"So that's why they think the Russian government was behind the death of Alexander Litvinenko?"
"Precisely," he answered.
"So what you're telling me is basically that this can't be an accident? It can't accidentally have spilled into the water?" I asked.
"No it can't. Someone must have put it there for some reason. Someone poisoned that water."
"But if the water is contaminated then why didn't anyone else in the area get sick? Why is it only the people living in the camp? And why only some of them?" I said.
"That's a also a good question. We'll have to look into all that. I alerted the police after the doctor discovered that they had a patient who was killed by polonium and the forensic lab is now testing the bodies to learn if the three others also were killed by it. They decided to evacuate the camp and I have a team at the hospital in Holbaek right now cleansing all of the church members. That'll give us time and room to investigate the water up there as well."
We drove the kids to the hospital to be with my dad who was thrilled to have some “intelligent company for once,” as he put it. After talking a little with Dad we drove to the local police station and told them all we knew. They were very interested and Officer Frederik Knudsen who was in charge of the investigation listened carefully and wrote everything down on a notepad. We told him that we thought the church members were being killed and that we feared that Bjarne Larsen would be the next victim. Isabella was already in a safe place at the hospital so I wasn't worried about her.
"Those are the last two who were part of the leader group back then," I said.
Officer Knudsen nodded slowly and pensively. I got the sense that he didn't quite believe us even if he wanted to.
"Listen," I said. "We know it's a strange story, but polonium 210 is not something that appears by a coincidence. Someone has put it in the water up there to kill those people. Four are dead already."
Officer Frederik Knudsen leaned backwards with a deep sigh. "I am very interested about the story about the girl Edwina and we will certainly look into that. If what you're telling me is true, then it is very serious. About the other stuff, I hear all you're saying, but the problem I'm facing is I just received a phone call a minute before you stepped into the police station from the SIS telling us the water is clean. There is no contamination of the water in the camp. Not of polonium 210 or anything else. The water is clean."
I looked at Sune. He shrugged. "I don't understand," I said. "I was so certain."
"Well, all I can do is look at the facts and they're telling me that if these people were killed by polonium 210, they didn't get it through the water. The SIS did find some by that water-post you told them about. But only very little and it was on the post, on the handle, not in the water."
"It had to have come into the camp from somewhere else," I mumbled. "I still feel we should talk to Bjarne Larsen."
Officer Knudsen nodded. "I have a few questions for him of my own. I'll go with you."
CHAPTER 49
BJARNE LARSEN'S HANDs were shaking slightly when he pulled out the cups from the cabinet. He wanted to use the nice ones like his wife always did.
It had been hard the last couple of weeks, trying to get by on his own since his wife Elisabeth had left him. He was still wondering why she had chosen to leave him like that after thirteen years of marriage. He had met her two years after leaving the church and had considered the years following as the happiest years of his life. But Bjarne had refused to tell Elisabeth about his past and questions kept popping up in her, even if she knew he would get mad and sometimes even violent when she brought up his past, she would do it anyway from time to time. Bjarne had no answers to give her, only that he wasn't very proud of his former life, but that was his past now. Yet she kept asking.
Then finally seven weeks ago he had decided to tell her everything. He told her about Afghanistan, the drugs, about Anders Granlund, the church and even what they had done to that girl.
Elisabeth had looked at him with tears in her eyes. She hadn't spoken a single word for almost half an hour. Then she had gotten up from her chair and gone upstairs only to return with a suitcase in her hand. She hadn't even told him she was leaving. She just looked at him with wet eyes, touched him gently on the cheek, then walked out the door and never looked back. Bjarne hadn't heard anything from her since. Not a phone call, not a postcard or an e-mail. Not even a message on Facebook where he had tried to track her down by constantly checking her account. But she hadn't posted anything, not a status, not even a whereabouts. Bjarne didn't know where she was or if he was ever going to see her again.
That was when he had decided it was time to do something. He had thought about it for years, but like the coward he had always been, he hadn't done anything. Now he became determined. It had already ruined too much for him. It was time to get rid of the past.
Eliminate it.
Bjarne put down the cups from Royal Copenhagen that they had inherited from Elisabeth's mother. His hands were still shaking, something they had done a lot lately. Bjarne feared it might be beginning of Parkinson's disease that his dad had suffered from until he died more than ten years ago. He kept postponing the inevitable visit with the doctor. He was afraid of what the doctor was going to tell him. Bjarne focused on keeping them still. It helped sometimes if he was really concentrating. At other times it only made things worse.
Bjarne sighed deeply while remembering his dad. How he had high hopes for Bjarne. He had tried to teach him about farming and wanting him to take over the farm. But Bjarne didn't want to. He wanted to change the world, he told him, just before he left for Afghanistan. Little could he have known that the people he met in Afghanistan were nothing but scum, introducing him to drugs and later on weapons. They wanted him to fight with them to take back their country, they said and promised him lots of opium and LSD if he decided to go with them. Then they showed him an arsenal of weapons and bombs and told him they were going to overthrow the king and make way for the country's first president. The king was about to leave on a trip overseas and that was when they were going to do it. Bjarne ended up helping them, fighting for what he believed was their freedom. They managed to do it and changed the history of Afghanistan. Later when the Soviets and the Americans both began spreading their influences in Afghanistan, Bjarne and his friends fought for the Soviets and were heavily provided with weapons and artillery from the Russians - along with all the drugs they wanted of course. Once the Soviet soldiers invaded Kabul Bjarne was forced to leave even if he had been on their side. It was all good the same, he had thought back then. Drugs had become harder to get a hold off and he was tired of fighting a war that wasn't his.
Bjarne's hands were steadier now and he managed to pour the coffee into the pot without spilling. He found the bowl with sugar and warmed some milk in the microwave. There were still a few cookies left that he placed neatly in a circle on a platter. It all looked nice, almost like when Elisabeth had prepared it for guests coming to their home. Bjarne felt a pinch in his heart. Boy, he missed having her around the house. He even missed her nagging. Was he ever going to see her again? He thought as he took off the lid of the small transparent vial carrying the expensive silver powder. Almost without shaking he poured some into a spoon and poured it all into the pot with the burning hot coffee.
"Tasteless and odorless," he mumbled when he turned it with the spoon. "Impossible to trace before it's too late." That was what his Afghani friends had told him when he travelled back to see them and asked for help. It was probably stolen from a Russian nuclear reactor, he suspected. It cost him a huge fortune, but it was worth it. It was even more concentrated and a larger dose than what was used to kill that KGB agent, Litvinenko, they said. Even so he had certainly been surprised at how fast it had killed his old friends. The choice of poison was genius in that polonium, carried in a vial, could be carried in a pocket through airport screening devices without setting off any alarms. His friends had assured him tha
t once ingested, the polonium would create symptoms that didn't suggest poison. It would target the spleen and liver first since those organs were much smaller than the rest of the body. Once concentrated in those vital organs there was no turning back. It would soon bring severe damage to the nervous system. Within minutes, the patient was going to suffer severe vomiting, dizziness and headache before falling unconscious. Seizures and tremors were common as well and they would also lose control of muscle movement. The victim would certainly die within hours of these symptoms.
Bjarne Larsen felt more confident now that it was done. He put the lid back on the pot and wiped away a drop of sweat from his forehead. Then he put the vial back in the cabinet and closed it.
He lifted the tray and began walking towards the living room where his guests were waiting for him by the fireplace.
CHAPTER 50
UNFORTUNATELY THEY HAD brought a police officer with them. Bjarne Larsen had at first been a little taken aback by it, but then felt it left him with no choice. They all knew too much and it was only a matter of time before they figured everything out.
He couldn't have that. Not now when he was almost done. He had almost gotten away with it and they weren't going to spoil that. There was no way he would let them.
Bjarne Larsen smiled and tried to put down the tray on the table in front of them. His hands had started shaking again and he almost dropped everything, but luckily the young man with the Mohawk got up and grabbed the tray for him.
"Let me help you," he said and together they put down the heavy tray with the cups from Royal Copenhagen.
The young man set the cups in front of the guests. Bjarne Larsen was sweating heavily now.
"I'm sorry," he said. "The wife's out of town and it's hard to try and do it all on my own."
Officer Knudsen that Bjarne had known for years nodded and smiled. He grabbed a cookie from the platter and started eating. The crouching sound was loud in Bjarne's head and he felt his heart race faster. His eyes remained fixated on the officer's mouth where crumbs landed on his lips and he used the tongue to remove them. His mouth looked dry when he chewed with it half open. Bjarne sat down with a sigh. Then he nodded slowly.
"Have some coffee," he said.
The young reporter woman, Rebekka, leaned over and grabbed the pot. Bjarne Larsen felt a pinch of excitement. This was the first time he was actually present when the powder was ingested. He wondered how long it would take for them to have actual symptoms. Minutes? Hours? Days? He didn't know and neither did the people who gave him the powder. They just knew it would kill, painfully eating the victim's internal organs one by one. The best part was that it only killed if you inhaled or ingested it. It wasn't dangerous to you if you accidentally touched it. That was very unique for a radioactive material. Bjarne had found it perfect to kill by using a radioactive material when revenging Edwina. Oh the joy he had felt when he realized that the church members actually had thought that it was the devil that had possessed the victims. He had wanted so badly to be present to watch their faces trying to rebuke the devil, he wanted to feel their fear when they thought it might have been Edwina coming back from hell to take them. He didn't doubt for one second that all four of them had seen her when they died. His Afghani friends had told him they would have hallucinations once the polonium attacked the brain. Some might even have experienced paranoia, seeing and hearing things, thinking someone was after them. If there was anything Bjarne knew about, it was hallucinations and paranoia caused by drugs. They would always show your worst fear, displayed like a living nightmare. Bjarne almost laughed out loud just by thinking about it. Served them well, he thought to himself. For doing what they did to Edwina.
"So given the circumstances of the deaths we are naturally worried about you and your son, since you used to be a part of the leader group at the time," Officer Knudsen said.
Bjarne hadn't been listening to what the officer said. He didn't have to. Bjarne nodded and smiled and told them to drink some coffee or have another cookie. Still none of them had touched it.
It will come, he calmed himself down. He sensed how his hands and legs were shaking heavily now. It will come. They have to drink at some point. The cookies are making them thirsty.
Bjarne smiled while he watched the officer lean over and grab another cookie. "These are really good," he said.
Bjarne smiled and nodded. "The wife's recipe." He watched as crumbs landed on the officer's chin. His mouth looked so dry now. It would only be a matter of seconds before he would drink some coffee. Then the others would follow. Of course they would. They had to. They weren't going to leave this house alive. Bjarne would make sure they didn't.
A sigh of relief burst out of him as he watched the officer lean over and lift the cup between his fingers. Then he smiled and nodded as the officer dragged it closer to the mouth and tipped it. Bjarne Larsen felt a thrill inside as he watched the black liquid disappear into the officer's broad mouth. It almost made him want to clap his hands in excitement.
One down, only two more to go.
CHAPTER 51
I FELT STRANGE sitting in Bjarne Larsen's couch watching Officer Knudsen tell him about the killings and our concerns. It was like Bjarne Larsen wasn't listening at all. It was like he was in a world of his own and wasn't interested in what we were telling him. It worried me. His manic eyes stared at Officer Knudsen drinking his coffee troubled me. It was like he enjoyed watching him drink his coffee a little too much. What about the sweating and the shaking? Something was off here, even for him. I looked at Sune. He didn't touch the cookies nor the coffee. I had warned him in the car driving there, following Officer Knudsen in his police car.
"Whatever you do, don't drink the coffee," I said. "It's horrible. Almost killed me the last time I was here." Then we laughed. If there was one thing Sune and I agreed upon it was that life was too short for bad coffee.
"Thanks for the warning," he said as we left the car.
Now I kind of regretted it looking at Officer Knudsen drinking it and slurping it. Maybe it was better this time? Maybe he was getting the hang of it? I thought. I stared at the cup. It looked just as thick as the last time. I poured in some milk and started turning my spoon. I was really in the mood for coffee. I could really go for it, I thought, but then again I really didn't want it if it tasted anything remotely like what I had the first time I was there. I put in a teaspoon of sugar and turned again. It still looked bad. Bjarne Larsen was watching me. His eyes were strange, almost feverish. I couldn't quite figure him out.
"Do you have any idea on who would want to kill all the members of the leader group from back then?" I asked him thinking maybe he could shed some light on the case that we hadn't thought of on our own. "Did you make any enemies?"
"I guess most people never cared much about us," he answered. "The locals wanted us out, especially back when the Priest was very active in the media and often appeared on TV. They thought we brought bad publicity to the area."
"So why did you leave the church?" I asked.
"I guess we went in different directions. I wanted something for this church. Anders, the Priest wanted something else. We had to part ways."
He didn't want to talk about what had happened, that was fair enough, but I wasn't going to let him off the hook that easy, I thought. He could provide me some of the answers I was missing.
"There was a girl," I said. "Edwina, I believe she was called. She was at your camp, but then disappeared. Do you have any idea what happened to her?"
Bjarne's face froze. He stared at me with agitated eyes. Sune leaned over. "It's okay. We know the story about what they did to her," he said. "We also heard that you left the church because of what they did to her."
"We're not interested in your part in this," Officer Knudsen said. "But your testimony could turn out to be very important to us and I'm sure you could make a deal if you chose to talk, a deal so you wouldn't be prosecuted if you told everything. We're extremely interested in the lead
er, Isabella Dubois and her involvement in what happened."
Bjarne stared, still frozen solid.
"What happened to the girl?" Officer Knudsen asked. "Where is she?"
Then something truly awkward and weird happened. Bjarne Larsen began to laugh. Not a normal laughter, but a frantic, hysterical one. I was beginning to think he was losing it.
"Well it seems you know everything, don't you?" he said. "I might as well tell you."
"That would be nice," Officer Knudsen said.
"First let me pour you some more coffee," Bjarne said and grabbed the pot. He filled up Officer Knudsen's cup. I declined stating I still had enough in my cup. Sune didn't want anything either. Officer Knudsen drank more from his. We all waited expectantly for him to begin talking.
Bjarne Larsen exhaled deeply. His eyes dropped to the ground, then he looked at me. "She died," he suddenly said. "On the night that she gave birth to the baby I went back to the forest to save her. I knew what their plan was. I had decided not to interfere anymore, but as the night progressed and I heard her screaming through the forest I realized I couldn't let this happen. I had to do something. But when I arrived she was dead. She had lost a lot of blood from the birth. There was a pool underneath her. Apparently she hadn't stopped bleeding after giving birth, so she bled to death."
"So she is dead?" I asked quite startled. I was so certain she was alive and revenging herself. "But what about the baby?"
Bjarne looked at me. That was when it finally clicked.