Don't Wake Me

by Martin Krüger

  The painting Yrsen had promised her – if she could believe what the artist told her – would be ready in two days’ time. She couldn’t wait that long. If Yrsen really did have the gift of second sight, maybe she’d foreseen what would happen to Paul.

  Maybe you should go back and see her again.

  Ideally before the storm breaks.

  ‘We’re missing something,’ Jasmin said out loud, pacing up and down between the crooked gravestones. A mouse rustled through the foliage on the ground and disappeared into a pile of leaves that had gathered against the back of an eroded gravestone. It was a tall block of granite, almost the height of a man, with the initials JH engraved into it.

  Jasmin froze. JH. Short for Jasmin Hansen.

  She blinked. Now, as she looked a second time, she saw the letters JN – not her own initials.

  Something is very wrong here. You can feel it with every fibre of your being. You’re getting stranger with every day you spend here. As if the island itself is getting under your skin.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about the sanatorium. About the way Larsen had stared at her, as if he’d been expecting her to recognise the photo of the old institution.

  But that was absurd. Larsen had been half-crazy, and now he was dead. Murdered, Jasmin thought, and the idea alone sent a cold shiver up her spine.

  Somebody on the island will stop at nothing – not even murder. They started a fire, a dreadful way to kill a man. Somebody out there has abandoned all scruples and restraint.

  A flash appeared before her eyes like the headlights of a Jeep hurtling towards her in the night.

  You’re losing your mind. Find Paul and get out of here – it’s the only way. Flee, as far as you can. Flee from this place.

  ‘Ms Hansen?’ Henriksen asked. She turned to face him. ‘There’s just one thing I don’t understand.’

  There’s more than one thing I don’t understand, she thought, but she gave him a weak smile. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘“I know what you are”, it said on the letter.’ Henriksen examined another gravestone and shook his head. ‘This is pointless. No, I’m much more interested in what the kidnapper might have meant by that. “I know what you are.” He seems to know you, or at least he thinks he does.’

  Jasmin nodded and took a step to one side. If Henriksen tries to accuse you of anything or arrest you, she thought, you’ll take off. You’re quick on your feet – he’ll have trouble following you through the undergrowth.

  And later today you’re going to go and see Jan Berger to learn how to shoot, if you have time.

  You need to be able to defend yourself.

  But what if Berger is involved too?

  If he is, you don’t stand a chance. But you need to try, for Paul’s sake. You need to keep going, keep trying. You have to find him. The kidnapper has to be stopped.

  And when you have Paul back again, you should take him by the hand and run away, run far, far away. Because whatever’s going on here, it looks like someone is doing all this to drive you insane.

  Jasmin felt a merciless rage hovering quietly at the edge of her soul, and she gave a start as she realised she didn’t quite know what she would do if she found herself face to face with Paul’s kidnapper.

  If you were alone with him – even if he hadn’t done anything to Paul, though that seems less likely with every passing minute – then you’d want to hurt him. You’d try to make him feel the same pain you’re enduring right now. You’d hurt him without batting an eye.

  What does that say about you?

  ‘But I don’t know him,’ she replied. ‘Whatever he thinks.’

  ‘He’s claiming to know something,’ Henriksen went on. ‘He “knows what you are”,’ he quoted. ‘And from the way he phrased it, I assume he’s not referring to anything positive.’

  Jasmin looked at Henriksen. His eyes were searching, questioning, as if he were trying to look into her soul. The wind rustled though the birch trees. A lot of them were old, and many others far too young to survive a violent storm of the kind that was predicted.

  The oldest and the youngest perish.

  Like in war.

  ‘I don’t know what he’s referring to.’ Jasmin put her hands in the pockets of her raincoat. ‘I don’t even know why he would send such a vaguely worded threat to me, of all people – the mother of his victim. Why hasn’t he made any demands? Why won’t he give me a chance to get Paul back?’

  ‘You know the answer to that, Jasmin.’ Henriksen’s expression was serious. ‘It’s possible he isn’t after a ransom; it’s possible he never intended to let Paul go.’

  Jasmin nodded sadly. ‘That’s getting clearer to me with every passing second.’ The fingers of her right hand brushed against an object she hadn’t expected to find there. It was a piece of fabric – it felt like a handkerchief – wrapped around something more solid. She couldn’t remember putting it in her pocket. When Henriksen wandered a little further away among the gravestones, she turned her back on him and pulled out both items.

  The scrap of cloth was checked – maybe a piece of a shirt, though the pattern didn’t look familiar to Jasmin. It was wrapped around a shard of glass, the jagged edge of which was smeared with blood. How did it get into your pocket? She looked up at Henriksen and caught him casting a covert glance in her direction, but she quickly turned away when she noticed him.

  This cloth and piece of glass are covered with your fingerprints now, she thought. What if someone planted them on you? What if they’re trying . . . ?

  Then she noticed the small cut on her palm. Your hand was bleeding yesterday too, when Henriksen got out of the car. Did you cut yourself on this glass? Jasmin gave a start at the thought.

  What are they planning, if you’re right about this? What are they trying to pin on you? Is it to do with Paul? Or Larsen? That would be a nightmare. But what can you do about it? Jasmin clenched her fists. She was shaking, and not because of the cold.

  You need to think. Think carefully and look for a way out. A way to find out if your suspicions are really true, or if you’re just seeing phantoms.

  Then her mind went back to the numbers on Henriksen’s phone – Larsen and Yrsen – and she felt all her doubts fall away, scattered like a bank of fog that had clouded her mind and obscured her vision but had suddenly been dispersed by the north wind. However hard he tries to pretend he’s on your side, something about him doesn’t add up.

  Jasmin stuffed the cloth back in her pocket as Henriksen walked towards her. ‘Did you find anything?’ she asked him, watching his reactions carefully. You’ve been so blind. But if Henriksen thinks you’re a suspect, it doesn’t mean he’d try to plant anything on you, does it? He isn’t a local, he’s an outsider, and he’s as shocked by all this as you are. He can’t be the one who’s trying to set you up.

  Can he?

  Jasmin didn’t know. She felt helpless, alone on the island, surrounded by strangers whose motives she didn’t understand.

  ‘Nothing,’ Henriksen replied. ‘I don’t understand what might have prompted such a brutal killing. What did Larsen know that had to be kept secret at all costs? That justified even murder?’

  Jasmin cast her eyes one last time over the grey gravestones and the moss-covered rocks that protruded from the forest floor like crooked teeth. ‘I don’t get it either.’ She sighed and yawned extravagantly in the hope that Henriksen would notice her exhaustion. ‘I feel like I need to get some more sleep soon. All I want to do is lie down and give up.’

  ‘You can’t, Jasmin.’ Henriksen put his hand on her shoulder. ‘You can’t give up yet.’

  ‘Not yet?’ she answered. The pang of grief in her voice was unfeigned. ‘Does that mean I can only give up when we find Paul’s body? Does it?’ She wanted to scream all her frustration and fury into the woods, to punch and kick Henriksen, who was standing so apathetically in front of her. ‘I can finally give up once Paul is dead?’

  ‘You can never give up. You know
that, Jasmin. We’ve talked about this so often already.’

  Jasmin stared at him. Henriksen’s face suddenly seemed so familiar to her. Once again, those blinding lights appeared before her eyes; once again her thoughts turned to the symbol on his phone, the upside-down triangle with the open top-right corner.

  You’ve seen all this before.

  The thought scared her because she couldn’t quite place it. It scared her because she realised it was the truth – that her subconscious had recognised something her rational mind couldn’t quite piece together.

  ‘I want to go home,’ she said quietly. ‘I need to think.’

  ‘Sure.’ Henriksen reached out his hand to take Jasmin’s arm, but she pulled away from him. They made their way through the woods in silence, back to the car. By now, the sun had disappeared once more behind heavy, low-hanging cloud.

  The storm.

  It was getting closer.

  Chapter 11

  ‘This is Jan Berger,’ said the voice on the answering machine. ‘I’m not here right now, but you know what? Leave me a message.’ He isn’t picking up, Jasmin thought. And at a time like this when you really need him. For a moment, she debated driving out to the lighthouse to look for him. No. You can’t trust him either.

  A damp nose nudged her hand. Don’t forget about me, Bonnie seemed to be saying. ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten you,’ said Jasmin. And so, instead of driving to the lighthouse, she decided to take her Labrador for a walk on the beach. The cold wind blowing in from the sea made her shiver, but it also brought clarity to her thoughts.

  It’s time you finally visited the place where all the evidence seems to be pointing. The old sanatorium – or what’s left of it.

  They were alone down here, aside from a man in the distance standing close to the water and looking out to sea. Bonnie caught his scent and growled quietly.

  At first, Jasmin thought the stranger on the beach was Karl Sandvik, going by his height and his slight stoop – like he was carrying a weight on his shoulders. But then she realised it was Veikko Mattila, the odd bookseller from the village.

  ‘Ms Hansen,’ he said as she passed him. Jasmin was in no mood for making conversation and was about to walk on without saying anything when he added, ‘You ought to know that people have been asking about you.’

  Jasmin stopped, with one hand clenched into a fist in her pocket and the other gripping Bonnie’s lead. The Labrador wagged her tail as she looked up at Mattila. You aren’t much help, Jasmin thought.

  ‘Who’s been asking about me?’

  ‘The police. I told them that I mentioned Mr Larsen to you and that I sold you a copy of his book. They were very interested to hear it.’ Mattila took a step backwards as Bonnie moved towards him. ‘Please control your dog. I’m allergic.’

  Jasmin pulled Bonnie back on the lead. ‘And? What are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘Larsen is dead, in case you haven’t heard already. There are rumours in the village that all the bad things happening on the island are connected to your arrival. You’ve brought something back to life that’s lain dormant for a long time. You’ve been sniffing around too much. We don’t like that sort of thing around here.’ Mattila put his hands in his pockets. ‘I heard your son disappeared because he couldn’t stand living with you anymore.’

  ‘That’s . . .’ Jasmin swallowed. A chill seeped through her body, as if she’d been drinking ice-cold seawater. The lights reappeared, harsh and dazzling to her mind’s eye, and Mattila’s blurred face danced back and forth behind them. ‘That’s a lie. Somebody is trying to cover up a mass murder, and they’ll stop at nothing in the process. But they won’t manage it. I’m going to uncover the truth.’

  ‘A mass murder?’ Mattila sounded amused. ‘There are no murderers here. It was you who killed him. And now you should leave, before I call the police.’

  ‘You’re insane,’ Jasmin blurted. Bonnie sensed her mood and started up with a deep growl, but Mattila seemed unmoved by it.

  He looked west, down the beach, and Jasmin followed his gaze. There were people out there in the distance standing and watching her. Sunlight glittered from their binoculars. Then she noticed Mattila was wearing a small earpiece tucked deep inside his ear, one that was flesh-coloured to avoid detection.

  ‘Who are you communicating with? Who are those people?’

  ‘You know exactly who they are.’ When Mattila’s hand re-emerged from his pocket, it was holding a dangerous-looking syringe with a long needle.

  Jasmin staggered back a few steps. ‘What on earth?’

  ‘Stay calm, Ms Hansen. Stay calm and keep still.’ Mattila’s voice suddenly sounded different; it was cold and professional.

  ‘I most certainly won’t – I’m going to tell Henriksen about this and he—’

  ‘Henriksen?’ Mattila echoed scornfully. An expression of disbelief briefly passed over his narrow face. ‘That would be foolish, and you know it. Forget it, Jasmin. Now, keep still.’

  But Jasmin had no intention of complying. She turned and broke into a run, her shoes kicking up sand in all directions. At one point she stumbled and fell, but she scrambled back to her feet, her knees stinging and her hands burning. Bonnie’s lead slipped through her fingers and she saw her dog running ahead of her, barking loudly, back to the narrow path through the woods, back to the house.

  There’s more than one of them. Mattila, the drifter, the others down on the beach. You need to warn Henriksen.

  But when she reached the house, she saw the tail lights of the inspector’s car disappearing into the encroaching darkness like a pair of red-hot coals. She was too late, maybe by only a minute, and he didn’t pick up when she called him. His phone was switched off. Jasmin’s heart was pounding. She grabbed her keys and leapt into the car with Bonnie.

  Go, get out of here, she thought. But where to? The ferry is a dead end. They’ll find you there. You can’t stay in the house either.

  The old sanatorium. Although she’d told people about it, nobody knew what Larsen had shown her and what she’d found out.

  Jasmin put the car into gear and sped off with screeching tyres.

  Chapter 12

  The ruins rose up from the landscape like the skeleton of a slain giant from a Nordic folk tale who had lain here until the sea air had weathered away his remains and vegetation had grown over his bones.

  A construction hoarding blocked the way, but Jasmin decided not to let it stop her. She couldn’t get hold of Yrsen or Henriksen, and although she’d been constantly scanning her rear-view mirror to check if anyone was following her, she hadn’t seen anybody. Though that didn’t mean they weren’t looking for her, of course.

  Whoever they were.

  Mattila had tried to sedate her, or possibly even kill her. She still felt shocked to the core, but she tried to suppress all thoughts of it as far as she could. The drifter must be working with the others – and if she’d interpreted the message I know what you are correctly, there could only be one reason for that. They were trying to set her up. Because for these people – for Hanna Jansen, if she really was involved – the phrase I know what you are could mean only one thing. I know what you are: a murderer.

  First off, there was the homeless man she’d killed. Maybe they would try to pin Johann Larsen’s murder on her too, along with the arson attack on his house. But any attempt they made to frame her for that would be complicated. They would have needed to plan too much in advance, too much could have gone wrong, too many conspirators would have had to be involved . . .

  You’re missing something.

  If they’re trying to frame you for murder, there are much easier ways of doing it.

  They didn’t need to lure you to the island.

  Even if Hanna Jansen is behind all this – and you know how badly she wanted Jørgen, how much she wanted to get you out of the way.

  The thought gnawed away at her as she pushed aside the hoarding that blocked the drive leading up to the sanatorium,
climbed back into the car and drove through the gap. The main building was still largely intact, though the flames that had licked at the red facade had left brown patches of soot. The windows had been destroyed or removed altogether and the doorways were nailed up with thick boards. Weeds and tall grass sprang up between the paving stones and a Keep Out sign squeaked in the wind, the metal covered in patches of rust.

  Jasmin took the key out of the ignition, put Bonnie on a lead and got out of the car. A powerful gust buffeted against her, as if trying to stop her from approaching the crumbling building, but she leaned into the gale and pressed on.

  The wind made a hollow, whining noise as it whirled over the buckled roof and through the empty window frames, which seemed to watch her like countless eyes while she circled the old sanatorium through the knee-high grass.

  You’re insane if you really go through with this. God knows what might happen if you go in there – assuming you even manage to find a way in. The walls are all on the point of collapse, the roof beams are rotten and there’ll be rusty nails everywhere.

  You can’t do this.

  And yet she kept going. The symbol, the inverted triangle she’d seen in Larsen’s photo – it must be here somewhere. Jasmin instinctively sensed that she was on the right track; that she was on the cusp of making a significant step forward; that she was about to uncover a secret that had long been hidden.

  A terrible crime was committed here. The historian’s words echoed in her ears, her memory. A sin against human nature.

  Bonnie sniffed at the tall grass, but after a few yards she sat down and refused to go any further. She fixed her eyes fearfully on the edifice looming in front of her and whimpered quietly.

  ‘What’s the matter? It’s just an empty old—’ Jasmin fell silent as a fresh gust of wind brought forth an unsettling howl from the depths of the sanatorium. Bonnie gave a loud bark, but it didn’t sound as boisterous as usual. This time, her dog sounded small and scared.