Seven, eight ... Gonna stay up late (Rebekka Franck #4) (5 page)

I couldn't
quite
forget about Camilla while writing my story in
the press-room. The poster with the picture of Amalie was lying next to me on
the table, her eyes staring at me like they wanted something from me. I turned
the paper upside down, then focused on the screen in front of me. I had only
written one paragraph of the interview. I looked at the big watch on the wall
in front of me. There was only fifteen minutes till the concert started. Sune
was standing next to me with a cup of coffee in his hand. He had packed his
gear and was ready to leave. I, on the other hand wasn't even half done with my
article.

"Maybe you can write the rest after the
concert," Sune said.

I shook my head. "I promised Jens-Ole he
would have it for tomorrow's paper. I have a deadline at midnight."

Sune finished his coffee and put the cup on the
table. "Well I'm not missing out on The Boss." He lifted his bag and swung
it over his shoulder. "I'm going to be in front and get the best
pictures."

"Just go," I said. "I'll find you
there. Get some great shots."

"Okay," he said and kissed my
forehead. "I'll be easy to find."

"I know," I said chuckling. "Just
look for the guy who sings and yells the loudest."

"You got it."

I heard Sune leave and returned to my laptop. It
was like the article laughed at me to my face. Why couldn't I just get it done?
It was a great interview, Patti Scialfa was an interesting person with interesting
things to say. It should be the easiest thing in the world to finish up in a
hurry. I got up and grabbed another cup of coffee from the pot, then sat down
next to the computer. We were only two people in the big room. The other
journalist closed his laptop and put it in his bag. He nodded and smiled at me
as he hurried out the door. Now I was alone, not something you experience often
at a festival with more than eighty thousand people attending. It felt kind of
nice. I wasn't a fanatic Bruce Springsteen fan like Sune, so I didn't mind
missing out on some of the concert. He probably saved the best songs for last,
like they always did anyway. And I had my press badge which meant I could get
in front at any time I wanted to. I sipped my coffee while staring at the paper
I had turned and placed with Amalie's face down. I grabbed it and turned it
upwards again. Amalie stared at me. I sighed and put the paper on the table.

"Where are you little girl?" I mumbled
while wondering where I had seen her before. I knew her face from somewhere, I
just couldn't quite place it.

I shook my head and returned to my screen. I
sipped my coffee again and continued writing my article. In the distance I
could hear the music from the concert begin. It was the biggest concert at this
year's festival and it was one everybody wanted to go to. Well everybody over
the age of twenty-five at least. I looked at Amalie again. Camilla had said
that they were going to the Suicide Silence concert tonight. It took place on
one of the smaller stages. Maybe Amalie would show up? I truly hoped so, mostly
for Camilla's sake. She was so worried about her friend. Meanwhile Amalie was
probably just with some guy in a tent forgetting all about letting her friend
know where she was either because she was too drunk or because she just didn't
think about anyone else but herself right now.  At age fourteen you could
easily get lost in some guy that you thought was going to be the love of your
life.

I decided to remove Amalie's distracting face
and put the poster in my pocket. Then I returned once again to my article and
wrote another paragraph. Suddenly a phone started to ring. I looked at my own.
The display remained black. It wasn't mine. The ringtone was different. I
shrugged. Probably just some journalist or photographer who had forgotten his
phone when he went to the concert. I stared at the screen again and wrote a few
more words. The ringing continued. It played a melody. The tunes of One
Direction's
You don't know you're beautiful
.
A thought caused me to look up from the screen. What grown-up in their right
mind would have such a ringtone? I got up from my chair and walked towards the
corner where I had put Camilla's iPhone in my charger. There was light in the
display. It said 'Amalie.'

I gasped and picked it up happily, thinking now
I could tell her where Camilla was and they could be reunited.

"This is Camilla's phone," I said.
"Is this Amalie?"

There was a silence on the other end. Nothing
but a whooshing sound. It sounded like someone breathing heavily.

"My name is Rebekka," I continued
thinking that Amalie might be drunk and therefore slow to answer. "Camilla
is not here right now, she went to see Suicide Silence, you can find her there.
She has actually been looking for you, she'll be very happy to see you."

A deep male voice startled me when it answered.
"I bet she will. She'll be thrilled," the voice said, rolling the
tongue on the l's.

Then he hung up. I looked at the display with
the text
call ended
. My heart was
beating fast in my chest. Who was that on the other end? Frantically I touched
the display and tried to call back. No answer. The phone went directly on
Amalie's voice mail. He had shut it off. I put the phone in my pocket. I could
still hear the voice in my head. Something was really wrong here, I thought to
myself. This man, who was he? And why did he call from Amalie's phone? Suddenly
it struck me like a punch in the stomach.

It had sounded like he was in a car. He was
coming here.
He was coming for Camilla
.

The package
arrived
just before midnight. The man who called
himself Thomas De Quincey opened the big gate himself and let the black hearse
into his property. As the car passed he carefully closed the gates and
carefully scanned the area to see if there had been any cars on the road to see
the black hearse arrive. But the road was empty. Nothing but fields stretching
as far as the eye could see. It wasn't completely dark, since it never got dark
at this time of year and he spotted light in the horizon almost like bluish
waves across the sky. It was beautiful, he thought to himself. But nothing
compared to what was in that package he was about to unwrap. Truly a
masterpiece to complete his collection.

Thomas De Quincey ran across the gravel to catch
up with the hearse, butterflies in his stomach, and butterflies of expectation
very like the ones he had experienced as a child and again as an adult just
before his next kill. There was nothing like the joy of expectation, just like
Kierkegaard had put it. Even if he wasn't the first to say it, like many Danes
believed, he was a wise man, Thomas De Quincey thought to himself.

A man Thomas De Quincey knew as Alex Andreyer
stepped out of the black hearse with the drapes shut in the back. The two men
greeted each other silently. Alex Andreyer opened the trunk. In the back of the
car lay a big rectangular box covered with a heavy black blanket.

Thomas De Quincey couldn't help clapping his
hands in joy. He was so excited he could almost burst.

"Where do you want it?" Alex Andreyer
asked.

"Let's put it in the cellar with the
others," Thomas De Quincey said.

"As you wish."

Alex Andreyer pulled the box out and the two men
grabbed it on each side and carried it towards the main building. Carefully
they lifted it down the stairs and into the big room where a sea of boxes just
like it stood covered with white sheets. Most of them were rectangular like the
one they now placed on the stone floor in the center of the dark room, but some
were tall and cylindrical-shaped. Thomas De Quincey saw the curious look in the
eyes of his helper and grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Soon my dear friend," he whispered.
"Soon it will be complete and ready for you to see. But not yet. It has to
be perfect."

"Naturally," Alex Andreyer answered.
"Patience is after all the finest virtue of them all."

Thomas De Quincey smiled widely while turning
his helper around and escorting him up the stairs. "I do believe you're
right," he said with a smirk.

As they reached the top of the stairs, Thomas De
Quincey sensed that the good Mr. Andreyer had a hard time pulling away, letting
go of his huge curiosity. It thrilled Thomas De Quincey and it worried him at
the same time. Because no one, and that meant
no
one
was to see it all until it was ready, until his work was done.

"Now, you hurry up and get me the rest of
the packages that I asked for, alright?" Thomas De Quincey said and pushed
Alex Andreyer towards the hearse.

"They are not that easy to provide,"
he said.

Thomas De Quincey patted him on the shoulder.
"That's why I have asked you to do it, right? Cause you are the man for
the job, aren't you? Or should I have to ask someone else?"

Alex Andreyer shook his head fast. "No. No.
Oh please don't. I can do this. I'm the best. Please
Master
allow me to do this."

Thomas De Quincey smiled again and patted the
man on the cheek. "Good. That's what I wanted to hear. Now get out of here
before someone sees you."

Alex Andreyer nodded then hurried back into the
car. He started the engine then drove towards the gate. Thomas De Quincey waited
a couple of heartbeats, then started running and caught up with him before he
reached the big iron gate. Thomas De Quincey laughed loudly as he stuck his
head into the car and saw the surprised face of Alex Andreyer who hadn't
expected him to be that fast. Thomas De Quincey had always enjoyed a little
run. Keep the old ticker working, keeping the body in shape.

"Let me get the gate for you," he said
and pulled it open.

So she didn't
have her phone, Allan thought to himself as he took the exit towards Roskilde.
Well it didn't matter much. The woman answering had been stupid enough to tell
him exactly what he wanted to know. The whereabouts of Camilla Langstrup. It
was going to be easier than ever to just waltz right in there and find her. Best
of all, she didn't suspect a thing. If she had, she wouldn't be at the festival
at all. That was why Allan had called in the first place. He was certain
Camilla would answer her missing girlfriend’s phone. Allan wanted to make sure
Camilla was still at the festival and hadn't gone home instead after her
friend’s disappearance. It would have made it increasingly dangerous for Allan
to fulfill his mission, but not impossible. Now it was almost too easy.

He parked the car outside the festival grounds
and showed the guard his admission bracelet. The guard nodded him through and
now he was once again surrounded by sweaty, drunk and very loud people walking
with their muddy boots, beers in their hands, smoking cigarettes, singing,
cheering, having the time of their lives.

"The Boss" was playing on the big
stage and Allan knew that most people were there. He chuckled as he walked away
from the crowd in front of Orange stage, where Bruce Springsteen opened the
show with
No Surrender
and the
crowd were dancing, smiling and looking at each other with an
ah this is so cool
look in their eyes,
while everybody joined in and sang along.

He left the area and entered another where more
music emerged from a big tent. The area outside was almost empty. A man selling
chicken tartlets was bored to death outside. Allan approached him. He smelled
the warm tartlets and the scent brought him back many years. The maid had
served tartlets to him on the day they had told him, on the day his world
changed forever. He had been sitting alone in the dining room enjoying the
delightful taste of the warm and crispy tartlets. He had just cracked one open
and the chicken sauce had begun running out on the plate, when they had
entered.

"We have wonderful news," they said.

Allan remembered staring at the plate where all
the delicious sauce now ran out on the plate and wetted everything, soaking it.
Now was the best time to eat it. In a few seconds it would all get too moist
and the sauce would have ruined everything. He picked up the fork and began
eating before it was too late. The woman he had loved like a mother grabbed his
hand and forced him to put the fork down.

"This is important, Allan," the man
said. "More important than your food."

And then the words came, those words that at the
moment seemed so innocent, so indifferent to the young boy, but later he would
look back on as the worst words of his life.

"We're having a baby."

Allan was eight when it happened.

Allan took in a deep breath while staring at the
man with the tartlets back at the festival. The man stared back at him.
"So you want one or what?" he asked irritably.

Allan clenched his fist hard, then lifted his
hand in the air and knocked the man down while yelling "
No
!" The blow was so hard he knocked
him out. He was bleeding from his nose.

Allan snorted irritably. This wasn't part of the
plan. He scanned the area to see if anyone had seen him, then grabbed the man
by the arms and pulled him behind the tent. The music coming from inside was so
loud no one heard Allan grunt or the sound of him beating the unconscious
tartlet-selling man senseless. Once he was done, he came out from behind the
tent, straightened his expensive pants and slicked his hair back with his hand.

He walked to the stand, grabbed an empty
tartlet. With his pulse still pumping wildly, he put it on a plate and filled
it with the white chicken-sauce with carrots and peas. Allan took in a deep
breath to calm himself down, then found a plastic fork. He closed his eyes
enjoying the creaking sound of the crispy pastry as the fork penetrated it. He
ate with great joy thinking yet again of the day when he had been told about
the baby. It was the first time since then he had been able to stand the taste
or even the smell of tartlets. If it was the anticipation of what he was about
to do or just the time he had put between him and what happened back then, he
didn't know, but the taste was intoxicating.