They say that every man has his price, and the price of the Norwegian truck driver who spoke with a thick Western accent and smelled of service-station aftershave was five thousand krona and a handshake.
It was well past midnight when they were finally allowed to board the delayed boat at Nynäshamn. The big power cut had paralysed various systems for hours, said the driver. He was tired, hungry and irritable, but by taking the money he was at least getting something out of the fucking night, he’d thought to himself. And he wasn’t even really expected to do anything in exchange.
He spent the night in one of the cabins, as usual. He got up as they entered Polish waters, had a quick shower and then put yesterday’s clothes back on, and no one batted an eyelid when he bought two lots of breakfast in the truckers’ lounge, one of which he took with him down to his wagon. No one asked why, and why should they? No one takes any notice of an extra coffee and a cheese roll.
Three hours later, he stopped at a petrol station outside Łódź. He filled up with diesel for the drive down to the Czech Republic, and stocked up on crisps and water in the shop. The last thing he did as he was leaving was to nod a greeting towards the man waiting in the queue for the toilets, who was looking even rougher than he had the night before–crumpled and bereft and carrying a little bag of newly bought toiletries in one hand. He blinked his response, nothing more, a greeting that said thank you and good morning all at once, and then the toilet door opened and he went in, locking the door behind him.
That was the last the Norwegian trucker saw of William Sandberg, the man who’d slept in his trailer and who’d paid him five thousand to not ask why.
Inside the stinking toilet, William pulled the thin door to and turned the lock. He looked in the mirror. It hadn’t been twenty-four hours since he’d seen that same face in the bathroom mirror on Lidingövägen, yet the person behind it was far from the same. At that point he’d still been someone’s father, and he hadn’t yet gone on the run.
Now, life was a fevered dream. As though he was watching himself from a distance, kicking damp sheets, fighting the fears that would vanish just as soon as he finally woke up.
But there was nothing to wake up from. William Sandberg was suspected of aiding terrorists. He’d forced an ambulance off the road. And now he was in Poland after a night in the trailer of a Norwegian HGV. He’d lain all night, all morning, slipping in and out of sleep, shivering in the dark in between heavy crates, and woke up to the sound of the clunking diesel engines and the creaking of vehicles as the vessel pitched and yawed.
And all the time, he was trying to understand what Michal Piotrowski had to do with the attacks, and why the fuck he’d pulled William into it.
There was only one way to find out. William spat the last of the toothpaste into the stainless-steel sink, put on the dark grey baseball cap he’d chosen at the till, then left the petrol station without having shown his face to the cameras even once.