Robert Goddard - Found Wanting

Granted more time, Eusden would have cursed the instincts that had brought him to this place. If he had not been so obsessed with striking back at Norvig and Kjeldsen, he might have foreseen that they too could be double-crossed. But murder? The clinical executions he had just watched? His foresight would never have stretched so far. There was more at stake than he could ever have envisaged. And now that included his own life.

He turned the corner into the narrow road that led back to the other quay, where he had abandoned the scooter. A glance over his shoulder confirmed he would be overtaken before he got there. He was running to the end of a short leash. He had nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.

Then he saw the gate in the fence. It gave on to a path that led to a footbridge over the dual carriageway. They could not use the bike to pursue him over that. He dodged through the gate and sprinted for the steps, not daring to look behind him.

He ran up the steps and out along the span of the bridge. There was enough traffic on the road below to blot out the noise of the motorbike. He let himself believe for a moment that they might have given up the chase. But a sharp ping against the parapet of the bridge told a different tale. He crouched forward as he turned on to the steps down, ducking and dodging as he descended. He thought he heard a second shot, then a third.

There was a subway ahead of him, leading under the railway line. It was a brightly lit tunnel in which he would be a clear target. But only to someone at ground level. His pursuers would have to cross the footbridge to reach such a position. He could not afford to hesitate. He plunged along it, bracing himself for the jab of pain that would herald the shot that did not miss.

It never came. He emerged from the subway on Østbanegade, the road he had ridden along earlier before entering the docks. He risked a backward glance as he jinked right. There was no one coming after him. Maybe they had given up after all.

A short distance up the road was the bright-red hexagon of the S-tog station. Eusden did not know when the trains stopped running. If one happened to be due, it would be as quick and safe a getaway as he could hope for. But it was a big if. On the other side of the road there were apartment blocks and residential streets where he could hope to lose himself. Maybe they were the better bet. He stood on the pavement debating the point with himself as he panted for breath. His heart was thumping. Blood was singing in his ears. He did not know what to do. He took a chance with another glance into the subway. It was still empty. It was beginning to look as if-

Then he heard the familiar growl of the motorbike. He whirled round and saw it heading towards him down Østbanegade. They had taken the road route out of the docks, calculating – correctly – that they could cut him off. He had delayed too long. They would be on him in a matter of seconds.

To retreat along the subway was to become a rat in a maze. Eusden’s only chance of escape was to make it to the street opposite and pray one of the residents would open their door to him. He launched himself across the road.

He heard the blast of its horn before he saw the lorry thundering towards him from the left. He had forgotten Østbanegade was one-way at this point. But he could not stop now. He lowered his head and lunged on, reaching the pavement in a vortex of rushing air as the lorry swallowed the space behind him, its horn still blaring, its brakes squealing.

In the same breath there was a screech of tyres and a deafening thump of metal crunching into metal. Eusden shrank from the sound, stooping so far forward that he lost his footing and fell to the ground in three stumbling strides. The sound grew and extended itself into a yowl of squealing rubber and crumpling steel as he tumbled against the nearest wall and looked back, winded, into the road.

The lorry had struck the motorbike with crushing force as it crossed in front of it. The rider must have gambled on making the turn before the lorry could shield Eusden from the gunman. But he had misjudged fatally. Now, as the lorry slewed to a halt, jack-knifing slowly across the road in the process, the bike was a twisted shape juddering beneath the cab, the rider and passenger broken dolls bouncing and rolling to rest along the pavement ahead of it. The case had broken free and been split open. Fistfuls of kroner were whirling like autumn leaves in a gale.

The bikers did not move once they had come to rest and the lorry was thirty or forty yards away by the time it stopped. The driver pushed open the door of his cab and commenced an awkward clamber out, moving numbly, like a man in shock. Eusden could see the gun lying in the gutter, glimmering coldly in the lamplight. He rose unsteadily to his feet and edged back into the shadows as the lorry driver looked vaguely in his direction. A Transit van was braking to a halt as it approached. Windows were opening in the apartments nearby. Soon the alarm would be raised.

Eusden headed down the side street, away from the scene, moving as fast as he dared without breaking into a run. He did not know where the street would lead. But it did not matter. It led away. It led to safety.

What the night porter at the Phoenix had thought of his bloody-browed and dishevelled appearance Eusden could not imagine. Waking in the morning after several hours of unconsciousness that could only technically be called sleep, he could remember little of his return to the hotel. He had not even undressed and was aching in every limb. His head throbbed painfully with every movement, he had developed a black eye overnight and generally felt as if he was engaging with the world through a thick curtain of delayed shock.

He showered, put on some clean clothes and headed out to a nearby 7-eleven for antiseptic and plasters. He suspected he should be checked by a doctor for the effects of concussion, but he also suspected drawing attention to himself in such a way would be unwise to put it mildly. Wijayapala had probably given a description of him to the police by now and they were bound to tie him to the carnage out at Nordhavn because Kjeldsen was among the dead. The only sensible thing he could do was lie low until he left Copenhagen. And he should leave soon. The longer he remained, the greater his chance of being dragged into a murder inquiry.

But he could not simply scuttle back to London and abandon Marty to an unknown fate. He had to find out what had become of his friend, even though that friend had been responsible for transforming his comfortable and predictable life into a raw struggle for survival. ‘Fuck you, Marty,’ he muttered several times under his breath as he plodded back to the Phoenix through the gnawing chill of a bleak Copenhagen morning. It was a sentiment he had often expressed before, of course. And one he had never quite succeeded in drawing the obvious lesson from.

He had banked on a quick ascent to his room, with a breakfast delivery to follow, strong black coffee being the self-prescribed medicine he proposed to dose himself with. But he was intercepted halfway across the marbled lobby by an unexpected visitor: Regina Celeste.

‘There you are, Richard. I guessed it might be worth waiting to see if you’d be back soon. Well, where are you gonna go on a morning like this, after all?’ She seemed even louder in manner and dress by day than night. Or perhaps, Eusden thought, he was simply more vulnerable. ‘Say, what happened to you? Get in with the wrong crowd last night? That’s quite a shiner.’

‘I slipped in the bath.’

‘Really?’ She looked understandably sceptical.

‘What brings you here, Regina? I’m afraid I’ve still no news of Marty.’

‘You haven’t?’