But she did none of these things. Exhaustion overwhelmed her, so complete that she could no longer move. Then she began to feel nauseous and despite being bathed in sweat, shivered as if she were chilled. That damned cocaine had just made things worse; she had clearly been overdoing it recently.
Agla felt herself rise out of her body, up to the living-room ceiling, from where she looked down on herself, sitting in a singlet and ripped tights, with mascara smudged down both cheeks and her hair like a badly made haystack. It seemed so unreal, so unlikely that this wretched vision of a person could be her, that for a moment she felt she had travelled back in time, was once again a hopeful young woman, and was looking at her future self, asking in fear and astonishment just what had gone so badly wrong.
As Agla returned to herself, the pain in her heart took over. She was petrified: the reality was that it was all over – she was on her way to prison, convicted of market manipulation, and Sonja had fled the country. There was every chance she would never see her again. She had lost the only thing that had made her life bearable since the financial crisis. Although she had known from the moment of that very first kiss that this sweet, burning passion of theirs was something temporary, the fact that it was over was more painful than she could ever have imagined. The tears streamed down her cheeks and her heart seemed ready either to burst out of her chest once more, or to break inside her.
4
This time the beach seemed unbelievably long, and the sand was soft beneath her feet, so that she sank into it with every step. The effort to move was painful when she wasn’t making the progress she wanted. It was almost like her recurring nightmare, in which she ran and ran but stayed in the same spot.
The beach was deserted, or at least this section of it, between the rocks, was empty, but in the car park on the other side there was a car – she could just see its roof over the dune. But while instinct told her that was where Tómas was, something else insisted that wasn’t the way she should be going. She pumped her feet against the soft sand and pushed forwards until she finally reached the steps up to the car park that overlooked the dune, her lungs now burning with exertion. She lost her footing in the sand, but instead of slowing down she used her hands as well and scrambled up the steps on all fours until she got to the top and rose again to her feet. She jogged, panting, to the car. As she approached, a door opened and a man stepped out.
‘Is my son here?’ she called, just as she saw Tómas sitting in the car.
She didn’t hesitate; she went straight for the man. Although she was petite and had no hope of overpowering such a heavily built guy, she had to try; every nerve in her body demanded it. She crashed into him with all her strength, shoulder first, and managed to knock him off balance for a moment. He teetered and stepped back to regain his balance, at the same moment holding Sonja fast in his grip. Then he turned her nimbly around without letting go of her wrists. As she was spun it felt like a dance. But this dance, in a car park in Florida, was deadly serious – lethal even – and she knew it had to be linked to her past in Iceland.
The man, who had a Mexican look about him, tied her hands behind her back with tape, placed a hand on her head, just like a policeman, and then pushed her into the car. Wanting to show some resistance, Sonja struggled, but she really wanted to be there in the car where Tómas was – she needed to be with him. She dropped into the seat next to her weeping boy. His arms were taped behind his back, just like hers, and a piece of tape had been put over his mouth, but Sonja could still see his lips moving to form the word Mum.
Mum, his lips said through the tape and the tears streamed down his cheeks.
Sonja leaned over to him, put her head by his and shushed quietly. ‘I’m with you, sweetheart. Mum’s with you.’
She wanted to take him in her arms, but this would have to do, her head next to his for a moment, before the man reached into the car and hauled her back. He tore a strip of tape from a roll and made to tape her mouth shut.
‘Please, don’t…’ was all she managed to say before the grey tape covered her mouth and all she could do was breathe through her nose.
5
The two men in the front of the car spoke to each other in Spanish, so Sonja couldn’t understand their conversation. They seemed calm, which was good, she supposed. They weren’t behaving as if they were crazy, but as if they were running an errand. The driver took a left turn down the track and parked across the entrance to the trailer park, then the one in the passenger seat jumped out. Sonja stretched to see where he was going. He jogged straight towards her trailer, slipped through the door and closed it behind him. What was he doing? Was he looking for cash? Was there something else he was searching for? And how had he known which was their trailer? She shuddered at the thought that these two men must certainly have been watching her and Tómas for some time.
Sonja mumbled into the tape, trying to get across the message that she had something to say. Maybe the driver would pull the tape off to find out what it was. She could tell them about the cash in the microwave, in return for letting her and Tómas go. But the driver half turned in his seat and hissed at her to be silent. The panic grew in Tómas’s eyes and the tears began to flow down his cheeks again, so Sonja decided it was better to try and stay calm.
A moment later the other man loped out of the trailer and ran over to the car, stuffing something into his pocket. In his other hand was a white box with a blue lid: the money box. Maybe the microwave hadn’t been the ideal hiding place after all.
‘Vamonos,’ the man said the moment he was in the passenger seat, and the tyres squealed as the driver spun the car around and took off towards the freeway.
Sonja leaned to one side and laid her cheek on Tómas’s head. He was shaking with fear and she longed to wrap her arms around him and whisper comforting words in his ear, but the only thing she could do was be close to him so that he would get some comfort from her warmth, just as he had when he was a baby. Back then the place he wanted to sleep was on her belly, feeling her body heat and hearing her heartbeat.
Sonja did some breathing exercises. She filled her lungs with air, counted to four and exhaled. It relaxed her body and made it easier for her to take in enough oxygen through her nose alone. She would be of no use to Tómas if she were to have a panic attack and use up all her strength by thrashing about. She had to stay calm for his sake. All this was terrifying enough without him having to deal with her fear as well.
At the next junction they took the freeway, heading south. Sonja watched the signs as they passed them, trying to work out where they were heading. The whole thing was so unreal that if it hadn’t been for the pain in her constricted arms she would have thought it was a dream, that it was just another lousy nightmare.
The men in the front stayed silent as the car hurtled along the freeway, past the endless woodland that covered the landscape like a thick suit of clothes, making the view monotonous. Compared to this, Iceland seemed almost naked, with no trees to be seen, and all its secrets unprotected. The only things that changed here were the signs; Sonja read them carefully without taking her cheek from Tómas’s head. He seemed calmer now, if his breathing was anything to go by.
Then she saw the sign for Orlando International Airport and her heart lurched. If they were heading there, then they were being flown somewhere. Could someone be sending them back to Iceland? She watched anxiously as the airport signs became increasingly frequent, and when the car turned off the freeway at the last one, she sighed and felt a wave of disappointment mingled with relief.
All the worst things she had imagined throughout this bizarre journey left her: the insane serial killers, organ thieves and kidnappers all became less likely as the airport approached and reality came closer. Her old, miserable reality. When the car rolled into the airport car park and the door was wrenched open, all her suspicions were confirmed.
6
By the time Agla regained some normality, it was almost midnight and her face was sw
ollen with grief. It had been years since she had cried like that. In fact, she couldn’t remember how long ago it had been since she had last shed a tear. The strange combination of sorrow and the effects of the coke had stayed with her all afternoon, and she had alternated rambling through the apartment like a ghost with throwing herself onto the bed and howling into the pillow. Now, after a shower, she finally felt a little better and her thoughts were straightening themselves out. She applied some make-up, loosely brushed her hair, pulled on some trousers and a shirt, pushed her feet into some shoes, without bothering with socks, and put on her coat. The evening air outside was bitterly cold and the frost stung her skin, which was still tender from the shower. She wrapped her coat tightly around her. It was just as well the hotel was only a short walk away. A proper meal would cheer her up.
‘The kitchen’s closed,’ the young man at reception said coldly. Agla had interrupted his computer game – she could see it was now paused on the screen in front of him.
‘Don’t you do room service?’ she asked. ‘Can’t I order a meal from room service and eat it here?’
She waved a hand towards the sofa that occupied a corner of the lobby, but the young man shook his head.
‘Room service is for guests in their rooms,’ he said and grinned. ‘That’s why it’s called room service.’
‘Then I want a room,’ Agla said, taking her wallet from her coat pocket.
‘What?’
‘Get me a room,’ she repeated, fishing a credit card from her wallet and sliding it across the desk in front of the young man. ‘If that’s what it takes to get something to eat here.’
He took the card with a doubtful expression on his face. ‘You’re sure? You’re going to take a room just so you can order room service?’
‘That’s right,’ Agla confirmed. ‘And you might as well take my order as well, since you’re booking me in. I want the steak, medium rare, chips and a beer.’
She had hardly closed the room door behind her when the food arrived. She sat happily at the table, inhaling the scent as the waiter lifted the cover off the tray. The steak was overcooked, but she didn’t feel like complaining. She was too hungry for that. She cut it into pieces and dipped each one in the cocktail sauce that had come with the chips, which made up for it being overdone. She reached for the remote and switched on the TV, not so much because she wanted to watch anything in particular, but more to get something out of having paid for a room to get a fairly average dinner.
On the way back down in the lift she took a five-thousand-krónur note from her wallet and, once she was downstairs, she slapped it on the reception desk. ‘That was fine, thanks very much.’
The young man stood up behind his computer and watched as she walked out of the building. Agla was sure that there must be something sheepish about the expression on his face. It would have been easy enough for him to bend the rules, let her order room service and eat it in the corner of the lobby, but that would have taken him away from his computer game. He ought to be ashamed of himself, and she didn’t make a habit of letting men get in her way with their little rules.
Back home, she felt more her usual self. Taking a deep breath, she summoned up the energy she needed to check out how things stood. She sat at the kitchen table with her laptop and logged into the AGK-Cayman statement page. Her lawyer, Elvar, had told her that now that the investigation was complete the special prosecutor’s office would no longer be monitoring her phone and computer. With the long delays between the investigation, the court proceedings and when a sentence would eventually be handed down, she had in fact been free to work on her investments for a few weeks; she’d simply not had the energy to face the situation. Now it was time to take the Caymans money in hand. That crap never seemed to do anything but lose value, though. Letting it drop endlessly wasn’t really an option, although it wasn’t easy to see what other choice she had. Realistically, it was little short of a miracle these days if you let your money look after itself and didn’t lose any of it. But that was far from good enough for her. She would have to get busy and find a way to make more. But the whole process with the special prosecutor had given her self-confidence a beating. All the same, she couldn’t deny that things had turned out better than she could have expected. Of course she would be spending time in prison – Elvar’s guess was that she would get more than a year inside – and then, of course, there were the legal costs and all that stuff. But in truth the prosecutor’s office had hardly even scratched the surface. They were sure they had scored a goal, but had actually never managed to ask the right questions. If they had they would have seen the real state of affairs. And that was bad. She owed a lot of money and needed the investments to do much, much better.
Agla scowled as she scanned the statement. If AGK-Cayman looked bad, then there was every chance the other funds would be much the same. She had the feeling that this was like walking into a burned-out house. These were ruins, charred junk that hadn’t been moved for months, and she didn’t even have the spark of an idea as to how she could turn these funds around. This was going to be a battle. She was regretting looking at this now, so late in the evening; it would certainly keep her awake.
She closed the laptop, and as soon as she stood up she felt it. She had heard no sound; she had noticed no movement from the corner of her eye. Instead she sensed it as if the cells of her skin knew: she was not alone in the flat.
7
Adam opened the car door for Sonja as if she were a film star arriving at a premiere. But the smile playing across his face vanished when he saw that Tómas was tied up and that his mouth was taped over.
‘You didn’t have to tie up the boy!’ he snapped at the two Mexicans, who immediately started to explain that he had fought like a tiger and there had been no choice.
Adam began to pick at the tape over Tómas’s mouth, but the driver reached in front of him and pulled the tape off with a jerk. Tómas yelled at the sudden pain and Adam glared at the man, who laughed as if it was funny. Then he took out a pocket knife and crouched behind Tómas to cut the tape holding his wrists together. Tómas was still crying, but as soon as his hands were free he threw himself at his father and held on to him tightly.
The driver then cut the tape around Sonja’s arms and went to help her with the tape over her mouth. She swatted him away and picked at the tape herself; it seemed to have taken root. As she pulled at it, the thought occurred to her to take to her heels, run from this car park and search for someone who might help her and take her to the police, where she could have these men charged with kidnapping. But that was an idea that was best forgotten. Adam would be out of the country before long and when all was said and done, legally he still had custody of Tómas. She was the one who was in the wrong. She was the one who was the real kidnapper. As she struggled to remove the tape from her face, the Mexican who had been in the passenger seat took two little blue books from his pocket and handed them to Adam: he had taken their passports from the trailer. Her stash of money was just a bonus. Adam shook the two men’s hands as they left, and asked them to give Mr José his kindest regards. With that, Sonja understood. She had met Mr José in London a few months before – an encounter she would have preferred to forget. As far as Sonja could make out, Adam was working for Mr José, who had eyes and ears in the States, of course, just as he undoubtedly had his hooks in people all over the world.
As the Mexicans drove away, Adam sighed and smiled. ‘Sonja, Sonja, Sonja,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Who’s been acting the fool, then?’
He stroked Tómas’s head, and Tómas looked up at him in confusion. Reality seemed to be gradually catching up with him. Sonja could almost see his mind trying to understand the mess that the day’s turmoil had created.
‘You have a choice,’ Adam said. ‘The first option is that you come home to Iceland with me and Tómas, and we start again where we left off. The other is that you say goodbye to both of us here and now. For good.’
8
She found the switch, expecting the room to be filled with a sudden brightness, but instead it was bathed in a faint, almost yellow glow. The dimmer was turned right down. But this half-light was enough for her to see him by – Ingimar. He sat in the armchair facing the door, relaxed, his legs spread wide and his hands resting on the arms of the chair. Agla ran a whole series of choice epithets through her mind; she had to exercise massive self-control in order not to let them all come tumbling out. She would far rather be meeting some anonymous burglar or a violent criminal than Ingimar.
‘Good evening, Agla,’ he said without moving, and without taking his eyes off her. She sighed and dropped onto the sofa facing him. It had to happen. She should have known that once the special prosecutor’s investigation was over, there would be a knock at the door, a reminder of the debt; the big debt.
‘How did you get in?’ she said, shifting on the sofa and pulling out the cushion she had sat on. As she did so, she upset a beer bottle, which clattered over on the tabletop. It wasn’t the most dignified response, but that didn’t matter. What was essential was to look him in the eye and not flinch. She had to stop her gaze from flitting this way and that, not let him see the nervousness his appearance had triggered.
Trap Page 2