ACT AS QUICKLY and efficiently as you can. If possible within the next few days, the instructions had said, according to Lilja’s email. That could mean pretty much anytime. Even so, Fabian sprinted up the stairs from the parking garage underneath the Confederation of Danish Industry’s building, next to Tivoli.
He came out on H. C. Andersens Boulevard and raced around the corner to Vesterbrogade, where crowds of tourists slowed him down.
During the drive to Denmark, he’d been in more or less constant contact with Tuvesson, once she’d dispatched Klippan and a team of uniformed officers to assist Stubbs and made sure Molander was safely locked up until he could present his evidence.
She’d read him the message from Lilja in which Milwokh’s impending attack was outlined with the help of a number of rules for how the dice was to be rolled, which in turn determined who was supposed to be murdered next and how. The whole thing had exuded a cynicism and coldness they’d never come close to before.
People were staring at him. True, he was forcefully pushing through the crowd. But that wasn’t it. Their looks were fearful, and he had no problem understanding why. His face, cut and bruised after his fight with Molander, must look terrifying, and even though he’d washed off the dried blood in a bathroom on the ferry to Helsingør and put plasters over the deepest gashes, it clearly wasn’t enough.
Together with Tuvesson, he’d come up with a plan that, in simple terms, consisted of her contacting the Danish police to inform them and initiate cooperation, while he rushed to the amusement park and began to search it as best he could.
The queue outside the main entrance with its grand arch was absolutely grotesque. Every family in the capital must have had the same thought when they woke up that morning. It was a welter of screaming children with dropped ice-cream cones, frustrated parents, shrieking hen dos and bellowing bands of young men. Not to mention the groups of tourists from all over the globe. In a word, it was bedlam.
But the worst thing about it was that Tivoli’s own security guards didn’t seem to have the situation under control. It was as though they’d been caught off guard by the onslaught. True, they were conducting the occasional security check, but very sporadically and mostly for show.
Was that why he saw Milwokh’s face everywhere? Because he did.
Like in the group of Asian tourists of various ages taking pictures with their selfie sticks and iPads ahead of him. Of course they all looked different. But not to him. Every last one of them could have been Milwokh, and he saw no alternative to pushing through the queue and searching them one by one.
‘Police. I’m from the police,’ he repeated over and over again, holding out his police ID while he patted them down and searched their backpacks and belt bags.
‘Hey! You!’ one of the guards shouted at him as he approached. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘My name is Fabian Risk, and I’m from the Swedish Police Authority.’
‘You’re a Swede?’
Fabian nodded. ‘My superior, Astrid Tuvesson, is supposed to have contacted the Danish police to inform—’
The guard cut him off and grabbed him by the arm. ‘I don’t understand you, but it doesn’t matter. Either way, I’m not going to let you run around making people uncomfortable. You’re coming with me.’
‘No, wait.’ Fabian resisted. ‘A killer’s on his way here. Maybe today or—’ He broke off as he spotted an Asian man passing under the arch.
The man was wearing a baseball cap, a grey jacket and beige cargo shorts, and even though he couldn’t see his face, he wrenched his arm free and broke into a run. It was Milwokh. All the alarms in his head were going off like mad.
The guard shouted after Fabian as he pushed through the sea of people. A child got in his way and fell over on the asphalt, crying. The mother shouted at him and the dad grabbed hold of his jacket, or maybe it was someone else. But it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was getting to Milwokh before it was too late.
He eventually managed to push all the way up to the tills where he could climb over the barriers and finally start running after the man, who was now walking briskly past the elephant-headed mirrors towards the Pantomime Theatre.
‘Police!’ he shouted at the top of his lungs. ‘Stop!’ But the man kept walking without looking back. ‘Stop or I’ll shoot!’ He pulled his gun out of its holster and disengaged the safety.
He could vaguely hear panicked screaming all around him and out of the corner of his eye he saw people running in every direction. Only now did the man look back over his shoulder, straight at him. Then he broke into a run, just like everyone else.
‘I said stop!’ Fabian shouted again and fired a shot into the air, which finally made the man stop and put his hands up.
‘Get on the ground, face down! Arms and legs out,’ he shouted, but the next moment he felt a number of hands grab him and push him down on the asphalt.
‘No! It’s not me, it’s him!’ he bellowed as the guards wrenched the gun out of his hand.
‘Face down,’ one of the guards shouted at him, and put a knee on his head.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak Danish,’ he heard Milwokh say as he walked over towards them. ‘Was it me he was after?’
Or maybe it wasn’t Milwokh? Had he been mistaken?
‘We don’t know yet,’ one of the guards replied.
‘Search him,’ Fabian said, trying to wriggle his head out from under the knee. ‘Listen to me! You have to search him!’
The three guards exchanged looks and then one of them finally walked up to the man who at least looked a lot like Milwokh and began to pat him down. But all he found was a wad of Danish notes in one of the many pockets of his shorts. No knife, no gun, no rope. No weapons of any kind.
‘It’s okay, you can go,’ the guard said and the man nodded, turned his back on them and continued into the amusement park.