“My dad often talked about the eye doctor who lived there. During the war, he was the leader of the local resistance group. He dug out an extra cellar under the house. Folks in the neighbourhood used to say he used it as a weapons store.”
“You’re saying there’s another cellar — beneath the cellar?” Ulrik had turned away from the house. His hands were suspended in mid-air by the bystander’s chest, ready to grab him by the collar.
The man nodded. “The Germans never found it.”
Now the sirens wailed.
Sanne left the car, walking toward the house in a trance.
“Stop,” Ulrik shouted. “Where are you going?”
“We have to help Lars,” she whispered.
Gustafsson grabbed her just as he came out of the front door. “It’s too dangerous in there. The whole thing could collapse at any moment.”
Police officers were jumping into the emergency vehicles in the driveway, attempting to pull to the side so the fire trucks could get through.
“Over here,” a female voice shouted, barely audible above the roar of the fire. Sanne ran over to the other side of the house. By the end wall, opposite the garden door, Lisa was tearing at the thick vegetation along the house. Hidden under the overgrown thicket was an old cellar entrance, plank shutters locked with a heavy padlock.
Gustafsson disappeared, returning immediately with a pair of bolt cutters. Seconds later, the padlock was cut and with a joint effort, Lisa and Sanne managed to open the cellar door. Gustafsson shone his flashlight into the darkness below. Dead leaves, dirty rags, all sorts of garbage and debris covered the dark staircase. Sanne looked up at the roofline. The glow from the fire spread across the sky. The house groaned and a shower of embers poured down from the roof, landing in the dewy grass. She shrugged and went down the stairs. Lisa, Gustafsson, and the rest of the emergency response team followed.
Narrow bands of smoke seeped through the cracks of the beams. The old house rumbled.
The flashlights scanned the whitewashed surfaces in the low cellar, revealing damp patches and spots of mould. Piles of old clothes and junk, cardboard boxes, books, and shoes filled most of the area.
“Where can a person hide in here?” Lisa asked.
“There must be a set of stairs leading to the second cellar, somewhere under all this junk.” Sanne narrowed her eyes. The smoke stung her eyes and throat.
The others began moving the piles around haphazardly. They scraped at the floor with their boots to locate a possible trapdoor. Sanne moved to the bottom of the staircase that led up to the house. She stood at the end of a long blood trail that led from the consulting room to the cellar. She looked down. The floor was somewhat clear here. No cracks, no chinks in the wood, no trapdoor leading to a second cellar.
The stench of smoke got stronger. Above her the roar increased. It was a matter of minutes before they would be forced to give up.
“Forget that,” she shouted. “It’s over here somewhere.” She could hear water raining down on the house. The fire department had gotten the hoses attached. Lisa left the corner where she’d been searching and approached Sanne.
“Where could you conceal a trapdoor in here?” Sanne mumbled to herself, wiping a dirty lock of hair off her forehead. Her chest rose and fell. It was difficult to breathe.
Her gaze followed the cone of light, from the boxes of old kitchenware, across piles of brown-green knitting and old newspapers, and the low bookcase with the heavy, leather-bound medical books, to the vitrine on the opposite wall. Where could it be? If the Germans couldn’t find the secret cellar, how were they going to be able to in the few minutes they had left before the house collapsed? The panic stuck in her throat. She looked around at the kitchenware, knitting, bookcases, vitrine, newspapers. Kitchenware, knitting, bookcases, vitrine, newspapers. It had to be somewhere.
Bookcase.
Sanne straightened up with a sudden movement, almost smashing her head against a ceiling beam. She reached the bookcase in a single jump and started pulling at it.
“Help,” she hissed. Her eyes stung now, and she wheezed when she breathed. She sensed more than saw Lisa next to her, then came the shadows of Gustafsson and his team. Between them they managed to push and wriggle the heavy bookcase aside. Nothing. Sanne cursed. It had to be here. Gustafsson was down on his knees, pushing on the wall where the bookcase had been. Nothing happened.
He shook his head, got up, and took a step back.
Sanne cast her gaze from the wall to the vitrine, which hung a good metre above the floor. The glass doors were smashed, and the shelves contained old, chipped porcelain and a blue-fluted dinner service. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. She stuck an arm inside, swept aside the contents of the first shelf. Nothing. The next shelf gave the same result. Something fell through the stairwell above her, striking the railing on its way down. The noise was ear-splitting. The vitrine shook.
Sanne slid her hands across the empty shelf. Air pockets under the greasy shelf liner bulged under her hand. The little finger on her right hand slipped across a nail head, at the back right corner. Instinctively, she pushed down on the nail with her index finger. Then she pulled it back and felt the rough head slip. A creaking came from behind the vitrine as it began to swing out. Smoke and light leaked out of the hole, illuminating the hidden cellar. A voice shouted from inside.
“In here. Lars Winkler, police. I need help.”
Gustafsson and his team pushed past Sanne and Lisa and crawled in through the opening. Lisa ran outside to report that they’d gotten through and needed help.
Sanne took a deep breath, then crawled through the gap.
Lars lay at the bottom of the stairs. His hands and face were covered with blood and cuts. His head rested on the bottom step, one arm hanging over the other. He had tried to pull himself up. One of the emergency response team officers was bent over him, holding two fingers against his neck.
Time stands still. The man bending over the figure at the foot of the stairs doesn’t move; the scene is frozen, a tableau. By a table in the right corner sits a naked boy. His mouth is open in a muted scream, blood is pouring down his face from empty holes that will never stare again. Seconds, minutes pass, before she accepts the vision as the young man Lars had questioned the previous day. Sitting at the table with Christian is a naked woman, two dead eyes glistening on her dim face. Her skin has the same yellowish-white colour as Mira and the other nameless woman they found in Østre Anlæg the night before.
Leaning against the ammunition box, his face broken, blood and snot all over his head, shirt, and naked lower body is Jack Koes. One arm is shackled to the farthest handle of the box, the other hangs loosely at his side, the shoulder fixed to the ammuniton box by the bayonet of an antique rifle.
“Is he alive?” Gustafsson whispers.
The officer, still bent over Lars with his fingers against his throat, nods at Gustafsson and with that one signal, time marches on again. The man pulls Lars’s arm over his shoulder, and helps him up the stairs. He is alive. Sanne half stumbles, half runs, grabbing Lars’s other arm, trying to help. Between them, she and the other officer manage to drag him up the stairs even though his feet keep giving out beneath him. Out of the corner of her eye, Sanne sees Gustafsson cutting off the handcuffs that hold Koes to the ammunition box. One of his men pulls the bayonet out. The other officers help Christian to his feet.
The groaning and creaking of the house gets worse with every second.
Gustafsson and the other officer get Koes to his feet. His body goes into spasms as he glances at the dead woman by the table with a look of longing and doom. Then he is on his way up the stairs, with Gustafsson and the other officer on either side supporting him.
Suddenly Koes turns and hits the other officer with a savage blow with his elbow, sending him tumbling down the stairs. In the same movement he clamps hi
s jaws around Gustafsson’s nose. Gustafsson screams, his fingers attempting to find Koes’s eyes, but Koes jerks his head back and forth while his jaw muscles are working. The lower jaw is making sawing movements. Then Gustafsson falls backwards, releasing a wailing howl and a plume of blood. The officer Koes has knocked down the stairs has his service weapon out and fires two shots. The first goes directly through Koes’s wounded shoulder, sending a red mist of blood and chunks of flesh across the staircase. The other shot hits the railing near Sanne’s head.
Koes looks up at the ceiling and spits out something red and wet. Then he catches Sanne’s gaze and raises his healthy arm, holding Gustafsson’s service weapon. From above, the crashing becomes more violent with every second. The officer on the floor searches for a line of sight, but dares not shoot for fear of hitting his colleagues.
Koes laughs, but all Sanne sees is the film of tears covering his eyes.
Then he positions the barrel under his chin and pulls the trigger.
Tuesday
June 24
Chapter 59
The roof collapsed with an ear-splitting crash; sparks and steam leapt up into the night sky. The blue light from the emergency response vehicles gave the entire scene a disjointed and surreal glow. Firefighters and police got in each other’s way. The lawn was covered with firehoses, the water pouring over the burning house. Gustafsson and Christian had already been taken to the hospital. Koes’s body was left on a stretcher on the grass. People kept back. A blanket covered the mangled head.
“What happened?” Lars was on a stretcher inside the open ambulance, half lying, half sitting. He nodded at the flame-engulfed house. Sanne sat next to him.
“It looked like a gas explosion. But everything happened so quickly. It appears that Koes rigged some kind of bomb to the house.”
Lars attempted to sit up but the pain in his side was too much.
Sanne gave him a pillow for his back.
“One of the officers brought these up from the cellar.” She placed a stack of Polaroids on the blanket. Lars picked them up, flipping through them with a mix of surprise and revulsion.
Photo after photo of family gatherings, holiday celebrations. Christmas Eve: Jack Koes in a Santa Claus outfit, smiling happily in front of a tree swelling with presents, surrounded by three female Christmas elves with rice pudding, red wine, and gifts. Coffee service: Koes in shirt and cardigan, laying out the seagull dinner service, with the women in evening dress, heavily made-up, the dead glass eyes staring blankly ahead. Bedtime: Koes in pyjamas in bed, apparently deep in sleep with a woman’s corpse on either side.
Lars’s heart was pounding. He felt a throbbing behind his eyes, passed the pictures back. He didn’t want to see anymore.
“Why?”
“Most likely, we’ll never know,” Sanne said. “There are many lonely people out there who miss having someone to be something for. Some of them find — other ways to deal with it.”
“Most people would probably just say he wasn’t right in the head.”
“That’s probably an understatement.” Sanne placed the pictures in an evidence bag. “Koes worked as a porter at Gentofte Hospital; you saw his upper body. The job gave him free access to chloroform and glutaraldehyde.”
Something moved, stepped out of the chaos.
“Well, that’s some bonfire you’ve managed to put together for Midsummer’s Eve!” Frelsén poked his head into the ambulance. His gold-rimmed glasses reflected the gleam from the burning house. Bint stood behind him, watching the roaring flames and shaking his head.
“You’ll have to sift through all of that.” Lars motioned at the garden with his head, then clutched his side. “There are more victims than the three we already know of.” He pointed at the evidence bag with the photos in Sanne’s hand.
“Damn.” Bint stared at Koes’s body. The blanket covering his head was soaked in blood.
“Sanne. Lars.” Lisa nodded at Frelsén and Bint. “I’m glad you made it out.”
Lars grimaced. “Where’s Kim A?”
“Lisa got us into the cellar when the fire started,” Sanne said. “You have her to thank for us getting you out.”
Lisa smiled. “Never leave an officer behind. Kim A has quit, by the way. He wants to transfer to the Secret Service.” She shrugged.
“Secret Service, huh? Thanks,” Lars mumbled. His eyelids were closing. His head sagged against his chest.
“Well, time for him to go,” was the last thing he heard.
Someone was stepping down from the ambulance; a door slammed. Then he was gone.
Lars opened his eyes. A glaring white light. Was he dead? He heard voices, then a scream. As soon as he realized it was Maria who was screaming outside, he tried dragging his body out of bed. Then the door opened and Elena poked her head in.
“Lars? Are you awake?”
He nodded, fell back in bed. His entire body was hurting.
Elena pushed Maria, who was pale as a sheet, into the room in front of her. She put an arm around her, pulled her closer to the bed.
“Dad?” Maria took his hand, laced her fingers with his.
He tried smiling at her. “Was that you screaming?”
Maria nodded, bit her lip.
“The parents of the boy — Maria’s —” Elena coughed. “Apparently he’s in the same ward. His dad tried talking to Maria. Ulrik managed to stop him.”
What had happened at Christian’s house, with Christian’s parents?
“Ulrik . . . can he?” Elena made a gesture at the door.
He closed his eyes, shook his head. God, he really needed a smoke.
“They say you just need a few days of bedrest. A few broken ribs is the worst of it.” Elena held out her hand, hesitated. Then she patted the comforter above his leg.
“Where am I?” he asked. She looked lovely but the flutter of longing was gone.
“Rigshospitalet.” Elena took her purse off the end of the bed. “I’m going out to Ulrik.” She looked at Maria, stroked her cheek with her finger. Then she turned around and walked out of the room.
Maria held his hand in hers, gazing out the window behind him. He closed his eyes, imagining what she saw: the treetops in Fælledparken, the diagonal lines of the paths. Was the sun about to rise?
“They say it was Christian . . .” she began. “That he was the one who attacked Caroline and the others?”
He kept his eyes shut, nodded. Maria squeezed his hand so hard that it hurt. Neither of them said anything.
“What did you want at the party yesterday?” she asked.
Lars swallowed, looked at her. “Caroline said that the rapist was humming . . . during. I didn’t recognize the melody, but . . .”
“I’m sorry, Dad.” She shook her head. “I don’t remember.”
Lars turned his head, looked out the window. Jagger, the old Indian, chanting from somewhere in his brain.
Talkin’ ’bout the Midnight Rambler,
Did you see me jump the bedroom door?
I‘m called a hit-n-run raper, in anger
Or just a knife-sharpened tippie-toe . . .
The sunbeams crawled across the floor. Her other hand moved across the comforter, grabbed his.
Sanne poked her head in the door. “Am I intruding?”
“Maybe,” Lars began. But Maria looked up, waved Sanne in.
“It’s okay, Dad. I wanted to go see Caro. But there was one thing you didn’t tell us: was it the murderer who Christian . . . ?”
Lars and Sanne looked at each other.
“Yes, Christian was right.” Sanne came over, stood beside the bed. “But he should have stayed away. This was a matter for the police to handle.”
“I heard what he did to Christian.” Maria moved her hand in front of her mouth. Then she let it fall and stood up.
Lars
reached out for her, but she was already on her way out.
“She’s going to be fine.” Sanne looked after her retreating form. Then she turned to him. “Toke and Lisa raided Christian’s home last night. They found a black tracksuit. I’ve just spoken to Frelsén. The black fibres found at the crime scenes are a match.” She sat down on the edge of the bed in the same place Maria had sat a moment ago. “What do you think he wanted with Koes?”
Lars grimaced. “Maybe he felt a kinship? I know it sounds sick, but Stine Bang was raped the night after Mira’s body was found.”
Lars closed his eyes; neither of them said anything. The seconds ticked by before Sanne broke the silence. “Hopefully we’ll find out more during questioning,”
Lars turned his head and looked out the broad window, across Fælledparken and Østerbro. A flock of swans shot across the sky in a pointed V toward the artificial lake near Edel Sauntes Allé. The swooshing, melancholy sound of their flapping wings bounced against Rigshospitalet’s raw concrete surfaces. A new day was skipping across the fountain. His body began to feel light, practically floating from exhaustion. Then he started to laugh.
Sanne stared at him. “Do you really think there’s anything to laugh at?”
He shook his head, stopped. “Yes, it’s over. I’m free. Kim A, Ulrik.” He made a sweeping gesture with his arm, reaching out for the sky.
“And now you’re going to North Zealand’s police?” She fiddled with the chart hanging at the foot of his bed.
He was still bubbling inside. Exhaustion and lightness, the final stages of the amphetamine high. He would collapse soon.
“It won’t be Elsinore. I think I’ll go see my dad.”
“In New York? What about Maria?”
“She’ll come with me.”
Sanne’s cheeks went red. She looked down. “And — you and me?”
Christine Fogh stepped in with her hands in her pockets. Her sharp eyes were peering at them from behind her red glasses.
“The patient needs rest now.”
The House That Jack Built Page 26
