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Authors: Elsebeth Egholm

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Three Dog Night (2 page)

BOOK: Three Dog Night
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‘Happy New Year, Peter!'

Manfred appeared, looking well rested, with his dachshund, King. He had a rifle and hunting bag slung over his shoulders, and wore a cartridge belt around his waist. They left the village in his four-wheel drive and went up to the woods and fields surrounding Gjerrild, where Manfred and his uncle had game rights. There were eight hunters in total and after some discussion they spread out across the area. Peter followed Manfred, but he didn't carry a gun. Soon they were walking through the stillness of the forest, scarcely exchanging a word, looking for hoof prints and any other signs of red deer.

‘Good time last night?'

Manfred spoke in a low voice as they followed the path through the pine trees. Peter knew that Manfred and his wife had been at home with the little ones. Early to bed and early to rise, that was the rhythm in Manfred and Jutta's house. Peter liked to follow the same monotonous routine himself, as if his temperament was attuned to the rising and the setting of the sun. He and Manfred had a lot in common.

‘Not bad,' Peter said as they trudged through the snow in their sturdy rubber boots. ‘Villy had a party.'

Manfred's oilskin jacket snagged on branches and twigs as they went. It was ten o'clock in the morning and the temperature was minus eleven. Manfred was a small man, but he could climb along the ridge of a roof like a circus artist and was as familiar with the tools of his trade as he was with books, which Peter greatly appreciated. Manfred was forcing his way through the trees as surefootedly as if he were tiling the vicar's roof.

‘It's dangerous on cold New Year's Eves,' he said, still keeping his voice low so as not to frighten the inhabitants of the forest. ‘Some of Jutta's friends in Grenå are still waiting for their daughter. She'd promised to come home after a party.'

The snow creaked under Peter's wellies. He, too, was walking and speaking carefully.

‘Early days yet. She probably just found a bed for the night.'

Manfred shivered as a branch brushed against him and snow drizzled down under his rollneck.

‘I'm sure you're right. But try telling her mum that.'

‘Better than the alternative, though?'

Manfred nodded.

‘I'm with you there.'

They reached the clearing and walked side by side for a while. Then the dog caught the scent. It sprang around nervously, whirling up snow, its muscles tense with sheer excitement.

‘Here.'

Peter bent down and pointed. Deer tracks criss-crossed, gouging up the snow. At first glance it looked as if someone had run a matchstick through the cream on top of a layer cake. But if you looked closely, individual tracks stood out. Manfred, too, bent down and the dog poked its long snout deep into the holes.

‘And look here.'

Fresh, steaming faeces lay scattered around. The smell of wild animal seasoned the air and they could see where antlers had swept the snow searching for food. In some places the bark had been peeled off the trees. Peter lowered his voice to a whisper and pointed to the stag's hoof print, which was the size of his boot heel.

‘Deer,' Manfred concluded. ‘Could be up to eight of them.'

They followed the trail and moved carefully, with the dog on the leash now. Normally they would have been chatting about all sorts of things, combining knowledge and enthusiasm with physical effort, which was what hunting was. Once more Peter walked behind Manfred and the dog as they plodded their way through the snow. Peter and Manfred got on well. Manfred had been taking a philosophy degree at university when life and a bout of depression took its toll, and he had chosen to devote himself to manual labour and trained as a carpenter. He was born and bred in Rimsø. After he had finished his apprenticeship he had set up Rimsø Builders, and after three years of working on his own hired Peter. The business now employed four people, but there wasn't much work in winter. At the moment they had only one job, a new roof on a barn belonging to a pig farmer, and Manfred had been forced to lay off the two newest employees temporarily.

The snow grew deeper and their boots sank into it. Manfred suddenly stopped in front of him. The dog was completely rigid. Peter stared. The stag was standing in the clearing sniffing the air, but the light breeze was in their favour, blowing their scents away from it. And yet the animal had an inkling of their presence, that much was clear. Its winter coat was grey and brown; muscles rippled nervously under the fur. Its nostrils flared in reaction to an as yet unidentifiable threat and its breath hung in the air like a cloud.

Manfred turned slowly to Peter. In one gliding motion he handed him the rifle. Peter shook his head, but Manfred refused to lower his arm and in the end Peter took it, pressed it to his shoulder and rested his cheek so that he was watching the animal through the crosshairs.

It was a fourteen-pointer, a trophy buck, and he had never seen a more beautiful sight. Its antlers were free of any late summer velvet. It stood there captured in the sunlight, its profile turned towards them as if wanting to show them its best side.

Peter's finger tightened around the trigger. Then the animal turned its head while its body remained in the same position. For a couple of long seconds it stared straight into the rifle's sights and Peter could hear his blood rushing under the gaze of the stag. Then it seemed, finally, to spot him and the rifle. It tossed its head back, stamped on the ground and set off through the snow with the white hairs on its bottom raised like a flag as a danger signal.

The silence that followed was as heavy as melting snow. Then Manfred said: ‘You should have shot it.'

Peter handed the rifle back to him.

‘It was too old. I thought we were going for the young ones?'

Manfred shuffled his feet in the snow. King stuck his nose into a hoof print and whined quietly.

‘It wouldn't have mattered. It would have been all right.'

They looked at each other and Peter was reminded of the long seconds watching the stag. The silence was no longer the same. It contained the warmth, the friendship and the risk Manfred had shown himself willing to take: trusting a hunter who was no longer permitted to carry a weapon.

‘I don't want you getting into trouble because of me,' Peter said emphatically. No more needed to be said, and they walked on through the forest.

When he arrived back home, tired and content as always after hours spent in the fresh air, his guest was still asleep.

It was one-thirty before Stinger's snoring finally started to lighten. Fifteen minutes later he woke up, hawking and spluttering and reaching for his cigarette packet, which was empty.

‘Here.'

Peter handed him a mug of coffee. Stinger slurped and spilled it.

‘Happy New Year.'

Stinger muttered a reply into the mug. Peter left him and went to the kitchen. He fried up some bacon and eggs, made toast and heated a tin of baked beans. When he took everything to the coffee table, Stinger had roused enough to sit upright and rub his face with his scabbed hands.

‘So what's up? To what do we owe the pleasure?' Peter asked.

Stinger regarded him with a wounded expression.

‘Christ, Peter. I thought friends were welcome at any time? At least that's what you used to say.'

It was true, he still kept the key under the white stone. He was perfectly aware of that. He had only himself to blame. But sometimes it was like living in a railway station when old friends from the past dropped in for the night.

‘Got any tomato sauce?'

Stinger looked down at the plate Peter passed him.

‘In the fridge. And help yourself to Beluga caviar while you're out there.'

‘Bewhat?'

‘Nothing.'

Kaj followed Stinger all the way to the kitchen and back – not because he was being vigilant, but because he hoped Stinger would drop some food. Experience had taught him that he would.

‘I was supposed to meet Ramses. That was the deal.'

Stinger squeezed the sauce bottle so hard it spattered everywhere and the plate looked like a traffic accident. Then he went to work with his knife and fork, sending crispy bacon flying in all directions.

‘I don't suppose you've seen him, have you?'

Peter shook his head. Kaj spotted the bacon on the floor and took his chance.

‘I didn't know he was out.'

‘You're not keeping up. He's been out for a while,' Stinger said, chewing. ‘We were meant to meet here on New Year's Eve and make plans.'

‘But you forgot to invite me?'

‘We assumed you would be at home.'

Peter sliced through the yolk of his fried egg. The yellow liquid poured out and mixed with the red tomato sauce from the beans.

‘And what's your plan?'

Stinger put down his knife and fork and scratched his hand. A scab came off and started to bleed.

‘It's the frost,' he said looking at the blood. ‘My skin goes all dry.'

‘What plan?'

‘We were going to recover Brian's stash. The stuff he hid before he went inside.'

‘And you both believe it really exists?'

Stinger nodded with conviction.

‘'Course it does. He told us how to go about finding it. Separately, I mean.'

‘Separately?'

He wolfed down a forkful of beans followed by toast dipped in tomato sauce.

‘Well, you see, Ramses knows a bit. And I know the rest.'

He chewed and swallowed. ‘Between us we know enough to find the shit. Good one, eh? It's worth at least three million, you know. We can live like kings for the rest of our lives.'

Peter was unable to suppress his laughter.

‘Then you'll need one hell of a financial adviser or you'll be dead before your time. Given your consumption of fags and vodka, the money won't last long.'

Once again Stinger looked hurt.

‘It's a fortune, you know.'

There were lots of rumours about the stash.

‘So what is it you know? And why you two? Why would a dying man entrust his deepest secret to a couple of bums like you?'

Stinger mopped up the sauce, egg remnants and bacon grease with a piece of toast.

‘We were like family back then. Don't you remember? Me and Ramses were like the old boy's sons. Behind bars and outside.'

Peter watched as Stinger opened his mouth wide for the toast. Stinger was both right and wrong. All three of them, Brian, Ramses and Stinger, had struck up a kind of friendship, but Stinger was naive. Ramses could be bought for next to nothing, and Brian had always loved playing people off against one other, then standing back and watching the result. Peter wouldn't trust either of the other two. But perhaps Brian had become sentimental during the last few months of his life with the cancer eating him up. Perhaps the dying man had felt the urge to confess to someone, and there were worse people than Ramses and Stinger. They were half-wits, that went without saying, but deep down they were OK. There were lots of rumours going around and some suggested that Brian had once been a big-time drugs smuggler, and if that was the case it was way beyond the combined abilities of Stinger and Ramses.

‘So what do you know?'

Stinger swallowed and washed everything down with coffee. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

‘Brian was crazy about boats, do you remember? An old sea dog was how he liked to describe himself. He had a motorboat called
Molly
.'

Peter nodded. Stinger had learned the art of tattooing from Brian – the old salt had an anchor tattooed on his forearm, a busty girl on his biceps and a clove hitch on his chest. It was no secret that Brian's career had encompassed a range of smuggling activities – especially in the Baltic.

‘Anyway, when it got too hot for him, he scuttled
Molly
somewhere in the Kattegat,' Stinger said, scratching the bleeding scab. ‘Sealed the stash in a box. That's the bit I know. Where the stash is, I mean. Sort of.'

‘Sort of?' Peter had to smile. ‘And Ramses? What does he know? Something sort of as well?'

Stinger carried on scratching. Another scab came off, revealing pink skin the size of a one-krone coin.

‘Ramses has the other half of the coordinates. Brian told me.'

‘And you have the first half, I suppose?'

Stinger nodded and suppressed a belch.

‘Great grub, thank you,' he said politely and added, as if he had just finished eating at a three-star restaurant: ‘I really enjoyed that.'

3

F
ELIX SAW THE
man leaving the house again just after two o'clock.

She had seen him arrive on New Year's Eve. She had heard the dog barking, and the PIR light next door had been triggered and revealed his presence: tall and skinny and – she imagined – freezing in a very short jacket without anything on his head or hands. At first he had knocked, and then when there was no answer, he had pushed down the door handle. Then, after hanging about for a little examining the snowdrifts, he had come over to hers and rung the doorbell.

‘Have you got a shovel I could borrow?'

‘There's one in the car port.'

She had pointed it out to him. He sniffed, not that that made much difference. Snot hung from his nose. He wiped it with one hand and she saw it was covered with scars and scabs mixed with some amateurish tattoos. He didn't say thank you, or anything else, just turned around and headed for the car port. Shortly afterwards she had seen him shovelling snow near the lane. He worked away for ten minutes until he came to a stone. He bent down and took something out from underneath it. Then he came back to return the shovel and she watched him open the door to the house and greet the dog. That was what convinced her that he was all right. Plus, of course, the fact that he knew where the key was kept.

And now he was leaving again, with mittens on his hands and wearing a thicker jacket than before and the knitted beanie on his head. She recognised the jacket. Her neighbour –
Peter A. Boutrup
she'd read on his door one day when he was out – usually wore it when he took the dog out for walks. Which he did every day. And it was a fine dog, an Alsatian.

BOOK: Three Dog Night
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