by Sara Blaedel
A stretcher was placed on the ground beside Frederik. He stared straight up in the air. Finally Camilla roused herself, and she reached her husband before they lifted him onto the stretcher. Paramedics began treating his burns as they carried him to the ambulance. He had sustained the most serious injuries, having fought to get everyone out. But he was conscious, Louise noticed, as he reached out for Camilla.
The stench in the courtyard was overwhelming. Flames engulfed the peak of the roof as the glazed roof tiles exploded.
Eik joined Louise. Charlie whimpered and rubbed against his leg. “I should’ve known something was wrong,” he said quietly. He explained that during the night, Charlie had been barking so loudly that he’d taken him out and locked him in the car before he woke the whole house up. “I should have trusted him,” he added, nearly whispering now.
“What is this?” Louise asked. She showed him the stone. He held her wrist, as if he thought the stone was too heavy for her.
“It’s the rune for the war god, Tyr,” Eik said. “He was ruthless. Merciless. I think someone abducted Jonas and left this for you.”
44
Louise shrieked, screaming at the forest until everything turned black. Eik put his arm around her.
“The bastards. The fucking goddamn bastards!”
She felt no pain, not in her leg, not on her shoulder. She snapped viciously when a doctor in some weird blazing-yellow spacesuit asked her to follow so they could have a look at her injuries. “I’m not going anywhere except out to find my boy.”
She suddenly remembered that she’d left her phone beside the bed. “May I borrow your phone?” she said, civil now as she trotted after the doctor. Then she saw Nymand, walking toward her like a zombie. He’d maybe slept an hour, or possibly not at all, she noticed, before she was in his face.
“What in the hell were you thinking? Why did you let them go?” She pointed toward the house and was about to say a lot more about what Thomsen and his gang had done now. But instead she shook her head.
“They have Jonas.”
Nymand stared as if he didn’t quite recognize her. She realized she was only wearing a T-shirt and panties, and she gratefully accepted one of the ambulance’s white blankets.
He closed his eyes a moment, seemingly to take in what had happened. “If you’re referring to the three persons you yourself assisted in having arrested last night, they’re still in Roskilde Jail. None of them has been released.”
Louise felt as if the earth were crumbling under her. “Jonas is gone,” she repeated. The lump in her throat stopped her from saying more.
Eik told Nymand about the empty bed and the stone that lay on the comforter.
“We need to get an overview of what’s happened out here,” Nymand said. He asked them to accompany him to the manager’s house; the ambulance had driven Frederik away, and Camilla and Markus were walking over there with two officers. Tønnesen still held his fire extinguisher, staring up at the black smoke disappearing into the sky.
“Does anyone have an idea of when the fire started?” Nymand asked.
“Jonas,” Louise said, not the least bit interested in theories about where or when the fire started. “We have to find Jonas. They took him in place of Sune!”
“The rescue personnel are still looking for him inside,” Nymand said, placing a hand on her arm, a gesture obviously meant to comfort her. “Ole Thomsen and his friends are in jail, so they couldn’t have taken him.”
He spoke to her as if she were a small child, which made Louise so angry that she almost hit him.
“Were there any witnesses to the fire breaking out?” Nymand continued, looking around at them.
They were in Tønnesen’s kitchen. Camilla sat on the bench along the wall, wrapped in the same type of white blanket that Louise had been given.
“Elinor came to warn us,” Camilla said, staring into space. “She wanted to save us. She’s the guardian angel of the place, talk to her.”
Louise looked down at the table.
“Elinor Jensen died half an hour ago,” said the officer sitting across from Camilla. He looked over at Nymand.
Markus cried quietly, his eyes closed and his head leaning back against the wall. One side of his face flickered a bit and the corner of his mouth trembled, as if he were trapped in a horrible nightmare.
“I got up about three thirty to shut my dog in the car,” Eik said. He’d taken a toothpick from Tønnesen’s table, and it flipped up and down in his mouth as he spoke. “He was barking, and I didn’t want him to wake everyone up.”
He was bare from the waist up but still wearing his jeans. He leaned awkwardly across the table, as if he couldn’t find the words to explain something. “That must’ve been when Elinor came upstairs. But there was no sign of smoke, and I didn’t see or hear anyone upstairs or out in the courtyard. I assumed it was some animal or a bird at the window that set him off, it was so quiet.”
His face was contorted with remorse. He shook his head and ran his fingers through his wispy hair, then stood up, walked to the sink, and threw his toothpick in the trash underneath. Louise noticed a cut on his back, shallow but long, as if he had unknowingly scraped it.
“So who took Jonas?” Louise leaned against the refrigerator. She was getting cold. Adrenaline kept her body alert, though her muscles trembled, her head thudded, and her eyeballs hurt. She felt dizzy.
“We don’t know that he’s been abducted,” Nymand said. “We can hope he’s not in the house. There were gasoline cans on the first floor; there’s no doubt it’s arson. It also explains the explosive manner in which the fire spread. But we can’t be one hundred percent sure of anything, and as I said, they’re still looking for him inside.”
Louise covered her mouth and whispered through her soot-blackened fingers. “You don’t understand!”
Nymand was about to say something, but Louise stopped him. “You don’t understand. Someone has started a war! They have Jonas, and every minute we sit here gives them that much more of a head start.”
Louise noticed Markus staring at her emptily, as if he weren’t really there. Her words, however, made him wince. He’s about to go into shock, she thought. She walked over to him. “No one blames you for not hearing anything.” She put her arm around his shoulders. They seemed so frail, even though he’d grown taller than her. “It will never be your fault that they took him.”
It stung Camilla when Louise implied that her son possibly could have prevented it, could have intervened, stopped someone from coming into the room under cover of night and abducted Jonas. Louise could see it in her friend’s eyes. But this was a cold-blooded act, well planned and with one objective, and even if Markus had gotten in the way, he could never have stopped them. And if he had, he might not have been sitting there on the bench, leaning his head on Louise’s shoulder.
“There was nothing you could have done,” she whispered into his hair. She squeezed his shoulder as he huddled against her.
Camilla began telling Nymand about the warden tree. “It’s said that your house will burn down if the tree is felled. And that happened this evening. Louise is right, someone has started a war against us. They carved a symbol for Ragnarok into the tree, and now Eik says that they left behind the rune for the Nordic god of war.”
“Three persons,” Louise exclaimed. She’d suddenly recalled what the deputy commissioner had said out in the courtyard. “What about the butcher? Didn’t you bring him in, too? He was there the night the prostitute was killed, and he’s been in the brotherhood right from the start. He’s part of it, even if they’ve turned against him!”
“We questioned Lars Frandsen after you talked to him. He’s agreed to make a full confession. But we didn’t bring him in. He’s still at the hospital. Damn it, Louise! His wife is dying. He’s not the one who was out here tonight. They brought a bed into the room for him. He has the right to be with his family—you have to respect that.”
“He doesn’t have the right
to shit before we know where Jonas is!” Louise said. She jumped up and followed Eik, who was already out the door.
45
I have a weekend bag with a change of clothing in the car. Take my jogging pants—you can tighten the waist.” Eik shut Charlie in the back of the car while Louise walked to the front steps. The fire squad’s lieutenant stopped her.
“I just need to get our shoes,” she explained. “They’re right inside.”
Quickly, she grabbed her own shoes and Eik’s pair of size forty-sixes, plus two pairs that she guessed belonged to Camilla and Markus.
It already smelled like a sodden, burned-out house. Water flowed across the dark gray marble floor in the hall, and soot ran down the walls visible above the stairs.
She felt empty inside when she returned to the car. Empty, yet seething with the knowledge that her past was boomeranging back on Jonas. She couldn’t handle her pain, her anxiety, the thought of his joyous smile as he’d walked with the girl and held her hand. What forces had been unleashed, who had taken him? She tried to reason it all out.
Perhaps abducting Jonas was an act of war against her, in retaliation for the arrests. Rape, murder, attempted murder: There were reasons enough to go to extremes to avoid these charges. But those who would be charged were already in jail. It made no sense.
Maybe they had taken Jonas as revenge for Camilla and Frederik helping Sune. But why Jonas and not Markus?
Could Bitten be involved? She was definitely capable of reactions wilder than anyone would suspect—Louise had seen that when she kicked Thomsen out of her life. But such a frail woman couldn’t carry a fifteen-year-old boy down a flight of stairs, certainly not without anyone hearing her; nor was she capable of setting fire to a house as successfully as had been done. And it wasn’t Louise who had arrested her husband, though his friends had tried to make it look that way.
“Can we come along?” Camilla said, interrupting her thoughts.
Behind her, Nymand objected to their leaving just when he had ordered them to stay.
Camilla put her arm around Markus, who still looked beaten up. “I want to be with Frederik. I won’t have my husband alone in the hospital while his childhood home burns down.”
“You two come with us,” Nymand said, pointing at Camilla and Louise. He had already gestured for one of his people to join them, a younger officer with a high forehead and muscles that strained at his shirt. Then he asked Eik if he could take Markus along in his car. “I need to know everything about Jonas,” he said to Louise. “Description, height…”
Louise was wearing Eik’s much-too-long jogging pants. She loosened the shoelaces on her sneakers to relieve her injured feet, then with Camilla walked past the felled tree to Nymand’s car down the driveway. Only a few tanker trucks remained now, in addition to a vehicle with a crane in back that was dragging the enormous tree off the driveway.
“He has dark hair,” Louise said. “A hundred eighty centimeters tall, normal build. He’s missing the little toe on his right foot…”
The words stuck in her throat, and she began to tremble. Camilla put her arm around her shoulder and took over. “He’s got dark eyes, prominent cheekbones. If you have Internet access on your phone, I can show you his photo on Facebook.”
“Does he have a phone?” Nymand asked.
“It won’t help much to track it if he left it in the bedroom.”
“Why didn’t we hear him yelling?” Louise asked. “He would do that. He would yell if someone tried to drag him away.”
They’d reached the end of the driveway. She looked out the window as they drove past the gatekeeper’s house and Kattingeværket, the old factory complex beside the lake. She answered herself. “Either he went along of his own free will, or else he was drugged.”
* * *
Louise didn’t even glance at the nurse trying to stop her from entering Sune’s room in intensive care. Eik and Nymand were right behind, and she turned to the deputy commissioner just before walking in. “I hope for your sake that Lars Frandsen is in there. Otherwise you’re responsible if anything happens to Jonas.”
Nymand reached out to put a hand on her arm, but Louise turned to open the door. She reminded herself that Jane and Sune were also inside.
The nurse caught up to them. “You can’t go in.” She tried to stand in the way, but Louise elbowed past her into the dim room. The curtain swished from the door being opened, and the butcher’s shoulder moved. He’d heard them.
He sat hunched over beside Jane’s bed. The air in the room seemed to stand still, even though the window was open. Sune lay over by the wall, staring at them with small, tired eyes.
Louise raised her hand to stop the others behind her. The nurse retreated when Eik explained that Louise was a close friend of Jane Frandsen.
Used to be, Louise thought. The door closed. “When did it happen?” she whispered.
“An hour ago.” He put his hand on the blanket. “I’m thankful that we were here. Her folks have stepped out for a minute.”
The nurse brought them coffee. Louise closed her eyes and thought about Jane. Young and full of life. It had been long ago, but they’d been a big part of each other’s lives. Silently she said farewell to her friend, waxy-pale now, her head on the white pillow, her eyes closed and lips slightly parted.
She couldn’t play rough; not here, not now. She still felt the rage, but the room was so quiet and peaceful. And besides, Sune lay there staring dismally at his mother.
“Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt, just when you’ve lost your wife.” She knelt down beside his chair. “My son Jonas has disappeared. He’s Sune’s age, and he disappeared last night. Lars, did you have anything to do with it?”
“Disappeared, how?” The butcher’s voice was monotone, weak. But his eyes flickered a bit when he turned to Louise.
“Who took my son? Thomsen and the others were arrested yesterday. René is in jail in Holbæk, and you’ve been here. Who has him?”
The butcher grimaced. Not from anger, Louise thought. It looked more like fear, as if something was out of control. She leaned back, frightened herself now.
“Last night, I tried to get hold of my father. I called him shortly before Jane died, but he didn’t pick up.” His shoulders sank, he looked spent. “I tried later, too, on my phone and also a phone here at the hospital, but he still didn’t answer.”
Louise realized that they were talking as if Jane weren’t beside them, as if Jane’s son weren’t staring at them. But they had no time to find a more private place, if what she feared was true. And she could see that the butcher understood.
“Talk to Roed Thomsen. If anyone’s after your boy, he’s the one who’s set it in motion.”
“Thomsen’s father?” She leaned forward to be sure that she’d heard right.
“He’s our gothi. If my father has been involved in anything last night, the gothi ordered him to do it. There’s never been a weak link in our fathers’ generation.”
46
An hour later, along with Nymand and the extra personnel assigned to him, they drove into the courtyard of Roed Thomsen’s beautiful country manor in Nørre Hvalsø. It faced open fields that stretched all the way to Såby. Tall beech trees surrounded the main house, and the grass had been cut in rows straight as an arrow, the edges trimmed perfectly.
“Is there a Mrs. Roed Thompson?” Eik asked, before they got out of the car.
He’d been quiet most of the way from Roskilde. Louise had sat with eyes closed, grateful that he hadn’t tried to break through her anxiety, which at the moment made breathing very difficult.
“There used to be a Mrs. Police Chief,” she answered. “But I don’t know if she’s still alive. After she quit working at the bank, you mostly saw her at the kiosk, buying aquavit. Asking to have it wrapped as a present. Now I understand why she preferred life to be blurred.”
* * *
Two officers stood by the front door as two more went around the house. Nymand
knocked on the door and shouted, “Police!” He shook the doorknob a few times, as if he didn’t believe it was locked.
Louise and Eik were approaching the wing used as a barn when they heard a commotion from behind the house. Immediately she took off, with Eik on her heels.
She rounded the corner. A large, gaudy fountain spouted water up in the air. The two policemen stood beside a well-trimmed hedge, gazing at something on the ground between them.
Louise ran across the huge lawn. The men pulled a large tarp to the side and stumbled back at the sight of what lay under it. Eik passed Louise when she slowed down. She dragged herself the final few meters, and he tried to stop her.
“You don’t need to see this,” he said with a gentleness she had no need for. The men quickly replaced the tarp, but she jerked free, grabbed the green covering, and threw it aside. On the ground below lay a headless horse. Dark brown, a black mane, white markings above the hooves and on the chest.
She jumped back. Not so much from the sight of the dead horse, whose head she had seen stuck on the post at Camilla’s, but from relief that she wasn’t staring at the body of a boy.
“Do you recognize this?” Nymand asked as he walked across the lawn carrying a black T-shirt. He unfolded it and held it up with the logo facing her. A round face with a happy smile and big ears. She’d given it to Jonas. The American DJ deadmau5 had become his idol after he’d begun writing and sampling music, which he uploaded to YouTube.
For a moment everything stood still. Including her heart, Louise feared for a moment. But then her rage exploded from a place inside her she’d never felt before. Her fingertips turned cold, but the colors around her suddenly grew brighter, as if her senses were no longer deadened from anxiety.
If anyone had hurt one hair on Jonas’s head, they were as good as dead. She would kill them.
47
Markus was asleep on a chair by the window. The nurse had given Frederik pain medication, which made him drowsy. Camilla sat beside his bed. Adrenaline still coursed through her veins, her body on constant alert. She couldn’t fight off the image of the flames and Elinor’s frail, lifeless body lying in the courtyard.