Grendel's Curse

by Alex Archer

  Annja shook her head.

  “I know of at least fifty failed applications. This dig would never have happened without Thorssen. We’re not a huge country in economic terms. We have very few megarich—most that reach that kind of wealth leave long before the tax man sinks his teeth into them, but some stay. They don’t do it because they love the fifty-seven percent tax bracket. They’re given incentives. The government does what it can to convince them to stay.”

  She considered the implications of what he was saying. “You mean people like Thorssen can hold the country to ransom?”

  Micke shrugged. “In practical terms, yes. Some would argue it’s a small price to pay if it means Thorssen locates his factories in Sweden rather than, say, Estonia, where he could slash his costs by basically halving his wage bill. He would make a lot more money, but in doing so would make thousands of Swedes unemployed. It’s a deal with the devil. He’s a big fish here. He says jump, the local authorities ask how high. He’s got friends, too. And his friends here are much more willing to pander to him and feed his political aspirations. Like it or not, the guy’s saying the kinds of things a lot of people are thinking.”

  Annja studied her dinner date. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked troubled.

  “And you don’t agree with his politics?”

  “I don’t have a problem with immigrants if that’s what you mean. As long as they contribute to society in some meaningful way, I welcome them with open arms. Thorssen’s playing on basic fears. He wants his audience frightened. He wants them suspicious. He wants them to embrace all of these base emotions that say different is bad, different doesn’t belong, and the extreme right give him a voice. You saw it in the theater. They worship him like he’s the Second Coming.”

  “But the audience was specially chosen, right? Those were his people. Lars Mortensen wasn’t one of those, was he? From the little we spoke he didn’t seem to have a lot of time for Thorssen’s politics, only his money.”

  “Which, sometimes, ends up being one and the same, I find. But, to answer your question, no, I don’t think he did. Our boy Lars was more interested in his books and the politics of fourteen hundred years ago than he was in today’s world. I think naive is a polite way of putting it.”

  “And yet he got into bed with Thorssen.”

  “We’ve all woken up the morning after, rolled over and immediately regretted jumping into bed the night before, haven’t we?” That smile again. Annja couldn’t argue the point. The bad decision process was a rite of passage. “And from what I can tell, Thorssen had a hand in choosing Lars. He can be very persuasive when he wants something, and he wanted Lars.”

  “You’d have thought he’d have wanted one of his own people in charge, surely?”

  “Jobs for the boys? I don’t know, he seemed to want someone who wouldn’t look as if he was dancing to his tune just in case they turned up something interesting. Which is all academic now as he’s decided to shut the dig down. At least for the time being.”

  “Understandable.”

  “Maybe. It was hard to tell over the phone. Honestly, he seemed pretty distracted.”

  “Well, his friend had just burned to death in his car.”

  “Oh, there was no love lost between them. No. It was almost as if he had started to lose interest in the project. You know what these rich guys are like, it’s all chase the next bright shiny thing.”

  “So you don’t think he’ll reopen the site when everything calms down?”

  “Yes, but I had to threaten him with breech of contract. Even then, it wasn’t until I mentioned your name that he began to relent. He’s image conscious. He knows that Chasing History’s Monsters is syndicated in many countries. He’s aware of how it would look if he suddenly changed his mind after all the trouble it took to get you guys over here in the first place. So apologies if I used your name in vain, but I think it was the difference between Skalunda being mothballed and closed down indefinitely.”

  “I’ll let you off this once.”

  “There’s a girl who’s going to take care of things on-site for the time being and make a record of what’s happened so far. Ingrid, Ina, something like that...”

  “Inge,” Annja corrected him.

  “Inge. That’s right. I take it you’ve met her?”

  “She was milling around when I went to the dig earlier. She was trying to keep the volunteers occupied while we got some extra shots.”

  “I’d love to see them,” Micke said. It almost sounded like a “can I come up for coffee” line. “How’s the segment looking?”

  Annja winced. “I’ve done better. We’ve probably got enough in the can to piece together a five-minute segment, but it isn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff, if you’ll pardon the pun. If we can get an interview with Thorssen to talk about why he wanted to support the dig, that kind of thing, and his use of the Beowulf imagery as a hero in his campaign, it’ll fill a few more minutes even if it doesn’t change the world.”

  “And you’re not worried it’ll be a little thin?”

  “Not a lot we can do about that if Thorssen shuts the dig down with no relics to talk about. I’ll just have to jazz it up with my charming personality. And maybe an excerpt from the poem or with a bit about Grendel’s mother coming to avenge her child or something.”

  If it had been his show, she was sure, Micke would have pulled the plug. It wasn’t compelling stuff. There was nothing new to add, no new spin to put on things, even with the footage from inside the barrow. It just wasn’t sexy without a find to talk about, because quite honestly there’d be nothing to distinguish it from the dozens of other segments that had trodden the same ground over the years. Her only hope was the Karl Thorssen angle, but would a modern-day would-be Beowulf fascist be something the audience would go for?

  She had an idea bubbling, though decided not to share it. What Micke didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Besides, if he knew what she was thinking there was no chance he’d set stuff up for her with Thorssen.

  Their food arrived. It looked good and tasted better. Annja hadn’t realized just how hungry she was until the first mouthful was digesting in her stomach and by then she was already shoveling the food down in a very unladylike manner. She caught Micke grinning at her. Her plate was already half-empty.

  Before she could apologize, her cell phone began to vibrate in her pocket. It rattled against the table leg, making Micke raise an eyebrow. She offered an apologetic face and tried to ignore it, but even after going to voice mail, the caller tried again.

  “Sorry.” She half expected the display to show Johan’s name. He ought to be getting off the train any minute, she calculated, but it wasn’t him. She didn’t recognize the number. Voice mail kicked in again before she could answer.

  “Problem?” Micke asked.

  “Don’t know,” Annja said, giving the caller a moment to leave a message before she dialed into her voice mail. The automated text came through, confirming she had a new message.

  “Go on, you know you want to,” Micke said.

  She phoned in and was greeted by a hesitant voice on the other end.

  “Oh, er... Hey...” the woman’s voice began. “This is Inge...from the Skalunda dig. We talked earlier today. I’m sure you don’t remember what with everything that’s happened....” There was a pause, the girl clearly unsure what she wanted to say. “I meant to call as soon as I heard the news. I can’t believe Lars is dead. I just...but things have been crazy here with the police and everything....” There was another long pause as she broke off trying to figure out her next words. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know that Lars’s mother has been in touch. She’s coming to the site tomorrow morning. She said she wanted to talk to you. I have no idea why. I gave her your number...I hope I didn’t do the wrong thing. I thought I should tell you. I’m sorry I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t say no...not with her son dying like that.”

  The call ended without any goodbyes or requests to call ba
ck.

  “Speak of the devil,” Annja said.

  “Which devil would that be?” Micke asked.

  “Inge, just checking to make sure that I’d heard about Lars and to let me know his mom wants to have a chat.”

  “I don’t envy you that conversation. How did she sound?”

  “A little vague. Understandably. She worked with Lars every day. He was her professor at university. I’m thinking there was some hero worship going on.”

  “Must have hit her hard, then.”

  Annja nodded. But how hard? she wondered. She was beginning to feel suspicious of everyone involved with Skalunda Barrow. It seemed like they were all tied together in some twisted relationship of money and power, and it all came back to Karl Thorssen.

  No one had said that the accident had been anything other than an accident, but to believe that seemed trite and foolish. Maybe it was the insistence the news reports had on laying the blame squarely at Lars Mortensen’s feet, talking about alcohol and suggesting he must have been impaired. Add that to the call she’d had from Lars’s phone, which must have come in when the car was already burning, and the visit she had from the two guys who’d shown up at her hotel room, and it was hard to deny that something was very rotten in the state of Gothenburg.

  What she couldn’t prove was that any of this was connected to the dig, although her mind kept being drawn back to that shaky handheld shot of the paramedic helping Thorssen into the ambulance. There was no denying it was the same man who’d tried to kill her in her hotel room.

  There was her proof, wasn’t it?

  15

  Tostig took his work seriously. It was the only hope a man like him had to see old age. He didn’t trust anyone with the details of a job. He was obsessive and needed to control every single detail no matter how small. That way if something went bad, he only had himself to blame. If he was going to die, it was going to be his fault, not because someone had failed him.

  He didn’t need instructions. Though he could follow them, of course, if the client demanded it. Thorssen was a preferred client—letting him get on with things without interfering. It usually meant the job went like clockwork.

  Not this time. This was his screwup.

  Tostig really didn’t like it when things went wrong. And there was no denying things had gone wrong.

  He wouldn’t underestimate Annja Creed again. Once was careless, twice was downright stupid, and Tostig has his downfalls, but he wasn’t stupid. This time she was going to die. She would pay for the Serb’s death. But before that there was another more pressing matter to take care of.

  The Serb was starting to smell.

  He’d found the Serb’s body on the blacktop under Creed’s window. The fact that the Serb had even the slightest pulse was a miracle, but he couldn’t have recovered. Bones pierced his skin, his breath wheezed through collapsing lungs, his eyes were empty. There was nothing of the man in there, and no chance for him. Even with a hospital, he wouldn’t have made it. Tostig wasn’t a sentimental soul. The Serb knew what he’d signed up for when he’d become his apprentice.

  It was purely self-preservation. There was an increased risk of discovery if he’d left the Serb to be found, alive or dead. If the police had the body it would have given credence to the woman’s story. No body and she was just a hysterical tourist.

  He had covered the man’s nose and mouth and waited for him to die. It had only taken a couple of minutes and he was gone.

  The ground was still too hard to dig a hole deep enough to bury the man, but there were other ways to conceal a body...better ways.

  All it had taken was a single call to put everything in place.

  He drove toward the lake.

  Vänern, the largest lake in Sweden, covered more than two thousand square miles.

  Tostig was familiar with the cold water and the potential it offered as a place of disposal.

  As a child he’d imagined the lake was as big as the sea. It wasn’t, but it was big enough to hide his secrets.

  It wouldn’t be the first time Vänern had taken a corpse he’d offered, and it wouldn’t be the last. The call had been to arrange a small boat to be left for him on a narrow strip of shingle that pointed like a finger into the lake, along with the heavy chains and padlock. Anders Jakobs hadn’t asked any questions: he knew better than that. His silence was one of the few things in this life that was guaranteed. One of the first bodies the assassin had dropped into the lake had been Jakobs’s wife. She had cheated on him with his best friend. The friend had joined her two days later so they could be together forever and ever long may they rot.

  Tostig had laid a false trail that took the lovers to Norway, convincing enough to make it appear as though they were both alive and well long after the eels had started to feast on them. In return, Anders continued to live a quiet and happy life in Mellerud, a small town directly across the lake from where the boat was moored, and when called upon did what he was asked, no hesitation. He was Tostig’s man, body and soul. You couldn’t buy that kind of loyalty.

  The assassin drove slowly along the narrow track, lights out. There was no need to take unnecessary risks, even though the dirt strip ran straight and true all the way down through the trees to the water. No one would have noticed his car at this time of night, but standing out, even if it was only headlights and a revving engine, was not in his nature.

  The boat was exactly where promised—an orange dinghy with a decent outboard motor.

  He turned the headlights on before killing the car’s engine, lighting the area around the dinghy so he could work.

  Stuffed inside the belly of the boat was a large sheet of black polythene, the padlock and chain, and underneath the bench seat a bag containing a single item: a brand-new fish-gutting knife.

  Working silently, he rolled the Serb into the plastic shroud, securing it with a padlock and chains.

  He hoisted the Serb up onto his shoulder, taking the strain in his thighs. He moved unsteadily from the lake bank to dump the corpse into the boat. The Serb’s skull made a sickening crack as it hit the bench seat, but the dead man didn’t complain. Tostig’s sweaty shirt stuck to every inch of his back.

  He returned to the car and switched off the lights. While he would have liked them to guide him back, there was just too much risk involved in leaving them on for the hour plus he would be out on the water disposing of the Serb. He would just have to orientate himself from the lights of Mellerud on the other bank and plot a course from them.

  Finally, he pushed the dinghy into the water, his fleet splashing in the waves, and clambered in over the corpse to take the oars. The boat lurched alarmingly as he struggled to maintain its balance. He waited, letting the hull drift free of the bank before he fired up the outboard motor and steered for deeper water.

  He used the glow from the distant village to guide him out, and gradually, as it changed into a mere pinpoint of light, he cut the engine.

  He waited for silence to fill his mind.

  The boat drifted in the ebb and flow of the water, the waves lapping against the sides of the dinghy. Tostig patted a hand on his cargo; it was the closest thing he would offer to a fond farewell. He hadn’t liked the Serb. They weren’t friends. Like and friendship never factored into things. Still, it wouldn’t be easy to replace the dead man.

  The boat threatened to capsize as he levered the corpse closer to the side. Moving quickly, he dropped one end of the weighted chain into the water, feeding it through his hands until it achieved momentum. Tostig steadied himself, bracing for the backsplash and, in that moment, before he slid the plastic-wrapped body over the side, used the gutting knife to cut a deep gash through the wrapping and the Serb’s guts.

  The body slipped beneath the water, leaving a bloom in its wake. The dark stain was barely visible in the moonlight and would disperse in a few minutes. The open wound he’d gouged into the Serb’s guts served two purposes: it would attract eels and fish to feed, breaking the body down
faster than might otherwise have been the case, and it would prevent the build-up of gases, which in a worst-case scenario could bring the Serb bobbing back to the surface—it was something he’d been told many years before by his own teacher.

  He sat for a minute and watched the disturbance in the lake ripple slowly away, the blood dispersing into the blackness, lost to the rhythm of the water.

  There was no sign of the Serb.

  Tostig fired up the engine again and turned the boat around to head back toward the shore.

  16

  Karl Thorssen had lost track of time.

  He’d spent the night in a leather chair, hunched over the low oak table, picking at the layer of corrosion that marred the sword parts. Just picking, picking, picking, first at one edge, then at the other, until his fingers were bloody. He marveled now at the gleaming metal, unable to believe it could have survived in what was essentially its pure form.

  He carefully positioned the two pieces, broken edge to broken edge, and sank back into his chair.

  Sleep stole over him. The blood on his fingers dried. The nagging in his brain ceased. The room was in darkness, scant light provided by the dull glow of the moon through the blinds. He dreamed fitfully of victory, of battle, the heady rush of charging headlong toward death, welcoming its embrace even as glory fired his blood, making his sleep fitful. Eventually, he cried out, clutching his side, feeling his lifeblood pulsing out of him only to wake in a fever sweat.

  He wiped the sleep from his eyes.

  The early-morning sun had replaced the moon.

  He didn’t move for a long while, gathering his thoughts together.

  He needed coffee. He needed a shower. He needed food. But not necessarily in that order, and not before he’d examined his handiwork again.

  He turned on the reading lamp beside the chair. Now that the blade had been cleaned it looked as if it could have been forged yesterday but for the fact that the metal still bore some of the scars of battle. There was a nick that had been patched and repaired, reworked and retempered. The workmanship was excellent, especially for its day.