THIS WAS MADNESS. Utter madness.
While waiting for the two Tivoli guards to make contact with their supervisor, Fabian kept his eyes down. He could almost see time slipping through his fingers, spilling onto the table and over the edge. Every second he’d been ahead before, he was now falling behind. All while thousands of blissfully ignorant visitors were milling about just outside in the mistaken belief that this was just another beautiful vacation day full of sunshine and spinning carousels.
Three times he’d got up and explained to the Danes that this was no time for red tape, that they had to call in more staff and, above all, proper police support. He’d even had Tuvesson explain the gravity of the situation to them. But each time, they’d simply told him to calm down and carried on making internal calls.
‘Well?’ he said when they finally turned to him. ‘Did you get hold of him?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said the one whose Swedish was at least functional. ‘His daughter is graduating today, so his phone is probably turned off.’
‘Okay. But then someone else must be in charge, right? Or what? You can’t just disregard security every time someone’s daughter’s graduating, right?’
‘All right, settle down,’ said the other guard, raising a warning hand.
‘No, I’m not going to settle down, and you shouldn’t either with a killer about to attack this place any minute.’
‘Do you know how old Tivoli is?’ The guard spread his hands. ‘One hundred and sixty-nine years. So we know what we’re doing.’
‘Know what you’re doing? Then how come we’re sitting in here instead of being out there trying to apprehend him?’
‘Because you’re the one who came storming in here, firing a gun and attacking one of our visitors.’
‘I thought it was him, and I still do.’
‘Yes, you’ve made that clear. But the only one armed in that situation was you.’
Fabian was about to argue but stopped himself. He still believed it was Milwokh he’d seen, but he couldn’t be sure.
‘Fine, it’s possible it wasn’t him, and since we didn’t bring him in for questioning, we can only pray you’re right and I’m wrong. But that doesn’t change the fact that we have to be ready when he does get here, because he will. He is coming here. Do you understand me?’
‘Yes, we understand, but—’
‘Then why aren’t you doing anything? Why are you just sitting here? Don’t you get that he’s going to pick them off one by one as the dice directs him? Children, old people, women, men. No one will be safe. It’s only after he rolls a—’ He gave up with a sigh.
There was no point. They’d stopped listening and much as he hated to admit it, he could see why. Everything he said sounded insane and the more he’d tried to argue with them and make them understand the gravity of the situation, the more obvious it had become that everything was based on loose assumptions. He couldn’t swear he would have believed them if their roles had been reversed.
‘And this must be Fabian Risk, unless I’m mistaken,’ said a voice behind him.
He turned around and saw a man with a determined smile on his face enter the room.
‘Thank you. I’ll take it from here.’
The guards nodded and left the office while the man took a seat across from Fabian.
‘My name is Jan Hesk and I work for the Copenhagen Police.’
‘Finally, someone from the police,’ Fabian said. ‘I don’t know how much you know about the situation. The thing is that we have a suspected killer who may be about to attack—’
‘Stop, stop,’ Hesk broke in, raising one hand. ‘One step at a time. Is it true that you broke into the park armed with a gun and proceeded to fire it?’
‘Yes, that’s correct, but it was a warning shot, into the air. What’s important right now is that—’
‘I have to ask you to give me your weapon.’
‘I’m sorry, the guards already confiscated it, and though I would love to have it back as soon as possible, what’s important right now is that we get plain-clothes officers out there and start evacuating the visitors before—’
‘Is it also true that you were the one who violated Danish territorial waters yesterday, despite being denied access?’
Fabian nodded with a heavy sigh and was about to explain, but couldn’t get a word in.
‘Great. Then I would ask you to sign here and here.’ Hesk pushed a document across the table and pointed to the dotted line at the bottom.
Admission of illegal violation of Danish territorial waters and illegal possession of a firearm.
Fabian didn’t have to read past the first word to realize the Danish police had no interest in Milwokh.