Fatal gambit, p.14
Fatal Gambit, page 14
part #2 of Rekke & Vargas Series
He leaned forward and put his hands over her throat like a doctor examining her tonsils.
“Where does it feel sore?” he said.
“About where you’ve got your hands,” she said, hoping he’d take a hint.
Instead, he seemed to press harder – or that was how it felt to her. Finally, he released his grip, and she took the chance to sit up in bed, unsure of what was really happening. Was she in danger? It wasn’t just the nausea and her throat; there was something strange about his reaction. He seemed embarrassed.
“How are you?” she said.
“Good. Why?”
“I was just wondering,” she said. “You seemed tense just now.”
“I’ve got a lot on my plate.”
“Like what?”
She really did want to know. She still knew far too little about him, but he didn’t answer and that was probably for the best, given how she was feeling. Nonetheless, she was hurt when he stood up without saying a word. When he returned, he was clutching a beer – only one for himself, thankfully. Beer was a calorie bomb – though he might have asked her if she wanted anything while he was going through the fridge anyway . . . Her throat was parched, and her thirst became even more apparent when she watched him drinking greedily, almost aggressively.
“Be glad you don’t have any siblings,” he said.
“Why should I be glad about that?”
“Because when the bastards betray you, it hurts.”
“Has someone betrayed you?”
He took another greedy gulp. The scar on his forehead furrowed and unfolded as if it were alive.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
She caressed her throat, the pressure within refusing to ebb.
“What’s happened?” she said.
He didn’t reply.
“Wasn’t it like that with your family too?” he said.
“How do you mean?”
“Didn’t you say your Uncle Magnus was always going behind your dad’s back?”
“Oh yeah, sure,” she said. Was that really how she’d expressed it?
“And your dad is always forgiving him?”
“I’m not sure about that,” she said. “But he’s, like, accepted him.”
“Do you know how your dad should handle it?”
“How?”
Something came whistling through the air. She didn’t have time to react. Her cheek flared hot and her head was thrust to one side, and she felt pain and confusion in equal measure. What was happening? He’d smacked her face. But why? He just smiled and took another swig of beer.
“That’s what he should do. Strike back. That way Magnus won’t dare say shit.”
She couldn’t produce any words.
“Do you understand?” he said.
“OK, I’ll be sure to tell him,” she said in a mumble, putting her hand to her cheek. Then she went to the bathroom and sat there shaking, wondering if she should call Pappa. She abandoned the idea. What could that possibly do apart from making everything worse? Anyway – she tried to reassure herself – it wasn’t a big deal. It was just a joke. A way of demonstrating something. Right? Instead, she rose from the toilet seat and stood in front of the mirror for a long time, prodding her stomach, which was protruding again. She felt ugly and miserable and she thought to herself that she ought to travel far away and not come back for a long time.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“How can you know that I’ve spoken to my brother?” said Micaela.
“I can see it in you,” Rekke said, remembering when he had looked into Lucas’ eyes and sensed something cold and bottomless within: the complete dark triad – psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism.
But above all, he’d noticed how Micaela reacted to him. Her pupils shrank. Her jaw tensed; her shoulders pulled up towards her neck. Rekke had known from the moment he had first met Micaela that she was tormented by his existence. Lucas left marks on her face and changed the rhythm of her footsteps.
“That’s creepy,” she said.
“Not at all. We’re conditioned in evolutionary terms to respond to threats. You’ve challenged him, haven’t you?”
She nodded, and he looked at her. She was so very young, and attractive too, but she always seemed to age when she spoke about Lucas, and he guessed that had been the case for a long time – even back when she had thought she admired him.
“In what way?” he said.
“I’ve been naïve,” she said. “An idiot who turned a blind eye. But now I know that he’s dealing drugs and using kids to push them – they’re below the age of criminal responsibility. I’ve tried to find evidence – I’ve got a little obsessed over the last few weeks.”
“Did anything particular precipitate this?”
She paused for thought.
“Perhaps,” she said. “I saw something. I followed him and hid in the woods down by Järvafältet. Lucas was pestering a lad in a quilted jacket and he suddenly pulled out a gun and pressed it into the guy’s throat. He scared the living daylights out of him. But do you know what’s worse?”
“No.”
“That it felt routine – he’d done it before. I can’t quite describe the shock. I started to see my life in a whole new way.”
He put his hand on hers and looked into her anxious brown eyes, which seemed full of fight.
“It’s just awful,” she said. “Husby was pretty OK when I was growing up. I never saw it as some down-and-out suburb, but now the amphetamines, khat, ecstasy, cannabis and that crap you take – fentanyl – are all pouring in. We’ve had deaths. One boy was only fourteen. His name was Muhammad, in case you were wondering.”
“I’m sorry.”
She angrily pulled her hand away.
“Stop it,” she snapped. “You know exactly what you’re part of, and it’s not made any better by the fact that you get yours from a doctor.”
“No, perhaps not.”
“Anyway,” she said more gently, “ever since I saw Lucas pull that gun the pieces have fallen into place and instead of being passive like I was before, I’ve been actively trying to find people in Husby to testify against him.”
“Not an altogether risk-free enterprise, I take it,” he said.
“No, and I went too fast. But it just felt like something snapped. You know my papá?”
“The historian.”
“Yeah. He was always putting books in front of me, and he wanted me to look out at the wider world. He hated Husby. He thought it was a homogeneous tower-block hell, a futuristic nightmare, and he always insisted that I was going to go to university and get out of there. It became important to me too. I was going to be an academic like him and move abroad. Or at least to Lund. But when I graduated sixth form . . .”
“With good grades, naturally.”
“Yes, actually . . . Well, then I applied to the Police Academy.”
“And chose to serve in Husby.”
“Exactly, and sometimes I bumped into my old teachers. I could tell how disappointed they were, and I couldn’t explain to them or myself why I was plodding about the place in uniform.”
“But somewhere deep down, you knew.”
“Yes, in some way or other it was all about Lucas.”
“You wanted clarity.”
“There were too many questions from my childhood gnawing away at me.”
“For instance, the cause of your father’s death.”
“Yes, although there’s a lot of stuff it’s not worth raking through. There’s no chance of getting answers this long afterwards. I should have let my colleagues do their jobs. Now I’ve made everything worse and I’ve got some fuckwits on my case.”
“More than just your brother?”
“Yes.” She hesitated. “Today on my way back to Rebecka Wahlin’s to take a look at her bookshelf, I ran into one of Lucas’s errand boys. His name’s Hugo.”
“And Hugo gave you that lip?”
“He threatened me. Well, not just me. He said that someone close to me might get into trouble, and I got it into my head they might come for you, Hans. That’s why I went cold when I saw the blood on the kitchen floor.”
“I’m sure I’ll survive,” he said, smiling quietly.
But he once again had the uneasy feeling that a great threat was imminent.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Of course it isn’t Claire in the photograph. Of course it isn’t her.
Alicia Kovács sounded not dissimilar to Inspector Kaj Lindroos, who had in a moment of weakness promoted himself to chief inspector. Unlike the drunken cop, Alicia was precise and methodical as she laid out one photograph of Claire after another on the desk.
To this day she still felt the odd stab of jealousy. Claire had something she and Sofia didn’t. She was the picture of urbanity. She could go head to head with Gabor and question his conclusions. Claire was the star – the one everyone thought Gabor would choose. So what had happened?
Alicia rose from the desk, put her hand to her heart and listened to the sounds of the garden and road. The threat to her life seemed audible out there in the darkness: the seeds of something gruesome, a fire that would spread from the floor, up her feet and legs, slowly consuming her. No, that’s nonsense, she muttered to herself.
Gabor would take care of her – he loved her. They were connected by a child and by a tragedy. Nothing would happen, nothing. Yet . . . there had been three of them: her, Claire and Sofia. Three women who had hovered around Gabor, infatuated. Three hopeful, young, happy people, each convinced that their future was bright and shining.
Alicia was now the only one still alive – at least she hoped she was, even if it sounded harsh when put that way. Sofia Rodriguez had been found dead in the smouldering remains of her house in Madrid, her body exhibiting signs of torture. Claire Lidman had burned when a petrol tanker had plunged off a vertiginous road in San Sebastián. Fire, fire, always fire, leaving scorched earth behind.
Alicia looked away from the window and went into the kitchen to open another bottle of wine and calm her nerves. But then she changed her mind – it would be unprofessional to drink more. She thought back to when they had been reunited with Claire in Stockholm in September 1990. She remembered the expectations lingering in the air, the secretaries bustling back and forth, the contract proposals handed over, Gabor adjusting his suit in front of the mirror and applying wax to his hair. It had been a big deal for him, and not just because he had the chance to take over all of Axel Larsson’s assets and grow even richer at a time when everyone else was bleeding to death. It was a big deal for him to see Claire again. She was the missing link – the one he was most attracted to. But nothing had gone the way he had expected. Claire had arrived and Gabor had kissed her on both cheeks. She had reacted with unmistakable physical discomfort, reaching up to wipe away his kisses. She detested him and made no effort to conceal it. The whole thing was folly and it was going to go horribly wrong, Alicia realised that much immediately – but Gabor was determined to make out otherwise.
He flattered Claire, offering her champagne and suggesting a game of chess as a warm-up for their negotiations. Claire reluctantly agreed. Alicia watched from an armchair nearby, and it was immediately apparent that Claire had improved. She played Black with the Sicilian Defence and held out for a long time before Gabor crushed her and toppled her king with his little finger. “You’ve got a long way to go,” he said. “You still can’t take me on.”
He had said it with a smile, almost tenderly, but Alicia had immediately understood the underlying threat, and shortly after that what she had feared had come to pass. Gabor had asked her to leave. He wanted to be alone with Claire. Alicia remembered the helpless look from Claire, her gaze darting about searching for ways out, and the door closing. She remembered her own footsteps descending the stairs, and the feelings of jealousy and horror. To this day, she had no idea what happened that night – except that it was something terrible.
She was able to tell the morning after from the shadow on Gabor’s face his body language, and she hadn’t been surprised when Claire had disappeared a few weeks later. It was already on the cards, and although she had shed a tear over the news of her death, she hadn’t been unprepared for it. Claire had sealed her fate the moment she had looked at Gabor with that icy hatred. That was just how it was. That was the reality Alicia had come to live with and had slowly accepted, especially after giving birth to Gabor’s son and seeing how much he was capable of loving – and mourning. Gabor was still the most intelligent, interesting man she had ever met. The man who had opened up the world for her and made life shine like one big promise.
Further down, on the water, there was a boat moving through the darkness. She listened for sounds in the garden and checked her watch again.
Five past ten – too late to call. Gabor’s evenings were considered sacred. But what the hell . . . She had a good reason, and a lot of questions. He picked up straight away, sounding warm and friendly. Like the good Gabor – the one she was tied to.
“We forgot about Jan’s birthday last week. He would have been nineteen, as you know,” he said.
“I didn’t think there was much to celebrate, but I sat on the terrace and lit a candle.”
“That’s good. Do you have anything more to tell me about Rekke?”
She paused for thought.
“He said thank you.”
“Thank you?”
“For awakening him from his slumber.” She couldn’t remember if that was exactly how he had put it. “He was very broken.”
“I don’t care how broken he is; he must never be underestimated. Did he make any other observations?”
He saw my shame, she thought to herself. For the guilty, there is always hope.
“Not really,” she said.
“Then he was holding back,” he said. “He reads people like an open book.”
Like you, Gabor, she thought. Like you.
“You admire him?” she said.
“He sees clearly. That fascinates me.”
But mostly you hate him, she thought.
“Is there anything about Ida Aminoff’s death that I need to know?” she asked. She held her breath.
“She seemed an interesting woman,” he said. “A little undisciplined, but exciting.”
Did you kill her?
“Why the sudden urge to return the necklace?” she said instead.
“He asked after me and I returned something.”
“Come on, Gabor. Why?”
“I already knew he would approach us.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, I received a tip-off, and since then I’ve done a little research and turned up some unexpected information. It is only a suspicion so far, but I am seeking confirmation. It has to do with Jan.”
“Oh,” she said, not daring to ask more.
She decided to get to the point of her call. “Samuel Lidman phoned.”
She heard Gabor take a deep breath.
“Really?” he said. “Although that was to be expected, I suppose. What did he want?”
“He claims to have photographic evidence that Claire is alive and has been sighted in Venice.”
Gabor didn’t answer at once, breathing heavily.
But when he spoke, there was no seriousness, no stifled hatred in his voice as there was when he talked about Rekke – only amusement of a sort. Curiosity.
“Well, well . . .”
“Exactly. Sounds totally cuckoo. But I’ve taken the liberty of making an appointment with him tomorrow at nine o’clock, just to check it out.”
“Push it back,” said Gabor. “I’ll fly to Stockholm and meet him. I might . . .” He hesitated. “Bring company for the trip.”
She was surprised, although not by that. He was always showing up with new beauties and mistresses, but she hadn’t expected that he would want to take the meeting in person. It was usually only the rich and powerful who were so honoured.
“May I ask why?”
“Because it would be interesting,” he said.
“Can you make it for one?”
“I think so,” he said.
“Who is the company?” she said bitterly. “Who are you making happy this time?”
“It’s not what you think. I shall provide a detailed explanation, but there was something else I wanted to ask you first.”
She bit her lip.
“I have undertaken the delicate task of examining Rekke’s personal circumstances, and my findings were far more interesting than I had dared hope,” he said.
“I see,” she said nervously.
“It transpires that Rekke has a lodger – a young woman, a quick-witted girl, I should think. She’s a police officer, and a very honest one. A fighter in many ways and not at all spoiled from birth like him.”
Just as long as you don’t go after her too, she thought to herself.
“I didn’t meet her.”
“No, I gathered that. But – and this is the good bit – she has a brother who feels threatened by her. Additionally, he hates Rekke and the man’s influence over his sister. His name is Vargas too – Lucas Vargas. I’ve spoken to him a little and he seems open to suggestion.”
You mean he’s willing to be bought.
“Hasn’t Rekke suffered enough?”
“He hasn’t suffered like we have.”
“What do you want me to do?” she said.
“Speak to the brother – a situation has arisen. And in the meantime I shall endeavour to have my reports confirmed.”
“Yes, Gabor,” she said. “Of course. But . . .”
She didn’t finish her sentence, instead wishing him a good night. Then she got on with what she had promised to do. She rescheduled the meeting with Samuel Lidman and spoke at some length with Lucas Vargas, who surprised her with his charm and sense of humour. He was a little reminiscent of Gabor, albeit a more primitive version. Afterwards, she called Morovia again, and while talking to him she stared vacantly into the darkness, thinking.
Just what is it I’m doing? What am I playing at?
