Three Dog Night (28 page)

He heard footsteps coming down the corridor and the door opened.

‘I thought I must have misheard,' coughed Cato, who, as always, looked like a living skeleton. ‘I told them it had to be a mistake. You're the last person I expected to show up here.'

Peter half expected to hear bones rattle when Cato flopped on to the chair opposite and carried on coughing.

‘It's the smoking ban. All that clean air is killing me.'

His tone of voice was more cheerful than his appearance suggested. He had obviously been subjected to brutal treatment by someone stronger than him, and perhaps this someone had rearranged his lungs and airways. His face was blue and yellow and swollen behind the death mask. He had black stitches to repair a split eyebrow and there were burst blood vessels around his eyes.

‘You've looked better,' Peter said, pushing the two packets of Camel across to him. ‘I hope you can find somewhere to smoke them.'

Cato nodded and fidgeted with the cigarette packets.

‘So what do you want?'

Peter leaned back and folded his hands behind his head.

‘Just wanted to see how you were doing.'

Cato hawked and spat a yellow gobbet on to the tiled floor.

‘Since when do you care about that?'

‘We're brothers, aren't we?'

Cato laughed. Peter could see this caused him physical pain. Cato's body had always had strangely contorted movements. Now an electric current seemed to be running through him, and his arms and legs twisted convulsively.

‘It's freezing cold in here. It's always cold.'

‘I think it's hot.'

‘The old prison was worse.'

Cato shivered. His cough started again. He looked as if someone was shaking him from the inside, like when you shake a fruit tree and the overripe fruit falls to the ground.

‘So what do you want?' he asked for the second time. ‘They record everything, you know that, don't you?'

‘The tape recorder's broken.'

Cato rolled his eyes, until he twigged. Normally the prison would record every conversation between prisoners and visitors, but Matti had once again proved to be a true friend. It was sorted, he had said. The tape recorder was temporarily out of action so they were safe to speak freely.

‘It must be something important.'

Peter nodded.

‘I've got a problem. I thought you might help me to solve it, seeing that you're here, at the centre of the world.'

‘Why would I want to help you?'

His cough exploded in a splutter. Another gobbet landed on the floor.

‘Perhaps I can do something for you in return,' Peter said, pushing the buttons all weakened prisoners could be bought for.

‘Perhaps I can get you something you want.'

Cato looked neutral, turning a packet of Camel round and round, on its end, then on its side. For a long time it was the only sound in the room.

‘How could you do that?'

The voice was curious. A new thought was forming in Peter's mind.

‘I know this place. Trust me.'

The cigarette packet was laid down flat.

‘What do you want in return?'

Peter told him selected snippets of what had happened since New Year's Eve: Ramses, Stinger, the disappearance of Nina Bjerre and the body in the harbour, which wasn't her.

‘I know all of that.'

Peter knew from Matti that Cato was victimised in his block. He was no beefcake and had come to prison without any allies on the inside. The strong prisoners had a hold over him and could make him do anything they wanted when the prison officers turned their backs. Cato knew all about hierarchy and the price you paid for being at the bottom.

‘Is Grimme still running the place or has he got a rival?'

Grimme, a biker gang leader, was inside for drug dealing. Approximately five years ago, when he'd been serving the last part of his murder sentence, he had ordered his henchmen to beat up the new prisoner in the shower simply to set an example. Oh no, not just for that reason, Peter thought. There was another reason as well.

He sat for a while looking at Cato and remembering the price he had paid for standing up to the self-elected leader of the prison.

Cato was his brother. They'd grown up together at Titan Care Home and they had been friends. They had roamed the woods around Ry, on the rare occasions that they escaped surveillance and punishment. With his long, bony arms and legs, Cato looked like a lean scarecrow with cheekbones that always seemed to be threatening to burst out of his skin and eyes rolling around in their sockets. Cato had desperately hoped for a miracle, as they all had. They had trusted each other then. They no longer did. But they could use each other for a variety of purposes.

‘Matti?' Cato asked. ‘Is he OK?'

‘Fine. He says hi.'

‘Say hi back.'

For a moment this happy family scenario felt completely absurd. Cato smiled a shadow of a smile.

‘And Ing-Kistine?'

Inger-Kirstine was Matti's big-breasted wife. Matti struggled to pronounce his ‘r's.

‘She's put him on a diet. Salad. No bread.'

Cato's mouth split open in a fleeting grin. Then he grew serious again.

‘So we're not being recorded?'

Peter slowly shook his head. Eventually Cato nodded.

‘Grimme's still running the place,' he said.

He raised a hand to his face and carefully touched the skin.

‘But Urban did this. He's Grimme's second-in-command.'

‘What will it take to stop it?'

Peter knew the answer. Cato shrugged his skinny shoulders.

‘Drugs. Money. Power.'

Peter couldn't get any of that, or at least not in large quantities. But right now he couldn't afford to admit it.

‘OK. I'll try. With Matti's help, we'll get you moved into better conditions. Possibly even with a telephone.'

They no longer trusted each other, but Cato's eyes still hung on his with an expression that resembled desperation. Peter leaned forward.

‘A man by the name of Erik Gomez Andersen applied for permission to visit the prison back in July. I want to know who he was visiting and why.'

Cato regarded him blankly. His lean fingers dug into the cobalt-blue armrest of the chair. His skull turned on its own axis.

‘I also want to know what is being said on the jungle telegraph. Who has Grimme got his nails into outside the prison?'

‘In Grenå?' Cato asked.

‘Yes.'

Peter inhaled.

‘And then there's Brian. Why would Stinger and Ramses stick their necks out for him?'

The prison officer came back. Visiting hours were over. Cato rose with a nod.

‘Was that all?'

He stood for a moment watching Peter from a distance and scratching his hair. His fringe hung in long thin strands while the hair at the back was gathered in a crude ponytail.

‘You want the dimensions of the biggest chopper inside as well and the name of the person who gets it daily?'

He turned his back on Peter, who called out to him: ‘See you under the clock.' It was an expression from their childhood. You never knew when a child would disappear off to a foster family, move to a different institution or simply vanish into thin air. No one had ever met underneath the clock. It was a pathetic joke among boys and girls who had elevated a lack of hope and certainty to a non-existent agreement.

Cato held up a hand, still with his back to Peter, as he was led away. Peter breathed a sigh of relief when he was finally outside. He tilted his head back and looked up into the air, which was heavy and grey with falling snow.

‘T
HAT'S
A REALLY
long time ago.'

The woman behind the lost property counter looked worried. A vertical crease had made its way down her otherwise smooth forehead, but Felix had an inkling that she might always have looked like this. Perhaps she was born this way. One of life's worriers.

In addition, she was pretty overweight, dark-skinned with a hint of a moustache and generally reminded Felix of one of the more sluggish bureaucrats in her home country.

‘I know. I should've come much earlier.'

Felix dusted snow off her jacket. Her cheeks were tingling with the transition from the wind and snow outside to the damp heat in the lost property office, where snow and ice trudged in by the customers had formed small puddles on the floor mats. She did her best to look rueful. A man might have been more receptive, she thought; however, the woman did actually look as if she might want to help her.

‘As I said, I've been travelling for a couple of months and the contents in the briefcase are of minor importance. The briefcase is what matters to me. It was a wedding present from my sister in Barcelona.'

The woman tapped away on her computer, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose. She wore a tight-fitting green-patterned blouse made from some artificial material. A faint smell of sweaty armpits emanated from her body. She looked determined now, like a bloodhound on the trail, and Felix got the impression she wasn't one of those people who would give up at the first obstacle.

‘What did you say the date was?'

‘July the twenty-first. On the train I met a very nice man and we had a long conversation. We said goodbye without exchanging names, but it struck me later that he might have handed in the bag when he realised that I'd left it behind.'

Felix was racking her brain so hard you could almost hear the cogs. She had been to the house in Skåde to look for Erik's burgundy briefcase and had been unable to find it, though she had searched the house from top to bottom. She had decided that the briefcase must be what he had handed into lost property. She didn't even dare think about why he might have done so, or what it might contain.

‘Any distinguishing features?'

Was this a trick question? Felix tried to remember what the briefcase had looked like. She had given it to Erik for Christmas one year. She didn't remember the brand, but it was bound to have been expensive. He had lost his temper one day when Maria had knocked a mug of hot chocolate into it as it lay open on the table. It was a few days before the helicopter trip, she remembered.

‘There's a stain on the inside. Hot chocolate. It has a pale fabric lining.'

The woman nodded and beamed as though Felix had just given the right answer to a question in
Who Wants to be a Millionaire
. Then she grew serious and her worried crease returned as she read the information on the screen.

‘I'm afraid it's been auctioned. I thought it might have been after such a long time.'

She forced her eyes from the screen and peered at Felix from above her glasses.

‘From time to time we auction unclaimed items. It was sold less than a week ago.'

Felix didn't like the sound of that. There had to be something in the briefcase Erik had wanted to hide, something he didn't want anyone to know about.

‘Do you know what happened to the contents of the briefcase? I don't suppose they were sold as well, were they?'

The woman frowned.

‘It doesn't say here. Oh yes, wait. It says here that the briefcase was empty.'

Her eyes scrolled down the screen. ‘We always open briefcases and bags to see if we can identify the owner and find an address. It appears that it was opened, but nothing was found. Do you remember what you had in it?'

Felix lied effortlessly: ‘Some documents and a newspaper, that kind of thing. Nothing important and nothing anyone would benefit from, I think. I always carry my purse and my credit cards in here.'

She patted her shoulder bag. Even so, the woman looked uncomfortable, as though Felix had personally suspected her of stealing the contents of the briefcase. It gave Felix the courage to launch another foray.

‘I don't suppose you could put me in contact with the buyer, could you? I could offer to buy it back.'

The woman slowly shook her head. Not allowed. She wasn't at liberty to reveal any names.

‘It means a great deal to me.'

It wasn't hard to shed a solitary tear. So many emotions were demanding to be released and sheer physical exhaustion itself was frequently enough to make her cry. The woman behind the counter looked horrified when Felix started sniffling.

‘There, there. We'll find a way. We're not very busy right now.'

She nodded in the direction of a bench in the far corner.

‘You sit down over there and I'll call and ask the buyer if they're prepared to talk to you. I promise I'll explain everything.'

Felix dabbed her nose with a tissue and duly sat down while her new friend sprang into action. There were no other customers and no one arrived while she waited. Working here must be seriously dull, Felix concluded. Perhaps it was nice to do something different for a change.

Five minutes later she left with an address in Hjortshøj. She fought her way through the wind and the lashing snow down to Toldboden, the customs house by the harbour where she had parked her car. It was the only remnant of their past splendour, she thought, unlocking it with the remote: a black BMW 4x4 registered in her name, now almost covered by snow.

As she approached the car, she suddenly had a strange feeling she was being watched. For the first time it dawned on her that what she was doing might be dangerous. People had died. If someone had been prepared to kill once, they might do so again. As long as there was something worth killing for.

She stopped several times and turned round to see who was nearby, but she saw nothing suspicious. Only random passers-by: an older man also going to his car and some builders who had started unloading a van across Kystvejen. She scanned the area, but visibility was poor and she got snow and wind in her eyes, which started watering. The red Toldboden building looked like something off a Christmas card; the railway tracks were almost hidden by snow. The cathedral spire soared above the town's rooftops. Cars moved at a snail's pace along Kystvejen and had to stop in front of the level-crossing barrier that came down for the train that slid past.