Jens wiped his mouth with a serviette.
“When I returned to the office I did the dollar dealings in my own name. If the dollar went down I could just transfer the deal to Phuridell and say I was fixing the price of the dollar debt as we’d discussed. If it went up I could pocket the gain and flatly deny Klipra had asked me to buy the dollar rates. He couldn’t prove a thing. Guess what happened, Ivar. Is it all right if I call you Ivar?”
He scrunched up the serviette and aimed at a litter bin by the door.
“Yes, Klipra threatened to go to the management of Barclays Thailand with the case. I explained to him that if Barclays Thailand endorsed him, they would have to replace his loss. Plus they would lose their best broker. Put simply: they couldn’t afford to do anything but support me. So he threatened to use his political connections. You know what? He never got that far. I realized I could get rid of a problem, Ove Klipra, and at that same time take over his company, Phuridell, one that was going to take off like a rocket. And when I say that, it’s not because I hope and believe that, the way these pathetic share speculators do. I know it will. I’ll make sure it happens.” Jens’s eyes shone. “Just as I know this Harry Hole and the bald-headed woman are going to die tonight. It will happen.” He looked at his watch. “I apologize for the melodrama, but tempus fugit, Ivar. It’s time to consider your best interests, isn’t it?”
Løken started at him with vacant eyes.
“Not afraid, eh? The hard nut?” Slightly bemused, Brekke pulled a loose thread from a buttonhole. “Shall I tell you how they’ll be found, Ivar? Each tied to a post, somewhere in the river with a bullet in the bodies and faces like dropped meat pies. Heard that expression before, have you, Ivar? No? Perhaps they didn’t use it when you were young, eh? I’d never been able to picture it. Until my friend Woo here told me that a boat propeller can literally rip the skin off a man and show the flesh underneath. Do you get me? It’s a neat trick Woo picked up from the local mafia. Of course people might ask what the two of them had done to make the mafia so mad, but they’ll never find out, will they. Especially not from you, as you’ll be getting a free operation and five million dollars to tell me where they are. You’ve had a lot of practice disappearing, creating a new identity and all that, haven’t you.”
Ivar Løken watched Jens’s lips move and heard the echo of a voice in the distance. Words like boat propeller, five million and a new identity fluttered past. He had never been a hero in his own eyes and had never had an inordinate desire to die as one. But he knew the difference between right and wrong, and within reasonable bounds he had striven to do what was right. No one else but Brekke and Woo would ever know if he had met his death with his head held high or not, no one would talk about old Løken over a beer among vets in the intelligence service or at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Løken wouldn’t have cared one way or the other anyhow. He didn’t need a reputation after his death. His life had been a well-kept secret, and so it was probably natural that his death would be the same. But if this situation was not the place for a grand gesture he also knew that all he would gain from giving Brekke what he wanted was a quicker death. And he no longer felt any pain. So it wasn’t worth it. If Løken had heard the details of Brekke’s suggestion it wouldn’t have made any difference. Nothing would make any difference. For at that moment the mobile phone attached to his belt began to beep.
49
Friday, January 24
As Harry was about to hang up he heard a click and a new tone, and he realized his call was being transferred from Løken’s home number to his mobile. He waited, let it ring seven times before he gave up and thanked the girl with the plaits behind the desk for letting him use the phone.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said as he returned to the room. Liz had taken off her shoes to inspect some dry skin.
“The traffic,” she said. “It’s always the traffic.”
“I was transferred to his mobile phone, but he didn’t answer that, either. I don’t like it.”
“Relax. What could happen to him here in peaceful Bangkok? He must have left his cell phone at home.”
“I made a mistake,” Harry said. “I told Brekke we were meeting tonight and asked him to find out who was behind Ellem Ltd.”
“You did what?” Liz took her feet off the table.
Harry thumped the table with his fist making the coffee cups jump. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! I wanted to see how he would react.”