Michael Ridpath - Where the Shadows Lie

But there was one aspect of his father’s life that Magnus had never understood: his relations with women. He didn’t understand why Ragnar had married his mother, or why he left her. He certainly didn’t understand why he had then gone on to marry that awful woman Kathleen. She was the young wife of one of the other professors at MIT, and Magnus realized later that they must have been having an affair even when Magnus joined his father in Boston. Although outwardly charming and beautiful, Kathleen was a controlling woman who resented Magnus and Ollie. Within a few months of their marriage she seemed to resent Ragnar too. Why his father hadn’t seen that coming, Magnus had no idea.

Eighteen months after that dreadful occasion, Ragnar was dead, found stabbed on the floor of the living room at the house they were renting for the summer in Duxbury, on Boston’s South Shore.

Magnus had had no doubt who was the chief suspect. The detectives investigating the case listened to his theories about his stepmother with sympathy at first, and then with irritation. After an initial couple of days where they seemed to pursue her vigorously, they let her drop. This made no sense to Magnus, since they didn’t have another suspect. Months went by and the police couldn’t come up with a better idea than that a total stranger broke into the house, stabbed Ragnar, and then disappeared into the ether, leaving no trace other than a single hair, which the police had been unable to identify, despite DNA testing.

It was only the following year, when Magnus devoted his summer vacation from college to making his own inquiries, that he discovered that his stepmother had had a cast-iron alibi: she was in bed with an air-conditioning engineer in town at the time of the killing. A fact that stepmother and policemen had conspired to keep from Magnus and his brother.

The bar was filling up with a younger crowd, overwhelming some of the earlier drinkers who staggered out into the dusk. A band set up, and within a few minutes began to play. The music was too loud for a contemplative beer, so Magnus left.

Outside, the streets, so quiet earlier, were full, teeming with the young and not-so-young dolled up for a night on the town.

Time for bed, Magnus thought. As he opened the door of his new lodgings, he passed Katrin on her way out, dressed in black gothic finery, her face powdered white and improbably studded with metal.

‘Hi,’ she said with half a smile.

‘Have a good evening,’ said Magnus in English. Somehow that seemed the correct language in which to speak to Katrin.

She paused. ‘You’re some kind of cop, aren’t you?’

Magnus nodded. ‘Kind of.’

‘Arni’s such an arsehole,’ Katrin muttered, and disappeared into the semi-darkness.

Diego took his time breaking into the ground-floor apartment in Medford. The apartment was the bottom half of a small clapboard house in a quiet road, and the good news was that the yard was obscured by trees. No one would see him, so he could focus on not making a noise.

He climbed through the kitchen window and padded into the living room. The bedroom door was open and he could hear gentle snoring. He sniffed. Marijuana. He smiled. That should slow his target down nicely.

He slid into the bedroom. Noted the lump on the bed, and the bedside light. He drew his gun, a Smith and Wesson. 38 revolver. Then he switched on the light, pulled back the covers and cocked his weapon. ‘Sit up, Ollie,’ he barked.

The man sat bolt upright, his eyes blinking, his mouth open in surprise. He matched the photograph Diego had studied earlier: about thirty years old, skinny, light brown curly hair, blue eyes that were now puffy and bloodshot.

‘Yell, and I blow your head off! You got me?’

The man swallowed and nodded.

‘All right. Now, I got one simple question for you. Where’s your brother?’

Ollie tried to speak. Nothing came out. He swallowed and tried again. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I know he stayed with you here last week. Where did he say he was going to when he took off?’

Ollie took a deep breath. ‘I have no idea. He was here one day and gone the next. Just grabbed his stuff and left without saying goodbye. Typical of my brother. Hey, man,’ Ollie seemed to be waking up, ‘can we come to some arrangement here? Like, I give you some money and you leave me alone?’

Diego grabbed Ollie’s head by his hair with his left hand and shoved the revolver into his mouth with his right. ‘The only arrangement we come to is you tell me where he is. You don’t know where he is that’s tough for you ’cause you die.’

‘Hey, man, I don’t know where he is, I swear!’ Ollie’s words were muffled as he tried to speak with metal in his mouth.

‘You ever played Russian roulette?’ said Diego.

Ollie shook his head and swallowed.

‘It’s real easy. There are six chambers in this revolver. One of them holds a bullet. You and I don’t know which one. So when I pull the trigger, we don’t know whether you gonna die. But you let me pull the trigger six times, you dead for sure. Get it?’

Ollie swallowed and nodded. He got it.

Diego let go of Ollie’s hair, he didn’t want to shoot his own hand, after all, and then he pulled the trigger.

A click. The chamber rotated.

‘Oh, God,’ said Ollie.

‘You might think it’s just you that’s taking the risk,’ went on Diego. ‘But in point of fact it’s me too. ’Cause if I blow your head off and you ain’t told me what I wanna know, then I lose, see? Makes the game kinda fun for the both of us.’ He smiled at Ollie. ‘So, once more, where’s your brother at?’

‘I don’t know, man, I swear I don’t know!’ Ollie shouted.

‘Hey, quiet!’ Diego narrowed his eyes. ‘You know, I still don’t believe you.’ He pulled the trigger again.

Click.

Ollie cracked. ‘Oh God, don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me! I’d tell you if I could, I swear I would! Some guys from the FBI came to get his stuff. I asked where they were taking him, but they wouldn’t tell me.’

Diego heard a low hissing sound and smelled warm urine. He glanced down at the rapidly spreading dark patch on Ollie’s boxers. In his experience, once they pissed themselves, they were usually telling the truth.

But he pulled the trigger for the third time, just for the hell of it.

Click.

He’d discussed this situation with Soto. There were two schools of thought. One was you waste every relative and associate of the witness to send a clear message to him and anyone else who might be tempted to follow his lead. But when the witness was a cop, that wasn’t such a good idea. You’d be declaring a major war on a heavily armed and well-organized opposition. The most successful drugs businesses operated under the radar, making as little fuss as possible, keeping business conditions nice and calm.

Ollie didn’t know where Magnus was. There was no point in stirring things up.

‘OK, man, I’m gonna quit this game now,’ Diego said. ‘Let’s call it a tie. But don’t you go to the cops telling them I’m looking for your bro’, you know what I’m saying? Otherwise we don’t play no games, I just blow you away with the first shot.’

‘All right, man. All right. That’s cool.’ Ollie sobbed as tears streamed down his face.

Diego leaned over and turned out the light. ‘You go back to bed now. Sweet dreams.’

Magnus followed the stocky frame of Officer O’Malley towards the bright lights of the 7-Eleven. His fingers twitched an inch or so above his gun.

O’Malley turned and smiled. ‘Hey. Loosen up, Swede. Keep your eyes open but don’t get too tense. If you’re tense, you make mistakes.’