by Andrea Mara
“Marianne, I think the lamb’s burning!” Ray called from the front door with no sense of irony. “Do you want me to take it out?”
I stamped on the ashes, stuffed the photo in my pocket, and walked back to the house.
Predictably, Alan did not let things go. In May, a few weeks before the second anniversary of my dad’s death, Ray and I went out for Sunday brunch in the Carrickderg Arms. The food was usually kind of meh there, but it was the one place in town with outdoor tables, and on a sunny Sunday morning that trumped everything. I had a copy of an old Barbara Vine book with me and Ray had his current notebook along with a stack of Sunday newspapers.
“What’s the book about?” he asked, picking it up while I read the menu I already knew by heart. Irish breakfast. Smaller Irish breakfast. Hearty Irish breakfast. Vegetarian Irish breakfast.
“It’s about a guy who dies, and his family discover all sorts of secrets about him. I read it when I was about sixteen, but I don’t remember any of the story. Weird how that happens, isn’t it?”
Ray nodded in a way that told me he didn’t entirely agree. He only read unforgettable books. And wrote unforgettable books.
“How’s the manuscript going?” I asked, nodding towards his notebook. He always used the same ones – brown-leather covers, gold lettering, shipped in from somewhere back home.
“Slower than my agent would like, but getting there,” he said, opening the notebook, closing it again, and picking up a newspaper instead.
We read until the food arrived, soaking up the early summer sun, and everything might have been okay if I hadn’t decided to go down to the bench in front of the fountain after we’d eaten. Caught in the romance of remembering our first encounter there, Ray came with me. We sat, faces to the sun, talking about that day: the mingling of grief and newness, the end of one stage and the start of another. That was Ray’s interpretation. I found it difficult to think beyond the funeral, and wondered if that meant something about our relationship.
“I can picture us here when we’re old,” he said, as we watched the spray. “I’ll be writing books and you’ll be reading, and we’ll sit on this bench, the two most content people in Ireland.”
I said nothing, wondering about the prickling feeling in my stomach.
“Doesn’t that sound good?” Ray was saying. “To grow old together here?”
“Absolutely,” I said eventually, because really, what else could I say?
But there was something not quite right with the picture, and as I watched the spray fall to the water below, I felt a restlessness that was new and unsettling.
I don’t know how long we were there, but when we walked back to our table our breakfast plates had been cleared, and someone had left menus on top of the stack of newspapers.
“There you are now. More coffee? Dessert?” came a voice from behind, and Ray ordered two cappuccinos, no dessert.
“Actually, can I take a mint tea, and I’ll try the apple crumble,” I said, picking up my book.
It was only when we had paid the bill that Ray realised the notebook was missing. We searched on the ground, and down at the bench, though he was certain he hadn’t taken it with him. As the search continued, Ray grew more and more frantic, muttering under his breath.
“Was there a lot in it?” I asked, worried now too.
“It was nearly full,” he said curtly. “About five chapters of the book. Jesus Christ.”
“Had you typed any of it up?”
“No,” he said under his breath, going inside the hotel to ask at the bar.
I followed him in, and said I’d check the car, though we both knew the notebook had been with him at the table.
In the car park, there was just one other car, and beyond it I could see something dark on the ground. A small, smouldering pile. I ran the last steps, knowing then exactly what it was, shouting for Ray. I reached down to pick it up, but it was too hot. I pulled my hand away, jamming it under my arm to quench the sting.
“Ray!” I shouted again, pulling off my jacket.
“Did you find it?” His voice floated across the from the hotel doorway.
“Just come!” I yelled, throwing my jacket on the pile on the ground, stamping on it.
Ray arrived beside me, realisation spreading across his face. He lifted the jacket. Underneath, in a charred mess, the cover relatively intact but the pages destroyed, was his notebook. He reached down to grab it, but it was still too hot. He stamped on it and kicked it to the side, out of the ashes. Pulling the sleeve of his jacket down over his hand, he tried again. But it was just a shell now, a cover with no insides. The words were gone.
He sat on the ground, shaking his head.
I tried to think of something to say. Nothing came.
“Five chapters.” His voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Oh Ray, I’m so sorry. Maybe you’ll remember, if you rewrite it soon?” I tried, knowing it wasn’t that simple.
“Weeks and weeks of work. Jesus Christ.” He looked up at me. “It was him.”
“Who?” Though I knew who.
“Alan fucking Crowley. Who else?”
“Did you see him?”
“No, but I bet he was here,” he said, getting off the ground, and storming back across the car park into the hotel.
As I picked up my charred jacket, a memory of the pile of smouldering clothes flashed through my mind. Had Alan burnt Ray’s notebook in revenge for the impromptu fire? But then if he tipped the contents of the sack in our garden, why did he care what happened to them? None of it made any sense. I followed Ray inside.
In the dark interior of the hotel, Ray had pulled together a smile for the barman.
“I thought I saw our neighbour Alan Crowley here earlier – did I imagine that?”
“No, you didn’t – Alan’s in every Sunday morning for the fry. Extra pudding, no tomatoes.”
“Right. Thank you, I’ll check with him in case he saw what happened my notebook.” Ray turned to me, frozen smile fixed in place. “Will we go check with Alan now, honey?”
“Well, let’s chat about it,” I said, “before we go rushing off anywhere.”
In silence, we walked to the car.
Inside, as he turned the key in the ignition, I put my hand on his arm.
“Ray, let’s think about this for a minute. You have no proof Alan did it. You can’t start accusing him.”
“It didn’t stop him accusing me of reporting him to the County Council!”
“Eh, yeah, but he knew you did it. And that’s kind of the point too. Don’t you see that if you keep provoking, he’ll keep coming back? You’ve lost weeks of work now, and you can’t even prove it was him. What’s to stop him burning something else next time? This has gone way out of hand.”
“Marianne, you don’t understand. I can’t just recreate the words. I’ll never get them back. What he’s done is criminal.”
“But you burnt his stuff in our garden – isn’t that the same thing?”
“That was different. You can’t compare a pile of old clothes to precious weeks of work!”
I tried another tack.
“Okay, you’re right, taking your notebook and destroying it is clearly criminal. So let’s go down the proper channels – let’s report what happened to the guards and let them look into it?”
He sat for a moment, shoulders tight, staring straight ahead. Then he slumped against the seat.
“Fine. Let’s report him.”
I let out a breath as Ray turned off the engine and we got out of the car to walk to the Garda Station.
Maybe now it would come to an end, I thought, and somewhere high above us, the gods of such things laughed heartily.
CHAPTER 30
After that, things calmed down, or so it seemed. Reporting his suspicions about Alan to the police let some air out for Ray. He was less tense. More focussed. In fact, he was writing faster than ever, spurred on by something more than his ever-patient agent’s intermittent emails
.
We saw Alan out and about but said nothing. We just carried on as normal. Sometimes I caught Alan looking at Ray, perhaps wondering why he didn’t say anything, and that gave me some satisfaction. Don’t react, my dad had always said when I came home with occasional stories of schoolyard slagging. That’s what they’re looking for. And mostly I didn’t – Linda and I put their names in our little black book instead and came up with deadly revenge plots that never made it past our overactive imaginations.
If I’d been less involved in my own world, I might have paid more attention to what Ray was doing, but I was spending every night on my laptop at that point, reading about cold cases and new forensic developments. There was never anything new on Hanne’s case, and I’d become tired of futile searches, so I’d set up Google Alerts for key names – Hanne Karlsen, Dina Karlsen, and her husband, my grandfather, Erik Karlsen.
Which is how one Saturday morning in November, I got an automatic email to tell me all three names had shown up in a news article.
Fingers scrabbling across laptop keys, I clicked into the website. It was a feature in a UK newspaper about podcasts and the rising interest in true crime, and it covered famous cold cases from countries throughout Europe. The Danish case referenced was Hanne’s. There were up-to-date photos of Hanne’s parents – Dina was in her sixties by then but looked ten years older, and Erik, who was seventy, had also been hollowed out by grief and time. They were still living in the same house in Købæk, according to the piece, unable to leave the place they last saw their daughter. Police were reopening the cases, according to the article, retesting evidence from all three Danish crime-scenes, to establish if there was a connection. I sat back on the couch, staring at the screen, at the images of my grandparents’ faces. Lined with grief, but maybe hopeful too – perhaps they’d finally get some answers?
And suddenly, more clearly than anything, I knew I wanted to meet them. To find out more about Hanne, to understand why she left. To connect.
Back then, they didn’t want to see the grandchild who would remind them of their dead daughter, but maybe now it would help them. Feeling only mildly self-conscious, I stared at their faces, and whispered a message: “I’m coming.”
Ray, of course, wanted to come too. To look after me, he said.
“I’m not a child,” I told him. “I’m twenty-four. It’s just a week in Denmark, to get to know my grandparents.”
“And look into your mother’s murder, right?”
I threw up my hands. “There isn’t much I can do, but yeah, of course I’m curious. And it’ll be interesting to see where she lived, and where she went for a walk that night.”
Ray still wasn’t keen. I was his muse, he said, he needed me there. I laughed it off, ignoring the uncomfortable twitch in my gut. Ray didn’t laugh at all. Nevertheless, within days, I’d negotiated a week off work, and booked a flight to Copenhagen.
The next question was whether or not to contact Dina and Erik – would they find a way to avoid me if they knew I was coming? I decided against forewarning. I booked a room in a hostel in Købæk, two streets away from my grandparents’ house, packed a bag, and on a Sunday afternoon in late November I flew to Denmark.
CHAPTER 31
The hostel in Købæk was nicer than the word “hostel” suggests – a sprawling redbrick building with beach access, though with the temperature heading for freezing I didn’t expect to spend much time on the strand. Hurrying across the courtyard through early-evening darkness, I let myself into my temporary home. I had a room to myself, small, clean, sparse. The exposed brick walls were painted a shrill white, and I couldn’t decide if the overall look was Scandinavian-chic or just a bit too stark for a cold climate. There was an ensuite bathroom, tiny, practical, no frills. Anyway, it wasn’t a holiday, I reminded myself as I unpacked into the small, white door-less wardrobe.
I’d had an expensive sandwich in Copenhagen Airport while waiting for my bus to Købæk and, too tired to deal with exploring the rest of the hostel, I climbed into the narrow bed, texted Ray to say I’d arrived, and within minutes fell fast asleep.
When I woke on Monday morning it was still dark, and I wondered when I’d get to see Denmark in daylight. Tentatively, I tested the shower, expecting a lukewarm drip, but a stream of hot water gushed into the tray, forcing me to reassess my opinion of hostels, and this small win lifted my spirits, temporarily at least.
Fifteen minutes later, with a woolly hat clamped down over still-wet hair, I made the short but bitterly cold walk across to the main building. Inside, I found a common area, where groups of backpackers and solo-travellers were chatting or reading, and a dining room with a breakfast buffet. Suddenly starving, I loaded my plate with fresh bread, cold meat, and cheese. Two cups of coffee and a decent breakfast later, the sun had started to creep across the dining-room floor, and I was feeling decidedly better about the trip.
Just after nine, I set off with a map. I knew from news articles that Dina and Erik Karlsen lived on a street called Damtoften, in house Number 42. Following the map, within ten minutes I was at the top of the street. It was quiet at that time of the morning, not a car on the road – perhaps everyone had already left for work and school. Trees lined both sides of the street, and the houses were set back from the road, behind high hedges. It all looked very suburban and normal.
Approaching Number 42, I slowed. My head was full of cotton wool as I took my first look at Hanne’s childhood home. Low and wide, deep yellow in colour, a single-storey house, with two front windows – like eyes, hooded by a deeply slanted roof. The front door was solid wood with no glass panels, and no welcome mat outside. The front garden was neat, and through the open garage door, I could see a small red car. Someone was home.
I stood outside the front gate, pulling my scarf over my mouth, with no idea what to do next – not yet ready to approach them but unable to walk away. Then the decision was made for me, in a small action that changed the course of everything to come. The Karlsens’ front door opened, and a woman I recognised as Dina stepped outside to sweep her porch. Instinctively I moved back, but there was nowhere to go. She looked at me, eyebrows up in an unspoken Can I help you? A wave of nausea churned in my stomach. I’d gone over dozens of ways to introduce myself, but none of them seemed quite right.
She stopped sweeping and stood still, eying me up and down. I tried a smile but she didn’t smile back. She said something in Danish, and suddenly I wondered if she could speak English – it hadn’t dawned on me that my already awkward introduction would have a language barrier. People were always saying everyone in Scandinavia could speak English, but maybe I shouldn’t have taken it so literally.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Danish. Do you speak English?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yes. Are you a journalist?”
And before a more sensible answer could come out of my mouth, the word hit the air. “Yes.”
She nodded. “I have already spoken to a journalist – you can read everything I have to say in that article – it is on the Internet, I believe,” she said in precise, accented English.
She began sweeping again, and I walked towards her.
“I don’t need much of your time, but I’d really like to speak to you.”
“Why does a journalist who is not from Denmark care about this – where do you come from?”
And without hesitation, the next lie jumped out of my mouth. “New Jersey.”
She leaned on her brush. “Do you have a card? What is your name?”
“Sorry, I don’t have a card but my name is Linda.” Where were these words coming from? “I’d really like to include you in the article I’m writing. Maybe a wider audience, outside Denmark, would be a good thing?”
“Why? The killer is here in Denmark, this is where it will be solved, if it is ever solved.”
“But what if he’s not? There are cases like this all over Europe. Maybe there are links.”
“Really? Cases of kidnapping and drow
ning? I do not know of any.”
I shook my head. “No, not the same, but there are similarities. Patterns. Isn’t it possible the killer went somewhere else too? If he was here all this time, would he have killed three women in one year, then stopped?”
“Not everyone believes it is a serial killer. You do?”
I nodded.
She stared at me, her blue eyes assessing, deciding. Something seemed to shift.
“Come in. We can talk for thirty minutes, then I must go.” She turned to open the door. “I go to her grave every day.”
I followed her inside, scrambling to work out how to extract myself from the lie but not ready to tell the truth. She led me through to a bright kitchen, and pointed at a low grey sofa. I sat, while she went to the fridge and took out a bottle.
“Water? Coffee?” she asked.
“Whichever is handiest.”
She looked confused.
“Water is good, thanks,” I said.
Putting a glass of water on the coffee table in front of me, she sat on the adjacent sofa, with her hands clasped on her lap, and waited.
Jesus, what was I doing here? I opened my handbag and pulled out a tiny notebook I used for shopping lists, hoping it looked like something a journalist might carry. I couldn’t find a pen. Watching me, she plucked one from a shelf underneath the coffee table, and handed it to me.
“Thank you. I won’t take up much of your time, but could you tell me about Hanne – what was she like growing up?”
Her face changed then, the tightness of her mouth slipped to something lighter.
“Oh! Usually journalists only want to hear of that night – what happened, her last words to us, how we felt. Nobody ever wants to hear about Hanne.”
