But this time was different. He was still fazed by the experience of standing there on that little back road by the railway tracks, peering into the bag at the note and his own clothes.
They had cheated him. The money wasn’t there. It was a bad situation.
He pictured the wreck of the Ford Mondeo and felt satisfaction at the thought of that God-bothering bumpkin having got what she deserved. But Isabel’s involvement nagged at him.
He was to blame for the way things had turned out, right from the start. If only he had followed his instinct, Isabel would have been dead after confronting him like that in Viborg.
Who could have known there was a connection between Isabel and Rachel? From Frederiks to Isabel’s little row house in Viborg was a long way. What had he overlooked?
He inhaled sharply through the cigarette and held the smoke inside his lungs for as long as he could. No ransom, and all because of stupid mistakes. Stupid mistakes, and coincidence that pointed in one direction: to Isabel. Right now, he had no idea if she was dead or alive. If he’d only had ten seconds more at that fucking car, he would have buried the jack in her skull.
He would have been safe then.
Now all he could do was hope nature took its course. The crash had been bad. The Mondeo had hit a tree and rolled over maybe a dozen times. The searing, scraping sound of mangling metal against the tarmac had hardly ceased before he got out of his Mercedes. How could she possibly survive that?
He rubbed his aching neck. Bastard women. Why hadn’t they just done as they were told?
He flicked his cigarette end into the thicket, opened the door of the passenger side, and sat down on the seat, pulling the bag onto his lap to examine the contents once more.
The padlock and the clasp from the barn at Ferslev. Some of his clothes from the wardrobe, and this note. That was all.
He read it over and over again. He was in no doubt that he would have to react promptly. Whoever had written it knew too much.
But they had thought themselves safe, and that was their mistake. They had been certain the roles had been switched and that they had gained the upper hand. Now the women were most likely dead, but he would have to check and make sure.
Then only the husband, Joshua, and perhaps Isabel’s brother in the police would be a threat.
Perhaps. A fateful word.
For a moment, he sat taking stock of the situation as the ribbon of lights from the motorway illuminated the rest area’s toilet block in waves.
He had no fear that the police were after him. He was already several hundred meters from the scene by the time the patrol cars had arrived, and though he had encountered a couple more with sirens blaring before he reached the motorway, none would be especially interested in a lone Mercedes keeping to the speed limit.
Of course, the police would find traces of a collision when they examined Isabel’s car, but the more exact circumstances of the crash could only remain a mystery. How would they ever find him?
No, Rachel’s husband was his priority now. Joshua, and the money. And then he would have to be sure to erase any trace that might put anyone on to his tail. He would have to reboot his entire business from scratch.
He gave a sigh. It had been a miserable year.
His target had always been ten, and then he would pack it in. He was good at his work. The millions he had made in the first years had been invested wisely and provided a decent yield. But then came the financial crisis, and the bottom had fallen out of his portfolio.
Even a kidnapper and murderer was subject to the vagaries of the market, and now to all intents and purposes he had been forced to start again.
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, as a new angle suddenly occurred to him.
If his sister didn’t get her money as usual, he would have another problem on his hands. She could bring up matters from his childhood. Names that weren’t to be divulged.
That, too.
When he returned from the boys’ home, his mother had a new husband, selected for her from among the eligible widowers by the elders of the congregation. The man owned a chimney-sweeping firm and was father to two girls of Eva’s age. A pillar, as the new pastor had referred to him, with scant regard for truth.
To begin with, his stepfather refrained from beating him, but once his mother reduced the dose of her sleeping pills and began to indulge him in the marital bed, the man’s conceit prevailed and his temper gradually found an outlet.
“May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.” These were the words he used to conclude the thrashings he dealt out to his daughters. They were uttered frequently. If one of them had been deemed in any way to transgress the word of God, to whose interpretation their father believed himself to possess sole and exclusive rights, he would not hesitate to punish the fruits of his own loins. Generally, however, the girls did very little wrong, so his wrath was directed mainly at their stepbrother. He might forget the occasional amen, or perhaps smirk during grace. It was seldom more than that. Fortunately, awareness of his own physical limitations meant his mother’s husband never dared lay a finger on her strapping young son.
Afterward came the pangs of guilty conscience, and this was almost invariably the worst of it. His own father had never bothered with anything like remorse, and so no one was ever in any doubt where they stood with him. But his stepfather would stroke the cheeks of his daughters and beg their forgiveness for his rage and for their evil stepbrother. And then he would retire to the study and put on the Robe of God, as his father had always referred to the vestment, and he would pray to the Lord that He might protect these vulnerable, innocent girls as if they were His own angels.
As for Eva, he never deigned to say a word to her. Her glazed, blind eyes repulsed him, and she sensed this.
None of the children understood him. Why should his own two girls be punished when it was the stepson he hated and the stepdaughter he held in contempt? And none of them could fathom why their mother did not intervene, or how God could manifest Himself in the hateful and conspicuously unjust deeds of this beastly man.
For a time, Eva would speak up in her stepfather’s defense, but even her protests waned when the beatings meted out to her stepsisters became so violent that she almost believed she could feel the pain herself.
Her brother bided his time, saving himself for the final encounter. It would come when they were least expecting it.
Once, they had been four children, a husband, and a wife. Now only he and Eva were left.
He pulled the plastic pocket containing all the information about the family out of the glove compartment and quickly found Joshua’s mobile number.
Now he would ring him up and confront him with the realities. That his wife and their accomplice no longer posed a danger, and that his children would be next unless the ransom was delivered to a new location within twenty-four hours. He would inform Joshua that he was a dead man if he had revealed anything about the kidnapping to anyone other than Isabel.
It was easy for him to picture the ruddy face of this good-natured man, who would almost certainly break down and do exactly as he was instructed.
He had seen it all before.
He dialed the number and waited for what seemed like an eternity before it was answered.
“Hello?” said a voice he immediately realized was unfamiliar.
“Hello, is Joshua there?” he asked as a pair of headlights swept past him.
“Who’s this?” the voice replied.
“Is this Joshua’s mobile?” he asked.
“No, you must have got a wrong number.”