by Andrea Mara
Then one Wednesday evening, hunched over my laptop in my Dublin apartment, I discovered iSleuth, and finally understood I was just one of thousands of people with an interest in true crime. Most of the forum members were there to toss around ideas – others were more serious about it, actively trying to investigate disappearances, and some even had police contacts with whom they shared information. It was eye-opening and jaw-dropping and, in a surreal way, it was wonderful. I’d found my gang. I wasn’t the only one.
As months ticked by, I read up on the Original Night Stalker and the Green River Killer. I read about children walking out of camp, and students walking out of bars, never seen again. I read the high-profile cases on which everyone had an opinion, and the lesser-known ones that were even sadder in their obscurity.
But however far and wide I read, I was always drawn back to Denmark. To Hanne. What had happened when she left the house in Købæk that night – who had she met? She was slight in build, I knew that from photos, but surely not so small that she could be stolen from her walk without some kind of struggle or witness? I studied the photos – the ones her parents had provided to the police. A slightly younger Hanne, her hair bright, her smile less so. Or maybe I was reading too much into old pictures of ghosts I never knew. In a notebook, I pieced together everything I could though there wasn’t much. The news reports had been in print and only later added to the Internet, so there was no way to know if everything was copied over – presumably not.
What I did gather was that Hanne had been back in Købæk for a full month by the time she disappeared, and that she had stayed close to home, sleeping late and going to bed early. A friend, not named, had told a journalist she was worried that Hanne wasn’t well, and there was speculation early in the search that she had taken her own life, but her parents were quoted in the same piece saying it wasn’t true. Hanne was tired and a little run down, but not ill they said. On the night she disappeared, her parents had been out for a walk, something they did after supper every Sunday evening. When they arrived back to the neat two-bedroomed house on Damtoften, Hanne was not in bed as they expected, but dressed in a warm jacket, jeans, and boots. Her parents were surprised that she was going out for a walk but pleased too they said afterwards – this first inclination to go outside was seen as a good sign. The weather was cooler than usual for April, and her mother had suggested a hat and gloves, but Hanne said she wanted to feel the wind in her hair. Another good sign, they thought. She’d left the house just as darkness fell. Her father had given her a torch.
That night, her parents went to bed early as they always did. Hanne’s mother left a slice of Kiksekage on the kitchen table for her daughter, and a note to say goodnight. The following morning, the cake was still there, but this in itself was not a red flag – Hanne had not been eating much since her return. It was only when her mother went to wake her mid-morning that she realised Hanne wasn’t there. Even then, it didn’t strike her that her daughter hadn’t been home – she thought she’d gone out for another walk. Some of the newspapers commented on that – why hadn’t her parents called the police more quickly? I felt sorry for them. Relatives of missing persons don’t always react as we think they should – perhaps if they anticipated future newspaper columns, they would.
As the day wore on, Hanne’s mother phoned around old friends and neighbours but nobody had seen her daughter. Hanne’s father came home from work and went out to look for her, soon joined by other inhabitants of Damtoften, and in the early evening one of them found the torch at the entrance to a laneway near the house. Nobody could say if it was left there deliberately as she set out on her walk, or if it fell during some kind of struggle.
Hanne’s parents called the police. Hanne was formally declared missing, but the local Inspector reassured her parents that she had more than likely gone of her own free will.
What seemed strange is that there was no mention of her husband or her baby daughter. Surely that would have been taken into consideration in the early days – wouldn’t the papers have wondered if she’d just gone back to Ireland?
One of the papers did pick up on the story of Maja Pedersen, the twenty-three-year-old woman who had gone missing the same year. Her body had eventually washed up near Hellerup, just north of Copenhagen. There was nothing suspicious about the drowning itself, it could have been accidental it seemed, but the fact that she had been missing for some time beforehand drew media attention. The only similarity with Hanne at that stage was the age of both women, but in a country with a small population and low crime rate, the two cases stood out.
The search for Hanne continued, widening to cover all of Zealand and then to the other islands. Hanne’s parents spoke regularly to the press, begging whoever had their daughter to let her go. Some elements of the press continued to speculate that she had simply walked away, right up until the day her body was found in a forested area near Roskilde. There had been an effort made to cover her up – someone had dug a hole in the ground, and put her body in it, then covered it with a corrugated-iron sheet from a nearby derelict cabin. Branches had been put over the metal sheet so that it wouldn’t be seen, but a dog-walker with a particularly tenacious dog eventually made the discovery. The newspapers stopped saying, “simply walked away”.
Official reports suggested she had drowned, though the nearest lake was five miles from her burial ground. So someone had moved her body at least that far, if not further – there was no way to determine exactly where her death had taken place. Her parents shut down, buried in grief, no longer speaking to the press, or anyone it seemed. I wondered again, were they still there? Still in Købæk mourning Hanne? And I thought back to something Jamie had asked – why weren’t they curious about me? The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. Why didn’t they come to find me, their only living link to Hanne?
CHAPTER 26
2018
Saturday morning was bright and sunny, making it hard to believe the earlier part of the week had been punctuated with red weather alerts and snow. As a nation, we stretched our legs, like caged animals set free, ready for fresh starts. Time to take action, I told myself, as I nosed the jeep out of the driveway. I’d found a small security firm based in Arklow with a good number of testimonials on their website, and had called to make an appointment.
Sheena, the consultant who welcomed me to her small office, was exactly the kind of person I needed to meet after six days of worry. Efficient, reassuring, but not pushy. When I told her why I was there, she was sympathetic, and I waited for her to tell me that’s why I needed to spend thousands on security, but she didn’t.
“An alarm would be a good idea,” she said, “though of course I’m going to say that – it’s my business. But there are lots of other things you can do to make your house less appealing to the opportunistic intruder. Do you have a gate at the end of your driveway?”
I nodded.
“And do you keep it shut at night?”
“No,” I replied. “It’s only waist-high so it wouldn’t keep anyone out. And until this week, it hasn’t crossed my mind that I needed to.”
“You’re absolutely right – if someone really wants to come in, they’ll easily scale a gate, but any kind of barrier can be an effective deterrent. A gate of any size, a gate that’s locked, not just closed. Lights on at night, motion sensor lights, lights on timers –” She stopped and laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you that you need all of these, I’m just giving you a picture.”
I nodded again. At that point, I’d have parted with any amount of cash for some peace of mind.
“Make sure your doors look solid – nothing is more attractive to a burglar than an old, weathered door that looks like you could open it with a good shoulder to it – you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, my front door is okay but I need to replace the back door.”
“Go for one that doesn’t have glass near the handle – it’s too easy for someone to break it and reach in. What
kind of lock is it?”
I wasn’t sure.
“Some locks are easier to circumvent than others – you might want to check that,” she went on. “Also, if you have a nice car, keep it out of sight if possible – do you have that option?”
“I have a half-decent jeep, and I keep it round the side.”
She nodded her approval.
“Don’t have lots of high shrubs and hedges – they offer protection to burglars making their way towards your home. What you want is a nice open space that will put them off. Now, will we go through some alarm options?”
“Sure.”
“I’m getting a sense you’re not sure though – is it the cost? We have some good finance options?”
“No, that’s fine. It’s the fear really – I live on my own, and when I imagine a burglar alarm going off in the middle of the night, it freaks the hell out of me!” I laughed, but it came out high and empty. “Like, what would I actually do if it happened, other than die of fright?”
“The only thing you need to do is sit tight. The alarm isn’t there so that you can get ready to take on an intruder – it’s there to ward him off. As soon as it sounds, he’s going to be gone like a shot. No matter how nice your laptop or your iPad or your grandmother’s diamond ring, it’s not worth getting caught. You see?”
I nodded. It made sense. At least if it was a burglar. But someone inexplicably looking in my bedroom window? Without knowing the why of it, it all became less predictable.
She went on to explain different options for connecting to the gardaí and I wondered which guards would make it out to my middle-of-nowhere house and how long it would take. Again I thought of my little apartment in Dublin – I hadn’t had an alarm there either, but I never needed one in crowded city-centre safety, high off the ground.
I left an hour later having signed up for a monitored alarm to be installed in three weeks’ time and holding brochures for motion-sensor lights and security cameras. It wouldn’t help that night or the night after, but as I drove back to Arklow to buy some proper bedroom curtains, I did feel a whole lot lighter.
When I woke on Sunday morning I was confused at first – the light cast through my new blue-grey curtains was different to the recent bin-bag blackout. It had taken a ridiculous amount of time to get them up the night before, and I’d fallen asleep sitting up in bed reading the book Linda had recommended, the one about the lonely woman. Linda was never subtle in school either. Although thinking about it, it was a long time since she’d sent me a book recommendation.
There was something unexpectedly cathartic about the new curtains – perhaps this was the line in the sand, I thought, as I crumpled the black sacks and stuffed them in the bin. Outside, the sky was granite-grey and promising rain – a day to stay indoors. As the first drops began to fall, I leafed through the literature the security consultant had given me, and my scribbled notes on how to deter burglars: Gate, doors solid, alarm, no high shrubs, lights on timers.
Day one, and I’d already managed to leave the gate open, despite what she’d said. Shaking my head, I slipped on a raincoat, and opened the front door. Sure enough, the gate was open. So much for lines in the sand, I thought, as I stepped out into the rain. Then I stopped, my eye drawn to something on the ground. Something that hadn’t been there the night before. A huge letter R, chalked on the path in front of the door. Stark and white on the grey stone beneath. My skin went cold as I stared at it. What did it mean? And who had drawn it there – who had been crouched outside my front door while I was asleep inside?
CHAPTER 27
Even as I watched, the rain was doing its work, washing the chalk off the ground. I stood, mesmerized, for a moment, then rushed indoors to get my phone. Fumbling to open the camera, I took a photo of the letter, then another, and another. As I clicked, the rain grew heavier, and the chalk outline grew lighter, until eventually it was as though it had never been there at all.
I thought about phoning the Garda Station and emailing the photo but, no matter what way I rehearsed it in my head, it sounded daft. A chalk drawing of the letter R wasn’t threatening, and if someone I didn’t know answered the phone, it would be hard to explain.
In the end, I drove to the station, where I was greeted by an unfamiliar face. The guard, who looked like he was still in school, seemed relieved to fetch Garda Maguire for me.
Patrick invited me through to the back, asking his young colleague to bring us two teas, and we sat in a cramped office, Patrick behind a paper-strewn desk, me in a bright-orange plastic chair. Maybe Geraldine had picked the furniture – functional, no frills.
Patrick picked up a pen, an expectant look on his face.
“More footprints?” he asked, and in that moment I gave thanks to whatever deity looks after such things that I’d already reported everything that had happened. In context, the new development might seem less silly. I passed him my phone, open on the first and clearest of the photos.
“What is it?” he asked.
“When I looked out this morning, I found this drawn on the ground outside my front door – the letter R, in chalk.”
Patrick blinked. I rushed to clarify.
“Obviously not a worry in its own right – but it means someone has been at my house again during the night.”
Patrick tilted his head and turned the phone sideways.
“Is it definitely a letter R?”
“Yeah. Hard to see on screen but it was clearer in real life.”
“It reminds me of when we were kids,” Patrick said, still looking at the photo. “We used to draw hopscotch in the front driveway and my mam would go mad because she said it looked common.” He smiled at the memory, and shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t mean to trivialise it. But could it have been kids? Any chance it was there yesterday and you missed it?”
“No. I’d have seen it. But, anyway, no kids are going to come all the way up to my house – it’s too far from everything. And, like, what would be the point?”
“I suppose to play a prank on you or freak you out – maybe word went out about the footprints. Or maybe it was kids all along?”
“No, the footprints were big – not a kid’s shoe.”
“Jesus, you should see some of the kids these days, Marianne. Huge. Different generation. Not so much the kids around here, but in my old station in Store Street they were all towering over me. Wouldn’t have minded a bit of chalk drawings to deal with then, easier than the kind of things they were getting up to.”
He looked wistful for a minute and I wondered who he was trying to convince. Poor guy – over his time in Carrickderg, my footprint case was probably about as exciting as it had been.
I threw up my hands. “Look, I know, I get it – a chalk drawing isn’t exactly threatening, and it’s gone now. But it’s all making me really, really uneasy.”
“Well, if not kids, could it have been Alan or Jamie? Playing a particularly slow game of hangman?”
Patrick laughed at his own joke, but I stiffened. Hangman. It stirred a memory – the case in Denmark, or was it Holland, where a woman found a hangman drawing in her driveway, and wound up dead a few days later.
Patrick must have seen something in my face.
“What is it?”
I started to speak then stopped to clear my throat. I tried again.
“It just reminded me of a story I read online, about a woman who found a chalked hangman in her front yard. She didn’t think much of it, but she was found dead shortly afterwards.”
Patrick raised his eyebrows, and I played back what I’d just said, realising how random it sounded – like an urban legend.
“I was reading up on the Blackwood Strangler, you see,” I went on, “and until recently they thought all his victims were in and around the same area.”
Patrick’s eyebrows stayed up.
“I was looking at articles about murders like those East Midlands’ ones, but outside the area. And even outside the UK.” I stopped and waited.
“And?” he prompted.
“And there are some. Victims who had reported finding odd things in their gardens and on their doorsteps, and victims who had seen footprints.”
The eyebrows went down. A sigh escaped.
“Marianne, I understand why you’re rattled, but listen – there’s absolutely no way some serial killer from England is over here stalking you in Wicklow. You’re probably freaked out from reading about the cases and seeing footprints yourself, then putting two and two together and coming up with ten. Have you heard of apophenia? It’s where people mistakenly see connections between random, unrelated things.” If he’d reached out and patted me on the head, he couldn’t have sounded more patronising. “Is there any chance the stories on the Internet made you think you saw things – like, if you fell asleep reading an article about a serial killer then dreamed you saw one at your own window? Or like with the footprints – could they have been your own prints and you just forgot?”
I stood up, wiping imaginary dust off my sleeve.
“No, definitely not my prints. I’m a size 5. Those prints looked more like an 11 or 12. You still have the photos I sent you, right?”
He nodded vehemently. “Absolutely. We’re still actively investigating. But I don’t think you need to worry about any serial killers from England coming over here.”
Suddenly I felt like a character in an Enid Blyton book, trying to make Mr Goon the Policeman understand there was something wrong. Only I wasn’t a ten-year-old kid, I was older than the bloody policeman. Forcing a smile, I agreed he was probably right, and said goodbye.
