“React? Harry, this isn’t a game!”
“I’m not playing a game. I arranged to ring him from the meeting so that we could catch up with him somewhere. My plan had been Lemon Grass.”
“The restaurant we went to before?”
“It’s close by and better than risking an ambush at his place. There are three of us, so I imagined an arrest à la Woo.”
“But then you scared him off by mentioning Ellem?” Liz groaned.
“Brekke’s not stupid. He could smell a rat long before then. He talked about the best-man nonsense again, to test me, to check if I had him in my sights.”
Liz snorted. “What a load of macho bullshit! If you two have anything personal invested in this, get it out of your system. For Christ’s sake, Harry, I thought you were too professional for that.”
Harry didn’t answer. He knew she was right: he’d behaved like an amateur. Why on earth had he mentioned Ellem Ltd? He could have invented a hundred other pretexts to meet. Perhaps there was something in what Jens had said, that some people like risk for risk’s sake. Perhaps he was one of the gamblers Brekke considered so pathetic. No, it wasn’t that. Not just that at any rate. His grandfather had once explained why he never shot grouse when they were on the ground: it’s not nice.
Was that why? A kind of inherited hunting ethic: you frightened the prey to shoot them in flight, to give them a symbolic chance of getting away.
Liz interrupted his train of thought.
“So what do we do now, Detective?”
“Wait,” Harry said. “We’ll give Løken half an hour. If he hasn’t turned up I’ll phone Brekke.”
“And if Brekke doesn’t answer?”
Harry drew a deep breath. “Then we phone the Chief of Police and mobilize the whole force.”
Liz swore through gritted teeth. “Did I tell you what it’s like to be a traffic cop?”
* * *
Jens looked at the display on Løken’s phone and chuckled. It had stopped beeping.
“Great phone you’ve got, Ivar,” he said. “Ericsson’s done a fine job, don’t you agree? You can see the caller’s number. So if it’s someone you don’t want to talk to, you don’t have to. Unless I’m much mistaken someone’s wondering why you haven’t turned up. Because you don’t have a lot of friends ringing you at this time of day, do you, Ivar.”
He threw the phone over his shoulder and Woo nimbly stepped to the side and caught it.
“Find out whose number that is and where. Now.”
Jens sat down next to Løken.
“This operation is beginning to get rather urgent, Ivar.”
Holding his nose, he looked down at the floor where a pool had formed around his chair.
“I mean, really, Ivar.”
“Millie’s Karaoke,” Woo said in staccato English. “I know where it is.”
Jens patted Løken on the shoulder.
“Sorry, but we’ve got to be off now, Ivar. We’ll have to go to the hospital when we’re back.”
Løken was aware of the vibration of steps fading in the distance and waited for the air pressure from the slamming of the door. It didn’t come. Instead he heard the distant echo of a voice by his ear.
“Oh yes, I almost forgot, Ivar.”
He felt hot breath on his temple.
“We need something to tie them to the poles with. Could I borrow this tourniquet? You’ll get it back. I promise.”
Løken opened his mouth and felt the mucus in his throat loosen as he roared. Someone else had taken over command in his brain, and he didn’t feel the jerk on the leather straps as he saw the blood wash over the table and the shirtsleeves absorb it all until they were red. He didn’t notice the door close.
* * *
Harry jumped up at the light tap on the door.
Involuntarily he grimaced when it wasn’t Løken but the girl from reception.
“You Harry, mister?”
He nodded.
“Telephone.”
“What did I say?” Liz said. “Hundred baht it’s the traffic.”
He followed the girl to reception, noting in his subconscious that she had the same raven-black hair and the same slim neck as Runa. He stared at the tiny black hairs at the nape of her neck. She turned, flashed a quick smile and stretched out her hand. He nodded and took the receiver.
“Yes?”
“Harry? It’s me.”
Harry thought he sensed his blood vessels widening as his heart began to pump blood faster around his body. He took a couple of breaths before speaking calmly and clearly.
“Where’s Løken, Jens?”
“Ivar? He’s got his hands full and can’t make it.”