Redemption aka A Conspiracy of Faith

48

His breathing was calm. It was how he kept the body’s automatic defense mechanisms at bay. If he allowed adrenaline into his veins, his heart would accelerate, and that was the last thing he wanted since he was already bleeding profusely from his hip.

He took stock.

The important thing was that he had got away. He had no idea how they had come so close, but he would analyze that later. Right now, the long and short of it was that there was nothing in his rearview mirror to indicate that he was being followed.

The question was what the police’s next move would be.

There were thousands of Mercs like the one he drove. Many had been taxis; they were all over the place. But if police blocked the roads leading in and out of Roskilde, stopping any one of them would be a simple matter, indeed.

He had to proceed as quickly as possible. Get back home, bundle his wife’s body into the boot along with the most incriminating of his packing cases. Lock the place up, and then get off to the cottage by the fjord.

He would make it his base for the coming weeks.

And if he found it necessary to venture out, he would just have to disguise himself. He had always protested when the team had had their photographs taken with trophies they’d won, and mostly he had succeeded in avoiding it. But they would find photos of him if they were determined enough. No doubt about it.

A couple of weeks on his own at Vibegården was in every respect a good idea. Get the bodies dissolved in the tank. Then get out.

He would have to give up the house in Roskilde, and Benjamin would have to remain with his sister. When the time came, he would collect him again. Two or three years in the police archives and the case would be covered in dust.

He had thought ahead and had already stashed some necessities at Vibegården for just such an eventuality as this. New identity papers and a reasonable amount of money. Not enough for a life of luxury but sufficient to live simply in some out-of-the-way place and then gradually get things started again. The idea of a couple of years’ peace actually appealed to him.

He glanced into the rearview mirror and began to laugh.

They’d asked if he could sing.

“Of course I can, of course I ca-aa-an!” he sang out, chuckling to himself at the thought of the prayer meetings at the Mother Church in Frederiks. Everyone would surely remember how out of tune he sang there. That was the whole idea. So they thought they knew him, but they didn’t.

The fact of the matter was he had a good voice.

But there was one thing he would have to do: find a plastic surgeon who could remove the scar behind his right ear, the gash from the nail when they caught him spying on his stepsister. How the hell did they find out about his scar? Had he been careless with his disguise at some point? He’d always made sure he covered it up ever since that strange boy he killed had asked him how it got there. What was his name again? It had got to the stage now where he could hardly tell them apart.

He let it go and thought instead of what had happened at the bowling center.

If they reckoned they were going to find his prints on that bottle of mineral water, they were mistaken. He had wiped it clean with a serviette while they were questioning Lars Brande. They wouldn’t find anything on the tables or chairs, either. He had been much too careful for that.

He smiled to himself. Yes, he had been meticulous.

And then he remembered the bowling bag. Two bowling balls with his fingerprints all over them, and in the thumbholes two receipts that could lead them to his address in Roskilde.

He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on staying calm so as not to worsen the bleeding.

Nonsense, he thought to himself. They won’t find those receipts. Not to begin with, at least.

No, he had all the time in the world. Maybe they would trace him back to his house in Roskilde in a day or two. But all he needed was half an hour.

He turned down his road and immediately saw the young man on the lawn in front of the house. Standing there, calling Mia’s name.

Another obstacle.

Remove him from the equation. Do it now.

He would park the car a little farther away.

He reached for the blood-covered knife in the glove compartment, then drove slowly past the house, turning his head away as he passed. Her suitor sounded like a randy tomcat, wailing pathetically like that. Did she really prefer that adolescent to him?

And then he noticed the elderly couple across the road peeping through their curtains. How come old people always had to be so nosy?

He speeded up.

There was nothing he could do. Not with witnesses.

They would just have to find the body in the house. What difference would it make? The police already suspected him of serious crimes. He wasn’t sure which, but serious enough.

Maybe after a while they would find a packing case full of prospectuses from estate agents concerning weekend retreats for sale, but what good would it do them? They were in the dark. No documents existed to indicate which of them he had decided to buy.

He had no immediate cause for concern. The deeds to Vibegården were at the house itself, in the box with the money and the passports. There was nothing to worry about.

If only he could staunch this bleeding soon and didn’t get stopped on the way, everything would be all right.

He found the first-aid box and stripped to the waist.

The stab wounds were deeper than he had anticipated. The second of them, especially. He had felt sure he’d jerked Pope’s hand toward him with just the right degree of force, but somehow he had expected him to offer more resistance.

That was why he was bleeding so much. He would have to take the time to remove the traces from the front seat of the Mercedes before he got rid of it.

He found the syringe and the anesthetic and sterilized the wounds. And then he injected himself.

He sat for a moment and looked around the living room. He really hoped they weren’t going to find Vibegården. This was the place where he felt most at home. Away from the world, away from its deceit and all its faithlessness.

Next he prepared the needle and suture. Within a minute, he was able to jab the needle into the flesh around his wounds without feeling a thing.

Another couple of scars for the plastic surgeon, he thought to himself, and laughed.

When he had finished, he inspected his work and laughed once again. It was hardly an expert job, but the bleeding had stopped.

He applied a compress with sticking plaster, then lay down on the sofa. When he was ready, he would go down to the boathouse and kill the children. The sooner he did it, the sooner he could be rid of the bodies. And before long he would be away again.

Ten minutes. Then he would go to the outbuilding and get the hammer.