Free The Devil's Sanctuary by Marie Hermanson

fainted.”
    Daniel felt upset. He found the clinic’s billing methods very odd, and in Max’s case distinctly inappropriate. Maybe they weren’t aware of his problems? But he composed himself and said as calmly as he could, “I can’t pay to get you out of the clinic, if that’s what you’re thinking. I work as a substitute teacher, and I’ll be unemployed as of this autumn. I just don’t have the money.”
    Max crushed some glowing pieces of wood with his stick.
    “I’m not asking you for money,” he said tersely. “I’ve got money.”
    Instead of being reassured by this response, Daniel felt even more anxious.
    “So what’s the problem?”
    “The problem is that I can’t get at my money. I can’t leave the clinic without paying the bill. And I can’t pay the bill without leaving the clinic. Catch twenty-two.”
    “But you’re away from the clinic now, aren’t you?” Daniel said. “You come and go just as you like.”
    “Only as long as I’m in my cabin at eight o’clock in the morning and twelve o’clock at night. The staff make daily rounds. To keep an eye on us, as they put it. But they’re actually making sure that no one tries to get away without paying.”
    “So why do you have to leave the clinic? Can’t you just transfer the money over the Internet or something?”
    “The money isn’t in a bank account. It’s somewhere where it needs to be moved to somewhere else. In person. Not digitally. In cash. The Mafia are a bit old-fashioned when it comes to that.”
    “Oh,” Daniel said, taken aback. “I’m not sure I’m quite with you now. Are you doing business with the Mafia, Max?”
    Max shrugged his shoulders beseechingly. Far in the distance came the quirky, clanging sound as the cows moved. Sometimes there was just a solitary little ring, sometimes a whole peal.
    “Not if I can help it. But in this case I had no choice. I won’t bore you with the whole story. But I’ve got money to collect there. An investment I made that’s paid off, so to speak. Not strictly legal, as you can probably imagine.”
    Daniel wasn’t particularly surprised. Max had gotten mixed up in things before. There had been proceedings and court cases. But, as far as Daniel was aware, they had all been in the civil courts. He had never actually been accused of breaking the law. Had he?
    “This is positively the last time I ever do a deal like this, you can be sure of that,” Max said through clenched teeth. “I hate those criminal bastards. They’ve got no morals at all. The problem is that I’m in debt to those scum.”
    “The Mafia?”
    It felt unreal, and almost rather thrilling, to use that word in conversation with his own brother.
    “Yes, I was forced to borrow some investment capital. And I would have paid off every last penny if things hadn’t got messed up and the profit been delayed. You don’t need to know the details,” Max said quickly when Daniel looked like he was about to ask a question. “I worked day and night to be able to repay the debt. You don’t miss a payment when you’ve got creditors like that. I asked for an extension, but they wouldn’t even talk to me. And then I collapsed and signed myself in here. Just after I arrived I got a letter from the guy I borrowed the money from. I don’t know how he got hold of the address. Clinics like this are supposed to be protected by all sorts of confidentiality, but he knew exactly where I was. He gave me a new deadline for repayment of the money. A date. And a threat.”
    “He threatened you?” Daniel said, horrified.
    Max shook his head.
    “Not me. Giulietta. In a few brief lines he implied that he knew that Giulietta was my fiancée, and the times when she usually goes to the market, and he said he hoped that nothing bad ever happened to her.”
    “Shit.”
    “Now I’ve heard that my investments have come good exactly as I thought they would, even if it’s taken time. I could repay the debt straightaway. The problem