The last thing he saw before the Skoda Superb shot across Trianglen was the bus driver behind the steering wheel, face buried in his hands. Then his eyes locked on to Zola’s. The man was standing with his head held high, cold as ice amid the tumult of onlookers, none of whom seemed to have noticed what he had done.
That’s what’s in store for you, Zola’s look told him.
“Terrible accident. Happens all too often, if you ask me. People drive like shit.” The taxi driver looked at Marco in the rearview mirror. “Where to?”
Marco sat with his head back, gasping for air. If he leaned forward he knew he would be sick. His father had tried to warn him, and for that Zola had killed him.
His father had tried to save him. His father.
Marco pictured his eyes. They were green-brown and full of warmth. This loving gaze was from a distant time, he realized that. But his father had just tried to warn him, so who cared about the time in between?
Now his father was dead and Zola had got away. And the taxi driver was asking him where he wanted to go.
Only five minutes ago he would have said the airport. Yesterday, he would have said Tilde’s house.
Now, he no longer knew…
Zola had murdered in cold blood, and Marco had seen with his own eyes how he’d done it. The man was completely without feeling, as he must also have been the time he turned Miryam into an invalid. William Stark had been killed just as cynically, and most likely others besides. And it was with that same callousness that Zola would have killed him. Feeling nothing.
“Have you gone deaf, mate, or what? Where do you want to go? You’ve got money, yeah?”
Marco nodded and passed two hundred kroner to the driver.
“OK, two hundred. Think about it for a bit.”
Marco shook his head. He didn’t need to think. Zola’s eyes had decided for him. Marco was staying to complete his mission. Zola was going to pay, no matter what.
“They weren’t half after you, those guys out there. Something to do with drugs, was it? Yeah, I know all about it. As soon as you start doing a bit of business for yourself, they flip totally out, don’t they? It’s a downer. Well, whaddaya say? Found out where you want to go?”
“Do you know the Hereford Beefstouw next to Tivoli Gardens?” Marco asked.
“Sure, I’m a taxi driver, aren’t I? Ask me something I don’t know and you can have your two hundred back.”
36
“Eriksen has left the ministry, Carl.”
Carl looked at his watch. “He’s off early, then. When’s he-” He broke off, realizing from the look on Gordon’s face that for once he seemed to have something important to say, so he shut up.
“Eriksen has handed in his resignation with immediate effect. He went straight to his boss after we’d been over there, announced he was ill, and said he wouldn’t be coming back.”
Carl frowned. “Dammit, Gordon. I don’t know what you’ve done, but you’ve certainly set something in motion.”
He called for Rose and Assad and filled them in on the situation.
“Assad, you call Eriksen’s home and see if he’s there. And Rose, you call the ministry and get hold of the department head. We need to know what’s going on here. And when you’re done with that, call the Frederiksværk police and ask them to keep an eye on this Zola bloke and see if he’s about to do a runner. And to make sure they grab him if he tries.”
“On what grounds?” she asked.
“You’ll think of something, Rose.”
“And what about me?” asked Gordon.
“You check Eriksen’s background. We want to know if he owns a summer cottage or some other place where he can lie low. Call the tax authorities, people like that.”
It warmed Carl’s heart to see how disappointed the boy looked.
–
Assad nodded and snapped his mobile shut.
“It was Department Q’s very own Rose,” he said, putting his feet back up on the dashboard.
“That’s nice. Now let’s try and sum up,” said Carl, changing lanes. How come the traffic was already like being inside an anthill?
Assad nodded again.
“First thing is, do we agree that your methods of interrogation go a bit too far, Assad?”
“Too far? How do you mean, Carl? Aren’t they just creative?”
He shook his head. Creative? One day Assad’s creativity might just be their undoing.
“Secondly, I now know that Lars Bjørn spent time in Abu Ghraib prison while Saddam was in power. Don’t tell me you didn’t know, Assad, because I won’t believe you. Just tell me if you and Bjørn knowing each other has anything to do with that.”
Assad raised his head and stared out pensively along Ballerup Boulevard. Not exactly an uplifting sight.
Then he turned to Carl and nodded calmly. “Yes, it has. And now you must ask me no more about this. OK, Carl?”
Carl glanced at the GPS. Two more junctions and they’d be there.
“OK,” he replied. So far, so good. It was a step in the right direction. The question was, when would he take the next one? He certainly wasn’t going to let Assad off the hook that easily.
“All right, back to business. What did Rose have to say? Did she get hold of that department head?”
“Yes, and she got a rather more nuanced story than the one Gordon gave us.” He skimmed through his notepad. “I have it here. I wrote it all down.” He tapped his finger against the page. “It is true this René E. Eriksen has resigned his position with immediate effect. The reason he gave was that after having spoken with us he realized Stark had committed fraud and that it was his fault it was never detected. With this weighing down his shoulders he could no longer remain with the department. The permanent secretary said that by rights he ought to have been suspended, but Eriksen was looking so poorly that they agreed he should go on sick leave as of that same day. Most likely there will be an internal investigation at some point, but for the moment he was unable to tell us any more.”
“OK.” Carl peered at the house numbers. A couple more and they could pull in. “Now it’s up to us whether we believe this or not. Is it really plausible that Stark’s actions shocked Eriksen as much as he claims? And not least of all, are we prepared to believe Stark was doing something illegal?”
Assad nodded. A bit absently.
–
For someone living in Rønneholtparken, the single-story dwelling in Ballerup maybe wasn’t that bad, but the location at the end of a dreary residential avenue was awfully bleak. Though the street was lined with trees, their closest neighbor was the Ringvej 4 motorway. Not that one actually heard the traffic that much, one simply smelled it. All in all, he’d rather stay put in the concrete boxes of his own estate, lined up in rows in the open landscape, with lots of friends around.
They rang the doorbell and were received by Eriksen’s wife, who clearly let them know they could come in for a minute, but she had other things to do besides answering their questions. Therefore she declined to offer them a seat, or ask if she might fetch them some refreshment.
“Looks like quite an accident,” Carl commented, pointing to the tarpaulin the emergency glaziers had rigged up where the window was supposed to be in the living room.
“I wouldn’t call it an accident. It was a planned assault, the day before yesterday. They smashed the window and set about attacking us, but I fended them off with my iron.”
Carl frowned. “I’m sorry, I’m not with you. As far as I know, nothing’s been reported to the police at this address.”
“No, I wanted to call the police, but my husband wouldn’t.”
“Hmm, strange. So what happened? Did they make off with anything?”
“As I said, I sorted them out with my iron before they had a chance.”
“So you do not actually know if this was intended to be a burglary?” Assad inquired.