The House That Jack Built

by Jakob Melander

  Contours loomed up from the darkness: the wall’s lighter surfaces, dark doorways, shapeless furniture. He stopped in a corridor or entrance hallway of some kind. He listened one final time before stepping on the floor, cautiously feeling his way forward before planting his feet. He hadn’t gone more than two steps when the floor gave a loud creak. His heart pounded in his chest. Then came a noise from the staircase. A branch against a window? He waited, did not dare to breathe.

  He moved on to the kitchen. Plates with old leftovers were stacked in the sink. It smelled stale and rotten. No sign of either Christian or Jack Koes. His gaze fell on a small piece of cloth hanging from a hook on the side of the kitchen table. He lifted it carefully with a pen, held it up to his face. He turned it in the sparse light coming through the window. A G-string, black, nylon.

  Something fell over with a crash below him. The noise echoed through the house. The floor shook. Lars dropped the underwear, which fluttered to the floor. Where were the stairs to the cellar? He looked around the kitchen. There was only one doorway to the entrance hall. Not even a door to the garden.

  He returned to the entrance hall. The door between the one leading to the kitchen and the one to the living room was ajar. Lars opened it quietly. A mess of smashed furniture almost spilled out into the entrance hall. Cupboards and bookcases had been tipped over. The air was acrid and smelled of chemicals. When he stepped inside, his foot squelched on something wet. He slipped, and something soft and tough snapped beneath him. Inside, in the middle of the floor, under flotsam and jetsam, a flickering flashlight. Its beam cut through strips of wood, papers, and water, and several balls that floated around on the floor. A moment passed before he realized what he was looking at. He bent down and picked up one of the balls. A glass eye, grey-green iris, asymmetric curvature. Surprisingly light.

  Lars carefully put the eye down and returned to the entrance. A speckled, irregular trail led to a closed door between the staircase and the bureau. Blood. With his ear to the door, he listened for a long time before opening it. A deep and impenetrable darkness assailed him.

  He crossed his arms in front of him. One hand held the Maglite, and the other the service pistol. He released the safety on the pistol, turned on the flashlight. He found the first step, then shifted his weight forward, lifted the other leg, and found the next. Mildewy, damp air drifted up from the cellar, and with it the sweetish stench of rot and a strong chemical smell. The light from the Maglite danced in front of him, revealing worn steps on a wooden staircase that once had been painted red. He passed piles of old clothes, dusty furniture, half-decomposed cardboard boxes, and several garden tools. And there, on the floor at the foot of the stairs, the flashlight captured a pair of unmistakable red stains.

  He had only two steps to go when the stairs creaked treacherously under him. Lars swore, jumped over the last step, and took a quick step to the side when he landed on the floor. The silence seemed to suck away all sound. More blood stains, this time on the floor, led to a large hole in the wall.

  He ducked down, felt with his hand until he found a switch.

  At that exact moment the music begins. From somewhere deep down two clarinets meander in slow spirals. A female voice begins to sing, and the orchestra kicks in.

  “Police,” he shouts and switches on the light.

  Chapter 56

  Søbredden was as far from the idyllic picture of a Danish suburban road as you could get. The blue, oscillating lights of the police cars flashed psychedelically against the backdrop of the green hedges, two-storey houses, and curious faces. Uniformed and plainclothes officers kept getting in each other’s way in the growing crowd of neighbours and reporters.

  The driveway to number 14 was blocked. The row of emergency response vehicles stretched all the way into the garden. As far as Sanne could see, no one knew what was going on.

  They parked in front of an MG roadster. Ulrik climbed out and grabbed hold of a uniformed officer who was standing at the edge of the curb.

  “Where’s the emergency response leader?”

  Sanne and Allan climbed out of the car, taking in the chaos. A steady stream of drunken Midsummer’s Eve guests were emerging from their backyards and houses. The bonfire circles by the lake would be empty now. Everyone wanted to have a piece of the action.

  “Um, I don’t know . . .” the officer began.

  “I can see that,” Ulrik snapped, then walked across the sidewalk toward the driveway. Sanne and Allan followed.

  Ulrik had called the duty officer, but someone somewhere along the communication lines had messed up. There were far too many officers from far too many precincts. With police officers from both Copenhagen and Gentofte, it was impossible to get an overview of the situation.

  “It’s the Sandman,” Allan said. He trotted, huffing on Sanne’s heels. “Every colleague would give their right arm to be a part of this.”

  Sanne nodded. You could see the glint in the officers’ eyes, the way they looked at the house.

  A dark blue Ford was parked on the opposite side of the road, across from the driveway. The doors opened at the exact moment Ulrik turned down the driveway.

  “Ulrik.” Kim A flicked a lit cigarette butt onto the road and crossed the street without looking. Frank and Lisa were behind him.

  “Kim.” Ulrik stopped, waited. “Frank. Lisa.” Sanne and Allan kept back.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Kim A hissed.

  Ulrik held his hands out in front of him. “Take it easy. There’s no reason to get all worked up.”

  Sanne was watching Lisa and Frank, who stood right behind Kim A. She caught an almost imperceptible shudder in Lisa’s gaze.

  Kim A ignored Ulrik’s comment, raised his voice. “He’s breaking all the rules, shitting on the chain of command. I’m the one who . . .”

  The onlookers started to turn.

  “Come with me,” Ulrik said. He pulled Kim A up the driveway. The two officers on the sidewalk had enough presence of mind to stop the onlookers who tried to follow. Sanne and Allan slipped in behind them, Lisa and Frank followed.

  Ulrik stopped Kim A with a hand on his shoulder. “We have a colleague in there with the Sandman. By all accounts, he’s taken my stepdaughter’s boyfriend hostage too. We need to get Lars and Christian out. Then —”

  Kim A closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he focused on a point behind Ulrik’s shoulder. The jaw muscles pumped. In, out, in, out.

  “You’ll have my resignation on your desk in an hour.” He turned to Frank and Lisa. “Come on,” he said, as he started walking back to the car.

  “Kim, god . . .” Ulrik took a step toward him. Frank and Lisa looked at each other. Frank followed him.

  “Come on.” Sanne pulled Allan’s arm. “Let Ulrik take care of this. We need to find Lars.”

  When they stepped into the garden, four officers from the emergency response team came out the front door.

  “Gustafsson,” Allan shouted. “What’s going on?”

  “I thought you knew?”

  Allan nodded at the house. “Where’s Lars?”

  “There’s no one in there.” Gustafsson removed his helmet, scratched the back of his neck.

  Sanne took a step forward. “Are you sure?”

  Gustafsson opened his collar, wiped a drop of sweat from his Adam’s apple with a dusty hand. He nodded.

  “It’s completely empty. It looks like there’s been a fight in there. Bookcases and furniture are all over the floor. Everything’s swimming in some kind of alcohol and broken glass. And eyes, both glass and real.”

  Sanne and Allan exchanged looks.

  “Over here,” a voice shouted on the other side of the house. Allan and Sanne started running, followed by Ulrik and the emergency response team officers.

  A uniformed officer pointed a flashlight at an open door by the garde
n.

  “Someone has broken in here.”

  Chapter 57

  The glaring white light forces Lars to close his eyes. Blue and yellow dots dance in a sea of red. He opens them again, slowly, allowing them to adjust to the sharp light.

  A steep staircase in front of him leads three, four, five metres down. Another cellar, deeper than the first. Piles of dusty wooden boxes line the walls. Clunky rifles with wooden butts stand in a rack in a corner. Sackcloth is strewn along the far wall, and along the wall on the right, there is a kind of field kitchen with a gas burner and flasks. A large pot simmers on the burner. The air is tight and humid, thick with the smell of boiled cabbage mixed with a chemical stench.

  On a box next to the burner stands a portable phonograph; an LP is spinning under the pickup. A warm female voice is singing in German, sombre tones drifting in the stagnant air.

  Next to the field kitchen is a table and four chairs. A naked woman sits upright with her hands on the table and her face turned away from him. She is completely lifeless. Her blonde hair, strangely dry and lifeless, falls across her shoulders. Between her hands is a steaming bowl filled with a greyish-white substance. A spoon sticks up from her clenched right hand. Across from her a young man is sitting, he too has a bowl in front of him. Motionless, slumped, his whole stance so utterly different from the erect woman sitting opposite him. But he is naked like her, his blonde hair combed back. Dark lines are running down Christian’s cheeks.

  The chemical smell becomes sharper and more potent. Arms appear from behind, hold him in an iron grip. He struggles. Then everything turns black.

  When the world returns, there is nothing but nausea. His head is pounding, his hips hurt. His heart is galloping away. He lies on his back with bile and stomach acid in his mouth. He doesn’t want to die. He must not choke on his own vomit. His leg twitches, and from somewhere far away comes the sound of someone softly humming to the music.

  Strong hands lift his legs. Something tightens around them.

  Lars opens one eye, slowly. A narrow slit, allowing him just a glimpse of his surroundings. A towering figure, Koes is wearing only a white shirt; he’s naked from the waist down. He hovers over him, turned to one side, securing Lars’s legs with focused movements. Lars is lying on a table or a box of some sort that is raised above the floor. Koes is standing between him and the table where Christian and the naked girl are sitting. Lars turns his head; he knows what is coming. In a moment, Koes will be finished with his legs and will turn his attention to his arms. He must strike before then.

  Koes tightens the strap, clicks the buckle in place. Lars closes his eye and drifts off. Just then there’s a clattering. Koes curses and Lars can hear him bend down. Lars looks around desperately. One of the antique rifles is leaning up against an ammunition box close to his head. He reaches out to grab it. The cold metal is smooth and oily in his hand. As Koes turns back to him, he thrusts the weapon, butt first, until he hears a gruesome crunching, then a curse. Koes staggers back, collapses in the chair next to Christian. The table behind him rocks back and forth. Some of the grey-white liquid in the bowl between the naked girl’s arms sloshes out onto the table. Neither she nor Christian is moving. Lars forces himself up, tearing at the tightened leather straps holding his legs in place. Koes’s eyes are rolling around in his head. He resumes his humming, his chin resting against his chest. The blood streams down his mouth and chin; his nose bent at an odd angle on his busted face.

  “Oh Augen!” The words gurgle from his crushed lips.

  Lars grabs the barrel of the rifle, turns the bayonet blade toward his feet, and begins filing away at the leather straps. Piece by piece, he manages to cut through the old, well-cared-for leather straps. Koes is now standing on wobbly legs, the blood dripping from his nose and broken mouth.

  Lars turns the rifle, hits Koes in the face again. Blood and snot spurt out in a fan, to the right and over Koes’s shoulder. The large figure staggers, takes one step back. Lars quickly cuts through the last strap, screams as the bayonet cuts the skin and flesh in his calf. He lets go of the rifle, which falls to the ground, and throws his legs over the side. Standing up, he tries to find his balance. The pain keeps the world at a breaking point.

  He looks around, spots a worn steel tray, a handle on each side, displaying surgical instruments from another time, spread out, ready for operation: scalpel, suction cup, cloths, liquids, hypodermic needle. He vomits thin, bitter bile. Remains from his last meal, from he doesn’t know when, splash on the concrete floor. Then Koes is on him. A fist planted in his kidneys makes his legs double up. He gasps for air, crawling in his own vomit. The blows are raining down on him. Everything is nausea, pain, tremors, and loud, piercing laughter. He tries to ward off the blows with one hand while the other feels around on the floor. Where’s his service pistol, the Maglite? His hand closes around something cold and greasy. The barrel of the rifle. He raises the weapon and thrusts it with all his might, until he hears a rib crack, then break. The rifle strikes something soft and hard. He jumps to his feet and plunges forward. The weapon slips through — a startled grunt and a hard crack. Then everything goes quiet.

  The cascade of blows has stopped. He crawls back, gasping for air, squeezing his eyes shut.

  Time ticks away. Second follows second. Throbbing pain tears through his body, sending waves of shock through his trembling flesh.

  “Bloodwind,” Koes whispers. Lars opens one eye. Something is glistening. He blinks, opens both eyes. And sees Koes’s broken face, the nose pointing sideways and up to the right. His lips are swollen sea cucumbers, the skin torn off the cheeks in large, bloody wounds. Broken teeth stick out of the bloody pulp of his mouth.

  Lars pushes further back to survey the damage. The rifle sticks out from Koes’s shoulder at a grotesque angle. His last desperate lunge with the bayonet has impaled Koes and pinned him to the wall of ammunition boxes.

  Small, vigilant eyes follow Lars while the blood seeps from the shoulder wound, drenching the shirt’s soft cotton material. Koes’s right hand is twitching. Soon he will be able to pull the bayonet out.

  Bracing himself against the ammunition box, Lars rises to his feet. He takes his handcuffs from his belt, places one bracelet around Koes’s free hand and attaches the other to the rope handle at the end of the ammunition box. When Koes, who is too weak to resist, is secured, Lars sits down on an empty box. His legs are trembling. His fingers dig around for the cigarettes in his pocket. The package is crumpled; almost all the cigarettes are broken. He manages to light one, takes a greedy drag, lets the nicotine fill the lung tissue and stream into the blood.

  He pats his other pocket and pulls out his cell phone.

  “No service,” Koes snickers.

  Lars ignores him, but Koes is right: he can’t get a signal.

  “Dad hid weapons and ammunition down here during the war. The Germans never found it. You’ll never get out.”

  Koes’s laughter ends in a sputter. Blood is spilling out over his shirt and onto the rough floor.

  “And him,” Koes nods at Christian. “He’ll be awake soon.”

  Lars twitches. “He isn’t dead?”

  Koes starts humming again, then turns his head.

  Lars reaches over and feels Christian’s neck. The carotid artery pulsates reassuringly beneath the skin. He slumps down on the empty chair next to the boy. Thank God. Then he looks down: two jello-like lumps lie in the bottom of the boy’s bowl staring up at Christian in a pool of blood.

  The empty eye sockets, hollows of nothingness on his ruined face. Christian’s body twitches. The boy raises his head, then shakes it from side to side, as if there’s something he can’t understand. Then he screams.

  Just then, a groan passes through the house. The foundations shake. Koes’s eyes gloss over and his bloody lips part in a grotesque grin.

  Lars gets up. Out. He must get help. He takes
a step toward the staircase, staggers. Another step and his knees buckle. Everything is spinning.

  Chapter 58

  A map of the area was spread out on the hood of a police car that was parked halfway into the garden. Allan was investigating potential escape routes out in the swamp. The night air smelled of lilacs and midsummer bonfires.

  Sanne clicked her thumb and ring fingernail together. Where was Lars?

  The emergency response team had returned to the house. A crackling came from the radio Gustafsson had given to Ulrik.

  “We’ve just heard screaming! It came from beneath us.”

  The windows in the dark building shook. A small spark appeared behind the black windows and, before she realized what was happening, grew to a huge ball of fire and exploded up through the roof into the still night. People were screaming. The crashing roof echoed across the lake. Sparks and roof tiles rained down everywhere. The sudden heat made her skin prickle, contract. The house was being torn apart from the inside out.

  “Goddammit,” Ulrik shouted, grabbing the radio. “Get out of there. Now!”

  “But Lars is still in there.” Sanne stared, hypnotized by the flames, which blazed through the roof with terrifying speed.

  Ulrik shouted, “What’s keeping the fire department? Dammit, has nobody called them?”

  No one answered. Everyone stared at the flames, frozen.

  Then, a movement. A uniformed officer appeared, dragging a bystander with him.

  “This guy claims to know something.” He had to shout to make himself heard above the roaring flames. The onlooker, a man in his mid-forties, nodded.