?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Then get up, take the rest of the twine and hop over here to the table. Let me see if it’s tight enough. Put your hands behind your back while you hop!’

  Lankau’s tug at the rope confirmed that one part of the job was accomplished. His rapid breathing betrayed his excitement. ‘Lean over the table, you got that?’ Bryan laid his chin on the tabletop. The quick jerk to his right arm almost broke it.

  ‘Stay like that,’ Lankau warned. ‘If you make the slightest move, I’ll break your arm!’

  Whereupon he wound the twine around Bryan’s right wrist and continued around his thumb, then through Bryan’s belt. Bryan howled as his hand was fastened to his back.

  ‘You’re quite a couple, you two,’ Lankau continued, turning Bryan over so the edge of the table stuck into the punctures in his back. Bryan bore the pain without flinching. ‘Why, you’re almost like Peter and Andrea. There’s a pair of charmers for you! Friendly and kind and ever so sweet!’ He laughed. ‘You know them, I suppose?’

  ‘Stich is dead,’ Bryan said tonelessly, as his left arm was tied to his belt in the same manner, only this time in front of his stomach.

  Lankau froze. He looked as if he were contemplating hitting him. ‘So, here we go again, you swine. Always full of surprises!’

  ‘He’s dead. I found him and a woman in a flat on Luisenstrasse about an hour ago. They were still warm.’ Bryan shut his eyes tight as Lankau raised his fist. The blow was calculated and brutal. Then the broad-faced man lugged him over in front of the woman and let him fall at her feet.

  ‘Let me see the two of you.’ He clutched his neck, rubbed it a bit and then removed the gag from Laureen’s mouth. The woman began sobbing before he managed to apply the scarf to the wound in his neck.

  ‘Bryan, forgive me!’ she said, with great difficulty. She had tears in her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!’

  ‘Isn’t that what I said?’ Lankau’s burst of laughter made him cough. ‘For a deaf and dumb German woman, she speaks pretty good English.’ He sat down at the back of the room, breathing heavily as he listened to Laureen’s loving, despairing voice.

  Bryan tilted his head and tried to caress her knee with his cheek. Attempting to control herself, she whispered pleas for forgiveness without listening to his reassurances. By now Lankau was breathing almost soundlessly in the corner. The calm before the storm, thought Bryan, and nodded up at Laureen. He had no illusions. This was the act where the culprits bid each other farewell. Judging from Laureen’s mildness and sudden irrational quietness, he was sure she knew it, too. Now they were going to die. The past twenty-four hours hadn’t been kind to their executioner, either.

  It had to end soon.

  ‘Time’s up, friends!’ he finally said, clapping his hands as he got up.

  Bryan turned towards him. His eyes were as moist as his wife’s, who hardly dared look up. ‘You can still manage to avoid making a bad mistake,’ he said. ‘My wife and I don’t wish you any harm. I just want to find Gerhart Peuckert. He was my friend. He was an Englishman, just as we are. My wife followed after me to Freiburg. I knew nothing about it, I assure you. She hasn’t done anyone any harm. If you let us go we’ll help you.’

  ‘You can’t quit, huh?’ Lankau shook his head and bared his nicotine-stained teeth. ‘You? Help me? With what, may I ask? You know what you are now? You’re pathetic!’

  ‘When they find Stich, they’ll find a number of things that link him to you. You’ll be interrogated. They’ll go through all Stich’s belongings. Who knows what they may find? Maybe you and your family need to move somewhere else. Somewhere far away from here. Very far away. And perhaps we can help you with that.’ Bryan saw a momentary element of doubt creep into Lankau’s nasty smile. ‘Can you be sure Stich hasn’t left anything that could incriminate you?’ he added.

  ‘Shut up!’ Lankau roared, jumping out of his chair. His kick made Bryan’s body turn a half-somersault.

  Laureen’s gaze was rigid as Bryan rolled towards her. She gasped for breath, wide-eyed but hardly looking at him, trying to control her breathing. Bryan knew immediately that this wasn’t caused solely by fear. Had that been the case, she wouldn’t be restraining herself.

  She would be screaming and crying.

  Bryan tried to read her lips. Barely moving, they were whispering inaudible words. He couldn’t make out what they were. Then she bit her lip, a sign of despair. She rolled her eyes upward as if in resignation, then let them drop a couple of times in quick succession.

  Bryan sensed her desperation as Lankau made a move to approach them. ‘I’m sorry, Laureen,’ he burst out, noticing Lankau had stopped. ‘I should have been more open with you. I should have told you everything. About the hospital in Freiburg and about James…’ The shake of her head made him stop short. She didn’t want to hear it. She knocked her knees together and Bryan followed the movement. Then it stopped and Bryan’s eyes reached the floor.

  Behind her bound feet lay the Kenju. Just three feet away.

  She must have just noticed it.

  Lankau was standing behind him. Bryan turned around and looked up at him with haughty defiance. ‘You’ll come to the same end as Stich, you fat pig. And a good thing too, when you won’t listen to reason!’ The gob of spit he aimed at Lankau never made it past his chin, but there was no mistaking the intent. Lankau returned the greeting with still another kick, so that Bryan rolled against Laureen’s legs.

  Just as he’d expected.

  As he lay gasping for breath, he drew the gun imperceptibly forward with the right arm that was tied behind his back. He could use only his index and middle finger. Then Bryan heaved himself a bit upright, and with the help of Laureen’s nudging toes managed to edge the weapon behind him and over towards his left side where his arm was tied in front. A moist, sweaty feeling was spreading down his arms. Lankau had begun breathing heavily again.

  ‘Do you think I’m a fool, von der Leyen?’ he said, touching the root of his nose where the wound had already stopped bleeding. ‘I don’t believe a damn bit of the nonsense you’re trying to make me swallow. Of course it’s possible that this stick of English bamboo is your wife, and it’s possible that you call yourself Underwood Scott these days. After all, there are plenty of us who changed identities after the war. But von der Leyen you were, and von der Leyen you remain. The question is what I’m going to do with you. I can’t just let you disappear. Or can I? I’m no spring chicken any more. I don’t take the kind of chances I used to. We must do the right thing.’

  ‘We? Don’t expect any help from us!’ Bryan leaned further to the side, gasping once more as his face contorted with pain. Finally, drained of strength and submissive, he lay down on the floor on his lef
t side. Precisely so the gun was just under his elbow.

  The expression on Lankau’s face was inscrutable, dark and calculating. ‘What if there really is someone who knows you’re here tonight? You’re probably just lying again, as usual. But what if there isn’t? What then? Am I going to break your neck or drown you in the pool? And what about that skinny spectre there? Shall I take her out to the wine press to join little Petra? Does your hotel porter know she’s here too? I doubt it!’

  Bryan tried to get some life back into his numb left hand. Once he got hold of the pistol, he’d only get one chance. And he mustn’t let it pass.

  ‘Where is Petra?’ came Laureen’s surprising question. She seemed composed now and was looking straight at Lankau for the first time.

  ‘How about that, little lady? I thought you’d never ask. Kind of strange, considering the two of you were such good friends. Ever since childhood, right?’

  ‘I’ve never set eyes on her before today. Where is she?’

  ‘Do you know what? I think all that concern should be rewarded. You shall be reunited, so to speak. In a kind of unique and figurative sense to be sure, but better than nothing.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Bryan coughed so hard that his whole body shook. As he worked his fingers for all he was worth.

  ‘There’s a main electricity switch right out there in the pantry. I’ve turned it off. Perhaps you noticed the light in the yard wasn’t on when you returned?’

  Bryan looked at him. ‘And …?’

  ‘And that switch is the main switch for the bungalow, the garage and the wine press that’s standing in the middle of that wing.’

  ‘The wine press? What do you mean?’

  ‘Come on, you know. Those things you drop bunches of grapes into. The grapes circle around and around so nicely until they’re mashed. Quite a practical appliance, I must say.’

  ‘You bastard!’ Laureen blurted out. She lunged forward in the chair as though trying to attack Lankau. Her eyes were glowing with fury. ‘You don’t mean to say that Petra…?’ Then her body went totally limp and she began to sob.