Don't Wake Me

by Martin Krüger

  Is he really on the phone to Boeckermann and the others, or is he talking to someone else? The thought sent a shiver down Jasmin’s spine.

  Henriksen came back into the kitchen. ‘We’re going to take another look around the property and search for evidence. Including on this letter.’ He cast an appraising eye over the threatening message. ‘I know what you are,’ he read out loud. ‘I don’t understand.’ His eyes wandered over to Jasmin. ‘But you, Ms Hansen – I think you know what these words are referring to.’

  Jasmin swallowed. She wanted to deny it, but she struggled to get the words out as she couldn’t bring herself to tell yet another lie. She couldn’t do that to Henriksen. He’d been shot at, and all for her sake.

  But the contact list, said that other nagging voice inside her. What’s the deal there? What is he hiding? Who was he arguing with just now?

  ‘No,’ she answered after a long pause. ‘I don’t know what they’re referring to. I’d hoped he might at least make some demands, for money or – I don’t know, something connected to Paul. That he might give me a chance to get my son back.’ She was on the verge of collapse; she could feel it. Her hands were now shaking uncontrollably.

  ‘We need to check the camera footage,’ she said weakly. She started looking around for her phone and eventually found it on the coffee table in the living room. The app she used to control and monitor the cameras took an eternity to load, but eventually she managed to access the recordings.

  The cameras had picked something up.

  Dear God. They saw you. They followed you here.

  ‘Ms Hansen?’

  Jasmin tilted her screen to let Henriksen look at the video too. Of course, the man at the door was none other than the drifter in his trench coat, with a hat pulled down over his face – and now that she could see him, she had to cling on to Henriksen for support.

  In the clear light of day, the drifter looked like the homeless man she’d seen in the headlights of her car. He looked like the man she’d killed. He didn’t look up at the camera, but it was in his posture, his gait as he walked up to the door and then returned to his van, hunched and limping slightly, before driving away. This was no coincidence.

  The homeless man was real, and you ran him over. He was washed up on the beach – you know that because you looked into his face in the cold storage unit. And then he vanished.

  If this drifter was acting like the homeless man, it could only mean one thing: he knew what she’d done. He must have left the body on the beach, and now, to terrorise her even further, he’d brought her this letter because he knew only she would understand its true meaning.

  What was more, the vehicle parked at the end of the drive was an unmarked white delivery van – and Jasmin realised she’d seen it before.

  ‘That van was parked outside the fishing company building down at the docks yesterday.’ Jasmin ran her hand anxiously through her hair. ‘I’m certain of it. I went for a stroll through the village with Paul and I noticed it there. Jesus Christ, he was watching us – there’s no other explanation!’

  ‘Calm yourself.’ Henriksen studied the recording with a furrowed brow. ‘Can I make a copy of this?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Let me fetch my computer.’

  She left Henriksen in the kitchen and dashed into the living room – but instead of picking up her laptop, she charged out onto the veranda and screamed her panic, frustration and rage out into the wind.

  ‘You won’t do it!’ she cried. ‘You won’t drive me crazy!’

  Jasmin gripped the wooden railing and forced herself to breathe calmly. ‘It’ll all be OK. Everything will be OK.’

  I know what you are.

  A murderer.

  Was that what the drifter was getting at? Did he want her to confess that she’d killed a man that night?

  But nobody believed you when you tried to tell them what happened. Nobody wanted to know. They all told you it was only an animal, a deer.

  Does he want you to search for proof? Proof of your own guilt? But why? What does he hope to achieve? Why is he tormenting you like this?

  Hanna Jansen must be behind it all. She wants to get you out of the way. No other explanation makes sense. She might even be working with Jørgen.

  Somewhere out in front of the house she heard a car pulling up, and she hurried back inside. The front door swung open – Did you leave it ajar just now? Jasmin wondered – and Boeckermann came storming in. His hair hung in dark, wet strands over his face and water dripped onto the floorboards from his oilskin coat, which made him look like an oversized scarecrow.

  They’ll warp, said a voice in Jasmin’s head that sounded like Jørgen. ‘The water isn’t good for the wood,’ she said out loud. ‘We need to mop it up, the water isn’t good—’

  ‘He was here,’ said Henriksen. ‘You take a look around. I’ll be right with you.’

  Once Boeckermann had left the kitchen, Jasmin felt Henriksen’s hands on her shoulders. She felt tears running down her cheeks and falling to the floor, where they mingled with the rainwater Boeckermann had tracked inside. ‘The water isn’t good for the floorboards,’ she repeated. Paul, my little Paul, how could this have happened? How could you leave me like this? How could I have allowed it?

  ‘He’s gone,’ she whispered. ‘It’s useless, there’s no way to ever—’

  ‘Jasmin,’ said Henriksen gently. ‘I’m going to put you to bed now. You need to sleep. The situation is too much for you, and that’s understandable. It’s what the kidnapper wanted. He’s playing with you.’

  Jasmin felt an urge to snatch up the letter and rip it into a thousand tiny pieces, but Henriksen gripped her wrist and extracted it from her fingers. ‘That’s not something you should do right now,’ he cautioned her. ‘Even if I can understand your reaction.’ Gently yet firmly, Henriksen led her upstairs. The rattling of the rain against the roof made her feel sleepy. ‘Why don’t you put your head down for a while? Please.’

  ‘But I don’t want to,’ she heard herself protest in a voice that didn’t quite sound like her own. ‘I have to—’

  ‘No,’ Henriksen answered. ‘You don’t. Not right now anyway. You need sleep, at least a few hours. After that the world will seem a little clearer.’

  Jasmin fell back onto the bed. The duvet was so soft that she sank into it as though it was a cloud. Henriksen drew the curtains and the thick blue fabric dimmed the light. ‘You’re injured – you shouldn’t be walking around so much. You know that,’ she admonished him quietly.

  Henriksen nodded. ‘I’ll be careful. Don’t worry, Ms Hansen. I’ll stay here until you wake up, I promise. Boeckermann and I will have a look around for evidence. After that, I’ll ask my team to examine the letter for fingerprints and get an officer to bring your car back from Larsen’s place.’

  Jasmin nodded. She climbed under the covers, and now that she was in bed, the urge to sleep overwhelmed her. The bedroom dissolved, the walls unravelled, leaving nothing more than thin white fog – or smoke – and in the distance, the voice of a child calling to her.

  Paul!

  Jasmin reached out her hand, but her muscles felt heavy as lead. She struggled to hold up her arm as the fog-shrouded outline of her son groped towards her in fear, searching for safety.

  ‘You need to come and save me!’ he cried – and although Jasmin knew this was all in her imagination, she still gave a start at how realistic it seemed.

  ‘How?’ she asked him. ‘Tell me how!’

  ‘Someone on the island knows. He knows everything. You need to find him.’

  With all her might, Jasmin tried again to lift her arm. Her fingers strained for Paul, but her son’s silhouette drifted further and further away from her, receding into the distance. Eventually she closed her fingers, but all she could feel was cold air and fog.

  He was gone.

  The upside-down triangle. There it was! She could see it, right there on the wall, marked out in black paint. Jasmin felt a sense of relief
well up inside her. She’d found it!

  ‘So, are we going to finish the game, or are you going to keep staring at that NHI logo?’

  Jasmin blinked. A man was sitting in front of her, smoking a pipe, and there was a chessboard between them. The white figures were on his side, while she was playing as black. He was relatively short and had thin blond hair above a receding hairline. His tobacco smelled pungent, the smoke rising to the wood-panelled ceiling above their heads. She looked around the room. A fire was burning in the hearth, which was surrounded on all sides by bookcases, while rain rattled against the window at the other end of the library. A few armchairs were positioned around the fireplace, each with an open book resting on them, and yet Jasmin and the man were alone. The door was ajar; somebody was pacing up and down outside it and talking quietly, as if to themselves. She heard a rumble of thunder, but the storm was so far away that the rain almost drowned out the noise.

  ‘I—’ she heard herself say. ‘I don’t know.’

  The man slid his queen along the board. ‘Check,’ he declared. ‘And mate.’

  Jasmin looked down at the chess set. ‘I was distracted.’

  ‘You always are, these days. You’re planning something, girl.’ He puffed at his pipe again, sending another waft of smoke towards the ceiling. ‘I hope you aren’t going to rat on me.’

  ‘What would I rat on you about?’

  ‘My deliveries. I’m hiding them from the others. As you know.’

  ‘Deliveries?’

  ‘Special deliveries.’ He leaned forwards. ‘For my collection. And in return, I won’t tell anybody here that you sometimes—’

  Jasmin felt every muscle in her body grow tense. She felt ready to take flight. ‘What?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘I overhear things, from time to time. Your conversations with him, even though you’re completely al—’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Jasmin cried. She leapt to her feet, retreating from him towards the window. The patter of the rain against the glass was reassuring. Hypnotic, even. She rested her forehead on the cool surface and closed her eyes. Her fingers reached into her trouser pocket in search of the object she’d hidden away there a few hours ago, while she was in the smoking area. She gripped it firmly.

  He’s lying, she thought to herself. All lies.

  You know the truth.

  Chapter 10

  ‘Ms Hansen? Time to wake up.’ The words penetrated the depths of her sleep.

  Jasmin blinked. ‘What?’ she heard herself say in a voice that sounded nothing like her own; it was hoarse, as if she’d barely slept. That dream, she thought, that strange . . . Had she really been dreaming about Johann Larsen, or was it a memory? Had she met him once before? The room where she’d been playing chess with him – where was it? Was any of this even possible?

  ‘It’s nine o’clock.’ Only now did she recognise the man who was trying insistently to rouse her. It was Henriksen.

  ‘Nine?’ Jasmin blinked, amazed at the bright light dazzling her eyes.

  ‘Nine o’clock in the morning, Ms Hansen.’ Henriksen sounded amused. ‘You slept all evening and through the night.’

  ‘What?!’ Jasmin shot upright. Everything came flooding back: Paul’s disappearance, the threatening letter, the attack on Henriksen after their visit to the secret cemetery – and the letters on the gravestones.

  Hanna Jansen.

  The duvet slid noiselessly to the floor and she realised she was still wearing the same jeans and grey woollen jumper as the day before. Then she looked over at the window. The sun had emerged from the grey clouds; the rain was in retreat and slants of sunlight poured through the thin blue fabric of the curtains. Henriksen pushed them aside.

  ‘Nine o’clock in the morning,’ he repeated. ‘You really needed the sleep.’

  ‘Is there any news?’ She scarcely dared to ask for fear of the awful truths that might be waiting for her – yet at the same time, she knew she’d have to face up to them sooner or later.

  We’ve found him, she could already hear him say in her mind. We’ve found his lifeless body—

  ‘We haven’t managed to find any useful evidence. I’m sorry. We examined the letter, but the kidnapper knew what he was doing. He must have been wearing gloves. There wasn’t any saliva either; he moistened the glue strips with water. That said, we did find something in Paul’s room.’

  She cleared her throat. ‘And what was that?’

  ‘Hairs. Long, blonde ones.’

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Henriksen replied. ‘But they might . . .’ He shook his head. ‘They might belong to someone else.’

  Hanna Jansen. Had she really been here?

  ‘But it was almost certainly a man who broke into the room.’

  ‘Yes. A man who might have carried these hairs in on his clothes. But this is just vague conjecture. It’ll take a couple of weeks to get a DNA comparison.’

  Jasmin lowered her head. ‘So it was a man who knows how these things work? How to kidnap children without getting caught by the police? How to write threatening letters, cover up evidence and make himself invisible, like a ghost?’

  ‘That about sums it up,’ Henriksen confirmed, nodding gloomily.

  ‘But you haven’t told me everything, have you?’ There was something in Henriksen’s eyes that she couldn’t quite place. Disappointment, and deep concern.

  What was he disappointed at? That they hadn’t managed to make any progress? Or was there more to it?

  ‘There was a fire last night. A serious fire that claimed a man’s life. A horrendous incident.’ He gave a sigh. ‘Right now, we have to assume there’s a connection with the kidnapping.’

  ‘Was Paul there?’ Please, don’t let it be true, a voice pleaded in her mind. Please.

  ‘No. Paul is still missing. But I now have to assume that the problems we face here are significantly more serious than we previously thought.’

  ‘Who was the victim?’ asked Jasmin, throwing her legs over the side of the bed. She felt exhausted, despite her long sleep. The muscles in her arms were burning and her neck felt like it was filled with lead. ‘Who?’

  ‘I shouldn’t really tell you this, but . . .’ Henriksen glanced at the open door. The corridor behind it was empty. There was something oddly conspiratorial about his gesture, Jasmin thought. ‘It was Johann Larsen. The historian. Somebody started a fire and everything went up in flames. His whole house burned down. His house, his books, his notes, his computer – everything. I can only hope the culprit – or culprits – killed him before they started the fire. It’ll be at least a day before the arson specialists get here from the mainland.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Jasmin didn’t know what to say. She thought of Larsen, how he’d led her into that small, overheated room with all those strange Nazi medals on the wall. She thought of the origami sculpture of the triangle that the kidnapper had left behind. The same symbol Larsen had shown her in an old photo of the sanatorium.

  Did the kidnapper know about that? What if Larsen had to die because he’d spoken to her? If so, didn’t that mean she had to do all she could to keep following the trail?

  If he’s got Paul, you need to find him. Whatever it costs. And you shouldn’t put any more people in danger either.

  ‘Ms Hansen?’ Henriksen asked. ‘Jasmin, do you know who might have done this? You were at his house yesterday. Did he say anything or drop any hints that could be perceived as a threat? Anything the kidnapper would be forced to respond to?’

  Jasmin shook her head. ‘He only mentioned the graveyard. That was all – he didn’t tell me anything else. You know that already.’

  ‘The graveyard,’ Henriksen repeated. ‘Yes. That could be it, of course. Maybe that was the trigger. But I still don’t understand. Why all this? What did we find there that provoked the kidnapper to go to such extremes? Was it the letters on the gravestones? Or are we missing something?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Jasmin shook her head. ‘But the question sh
ould really be: how does he know what we found, or what we failed to find?’

  ‘You mean . . . ?’ A shocked expression passed over Henriksen’s face. ‘You mean he’s watching us? And he saw something he thought was dangerous? Something that prompted him to get Larsen out of the way because he’d said too much, and we were too blind to see it? Maybe we were looking for the wrong thing.’

  Jasmin nodded. ‘I think so.’ She walked towards the door. ‘Are you coming? We need to go and take another look.’

  The cemetery lay before them, just as they had left it – the mossy paving slabs, the rusty iron gate, the weathered headstones beneath the endless whisper and rustle of the birch trees. The wind picked up yellow and orange leaves from the ground and whirled them in circles past their shoes as they wandered among the graves – and although Jasmin had already visited this place and photographed all these names before, it felt to her now like something had changed.

  The rain had stopped, but that wasn’t it.

  The air was colder. An earthy, mouldy odour drifted up from between the graves. Winter was on its way, or at least its earliest harbingers.

  And on the radio, on the way here . . .

  ‘What was that?’ she’d asked Henriksen. ‘I didn’t quite catch it – my mind was elsewhere. What did the presenter say?’

  ‘That the first big autumn storm will be hitting the island tonight,’ Henriksen replied, his voice filled with concern. ‘Tonight, maybe tomorrow. It won’t be long now before it arrives.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’

  ‘I can tell you’re from the mainland,’ Henriksen laughed.

  ‘So are you,’ Jasmin retorted. ‘And that doesn’t answer my question.’

  ‘It means the little bit of rain and wind we had yesterday will feel like a mild summer day in comparison. It means you should lock all your windows and hope the wind doesn’t shatter the glass, and that the trees don’t snap and fall on the roof.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good at all.’ The word ‘roof’ reminded Jasmin of her trip to the attic and how she’d found the picture of the burning building – the sanatorium – that Yrsen had painted. It felt like an eternity ago, as if Paul’s disappearance had cast a veil over everything that had gone before. A veil that submerged her memory in a grey murk.