The House That Jack Built (25 page)

Chapter 53

H
e parked the
aubergine MG Austin-Healey Sprite roadster by the curb and turned off the engine. His hands were shaking and his heart was beating rapidly. Maria had been distant at the party, cold and dismissive. They all ended up being like that. He knew he had to take a different route now. He had to go through the same wild garden that he visited on another Midsummer's Eve, six years earlier. Behind the elder thicket and the decaying picket fence, there was someone just like him. He was going home.

He slid out of the seat, put the key in his pocket, and closed the door behind him with a quiet click. He leaned against the trunk, lit a Benson & Hedges while observing the driveway. He took a drag on the cigarette, let the nicotine penetrate his lung tissue and permeate his body. He enjoyed the slight dizziness and the warm evening air while he blew the smoke out through his nose. Most of the houses were empty; the residents had gone down to the bonfires along the lake. He knew the ritual.

Christian stubbed the cigarette out with the heel of his shoe and disappeared into the shadows.

The moon was rising above the lake as he moved along the elderberry thicket by the rotten stump. He saw the old picket fence through a tangled and twisted bush; the red paint had almost peeled off. And in there, behind the branches, was the small mound where he had buried the neighbour's cat.

The enchanted garden with the house on the small built-up hill rose before him, bathed in the moon's pale silver gleam. Far back, in another world, he heard the crackling of the bonfires. Stanzas of “The Midsummer Night's Song” drifted across the lake.

His eyes searched for the house: the empty façade with the dark eyes, the windows' black, lifeless rectangles and squares. He took a deep breath and slipped away from the shrubbery, but stopped just as he stepped inside the looming shadow of the house.

The front door was ajar.

Moving carefully, he stepped closer, tiptoed up the three steps to the front door. He looked around. The garden was empty; he was trembling with anticipation. Christian filled his lungs with air, took a final step, and pressed lightly on the door handle with one finger.

The door slid open.

Black, impenetrable darkness. The air inside was drier, more pure than the air outside, which was moist with dew and fumes from the lake. He shut the door behind him, stood still, and listened. Nothing moved. There was no indication that he'd been heard, only the usual sounds of an old house: branches against a window, beams creaking, a tap dripping. Somewhere inside a clock struck. One, two, three — eleven strokes, he counted. He started walking to the right. The planks groaned under his feet. He moved past the foyer and the old staircase. An indeterminable, alluring smell wafted out from an opening on the left, at once both chemical and organic. Rot and solvent? He forced himself to continue, taking the small flashlight out of his jacket pocket. He hazarded a little light. Old fabric wallpaper in paisley print on the walls. A doorway led to a small, old-fashioned kitchen. In a corner, an old cast-iron stove. Firewood piled up in the log basket.

Across from the kitchen a doorway led to an empty room. The moonlight shone through the dusty windows, creating expanses of light on the worn wooden floor. A rocking chair was silhouetted amongst all that silvery white.

In front of him, between the kitchen and living room, a closed door blocked the way. He hesitated, switched off the flashlight, and listened.

The entire house was holding its breath, waiting. From far off came the roar from Lyngbyvej. The slightly off-key voices rang out across Gentofte Lake.

He knew he had to go through that one door to get where he needed to be. He took a step forward, grabbed the handle, and opened the door. He stood on the threshold and waited. Nothing happened. In the darkness he could make out a heavy desk in front of the window, a lamp, and something large and solid stretching along the walls. He waited with bated breath. Thirty seconds, a minute. Still, nothing happened.

Christian took two steps forward, switched on the flashlight, and stifled a scream. It was staring at him, looking right through him. Caught in the pale circle of light, in glass jars, meticulously stacked on racks of varnished wood, everywhere he looked, eyes were staring at him. Fifteen to twenty glass jars were lined up, the pale white spheres floating idly in the clear, yellow liquid. Their round shapes had begun to blur, dragging fibrous trails behind them. And in the racks were pile after pile of grey-blue and green, hard and solid.
Glass eyes?
He blinked.

He had to support himself on the desk. The light from the flashlight strayed onto a jar. Two eyes with a tail of frayed fibres, remains of muscle tissue, white with age, rocked silently in a yellowish liquid.

A rustling came from behind him, the sound of fabric on fabric.

“Welcome.” The voice was flat and toneless, hard and cold. The sound coming from the depths of a boulder. Before Christian could turn around, the coppery voice continued. “I've been expecting you.”

Christian leaned against the table, his heart pounding in his chest. The walls, all of the eyes, spinning. He swallowed, pointing the flashlight at the voice.

A powerful figure was seated in an armchair in the corner. The upper half of his face was in shadow, the lower half illuminated by the flashlight. The soft lips moved. A pink tongue moistened yellow teeth. There was something about that voice. Rage and excitement surged through Christian: the memory of the last time he had been in the garden, bathed in the moonlight.

The figure stood up, towered over him.

Christian attempted to point the flashlight at his face but a heavy arm struck out. The flashlight flew out of his hand, landed on the floor, and flickered before going out. Christian stepped back into the corner between the bookcase and the desk.

“The police are on their way,” he began.

“There's a better way. I know what you are. I can show you.”

Christian dared not take his eyes off him. His mind was racing. “My parents, they . . .” It was pathetic, he knew it.

The man in the shadows laughed. Then he tilted his head to one side. “Would you like to meet my family?”

His muscles tensed, he bent his knees and jumped on the table. But a heavy arm struck out from the darkness, sweeping his legs out from under him. He fell, hit his back on the lamp, and tumbled over the edge of the table, pulling the jar with the two eyeballs down with him. The jar shattered on the table, shards of glass cutting his forearm. He hit the bookcase, the floor rose up to meet him, and the last thing he saw before he disappeared, was hundreds of eyes descending on him.

Darkness. A nothingness darker than anything he has ever known. Somber music and dim string instruments form a swaying monotone backdrop for a single-tone horn. A female voice singing, more beautiful than he thought possible.

Das Ungl
ü
ck geschah nur mir allein.

Die Sonne, sie scheinet allgemein.

Pain, greater, sharper. Unbearable. His head is being torn open. Something has forever changed.

There's a mumbling. He is lying on his stomach, naked. He tries turning around but he's strapped down. He can't move a muscle, only his head. He tries to blink but something is missing. There's nothing for his eyelid to cover and a silent dripping, running inside his head.

He's crying blood.

The scream moves up and out as powerful fingers spread his buttocks and a pillar of fire penetrates his sphincter with explosive force, bursting upwards and in. For a brief moment the pain causes him to lose consciousness; then the same pain brings him back to life.

Above him, the monotone mumbling turns into comprehensible words accentuated by each thrust.

“Welcome my son.” Again and again, the pillar of fire tears his insides apart and his own protracted wailing rips his throat as the blood flows down his cheeks.

Then, just above, there is the sound of scraping. Someone is walking around upstairs.

Chapter 54

T
he line of
traffic headed north toward Copenhagen. The silence inside the car was oppressive. Allan drove, while Ulrik sat in the backseat. Sanne stared out into the dark. The hood devoured the white lines.

They passed the exit for Køge when Sanne's phone rang.

“Lau here. Someone called me from this number?”

“Professor?” Sanne straightened up. “This is Sanne Bissen, Copenhagen Police.”

Professor Lau laughed. “Oh, it was you? How can I help?”

Sanne recounted the conversation with Dr. Henkel.

“Does that ring a bell? A young Danish student?” she concluded. “Listen, is it all right if I put you on speakerphone? I'm sitting in a car with two colleagues.”

“Of course. One moment.” Professor Lau was silent at the other end. “Yes, now that you mention it,” he began, “Koes, the former chief surgeon at Gentofte Hospital — I believe his grandchild trained as an ocularist in the former West Germany for half a year. It must have been back in the early sixties, just after the chief surgeon died. But it didn't work out and he was sent home again. Seeing as it was Koes's grandchild, we found him a job as a hospital porter when he returned. Yes, that was as far as his talents could take him.”

“Koes's grandchild?” Sanne almost couldn't breathe. “What's his name? Is he still employed at the hospital?”

Allan had slowed down the car. Ulrik leaned forward.

The receiver crackled. They could hear Lau's breathing.

“It was . . . Jack? I'm not sure. Rumours spread at the hospital that he was born in Koes's cellar during the final days of the war. Some even said it was on the day of Denmark's liberation. Koes insinuated that the father was a wounded English pilot who had been hidden in his cellar. But, of course, these are just rumours.”

“Was Koes a resistance fighter?” That would explain the Husqvarna gun.

“Ha, he was a regular war hero. On the eve of liberation, he was in a gunfight with a group of HIPOs. He even killed one of them. He loved to tell that story. He got medals after the war and all.”

“And where can we find Koes's grandchild today?”

“Well, as far as I remember, he stopped at the hospital in the mid-nineties. His mom got sick. After . . .” Lau let the sentence hang in the air.

They hung up. Ulrik had already found the number for Gentofte Hospital.

Two minutes later he switched off his phone, looked from Sanne to Allan.

“Jack Koes. 14 Søbredden — Gentofte Lake.”

Chapter 55

I
t took less
than ten minutes to drive from Egebjerg Allé to Søbredden. There was a constant rumbling from the highway, a strong stench of gasoline, and a web of fine particles hung in the warm summer evening.

Lars parked behind Christian's aubergine-coloured MG, opened the glove compartment, grabbed a Maglite, and got out of the car. The weight of the Heckler & Koch in his shoulder holster was awkward; he was unaccustomed to carrying his service weapon.

It had to be here. Christian's MG was parked at the end of the long driveway that led to an L-shaped property.

The light from the houses along Søbredden spilled out onto the gardens. Laughter and song. Midsummer celebrations. There were probably a lot of bonfires by the lake tonight. He made himself light, tried not to think.

He kept to the decaying, half-rotten fence along the driveway, worked his way quietly toward the garden.

The house grew out of the darkness. It seemed to oscillate in the bright night.

The telephone rang in his jacket pocket, and Lars took a step back into the shadows of a wild hazel thicket.

“Sanne,” he whispered, “Listen —”

“Not now, Lars.” There was engine noise in the background. She was out driving. Someone said something. Was it Ulrik? Sanne cut him off. “Be quiet and let me talk to him.”

“Sanne —” Lars looked up at the house. It stood on its small rise at the back of the garden, dark and brooding. “I'm standing on Søbredden in Gentofte. Christian, Maria's —”

“Did you say Søbredden? Number 14?”

Lars looked back. The number on the fence out by the road was unclear, flickering in the dark.

“Yes, I think —”

“Listen: The old chief surgeon at Gentofte Hospital, it's his grandson who lives there now. Jack Koes. He was training as an ocularist in Germany in the 1960s.”

A fleeting glimpse of a naked yellowish-white body moving by the water's edge, sea grass up to one leg.

“But —”

“It's a long story. The emergency response —”

“There's no time.” Lars swore, looked up at the house. “Christian is in there.”

“Don't go in there alone. You'll have backup in ten minutes.”

Lars narrowed his eyes. Was there something flashing inside behind the windows?

“Just get them out here. Now.”

He switched off his cell and crawled slowly along the edge of the garden, merging into the shadows. Near the corner of the house he ran, hunched, across the grass. A bat swept close by his face in a gentle curve, a faint gust of wind graced his skin as it passed. He flattened himself against the wall of the house. His heart pounded. Drops of sweat broke out on his forehead, his back, his armpits. Lars listened. There was a rustling in the grass to his right; a thin shadow slipped through the fence from the neighbour's side, stopped, and looked at him with luminous eyes before it disappeared in the dark. A cat on the prowl.

He tried to control his breathing. The roar from the motorway was fainter now, the night sounds from the thicket behind the house and the swamp down toward Gentofte Lake more clear. Bush and thicket groaned in the breeze. A bird shrieked. A sudden change in the wind carried a stanza from an old song coming from the lake.

. . .but against the spirit of strife

over field under beach

on our forefather's burial mound we will give the bonfire life

every city has it witch,

and every parish its trolls . . .

There was a burnt smell in the air.

Lars edged his way forward to the corner of the house, ducking below the large living room window. Still no sound from inside. He looked around the corner with his hand on his weapon. The moon's pale reflection lit up something just outside the wall. Lars took another quick look.

The back door was open. He crept forward carefully, avoiding the rusty garden furniture leaning against the wall, drew his pistol without releasing the safety, then slipped quietly inside. It smelled stale and musty at the same time. Mildewy. He tried to orient himself, stepping over the hoe and gardening shovel. His foot struck something hard — steps leading further up. Then wooden planks. He stopped, listened. Adjusted his eyes to the darkness inside. The old house groaned in its joints.

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.