Deadly quiet.
48
Monday, May 30th, 2016
Anneli had gone through more phases of shock and realization over the past hour than in all her adult life.
If she had arrived at Sandalsparken just a few minutes earlier, it would all have been over. She would have been caught red-handed in Denise’s apartment and arrested.
She had been only seconds away from getting out of her car when the police car with the two detectives pulled up in front of her. Anneli slouched down in her seat and watched their every move. At first they stopped in front of the neighboring apartment as if they were going to enter, but then they changed their minds and knocked on the door of the girls’ apartment, shouting something through the mail slot and tapping on the window. It looked odd and somehow also very unsettling.
What did they suspect? That the girls were guilty of robbery and murder? But how could they know? Or were they there because they wanted to question someone? Perhaps they had discovered that Michelle had been living there; you could never know. The girl might have had a receipt or a telephone number on her that indirectly led them to the apartment. But then why did they give up and disappear into the other apartment? How did that fit in?
As the men finally left the building and walked a few meters past her car, she held her breath. And when the tallest man, the one who looked Caucasian, turned his head and looked directly at her through the car window, she thought he would stop. That he would ask her why she was still there. She pretended to be asleep, and he seemed to buy that.
She saw everything from behind her sunglasses. And when the cops finally left, she saw the curtain in the girls’ apartment move and a face peeping out. So Anneli took off her sunglasses, but because of the distance she couldn’t quite make out if it was Jazmine. However, the way the face at the window jumped backward, as if something had scared her, left little doubt. Jazmine probably wasn’t sure who or what she had seen, but she knew that Anneli drove a Ka because she had told her so herself.
Anneli weighed the situation. Jazmine had not wanted to reveal herself to the police. But had they been foiled, or were they on their way to get reinforcements or whatever it was called?
Sensing that she didn’t have much time, Anneli quickly got out of the car. Fate had helped her many times before, so she certainly wasn’t going to second-guess it now.
She would have run directly from the stairwell up onto the walkway, but there was a woman checking her mailbox, and who knew if she was on her way up or down. If she went up onto the walkway, Anneli had better wait until the coast was clear.
So Anneli walked straight through the entrance hall and out the back door that led to the large communal grass area between the two blocks.
Just as she walked out, she saw a suitcase lying on the grass with its contents spread everywhere. Anneli dashed out onto the lawn and looked up at the girls’ apartment. She wasn’t surprised when she saw a makeshift rope of sheets swaying from the balcony.
Anneli looked all around and finally caught sight of a slim woman running as fast as she could at the far left end of the block.
There was no doubt in her mind that it was Jazmine. She dressed and moved exactly like that. It was a perfect match. Anneli cursed her own carelessness and ran back to her car as fast as her unfit body allowed.
She’s on her way down to the station, she thought, knowing each twist and turn of the road, because that was where she had killed Michelle.
She saw Jazmine a few hundred meters in front of her, almost in the same spot where Michelle had met her end. But this time the sidewalk was not quite as deserted as last time. A group of rowdy young men were leaving the station. They were already in full summer mood, walking along with their jackets swinging on their shoulders and beers in hand. It would be impossible to drive into Jazmine here.
But that wasn’t her intention.
Anneli rummaged for Denise’s pistol in her bag and sped up when she found it. In front of her, the young boys started shoving one another playfully, and then suddenly cut over the grass, kicking some of the beer cans on their way.
A second later, Anneli drove past Jazmine and hit the brakes hard ten meters in front of her. She reached straight over to the passenger door and flung it open.
Jazmine looked completely defeated when she saw Denise’s pistol pointing directly at her.
“We need to talk, Jazmine,” said Anneli as she stepped out onto the pavement. “I have Denise at my place, and as you can see I’m in possession of her pistol. And now I really want to get to the bottom of what you’ve started.”
She gestured to Jazmine to get in the car.
“Get in!” she ordered.
Jazmine transformed into a completely different girl from the contemptuous brat who had not long ago sat backstabbing Anneli in the waiting room, calling her a cow and a ridiculous ugly bitch. A very different girl from the one who used to challenge her in her own office.
“I haven’t done anything to you,” said the girl in a subdued voice next to her. But Anneli turned the car around and drove back toward the parking area at Sandalsparken.
“I don’t think for a second that you have, Jazmine, but now we’ll drive back to the apartment and get your suitcase. Then we’ll go and put the kettle on and get to the bottom of this before we go and get Denise, okay?”
Jazmine shook her head. “I don’t want to go back to that place.”
“Well, now I’m the one who decides. So you can protest all you like.”
“I didn’t do anything. It was Denise,” she whispered, rather unmotivated. Anneli wasn’t quite sure what she was hinting at, but it didn’t matter.
“Of course it was Denise, Jazmine,” she answered diplomatically. “After all, I am your caseworker, so it shouldn’t surprise you that I know you both well.”
The girl was about to say something else but stopped herself, and Anneli didn’t give a damn anyway. In ten minutes, the world would be rid of her.
—
Jazmine stopped on the walkway a few meters from the door.
“I don’t know how we’ll get in,” she said very convincingly. “I climbed down from the balcony and the door is locked. The key is inside the apartment.”
Anneli looked suspiciously at her. Was she pulling her leg?
“We’ll have to go somewhere else. Can’t we drive to your place?”
Was she trying to win time, or was it true? After all, Anneli had seen that the key was not in the suitcase when they had picked it up along with all the clothes.
“Empty your pockets,” she said. Jazmine did as she was told. A couple of hundred-kroner notes and a condom was all she had on her. Then she asked to see the contents of the canvas bag on Jazmine’s shoulder, but Jazmine held on to it tightly and suddenly looked determined, snarling that she didn’t have the goddamn key. Couldn’t Anneli just believe her?
Anneli did believe her because it all sounded logical enough. She had seen the sheets hanging down from the balcony for herself. The problem, however, was that for the first time she had no idea what her next move should be. Her entire plan of creating a scenario of murder and suicide between the girls was in jeopardy if she didn’t kill Jazmine behind that door. Nothing else would work.
Gazing down the walkway, Anneli suddenly thought how bare it looked. No plants outside the doors or along the banister. In fact, no decoration anywhere except a single doormat outside the girls’ apartment.
“Step back, Jazmine,” she said intuitively and lifted the doormat. And there was the key.
“Did you think you could fool me, Jazmine?” She smiled.
Jazmine looked utterly lost. Almost as if she was more surprised than Anneli.
Anneli unlocked the door and pushed the girl into the hallway in front of her. She immediately noticed the unmistakable smell of feces and urine, but the past few weeks h
ad toughened her up. The cancer, the surgery, the radiation therapy, the whole business of plotting the murders, and not least committing them, had erased her old self. Now nothing could shock her or faze her.
But when she saw that the door to the bathroom was open and that the smell was coming from a woman tied to the toilet in her own shit and piss, she was shocked all the same.
“Who is that?” she gasped.
Jazmine shrugged apologetically. “I don’t know. It’s something Denise has done. I don’t know why.”
Anneli nudged the woman without getting a reaction.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know,” said Jazmine, clutching the canvas bag. It looked very suspicious under the circumstances.
“Give that to me, Jazmine,” she said angrily and grabbed for it. But the girl didn’t let go. Then she swung the pistol at the girl’s face at full force, and the effect was brilliant. Jazmine screamed and let go of the bag, putting her hands to her face. She knew that her pretty face was her last asset.
“You’ll do exactly what I tell you, Jazmine. Otherwise I’ll hit you again. Understood?”
Anneli picked up the canvas bag from the floor and looked inside.
“What?” she exclaimed. This day was really full of surprises.
“How much is there?” she asked. “If it’s the money from the robbery, I know it’s a lot.”
Jazmine nodded, her hands still covering her face. Was she crying?
Anneli shook her head. What brilliant luck. Everything was coming together nicely. She had managed to get the girl back here and now she had her hands on all this money.
Anneli glanced at the limp figure in the bathroom. How would it affect her plans that this woman was there? If she was dead, her presence would remain a mystery. But if she wasn’t, she could become a problem. As one of her ex-boyfriends—the most boring one—always said, “Luck is only there to be taken from us if we don’t guard it with everything we’ve got.” Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as she thought. Time was really getting on, so she had to hurry up and deal with Jazmine before she ran out of luck.
“Come into the sitting room, Jazmine,” she said, rehearsing the scene in her head. Once she had shot Jazmine with the gun, Anneli would press Denise’s pistol into her hand. The plan was for the police to conclude that there had been a showdown between the two girls and that Jazmine hadn’t had time to fire the pistol at Denise before Denise killed her with the silenced gun. The one they would later find next to Denise’s body.
“Sit down over by that shelf, Jazmine,” she said as she discreetly slid her hand in her bag and replaced the pistol with the gun.
Jazmine’s expression darkened and she raised her sharply drawn eyebrows. “What’s that for?” she asked nervously. “Weren’t we supposed to talk? That’s what you said.”
“Oh, but we will, Jazmine. And you’re going to tell me everything, got it? Why did you think that it was me who ran Michelle over?”
Anneli hid the gun under the table and took out the silencer from her bag.
“She told us that she saw you before you hit her.”
Anneli nodded. “But she was mistaken, Jazmine. It wasn’t me.”
The girl couldn’t help but frown, even if it meant she would wrinkle her otherwise perfectly smooth face. “Well, she also saw you when . . .”
“When what, Jazmine? I assure you she was mistaken. It must have been someone who looked like me.”
Jazmine’s gaze moved back and forth from the edge of the table to her side in discomfort. She clearly knew that something drastic was about to happen. And now that damn oil filter wouldn’t fit properly on the barrel of the gun.
“What are you doing under the table, Anne-Line?” she asked. In the same moment, she jumped up and grabbed a club-like thing from the teakwood shelf above the dresser.
She’ll lunge for me in a second, thought Anneli, pulling the gun out from under the table and giving up on the silencer.
“Stop that, Jazmine!” she yelled. But Jazmine had already unscrewed a cap from the shaft of the club, and before Anneli could react, Jazmine pulled on a small ball hanging from a string at one end before tossing the club across the dining table toward Anneli and throwing herself on the floor for protection.
Anneli looked at the object with horror and instinctively threw herself on the floor while Jazmine crawled out into the hallway.
It was a hand grenade, but not one of those pineapple-shaped ones.
But nothing happened. The junk didn’t work.
Anneli got up and held a hand to her shoulder, which was sore from her fall. She could hear Jazmine tugging at the front door handle.
“You can forget that, Jazmine,” she shouted toward the hallway. “I locked the door behind me.”
She picked up the gun and the silencer from the floor and walked out into the hallway while assembling them properly.
Jazmine clearly understood what was about to happen, darting in fear into the bathroom and locking the door, as if that would help.
Anneli pointed the gun at the door and pulled the trigger. The hole in the door was modest, but the scream from the other side was not.
She’s making too much noise, thought Anneli. She fired again and the screaming stopped.
What now? She had to check how badly she had injured the girl, but the door was locked. Of course, she could kick it open—it was as thin as cardboard—but then she’d have to wipe the footprint off it afterward. But then she realized that she was going to have to wipe her prints off everything anyway. Why hadn’t she remembered to bring gloves?
Then she kicked the door where the lock was and the door flew halfway open.
Anneli squeezed her way in and looked down at the floor where Jazmine lay gasping. Her eyes were big and black, and the terrazzo floor was stained red with her blood.
Handy when the floor slopes in the right direction, she thought as she watched the blood flowing toward the drain under the sink.
Then she turned toward the mirror and saw a full-length reflection of herself.
There she was, Anneli Svendsen, a middle-aged woman with bags under her eyes and a gaping mouth. This was the second time she saw herself looking so cold, cynical, and indifferent. It made her shudder. Who was this woman calmly standing here as she watched a little creature bleeding to death? Was she actually going crazy like she had thought before? It certainly felt like it.
She looked down at Jazmine’s leg, which was twitching as her life ebbed away. It was only when she lay completely still, her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, that Anneli turned toward the woman who was tied to the toilet.
Anneli reached around her and flushed the toilet. Judging by the smell, it was long overdue.
“There,” she said. “Now I’ve avenged you, whoever you are and whatever you’re doing here.” Then she stroked the poor woman’s hair, rolled a lot of toilet paper around her right hand, and went around the apartment thoroughly wiping everything she had touched.
Finally, she carefully picked up Denise’s pistol with a piece of toilet paper and went out to the bathroom to press it into Jazmine’s hand. But which hand should she choose? The blood-soaked left hand or the right hand, which still looked clean? Which hand did Jazmine even use? Had she thrown the grenade with her right hand?
Anneli closed her eyes and tried to picture the incident. She simply couldn’t remember.
Then she squeezed Jazmine’s clean right hand around the pistol grip and let her hand fall back onto the floor before turning off the light and pulling the door shut.
When she had packed her things in her bag, she rolled some paper towels around her hand, placed Jazmine’s suitcase on the bed in the bedroom, and opened it. If anyone had seen them with the suitcase down on the grass, which she didn’t think anyone had, they would probably just describe Jazmine as
a weird girl who had been helped by an elderly lady. The police would ask who the lady was, and they would answer that they hadn’t seen her before.
The conclusion would be that she had been unpacking when she was interrupted by the showdown with Denise. Wasn’t that a story the police would buy? She thought so because it was sufficiently complex and simple at the same time.
Anneli smiled. Maybe she had watched too many crime shows, but wasn’t that an advantage in this situation? She thought so.
She was about to leave the apartment when she caught sight of the hand grenade. What luck it hadn’t detonated.
She carefully picked it up and scrutinized it.
“Vor Gebrauch Sprengkapsel Einsetzen,” was written in big letters on the metal end.
Insert detonator before use, she translated. But who said anyone had ever done that?
Not doing that cost you your life, Jazmine. What a pity, thought Anneli, laughing at the thought. The lazy girl had probably never bothered to learn German.
Anneli turned the grenade upside down and poked the ball and string back into the hollow wooden shaft. It didn’t work, but if it could scare her, it could scare others, too.
It might be a bit long, but it’s useful nonetheless, she thought while she screwed the cap back on and placed it in the canvas bag on top of all the money.
I’ll google the thing sometime if I ever need to know how to install the detonator, she thought. Who knew, maybe one day she would devise a murder plan that would be best served with a weapon like this.
When she stepped out onto the walkway and wiped down the key with a bit of paper towel before putting it back under the mat, she thought for a moment that nothing had been more successful than the mission she had been on over the past few weeks. Now all that remained was a little drive with Denise’s body, and then she really deserved a good long holiday.
The Scarred Woman Page 41