46
Carver was feeling like a normal human being again. He wanted to act like one, too. The night before their four-day trek, he and Larsson skipped the training diet and went into Narvik for a few cold beers, hefty portions of steak and chips, and some flirtatious banter with the waitresses.
Driving home, Larsson asked, “What if she doesn’t want you back?”
Carver laughed. “She’d have me back, all right. Not sure about yours, though.”
“Not her,” said Larsson. “Alix. What if you go to all this trouble, and you find her, and it turns out she didn’t want to be found?”
Carver frowned. The possibility hadn’t occurred to him. But maybe Larsson was right. Maybe Alix had left because she couldn’t stand being around him anymore.
“Christ, that’s a depressing thought,” he said, his good humor suddenly vanishing. “I don’t want to think about that. Anyway, you’re wrong. She’d want me to come after her. She did last time. Why would it be any different now?”
“I don’t know,” Larsson admitted. “I mean, she was definitely still crazy about you the last time I spoke to her.”
“Right-so why do you think she’d change her mind?”
“I don’t. I was just asking a question. Hypothetically.”
“Well, don’t,” said Carver. “I’ll assume she wants me to come get her, until she tells me otherwise. And bollocks to hypothetical.”
“Oh, shit!”
Larsson was looking in the rearview mirror. He shook his head in disgust and pulled over to the side of the road. Only then did Carver notice the white Volvo with the flashing lights pulling in behind them and the cop getting out of the driver’s door.
Larsson wound down his window and started talking to the policeman in Norwegian. Carver couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but it didn’t sound good. He knew from his Royal Marines days that Norwegian cops could be tough, unforgiving buggers, a million miles removed from the British image of Scandinavians as laid-back, liberal types.
Larsson was asked to leave the car and escorted around to its rear, where another brief exchange took place. Then he was made to take a Breathalyzer test. The policeman entered Larsson’s details in a handheld terminal, then finally waved them on their way with an irritated look on his face.
“What got him so pissed off?” Carver asked.
“I was under the limit,” Larsson replied. “He couldn’t bust me for drunk driving, so I’ll keep my license. But he got me on a broken rear light; I’ll have to pay a fine.”
They drove back to Ebba’s farm. And as they did, a computer trawling ceaselessly through the world’s network systems came across a name to which it had been programmed to respond, and flagged the data to which that name was attached. And a few hours later, at the start of the working day, a man walked into his boss’s office and said, “Guess who just turned up in Norway.”