The Butterfly House

by Katrine Engberg

  “I’ll just take a little stroll in the fresh air. Then maybe in the meantime she’ll come back.”

  Anette ignored the woman’s look of surprise and walked back out into the pouring rain. Since she was soaked anyway, she might as well go see the fountain where Nicola Ambrosio’s body had been found.

  She sloshed off, head hunched over, down the hospital’s muddy gravel paths and quickly got lost again among the old, confusingly laid out hospital buildings. At a crossroads, past a modern addition with a glass facade, she took a short cut onto a tree-lined avenue and wound up at a construction site. This shouldn’t be that hard, damn it! The fountain was in the middle of the hospital grounds. She found her way back to the red stone building and was walking along a facade she recognized as being close to Ward U8 when an enormous flash of lightning tore the sky right above her.

  “Oh, fuck!” Anette was not afraid of thunderstorms, but that one was really close. She felt the phone vibrate in her pocket and looked for shelter so she could answer it. A few yards ahead a short flight of stairs led down to a basement door. She ran down the steps to the door, found it unlocked, and hurried in out of the rain. The fluorescent tubes overhead were on, lighting up a long, high-ceilinged hallway. The linoleum floor and metal shelves were evidence that the basement at some point had been modernized and used, but it didn’t look like people came by that much anymore. Dust was everywhere, and the air was damp and clammy. But at least it wasn’t raining down here.

  Anette pulled the phone out of her inside pocket. It had stopped ringing, but she could see that it was Jeppe, trying to reach her. Her fingers were too wet to open the phone, her clothes too drenched to dry her hands on. She looked around for some cloth or paper, but the shelves were empty. A little way down the hall a door was open. Anette walked down to it and looked in.

  She was almost blinded. White tiles from floor to ceiling gleamed under bright fluorescent lights. The tiles were old and cracked, but appeared clean, like those at an indoor swimming pool. She was struck by a powerful smell of chlorine and soap. There wasn’t anything to dry her hands on in here, either. And… her phone was now completely dead, drowned by the rain. Anette swore vigorously.

  The ceiling curved overhead in two beautiful arches, and on one wall an old operating sink was mounted. Anette remembered a brochure she had seen from a spa in Eastern Europe; this place had the same dilapidated beauty. She walked to the sink and turned the old handle for the cold-water faucet. It stuck and groaned, but a thin stream of rust-colored water ran down into the sink, forming a red puddle. Anette stepped sideways to avoid being splashed and bumped into a gurney. It looked modern, with a stainless-steel frame and washable cover. She slid her finger over the gurney’s cold metal and hit a leather strap. The leather felt stiff to the touch. As if it had been soaked with something. Blood, maybe.

  “Welcome!”

  Anette was so startled by the voice that her heart plunged to her knees, only to then rush all the way up her throat. She looked over to the door.

  “You must surely be from the police. I assume you’ve come to find me?”

  Even though they had never seen each other before, she had not even a lick of doubt about who was standing before her.

  * * *

  BY THE TIME the police car pulled onto Bispebjerg Hospital’s Psykiatrivej, Isak had calmed down completely. Not in the sense that he was relaxed, but more that he had accepted his fate, and he sat with his cheek against the car window like an animal headed for slaughter, just waiting for the inescapable. A delegation from the pediatric psychiatry center stood at the ready under umbrellas, waiting to receive him. Falck turned off the engine.

  Jeppe put his phone away—Anette wasn’t answering—and clicked the firearm holster off his belt and locked it in the glove compartment. No weapons in a psych ward.

  They got out of the car and greeted the charge nurse.

  “He started feeling bad and acting out at police headquarters. Unfortunately we had to cuff him. I’m sorry about that.”

  The charge nurse came up to the car with her umbrella and said, “Hi, Isak. Are you okay?”

  Isak let her help him out of the car with downcast eyes. He didn’t respond to her question or to being back at the hospital, just seemed withdrawn and listless. Passively, he let himself be guided to the entrance. Jeppe and Falck followed.

  Could it really be true that there were young people in Denmark who didn’t have a future? Was there nothing to be done for them?

  It wasn’t a thought that Jeppe was prepared to accept. When you’re seventeen, the world should be like a buffet of options. Life should be one big, throbbing, vibrant future, not an endless loop of well-meaning but insufficient care workers and days spent alone.

  When they reached Isak’s room, Falck clipped the plastic tie off his wrists and Isak lay down on his bed, turning his back on the team of grown-ups.

  The charge nurse gestured to Jeppe and said, “We’re just going to give Isak something to help him sleep, so he can get some rest. If you’d like to wait outside?”

  Jeppe and Falck stepped out into the hallway and let the team of social workers and nurses attend to Isak in peace. They waited in silence; Falck with his fingers interlaced comfortably over his gut, Jeppe deep in his own sad thoughts. After ten minutes the door opened, and the charge nurse snuck out into the hallway.

  “He’s asleep.”

  “That’s good to hear.” Jeppe nodded somberly. “But as I’m sure you can understand, we need to question Isak as soon as possible. We still don’t know if he was involved in the murders. How should we approach it?”

  “I don’t really know,” the charge nurse answered with a nervous smile. “Isak has just spent a day and a half off his meds and away from his usual sources of security. It’s hard to say how strongly he’ll react to that. Couldn’t we decide on this tomorrow morning when we know how he’s doing?”

  “I guess we may have to.” Jeppe pointed to the door of Isak’s room. “Is there staff enough in the ward tonight to keep an eye on him?”

  “We’ll keep his door ajar and peek in on him at regular intervals,” the nurse said with a nod.

  “Good. We’ll station two officers outside his window. Until we know more about Isak’s connection to the murder case, we need to be here around the clock. I assume that’s all right?”

  The charge nurse held up her hand in protest.

  “It seems really unlikely that Isak could have anything to do with those murders. It’s inconceivable, actually—”

  “We agree on that,” Jeppe cut her short. “But we still need to question him.”

  A woman with green eyeglasses strode energetically past them, stopped abruptly, and grasped the charge nurse’s arm.

  “Did she find you?”

  The charge nurse looked at her uncomprehending.

  “A woman stopped by a few minutes ago. Anette Werner. She asked for you specifically, Ursula Wichmann. Said she would wait outside.”

  “Anette Werner?” Jeppe repeated, stiffening. “Are you sure that’s what her name was?”

  “Blond hair, strong, persuasive.” The woman with the green glasses nodded eagerly.

  That could only be Anette.

  “Well, I haven’t seen her.” The charge nurse furrowed her brow.

  “She probably gave up.” The woman shrugged. “If it’s important she’ll come back.”

  Jeppe ignored Falck’s questioning look.

  “We’ll call tomorrow morning and arrange the details for questioning Isak,” he said. “Goodbye.”

  Jeppe pulled Falck along past charge nurse Ursula Wichmann.

  They ran through the rain across the parking lot to their waiting police car. Jeppe scanned the parked cars, but didn’t see Anette’s anywhere. What the hell had she gotten herself into now? Was she continuing her rogue maternity-leave sleuthing?

  Classic Anette Werner! And great timing, too. Now Jeppe was facing a humiliating forced handover of his case to Tho
mas Larsen, ten years his junior.

  When they made it into the car, Jeppe took out his phone and called Anette again. Her phone was off. He left her a brief message.

  “What’s Werner doing here?” Falck turned on the engine and switched on the windshield wipers.

  “Who knows. But her car isn’t here, so she must have left again. Let’s get back to headquarters so the superintendent can clip the stars off my shoulders.”

  Falck fumbled with the gear shift and pulled out onto Tagensvej.

  * * *

  HE CLOSED THE door and locked it in a quick motion, then pulled out an object from his raincoat, a knife with a wooden handle and a square blade.

  “This is a meat cleaver. Back in the day these were used to amputate gangrenous limbs. Bought it online under Bo Ramsgaard’s name, just like the scarificator. Antique, but sharp. Get up on the gurney.”

  Anette remained still for a second, watching the light glinting off the meat cleaver and in his eyes. She had no chance of overpowering him. Her only hope was to indulge him and try to gain more time. Or mercy. She sat down on the gurney.

  With the cleaver at face height, he grabbed her right arm.

  “Lie down, nice and slow. Hold on here, so I can buckle the strap.”

  Anette did as instructed, unable to spot any opportunity to get away from him, paralyzed like in those dreams where a train roars toward you but you can’t get off the tracks.

  He strapped her matter-of-factly to the gurney: first the one arm, then the other, then both ankles, and finally two extra straps that forced her fingers open. All the while holding the cleaver raised high, his hands not trembling in the slightest.

  “I’m not part of your equation.” Anette tried to speak neutrally, but her voice was shaking like a jackhammer, giving away her fear. Her mind raced, looking for options at rocket speed.

  “I didn’t come here to find you. You still have time to get away. This isn’t necessary.”

  He set the cleaver on the floor and checked the straps.

  “Unfortunately, it’s the other way around. If I eliminate you, I don’t need to run away. No one asked you to come snooping around. You brought this on yourself.”

  Anette hated knowing he was right. She could have just let it go and not gotten involved. But then that was a killer’s logic. It could never be her fault that she was lying here.

  He pulled a little brass box out of his pocket and held it up in front of Anette’s face. With a solemn expression he pushed a button and twelve little knife blades popped out with a metallic zing.

  “This is a scarificator. Nice, huh? I would ask you to undo your pants, but of course you can’t. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on messing around down there. I just need to get to your femoral artery.”

  He tugged on the elastic waistband of her sweatpants until her left hip was exposed, then retracted the twelve little blades back into the box by turning a handle, positioned the box against her groin, and nodded apologetically.

  “You know what happens now, right?”

  He pushed the button and Anette heard the metallic zing again. The pain didn’t come for another second. Then she screamed.

  “Yeah, it hurts. And it only gets worse, I’m afraid, before it’s over.”

  He pulled the blades back and set the scarificator on her left wrist.

  The pain shot from Anette’s groin, radiating throughout her entire body, sending her into a panic reminiscent of the childbirth she had just been through. This time, however, there was no light waiting at the end of the tunnel of pain. Or maybe there was.

  Anette tried to clench her teeth and talk through the pain.

  “I have a little daughter. She’s not even three months old.”

  “What are you doing here, then? Why aren’t you taking care of your child?” He triggered the scarificator again. It felt like Anette’s left hand was chopped off. He walked around to the other side of the gurney and retracted the blades, speaking over her moans.

  “What happens now is that you’re going to gradually bleed out. In about a half hour, you’ll be dead. I’m genuinely sorry that it has to be this way.”

  He positioned the scarificator on her right wrist and released its blades again.

  Anette howled.

  “There’s no one around to hear you, but for safety’s sake…” He forced a soft rubber ball into her mouth. It was red.

  “Now I’m going to exit through that door and lock it behind me. No one else has the key, so let go, and spend the last of your time preparing yourself for the other side.”

  Anette begged for her life.

  The ball gag made her prayers inarticulate, but she begged for mercy anyway. She mumbled unintelligible sounds and blinked, trying to get through to him.

  “According to the ancient Greeks, the soul takes the form of a butterfly when it leaves the body. Isn’t that a beautiful thought to die with?”

  He closed the door.

  Anette could hear him lock it from outside. She tried to scream, order him to come back and set her free, and wasted the last of her strength biting the ball and struggling against the straps. Half a minute after he left, the light turned off. The room became as dark as the grave it was.

  Anette felt the life draining out of her. She closed her eyes, saw Svend, her beloved husband, her soul mate and friend. She saw all the years, the travels, the kisses, the dinners, the promises, and the nights. The dogs, the walks. She saw everything in fragments overlapping each other as the blood left her body.

  And she saw her little daughter. That little searching mouth, those tiny fingers, the uncannily soft skin on her cheeks. She heard her breathing and finally felt, in the middle of the darkness and the loss, a rock-solid, transcendent love.

  CHAPTER 24

  They made it off the hospital campus and several blocks down the road before Jeppe remembered that thing he hadn’t been able to recall. Falck was trying to raise Jeppe’s spirits with a joke about a cannibal who had a magician in his stomach, and Jeppe had to shush him.

  Guilt goes hand in hand with resentment at having felt pressured to do the thing one feels guilty about. A double-edged sword, which makes the bearer into both victim and executioner. Peter Demant’s words as he sat, dark-eyed and determined, by the fire at the restaurant at Store Strandstræde.

  “Turn the car around!” he blurted out. “Go back to the hospital, now!”

  Falck did a U-turn and drove back up Tagensvej with surprising speed. Obviously he for once sensed that time was of the essence. As they pulled onto the hospital campus, Jeppe opened his window.

  “Now slow down and drive past all the hospital buildings. Open your window and keep your eye out!”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “First and foremost: Werner’s car. Drive!”

  Falck let the car roll slowly down the narrow streets that ran through the campus of old brick and modern concrete buildings, parked cars, and grassy lawns. The air was dense, as in that moment when the conductor raises the baton and the whole orchestra inhales. Jeppe just didn’t know what piece of music they were about to play.

  “Stop!” Jeppe’s shout made the car windows vibrate. He was out of the car before Falck had even pulled to a complete stop. Ran toward a bike rack, blinded by the rain.

  Of course.

  A cargo bike parked in the best hiding place in the world, right out in the open, in the bicycle parking on the sprawling hospital campus, surrounded by hundreds of other bikes. It sat among all the kids’ bikes and other cargo bikes, just needing to be found in the jumble.

  “Call for reinforcements!” Jeppe yelled through the rain to Falck, who was still in the car. “We need crime scene investigators out here, too.”

  “What’s going on, Kørner?” Falck got out of the car.

  “He’s here! The bike he used to transport the bodies is here somewhere. He’s here in the area, I know it! Come, let’s go that way.” Jeppe pointed along the facade of one of the hospital bui
ldings.

  “But how do we know which way to go? What are we looking for?”

  “A crime scene, Falck. We’re looking for a crime scene.” Jeppe marched off.

  Falck reluctantly followed. Jeppe could sense his skepticism from behind. He knew it was crazy to just walk off into the rain, but they no longer had a choice.

  “It has to be a secluded or disused wing nearby, where he has been able to work undisturbed. On the ground floor or in the basement, because he wouldn’t be able to haul the bodies up and down stairs without risking being seen. Somewhere where he could leave the bike out front, and then haul the body away from the scene immediately afterward.”

  Jeppe let his instinct lead him like a bloodhound, breathing heavily as he explained, as much to himself as to Falck. He was not going to let this killer make them run around in circles anymore.

  “What about this?”

  Jeppe turned and saw Falck pointing down a side road he himself had just walked right past. A black cargo bike was parked by a stairwell leading down to a cellar door.

  “Let’s check it out.”

  They walked down the short flight of exterior stairs to a door that was painted blue. It was unlocked and opened into a high-ceilinged basement hallway, dusty, clammy, and clearly not in use. On one side clerestory windows let in what remained of the daylight, on the other side lay a series of closed doors. Jeppe tried the first one. It opened, and bright overhead lights buzzed on. The room was empty, its original purpose hard to determine, maybe a storage room. The next room was pretty much identical. In the third room was an old gurney and some dismantled steel shelves. Otherwise it was empty.

  “Kørner, what are we doing here? Shouldn’t we go up and meet the reinforcements?”

  Jeppe ignored Falck’s reasonable questions and proceeded to the next door in the hallway. It was locked. He tried the door after that and found it open.

  “Why is one of the doors locked? There’s nothing of value down here and all the other ones are open.”