1 a.m. had come and gone as Pettersen pulled the police car to the side of the road outside Blodstein Gjestehus. It was late. Ryker was tired. His now bandaged hand throbbed away, hurt like hell, despite the painkillers he’d been given. Still, the night could have ended far worse – either outside in that alley where he’d been so outnumbered, or in the police station, where he may well have spent more than a few hours in a cell. If it weren’t for Pettersen.
Luckily, Wold wasn’t working the night, otherwise Ryker was sure he wouldn’t have been granted such an early release, nor a release without charge.
Pettersen had worked quickly to gather the video evidence that Ryker had insisted on. She’d even shown him some of the clips in an interview room when she’d been trying to understand the sequence of events, and exactly who was and wasn’t involved in the altercation. The were no clips of the main fracas, in the alley, but at least enough to back up Ryker’s story.
The fact she hadn’t charged Ryker with any crime suggested she did, ultimately, believe him.
What irked, at least a little, was that she seemingly had no intention of hauling in any of the locals for questioning. As though the whole thing, once Ryker’s side of the story was confirmed, was an awkward spat where each party was as bad as the other.
Ryker could have insisted on further action against the gang, but what would be the point? The most important thing from his position was that he wasn’t cooped up in a cell. He hated cells.
‘I really don’t know why you came here,’ Pettersen said, looking over at Ryker. The engine remained rumbling away. Other than the police car, the street outside was deserted. ‘But don’t you think it would be better for everyone if you left now?’
‘You sound just like the others,’ Ryker said, holding her gaze. He saw the flash of insult in her eyes.
She looked away.
‘That doesn’t really answer the point,’ she said.
‘The more times I hear that question, the less I want to give an answer.’
‘That’s just silly.’
He guessed she had a point.
She broke out in a smile and seemed to relax a little. ‘You want to hear a joke?’ she said.
Ryker was a bit bemused by the proposition, by the turn in mood, but… ‘Yeah, go on, then.’
‘A police officer is on patrol when he comes across a woman, standing in the road at a busy junction. He approaches her and shouts from the footpath to ask if she’s okay. She replies, “Yes, but how do I get to the hospital from here?” The officer says, “Just keep standing there a little longer.”’
Ryker shook his head and smiled. But he also quickly realized perhaps her joke had been well chosen.
‘You’re saying I’m the woman in the road?’ he asked. ‘I stay here long enough and I’ll get hurt?’
Pettersen shrugged. ‘Am I?’
‘I’m here because of the boy. Henrik. I don’t know why, but I don’t trust that he’s okay.’
Ryker caught her eye. She looked uncomfortable now.
‘Do you know who I’m talking about?’ Ryker asked.
‘I’ve only ever known two Henriks around here. One is the manager in there.’ She indicated the hotel. ‘The other was a boy who lived here. But he hasn’t been around for years.’
‘Hasn’t been around? That’s a strange way of saying it.’
‘What I mean is… he was… an orphan, I guess. He moved away years ago, to a new family.’
‘You think that’s the same Henrik I saw today?’
‘I really don’t know. I don’t understand why he’d be back. But I also don’t understand why it’d be a problem if he is.’
‘Did you ask Wold about him?’
She didn’t answer that. Ryker wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t push it.
‘How did you even hear about what happened tonight?’ he asked instead. ‘You showed up just at the right time. Not for the first time today the police have been on hand, right on cue.’
Once again she didn’t answer. It was natural for a police officer to keep elements of their work close, but was that the only reason for her silence?
‘You believed me tonight,’ Ryker said. ‘I think your colleagues wouldn’t have listened to a word I said. They would have assumed the outsider was in the wrong and locked me up.’
‘I do my job. I do it properly.’
‘I sense that. That’s what I like about you.’
She caught his eye again, her face a little softer from the flattery. She shut the engine down and a strange silence followed for a few seconds.
‘I get why people don’t like me,’ Ryker said. ‘I’m not from here. I turn up, asking hard questions—’
‘Sticking your nose in—’
‘Only where I see something I don’t like. I’m not trying to invade people’s privacy. But I know something isn’t right here.’
‘You would make a terrible policeman. We use evidence. We don’t just move around, invading lives until we find dirt.’
That was a fair point. And she was right, he would make a terrible policeman. On the other hand, he’d made a very good agent for the Joint Intelligence Agency – the JIA, a secretive organization previously run by the UK and US governments, until it had imploded in part due to his actions. He’d made a very good agent for the JIA for the very reason that he willingly flouted traditional rules, laws, and regulations in order to get answers. In his time he’d worked with many of the more official government agencies and organizations, too, the police included, but had always hated it. Hated the constraints they were placed under, as necessary as he knew they were in the grander scheme of law and order.
‘What you should be asking yourself,’ Ryker said, ‘is how, in the space of one day, did I nearly get myself killed here, in this town. That’s not normal. That tells you I’ve hit too close to home on something.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Sometimes your words don’t make full sense to me.’
‘But I think you know exactly what I’m talking about.’
She sighed and looked out the front again. ‘Do you know the best thing about living in a small place like this?’
Ryker shrugged.
‘We have so little crime. Honestly. The numbers are amazing. Violent crime in the area we cover is a tenth of that in the cities. Why?’
Ryker smirked. She looked offended by his response.
‘It’s not because the police are useless,’ she said, clearly agitated by his reaction. ‘It’s because we really do know one another. We know almost everything about each other’s lives. How can you commit crime when you know people so well? When you know that everything you do will be known by everyone else? Of course, we do still get some bad things, but it’s much less than other places.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Ryker said. ‘Most of the time, at least. But, and I’m just saying maybe, and this is no reflection on you… But perhaps there’s something bigger happening here, something worse than you’ve seen before.’
She sighed.
‘My father was in the police too,’ she said.
She left the statement hanging. Ryker waited for her to carry on.
‘When I was much younger, just a child, there was a murder. It was a really big thing. There hadn’t been a murder here for years. A housewife was strangled. Her body dumped in the water. The tides brought her to shore, otherwise we may never have found her.’
She paused from the story, looking out of her window again. Ryker sensed a certain pain in her body language. From the story, or something else, he wasn’t sure.
‘My father, he was so… determined. He was a good inspector, but… he never gave up on anything. Had to know everything.’
She flicked an accusatory look to Ryker now.
‘Very much like you,’ she said.
Ryker said nothing to that.
‘He dug, and he dug. Caused problems for lots of people trying to get answers. What happened? The murderer was the woman’s husband. Of course, he’d always been one of the suspects, partners are always most likely. The problem was… he’d killed her because she found out he was abusing their girls. But as my father closed in, the man chose the worst possible way out. One night, he killed those girls as they slept. Then he killed himself. Four deaths.’
She went quiet. She looked disturbed. Ryker worked the story over in his head.
‘You’re saying your father blamed himself for the girls’ deaths?’
‘Maybe not my father, like I said, he was very much like you. But lots of other people blamed him.’
‘What else could he have done? If he hadn’t investigated the first murder, the husband would have remained free. Would have continued to abuse his daughters and who knows what else?’
‘I know that,’ she said, the anger in her tone clear.
‘Then what are you saying?’
‘That there are different ways to get to the truth. Maximum destruction isn’t always necessary.’
Fair point. Though Ryker didn’t let on.
‘What happened to your father?’
‘He’s dead.’
Her words carried a certain finality, and Ryker chose not to delve deeper. Instead…
‘Those two Russians—’
‘What Russians?’ Pettersen interrupted, exasperation in her tone now.
‘The two men.’
‘You told me they weren’t Russian.’
‘They’re probably from a border country. Possibly Ukraine. I don’t know for sure.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘We didn’t even see their faces on the cameras.’
‘Not on the cameras, no. But I saw their faces.’
Bulldog and Silver Fox had been especially covert. Heads down, hats and hoods covering their heads when they approached the bar. Inside, even with their faces revealed, they’d held their heads at angles, away from the cameras, so that nothing more than passing glimpses from the sides had been captured of their features. Not a coincidence, but absolutely deliberate action on their part. They were clever, well well-rehearsed. Careful. Dangerous.
Pettersen didn’t buy any of that. She’d claimed back at the station that it was pure luck – or lack of it – that they had no clear images of them.
‘I told you already—’
‘You would know if there were two foreign troublemakers in town,’ Ryker said.
She looked even more riled up that he’d tried to finish the sentence for her.
‘That’s not what I was going to say. I was going to say, I would know if there were two foreign troublemakers who our locals are in a gang with. The men you were fighting with tonight? There’s nothing special about them. They’re not gangsters. Yes, they’re rough, but they’re just normal men. There’s no mafia boss here.’
‘I’m not saying there is.’
‘Then what are you saying?’
‘That maybe you don’t know everything about these people, even if you think you do.’
‘You can get out now.’
He held her eye for a moment longer. Something in her look… He liked her. He didn’t want to anger her, even if he could tell he had. But was that down to his attitude with her, or because he was opening her eyes to uncomfortable truths?
‘Goodnight, Inspector Pettersen.’
He put his hand to the door.
‘You paid for only one night here,’ she said.
He paused. He wasn’t sure if her words were a statement or a question.
‘Yeah,’ he said.
‘Don’t pay for another. Please.’
He said nothing.
‘See you in the morning,’ she added.
He didn’t question what she meant by that.
He got out of the car, stretching as he did so, then closed the door. The engine remained off. He moved to the hotel. Locked up. Of course. He could hardly have expected the manager or receptionist or whatever he was to have stayed up waiting…
Clunk.
Well, apparently…
Locks released, the door was opened and two bleary eyes peered at Ryker from behind a pair of glasses.
‘Finally,’ the receptionist – the other Henrik? – said. ‘What a night.’
Ryker couldn’t have agreed more.
He moved inside. Glanced over his shoulder and caught Pettersen’s eye before the front door was closed and locked up.
Ryker apologized, more than once, then headed to his room. He didn’t turn the light on. He moved to the window, curtains open, and peered down below.
Pettersen remained. Would she really be there all night?
Ryker checked his watch. The face was badly scratched from the earlier scuffle. A shame. He liked this timepiece.
Regardless, he’d had enough adventure for one day. He’d restart tomorrow, whether or not Pettersen was still there. He set the alarm on his phone for 7 a.m., then got ready for some much-needed sleep.