The House That Jack Built (26 page)

Chapter 56

S
øbredden was as
far from the idyllic picture of a Danish suburban road as you could get. The blue, oscillating lights of the police cars flashed psychedelically against the backdrop of the green hedges, two-storey houses, and curious faces. Uniformed and plainclothes officers kept getting in each other's way in the growing crowd of neighbours and reporters.

The driveway to number 14 was blocked. The row of emergency response vehicles stretched all the way into the garden. As far as Sanne could see, no one knew what was going on.

They parked in front of an MG roadster. Ulrik climbed out and grabbed hold of a uniformed officer who was standing at the edge of the curb.

“Where's the emergency response leader?”

Sanne and Allan climbed out of the car, taking in the chaos. A steady stream of drunken Midsummer's Eve guests were emerging from their backyards and houses. The bonfire circles by the lake would be empty now. Everyone wanted to have a piece of the action.

“Um, I don't know . . .” the officer began.

“I can see that,” Ulrik snapped, then walked across the sidewalk toward the driveway. Sanne and Allan followed.

Ulrik had called the duty officer, but someone somewhere along the communication lines had messed up. There were far too many officers from far too many precincts. With police officers from both Copenhagen and Gentofte, it was impossible to get an overview of the situation.

“It's the Sandman,” Allan said. He trotted, huffing on Sanne's heels. “Every colleague would give their right arm to be a part of this.”

Sanne nodded. You could see the glint in the officers' eyes, the way they looked at the house.

A dark blue Ford was parked on the opposite side of the road, across from the driveway. The doors opened at the exact moment Ulrik turned down the driveway.

“Ulrik.” Kim A flicked a lit cigarette butt onto the road and crossed the street without looking. Frank and Lisa were behind him.

“Kim.” Ulrik stopped, waited. “Frank. Lisa.” Sanne and Allan kept back.

“What the hell is going on here?” Kim A hissed.

Ulrik held his hands out in front of him. “Take it easy. There's no reason to get all worked up.”

Sanne was watching Lisa and Frank, who stood right behind Kim A. She caught an almost imperceptible shudder in Lisa's gaze.

Kim A ignored Ulrik's comment, raised his voice. “He's breaking all the rules, shitting on the chain of command. I'm the one who . . .”

The onlookers started to turn.

“Come with me,” Ulrik said. He pulled Kim A up the driveway. The two officers on the sidewalk had enough presence of mind to stop the onlookers who tried to follow. Sanne and Allan slipped in behind them, Lisa and Frank followed.

Ulrik stopped Kim A with a hand on his shoulder. “We have a colleague in there with the Sandman. By all accounts, he's taken my stepdaughter's boyfriend hostage too. We need to get Lars and Christian out. Then —”

Kim A closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he focused on a point behind Ulrik's shoulder. The jaw muscles pumped. In, out, in, out.

“You'll have my resignation on your desk in an hour.” He turned to Frank and Lisa. “Come on,” he said, as he started walking back to the car.

“Kim, god . . .” Ulrik took a step toward him. Frank and Lisa looked at each other. Frank followed him.

“Come on.” Sanne pulled Allan's arm. “Let Ulrik take care of this. We need to find Lars.”

When they stepped into the garden, four officers from the emergency response team came out the front door.

“Gustafsson,” Allan shouted. “What's going on?”

“I thought you knew?”

Allan nodded at the house. “Where's Lars?”

“There's no one in there.” Gustafsson removed his helmet, scratched the back of his neck.

Sanne took a step forward. “Are you sure?”

Gustafsson opened his collar, wiped a drop of sweat from his Adam's apple with a dusty hand. He nodded.

“It's completely empty. It looks like there's been a fight in there. Bookcases and furniture are all over the floor. Everything's swimming in some kind of alcohol and broken glass. And eyes, both glass and real.”

Sanne and Allan exchanged looks.

“Over here,” a voice shouted on the other side of the house. Allan and Sanne started running, followed by Ulrik and the emergency response team officers.

A uniformed officer pointed a flashlight at an open door by the garden.

“Someone has broken in here.”

Chapter 57

T
he glaring white
light forces Lars to close his eyes. Blue and yellow dots dance in a sea of red. He opens them again, slowly, allowing them to adjust to the sharp light.

A steep staircase in front of him leads three, four, five metres down. Another cellar, deeper than the first. Piles of dusty wooden boxes line the walls. Clunky rifles with wooden butts stand in a rack in a corner. Sackcloth is strewn along the far wall, and along the wall on the right, there is a kind of field kitchen with a gas burner and flasks. A large pot simmers on the burner. The air is tight and humid, thick with the smell of boiled cabbage mixed with a chemical stench.

On a box next to the burner stands a portable phonograph; an LP is spinning under the pickup. A warm female voice is singing in German, sombre tones drifting in the stagnant air.

Next to the field kitchen is a table and four chairs. A naked woman sits upright with her hands on the table and her face turned away from him. She is completely lifeless. Her blonde hair, strangely dry and lifeless, falls across her shoulders. Between her hands is a steaming bowl filled with a greyish-white substance. A spoon sticks up from her clenched right hand. Across from her a young man is sitting, he too has a bowl in front of him. Motionless, slumped, his whole stance so utterly different from the erect woman sitting opposite him. But he is naked like her, his blonde hair combed back. Dark lines are running down Christian's cheeks.

The chemical smell becomes sharper and more potent. Arms appear from behind, hold him in an iron grip. He struggles. Then everything turns black.

When the world returns, there is nothing but nausea. His head is pounding, his hips hurt. His heart is galloping away. He lies on his back with bile and stomach acid in his mouth. He doesn't want to die. He must not choke on his own vomit. His leg twitches, and from somewhere far away comes the sound of someone softly humming to the music.

Strong hands lift his legs. Something tightens around them.

Lars opens one eye, slowly. A narrow slit, allowing him just a glimpse of his surroundings. A towering figure, Koes is wearing only a white shirt; he's naked from the waist down. He hovers over him, turned to one side, securing Lars's legs with focused movements. Lars is lying on a table or a box of some sort that is raised above the floor. Koes is standing between him and the table where Christian and the naked girl are sitting. Lars turns his head; he knows what is coming. In a moment, Koes will be finished with his legs and will turn his attention to his arms. He must strike before then.

Koes tightens the strap, clicks the buckle in place. Lars closes his eye and drifts off. Just then there's a clattering. Koes curses and Lars can hear him bend down. Lars looks around desperately. One of the antique rifles is leaning up against an ammunition box close to his head. He reaches out to grab it. The cold metal is smooth and oily in his hand. As Koes turns back to him, he thrusts the weapon, butt first, until he hears a gruesome crunching, then a curse. Koes staggers back, collapses in the chair next to Christian. The table behind him rocks back and forth. Some of the grey-white liquid in the bowl between the naked girl's arms sloshes out onto the table. Neither she nor Christian is moving. Lars forces himself up, tearing at the tightened leather straps holding his legs in place. Koes's eyes are rolling around in his head. He resumes his humming, his chin resting against his chest. The blood streams down his mouth and chin; his nose bent at an odd angle on his busted face.

“
Oh Augen!
” The words gurgle from his crushed lips.

Lars grabs the barrel of the rifle, turns the bayonet blade toward his feet, and begins filing away at the leather straps. Piece by piece, he manages to cut through the old, well-cared-for leather straps. Koes is now standing on wobbly legs, the blood dripping from his nose and broken mouth.

Lars turns the rifle, hits Koes in the face again. Blood and snot spurt out in a fan, to the right and over Koes's shoulder. The large figure staggers, takes one step back. Lars quickly cuts through the last strap, screams as the bayonet cuts the skin and flesh in his calf. He lets go of the rifle, which falls to the ground, and throws his legs over the side. Standing up, he tries to find his balance. The pain keeps the world at a breaking point.

He looks around, spots a worn steel tray, a handle on each side, displaying surgical instruments from another time, spread out, ready for operation: scalpel, suction cup, cloths, liquids, hypodermic needle. He vomits thin, bitter bile. Remains from his last meal, from he doesn't know when, splash on the concrete floor. Then Koes is on him. A fist planted in his kidneys makes his legs double up. He gasps for air, crawling in his own vomit. The blows are raining down on him. Everything is nausea, pain, tremors, and loud, piercing laughter. He tries to ward off the blows with one hand while the other feels around on the floor. Where's his service pistol, the Maglite? His hand closes around something cold and greasy. The barrel of the rifle. He raises the weapon and thrusts it with all his might, until he hears a rib crack, then break. The rifle strikes something soft and hard. He jumps to his feet and plunges forward. The weapon slips through — a startled grunt and a hard crack. Then everything goes quiet.

The cascade of blows has stopped. He crawls back, gasping for air, squeezing his eyes shut.

Time ticks away. Second follows second. Throbbing pain tears through his body, sending waves of shock through his trembling flesh.

“Bloodwind,” Koes whispers. Lars opens one eye. Something is glistening. He blinks, opens both eyes. And sees Koes's broken face, the nose pointing sideways and up to the right. His lips are swollen sea cucumbers, the skin torn off the cheeks in large, bloody wounds. Broken teeth stick out of the bloody pulp of his mouth.

Lars pushes further back to survey the damage. The rifle sticks out from Koes's shoulder at a grotesque angle. His last desperate lunge with the bayonet has impaled Koes and pinned him to the wall of ammunition boxes.

Small, vigilant eyes follow Lars while the blood seeps from the shoulder wound, drenching the shirt's soft cotton material. Koes's right hand is twitching. Soon he will be able to pull the bayonet out.

Bracing himself against the ammunition box, Lars rises to his feet. He takes his handcuffs from his belt, places one bracelet around Koes's free hand and attaches the other to the rope handle at the end of the ammunition box. When Koes, who is too weak to resist, is secured, Lars sits down on an empty box. His legs are trembling. His fingers dig around for the cigarettes in his pocket. The package is crumpled; almost all the cigarettes are broken. He manages to light one, takes a greedy drag, lets the nicotine fill the lung tissue and stream into the blood.

He pats his other pocket and pulls out his cell phone.

“No service,” Koes snickers.

Lars ignores him, but Koes is right: he can't get a signal.

“Dad hid weapons and ammunition down here during the war. The Germans never found it. You'll never get out.”

Koes's laughter ends in a sputter. Blood is spilling out over his shirt and onto the rough floor.

“And him,” Koes nods at Christian. “He'll be awake soon.”

Lars twitches. “He isn't dead?”

Koes starts humming again, then turns his head.

Lars reaches over and feels Christian's neck. The carotid artery pulsates reassuringly beneath the skin. He slumps down on the empty chair next to the boy. Thank God. Then he looks down: two jello-like lumps lie in the bottom of the boy's bowl staring up at Christian in a pool of blood.

The empty eye sockets, hollows of nothingness on his ruined face. Christian's body twitches. The boy raises his head, then shakes it from side to side, as if there's something he can't understand. Then he screams.

Just then, a groan passes through the house. The foundations shake. Koes's eyes gloss over and his bloody lips part in a grotesque grin.

Lars gets up.
Out
. He must get help. He takes a step toward the staircase, staggers. Another step and his knees buckle. Everything is spinning.

Chapter 58

A
map of
the area was spread out on the hood of a police car that was parked halfway into the garden. Allan was investigating potential escape routes out in the swamp. The night air smelled of lilacs and midsummer bonfires.

Sanne clicked her thumb and ring fingernail together. Where was Lars?

The emergency response team had returned to the house. A crackling came from the radio Gustafsson had given to Ulrik.

“We've just heard screaming! It came from beneath us.”

The windows in the dark building shook. A small spark appeared behind the black windows and, before she realized what was happening, grew to a huge ball of fire and exploded up through the roof into the still night. People were screaming. The crashing roof echoed across the lake. Sparks and roof tiles rained down everywhere. The sudden heat made her skin prickle, contract. The house was being torn apart from the inside out.

“Goddammit,” Ulrik shouted, grabbing the radio. “Get out of there. Now!”

“But Lars is still in there.” Sanne stared, hypnotized by the flames, which blazed through the roof with terrifying speed.

Ulrik shouted, “What's keeping the fire department? Dammit, has nobody called them?”

No one answered. Everyone stared at the flames, frozen.

Then, a movement. A uniformed officer appeared, dragging a bystander with him.

“This guy claims to know something.” He had to shout to make himself heard above the roaring flames. The onlooker, a man in his mid-forties, nodded.

“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 his 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.