Phantom(11)

‘Erm, Tord, since we’ve got a stay-over in Bangkok perhaps we could …’

He yawned aloud. And felt no more than that she had been offended. He was still a bit groggy after the night before – there had been some more vodka and powder after the Mormons had gone. Not that he had ingested so much he would have failed a breathalyser test, of course, but enough for him to dread the fight against sleep for the eleven hours in the air.

‘Look!’ she exclaimed in the idiotic glissando tone that women use when they want to say something is absolutely, inconceivably, heart-rendingly sweet.

And he did look. It was coming towards them. A small, light-haired, long-eared dog with sad eyes and an enthusiastically wagging tail. A springer spaniel. It was being led by a woman with matching blonde hair, big drop earrings, a universally apologetic half-smile and gentle, brown eyes.

‘Isn’t he a dear?’ she purred beside him.

‘Mm,’ Tord said in a gravelly voice.

The dog stuck its snout into the groin of the pilot in front of them, and passed on. He turned round with a raised eyebrow and a crooked smile, as if to suggest a boyish, cheeky expression. But Tord was unable to continue that line of thought. He was unable to continue any line of thought except his own.

The dog was wearing a yellow vest. The same type of vest the woman with the drop earrings was wearing. On which was written CUSTOMS.

It came closer, and was only five metres from them now.

It shouldn’t be a problem. Couldn’t be a problem. The drugs were packed in condoms with a double layer of freezer bags on the outside. Not so much as a molecule of odour could escape. So just smile. Relax and smile. Not too much, not too little. Tord turned to the chattering voice beside him, as though the words that were issuing forth demanded deep concentration.

‘Excuse me.’

They had passed the dog, and Tord kept walking.

‘Excuse me!’ The voice was sharper.

Tord looked ahead. The door to the flight crew centre was less than ten metres away. Safety. Ten paces. Home and dry.

‘Excuse me, sir!’

Seven paces.

‘I think she means you, Tord.’

‘What?’ Tord stopped. Had to stop. Looked back with what he hoped did not appear to be feigned surprise. The woman in the yellow vest was coming towards them.

‘The dog picked you out.’

‘Did it?’ Tord looked down at the dog. How? he was thinking.

The dog looked back, wagging its tail wildly, as though Tord was its new play pal.

How? Double layer of freezer bags and condom. How?

‘That means we have to check you. Could you come with us please.’

The gentleness was still there in her brown eyes, but there was no question mark behind her words. And at that moment he realised how. He almost fingered the ID card on his chest.

The cocaine.

He had forgotten to wipe down the card after chopping up the last line. That had to be it.

But it was only a few grains, which he could easily explain away by saying he had lent his ID card to someone at a party. That wasn’t his biggest problem now. The bag. It would be searched. As a pilot he had trained and practised emergency procedures so often it was almost automatic. That was the intention, of course, even when panic seized you this was what you would do, this brain kicked in for lack of other orders: the emergency procedures. How many times had he visualised this situation: the customs officials asking him to go with them? Thinking what he would do? Practising it in his mind? He turned to the flight attendant with a resigned smile, caught sight of her name tag. ‘I’ve been picked out, it seems, Kristin. Could you take my bag?’

‘The bag comes with us,’ the official said.

Tord Schultz turned back. ‘I thought you said the dog picked me out, not the bag.’

‘That’s true, but—’

‘There are flight documents inside which the crew needs to check. Unless you want to take responsibility for delaying a full Airbus 340 to Bangkok.’ He noticed that he – quite literally – had puffed himself up, filled his lungs and expanded his chest muscles in his captain’s jacket. ‘If we miss our slot that could mean a delay of several hours and a loss of hundreds of thousands of kroner for the airline.’

‘I’m afraid rules—’

‘Three hundred and forty-two passengers,’ Schultz interrupted. ‘Many of them children.’ He hoped she heard a captain’s grave concern, not the incipient panic of a dope smuggler.

The official patted the dog on the head and looked at him.

She looks like a housewife, he thought. A woman with children and responsibility. A woman who should understand his predicament.

‘The bag comes with us,’ she said.