The Marco Effect: A Department Q Novel (13 page)

He picked the card up off the desk again and studied it more closely.

“OK, Rose. I’ll admit it looks convincing, but the card could have been made a long time before it was postmarked. I mean, it’s homemade, isn’t it? What would stop him from getting his mother to send it on at some agreed point in time? The postmark only indicates where it was sent from and when. It doesn’t tell us a thing about whether he actually dropped it in the mailbox himself.”

Rose fidgeted with the end of her scarf. It seemed she wasn’t buying Carl’s take at all.

“But since you’re giving it so much importance, I suppose we’d better take it seriously,” Carl went on. “Check the registration numbers of those Maersk containers stacked up behind Anweiler and his mother, OK, Rose? One verified piece of information to the effect that they were stacked there after the fire and we go to Marcus with this.” He nodded in acknowledgment: “Nice work, anyway, Rose. What else have you got for me?”

She let go of the scarf. “Birthe Enevoldsen’s known Anweiler for years. She said he’d often gone on about visiting his mother in Kaliningrad, and afterward he was going to buy himself a motorbike and cross Russia from west to east following the Arctic Ocean, the Bering Strait, and the Pacific to Vladivostok, then back again from east to west through the border regions in the south. Maybe this card here suggests he actually did it.”

Carl leaned across the desk. The next postcard was obviously a bought one. A little map of Russia on which a line had been traced with a blue felt-tip pen from Saint Petersburg through Arkhangelsk, Magadan, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and Irkutsk, where a ring had been drawn around Lake Baikal. From there, the onward route was marked by a dotted line going through Novosibirsk, Volgograd, Novgorod, and Moscow.

“On the back he writes that this was his route to Baikal, where he stayed the next four months. After that he ran out of money and worked
for a while before heading on. The dotted line is the way he was planning on going.”

Assad took the card and cast a glance at the postmark. “Look, Carl. The date is six months after the fire.”

They sat for a moment as if trying to guess one another’s thoughts, before Assad spoke.

“So Sverre Anweiler had a Russian mother and probably a Swedish father. And now I seem to remember that both Sweden and Russia allow dual citizenship. Am I right?”

Carl wondered how the hell he was supposed to know when he was neither one nor the other. Too bad.

“Then Anweiler could travel freely in both countries,” Rose interjected. “I don’t know the visa restrictions between Lithuania and this Russian enclave, Kaliningrad, but I’m sure he could have flown from Kaliningrad to Saint Petersburg without any bother.”

“And the motorbike?”

“I reckon he probably bought some Russian job for a handful of coppers, don’t you?” She gave him a dozy look. Was he thick or what?

Carl chose to ignore it and turned to Assad.

“So Interpol’s warrant on Anweiler wasn’t put out until he’d already swanned off across the tundra, is that what you’re both thinking?”

His two assistants shrugged. It was by no means unlikely, they all knew that.

“What about after he got home, Rose?”

“He sublet a apartment in Malmö and became a roadie for Daggers and Swords.”

Carl frowned, but she was ahead of him.

“A death metal band from Skåne, Carl. Anweiler’s just been in Copenhagen with them, they played a gig at Pumpehuset last week. That’s why he was here.”

He nodded. “OK, it’s taking shape. In theory, then, he was in Russia from a few days before the fire broke out until just a short time ago. In the intervening period there’s been a warrant out on him from Interpol, but most likely he hasn’t been in contact with the Russian authorities, and Swedish-Danish border control on the bridge over the sound isn’t
exactly likely to put anyone off. But if we’re right about this, then Anweiler never knew about the fire and just carried on with his life like nothing ever happened. The apartment in Malmö was only a sublet, so the police won’t necessarily have much to go on in respect of his movements.” Carl nodded to himself. It all sounded plausible, though he wasn’t convinced.

“And this Birthe woman borrowed his pad in Malmö while he was over here, is that right?”

“Yeah, the place is practically next door to the opera house, so it’s very convenient for her,” Rose replied.

Assad stretched back in his chair. “A rather odd friendship, I would say then. How did Birthe Enevoldsen and Anweiler get to know each other in the first place, Rose?”

“Through Louise Kristiansen. The woman on the CCTV footage who he met up with outside the Park Café. She was trained as a percussionist at the conservatory and played in a few bands Sverre Anweiler roadied for. She was playing in Copenhagen last week, too.”

Carl looked at the time. He was meeting Mona in half an hour. At a posh café, for once. Not exactly her style, but for him the choice of venue was excellent, for otherwise he risked the bonus of having to deal with her unmanageable, eternally snot-nosed grandson.

“OK,” he said in a suitably subdued tone of voice that signaled the meeting was over. “There is a lot that points in Anweiler’s favor, I can see that. And a lot that would have been nice to find in our colleagues’ reports. Things that might have shed a better light on his circumstances, such as his income source the last couple of years and his dual citizenship, not to mention the Kaliningrad connection. Whoever was responsible was most likely up to his ears in work while the investigation was in progress, so it’s hardly surprising if those ears turn red.”

He smiled at the cleverness of his wit, but his assistants were nonplussed. Then he slapped his palms down on the desk. “Let’s adjourn, then, shall we? I’ve got things to do, so maybe you can check up on those containers in the meantime, Rose. And Assad, you can go upstairs to Department A and fill them in. I think we should spare Marcus, seeing as it’s his last few days. But tell Lars Bjørn there’s been a development in
an old case that’ll probably give rise to some criticism being leveled. And then I don’t want to have any more to do with that case.”

He was about to get to his feet when Rose held the crumpled notice up in front of him. The edges were frayed and there was a rip through the middle, but the message came across clearly enough:

MISSING
, it read.

What the hell did he care, only a quarter of an hour from the day’s most interesting meeting?

He clenched the silk pouch in his pocket and felt immediately buoyant as the song began to play in his mind.

Hey-ay, Mona! Ooo-ooo, Mona . . . !

Marco was shaken up.
He was just as unnerved as the people around him who pottered about in the sunshine on the walkways between the boats were relaxed.

The clan had found him. His secure day-to-day life had been abruptly torn away from him. Moreover, he was now marked by a dead man’s stare.

The dilemma he found himself in was crushing. What was he supposed to do now, when all his instincts were screaming at him to get out of the city for good if he valued his life, and at the same time he knew he could not?

He had to protect his friends from Zola’s brutal methods, and he had to protect himself. But in which order was he to proceed?

He looked out across the masts and tried to calm himself. The first thing he needed to do was to call Eivind and Kaj and warn them. Then he would have to pick up his things from the apartment. Without them he would be set back months, unable to pursue his goals.

And he would also need to do the rounds and collect the money he was owed. Altogether, it was a fairly large sum.

Marco buried his face in his hands. The case of the man with the red hair was sickening. He needed to go back and see if the notice was still there. All he could do was hope it was, for then he would take it with him and do some investigating. Perhaps then he would be able to understand why his father . . .

He shook his head. If only Hector hadn’t got his jacket and his mobile, all these worries would be superfluous.

Now, instead, he had to be more alert than ever: he needed the eyes of the deaf and the ears of the blind.

—

He stood at the pay phone at Svanemølle station, eyes closed, trying to remember the number of Kaj and Eivind’s dry cleaners. What were the last three digits? 386 or 368? Or maybe something else entirely? If only he had his mobile, a press of a button and he’d be connected. But now . . .

At his fifth try, the ringing tone sounding in his ear, he felt reasonably sure. And then he got through to voice mail.

“You’ve called Kajvind’s Cleaners,” came the sound of Eivind’s soft voice. “I’m afraid we’re not here at the moment. Our normal opening hours are . . .”

Marco hung up. He was worried now. Why couldn’t they come to the phone? Had Zola’s people been round? He prayed they hadn’t. Maybe they’d just called it a day and gone home? No, that couldn’t be it, not this early. What, then? How was he to warn them when he was too scared to venture anywhere near where they lived, at least for the time being?

And then he realized why the shop was closed. Today was Wednesday. For months, Kaj had complained about his bladder playing up, and he wasn’t the type who went to the doctor on his own. Eivind had promised to go with him to the hospital, Marco remembered now. The
CLOSED
sign was already in the window when he’d passed by the place a couple of hours before. How could he have forgotten?

He turned away from the yachts down in the harbor, knowing this would be the last occasion in a very long time when the cries of the gulls and the salty breeze would be able to elicit happy thoughts about a future life.

Some time later he approached Østerbrogade from Strandboulevarden. He gauged the distance to Gunnar Nu Hansens Plads, about six hundred meters, and noted nothing untoward on the pavements or the street. Still Marco preferred the cover of the trees and bushes, now in leaf. They would offer him protection against being spotted from a distance, so he chose the longer route by way of Jagtvej and Fælledparken.

It took him twenty minutes, but he was leaving nothing to chance.
All around him, people lay on the grass, relaxing in the sunshine, but who were they? Were Zola’s spies among them? Removing your shirt and pretending to be taking in the sun would be effective camouflage here. Hector would certainly think so, but then modesty had never characterized Zola’s world.

Marco scanned the square minutely as he approached from the park. Again, there were too many people, too many dabs of color. Which one would leap out from the palette and accost him? Who among the café guests would suddenly turn in his direction, revealing an all too familiar face? It was impossible to keep an eye on them all. The café tables were all occupied, and everywhere young people sat cross-legged in clusters on the paving stones with bottles in hand, spirits high.

As far as Marco could see, his ladder was still where he’d left it. And behind the statue, his bucket with all his gear.

He found it odd that his things should have remained untouched. Had Zola instructed Hector to leave them where they were? Were they the bait?

Marco put his hands behind his head and stretched his back. He realized the cramp in his stomach was the result of nervous tension. Trepidation was the worst thing he knew. Rather the disaster itself rearing up before him than the knowledge that it was about to happen.

Would Hector leap forth the moment he stepped out into the open? Were there other clan members in the area? Should he cry for help if they caught him?

Would anyone even react if he did?

The doubt was real, for Danes preferred to stay in the shade when things heated up. He had seen it so often before. How many times had anyone tried to stop Marco or any of the other clan members in their crimes, even to the cries of
Stop, thief
? Formerly this passivity would make him feel secure. Now it served only to increase his feelings of unease.

He proceeded cautiously, step by step, across the square toward the poster column. And when eventually he got there he realized the missing persons notice was gone and his scraper lay on the paving stones.

Why was the notice gone? Had Hector seen him studying it?

He nodded. Perhaps that was precisely why Hector had removed it, so he could take it back to Zola and they could try to figure out what it meant to them and why Marco was so interested in it.

But although it made sense, Marco just couldn’t understand why Hector would have taken it. It was unlikely that Hector knew about the dead man, and besides, he was as thick as a plank and hardly likely to give it a thought, even if he
had
noticed Marco’s interest.

Marco stared at the space where the notice had been. Shit. Now the information he needed was gone.

“Hey,” said a voice all of a sudden.

Marco gave a start. Were they behind him? If so, he would drop everything and leg it toward the stadium. It was not a voice he recognized, but then he didn’t know everyone Zola had on his payroll.

“Take it easy, mate. I swiped one of the posters you took down. Is that OK? If not, you can have it back. It’s just that my sister was at the gig, so I thought she might like . . .”

Marco heaved an enormous sigh of relief. The young guy sitting on the ground laughed as he held up a crumpled poster for a Sade concert the day before, and the girls around him giggled accordingly.

Marco nodded curtly and picked up his ladder. He needed to get away and quick. He’d already been there too long.

It was awkward, hurrying along with all the tools of his trade dangling, but Marco could see no other option.

If he was quick, he could trace back along the route and see if the notice was on any of the other columns.

Later, when the sun had faded and there weren’t as many people about, he would check into the depot, get his money, and then do the rounds of the businesses on his turf. He would ask them to keep their mouths shut about knowing him if Zola’s people happened to show up.

After that, I’ll check out the man on the notice, he thought. Maybe there’ll be something on the Internet.

And though, knowing Zola, he anticipated having to abandon the idea, he resolved nonetheless to see if he could get near Kaj and Eivind’s apartment when the day drew to a close.

He would have to be extremely cautious, for who could tell what
Zola’s next move might be? When it all boiled down, it was more than likely he’d already sent his people out to ransack the place.

Thank God they weren’t at home just now.

He glanced around, breathed in deeply, closed his eyes, and folded his hands. “Dear God,” he whispered. “If they come, please don’t let them harm Kaj and Eivind. And please don’t let them find my money.”

He stood for a second, then repeated the prayer for emphasis, just as his mother had taught him God would appreciate. When he opened his eyes, he struggled to find peace in this new alliance, but it wasn’t easy. The thought of them finding his savings behind the baseboard made his blood run cold.

The money was his only security, his only way forward.

—

A couple of hours later, when Marco had almost given up hope, he found what he was looking for, a good way out along Strandvejen. By that time, he had scraped four columns to the base without result, but on the fifth were two of the missing persons notices.

He removed them carefully, folding them up and concealing them under his shirt. Now he had the information he wanted. It felt good and bad at the same time. It struck him rather overwhelmingly that he had taken on the responsibility of finding out who this William Stark was and, if possible, the circumstances that had surrounded his disappearance.

What on earth had this man had to do with Zola and Marco’s father? So many things seemed to depend on the answer to that question.

The best thing would be if he could get Zola behind bars without his father getting into trouble, too. But if that couldn’t happen, he would have to consider the possibility of them both being brought to justice.

Marco folded his arms in front of his chest. The very thought was painful to him. He loved his father, and yet he hated him for standing in Zola’s shadow and being so weak. It was the kind of weakness that only led to malice and betrayal. How often had he wished for a father who might provide him and his mother with a life that did not include Zola’s daily doses of poison? No, Marco had had enough.

Something had to happen.

—

He had thought of visiting the library like he usually did, but his courage failed him. Instead, he decided to go to Kasim’s Internet Café, in the most inferior of locations on Nordre Frihavnsgade, but close enough to Nordhavn station for Marco to be able to get away through Kasim’s backyard in an emergency and jump on a commuter train within a minute. Thus, he sat now in the dim light at the farthest whirring computer and typed in William Stark’s name.

To his surprise, he got thousands of hits. He refined his search to include only Danish results, but there were still thousands.

Most were copies of each other, but the general message was plain enough. William Stark was not some down-and-out who’d had enough of sleeping in cardboard boxes on the street, or staggered about the city in an alcoholic daze, or shouted dementedly at the crowds. No, William Stark was apparently an ordinary man with a respectable job whose function Marco didn’t quite grasp and would therefore have to look up afterward. What he did understand was that Stark had worked for a government minister and at the time of his disappearance had just returned home from an assignment in Cameroon. That much was clear.

Marco looked up at the net café’s peeling walls with an odd feeling in his stomach. Why would they want William Stark out of the way? Nothing he could find online seemed to provide even the slightest hint of an explanation. On the other hand, he could see how old Stark had been when he went missing, and where he had lived. And he knew now that Stark could not be declared dead until five years after his disappearance, and that he had left a girlfriend and her daughter behind.

Marco found the phone directory on the net and typed in the number given on the notice, but without result. Disappointed, he typed the same number into Google’s search bar, though with little expectation of a hit. Mobile numbers tended to be changed very quickly, especially those of young people. But an old Web page about a girl suffering from some painful illness mentioned this mobile number as one that other girls in the same situation might call if they needed someone to talk to.

Marco carefully highlighted the number on the screen. So the girl who had put up the notice was apparently sick, her name was Tilde Kristoffersen, and her stepfather had gone missing. Gone missing because Marco’s own father . . .

It was so dreadful he couldn’t pursue the thought to its conclusion.

A gleam of light from the entrance door at the other end of the room filled him with a sudden rush of adrenaline, prompting him to look up from the screen. A man wearing long robes came in, and Kasim, the café’s owner, greeted him warmly. It was a false alarm, thank God.

Marco stood up and approached the two men. “Kasim, would you have a mobile phone I could buy?” he asked. “I’ve lost mine.”

The elderly Indian said nothing, indicating to his friend with a gesture that he would be back in a moment.

Kasim led Marco into a back room that in many ways seemed atypical for an Indian: bright walls, rather than white; IKEA furniture, rather than massive, dark-stained wood; a green office chair with yellow flecking, and a radio playing classical music. No cold light emanating from hand-chased brass lamps or a flickering TV screen with old Bollywood movies.

“Take one of these,” Kasim said, pulling out a drawer. “I’ve a couple of old ones you can have for nothing, but you’ll have to pay for the SIM cards. If you want a scratch card for foreign calls you can buy one of them, too.”

“Maybe just a SIM card and a two-hundred-kroner pay-as-you-go card.” Marco put his hand in his pocket and produced a note. “I’ve only got fifty for the moment, but you know you can trust me, don’t you?”

The sun-seasoned man studied him with a look that all too clearly showed how these were words that had proven to be empty on far too many occasions.

“Of course,” he said, after a few seconds of thought. “All in all, with the Internet time, you owe me three hundred and fifty kroner.”

“Thanks. Is it OK if I go back to the computer again? I need to look up the phone numbers of some people I know. I can’t remember them offhand.”

“I’d already figured that one out,” Kasim replied.

—

The calls he made were dispiriting. The greengrocer, the shopkeeper, and the guy who supplied him with posters were furious. What was he up to that prompted such suspect individuals to be looking for him? Was he some kind of criminal?