Silence, and an acute sense of apprehension, filled the inside of the car as they drove out of Blodstein. Even Ryker was a little surprised Pettersen had agreed to his suggestion of going with him to Trondheim.
He remained in the back seat of the car, his cuffed hands behind his back.
‘So you’re really not taking me to the police station,’ Ryker said, turning to look out of the back window where Blodstein faded into the distance.
He faced front again and squirmed, trying to get his hands into a better position.
‘Do you want the key?’ Pettersen asked, catching his eye in the rear-view mirror.
He said nothing, strained a bit more.
Click.
He pulled his hands to the front. One wrist free, from the other the cuffs dangled.
‘Go on then,’ he said.
She shook her head and pulled the key out and handed it back to him. ‘Nice trick.’
‘I’ve had a lot of practice.’
She didn’t say anything to that.
‘Pull over, I’ll come up front.’
She did so, and they were soon on their way again.
In front of them the twisting road was clear of traffic. The sun, low in the sky to the west, created long shadows that reached out from the trees separating them from the water. Like giant tentacles, uncoiled and waiting, ready to worm around them, hold them back. Crush them.
Ryker shook the thought away.
‘You trusted me,’ Ryker said, staring ahead. They passed by the turning for the logging site.
‘I’m not sure I do, really. But I want to find out what’s really happening. Find Henrik, who took him and why.’
Ryker nodded. A few moments later they passed the turning for the house where he’d found Henrik.
‘Do you know who owns the house up there?’ Ryker asked. He was tempted to tell her to go there now. See who was home. Spend some time asking them questions. His way.
‘I didn’t even know there was a house there.’
Her face remained passive, though Ryker wasn’t sure he believed her. But then, why would she lie about it?
‘Tell me what you know,’ Pettersen asked.
Ryker thought for a moment. Best to just start from the top. ‘The day I arrived, I nearly knocked a kid off his moped, on this road, but quite a few miles south of here.’
‘That kid was Henrik?’
‘Yeah. Turns out he was trying to escape, back to Trondheim, but I didn’t know that then. But I knew I didn’t like the situation. Your boss, Wold, turned up, then a Nissan pickup truck. Wold took Henrik, claimed he was taking him home. The pickup wasn’t there randomly either. The guys in there knew what was happening. They took the moped.’
Ryker paused for a few beats as he thought back, hoping doing so would trigger something useful he’d not considered before. He expected a follow-up question from Pettersen but nothing came.
‘I arrived in Blodstein. And I have to say, I felt something was up from the start.’
She glared at him now, as though offended. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The attitude of your boss, for a start. When you saw me in the café?’
Still a little offended. ‘Wold thinks he’s more powerful than he really is,’ Pettersen said. ‘Big cop in a small town. But I really think he means to do good. He tries to protect Blodstein.’
Maybe she was right about that, but it didn’t make Ryker trust him any more, and he still thought that Pettersen didn’t fully trust him either.
‘I asked Wold about Henrik in the café,’ Ryker said. ‘You saw the reaction yourself. You even made the point of asking me about Henrik outside, when Wold had gone.’
Pettersen sighed.
‘Why did you?’
‘I’d heard rumours.’
‘What rumours?’
She didn’t say anything right away. ‘You were giving me your side of the story.’
He thought about pushing her. Not yet. ‘I decided to start asking questions, to try and find the guys who took the moped. First, at the logging site. Next, I came across that house. Then in the evening I went to the bar where a group of locals were drinking. Erling is one of them. A woman named Sonja too. You know her?’
She sighed. ‘I know all of them, one way or another.’
‘Two Russians turned up. Or, kind of Russian.’
He glanced at her. She looked confused.
‘Their language, their accents, tells me they come from an area of Russia near the Black Sea, near to Ukraine, where the Cossack people originally came from. Nowadays it’s part of Russia, but it’s not always a happy relationship. Some of the areas are more or less self-governed and they speak regional dialects, generally concoctions of Ukrainian and standard Russian. Anyway, the point of where they come from may or may not be relevant. Regardless, I was set on by Erling and his crew, but I think it was at the say-so of those Russians. I’d already asked too many questions. You saw what happened there at the bar. You stopped it getting out of hand.’
Silence from her now.
‘I’d asked too many questions. But the reaction I got told me they’d been the right questions. So the next day–’
‘Why didn’t you just leave then? When you had a chance.’
‘You don’t know me very well, otherwise you wouldn’t ask that. I went back to that house. Henrik was there, along with Erling and two others. I fought with them. Henrik ran off. I chased him. Found him. We were hunted through the forest, men and dogs after us. Somehow we escaped and ended back up in Blodstein.’
‘When I saw you?’
‘Getting supplies, and also information to help me help Henrik.’
‘Including where Trine Hansen lived?’
Ryker nodded. ‘I took Henrik back to some friends in Trondheim. He insisted. Though I’m worried I made a mistake.’
‘A mistake?’
Ryker decided not to delve into that. ‘Next, I went to find his foster parents. The Johansens. Except they’re missing.’
The worried look on Pettersen’s face suggested she hadn’t known that.
‘So next I went back to Blodstein. To Trine Hansen’s home.’
‘Where I found you. You really came all the way back from Trondheim, where you left Henrik, just to speak to her?’
‘Not exactly. Before the Johansens went missing, men were seen visiting them. Men from up north, I was told. Driving a Range Rover. I don’t believe that’s coincidence. Whoever that car belongs to, it might be the person who’s behind everything.’
Ryker stared over at Pettersen, trying to gauge a reaction on her face.
‘I think I know who you’re talking about,’ she said.
‘Who?’
‘His name’s Sigurd Berg. He’s a local businessman. About the wealthiest man in our town, but that might not be much to anyone else. Have you met him?’
‘Not yet. What would he want with Henrik?’
‘That’s what we need to find out, isn’t it?’
Ryker smiled and chuckled. Pettersen’s face screwed with offence.
‘What?’
‘Just the way you said we. The dynamic duo.’
She rolled her eyes and looked back to the road.
‘Who are the Russians?’ Ryker asked, taking on a more serious tone once more.
‘I honestly don’t know. But I do know they don’t belong in Blodstein.’
‘Just like me.’
‘No.’ She caught his eye. ‘Not like you.’
‘They seemed pretty cosy with Erling and his gang.’
‘I can’t figure out why,’ Pettersen said. ‘Those other people all work for Berg, one way or another. He owns one of the factories by the water. They make turbines. But Berg also owns the logging company, plus a lot of land and property here too. And I know he hates the Russians.’
‘You know that?’
She rolled her eyes. He wasn’t sure why. ‘Rumours,’ she said.
‘You hear a lot of rumours.’
‘I talk to a lot of people. A lot of what I hear is nonsense, but not everything. For example, I know the Russians have a history in Blodstein. Ever since Berg’s father set up his business here, there’s been talk of Russian involvement. Talk of their money running our town for years. Not just our town, in fact, but many along the coast.’
She sighed. It was a strangely solemn gesture.
‘Do you know the history of our area. Of our country?’
‘I know Blodstein literally means blood stone. Or blood rock. That the town was named hundreds of years ago when there was a metal mine here, one of the biggest in Scandinavia, the ore from it used by the Vikings to make axes and swords that they took on their bloody conquests around the world.’
She gave him a strange look.
‘I meant more recent history, but I’m impressed you knew that.’
Ryker smiled but said nothing.
‘Most of what I know comes from my own family,’ she said. ‘From my father and grandfather, though it was my grandfather who actually lived it. It started when the Germans took control of Norway during World War II, in 1940. They stormed our cities, flooded into our seaports. It wasn’t even much of a fight. Don’t ask me why – negligence, arrogance, corruption? – but we weren’t prepared. In only a few days the Nazis controlled our whole coastline and were marching into Oslo almost without challenge. The story goes that at the front of the invading force in Oslo was nothing more than a brass band, cheerfully playing their propaganda music.’
She shook her head, as though ashamed about an event that she’d had no control over.
‘Our coast has always been a huge part of our lives, even back then when the Vikings sailed off to everywhere. When the Germans took over, it was like our heritage, our everything, was taken away. They controlled our waters to help their military, they wanted to dominate the North Sea and the North Atlantic beyond, but they cared little for us. People had no jobs, no food, they were starving and penniless.’
Ryker sighed as the words sloshed in his mind. Of course, no country in Europe had survived untouched by the savagery of World War II, but he was less than familiar with the particular story of this country.
‘That was 1940. We were still occupied as the war came to a finish. The Soviet army first advanced into Finnmark, in our far north, in 1944, but the Germans, even knowing they were defeated, were cruel to us. They burned everything. Homes, factories, forests. There was nothing left but scorched earth and ruined lives. Our country became one of the biggest battlegrounds in the last days of the war, but also a place where the Nazis retreated to. Before Hitler killed himself there was even talk of moving the Third Reich headquarters to Norway because they’d built such a large force here to repel the Russians. At the end of the war we had nearly half a million Nazi soldiers in our country.’
Ryker hadn’t known that, but could understand now where the story was going.
‘When the war finally ended, when all those foreign soldiers were finally expelled, and our own people returned to the ruins, they had nothing. They needed help to rebuild.’
‘That help came from the Russians.’
‘Not just the Russians, but yes. A lot of money did come from there, and a lot of it was, I’m sure, with the best of intentions. But not all of it.’
‘No, not all of it.’
‘Rich men like to get richer, after all.’
‘They certainly do. And not all rich men like to play by the rules.’
‘Ever since then there’s been talk of which businesses, which families in our town, are controlled in the dark by the Russians. And by dirty money.’
‘Sigurd Berg is one of them?’ Ryker asked.
‘Actually, I was referring to his father. He died many years ago, but it seems perhaps that Sigurd isn’t too different.’
‘That explains why the Russians are here. Perhaps why Erling and those others were with the Russians in the bar even. But it still doesn’t explain why Berg would kidnap a fourteen-year-old boy.’
Pettersen sighed. ‘No. It doesn’t.’
The car went strangely quiet once more. Ryker was deep in thought. He assumed Pettersen was too. Were Henrik and the Russians simply two separate issues, both related to Berg in one way or another, or was everything connected?
Ryker glanced over to Pettersen a couple of times as they carried on their way. Even after the retelling of her country’s and her family’s dark times, she certainly appeared far more relaxed now than when they’d first set off, with her shoulders down, her chin up. His eyes rested on her hands on the steering wheel.
‘What?’ she asked.
She took her hand from the wheel. The one with the ring on it. She caught his eye. Looked a little angry.
‘Go on then,’ she said.
‘Go on what?’
‘Ask.’
Ryker raised an eyebrow.
‘You were looking at the ring.’
‘Was I?’
‘Yes, I’m married. Does that matter to you?’
‘Why would it? I just–’
‘What?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
He looked out of his window.
‘Yes, it does matter,’ she said, antsy, though he didn’t know why. ‘What were you going to say?’
He caught her eye again. Definitely pissed off. ‘What does he do?’
‘Whatever he damn well pleases.’ A sarcastic-sounding laugh accompanied her response.
Clearly her marriage was a sore subject. Ryker said nothing more about it.
‘What about you?’ Pettersen asked.
‘No, I’m not married,’ Ryker said.
‘Well, that’s obvious.’
‘Is it?’
‘Have you ever been?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever loved someone?’
‘That’s pretty deep.’
‘Not really. It’s a simple question. A yes or no answer.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘You’re still with her. Him?’
‘Her. And no.’
‘It’s not easy, is it?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘You still love her?’
He paused before answering. Felt bad for doing so. It had been years since he’d been with Angela. Years since she’d been killed because of him. Her body buried in the red dirt next to the home they thought was a hideaway from their former lives. He still thought of her, though tried his best not to. A horrible thing to do to her really, but the pain of losing her remained so raw, even after everything else he’d been through since. No one would ever fill that gap in his life. Sam Moreno had come close, even if their relationship had remained platonic. Simona in Prague? Too late now.
‘You still love her?’ Pettersen asked again.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘But you’re not together.’
‘She’s dead.’
Pettersen looked away quickly, as though ashamed or embarrassed by the answer.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘Not as sorry as I am.’
‘I did have a point,’ she said, then laughed. A nervous laugh. Ryker found himself smiling in return. ‘I definitely did. But I’m not sure what it was now.’
‘Love conquers all?’ Ryker suggested.
‘No. Not that. In fact, perhaps for me, love alone wasn’t enough.’
Ryker closed his eyes and tried to push the memories, and the emotions those memories dredged up, back to the darkest corner of his mind.
‘The stupidest thing is,’ Pettersen continued, ‘I knew how hard being in the police was. I saw my parents struggle with it, right up until my father died. Even after everything they went through, all that he put her through, I still wanted to be just like him. And now, I really am. In more ways than I like to think.’
‘Then he must have been a good policeman.’
She squirmed a little at that comment. His words had been intended as a light-hearted compliment, but clearly not taken as one. Obviously there was more to the story of father and daughter.
‘And you?’ she asked.
‘My father?’
‘No. Your job. What is your job exactly?’
Ryker thought about the question. ‘I help people.’
She laughed. ‘You sound really lame sometimes. Ooh, me big man. Me help people, really good. Rah. Show me the baddies.’
Ryker tried not to laugh but he couldn’t help it. When he caught her gaze he noticed a sparkle that hadn’t been there before. She whipped her eyes back to the road.
‘So let me guess,’ she said. ‘You weren’t in the police. You’re too... messy.’
‘My clothes?’
‘Your head. I don’t think army either.’
‘Because soldiers don’t get messed in the head?’
‘Interesting that you didn’t question me saying you’re messed in the head.’
Ryker raised an eyebrow as he stared at her. She glanced back and smiled. ‘Okay. So not police, not army, but probably something similar. Government work. Am I right?’
‘You’re not far off. But that’s in the past. Now I really am on my own.’
He went quiet, deep in thought. But only for a moment. He could see out of the corner of his eye that she kept looking over at him. He turned and saw the smirk on her face.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Rah.’ She lifted her arm and kissed her bicep. ‘Big man help little lady. Perhaps she kiss me one day.’
‘You’re an idiot,’ he said, once again unable to hold a straight face.