Assassin (28 page)

‘What if he’s dead?’

‘I don’t think he is. I’ve known him a long time and he always pulls through. So we’re going to do this rehearsal, OK?’

Ahead of them, Karin was looking up at the altar, lost in thought.

‘Wait a minute,’ Maddy said to Larsson. ‘I just need to say hello to Karin, all right?’

‘I’ll introduce you.’

‘No, it’s OK, I can do it.’

Maddy walked towards Karin, wondering what to say to her. At any other rehearsal she’d tell the bride how pretty she looked and giggle sympathetically about the stress of it all. But now? Maddy decided that she might as well be honest.

‘Weird, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I mean, doing all this … now … after last night.’

‘Oh God, I’m so glad you said that,’ said Karin, bursting into tears. She sounded distraught, but also relieved, as though a great burden of lies and pretence had been lifted from her shoulders.

Maddy hugged her. ‘It’s OK … Come on, sit down here.’

She led Karin to the altar steps. She told her everything was going to be fine, though she knew neither of them believed it. There was only one thing Maddy truly wanted to talk about.

‘Can I ask you a question?’

Karin nodded as she wiped away her tears.

‘How long have you guys been engaged?’ Maddy asked. ‘You must have been planning this for the longest time.’

‘Actually, no,’ Karin replied. A weary smile played around her face. ‘You know, marriage is not so important here as maybe it is in America. In fact, it’s a little old-fashioned. But Thor just proposed to me, only a month ago, right out of the blue.’

‘I didn’t know he was so romantic!’

Karin laughed. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry!’ she said, acutely conscious of her red eyes and runny nose.

‘It’s fine,’ said Maddy, touching Karin’s arm sympathetically. ‘It’s my fault for suggesting your husband-to-be is romantic.’

Karin smiled again, this time without apology. ‘Well, I don’t think Thor is romantic, exactly,’ she said. ‘But he was trying to be, I guess. He’d gone to so much trouble. He’d even checked up the dates when the chapel was available.’

‘He’d even picked a date? Oh my!’ said Maddy, doing her best to sound cheerful. ‘Well, I guess you had to say yes to that!’

‘I didn’t know what to say at first, it was so sudden. But he was very persuasive.’

Maddy nodded sympathetically. ‘I’m sure,’ she said. ‘And I’m so glad we could talk.’

She leaned across and pecked Karin on the cheek, then got up, walked right over to Larsson and asked him, ‘Do you want to tell her, or shall I?’

‘Tell her what?’

‘That the wedding is a scam. That it was only set up to get Carver here on the right date, the same way you got us to go to that restaurant last night, so he’d be there when the bomb went off. So he’d get the blame - your best friend. How could you do that to him? Why?’

Maddy was ready for Larsson to react violently. But he did not even argue. Instead he seemed to crumple before her: his face, his shoulders, even his legs seemed to buckle a little.

‘Come with me,’ he said, ‘please. I don’t want Karin to hear anything.’

Maddy walked with him back down the aisle and out into the open air.

‘I swear I didn’t know what was going to happen,’ Larsson said when they got outside. His voice was pleading but there was also relief there that he could finally get things off his chest. ‘I was just told to find a way to get Carver to the hotel that evening, that was all. And some other stuff, you know, designs … like I did for Carver …’

‘But why did you agree?’

‘I was sent photographs of Karin … at home, at work, walking through town, everywhere. If they had threatened me … I mean, I’m not like Carver, but I can look after myself. But I could not look after Karin, not every minute of the day … And there was something else …’ He leaned closer to Maddy and barely whispered, ‘Karin’s pregnant. Our baby … that was too much to lose. I had to do what he asked.’

‘Who was he, this guy?’

‘I don’t know. He never gave me a name. But, Madeleine, you have to believe me. The bomb, blaming Carver … I didn’t know anything about that.’

‘Oh come on, you must have guessed!’

‘Maybe I did not want to admit it. But even when I found out for sure, last night, I told myself Carver would escape. He would win. Like all the other times.’

‘Do you know where he is now?’

‘No …’ Larsson closed his eyes and screwed up his face. Maddy could see there was a battle going on inside him, as if part of him was resisting one final admission.

‘Come on, Thor, you know something. I can tell …’

‘OK, assuming Carver is alive, if he’s free, he’ll go back to Geneva. But I’ve been calling pretty much constantly. No answer. If he’s not free … If this man has got him, well, I think I know where he is. But I hope I’m wrong.’

‘We’ve got to call the police, tell them everything.’

‘But what about Karin? The wedding?’

‘You think she’ll care about that, once she knows what you did? You’ve only got one chance, Thor. With her, with me, with Carver … You’ve got to tell Ravnsborg everything. Now.’ She held out her phone towards him.

Larsson shook his head. ‘It’s OK, I’ve got the number too.’

He took out his phone and dialled the incident room at Olso police headquarters. Maddy watched as he spoke, not understanding the words but picking up the change of mood, from introduction, to explanation, to exasperation and finally anger.

‘There’s a problem,’ he said, when he ended the call. ‘Ravnsborg isn’t there. He left the station about five minutes ago, with some English guy, they wouldn’t say who. He’s on a mobile, but they won’t give me the number. They just say that if I leave a message, they’ll pass it on in due course.’

‘So what did you tell them?’

‘I told them to tell Ravnsborg his life is in extreme danger, and so is Carver’s. They didn’t seem to believe me.’

‘So now what are we going to do?’

‘We are going to drive like crazy to a lake called Tvillingtjenn. We have to get there before Ravnsborg. People’s lives depend upon it.’

‘Well, if we need to get there quickly, you’d better let me drive,’ Maddy said.

‘For heaven’s sake!’ snapped Larsson. ‘Are you crazy? You don’t know the way. You don’t know the country. It’s my car. You won’t be quicker than me.’

‘Believe me, I will. Just give me the keys.’

If Carver stood up, directly under the beam, the pull of the bungee cord against his slave collar didn’t hurt his throat or restrict his breathing. If he sat on the chair, absolutely upright, trying to ignore the rasping agony of his open wounds rubbing against the rough wooden chair-back, it felt no worse than a tight dress-uniform collar. The moment he tried to do anything else the trouble began.

If he slumped his shoulders, or lowered his head, for example, the pressure increased against his Adam’s apple, making him want to gag. Sleep, or even the slightest relaxation, would be impossible.

There was a part of him that almost admired Tyzack for the thoroughness with which he’d thought the nightmare through, right down to the ceaseless jabber of the TV sets that surrounded him like medieval peasants jeering at a man in the stocks. He’d already seen a report from the site in Bristol where the President would give his speech in a little over forty-eight hours. Regular updates had been promised, an inescapable countdown to the moment when Tyzack struck.

Carver wondered what state he would be in by then. The pain and exhaustion would increase hour by hour, steadily draining him of the will to live. Yet it would be equally hard to kill himself. The elasticity of the cord and the padding of the collar allowed no possibility of a quick hanging. It might be possible to asphyxiate himself, but it would take a long time - several minutes at least - and an implacable, unrelenting death-wish. That, too, would surely be beyond him. He had no choice but to endure a half-life, a purgatory that would continue until Tyzack returned. Assuming that he ever did. He could just leave Carver to rot. Or he might be arrested or killed on his mission, whatever it was.

Carver’s heart was pounding now, his breath coming in shallow gasps. He’d let his thoughts run away with him and now he was close to panic.

‘Come on, get a grip, you wanker!’

His voice was little more than a husky rasp through his battered vocal cords. Shakily, he got to his feet, straightened his back, ignoring the protesting shots of pain, pulled back his shoulders and let out a single, voice-cracking roar of pain and frustration, holding it until his lungs were empty. When he breathed again, the panic was gone and his pulse was steady.

His throat, though, felt as if it had been scrubbed from the inside with wire wool. He needed a drink. The prospect of enduring another fight against the cord as he dragged himself towards the table, where the plastic container sat taunting him with its fifteen litres of cool, fresh water, sent another shot of fear through his system. Yet far from putting him off, the fear only drove him on. If he was to survive, he had to turn the desperate scrabble for water into a routine. He had to find a way of normalizing the experience. Better yet, he could try moving the water closer to him, a lot closer, so that he could get to it easily - or as easily as he could do anything in Tyzack’s chamber of horrors.

Carver told himself to start with the basics: get a drink.

He took three deep breaths, flooding his lungs with oxygen. The fourth breath he held and stepped forward towards the table, his total concentration focused on the water bottle. He felt the grip on his neck tighten and willed himself to ignore the sensations of nausea and asphyxiation. All the while the cord was pulling at him, trying to force him back.

He was still barely halfway across the open floor between his chair and the table.

Carver leaned forward into his next step. His blood was pounding in his ears and the edges of his vision were becoming blurred. For a moment he craved the vicious sting of the cane on his back, forcing him to go onwards whether he wanted to or not. It was even harder making himself do it.

One more step: he pushed his left foot ahead of him as far as it would go, till the toe of his shoe was almost touching the table. Then he leaned forward one last time.

He could almost feel his larynx collapsing under the pressure from the collar. His craving for oxygen was as desperate as a drowning man’s.

He reached out his arms, joints and tendons straining, fingers outstretched, and somehow his left hand managed to curl around the neck of the bottle, while his right fumbled for the little plastic cup beside it.

Carver was close to blacking out as he lifted the cup to the lip of the bottle.

He tilted the bottle towards him. Water gurgled up the spout, but did not reach the lip. He would have to tilt it further before any came out.

The bottle tipped over another few degrees. Now Carver felt as though he was fighting a war on two fronts. The weight of the bottle was dragging him downwards, just as the cord was pulling him up and away.

He was desperate for air now. But if he let go of the bottle, he might never manage to get it again.

He had to get the water into the plastic cup, but still it wouldn’t come out.

He tilted the bottle a few more degrees, the strain becoming worse as its centre of gravity shifted over.

And then something gave.

What went first he didn’t know. But suddenly his back foot was slipping and scrabbling for purchase on the wooden floor. The bottle was sliding on the table.

There was even more tension pulling against his throat. The full weight of the bottle was bearing down on his fingers wrapped around its neck. As the bungee cord pulled him inexorably away, his fingers lost a fraction of their purchase. But that was enough.

The bottle slipped from his grasp, teetered for a fraction of a second and then toppled over, thudding against the top of the table and then rolling sideways, water now pouring from its spout, and all Carver could do was watch as it fell from the side of the table, crashed down on to the floor and poured its precious cargo over the pine boards.

A pool of water spread across the floor, too far away and too low for him even to touch, let alone scoop into his hands.

The water gurgled. It splashed. It puddled. And every drop of it was wasted.

He could only stand and watch despairingly as little by little it slipped between the cracks in the floorboards and seeped, agonizingly slowly, into the soft, pale wood.

Carver lunged despairingly, trying to reach the overturned bottle and the last litre or two that remained within it. He strained until he felt that his shoulder sockets would be torn apart and his head torn from his body. He fought against suffocation and unconsciousness. But it was no good. The bottle remained out of reach, untouchable, its open top staring blankly at him.

He knew then that it was over. Tyzack had won. He would hit the President. And Carver was going to die within the next few days. From now on it was simply a matter of exactly how and when.

The road map of Oslo’s northern suburbs looks like a maze in a children’s puzzle book. The roads twist and switchback as they snake across the hills. Some side roads link back into the system, while others run blindly away to dead ends. Had she not had Thor navigating for her in the passenger seat, Maddy would have become hopelessly lost. Instead he gave her instructions in a voice as irritatingly calm and emotionless as a sat-nav, while she channelled her anger and desperation into the business of getting to Carver as fast as humanly possible.