‘Welcome to Texas, sir.’
Barely three weeks had passed since the last time I was in Texas. Back then Lucy and I had thought it was extremely hot. Now it was unbearable. Lucy and I had joked that it felt like the tarmac was melting. Now it was no longer a joke but a fact. Not everywhere, but in places. I couldn’t bear the heat for more than a minute or two at a time. I rented a car as quickly as I could and drove towards downtown Houston. I picked a different hotel to last time. But apart from that I didn’t go to much effort to cover my tracks. I had neither the time nor the inclination.
I’m happy to admit that I was afraid. Mainly because I was breaking the most important part of my agreement with Lucifer: that under no circumstances would I try to find out more about him, or – still worse – try to find him. I was also worried that he would discover that I had fulfilled my task but hadn’t told him. That I had found Mio without actually reuniting him with his biological father. Who, admittedly, already knew where he was, but that didn’t seem to be the point. Just as I suspected that it didn’t matter that I had no telephone number for Lucifer. I was simply expected to solve things like that.
I was deeply uncomfortable about the fact that I was having to trust Didrik so much. Didrik had served up an almost unbelievable story. But on the other hand, everything – everything – that had happened in recent weeks could only be described as unbelievable. If someone had come up to me at that point and told me the world was flat, I’d have believed them. Without question.
My hotel welcomed me with open arms. They usually do, as long as you’re staying in a good enough room. I’d booked into one of their finest rooms on the second from top floor.
‘Hope you enjoy your stay,’ the receptionist said, handing over my key-card.
‘Thanks, I’m sure I will.’
It was certainly a fine room. Spacious and light. Good air-conditioning and the obligatory basket of fruit and wine on the coffee table.
The view was vast.
‘You can see all the way to Mariannelund,’ I heard myself mutter as I later stood alone by the window.
My suitcase lay open over in one corner. In my hand I was holding a glass of water. All around me was nothing but silence and emptiness. You are never so alone as when you’re alone in a hotel room. I was a soldier without allies. Without weapons. Without the answers to vital questions. But I had the name of a person who might be able to help me.
His name was Vincent Baker. And he was the brother of the man who was with me when we buried the guy I had shot and killed by accident more than twenty years ago.
I prayed to a higher power that he might have in his possession some of the pieces of the puzzle I so desperately needed.
41
MONDAY
If we’d been in Sweden it would have taken me a matter of seconds to find Vincent Baker. As long as his details hadn’t been declared confidential, which most people’s hadn’t. Things are different in the USA. There’s no magical population database that you can do whatever you like with. So finding someone who doesn’t want to be found is difficult.
I didn’t have time to try to orientate myself in American bureaucracy. I had simple questions, and I wanted simple answers.
Where did Vincent Baker live?
And when could I see him?
Obviously no official could answer this second question. But I could investigate that myself if only I could get hold of his address.
I took the quickest shortcut I could think of, playing for high stakes. It wasn’t especially speedy. All of Sunday was lost before I could get to work. On Monday I went to the police station where I knew he worked. Someone there would be able to help me. More or less voluntarily.
I saw her the moment I walked through the glass doors: the young woman who was sitting behind the reception desk. In front of the desk were several rows of chairs. They were all made of black painted metal and bolted to the floor. Clearly not a place where anyone would be tempted to spend a lot of time.
I caught the young woman’s eye, and for a short while I was back to my old self again. The flirtatious man who stands or falls on his charm. I sauntered over to the reception desk and leaned my elbows on it.
‘Vincent Baker,’ I said. ‘Is he available?’
I didn’t actually want to see Vincent Baker. Not just then, and certainly not at his place of work.
‘I’m sorry, all meetings have to be arranged in advance. What’s it concerning?’
She smiled broadly at me. The best of combinations: sensual but professional. Damn. I’d been hoping she’d only be one of those.
‘I’m afraid I can’t say.’
I adopted a serious expression and she automatically did the same.
‘It’s about his brother, who died a number of years ago now,’ I said, well aware of the risk that Vincent Baker would later hear exactly what I had said.
The young woman shook her head.
‘I’ve never heard of him,’ she said.
No, I thought. Because you can’t have been more than five years old when it happened.
‘I’m a lawyer,’ I said. ‘Some fresh information has emerged that I think he’d be interested in hearing. There’s no home address I could try to reach him at?’
I’d have been disappointed if I’d got it. It would have been a serious dereliction of duty, and she didn’t seem the sort to make that kind of mistake.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t help you there. If you’d like to leave a message for Superintendent Baker, obviously that would be fine, but I’m afraid I can’t give out his address or phone number.’
Damn. My ideas of ‘more or less voluntarily’ vanished. I was a paper tiger, there was no point pretending otherwise. I’d have to retreat and try a different way. This wasn’t the place where I was going to get hold of Vincent Baker’s home address.
I nodded and assumed a different facial expression. Now I looked understanding.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Obviously I understand the rules. You know, I reckon I’m going to have a think about what to do next. But do tell him I stopped by.’
The young woman seemed relieved, as if she’d been expecting me to argue with her.
‘What was your name?’ she said.
I hesitated. I had no evidence that Vincent Baker had any conflict with me, or that he even knew who I was.
Even so, I heard myself say: ‘You know, just say hi from Lucifer. He knows who I am.’
Lucifer. A name you can say to any cop in Texas and be sure that the person you’re talking to knows who you mean. The receptionist looked bemused when I said Lucifer’s name, but she didn’t remark upon it.
‘Okay,’ she said simply.
‘Okay,’ I said.
Then I thanked her for her help and left. It was just past eleven o’clock in the morning and I had the distinct feeling that I had just declared war on a complete stranger.
At that point there weren’t very many people in the world I could trust. Hardly any at all. If I’d been four years old, like Belle, I’d have yelled: ‘I’m so lonely!’ But I wasn’t four years old, and that was just as well. Standing on the pavement screaming really wasn’t an option. I had to keep moving: forward, onward. I couldn’t carry on without allies. So I had to identify someone I could trust. Someone I didn’t think would blow me out the minute he or she got the chance. In Houston there was pretty much no one in whom I had the slightest confidence at all.
With one exception: my former boss, Josh Taylor.
I’d trusted him the time I called to talk about what we called Pastor Parson’s funeral, and I would have to trust him again. Even though he’d said he didn’t want to hear from me any time soon.
I decided not to call him. I showed up at his place of work instead. A different police station, a different part of Houston. This time asking for him at reception worked fine.
‘I’m not sure he’s available,’ said the man I was talking to.
‘Tell him M
artin Benner would like to see him,’ I said. ‘I think he’ll have time.’
And sure enough, just minutes later he was standing in reception. He wasn’t happy.
‘Sorry to bother you,’ I said.
To my own surprise I felt myself shrink as I greeted him. Josh Taylor was twenty years older, but I seemed to have got younger. I was a boy, standing there shuffling my feet, aware that I’d done something really, really stupid.
‘Come with me,’ Taylor said.
He led me into a corridor behind the reception area. The walls were adorned with portraits of former police chiefs. The floor was covered by a worn carpet. The wallpaper was coming loose. Houston’s police force wasn’t exactly awash with resources.
Taylor opened the door to a small meeting room.
‘In you go,’ he said.
He looked round to see if anyone was watching us. As far as I could tell, no one was.
He had barely shut the door before he started.
‘What the hell are you thinking, showing up here and asking to see me? Have you lost your mind?’
Getting a serious telling-off happens so rarely when you’re grown-up that you don’t really know how to react.
‘I need your help,’ I said, embarrassed that I was stammering.
‘Yes, I figured that out when you phoned. But I have no memory of telling you to come and stir things up here. Or did I?’
Twenty years ago Josh Taylor had been one of the rising stars in the police firmament. One of his strengths had been his quick-fire rhetoric, his inexhaustible energy. He was the finest interviewer in the district, as well as being an excellent boss. He could have gone far. But he hadn’t. I could see that clearly enough.
‘What happened?’ I said.
He lost his thread.
‘When?’
‘With you,’ I said. ‘How did this happen?’
Americans are a proud people. They don’t tolerate anyone pissing on their successes or their failures. It wasn’t that Taylor had been downgraded, because he hadn’t been. No, what surprised me was that he hadn’t risen even further. Twenty years ago people said he had the potential to become a sheriff. Now those thoughts seemed very distant.
‘I changed,’ Taylor said in a gruff voice. ‘Didn’t you, Benner?’
I was so young back when we stood in the desert and buried a man I had shot. Of course I’d bloody changed. But not in the sense that I’d got weaker. Quite the reverse. With every swing of the shovel, my conviction that I needed to do something else with my life grew. That was my only hope of redemption.
‘I know Tony’s brother’s name is Vincent Baker. I know where he works, and yes, I have been there.’
‘You stupid bastard.’
‘I need his address,’ I said. ‘You weren’t willing to tell me his name so I found that out for myself. But I can’t get hold of his address. You’ll have to check your internal register.’
Josh Taylor’s eyes had become black as coal.
‘I don’t have to do anything,’ he said calmly. ‘You’re the one who owes me, Benner. Not the other way round.’
We stood in silence for a long while in that little meeting room.
‘I know you don’t owe me anything,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry if it sounded that way. It’s just that . . . There aren’t many people I can ask. You can’t begin to imagine what my life is like. What I’m facing.’
‘I think I probably can. You told me yourself over the phone. You’ve ended up in conflict with Lucifer. How you’ve managed a thing like that is way beyond me.’
I took a deep breath.
‘The conflict is about Pastor Parson’s funeral,’ I said. ‘And that concerns you too. So for God’s sake, help me.’
Taylor stared at me long and hard.
‘There’s no question that your conflict is related to the Pastor?’
‘I’m completely certain. I got final confirmation of that in Denmark the day before yesterday.’
‘In Denmark?’
There was no point holding back. I told Taylor what I’d found out from Didrik. For the first time since we met, I saw him grow uncertain.
‘You’re out on damn thin ice, Benner,’ he said.
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’
Taylor began to walk up and down in the little room. I hate it when people do that. Move around anxiously in small spaces, filling up all the room.
‘If you drag me down with you I’ll never forgive you. Do you understand? Never!’
He roared so loudly I was sure it could be heard outside.
‘Give me Vincent Baker’s address,’ I said in a subdued voice. ‘I understand that you weren’t willing to help me when I wasn’t certain if Pastor Parson’s funeral was relevant, but now everything’s changed. Help me. Please.’
The English word please is much better than the Swedish equivalent. More worthy. Sturdier.
Taylor stopped at last. He let out a deep sigh.
‘And then what happens?’ he said. ‘What are you going to do with Vincent Baker?’
I straightened up.
‘Find out if he can direct me towards Lucifer.’ I cleared my throat and went on: ‘Who knows, maybe he’s the big mafia boss himself?’
I felt ashamed at my choice of words, hardly knew where they’d come from. It sounded so heavy, such a long shot.
Taylor came so close that I could smell the tobacco on his breath.
‘Have you lost your mind completely? You think Vincent Baker, a totally fucking average police officer, could be Lucifer? Or even know where he is?’
I backed away, and Taylor followed me.
‘I . . . I don’t know. But I have to start somewhere.’
Taylor shook his head.
‘Okay, then what? What are you going to do if he does turn out to be Lucifer?’
I didn’t yet have an answer to that question, and Taylor should have known that. I had tried to imagine at least a hundred times what I’d do if I did manage to find Lucifer. I failed every time. All I knew for certain were two measly facts:
I would never have peace until my conflict with Lucifer was over.
And I wouldn’t be able to kill him.
As if he could read my mind, Taylor said: ‘Martin, you’re never going to be able to make him see sense. You do realise that, don’t you?’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know.’
But I didn’t, not at all. In my world the right way of talking can achieve almost anything.
‘So what are you going to do?’ Taylor said, folding his arms over his chest. ‘Another funeral conducted by Pastor Parson?’
I shook my head.
‘I could never do anything like that.’
Josh Taylor gazed at me with what looked almost like sympathy.
‘And if he isn’t Lucifer, and doesn’t know where he is either, which has to be the most likely outcome, what do you do then?’
I had to blink several times, because my eyes were stinging badly.
‘I don’t know,’ I whispered. ‘Go on looking, I suppose. Because he must be here somewhere.’
Taylor’s eyes softened. He looked more sad than anything.
‘Have you thought about what I said, about possible witnesses?’
‘There weren’t any,’ I said firmly. ‘Not a chance. This all fits together somehow.’
My shoulders slumped. Taylor backed away from me. He couldn’t bear to see me looking so wretched and, to be honest, neither could I.
‘I’ll get you the address,’ Taylor said. ‘Then you disappear from here and do me and yourself a great big fucking favour.’
‘What?’
Taylor’s eyes were hard as they met mine.
‘You don’t approach anyone you think might be Lucifer without having a plan.’
42
That was how I came to find myself sitting in the car driving to the home of a man I didn’t know. The promise my old boss had extracted from me, not to do anything I hadn’t thought th
rough, vanished in the exhaust fumes of the car. There was no time to think, I told myself. People talk about houses of cards collapsing. In my case that had already happened. At that moment I was lying beneath the pile of cards, waiting for the bulldozer to come and put an end to the misery by obliterating them.
Vincent Baker lived just twenty minutes’ drive from downtown. In Houston that counts as a central residential area. Nothing but smart, middle-class houses. No ramshackle plots, no extravagant cars. There were plenty of women with buggies. If they looked young, I assumed they were au pairs. If they looked older, housewives. The majority of the people I saw were white. Vincent Baker was black. At least I assumed he was, because his brother Tony had been. But that could be a miscalculation, of course. Like me and my sister. No one who ever saw us together believed we were brother and sister.
There was a pickup parked in the drive of Baker’s house. A man was standing on the back, moving things. His white shirt was shiny with sweat and sticking to his back. His black trousers can’t have helped. I pulled up and parked by the pavement. He didn’t seem to notice me, just went on with what he was doing. I swallowed several times, my heart pounding like a steam-hammer. Slowly I got out of the car and closed the door behind me.
The man on the pickup looked pretty carefree. I had almost reached the vehicle by the time he noticed me. He smiled in my direction.
‘Can I help you?’
He was wearing a red bowtie and a name-badge. Josh Taylor had said that Tony’s older brother owned a café. This must be him.
Could he be Lucifer?
I looked at his disarming manner and thought to myself, like hell he could. I needed to pull myself together and not start seeing things that simply weren’t there.
I smiled back, and just about managed to hide my nervousness.
‘I’m looking for Vincent Baker,’ I said.
The man on the pickup shaded his eyes with one hand.
‘Who should I say is here?’
‘Martin Benner.’ I had to stop and take a deep breath, because I was about to stake everything I had on one card. ‘I used to work with his brother, Tony.’
The smile on the man’s face faded. Slowly he brushed the dust from his bare lower-arms. His white shirt-sleeves were rolled up in such a way as to make it impossible to roll them down again. They’d be far too creased.
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