by Thomas Enger
The man leapt around to the other side of the table to retrieve it. Seizing her chance, Emma stormed out into the dark hallway, making for the front door, but before she could reach it he’d caught up with her, jerking her backwards as he grabbed her jacket with one hand and her hair with the other.
The movement made her wig come loose and it slid off in his hand. He was so astonished that he let go of her jacket as well. Emma propelled herself towards the door and tore it open.
She took the steps in two desperate leaps, hungrily devouring the cool air as she ran towards the dense forest.
She hadn’t covered much ground when she heard him on the gravel behind her. In blind panic, she ran for all she was worth, but the past twenty-four hours had drained her. He was upon her before she’d reached the trees. He flung her to the ground and pressed her head into the grass.
Emma felt one arm locked in his grip behind her back. He pushed his other arm over against her neck, and she realised he was trying to block an artery. He was strong; she understood now how little chance the others had had. She was trapped; she couldn’t fight him.
Without warning he let go.
Then she heard a noise. As if someone was striking sparks. Then came the pain, and her muscles were paralysed. Her eyes saw only darkness.
91
‘Let’s hope this isn’t another false alarm,’ Blix said. ‘Or some kind of diversionary tactic.’
Kovic looked across at him. They’d left Majorstua behind and were on their way towards Røa.
Motorists dutifully pulled over to let them through. They had soon passed Røa en route to Sørkedalen, where soon the houses were more scattered, farms took over and Nordmarka spread out on the right-hand side. Several patrol cars were in pursuit, but Blix and Kovic led the pack.
‘The location’s not very far from the cabin where Jessica Flatebø was found,’ Kovic remarked – she was moving back and forth from the map displayed on her mobile screen. ‘It … looks like a farm.’
Yet another farm, Blix thought. The sense of being tricked overwhelmed him once again.
‘Have we traced the owner?’ he asked.
Kovic opened a message from the police operations centre.
‘It belonged to a man who died eighteen months ago,’ she read out.
‘Who owns it now?’
‘It looks like a company.’
‘OK, so who owns the company?’
Kovic read on a little. ‘It doesn’t say.’
‘No information at all?’
‘It says something about a foreign bank, but no name or contact details.’
Shaking his head, Blix kept a tight hold on the steering wheel as he manoeuvred the car on through Sørkedalen. Soon he took a right turn into Zinoberveien and swept past a car park. The tarmac surface gave way to gravel and pebbles. Although Blix had often skied in Nordmarka, he was far from familiar with the terrain. He knew there was a profusion of tracks, rivers and lakes in the area they were traversing now, forests and wilderness where people liked to go hiking at all times of the year. But it was also the perfect place in which to hide from the outside world.
‘How long is it since the alarm was activated?’
‘Twenty-eight minutes.’
‘How long have we left to drive, approximately?’
‘We should be at the turnoff any moment.’
Blix dropped his speed. The road had narrowed almost to a single lane.
‘It’s over there on the right,’ Kovic said, pointing at a narrow track curving off from the road. Braking, Blix swung on to it, tall shrubs on either side. Branches lashed and scraped the sides of the car.
‘Shit!’ Kovic exclaimed, twisting her neck back towards something they’d passed.
‘What is it?’
‘Didn’t you see the camera?’
‘What camera?’ Blix took his foot off the accelerator and turned his head.
‘There was a CCTV camera hanging in one of the trees just after the turnoff,’ Kovic told him.
‘So he may be watching our approach,’ Blix said. ‘Bloody hell.’
‘Brake,’ Kovic said. ‘It’s just around this bend.’
They drove through a grove of closely packed trees. There was light further ahead. Blix braked even harder and stopped where the trees ended and an extensive grassy area stretched out before them. A white-painted house could be seen in the distance, smoke curling from the chimney. A satellite dish was attached to one wall, and there was a barn, partly hidden by the house.
‘How far behind are the others?’ Blix asked.
‘Four or five minutes, maybe,’ Kovic replied.
The car engine was running, but it was making so much noise that Blix switched it off. All at once they were enveloped in total silence.
‘There’s a light at the window,’ Kovic said.
Blix sat studying the house, searching for movement at the windows.
An alarm broke the stillness. Intermittent and piercing, and unmistakeable: a smoke alarm.
Blix and Kovic exchanged looks before turning their eyes back to the house. Something grey billowed up inside one of the windows.
‘Damn and blast,’ he said, turning the ignition to start the car. ‘Call it in!’
Kovic grabbed the police radio while Blix stepped on the gas, making the wheels spin on the gravel. The acceleration whipped them both back.
‘We’re really exposed!’ she yelled. ‘He’s probably armed. We should wait for backup.’
Blix didn’t reply, and they continued heading for the white house. More and more smoke was visible inside the windows, and the alarm continued to screech.
When they reached the farmyard, Blix stood on the brakes and opened the car door before the vehicle had completely stopped. Jumping out, he unholstered his gun and clicked off the safety catch.
‘I’m going in,’ he said to Kovic, who was still in the car.
‘Alex…’ she began.
‘Stay here and cover the exit. Stay in touch with the centre. I have to see if Emma’s in there.’
With a single leap he mounted the steps and tugged at the door. It was open. He pulled it towards him, and the acrid smell of smoke hit him full blast. He took a couple of deep breaths of clean air. And then plunged in.
Inside, he held one hand over his mouth. Coughed once. Shouted Emma’s name. No answer.
The hallway was wide with a high ceiling. The floor was covered in solid wooden planks that creaked beneath his feet.
‘Emma?!’
Still no answer. But he could hear something else that disturbed him even more.
The crackle of flames, coming in short bursts. The popping of timber as it buckled, the fluttering sound of tongues of flames licking up over a wall or curtain.
It was impossible to hear whether there was anyone else in the house. Footsteps or movements, or even shouts – everything was drowned out by the noise from the fire and the shrieking smoke alarm.
He rounded a corner. With his gun at the ready, he advanced as fast as he dared. His eyes had begun to smart. He coughed again, and put his arm across his face. Reached another open door. But the hallway continued on, and further in, on the floor, outside what he assumed to be a living room, he spotted a motionless pair of feet and trouser legs.
‘Emma?!’ he shouted again.
Keeping one arm over his mouth, he held his pistol in front of him with the other. Hunkering down to make himself smaller, he moved forwards.
A spurt of flame lit up the room. The legs on the floor must belong to a man. The shoes were large.
Blix came closer.
The man was stretched out on his side. On the floor, beside his right hand, lay a gun. He had a gaping hole in his head. Nonetheless, it was not difficult to see who this was.
Walter Georg Dahlmann.
Further inside the house he heard the pop and crash of a minor explosion. The flames were taking hold of the room. Blix pulled back. He wouldn’t be able to remove Dahlmann’s body f
rom the house. He had to concentrate on finding Emma. Calling out her name, spluttering and floundering, he tumbled into another room. It was empty, apart from a number of gas bottles propped up against one wall. The stench of propane seeped ominously up from the floorboards.
He lurched back into the hallway; he was starting to feel dizzy now and it was difficult to get his bearings. The smoke stung his eyes. He screwed them shut for a few seconds. When he opened them again, he could make out the main door somewhere ahead of him through the smoke. Using the wall for support, he staggered forwards, coughing profusely, until he was out and could feel the steps beneath his feet.
Kovic charged towards him.
‘We need to move further back,’ he shouted. ‘The building could explode.’
Kovic scrambled into the car as Blix stumbled across the farmyard to the forest’s edge. Kovic reversed the car all the way back before dashing over to him.
‘Are they nearly here?’ Blix yelled.
‘Yes,’ Kovic replied. ‘Can’t you hear the sirens?’
But Blix still had the noise of the smoke alarms ringing in his ears. He shook his head in an effort to recover his wits.
The next moment, the air ripped apart.
92
The explosion hurled a searing whirlwind towards Kovic and Blix, knocking him over. He staggered to his feet and watched as the fresh oxygen from outdoors made the inferno burn even more strongly. The flames cast orange lights and shadows all around. The smoke changed character and became darker, almost black.
‘Dahlmann was in there,’ he said. ‘He was dead, with a gun beside him.’
Kovic took a few paces towards the blazing house, as if she wanted to come closer to an answer about what had happened.
‘Did he take his own life?’ she asked, mostly as a deduction. ‘Maybe he knew we were closing in on him? That it was all over.’
Blix heard another, smaller explosion in another part of the house. The flames that followed lunged out on one side, like arms and fists, before shooting upwards.
Blix hawked a few times; it felt as if his lungs were full of soot.
‘What about Emma?’ Kovic asked.
Blix shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘She might still be in there.’
The first patrol car entered the farmyard and stopped a good distance from the flames. A young police officer approached Kovic and Blix.
‘Is the fire brigade far away?’ Kovic asked.
The officer glanced back in the direction he had come from. ‘Maybe quarter of an hour.’
‘Check the barn and the rear of the house,’ Blix said, pointing. ‘In case there are any more people here.’
Responding with a nod, the policeman raced towards the barn while relaying a message on his handheld radio. The inferno grew even bigger, the flames now bursting through the roof, twisting and twirling as they rose into the sky.
Another patrol car arrived on the scene. Blix directed it towards the other one.
‘He must have rigged up the house,’ Kovic said. ‘To remove every scrap of evidence.’
‘Maybe,’ Blix replied pensively. ‘There were gas canisters in there. But I think we were the ones who set it off.’
‘How do you make that out?’
‘It all let fly when we turned up, just as we stopped in the stand of trees over there, almost to the exact second. As if we drove over a tripwire or something.’
‘We did pass that camera,’ Kovic said.
‘Yes,’ Blix said. ‘And from the very first moment we’ve been dealing with someone who has planned everything right down to the tiniest detail, and who has carefully laid out the pieces of the puzzle for us and virtually timed both when we should find a victim and when a victim should be killed. This,’ he said, pointing at the house, ‘falls nicely into place in the series.’
‘Do you think Dahlmann could have managed that?’ she asked.
Blix had always doubted Dahlmann’s abilities. Now he was even less certain of them.
‘I just can’t accept that he could,’ he said. ‘Why would he also make himself a victim?’
‘And what was Dahlmann known for?’ Kovic said. ‘He killed two people. He was a double murderer. Is he number two?’
Blix nodded. There was a good chance that Kovic’s reasoning was spot on.
One of the uniformed officers emerged from the barn and sprinted towards them.
‘They’ve found something,’ Kovic said.
They went to meet him.
‘There’s a body in there!’ he told them, indicating behind him. ‘A woman.’
Blix swore and picked up speed, Kovic following on his heels. The officer led them into a room at the far end of the barn and then down a staircase to a cellar with thick stone walls. Blix paused in the doorway. A bulb hanging from the ceiling was the only source of light. Beside the far wall, Sonja Nordstrøm lay in a pool of coagulated blood.
‘She can’t have been dead for more than a couple of hours,’ the police officer said.
A couple of hours, Blix thought, unable to make this add up. He was missing something.
‘Have you searched the rest of the building?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ was the prompt reply. ‘There’s no one else here.’
‘OK, then,’ Blix said. ‘This is a crime scene. Seal it off.’
They heard the sound of several sirens grow loud outside. The fire brigade had arrived.
As Blix and Kovic emerged from the barn, the fire fighters were already rolling out huge water hoses.
With a crash, the left gable wall of the house collapsed in a cascade of sparks that the hot air currents tossed back up to the heavens.
The water thundered through the hoses, but the flames grew stronger, as if receiving continual nourishment. The house would be razed to the ground, and it would take hours, if not days, before the burnt-out ruins could be examined and they could search for Emma’s remains.
‘It’s all over, then, isn’t it?’ Kovic said at Blix’s side. ‘His number series is complete. Sonja Nordstrøm, forever number one, is dead too.’
Flakes of grey ash drizzled down on them.
‘But we still don’t have number ten,’ Blix reminded her.
‘Yes, but it’s over and done with now, surely; number ten came first, presumably?’
Blix nodded. ‘If Dahlmann was acting on his own.’
‘There’s really nothing to suggest anything else,’ Kovic said. ‘I don’t think he could face going back to prison. This could have been his plan all along, to make himself part of his grand project.’
‘But why drag Emma into it?’ Blix protested. ‘All Dahlmann’s other victims were celebrities, and Emma wasn’t.’
Kovic couldn’t come up with a good answer. Blix followed the jets of water with his eyes, back to one of the fire engines. He coughed repeatedly once more.
‘But he did have problems with celebrities,’ Kovic said. ‘His girlfriend became famous. That destroyed his life. She found another boyfriend, and no one would believe he had acted in self-defence when he killed them. And when he became a celebrity, after we’d posted him nationwide as a wanted man, he killed something he’d come to despise wholeheartedly. In many ways we’ve come full circle. And his work is complete.’
Blix hung on Kovic’s every word, but still he resisted her argument. Emma’s role in all this, and the order of the killings, still troubled him. All the other victims had followed a particular chronology. If Dahlmann, number two, were behind it all, he would have had to kill number one – Sonja Nordstrøm – before he killed himself. It just didn’t fit the pattern.
More police cars had arrived now, and Gard Fosse stepped out from one of them.
Blix walked over and explained that Dahlmann’s corpse was inside the burning building, and that Sonja Nordstrøm’s cadaver had been found in the cellar in the barn.
‘And Emma Ramm?’
Blix shook his head as yet another wall caved in, scattering another c
loud of sparks. Kovic gave Fosse a condensed version of her personal theory of how Dahlmann had shot Nordstrøm before taking his own life.
‘Then it’s all at an end,’ his boss concluded. ‘It all stops here.’
Blix was less sure. He recalled the image of Dahlmann lying on the living-room floor. The position, the amount of blood, and the placing of the gun. Something jarred. He simply couldn’t make the details fit a suicide.
‘We really have to find out where it all started, before we can be certain it’s all over,’ he said, setting off towards the car. ‘That means we must find number ten.’
93
An hour later they were back at their desks in the police station. Kovic sat beside Blix, poring over a computer log. Nicolai Wibe was on the phone, while Tine Abelvik leafed through a printout of death notices. They were hoovering up all the death notifications they could find that had any connection to the number ten. Blix had told them to think creatively and extensively, and also to contact other police districts in the Østland region.
‘Jeppe Sørensen went missing on the twenty-ninth of September,’ he said. ‘We know Viking Willy, the lottery millionaire, and Mona Kleven, the woman with nine lives, were killed before that, so everything from about the middle of September until the twenty-ninth is relevant. If you can’t find anything in that time frame, go even further back.’
The dead person who had been the one to trigger the countdown should also be famous – this was where the snowball had started rolling – so it was likely that this particular victim had some special significance for the killer.
Blix had taken a shower after they’d returned from the burning house in Nordmarka. It was still difficult to breathe normally, but he’d turned a deaf ear to the advice that he ought to consult a doctor.
All the same, he found it difficult to focus. His thoughts centred on Emma. The uncertainty about what had happened to her. The idea that she had been inside the burning house was persistent and unsettling.
He tried to steer his mind back to Iselin. It was only a matter of hours until her sojourn in the house would be over, and he really had to attend the final show.