Trophy

by Steffen Jacobsen

  Afterwards they walked the four or five kilometres into Holbæk and found a taxi outside the railway station.

  Michael called Elizabeth Caspersen from a payphone, giving her a status report and a description of the contents of the CD. He didn’t give her the chance to ask questions, offer suggestions or raise objections before he hung up. He was going to leave the CD for her in the scout hut, he said, and described the location of the hiding place he had in mind.

  *

  The taxi dropped them half a kilometre from their destination. They walked quietly and avoided the path between the trees. Lene had the machine gun loaded and ready in her hands, while Michael carried her service pistol, also loaded and ready. The scout hut lay dark and deserted in the moonlight. He touched her shoulder and signalled that she should head to the right while he walked in a wide curve around the hut to the left. They met in the deep shadows at the campfire area behind the hut without having seen or heard any other living creatures.

  Michael kneeled down outside the front door and opened it with one finger while Lene pressed herself against the wall with the machine pistol at shoulder height. There was no welcoming committee.

  She turned on her torch, put down the bag and checked the sleeping loft, the kitchen and the lavatory.

  ‘It’s not much, but it’s home,’ she said.

  Michael broke up the bench and tore down the last banners in order to sacrifice them to the stove. He feared there would be tearful faces all around at the next scout meeting.

  He got the fire going and stood for a moment with his back to the open grate and inspected his hands with his torch. The blisters were proud and waxy. A couple of them had burst and plasma seeped down his fingers.

  Michael heaved a sigh and went out into the kitchen.

  Lene had put a camping lantern on the table and was heating a tin of minestrone on the Trangia, stirring the contents without expression. Her hair was considerably shorter after the fire and the ends were black, crispy and singed. Michael sat down at the kitchen table, instinctively ran a hand over his scalp and winced. He was bald, and skinless patches stretched from the neck and over his ears. He wondered if hair would ever grow back from those charred stubble fields.

  Lene looked at him while he fished his most recent mobile out of his trouser pocket. He removed the back cover and tipped the water out on the table. Then he stared forlornly at it and put it to one side.

  ‘Do you have any electronic equipment in working order?’ he asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. Are you tired?’

  ‘You’re asking if I’m tired?’

  She smiled and served up some minestrone.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m quite tired,’ he admitted.

  ‘Me too,’ she said.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said.

  He squatted down next to the bag and found Elizabeth Caspersen’s document, which left a fortune to Sara and the children if he got himself killed.

  Michael unfolded it on the kitchen table, took a pen, which was attached to the wall by a piece of string, and looked at Lene.

  ‘What’s your daughter’s full name and civil registration number?’

  ‘Why? What’s that?’

  ‘Something I should have done sooner,’ he said. ‘This is a document drawn up by my client. It has been witnessed by her partners and registered with the public notary. If … well, if anything should happen to me … if I die, in other words, your daughter will get a lifetime pension from Elizabeth Caspersen or her estate. I can add her as a beneficiary.’

  ‘Are you serious? Can I see it?’

  He pushed the paper across the table and she read it carefully.

  ‘Josefine Ida Thea Jensen,’ she then said.

  She gave him her daughter’s civil registration number, reached her hand across the table and put it on his forearm. It was the first time she had touched him – except for putting out the flames when he was on fire.

  ‘Thank you, Michael.’

  ‘She can afford it; really, she can, in fact …’

  He fell silent when the realization hit him like a punch to the stomach.

  ‘In fact what?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He tried smiling, but knew he hadn’t succeeded. Michael shook his head, despairing at himself. He was tired, exhausted … borderline insane, possibly. And no wonder, given what they had been through. But the nagging thought refused to go away. Was he being used? Was he simply the means to clear away the opposition in Sonartek so Elizabeth Caspersen could take charge with her own and her mother’s majority share? Was that her real goal, rather than expose a gang of psychopathic man hunters? And had she known all the time who was behind the murder of Kasper Hansen? No one would have been in a better position to plant that DVD. She knew the code to the safe. She could have put the Mauser in Flemming Caspersen’s weapon room, couldn’t she? It was as easy as 1-2-3.

  Nonsense. He was paranoid and seeing conspiracies everywhere.

  ‘What’s wrong, Michael?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. What’s happened? I mean, apart from lots of men trying to kill you?’

  He pulled himself together and returned her smile.

  ‘Nothing … nothing at all. I’m fine. Great. Absolutely. Super.’

  She threw him a worried look.

  She hadn’t said ‘kill us’. He hoped that one day he would be just as unselfish.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said later.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Thomas Berg and the others. It’s not enough. Arresting them is not enough.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I agree with you. You’re a very bad influence on me, Michael.’

  ‘So everyone says.’

  *

  They ate their soup in silence because there was nothing else to be said. Michael hid the CD under a loose floorboard, as agreed with Elizabeth Caspersen, while Lene washed up. They carried their sleeping bags upstairs, unrolled them and switched off their torches.

  They lay next to each other and were warm inside their sleeping bags. Michael had to lie on his stomach to protect the burns on his back. He rested his forehead on his forearms and listened to Lene’s breathing getting slower and slower.

  Then he heard her murmuring and it took a while before he realized she was saying the Lord’s Prayer. She finished the prayer by holding up her folded hands in the darkness before she placed her arms along her sides.

  ‘You pray?’ he asked.

  She said nothing.

  ‘My father was a vicar,’ he mumbled.

  ‘I’m a believer,’ she said. ‘You think about the grandfather clock in your grandmother’s sitting room and I pray. It doesn’t make me less able, Michael.’

  ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Good night.’

  ‘Good night.’

  She jerked violently a couple of times and the whole sleeping loft shuddered while she balanced on the edge between sleeping and awakening. Michael imagined that her subconscious was desperately working overtime.

  She twitched again in her sleeping bag and muttered something pitiful and incomprehensible; Michael sighed. It was like trying to sleep next to an anxious dog reliving that day’s hunts. He stared down between the planks. The faint glow from the stove spread across the floor and he was reminded of the flickering, restless surface of the water in the crawlspace in the forest while the cottage burned above them.

  Chapter 47

  Michael sat up, but she wasn’t there. He stared at her empty, flaccid sleeping bag, looked at his watch and groaned. It was ten thirty in the morning and the night and the early morning had been an endless series of shifting, awkward sleeping positions.

  ‘Lene?’

  He swung his legs over the sleeping loft and looked down between his feet, but could sense that the hut was empty. The sun was out, and he touched one
of the warm roofing panels with his fingertips. Today was Friday. He had been away from home for seven days and it was two years and one month since Kasper Hansen and Ingrid Sundsbö were killed up in Finnmark.

  Michael gingerly climbed down the ladder and straightened his back with a series of small cracks. He looked out of the kitchen window and spotted Lene walking up and down a small mound with some trees. She was talking on a new mobile, gesturing with her free hand, and would sometimes pause and look up at the blue sky as if imploring it for help. Once she stamped her foot in anger.

  As if they had telepathic contact, she suddenly stopped, turned her head and stared at him. Her facial expression didn’t change, but she greeted him with a ‘Hang on a minute’ hand signal and carried on walking. He held up the aluminium kettle, pointed to it, and she nodded and almost granted him a smile.

  Michael thought that Lene was the most direct and uncompromising person he had ever met. He could see why she was good at her job and had reached the rank of superintendent while still in her early forties … but a little bit of … a little bit of warmth and human kindness wouldn’t go amiss.

  Michael poured water into the kettle. Then he remembered Josefine and felt ashamed. It was a miracle that Lene could even put one foot in front of the other.

  He carried the mugs filled with Nescafé outside and put them on the bench. There were already a couple of carrier bags there and a brand-new rucksack. She had been busy. A nice blue ladies’ bicycle was leaning up against a tree down by the path.

  She ended the call, shook herself as if she were wet and marched towards him.

  ‘Your boss?’ he asked.

  ‘My ex,’ she mumbled, and took the mug.

  ‘He wasn’t too happy, I presume?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said. ‘Show me your hands.’

  Michael held them out obediently and she delved into the plastic bags.

  ‘I went to the chemist while you were sleeping,’ she said. ‘Burn ointment, bandages, Band-Aids, anaesthetic cream. You really ought to wear plastic bags on your hands for a week. I think you have third degree burns on the back of them.’

  ‘Plastic bags on my hands will only get in the way,’ he said. ‘But is there enough anaesthetic cream for me to swim in it?’

  ‘No, but I can always cover your head and mouth with bandages,’ she said, and tore off strips with her teeth. She got to work on his hands, applying ointment to the raw, weeping blisters and covering them with cold compresses. Michael watched her with gratitude. She knew what she was doing.

  ‘How did you reach civilization?’ he asked, and she blushed.

  ‘I nicked a bicycle.’

  ‘Good move,’ he said. ‘What else did you get?’

  She handed him a box.

  ‘A new mobile with a prepaid SIM card and a small laptop. I don’t think I make as much money as you do, so I’ve kept the receipts.’

  ‘Of course. Thank you.’

  He turned over the box with the mobile in his hands. He was actually able to bend and stretch his fingers now.

  ‘They’re great,’ he said. ‘My hands.’

  She warmed her hands on her coffee mug and stared into space.

  ‘Did you get some sleep?’ he asked.

  ‘A bit. And you?’

  ‘A little, I think.’

  ‘What do we do now, Michael?’ she asked; she sounded calm.

  He leaned back and looked up at the sky. The weather was excellent. He wondered what it was like in northern Norway. Cold, probably. Snow. Ice on the lakes. Cold, basically.

  ‘I’ll take it from here,’ he said, then drained the mug and carefully avoided looking at her.

  ‘No way,’ she protested.

  Michael smiled sternly and something burst on his cheek. He raised his fingers to his face and felt a scab and fresh plasma seep out.

  ‘Lene, this isn’t a democratic forum. I’ll take it from here. And that’s how it’s going to be,’ he said.

  ‘I can arrest you,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Vagrancy.’

  Michael stood up and looked gravely at her.

  ‘Lene, you’d be walking straight into a kill zone. An arena. You’ve seen what they’re capable of. And they have plenty of practice. They won’t care that you’re a police officer, trust me. They’ll do whatever it takes to eliminate you. You’ve seen for yourself how good they are. Besides, you wouldn’t be much help. You don’t have the right training or the experience to take them on.’

  He regretted his next words even before he had uttered them.

  ‘And think about your daughter, Josefi –’

  When he regained consciousness a few seconds later, he was lying on the threshold without knowing how he had covered the distance. It didn’t hurt very much and by now he was so bruised, battered and burned that he couldn’t tell new injuries from old ones. His central nervous system was overloaded and sparked impotently like a short-circuited transistor. He looked up at Lene, who was standing by the bench with her arms by her sides and her fists still clenched.

  Michael rocked his lower jaw from side to side. He was able to close his teeth together and open his mouth. Almost normal functioning.

  ‘But I’m open to suggestions,’ he mumbled.

  Her shoulders heaved and sank, and the flames in her green eyes slowly died away.

  ‘Then I suggest that you bring me along, and I’m asking you again: what do we do? And why did we have that cryptic conversation about Thomas Berg if you weren’t going to take me? And I actually do think about my daughter, Michael. In fact, that’s all I do.’

  Michael got to his feet and tried focusing on the bicycle. Something fixed and real.

  ‘Why don’t we sit down?’ he asked. ‘Again?’

  ‘It has to stop, do you hear me? It has to stop. Now!’

  He nodded.

  ‘All right then! I think it’s time to flip the game, Lene. And as regards the hunters, dead or alive, I don’t expect you to do anything incompatible with your role as a Danish police officer.’

  ‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘Great … How do we flip the game? And forget about my job. Maybe I just quit.’

  ‘Bait,’ he said. ‘Irresistible bait.’

  ‘What do you have in mind?’

  ‘Us, who else? Besides, we don’t have a choice. We need to lure them out in open terrain where we can see them. It’s our only chance.’

  ‘What terrain? Where?’

  He told her and she didn’t interrupt him. When he had finished, she looked at the ground, massaged her forehead with her fingertips, and nodded. Her face gave nothing away; neither doubt nor enthusiasm.

  ‘That’s what I want to do,’ he said. ‘That’s where I want them.’

  ‘If that’s where they want to go,’ she said tentatively. ‘If all your one million and one assumptions are right and all your predictions come true.’

  ‘I don’t see that they have a choice, either. The difficulty lies in preventing them from sabotaging our game plan before we get there.’

  ‘Do you think there’s anything up there?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not sure if that matters,’ Michael replied. ‘As long as no one can be sure that there isn’t, we all have to play the game to the end. Those are the rules. Unless the hunters discover a sudden urge to emigrate. We can’t prevent that, of course.’

  ‘To Antigua and Barbuda?’ she suggested. ‘That’s what I would do. They have plenty of money in the banks out there and they probably can’t be extradited unless they do something really bad, like cut off someone’s dreadlocks or burn portraits of Haile Selassie.’

  ‘Never underestimate male vanity,’ he said. ‘It’s a strong driving force. For better or for worse. They’ll be there.’

  ‘Remember Berlusconi.’

  ‘Remember Napoleon,’ Michael said. ‘Do you still want to come? You’ll be risking your life. You have a secure job. You have a future and a career, whereas I
’m being paid extremely well to do this.’

  ‘I want to come. I have to come,’ she said emphatically. ‘And how did you get to decide the rules?’

  ‘That’s just how it has turned out. Or, at least, I hope so.’

  ‘There’s a word for unfounded omnipotence, you know.’

  ‘Megalomania?’

  ‘I was going to say insanity.’

  *

  Thirty minutes later, Michael left the forest track and joined the main road on the bicycle. It was half an hour’s ride from the scout hut to the nearest railway station. He hoped that he wasn’t arrested before he got there because he looked exactly what he was: an escaped, desperate burns victim with bandaged hands and balding, black patches where his hair used to be. And he was riding a stolen blue ladies’ bicycle.

  He had been lying when he told Lene they were not in a hurry. The truth was that they had very little time if they wanted to keep the initiative – too many things of vital importance had already been left to other people.

  Chapter 48

  He managed not to get arrested before he reached the station, but his fellow passengers eyed him suspiciously and stayed well clear of his seat, even though the train was packed. He didn’t blame them. He thought it likely that small plumes of smoke were still rising from his head.

  Michael got off the train at Nørreport Station and walked down Nørre Voldgade to a menswear shop on Jarmers Plads. The shop assistants must have been exquisitely polite, well-trained or just strangely lacking in curiosity, as they made no reference to his appearance whatsoever. His various credit cards, however, were scrutinized, a control call was made to his bank, and they asked politely to see his passport – something that hardly ever happened. The edges of Michael’s wallet were singed, but its contents had survived the fire and the flood. Half an hour later he left the shop dressed entirely in new clothes and carrying several shopping bags.

  From Nørrevold he took a taxi to a specialist shop on Østerbro. The shop was run as a kind of wholesale business by two seasoned mountaineers, and Michael moved slowly through the basement, followed by one of the owners who pulled down goods from the shelves: two coils of eleven-millimetre climbing rope, sixty metres long, tubular tapes, climbing harnesses, belaying ropes, nuts, bolt anchors, a hammer, Jumar grips – useful for ascending ropes – a two-person tent, a couple of rucksacks, an iridium satellite telephone, hiking boots and more.