Monday, December 14, 2020
It was two days since Maurits had seen the woman who kidnapped him, and he had not had anything to eat or drink. The stench from the bucket he was using as a toilet hung like a fog in the room, and his bowels were empty, just like his bladder.
I’ll have to be careful not to walk around too much. It drains me, he thought. I just have to keep myself together and they’ll eventually find me. I’m sure of it. It was a good thing that I didn’t give a shit that a couple of the surveillance cameras at home are recording outside our private property, even though it’s illegal, because now the police will be able to see the license plate of the car that picked me up. Perhaps they’ve already arrested the woman and that’s why she hasn’t been here.
He smiled to himself. Kidnapping was punished severely in Denmark. And it would soon be the bitch’s turn to stare at bare white walls. Her time to be the star of her own grave reality.
The show could be called It’s Time for Me to Kill Myself! He laughed. It was actually a great idea, even though a reality show like that would probably meet a lot of resistance. People were strangely sensitive when it came to suicide.
Maurits nodded and smiled, leaned his head back, and sang so loudly that the ball bearings above him started vibrating: “Oh no, not I, I will survive / Oh, as long as I—”
Then he coughed. His throat felt dry and his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.
This is fucking shit, he suddenly thought, looking around him. This place could be anywhere. A basement with concrete decks separating the floors. A storage building in the middle of nowhere. A new build abandoned before it had been finished. I could be anywhere on Zealand. So how are they going to find me if the woman keeps her mouth shut?
When he woke up after the kidnapping, he had looked at his watch and seen the time was 11:45. If he calculated that he had been chained to the chair for ten to twenty minutes before then, they were a good hour and fifteen minutes’ drive from his home.
How far could they have come from Gammel Holte? He stopped himself even before he had started calculating, because how the hell could he know? There were far too many factors in that equation. The woman could have driven round in circles. Or she could have sped down the highway with her foot on the gas. She could have crossed the Øresund Bridge for that matter.
Maurits started to sweat. If he was in Sweden now, and if the bitch did not start talking, they would never find him. He would be sitting here tomorrow foaming at the mouth and shaking. And the following day . . . How long could he hold out?
Maurits’s father had died from thirst. The memory suddenly popped into his mind. It had seemed undramatic because his father was already old and decrepit, and his life was slipping away. The doctors had to find a way to let him go, and the only thing they were willing to do was to deprive him of fluids. But it had not been quick, and Maurits also recalled that it had scared his father. Before his eyes closed and he slipped into unconsciousness, his gaze had become far too intense. After all, it was his only connection with the world. The sight of those who could not help him. The sight of his only son, who just looked away and left him.
Bloody hell. Get lost, bloody memories. Get lost, old man. You were a prick anyway, so why would I care that you died of thirst?
Maurits looked at his Rolex Submariner watch. Blue face, gold casing, gold strap and buckle, date but no numbers on the face. He had paid two hundred and fifty thousand kroner for it, and he did not give a shit what other people thought about it. When he showed it at the dinner table, his oldest daughter had held up her Apple Watch in front of his face and mocked him.
“Can your watch monitor your pulse? Can you receive calls via your watch? Ha, you’re really stupid, Dad. You could’ve gotten forty Apple Watches for the same money. Or you could have given me a horse and still bought a watch. Stupid!”
Back then, he had just smiled and served himself some food. What did a silly teenager know about what gave a grown man joy? What did she really know about the pleasure of owning something? She would replace her Apple Watch when the next model came anyway. Disloyal brat.
Maurits looked at the date. It had been almost three days since he had anything to eat or drink. How long had it taken for his father to die? Six days, a week? But then, he had been very weak already. Maurits seemed to recall that he had once read that it was possible to last three weeks without solid food or liquid as long as you were fit and healthy. And he was.
Maurits looked at his watch again. If he had taken his daughter’s advice and bought an Apple Watch, he might have been able to call them.
He shook his head. The woman who was holding him captive was no fool. She would just have taken it off him. And even if he had had a watch like that, what would he have said? That he had been kidnapped? They must already know that. But who had done it? The woman’s story about the possible merger of Unbelievable Corporation was pure nonsense. Global Rea Inc. and Victor Page would have no idea who the woman was. The license plate number on her Lexus was undoubtedly fake—or the car was stolen. And what could he say about the place where he was chained up? There were no distinguishing features in the room. None whatsoever! It was so anonymous that it could be anywhere.
Maurits could feel his tongue swelling a little. Bloody thirst! He leaned his head back again and stared up at the slides that held his chains in place on the runners.
Would it help if I climbed up one of the chains and grabbed hold of the slider? Would I be able to twist the slider, bend the runner out of shape, and wrench the slider loose? And could I do the same with the second chain? Could that be a solution?
There was obviously a risk that he would end up hanging on the second chain if he managed to wrench the first slider loose. Would he be able to wrench the second one out of the runner while hanging from it with his entire weight?
Maurits stood up and simulated the situation. It did not bode well.
He followed the two runners in the ceiling spanning the room from one end to the other. If there was anywhere he would be able to hold on with one hand while wrenching chain number two free with the other, that was where he should climb up.
He heard the ball bearings above him spinning as he walked back and forth the entire length of the room, searching the ceiling. The sound had a momentary calming effect. But it was an illusion—because it was really the sound of his own personal hell. The sound of a trap from which he could not escape.
That was when he saw it. Like the ceiling, it had been painted white and was almost invisible. But it was there. Up there, close to the far wall, there was a twisted eyebolt similar to the two he had attached to his son’s swing set more than twenty-five years ago. And the one up there was located only around forty centimeters from one of the runners. If he could only squeeze two fingers through the eyebolt, would he be able to hold his own weight while wrestling to release the other chain from its slider? He hoped that those twenty minutes a day in the exercise room in his basement since his heart attack had paid off.
Maurits began hoisting himself up one of the chains while the other one slowly grew slack. Rope climbing had been one of his favorite disciplines in his school days, but this was different and thirty-five years later. The chain was made of steel and very hard to get a grip on. His knuckles became white with the first grip, and the ceiling was higher up than he had estimated. Possibly more than four meters.
He clamped his naked feet around the chain. If he had been wearing sneakers, it would have been easier. If he had been wearing trousers, the chain would not have chafed the skin around his groin.
“You must make it,” he whispered to himself. He had no idea how he was going to escape the room if this failed. But perhaps the elevator worked. Perhaps he could use the chains as weapons when he had loosened them. Perhaps.
If anyone came, that was.
He had now managed to grab the top of the chain hanging next to him. The slider on the runner was imprinted with a logo for Mexita Steelware, and like the runner, it was also made from reinforced steel, so this was not going to be easy. He tried with all his might to twist the runner out of shape, but nothing happened. A crowbar might have helped—but he did not have one. All he had was his broken hopes.
He slowly slid down again, went over to the chair, and sat down. Even this relatively limited exertion had exhausted him. The skin on his naked arms had turned gray, and his veins had come up.
And was he imagining it or had the temperature gone up in the room?
Maurits looked at the elevator, which at no point had made a sound while he had been conscious.
Was he going to die in this godforsaken place?