–
In no time at all the cityscape changed as warm, piercing sunshine brought Østerbro to life like a garden. Girls with bare arms, frisky children hopping and skipping. Only occasionally had days in Italy given Marco the same feeling of gladness. All of a sudden his aluminum ladder, his bucket of paste, and all his posters seemed so light upon his shoulder.
He waved across Østerbrogade to the kiosk owner who was leaning against the wall, taking in the sun as though he were home in Karachi. Then he deposited his gear behind the statue of the man who had given name to the square. It was out of the way there and would bother no one.
The poster column here was one of the city’s best, at least on Marco’s route. Squat and expansive, not too tall. Someone had told him the city had once been dotted with others just like it, but it must have been a long time ago.
It was a good spot, too. Gunnar Nu Hansens Plads. Bistros and coffee shops, the stadium, café tables in the middle of the square, cinemas just down the street, and throngs of well-to-do young people who were the target group for the events Marco’s posters advertised. Which was why the column had grown a two-centimeter-thick layer of notices, advertisements, and event posters whose collective weight now threatened to remove the entire mass from its mooring. It was just the job for Marco. He took out his scraper and set to work.
When he was down to the next-to-last layer, he noticed a “missing person” notice. He had seen many that were similar, taped to telephone poles around the district, only they were for pets, not people. Help! My cat has run away, or Has anyone seen my dog?
But this one was different.
MISSING, it read. IF YOU’VE SEEN MY STEPDAD, WILLIAM STARK, PLEASE CALL THIS NUMBER, ran the text above a photo of a man, and then a phone number and a date underneath.
Marco stared at the image. It was as if the man’s eyes and his shock of hair had suddenly become electric. At once, every fiber in Marco’s body suddenly tensed and began to tremble, for it seemed that all the crimes of his past lay embedded in these sorrowful and yet so accusing eyes.
Marco took a deep breath and felt shock and nausea kick in, for now he knew he had stared into this face before. He began to shake, unable to resume his work. It was a sight that would remain etched in his memory forever: the face, the red hair, the African necklace.
The necklace Marco was now wearing beneath his shirt.
At once he felt hot. He loosened some buttons and tossed his cap onto the ground, studying the poster once again with bated breath.
He looked at the date. The man had disappeared three years ago. It all fit. This was the man Marco had seen in the shallow grave in the woods. The man whose decomposed body he had touched with his own hands. The man he had at first sensed to be a dead animal. The man his father and Zola had buried in the underbrush close to Kregme.
WILLIAM STARK, the notice read.
Now he had a name.
Marco stood as if paralyzed. Have you seen my stepdad?
And he had.
In that brief moment as he stared at the notice, with despair and bewilderment pumping through his body, his concentration lapsed. Normally his eyes were darting around, always on guard. But not at just this moment.
Like a hand brushing against his coat, he sensed a shadow come from the side. A figure silhouetted by the sun taking a swift, seamless movement over the flagstones toward him. Marco turned abruptly to face the man who was about to strike. So lithe and silent was the attacker that it could be only one person: Hector, his cousin. (Perhaps he was even Marco’s half brother. Zola had never been choosy about his sleeping partners and neither had Marco’s mother.) Hector had more beard and seemed coarser now than the last time Marco had seen him, but there was no doubt it was him. Yet even the brief moment it took Marco to recognize him and react was too long.
Hector made a grab for the African necklace, but Marco turned and Hector latched on to his jacket sleeve instead. Instinctively Marco let himself topple off his ladder, knocking his cousin to the ground and wriggling out of his jacket as he fell.
And with that he’d broken free.
He knew every corner of this part of the city. Over on the other side of Østerbrogade lay his escape route, a lattice of possibilities, a cobblestoned web of streets. He heard his own pounding feet against the cobbles as he ran through Ålborggade, across Bopa Plads and down Krausesvej without looking back. There was always an open door somewhere, or a backyard that led to other backyards. In this rabbit warren Hector didn’t have a chance in hell of finding him if only he could gain a half-street lead.
It wasn’t until he reached Svaneknoppen and the gentle rhythm of Svanemølle Harbor, where people were readying their yachts for the summer season, that he dared glance back over his shoulder.
This was his turf. Here he would always be able to disappear among the boats. Hundreds of masts had already sprouted forth in the spirit of springtime, auguring renewed life in a landscape of container terminals that lined the old harbor front.
He stopped to get his breath back and assess the situation.
What had just occurred was the worst thing that could have happened. They had his jacket and his tools. They had everything. Without his tools he had no income. And what was worse: in his jacket pocket was his mobile with the numbers of many of the people he worked for. And worst of all, they now had Eivind and Kaj’s numbers, too. How could he be so careless? Why had he typed in Dry cleaners and Home in his list of contacts?
Marco drew his fist up to his lips. What was he to do now? He knew the ways of Zola’s pack. Soon they would be on the scent, they would find out where he lived, of that he was in no doubt. Hector would not hesitate a second in reporting back to his leader.
Now it had happened.
He’d been found.
9
Spring 2011
“All right, Rose, have you found our perp? What did Birthe from Brumleby have to say for herself?”
Carl pictured his funereally clad and almost certainly thoroughly pissed-off assistant as he held the mobile to his ear and Assad’s face popped up in the doorway. He waved him in with a wry smile and turned on the mobile’s speaker. No doubt Rose had waited in vain for the woman most of the afternoon, and he didn’t want Assad to miss out on the tantrum he felt sure was coming. It ought to cheer him up a bit. Rose at full throttle was always the high point of the day. Carl chuckled to himself. He wouldn’t be surprised if the cleaning woman with the bad attitude had given them the runaround and her employer had never showed.
Oddly enough, Rose was as dry as a slice of toast. “Sverre Anweiler was staying in the apartment for a couple of days last week,” she began, much to Carl’s surprise. “He’d lost his own key to the place, but the woman he was with on the CCTV footage, a Louise Kristiansen, was staying in the apartment at the same time and she had one. So Anweiler arranged for them to meet up so they could go back together. Anything else you’d like to know, my little assistant?”
Carl’s smile wilted a little as he did his best to ignore Assad’s mirth. “OK, Rose, I’d say that joke’s wearing a bit thin now, wouldn’t you? Anyway, interesting information, but run it by me one more time, eh? Are you telling me this girl, Birthe, had invited the wanker to stay in her place?”