Death Sentence, page 26
I shook my head. ‘You don’t understand,’ I tried. ‘It may have looked like that, but now—’
‘You need help, Frank.’
I got up and started walking around the table towards Line.
‘No. Stay away from me! Stay away from me and from my family, do you hear me?’ She took another step backwards and put her hand on the handle of the door that led to the small back garden.
‘Line, please let me—’
‘Get out, Frank!’
I was desperate. Why wouldn’t she believe me? If it hadn’t been for her eyes, I would have grabbed her and held tight her until she listened and understood, but her eyes exuded rage and, worse than that, fear.
‘Like I said,’ I began, forcing my voice to be calm. ‘I think I’ve taken care of it, so it won’t come to that.’
Line simply stared at me.
‘I’ll go,’ I said. ‘Only …’ I felt my throat constrict. ‘Please take care of our children, OK?’ I begged her in a thick voice. At that moment I knew I would never see Line or my daughters again. ‘Tell them … tell them I’m sorry about everything. I know I’m asking a lot of you, but please tell them I love them more than anything.’
Line had raised her hands to her face and covered her mouth. Tears welled up. I started walking backwards, away from the kitchen table and out into the hall.
‘I love you too, Line. I always have. Remember that.’
I turned round and left the house
39
LINE’S REACTION UPSET me.
I had expected her to need convincing, but not that she would reject me out of hand. Maybe the news about Verner hadn’t reached the papers yet, but when it did, she might believe me. Or she might become even more scared. Of me.
At best, there would no headlines because I had imagined it all, like Line had suggested. Perhaps the murders of Mona Weis, Verner and Linda Hvilbjerg and the yellow envelopes and the photos were a delusion, a construct of my own mind. After years of inventing stories my brain could no longer distinguish between fantasy and reality, exactly Line’s point.
As I left the house that had once been my home, I wished more than ever that this was so. I genuinely hoped that I had lost my mind and the rest of the world was as it should be. I hoped that men were checking out Mona Weis as she walked down Gilleleje High Street, I wished that Verner was pestering the prostitutes in Vesterbro and that Linda Hvilbjerg was busy dashing the dreams of yet another budding writer.
I would have given anything for Line to be right.
Reality returned with a vengeance when I got back in the car. It was cold and clammy and stank of whisky. The windows were foggy, which made it was difficult to see out. The whisky glass was still on the dashboard, the bottle on the floor, only a quarter full.
Everything was just as I had left it.
Except for the envelope on the passenger seat. It was the same one I had sent to the PO box yesterday.
I stared at it.
My slender hope that my brain had been playing tricks on me died, but I wasn’t surprised. When I picked up the envelope, I could see it had been opened with a knife or some other sharp instrument.
I took out the sheet of paper. It was the message I had written the day before with the addition ‘OK’ in blue pen at the bottom. It had been printed in capital letters and revealed nothing about the sender; no graphologist would get anything from those two characters. Everything else was still in the envelope.
I took a deep breath. My plan appeared to be working. I had managed to communicate with the killer and he had accepted my challenge. I was tempted to go back to Line to tell her that she could stop being scared, that I had taken care of it, but at that moment a police car came down the street and I changed my mind. The police were the last thing I needed.
I started the engine and drove off as quickly as I dared. In my rear-view mirror I saw the police car park outside Line’s house. I didn’t blame her. She had done what she needed to do to protect her family and the police might even do the job I was incapable of. However, what did worry me was that I had mentioned Linda Hvilbjerg. She was unlikely to have been found yet, but if Line repeated what I had said, the police might follow it up and find the body sooner than they would otherwise have done.
Not that this made any difference to my plans.
I drove north, towards Hillerød, and stopped once at a petrol station. I filled up the car and bought newspapers, which I skimmed before I drove on. There was nothing about Verner or Linda Hvilbjerg. In Hillerød I went to the bank and emptied out my bank accounts. They added up to 150,000 kroner. The cashier studied me closely and demanded that I answer a series of security questions before handing over the money. It felt strange to hold so many notes in my hand. I couldn’t resist the temptation to sniff them before stuffing them in my inside pocket.
Then I drove on to Helsinge and onwards to Rågeleje. As I drove down Store Orebjergvej, I slowed to a crawl. Nearly all the leaves had fallen from the trees. The wind knocked them about on the roadside and shook the naked branches of the bushes. I could see from a distance if I had visitors. I hadn’t. The drive was empty and the Tower was deserted, just as I had left it. The trip from Østerbro to North Sjælland had taken roughly two hours, but the police didn’t appear to have discovered Linda yet. Still, it was only a matter of time before they did, so I mustn’t waver now.
I parked the car, got out, went straight to my front door and let myself in. Once inside, I locked the door behind me. The heating had been off during the five days I had been away; the autumn chill had accepted the invitation and seeped through the walls. The air was cold and damp.
I scrunched newspapers into balls and chucked them into the stove with some kindling. The fire was reluctant to accept the cold paper and wood, but after a couple of minutes the flames took hold and could look after themselves. I went upstairs and opened the trapdoor to the attic. It wasn’t very big; there was only room for three or four removal boxes. I grabbed one and eased it through the narrow opening and down to my study. I opened it to make sure it was the one I wanted. It was.
Back downstairs, I opened the box again. It was full of letters from my readers, letters I had received during my almost twenty years as a writer. Many of them had never been opened.
I took a handful and stared at them. They contained praise and criticism, admiration and abuse, flattery and disgust. I threw them on the fire, which seized the paper immediately, opening letters I had never opened and consuming the contents I myself hadn’t read.
Handful after handful of letters was thrown on the fire, which repaid me with a radiant blast of heat in the cold living room.
But I didn’t burn the letters to get warm.
Nor was it out of concern for the real victims, the people who had so generously shared their fear and horror with me. Burning the letters was part of the deal. I might not have promised to do so in the message I sent to the PO box, but it was implied that I would.
If the killer had written to me previously to mock me or to point out my mistakes, his letter might be in the box and there was a danger of someone finding it. As I didn’t know which sender to look for, they all had to go. Wasting time burning them was risky, but it was necessary in order to fulfil our agreement.
The fire transformed the paper into thin flakes of ash that took up more and more room in the stove. They fluttered at the slightest gust of wind and some whirled into the living room where they settled on the floor, on me or on the furniture around me. My clothes were soon sprinkled with ash and I stood up to dust myself down.
At that moment I heard someone try to open the front door.
I froze in mid-movement, just as I was brushing ash off my sleeve, and held my breath.
There was a knock on the door.
‘FF?’
It was Bent.
‘Are you OK, neighbour?’
Even though he couldn’t see into the living room from that side of the house, I still tiptoed to a corner that couldn’t be seen from any of the windows.
‘I saw your car,’ Bent called out on the other side of the door. ‘How was Copenhagen?’
I heard his steps move away from the front door and around the house. He was talking to himself. The decking on the terrace creaked. Soon I heard him tap on the window.
‘Frank? Is everything all right?’
He couldn’t see me in the corner, but I could see his shadow fall through the French windows. He was leaning towards the glass, cupping his hands either side of his head to peer inside.
‘Come on, Frank,’ he said, sounding mildly annoyed. ‘I can see that you’ve lit a fire.’
I clenched my teeth. Why couldn’t he just go away?
Bent knocked harder on the window.
‘Bloody hell, Frank.’
His shadow moved away.
‘Frank!’ Bent shouted. ‘Are you upstairs?’
I could hear that he had been drinking. The slurring in his speech would indicate five or six beers, which would be about right, given that it was one o’clock in the afternoon.
‘Fraaaank!’
I had a strong urge to open the door and tell him to piss off, but he persisted.
‘Frank, for Christ’s sake.’
I heard him shuffle across the terrace.
‘I know you’re in there!’ he called out from the garden. ‘Come on, Frank … I’m not going to go away, you know.’ He laughed briefly.
Ten or fifteen seconds passed when I could only hear mumbling. Then his tone changed.
‘Bloody writer,’ he sneered. ‘Bloody writer!’ he said again, now sounding like a petulant child. ‘You’ve always been so stuck up. You think you’re too good for the rest of us, eh. But let me tell you something.’
He fell silent for a few seconds as if he was plucking up the courage or waiting for a reaction.
‘You’re no better than the rest of us. Not one bit. Or you wouldn’t be rotting away up here like us, would you? No! But you think you’re so bloody clever and that we’re all so bloody lucky that you choose to hang out with us.’
Shouting appeared to sober him up. At any rate, he had stopped slurring.
‘But you’re no better than the rest of us,’ he scoffed again. ‘You’re worse. Good neighbours give and take. But not you. You’ve only ever taken and always when it suited you. You let us come over when you felt like it, the rest of the time you would just ignore us.’
Shouting had made him breathless and he paused.
‘Do you know something, Frank?’ He waited a couple of seconds for a reply. ‘Screw you! You’re on your own from now on, you stuck-up wanker!’
I heard him march through the garden back to his own house. A few minutes later, I moved out of the corner and went back to the stove. Bent’s words hadn’t upset me. I was almost relieved that he had ended our neighbourly relationship. One less thing to worry about.
The fire was dying down from lack of nourishment and I chucked in the rest of the letters in one big pile. The flames flared up with gratitude. I made sure they were burning properly before I ran back upstairs. In my bedroom I packed a suitcase of clothes that I left downstairs by the front door. Then I returned to my study and started unplugging computer cables. I carried the monitor downstairs, then the computer itself and the keyboard. Finally I brought down the printer as well as bag of essential cables and a ream of paper.
The letters in the fireplace had burned away. Only a few yellow envelope corners remained in the ashes. A gust of wind found its way down the chimney and wafted black flakes of burned paper out on the floor.
I opened the door a little and peered outside. Bent was nowhere to be seen. I grabbed the suitcase and sneaked out to the car. Carefully, I opened the boot and slid my suitcase over the parcel shelf and down on the back seat. Then I went back for the computer and the rest of my equipment.
I didn’t waste time locking up the cottage, but I stood for a moment staring at the place that had been my home for many years.
Then I got into the car and drove off.
40
I FOLLOWED THE coast past Vejby, Tisvildeleje and on towards the west. In Hundested I caught the ferry across the fjord to Rørvig. The crossing only took twenty minutes, but I felt I was leaving behind an entire continent.
I found a holiday homes letting agency near Rørvig Harbour. The agent was delighted to have a customer this late in the season, but surprised that I needed a place immediately and that I paid cash, both the deposit and eight weeks’ rental. I chose a house with a sea view and relatively isolated from its nearest neighbours. Even outside the tourist season it was expensive, but the location was crucial.
I gave my name as Karsten Venstrøm, the name of the murdering psychologist from In the Red Zone. The agent wanted to chat, but I ignored him and completed the paperwork as quickly as I could. Twenty minutes later I got into my car with the keys to the house in my pocket.
I shopped in a supermarket in Nykøbing and quickly filled a shopping trolley with enough groceries for a couple of weeks if I rationed my supplies carefully.
Then I drove to the house, which lay further out on Odden.
It was a large house, far bigger than I needed, with a Jacuzzi, a sauna and a huge conservatory with a wood burner. It slept twelve, but I chose the smallest bedroom, where I unpacked my clothes and made my bed. I closed the doors to the other rooms and switched on the heating in the rooms I intended to use. I put the computer and printer at the end of an enormous dining table that seated at least ten. I checked my computer would start and that I could print. Everything worked.
Apart from the conservatory, there was a dining room, a living room and a television room with a wooden floor, black leather furniture and a fireplace. The television was a large flat-screen model. I turned it on and checked the text TV news. There was nothing about Verner or Linda. I left the television on while I went back to the car. I was able to remove the registration plates with my hands and I threw them both into the boot. Then I drove the Corolla further into the grounds so it couldn’t be seen from the road.
Afterwards I walked around the area. Most of it was covered by heather or trees. The nearest house was over two hundred metres away and there were conifers in between to block the view across. The garden consisted of a lawn, decking and a shed containing garden furniture, a round barbecue, a lawnmower and other gardening tools.
Back in the house the heating from the electric radiators had kicked in, but I lit a fire in the television room all the same. I switched the television to the news channel and fetched a bottle of whisky I had bought in the supermarket. I reclined in the soft leather armchair, a glass of whisky in my hand and the bottle within reach, and spent the next couple of hours following the 24-hour news. The murders weren’t mentioned; they only covered trivialities such as the Danish government’s budget negotiations and silly contributions to the immigration debate.
I proposed several toasts. I drank to my health and erupted in laughter every time. I felt confident. Step one of my plan had succeeded and I had a sense of being in control, or at any rate no longer mystified. That night I allowed myself to relax – a day of rest before the great exertions in the weeks ahead.
I didn’t need my bed that night. I fell asleep in the armchair in front of the television and I awoke to images of suicide bombers in the Middle East. Dusty streets filled the screen with people running around, crying and screaming about injustice and revenge. In Denmark they were still discussing the budget.
I switched off the television and didn’t turn it on again.
After a modest breakfast of a heated roll and coffee, I sat down in front of the computer. It started up with a slow humming. The envelope with my handwriting lay on the table. I opened it and took out the photograph. It was one of five pictures I had taken in the photo booth at Nordhavn station. My hair was a tad messy, my beard a little denser and stragglier than usual, but it was the eyes that attracted attention. They were empty and seemed to look into a dark place.
I leaned the picture against the screen.
* * *
The computer had finished starting up. The desktop was an old photo of the cottage taken one summer’s day. It was almost like sitting in my study in the Tower and looking out at the garden.
I opened the word-processing program and created a new document. This was always a special occasion, a little bit like a painter starting a new painting on a brand-new canvas, but this time I didn’t relish it. I missed the feeling of freedom that normally inspires me at the sight of a blank page. This time I knew precisely what I would be writing and it terrified me.
I took my letter from the envelope and placed it next to the keyboard.
It was a brief synopsis, written with trembling hands. The desperation and the terror seeped out from the jagged handwriting.
I copied the title from the letter to see here of the document:
Death Sentence
by
Frank Føns
I saved the document with practised keystrokes, an acknowledgement that there was no way back.
I took a deep breath and began …
‘Until recently I had only killed people on paper.’
Today
Final Chapter
I DIDN’T SLEEP last night.
Eight days have passed since I sent this script to the box at Østerbro post office and two days since I received a reply. It was a postcard of the Little Mermaid. All the card had on it was today’s date. The postmark was Nykøbing, the largest town in the area, approximately fifteen kilometres away. I don’t know what to deduce from that. Is he staying locally? Am I under surveillance or was it some smokescreen? Ultimately, doesn’t matter.
I can feel that the time has come.
My body is in a heightened state of alert and nothing escapes my attention. I hear every sound, see every colour and feel the slightest gust of wind against my skin. It’s as if my entire being wants to absorb every single impression while it still can. My hands refuse to relax. They constantly seek surfaces and objects to touch and I register details of the tabletop and the windowsill that I hadn’t noticed before. The veins in the wood feel like mountain ranges and I detect unevenness in the polished marble surface. My taste buds deny me whisky, the taste is too sharp, and I discover nuances in the flavour of tap water I had never noticed before. I drink a lot of water. It tastes heavenly and my throat feels constantly dry.
