Carl watched as Assad, out of breath, was reaching for his handcuffs, and whistled to draw his attention to a horde of dark, unshaven faces that looked like extras in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, watching Assad’s every move.
“OK,” said Assad, discreetly sticking the cuffs back into his pocket and turning to face his audience. “This bastard was trying to kidnap a young boy. Anyone here got some string?”
Not five seconds passed before a guy removed his belt. “Here, use this. Just remember I want it back, yeah?”
Carl got to his feet, realizing with a flinch how heavily he had fallen. It hurt like hell.
“Any of you lot seen a brown-skinned boy with curly black hair, about fifteen years old? He was here less than five minutes ago and disappeared over there,” he gasped.
No one answered, but the disdainful look on their faces said they had more than enough to deal with already.
Behind Carl, Rose noticed the unconscious man was breathing more irregularly now, and that blood was running a little too steadily from a gash in his head, as well as from his shoulder, as though an existing wound had suddenly opened up again underneath his shirt.
“I’ll call an ambulance, OK?” she shouted, as she opened her mobile, clearly put off her stride by some booing from the crowd in front of her.
“Shut your gobs!”“ she yelled back, stamping her foot and flailing her arms. “Even scum like him has the right to fair treatment.”
Then she glanced at the display on her phone. “See? Now you made me dial the wrong number!”
A faint ringtone could be heard somewhere behind them, and everyone turned around.
Carl looked at Rose and studied the puzzled look on her face.
“This must be the last number I called, so it has to be the mobile the boy was carrying,” she said, scowling at the faces in front of her.
Then the crowd parted and someone pointed to where the ringing was coming from. The Christiania trike with its cargo crate.
The guy seated in the saddle shook his head and gave a shrug, as if he had no idea what was going on. But Carl sensed a lie.
The man was wearing gloves, and the hood of his anorak was drawn tight, so only his eyes were visible. It was a rather strange choice of apparel, considering the mild springtime weather.
Carl looked at the cargo box on the trike. It was big. Maybe just big enough.
“Hey, you,” he called out, approaching the man. “Would you mind showing me what’s in the-”
Before he could reach out and stop him, the guy was off, pedaling away like mad.
“Rose, you look after Tilde,” Carl shouted, setting off in pursuit. “Help us, for Chrissake!” he yelled up the street, as the dealers stepped aside with a collective frown of bemusement.
Carl knew damn well that one never ran on Pusher Street, but what about cyclists?
“Stop him!” he yelled again, his chest tightening as Assad sprinted past, together with the guy who’d lent them his belt.
“Hey, almond man!” he heard Assad scream, so loud that the words echoed off the wall of the Spiseloppen restaurant.
The vendor standing with his cart by the entrance turned around.
“Shove your cart into the path and block his way!” Assad shouted. “You’ll get a thousand kroner!”
The almond man burst into action, trundling his handcart in front of the gate, loath to pass up a potential source of income. After all, a thousand kroner was more than enough to repair any damage to his beloved almond cart.
The man fleeing on the trike veered off toward the large shed that housed Christiania’s refuse collection depot, recycling center, and a lot more besides. He braked hard, leaped from the saddle and tried to dodge behind a pile of rusty machinery, only to find his path blocked by a group of men who had just finished work and were standing around with beer cans in hand, enjoying the weather. They weren’t the sort of blokes you just shoved aside.
The only option left was to run inside the wooden building with its red-painted window frames.
By the time Carl arrived out of breath ten seconds later, Assad and the almond vendor were already inside, looking about.
“Where the fuck did he get to?” the Christianite exclaimed.
Carl quickly took stock. The large, high-ceilinged space was a festival of color. On the wall above the entrance hung a five-meter-tall mask, a caricature of a former Danish prime minister who was particularly despised in these parts. The floor and shelves were a clutter of machine parts and assorted junk, and further back was what looked like a jumble sale of everything from miniature racing cars to palm trees carved in wood with sombreros on them.
All in all, not the easiest place to apprehend a young black man with gymnastic talent.
“Try up there, one of you,” Carl instructed, pointing to the ceiling where an office of gypsum boards and wood had been constructed on top of the crossbeams. Then he turned around and went back outside to the cargo trike.
The silence that came from it made him uneasy.
If they had injected Marco with the same sedative as they had used on Tilde, only a much larger dosage, then more than likely they had already carried out their mission. It was a dreadful thought.
He pushed the bolt aside and lifted the lid of the box.
And sure enough, there was Marco. Curled up and inert.
Carl lifted him up and carried him into the shed and found a blanket on which to lay him, while Assad and the other guy clattered around among all the scrap metal.
Pulling up Marco’s sleeve, Carl ascertained that if there was a pulse at all, it was terribly weak.
Carl felt despair welling inside him. After all, it was his fault this had happened.
He got down on his knees beside the seemingly lifeless figure and began to attempt resuscitation. It was years since he’d done it last, and on that occasion the girl in question, the victim of a traffic accident, had died. Now the whole experience came back to him. The girl’s smooth skin, the mother’s anguish as she looked on. The paramedics who had gently pulled him away and taken over. It had taken Carl weeks to get over it, but if Marco died on him it would stay with him forever. He knew that now, as he knelt there, pumping the boy’s fragile rib cage.
He turned his head as a movement caught his eye, and saw the giant mask vibrate slightly in the draught from the entrance so it looked like the ex-prime minister’s mouth was moving. How strange to notice something so irrational and inconsequential in a situation like this, he mused.
“Come on now, Marco,” he whispered, as Assad hurled rusty junk out of his way and his Christianite helper rummaged about in the office above his head.
“He’s not up here,” the guy called down through a window.
“And there are no other exits down here, so he must still be here somewhere,” Assad shouted back from the far end of the shed.
Carl continued his efforts, now performing mouth-to-mouth. If only someone would come and help him.
Then he resumed the heart massage.
“Call an ambulance, Assad,” he yelled. “I’m afraid we’re losing Marco. He’s very heavily sedated. He may even be dead already.”
And then came the faintest of whispers from beneath him: “Owww, that hurts…!”
Carl looked down into Marco’s open, anguished face.
“You’re breaking something inside me,” the boy gasped, half suffocated.
At that moment the mouth of the great mask on the wall above them opened, and the African tumbled out, falling two or three meters to the floor below.
He seemed stunned as he lay there, but only for a couple of seconds.
“He’s here, hurry!” Carl barked, climbing to his feet.
“Stay lying there, Marco,” he said, and turned to face the African, prepared for combat.
When the man got up, Carl saw he had a gun in his hand, and that his finger was curled much too tightly around the trigger.