The Killing Forest (19 page)

C
ars were parked everywhere. She heard Eik mumbling each time he thought he'd spotted an empty parking space, but when he got close there was always a tiny car tucked in between two behemoths.

Many years had passed since Louise had been in the city park to hear music, but now it all came back to her. How she had sat with friends on the slope, drinking beer. She would meet someone up at the ice cream store, and after sitting down on the grass they would keep looking around to find others they knew. Mostly she had looked for Klaus. That was before they became a couple.

“Did the boys say where to pick them up?” Eik asked.

Louise noticed they were in a taxi lane. “You can't park here!”

“I can't park anywhere else, either, so I'm parking here.”

Louise tried to call Jonas again. She sighed in irritation when again he didn't answer, but then Eik saw them walking up the gravel path, surrounded by laughing girls with long, flowing hair.

They were so big now! Fifteen years old, almost sixteen. For a moment she just sat and stared, as if it had happened while she wasn't looking. Markus did the talking; he was making everyone laugh. When he turned to say something, Louise suddenly noticed that Jonas was holding hands with one of the pretty girls. His long, dark hair was combed off his forehead. No more hiding behind a curtain, it seemed. His big smile transformed his face.

A warm feeling spread inside Louise, and she sat a moment longer and enjoyed it before opening the car door and calling to them.

The two big teenage boys took their time hugging all the girls good-bye. Seconds later, on the way to the car, they were already talking, laughing about something Louise couldn't hear.

Louise missed that life. At least in a way. She could have been the girl getting the hug, and the moment the boy turned away he would move on to the next thing in his life. While she might spend the next several days turning over in her mind what the hug meant.

She missed those days, yet she was glad they were over. But it was good for Jonas; it had been a long time since he'd seemed so happy. Now there was something carefree in his expression. Louise felt at peace. Maybe he hadn't been scarred for life after all, from all the traumatic experiences he'd gone through. She asked them if they'd eaten, though it was past ten now.

Jonas didn't have to be in school until late the next morning, so they decided to stay at Camilla's and drive back early. Melvin was keeping Dina; there was nothing pressing they had to return home for.

“What the hell?” Markus shouted from the backseat as they drove up the long driveway to Ingersminde. Eik slowed down and they all leaned forward.

At the entrance to the courtyard, a gigantic log lay blocking the road. Several men in helmets walked around carrying ropes. The boys jumped out and ran toward the house.

“Watch out!” Louise yelled after them.

Eik backed up and parked off to the side. A chain saw buzzed, and male voices rose up from the din. Several cars lined the driveway. The air smelled of wood, of a sawmill. Something felt terribly wrong about all this activity, so close to nightfall.

“They cut down the warden tree,” Jonas yelled when they reached the courtyard. “Frederik decided to do it. He's standing over there. They're cutting up the trunk to haul it away.”

He sounded like a reporter broadcasting live from some important event.

Louise took Eik's hand and followed him to the tree, where the men were shouting instructions at each other. For a second they eyed the enormous trunk of the oak, which stuck several meters in the air. The lowest limbs were to their right, everything else blurred out in the twilight.

Camilla was in the living room with her laptop when Eik and Louise entered the house.

“Get in here and look!” she called out when she heard them.

She explained about the warden tree being vandalized and Frederik's decision to fell it, to demonstrate that he wouldn't be intimidated by threats. She handed them her phone and showed them the photo of what had been carved into the tree trunk.

“I think it's this rune,” she said. She turned the laptop around so they could see the screen.

Louise enlarged the photo on the phone and studied the circle and cross with the small markings. Eik leaned over her shoulder. “Ragnarok,” he said, after a single glance. “The rune symbolizes Ragnarok. Someone's trying to tell you something.”

“Yeah, and you know what?” Camilla snapped. “This someone needs to shut up and get the hell out of our lives. They think they can walk right on our property, try to scare us with all their Asa shit, but we're not going to stand for it. That poor boy almost died out in our forest. And the graves of the girls, what the hell is going on?”

She turned to Louise. “Did you find out if it's all connected?”

“It seems to be.” She told Camilla that Thomsen and his gang were to be arrested that evening. “It's probably already done. Which means Nymand and his people have twenty-four hours to collect enough evidence to present to a judge. Hopefully they'll be remanded into custody.”

Right now she wasn't concerned with that case. It was out of her hands. Sune had survived, and he was reunited with his parents. She had informed Rønholt that she was taking the next day off, and when she'd had time to distance herself from all this, she was sure the investigation into Klaus's death by Roskilde Police would give her peace of mind.

She was free of the guilt she'd been carrying around for years. Knowing Big Thomsen and the others would be brought to justice for all they had done over the years gave her a sense of satisfaction. Her work did make a difference.

She stood and asked if it was okay to grab a beer in the refrigerator. She wanted to sit on the terrace and look out over the fjord. Let the day settle inside her. She dragged Eik along with her.

F
or a moment she didn't know where she was. She didn't know how long she'd slept, only that she'd been far away, deep into a dream. She and Eik had talked for a long time in bed the night before, then she'd pulled him over on top of her, and when he'd asked her solemnly if she was sure, she'd pressed her lips against his neck and nodded.

Now, returning to the surface, she heard shouting and a piercing, wailing sound. Eik was shaking her, throwing her clothes on the bed.

“Get up, it's a fire!” he yelled.

The door to the room burst open. Thick smoke rolled in as Frederik, holding his T-shirt against his mouth, signaled for them to get out—
now!
Through the noise of roaring flames, she heard Camilla scream.

“Jonas!” Louise yelled. “Are the boys out?”

Eik pulled his pants up as he ran out. Camilla screamed again, and Louise only took time to grab her T-shirt before she was out the door. She saw her friend through the smoke, leaning over something at the end of the hall, just outside their bedroom.

Louise ran over to her. Flames from the stairs shot up the heavy curtains covering the tall windows in the hall.

“I can't get her up!” Camilla sobbed. “This shitty fucking leg!”

Elinor lay on the floor. Her long braid had almost burned off, and her skin was singed. Quickly Louise knelt down, and with Camilla's help she lifted the old woman up in the fireman's carry her father had used when little Louise was too tired to go to bed herself.

Frederik returned. His face was black and he was coughing so terribly he could hardly stand straight as he dragged Camilla along. A fire extinguisher droned from below, but the fire there on the second floor had taken hold of the carpet.

Louise pinned Elinor's thin body to her shoulder with both arms. She screamed with all her might as she ran to the stairs and blindly flung herself down through the flames, trying to keep her balance, taking every other step until she stumbled and fell near the bottom. She felt a tug from behind, as if hidden forces were sucking her away from the fire.

Everything seemed quiet now. Then she realized she was inside herself, in a silent film playing in slow motion. Elinor lay on the ground. Tønnesen leaned over her, and slowly Louise understood that he must have pulled them out of the house. Camilla stood hugging Marcus, who was in his undershorts.

Jonas!

“Where's Jonas?” she screamed. She was instantly on her feet, the silent film having vanished. The skin on her leg stung; her hair stank. “Where's Jonas?” she screamed again. “Is he out here?” She ignored the gravel under her bare feet.

“Eik and Frederik went in after him.” Camilla hugged her son tightly while staring up at his bedroom on the second floor.

There came a deafening blast; one of the tall windows on the second floor had exploded, and flames shot out of the hole and climbed up the outer wall, as if they were trying to reach the roof.

Louise's throat was raw as she screamed again for Jonas. “Is there anywhere else they can get down if they can't use the stairway?”

Relief overwhelmed her when Camilla pointed at the gable and said there was a fire ladder on the end of the house.

Another window exploded, flames reaching out greedily. The heat and smoke stung Louise's eyes. Her heart was pounding, her voice raspy and broken as she asked Markus, “Was Jonas in the room when you ran out?”

“I didn't see him. I don't know—I thought he'd already gone down.” His voice was weak—his words blew away with the black smoke from the house.

“Ragnarok,” Camilla whispered hoarsely while stroking her son's bare arms.

Tønnesen sprayed the flames inside. He might as well have been pissing on a bonfire.

Louise ran back to the house. She screamed her son's name again into the thick smoke. A thunderous crash on the second floor drowned out her scream. For a moment she considered running up into the smoke-filled darkness; the fire hadn't spread to the first floor yet; it was rising up to the peak of the roof. But she knew she'd never come down again.

Her thoughts were interrupted when a third window shattered right above her, showering glass all over the courtyard. She jumped back then ran around to the gable at the other end of the house, close to Markus's bedroom. She heard shouting, and when she rounded the corner she saw Eik and Frederik climbing down the fire ladder. Without Jonas.

Sirens sounded like distant howling in a fog.

“Where is he?” she yelled as the two men neared the ground. She grabbed Eik before he stepped off. His hair and eyebrows were singed on his left side. He was black with soot, and the blisters on his arm had already broken.

“He wasn't there,” he said, gasping for breath.

Frederik tumbled to the ground beside him and curled up. He had burns all over his chest, all the way down his stomach.

“Where is he?” Desperately, Louise shook Eik, as if she could make him say something to stop her panic. “Did you look everywhere? In the bathroom?”

She tried not to yell with him standing right beside her. Her blood was pounding in her veins as her muscles began to cramp.

Behind her, enormous fire engines flew toward the courtyard, but they couldn't get close to the house because of the warden tree blocking the driveway. Louise wanted to run over to them and yell that her son was still in there somewhere, but her feet refused to do anything other than stutter nervously around.

She watched the thunderous flames raging, as if all hell had broken loose. Suddenly her shoulder stung where she'd been burned; Eik had grabbed her and was pulling her to him.

“Jonas isn't in there,” he said, his voice wheezy and strained. He stuck something hard into the palm of her hand. “This was on his bed.”

She looked down at a polished oblong stone, with an arrow pointing up carved into it.

Eik seemed to have suddenly thought of something, because he began running to his car. Louise saw Charlie barking like crazy in the back.

Her hearing again seemed distorted. The big German shepherd's mouth opened and closed soundlessly, the barking drowned out in the roaring fire and ambulance sirens.

Louise's body was all pain, yet she didn't feel it; not really. Eik let Charlie out, and they started toward her. She walked over the grass to meet them.

Elinor had already been packed into a blanket and fastened onto a stretcher, but it wasn't until they lifted the old lady into the ambulance that Louise noticed the blanket also covered her face.

She watched them push the stretcher into the ambulance.

Camilla still held Markus; it was as if they'd both gone into shock in the midst of everything. A lieutenant wearing a helmet tried to lead her away from the courtyard, but she wouldn't budge. She faced the fire and watched the great manor burn down. Tønnesen stood at the front steps holding his fire extinguisher.

A stretcher was placed on the ground beside Frederik. He stared straight up in the air. Finally Camilla roused herself, and she reached her husband before they lifted him onto the stretcher. Paramedics began treating his burns as they carried him to the ambulance. He had sustained the most serious injuries, having fought to get everyone out. But he was conscious, Louise noticed, as he reached out for Camilla.

The stench in the courtyard was overwhelming. Flames engulfed the peak of the roof as the glazed roof tiles exploded.

Eik joined Louise. Charlie whimpered and rubbed against his leg. “I should've known something was wrong,” he said quietly. He explained that during the night, Charlie had been barking so loudly that he'd taken him out and locked him in the car before he woke the whole house up. “I should have trusted him,” he added, nearly whispering now.

“What is this?” Louise asked. She showed him the stone. He held her wrist, as if he thought the stone was too heavy for her.

“It's the rune for the war god, Tyr,” Eik said. “He was ruthless. Merciless. I think someone abducted Jonas and left this for you.”