‘Fuck me!’ he blurted out.

There were two cards from a Trivial Pursuit game. One in each pocket.

After five minutes of deep concentration, he grabbed his notepad and carefully described the position of the plastic pockets relative to the rest of the box’s contents.

Afterwards he scrutinized each of them carefully, one at a time.

One pocket contained a man’s wristwatch, one an earring, another had something that resembled a rubber band, and finally a handkerchief.

Four pockets in addition to the ones with the Trivial Pursuit cards.

He chewed on his lip.

That made six in all.

22

Ditlev raced up the stairs to Caracas in four strides.

‘Where is he?’ he shouted to the secretary and dashed off in the direction her finger pointed.

Frank Helmond lay in his room alone, having fasted and been prepped for his second operation.

When Ditlev entered the room, Helmond didn’t look at him with respect.

Strange, Ditlev thought, letting his eyes wander up the sheet to his bandaged face. This idiot’s lying here, showing me no respect. Has he learned nothing? Who was it that hurt him, and who patched him together again?

When it came down to it, they had agreed on everything. Treatment of the numerous deep gashes in Helmond’s face would be accompanied by a light facelift and tightening of the skin around the neck and chest. Liposuction, surgery and capable hands – that’s what Ditlev could offer him. And when you added his wife and a small fortune into the bargain, the point had been reached where it was surely reasonable to demand from Helmond, if not appreciation, then at least that he regard their agreement with a certain degree of humility.

But the bargain hadn’t been kept, because Helmond had talked. There were nurses at this moment who must be wondering about what they’d heard, and who needed to be made to see sense.

Because regardless how drugged the patient had been, the words had been uttered: ‘It was Ditlev Pram and Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen who did this.’

He had said that.

Ditlev didn’t bother making an introduction. The man had no choice but to listen to him anyway.

‘Do you know how easy it is to kill a man under anaesthetic without being detected?’ he asked. ‘Oh, don’t you? In any case, you’re now ready for your next operation tonight, Frank. I just hope the anaesthetists have a steady hand. In spite of everything, I am paying them to do their work properly, you know.’ He aimed a finger at Helmond. ‘And just one more, simple matter. I’m assuming that we now agree you’ll keep your trap shut and stick to our agreement? Otherwise you’re risking having your organs end up as spare parts for people who are younger and fitter than you, and that wouldn’t please you very much, would it?’

Ditlev tapped the drip that was already fastened to Frank’s arm. ‘I don’t hold grudges, Frank. So you shouldn’t either, do you understand me?’

He pushed hard on Helmond’s bed and turned away. If that didn’t do it, then the little loser was asking for it.

On his way out he slammed the door so violently that a passing porter examined it when Ditlev had turned his back.

Then he made his way directly to the laundry. It would take more than a verbal lashing to exorcize the ugly feeling that Helmond’s mere presence created in his body.

His newest acquisition, a girl from the part of Mindanao where a man got his head chopped off if he went to bed with the wrong woman, had yet to be tried out. He’d watched her with great satisfaction. She was exactly how he liked them. With shy eyes and a strong sense of her own insignificance. That, combined with her availability, lit a fire in him. A fire that longed to be extinguished.

‘I have the Helmond situation under control,’ he said, later that day. Behind the wheel, Ulrik nodded, satisfied. He was relieved, that much was evident.

Ditlev gazed out across the landscape, where the forest slowly took shape ahead of them. A calm fell over him. All in all, it had been a reasonably good end to an otherwise rather out-of-control week.

‘What about the police?’ Ulrik asked.

‘That, too. This Carl Mørck has been removed from the case.’

They arrived at Torsten’s estate, stopping some fifty yards from the gate and turning their faces up to the cameras. In ten seconds the gate between the fir trees a little further ahead would glide open.

Ditlev dialled Torsten’s number on his mobile as they drove into the courtyard. ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

‘Drive down past the breeding house and park there. I’m in the menagerie.’

‘He’s in the menagerie,’ he told Ulrik, already feeling the excitement rising in him. It was the most intense part of the ritual, and definitely the part that Torsten, at least, looked forward to most.

Time and again they had seen Torsten Florin scurrying about among half-naked fashion models. They had seen him bathed in the spotlight and heard the gushing praise of influential people. But never had they seen him exhibit such pleasure as when they visited the menagerie before a hunt.

The next hunt would be on a weekday. Not yet scheduled, but early the following week. On this occasion only those who’d previously won the right to shoot the special prey of the day would be allowed to participate. Only those who had a taste for such experiences, and who had benefitted materially from these hunts. People they could trust; people like them.

Ulrik parked the Rover just as Torsten came out of the building with blood on his rubber apron.

‘Welcome,’ he said, beaming. So he’d just slaughtered an animal.

The hall had been expanded since they’d last been there. It was longer and brighter, with numerous glass partitions. Forty Latvian and Bulgarian workers had done their part, and Dueholt had begun to resemble what Torsten had made his personal ambition for his private home sixteen years earlier, when he’d already made his first millions by the age of twenty-four.

In the hall there were perhaps a hundred or more cages with animals inside them. All of them lit by halogen lights.

For a child, a tour in Torsten Florin’s menagerie would be a more exotic experience than a trip to the zoo. For an adult with even a limited understanding of animal welfare, it would be shocking.

‘Look at this,’ Torsten said. ‘A Komodo dragon.’

He was clearly enjoying himself, as though in the midst of an orgasm, and Ditlev understood why. Seeing as these animals were dangerous, and protected species as well, this wasn’t your ordinary prey.

‘I think we’ll take that one to Saxenholdt’s estate when the snow comes. Down there the hunting area is easier to survey, and these devils are fantastically good at hiding. Can you imagine it?’

‘Their bite is the most infectious on the planet, I’ve heard,’ Ditlev said. ‘So the shot has to be right on target, before it has a chance to lock its jaws on to the shooter.’

They saw Florin tremble as if he had the shivers. Yes, it was very good prey he’d procured for them. How had he managed it?

‘What will it be next time?’ Ulrik asked, curious.

Florin spread his hands. That meant he had an idea, but they would have to discover it for themselves.

‘Our choices are over here,’ he said, pointing at cage after cage containing small animals with big eyes.

It was as clean as a clinic inside the building. With their vast, collective miles of digestive system and correspondingly enormous quantities of metabolic waste, it was thanks to Torsten’s excellent, dark-skinned staff that the animals did not leave an overwhelming stench of urine and shit in the hall. Three Somalian families lived on his estate. They diligently swept, prepared food, dusted and cleaned the cages, but disappeared whenever guests arrived. You couldn’t risk people talking.