Carl’s breathing grew shallower and shallower, like the fox’s. What about Assad? And what about himself?

Now they were standing a few yards from the pile of leaves, the dogs growling and the animal at his feet breathing audibly. Suddenly the fox sprang straight for the nearest hunter, tearing at his groin with all the power it could muster. The young man emitted a blood-curdling scream. A cry of mortal dread. The dogs snapped at the fox, but the animal made a furious stand against them, pissing with legs spread before springing for its life. Ditlev Pram took aim.

He didn’t hear the bolt whistling through the air, but he heard the fox howl in the distance and then its whining death throes.

The dogs sniffed around the fox’s urine and one stuck its muzzle where the fox had lain at Carl’s feet, but it didn’t pick up Carl’s scent.

God bless the fox and its piss, Carl thought to himself, as the dogs clustered around their masters and the injured man lay screaming on the ground a few yards away, writhing with cramp in both his legs. His hunting buddies bent over him and attempted to attend to his wound. They tore their scarves into strips, bandaged him and lifted him up.

‘Good shot, Ditlev,’ he heard Florin say, when Ditlev returned with his bloodied knife and the fox’s tail in his hand. Then Florin turned to the men behind him. ‘The hunt’s over, my friends. I’m sorry. Would you please make sure Saxenholdt gets to the hospital immediately? I’ll call the beaters over so they can carry him. See to it he’s vaccinated for rabies; you can never tell, can you? Keep your finger pressed down hard on the artery the whole time, OK? Otherwise you’ll lose him.’

He shouted something into the woods and a flock of black men appeared from the shadows. He sent four with the hunters and asked the last four to remain. Two of the men had slender hunting rifles just like Florin’s.

When the hunting party had disappeared with the whimpering man, the three old school chums and the four dark-skinned men gathered in a circle.

‘We don’t have a lot of time, understand?’ Florin said. ‘This policeman is relatively strong and fit; he’s not much older than we are. We mustn’t underestimate him.’

‘What do we do with him when we find him?’ asked Dybbøl Jensen.

‘You pretend he’s a fox.’

He listened for a long time until he was certain the men had spread out and were headed to the far end of the woods. Which meant there was an open route back to the estate, provided the other black men didn’t return to join in the chase.

Run! he told himself, and stood up, leaning his head back so that his relatively free eye could lead him through the thick underbrush.

Maybe there’s a knife in the menagerie I can slice the tape off with. Maybe Assad’s still alive. Maybe he’s alive. Thoughts whirled through his head as the thicket yanked at his clothes and blood trickled from the wound in his shoulder.

He was cold now. His hands shook behind his back. Had he lost so much blood already that it was too late?

Then he heard several SUVs roar to life somewhere close by and zoom off. That meant he must be getting close.

Just as he realized this, a bolt whistled past his head, so close that he could almost feel it. It pounded into the tree trunk in front of him with such force that it would be impossible to pull out.

He twisted his body round, but saw nothing. Where were they? Then there was another shot that tore up the bark of a second tree.

Now the beaters’ calls suddenly grew clearer. Run, run, run! his brain screamed. Don’t fall. Get behind a bush, then the next one, so you’ll be out of range. Isn’t there somewhere I can hide?

He knew they would catch him now. Knew that dying wasn’t going to be a simple matter. After all, this was how they got their kicks, the bastards.

His heart was pounding so hard in his chest that he could hear it plainly.

He leaped over a creek, his shoes almost getting stuck in the mud. The soles grew heavy as lead, and his legs began giving out. Just run and run.

Then he detected a clearing off to the side. Probably where he and Assad had entered, since the creek was just behind him. So he needed to head to the right. Up and to the right. It couldn’t be far now.

The next shot was way off target and suddenly he found himself standing in the courtyard. Completely alone, heart hammering and with only ten yards to the hall’s broad entrance.

He’d made it halfway when the next bolt ploughed into the ground right next to him. It was no coincidence that it hadn’t struck him. It was only to let him know that if he didn’t stop running, another would follow.

All his defence mechanisms shut down. He stopped running and stood there staring at the ground, waiting for them to fall upon him. This lovely, cobblestoned courtyard would become his sacrificial altar.

He inhaled deeply and turned around slowly. It wasn’t just the three men and the four beaters standing there silently observing him. There was also a little crowd of dark-skinned children with curious eyes.

‘That’s good, right there. You can go now,’ Florin commanded. The black men left, shooing their children before them.

At last there was only Carl and the three men. They were sweaty and wore strange little smiles. The foxtail dangled from Ditlev Pram’s crossbow.

The hunt was over.

42

They prodded him forward as he stared at the floor. The light in the hall was glaring and he didn’t want to see Assad’s remains in any detail. He refused to be witness to what a hyena’s powerful jaws could do to a human body.

In fact, he didn’t want to see anything more of anything. They could do with him whatever they pleased. But he wasn’t going to watch as they did it.

Then he heard one of the men laugh. A laughter from deep within, which spread to the other two. An eerie, rolling chorus of merriment that made Carl close his eyes tight – as tight as the tape would allow.

How could a person laugh at another person’s misfortune and death? What had made these people so sick in the head?

Then he heard a voice spitting out curses in Arabic. Ugly, guttural sounds meant to provoke anger, but for a brief moment the direness of the situation was supplanted by an indescribable joy that made him raise his head.

Assad was alive.

At first he couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from. He saw only the shiny steel bars and the scowling hyena. Then he craned his neck and saw Assad, who had wedged himself like an ape into the top of the cage, his eyes wild, bloody lacerations showing on his arms and face.

Only then did Carl notice how badly the hyena limped. As though its rear leg had been slashed with a single stroke. The animal whimpered with each weak step and the three men’s laughter gave way to silence.

‘Pig animals!’ came Assad’s disrespectful yell from above.

Carl almost smiled under the gaffer tape. Even this close to death, the man remained true to form.

‘You’ll fall down sooner or later. Next time the animal will know what you’re like,’ Florin hissed. Assad’s disfiguration of the zoo’s prize specimen had stung and enraged him. But the bastard was right. Assad couldn’t hang on for ever.

‘I don’t know,’ Pram said. ‘That orangutan up there seems pretty fearless. If he falls down on top of the animal with that great body of his, it won’t be good for it.’

‘Then fuck the hyena. It hasn’t accomplished what it was put on this earth to do, anyway,’ Florin said.

‘What are we going to do with these two men?’ The question came softly. An entirely different tone to the other’s. It was Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen again. He seemed less under the influence than before. More vulnerable. That’s how the come-down following a cocaine high often affected people.