Fear Of Broken Glass: The Elements: Prologue

by Mark, David

  Ulrika was looking at the church, nothing more than a smoking hulk on the horizon.

  He felt less tired now and looked around for a place to sit, choosing a spot where he could look out over the view of the lake, making himself comfortable. He waited, giving her time. It was he who spoke first, looking up at her standing above him. ‘So why Almquist and all this bloody mess?’

  Ulrika’s eyes held his for a moment, then darted briefly away, before returning as she came and sat down besides him. ‘Hörgrlund was the old name for Æsahult,’ she said. ‘The Pastor was dead when we arrived Ash.’

  Ash listened, taking in the boulder at their feet, taking in the ground and the trees, the lake, the sky and then the clouds, all fading to gray.

  She looked ashamed. ‘I was investigating an article. I visited him, the Pastor...’ she looked around, then back down to the homestead. ‘I went to visit him.’

  ‘The Pastor?’

  She nodded, biting her lip. ‘I should have told you.’

  He watched her for a moment, seeing the struggle within and leaned forwards and kissed her. ‘I know,’ he said softly. Then he asked her. ‘You were there, weren’t you, with Denisen?’

  She looked away. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Why else were you out on the road?’ He said softly.

  She looked at him with an expression that was hard to read.

  He waited. She was going to tell him, he could tell. He smiled, drawing her to him. ‘I thought you would tell me, when the time is right.’

  She waited, then swallowed. ‘I watched him fall,’ she said in a small voice.

  He pulled back. ‘Thomas?’

  She looked up and nodded. Then she shrugged. ‘It was a lead...’

  ‘How?’

  She returned her gaze. ‘I saw an item in some art magazine about this painting. I decided to check it out. When I found out it was an Agard it aroused my curiosity.’

  He placed his hand in his pocket, feeling the drawing Justin had made for him. He took it out, legs dangling over the edge. The paper was folded and worn. He passed it to her. ‘Justin’s drawing.’

  She took it and looked at it in silence.

  ‘I read somewhere the painting used to hang in the church. I went to see the Pastor.’ She wiped her eyes and looked away. ‘He told me things.’ Her voice wandered off. ‘When I saw it was for sale I contacted the number. He said his name was Justin.’

  ‘Justin?’ He was searching for her but she wasn’t looking at him.

  She nodded, biting her lip. Then she looked at him. ‘I pretended I was a buyer, I had a lead on a story that was interesting.’ She waited.

  ‘You arranged to meet.’ Ash looked away.

  The sun broke through the low cloud in the west, passing through the pall of smoke hanging over the remains of Æsahult to light their faces.

  And then it was gone.

  She reached for him and took his hand, her voice was fragile, hurt and close, ‘Someone tried to kill him. I felt it crack the air, a bullet passed right between us, and then he was falling, backwards. Ash,’ she raised a hand to her mouth, tears filling her eyes, ‘I watched him fall, then I ran. I was so scared. I ran and I didn’t stop until I got to the road. Why did they kill him?’

  Ash shook his head. ‘It’s not for us to know.’ He reached out and placed his arms around her, hugging her. ‘Shh, it’ll be all right.’ She responded, the tension inside melting into a warm embrace that lasted as long as she wanted it to.

  They sat for a long while and all the while Ash’s head was turning, thinking about old men with older interests and wondered at the painting. ‘Almquist spends most of his life trying to solve a series of murders...’ he shook his head. He felt it more than understood it, the connection.

  ‘What if someone didn’t want Almquist solving anything?’ She added, eyes dry. ‘And who is he, Bok?’

  Who is Bok? ‘He could be anyone,’ Ash admitted. ‘The Police knew him. Or of him, that was obvious. Some big shit’s going down, that’s all I know.’

  ‘And we’re stuck in the middle of it.’

  ‘You weren’t to know.’

  ‘We’re on our own.’

  Ash agreed. Except, that wasn’t true. For the first time, Ash realized he wasn’t on his own.

  They sat for a while, in a light wind blowing up that face. Perhaps they could just disappear. He looked away out across the swathe of water, dull, grey and lifeless. ‘Shit, it’s a miracle,’ he chuckled with a sardonic turn to his mouth, ‘it’s a miracle we’re still alive at all.’

  How could he tell her what he had been a part of? He knew he could, that they both had secrets neither wanted to share. He smiled, then chuckled again, thinking of all the shit he had been through, playing the game, letting himself be taken by Conrad.

  She chuckled back. Then she laughed. Ash laughed with her and then they were laughing out loudly. When they were done he breathed in deeply.

  Ash’s part had been a small one. Play the stupid con. Be himself, let Conrad think what the hell he wanted to. And all along, Conrad was played for the puppet, played to be expendable like the rest of them. Conrad hadn’t known about Almquist. Almquist had been silenced because he knew shit too. He wondered what he could possibly have been involved in that had forced MI6 to sacrifice his own man. Because a greedy prick like Thomas had an old painting forged. For what?

  Anna was part of it. Gustav was part of it. Karl Oskar Eklund was part of it. It was the painting and the painting was it. He must have hidden something in it, the painting, Eklund.

  He had agreed to help find out about the painting and Anna. And now, he had nothing, just another convicted pusher with a sentence hanging over his head, played by the Copenhagen Embassy and their pathetic little spy ring for the mug he was, all for a thousand quid. And here he was, with another girl, just as lovely, but in such a different way. The money already spent, he was left with nothing but his life. And Ulrika.

  What the hell was it about him and women?

  He smiled, reached out and kissed her again and she kissed him back, her warmth filling him with life. As he pulled back he thought about Vikland, struggling to keep conscious as she told him to take care of what had been in the back of her car.

  So, he did have something.

  He placed his hand to his pocket, feeling the bulge of the tape he’d taken from the tape player and took it out.

  ‘What’s this?’

  Ash smiled, handing it to her. ‘Almquist visited Gustav and Anna Kron. This is his interview. It’s odd that; old voices belonging to dead people. This is why they killed Almquist.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘MI6. Back then, they called it The Intelligence Service. What the fuck do I know.’

  ‘MI6?’ There was shock in her voice. ‘Are they the ones...’

  ‘Who sent in the cavalry?’ Ash nodded, his face turning sombre. He felt sick and all he could do was laugh again remembering how Vikland had pressed her car keys into his hand, even in her state. ‘I know.’ He looked across and noticed how tired she looked. Bok. ‘It’s fucked up. Not MI6, just a small corrupt part of it. I knew someone.’ He tried to smile.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She’s gone. It doesn’t matter.’

  Ulrika took hold of his hand. ‘She got you into this?’

  He nodded. ‘She worked for them.’

  ‘Worked?’

  ‘She quit.’

  ‘Because of this?’

  He nodded again. ‘I...’ he stopped.

  She squeezed his hand. ‘It’s okay.’

  Ash looked down at the tape. ‘Keep it. It’s yours.’

  She followed his gaze. ‘Almquist died because of this?’

  ‘That’s all that’s left of Anna. She was the only one that knew.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘Whatever it was Almquist knew,’ Ash replied.

  She breathed in deeply. Then smiled her gratitude and placed it in her pocket. ‘So th
is is why they killed him. Then I have a lot of work to do.’

  They had made an arrangement: something for something. Bok sensed Conrad’s frustration as if it was a blanket he could have lifted over their heads and smothered themselves within. He hadn’t dared to contact anyone, cut off from his own world, cut off even, from the media. ‘I think perhaps, the time is right we worked together on this?’ The poor bugger didn’t have any choice. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘All right.’ Conrad cast an eye towards the homestead. ‘My brief was to get Almquist into play. So my employers went to significant lengths to make it look like it the painting had surfaced through Justin Swift’s neighbor.’

  ‘They didn’t tell you why?’

  Bok watched Conrad Baron take in the so-familiar house, the old white windows contrasting against the dark wooden boards; the moss on the roof. Such a simple question.

  He laughed out loud. ‘All I knew it was one of a number of deceptions being run by central office.’

  ‘Being London?’

  He nodded.

  ‘That is all?’

  ‘They never tell you why.’ Conrad turned back to look at him. ‘I’m just a field agent.’

  He didn’t feel any pity for the man. But he did have something for him. He placed a hand inside his trouser pocket, removing a small, bloody package of tissue papers. ‘These are for you,’ he held them out as he moved to conceal the package with his back. ‘Get back to us when you know more, then we can negotiate.’

  Conrad folded and placed the old yellowed paper inside his pocket and received the bundle, his eyes showing recognition the moment he took hold of them, taking his time as he peeled back the layers without displaying the slightest sign of revulsion. He looked up from the gray-black skin of burned fingertips, eyes asking.

  ‘Tell us who the prints belong to, that would be a good start. Though... I think we already know the answer to that question?’

  Conrad stared at them for a moment.

  ‘Tell them you got these from me. Tell them, they need to confirm what we already know. Tell them, I want to deal with you... and only you – because of what has gone down. Make something up. Then we can take it from there. That should buy you a little credibility back, I think.’ He had just saved his reputation. And possibly his life. With Swedish intelligence involved, they couldn’t go around killing their own people.

  ‘They will ask what happened.’

  ‘The most important thing is not what happened, but where it leads to. Stop looking for answers,’ he shook his head. ‘Believe me, if Almquist didn’t, neither you or me are going to find them here.’

  ‘Who?’ Conrad said, his mind seemingly preoccupied.

  ‘The answers.’

  He looked up. ‘Oh, right.’ He nodded, getting the insinuation, then wrapped the bloody tissue back around the fingers and placed them in his pocket, as if they were nothing more than a doggy bag, like the true professional he was. That counted for something at least.

  Conrad reached out his hand.

  Bok looked at it for a moment, then took it, squeezing it.

  ‘Who are you?’

  Bok laughed, reaching the hand into his pocket offering Conrad a card. It said Tivedshandlen: The Tived General Store

  ‘Didn’t you know, I’m the store keeper?’ Then the hulk that was Alvar Bok turned and walked back towards his car with a long loping stride, calling out: ‘When was the last time you watched television?’

  ‘Television?’ Baron called back.

  ‘Someone once said, no one ever heard the Devil’s side of the story, since it was God who had written all the books. Let’s hope the same is the case here.’

  Conrad sent him a look of distrust. He hadn’t had the chance to speak to anyone other than the Swedish police – who’d been given strict instructions to keep their mouths well and truly shut. He opened the door and looked towards Conrad, leaving with an unsettled feeling. ‘Watch the news. You can contact me through the usual channels. The markets were down yesterday.’

  What Conrad Baron didn’t know was, something else had also been set into motion to pour fuel on the financial fire. Whatever it was that was happening, this wasn’t going to be the end of anything at all. Not when another hit team had left a trail of destruction all over Copenhagen. The poor sod had no idea this was just a sideshow. Now he thought about it, it had been a mistake hiring a mercenary to take care of the loose ends. Fabian had done her best. Even the best of the best could be out-numbered. The bad guys she could take care of, amazingly. It was the good guys who were the problem. And for that, he too had failed. He kept looking into Conrad’s eyes until he could see he understood.

  ‘What news?’

  ‘Your people got the incident they wanted. They should be feeling happy.’ He turned to look around, slowly. ‘A crime however, well, that’s a different proposition entirely.’ He continued his turn until he could hold Baron’s eye for a moment.

  ‘They wanted this to happen, didn’t they – provoke some incident?’ Baron scoffed. ‘You’re the devil Bok, if ever I saw one.’

  ‘And just like the Devil, it only gives purpose to those who would have no part to play in our war, or any war.’

  ‘So it was a lie, all of it?’

  Bok looked back at the house. ‘Not all of it.’ He turned back to his counterpart. ‘Get back to me with what you can on the prints, then we can talk.’

  Chapter 25

  PERSUASIONS

  Persuasions immensely increase

  when men mingle truths with yearnings,

  or make them favor the loves of self

  and of the world;

  for then in a thousand ways they pervert them

  and force them into agreement.

  Emmanuel Swedenborg

  Genesis 7

  The Internal Sense, 794

  Arcana Coelestia

  Who had killed Thomas Denisen?

  Despite the sedative Elin Vikland was still awake. She listened to the sound of the ambulance siren as if it came at her from some distance, emerging through a lazy cloud of narcotic utopia, feeling fragile and depleted.

  She was lucky to be alive, they had said. Another centimeter closer to her brain and she would be dead. The shot had entered her head but not her skull, cleaving a path along the top of her head. A graze, they called it. She remembered vaguely something about flesh wounds, from one of those crazy English films she never liked very much.

  Miraculously, Lindgren had also survived, taken away in another ambulance. She recalled his face, distraught and white. She had so many questions to ask him and wondered vaguely if they were going to the same hospital. She heard enough to know how he had survived, crawling to a place at the end of the church where he could breathe without suffocating from the smoke, able to survive long enough to... to what?

  The questions would have to wait.

  For a moment, she wondered if it had all been a nightmare. Hasse. She looked down at the videocam lying next to her, trying to empty her mind. The irony of the medical profession: The wound had gone deep enough that she had lost almost two liters of blood, they said. The only reason they let her keep the video camera at all, was so she would relax and sleep when the sedative overcame her. Already she found her eyelids growing heavier and wanted a lifetime of sleep. But not yet.

  Oskar Lindgren had admitted taking the video from Hasse’s car. It was in his car. Ash had been good in getting for her. She wondered why he’d been the one, Ash, the one she trusted more than any other with Hasse’s computer.

  All that would have to wait.

  She raised a hand to pristine white bandages and looked out of the window, settling back into the comfort of watching. Finally, her thoughts returned to Hasse’s camera. She had never really thought about it other than a device to capture words. That he had given her the camera meant only one thing – there was something he wanted to hide or something he wanted her to see. Eventually, thoughts fading, her eyes peeled themselves a
way from the small comfort of normality, from the everyday she had never really ever thought about. On the tape could be seen a small white label, upon which was written the words Ash interview 2; Hasse’s last-used tape.

  She turned the video cam so it faced away from her, looking down into an empty black screen, wondering where it would take her. Feeling heavier now but curiosity getting the better of her, she raised the camcorder to her eye and pressed play.

  Nothing. Static. White noise.

  Almquist must have had a problem breathing, he was in his car. She pressed rewind, waited a moment, then pressed play again, returning the eyepiece to her eye, collecting herself.

  Music. There was music playing. It was beautiful music. Very beautiful music... classical music. Then, a voice. Hasse’s voice.

  The picture moved, his face filling the screen. He moved the camera so she was looking up at his face from below. He was hurt, she could see that. He was really hurt. She felt one eye fill with tears, then the other and let them do what the hell they wanted. She swallowed at the sight of the blood, running down the side of his head.

  He spoke with a clear, yet fragile voice: ‘Sometimes...’ the tear fell at the sound of that first, hesitant word. ‘Sometimes, it is possible to know what will happen. Sometimes not. People’s motives; who they are, what they want,’ he looked away, out into the sound of rising wind; it was very loud, surprisingly loud. He spoke slowly, almost staccato, ‘... what they will do to get what they want. You see... without that, we are, we are... left, holding the dice.’ He was talking to her. He only spoke like that with her. No, he was talking to himself. ‘Then, no one can know, not even the dice.’ Almquist took a deep breath and she did the same, eyes starting to close. ‘I guess it’s all part of some... shit, I don’t know what the hell it’s part of.’ He went quiet for a moment.