Fatal Crossing Read online

  Instead she decided to find out if it was acceptable to be a little early for her appointment. She walked the four steps down to the basement office, which looked like it might have been a bicycle repair shop in the old days.

  A guy in his mid-twenties was behind the counter, sporting an obliging smile and a bright orange T-shirt announcing with a big yellow smiley that he was ‘Born to Party’. Opened in front of him was a dog-eared copy of Moby Dick.

  ‘The hairdresser's is upstairs,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, it's hard to miss,’ Nora quipped.

  ‘Ah, you’re here to look at the archives,’ he said, surprised, and tried frantically to hide his book under a pile of brochures, then noticed the look on Nora's face and gave a shrug. ‘Third year. American Literature. I need to make some money while I study, and we hardly get any visitors.’

  ‘Do you know how it ends? The butler did it,’ Nora said, deadpan.

  ‘I’m Dave,’ he said as his face split in a grin. ‘And you must be Sand. Mike did put you in the diary yesterday. It's not often we get a visitor who isn’t from the police.’

  ‘That explains the T-shirt. Maybe it's not the first piece of information relatives need when they step through this door,’ Nora observed.

  Dave looked down at himself and reddened slightly. ‘The computer is in there,’ he said, showing her into an austere room with gurgling water pipes running under the ceiling, white walls and two battered desks facing each other, each with a computer on top.

  He bent down and turned one of them on. It warmed up with a groan while he leaned across the table and switched on the screen, which looked as if it had been built sometime between a Commodore 64 and an early Apple.

  ‘It's like walking into an episode of Star Trek with all this hightech equipment.’

  Dave rewarded her with a dry grin: ‘Let me put it this way: there's not a lot of money to be made from missing or unidentified people. This isn’t where the Home Office wants to spend its budget. There are no votes in it,’ he said and took a deep breath; he was just getting started.

  ‘We’re actually a registered charity, but you try a street collection for dead people. And I’m talking about people who may well have committed suicide out of loneliness because no one cared about them while they were still alive. Now that they’re dead, people care even less ... You try shaking a bucket right next to some idiot in a kangaroo costume collecting for cats or Great Ormond Street Hospital ... People walk on before you’ve even opened your mouth —’

  The computer beeped and Dave broke off to enter a password so quickly that Nora only had time to catch the number 66 and an X. He pointed to a decrepit printer blinking with one red eye.

  ‘If you need to print anything out, please use the printer. You can come to me for paper. I’m afraid we have to charge you fifty pence per sheet. But the good news is that we have a limit of five pounds, so if you need more than ten sheets, the rest are free. Sorry about that, it's to cover expenses,’ he said.

  Nora pulled out a five-pound note from her purse immediately. ‘For the coffee tin.’

  Dave went back to the reception and returned with a handwritten receipt and a glass of water. For a while he stood looking over her shoulder, until he realised that his presence was superfluous.

  ‘I’ll go back to Captain Ahab then,’ he said.

  Nora took out the picture of Oluf Mikkelsen and clicked to access the list of unidentified deceased. It contained one thousand one hundred and forty-five people, whom the British police had never managed to identify.

  At first she removed all the women. That left eight hundred and thirty-two. Then she clicked the box to select white people — or as forensic scientists the world over preferred to call them: Caucasians. That eliminated another three hundred and fifty.

  Then she clicked on the search field for dates. If Oluf Mikkelsen had disappeared several years ago, there was no need to look for him in the last five.

  When she had removed men under twenty and over fifty from the equation, the group of possible candidates had reduced considerably.

  If Oluf Mikkelsen — and it was a big if — had died in the UK and his body had been found, but never identified, he would probably be in this group.

  Finally there was nothing left but to review the remaining men one by one. Case number after case number. She clicked her way through pictures of lifeless faces whose pale features, staring, blind or closed eyes and sometimes contorted expressions had permanently said goodbye to life.

  Listed next to each picture was the kind of basic information you would find in a passport: hair colour, eye colour, estimated height and weight. And then the extras passport officers would be grateful never to see: cause of death, location found and distinguishing features.

  After approximately forty-five minutes’ intense work, she was delighted with her decision not to have lunch at the pub. She had viewed a stomach-churning parade of faces. Some bloated from having been submerged in water for days, others smashed to a pulp after falls from bridges or buildings or the sudden encounter with an underground train. She had selected three as potential candidates and eliminated everyone else.

  Finally she reached a category of incomplete bodies, but in four instances the police had done what they could, given their few leads, and paid a specialist sculptor to reconstruct the face with modelling clay based on cranial dimensions.

  Nora flicked through them quickly, but stopped at a wax head of a man vaguely similar to Oluf. His nose might be a little too straight, but how would a sculptor know that Oluf Mikkelsen had been a boxer and broken his nose for the first time before he turned fifteen?

  The hair colour was dark brown, which matched what she could see in the picture from Vestergården. It was impossible to determine his eye colour in the enlargement.

  She read on. Distinguishing features: a tattoo on the right bicep. A bull, possibly of Spanish origin. A twenty-eight-centimetre scar on his left leg.

  On impulse she pulled out her mobile and checked the signal. She had two bars, so it would just about work.

  He answered after three rings with a surly: ‘Humph?’

  ‘Hi, it's Nora Sand.’

  ‘I know it's you, Nora Sand. I don’t get calls from anyone else from a number beginning 0044.’ Bjarke sounded pissed off. ‘Have you got more information for me?’

  Nora had to admit that she didn’t.

  ‘So why are you wasting my time?’ he wanted to know, and Nora could hear that someone was playing pool in the background, so not a good time to chat.

  ‘I’ll make it quick. Oluf.’

  ‘Oluf?’

  ‘Mikkelsen. Did he have any distinguishing features?’

  ‘You’ve lost me. What the hell does Oluf have to do with anything? Was he mixed up in it, that little shit — I’m going to bloody well —’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Or rather, I don’t know if there is a link, but I need to look into it. Process of elimination, you know,’ Nora said to placate him. She didn’t have the energy to explain everything to an already irritable biker-gang member who was showing off to his pool friends.

  ‘Features?’ Bjarke echoed.

  ‘Yes, tattoos, that kind of things. Scars?’

  ‘Funny you should mention it, Sand. He does, as it happens,’ Bjarke said.

  ‘Really, what are they?’ Nora said, a little too keen.

  ‘Hang on, little lady. We have a small problem here. The thing is I asked you for information, but I’m not getting any. Instead, you keep ringing me, asking what I can give you. Do you see the problem?’

  Nora could feel her irritation come out as red flushes on her cheeks. ‘Oh, give over, Bjarke. I’ve already promised you that I’ll tell you once I know for sure. But I haven’t got anything yet. I need peace and quiet so I can work.’

  ‘Humph,’ she heard him grunt, before what sounded like him putting down the phone and shouting out across the room. ‘Hey, can we get some beers over here.’

 
; Nora rolled her eyes.

  ‘What did you say again?’ he said, pretending to have forgotten her question.

  ‘I asked if he had a tattoo of a bull?’

  ‘You’re close. It was a bison. But now that you mention it, I’m not really sure Tattoo-Flemming at the prison would have known the difference. It did look more like a bull. But few people would have had the balls to say so to Oluf's face.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Nora said, and her heart was pounding as she ended the call.

  The dead man could be Oluf Mikkelsen and she might be the one who finally found him after all these years. All right, so no one had been looking for him. But there was a chance that the mystery of what had happened to him might prove to be the key to what happened to Lulu and Lisbeth.

  She went out to Dave, who was lost in whaling troubles off the coast of Canada, and gestured vaguely in the direction of a pile of paper.

  ‘Take whatever you need. You’ve already paid,’ he said.

  The register held four pages of information on the man who might be Oluf Mikkelsen, and Nora sent them all to the printer. There wasn’t a lot to go on. The cause of death was possibly drowning, but the coroner's inquest had concluded with a vague phrase saying it was still inconclusive how the man in question had met his death.

  However, it did suggest that the body had been found approximately two weeks after someone — according to Rudolf from the boxing club in Denmark — had last seen Oluf Mikkelsen. And the description was that of a muscular man ‘in good health, well-nourished with healthy organs’. His height was 1.75 metres, his weight estimated at around seventy-two kilos, which sounded appropriate for a welterweight..

  The body had been found by a fisherman, Arthur Thompson, when it got caught up in the propeller on his boat. Which explained why Oluf Mikkelsen had no face.

  That is, if the man really was Oluf Mikkelsen.

  At the bottom of the last page she found the information she really needed: ‘Investigating officer: Dale Moss, Waybridge Police.’

  She shut down the computer happily, waved goodbye to Dave, and caught the tube back home to Belsize Park.

  X

  There was still a little sunshine left, and mentally Nora was already in Rosie's coffee bar sipping iced coffee. Her plan was to dump her laptop and heavy bag in her flat and pick up a couple of newspapers before sitting down at one of the wobbly tables Rosie had optimistically set out on the pavement. In the hallway she discovered a small pile of post and picked it up. More than half was for Mrs Fleming in the ground-floor flat, but there were a couple of window envelopes addressed to Miss Sand and one of those stiff grey envelopes photographers use for sending pictures so they won’t bend. From Pete? Nora frowned and turned over the envelope. There was no sender. She tore off the tape and slipped her fingers inside to retrieve the contents.

  It took a split second for her to decode the faded picture. The black eye sockets, the gaping mouth like a big hole with blood seeping out. It was Jean Eastman. The victim who was found in Hix's boot when he was caught.

  Nora turned over the picture.

  THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO LITTLE GIRLS WHO SEE TOO MUCH AND TALK TOO MUCH, it said in jagged capital letters.

  Her heart reacted like a sparrow that has accidentally flown inside a house. It flits around in panic, bashing into walls and window panes; no matter how many doors and windows you open to create a safe exit, it carries on its self-destructive flight.

  Then she realised that there were no stamps on the letter. It meant that it must have been delivered by hand. Someone not only knew where she lived, but had also been to her address.

  Her hands trembled as she found Spencer's number on her mobile. Her call went straight to voicemail. She gulped, swallowed her pride and called Andreas.

  ‘Yes?’ he sounded a little fraught.

  ‘Andreas. Someone has sent me a letter. Someone who knows where I live.’

  ‘Eh?’

  She repeated it, though she could hear there was a lot of noise in the background.

  ‘I can’t hear you ... what did you say?’

  Nora could hear her own voice hit falsetto, but couldn’t do anything about it. Her panic was lurking just under the surface. Did she dare go outside again? Go up to her flat?

  ‘Andreas, I think Hix knows where I live, and —’

  At that moment she heard the familiar announcement jingle used in airports the world over.

  ‘Nora, I’m struggling to hear you. I have to board my plane now. I’m on my way to Denmark. We’ll have to do this later.’

  ‘Do this later? What do you mean we’ll -’

  The connection was lost.

  She tried Spencer three times in a row. To no avail.

  Typical! He would sulk if she didn’t pick up the microsecond he rang, yet when she really needed him, he was unavailable.

  She opened the front door and peered nervously left and right. No suspicious activity. Completely normal people on their way to meetings, afternoon coffee or going to Sainsbury's for tomato sauce and kitchen towels.

  She tried a logical approach. Her address was public knowledge. Her picture and contact details were on Globalfs homepage — it was essential for a correspondent, something she had never questioned before.

  But who could have sent the letter? Hix's accomplice? Or a copycat?

  Nora had no wish to find out. She raced up the stairs, entered her flat and found her old sports bag. In less than ten minute she had packed the essentials. She slung her laptop bag over her other shoulder, locked the door, went downstairs, hailed the first cab she saw and asked to be taken to Waterloo Station. She would have to ring her mother from the train.

  X

  The train journey to Honiton took three hours. Nora stared out at a landscape of meadows, woods and small, white cottages huddled together. She tried to talk some sense into herself. No one knew that her mother's boyfriend was an apple grower in Devon. Hix would never find her there. The further the train took her away from London, the safer she would be. An hour later Elizabeth finally picked up the phone.

  ‘Mum, I’m coming down to Patrick's for a few days ... I had to get away from London,’ Nora began.

  There was a pause.

  ‘You are? Oh, all right then,’ her mother said coolly.

  ‘Mum, I really had to get away,’ Nora insisted.

  ‘Just a minute,’ her mother said.

  Nora could hear clattering and mumbled conversation, which she presumed must be with Patrick.

  ‘Very well. You can have the guest cottage. You’re not giving us much warning, are you?’

  ‘But, Mum —’

  ‘Just so you know it, we won’t be here. It's Angela Dartford's sixtieth birthday, so we’ll be away most of the weekend. But Patrick says that he can leave out a key for you.’

  ‘But, Mum —’

  ‘When are you coming?’

  Nora checked her watch. ‘In about two hours?’

  ‘So soon?’ The irritation in Elizabeth's voice simmered under a thin veneer of politeness.

  Nora said nothing.

  ‘Hmm. We’ve organised a dinner party tonight. Can’t you just take a taxi from the station? Picking you up right when our guests are due to arrive will be tricky for us. I’ll be in the middle of cooking three courses, and I need Patrick around to mix the cocktails,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Mum. Of course I can,’ Nora said and rang off.

  At least she would be safe tonight, but spending the weekend in the arms of her loving family clearly wasn’t an option. There were no loving arms when it came to Elizabeth, and Nora wondered why it seemed that she had to learn this lesson over and over every time she went against her better judgement and asked her mother for help.

  She still couldn’t get through to Spencer. Out of sheer desperation she tried leaving a message at Scotland Yard's reception, but in accordance with protocol, they vehemently denied knowing anything about Spencer's existence.

  She had stuffed the e
nvelope into her laptop bag, where the grey edges stuck out and reminded her of its terrible contents like a ticking bomb. Her thoughts buzzed around her head like wasps in a bottle. They kept bumping into the question of who had delivered the gruesome close-up of what was once the smiling young woman in a florist's with eyes that could flirt and a tongue that could speak.

  Nora forced herself to think about Oluf and the mystery of how he might have ended up in the sea. But to no avail. It was as if the stiff edges of the envelope kept poking the outskirts of her mind.

  The moment the train pulled up in front of the low redbrick station building in Honiton, it started to rain. Nora hurried out to the cab rank in time to see the lights of the only taxi disappear on the horizon. She reconciled herself to waiting and took the opportunity to ring the Crayfish. He was at home and she could tell from his voice that he was busy, purely from the way he introduced himself.

  ‘What is it, Sand? And can we make it quick? Family get-together.’

  ‘I’ve received a threatening letter. Either from Hix or an accomplice, I think.’

  ‘You think? Go on.’

  Nora told him.

  ‘And you’re sure it's not someone from Scotland Yard who has sent you the picture as part of your research?’

  Nora rolled her eyes. ‘Yes. Why would they do that?’

  ‘Because it's something you have to eliminate before we can take this seriously. You need to check it out, and then we’ll discuss it on Monday. If it's a genuine threat, you’ll have the magazine's unconditional support, of course. That's our standard procedure. No one threatens Globalt's reporters with anything. OK?’ the Crayfish said, sounding rushed.

  ‘Yes,’ Nora said in despair and rang off. The Crayfish had a habit of going on autopilot when he was stressed.

  Twilight was starting to settle over Honiton, and she wondered whether it was worth calling her mother and asking her for the number of a local taxi company that could pick her up from the station, when a black Toyota with a taxi sign on the roof pulled up in front of her.

  Nora opened the door and got in the back with her bags on her lap. The smell of pine air freshener and leather was overwhelming. The driver didn’t turn around. Nora gave him the address of Patrick's orchard, and he drove off without saying anything, leaving the station and turning right.