The Marco Effect: A Department Q Novel (36 page)

He dived again, underneath the boats this time, drawing himself through the water to where the guy had just been standing. Most likely he would take the same stairs down to the boats as Marco had used, so he had to get out of sight quickly, swimming under as many boats and as far away as possible.

And if, against all odds, the guy took to the water himself, he would swim silently and cautiously under one boat at a time until he reached the bridge called Stormbroen, where he would try to clamber back onto dry land without being seen.

If he could emerge at a spot where there were a lot of people, he might still have a chance.

But the African did not take to the water. Instead, he jumped down on to the jetty, where he calmly proceeded from one mooring post to the next.

Marco heard how he took his time, pausing at every vessel, making sure Marco hadn’t climbed into one of them or was clinging to its side, or sending up bubbles of air from below the surface.

Slowly he approached, as the canal and its surroundings descended into darkness.

Finally he was but one boat away and once more Marco dove down, only to hear a splash behind him.

He swam a few frenzied strokes before surfacing to see the almost invisible face of a black man so close in the water that he turned immediately and swam as fast as he could.

For a moment, the distance between them increased, but then his strength ebbed away while his pursuer’s strokes remained strong and steady.

They heard the sightseeing boat at the same time as it returned to base from the open waters of the harbor. They both stopped swimming for a moment to assess the situation and see what they were up against.

The vessel was moving quickly, and its pointed bow was coming straight toward them. Summoning all his energy, Marco swam toward the bridge. Of its three stone arches, the one on the left was blocked by a speedboat, the two others were free.

If I try the right-hand arch, he’ll just follow me, Marco reasoned. He was exhausted now, his sodden clothes weighing him down. And if I go for the middle one, the sightseeing boat will run me down.

Instinctively he opted for the arch on the right, thinking he just might get through to the other side ahead of the boat and then alert the crew that he was in danger.

Even now, he knew intuitively that he was unlikely to get that far. Behind him he heard a forceful lunge that brought his pursuer close enough to pull Marco down under the surface before he had a chance to take in air. In spite of the darkness and the murky water, he could clearly see the whites of the man’s eyes. The man who was now drowning him in a violent embrace. He gasped, then his mouth closed and his legs started thrashing to bring him back to the surface as the sound of the boat’s motor and propeller churned louder and louder in his ears.

Then he managed to get an arm free. He twisted and turned, extricating himself from the African’s grasp just enough to thrust two rigid fingers into his eyes.

The man opened his mouth in a scream, releasing a mist of bubbles to the surface as Marco’s fingers gouged into his irises.

The combatants rose to the surface simultaneously like a pair of corks, the darker one momentarily blinded, Marco swimming with desperate strokes toward the middle arch of the bridge.

The boat was so close now that he could hear what its boozed-filled party of passengers were singing.

And then he heard a roar behind him and saw his pursuer thrashing through the water toward him, blood streaming from one of his eyes.

So Marco submerged again.

Underneath the surface he felt the blue hull of the boat plowing over him, and with a burst of strength propelled himself out to the boat’s other side, where his fingers grabbed hold of a thick braided rope that ran along the length of the vessel at the waterline.

He was jerked violently to the surface and heard himself scream involuntarily, though no one on board noticed.

Maybe it was for the best. Maybe the predator in the water on the other side of the boat thought he had been hit. Marco could only hope.

He allowed himself to be pulled through the water in the knowledge that he had got away.

For a brief moment he smiled as he saw the dark head bobbing far behind in the wake of the boat.

The question was, had he seen Marco as well?

Carl joined up with
Gordon in Eriksen’s receptionist’s office. Desert boots, gray scarf, corduroys. Was he really expecting to be taken seriously in a getup like that?

“Well, you made it on time,” the beanpole said, with the kind of arrogance best rectified by some boxing about the ears.

Some interview this was going to be.

Eriksen looked peculiarly tired. Not the way you did after a hard day’s slog, more like he’d been at it all night long and had also been in an accident.

“What happened?” Carl inquired, with a nod in the direction of the bandage stuck to Eriksen’s neck.

“Oh, that,” he replied, lifting his hand to the spot. “Silly, really. It’s what you get for taking the steps in front of your house too quickly.”

Gordon nodded. “Yeah, one little slip and all of a sudden you’re on your back.”

“Exactly,” said Eriksen, sending the idiot a rather too intimate smile.

The corners of Carl’s mouth turned downward. If the idiot was going put words in the mouth of their interviewee, things weren’t going to be easy.

“I can inform you that we’ve spoken to William Stark’s partner, Malene Kristoffersen, and her daughter,” Carl said. “Both of them have forcefully dismissed your suspicion of pedophile activity. That’s only to be expected, of course, but we’ve found nothing at all to substantiate it. Do you have anything more to say that might further support what you told us?”

“I don’t know, really,” Eriksen replied, pursing his lips in thought. “Sometimes you can observe things and overinterpret them. You brought the issue up in our discussion, not me, and it triggered some associations, I suppose.” He shook his head. “I can’t say I’ve anything more substantial, so I can only apologize if I put you on the wrong track.”

Carl inhaled sharply through the corner of his mouth. He wasn’t feeling that good and was also confused by Eriksen’s change of tack. It was almost as if something had happened to the man since last time they spoke. As though the camel were stretching its neck toward another goal altogether.

“Quite an office you’ve got here,” said Gordon, for no obvious reason. “I thought the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was in some ancient building.”

Christ on a bike, who did he think he was working for?
Ideal Home
magazine?

Carl forced an apologetic laugh. “Gordon’s in law school and thinking of joining the civil service. So he’s checking out the territory while he’s here.”

The beanstalk looked surprised. “Actually, no, I—”

The lightning in Carl’s eyes could have slain an ox. Gordon shut up abruptly. Despite possessing truckloads of megalomania and a stranger to self-criticism, he must suddenly have understood who was in charge. About fucking time.

“We’d like to know more about the project Stark went to Cameroon to sort out,” Carl went on. “What was it about, exactly? We have a rough idea, but we’d also like to hear your own rundown.”

Eriksen frowned. Was it a prickly question or was he just thinking?

“Actually, it was a rather simple project, basically motivated by the fact that a large part of the world’s primitive cultures are suffering on account of civilization encroaching upon their domains. In this instance we’re talking about a pygmy tribe known as the Baka people, an ethnic group inhabiting the Congolese jungle in a geographical area known as Dja, which is located in the southernmost region of Cameroon. It was a straightforward aid project whose purpose was to compensate for intensive poaching and the timber extraction their forests have been subjected to. The Baka still live in grass-roofed huts, under quite primitive
conditions. The fact of the matter is they can no longer sustain themselves unless major efforts are made to provide them with crops and reasonable living conditions. So all in all it was a pretty basic development project.”

“
Was
, you say. Isn’t it still running?”

“Yes, but it’s winding down.”

“Hmm. And how have these people been helped, exactly?”

“Mainly by setting up banana plantations and making sure the land surrounding their villages was cultivated.”

Carl eyed him for some time before posing his next question. He sensed Gordon fidgeting impatiently at his side, so he clamped his hand just above the lad’s knee and squeezed. There was a squeak of astonishment, but luckily nothing Eriksen seemed to notice. He was far too focused on Carl’s scrutinizing gaze.

“I can tell you we’ve received information that the project went idle quite some time ago,” said Carl. “As far as we’ve been informed, not much ever transpired in the way of banana plantations or cultivated fields. Could you explain that to me?”

Eriksen put his hand to his neck and scratched beneath his collar. The idea was probably to look relaxed, but something had definitely thrown the man. Carl thought he knew what.

“I don’t understand. It’s news to me, I must say,” he replied. “I’m shocked. We’re still making payments until the end of the year.”

In his mind, Carl ran through the six signs that indicated a person was lying under interrogation. Several of them were as clear as day. Eriksen’s hands were placed flat on the desk in front of him, as if he didn’t dare move them. Suddenly he stared into Carl’s eyes without blinking, then swallowed hard a couple of times, his mouth obviously dry. So basically, all that was left were stupefaction and rage, and he’d have the entire set. But Carl didn’t want to push him that far because then he would stop talking altogether.

“I’m sorry to have to divulge this information to you like this,” Carl said. “But it’s important for us that we understand how a project for which your department is responsible can go off the rails like that.”

He protested now, more offended than angry. Yet another sign. “I can only say it like it is. The Baka project was Stark’s and he was extremely
proficient at delegating the work to the recipient countries, which is basically the purpose of our providing aid in the first place. This was a straightforward project of the kind that runs itself as long as the groundwork has been done well enough.”

“So you’re telling me no one was keeping tabs, is that it?”

“Of course there were periodic checks, but in this case they were more at the local level. Like I said, it wasn’t a very big project.”

Carl glanced at Gordon. It didn’t matter what Lars Bjørn saw in the big dope as long as he kept his damn mouth shut until they were done. He looked hurt, but if a dead leg was enough to silence him, Carl was ready to give him a couple more.

He turned back to his prey, who now sat moistening his lips with the tip of his tongue. Clearly he was more than ready to defend himself. But why?

“How big was the project, then? How much money was earmarked?”

Eriksen raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “I can’t remember offhand, but certainly no more than fifty million a year.”

Carl recoiled. Fifty million a year! For that sort of money he’d personally plant bananas from here to Novosibirsk. How much police work could get done for an amount like that? How many street cops could get their overtime paid, and more besides? The number of time-off hours in lieu of wages that they’d save was mind-boggling.

“But I can get you the exact figures after the weekend,” Eriksen added. “The person now in charge is on vacation.”

Carl nodded. “Thanks, we’ll get back to that. We’ve been told as well that the project’s coordinator on-site, a certain Louis Fon, disappeared only a few days before Stark. Any thoughts on that?”

He’d better have, thought Carl. Otherwise, something was very wrong indeed.

“Yes,” Eriksen said with a nod. “That was quite a strange story we never really got an explanation for. But Africa’s like that, I’m afraid. People vanish, and sometimes they turn up again. There are plenty of temptations and dangers, not to mention chance occurrences. Sometimes things go inexplicably awry. We’re talking about the world’s second largest continent, you realize, and in many ways it’s one big shambles.”

Carl wasn’t buying. If Eriksen had been more specific and tried to elaborate, or even denied ever having heard of the man, he might have come across more believably. But this sort of all-purpose waffle could mean only one of two things. Either the man was hiding something or else he was utterly incompetent at his job, and the latter option Carl refused to believe.

“I see,” he said. “Another odd story, and there are apparently plenty more where it came from, I realize that. Nevertheless, I can’t help but think of a related coincidence that I find at least as odd, which is that you happened to be in Somolomo the very same day Fon disappeared just across the river. What were you doing there?”

This time Eriksen kept himself together. If he was shocked, he certainly wasn’t showing it.

“Yes, that’s true, but there’s a perfectly simple explanation. I was there to make sure things were running smoothly. The opportunity arose because I was going to southern Cameroon anyway to discuss a couple of other projects, which for various reasons never amounted to anything after they got turned over to the EU. Purification of drinking water, checks on timber extraction, that sort of thing.”

“And was everything going according to plan in Dja in your opinion?” Carl asked.

Eriksen shook his head. “No, I did notice the project was proceeding rather slowly and I also tried to get hold of Louis Fon to get an explanation.”

Gordon could keep quiet no longer. “So could that be why Stark went down there?”

Carl could have murdered him on the spot, but opted for another dead leg. What the hell was he playing at?

Eriksen nodded, of course. The answer had already been handed to him on a plate. “Yes, Stark flew down there a couple of days later to go through everything in more detail. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time on that trip to do it myself.”

Carl took stock. Was René E. Eriksen really the kind of senior civil servant who never did a damn thing and left everything to his subordinates? Who took all the credit when projects succeeded and blamed others when they failed? If he was, then any number of scenarios were open,
including ones where William Stark had exploited the situation. Because what it all came down to was that Stark had disappeared immediately following his last visit to the place, and as far as Carl could tell, a hell of a lot of government foreign development aid had disappeared as well, and into the wrong pockets. There was something to suggest that Stark’s pockets had been in there somewhere, but that others had also been involved in the circus. People who might have had an interest in making off with the whole bundle themselves.

Carl thrust out his lower lip. Sometimes one was allowed to take a shot in the dark. “I reckon Stark was on the make, siphoning off funds for his own purposes,” he said.

Eriksen did not appear to be particularly surprised. His reaction seemed solemn and pensive. “Our books are under constant scrutiny, so I can’t imagine anyone not having noticed if that were the case.”

“But accountants don’t go to Africa and count the number of banana trees, do they?”

“No, of course not. Very rarely, anyway.” He allowed himself to smile. In Carl’s opinion, however, he didn’t have much to smile about.

Fifty million a year. Hell’s bells.

“So what it comes down to is that only you and Stark could tell if there were any irregularities down there. Don’t you think that gave the two of you a bit too much clout?”

Eriksen fell silent for a long time, staring into thin air, lips pressed thin. His expression was neutral rather than empty, like when a person knows there’s absolutely nothing he can do about a situation.

“But that’s terrible, if what you’re thinking is correct,” he answered after a while. “In which case, the responsibility is mine.”

“Anyway, we’re going to have to ask you to look more deeply into it.”

He nodded, his brow knitted in a frown. “Yes, yes, of course. I’ll give it my full scrutiny together with the administrative officer I mentioned who’s on vacation. I’ll call him as soon as he returns on Monday and report back to you that afternoon.”

They left Eriksen almost paralyzed on his chair in the midst of his governmental clutter and Carl didn’t mind a bit.

Finding the motive behind a person’s disappearance was the surest
way of uncovering what had actually happened, and at the moment he felt they were getting close.

He walked along immersed in his own thoughts until Gordon interrupted.

“I think I’m rather too old to be pinched on the knee,” he said, his mouth puckered with indignation. “Next time we’re out on a job together I suggest we act like substantially more mature individuals. I take it you agree.” He extended a hand. “Shall we say it’s a deal?”

Carl studied the stairs they were approaching. A discreet nudge and a couple of somersaults on the way down could easily cause a small rupture of his neck vertebrae. He was sorely tempted.

He considered the outstretched hand and came to a halt. “Listen, Gordon. Once you’ve dried yourself behind the ears and taken your exams, get yourself a nice little job as managing clerk somewhere in the sticks where you have to take care of the local housing associations’ squabbles about the maintenance of basement storage rooms. By that time you’ll probably be able to look back with joy and gratitude on the day Carl Mørck took you out on a job and prevented you from making an utter idiot of yourself, don’t you think?”

Gordon let his hand fall to his side. “You’re saying I’m childish?” he said. “That’s what people say about you, too.”

Carl’s safety valve was almost ready to blow. One more wrong word and he would explode right in the middle of a government institution.

“Anyway, I’ve left my scarf in his office,” Gordon added. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

He turned and started walking away. That was precisely the angle Carl preferred to see him from.

—

Eriksen felt like he’d been slammed against the wall. Mørck had given him a hell of a grilling. How come they knew so much? About Fon’s disappearance. About plantations that had never been planted. If they knew that, chances were they knew a lot more besides. At least that was the feeling he’d got when they’d been questioning him.