The meanest Flood

Svinesund bridge and felt the hairline prickle at the back of his neck as the Norwegian/Swedish border came in sight. There were a couple of lights on in the custom buildings and someone in a uniform by a large container lorry. But the road wasn’t manned and the stream of traffic continued on into Sweden without interruption.
    Sam changed the tape, pushed the play button on the audio system and listened to the opening strains of the first of the Five Preludes by a Brazilian guitarist who had known Villa-Lobos and who had had his brow touched by the hand of God.
    He settled back in the well-upholstered seat of the V70 and aimed it towards Gothenburg. He drove into the night thinking about women who had accompanied him on shorter or longer journeys and who had shared his past. He thought about Geordie stuck back in Oslo and he thought about Angeles in York. And as the kilometres passed he began to focus on Alice Richardson, tried to imagine her in her house in Clementhorpe with her husband and her children. He knew that he wasn’t the only one thinking about her, that the man who had already murdered three of Sam’s previous partners also had her on his mind.
    ‘But I’ll beat you this time,’ Sam said out loud. ‘Whatever it takes, you’re not having Alice as well.’
     
    He parked the V70 on the top deck of a multi-storey car park in the middle of Gothenburg. Bought a ticket for it and stuck it on the windscreen.
    He had breakfast in a fast-food joint, baguette with bacon and Brie and two cups of strong black. He pumped the assistant for directions to the docks. He felt good in the new Finnish suit, it took ten years off him, and when he’d handed over the cash it felt like that many years’ earnings.
    But if that was how much it cost to keep him on the street then it was worth the money. If he was picked up now they’d lock him away and leave him to rot. And there’d be no hope at all for Alice.
    The Stena Germanica was at her berth but wasn’t due to leave for Kiel until 7.30 that evening. He bought a single ticket and sat in the waiting room with a coffee machine and a German tourist with a limp for four hours. They both attempted to breach the language barrier and failed almost completely. Sam discovered that the German liked his new suit but was unable to discover which part of Germany he came from. They settled on sign language eventually and were able to express joint disgust over the warm sludge which the machine served up if they fed it enough Swedish Kroner.
    When they got on board Sam went to his cabin and locked the door. He showered and lay down on his bunk, pulling the single white duvet around him. He listened to the chugging of the huge engines and felt the rolling of the ship as it left the shelter of Gothenburg behind. With his eyes closed he allowed his mind to gnaw at the bone of facts and suppositions about the killer. The guy was almost there, still emerging from a welter of leads and clues and random inklings. Sam was looking for a miracle, something that would collect the disparate facts together and deliver an exact portrait of the killer. His choice of language on the phone when he was gloating over the death of Nicole. When your ex-partner was transformed, he’d said. That single word, transformed. It had to be significant. And in Oslo, when he used the word Katha like an incantation, before axing Geordie. Katha was not an incantation, it was a meditation or a prayer of some kind.
    When he thought of the killer in terms of his language Sam imagined a mystic, a holy man or a latter-day hippie. If that was the case the killings would appear to be sacrificial.
    But language wasn’t the only thing that was known about the man. The braid on his trousers - that was so odd that it had to be significant. On the other hand he was good at disguising himself. Geordie had recognized him as two, probably three, different characters in Oslo. So the braid could be a blind lead.
    And then there was the pubic hair. The distinct possibility that he might have a doll. He could be a ventriloquist, perhaps? Sam shook his head. Ventriloquism brought him back full circle to language again.
    It didn’t matter how many times he went over the facts the guy refused to come into focus. He was almost there, as if he was tantalizing Sam, standing in the shadows of consciousness. No matter which way Sam came at him he managed to stay out of the light. He was a silhouette, a ghost. He didn’t seem to be