He glanced at the display. No, the number was right. What was going on?
Then it struck him. The name!
“Oh, I’m sorry. Joshua’s what we all call him, but his proper name’s Jens Krogh. I forget sometimes. May I speak to him?”
He stared through the silence into space. The man at the other end said nothing. This wasn’t a good sign. Who the hell was he?
“I see,” said the voice eventually. “And who am I speaking to?”
“His brother-in-law,” he blurted out. “Is he there?”
“No, I’m afraid he isn’t. You’re speaking to Sergeant Leif Sindal of the Roskilde Police. You’re his brother-in-law, you say. May I take your name?”
The police? Had the idiot gone to the police? Was he completely insane?
“Police? Has something happened to Joshua?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything until you give me a name.”
Something was definitely wrong. What now?
“It’s Søren Gormsen,” he said. That was his rule. Always give up an unusual name when dealing with the police. They’d believe it, because they knew they could check.
“I see,” came the reply. “Can you describe your brother-in-law to us, Mr. Gormsen?”
“Yes, I can. He’s a big man. Balding, in his late fifties, always wears an olive-green sleeveless jacket and-”
“Mr. Gormsen,” the policeman interrupted. “We’ve been called because Jens Krogh was found apparently lifeless on board a train. The police doctor is with us as we speak, and I very much regret to inform you that your brother-in-law has been declared dead.”
He allowed the word “dead” to resonate for a moment before responding. “Oh, no. That’s dreadful. How did it happen?”
“We don’t know yet. According to a fellow passenger, he collapsed.”
He wondered whether he might be walking headlong into a trap.
“Where will you be taking him?” he asked.
He heard the police sergeant and the doctor confer in the background. “An ambulance will be coming to collect the body. There’ll probably be an autopsy.”
“So he’ll be taken to the hospital in Roskilde?”
“We’ll be getting off the train at Roskilde, yes.”
He said his thanks and a few words of regret, then got out of the car to wipe the mobile, planning to hurl it into the windbreak of trees. They wouldn’t be able to trace him on that account if it was all a setup.
“Hey,” came a voice from behind him. He turned to see a couple of men climbing out of a car that had just pulled in to the rest area. Lithuanian plates and faded jogging suits. Gaunt, unfriendly faces.
They came straight toward him, their intentions clear. In a moment he would be sprawling on the ground with his pockets emptied. It was plainly their line of work.
He raised a hand in warning, indicating the mobile. “Here,” he shouted, then hurled the phone hard against the forehead of the man in front, swiveling to one side and planting a back kick into the groin of his accomplice, causing his bony frame to crumple amid cries of pain, the switchblade he carried dropping to the ground.
He had the knife in his hand within a second, thrusting it into the abdomen of the first man, then into the side of the second.
And then he retrieved his phone and threw it and the knife as far into the bushes as he could.
Life had taught him always to strike first.
He left the two bleeding thugs to themselves and entered Roskilde Station into the GPS.
He would be there in eight minutes.
The ambulance had been waiting for some time before they came with the stretcher. He stepped into the array of inquisitive onlookers with their eyes fixed on Joshua’s body underneath the blanket. As soon as he saw the uniformed officer with Joshua’s coat and bag in his hands, everything was confirmed.
Joshua was dead. The money was lost.
“Fuck,” he exclaimed under his breath, repeating it to himself as he pointed the Mercedes toward Ferslev and the cottage that had been his bolt-hole for years. His cover-his address, his name, his van, everything that made it safe to be him, was all tied up in the place. And now it was over. Isabel had the license plate number of the van and had passed it on to her brother, and the owner of the vehicle could be traced to the address. It was no longer safe.
By the time he reached the village and drove up the track between the trees to the cottage, peace had descended upon the landscape. The little community had long since succumbed to the torpor of the television screen. Only the main house of a farm across the fields displayed a pair of brightly lit windows. The alarm would probably be raised there.
He noted how Rachel and Isabel had broken into his garage and the house. He went through the premises, removing items that might withstand the flames. A small mirror, a tin of sewing equipment, the first-aid box.
Then he backed the van out of the barn, drove it around the side of the house, and reversed at full speed into the picture window that had afforded him such a good view over the fields.
The sound of shattering glass prompted a brief cacophony of crows, but that was all.
He walked around to the other side and went into the house, shining his torch in front of him. Perfect, he thought, seeing the van’s rear tires punctured and its back end protruding onto the laminated floor. He stepped carefully between the shards of glass and opened the back doors, took out a jerrican, and emptied its contents in an even trail from the living room to the kitchen, out into the hall, and up the stairs.
Then he unscrewed the cap of the van’s petrol tank, tore off a strip of moldering curtain, and inserted the end deep into the tank.
He stood for a moment in the yard and looked around before igniting the rag of curtain and throwing it into the petrol on the floor next to the line of gas cylinders in the hall.
He was already on the road, racing through the gears of the Mercedes, by the time the van’s petrol tank exploded with a deafening boom. A minute later, the gas canisters went up. The explosion was so violent it almost raised the roof.
Not until he had passed the village grocery store and could see across the fields again did he pull in and look back.
The cottage was ablaze behind the trees, like a bonfire on Midsummer’s Eve, spitting out sparks into the sky. Already it could be seen from miles away. And before long, the flames would lick the branches of the trees and everything would be razed to the ground.
There was no more to fear on that account.
The fire brigade would quickly see that nothing could be saved.
They would put it down to a boyish prank that had got out of hand.
It happened so often, out in the country.
He stood in front of the door of the room in which his wife lay trapped underneath the packing cases, noting once again with a strange blend of sadness and satisfaction that the place was as quiet as the grave. They had been good together, the two of them. She was kind and beautiful and a good mother to their child. It could all have been so very different. Once again, he had only himself to blame for things not having worked out. Before he lived with someone again, he would have to get rid of everything he had hidden away inside that room. The past had taken charge of his life until now, but he would not allow it to assume control of his future, too. He would do a couple more kidnappings, sell the house, and settle down somewhere far away. Perhaps he might even learn how to live a normal life.
He lay stretched out on the corner sofa for some time, thinking through the things he had to do. He could keep Vibegården and its boathouse, that much was clear. But he would need to find a replacement for the cottage at Ferslev. A little house far from the beaten track. A place where no one came, and best if the owner was some local outcast. An old soak who kept himself to himself and owed no one any favors. He might have to look farther south this time. He remembered a couple of places he’d considered at one time when driving around the Næstved area, but experience told him that making the final selection would be no easy matter.