Don't Wake Me

by Martin Krüger

  Not even Bonnie stirred.

  Was that a creaking noise she could hear from the steps down to the cellar?

  Jasmin flipped a switch and the hallway filled with light. First she checked the boards nailed to the cellar door, then the windows. Everything was as she had left it. The hands on the clock over the kitchen table pointed to quarter past eleven.

  She tiptoed up the stairs. Bonnie had noticed her by now and trotted over quietly to nudge her with her nose and wag her tail. Paul was lying on his side, fast asleep.

  Jasmin felt tears well up in her eyes as she looked at him, slumbering peacefully, breathing softly.

  Where have I brought you to? What on earth is going on here? Wouldn’t it be better if we left first thing tomorrow?

  These thoughts governed one part of her mind, but the other urged her to stay and shed light on the darkness. Whoever was driving the Jeep that night, he’s here. Here on the island. And he isn’t done with you yet. What is he planning?

  Who could harbour such hatred that he’d do something like this?

  I don’t know, she thought. There’s nobody.

  Jasmin stepped into the shower to rid herself of the cold that had taken possession of her body under the warming jet of water. Then, wrapped in a fluffy woollen dressing gown and with thick socks on her feet, she made some tea and sat down in the living room to look at the book she’d bought, which she hoped would tell her more about the history of the island. She placed her mug on the coffee table next to the book and the old metal bowl she always used to keep fruit in – an heirloom inherited from Jørgen’s mother. Paul had left Bonnie’s dog chew on the table too, and Jasmin pushed it to one side.

  Good girl, she thought. She never takes anything off the table.

  The fire that had destroyed the sanatorium was mentioned only in a brief aside. An inglorious end, the historian called it – an unsolved crime, in the wake of which the facility was never rebuilt. A few culprits had been rounded up and sentenced: teenagers from the village, supposedly on a dare that had got out of hand. Two of them had arranged to break into the building to cause trouble. They’d started a fire. People had got hurt.

  But was that really what happened?

  You have to talk to him. To the historian.

  Jasmin thought of Karl Sandvik and his words of warning. Maybe it would be a good idea to call up Jan Berger and have him teach her how to use her gun after all.

  She flicked onwards, and on another page featuring a glossy photograph – an aerial view of the fjord – she found a yellow sticky note.

  Remember: seven, not two, it said.

  What’s that supposed to mean? The handwriting – doesn’t it look familiar somehow?

  Jasmin rummaged through her purse for the receipt Mattila had issued to her, but she couldn’t find it. You must have left it in the car. She pulled on her boots and went back outside. The silhouettes of the trees were towering, restless guardians flanking the house, and at this time of night they seemed even more threatening than usual. The receipt from the bookshop was in the glove compartment, as she’d expected.

  Beneath the light over the kitchen table, she compared the lettering – forty-nine krone, Mattila had scribbled on the receipt – with that of the note in the book. Remember: seven, not two.

  The handwriting wasn’t the same.

  But what if . . .

  She flicked onwards through the book and found the historian’s signature at the end of the afterword. Jesus, it must have been him. That angular S – it was the same as the one on the note.

  How is this possible?

  Jasmin searched the cabinet in the corridor for the phone book and looked up the number of the bookshop.

  ‘Mattila?’ answered the proprietor. He sounded like he’d been drinking.

  From the corner of her eye, Jasmin briefly saw the blinding flash of the Jeep’s headlights in the window at the end of the kitchen – but when she looked up, there was nothing to be seen but the darkness beyond the glass. She smelled petrol, smoke – and alcohol.

  ‘This is Jasmin Hansen,’ she said quietly. You need to be careful what you say. They might be listening in. ‘We spoke earlier today. I bought the last copy of—’

  ‘I know. I remember.’ Mattila’s voice sounded very far away, as if there were more separating them than just a few miles. ‘I remember it very well.’

  ‘Somebody left a message in the book. “Seven, not two” written on a sticky note.’

  ‘Did they really?’

  ‘It wasn’t you?’

  ‘Most certainly not,’ the bookseller replied. ‘And I happen to know that your copy was hand-delivered to the store by Larsen himself.’

  ‘Larsen personally gave it to you?’ Jasmin gripped the receiver with all her strength. ‘But that would mean—’

  ‘I don’t know what it means,’ Mattila cut in, ‘but don’t you think . . . ?’

  Jasmin caught a glimpse of a movement down by the edge of the woods. As if a strange force had assumed control of her body, her fingers loosened and the telephone fell from her hand, landing on the sofa with a quiet thud.

  Without stopping to think, she switched off the light, scurried over to the French windows and peered out, her heart beating faster.

  He was down there.

  He’d returned. Under the light of the moon, Jasmin recognised his coat, which was blowing gently back and forth in the wind. On his cheek – yes, if she squinted, it was just possible to make out a scar running from his eye down to his chin. It looked like a knife wound that hadn’t been stitched up properly, because he’d never gone to hospital or visited a doctor who might have wondered how such a serious injury could have happened.

  You need your gun. The words flashed through her mind. You can’t go on like this. If you want to stay here and keep playing at detectives, you need to be able to defend yourself.

  In a surge of courage – or possibly recklessness – Jasmin opened the French windows. If the intruder wanted to get in, he’d simply break the glass and nothing would be able to stop him. Apart from Bonnie, perhaps.

  But Jasmin doubted her Labrador would be able to hold out for long against a big man like him. ‘What do you want from me?’ she yelled down at the forest. ‘What do you want, you piece of shit? Leave us alone!’

  The stranger lifted his hand. At first, Jasmin thought he was greeting her, but then she saw he was pointing west. The realisation sent hot and cold shivers through her body.

  Just a few moments later, the drifter turned on his heels and vanished down the narrow path.

  The west.

  Out where the island became ever more barren and unpopulated. Out where the sanatorium had been built, and where the old historian had taken refuge.

  All the evidence was pointing in the same direction.

  Slow down, she cautioned herself. It might be a trick. Maybe he’s trying to lure you there. Maybe he only wants you to leave the house.

  The most important clue was the dead body in the cold storage unit.

  How was it possible to transport a corpse all the way out here and leave it down on the beach?

  There must be more than one person involved. No one could have managed it on their own. That was her starting point. That was how she was going to get to the bottom of all this. Jasmin felt certain of it.

  If you have the courage.

  Jasmin picked up her phone and scrolled to Jørgen’s number. Her finger hovered over the call button – and yet she didn’t press it.

  Tomorrow you’re going to talk to the historian. Or try to, at least. And after that you’re going to visit Hendrik Henriksen. It’s time you came clean to him. You need to tell him you recognised the body on the beach; that somebody on the island is playing a wicked, wicked game; and that the drifter has turned up at the bottom of your garden once again.

  She put the phone back down on the sofa and glanced over at the window. What if the stranger came back? Wasn’t it high time she brought the gun upsta
irs?

  But the gun was still in its cabinet, which meant she’d have to go down into the cellar, and she didn’t want to do that.

  No way.

  A man died down there.

  All the same, Jasmin got to her feet and approached the cellar door. The boards over it were still every bit as secure as when she’d nailed them up. Gripping the screwdriver, she levered the planks out of the doorframe one by one.

  It was much easier than she’d expected.

  That wasn’t good at all, and only strengthened her resolve to arm herself.

  Eventually, she managed to remove all the boards and open the door. The air that blew into her face was cold and musty, like an old grave.

  Jasmin flicked on her torch and went down the steps.

  Downstairs, the door to the back room was standing ajar – but then again, that was how she’d left it the last time she’d come down here. She saw the red rowboat, the gas central heating in the corner. The pipes gurgled quietly and eerily as if a slimy creature was squirming around inside them.

  Jasmin opened the gun cabinet, the unoiled hinges squeaking noisily. The gun lay before her – dark steel with a walnut stock. And just as Jørgen had said, a small box of ammunition was standing next to it.

  You didn’t notice it when you last looked. That must be what happened.

  It had been here the whole time. There was no other rational explanation.

  At least, not one she could accept without losing her mind.

  Jasmin put the ammunition in her pocket and lifted the gun. It was heavier than she’d expected. She looked over at the door leading to the back of the cellar again. It was open a crack. Behind that door was where they’d found the captain, dangling from one of the ceiling beams on a finger-thick length of rope.

  Something was drawing her towards the back room. She could sense it.

  You need to look inside.

  Put it behind you.

  Overcome your fear. It’s only a room in a cellar – empty, dusty, maybe with a few cobwebs.

  Jasmin had taken a step towards the door, deeper into the cellar, when her ears caught muffled noises from upstairs.

  It sounded like voices. Two people talking to each other – and one of them, she realised with mounting horror, was Paul.

  Oh God.

  No, no, no.

  Jasmin dashed up the cellar stairs, ran like she’d never run before, and the treads creaked and groaned as she stormed up the main staircase to the first floor. The door to Paul’s room was ajar. She reached out and pushed it open, lifted the gun to her shoulder and—

  Paul was sitting upright in bed, staring at the wall. He was alone.

  ‘Who were you talking to just now?’

  He didn’t reply. His eyes were fixed on the wall and aside from his heavy breathing, he didn’t move an inch. Jasmin wasn’t even sure he knew she was there.

  Was this a nightmare?

  ‘Paul?’ she asked timidly. ‘Paul, who were you . . . ?’

  She took a step forwards, moving a couple more feet into the room. Paul still didn’t respond. It was unusually cold in there, and only now did Jasmin notice the ice crystals that had formed on the inside of the window.

  There was frost on Paul’s duvet too, in his hair, on his skin.

  He was pale and so cold, so horribly cold.

  He turned to look at her, and Jasmin thought she heard his vertebrae snapping. ‘He’s in the wardrobe,’ said Paul in a voice that sounded chill, like the crackle of ice, and his breath felt every bit as cold as the air in the room as it brushed against her cheek like the grasping fingers of a corpse.

  Jasmin spun around towards the wardrobe, which stood in the corner behind her. Her muscles were close to giving out, her legs on the verge of buckling under her. She felt ready to collapse on the spot.

  Run, while you still can. The words shot through her head, yet the dreadful chill in the room seemed to freeze her to the spot, even more so than the cold she’d felt in the refrigerator a few hours before.

  The wardrobe door swung open with a screech.

  The homeless man emerged. His piercing, ice-blue eyes glittered as he reached out his hand.

  He was pointing not at her, but at Paul.

  ‘They’re going to come for him,’ he said in a hoarse voice. ‘They’re going to take him away from you.’

  Jasmin whirled to face Paul. Her son was gone.

  Then she woke with a start and everything vanished. Jasmin heard the echo of a scream and realised it was her own.

  Her neck ached. Outside the window she saw the pale light of the morning sun, but it seemed wan and strangely discoloured, like it was shining through a soot-streaked pane of glass.

  You fell asleep on the sofa. It’s ten o’clock in the morning already!

  Jasmin looked around for the shotgun but she couldn’t find it. The floor lamp by the French windows bathed the living room in a dull, buttery yellow light. Her book was lying on the coffee table, along with the fruit bowl, the dog chew and, in its shadow, two strange origami sculptures Paul had made: a kind of geometric figure – something like a triangle, if she wasn’t mistaken – and a deer. When Jasmin checked the cellar door and found the boards still nailed into place, she realised that too had only been a dream.

  Just a horrible nightmare.

  You should go back to the cellar tomorrow, she thought. But I bet you won’t find any ammunition down there. In other words, everything is as it should be.

  She checked the windows, doors, motion sensors and cameras before heading upstairs, her newly purchased book tucked under her arm. The steps squeaked softly under her feet.

  Maybe if you read a little it’ll help you calm down from your dream. Or you could rip out a page and make an origami sculpture like the ones Paul left downstairs . . .

  The book nearly slipped from Jasmin’s fingers.

  With a sudden chill sense of horror, she realised the sculptures in the living room hadn’t been there when she’d come downstairs after her shower.

  No sculptures. Not before she’d dozed off. And that meant they must have been left here while she was asleep.

  Somebody had been in the house.

  Jasmin dashed up to Paul’s room.

  The door was shut.

  She hurled it open and barged inside.

  What she saw there made her heart stop in her chest. The window was shattered, shards of glass strewn all over the rug. Bonnie lay motionless on the floor. Her son’s bedding was rumpled, the duvet thrown to one side, and Paul was nowhere to be seen.

  He was gone.

  PART TWO

  FIRESTARTER

  Chapter 1

  You’ve seen it before, Jasmin realised. The upside-down triangle with the open top-right corner.

  It’s wrong. It shouldn’t be like that.

  There’s only one way to put it right.

  You need to turn it over.

  Turn everything on its head.

  You’re going to find it out there. You’ve seen it before, the first time you and Jørgen came to Minsøy.

  And you saw it again too, later on. After your accident.

  If you can connect the two places you saw it – which is what you came back to the island to do – then the triangle will make sense once more.

  ‘Ms Hansen, did you manage to recognise the driver of the Jeep that was pursuing you?’ The words of the detective who had interviewed her as she lay in her hospital bed echoed through her mind.

  ‘No. I didn’t have the chance.’

  ‘You mentioned a woman named Hanna Jansen earlier. Who is she?’

  ‘Just an old, painful memory. She’s the woman Jørgen once cheated on me with. The woman who wants me out of the way.’

  ‘Do you think Ms Jansen could have been driving the Jeep?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe she’s still out there somewhere. Waiting for her chance – waiting to finally take me out, once and for all.’

  And then her memory shifted, the detecti
ve and her hospital bed disappeared, and Jasmin’s thoughts took her to a different day, to a different place, where . . .

  Chapter 2

  ‘I’ve already told you not to worry,’ said Jasmin as she flicked on the indicator.

  ‘But we both know how they’re going to react when they find out about everything,’ replied Jørgen, who was sitting beside her on the passenger seat. ‘You know what your father thinks. That you’d be better off—’

  ‘Enough, now.’ Jasmin steered the SUV, which they’d bought two years previously, onto the broad drive leading up to the property of Marit and Stale Adamsen. Jasmin’s parents lived in a neighbourhood full of enormous mansion houses next to the Frognerparken in Oslo.

  ‘That maybe you should have married someone else,’ Jørgen went on. ‘Someone better at business. It’s the same story every time.’

  Jasmin glanced at the rear-view mirror. Bonnie was sitting in the boot and pressing her nose alternately against the security grille and the rear windscreen, looking back and forth restlessly out of excitement at the prospect of bounding around in the garden. Meanwhile, Paul was oblivious to everything that was happening since he was sound asleep in his child seat, which was gradually getting too small for him. He was nearly five, after all.

  ‘I know,’ she replied. In front of them, a tall curlicued metal gate swung open automatically. Beyond it, the drive led up to the house. ‘And you know my father only says it to wind you up. That’s just his – well, his particular sense of humour.’

  ‘His sense of humour.’ Jørgen snorted.

  ‘Don’t be so grumpy. We’re only staying an hour.’

  ‘A whole hour, yes.’ Jørgen pulled an ostentatiously pained face which Jasmin couldn’t help but laugh at, and Bonnie barked as if she wanted to join in the fun too.

  Her parents were waiting for them on the veranda in front of the house. It was a mild spring day in Oslo and the March sunshine felt good after the long, cold, grey winter that had held the city in its grip for several months, bringing unusual quantities of snow.

  Jasmin embraced her mother and father. Later on, as they sat on the veranda, Marit watched Paul playing with Bonnie in the garden. ‘He’s starting to get properly big,’ she said. ‘It’s so good to see you all again. You know how I always say—’