The Copenhagen Affair - Oram John - Страница 22

Illya smiled. “Sitting up and fighting mad. Says she’s perfectly fit and resents being treated like a cripple. When I left, she was shouting for her clothes and threatening to walk out in her panties.”

“It figures. But how bad is she hurt?”

“Not too much. A couple of nasty burns in awkward places. Some weals. She should be out in a day or two. We got there in time.” He flopped into a chair, spraddling his long, thin legs. “What I could do with some sleep!”

Solo nodded. “When I feel like this I sometimes think everything would be all right all over the world if everybody could get a good night’s sleep—”

The telephone on the desk shrilled. Solo grabbed the receiver.

He listened, then said, “Where? All right. We’re on our way.”

Illya sat up. “What was that all about?”

Solo was getting into his anorak. He said, “A Mercedes crashed a roadblock on Highway 18, three kilometers south of Herning. They took a shot at it. It swerved but didn’t stop. But a patrol outside Silkeborg found it overturned in a drift. That’s where we’re going.”

They clattered down the stairs and out into the Citroen parked by the curb.

“It’s a pity we let Jacobsen and Sorensen go,” Illya said, as he slid behind the wheel. “Right now we could have used the Volvo.”

Solo said, “What could I do? It’s not their fight.”

“And cows need regular valeting. I know. I’m an old farming type myself. But it’s still a shame.”

Solo didn’t hear him. He had fallen asleep.

A patrol stopped the car at the intersection of the A13 and A15 about twelve kilometers west of Silkeborg. Illya showed his identity card and asked, “Where’s the pileup?”

The policeman said, “A kilometer up the road. The inspector is waiting for you.”

“Thank you.” Illya jolted Solo with his elbow, not too gently. “Wake up, Goldilocks. Time for your porridge.” He turned the nose of the car to the right.

A huddle of men showed up black against the snowy landscape. Beside them was the broken silhouette of an upturned car, its front wheels and hood hidden in a deep drift.

Illya cut the Citroen’s engine. As they got out, a policeman wearing inspector’s insignia came forward to greet them.

They shook hands in the formal Danish fashion. Nothing in Denmark, even a funeral, can proceed without handshakes all round. Then they walked over to the car.

Solo asked, “Any sign of the driver?”

“No,” the inspector said. “As you see, there are bullet holes in the windshield and in the gas tank, and there is blood on the back of the front seat. That is how my men found it. The car was empty.”

“Footprints?”

“None. The snow has covered them. But the driver cannot have got far. It is plain he was wounded in the shooting at the road block. And even for a well man”—he swung his arm toward the desolate hills—“it would not be good conditions.”

“You’ve got men searching?”

The inspector looked hurt. He said, “Of course. This is first steps, nej? Also there is a helicopter, now the snow stops.”

Illya asked, “He couldn’t have made it into Silkeborg?”

“I think that is not likely. Would a wounded man wish to show himself in the streets? And where would he hide himself?”

“This character,” said Illya bitterly, “could hide himself in a perspex bag.”

A young policeman came floundering through the snow from the direction of a beech wood. He looked agitated.

The inspector said, “This is one of the searchers. I think he has news.”

The man came up and saluted. He spoke rapidly in Danish. The inspector’s face hardened.

He told them, “This is very bad. There is a farm beyond that wood there—a small place run by one old man. My officers have found him shot dead, and his car is gone from the garage. Do you wish to come with me?”

Solo said, “There’s not much point. Garbridge wouldn’t hang around, once he had transport. How many ways out of the farm are there?”

“One only. A very small road, little more than a track. It bypasses Silkeborg, coming out onto the A15 in the direction of Aarhus.”

“But that’s crazy,” Illya said. “Your patrols are bound to get him.”

The inspector nodded. “If he stays with the car, yes. But he may take to the open country again.”

“Wounded—and in this weather?”

The policeman spread his hands. “Who can tell what a desperate man will do?”

Solo stared thoughtfully at the wrecked car and then raised his eyes to the snow-covered fields and the wood beyond. He said, “I don’t get it. He’s back-tracking all the time. Why would he want to do that, unless…But that’s impossible.”

“We’re thinking the same thing,” Illya said. “Let’s get back to the Citroen. Goodbye, Inspector.”

The little car headed once more toward Silkeborg. Illya said, “It’s crazy, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. He’s trying to get back to the chalk mine. There’s nowhere else for him to go. We’ll drive to Jacobsen’s place and pick up reinforcements.”

Solo objected, “But you blasted the front of the mine in, and he can’t use the tunnel. What can he hope to gain?”

“There may be another way in that we don’t know about. That’s why we’ve got to see Jacobsen.”

They went into Silkeborg through Herningsvej and cut through the Town Square.

Illya laughed suddenly. “It’s a wonder Thrush didn’t make this place its headquarters,” he said. “Down the road there, in a street with no name, they make all the paper for the Danish banknotes. That could be handy.”

They met two more patrols before they got onto the road that led to Jacobsen’s farm, but neither had news of the wounded man.

“It looks like the inspector was right,” Solo said. The major’s trying to make it overland. If he’s headed this way.”

“I wish him joy,” said Illya. “Remember what happened to the Donners. And they had covered wagons.” They found Viggo working in the barn. He listened to their story skeptically.

“A man on foot would not get far in this country,” he said. “He had no coat, no hat, and you say he has a bullet in him. No, it is not possible.”

“But if he did,” Solo insisted, “and if he made it back to the mine—could he get back inside?”

“Another tunnel? Some secret entrance? Perhaps, but I do not know of one.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out. We’ve got to go back there and watch for him.”

Viggo sighed gustily. “If you say so, my friend. But if he had the seven-league boots of the fairy tales, he could not have got there yet. So first we shall eat and drink. It will be cold waiting.”

They returned to the house. The imperturbable Else served them meatballs swimming in thick brown gravy, with beetroot and sugared potatoes. Solo got the idea that if a regiment marched unexpectedly into the farm she would dish up a meal with just as little fuss. She put bottles of lager beside the plates and poured a glass of akvavit for each man. “The weather is cold,” she explained in halting English. For her that was an oration.

It was half-past three when they set out for the mine, and the setting sun was reddening the sky. Leaden clouds were massed ominously, portending a further snowfall, but mercifully the wind had dropped to little more than a stiff, cutting breeze.

Neither human nor animal moved on the dead white waste around them as they plodded along the road. The great tumbled mounds of rock and earth that now completely blocked the mouth of the mine were covered by a deep carpet of snow that rounded and smoothed their outlines. Not a trace of a footprint broke the virgin surface of the hillside and its approaches.

“It looks peaceful enough,” Illya said, “but I suppose that if he’s around, he would hardly be likely to try to get in at the front door. Much as I hate the thought, I fear we shall have to do a little climbing.”

“There is nothing else for it,” Viggo agreed. “If there is another way into the mine, it must be on the far side of the slope. Or perhaps on the crest of the hill.” He looked at Solo questioningly. “We know this is where the roof-doors of the workshop must be. Could there not also be a smaller entrance—an inspection ladder, perhaps—beside them?”