Torpedo, p.8
Torpedo, page 8
part #9 of Gabriel Wolfe Series
“No, Sixten! Leave me be. He needs to hear this.” Then he turned back to Gabriel. “You did this. You! She went to visit you, and now she’s dead.”
With his eyes, Sixten signalled an apology to Gabriel, as he tried a second time to stem the flow of anger that now seemed an uncontrollable flow.
“Come, Jarryd. You do not know that. Let’s go and say farewell. Please don’t cause more upset here.”
“Jarryd, you’re right,” Gabriel said. “Britta is dead because of me. The man who shot her was aiming at me. If she’d stayed in Sweden, she’d still be alive. If I could give my life for hers, I would, to send her back to you, and to you, Sixten, and the family. But I can’t. So I’m going to do the next best thing. I’m going to find the people who murdered her and bring them to justice.”
“Ha!” Jarryd spat out. “A fine speech ... for a coward to make. You let her take a bullet meant for you.”
Then he lashed out his right fist and caught Gabriel a glancing blow on his left eyebrow, opening a cut. Gabriel stepped back, flinching.
“Jarryd!” Sixten shouted. “That’s enough. Come away with me, now.”
He dragged the now-weeping Jarryd away, saying sorry over his shoulder. Eli pulled the display handkerchief from Gabriel’s top pocket and held it firmly against the cut eyebrow.
“Are you OK?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Poor sod. He’s really suffering.”
“Not a bad punch for a schoolteacher.”
Gabriel laughed mirthlessly.
“I guess I’m lucky he wasn’t carrying a gun.”
“I wouldn’t have let him shoot you. Come on, I think maybe we should watch from a distance.”
After the priest had concluded his words at the graveside, and the gravediggers were approaching to begin their work, Gabriel took Eli’s arm and turned away.
“There’s coffee and cake and probably whisky at the family home. We were invited but I don’t think I’d be welcome. Can we get going instead?”
She smiled and squeezed his bicep with her free hand.
“Sure. Let’s get back to Stockholm while it’s still light. Your cut’s stopped bleeding but a plaster wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
14
Gabriel drove the hire car away from Uppsala. The late afternoon sun was slanting across the E4 motorway from right to left, casting a golden glow over the road surface. He was thinking about the two encounters at Britta’s funeral. The verbal one with Karl, and the physical one with Jarryd. At no point had he felt like offering even a whisper of defiance. And when Jarryd had thrown that clumsy, amateurish punch, which must have hurt his unprotected knuckles like hell, he had simply let him. Because they were both right, Wolfe. She’s dead because of you.
He looked right, at Eli. She was checking her phone but caught the movement and looked up.
“You OK?” she asked.
“Not really, no.”
“Want to talk about it?”
He wrinkled his nose and shook his head.
“No. No thank you, I mean.”
She smiled.
“It’s OK. I’m here if you change your mind, you know that.”
“Thanks, Eli.”
She resumed her scrolling, though she stopped long enough to squeeze and pat his right thigh.
He checked his mirror. The road had been quiet since they left Uppsala apart from the occasional truck and a few dozen cars. Compared to England, Sweden – or this part of it anyway – felt deserted.
Eyes front again, he thought back to Karl’s speech and the coded references to immigrants. He and Britta had never talked in detail about her counter-terror role, but he imagined it would have been similar to many in the UK. Trying to identify and prevent hundreds if not thousands of terrorist plots to disrupt normal life, to maim and kill Swedish civilians. Radicalised Muslims, mainly young men, were being ordered to attack at random. Yes, bombs were impressive, but all you really needed to spread terror was a family car or even a kitchen knife. Were there other threats? Of course. Wherever Islamist terror reared its ugly head, neo-Nazi groups were close behind, or sometimes out in front.
Ahead, he saw a slip road joining the motorway and pulled over into the outside lane in preparation. Unlike drivers in southern Europe, who, in his experience, tended to regard a flashing indicator as a perfectly adequate safety measure before joining a flow of eighty-mile-an-hour, nose-to-tail traffic, Scandinavian drivers were more cautious. But even so, it did no harm to prepare the way for them.
As he passed the junction, he heard a distinctive roar. An exhaust note made by only one brand of motorbike. Harley-Davidson. First one, then two, then a handful of the big, vee-twin-powered bikes surged onto the carriageway. Eight altogether, mostly black or matte grey, though a couple sported flamboyant paint jobs, demonic skulls and twisting flames catching the sun and reflecting it in twinkling flashes of light.
Once all eight riders had joined the motorway, he pulled in behind them, expecting them to open their throttles and peel away. Instead they paced him, maybe a few bike lengths ahead. He felt his pulse tick up a notch. Then two of the riders moved out and slowed so that as he drove on, they appeared to be drifting backwards. They took up position behind him. Two more formed up beside him in the outside lane, threatening, leather-clad outriders in a convoy.
Gabriel pushed down on the accelerator, closing the gap between his front bumper and the rear wheels of the men in front. The rider to his right drifted closer and the light dimmed fractionally in the cabin, Eli looked up.
“What the fuck!” she exclaimed, as she took in the closed ranks of the eight bikers.
“We have company,” Gabriel said, grimly.
He eased the steering wheel a fraction to the right and enjoyed the way the two Swedish bikers had to hurriedly adjust their own road position. They wore open-face helmets and bandannas. Most had dramatic beard-and-moustache combos, a few with tattoos visible on their cheekbones.
Come on. Just try it. Please. We could have some fun.
“Gabriel,” Eli said, her voice rising. “What are you doing?”
“Did I tell you I hate bikers?” he asked her in a flat tone. “Actually, no, did I tell you that I really hate bikers?”
“No, you didn’t. Can you pull back a bit, please?”
“I don’t think I can. Look behind.”
Eli did as he instructed then turned to face front again.
“They’re just idiots trying to frighten a couple of tourists.”
“You’re right. But we’re not tourists, are we? We could have some fun with them. Eight against two? The police would have to take our side.”
“Police! What are you talking about?”
“This,” he said.
Then he jammed his foot down, closing the distance between him and the bikers in front to just a couple of feet. He saw wide eyes in their mirrors before they grabbed a handful of throttle each and roared away. Gabriel looked right and winked at the nearest rider. He pointed, first at his steering wheel, then at the biker. His meaning, he felt, was clear. But just in case, he began closing the gap between them, tweaking the steering wheel just a little to send the Volvo’s right flank over the lane markers.
The Harley swerved away from him, its rider taking his left hand off the grip to give him the finger.
“Gabriel, you need to calm down,” Eli said, her voice tight, anxious. “Let it go, whatever it is.”
Gabriel hadn’t told Eli what “it” was, and at that moment, he realised how much they didn’t know about each other. He thought back to the time he’d watched a deranged English knight shoot dead a group of Hells Angels using a .50 calibre Browning heavy machinegun. And another, in Brazil, when he’d been forced to deal with another bunch of bikers intent on killing him.
The bikers surrounding the car now had the same dead-eyed look he’d seen on the faces of their North, and South, American cousins. The man on Gabriel’s right pointed to the hard shoulder. His meaning was clear. Pull over.
Gabriel shook his head. Not going to happen.
“Shit!” Eli said. “Now what?”
Easing the car up to ninety, forcing the bikers ahead to pull away or risk getting flung from their mounts, Gabriel spoke, in a voice that surprised even him with its calm, detached tone.
“Well, I suppose we could do what he wants. But then we’d have to beat them all senseless or get kicked to death, and a couple of them would probably die. Or we could keep going, see how fast those bikes’ll go. We might hit Stockholm doing a hundred and fifty, which could get interesting. Although if the cops took an interest we’d probably lose the bikers.”
He edged his speed up towards three figures. The flat land to their left stretched away to the horizon: a hundred-mile-long billiard table of low-lying agricultural land. No trees flashing past to give a sense of their increasing speed.
“OK, look, I know being at Britta’s funeral shook you up, but you need to get a grip, right now!” Eli was shouting, but he seemed able to screen her out.
He shook his head. No. I’ve had enough of getting a grip. Of being in control. You’re not my shrink. And I’m not sure she’s got much I’d want to hear right now anyway. Because after all, what can they do, seriously, if I decide to deal with them? They might be armed. But shooting while riding a bike doing a ton-plus is a mug’s game.
He glanced at the speedo. One-twenty-five. The engine was on song. The Volvo’s engineers had designed it to go fast. The turbocharger blasting exhaust gases back into the cylinders saw to that. He could feel a faint vibration through the leather seat but other than that, it was a pretty sweet ride.
So, what to do, what to do?
He decided.
15
Keeping his eyes forward, he felt around for the electric window button and gave it a push. As the drop-glass slid down, the cabin filled with the rush of wind and the heady smell of the bikes’ exhaust fumes.
He turned to his right, stuck his hand out and beckoned the biker. Gabriel could see the frown lines in the man’s forehead beneath the edge of his helmet.
When their heads were no more than a foot away from each other, Gabriel leaned out of the window, not taking too much care with the steering wheel, so that the biker had to weave to stay away from the Volvo’s incoming steel flank.
“Speak English?” he yelled. The howling wind snatching the words from his mouth.
“Yes, you mad fucker! Pull over!” the man yelled.
Gabriel shook his head, ignoring Eli’s yells from the passenger seat. He pointed at a sign indicating the turnoff for Norrtälje and Knivsta.
“Take it.”
“What?” the man shouted.
Gabriel edged even closer then reached over, stuck the heel of his hand against the left handlebar grip and gave it a shove. The bike wobbled violently and the Gabriel watched as the man fought not to be thrown off.
Gabriel pointed at the upcoming turnoff markers.
“Leave! Now! Or die!” he bellowed.
Then – and afterwards, Gabriel came to believe this was what had prevented his killing the entire gang using the Volvo as the murder weapon – he grinned. A crazy, happy-go-lucky, why-don’t-we-just-do-it-and-see-what-happens? expression.
Maybe it took as along as half a second. Maybe it was instantaneous. But something about Gabriel’s expression must have flicked a switch somewhere in the reptilian part of the biker’s brain that calculated life-or-death decisions. It was probably there to avoid sabretooth tigers, but it did a decent job now.
Shaking his head, the biker dropped back, gesturing to his associates with his left hand, pointing first at Gabriel and then tapping his left temple.
Gabriel surged forward, enjoying the way the whistle from the turbocharger sang over the roaring of the engine. The bikes in front pulled left and right to let him through and he watched in his mirror as they joined their leader, peeling off the motorway and heading round the long, sweeping curve that would take them to Norrtälje, or possibly Knivsta.
With the combined roar of eight high-capacity motorbikes fading, Gabriel eased back on the gas, letting the car slow to a more manageable eighty-five.
He turned to Eli.
She was rigid, staring out of the windscreen. Her lips, normally full and sensuous, were compressed into a thin, bloodless line.
“You OK?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. Not at first. He looked ahead again, listening to her breathing through her nose, the nostrils pinched with tension so that each inhalation and exhalation was audible.
“Am I OK?” she asked, after a pause he counted through, reaching twenty. “Am. I. OK? Well, yes. I’m alive. I haven’t just been involved in a nine-vehicle smashup on a Swedish motorway. But in case you hadn’t noticed, we were attracting quite a few curious stares during that little dick-swinging contest of yours. If we don’t get pulled over by a traffic cop it’ll be a gold-plated, fucking miracle!”
Gabriel blinked in surprise. He hadn’t noticed whether there’d been any other vehicles on the road during the – dick-swinging contest? That’s a bit harsh! – confrontation with the bikers.
“They started it,” he said, defensively.
Eli twisted round in her seat.
“How old are you? Five? Look, there’s a service area coming up. Please let’s pull in and get a coffee. Or a drink in your case. I’ll do the rest of the driving.”
Suddenly, Gabriel’s whole sense of his awareness of his surroundings seemed to snap into a different mode, duller somehow. But more engaged with the everyday. His hearing softened. His vision seemed less acute, so that number plates that had been pin-sharp a few minutes earlier were now fuzzy. He realised he could no longer feel the grain of the leather steering wheel under his fingers. Hyper-vigilance, they called it. That state of combat-readiness that was every soldier’s friend until you carried it away from the battlefield with you and couldn’t let go. Sleep became impossible. You were anxious all the time. Hopped up on adrenaline. Short tempered and even shorter fused.
He signalled right, slowed, and took the service road, pulling into the first available parking space and killing the engine before the car had even stopped rolling. His heart felt fluttery in his chest, as if a small bird had been sewn inside him. He pushed two fingers into the soft place under his jawbone and counted how many beats throbbed against his skin while his watch ticked ten seconds away.
… eighteen … nineteen … twenty … twenty-one … twenty …
Six times twenty-one is a hundred and twenty six. Fuck! I really lost it.
He felt Eli’s hand on the back of his neck and leaned back into it, closing his eyes so he didn’t have to watch the bright, white sparks fizzing around the edge of his vision.
“Gabriel? What just happened?” she asked, in a softer voice than before. “Tell me.”
He kept his eyes closed and began to speak.
“Honestly? I’m not sure. I was ready to kill those guys. I didn’t care, Eli. Really. Not at all. I wanted to. I was actually looking forward to seeing them flying off their bikes. I’ve done it before. I thought it would be fun.”
He heard the latch click as she undid her seatbelt. Then he felt her warm breath on his face. She kissed him softly and cradled his face in her palms.
“This is shock. Delayed shock. And I’m not a shrink but I’d say your PTSD was kicking off big time back there. Come on, let’s go inside. Hey!” she said excitedly. “Look over there.”
Gabriel opened his eyes. Eli was pointing across the carpark.
“What? That fat guy in the football shirt?”
“No, numbskull! There’s a hotel. Right, give me the car keys, we’re going to get our bags and check in for the night. No arguments, you hear?”
Gabriel smiled and it felt like a natural expression from the inside, not the manic fuck-off-or-I’ll-kill-you grin he’d used on the biker.
“You’re the boss,” he said.
Then he unclipped his own belt and returned her kiss, harder this time, before burying his head in the crook of her neck.
“Thank you,” he murmured into the soft skin above the neckline of her dress.
Gabriel woke early. Beside him, Eli was sleeping. He slid out of bed, not wanting to wake her, but there seemed little chance of that. Her breathing was slow, deep and steady. He dressed quietly and went for a walk in the landscaped grounds beyond the hotel.
Walking steadily away from the E4, he felt rather than heard the hiss of its morning freight of commuters and truckers diminishing beyond a row of trees. To his left, a covey of birds burst free of a fir tree’s shelter. The noise made him look round, and wonder what had disrupted them. Then he stopped dead, his heart pounding.
Beneath the trees, a woman was running at right angles to his path. Long, slender limbs, tanned to the colour of caramel, the flash of scarlet trainers. And a bobbing, copper-coloured plait. She turned her head as though she sensed him there, though they were over seventy-five metres apart. And she waved.
He started to call out to her.
“Br—”
Then he stopped himself.
Fool. It’s just another early riser like you. What, you think she was the only woman in Sweden with red hair?
He shook his head, aware, even as he did so, of the cartoonish nature of the gesture. When he looked back, the woman had gone. Gone, gone? he wondered. Or just disappeared between a couple of trees?
He decided not to investigate. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know one way or the other. He strode on until he reached a fence line dividing the open heathland from a farm. Leaning on a five-barred gate he looked at the farmhouse, situated a few hundred metres further on, a large pond housing a flotilla of ducks and wildfowl to one side. Painted in the dark shade of wine-red the Swedes called falun, the farmhouse seemed undersized in the vast, flat landscape. A sudden wind tugged at his shirt sleeves as if urging him to turn back. He ignored it, watching the surface of the pond ruffle under its caressing fingers.
