by Willow Rose
But instead he slips and falls.
All the way back down the stairs. Hitting every step on the way that he had just climbed. Bruising his back and the head.
Why? Why? he keeps thinking.
And then he finds himself on the floor in the dorm. Surrounded by all of his friends. They are still singing and laughing and now he knows why.
He is their victim. He is the one they are kicking and beating.
Christian woke up. His hand raised in the dark, reaching for the floor lamp. He turned it on and a dim light was spread through the bare room.
The voice came at once from the man sitting in front of him.
“Today is a good day to die, don’t you think?”
Christian got up from the bed and ran past the man sitting in the chair. Just like in the dream, he ran for his life, feeling the door handle, but never reaching it. Instead he felt an arm grabbing him from behind, throwing him on to the floor and then he was kicked in the face. Christian opened his mouth to scream but the man covered his mouth with his gloved hand and the sound leaving Christian’s mouth was now more of surprise and fear.
When the killer slit his throat a red spurt came out so fast it hit the yellow lampshade. Then the lifeless body of Christian Junge-Larsen slumped down onto the cheap carpet.
Then there was a noise on the stairs outside. Steps of a person approaching the apartment. As he cleaned the sharp blades of the glove in a jacket lying on the floor the killer smiled again.
CHAPTER 28
I HAD spent the rest of the Monday trying to reach the last guy in the picture, Christian Junge-Larsen, at his home in Elsinore, but apparently his phone was out of order and he apparently had no cell phone. Maybe Sune could have done a better job with his skills on the computer but I was on my own for now. So I decided to go to Elsinore alone the next day.
I was sitting in my car on the highway when my phone rang again. I picked it up but put it down after one quick look at it. It was Giovanni, again. He’d called me at least eight times the night before and this morning. I hadn’t answered any of the calls. Why? Simply because I had no idea what to say to him. What could I say? That I thought he might be a vicious killer? Either that would be true and he certainly wouldn’t tell me but maybe just get rid of me instead or it was not true and then that would probably be the end of our relationship. With trust issues like that, I would be sure to scare any man off.
I wasn’t sure of anything right now and I really liked the guy so I was determined to stay away from him until everything was solved. I had to know the truth and I had to find it myself.
My hope was that Christian Junge-Larsen had some answers that could help me.
I parked on the street in front of the address that Sune found. It was still pretty early. I had left at six in the morning to get there and catch him before he went to work. The city was quiet but awake. People bicycled to work or school; some waited for the bus at the stop close to the building that Christian Junge-Larsen lived in. Kids with their big schoolbags passed me. They were wearing big jackets and winter hats. When I got out of the car I spotted Kronborg in the background, the castle where the Prince of Denmark in Hamlet discovers that his father—the king—did not die a natural death, and later on finds out his own brother, the new king of Denmark, killed him.
Even back then the crime mysteries interested people, I thought to myself while staring at the red brick castle with the green oxidized-copper roof. It was beautiful lying there with the ocean surrounding it.
From my history classes I remembered in the basement was a big statue of an old legend named Holger Danske. The myth went that whenever the kingdom was threatened by an enemy from the outside, the stone statue would become flesh and bone and Holger Danske would emerge and defend his country.
I liked those kinds of stories and for some reason I remembered them.
It was a really cold morning. The sun shone but the wind was freezing and going right through my jacket. I hurried into the building and found the stairs.
There was no name on the door but I rang the bell anyway hoping Christian Junge-Larsen was still living there. I was really surprised that a man of his status would live in a dump like this. I had googled him before I went there and he had been quite the big-shot for a lot of years, living the high-class jet-set life and marrying some Czech supermodel with cheekbones that went straight up under both ears, and legs as long as most of my whole body. It was of course his parents who had started the company and made their name big. All Christian Junge-Larsen had to do—after finishing boarding school and his business education in London—was to run the family company as the CEO and live the sweet life that his parents worked their butts off to give him.
But for some reason he was fired by the company’s board some years ago and he then seemed to have vanished into thin air after that. I had found his model wife and the kids living at another address now, so I figured they had separated.
No one answered when I rang the doorbell so I tried knocking instead, but as I did the door came open. I took a step back. I didn’t want to intrude. But then curiosity got the better of me and I gently pushed the door a little more until it was half open.
A second later I wished I had never done so.
I felt the blood turn to ice. I had to force myself to breathe deeply. A trail of blood continued along the floor and disappeared through an open door. As I walked into the apartment I was hit by the sweetish smell of blood.
I don’t know why I didn’t turn around and run at that point but something urged me to follow the trail of blood into the next room of the apartment. It was a messy place—clothing all over the floor, mixed with old beer bottles and half-empty pizza boxes.
When I got to the door of the next room and could see inside, I felt the ice spreading throughout my body. Lying on the bed was the body of a man. His throat was ripped open by what looked like four knives.
“Or the claw of a beast,” I mumbled to myself while stepping closer to the horrific scene of slaughter.
I tried to control my breath and not panic. Blood was everywhere in the room. It seemed almost impossible that one person had contained so much blood. I forced myself to look at the face of the body. It was badly beaten but I still recognized him from the photo. Now there was only one of them left. The question was, was he the next victim or the killer himself?
I looked away. I couldn’t bear all that blood. And then I had a strange feeling. When did this murder happen?
Christian Junge-Larsen’s eyes stared at the ceiling while I felt his wrist. There was no pulse, but he was warm.
The murder was not long ago.
I started looking around, feeling uneasy. Could the killer still be in the apartment? Was he looking at me waiting to make his move? My breathing got heavier as I slowly and without a sound backed out of the room.
Then there was a noise and I turned around.
The back door.
I started running to the kitchen and found the back door. It was open and I heard something or somebody on the stairs. I should probably have stopped right there, I knew that. Everything inside me screamed STOP! But I didn’t. I started running after the noise. What if it really was the killer? I wouldn’t miss the opportunity of seeing who he was.
So I ran.
With all the strength I could, I ran. I was in a good shape despite the extra pounds. I had always been in a great shape and able to outrun most of my colleagues at the newspaper’s annual sports event. I went quickly down the stairs and out another open door that led to the garbage cans. There were three big green ones in a corner in a closed courtyard. I stepped out. The yard was overgrown with weeds. The grass was brown and long dead. A tree in the middle had no leaves. A barbeque grill was old and rusty, forgotten by someone long ago. I looked carefully around me and saw only one way out through a big green gate.
It was still closed.
If the person on the stairs had opened it I would have heard it, but wasn’t sure.
I felt my heart pounding in my chest. Where the hell could he be?
Then another noise caught my attention. A glass of some sort hit the ground. It made an echo in the courtyard. I looked in the direction of the noise and was suddenly hit from behind by something big and heavy. After that there was nothing but darkness and a sky of stars.
CHAPTER 29
THE HEADACHE wasn’t the worst part about waking up. It was all the questions. The police had arrived in the meantime and found me on the floor of the apartment. How did I get there? I had no idea, I kept telling them.
“The killer must have carried me back up the stairs and put me here.”
The police officer in front of me did not seem to believe any of what I was telling him.
“Why do you think I am here, then?” I asked.
“All I know is that you are at a scene of crime and I need to know why.”
Suddenly I remembered I had checked the pulse and that my fingerprints would be on the body’s wrist.
“I checked his pulse when I got here. You’d better know that.”
“So you touched the body?”
“Yes, you will find my fingerprints on the wrist.”
The officer looked at me with disbelieve and then he smiled.
“Are you okay?”
I touched the back of my head and got some blood on my fingers.
“It’s nothing.”
“Do you want us to take you to the hospital? You might need a couple of stitches,” he said with a kinder voice.
“I’ll be all right.”
“Did you see anything that could be helpful to us? Did you see the face of the person who did this to you?”
I sighed and tried to rewind my memories. “I’m sorry. I am afraid he attacked me from behind.”
“Why did you come here?”
“I wanted to do an interview with Christian Junge-Larsen.”
The officer stared at me.
“Why?”
I sighed again. “It’s a long story. Mostly because he went to school with Didrik Rosenfeldt who was also killed a few days ago just like two others were.”
“So you think there’s a connection between this murder and some other ones?” he asked with astonishment in his voice.
“I do, yes.”
To my surprise the officer immediately noted everything in his notebook. He seemed to actually take me seriously. That was a new one.
So I told him everything. All that I had found out on my own. I knew he wasn’t an investigator; he was just first man on the scene and had to put everything in the report, but still it was the first time I felt like I’d met someone on the police force who was willing to listen.
Afterwards the paramedics came and cleaned the back of my head. They kept saying they wanted me to come to the hospital for observation, that I might have sustained a slight concussion, but I refused. I had to get home to the kids and my dad, I said.
Just before I left I saw the body being moved and the officer from earlier came to talk to me.
“So I talked to my chief and he let me know that The National Police have taken over all four cases and all four killings are now going to be investigated as one case.”
I was impressed. “Did I have anything to do with that?”
“I suppose so,” he answered.
“How?”
“I might be just an officer in a uniform, but I do have friends in higher places and I told them what you told me.”
I left the crime scene feeling dizzy because of the blow to my head but also content that at least I had gotten somewhere with the police. Hopefully it would in some way help Sune.
MY DAUGHTER barely noticed I had come home when I entered the living room. She and Tobias had dressed up as a princess and a cowboy, Julie being the cowboy and Tobias being the princess. They were running around screaming and laughing. So I went into the kitchen where my dad sat reading the newspaper and listening to his favorite show on the radio. He looked so peaceful. He looked up when he heard me enter.
“Hi sweetie. Do you want a cup?” He asked and pointed at his own cup of coffee.
“I’m good,” I said. “I’m just going to go upstairs and take a shower.”
My dad stared at me with an investigative look.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you all right?”
“Sure.”
He took a sip of his coffee.
“What happened to your head, then?”
I felt the back of my head. I had tried to wash away the blood at a sink in a restroom on the highway, but hadn’t got rid of it all.
“A small accident, that’s all.”
“Are you sure it’s nothing?”
“Really, it is nothing.”
“Who did it?” Dad’s voice started to sound concerned. I really didn’t want him to worry about me. He recently had a stroke and his blood pressure was way too high. The last thing I wanted to do was to upset him.
“It was just an accident. Really.”
I was the worst liar in the history of liars and my dad knew that. He put down the paper and stared at me over the top of his glasses.
“Are you in trouble?”
I shook my head, trying to be reassuring.
“No, no. Nothing like that at all. Just a little bump on the head, that’s all.”
“Did Peter have anything to do with it?”
“No, no. It wasn’t Peter. I just hurt my head. That is all. I promise you have nothing to be worried about.”
My dad sighed deeply.
”Is it that new guy you have been seeing? Did he do that to you?” Dad’s voice was angry now.
I wanted to answer that it certainly wasn’t, that he would never do such a thing. But I couldn’t.
“He’s a good guy, Dad. I’ll be fine, really. I just need to take that shower.”
“What’s wrong, Mom?”
My daughter and Tobias had entered the kitchen from the other side. I closed my eyes.
”Someone hit her in the back of her head, and she doesn’t want to tell us who it was,” my dad said.
I looked at him. Was he kidding me? Why would he tell Julie? She would just be awake all night worrying about me.
“Listen up, everybody,” I said with great authority. “I am a grown woman capable of taking care of myself. I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time today and someone, I don’t know who it was, hit me with a rock on the back of my head. Nothing to worry about. It won’t happen again.”
My daughter looked at me with her big blue eyes.
“Why did you even go there alone? You always tell me not to go anywhere all alone.”
“I know, sweetie, but I’m an adult, and I had to go there to do an interview. It was my work.”
They were all quiet. Then Tobias said something.
“When is my dad coming to get me?”
I sat down squatting in front of him.
“Soon sweetheart. Very soon.”
“But Tobias gets to spend the night, right?” Julie asked.
“Yes, dear,” I said and hugged them both. “What about we all go out for dinner tonight?”
Julie started jumping.
“Yeah, let’s get pizza!”
“But first Mom has to go upstairs and get that shower.”
CHAPTER 30
THE LOCAL Italian restaurant wasn’t too shabby. Actually, it was very pleasant and the atmosphere was charming in its way of trying to seem Italian but not really succeeding. I wondered about Giovanni. He wouldn’t have liked this place. He once told me he didn’t understand why people from Turkey or Iran who came to Denmark always started Italian restaurants when they weren’t Italian at all and knew nothing about the Italian kitchen. He was right. I had been in Italy several times and this food was not nearly as good.
But it was all right and my family and I had a good time. Luckily, no one asked any more questions. We just ate, drank, and laughed and talked about the kids’ teachers in school, about a new
project they were about to do, and about how they were mad at one tattle-tale boy in their class.
It was a nice evening and I enjoyed being with them. I thought about how much I loved my daughter and my dad. I enjoyed living with the two of them, and Tobias too, of course. I felt so sorry for him. He’d been missing his dad terribly as the days went by and it was hard to explain why Sune didn’t come to get him and take him home.
Since the place was close to my dad’s home we had walked there, and on the way home I held Julie’s hand in mine. She looked at me with a happy smile and I saw such warmth and love in them that it filled me with happiness. This was it. It didn’t get much better than this.
The feeling didn’t last long, though. Entering my dad’s house I knew immediately something was terribly wrong. My first clue was that all the jackets from the closet in the hall were taken out and thrown on the floor at the entrance. Then there were the overturned chairs, the magazines on the floor, an overthrown lamp, pillows and books all over the living room floor. A mirror had been broken and was in pieces.
“Wait here,” I said to the others while I inspected the rest of the house.
Everywhere my dad’s stuff had been thrown on the floor. The living room especially was a total mess. I almost started crying. To see my childhood home like this was hard. I knew my dad would be so upset. Here he had all the memories of his life with his wife and my mom—more than forty years of memories. I picked up a lamp from the floor and put it back on a table. Then I got a book from the floor. It was a photo album with pictures of my parents, my sister, and me from our trip to Marseille in France. They were ripped out and torn. I tried to pick up the pieces and found a part of a picture with my mom’s face. A tear rolled down my cheek. Who would do such a thing?
“It is a bitch when someone messes with what you care about, right? When someone just rips away what you love and ruins your life.”
The voice came from the chair in the corner. I knew it a little too well.
