Chapter 27
Reeze was riding faster than he really should have been, not because he had lost control but because his thoughts refused to slow down. Lotta’s phone call was still circling at the back of his mind, and the closer he got to the school, the less he liked what he had heard.
Molly had bitten someone.
It wasn’t exactly a sentence he had expected to be thinking today.
He could already picture the whole situation.
Lotta standing there shouting, the headteacher trying to keep some sort of order and Molly somewhere in the middle of it all with her arms folded and that particular expression she had inherited from him, the one that meant she had decided the entire world could go fuck itself if it insisted on continuing to be stupid.
Reeze turned onto the main road, and it was only then that the grey Volvo began to register properly.
At first there was nothing particularly unusual about it. It was a few cars behind him in traffic and could easily have been any other vehicle, but when he changed lanes, it did the same. Reeze kept his attention on the road and waited. A few minutes later, he eased off the throttle slightly.
The Volvo slowed as well. He increased his speed. So did the car.
The feeling in his stomach changed immediately, not to anger but to the alertness that came from spending years in a world where you learnt quickly that coincidence wasn’t always coincidence.
At the next roundabout, Reeze went all the way around once more for no reason whatsoever.
The Volvo followed. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Right.”
The word disappeared beneath the sound of the engine. Now he started paying proper attention.
There were two people in the car, both men. The registration meant nothing to him, but that didn’t tell him much. If Dennis or his partner wanted to keep tabs on him, they were hardly likely to do it in a marked police car.
Not after everything that had happened. Reeze leaned forward over the tank and accelerated.
The bike responded immediately, and two quick lane changes later he cut in ahead of a van, took a late exit and disappeared into the industrial estate, where he knew every pothole, back road and narrow passage that could be used to lose someone.
He had ridden these streets for years and knew exactly where every road came out.
The Volvo tried to follow. Trying wasn’t the same thing as succeeding.
By the time Reeze emerged from the other side of the industrial estate a few minutes later, the car had disappeared from his mirrors.
He kept going anyway, taking another unnecessary detour before finally allowing himself to turn towards the school. Not for his own sake. For Molly.
If somebody really was watching him, there was no fucking chance he was leading them straight to his daughter. He didn’t stop until he was a couple of streets away from the school. Then he pulled over, took out his phone and typed quickly.
Reeze:Grey Volvo. Two men. Followed me.
Pick Molly up in the car. Park round the corner.
Wait for my message.
Billy answered almost immediately.
Billy:Already on my way.
That allowed Reeze to breathe a little easier, although nowhere near enough to relax. He put the phone away, removed his helmet and ran a hand through his hair as he looked towards the school building ahead.
Only a few hours earlier, he had been sitting in a club meeting discussing rival clubs, cops and weapons. Now he was about to walk into a primary school and find out why his eight-year-old daughter had bitten somebody.
In some fucked-up way, that almost felt harder.
Lill?ngen Primary School smelled of dust, cleaning products and boiled pasta, the same peculiar mixture that seemed to exist in every school in the country regardless of how old the building was or how much money the local council spent renovating it.
Children’s voices echoed from farther along the corridor, and when Reeze stepped through the entrance, the contrast with the rest of his day hit him all at once.
An hour ago he had been sitting with two clubs discussing things that could get people killed.
Now he was walking past a wall covered in drawings of suns, cats and crooked little houses while two children farther down the corridor seemed to be on the verge of starting the Third World War over something that sounded suspiciously like a pair of scissors.
He almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it.
Almost. Instead, he walked towards the school office, where the secretary sat behind her computer doing her best to look busy.
She barely had time to lift her head before he saw her register the injuries, her eyes moving first to the dressing across his forehead, then to the bruising along his jaw and finally to the fact that he was holding his left shoulder slightly more stiffly than his right.
“I’m here to collect Molly Larsson.”
The woman blinked a couple of times.
“The headteacher would like to speak to you first.”
Reeze rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and glanced down the corridor.
“That’s fine. But first I want to see my daughter.”
He didn’t have to wait long before Molly’s teacher came walking towards him. Reeze recognised her immediately, the same rigid posture as the last time and the same expression suggesting she had already decided who the problem was before she even opened her mouth.
This time, however, her gaze lingered on the dressing across his forehead slightly longer than usual, and when she finally met his eyes, she didn’t look quite as confident as she normally did.
“Mr Larsson.”
“Where’s Molly?”
“We need to discuss what happened first.”
“We can do that.” Reeze kept his voice calm. “But then we start with what actually happened.”
The teacher drew a breath, clearly already realising the conversation wasn’t going to follow the route she had planned.
“Your daughter bit another pupil, broke a tablet and shouted at members of staff when we tried to intervene.”
Reeze remained silent for a few seconds and let the words settle. It sounded bad when it was laid out like that. But he knew his daughter, and Molly rarely did anything without some kind of reason.
“Why?”
The teacher looked almost taken aback. “Excuse me?”
“Why did she bite him?”
The hesitation that followed was almost enough of an answer by itself. “An older pupil took her cap.”
Reeze felt his jaw tighten. “And?”
“He ran off with it.”
“So you let an older kid harass her.”
“We work with conflict resolution.”
“I’m sure Molly does too.”
The irritation began to show more clearly in the woman’s face.
“We do not tolerate violence at this school.”
“No.” Reeze nodded slowly. “But you seem to have a hell of a lot more tolerance for whatever happens before somebody fights back.”
The teacher opened her mouth to respond but never got the chance because his phone vibrated in his pocket.
Reeze glanced at the screen.
Billy:Here. Grey Volvo two streets away.Still there.
The cold feeling returned immediately.
So they hadn’t given up after all.
He answered quickly without allowing anything to show in his face.
Reeze:Take Molly when I tell you.Back door.
Then he put the phone away again.
“Where is she?” This time the teacher didn’t argue.
A few moments later, the door to the headteacher’s office opened and Molly came out.
She looked smaller standing amongst all the adults, but she definitely didn’t look frightened. If anything, she looked pissed off, which made something inside Reeze soften despite the situation.
It was only when she saw him that the anger disappeared from her face.
Her gaze went straight to the dressing on his forehead.
“Dad…”
“Come here, flea.”
Molly walked towards him but stopped directly in front of him instead of throwing herself into his arms the way she had when she was younger.
“Who did that?”
She pointed towards his forehead.
“Adult stuff.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
Despite everything, Reeze almost smiled.
“No. But it’s the answer you’re getting right now.”
Molly didn’t look particularly satisfied, but apparently decided to leave it for the moment.
“I bit him.”
“I heard.”
“He took my cap.”
“I heard that too.”
She lifted her chin slightly.
“I told him to stop.”
Reeze looked at her for a moment. He could already hear Lotta, the school and every other adult in the world talking about impulse control and conflict resolution without saying a single fucking word about what had happened first.
“You never start it.”
Molly blinked.
“What?”
“You never start it. But if somebody keeps going after you’ve told them to stop, you defend yourself.”
The noise Molly’s teacher made sounded as though she had swallowed something sour.
“Mr Larsson, you cannot encourage—”
“I’m not.”
He took out his phone again and sent a short message.
Reeze:Now.
Then he put it away and took Molly’s hand.
“Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“Out the back.”
Molly immediately looked suspicious.
“Why?”
Reeze glanced briefly towards the window at the end of the corridor before looking back at her.
“Because I feel like being difficult today.”
For the first time since she came out of the headteacher’s office, Molly grinned.
“Good. Me too.”
Something inside him loosened.
“Like ninjas?” she whispered as they started walking.
A faint smile touched his mouth. “Exactly like ninjas.”
That answer immediately made her considerably happier with the arrangement, and when they left the teacher standing behind them, Molly walked with that particular self-confidence only children seemed able to rediscover a few minutes after the entire world had nearly ended.
Reeze let her go through the back door first and followed her out into the cool air.
On the far side of the school grounds, Billy was already waiting in the car, and when Molly spotted him she waved so enthusiastically that Billy immediately began waving back through the windscreen like a complete idiot.
She giggled. For the first time since Lotta had called, she actually looked like what she was.
A child. Reeze wished he could feel the same relief.
The grey Volvo was still sitting two streets away, and somebody had followed him while he was on his way to collect his daughter. That was a line he had absolutely no intention of allowing anyone to cross. But that could wait until Molly was safely in Billy’s car.