One, Two ... He Is Coming for You (16 page)

Christian Junge-Larsen’s eyes stared at the ceiling while I felt his
wrist. There was no pulse, but he was warm.

The murder was not long ago.

I started looking around, feeling uneasy. Could the killer still be in
the apartment? Was he looking at me waiting to make his move? My breathing got
heavier as I slowly and without a sound backed out of the room.

Then there was a noise and I turned around.

The back door.

I started running to the kitchen and found the back door. It was open
and I heard something or somebody on the stairs. I should probably have stopped
right there, I knew that. Everything inside me screamed STOP! But I didn’t. I
started running after the noise. What if it really was the killer? I wouldn’t
miss the opportunity of seeing who he was.

So I ran.

With all the strength I could, I ran. I was in a good shape despite the
extra pounds. I had always been in a great shape and able to outrun most of my
colleagues at the newspaper’s annual sports event. I went quickly down the
stairs and out another open door that led to the garbage cans. There were three
big green ones in a corner in a closed courtyard. I stepped out. The yard was
overgrown with weeds. The grass was brown and long dead. A tree in the middle
had no leaves. A barbeque grill was old and rusty, forgotten by someone long
ago. I looked carefully around me and saw only one way out through a big green
gate.

It was still closed.

If the person on the stairs had opened it I would have heard it, but
wasn’t sure. I felt my heart pounding in my chest. Where the hell could he be?

Then another noise caught my attention. A glass of some sort hit the
ground. It made an echo in the courtyard. I looked in the direction of the
noise and was suddenly hit from behind by something big and heavy. After that
there was nothing but darkness and a sky of stars.

29

The headache wasn’t the worst part about waking up. It was all the
questions. The police had arrived in the meantime and found me on the floor of
the apartment. How did I get there? I had no idea, I kept telling them.

“The killer must have carried me back up the stairs and put me here.”

The police officer in front of me did not seem to believe any of what I
was telling him.

“Why do you think I am here, then?” I asked.

“All I know is that you are at a scene of crime and I need to know why.”

Suddenly I remembered I had checked the pulse and that my fingerprints
would be on the body’s wrist.

“I checked his pulse when I got here. You’d better know that.”

“So you touched the body?”

“Yes, you will find my fingerprints on the wrist.”

The officer looked at me with disbelieve and then he smiled.

“Are you okay?”

I touched the back of my head and got some blood on my fingers.

“It’s nothing.”

“Do you want us to take you to the hospital? You might need a couple of
stitches,” he said with a kinder voice.

“I’ll be all right.”

“Did you see anything that could be helpful to us? Did you see the face
of the person who did this to you?”

I sighed and tried to rewind my memories. “I’m sorry. I am afraid he
attacked me from behind.”

“Why did you come here?”

“I wanted to do an interview with Christian Junge-Larsen.”

The officer stared at me.

“Why?”

I sighed again. “It’s a long story. Mostly because he went to school
with Didrik Rosenfeldt who was also killed a few days ago just like two others
were.”

“So you think there’s a connection between this murder and some other
ones?” he asked with astonishment in his voice.

“I do, yes.”

To my surprise the officer immediately noted everything in his notebook.
He seemed to actually take me seriously. That was a new one.

So I told him everything. All that I had found out on my own. I knew he
wasn’t an investigator; he was just first man on the scene and had to put
everything in the report, but still it was the first time I felt like I’d met
someone on the police force who was willing to listen.

Afterwards the paramedics came and cleaned the back of my head. They
kept saying they wanted me to come to the hospital for observation, that I
might have sustained a slight concussion, but I refused. I had to get home to the
kids and my dad, I said.

Just before I left I saw the body being moved and the officer from
earlier came to talk to me.

“So I talked to my chief and he let me know that The National Police have
taken over all four cases and all four killings are now going to be
investigated as one case.”

I was impressed. “Did I have anything to do with that?”

“I suppose so,” he answered.

“How?”

“I might be just an officer in a uniform, but I do have friends in
higher places and I told them what you told me.”

I left the crime scene feeling dizzy because of the blow to my head but
also content that at least I had gotten somewhere with the police. Hopefully it
would in some way help Sune.

My daughter barely noticed I had come home when I entered the living room.
She and Tobias had dressed up as a princess and a cowboy, Julie being the
cowboy and Tobias being the princess. They were running around screaming and
laughing. So I went into the kitchen where my dad sat reading the newspaper and
listening to his favorite show on the radio. He looked so peaceful. He looked
up when he heard me enter.

“Hi sweetie. Do you want a cup?” He asked and pointed at his own cup of
coffee.

“I’m good,” I said. “I’m just going to go upstairs and take a shower.”

My dad stared at me with an investigative look.

“What?” I asked.

“Are you all right?”

“Sure.”

He took a sip of his coffee.

“What happened to your head, then?”

I felt the back of my head. I had tried to wash away the blood at a sink
in a restroom on the highway, but hadn’t got rid of it all.

“A small accident, that’s all.”

“Are you sure it’s nothing?”

“Really, it is nothing.”

“Who did it?” Dad’s voice started to sound concerned. I really didn’t
want him to worry about me. He recently had a stroke and his blood pressure was
way too high. The last thing I wanted to do was to upset him.

“It was just an accident. Really.”

I was the worst liar in the history of liars and my dad knew that. He
put down the paper and stared at me over the top of his glasses.

“Are you in trouble?”

I shook my head, trying to be reassuring.

“No, no. Nothing like that at all. Just a little bump on the head, that’s
all.”

“Did Peter have anything to do with it?”

“No, no. It wasn’t Peter. I just hurt my head. That is all. I promise
you have nothing to be worried about.”

My dad sighed deeply.

”Is it that new guy you have been seeing? Did he do that to you?” Dad’s
voice was angry now.

I wanted to answer that it certainly wasn’t, that he would never do such
a thing. But I couldn’t.

“He’s a good guy, Dad. I’ll be fine, really. I just need to take that
shower.”

“What’s wrong, Mom?”

My daughter and Tobias had entered the kitchen from the other side. I
closed my eyes.

”Someone hit her in the back of her head, and she doesn’t want to tell
us who it was,” my dad said.

I looked at him. Was he kidding me? Why would he tell Julie? She would
just be awake all night worrying about me.

“Listen up, everybody,” I said with great authority. “I am a grown woman
capable of taking care of myself. I was just at the wrong place at the wrong
time today and someone, I don’t know who it was, hit me with a rock on the back
of my head. Nothing to worry about. It won’t happen again.”

My daughter looked at me with her big blue eyes.

“Why did you even go there alone? You always tell me not to go anywhere
all alone.”

“I know, sweetie, but I’m an adult, and I had to go there to do an
interview. It was my work.”

They were all quiet. Then Tobias said something.

“When is my dad coming to get me?”

I sat down squatting in front of him.

“Soon sweetheart. Very soon.”

“But Tobias gets to spend the night, right?” Julie asked.

“Yes, dear,” I said and hugged them both. “What about we all go out for
dinner tonight?”

Julie started jumping.

“Yeah, let’s get pizza!”

“But first Mom has to go upstairs and get that shower.”

30

The local Italian restaurant wasn’t too shabby. Actually, it was very
pleasant and the atmosphere was charming in its way of trying to seem Italian
but not really succeeding. I wondered about Giovanni. He wouldn’t have liked
this place. He once told me he didn’t understand why people from Turkey or Iran
who came to Denmark always started Italian restaurants when they weren’t
Italian at all and knew nothing about the Italian kitchen. He was right. I had
been in Italy several times and this food was not nearly as good.

But it was all right and my family and I had a good time. Luckily, no
one asked any more questions. We just ate, drank, and laughed and talked about
the kids’ teachers in school, about a new project they were about to do, and
about how they were mad at one tattle-tale boy in their class.

It was a nice evening and I enjoyed being with them. I thought about how
much I loved my daughter and my dad. I enjoyed living with the two of them, and
Tobias too, of course. I felt so sorry for him. He’d been missing his dad
terribly as the days went by and it was hard to explain why Sune didn’t come to
get him and take him home.

Since the place was close to my dad’s home we had walked there, and on
the way home I held Julie’s hand in mine. She looked at me with a happy smile
and I saw such warmth and love in them that it filled me with happiness. This
was it. It didn’t get much better than this.

The feeling didn’t last long, though. Entering my dad’s house I knew
immediately something was terribly wrong. My first clue was that all the
jackets from the closet in the hall were taken out and thrown on the floor at
the entrance. Then there were the overturned chairs, the magazines on the
floor, an overthrown lamp, pillows and books all over the living room floor. A
mirror had been broken and was in pieces.

“Wait here,” I said to the others while I inspected the rest of the
house.

Everywhere my dad’s stuff had been thrown on the floor. The living room
especially was a total mess. I almost started crying. To see my childhood home
like this was hard. I knew my dad would be so upset. Here he had all the
memories of his life with his wife and my mom—more than forty years of
memories. I picked up a lamp from the floor and put it back on a table. Then I
got a book from the floor. It was a photo album with pictures of my parents, my
sister, and me from our trip to Marseille in France. They were ripped out and
torn. I tried to pick up the pieces and found a part of a picture with my mom’s
face. A tear rolled down my cheek. Who would do such a thing?

“It is a bitch when someone messes with what you care about, right? When
someone just rips away what you love and ruins your life.”

The voice came from the chair in the corner. I knew it a little too
well.

“Peter,” I said.

He got up. ”I told you not to leave me.”

He took a couple of steps towards me. I dropped the photo album on the
floor and backed up.

“What are you doing here?”

“Getting my family back.”

“Why would you do this?” I pointed at the mess on the floor. I was
furious. Who the hell did he think he was?

“The question is why would you leave me? Why won’t you obey me?”

“Are you kidding me? Is that how you are trying to win me back? ‘Cause
it really isn’t working.”

He took another step in my direction. This time I didn’t back up. I
didn’t want to give him the pleasure of sensing my fear.

“I don’t care,” he hissed. “You are my wife, and you are going to come
home with me, now.”

“Aye, aye, captain. Is that what you want me to say? Is that what I am
to you? A soldier? Property? What? Tell me?”

Peter sighed. The expression on his face changed suddenly. He was quiet
for a second. The eyes were red. Had he been crying?

”Don’t you get it?” he said with a quieter voice.

“No. I really don’t think I do.”

He sighed again. “Don’t you get that I don’t know what else to do? What
to say to make you come back. You and Julie. I miss you. I can’t stand being
all alone in the house.”

He came toward me with a sudden move and it made me jump back. Then he
grabbed me and tried to kiss me. I pushed him away.

“Peter, for crying out loud.”

He grabbed my hand and kissed it.

“Don’t you know how much I love you? I have even been seeing a counselor
who has been helping me. That is how much I love you. I have done it for you,
Rebekka.”

“Stop it!” I said and took back my hand. “You sent two of your hired
soldiers to scare me and you trashed this house. Look at this place! Look at
what you’ve done.”

“I sent Johnny and Simon to try to get you to come back. I regret and am
very sorry for that. But this mess? I didn’t do that,” he said much to my
surprise. ”It was like this when I got here. The front door was wide open.”

“But you … you said …?”

I didn’t get any further before we were interrupted.

“Oh my God. What happened here?” Dad asked. He was confused and I could
tell he was upset. I turned a chair back upright and he sat in it, shaking his
head at the mess.

“I don’t understand. Who would do such a thing?”