Cnut - Mind Games

By Stig Larssen

From goalpost to grave.

Who would ever dream that kicking a football thirty years ago would make one the target for a murderer? Cnut finds himself in exactly that position, along with a dozen or so of his old friends, their minds being controlled, and their bodies attacked, with a diabolical mixture of toxic chemicals, inflicting deliberate suffering before the coup de grace. The motive is clear: revenge, but revenge for what? The Sheriff has to dig deep into the past to find the answer, and discovers some bizarre happenings from that time, but which, if any of them, has been twisted by a disturbed mind into a motive for murder?

• Language: English
• Publisher: TONY NASH
• Release date: Jan 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393385042

Stig Larssen

Stig Larssen is the Norwegian pen name of Tony Nash – acclaimed author of over thirty detective, historical and war novels, who began his career as a navigator in the Royal Air Force, later re-training at Bletchley Park to become an electronic spy, intercepting Russian and East German agent transmissions, during which time he studied many languages and achieved a BA Honours Degree from London University. Diverse occupations followed: Head of Modern Languages in a large comprehensive school, ocean yacht skipper, deep sea fisher, fly tyer, antique dealer, bespoke furniture maker, restorer and French polisher, professional deer stalker and creative writer.

Book preview

(TANKENE SPILL)

Stig Larssen

Copyright © Tony Nash 2019. All rights reserved.

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This book is a work of pure fiction. Names and characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

Norwegian words used in this book:

Pølse – hot dog

Lefse – soft Norwegian flatbread, made with potatoes

Sennep - mustard

Øvelse gjør mester – practice makes perfect

Other works by this author:

THE TONY DYCE/NORFOLK THRILLERS:

Murder by Proxy

Murder on the Back Burner

Murder on the Chess Board

Murder on the High ‘C’

Murder on Tiptoes

Bled and Breakfast

THE JOHN HUNTER/MET COP THRILLERS:

Carve Up

Single to Infinity

The Most Unkindest Cut

The Iago Factor

Blockbuster

Bloodlines

Beyond Another Curtain

HISTORICAL/WWI NOVELS:

A Handful of Destiny

A Handful of Salt

A Handful of Courage

WWII EPIC:

No Tears For Tomorrow

THE HARRY PAGE THRILLERS:

Tripled Exposure

Unseemly Exposure

So Dark, The Spiral

THE NORWEGIAN SERIES:

LOOT

CNUT – The Isiaih Prophesies

CNUT – Paid in Spades

CNUT – The Sin Debt

CNUT – They Tumble Headlong

CNUT – Night Prowler

CNUT – Past Present

OTHER NOVELS:

The Devil Deals Death  

The Makepeace Manifesto

Panic

The Last Laugh

The Sinister Side of the Moon

Hell and High Water

Hardrada’s Hoard

The Thursday Syndrome

ESPIONAGE:

‘Y’ OH ‘Y;

CHAPTER ONE

Cnut could not help a feeling of pride, as he watched his perfectly executed double-roll cast unfurl gracefully, dropping the fly – a trout-pattern crane fly of his own invention – as softly as thistledown on the surface of the water, exactly where he wanted it -  less than a metre upstream of where he’d seen the faint hint of a rise moments before, no more than a hand’s breadth from the far bank. He guessed that the fish was lying under the overhang, carved out by earlier floodwater at the bend, ready to feed on anything brought down on the current.

For once, murder was far from his mind.

Immediately, the water heaved, the fly disappeared, and his rod was almost torn out of his hands, as the fish, feeling the hook and scared for its life, made its first mad dash, taking over thirty metres of line before he could stop it.

At that precise moment, he heard the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth coming from his inside pocket. He smiled grimly. Even if it were God on the other end of that particular line, He would have to wait. The other line – that with the fish on - would be his entire world – a totally absorbing fight to the finish, for the next few minutes.

Nothing else on earth mattered one hoot.

Many times afterwards, he wondered if destiny could have been changed if he’d answered the call immediately, and always came up with the same answer – admittedly one that suited him best: probably not.

His best friend, Colonel Ole Olssen, Head of the Norwegian Secret Service, fishing near him as his guest, chuckled enviously, ‘Well done, Cnut. You make me look like a ham-fisted amateur when you cast like that. No wonder the fish took the fly, and it looks like a damned fine specimen.’

He added the unnecessary admonition, ‘Keep his head up.’

Ole admired Cnut’s almost uncanny ability to ‘read the water’, think outside the box, and try unusual tactics in his fishing – tactics that more often than not enabled him to catch more fish than his peers. The salmon he was fighting now would have never seen a crane fly of that pattern in its life, yet that was what it had taken so readily.

After watching Cnut’s flawless display, and praying that the Devil was not listening, Ole silently pledged for the umpteenth time that he would happily give five years of his life to master the spectacular double roll cast, as Cnut had – a cast that set the men out from the boys in the salmon fishing world.

Despite years of salmon fishing experience, dozens of expensive sessions with top class instructors, and help from Cnut, the best he could manage was a decent single roll, which did the job all right, but was far less impressive. It all came down to the exact placing of the hands, and precise timing.

Cnut had permission for himself and one other to fish that stretch of the river for one week each year, and he and Ole had given it their best efforts for the previous five days, from dawn till dusk, and that morning for almost four hours, using every salmon fly in their boxes, without a hint of a take, and Cnut had tied on the smaller trout fly in desperation. They had spent much of the time as they fished discussing how the likes of Bjørn Rune Gjelsten, the Norwegian industrialist, and Frances ‘Frankie’ Wolfson, the dedicated salmon-fishing lady from Florida, who flew in every year on their private jets, and paid upwards of five thousand dollars a day to fish upstream on the Alta Elva, were getting on. The word on the salmon grapevine was that on five consecutive days that season, not one fish had been caught by the three dozen or so anglers who had paid at least that much to fish. It was down to the temperature of the water, which, for that time of the year, was unusually warm – hovering just above 18 Celsius – the temperature at which all salmonids stop feeding.

Cnut could claim to fish the same river as the billionaires, but the Alta tributary that he had permission to fish – the Elbyelva, though still a good salmon river, was the poor relation, with many less fish available to be caught, thanks to the dozens of salmon traps along its length, allowed by the state to the Saami, the indigenous people of Finnmark, who by tradition earned their living from the river.

The fish he had on must have evaded all of those traps, and he judged the fish to be a wily old cock fish, weighing something over fifteen kilos, from the fight it was giving him.

Five times, he brought it almost within netting distance, and each time, as if the fish knew how close to capture it was, it made another long dash, Cnut just managing to keep contact with it, so that the hook didn’t slip, but the last run had not had quite as much power behind it, and he knew the battle was close to the end.

Feeling at one with the fish, he played it gently in for the last time, and instead of netting it, causing it more unnecessary stress, he beached it where Ole could ‘tail’ it, in a shallow pool.

The fish thrashed, but Cnut bent and held its head, so that he could release the barbless hook from its mouth.

Ole, admiring the salmon, suggested, ‘Very close to twenty kilos, Cnut. D’you want to weigh it?’

He shook his head, ‘No, we won’t put it through that; keep it in the water. I agree with you - it has to be around that weight – look at its girth. Let him go.’

Ole turned the fish and guided it back into the stream, holding it for the few seconds it needed to regain the strength to swim away.

They watched it go, slowly and unsure at first, and then, with a sudden burst of speed as its strength began to return, it hurtled away into the depths.

Cnut remembered the phone call. He laid his rod on the ground and began to dig under his waders for the inside pocket that held the phone in a waterproof case.

It was a struggle, but at last he had the phone out of the case. Looking at the caller display, he saw a name that really surprised him.

Frowning, he told Ole, ‘Rolf Anderson. I haven’t spoken to him in years. I’m surprised he still has my number. D’you remember him?’

‘Of course. He was a regular in the old football team. God, that was how long ago? Must be damned near thirty years since we left high school. I heard he’d made a name for himself in a big oil firm that diversified into communications and computer games.’

‘He did. He’s now CEO of that company, which he actually owns outright, and a multi-billionaire. The company is damned near as big as Apple, with new products coming out every few months. The last time we met, about six years ago, was at an evening ‘do’ that I had to attend, as the official police presence. It was something to do with national politics and oil concessions, but it went way over my head. I got the impression from a couple of conversations I overheard that he was financially backing a candidate for the Storting, without it being public knowledge.’

‘Has he left a message?’

‘Looks like it.’ Cnut pressed, ‘Speaker’, and then ‘Play’.

Rolf’s voice sounded subdued, ‘Cnut. It’s Rolf Anderson. I urgently need your help. He is going to kill me.’

Ole frowned, ‘Is that it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Shit in a bucket. What a bloody strange call, and who the hell is the he who’s supposedly going to kill him?’

‘Whoever it is, it must be serious. Rolf was never one to panic, was he? "Steady Rolf" we used to call him. Not the fastest or most brilliant footballer on the pitch, but once he had control of the ball it was his until he passed it or took a shot at goal. Nevertheless, we can’t let his call spoil the fishing. We only have tomorrow, and then it’s back to the grind. If it was that urgent, he’d have called his local police, not me.’

‘I couldn’t agree more. We need that other day. I can’t let you beat me yet again.’

‘I don’t know what he thinks I can do about his worries. He’d need to give me a hell of a lot more information before I decided to get involved professionally. I’ll send him a text that I’ll call in and see him when we get back, but I’ll have to point out to him that I investigate crimes that have been committed, not pie in the sky. He must have a whole team of experienced in-house security people who could handle the problem.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t trust them. I wonder who that he is. If Rolf gets bumped off before we get back, it would have been good to know who the murderer was.’

‘Let’s hope that he waits until we get back.’

‘In any case, it sounds intriguing. I might go with you to see him. I have a few more days’ leave after we go back.’

Cnut laughed, ‘It’s not your thing either, Ole. There won’t be any terrorist involvement.’

‘Probably not, but I like a challenge, and working with you on the Wolfman case has given me a taste for criminal investigation. I know we do more or less the same job, but mine is generally a case of knowing who the perpetrator is and going after him, rather than trying to find out who he is. This case seems to fit the bill perfectly.’

‘Okay, I’ll text Rolf and ask the important question.’

He did just that, noting that the signal varied between one bar and nothing. He pulled a face, ‘Finnmark is not the best place in the world to use a cell phone. I deliberately don’t bring a satellite phone with me, and Ilse would only ring me in a dire emergency. Fishing should be phone free.’

‘I’m with you a hundred per cent there.’

‘Well, the message should get through all right - sometime.’

It did.

Rolf Anderson received it as he sat in his luxurious, black leather executive chair, behind his enormous, solid oak desk, in his office atop the Anselolje building in the heart of Oslo, with its magnificent views over the city and the waterfront, master of everything in the massive building, and a shivering wreck, wondering if the coffee in the antique Meissen cup that Mia Engelsen, his personal private secretary, had just brought in for him, contained poison.

He was thinking that like the emperors of old, and since he certainly paid her enough, he should have made her take a sip while he watched, aware of how ridiculously paranoid he was being.

Mia had been his devoted right hand for eighteen years, and he knew that she virtually worshipped him, and would have happily died for him.

She was no longer the slim, highly attractive young thing she had been when she first started working for him, desperately wanting him to love her physically.

He had known how she felt – she wore her heart on her sleeve, but he’d never felt any attraction for her – at that time having eyes only for Mari – his wife and childhood sweetheart.

After half a dozen years, Mia finally realised that she would never be anything other than a work colleague to him, and he had seen her almost shrivel up, but in time she recovered, and continued to serve him faithfully, resigned to being an old maid. No other man had ever attracted her, and though she hated and was repulsed by the later changes in him, she remained under his spell.

He moved to pick up the cup, but his hand was shaking so much that he dare not attempt to do so.

His life, which had been so organised, so secure, now hung by a thread.

The voice in his head thundered repeatedly the message: "I am going to kill you!"

He sent the name to Cnut: "Henrik Brekke".

That message, as they sometimes do, lodged somewhere in the ether, or wherever it was that such electronic blurbs spent their time en route to their designated destinations, not reaching the anglers while they enjoyed their last, and again fishless, day on the river. It finally came through as Cnut braked the hired Renault Kadjar to a halt in the Avis car park at Alta airport,

He ignored the call until he’d completed the car return formalities, and he and Ole were sitting in the airport café, with open sandwiches topped with graved lax, and embellished with chopped cornichons and sliced, hardboiled eggs. Steaming mugs of coffee made up the makeshift meal.

He switched on his cell phone, read the message, and whistled.

Ole, lifting his sandwich up to his mouth, stopped and asked, ‘Problem?’

Cnut shrugged, ‘I guess you could say so. It’s the answer from Rolf, and consists of just two words.’

‘Well, don’t keep me in suspense.’

‘How does Henrik Brekke grab you?’

‘Norway’s Mark Zuckerberg? As Rolf’s potential murderer? He’s got to be fucking joking.’

‘I don’t know. Brekke was a bit of a weirdo, wasn’t he – a real nerd? D’you remember that night?’

‘After the try-out match? God knows what made him think he could make it as a footballer, but his behaviour was that of a spoilt brat. He threatened everyone there, including both of us, for making him look small.’

‘He managed to do that all by himself. Didn’t Gert Hauge say something then about Brekke wanting to be in the team only because he was trying to impress a girl at the time?’

‘Mari Lansen. She was footballer-mad, along with her friends, but none of them could hold a candle to her. She could have been a fashion model. I fancied her something rotten, like most of the boys. Do you remember her?’

‘Oh, yes, I remember Mari. It would be difficult not to. What happened to her?’

Ole smirked, ‘She married Rolf.’

‘Oh, shit.’

‘Oh, shit, indeed.’

‘But why the fuck has Brekke waited all these years to get his revenge, if that is what he’s after?’

‘Rolf may be able to tell us when we see him.’

‘Maybe he’s gone ga-ga, or he used some kind of trickery to win her, and Henrik has only recently found out about it.’

‘It can’t be that. As far as I remember, she never once gave a single glance Henrik’s way, and her engagement to Rolf was a long one. They waited until they’d both finished at uni before getting married.’

‘Did they have any kids?’

‘No idea. I haven’t kept tabs that close on them.’

‘Rolf will no doubt tell us when we see him.’

Ole, grinning like a mischievous schoolboy who has just tied someone’s shoe laces together when they were not looking, threw his hands in the air and exclaimed, ‘I’ve got it!’

Cnut chuckled, ‘Well, don’t worry too much - they tell me they can do wonders with penicillin these days.’

‘Gee, thanks - I’ll tell my quack. According to the papers, Henrik has invented dozens of hi-tech bits of scientific gear. I’ll bet he’s come up with some new and undetectable way of killing.’

Cnut laughed out loud, ‘Don’t be daft.’

They were words he would remember for the rest of his life.

CHAPTER TWO

Their flight landed at Gardemoen at ten to eight, and as they strolled out to the car park, Cnut asked, ‘Are you picking Moos up today?’

Ole had put his German shepherd bitch – an ex-police dog that had been retired after almost dying in a shooting incident - in kennels for the period that they had been away, and Cnut knew that he had missed her badly. She was his constant companion, even accompanying him to work.

Ole shook his head sadly, ‘It’s not possible. They only book animals in and out between ten and two each day.’

‘Couldn’t you have had your daily woman pick her up?’

‘I would have, but she wanted to visit her daughter in Canada, and I gave her ten days off, starting the day we left.’

‘That’s a shame, but you’ll be able to collect Moos in the morning.’

‘After we’ve seen Rolf. What time will that be?’

Cnut considered, ‘I’ll need to go into work first thing, to bring myself up to date, but that should not take long. Ilse will give me most of the detail this evening. Let’s say ten o’clock at Rolf’s place. I’ll send him a text to that effect.’

‘Sounds good to me. I need to check the status quo too.’

‘You’re sure you want to do this?’

‘Absolutely. He’s got me intrigued.’

‘And me, despite my misgivings.’

‘See you then. Give my best to Ilse.’

‘Will do.’

After they’d parted, Cnut kicked himself mentally for not inviting Ole home for supper. His friend would be going home to a cold, empty house, whereas Cnut knew that a warm meal, and an even warmer woman, would be waiting for him the moment he walked in his front door.

He was not disappointed in either respect.

Breathless after a passionate kiss that lasted more than two minutes, he chuckled and ordered Ilse, ‘Put me down, woman. You don’t know where I’ve been.’

She laughed, ‘At least, you don’t smell of fish. No luck?’

‘One very good one, but we tried everything in the book, and a lot that wasn’t.’

‘And you caught it?’

He nodded.

‘Poor Ole. All right, you have a reprieve for fifteen minutes. Sit down at the table. I don’t want you assaulting me while I cook your supper.’

Ilse was busy in the kitchen for five of those minutes, and the smell of whatever she was cooking had Cnut’s taste buds tingling.

He called through, ‘Is that steak I can smell?’

Instead of answering, Ilse walked through into the dining room, bearing a plate on which a four hundred gram sirloin reposed, accompanied by miniature sweetcorn, new potatoes tossed in minted butter, asparagus tips and petit pois.

‘I splashed out. Genuine Kobe beef, flown all the way from Japan, especially for my man.’

‘Who will love it almost as much as he loves you.’

‘I should hope so, at those prices.’

‘The Japanese actually do a different beef that is much more expensive.’

‘If they do, I’ve never heard of it.’

‘Matsusaka wagyu beef. Only obtained from virgin cows, three years old. From one farm that produces it, none of the beef ever leaves Japan. It costs roughly a hundred and seventy kroner for one hundred grams.’

‘Seventeen hundred a kilo?’

‘You’ve got it.’

‘My God.’

‘You called?’

Ilse chuckled, ‘Fool.’

‘You haven’t phoned me, so I guess there’s nothing new at work.’

‘Nothing urgent. A suicide that’s open and shut, and what looked like a teenager abduction, but was staged by the girl and her older boyfriend. But don’t worry about work. Eat, while it’s nice and hot.’

Ten minutes later he sighed, ‘Oh, Heavens. That was terrific, darling.’

‘I know, nearly as terrific as me. Tell me.’

As he pushed his chair back, he grinned lasciviously and murmured, ‘Actions speak louder than words, you know.’

‘I do.’

Forty minutes later, as they lay back, panting, Ilse murmured, ‘You’ve proved your point. Now, do I let you rest for ten minutes, before allowing you to put an exclamation mark on that comment, or do I insist on more conjugal rights this minute?’

‘And leave the washing up?’

She climbed on top of him, ‘To hell with the washing up. We’ll leave it till breakfast time.’

He chuckled, ‘I think I’m going to go fishing more often, if this is the treatment I get when I come home.’

At the breakfast table, he told her about Rolf Anderson’s phone call, and the imagined threat to his life from Henrik Brekke.

‘The Henrik Brekke?’

‘The very one.’

‘It sounds ridiculous.’

‘I’d like to think it is ridiculous, but to Rolf, at least, it’s anything but. I’ll be able to tell better when I’m face to face with him, but from his texts, the threat is a real one. If Ole wasn’t going to accompany me, I’d have liked you to be there, to make an assessment.’

‘Why don’t you use the minicam that Bim Halsen gave you? You’ve been looking for an excuse to use it, and this couldn’t be a more perfect time to do so. Rolf won’t know that you don’t normally wear glasses. I can watch the recording. It will be even better than being there, because I can re-run any part I need to.’

‘You’re right. Dig it out of the cupboard.’

The lens part of the equipment was hidden in the rim of a pair of plain-glass spectacles, and action was recorded on a device that the user kept in a pocket. It was switched on and off by a tiny button on the side of the right hand spectacle arm. Bim’s small business produced electronic surveillance equipment for the intelligence services, the police, and private detectives. The background of any private individual wanting to make a purchase was checked thoroughly before a sale was allowed, and the details kept. Cnut had been given it as a thank you from Bim, for rescuing his daughter from the men who had abducted her.

Ilse brought the spectacles and handed them to him, keeping the recording device in her hand.

He tried them on, and she giggled, ‘You look just like my old prof at college.’

‘Is that good or bad?’

She surveyed him, head on one side, and with a frown, as she considered, before giving her verdict, ‘You know, I rather like you with specs.’

‘Only rather like?’

She took the spectacles off and kissed him passionately.

‘But much better with everything off.’

She dodged away, laughing, and he tried to catch her.

‘Not now, Tiger. You have an appointment.’

‘Yes, and I’d better get a move on.’

A late snow flurry made him use the wipers as he pulled into the huge Anselolje car park.

Ole’s black VW Passat sat in one of the ‘Visitor’ slots, and Cnut pulled in alongside it.

They both exited their vehicles, and Ole turned up his collar, looking up at the heavens.

‘Did you order this, Cnut, or is the Almighty crapping on you?’

‘Probably the latter. He has damned good cause. Can’t remember when we last had snow in June.’

‘Well, at least we won’t need to get the snowploughs out. Let’s go in, out of the wet, and see the big man.’

He gave their names to one of the four lookalike blond goddesses behind the black granite desk and told her, ‘We have an appointment with Rolf Anderson.’

She looked down, nodded, and instructed, ‘Top floor. Mia Engelsen will meet you.’

The lift doors opened as they approached, and they entered it. Cnut took the spectacles from his pocket, put them on, after activating the camera, and pressed the button for the top floor.

He was about to press it again, since nothing seemed to be happening, and there was no sense of movement, but the doors opened onto a different scene, and an older woman, wearing a no-nonsense tweed business suit, and with scarcely a hint of make-up, greeted them with, ‘Good day. Follow me, please.’

She led them into a luxuriously decorated office, with an all-round view of Oslo. Cnut noticed that it had ceased snowing. A weak, watery sun, hiding behind thinning stratus cloud, was trying its best to lighten the sky.

A man neither of them recognised turned away from the window, through which he’d been looking, and came forward to shake hands with them.

Rolf Anderson, at forty-eight, looked more like a haggard seventy-year-old, and appeared to carry all the woes of the world on his shoulders. The suit he was wearing looked baggy on him, and his hand felt bony. It was obvious that he had recently lost a lot of weight. The right side of his neck looked red raw.

‘Cnut – Ole. Thank you for coming. You’re both looking good. Wish I did. Do sit down. Would you like coffee, or something else?’

Cnut shook his head, ‘We’re good, thank you, Rolf.’

‘Do you mind if Mia stays?’

‘Not at all. Please tell us what you know.’

‘It started about two weeks ago. I suddenly had Henrik Brekke’s voice in my head, repeating over and over, "I’m going to kill you." That voice is there all the time, twenty-four/seven. It’s even intruding now – I have to exert all my will to speak to you. I can’t sleep, can’t keep anything I eat down, can’t concentrate on business. Mia has been taking all the important decisions. It’s all I can do to sign papers.’

Cnut asked the all-important question, ‘How do you know that the voice you’re hearing is that of Henrik Brekke?’

Rolf frowned, ‘I just know it is.’

‘Because it sounds like his voice as it was when we were boys?’

‘No, it’s completely different to that.’

‘Do you know his adult voice? Have you spoken to him recently?’

‘The answer to both those questions is no, but I am positive that it is his voice.’

Cnut was on the point of saying, ‘And that’s all?’

He stopped himself. The man in front of them would not have reacted well to that question. It was obvious that what faced him was real enough to him.

‘Have you seen him on a news programme, or watched a video of one of his speeches? He must have made quite a few over the years.’

‘I don’t recall having done so.’

Cnut changed tack, ‘Have you been in any situation where you could have been hypnotised?’

‘Hypnotised?’

‘It sounds like a classic case, Rolf. I didn’t believe in hypnotism, until I had cause to visit a doctor who used it in his profession. He convinced me, I can tell you, and cured me of what ailed me, with no trouble at all. I could remember everything he said afterwards, because he decided that I should. Had he wanted to, he could have instructed me to forget the treatment altogether. Someone could easily have planted that phrase in your mind, if he had you mentally under his control.’

‘D’you really think so?’

‘Yes, Rolf, I do. Have you had any business dealings with Henrik Brekke that would make him want to harm you?’

‘We mass produce some items for which he, through his company, holds the patents, but we pay royalties for each one that we turn out. There has never been any legal problem, and there has never been any personal contact between us since our schooldays.’

‘Have you had any private or business dealings with anyone else that could have made them want to harm you?’

‘You mean someone who is trying to make it look as if it’s Brekke?’

‘Exactly.’

‘No one I can think of. Throughout my business life, I have religiously stuck to the principle my father instilled in me: In all your business dealings, act honourably. Business can be a hard taskmaster, and some decisions one makes can be taken a different way by the third party. One man’s character is very different to that of another man’s, but I can’t think of anyone in the business world that I have ever wronged enough to want to kill me.’

‘And what about Mari? Has he contacted her recently?’

‘You think this could be about Mari? After all this time? I know he was sweet on her all those years ago, but as far as I know, he never made any direct approach to her, and she was hardly aware of his existence, even back then.’

‘It’s the only connection I could make, if there really is a threat to your life.’

‘My God! I hadn’t given that a thought. Surely, he couldn’t still be holding a grudge.’

‘I know it’s highly unlikely, but I can’t come up with another reason why he would want to cause you to be as troubled as you are. I think the first thing we should do is to get you a session with Doctor Arne Arneson. He will remove that phrase from your mind