One, Two ... He Is Coming for You (21 page)

“No.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Anything. Just a little thing that you might think is unimportant but
might be useful to me.”

“When I asked where he was going, he did say he had to finish some
game.”

“What were his exact words? I want you to think carefully now and give
me his exact words.”

”I am going to finish the game.”

“A Gentleman Hunt,” I murmured.

But who was the last gentleman he needed to hunt and kill? Everybody in
the picture was already gone.

39

“What the hell do you want?”

Didrik Rosenfeldt Jr. stared at me with contempt in his eyes. Sune and I
found his apartment at the port of Copenhagen, in one of the most expensive
apartment buildings in the country. The complex was white as snow and all the
apartments had views of the ocean and Sweden in the horizon.

Didrik wasn’t alone in the apartment. I heard a woman shouting from
inside. She came to the door and stood behind Didrik. She was only in her
underwear and stockings but that didn’t seem to bother her. Probably not the
wife, I thought.

It was a long shot, I knew that, but by now he was the only one who
might know where Ulrik Gyldenlove went to meet his last victim. That was why we
were there.

But right now he didn’t quite seem to be willing to help us.

”Well come on, I am in the middle of something here. Tell me, why are
you here? Have you come to ask me to fuck off again?”

I smiled. “I actually don’t have the time for that. But we need your
help,” I said.

“My help?” Didrik snorted.

“To do what?”

“I would rather not discuss it out here. Can we please come in for a
second?”

That obviously wasn’t quite his plan for the evening, so he hesitated
for a moment before he let us in.

The view was spectacular. The penthouse apartment had an ocean view from
every room. On the other side of the water I could see moving lights from cars
driving along the coast of Sweden and on the bridge combining the two
Scandinavian countries.

“So what is it that is so important that it can’t wait until the
morning?” Didrik said.

First I told him everything about our investigation and then the call
from Ulrik Gyldenlove’s daughter.

“It’s urgent that we find him,” I said.

After my explanation Didrik no longer had that same smirk on his face he
had earlier. Luckily, he seemed to take me seriously.

“Could it be himself that was to be killed?” he asked.

“You mean he has gone to commit suicide? I had the same thought when his
daughter told me about the phone,” I said. “I thought he was the last person in
the picture to still be alive and he couldn’t go on living.”

“But no matter what, it’s important to find him,” Sune said.

“Yes, we need to stop him,” I said.

Didrik nodded pensively.

“But why do you think I can help you?”

“We don’t know. It was a wild shot. But maybe you know of some place
your father and his friends used to meet, or a special place they talked about.
Something. Anything.”

He nodded again. “I might know where he could have gone.”

40

The door to the school gymnasium at Herlufsholm Boarding school was locked
when we arrived an hour later. It was dark and there was no light anywhere
except from the lamps outside the dorms. The gymnasium was in a secluded
building a distance from the main buildings of the school.

Didrik Rosenfeldt Jr. had told me that his father and his friends used
to meet there at night. They would smoke cigarettes in the boys bathing area
and they would climb the ropes and beat each other up for fun on the gym mats.

This was their place to hang out.

The school itself was secluded in a forest far away from everything and
the young boys never had anywhere else to go. Didrik Rosenfeldt Jr. explained
he had been a student at the school too.

Now Sune and I stood, outside the main door to the gymnasium trying to
find a way in. We had seen a car parked in the grass not far from the building
and now I spotted another expensive-looking one in the parking lot. Maybe a
Jaguar or a Mercedes. The one on the grass was an old and ordinary Toyota.

“There’s no one here,” Sune said.

“I’m not so sure.” I pointed at the expensive car at the parking lot.

“That could belong to one of the teachers at the school.”

“Wouldn’t that teacher park the car near the school entrance then? It’s
a pretty cold night.”

Sune nodded. “You might be right.”

“If the boarding school boys used to meet in the gymnasium, they
probably wouldn’t have used the main entrance where they could be seen.” I
said.

“Probably not. They risked getting kicked out of school if they went
outside after lights out.”

I nodded. That was what Didrik Rosenfeldt Jr. had told us.

“So what you are saying,” Sune continued, “is that there must be another
way in.”

“Exactly.”

I started walking around the building when Sune stopped me.

“We don’t need that,” Sune then said.

I looked at him with surprise.

“What do you mean?”

He took out a screwdriver from his jacket pocket.

“I learned a lot in juvenile prison that every once in a while comes in
handy.” He started working on the door.

I was impressed. Less than a minute later, the door was open.

We went in. It was totally dark and we couldn’t see anything. But as we
moved forward I suddenly heard voices. Two men were talking. They were standing
on a platform at the end of the gym. Face to face but with distance between
them. Sune and I moved closer and soon we could see them. I had a hard time
recognizing their faces in the darkness. But I knew their voices.

“Thank you for your call,” one said.

I recognized the voice as the one of Ulrik Gyldenlove.

“The last time we saw each other, Zenia was still alive,” the other one
said. Everything inside of me froze. I knew that voice. It belonged to Michael
Oestergaard. The detective at Karrebaeksminde Police department. Michael, I
thought. Michael Clausen. He must have changed his name. Of course. Bjorn
Clausen’s younger brother. The one who married Zenia Petersen when she got
pregnant after the rape.

“It was at that party,” Ulrik said. “At the school. Here in this
gymnasium. The band was playing on this stage, remember?”

“You and your friends were graduating. I was a sophomore. The whole
school was at that party,” Michael said.

“It was 1986.” Ulrik sighed. ”Seems like forever ago.”

”And yet still so diabolically haunting and crystal clear in our
memories,” Michael said.

“She danced with me right here on the floor,” Ulrik said while he was
pointing. “So young, so beautiful.”

“So alive,” Michael said.

Ulrik nodded.

”She might have been dancing with you, but she was looking at me, while
she was in your arms,” Michael continued.

“I remember that very well. That made me so furious.”

“And that’s when you and your friends decided I needed to be taught a
lesson, right? I was, after all, only a sophomore.”

“So was Zenia.”

“Yes, but she was a girl. A very pretty one too. And popular among the
seniors. Especially you. And no one messes with a senior’s girl, right?”

“That was the hierarchy. That’s just the way things were.”

I heard Ulrik sigh deeply and then he sat down on a chair with his head
bowed. Michael took a step in his direction. His voice was filled with anger
and hate when he opened his mouth again.

“You made me watch it.”

Ulrik hid his face in his hands.

Michael continued, “You beasts made me watch while you … raped her.”

Ulrik looked up. “I can still sometimes hear her screams at night,” he
said.

“So can I. I tried to help her. But Bjorn held me. I couldn’t move, no
matter how much I fought.”

“The endless remorse I have felt over the years can never wipe out the
torment Zenia must have carried,” Ulrik said.

He looked up at Michael who was now standing right in front of him.

“Do what you have to do,” Ulrik said.

In the faint light I saw Michael Oestergaard raise his hand with the
claw. I stepped forward.

“Tell me, when you cut through the chest of your victims is it enough to
just do it once or do you need to do it several times before he dies?” I asked.

Sune had found a light switch and turned it on.

The two men looked at me.

“What a strange question,” Michael Oestergaard said.

“Just trying to make conversation.”

“I don't have time for your games,” he said and lifted the hand with the
claws high up in the air.

“Just do it,” Ulrik said.

Sune stood right behind me. I tried not to show it but I was really
scared. What if I didn’t stop him in time? Would he kill him? Would he kill us
afterwards?

“Is this what you think Zenia would have wanted?” I asked in another
attempt to buy us some time. Sune had called the police and they would be here
any moment.

The claw came down to his side. I took in a deep breath and tried to
calm myself. He was talking to me now. If I could only stall him for a few more
minutes.

“They made me watch them as they …” he said with hatred spitting out of
him. “I couldn’t do anything. Bjorn was holding me.”

“He always was the strongest one,” Ulrik said.

“That must have been horrific,” I said.

“They even held my eyelids open with their fingers so I would see
everything. And I did. She looked me right in the eye while Ulrik did this to
her. He was on top of her back holding her hair, riding her like a horse while
Henrik and Bertel held her arms and legs. She looked me straight in the eyes.
And I was helpless. After that she had nothing left to live for. She couldn’t
bear to see her own child. She didn’t know who the father was. And then she
killed herself … and him. Now I have nothing left. After she died, I tried
everything to forget her. I even changed my last name to my mother’s maiden
name. I got into the police force but nothing ever replaced her. So one day I
decided to start planning my revenge.”

“What’s with the claw?”

“My brother had it. I found it when we cleared out his room after he
died. He made it for them back then. He was a farm boy like me, remember. We
both knew how to make stuff like that on my dad’s welder.”

“So that was where he made the glove and that’s where you made the cross
to put through Bertel Due-Lauritzen’s skull?” I asked.

He nodded and then continued.

“My brother and his friends used to bring the glove when they would rape
girls on their boat. It was Didrik who was fascinated by the horror movies, my
brother had told me. One of them would dress up like Freddy Krueger and scare
their victims by singing the song and threatening to kill them with the claws.
I thought it would be the ultimate way to get my revenge by using their own
glove.”

“What happened to your brother?”

“I found out a short time later that it had all been his idea. When he
was with Didrik he became an animal. He wanted to impress him and be like him.
He enjoyed seeing me suffer that night. He liked holding me, he told me. So I killed
him six months after his graduation. I had to. I couldn’t stand looking at him
anymore. It was so easy. I knocked him down and pushed him over the bridge so
he landed on the tracks. Then I waited for the train to do the rest. After that
I thought I had gotten my revenge, but a few years later Zenia killed herself
and then there was no turning back. I had to kill them all.”

“But would Zenia want you to do this? Is this the solution?” I asked.

“At least it will finally all be over. She was all I had. They destroyed
her. I loved her and I even loved the child. I thought of him as mine. And now
they are both gone.”

“Do it. Just do it!” Ulrik ordered.

Michael looked at him then lifted the claw again. My heart pounded. How
could I stop him? I heard sirens outside. It was only a matter of seconds.

“Don’t do it. It doesn’t bring Zenia or your child back,” I tried one
last time, but no one was listening to me anymore. It was all between the two
men and their past.

They were no longer sensing anyone else. They didn’t care. It was time
to finish what they had started. And they would do it here where it all began.

”I’m the last one. Everybody else is gone. Just do what you have to do,”
Ulrik continued. He stood up in front of Michael.

“Nine, ten, you will never sleep again …” Michael sang as he swung the
hand with the metal claw and it went straight into Ulrik’s chest causing him to
tumble on to the floor.

“No!” I screamed.

Less than one second later the building was filled with uniforms and
guns, pointing at everybody and everything. I put my hands in the air to signal
I was unarmed and Sune did the same. Then I saw two policemen throw Michael 
onto the floor.

Ulrik was still lying motionless on the stage floor.

41

A week later I was on my way to Enoe. I drove, thinking about the last
couple of weeks and how crazy it had all been. Ironically, I wanted to come
here to get a more quiet life for my daughter and myself. Meanwhile we had the
first serial killer on the loose in the history of our small country and my
daughter had been abducted by her own father, who had almost killed her with
sleeping pills.

Wow! It had been a crazy couple of weeks.

Michael Oestergaard was now in police custody and would get his
punishment. Under interrogation he had admitted that he was the one who trashed
my dad’s place. A detective had told my father Michael wanted to scare me after
he had seen me in Christian Junge-Larsen’s apartment.