by Sara Blaedel
“He didn’t see her that way. He would never go after a child.”
“But he could have gone to you?” Louise said, checking that the Dictaphone light was still on. The female officer was gazing out the window. It was impossible to tell if she was even paying attention.
Bodil bent her head without answering, so Louise continued.
“Was that why you didn’t intervene when he brought home the female runner?” she pushed. “So you could avoid it?”
It was a little while before Bodil finally nodded, and despite all of Louise’s disgust she suddenly felt sorry for the woman. It wasn’t just Jørgen’s life that was ruined that day when the car hit him. It was Bodil’s life as well. She’d had to shoulder a responsibility that she was much too young for, and their mother did her part to remind her of her guilt. There had never been any room for a normal life and normal emotions.
“What about the time when Jørgen lived with your mother?” she asked instead of digging deeper.
“Mother covered all of his needs,” she answered briefly. “She would never run the risk of him helping himself outside the home. She was very good at nurturing his gentle side. Just look at the flowers—that was something the two of them shared. They would pick flowers from the garden and then sit and enjoy the sight of them. It was a diversion for him to help take the focus off the other things. It’s the same thing when we paint the plates.”
Louise thought of the two yellow roses that Jørgen had cut for her that ended up as a table decoration at Camilla’s wedding dinner. Now she wished she’d thrown them away.
“Didn’t Lise and Mette ever try to get away from here?”
Bodil looked at her in surprise.
“No, why would they?”
“Because nobody wants to live in a barn.”
“But they couldn’t stay in here,” she exclaimed. “I sometimes lock off Jørgen’s section after dinner. Evening time is when he becomes most restless and then it’s better to keep your distance.”
Louise was aware that injuries to the frontal lobes could also result in a violent level of aggression, but she didn’t realize how severely it had affected Bodil’s brother.
“We spent our days together,” Bodil continued. “It was never my impression, though, that the girls didn’t like living here. In the winter we would put heaters out there so it didn’t get too cold. Jørgen doesn’t like that, either, when he goes over there.”
“So he would just go to the horse pen whenever he felt the urge?” Louise asked, feeling provoked by how Bodil tried to portray their everyday life.
“That was most practical. Whenever the urge came over him, it was best if it was addressed quickly.”
Bodil fell silent for a second before adding: “And I didn’t want it going on in the house.”
“But the runner was in his room,” Louise interjected.
“That was only because he got so angry when I told him to put her in the barn. That was their place and the one from the woods was a different story.”
Bodil seemed genuinely sad.
“The last week since the one went missing has been hard on him. I went looking for her in the woods but then when I heard that they found a dead woman, I figured it was probably her. I didn’t say anything to Jørgen even though he kept asking if she would be home soon. I don’t know if he’ll ever really calm back down again. And what happens now?”
Louise couldn’t think of what to say. She just sat there, speechless and deeply shaken by hearing Bodil speak of the twins as if they were objects. And as if she genuinely believed that she and her brother had given them a good life.
“Why did you make us all believe that Jørgen was your husband?” she asked instead.
Bodil gave a quick laugh as she straightened herself up. “When siblings live together at our age, people tend to gossip. I wanted to avoid too many questions being raised. That’s why I came up with the little story about the work accident. That’s the kind of thing that evokes sympathy because it could happen to anyone.”
Louise suddenly couldn’t stand to hear another word. They had another interrogation to get through anyway, so this had to be enough for now.
“Do you have anything further to add?” she asked.
Bodil began to shake her head then stopped. “There are the two of them out in the yard, of course. You’d better take those with you as well.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I didn’t know where else to put them. If I had said anything then Jørgen wouldn’t have been allowed to stay here.”
“Who are we talking about?” the officer asked in confusion.
“He was probably a little too rough with them,” Bodil admitted without answering the question. “But you have to understand that he was never a cruel person. He is just so strong that when the urge comes over him, it’s best not to fight back.”
For a moment her eyes turned glossy and she was quiet.
“It might be Lotte Svendsen from Hvalsø and another young woman from Espergærde,” Louise guessed. “They disappeared the same summer that the first series of rapes took place in the woods. And their bodies were never found.”
THEY BOTH FOLLOWED Bodil to the patio door leading out to the yard.
“Now, I don’t remember the exact spot,” she said, looking around as they stood on the large lawn. “It’s down here in the back somewhere by the herb garden.”
She led them toward the woods’ edge where a large area had been cleared and turned into a vegetable garden.
“You buried them here?” the female officer asked.
“Yes. Jørgen did the digging. He’s good at that sort of thing.”
“We’ll have the dogs search the yard when they get back from the woods,” Louise decided and signaled that they could go back inside. “Did you get Bodil and Jørgen’s personal data for the file?” she asked the officer from Holbæk, who would soon be the one left with the case.
She shook her head. “We’ll go inside and take care of that now.”
Louise nodded. She didn’t feel like going back inside. Right now she needed to distance herself as much as possible from what she’d just heard, and so she walked around the house toward the courtyard to wait for the others. Her interest in putting her name down for the gamekeeper’s house had vanished completely.
She thought of the young, pregnant runner who had been locked up and tied to a bed while she had been drinking coffee in the kitchen. She knew that it would be naive to hope that Jørgen hadn’t hurt her; even if her physical injuries healed, she would have to live with the nightmare for the rest of her life—just like Edith Rosen had.
And what about the baby? Louise thought, walking in to take one last look inside the barn.
Silence had descended on the cool livestock wing. The only sound came from the tall grandfather clock with its rhythmic moving hands. She looked at the bed, then walked over and pulled out a drawer from the small dresser. It contained the same type of smock-like dresses that Lise had been wearing. There were two of them, neatly folded, and next to them a few pairs of socks and underwear. That was it.
Louise had just closed the drawer when she heard footsteps in the gravel outside. She pushed the door to the horse pen shut and when she turned around, he was standing in the barn doorway.
40
HE WAS SWEATING, his thin hair sticking to his forehead, and his lumberjack shirt had come untucked. For a minute he stood transfixed, staring through the bars into the empty pen. Then he turned his gaze toward Louise, and his eyes lit up as he held out his hand.
“Jørgen,” she said, her back against the pen.
She only took one step sideways before she felt his hands on her face. He ran his fingers down her cheeks. She pressed her arm against her body and felt her shoulder holster but didn’t have a chance to react when he suddenly grabbed her and pulled her toward him.
“Jørgen. Let me go,” she demanded angrily and tried to wrench free of him but he brutally tightened hi
s grip and she lost her breath. When she made another attempt, he squeezed her so hard that an intense pain shot behind her left lung as a couple of her ribs cracked.
Louise gasped for breath as he pushed her farther down the barn corridor, his one arm still locked around her. Yet she still tried to resist when he pulled off her sweater and yanked the gun holster over her head, the sharp leather straps cutting into her skin.
Don’t fight back, she suddenly thought, remembering Bodil’s words.
She registered a new sound behind her—footsteps on the concrete floors. She wanted to turn her head but fell against the wall when Jørgen tore her blouse and pulled it off her, panting and snorting. With a single jerk, he tore her bra and started roughly fondling her breasts.
It hurt. His hands were rough against her skin. Louise closed her eyes, unable to look at his face. She felt his heavy breathing very close to her neck and then against her cheek as he stuffed a piece of her torn blouse into her mouth.
Using his entire body weight, he pressed her forward until she was doubled over across the saddle rack. The old grain sacks, heavy with dust, scratched her face as he pushed both hands down inside the waistband of her jeans to pull them down. The grit on the barn corridor crunched beneath her feet as he tugged on her pants one more time so the button fell off, enabling him to shove them all the way down.
The steps behind her came closer. Louise lifted her head to see the barn door and the twilight hitting the corridor from the doorway. At first she could only make out the outline of a person behind Jørgen’s broad body but as it came closer, she recognized René Gamst standing there holding his shotgun.
Relief rushed through her as they made eye contact, but then he moved his eyes to her exposed lower body and Louise noticed the bulge in his pants.
Jørgen was right behind her. She could feel the fabric of his pants against her naked buttocks. The pain was burning in her chest, and her breathing was wheezy. His breath was like hard blows as she heard him undo his zipper. Louise closed her eyes and looked away from the barn door.
Then the first shot fell, and Jørgen’s body jerked violently. Another shot followed a second later.
LOUISE FELT THE warmth spreading across her naked torso as the blood from Jørgen’s torn veins pumped onto her skin, and he slumped over heavily on top of her.
As his grasp around her slackened, she grabbed onto the end of the saddle rack and started pulling herself out from beneath the weight of his large body. She gasped for breath as a bloody splodge from his head landed on her shoulder.
She tumbled into the corridor and pulled up her jeans while Jørgen’s body was left slumped, his arms dangling limply over the floor. Louise breathed in sharp blows after pulling the rag out of her mouth.
René was still holding the gun with both hands.
“You could have hit me,” she whispered, covering her breasts with what was left of her blouse.
“That was a risk I was willing to take.”
She watched a speck of dust floating in the light from the window and heard the sound of Jørgen’s blood dripping onto the floor.
“Why didn’t you shoot him right away?”
She couldn’t bear to look at him while asking.
“Because you liked it,” he answered scornfully. “If only Klaus could have seen how little you fought it.”
“I’ll kill you,” Louise snarled at him, her heart starting to pound. She could feel her pulse beating in her neck, and her chest getting tight. He had recognized her after all. Determined not to lose control entirely, she breathed in and out, dug her nails into her palm, and stared directly into his eyes. “Leave Klaus out of this,” she said through her teeth. “No wonder he didn’t want to hang out with you guys anymore.”
“You!” he snorted. “You don’t understand a damn thing. You never did, not now and not then.”
“What do you mean?” Louise asked him, straightening up so the pain from her broken ribs stabbed inside her chest.
“Thomsen was right. You were so gullible.”
Despite her agonizing pain, she got up before he had a chance to react, kicked the weapon out of his hands, and twisted his arm around so hard that he doubled over.
René Gamst moaned.
“Tell me what happened!” she yelled, pulling on his arm.
“Your boyfriend was a pussy,” he gasped. “He didn’t have the fucking guts to put the noose around his own neck.”
His words made everything go black as she pushed him down the barn corridor in an armlock. She pressed him against the ground as she bent down, pulling out two plastic strips from her shoulder holster on the floor.
He screamed when she tightened one of them around his hands before using the other strip to fasten his wrist to a bar in front of the horse pen. Then she left the barn without looking back just as the door to the main house swung open and the female officer came running out.
“Did you hear the shots?” she shouted. “It was right nearby. I called Mik. They’re on their—”
She stopped abruptly as if she only just then really noticed Louise.
“What…?” she exclaimed, stunned, and walked toward her.
Louise brushed her aside and crumpled up in the small pebbles. She pulled her shirt together around her naked chest and leaned back against the black-tarred plinth before closing her eyes.
She heard René calling from the barn and soon after the sound of running steps approaching. Someone stopped next to her but she didn’t open her eyes, and then she heard him continue into the barn. He returned a minute later and fell to his knees next to her. When he said her name, she recognized Mik’s voice.
“I think he broke a couple of my ribs,” she said quietly and opened her eyes.
Others came running as well. Louise registered that the female runner had been found not far from there. She was alive but in bad shape. Nobody mentioned the baby in her belly. More footsteps and more voices but she couldn’t take part in it. Ambulances had been called, and someone put a blanket around her.
Eik was wheezing as he stumbled into the courtyard, out of breath. With a cry of shock, he dropped down on the rocks next to her, reaching his hand out for her soiled face.
EIK WAS STILL sitting there when two ambulances pulled into the courtyard. She could smell his leather jacket and hear him breathing but she couldn’t see him.
Someone reached a hand down to her and she managed to get up while pain shot through her entire body. She slowly shook her head when he asked if she wanted him to ride along.
“When you head out together, you go home together,” he tried.
“Not today,” she mumbled, pulling the blanket closer around her body as she walked to the ambulance.
Over by the barn René was about to be put into the backseat of a police car. Louise turned her eyes away quickly but not quickly enough to avoid his scornful look and the twitching at the corner of his mouth.
She nodded when the ambulance driver asked if she would prefer to lie down. He asked about her condition and where it hurt but by then Louise had already turned her face away and closed her eyes.
She heard the police car drive off with René before they closed the back of the ambulance. She could feel his eyes on her naked body again before the shot was fired. She had thought he would help her. But in that gang, they only helped each other.
The potholes in the gravel road made the first-aid kit in the back of the ambulance rattle as they drove away.
EPILOGUE
JONAS AND MELVIN raced to the hospital as soon as they heard. Louise’s concerned parents were already there, sitting by their daughter’s side, reassuring her it was only broken ribs. She was tough. She’d weathered far worse, and would be fine. If they only knew, Louise thought. Her ribs and bruises, with their accompanying aches and pains, were the least of her wounds.
Before discharging her, Louise’s doctors urged her to consult a psychiatrist. She thanked them for taking care of her and going to the trouble, prom
ised to make some calls sooner rather than later, and then balled up and tossed the paper they’d handed her with the list of referrals into the trash can in the hospital parking lot.
She was mentally and physically exhausted. She knew full well she needed to heal and regroup, but was going to do it her own way. Not by talking and telling her sob stories, puffy-eyed, nose red and running, with soggy tissues in hand, to a highly trained stranger. No. She needed to get away. She needed a break. And time to sort it all through.
TWO DAYS LATER Louise headed up to her attic, in search of an old suitcase. Inside were so many scattered but profound items and keepsakes, all pieces of her history. She was terrified by what she might rediscover there, but fought the urge to run back downstairs, away from the mementos and records that she had carefully ignored and left untouched for so long. René Gamst’s final taunt lingered in her mind. He didn’t have the guts to put the noose around his own neck. Louise knew it was time. The past couldn’t wait any longer.
In all the years since Klaus had died, she’d struggled to forget—to bury her memories and grief along with his body and their love. She’d been going through the motions for years, but had ultimately outsmarted herself. You don’t understand a thing, René had said. You never did, not now and not then. Louise had to focus. She wouldn’t give in to despair. She owed at least that much to Jonas.
She didn’t have to haggle or get lost in red tape and doctor’s notes for time off; a medical leave of absence from the force was a given. And though she did not have to worry about job security, Louise stressed over the impact on the department. She’d only just started and had so much responsibility resting on her shoulders. Eik would have to carry the heavy load until she was ready to return. But she knew he could handle it. Besides, the one thing of which she was certain was that she was no good to her colleagues in her current state.
Her mind made up, Louise packed up the car, her treasured old suitcase safely at the bottom of the pile of randomly chosen clothes. She would lay hands on the truth, no matter how shattering. If Klaus hadn’t tethered that rope around his own neck, she would find out who had.