A Death in Sweden(67)

He noticed that the border on the side nearest the car was a similarly high and thick hedge. He guessed there had to be something else there too, given that the hedge couldn’t extend all the way down to the lake shore. That was probably what they feared most, someone coming in from the neighboring properties or someone coming in off the lake. They probably wouldn’t be expecting him to come in the front.

When he reached the car he noticed that one of the guys he’d killed had left an overcoat in the back seat, and he reached in to grab it, thinking it would make a nice decoy, bundled up and thrown over to set off the motion sensors. But then he spotted a football down on the floor behind the driver seat. He could imagine those two guys throwing the ball to each other in idle moments, dreaming of their quarterback days in high school.

He left the coat but put the ball on the passenger seat, then climbed in and checked that he was ready, that he had enough ammunition, that the laptop was primed and ready to go. He drove on then, until he was alongside the property, and pulled up right next to the fence.

He hit Enter on the laptop, watched as it started the process Josh had promised. He got out of the car and couldn’t help but smile as he kicked the ball at a thirty-degree angle, roughly over the roof of the lodge, towards the far boundary where he was certain he heard it smack into the hedge and bounce down onto the lawn. That would do it.

He was about to move when he heard a door open somewhere ahead of him, and then a voice, clear on the snowy air. “Okay, okay, I’ll check, but I guarantee it’s a fault.”

The door closed, but a second later it opened again, and a different voice called out, “Teddy?” When he got no reply he said to himself, but still audible, “Jesus, what a mess.” And once more the door closed.

Dan guessed the second guy had called out to let Teddy know the cameras had also gone down. Whatever the case, he’d struck lucky with the ball. He ran up the front of the car now, onto the roof and then over the fence and hedge, landing on the snow-covered lawn. He recovered, turned and sprinted toward the lodge, but stopped short.

The door was heavy duty, and he could see from here that it had a keypad. He’d probably have to wait for Teddy to come back, but that solution raised problems of its own. If Teddy came back soon he’d see Dan’s footprints in the snow. If he didn’t, if he decided to walk the boundary, Dan could be left sitting there for more than the ten minutes he had before the cameras came back online.

The only thing Dan had in his favor was that he knew another motion sensor had gone off, registering his arrival over the fence. Even if the guy in the lodge didn’t pay much credence to it, he’d want Teddy to check it out.

Dan moved around the side of the lodge, looking across the disturbingly light gardens, illuminated by the snow. Teddy was nowhere to be seen. There was a window on the side of the lodge, giving a view over the house. Dan crouched and crept under it, then turned and walked back full height, tapping lightly on the glass as he passed.

He heard the guy inside the lodge say something, and even before Dan had got back around he heard the door open again, and the same voice saying, “I thought you were gonna check the south-east corner before you come back in?”

Dan turned the corner and shot the guy standing there in the chest. He fell backward into the open door, then into the lodge. The door started to close again, but one of the guy’s feet was trapped in the gap and held it.

Dan jumped forward, pulled the door open and dragged the guy inside. He moaned slightly as Dan manhandled him out of the way. Dan stared, curious, because he’d hit him neatly—maybe the bullet had taken an unlucky deflection off the bone and missed his heart. He shot him again, then took in the room before him.

There was a bank of monitors, all blank at the moment, a couple of computer screens, one apparently keeping track of the motion sensors, another probably for more general use. The blinds were pulled over enough that no one would be able to see in from outside.

There were another couple of rooms off the main one and he checked them out quickly—a toilet and a room that looked unused but had a bunk in it. He moved a chair into the middle of the main room, facing the door, and sat down to wait on Teddy’s return.

But he was still sitting there when the monitors all kicked into life again, the screens flickering before producing otherworldly views of the house and its surrounds. He turned and looked at them, spotting Teddy immediately.

Dan got his bearings and saw that Teddy had decided to do a circuit after all. He’d been down and walked along the lake shore, and was now heading back up the eastern boundary. Dan kept watching; as he turned, as he headed back toward the lodge, as he spotted something and crouched down.

He should have covered his tracks—it hadn’t been snowing long enough to erase them. Dan heard a distant tinny voice, and realized it was an earpiece on the dead guy. He reached over, grabbed it, listened in.

“Something definitely came over . . .” Dan glanced at the monitors, could almost see him follow the tracks with his eyes and see where they led to. When he spoke again, it was low and cautious, “Rick?” He cursed lightly under his breath when there was no response, and drew his gun. Nothing more came through the earpiece, but even in the fuzzy light of the cameras, Dan could see he was talking to someone else.

Dan looked back down at the guy who’d apparently been called Rick. He’d tried to call Teddy before he was out of earshot—it hadn’t occurred to Dan that he then would have spoken to him over the wires, telling him the cameras were down, to check that corner. That was why Teddy had taken the full tour.