SATURDAY–SUNDAY
How wrong I was. To my surprise, I fell asleep at once. And with sleep the nightmares came back. Worse than ever. This time I was being hunted like an animal through the pouring rain in an abandoned part of town. With every step I grew wearier and more scared. I knew I couldn’t get away. I knew I was going to be shot.
I screamed when the shot was fired. That isn’t what happened when I shot someone in real life. The bullet silenced him and he didn’t make a sound. But in the dream I screamed. Loudly, desperately. Once again I was dragged through a grimy industrial wasteland. Once again I was buried alive. And once again I woke up in a cold sweat with a scream catching in my throat.
I’m never going to be whole again, I thought, as I kicked off the covers and went into the bathroom. Not as long as I fucking live.
The past kept me awake at night, and the present during the day. When the alarm-clock rang a few hours later I was lying wide awake, staring at the ceiling. My actions came automatically. I got in the shower. Turned the water on. Washed and dried myself. Found my shaving gear in the washbag. Brushed my teeth. Got dressed, left the room and paid at reception when I checked out.
‘Has everything been okay?’
‘Absolutely. I’d be happy to come back again.’
I would never come back. It wasn’t the sort of hotel I usually stayed in, and it certainly wasn’t in a location I passed particularly often. But I could hardly blame the guy in reception for that, so I kept my thoughts to myself. Instead I did what I guessed all his other guests did: paid and went on my way. Got in the car and drove off.
It was eighty kilometres to Sjællands Odde. I don’t remember what I thought on the way there. Perhaps I reflected upon the fact that the first part of the journey passed quickly on a wide motorway, but that the later stretch, on narrow roads, took much longer. Perhaps I thought about the sun, which was only intermittently visible, and when it did appear the grass became much greener, the sea much bluer, the road greyer. Or perhaps I didn’t think about anything at all. I had ended up in an intellectual dead-end. A Gordian knot of the mind. I gave up trying to disentangle any further thoughts and theories. Didrik could take over and do the groundwork, voluntarily or under duress. I wasn’t going to give up until he told me what he knew. What he was up to.
And not until I had found Mio, who had been taken from his preschool by Rakel, a former friend of his mother’s. How the hell had she dodged being dragged into the investigations into both Mio’s disappearance and Sara’s escape? Everyone else seemed to have been included.
There was a brisk wind blowing as I made the brief crossing from Sjællands Odde to Ebeltoft. The catamaran swayed back and forth. People queued for coffee and sandwiches, but I just sat in my seat looking out at the sea. Belle would have loved it. She loves any sort of boat, and is at her happiest at sea. Her grandfather used to say he’d never met a child with such a lack of fear for water. My heart ached at the thought of Belle’s grandfather. He had been the only member of my brother-in-law’s family that I liked. I would keep his memory alive for Belle. Tell her what he did with his life, and what made him such a good person.
We docked and I drove off the boat. Didrik’s house was on the coast, a few kilometres from the centre of Ebeltoft. It didn’t take more than five minutes to drive there from the harbour. Although I don’t really remember much about what I was thinking as I approached his house, I’m very sure of how I felt.
My whole body was shaking and my hands were slippery with sweat. I stopped the car a few houses away. On one side of the road a large, beautiful meadow spread out. On the other was a row of houses. Didrik’s was the last one.
Was he there? Was anyone there? I had met Rebecca in Stockholm earlier that week, after all. Perhaps the house was empty. Perhaps the whole family was in Stockholm.
My heart was pounding so hard it was hitting my ribs. It was a deeply unpleasant feeling and for a moment I thought I was going to have a full-blown heart attack. It felt like a bad strategic move to have no one but Didrik to rely on if that was indeed the case. I fumbled with clumsy fingers through my stock of mobile phones to find one I could call Lucy on.
I’m dying, baby. Look after Belle.
That made me pull myself together. I beat my hands against the steering-wheel, angry and upset at my own weakness. Like hell was I going to die sitting in a car in the middle of the Danish countryside. Like hell was I going to die before I’d found out what Didrik was hiding. Perhaps I’d been completely misinformed. Perhaps Didrik was nowhere near as significant a figure as I imagined. But he must have something to say. Because otherwise I had no one left to turn to. Rakel had vanished, and the rest were dead.
It was those words, those thoughts that finally made me open the car door and get out. I wasn’t having a heart attack. My pulse rate sank, the palms of my hands dried out. With a firm gesture I closed the car door and pressed the button on the key to lock it. I like to think that my back and neck were upright as I walked towards Didrik’s house. And I know I thought I was ready for whatever I was going to see or find out. I even thought there was no way I was going to be surprised.
Stupid. Very stupid.
The house was a traditional red wooden building. It had white detailing and a hipped roof. The walls of the ground floor were full of large windows. That was how I first caught sight of them from the road. I could see them right through the house. They were sitting at the back eating breakfast. The sun was shining and the wind was nowhere near as blustery as it had been out at sea. Didrik and Rebecca were seated opposite each other, each peeling an egg. Next to them, and opposite one another, sat two people I didn’t recognise. They seemed to be roughly the same age as me. Visiting friends? Or neighbours?
It was such an idyllic day. I couldn’t see anyone else about. That both pleased and troubled me. Seclusion was good. But sadly not only for me, but also for Didrik.
The moment had arrived. It couldn’t be put off any longer. And, like the fighter I had become, armed with nothing stronger than my own intellect, I marched straight into Didrik’s garden. There was no hesitation in my stride. I just walked, like a machine. As I walked round the house, Rebecca was in the middle of saying something that seemed to amuse the others at the table. She had her back to me, and therefore didn’t see me approach. But Didrik did. The expression on his face changed so abruptly that I had to force myself to carry on walking, as if nothing had happened. First, a look that clearly showed he was so shocked to see me that he didn’t actually recognise me. Then astonishment and surprise. And finally fury. But I just kept walking.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Sorry to intrude on a Saturday morning like this.’
Rebecca got to her feet almost unbelievably fast. I smiled at her apologetically, then took my time looking around me.
‘Lovely place you’ve got here.’
It was a huge garden, at least one hundred metres long. It stretched all the way to the sea.
The other couple at the table were staring at me in silence, unsure how to interpret their hosts’ reaction. I helped them.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I should have introduced myself. My name’s Martin Benner, I’m an old acquaintance of Didrik and Rebecca.’
I shook hands with the woman first, then the man. They both smiled warmly. They spoke unusually intelligible Danish, presumably tailored to an audience of Swedes. They said it was nice to meet me. I reciprocated. Then Didrik tried to interrupt my charade.
‘Martin, what can we do for you?’
‘Quite a lot,’ I said.
I raised my eyebrows pointedly.
‘Perhaps we should go inside?’ Didrik said.
‘Don’t bother on my account,’ I said.
We were interrupted by children’s voices. They were both talking Danish, but one had a Swedish accent. One was a boy, the other a girl. They came racing out of the bushes beneath a large apple tree some distance away. The girl was running first, dressed up as an Indian. The boy, the same colour as me, raced after her. Sebbe. He didn’t look like there was anything wrong with him. I felt a wave of relief. Didrik didn’t beat his child. And the boy didn’t look ill, either. Everything seemed fine.
‘It’s fantastic,’ the Danish woman said with a broad smile. ‘He looks so well!’
I looked at Didrik and Rebecca with concern.
‘Has he been unwell?’ I said. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, I didn’t know.’
‘Martin, let’s go inside now.’
It was only for the neighbours’ sake that he didn’t raise his voice. I didn’t move a muscle. I just stared at the running children, racing through the park-like garden like rockets. The boy’s steps were quick and lithe.
‘I’m going to get you now!’ he cried to the girl.
But he didn’t. In fact he missed her by several metres.
‘Ha!’ the girl said, and turned round.
She was running back towards the water now. Sebbe set off after her. No one runs faster than a man who’s been humiliated.
And no one takes greater risks than someone who hasn’t got much to lose. I saw his feet pound the grass, his blue shirt blowing in the wind. And I just knew.
‘Mio!’ I shouted. ‘Mio!’
He stopped abruptly. So suddenly that he fell down. Slowly he turned round and looked at me. His eyes were big and wide-open.
‘Daddy?’ he said.