A Conspiracy of Faith

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  Carl gestured toward the glove compartment, and Assad took out the torch.

  Then he killed the lights.

  They continued on in the beam from the torch. It was just enough to show them where they were going.

  They became aware of marshland down to the fjord. Cattle, too, at rest in the grass. And then a little substation on their left-hand side. They heard its faint hum as they passed.

  “Was that what they heard, do you think?” Assad wondered.

  Carl shook his head. No, it was too faint. Gone already.

  “There, Carl.” Assad pointed to a dark outline. A second later, they saw it was a windbreak extending from the track down to the water’s edge. Vibegården lay just beyond.

  They pulled in to the side, got out, and stood for a moment, taking stock.

  “What are you thinking, Carl?” Assad asked.

  “I’m thinking about what we’re going to find. And about that service pistol I left in the locker back at HQ.”

  Beyond the windbreak was a paddock, and behind that another cluster of trees extending down to the fjord. Not a big property, by any means. But the location could hardly have been better. Here were the makings of a happy life. Or the perfectly concealed crime.

  “Look!” Assad pointed. Carl saw what it was immediately. The shape of a small structure close to the shore. An outbuilding of some sort.

  “And there,” Assad exclaimed, gesturing toward the trees.

  A dim light.

  They pressed through the branches of the windbreak and found themselves looking at a redbrick cottage. Timeworn and rather neglected. Light was coming from two windows facing the track.

  “He is inside the house, don’t you think?” Assad whispered.

  Carl said nothing. How should he know?

  “The track leads up to the house on the other side, I think. Maybe we should see if there is a Mercedes there?” Assad whispered again.

  Carl shook his head. “There is. Believe me.”

  And then they heard the sound. A deep-toned drone coming from the bottom of the garden. Like a motorboat returning home across a calm lake. A gentle, resonant hum in the near distance.

  Carl’s eyes narrowed as he listened. They had been right all along. There was a sound. “It’s coming from the outbuilding over there. Can you see it, Assad?”

  Assad grunted an affirmative.

  “The boathouse must be down in that thicket beyond. Wouldn’t you say, Carl? That would be the fjord there,” Assad surmised.

  “Maybe. I’m just worried he might be in there. And about what he might be doing,” Carl replied.

  The quiet of the cottage and the disconcerting drone from the outbuilding sent a shiver down his spine.

  “We’ll have to go down there, Assad.”

  His assistant nodded and handed Carl the torch, now switched off. “Take this for a weapon, Carl. I trust more in my hands.”

  They squeezed through bushes that tore at Carl’s injured arm. If his shirt and jacket hadn’t been damp and the drizzle so refreshingly cool, the pain might have brought him to a standstill.

  As they neared the outbuilding, the humming sound became more audible. Monotonous, deep, and insistent. Like a well-oiled engine ticking over.

  A sliver of light escaped from under the door. Something was going on in there.

  Carl pointed to the entrance and tightened his grip on the heavy torch. If Assad flung open the door, he would rush in ready to deliver a blow. They could take it from there.

  They stood staring at each other for a moment before Carl gave the sign. Assad gripped the door handle. In a split second it was open, and Carl hurled himself inside.

  He scanned the room and lowered the torch. The place was empty. Empty, apart from a stool, a few odd tools left lying on a workbench, a large oil tank, some hoses, and the generator humming on the concrete floor, a throwback to an age when things were built to last forever.

  “What is that smell, Carl?” Assad whispered.

  Carl recognized the pungent odor instantly. It had been a while since he had last come across it, back in the days when the trend was for antique pine furniture, which had to be stripped down. The acrid, clammy stench that pinched the nostrils. The smell of caustic soda, the smell of lye.

  He turned to the oil tank. Horrifying images flashed through his mind. He pulled the stool over, stepping onto it with trepidation before lifting the lid from the tank. He raised the torch, and it occurred to him that he was now one flick of a switch away from the shock of his life. Then he turned on the beam and shone the light into the depths.

  But he saw nothing. Only water and a long heating element loosely fixed to the inside wall.

  He had no difficulty imagining what the setup might be for.

  He turned off the beam, stepped down, and looked at Assad.

  “I’m guessing now, but I think the children might still be in the boathouse,” he said. “They might even be alive.”

  They left the outbuilding again with extreme caution and stood for a moment in silence as their eyes adjusted once more to the dark. In just three months, it would be as light as day at this time of the evening. But right now, all they could see were indistinct outlines in the space between them and the fjord. Could there really be a boathouse down there, in that low vegetation?

  He signaled to Assad to follow on behind. They crept forward, squashing fat slugs beneath their feet. Assad clearly didn’t care for it.

  Then they reached the thicket. Carl bent forward and pulled aside a branch. And there, right in front of his eyes, was a door, perhaps half a meter aboveground. He reached out and touched the thick planks in which the door was mounted. They were smooth and damp.

  There was a smell of tar. It must have been used to seal the cracks. The same tar Poul Holt had used to seal the bottle containing his last message.

  Water sloshed gently in front of their feet. So they had been right: the structure was built out into the fjord, almost certainly on stilts. This was the boathouse they had been looking for.

  They had found it.

  Carl turned the handle, but the door wouldn’t open. He felt around in the dark and found a bolt fixed with a split pin. He lifted the pin cautiously and allowed it to drop on its chain. If the door was bolted from the outside, then the bastard obviously couldn’t be in there.

  He pulled the door open slowly and heard the faint, faint sound of someone catching their breath.

  A stench of stagnant water, rotting weed, urine, and excrement greeted his nostrils.

  “Is anyone here?” he whispered.

  A moment passed, and then came a muffled groan.

  He switched on the torch. The sight that met him was gut-wrenching.

  Two figures huddled two meters apart in their own filth. Wet clothes, greasy hair. Two bundles of life that had given up all hope.

  The boy stared at him with wide, frightened eyes. He was sitting hunched under the roof, his hands tied behind his back, and chained. His mouth was covered by heavy-duty tape that pulsed perceptibly as he breathed. Everything about him was like a scream for help. Carl turned the beam and saw the girl hanging limply in her chains, head flopped to one side as though she were sleeping. But she was awake. Her eyes were open and reacted to the bright light with a series of bewildered blinks. She hadn’t the strength to lift her head.

  “We’re here to help you,” Carl said, pulling himself up onto the floor and crawling inside on all fours. “Just stay quiet. You’re going to be all right now.”

  He found his mobile and dialed a number. A moment later, he had the Frederikssund police on the line.

  He explained himself and asked for immediate assistance before snapping the phone shut.

  The boy’s shoulders dropped. The phone call made him relax.

  Assad crawled in and removed the tape from the girl’s mouth, then loosened the strap by which her hands were bound. Carl began to help the boy. He was cooperative, though he remained silent even when his gag w
as removed, shifting his weight so that Carl could reach the buckle of the strap behind his back.

  They pulled the children away from the wall and tugged at the chains around their waists, finding them linked to another that was bolted firmly to the thick wooden planks of the wall behind them.

  “He put the extra chains around us yesterday and locked them together. Before that, there was only the chain in the wall going through the strap. He’s got the keys,” the boy explained hoarsely.

  Carl looked at Assad.

  “There was a crowbar in the outbuilding. Can you go and get it, Assad?”

  “Crowbar?”

  “For Chrissake! A crowbar, yes!”

  Carl could see from Assad’s expression that he knew perfectly well what a crowbar was. He just didn’t fancy wading through all those slugs again.

  “You take the torch. I’ll fetch it myself.”

  Carl squeezed back out through the door. They should have taken that crowbar to begin with. It was a useful weapon, too.

  He squelched his way cautiously through the slippery mush of slugs alive and dead and noticed a dim light in one of the windows of the house facing out to the fjord. It hadn’t been there before.

  He stood quite still for a moment and listened.

  Nothing.

  He carried on toward the outbuilding and warily opened the door.

  The crowbar was right in front of him on the workbench, underneath a hammer and a monkey wrench. He lifted the hammer and shoved the monkey wrench aside, only to jump in fright as it tipped over the edge and fell to the floor with a clatter.

  He froze, listening.

  Then he picked up the crowbar and crept away.

  The faces he saw on his return looked relieved. As though every movement he and Assad had made since opening the door of the boathouse had been a miracle in itself. No wonder.

  They carefully broke the chains away from the wall.

  The boy immediately crawled into the middle. The girl stayed put, groaning.

  “What’s the matter with her?” Carl asked. “Maybe she needs some water?”

  “Water, yes. She’s in a bad way. We’ve been here a long time.”

  “You take the girl, Assad,” Carl whispered. “Keep tight hold of the chains so they don’t make a noise. I’ll help Samuel.”

  He felt the boy stiffen and turn his head toward him, staring as though Carl all of a sudden had lifted the lid on a demon inside his soul.

  “You know my name,” he said warily.

  “I’m a policeman. I know a lot about you and your family, Samuel.”

  The boy withdrew slightly. “How come? Have you spoken to our parents?”

  Carl took a deep breath. “No. No, I haven’t.”

  Samuel drew back his arms and clenched his fists. “There’s something wrong,” he said. “You’re not a policeman at all.”

  “Yes, I am, Samuel. Would you like to see my badge?”

  “How did you know where we were? How could you possibly know?”

  “We’ve been trying to find your kidnapper for quite some time now, Samuel. Come on, we need to hurry,” Carl insisted, as Assad drew the girl through the door opening.

  “If you’re with the police, then why do we need to hurry?” A look of horror appeared on his face. Clearly, he was beside himself. Was he in shock?

  “We had to break your chains loose from the wall, Samuel. Isn’t that proof enough? We haven’t got a key.”

  “Is it to do with our parents? Haven’t they paid up? Has something happened to them?” He began to shake his head frantically. “Where are our parents?” he demanded, raising his voice.

  “Shhh,” said Carl, urgently now.

  There was a thud outside. Assad stumbling on the slippery path? “You OK, Assad?” Carl whispered. No reply. He turned to Samuel again. “Come on, Samuel. We have to get out of here.”

  The boy stared at him distrustfully. “You weren’t talking to anyone on the phone just before, were you? You’re taking us outside to kill us, aren’t you? Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

  Carl shook his head. “Listen, Samuel. I’m going to go outside now. Once I’m out, you can look through the door and see that everything’s all right.” And then he crawled out backward into the fresh night air.

  There was a sudden sound. A sharp, heavy blow against his neck.

  Everything went black.

  51

  Maybe it was a noise outside or pain from his wounds. Whatever it was, he woke up with a start and glanced around the room in bewilderment.

  Then he remembered what had happened and looked at the time. Almost an hour and a half had passed since he’d lain down.

  Drowsy, he pulled himself upright on the sofa and turned onto his side to see if he had been bleeding.

  He nodded to himself, satisfied with his work. The wounds seemed to be dry and healing. Not bad for a first attempt.

  He got up and stretched his limbs. There were cartons of juice and canned food in the kitchen. A glass of pomegranate juice and a piece of crispbread with tuna would give him sustenance after losing all that blood. A quick bite, and after that he would go down to the boathouse.

  He switched on the light in the kitchen and peered outside into the darkness for a moment before drawing down the blind. No need to advertise his presence if anyone should be out there. Safety first.

  Then suddenly he paused and frowned. What was that? A noise of some kind. He stood motionless for a moment. All quiet now.

  A startled pheasant, perhaps? But what would startle a pheasant in the dark?

  He pulled back the blind and stared intently in the direction he thought the sound had come from, standing stock-still.

  And then he saw it. A shape in the dark. A figure moving.

  Whoever it was, was at the outbuilding, and then gone.

  He darted back from the window.

  Now his heart was beating faster than he cared for.

  He pulled open the drawer in front of him and picked out a fileting knife. With the right positioning, the intruder would never survive the thrust of such a long, thin blade.

  Then he put on his trousers and crept outside into the night in his bare feet.

  He heard the sounds from the boathouse clearly now. As though someone was pulling the place apart inside. Grating against the timber.

  He stood for a second and listened. Now he knew what it was. They were at the chains. Someone was jimmying the bolts that fixed the chains to the wall.

  But who?

  If it was the police, then he would be up against weapons better than his own. But he knew the terrain. He knew how to turn the darkness to his advantage.

  He slipped past the outbuilding and saw right away that more light was escaping from the door than was supposed to.

  The door was ajar now, but he knew he had closed it behind him after he had been down to check the temperature in the tank. He was certain.

  Maybe they were more than one. Maybe someone was in there now.

  He drew back against the wall and considered what to do. He knew this place like the back of his hand. If anyone was inside, he could knife them before they realized what was going on. One lunge at the soft spot beneath the breastbone. He could take out more than a couple like that in only seconds, and he would not hesitate to do so. It was either them or him.

  He entered swiftly with the knife extended in front of him and scanned the empty room.

  Someone had been there. The stool was in the wrong place, and his tools had been messed with. The monkey wrench was on the floor. That was the noise he had heard.

  He picked up the hammer from the workbench. It felt better in his hands than the knife. More familiar.

  He moved stealthily down the path toward the water, the slugs slimy between his toes. Bastard things. He would exterminate them as soon as he got the time.

  He leaned forward, craning his neck to see, and made out a faint light in the crack of the boathouse door. He heard hushed voices fr
om inside. He listened hard, but he was unable to make out who they belonged to or what they were saying. But what difference did it make?

  Whoever was inside had only one way out. All he had to do was steal forward and bolt the door, and they would be locked in, with no way to escape before he fetched the jerrican from the car and set the place alight.

  The blaze would be seen from a long way off, but what option did he have?

  He would set fire to the boathouse, gather together his documents and money, and head for the border as quickly as possible. It was the only way. A man who couldn’t adjust his plans deserved to perish.

  He tucked the fileting knife into his belt and moved cautiously toward the door. But at that very moment, it opened and a pair of legs came into view.

  He darted aside. Now he would have to deal with the problem more directly.

  He watched the figure as its feet made contact with the ground, the rest of the body still stretched into the boathouse.

  “Where are our parents?” he heard the boy say loudly all of a sudden, his question answered immediately by urgent hushing.

  And then he saw the dark-skinned policeman draw the girl out through the door and into his arms, stepping backward toward him in the process. The same little Arab from the bowling center. The one who’d rugby tackled Pope. What was he doing here?

  How had they found him?

  He turned the hammer in the air and brought the flat side down hard against the nape of the man’s neck. He fell without a sound, the girl on top of him. She looked up with empty eyes, long since reconciled to her fate, and then closed them. One forceful blow away from death. But it would have to wait. She was no threat to him now anyway.

  He looked up, preparing himself for the second policeman to come out.

  Legs appeared in the door opening again. He heard the man assuring the boy that everything would be all right.

  And then he struck.

  The policeman slid to the ground.

  He let go of the hammer and stared at the two unconscious men, listening for a moment to the wind rushing in the trees, the rain against the paving stones on the path. The boy was alerted now, his movements inside the boathouse audibly agitated. But otherwise there was no sound.