by Chris Ould
When I reached the entrance to the short drive I stopped to assess. On the neatly paved brickwork there was a new-looking silver-grey Audi. Rainwater stood in droplets on the waxed roof and on its glass, but the bricks beneath it were dry. Beyond that the house wasn’t particularly grand, but I guessed from its location that it wouldn’t have come cheap. The tall upstairs windows in the gable end were dark and the ones below them were obscured by closed vertical blinds, but as far as I could tell there was no light behind these either.
I moved up the drive watchfully, approaching the Audi from the passenger side. Inside it was tidy and clean: nothing to show ownership other than a chamois cloth by the gear stick and a pair of sunglasses on top of the dash; nothing else except part of a canvas shoulder bag, half visible as if it had been pushed back some way under the passenger seat. I wasn’t certain I recognised it, but I thought so, enough to try the door handle and find it was locked.
Some things just don’t sit right, don’t feel right. The dark house, the car on the drive and the bag. They could all be explained innocently enough, but added to what else I knew, my instinct said it was wrong and I didn’t need more than that to move on along the rest of the drive, taking a good look at the house, weighing it up.
Beside the front door there was a mailbox, but there was no name on it. I tried the lid and found it was locked.
Decide.
I pressed the doorbell and held it: a last chance for normality to reassert itself if it could. I heard the bell ringing inside – hollow and echoing – and when I let up the silence after it was unbroken. All the same I waited a few seconds, but by then I knew no one was coming so I tried the handle. It turned, but the door didn’t give and it was too solidly built to yield easily to force. I left it and made my way around the house to the right, following a paved path. I passed two more windows, still showing no signs of life behind the closed blinds and double glazing. I didn’t expect any now, though. Instead I was looking for a way in.
The path ended at a faux-rustic stable door in the wall of a single-storey extension, which blocked the way to any further prowling. I could have retraced my steps and gone the other way, but I was well hidden from view by the tall hedge surrounding the grounds so I moved to the door and cupped my hand against the small window in its upper half.
Unlike all the other windows I’d passed, the glass in the door was only a single thickness, but beyond it I couldn’t see very much in the greyness: some kind of utility space, that was all. I stood back after a moment, then tried the handle. Like the front door, it was locked, and I paused, assessing how far I was prepared to go.
More than ever, the place seemed deserted but I couldn’t be sure. Just because Tove’s bag was in a car on the drive it didn’t mean she was inside, I told myself. But she could be, and when I weighed that against the idea – more of a certainty now – that the man she’d gone to meet was Oscar Juhl, I didn’t feel like debating with myself any more.
Instead I took the tyre lever out of my jacket pocket then shrugged off the jacket itself, folding it roughly and holding it against the glass in the door. I struck it twice and hard with the heavy end of the tyre lever, and felt the window give with a muffled crack, followed by the sound of the glass hitting a tiled floor inside.
I put the jacket aside, then looked at the jagged triangular hole in the glass. It was large enough – just – so I pulled down my sleeve for protection and inserted my hand, reaching awkwardly inside until I found the thumbturn and was able to twist it. The door gave a little as the dead bolt retracted and I pulled my arm out carefully, then opened the door further and listened.
There was nothing to hear – stillness and silence – but I was committed now so I opened the door enough to step through. I couldn’t avoid crunching glass on the tile floor, but once I’d stepped beyond it I stopped to look round.
Even with the open door there wasn’t much light. The room was some sort of storage area: slatted wooden shelves on the walls, most of them empty; a freezer and some sealed plastic storage boxes stacked up in threes. Beyond was a short corridor going off to the right, which ended in darkness. It had to lead somewhere – probably into the rest of the house – so I went a couple of paces, letting my eyes adjust to the deeper darkness until I could just make out the shape of a door at the end. In the greyness there was nothing else: no stray bar of light from beneath it and absolutely no sound, only dead air.
I went forward again, another couple of steps, moving with care. When I got to the door I paused, listening hard for sounds from the other side and picking up a faint, regular bleep, as if something inside was on standby.
I felt for the door handle and turned it slowly; it opened towards me, bringing with it warm, humid air and a watery, mineral smell. Beyond the threshold there was a very faint background glow of light; the sort you get from a digital display of some kind. It gave me the impression that the room was quite large, something confirmed by the sound of the electronic bleep, which echoed faintly.
After a second of listening I took a single step forward but couldn’t see or hear anything more so I reached for my phone. The screen light was bright for a moment as I looked for the torch symbol and then I thought I heard the faint sound of something moving. But even as I started to register that my left shin exploded in pain. I saw dazzlingly bright lights in my head and knew I’d shouted out even before I fell like a bag of rocks to the floor.
The intense, stunning pain blanked out everything else for a time. I don’t know how long. It was an involuntary thing, like being submerged by a wave you didn’t see coming. Instinctively I’d curled up on the hard floor, grasping my incandescent leg at the knee, as if a tourniquet pressure could stem the screaming nerve impulses. It didn’t, not really, but after a few seconds the jagged high notes couldn’t rise any further and then the pain fell back to a loud, insistent shout and finally I was able to open my eyes, only to be dazzled again by a dozen lights drilling down from the ceiling.
A voice was speaking – a question – but it took me a moment to focus. It was a man’s voice, but I couldn’t see him until I raised my head a little and looked to the side.
I knew how old he must be, but he was fit and lean enough for somebody younger, although at that moment he wasn’t as poised or relaxed as he was in the photo Tove had shown me on the Juhl company website. He was just as well groomed, though, in tan trousers and a pressed denim-blue shirt. A pair of long bolt cutters hung incongruously in his left hand and I knew without question that they were what had smashed into my shin. The Glock pistol he held in his right hand was only for show. He could see I was no kind of threat.
Because I hadn’t responded to what he’d been saying he spoke again, more aggressively now. “Hvem er du? Hvad vil du her?”
I shook my head, still trying to regain full focus. “English.”
When he heard that he made a contemptuous sound. “I asked who you are, but now I can guess. Your name is Jan Reyná, yes?”
I nodded, but at the same time I’d shifted my weight and the pain that washed up my left side took me out of things again for a few seconds. When it was over I looked back at him, seeing him straighten up from putting the bolt cutters down on the floor.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked then.
I shifted again, more cautious this time. “Oscar Juhl.”
“Good, yes, you’re right,” he said with a small, polite nod of acknowledgement. “So, now that we know each other, do you think you can stand up?”
“Where’s Tove?” I said.
“She’s here,” he said matter-of-factly. “If you can get up you can see her.”
I gritted my teeth against the jagged pain as I levered myself up into a sitting position. Beyond that I wasn’t sure how much further I could get. Juhl watched me dispassionately. “I think you need help,” he said, and for a moment I thought he might volunteer it, but then he cast around and strode briskly to the back corner of the room.
He was
searching for something but I didn’t watch what he was doing. Instead I tried to figure out what sort of place I was in. It seemed like some kind of spa room, about the size of a double garage, with a tiled floor and pine-clad walls, except for the longest one, which was faced with layers of black slate. There was a massage table to my right and various fitness machines by the slate wall, but around and between them the place was untidy, scattered haphazardly with various tools, rolls of black plastic, and discarded pieces of metal and wood. It looked as if alterations were being made, or that the room’s original function had been subverted to another purpose.
My brief appraisal was interrupted by Juhl coming back. He brought a length of aluminium pole about four feet long – perhaps the handle for a mop or a brush – and held it out towards me.
“You can use this to help you. Come now.”
There was a peremptory note, as if I’d wasted enough time, but I took the pole anyway and as soon as I did he stepped away, levelling the Glock in my general direction again.
I’d fallen close to the wall by the door and by using the pole to lever myself up I was finally able to stand, panting and sweating with the exertion, balanced on my right foot. The wall took most of my weight.
“Good,” Juhl said. Now I was upright he seemed a little more satisfied that he was getting what he wanted. “Go over there.”
Then, on the floor where I’d dropped it, my phone rang. Juhl looked at it sharply, took a quick step towards it and picked it up. He looked at the screen, then stopped the ringing and put the phone in his back pocket.
“Okay, move now,” he said, more businesslike; as if there’d already been too many distractions from our true purpose.
“Hold on, just listen,” I said, trying to pitch my tone somewhere neutral; somewhere reasonable and controlled despite all factors to the contrary. And then I saw Tove.
Six feet from where I was standing there was a raised area: a couple of tiled steps leading up to the lip of a round spa pool. It was large enough to hold six if you were friendly, but now only Tove.
She was naked as far as I could tell, but below the flat of her chest the water was redly opaque. Her head was cushioned by a towel on the edge of the pool – eyes closed, skin the colour of paper. She was half sitting, half floating, supported by two rough lengths of wood, which had been lashed to the pool’s stainless steel steps with tangled blue rope. Her arms were draped over these battens, held in place by lengths of white bandage, and from the crook of her left arm a thin plastic tube trailed up to an IV bag of clear liquid tied to the handrail of the steps. The only sign that she was alive was the bleep of a heart monitor balanced on a plastic box, connected by a wire to a pad on her chest.
The crude, makeshift quality of the whole thing would have been – should have been – weirdly pathetic, but somehow its improvised nature only served to make it all the more malign. I fought to make sense of it as I pulled my gaze back to Juhl. He was watching me closely – candidly – as if he was hungry for any trace of reaction.
“Get her out,” I said; not demanding or pleading, just flat. “You don’t have to do this.”
He took no notice, as if he was deaf. “Go to the chair,” he told me, gesturing to a plastic lawn chair beside the pool. “I won’t ask you again.”
I held his gaze for a moment, then grasping the top of the pole with both hands I took a small, experimental step forward, no more than a foot. It was as much as I could manage without putting weight on my left leg but even so the movement was enough to start hot fires in its nerves all over again and I clenched my teeth very hard.
Juhl watched this dispassionately until I repeated the process. Then he rounded the pool briskly from the other side and slid the chair to within a few inches of me, as if he’d decided this was the most expedient way to hasten the process.
“Sit now,” he said, gesturing brusquely.
There was no point in arguing. I lowered myself awkwardly on to the chair; just on the edge, though. I heaved several short breaths as my leg subsided again into duller, throbbing pain.
“Put the stick on the ground, please,” Juhl directed, and I let it fall with a clatter.
“Listen, just get her out,” I said again. “You can stop this.”
Now I was seated Juhl had relaxed just a little, but what I thought about anything was of exactly no interest to him.
“Did you tell anyone you were coming here?” he asked.
“Listen—”
“Did you tell anyone?” His voice hardened.
I shook my head. “No. I came to find Tove and—”
“How did you know where to come?”
“I was at her flat and I was worried about her, so I tried tracing her phone to—”
“Don’t lie,” he said sharply, cutting me off. “Her phone isn’t here.”
“I’m not lying,” I said. “Her phone was switched off but I traced her iPod. I think it’s in her bag, outside in the car.”
That threw him, but only a little. “Skødesløs,” he said to himself.
It was a small opening, but I took it. “Listen, it’s still not too late to do something about this,” I said. I glanced back at Tove. “If you help her now, or let me help her—”
“Then we’ll forget anything happened?” He laid the sarcasm on thickly. “Is that part of the training for police officers in England: to be reassuring, to make friends and gain trust?”
He must have seen the question cross my face because he made a sardonic noise, then gestured to Tove. “She was very talkative – very open – while we were still at the café. In the first stages it’s one of the effects of the drug I gave her. So, now tell me the truth: who else knows you are here?”
“No one. I came on my own.”
“I know that. I saw you outside. But who else did you tell?”
“No one,” I repeated, letting exasperation sound in my voice now.
In response Juhl shifted and took a couple of steps to a small steel trolley, where he picked up a syringe.
“Do I have to be boring and make threats?” he asked me, gesturing towards Tove. “It’s obvious what I can do, so tell me the truth: who else knows you came here?”
I drew a hard breath but knew I had to give something. “Her flatmate, Kjeld,” I said bleakly. “He was there when I looked at Tove’s computer, but he was half stoned so I just told him I’d come and make sure she was all right.”
“What about your police colleagues? If you thought you needed to come here, did you tell them as well?”
“No! For Christ’s sake,” I said, more angrily now. “What do you think I’d have said? ‘She’s not answering her phone so I think she’s in trouble’? Jesus.” I gave him a contemptuous look. “Besides, if you were here I wanted to find you myself.”
It was a bluff, and I thought he might call it, but then his eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips with a nod, as if something finally made sense.
“So you remember what happened. Is that it?” he asked.
“Some of it, yeah,” I said flatly, deliberately vague to cover the lie. “Not everything. You were there, though. I remember that.”
“Ah, okay,” he said, and I thought I heard a note of satisfaction as well. He put the syringe back on the trolley, then looked me over again, gesturing to my leg. “You know that is certainly broken,” he said conversationally. “Would you like me to give you something for the pain?”
I couldn’t help glancing down to where the blue of my jeans was turning a rich latigo red as blood seeped through. “I don’t think so,” I said, looking away.
Juhl gave a sardonic laugh then glanced at his watch. “So tell me what you remember,” he said, still conversational. “I sometimes wondered about that. I thought I’d given you the right amount of sedation for your size, but after a while there you were, in the doorway of the bathroom. Do you remember?”
I knew what he was talking about; it couldn’t be anything else.
“The bathroom, yes,�
�� I said. “Just snapshots.”
Juhl nodded. “You looked very cute,” he said, almost indulgent. “Rubbing your eyes and talking to your mama as she lay in the bath. I don’t think you looked at me once, even when I took you back to your room afterwards.”
There was no memory, but that didn’t matter. If I needed a picture I only needed to look towards Tove, which I did now.
“Does she remind you?” Juhl asked, sounding genuinely curious. Then, almost apologetic, he gestured to our surroundings. “Of course, it’s not the same. Not at all. Very hurried. But, nevertheless, I think there is some… Some kind of symmetry now.”
“Symmetry?” I tried to keep any scorn out of my voice but it was hard.
“Yes, yes, of course,” he said, as if I’d provided my own proof. “You were there then and you’re here now.”
He came a little closer and I could see he was taken by the thoughts in his head. It showed in a brightness behind his eyes: the spark of madness.
“And with Lýdia it was the first time I saw the real beauty of that moment: the moment, you know? Before that, I will tell you the truth, there had always been a sexual element. But Lýdia was…” Briefly he sought the air for a word. “Graceful. Yes. Yes, I would say that. And it was then that I realised I wasn’t even aroused in my body; only in my mind; in my soul. When you see that moment – the one that you have created – you see the truth of the person you are; the truth inside.” As he said it he touched his hand lightly to his chest, as naturally as if he’d genuflected on entering a church. “There’s nothing more… pure. Each time I’ve seen it I’ve known that is true.”
He looked me over intently now, studying my face to see if I’d understood the significance of this epiphany. He was hungry for that.
“How many times?” I said. It was all I could manage to drag from the tumbling fog of my thoughts: that and the pressing knowledge that I had to keep him distracted from Tove, and from any suspicion that time might be short. But the disappointment showed in his eyes, like a shutter coming down.