X Ways to Die

by Stefan Ahnhem

  ‘Yes, we understand, but—’

  ‘Then why aren’t you doing anything? Why are you just sitting here? Don’t you get that he’s going to pick them off one by one as the dice directs him? Children, old people, women, men. No one will be safe. It’s only after he rolls a—’ He gave up with a sigh.

  There was no point. They’d stopped listening and much as he hated to admit it, he could see why. Everything he said sounded insane and the more he’d tried to argue with them and make them understand the gravity of the situation, the more obvious it had become that everything was based on loose assumptions. He couldn’t swear he would have believed them if their roles had been reversed.

  ‘And this must be Fabian Risk, unless I’m mistaken,’ said a voice behind him.

  He turned around and saw a man with a determined smile on his face enter the room.

  ‘Thank you. I’ll take it from here.’

  The guards nodded and left the office while the man took a seat across from Fabian.

  ‘My name is Jan Hesk and I work for the Copenhagen Police.’

  ‘Finally, someone from the police,’ Fabian said. ‘I don’t know how much you know about the situation. The thing is that we have a suspected killer who may be about to attack—’

  ‘Stop, stop,’ Hesk broke in, raising one hand. ‘One step at a time. Is it true that you broke into the park armed with a gun and proceeded to fire it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct, but it was a warning shot, into the air. What’s important right now is that—’

  ‘I have to ask you to give me your weapon.’

  ‘I’m sorry, the guards already confiscated it, and though I would love to have it back as soon as possible, what’s important right now is that we get plain-clothes officers out there and start evacuating the visitors before—’

  ‘Is it also true that you were the one who violated Danish territorial waters yesterday, despite being denied access?’

  Fabian nodded with a heavy sigh and was about to explain, but couldn’t get a word in.

  ‘Great. Then I would ask you to sign here and here.’ Hesk pushed a document across the table and pointed to the dotted line at the bottom.

  Admission of illegal violation of Danish territorial waters and illegal possession of a firearm.

  Fabian didn’t have to read past the first word to realize the Danish police had no interest in Milwokh.

  70

  PONTUS MILWOKH WAS in the Star Flyer, a swing ride, spinning round and round, 250 feet above the ground. From up here, he could see not only Tivoli and every one of his potential victims, but all of Copenhagen spread out before him.

  When he’d come here as a young boy, this ride hadn’t existed, so it was his first time trying it, and he had to admit he felt like the thin chains his seat was suspended from might snap at any second.

  As they began to descend again, he shook his left arm and watched the dice tumble around like it was dancing, led by chance, inside the modified water bottle. So far, he had no complaints. The dice had provided a virtually perfect warm-up sequence of sub-tasks and he was starting to feel ready to up the ante.

  He’d done five already. Five victims that at the moment had no idea that’s what they were. If it kept on like this, he’d run out of ricin. But he felt sure the dice had that under control.

  Four – Change colour

  At least it wasn’t a one. Granted, he wouldn’t have had to go home empty-handed if it had been, and sure, he’d had fun. More than fun, it had been a blast. But he was far from done and couldn’t wait to sink his teeth into his next sub-task.

  He shook his arm again and let the dice jump around under the plastic dome while he climbed out of the swing and walked down the steps. This was exactly what he’d been chasing. The feeling that anything was possible. That adventures, each one bigger and more thrilling than the next, lay ahead. It was intoxicating and helped him put the difficulties he’d encountered getting in behind him.

  It had been his own idea to enter the park without his gear. He’d thrown his equipment in over the fence behind The Demon, Tivoli’s largest roller coaster, and that had turned out to be ingenious. That the dice had ordered him to use the main entrance to Tivoli, rather than one of the smaller side ones, was, perhaps, not ideal.

  Maybe it had just wanted to add some spice to proceedings because suddenly, someone claiming to work for the Swedish police had started chasing him and had even fired his gun. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have recognized him from his night on Öresund.

  He’d never been able to figure out how they’d come so close to catching him that time. He was even more stumped today. It was impressive. Really impressive, and he had only his lucky star to thank for not having had his gear with him. He would have been arrested if he had and then he wouldn’t have got to experience any of the fun that awaited him now.

  One – Red

  New colour, new victims. There were so many to choose from he’d decided to pick the first one he laid eyes on, to avoid turning it into an active choice.

  As soon as the guards had let him leave, he’d casually strolled over to the exit from The Demon, and in the quiet between two trains he’d hurried up the short flight of steps and jumped over the railing to a hidden patch of grass where his gear had been waiting for him next to two large bins.

  In that secluded spot, he’d been able to take his time strapping on the back holster and all the belt bags without anyone noticing. When he was ready, he’d simply unlocked the gate in the red wooden fence from the inside and started the game, and since then, everything had gone like clockwork.

  The boy looked to be about ten and was wearing red shorts. That was all he needed. It was almost like stalking himself on that day almost thirty years ago when he’d made his way here all by himself and had the best day of his life. Nothing, despite all his attempts and experiences, had ever compared to it.

  Not until today.

  There was no sign of parents. Maybe he was lost. But he didn’t seem upset, so more likely he’d been allowed to walk around by himself for an hour or two so the adults could catch a break in the sunshine.

  He followed the boy into the Grand Prix, a circular room underneath the Ferris wheel where you could place bets on postmen racing round and round on their bikes. As a boy he’d loved the cycling puppets, but just like the boy in the red shorts, he’d been afraid to gamble away any of his money, and so he’d continued out the other side and walked up towards Fairy-Tale Lane.

  In reality, it was called Smøgen, but to him it had always felt like stepping into a fairy-tale world. Wedged in behind the old roller coaster, it was easy to miss, but it was where all the fun stands could be found and all the best lollipops were sold. But above all, it was where you could feel like no one else knew where you were.

  The boy stopped at a stand where you could shoot all kinds of animals with a laser rifle. He could remember standing in that same spot as though it were yesterday, waiting for his turn as one inebriated group after another pushed ahead of him.

  He could almost feel the frustration from back then, when he’d finally screamed that it was his turn to play and yanked one of the men’s ponytails so hard he fell over. The man’s mates, who all wore leather jackets with the same patch across the back, had applauded and put him on a stool so he could finally shoot the animals.

  It was happening again. As though time had glitched and was running on a loop, the little boy was waiting his turn when a group of drunk idiots pushed ahead of him. He wanted to go up to them and stab them, one by one. But sadly, it wasn’t their turn. So instead, he walked over and tapped the biggest one’s shoulder.

  The man turned around and tried to focus his bleary eyes on him.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing, fucking Chink?’

  ‘The rules are there to be followed,’ he replied calmly. ‘And one of them is that everyone has to wait their turn.’

  The man cleared his throat. He could hear the phlegm
travelling up from his lungs to his mouth. But somewhere in his boozy haze, he must have sensed how serious the situation was, because he spat the mucus out on the pavement and stepped aside so the boy could get to the rifle.

  Once his time was up and the rifle went out, he held out a twenty-kronor note so the boy could go again. But the boy shook his head, and before he could react, he’d been swallowed by the crowd.

  Milwokh hurried after him and bumped into several people on his way through the milling throng. This was not part of the game. This simply couldn’t happen. He’d had several opportunities to finish the task. Instead, he’d allowed himself to get sucked into a swirl of saccharine nostalgia and been completely blinded.

  He could maybe choose someone else. He saw potential victims wearing red all around him. The rules said nothing about that or how to handle the situation that had suddenly arisen. But in his heart of hearts, he knew that wasn’t the intention. The first one he saw was the one. No one else.

  Then he finally spotted the red shorts again, just as they disappeared into the Fun House with its moving staircases, suspension bridges and revolving tunnels. The best thing about the Fun House was that you could stay as long as you wanted. On this occasion, however, his main concerns were the poor air quality, the loud screaming of the hordes of children and the boy.

  It felt significantly smaller than the last time he was here, but it was still large enough that it could potentially take him hours to find his target.

  ‘Why are you following me?’

  The voice behind him was more high-pitched than he’d expected, and as he turned it dawned on him that the boy might be even younger than he’d thought. Just as suddenly, fumbling around for the least implausible lie became irrelevant.

  ‘You remind me of myself at your age. I think that’s why.’

  The boy thought about it and eventually nodded. ‘But maybe you could stop now, because I don’t like it. Not at all, actually.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he said, nodding. ‘On one condition. That you let me give you a hug.’

  The boy instinctively took a step back.

  ‘You might not be able to understand this, but I’m just here to close the circle, and when I saw you, it was like seeing myself.’

  ‘Do you promise to leave me alone if I let you?’ the boy said, swallowing hard.

  He nodded and smiled. ‘I promise.’

  ‘Cross your heart?’

  ‘Cross my heart.’

  ‘Okay.’ The boy took a step forward and hugged him and a fraction of a second after the needle penetrated the cotton of his T-shirt and then the skin above his hip, he flinched.

  It was over in seconds, and yet it felt like an eternity as he held the boy close for as long as it took to empty the entire syringe before allowing him to run off.

  71

  FABIAN MOVED AS quickly as he could without knocking people over. Sometimes he ran, sometimes he had to skirt around large groups of people, but he kept moving and turning his head constantly to try to take in as much information as possible.

  He had to avoid getting bogged down in irrelevant details and only focus on things that stuck out. Whatever that might be. Most of the things he reacted to were completely normal at an amusement park.

  People were screaming all around him. Usually out of sheer thrill, but on occasion out of fear or even panic. Children were crying and adults shouting. People’s movements were different, too. They were either standing still in groups or ambling around aimlessly without any discernible purpose. Others were running like they were being chased. All of it had to be considered normal. Not even the occasional fistfight was eyebrow-raising.

  His decision not to sign the admission of possession of an illegal firearm but rather to stand up and leave the guardhouse hadn’t strictly speaking been a decision at all. He’d simply had no other option, and what the Danish Police Authority, under the sway of Kim Sleizner, chose to do about it wasn’t something he had time to care about right now. Jan Hesk had seemed to secretly agree with him, since he’d let him go without so much as a word of protest.

  Since then, he’d managed to do two complete laps around the park. This was the third time he’d turned away from the lawn in front of the main stage and continued in between the Promenaden and Frikadellen restaurants.

  So far, he hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. The man he’d been about to arrest was nowhere to be seen. At the time, he’d been convinced it was Milwokh. Now, his doubts were growing with every step. What if that hadn’t been him, what if this wasn’t where the attack was taking place?

  Both he and Tuvesson had taken Lilja’s conclusions on faith. And yet all they’d seen was a description of the task itself and Tivoli hadn’t actually been mentioned once.

  Take the location of the discarded task as your starting point, it had said. A public space in the vicinity with as many people as possible in a limited area. With Copenhagen marked on the map with a cross, it was reasonable to assume it had to be Tivoli. Particularly since Lilja had also found pictures of Milwokh as a child at the amusement park. But there was no escaping the fact that he might just as likely be planning to attack the Zoo. Or why not the central station, just a stone’s throw from Tivoli?

  He’d been in frequent contact with Tuvesson to inform her of what was happening. When he ran into problems with their Danish counterparts, she’d been firmly on his side, promising to do everything in her power to get in touch with Sleizner and making sure an official protest was lodged by someone higher up.

  They’d also agreed he should continue to search the park until closing. Then they’d have the night to go over the clues Lilja had found and hopefully share enough about the case with the Danes to persuade them to help patrol Tivoli, the Zoo and some of the other venues that could conceivably be in Milwokh’s sights.

  A sudden burst of screaming from the old roller coaster made him turn around, but a row of clothes on display blocked his view. It wasn’t unusual for there to be screaming on a roller coaster, of course, but the screams themselves caught his attention. These were not shrieks of joy brought on by the thrill of the ride. These were pure, unadulterated terror.

  He hurried back towards the roller coaster through the crowd and climbed the stairs to the platform where the train would normally stop to let the passengers off. But this time, it continued straight ahead and rammed straight into the parked train in front, where people were just climbing into their seats.

  The platform instantly turned into an inferno of screaming and crying people. Chaos erupted, some people were limping, others were rubbing their necks or bleeding. But no one seemed seriously injured, except for a man who lay motionless between two of the carts halfway down the train that had come in too fast.

  A guard behind him was shouting something about everyone needing to get off the platform, but Fabian ignored him and instead pushed his way over to the motionless man, who was dressed in a red and green Tivoli uniform. It was his job to manually apply the brakes in the old trains, and for some reason he’d lost consciousness, which must have been why the train had been out of control.

  Fabian checked the man’s pulse while listening to voices saying the train had stopped in a dark tunnel and stood still for over a minute before continuing at maximum speed. But he couldn’t find a pulse, nor did he seem to be breathing. Another voice behind him said the man driving the train had been slumped over after the tunnel and in the next drop he had fallen out of his seat. The man was definitely dead. But why? There was no blood. Could he have had a stroke or a heart attack?

  It was only after he lifted up the man’s chin and saw the dark blue strangulation marks from a rope that the penny dropped.

  Milwokh was here.

  He must have rolled a three for rope.

  Fabian stood up and scanned the milling mass of shocked passengers and the Tivoli staff trying to impose some sort of order. Chances were, he was right here. Pretending to be part of the crowd being ushered away from
the scene of the accident. But he couldn’t see him. Not on the platform and not down among the curious onlookers who were beginning to gather.

  With his eyes fixed on a man in his fifties who was strolling by, seemingly indifferent to the accident and the attendant commotion, he pulled out his phone and called Tuvesson.

  ‘Hi, Fabian, how are you getting on?’ Tuvesson said on the other end, just as the man suddenly collapsed mid-step. It looked like a stumble after one too many Carlsbergs. The problem was that he didn’t get back up.

  ‘Astrid, he’s here, and he’s already hard at work,’ Fabian said. He ended the call and started making his way towards the man, who was now the centre of everyone’s attention.

  ‘I think he’s dead,’ said a woman who was checking the man’s pulse.

  Fabian nodded and, just to make sure, he lifted up the man’s chin to check his throat. But there were no marks to be seen this time.

  Then he spotted a small hole in the dark red shirt by the man’s left pectoral. He took a closer look and realized the shirt was soaking wet, then he turned his hand over and stared at his palm, which was covered in blood.

  The woman pushed up the man’s shirt and studied the ragged exit wound in the area of his heart, from which blood was still pumping out. ‘Oh my God, he’s been shot,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, so everyone please stand back,’ Fabian said as he rolled the man over onto his stomach and found the much smaller entry wound just above his right shoulder. ‘The best thing you can do right now is leave the park as quickly as possible.’

  So the shot had come diagonally from above.

  Fabian turned around and looked up at the old roller coaster, and at the very top, on the side of the fake mountain peak, he spotted the dark outline of a crouching man.

  72

  JAN HESK HAD felt like a deer. A terror-stricken deer standing petrified on a road in the middle of the night, staring into the headlights of an oncoming lorry.