Death Sentence (33 page)

Line shook her head. ‘Frank, are you sure …’

‘Verner is dead,’ I said.

Line’s eyes took on a confused expression as if she had to retrieve the name from a drawer she had closed a long time ago.

‘He was murdered at the Marieborg Hotel, just like I described it in
As You Sow
.’

‘I never read that,’ Line said quietly.

‘It doesn’t matter, but I can assure you that it’s not a very pleasant way to die and someone went to a lot of trouble to reconstruct the entire scene.’

‘Why …’

I shrugged. ‘To mock me, to educate me, punish me, who knows?’

‘What do the police think?’

‘They think his murder was an act of revenge.’

‘But you haven’t told them about your “fan”?’

I shook my head. ‘I can’t. Linda Hvilbjerg is dead, too. She was murdered, while I was asleep upstairs …’ I clammed up when I saw the reaction in Line’s eyes. A trace of resignation had crept into them.

‘You need help, Frank.’

‘I can’t go to the police,’ I said.

‘No, that’s not what I mean,’ Line replied. ‘I mean, you need to see a psychologist.’

I clasped one of her hands with both of mine. ‘What I need is for you to believe me,’ I pleaded.

‘Why? What can I do?’

She tried to withdraw her hand, but I refused to release it.

‘You can protect our daughter.’

Line shot up from the table so forcefully that I was forced to let go of her hand. ‘What?’

‘I think I’ve got it under control, but …’

‘What’s this about Veronika?’

‘She might be next.’

‘But, Frank, you’re sick!’ Line shouted and took one step away from me. I held up my hands.

‘No, wait …’

‘If she needs protecting from anyone, then it’s you!’ She shook her head. ‘It’s always been you. You’ve never been able to distinguish between fantasy and reality, have you? Everything that happens in real life is a story to you, isn’t it? Something you can exploit, something you can write about. And everything you write becomes real.’

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

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.