Ryker decided he’d had enough traveling for one day. As tempted as he was to ride back to Blodstein, by the time he got there he wouldn’t be able to do anything useful, except for slinking through the nighttime streets – for what? Instead, he decided to rest up and would look at his options with a fresh mind in the morning. In theory. Except he chose against going to a hotel in Trondheim – for one, he had virtually no cash left, until he could get to his reserves. He’d sleep in the stolen car. Not exactly luxury comfort, but he’d certainly seen far worse.
Before he got ready for some shut-eye, he did have one more stop to make. He found a used car lot, whose outdoor forecourt was bathed in darkness, and which had a large and even darker yard at its rear. A couple of security cameras here and there, but Ryker scaled the metal security fence with ease and sneaked to the back, to the far corner of the yard, where the least attractive of the available cars were left to rust. He unscrewed the license plates, jumped back over the wall, and swapped out the plates on the stolen car. Not a perfect ruse, but hopefully it would at least allow him to move more freely in the stolen car for a little longer.
With the new license plates secured, he drove back across the city and to the estate where he’d earlier left Henrik. He turned off the main road and onto the twisting street, eventually pulling to the side of the road a couple of buildings before he reached the one Henrik and his friends were smoking and drinking in. Lights were still on, though Ryker guessed it wasn’t really that late.
Why was he there? Simple. Where else?
He shut the engine off, pulled the hood of his coat up over his head, pulled the zipper as high as it would go, then pushed back into the seat and headrest and closed his eyes.
* * *
The knock on the window brought Ryker out of his half-sleep. Not a horrendous night, all in all, but he’d never fully settled, had always been just on the verge of deep sleep, his eyes naturally flitting open every now and then – subconsciously – to check everything was okay.
Except he hadn’t spotted this person approaching his car, so perhaps he hadn’t been as alert as he’d thought.
It was light outside. Eight-thirty. Later than he’d normally sleep. He shuffled up in the seat, blinked a couple of times to get his focus before he set eyes on the young woman at the window. He recognized her. The same woman who’d tried to stab him the night before. Who he’d smashed in the chest with his fist.
He pulled the window down.
‘Good morning,’ he said.
‘Why are you here?’
He looked beyond her where two friends – both female, both teenagers by the look of it – were standing a little further along the street, glaring back at Ryker. Neither of those two had been in the house last night, Ryker noted.
‘You know why,’ he said.
‘He doesn’t want you here. None of us do.’
‘I’m helping him.’
‘He doesn’t need your help.’
‘Is he inside still?’
She pulled back a little, looked at her friends. As if debating whether she would answer. Or whether she’d give a truthful answer, perhaps.
‘Yes, he’s in there,’ she said. ‘I told you, we’ll keep him safe.’
‘Do you even have any idea what’s happening to him?’
She scoffed. ‘Do you?’
Ryker didn’t answer. Perhaps he shouldn’t underestimate this bunch. Well, not their intentions, at least. It certainly appeared as though they had Henrik’s interests in mind, but physically, were they really up to it if Erling and the others descended here en masse?
‘I’m going for a walk,’ she said. ‘You won’t be here when I get back.’
She let the command hang. Ryker held her eye but still said nothing.
‘If you are, I’ll call the police.’ She unzipped her coat a little, pulled down the neck of her jumper to reveal the patch of swollen purple flesh that sank further below the fabric. ‘I’ll tell them you attacked me. Tried to rape me. My friends stopped you. I’ve got plenty of witnesses.’
She looked over to the glarers, then back to Ryker. The expression on her face could only be described as wicked.
Then she walked away.
Ryker shook his head. For more than two decades he’d traveled all over the world, had become embroiled in some of the most horrendous and violent plots, coups, terrorism, had been tortured, had come across the most cruel and vicious people imaginable. He’d survived all that, had come out on top, over and over.
For some reason, he felt as out of his depth dealing with these youngsters as he could recall at any of those points in the past. With the conniving on display, and the delicacy needed by him, this was an unfamiliar and very different challenge for sure.
He glanced back at the house, then started the engine and pulled away.
* * *
The sky was blue, the sun was out and provided plenty of warmth inside the car as Ryker drove north, though the temperature outside was a frigid minus four degrees Celsius. Thick snow remained on the peaks, with a patchwork of white within the piney forests around him. A beautiful sight, even if the roads had iced over in the night, and were treacherous as a result. The danger of the drive only added to the knot of apprehension in his stomach as he traveled back to Blodstein. He was riding into town in a stolen car. Riding back into a town where the previous day he’d had a run-in with a gang of men, from whom he’d reclaimed a kidnapped boy. A boy who was now languishing in a squalid apartment with people who were strangers to Ryker.
Today he needed sense. He needed to come away from Blodstein with real answers and a real plan of how to get to the end of this mess.
His starting point was Trine Hansen. The kindly neighbor who, according to Henrik, had taken him in when his foster parents of several years had died in a car accident.
She lived on a street of nondescript houses, more or less carbon copies of the home where Ryker had stolen the car the previous evening. In the middle of the working day, he wasn’t sure if he’d find Trine home or not. If not, he was quite tempted to take a look around inside anyway. He wasn’t going to get through this unless he stepped up his actions a notch or two.
He parked on the road outside. No cars on the small drive. No pedestrians or other vehicles moving up or down the street.
Ryker got out and moved toward the house. He headed to the front door and rang the bell. No answer. Was that what he’d wanted? He pushed his face closer to the small frosted panes of the front door. With poor natural light, he found it difficult to make out what lay beyond, but he certainly saw and heard no signs of anyone coming to the door. He knocked for good measure. Nothing.
‘Kan jeg hjelpe deg?’ came the voice from behind.
He turned to see the woman, shopping bags in hand, at the edge of the driveway. Her words rattled in his head. He assumed something like ‘Can I help you?’ Whatever it was, the question wasn’t delivered in a particularly friendly manner.
‘I’m looking for Trine Hansen.’
The flicker in her eyes suggested he’d found her. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name’s James Ryker. I wanted to talk to you about Henrik.’
A twitch on her face. She glanced along the street and then back to Ryker.
‘Let’s go inside. It’s freezing and my arms will fall off.’
He assumed she meant because of the shopping, rather than the cold, though perhaps her lack of English vocabulary made her meaning ambiguous.
‘After you,’ Ryker said, trying an easy-going smile. She looked at him like he was an idiot. Well, he’d tried at least.
* * *
Trine Hansen’s home was as modest on the inside as on the outside. Three small rooms downstairs, and Ryker presumed three small bedrooms upstairs. Trine was mid-thirties. No indication in the few photos about the kitchen, where she led him, that she had a partner or children.
‘You’re not at work?’ Ryker said as she unpacked one of the bags of shopping into the refrigerator.
‘Not today.’
‘What do you do?’
She straightened up and turned around and glared at him. The kettle clicked as it finished boiling.
‘Coffee?’ she asked.
‘Black. Please.’
She grabbed some fresh milk and moved over to the kettle.
‘When did you last see Henrik?’ Ryker asked.
She didn’t answer for a couple of seconds, busying herself with the mugs and a jar of instant coffee. Convenient delay?
‘Not for a while. He moved to Trondheim when he left me.’
‘Why did he leave?’
She turned around again, a more exasperated look now.
‘You have met Henrik, haven’t you?’
Ryker nodded.
‘If you really know him, you’ll know how difficult he is. I liked him, I felt for him when the Rosteds died. It was awful. He was so young, and had already had so much trouble.’
‘Trouble?’
‘Different families. I don’t even know what happened to his real mother and father. But the Rosteds treated him like their son. I’m sure he would have stayed with them until he was a man if they hadn’t died.’
‘They sound like good people.’
‘Better than almost everyone I’ve met. I don’t know how they did it. Henrik was hard work for them—’
‘In what way?’
She paused and stared at Ryker as though he should know the answer.
‘You were a boy once, I’m sure you can imagine. Perhaps you were like that too. Fighting. Smoking. Staying out. Not going to school. Breaking things. Stealing…’
It all sounded very familiar to Ryker, though he didn’t appreciate the knowing look Trine gave him as she reeled off the misdemeanors.
‘But, despite it all, and even though they, of course, did punish him in their own way, they were always so happy and relaxed. I think he needed that.’
‘And you took him in—’
‘I had to. He was lost without them. I did it for them as much as for Henrik.’
‘It didn’t last long though?’
She tutted. ‘I get the feeling you’re asking me questions you already know the answers to?’
‘Just making sure I understand.’
‘Understand what?’
She finished making the coffees and handed a steaming mug to Ryker.
‘Do you know the Johansens?’ Ryker asked.
‘In Trondheim? I know that’s the name of the family Henrik went to. I never met them.’
Was that odd?
‘You never visited him either?’ Ryker asked.
A flicker in her eyes again. Remorse?
‘I wanted to. I think… Time just slipped by.’
Ryker wasn’t so sure about that. He got the feeling Trine had been relieved to see the back of Henrik. That she’d not looked back since. But was there something else?
‘He was kidnapped,’ Ryker said.
She paused, the coffee mug a couple of inches from her mouth.
‘The Johansens are now missing too.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re saying. Why are you telling me?’
‘Some men took Henrik, a fourteen-year-old boy. Men from this town took him. One of them’s called Erling. Big guy, big beard. You know him?’
A flicker once more. Her eyes were not good at concealment.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Another is Martin Lindstrom.’
She didn’t say anything, but the look on her face…
Ryker shook his head to show his disapproval of her deceit. ‘Those men were holding Henrik at a house outside the town. In the forest, near a logging site. You probably know where I mean.’
She shook her head and pushed her mug down on the worktop.
‘Please, this is too much. I need a moment.’
She went to stride past but Ryker held his arm out to stop her. She looked up at him, fear in her eyes now.
‘I’m not the bad guy.’
His words hung in the air. Her face didn’t change. She was scared. Of him? That wasn’t his intention.
‘I found Henrik at that house,’ Ryker said. ‘I took him away from there, and back to his friends in Trondheim. He’s safe. But those men are still out there. I want to know why they took him. Erling’s just a doer. I want to know who made this happen.’
‘Please? I just want to go to the bathroom.’
What was he going to do? Grab her and refuse?
He moved aside. She walked off. Padded up the stairs. A bang as a door closed. He looked around as he waited. Her phone had been on the counter before. Gone now.
Ryker sighed. Though he was intrigued as to who would turn up. A friend? Erling and his crew? The police?
Progress, at least, he guessed.
A toilet flushed upstairs, then the door opened and Trine padded down the stairs, more slowly than when she’d gone up. Without catching Ryker’s eye she moved back into the kitchen and picked up her drink.
‘Nice coffee,’ Ryker said, taking a sip from his mug.
She looked at him meekly. ‘Thanks.’
‘Tell me what you know about Erling,’ Ryker said.
She opened her mouth, then closed it, then shook her head. ‘I don’t know him at all.’
‘You know of him?’
She looked confused by the question.
Ryker sighed. For whatever reason, it was clear she was holding back on him. The question was why, and how was he going to get her to change her mind?
‘Who around here drives a Range Rover?’ he asked.
‘Excuse me?’ More confusion. Genuine?
‘A Range Rover. It’s a big, expensive car. Who around here could afford that?’
She frowned. ‘Not many people. There’d be…’
She paused. Not to think, but because she’d heard the sound too. The engine noise.
He glared at her. She looked petrified all of a sudden. The coffee mug shook in her hands.
Ryker placed his cup down and strode out of the kitchen, into the front room. He peered out of the window. Just one car. That was good. But it was a police car. Not so good.
Wold? Pettersen? He couldn’t yet see, though it was interesting that the car had come down the road steadily, no lights or siren.
Ryker turned and moved back into the corridor. He stopped when he spotted Trine in the kitchen doorway. No mug in her hand now, but a seven-inch kitchen knife, pulled up to her chest.
‘Please,’ she said, the single word catching in her throat. Did she really think he was going to attack her?
He ignored her and turned for the door. He moved out into the cold as Pettersen stepped from her car. No sign of any backup.
‘Back so soon?’ she said.
Ryker remained standing a couple of yards from the front door, looking up and down the street. No one else around.
‘Back?’ Ryker asked.
How did she even know he’d left?
She looked at the car parked on the street.
‘There was a car theft last night in Blodstein,’ she said. ‘A couple of streets from here. A car just like that one. Except that one has a Trondheim registration.’
‘Obviously not the same car then.’
‘Obviously not the right plates, as those tell me that car is fifteen years old. I could run them to check which car they actually belong to.’
Well, Ryker had done the best he could, under the circumstances, picking a crappy car he hoped no one would notice was missing its plates. Clearly, the plan had pitfalls if anyone looked closely enough.
‘Interesting too,’ Pettersen said, ‘that the description they gave me of the thief matched you.’
‘What? Big? Handsome? Accent like James Bond?’
A slight smile from Pettersen. ‘They also said there was a boy. A teenager. So, perhaps it wasn’t you after all. I don’t see a teenage boy with you now.’
Ryker moved a couple of steps toward her. She backtracked closer to her car, to the trunk. He knew she had a shotgun in there. Perhaps she should have pulled it out already. She’d never do so now before he tackled her if that was her intention.
‘Trine didn’t call 112,’ Ryker said – the emergency number in Norway for the police. ‘Did she?’
Pettersen shuffled a little closer to the trunk.
‘There’d be more of you here. But why did she call you? Your personal number, I’m presuming. How would she even know your number?’
‘Because I expected you might show up here.’
Ryker moved another two steps forward.
‘Where’s Henrik?’ Pettersen asked.
‘I’ll take you to him if you want.’
Her eyes pinched.
‘He’s safe,’ Ryker said. ‘For now. But there are people after him. After me, too.’
‘Or maybe it’s just you. Maybe it’s all you. You’re the bad guy.’
‘I think you know that makes no sense.’
‘Doesn’t it? Everything was fine until you arrived.’
‘If you believe that then you’re an idiot.’
Ryker went to step forward again. She popped the trunk open.
‘Another step and I get the shotgun.’
‘And what? You’ll fill me with lead out here on the street?’
‘If I have to.’
‘Have you ever even fired it before?’
Her lack of answer meant no.
Ryker looked along the street. Thirty yards up a man was heading their way with a dog. Except he spotted the police car and froze, staring, as though wondering whether he should get any closer or not. Out of the corner of Ryker’s eye, he realized that Pettersen had followed his line of sight.
He took the opportunity. He burst forward. A shriek of panic from behind him – Trine, on her front step? Ryker ignored her. Pettersen tried to move, tried to defend, but Ryker was too close. He grabbed her wrist, spun her around by her shoulder, twisted her arm behind her back and pushed her up against the metalwork of her car.
‘Don’t fight,’ Ryker said. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘You… already are,’ she said, squirming.
‘I’ll let you go, but listen.’
She breathed through gritted teeth, seething. She said nothing.
‘You don’t have many options,’ he said. ‘You were going to take me to the police station? Put me in a cell? Worst thing you could do. Henrik is safe, for now, but those men will find him. And I think you know Wold is involved somehow. Is he a bad cop? I don’t know. But I don’t trust him, and I’m not sure you do either. That’s why I always see you alone, right?’
She squirmed a little more forcibly but still didn’t say a word.
‘I’m going to make this better,’ Ryker said. ‘I’ll find everyone involved. They’ll all answer for what they’ve done. Wold included.’
‘What? You’re going to go around killing them all?’ Pettersen said, her clenched teeth making her words rasp.
‘No,’ Ryker said. ‘Not unless I have to.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘Maybe. But your only sensible option is to listen to me. Work with me.’
She laughed. ‘See? You’re fucking crazy.’
Ryker let go of her and pushed off, taking a step back. She spun around.
‘We’ll take your car,’ Ryker said. ‘To Trondheim. I’ll take you to Henrik. You’ll see he’s fine. He’ll tell you what happened. Then we’ll come back here and we’ll finish this.’
She shook her head, her face was red, her features screwed in anger.
Ryker looked up the street again. The man was still there. Trine remained on her doorstep.
‘If it makes you feel better, for the benefit of these lot, you can cuff me. Perhaps it will help you explain all this to your bosses later on. But we’re going in your car, together, and we’re going to Trondheim. Got it?’
She didn’t answer, but Ryker turned around and placed his hands behind his back. After a few tense seconds, he heard Pettersen move up to him. She hadn’t gone for the shotgun. A good start at least.
Click. Click.
‘Get in the car,’ she said.
Ryker smiled. Then did as she’d instructed.