The Killing Forest

by Sara Blaedel

  “We’re ready!” someone yelled from behind the van. The gothi walked over to the woman and lifted her. Her arms and legs dangled limply as he carried her into the forest.

  Sune trembled. His right foot was asleep, and his leg gave way when he tried to back into the woods. It was as if his brain refused to accept what his eyes had just seen. His body felt leaden, his heart pounded in terror. He knew the young woman was dead; he’d known it the moment she fell to the ground motionlessly.

  He crawled a few meters away. Finally he got the circulation going in his foot. It stung. He should run and hide, he thought, but where to? He peered into the coal-black darkness of the forest. A few limbs cracked as he struggled to get to his feet and grope his way through the trees.

  Suddenly he heard voices calling his name. He knew they were coming for him. He held his breath and hunched up, then crawled in under some branches on the forest floor.

  The voices called again. They were closer now.

  “Sune, come on out here!”

  It was his father.

  “Come out, now, you’re a part of this. You can’t just run and hide!”

  Twigs broke as someone strode by him. He held his breath; then they were gone.

  He didn’t dare move. Soon he heard limbs crunching, leaves rustling—they were back. He hugged the ground and held his breath again, the forest floor moist against his cheek.

  They crisscrossed the area where he lay until he heard a sudden loud whistle. Then another. Like a siren voice in the oppressive quiet of the forest night. The men returned to the clearing around the bonfire as if the search had been called off.

  Finally, when the footsteps had disappeared, Sune relaxed. He breathed deeply and turned, glimpsing the moon shining clearly through the treetops. His heart pounded as he prayed to the gods that the men wouldn’t find him.

  Down by the sacrificial oak, the gothi put his robe back on. The men gathered again. The bonfire was dying out, its flames flickering as darkness overtook the clearing. The men formed a circle, and the gothi closed it. Sune stared at what was being passed around from hand to hand. The oath ring.

  The chill of the night spread into his chest as he realized that this was the reason they had been looking for him. He was a grown man now, a part of all this. He had sworn with his blood that he was one of them. They expected him to stand together with his brothers as they took an oath of silence, one they could never break.

  2

  Louise Rick glanced around the allotment cottage. She had gotten up early to pack and load the car. While on sick leave, she’d been staying in this small, black wooden house in Dragør that she and her neighbor Melvin Pehrson had bought.

  She was returning to her apartment in Frederiksberg and her job at National Police Headquarters. Not that the easygoing routine out here she and her foster son, Jonas, had slipped into hadn’t been pleasant. In fact, it had fit her frame of mind perfectly. It was exactly what she needed.

  Every morning after sending Jonas off to school on the bus, she’d made a pot of tea, packed it in her bike basket, and ridden to the beach with their dog, Dina, running beside her. Dina also went along on her morning swims. Dina had a puzzled look when Louise swam back to land, as if the dog were trying to convince her to stay in the water longer. And once in a while, Louise had the urge to do just that. To swim all the way out and be swallowed by the waves; to disappear. But each time she had signaled to her deaf pet to follow her in.

  She’d kept Dina at a distance until she shook off. If the morning was gray and rainy, she would wrap herself up in a thick towel and crawl in under the Scotch roses, gazing out over the sea while drinking her tea. Dina loved to run back and forth across the sand and eat mussels that washed up on the beach.

  She’d been on a leave of absence since the shooting at the gamekeeper’s house, where a man had been killed while attempting to rape her. But it wasn’t the images of her own naked body and the man behind her that haunted her. Nor was it the bullet wound in his head or the blood that had spurted all over her body.

  René Gamst, the man who had saved her. The lust in his eyes as he waited to fire the fatal shot, the scorn in his voice when he said it was clear she liked it. That’s what she couldn’t shake.

  But worst of all was what Gamst said about Klaus, Louise’s first love, who had hanged himself the day after they moved in together:

  “Your boyfriend was a pussy. He didn’t have the fucking guts to put the noose around his own neck.”

  The words had been echoing in her head since the ambulance drove off with her that day.

  The hospital examination had revealed three broken ribs on her left side, but otherwise only scratches and bruises. She was released that evening. Her boss, Rønholt, suggested she take sick leave, and she had agreed, but only because Gamst’s words had reached that private place inside her she’d hidden away for many years. Not only from the outside world, but from herself.

  She and Klaus had been together since Louise was in ninth grade in Hvalsø School; on her eighteenth birthday he had given her an engagement ring. A year later, after he finished his apprenticeship as a butcher, they had moved into an old farmhouse in Kisserup. Two nights later he was dead.

  In all the years since stepping into the low-ceilinged hallway to find him hanging from the stairway, a rope taut around his neck, she had been plagued by guilt. For going to a concert in Roskilde the previous evening and staying over with her friend Camilla. For apparently not being good enough. Because if she had been worth loving, he wouldn’t have taken his life.

  She’d never understood what had happened that night, all those years ago. Not until Gamst spoke up.

  If he were telling the truth, Klaus hadn’t slipped the noose around his own neck.

  René Gamst was being held in Holbæk Jail. Shortly after his arrest, he had admitted to firing the two shots, and everyone knew he had shot to kill. The rapist had first broken into his home and assaulted his wife, but Gamst claimed he meant to save Louise. He stuck to that story, and it was difficult to prove otherwise—that he had killed to take revenge.

  The day before she prepared to move out of the cottage, she had gone through every detail in the case again with Detective Lieutenant Mik Rasmussen in his office at Holbæk Police Station. She wasn’t proud of what had happened. Especially when she had to explain how René Gamst ended up with a broken arm. He hadn’t said anything about it, and up until then her explanation had been vague. Yesterday, however, Mik had put her through the wringer when she finally admitted that she’d been rough with him after the shooting.

  Many years earlier, Louise had been stationed in Holbæk for a short time, and afterward she and Mik had been lovers. He ended it after a big scene, but even though several years and some distance had passed between them, he knew her well enough to know when she was hiding something.

  And it came out. The entire story about Klaus and all the years she’d been saddled with guilt. About the reason she had treated Mik badly, and her anxiety about committing: Since Klaus’s death, she had entered relationships only halfheartedly.

  Louise knew this last confession hurt him, even though he tried to hide it. But she also sensed that he understood her better now.

  She described what happened after René’s revelation about Klaus: She had kicked the rifle out of his hands, twisted his arm around his back so violently that he had screamed, and thrown him on the ground and handcuffed him.

  “But I didn’t hear his arm break,” she’d said, trying to forget how it had sounded as she tightened the narrow plasticuffs. “I just wanted him to tell me what he knew.”

  * * *

  Louise hauled the last things out to the car, then went back to see if she’d forgotten anything. Melvin had complained a few times about how high the weeds had grown, but she had cut the grass. Actually Jonas had, because he thought the old push lawn mower was fun, and because the whole lawn could be trimmed in ten minutes.

  A message came in from Jo
nas when she pulled out of her parking spot. He had stayed overnight with a friend; they were probably on the way to school, she thought. She missed him. This evening she would hang out with him, lie around on the sofa and order takeaway.

  Going home to Nico’s and out to see a movie, okay?

  Louise didn’t see much of her fifteen-year-old foster son these days, and even though she would never say it out loud, once in a while she felt rejected when he wanted to be with his friends instead of her. But before that feeling hardened, she scolded herself, so harshly that any hint of jealousy disappeared.

  She was happy that he was doing well; very well, in fact. Recently he’d had a difficult period at school, and she had been seriously worried about him. He’d had enough sorrow in his life. Both his parents were dead, and not long ago he had lost a very close friend. She needed to get a handle on her own loneliness. Which was her fault, she reminded herself, before writing OK, followed by a smiley face, a heart, and a thumbs-up.

  On her way into town, she thought about what it was going to be like back at the office. The work didn’t worry her; questioning looks and, especially, pity from her colleagues did. They all knew what had happened, of course. She just really didn’t want to talk about it.

  And then there was Eik.

  “You go out together, you go back in together,” her partner had said when he wanted to ride with her in the ambulance. But she had said no. She’d crawled into her shell, huddled up with René’s words.

  Eik had called several times since then, but she hadn’t gotten back to him. One day a letter lined with bubble wrap arrived; inside was a Nick Cave CD. She hadn’t even thanked him for that.

  Louise knew that Eik meant well, but she just couldn’t see him. All this about Klaus had simply been too much. So much so that the night she and Eik spent together, right before everything fell apart for her, seemed more like a distant dream than a fresh memory about great sex and the surprising feeling of falling in love.

  After parking and turning in the key, she sat for a moment and gazed at the tall windows of her department. Suddenly she felt his presence again, in a way that made her skin tingle.

  3

  Remember to check your mail,” Hanne called out when Louise walked past the secretary’s office. She stopped, turned on her heel, and walked back with a smile plastered on her face, only to discover that her mail slot was empty.

  She’d known Hanne Munk since the secretary was in Homicide, Louise’s former department. At the time she had thought that Hanne was a breath of fresh air, with her mountain of red hair, loud clothes, and exaggerated gestures, but after Louise transferred to the Search Department her relationship with Rønholt’s secretary had been strained, to put it mildly.

  “Thanks for reminding me,” she said on her way out of the office. Even though she knew Hanne’s style, it annoyed her that the secretary hadn’t even in the tiniest way welcomed her back.

  Menopause, lack of sleep, too little sex, Louise thought as she answered another message from Jonas, who asked if it was okay for him to stay over with Nico after the movie.

  Does that boy ever change his clothes? Louise rushed down the hall to the Rathole, the double office she had been given earlier that year after being chosen to head up the newly formed Special Search Agency in the Search Department. They were responsible for cases of missing persons when criminal activity was suspected.

  There was more than enough space for the new unit, which up to then consisted of her and Eik Nordstrøm. Yet it irritated her that Rønholt couldn’t find a different locale for them; they were right above the kitchen, and they were privy to the menu every day. The shabby office had even been invaded by rats, though Pest Control had finally taken care of that.

  She opened the door and immediately froze: A large German shepherd growled viciously at her, its shackles up and teeth bared, its eyes fixed on her. She leaped back and slammed the door shut. Hearing Eik’s voice farther down the hall, she turned to see him walking out of the copy room, stuffing a flattened pack of cigarettes into his pocket.

  Earlier, while driving in, she’d thought about seeing him again after all this time; about what to say. And now he was standing in front of her. Her whole body felt warm, all the way to her fingertips, and when he spread his arms to greet her, she completely forgot why she hadn’t felt up to seeing him out at the cottage.

  “How are you, beautiful?”

  He pulled her close, but then he apparently remembered her broken ribs and let go.

  “Sorry I didn’t call you back,” she mumbled awkwardly, and immediately changed the subject to the dog in their office.

  “Let me go in first,” he said. “It’s Charlie, and I probably ought to introduce you two.”

  “I’ve already met the beast,” she said. “It nearly went for my throat.”

  “Don’t be silly, he wouldn’t hurt you. He just has to get to know you. You’re an intruder to him; he’s been with me in the office while you’ve been gone.”

  Eik opened the door to the Rathole and sat down in the doorway as the big dog ran toward him. Louise noticed that the dog limped and that his right rear leg hung in the air. He landed in Eik’s lap and began licking his face so eagerly that he almost knocked Eik over.

  “What happened to him?” Louise asked. She stayed out in the hall while her partner got to his feet and grabbed the dog’s collar.

  “Charlie boy here caught a bullet while he was chasing a bank robber in Hvidovre. It tore his thigh up. Luckily the vet thinks he’ll be able to use his leg again, though he’ll never go back to the dog patrol.”

  “So he’s a police dog,” she said.

  Eik nodded while scratching the dog’s snout.

  “And his trainer?” Louise asked.

  Eik nodded again, looking sad now. “He’s the one who shot and killed the bank robber.”

  Every police officer knew about the Hvidovre case, an armed robbery. A few months ago two masked men had entered the bank with sawed-off shotguns, forced a few customers down on the floor, and confronted the bank’s employees. Louise couldn’t remember how much they got away with, but it didn’t matter. The police had arrived quickly, and in the nearby parking lot they surrounded the two robbers, who were carrying a bag stuffed with money.

  One of the robbers began shooting at the police and hit the dog. Not long after, the man also lay on the ground. Dead. Nineteen years old. The other robber was his father. Two men with no criminal record, who chose the worst possible solution to their desperate economic situation.

  The tabloids screamed the story of the father whose painting business had gone bankrupt. Two years earlier, he’d had twelve employees and a large residence in Greve. The son had been a trainee in the business. Then it all fell apart, leaving the father hopelessly in debt and the son adrift in life.

  “No one robs banks anymore,” Eik said. “Everyone knows they’ll get caught. He’s a ruined man.”

  “The father?” Louise asked. She hadn’t followed the trial. Armed robbery meant a lengthy sentence, and the fact that the other robber, his son, had been killed wasn’t going to shorten it.

  “Him too,” Eik said, nodding again. “But I’m talking about Charlie’s father. He’s sitting at home now, staring at four walls. I don’t think he’ll be back. We were at the police academy together. We haven’t seen all that much of each other since then, but he and Charlie did drop by occasionally. So I told Finn I’d take care of the dog until he got back on his feet.”

  And that was that, Louise realized. She couldn’t come up with anything to object to, either. She nodded and took a few tentative steps toward the office.

  Charlie sat up beside Eik’s leg.

  “Come on over and say hi to him.”

  Louise grabbed the dog biscuit he pushed over to her. But before she could offer it to the dog, he was on his feet, teeth bared again. She hopped back into the hall.

  “Okay, we’ll save the introductions until later,” Eik said. He pulled t
he big German shepherd over to his desk while scolding him as if they were an old married couple.

  “Stop!” Louise said. “I want him out of here!”

  “Wait a second,” he said. He grabbed a leash and wrapped it around a leg on his desk a few times, then attached it to the dog’s collar. He ordered the dog to lie down.

  Louise finally walked to her desk, accompanied by a low snarl.

  “Honestly,” she said. “Can’t you take him home? It’s ridiculous, him lying there growling at me.”

  “He’s used to coming along. Otherwise he’d have to be fenced up, and I don’t have a fence.”

  “That’s too bad, because he can’t stay here!” she said.

  “Come on, Louise. Charlie’s a good boy. You just have to get to know each other.”

  Now she was getting mad. In the first place, she was the boss of this two-person unit. In the second place, she would never dream of bringing Dina along with her to work if the dog bothered anyone. But before she could say anything more, her telephone rang.

  “Special Search Agency, Louise Rick.” She turned her back to Eik, who was still talking to the dog, trying to get it to shut up.

  Her stomach knotted the second she heard Mik’s voice. She knew he was about to inform her that disciplinary proceedings would be brought against her concerning her treatment of Gamst during the arrest at the gamekeeper’s house. She also realized in that split second that she didn’t regret a thing, even though it could affect her career.

  “Hi, Mik,” she said, her voice calm. She sat down.

  “We have a case here that I’m passing on to you,” he began. Nothing in his voice hinted that she’d poured out the tale of her shattered life to him the day before.

  Louise immediately pulled herself together; after all, she headed up the Special Search Agency of the Search Department.

  “Why, what is it?” she asked.