Three Dog Night (46 page)

Tomas as a boy. Silent, cautious Tomas who always had a cold. Fragile and delicate with skin that was soft like a girl's. Always introverted. Always an enigma. You could never get a reaction out of Tomas. You could tease him or push him, or you could ignore him or give him a hug. It was all the same to Tomas. With one exception: after the accident he developed a water phobia. His greatest fear was to have his head under water.

Kir suppressed her nausea.

‘But it didn't stop?'

Red gritted his teeth.

‘His brain damage only made it worse. Dad has had one hell of a job keeping it quiet.'

That's the most important thing, she thought. The most important of all. No one must ever suspect there was something wrong with the Røjel family. And certainly not Hannibal, her father's brother and eternal rival, who'd never had children of his own. He always had to have Christian's family shoved down his throat so that he could see what he had missed out on. Hence her father's bitterness when she preferred Hannibal to him.

Red's head jerked up. The movement reminded her of their father, but he hadn't inherited his father's tall frame. Red had his mother's sturdy figure invigorated with masculine strength. Tomas was the tall one, but here the similarity with their father ended. Or did it? Where had his wickedness come from?

The family, Kir thought. The end of the family. That was what it was. The final destruction. The structure had been wobbling for a long time, but now the foundations were crumbling. She felt defeated, vanquished by fate, by time and by all her miscalculations and mistakes. She stared into the sea.

‘It's not about animals for you, is it? It's about money,' she said.

‘It's about the good life,' he said. ‘It's about independence.'

‘You're using Tomas now. You're using his methods. You said it had to stop. You, the person who tried to drown him.'

She stared at Red.

‘You're not the same any more. You're more rotten inside than Tomas.'

Red smiled, but he was angry.

‘No one can change Tomas, so I might as well exploit that side of him. At least that serves some purpose,' he said. ‘You know I can make him do almost anything. So, yes, he has assisted me with his special skills. He was useful.'

Some purpose.
Kir was speechless. Her anger was spent. She thought about Tora in the harbour and about Nina and Gry.

‘And you think that's acceptable?'

Red shook his head. For the first time she saw something that resembled remorse.

‘He went too far. I thought I could control him, but there's something in him even I can't reach. I told him to be careful and I told him to suppress his most bizarre urges.'

He looked across the sea. ‘That's why all this ends here.'

‘And because Nina Bjerre happened to turn up on New Year's Eve and saw you and Tomas throw Tora in the harbour? She died because Tomas had gone too far, right?'

Red nodded.

‘You didn't intend for her to die?' Kir asked.

He shrugged.

‘The idea was we would beat her up and dump her somewhere she would be found by the other girls so that they would know what would happen if they tried to break away. But Tomas couldn't stop himself. We decided it was best to get rid of her.'

‘You sent Tomas to kill Gry at the hotel. Why, Red? Why did she have to die? A poor girl like her?'

She didn't understand any of it: ‘All because of the heroin on the seabed?'

He nodded. ‘That police officer got too interested in her. She started talking.'

‘And what if the packet isn't there? What happens if I don't find it?'

Red looked at her. There was hatred in his eyes.

‘You will. You'll find it. Or you won't leave here alive.'

F
ELIX PUSHED AND
shoved. It was laborious work. With every movement her entire body ached and the iron shackles around her ankles cut deep into her flesh. She stretched until her body was as taut as wire and little by little she managed to push aside the crates and old junk. That was what separated her from Anja on the other side: junk and old sacks.

She hoped Anja had stayed conscious, but she heard only intermittent signs of life.

‘Come on, Anja. Push hard. We need to make a hole through.'

There was a faint scrape on the other side. Something shifted slightly. Anja coughed. Her cough turned into a gurgle.

‘You can do it. Pull yourself together.'

The words lulled her desperation as she worked. Their only chance was to work together. She stretched as far as the leg shackles and her body would allow. Her breasts were bloodstained, the wound from the brand was throbbing fiercely and her body was engulfed in a raging fever.

‘I can see you.'

It was a whisper, no more than that. But Anja was right. They could see each other. A little light fell through the holes in the roof. Felix could see Anja lying on some filthy sacks with a blanket wrapped around her. Her hair was matted; her face shone, pale and tormented. She lay in a foetal position with her knees pulled up.

He had been there in the meantime, their tormentor. Felix had heard noises coming from behind the wall of junk; she had heard the whimpering and crying and his voice, which was unemotional, robotic. There had been nothing she could do, only hope that it would end soon, and think about their chances of overpowering him. Now she wasn't even sure they had a chance.

Anja was no longer chained up, but the marks on her wrists and ankles told Felix that she had been. The chains were no longer necessary. It was obvious her body was close to succumbing.

Felix stared. Beyond Anja, snow had drifted in under the boards and lightened the room. She heard dripping from the roof and now she could see a puddle of water at Anja's feet.

She looked around in the gloom and found the tub, which with considerable difficulty she managed to drag towards her. From the melted snow she removed some old bottles and they rolled across the cement floor. She grabbed a worn old broom leaning against the wall and used it to push the tub towards Anja.

‘Can you hear me?'

‘Yes.'

‘Can you move?'

There was no reply. But her body slowly reached out. Anja grunted with the effort.

‘Take the tub. Fill it with snow and push it back to me. Can you do that?'

‘No.'

Anja whimpered like a child.

‘You've got to.'

For a moment Anja lay still. Felix was beginning to think that all her strength had gone when she sat up halfway and pulled the tub closer to her before collapsing with a sigh.

‘Keep going, Anja! Do it! You can do it!'

Slowly, very slowly, the girl struggled into a sitting position. Felix cast around for something to serve as a shovel, but found nothing. Anja reached out. Little by little, she shuffled closer to the snow. Her hand reached into the pile. Felix heard a splash as a tiny handful fell into the water in the tub.

K
IR SLIPPED INTO
the water. The light would soon be gone. All she could see were shadows in a muddy, icy sea. As she dived towards the bottom, she could just about make out Red's boat on the surface. She had cast anchor, but the waves were pulling at the boat and rocking it from side to side.

She spent a minute floating on her back, letting the current carry her, while she tried to stabilise her thoughts. It was important to find the right moment and it had to be soon after she resurfaced. Otherwise she was lost, regardless of whether she found the heroin or not. She had to take a risk; it was her only way out. She had to remember her training and forget that Red was her brother.

Once the decision was made, she dived and quickly reached the bottom, where seaweed and sea grass waved in the current like tentacles reaching for help. At first she couldn't see the wreck and was starting to think that Brian had tricked everyone. But then she saw a dark shadow, the contours of the vessel. She flicked her flippers and soon had her hands on the hull of the boat where mussels and other creatures had already formed a crust. She swam all the way around the boat feeling her way with her hands. In the dim light she recognised the boat that had been moored in Grenå Harbour. There had been rumours that Brian smuggled cigarettes from the Baltic, but people minded their own business, and as long as he was no threat to the neighbours, they turned a blind eye.

She found the name and ran her fingers across the five letters. MOLLY.

The boat had come to rest on its side. The wheelhouse lay on the sea-bed like the shell of a snail. Kir found the hatch and pulled at the handle, but it wouldn't give. She was seized by a premonition. Someone was inside. She had worked with bodies underwater for so long that she had developed a sixth sense. It felt as if lifeless eyes were staring at her, as if someone from the beyond was trying to tell her something.

She pulled again, harder this time, and the hatch opened, creating a whirlpool. Then the water settled. She couldn't see very much, but the feeling stayed with her. Brian had died in hospital. How had he got ashore after scuttling
Molly
? Logic told her that there had to be another boat. A helper. Uncle Hannibal's boat had later drifted ashore on to Fjellerup Beach. Had Brian sailed it to Fjellerup after opening the sea valves and scuttling
Molly
?

She lay still for a moment attempting to calm her heart and pulse rate. Then she swam inside the boat. She ran her hand along the floor, examining every square centimetre of
Molly
, but there were no sealed packages, there was no heroin, and all of a sudden she felt she was no longer touching wooden planks. She recognised the sensation of touching a dead body. A body that had been there for months. Disintegrating flesh crumbled in her hands. She came across bones attached to remnants of clothing. She tried to think clearly and let her training take over, but when she found the diving knife and held it in her hand, she knew whose body it was. Panic threatened to suffocate her. Uncle Hannibal would never have gone anywhere without his diving knife strapped to his shin. He had been the ultimate old salt, the sort depicted in comics. She kept looking and also found the sheath the knife had been kept in, hanging loosely from a leg bone.

Her brain went into overdrive. The knife was in good condition. This was her chance. But she had to find something she could take to the surface – something that looked like a packet. She rummaged around the wheelhouse and found the First Aid box. She ripped a flimsy curtain from the window and wrapped it around the box as best she could. With the box under her arm and the knife in her leg sheath she left
Molly
and started her ascent, promising herself and Uncle Hannibal that she would return as soon as she could to recover his body.

She took her time resurfacing, even though no pauses were necessary in such shallow waters. Now she knew what had happened: Brian had tricked Hannibal into meeting him at sea, possibly under the pretext that he had run out of fuel. Once Hannibal was there, Brian had persuaded him to board
Molly
to give him a hand and had killed him on the spot. A post-mortem would reveal how he had been killed, if she ever got away from Red and managed to contact the police.

After Brian had killed Hannibal, he had sailed Hannibal's boat to Fjellerup, from where he had found transport – probably a bus – and returned to Grenå unnoticed.

Everyone had thought that a drunken Hannibal had gone to sea and had an accident – one that was waiting to happen, what was more. He was getting on in years and could no longer handle all that vodka, and, besides, he had white spots on the brain from the numerous dangerously deep dives he had made and from resurfacing too quickly.

Hannibal, the old mine clearance diver, had met an entirely predictable end. Only Kir had known it wasn't true. She had never really believed that Hannibal would have been so drunk that he couldn't steer his own boat home.

But there was no heroin. Brian had scuttled his boat without any treasure on board. He had tricked everyone. If the treasure even existed, it was somewhere completely different.

She reached the ladder and felt the weight of her own body and the equipment once she was out of the water. Red was waiting with a gun to receive her. This was the moment, she thought. This was where her training would save her. She was an elite soldier. She knew how to overpower an enemy who was bigger, stronger and heavier than her – only she had never thought the enemy would turn out to be her brother.

‘Put down the gun,' she called out to him and showed him the bundle under her arm. ‘Move away from the railing, or I'll drop the box.'

She knew he wouldn't be able to dive down himself to retrieve it. Red had never been a strong swimmer, and he had only ever been able to dive a few metres, and that was only when she forced him into one of the competitions which she always used to win. She could see from his face that he was weighing up the odds. At length he did as she said. He showed her his empty hands and stood on the bows, still with his hands in full view. She didn't doubt for a second that he had stuffed the gun in his pocket and could quickly retrieve it, but it bought her some time. Perhaps it was enough.

She struggled up, water dripping off her. Red stirred.

‘Stay where you are. Don't move yet.'

He hesitated, his greedy eyes focused on the box. If she wanted to, she could quickly throw it overboard. He obviously didn't want to risk that because he took a step back and held up his hands. She peeled off her diving tank, flippers and mask and felt an icy chill on her skin, but fortunately her feet were enclosed in the all-in-one. Then she took a step forward and placed the wet box on the deck between them. As she bent forward, she sensed him move towards it. She knew he had taken the gun out of his pocket. She reached for the knife in the sheath on her shin and straightened up as he bent down, threw her arms around his neck and twisted his body at the moment the shot was fired. She pressed the blade against his throat and it bit into his skin.