‘Nobody,’ said Henriksen. ‘Let’s go back inside.’
‘Yes,’ Yrsen replied, ‘we should.’
No sooner had they shut the door behind them than Jasmin hopped over the low gate in the fence and ran back to her car.
Yrsen isn’t who you thought she was. She wasn’t even hurt in the fire. Who is she?
Jasmin started the car. Her dipped headlights bored dazzling tunnels of light into the mounting fog before a powerful gust of wind swept the mist aside. Jasmin was crying, but she kept wiping the tears from her cheeks.
You can’t let them win. You can’t.
Almost blinded by tears, Jasmin drove on through the darkness. The tops of the pine trees along the side of the road were bending under the merciless power of the storm. Leaves and twigs swept across the asphalt and Jasmin felt the wind pushing against the side of the car, trying to force her off the road.
Why weren’t there any burns on her face?
Why?
You know why. Because she isn’t Yrsen. Because she . . .
The headlights of her car swept over the sign welcoming her to Skårsteinen but the village was deserted, as if the residents were all holed up in their homes already, taking refuge and waiting for the storm to hit. The streetlights hanging from cables strung along the road swung back and forth wildly, a few sparks spraying down from the wires. A fist-sized rock slammed into the windscreen. Jasmin gave a start and her car weaved across the road before she managed to get it back under control. Her wheels bumped over a pothole and her shock absorbers screeched. The rain set in once more, at first barely more than drizzle sprinkling against the windscreen, but it grew heavier and heavier.
There was an object on the passenger seat. When Jasmin slowed down to take a closer look at the object, she realised part of the panelling over the door had fallen off. She saw wiring connected to a minuscule camera that had evidently been fitted underneath. The panel had a barely visible hole in it for the lens.
A camera they’d been watching her with.
A camera that had recorded everything she’d done inside her car.
Jasmin’s fingers gripped the steering wheel like she was trying to strangle it.
If they were watching you here, maybe they were watching you in the house too.
Maybe you even helped them. Maybe Sandvik’s cameras were a trick.
Bonnie barked at the window, pulling her out of her thoughts. Jasmin reached for the camera, but then, in the beam of her headlights, she saw a figure in a grey coat cross the road and disappear into an overgrown garden. A handful of empty houses stood out here on the edge of the village. Some of them were uninhabitable, crooked and weather-beaten.
Was it him?
Had she just seen the drifter?
Jasmin braked. With a sharp tug, she managed to rip the camera from the wiring. She grabbed Bonnie’s lead and leapt out of the car, then hurled the tiny camera into the undergrowth and took the gun out of her pocket. She was burning with rage; her finger was poised on the trigger.
They’ve been watching you. They’ve been following your movements the whole time.
A rusted wrought-iron fence blocked her path but the gate gave way with a single kick. Weeds proliferated between the paving stones. The crooked house looked deserted; its roof had caved in at the eastern end, the thatch collapsing in on itself. Jasmin switched on her torch and braced herself against the wind.
Then she entered the house. It stank of rotting wood and a smouldering fire.
Goosebumps spread over her neck and down her back. Her instincts screamed. You aren’t alone, they seemed to be warning her.
The beam from her torch swept across the wall and fell on the symbol – the inverted triangle with the open top-right corner.
A flash of light appeared before her eyes. A bare white wall. A window with iron bars. A corridor she was walking down. The symbol was here too.
Fire. Flames. The smell of petrol.
‘So,’ said a voice from her memory, which sounded like Henriksen’s. ‘Who are you today? Am I talking to Jasmin Hansen? Or to Hanna Jansen?’
Jasmin blinked, suppressing these images, forcing herself to breathe.
The drifter was here. She could sense it.
‘I know you’re close,’ she said quietly. ‘And I’m warning you: this time I’m armed. It’s time you showed yourself.’
Jasmin cocked her revolver. The cylinder clicked quietly as it rotated. ‘I’m only going to warn you once.’
‘I thought you didn’t know how to shoot, Ms Hansen.’ The voice that emerged from the darkness, so close at hand, made her jump. Jasmin whirled around. There he was, standing in the doorway behind her and looking right at her. She lifted her torch.
He blinked as the light shone directly into his eyes.
The drifter wasn’t Jørgen. Nor was he Sven Birkeland, or the body from the beach somehow resurrected before her, or Jan Berger from the lighthouse. She didn’t know him; he was just a man, tall and thin, with a long beard and a scar on his face. His coat had been patched up in several places and his jeans were dirty and torn at the seams.
He coughed.
‘You were there. In the garden. You were watching me and Paul.’
‘I’ve been watching you the whole time. It was a shitty job, but someone had to do it.’
Jasmin stared at him. His face – strange, and yet so familiar. She felt like she’d seen it before. After a few moments, it clicked. ‘You’re the man I saw in the notebook at Yrsen’s house. My God. That woman – she has a photo of you too. A photo. What is this? What’s going on here?’ Jasmin was still pointing her gun at him, but now she lowered the barrel slightly. ‘Who exactly is she?’
‘You tell me.’ He lifted his hands, which were empty, and held them out to her in a placatory way, as if to say, What do you need a revolver for? I’m only a simple drifter, a stalker who’s been sneaking around outside your house at night. ‘I need to know if I can trust you.’
‘Either you’re all working together – or you’re on my side. And if she’s trying to get rid of me . . .’ Jasmin replied.
‘You mean, your enemy’s enemy is your friend?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jasmin admitted. ‘I don’t know what to believe anymore.’
The stranger raised his arm and rolled up the sleeve of his coat. There, on his left forearm, Jasmin saw a scar. It was a burn, and it looked relatively recent.
‘Was that her? Did she try to take you out? Like she wants to do to me? Only you managed to give her the slip?’
‘Is that who you think I am? Another victim?’
Jasmin didn’t reply; instead, she whirled around as she heard the door behind her opening. A man appeared in the doorway, shining a torch at both of them. It was Arne Boeckermann. Rainwater dripped from his coat.
‘Ms Hansen, we’ve all been looking for you. I spotted your car as I drove past and . . .’
Jasmin noticed him exchange glances with the stranger, who gently shook his head. As if they knew each other.
‘Move away from him, Ms Hansen. Right now.’ Boeckermann reached for his belt to draw his gun, but Jasmin was quicker. She aimed her revolver at him. The metal felt cold as a block of ice in her hand, but she knew it could spit deadly fire.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ she cried. ‘You’re in cahoots with the others, aren’t you? This man has shown me what Yrsen did to him.’
‘Yrsen? The artist? What’s she got to do with this?’ Boeckermann sounded genuinely perplexed.
‘Don’t play the innocent. Get back!’
Boeckermann held up his hands. ‘Ms Hansen, please calm down. There’s no need for violence.’
‘I said get back!’ She took a step forwards and Boeckermann obeyed her command. He looked confused; his eyes went not to her, but to the stranger behind her.
‘You too,’ Jasmin ordered the drifter. ‘Move over there.’
The stranger whose photo she’d found at Yrsen’s house did as he was told – b
ut when he arrived next to Boeckermann, his coat parted slightly, revealing a pistol in a holster on his belt. He was armed and he could tell she’d noticed.
‘Stay calm, Ms Hansen,’ he said. His voice sounded composed and professional. ‘You aren’t in any danger.’
Jasmin felt tears welling up in her eyes. The barrel of her revolver started to shake in her hand, her finger resting on the trigger. Boeckermann’s radio burst into life with a crackle. ‘We can’t find her,’ said a male voice that Jasmin didn’t recognise. ‘She must be out in her car. And the storm is getting worse.’
‘Who was that? What are you planning?’
‘Nothing, Ms Hansen. Now please, put your gun down.’
‘No way. And if either of you try to stop me . . .’ She glanced again at the burn on the stranger’s arm. Something about the sight of it sent a shiver up her spine; something about it was so horrifying that she had to avert her eyes. ‘I don’t understand why you aren’t helping me if Yrsen did that to you. We could bring her down, uncover this whole plot.’
Boeckermann snorted, as if he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or look incredulous. ‘You’re concocting a story. Do you really think he’s here because of Yrsen?’
‘The people in the village told me he only started appearing around here over the last few months. And Yrsen only moved here four months ago too; the electricity bill in her house proves that! I can prove everything!’
‘I admit it,’ said the stranger abruptly, as if he’d just come to a decision. Jasmin noticed Boeckermann staring at him in disbelief. ‘By rights, I should be dead. Yrsen tried to kill me. But she failed.’
‘Who is this woman?’ Jasmin gripped the revolver with both hands. ‘Is she a – I don’t know, a hitwoman?’
Or is she an old enemy who you know very well? Is she Hanna Jansen?
‘I survived the attack. I escaped with my life and I followed her. I’m going to have my revenge, I’ve sworn it to myself.’
Boeckermann looked aghast. ‘What are you talking about, man? We aren’t supposed to—’
‘Shut up,’ the drifter cut him off. ‘Now you know the truth, Ms Hansen. You can put your gun down.’
‘Not yet,’ Jasmin replied. She pivoted, aiming the revolver at Boeckermann. ‘We can’t trust him. Take his gun and his handcuffs. Put them on him and . . .’ Jasmin looked around the room. ‘Cuff him to that old heating pipe over there.’
‘But that’s—’
‘Silence!’ Jasmin screamed at Boeckermann. She heard her phone ringing in the pocket of her jeans. Not now.
She watched as the stranger took Boeckermann’s gun from his holster and grabbed his handcuffs. Then he marched him across the room towards the rusty pipe and cuffed his left wrist to it. The two men exchanged a glance, as if they already knew each other and were striking a wordless pact.
‘Now come here. We’re going outside. You first, and no sudden moves.’
The stranger obeyed. Outdoors, the rain had swelled into an ice-cold deluge that sprayed into her face. Visibility had fallen to around six feet, and the wind tugged at them as if they were little more than toy figurines that the storm was trying to sweep away.
Jasmin gestured towards the car. ‘Get in. You’re driving.’
Again, the stranger complied. Jasmin sat down beside him on the passenger seat. With the doors closed, the howling of the wind subsided into a low moan in the background, but the rain continued to hammer on the roof of the car.
‘Why are you carrying a gun?’ she asked him.
‘Because I assume Yrsen isn’t done with me yet.’
‘So why didn’t you act straight away? If you knew about her – her true identity – why didn’t you go to the police?’ Jasmin stared at him. ‘Because they’re all in on it, right? Because it would have been no use?’
The stranger merely gave her a pitying look, as if he was disappointed in her reasoning. ‘What next, Jasmin? What are you going to do with me?’
Jasmin’s phone rang once more and she pulled it from her pocket, keeping the revolver trained on the drifter. The number was unknown but the area code was a local one, from the island.
‘Yes?’
‘Ms Hansen,’ said Gabriela Yrsen’s quiet voice. ‘It’s me.’ Down the line, Jasmin could hear the rush of the wind and the drumming of the rain on an attic window, much like the one in her own house by the coast. And now that she stopped to listen, she realised she could hear the branch of the overgrown pine tree scraping over the outside wall too.
Jasmin clenched her fist. ‘What do you want?’
‘The picture is ready. I finished it much sooner than I’d expected. I wanted to let you know before this storm brings its full strength to bear. In fact, I’ve already driven down to your house.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Jasmin feigned surprise. ‘You’ve already . . . ?’
‘It wasn’t hard to find.’
She’s lying, Jasmin thought. It was so obvious and Yrsen was such a bad actor that she almost felt sorry for her. Jasmin covered the phone with her hand. ‘Start driving,’ she ordered the stranger beside her. ‘We’re taking the old country road. Head south, back to my house on the beach.’
‘But the storm—’
‘Just drive.’
He did as he was told, starting the engine and manoeuvring the Volvo onto the road.
‘And now?’ Jasmin asked Yrsen over the phone. ‘You’re standing outside my front door in the wind and the rain?’
‘No, I’m inside the house. The door was unlocked. I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to keep the painting dry.’
You miserable liar. I locked the door when I left earlier. I’m certain of it.
‘Then I’ll meet you there,’ Jasmin replied, doing her best to sound indifferent.
‘I’m looking forward to it already.’ With that, Yrsen hung up. Jasmin’s hand shook violently as she put her phone away.
‘I’m looking forward to it too,’ she said softly into the car. ‘I can’t wait, you piece of shit.’
Chapter 17
‘We’re here,’ said Jasmin, though the rain beating against the windscreen nearly smothered her words. The stranger beside her gave her a piercing look, sizing her up.
‘You don’t have to do this.’
‘What don’t I have to do?’
‘Go in there with your gun. Threaten people. You could stop and think instead.’
‘I’ve done enough thinking. I know everything I need to know. Yrsen is dangerous. She must know about Paul’s disappearance.’
‘Maybe she does. Maybe we all do.’
The barrel of her gun quivered, but she kept it trained on the man, whose name she didn’t even know. ‘Get out.’
He obeyed. By now, the rain was coming down in such torrents that Jasmin was soaked to the skin in a fraction of a second, despite her raincoat. The rainwater was ice-cold and felt like the touch of death itself.
The nearby sea was high, and it rushed and roared in the night.
‘Inside the house!’ she screamed as the wind buffeted against her. Through the dense grey shroud that had fallen over the world, Jasmin could just make out a car parked a little way down the road.
It might be Yrsen’s. Or Henriksen’s. Or maybe it belonged to somebody else. Maybe they were all here.
The stranger put his hand on the front door and it swung open. He disappeared into the darkness inside, which swallowed him up.
Jasmin followed him, holding her six-shooter out in front of her, her hand trembling. She fumbled for the light switch, but when she flicked it, the lights in the hallway remained cold and dark. The storm must have brought down the power lines.
Her mind went back to her journey up here – the Rolling Stones song she’d heard on the radio about the traveller seeking shelter from the storm. It felt like an eternity ago. Like a scene from another life. Back then – before all this, although she didn’t want to think about the idea of before – everything had been so much easier. Paul had been
with her and she’d thought she was getting back on track.
And now all she had left was darkness.
But you aren’t going to give up yet. You’re going to find him. They’re going to give Paul back to you.
Jasmin cast a glance into the living room. The French windows were open; the floorboards had swelled in the rain and the wind had blown leaves onto the rug, as if the room had become part of the forest over the last few hours. A layer of fine raindrops covered the sofa, clinging to the fabric like dew.
There was nobody in here.
Then she noticed the cellar door was ajar.
Of course, Jasmin thought. Things were coming to a head. And what better place than the cellar? ‘We’re going down there. Both of us.’ She gestured with her gun for him to go down the stairs in front of her.
‘Ms Hansen,’ the stranger said again as he began to descend. ‘Jasmin. You don’t have to do this. You can still turn back.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Put your gun away. We can talk about everything.’
He stopped halfway down the stairs and turned to look at her. His face was sad and disappointed, an expression that struck a chord in her subconscious which she couldn’t quite place.
You know him. And not just because you saw his photo in Yrsen’s notebook. There’s more going on here.
Much more.
Once again, she saw lights flashing before her eyes, as though there was a storm raging outside that only she could see. Her hands shook. She thought she could smell petrol – could feel the cold fluid trickling over her fingers.
‘Keep going,’ she ordered him.
And then they were downstairs.
The gas heater made a humming noise but Jasmin didn’t give it a second glance. The door at the other end of the cellar was wide open, and so was the gun cabinet. As if someone had recently taken a look inside – maybe to make sure there weren’t any weapons inside it.
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