The Marco Effect: A Department Q Novel (20 page)

Snap sounded calm, but René knew better. Teis Snap was furious.

“You know I can’t do that, René, so stop all that. We haven’t the funds to purchase your stocks at market price, and if
we
can’t, then you’ll be forcing us into the hands of third-party shareholders who we can’t control. They’d be able to demand seats on the board and gain too much insight. It’s not on; I can’t allow it. Not for the moment!”

“OK. So what if my response to that is to go against your killing the boy?”

He counted the seconds. In their student days, Teis Snap had never possessed the sharpest mind, and little had changed in that respect. Despite his financial acumen, Snap would never be the source of any groundbreaking ideas. Experience told René that the longer Snap’s pause, the greater the dilemma he felt himself to be in.

This time, however, the interlude was surprisingly brief, and Snap’s reply likewise.

“But you won’t, René.”

And then he hung up.

—

During the next half hour, René E. Eriksen was not to be disturbed. He closed his door, signaling to his subordinates that he’d gone into hibernation.

Since the fraud had been initiated, René’s shares in Karrebæk Bank had risen by two hundred and fifty percent. His stock was now worth precisely 14.7 million kroner, a sum that, if managed wisely, could be
converted to twenty-five years of relative affluence somewhere on the other side of the world. However, after all these years his wife was still influenced by the ideals that an office girl from the provinces during the course of a long life sees, reduced to residential bliss in the suburbs of Copenhagen and two weeks twice a year somewhere in the sun. Attempting to separate her from her mail-order catalogs and the occasional looking-after of grandchildren too full of snot to go to kindergarten would be tilting at windmills.

But regardless of whether his wife could be persuaded or not, here in this dusty office, whose dark panels and reams of bureaucracy-driven paper comprised his horizon, grew the increasingly incontestable notion that this was how it had to be. And since Teis Snap was refusing to help him, pummeled as he was by impending catastrophe and unpalatable decision making, René opened the drawer and took out the calling card that had been pressed into his reluctant hand a couple of years before by a zealous young man who apparently thought it was OK to recruit financial clients at kids’ birthday parties.

It was this thin-haired upstart of a backstreet banker whom he now called, and within two minutes had cheerfully agreed to sell René’s shares in Karrebæk Bank for half the usual six percent commission. For 441,000 kroner he could head off to Karrebæk Bank’s headquarters and collect the registered shares out of the deposit box. Just like the transfer, the transaction itself was a mere formality.

René was content. There was a risk that the unregistered stocks in the custody account in Willemstad in Curaçao would be lost, though he would not give them up without a fight. But without being willing to make that sacrifice if the situation so demanded, he would be unable to free himself of Snap and Brage-Schmidt. And this was imperative.

He got up and pulled a folder from the shelf. In it were fifteen sheets of paper, tantamount to a life-insurance policy.

The first pages were copies of the personnel department’s dossier on William Stark: personal data, terms of employment, curriculum vitae, and all kinds of facts relevant to his position. The rest of the pages were manipulations of files he had found on Stark’s computer, and, finally, a
single sheet left in his desk drawer pertaining to his stepdaughter’s latest treatment.

The idea for these manipulations had come about when the police had questioned him about Stark in regards to his disappearance. At the time the interview had been quick and painless, the questions simple and superficial, his answers likewise. But what if they should come back with more questions? And what if Teis Snap and Brage-Schmidt pulled the plug on him?

In case that happened he needed to construct a story, one that could hold water. Therefore he had removed the little lithium battery that powered the clock and put it in Stark’s laptop and had begun to modify information in the files concerning the Baka project.

This he had done one evening at home, long after Lily had gone to bed. Beneath the light of the architect lamp on his desk he delved into Stark’s virtual universe with bated breath, noting immediately the presence of two login identities,
MINISTRY
and
PRIVATE
, of which only the latter required a password.

Within a few minutes René realized the wisdom of their having done away with William Stark. All too many of Stark’s entries concerned irregularities and anomalous procedures relating to the Baka project. While these entries uncovered nothing specifically illegal, they sowed suspicion that there could be something that warranted further investigation. The fact that Stark hadn’t gone that far was their good fortune. Now, in any case, he no longer had that option.

After he had finished, René sat up most of the night trying to establish the password Stark used to access
PRIVATE
. When eventually he was forced to give up, he went downstairs into the basement, opened the trapdoor to the crawl space under the floor and hid the laptop. There it could remain undisturbed until he needed it again.

And now, a couple of years on, he was sitting with the modified documents based on Stark’s notes. Notations that had once cast doubt upon René’s management of the project but which, thanks to his manipulations, now pointed the finger at Teis Snap and William Stark himself.

Next it was only logical that he took out the rearmost sheet from the folder and in the corner, using William Stark’s characteristic handwriting, wrote:

Transfer to Maduro & Curiel’s Bank
, followed by Teis Snap’s mobile phone number.

For yet another entire
night he had slept outdoors like one of the homeless as the gray tones of the street began permeating his clothes and countenance.

Marco was not afraid, yet he felt insecure and had every reason to be.

Kasim, who owned the Internet café, had already warned him as he drove down Randersgade in his shiny BMW and caught sight of Marco rummaging through the local supermarket’s Dumpsters in search of discarded fruit and bread. He was there by chance, though Dumpster diving was a lot more productive there than behind the big supermarkets like Netto or Brugsen, where there was competition from young Danes living in communes who were unwilling to share. Class warfare existed, even on that level.

“Every piece of scum on the street is out looking for you,” Kasim called out to him. “Best to stay away from here, Marco. Find somewhere safe.”

So the hunt was still on.

But Marco couldn’t just vanish. He didn’t really believe they would be looking for him in Østerbro, and he still had thousands of kroner stashed in Eivind and Kaj’s apartment. The money was his, and until it was in his possession again he would remain in the neighborhood.

Several times he had walked by and seen their windows lit up in the evening. He had also noted the sign was still hanging on the door of the dry cleaners, saying they were closed due to illness.

Apparently Kaj had yet to recover.

But when he did, and they began going to work again, he would force
entry into the apartment in some way. The important thing now was to keep an eye out for Zola’s people. In a week’s time they would probably believe he’d disappeared and he would hopefully be able to move more freely.

For that reason he kept away from the crowds, wary of any sudden shadow, anything unexpected or untoward. He observed where the cars with foreign plates and tinted windows parked, and thus knew when all-too-alert, foreign-looking men were in the vicinity.

This Saturday morning everything seemed normal. Østerbro had awoken to a lazy summerlike weekend. It was the kind of day where the Danes mingled and meandered along the pavements, benevolent smiles of spring on their faces.

Marco had made his daily reconnaissance of the dry cleaners, hugging the wall on the other side of the street and noting that his wait would continue.

He wondered if Kaj was more badly injured than he had thought, since Eivind was apparently still unable to look after the shop.

He stood in the basement well of a disused corner shop on Willemoesgade and pondered for the thousandth time the series of events that had led him here. If Kaj and Eivind had helped him instead of throwing him out, he would have felt more guilty about what had happened to Kaj. He understood how scared they were and how reluctant to have him stay on with them after what had happened. But it wasn’t
he
who had assaulted them. He hadn’t volunteered to live the life of a slave in Zola’s service either, or chosen a father who was prepared to sacrifice the health and life of his own son in order to please his younger brother. And had he, Marco, ever killed a person?

He raised his head and straightened his shoulders. No, he had no reason to feel guilty or ashamed. Perhaps he was beginning to smell a bit rancid and his pockets were empty, but the important thing was he had broken free. He no longer stole, and he’d begun deciding for himself who he was and what he wanted to become. For the time being he was a gypsy, and when all this was over with he would just be himself.

Staring at the facades of the buildings across the street, he saw a pale face withdraw quickly from a curtain in a ground-floor apartment.
Something’s wrong, he told himself instinctively, and in the same instant a van he knew all too well tore round the corner from Fiskedamsgade against the traffic and bore down on him.

Immediately he realized a second vehicle was headed toward him from the opposite end of the street and any second now he would be trapped.

When he recognized Hector behind the wheel of the van, his pulse raced wildly as he made a dash along the cobbles of Lipkesgade.

Where to, where to? he thought feverishly, as tires squealed behind him. Classensgade was too open and too wide, so he would make for Kastelsvej and see if he could find a bolt hole.

It was simply the worst possible place to be discovered. Here, of all places, where the traffic was so light and where he had felt safe. How could he have known they also had spies inside these apartment buildings?

He heard them shout from the windows for him to stop, that they meant him no harm.

Now the British Embassy loomed before him on Kastelsvej with all its labyrinths of gates and security sluices. A car parked outside the complex had attracted attention, drawing a swarm of security guards out onto the street where they now stood blocking the path that led down in the direction of Garnison’s Kirkegård cemetery. A security guard was exchanging words with the driver, who seemed ill at ease with the situation. Any irregularity in this particular neighborhood was a matter of utmost concern, and the last guard to arrive turned his stern authoritative face toward the oncoming vehicles bearing down on Marco, thereby prompting them to slow down.

Marco glanced toward Østerbrogade. The distance to the cemetery, where he knew of several hiding places, was too far.

A couple of men in bulletproof vests approached him, telling him in no uncertain terms to get lost.

Realizing he could expect no help from the guards, he ran on. Within seconds his pursuers had abandoned their car and had likewise been waved on by security, and now Marco had no choice but to turn down a
street lined by lush trees and homes whose residents could never imagine the calamity that was about to befall him.

He heard the van brake behind him and the door being flung open. Their mission was almost complete.

Marco ran for his life, tearing to the bottom of the cul-de-sac where, thankfully, a path running between an apartment house and a fenced-in asphalt soccer pitch appeared before him.

A group of boisterous immigrant kids were running around after a ball on the pitch while their more indolent companions hung out on the other side of the fence, smoking and making comments about the match.

“Help me, the biker pigs are after me,” he pleaded, as he sprinted past.

For once his ethnic appearance stood him in good stead. Cigarettes were dashed to the ground, and the soccer game was abandoned so abruptly that the ball was still in the air as every dark face turned to confront Marco’s pursuers.

As he veered off toward side streets leading down to the marina, he glanced back and saw Hector and the others come to an abrupt halt, hands raised defensively before the immigrant kids jumped them.

He didn’t dare contemplate the results of such a one-sided match, but it was hardly going to make things easier for him next time he ran into Hector and company.

He had to make sure it didn’t happen.

—

He waited on Randersgade until the headlights of Kasim’s blue BMW appeared beyond the rows of parked cars.

He seemed tired, and yet somehow surprised, when Marco stepped out and held up his hand to stop him.

“Are you still here, Marco? I thought I told you to vanish.”

“I’ve got no money.” He bowed his head. “I know I already owe you. I haven’t forgotten.”

“Can’t you go to the police?”

Marco shook his head. “I know a place I can stay. Maybe you could drive me there. You live out of town, don’t you?”

“I live in Gladsaxe.”

“Can you give me a lift to the Utterslev marsh?”

Kasim leaned across the passenger seat and swept a pair of paper bags onto the floor. “Keep your head down until we’re out of the city, OK?”

—

It was a rather silent drive, Kasim clearly not wanting to know too much if anyone should ask.

“The neighborhood shopkeepers are frightened, they don’t want you contacting them again,” was about the only thing he said before dropping him off.

And what more was to say, really? Marco knew the trouble he had caused, and he wasn’t proud of it.

The walk from the log cabin at the beginning of the motorway along the lake to Stark’s house became a journey through the layers of Marco’s conscience. He did not wish to steal, but in Stark’s wardrobe were clothes he could use, and in the basement was a washing machine as well as jars of pickled vegetables, even though he wasn’t crazy about the taste. And there were beds with sheets and duvets. All of which could help him get back on his feet.

Thus he woke up on the Sunday morning with a fraudulent feeling of having entered a new period in his life. Even the curtains and the sunlight that edged its way into the bedroom where he lay seemed completely unfamiliar. To lie all alone in a nice, well-equipped bedroom was not only a luxury for him, it was practically a picture of the future he sought.

He stretched his limbs under the duvet and tried to push the thought from his mind. Of course there was no way he could stay here, it was too risky by half. They had almost caught him yesterday, and last time he’d been here had been a close call as well. If he was to avoid something like this happening again, he’d have to turn the tables on them, make it so he observed them rather than the other way round. He needed to be one step ahead at all times.

Looking around him as he chewed on a pickled gherkin in the kitchen, he found it hard to imagine anyone but the man in the shallow grave had
lived in this house. In earlier times, if he had broken in to a house like this one in the same kind of neighborhood he would at least have expected to find a couple of good kitchen appliances and a set of easily flogged knives by Solingen, Masahiro, Raadvad, or Zwilling. But this place was different. No aprons or knickknacks or anything to suggest a woman had lived here either.

Presumably they had taken all the kitchen items with them when they moved.

Only one thing stuck out. A glossy magazine left by the side of the stove. An ordinary women’s weekly with the usual model on the front, the tantalizing captions about health and fashion. Nothing special, and yet it stuck out.

Marco got to his feet and picked it up.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
, read the date on the cover. Hardly a month old.

He frowned. How had it got there? Who had been in this house? The place seemed cleaner than might be expected. Did Tilde and her mother still come here? Had this magazine been in Tilde’s hands? Had they stood here waiting for the kettle to boil, flicking through the pages before enjoying a cup of tea together? Perhaps they had forgotten to take it with them again and hadn’t been here since.

He sniffed at the paper, but it smelled of nothing. He was disappointed.

He skimmed a few more pages before tossing the magazine back onto the counter. It was then that he noticed a small wad of what looked like crumpled plastic on the floor at the foot of the stove.

He went over and kicked it across the linoleum. Something about it made him curious, so he picked it up and flattened it out. It was some sort of foil bag with a label on it saying
Malene Kristoffersen
and her address on Strindbergsvej in Valby.

Kristoffersen! The same surname as Tilde’s. Maybe it was her mother.

Marco nodded to himself. Of course, it had to be.

So now he knew where she lived.

—

The house was bigger than he had expected. Yellow, with an odd, almost vertical section of roof where a normal one would come to an end. It was
the kind of neighborhood the clan steered well clear of when out making their break-ins. Though there were gardens all round and no shortage of places in which to hide or routes by which to steal away, the houses were so close together that the neighbors could see most of what went on behind the windows next door. Accordingly he proceeded with caution as he sneaked through the parting in the hedge and up to the names on the two mailboxes hanging next to the red-painted door.

It meant two families shared the place. On the uppermost box was a weather-worn label, which read
TILDE & MALENE KRISTOFFERSEN.

Marco took a deep breath and stared at the windows above. So this was where she lived, and since it was Sunday she might even be home.

Did he have the courage to ring the bell? What would he say to them?

He stood for a moment, a trembling finger raised toward the bell, when he heard two female voices and the rustle of shopping bags coming from the street.

Someone was coming, he realized, ducking reflexively behind a bush. Then he heard laughter and two figures appeared, walking their bikes through the opening in the hedge.

He couldn’t see their faces in his awkward position, but his eyes followed them as they went round the side of the house, where it sounded like they were parking their bikes.

Tilde’s mother was the first to appear again. Dark-haired and rather good-looking, with a bulging shopping bag under her arm.

“Have you got your key, Tilde? Mine’s underneath all this flea-market junk we hadn’t the sense to ignore.”

There was more laughter. It made Marco feel warm inside.

And when at last he set eyes on Tilde, he couldn’t help smiling from behind the foliage of his hiding place. She was so lovely. A bit thin and gangly with big feet, yet she seemed almost to glide across the flagstones like a ballerina, dangling her key in the air in front of her.

“You’re a treasure,” said her mother as Tilde opened the door.

“Takes one to know one,” she riposted. And then they were gone.

Marco froze the image in his mind. He wanted to remember her features. He wanted to remember them for having just made him feel so warm inside. Even the sound of her voice moved him.

Don’t forget your father killed her stepfather, he told himself. How would he ever be able to approach her, especially now, after he’d seen what she was like? Now, when that inexpressible tenderness he had previously felt for her on account of William Stark and her appeal to find him had materialized in flesh and blood, with light and luminous laughter to boot?

How could he approach her with the feelings he had, knowing he had done nothing in spite of what he knew?