But they don’t know about your little secret, she thought. Nobody knows about it – not even Jørgen.
And if he didn’t know, the others wouldn’t either. Not even Yrsen, who was working for him.
‘Through the door at the back,’ said Jasmin.
‘That’s enough,’ said a quiet voice behind her. ‘Good evening, Jasmin.’
She spun round. Behind her, as if they’d been watching her the whole time, she saw Henriksen and Yrsen – and behind them, on the staircase, were two men in white coats. Henriksen was wearing a suit she’d never seen him in before and Yrsen’s face was clear of burn scars, just like earlier at her house. She was wearing a pair of rectangular glasses and her dark hair was tied back in a ponytail.
‘This isn’t a good evening,’ she retorted. ‘Not for you.’
‘Put the gun down, Jasmin.’
‘No.’ From the corner of her eye, Jasmin saw the stranger moving a few steps to one side, as if he was trying to get round her so he could lunge for her gun and overpower her.
‘Well? Where’s the painting?’ Jasmin smiled scornfully at Yrsen. ‘Is it finished?’
‘The painting is over there. And so is Paul.’
‘He’s . . . ?’ Yrsen’s words knocked her off balance. Jasmin hadn’t been expecting such openness from her. ‘Paul?’ she called. ‘Paul?’
There was no reply. ‘What have you done with him? I swear to God, if you two—’
‘Jasmin, what do you know? What have you found out?’ Henriksen asked, lifting his arms in a gesture that was obviously intended to placate her, but only made her more furious.
‘You’ve been fucking with me this whole time. That’s what I’ve found out. And this woman’ – Jasmin swung the revolver towards Yrsen – ‘isn’t who she claims to be.’
‘Well deduced,’ Yrsen replied. No, not Yrsen, Jasmin corrected herself. The woman over there who’s pretending to be someone she isn’t. ‘And what else do you know?’
‘I know you two are in contact with Jørgen. I overheard everything. And I know you’re trying to frame me for Larsen’s murder. I know what happened here and what you’re all trying to cover up. The fire in the sanatorium. The massacre. The graveyard hidden in the forest.’ Her hand trembled as she pointed the gun back at Henriksen. ‘And I trusted you. You were there with me. You liar. Who are you? Are you even a policeman? What the hell is going on? You aren’t going to catch me, I hope you realise that?’
Yrsen and Henriksen looked at each other. Then Henriksen spoke. ‘Come here, Christian.’
The stranger gave him a long look before replying, ‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea. She’s growing unstable. We need to intervene.’
‘You need to— What is this?’ Jasmin fell back a step as the stranger tried to grab her gun. ‘I’ll do it!’ she screamed, panicking, shaking with horror. ‘I’ll—’
‘Stop it, Jasmin,’ said Henriksen calmly. ‘Stop all this nonsense. You aren’t going to shoot anyone.’
‘You won’t catch me,’ she retorted. ‘I’ll take Paul and we’ll disappear, and none of you can stop me. And I’m going to tell the world about everything that’s being covered up here. My colleague Sven Birkeland – his wife works for a major newspaper. What do you think will happen when the outside world hears about this? You’re finished. Oh, I know very well why you lured me here. You’re afraid. Your whole tower of lies is going to come tumbling down.’
‘Jasmin, can I ask you a few questions?’ Henriksen took a step forwards. ‘Why don’t we go upstairs? It’s rather unpleasant down here.’
Jasmin looked over her shoulder at the door, which was wide open. For a moment, she was convinced she could hear the creaking of the rope with which the captain had hanged himself from one of the beams.
Because he’d lost his wife and son out at sea.
Because he couldn’t bear to go on.
‘I’m not leaving without Paul.’
She took a few steps backwards, without taking her eyes off the others. Cold air brushed against her neck – grasping at her like the stiff, clammy fingers of a corpse.
‘Come on, Jasmin, that doesn’t make sense.’
‘I’m not leaving without him.’ She turned around and for the first time in years – for the first time since her return – she peered into the back room of the cellar. It was empty. Cobwebs were draped over the rough stone walls and the wind whistled through narrow gaps in the rubblework. She saw the dark beams that spanned the room beneath the ceiling, and on one of them she could still clearly see the mark left on the wood by the noose.
Paul wasn’t there. Instead, she saw a large, old-fashioned trunk lying on the floor in the middle of the room, of the kind people used to take with them on sea voyages. The lock was missing. Jasmin recognised it – it belonged to Jørgen.
She whirled around. ‘Where is he?’
‘Who?’ asked Henriksen. He drew nearer, and Jasmin pointed her gun at him. ‘We’re here – you, me, Ms Yrsen and the others. There’s nobody else.’
‘Paul,’ Jasmin repeated. ‘Where is he?’
‘He was never here.’ Henriksen pointed abruptly at the trunk. ‘That’s all there is. Take a look inside. Don’t you remember? That trunk contains your possessions, Ms Hansen. You and your husband packed them up before you checked yourself in with us for your course of therapy.’
‘No. No, I won’t look.’ By now, the revolver was trembling so violently that she had to hold it with both hands to steady it. ‘I want to see my son now.’
‘Jasmin, please. That’s enough. We’ve reached this point so often before and every time we do you start up with all this again. I’d been hoping you’d finally understand what really happened.’
Henriksen took another step towards her, his hand held out towards the gun – and Jasmin pulled the trigger. She didn’t know what she was doing; it was barely more than an instinctive response to feeling threatened, cornered.
She pulled the trigger and the revolver launched its projectile with a deafening bang. Henriksen fell backwards, clutching his chest. The bullet had ripped through his charcoal-grey suit jacket and blood began pouring out of the hole. Yrsen rushed to his side, holding him upright as his legs threatened to give way.
Jasmin lunged forward, pointing her gun at the two men in white on the staircase. ‘Out of my way!’ she screamed. The men fell back, clearing a path, and Jasmin dashed up the stairs.
Outside, the storm was still raging. Through the front door, which was still open, she saw flashing blue lights.
Jasmin turned on her heel, sprinting through the living room and out onto the veranda. In the garden she saw Boeckermann in his long raincoat, his hood drawn down over his face.
How did he get here? Who set him free?
‘There’s no point coming this way,’ he called through the rain. ‘Stay in the house!’
Jasmin raised the revolver.
‘Please, stop this,’ said a voice behind her. On turning around, she saw Henriksen. He was walking towards her, his jacket completely intact. No blood – not even a drop.
‘I – I just—’
‘The gun is loaded with blanks, Jasmin. We couldn’t let you put yourself or anyone else in danger.’
Jasmin opened the cylinder of the revolver. You loaded the rounds yourself, she thought – but when she took one out, she saw Henriksen was telling the truth. The ammunition wasn’t live.
‘You – you knew about the gun?’
‘Of course. You told me about it yourself, Jasmin.’
‘That’s impossible – I didn’t even know—’
‘Not here. Before all this.’
‘Before? But there is no before. We met for the first time when Paul disappeared.’
‘That isn’t true.’ Henriksen shook his head. He gestured inside to the sofa. Only now did Jasmin notice he was carrying a folder in his hand. He was alone, and he looked sad and deeply concerned at the same time. Reluctantly, she came back into the house.
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‘Shall we sit down?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Nobody wants to hurt you. I promise.’
‘But I heard you!’ Jasmin exclaimed. ‘You and Yrsen – I heard—’
‘You heard what you heard, there’s no doubt about it. But you misunderstood the meaning of our words.’
Jasmin felt him lay a hand on her arm. She sat down on the sofa but shuffled as far away from him as she could, still clutching the gun in her hand. The rounds had fallen out and lay glittering on the floorboards like pieces of silver.
Henriksen gave her a long, pensive look. ‘I have to admit this whole thing didn’t quite go to plan. I have to own up to my own mistakes. Maybe we went too far. Yes, I’m sure we did. You always were very good at finding things out and giving us the slip.’
‘Where’s Paul?’ she asked again. The words seemed to echo through the room, as if she was inside a vast cathedral.
Then Henriksen spoke the words she would never forget. ‘Jasmin, Paul is dead. He’s been dead for so long now. It’s been five years since he passed away.’
Chapter 18
It was raining.
Outside the house.
Inside her mind.
Henriksen’s words forced their way effortfully through the downpour, through the white noise in her head. ‘Jasmin, do you understand me?’
‘Bullshit. He came here with me.’ Paul can’t be dead. Henriksen is lying, he must be lying, there’s no other explanation.
But when he shook his head, it was like he was tearing strips from her heart with his bare hands. Breaking off pieces of her soul. ‘No, Jasmin. That was all in your head. You were alone when you got here in your hire car. It was just you and your dog Bonnie.’
Jasmin felt as though his words were incinerating something inside her – burning and freezing it at the same time, until there was nothing left of her heart.
‘You’re lying. He was here at the house. And later on too – there are people in the village who saw him. There are people who talked to him. There’s proof!’
‘He’s dead, Jasmin.’
‘No!’
‘He didn’t talk to anyone, nor was he seen by anyone in the village. Think carefully. Didn’t he always happen to be outside or in a different part of the shop or cafe while you were talking to the proprietor? And didn’t he refuse to touch all the food and drinks you ordered for him?’
Jasmin swallowed. Her throat was parched and felt like it was filled with nails; her tongue was like sandpaper. ‘I cooked for him. I read to him. He played with Bonnie.’
‘The power of the human imagination is often impressive. It’s unbridled, almost boundless in scope.’
‘You’re lying.’
Henriksen smiled sympathetically, but at that moment Jasmin wanted nothing more than to hit him and wipe the smile from his face. ‘Think, Jasmin. What do you remember? From before you made your way here?’
‘I . . .’ Jasmin closed her eyes. Jørgen had been there; he’d given her a kiss on the lips, helped her load her bags into the car. Jørgen . . . He’d been talking to someone. A man who had come to their home. Or had it been different? Had she been the one who’d returned to the house accompanied by that other man?
Had that other man been Henriksen?
And did that mean . . . ?
Your memory is full of gaps. Your memory is different. You’ve – dear God, you’ve invented a story. Could it be true?
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.
‘Do you remember the night of your accident?’
Jasmin cleared her throat and cast her eyes over the room, at the raindrops trickling down the windows overlooking the veranda. ‘Could I have something to drink, please?’
‘Of course.’ Henriksen gave her a look that was equal parts caution and compassion. ‘Do you promise to stay here and not try to attack anyone again?’
‘Did I attack someone?’ She recalled how she’d shot at Henriksen and felt certain she’d wounded him. All that blood . . . ‘Apart from you?’ she added, pointing at his jacket.
‘Yes, Jasmin, you did. Even before you came here.’ Henriksen got to his feet and left the room, but it wasn’t long before he returned holding a cup in his hand that smelled of jasmine tea.
‘There you go. Just how you like it.’
‘Jasmine tea,’ she said quietly.
‘The best tea . . .’
‘For the best Jasmin,’ she said, finishing his sentence. That was something Jørgen used to say to her, back when they’d still been so in love. She wrapped her hands around the cup and took a sip.
‘The night of your accident,’ Henriksen began again. ‘Do you remember it?’
‘I – I was driving. In my car. Jørgen and I chose it together, back before Paul . . . We were so happy back then.’ She took another sip, barely noticing that the tea was hot enough to scald the tip of her tongue. ‘It was raining, as hard as today.’ She glanced out of the window. ‘Maybe even harder. I was coming back from the staff party, it was late. The rain had washed soil onto the road and I knew part of the route led through a forest, so I drove extra slowly there.’
‘And then?’
‘Then the Jeep appeared. It was hassling me. Tailgating my car.’ Jasmin glanced at Henriksen, trying to gauge whether he was judging her, but right now he seemed to be concentrating solely on what she was saying. ‘I got nervous. You hear all kinds of things, and see them too, when you work in a big hospital. Women getting attacked at night. Sven and I have operated on victims of violence before; you can’t imagine what . . .’ She paused. ‘You really can’t imagine, can you? You aren’t a policeman, Hendrik. I think I’ve realised that now. You were so unsure of yourself when we met for the first time, acting like you didn’t quite know what to do, like you were playing a role.’
Henriksen nodded. ‘That’s right. I’m not a policeman.’
‘So what are you?’
‘I’m a psychiatrist, Jasmin. Your psychiatrist. From the very beginning. That’s the sole reason why I’m here. Why I’ve been watching over you.’
Jasmin felt her hands starting to shake again. Once more she saw those flashes of light, smelled the smoke in her nostrils, heard the crackling of a fire and felt the cold, slippery sensation of petrol running over her fingers.
The fox, she suddenly realised. Paul found the fox in the wardrobe upstairs and he made one of his origami sculptures. And you put the sculpture in the grave Paul asked you to dig.
So he isn’t so alone.
The thought felt like warm sunlight after a cold night – like a lifebuoy floating towards her over the surface of a dark, ice-cold sea that she was on the verge of drowning in, and she clung to it.
You know where you buried it.
It’ll prove you’re telling the truth.
Jasmin leapt to her feet and stormed through the open doorway to the veranda as a new burst of energy and strength flooded through her body.
‘Jasmin!’ Henriksen called after her. ‘Jasmin, come back!’
But she didn’t listen to him. She refused to listen.
There had to be another way, another truth. The only truth: that Paul was still alive.
Boeckermann was still standing out in the rain, which trickled from his coat on to the ground, but this time she didn’t let him stop her. Jasmin aimed her revolver at him as she dashed down the veranda steps. Her shoes slipped on the damp wood and she had to cling to the railing to prevent herself from falling.
‘Let her through,’ she heard Henriksen say behind her, and she hurried through the garden and sprinted down the narrow path to the woods, all the while feeling Boeckermann’s piercing gaze on her back.
The rain rattled through the treetops, the wind swept twigs and stones into her face, and the gale roared with the noise and power of a jet during take-off – a raging, primeval force that had resolved to leave nothing but destruction in its wake. Jasmin shielded her face with her hand and drew her hood down. It was
hard to breathe; she felt like the wind was sucking the air out of her lungs.
A branch the length of her arm crashed down at her feet. Jasmin leapt to one side and her shoulder collided with the trunk of a silver fir. The bark felt rough and swollen under her hands and reminded her of her first night on the island when she’d taken the fox outside. She’d buried it close to this tree.
There was the spot. She could see the pine twigs that she’d stuck into the soft black earth and the smooth, flat, grey stones surrounding the grave.
Jasmin fell to her knees and started digging with her bare hands.
Chapter 19
‘Ms Hansen!’ She heard Henriksen’s anxious voice calling from among the trees. He was following her. You have to show him, she thought. He has to see the fox, the origami sculpture Paul made. He has to believe you!
I’m a psychiatrist, his voice echoed in her mind, sounding tinny, as if it was emanating from an old transistor radio. Your psychiatrist.
Jasmin’s fingers soon started bleeding as she hurled the damp, heavy earth to one side. She heard herself whispering things she barely understood – felt the gale snatching at her with all its might, trying to grab hold of her and fling her to the ground, to hold her back.
‘Jasmin, stop!’
She stared at a pair of men’s shoes approaching over the dark forest floor, at the damp clods of earth clinging to the dark leather. It was Henriksen, who came to a halt ten feet or so away and looked at her in concern as the rain ran down his cheeks and plastered his hair to his head like a wet cloth. ‘Stop, Jasmin. You’re bleeding.’
‘It’s here,’ she screamed at him over the gale. ‘I’m not imagining it!’
‘What’s here?’
‘The dead fox! The one Paul asked me to bury, along with a sculpture he made.’
‘Jasmin—’
Suddenly, she felt her fingers brush against something new. Something other than damp earth and gravel. She felt hair, fur, paper.
‘It’s here! It really is . . .’
Jasmin brushed a few lumps of soil aside and glimpsed a small patch of red fur. ‘It’s here!’ she cried again, her voice trembling with excitement. She dug on, her hands and fingers working on autopilot, and, ignoring the pain and the ice-cold rain running down her neck and under her coat, soaking her to the skin, she finally unearthed the fox, together with the origami sculpture that by now was so utterly sodden by the damp soil that there was barely anything left of it beyond a dirty lump of pulp.
Don't Wake Me Page 23
