Harry Hole 02 - Cockroaches (37 page)

‘That’s because it’s not a coincidence. Hilde Molnes told me the loan shark’s thugs who had rung her after the ambassador’s death immediately stopped calling after she had spoken to Brekke on the phone. I doubt that he scared them, let’s put it like that. When we visited Thai Indo Travellers, Mr Sorensen said they had no scores to settle with Molnes. He may have been telling the truth. My guess is Brekke paid off the ambassador’s debts. In exchange for other services, naturally.’

‘Woo’s services.’

‘Exactly.’ Harry looked at his watch. ‘Bloody hell, what’s happened to Løken?’

Liz got up with a sigh. ‘Let’s try calling him. Maybe he’s fallen asleep.’

Harry scratched his chin, lost in thought. ‘Maybe.’

Løken felt a pain in his chest. He’d never had heart problems, but knew a little about the symptoms. If it was a heart attack he hoped it was powerful enough to kill him. He was going to die anyway, so it would be good if he could cheat Brekke of the pleasure. Although who knows, perhaps he didn’t get any pleasure out of it. Perhaps it was for Brekke as it had been for him – a job that had to be done. One shot, a man falls and that’s that. He looked at Brekke. He watched his mouth move and realised to his surprise that he couldn’t hear anything.

‘So when Ove Klipra asked me to sort out Phuridell’s dollar debt he did it over lunch instead of on the phone,’ Jens said. ‘I couldn’t believe my ears. An order of around half a billion and he gives it to me verbally without any traceable record! That’s the kind of chance you can wait half your life for in vain.’

Jens wiped his mouth with a serviette.

‘When I returned to the office I did the dollar dealings in my own name. If the dollar went down I could just transfer the deal to Phuridell and say I was fixing the price of the dollar debt as we’d discussed. If it went up I could pocket the gain and flatly deny Klipra had asked me to buy the dollar rates. He couldn’t prove a thing. Guess what happened, Ivar. Is it all right if I call you Ivar?’

He scrunched up the serviette and aimed at a litter bin by the door.

‘Yes, Klipra threatened to go to the management of Barclays Thailand with the case. I explained to him that if Barclays Thailand endorsed him, they would have to replace his loss. Plus they would lose their best broker. Put simply: they couldn’t afford to do anything but support me. So he threatened to use his political connections. You know what? He never got that far. I realised I could get rid of a problem, Ove Klipra, and at that same time take over his company, Phuridell, one that was going to take off like a rocket. And when I say that, it’s not because I hope and believe that, the way these pathetic share speculators do. I
know
it will. I’ll make sure it happens.’ Jens’s eyes shone. ‘Just as I know this Harry Hole and the bald-headed woman are going to die tonight. It will happen.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I apologise for the melodrama, but
tempus fugit
, Ivar. It’s time to consider your best interests, isn’t it?’

Løken started at him with vacant eyes.

‘Not afraid, eh? The hard nut?’ Slightly bemused, Brekke pulled a loose thread from a buttonhole. ‘Shall I tell you how they’ll be found, Ivar? Each tied to a post, somewhere in the river with a bullet in the bodies and faces like dropped meat pies. Heard that expression before, have you, Ivar? No? Perhaps they didn’t use it when you were young, eh? I’d never been able to picture it. Until my friend Woo here told me that a boat propeller can literally rip the skin off a man and show the flesh underneath. Do you get me? It’s a neat trick Woo picked up from the local mafia. Of course people might ask what the two of them had done to make the mafia so mad, but they’ll never find out, will they. Especially not from you, as you’ll be getting a free operation and five million dollars to tell me where they are. You’ve had a lot of practice disappearing, creating a new identity and all that, haven’t you.’

Ivar Løken watched Jens’s lips move and heard the echo of a voice in the distance. Words like boat propeller, five million and a new identity fluttered past. He had never been a hero in his own eyes and had never had an inordinate desire to die as one. But he knew the difference between right and wrong, and within reasonable bounds he had striven to do what was right. No one else but Brekke and Woo would ever know if he had met his death with his head held high or not, no one would talk about old Løken over a beer among vets in the intelligence service or at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Løken wouldn’t have cared one way or the other anyhow. He didn’t need a reputation after his death. His life had been a well-kept secret, and so it was probably natural that his death would be the same. But if this situation was not the place for a grand gesture he also knew that all he would gain from giving Brekke what he wanted was a quicker death. And he no longer felt any pain. So it wasn’t worth it. If Løken had heard the details of Brekke’s suggestion it wouldn’t have made any difference. Nothing would make any difference. For at that moment the mobile phone attached to his belt began to beep.

49

Friday 24 January

AS HARRY WAS
about to hang up he heard a click and a new tone, and he realised his call was being transferred from Løken’s home number to his mobile. He waited, let it ring seven times before he gave up and thanked the girl with the plaits behind the desk for letting him use the phone.

‘We’ve got a problem,’ he said as he returned to the room. Liz had taken off her shoes to inspect some dry skin.

‘The traffic,’ she said. ‘It’s always the traffic.’

‘I was transferred to his mobile phone, but he didn’t answer that, either. I don’t like it.’

‘Relax. What could happen to him here in peaceful Bangkok? He must have left his cellphone at home.’

‘I made a mistake,’ Harry said. ‘I told Brekke we were meeting tonight and asked him to find out who was behind Ellem Ltd.’

‘You did what?’ Liz took her feet off the table.

Harry thumped the table with his fist making the coffee cups jump. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck! I wanted to see how he would react.’

‘React? Harry, this isn’t a game!’

‘I’m not playing a game. I arranged to ring him from the meeting so that we could catch up with him somewhere. My plan had been Lemon Grass.’

‘The restaurant we went to before?’

‘It’s close by and better than risking an ambush at his place. There are three of us, so I imagined an arrest à la Woo.’

‘But then you scared him off by mentioning Ellem?’ Liz groaned.

‘Brekke’s not stupid. He could smell a rat long before then. He talked about the best-man nonsense again, to test me, to check if I had him in my sights.’

Liz snorted. ‘What a load of macho bullshit! If you two have anything personal invested in this, get it out of your system. For Christ’s sake, Harry, I thought you were too professional for that.’

Harry didn’t answer. He knew she was right: he’d behaved like an amateur. Why on earth had he mentioned Ellem Ltd? He could have invented a hundred other pretexts to meet. Perhaps there was something in what Jens had said, that some people like risk for risk’s sake. Perhaps he was one of the gamblers Brekke considered so pathetic. No, it wasn’t that. Not just that at any rate. His grandfather had once explained why he never shot grouse when they were on the ground: it’s not nice.

Was that why? A kind of inherited hunting ethic: you frightened the prey to shoot them in flight, to give them a symbolic chance of getting away.

Liz interrupted his train of thought.

‘So what do we do now, Detective?’

‘Wait,’ Harry said. ‘We’ll give Løken half an hour. If he hasn’t turned up I’ll phone Brekke.’

‘And if Brekke doesn’t answer?’

Harry drew a deep breath. ‘Then we phone the Chief of Police and mobilise the whole force.’

Liz swore through gritted teeth. ‘Did I tell you what it’s like to be a traffic cop?’

Jens looked at the display on Løken’s phone and chuckled. It had stopped beeping.

‘Great phone you’ve got, Ivar,’ he said. ‘Ericsson’s done a fine job, don’t you agree? You can see the caller’s number. So if it’s someone you don’t want to talk to, you don’t have to. Unless I’m much mistaken someone’s wondering why you haven’t turned up. Because you don’t have a lot of friends ringing you at this time of day, do you, Ivar.’

He threw the phone over his shoulder and Woo nimbly stepped to the side and caught it.

‘Find out whose number that is and where. Now.’

Jens sat down next to Løken.

‘This operation is beginning to get rather urgent, Ivar.’

Holding his nose, he looked down at the floor where a pool had formed around his chair.

‘I mean, really, Ivar.’

‘Millie’s Karaoke,’ Woo said in staccato English. ‘I know where it is.’

Jens patted Løken on the shoulder.

‘Sorry, but we’ve got to be off now, Ivar. We’ll have to go to the hospital when we’re back.’

Løken was aware of the vibration of steps fading in the distance and waited for the air pressure from the slamming of the door. It didn’t come. Instead he heard the distant echo of a voice by his ear.

‘Oh yes, I almost forgot, Ivar.’

He felt hot breath on his temple.

‘We need something to tie them to the poles with. Could I borrow this tourniquet? You’ll get it back. I promise.’

Løken opened his mouth and felt the mucus in his throat loosen as he roared. Someone else had taken over command in his brain, and he didn’t feel the jerk on the leather straps as he saw the blood wash over the table and the shirtsleeves absorb it all until they were red. He didn’t notice the door close.

Harry jumped up at the light tap on the door.

Involuntarily he grimaced when it wasn’t Løken but the girl from reception.

‘You Harry, mister?’

He nodded.

‘Telephone.’

‘What did I say?’ Liz said. ‘Hundred baht it’s the traffic.’

He followed the girl to reception, noting in his subconscious that she had the same raven-black hair and the same slim neck as Runa. He stared at the tiny black hairs at the nape of her neck. She turned, flashed a quick smile and stretched out her hand. He nodded and took the receiver.

‘Yes?’

‘Harry? It’s me.’

Harry thought he sensed his blood vessels widening as his heart began to pump blood faster round his body. He took a couple of breaths before speaking calmly and clearly.

‘Where’s Løken, Jens?’

‘Ivar? He’s got his hands full and can’t make it.’

Harry could hear from his voice that the masquerade was over; this was Jens Brekke speaking now, the same person he had spoken to in the office the first time. The same teasing, provocative tone of a man who knows he is going to win, but wants to enjoy it before delivering the
coup de grâce
. Harry tried to grasp what it was that could have swung the odds against him.

‘I’ve been waiting for you to call, Harry.’ This was not the voice of a desperate man, but one who was in the driving seat, with one nonchalant hand on the wheel.

‘Well, you’re ahead of the game, Jens.’

Jens laughed. ‘It seems I always am, Harry. How does it feel?’

‘Wearing. Where’s Løken?’

‘Would you like to know what Runa said before she died?’

Harry felt a tingling sensation underneath the skin on his forehead. ‘No,’ he heard himself say. ‘I just want to know where Løken is, what you’ve done to him and where we can find you.’

‘Harry, that’s three wishes at once!’

The membrane in the telephone microphone vibrated with his laughter. But there was something else struggling to capture Harry’s attention, something he couldn’t quite identify. The laughter stopped abruptly.

‘Do you know how much self-sacrifice is required to execute a plan like this, Harry? To check and double-check, to follow all the little detours to make it infallible? Not to mention the physical discomfort. Killing is one thing, but do you think I enjoyed sitting in prison all that time? You might not believe me, but what I said about being locked up is true.’

‘So why did you bother with all the detours?’

‘I’ve told you before, eliminating risks has a cost, but it’s worth it, it’s always worth it. Framing Klipra required painstaking work.’

‘So why didn’t you make it simple? Mow them all down and blame the mafia?’

‘You think like one of the losers you usually chase, Harry. You’re like gamblers, you forget the whole picture, the consequences. Of course I could have killed Molnes, Klipra and Runa in simpler ways and made sure I didn’t leave any traces. But that wouldn’t have been enough. Because when I took over the Molnes fortune and Phuridell it would have been pretty obvious I had a motive for killing all three of them, wouldn’t it? Three murders and one person with a motive for all of them. Even the police would have been able to suss that one, don’t you think? Even if you hadn’t found any damning evidence you could have made life fairly unpleasant for me. So I had to create an alternative scenario for you. Where one of the victims was the perpetrator. A solution that wasn’t so difficult that you couldn’t sort it out or so easy that you wouldn’t be happy with it. You ought to thank me, Harry. I made you look good when you were on Klipra’s trail, didn’t I.’

Harry was only half listening; he had gone back in time. Then he’d had a murderer’s voice in his ear as well. Then it had been the water in the background that had given him away, but now all Harry could hear was the faint hum of music that could have been anywhere at all.

‘What do you want, Jens?’

‘What do I want? Well, what do I want? Just a chat, I suppose.’

To keep me on the line, Harry thought. He wants to keep me on the line. Why? Synthetic drums splashed and a clarinet warbled.

‘But if you’d like to know precisely, I was just ringing to say . . .’

Harry could hear ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’ playing.

‘. . . that your colleague could do with a facelift. What do you think, Harry? Harry?’

The receiver swung to and fro in an arc just above the floor.

Harry felt the sweet rush of adrenalin as though it had been injected into him while he ran down the corridor. The girl with the plaits had backed up against the wall in fear as he dropped the receiver, pulled out his borrowed Ruger SP
101
from his calf holster and loaded it in one smooth movement. Had she understood when he shouted to her to call the police? No time to wonder about that now, he was there. Harry kicked open the first door and squinted straight into four shocked faces above the gunsights.