Redemption aka A Conspiracy of Faith

43

Use your brains, he kept telling himself. Do the right thing. Nothing hasty you might regret.

He drove the car slowly up the road. Returned the nods of his neighbors, then turned into the driveway with the weight of disaster bearing down on his shoulders.

He was out in the open, where keen-eyed birds of prey could watch all his movements from a distance. What had happened at the hospital could hardly have gone more wrong.

He glanced at the child’s swing dangling loosely on its ropes. Less than three weeks had passed since he put it up in the birch tree. His image of a lazy summer at play with their little boy had been snatched away. He picked a small, red plastic shovel out of the sandpit and felt welling grief threatening to overpower him. It was a feeling unknown to him since boyhood.

He sat down on the bench in the garden for a moment and closed his eyes. Only months before, he would have been inhaling the scent of roses and a woman’s nearness.

He could still sense the quiet joy of the child’s arms around his neck, the gentle breath against his cheek.

Stop it, he told himself, and shook his head. It was all in the past now. Like everything else.

His parents were to blame for his life having turned out like it had. His parents and his stepfather. But he had hit back on many occasions since then. How often had he struck against men and women like them? What was he supposed to regret?

Any struggle would claim its victims. He would have to live with that.

He tossed the toy shovel onto the lawn and stood up. There were new women out there. He would find Benjamin a good mother. If he realized all his assets now, he could make a good life for the two of them somewhere in the world, until the time came for him to carry on his mission and bring in money again.

But right now, there were realities to deal with.

Isabel was alive and recovering. Her brother was in the police and had been at the hospital when he had come to eliminate his risk. That was the greatest threat. He knew these people. They would make it their personal goal to find him. But they would not succeed. He would make sure of it.

The nurse he knocked out would remember him. From now on, every time she encountered a stranger with an unfathomable gaze, she would recoil. The shock of the blow he had delivered to her throat would remain deep inside her. Her confidence in others would be shattered. He would be the last person on earth she would be likely to forget. The secretary, too, would remember him. Nevertheless, he was not afraid of these two women.

When it came down to it, they had no idea what he looked like.

He stood in front of the mirror, considering his reflection while he removed his makeup.

He would be all right. More than most, he was familiar with people’s ability to observe. A sufficiently furrowed face and people would notice nothing else. And a stiff gaze behind a pair of glasses was always enough for a person not to be recognized without them.

A conspicuous wart, however, would be seen and noted, though oddly enough its absence after being removed would go unseen.

Some things served to disguise, others did not. Yet one thing was certain: the best disguise was one that made a person look ordinary, ordinary being unremarkable. And the unremarkable was his area of expertise. Putting wrinkles in the right places, applying shadow to the face and around the eyes, arranging the hair in a different way, manipulating the eyebrows, allowing complexion and hair condition to indicate age and state of health. He used all these things to achieve the perfect result.

Today, he had been the average man in the street. They would recall his age, his accent, and the glasses. But they would be in doubt as to whether his lips were narrow or full, his cheekbones vague or distinct. He knew this, and it made him feel safe. Naturally, they would not forget what had happened, and certain of his features would remain salient, but they would not recognize him the way he really looked.

Let them pursue their investigations. They knew nothing. Ferslev and the van were gone, and he would be, too, before long. Exit the average man, from this average residential street in Roskilde. A man in a comfortable detached home, one of a million others in this small country.

In a few days, when Isabel was able to talk, they would know what he had been up to all these years, but would still have no idea of his identity. That was something known only to him, and that was the way he wanted it to remain. But there would be mention in the media. A lot, even. Warnings would go out for potential victims to be aware, and for that reason alone he would have to suspend his activities for some time. He would live modestly on his savings and find himself new bases from which to operate.

He looked around his tidy home. Although his wife had looked after the place and they had spent a fair amount of money on repairs and improvements, the financial crisis meant it was a bad time for selling property. Still, it would have to go.

Experience told him that if a person was compelled to disappear, burning selected bridges would always be insufficient. There could be no half-measures: new car, new bank, new name, new address, new circles. As long as there was a good explanation, so friends and neighbors understood why you were going, things would work out. A new job abroad, good money, pleasant climate. Anyone could understand that. No one would bat an eyelid.

In other words: no sudden, irrational behavior.

He stood by the open door in front of the mountain of packing cases and said his wife’s name out loud a couple of times. When there was no sign of life after a minute or so, he turned and left.

It suited him well. Doing away with a pet of which the family had been fond was something few people cared to do, and that was the way he felt about her.

Now it was yesterday’s news. And all for the best.

Tonight, after bowling, he would put the body in the car and drive up to Vibegården and get it all over and done with. His wife and the two children up there had to go.

And once the bodies had dissolved and the tank had been rinsed and cleaned in a couple of weeks, everything would be ready.

His mother-in-law would be devastated. The farewell note from her daughter would say that their poor relationship had been a significant factor in their decision to emigrate, and that she would be in touch once the wounds had healed.

And when, as was inevitable, her mother eventually began to wonder, perhaps even express suspicion, he would travel home and force her to write her own suicide note. It would not be the first time he had given a person a lethal dose of sedative.

But to begin with, he would have the packing cases destroyed, get the car mended and sold, and put the house up for sale. He would sit down at the computer and find a comfortable place in the Philippines, collect Benjamin, assure his sister that he would still be sending her money, and then he would set off through Europe to Romania in some nondescript vehicle he could abandon in a street somewhere, secure in the knowledge that within hours it would be stripped to the chassis.

The plane tickets made out in their new assumed names would reveal nothing about their true identities. No one would take notice of a little boy and his father traveling from Bucharest to Manila. Only in the opposite direction, perhaps, would the pair be remarked upon.

A fourteen-hour flight to the future.

He went downstairs into the hall and found his Ebonite bowling bag. In it were the accoutrements of his sporting success. He had triumphed so often over the years, and if there was one thing he was going to miss about this life, it was bowling.

Truth be told, he was not overly fond of his teammates. Two of them, at least, were morons he would prefer to see the back of. All were simple men, of simple ideas and simple lives. Average, by name and by nature. Yet to his mind it didn’t matter who they were, so long as their usual score was the right side of two hundred and fifty. The sound of the ten pins scattering was the sound of success. On that count, all six on the team were as one.

That was the beauty of it.

The team went out to win. It was the reason they could count on him being there whenever there was something at stake. That, and his very useful friend: Pope.

“All right?” he said as he approached the bar. “Sitting here, are we?” As if they would sit anywhere else.

High-fives all around.

“What are we drinking?” he asked. The usual entry into team togetherness.

Like the rest of them, he stuck to mineral water prior to a game. Their opponents generally did not, which was their mistake.

They sat for a few minutes, kicking around the pros and cons of the team they were up against, conversation drifting on to how certain they felt about winning the district championships on the coming Ascension Day.

And then he told them.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to find a replacement for me before then.” He spread his arms out apologetically. “Sorry, guys.”

They fell silent, gawping at him with accusations of treachery blazing in their eyes. For a while there was silence. Svend, always with gum in his mouth before a match, upped his chewing rate. He and Birger looked decidedly pissed off. He had expected as much.

Lars broke the silence. “Sorry to hear it, René. What happened? Trouble with the wife? Typical!”

It was an interpretation that won support.

“Nah.” He allowed himself to chuckle. “It’s not the wife. It’s work. I’ve been offered an executive position with a new company spearheading solar technology in Tripoli. But don’t worry, I’ll be back in five years, once the contract runs out. I reckon you’ll be needing me for the Old Boys team by then.”

No one laughed, but then he could hardly blame them. What he had done was sacrilege. The worst thing anyone could do to a team before an important match. A distracted mind could only ever put a wrong spin on the ball.

He apologized for his poor timing, knowing it was all he could do.

He was already on his way out. Just like he wanted.

He knew exactly how they felt. Bowling was their escape. For them, an international top job would never loom on the horizon. Now that he had driven in the wedge, they would be feeling like mice in a trap. He had felt like that, too, once. But that was a long time ago.

Now he was the cat.