The Killing Forest (22 page)

W
hen they pulled up to his gate again, Verner Post was raking the narrow strip of gravel that led to his lopsided old forest house. He stopped and leaned on his rake.

Louise got out of the car. “Are there any other places than Hell's Cauldron that the Asatro might associate with the old myths of sacrifices?”

“We're not talking about myths here; it happened,” he said. “They found human bones in there.”

“Are there any other stories about similar places out here?”

He pushed out his lower lip and frowned under his cap. “You're thinking of King Valdemar Atterdag, riding on Valdemar's Road in the moonlight with his escort?” He spat again.

“No,” Eik said, “we're thinking more along the lines of the sacrificial oak in Boserup Forest. Places connected to human sacrifices, brotherhoods, rituals of vengeance.”

“Far as I know, the only human sacrifices around here were in Hell's Cauldron. That's what they say anyway.”

Louise's relief was short-lived. “But there were funeral pyres in the lake in the Black Bog. That goes back to the Vikings; they sacrificed a slave when an important man was buried. Other than that, human sacrifices were a part of war and bad blood, when they had their rituals of revenge.”

Louise stopped listening, but she did catch that Eik asked directions to the Black Bog.

She knew precisely where it was. Back when she'd first started riding in the forest, her father had warned her about the bottomless bog. He also told her about a giant pike that had never been caught. He had her believing he'd seen it. No one knew how long it had been swimming around in the black water, but according to legend the ashes from funeral pyres had made it immortal. In the old days, many farmers in the area had their ashes spread in the Black Bog so the pike wouldn't come out of the water and pull its victims back in.

They spotted them when they reached the top of the hill. Louise leaned up against a motley birch trunk, trying to make sense of the scene on the banks of the coal-black forest lake.

Six men stood in a circle, and behind them the butcher sat slumped over, watching the older men. She recognized his father, the old butcher; the owner of the sawmill; Roed Thomsen; John Knudsen's father, who had owned the farm in Særløse; and the mason's father, who also had been a mason until he turned the business over to his son. She wasn't sure, but she thought she recognized a gray-haired, broad-shouldered man whose daughter had been two or three years behind her in school. In the middle of their circle lay Jonas.

He was blindfolded and naked, save for his undershorts, his hands and feet bound, his mouth taped shut. Blood had been smeared all over his upper body. They had tied him to something that from a distance looked like a narrow raft of logs, or a bier of long branches lashed together. Louise couldn't tear her eyes away from his body twitching, like an exhausted animal trying to escape a trap.

The men ignored him, not even bothering to look when he gathered his strength and strained again to free himself.

Louise was freezing, yet sweating, too. She heard Eik step back toward the road and quietly call in for backup. He gave them the coordinates.

Roed Thomsen wore a long cape. He stood with outstretched arms, his somber voice droning as if he were reciting a mass. She watched as something passed from hand to hand—the oath ring, she was sure of it. Each man's lips moved when he received the ring, but she couldn't hear their words. They looked serious and tense, yet at the same time expectant. Like athletes before a game.

Eik returned and stood behind her. She felt the warmth of his body, smelled salt and smoke.

Thomsen's hands fell, and the men stepped back, revealing two large, gray metal gasoline cans. It felt as though a giant had grabbed her throat and was choking her as Thomsen turned to the butcher and motioned him over. But he didn't move. This time Louise heard every word as Lars's father roared at him.

“You get over here now and be a man—stop shaming us.” He waved an angry finger at his son, whose eyes were glued to the ground. Finally his father walked to him and shouted, “You're no longer my son! You broke the circle when your miserable little kid ran away and shamed our entire family. You couldn't live up to your responsibility to the brotherhood. From this day on I not only have no grandson, I have no son.”

He seemed to stoop as he turned away and walked back to the others, who all nodded in approval. As if the old butcher had done what a man should when someone breaches their trust.

The butcher still didn't move. He didn't even look up when Roed Thomsen jerked him to his feet.

Louise opened her mouth when the old butcher strode over to the two cans of gasoline. Every eye was on the butcher and Roed Thomsen when he unscrewed the lid from one can. She screamed as he poured gasoline over Jonas, then screamed again when spasms wracked her son's body.

Her holster bounced against her chest as she barreled down the slope. Eik followed, commanding Charlie to stay at his side. “Stop!” she shrieked.

The men beside the lake froze and stared at Louise and Eik. The butcher's father still held the gasoline can, his eyes full of hatred. Roed Thomsen let go of the butcher and shook his arm, as if he were brushing lint off his coat.

“What in hell is going on here?” Louise yelled. She reached Jonas and stood between him and the men, who now stood shoulder-to-shoulder, staring at her.

“You can thank us that your son's still alive,” the old police chief said. “If we hadn't gotten here in time, these two would have pushed him out onto the lake like a living torch.”

Roed Thomsen nodded toward the butcher and his father. Then he folded his arms on his chest, leaned back, and sneered.

Eik began cutting the ropes that bound Jonas. The boy's upper body gleamed from the gasoline, his skin already red in several places. Eik led Jonas to safety and ordered Charlie to stay with him.

“Shut up!” Louise shouted. “Shut your fucking mouth! Thank you? We stood up on the hill and watched; we know what you did.”

Eik screamed, and they all turned at the same moment a gasoline can thunked down on the ground, followed by the click of a lighter and a whoosh. Before anyone could react, the old butcher had set fire to himself. Flames shot up around his stocky body in a bluish-yellow gleam. He shook violently but made no sound.

Eik and the butcher ran over to him. Everyone else stood motionless and watched the old man topple to the ground. His son tried to put out the fire with his canvas jacket while Eik rolled him down to the lake.

Louise hurried over to Jonas and held him. She took off her jacket and put it around his shoulders. Her eyes watered from the gasoline fumes. Charlie stood guard with raised hackles, waiting for a signal from Eik.

“It was him,” Jonas whispered, his eyes on the old butcher. “I didn't hear him come into the room. I don't think I woke up until I was in the car, and then I was already tied up. I was so dizzy, I had to throw up.”

She heard sirens, and moments later Nymand and several policeman came running down the steep slope; luckily they had been close when Eik called for them.

Roed Thomsen stepped away from the other men, who silently watched their old friend burn up right before their eyes. He walked over to Louise and Jonas, and though she squeezed her son's shoulder, she wasn't afraid of the old police chief. All her fear had disappeared now that she could feel her son's heartbeat.

Some of the officers ran over to the butcher's father, whose body lay still at the edge of the lake. Eik had doused the old man with water, but now he crouched down, staring out across the water.

“What in hell happened here?” Nymand yelled behind her. He was gasping as he joined them.

Roed Thomsen spoke up. “I want you to know that we'll all give witness statements in connection with these tragic events that have taken place. The same goes of course for your investigation of the murder of a young prostitute, which we just heard about.”

Nymand suddenly seemed small beside the old police chief. He looked at the man lying on the ground, then at the butcher, who cried silently. Then at Jonas, then at the raft he had been tied to. And finally, visibly shaken, he eyed Roed Thomsen.

“The young prosti
tutes
, plural,” Louise said. He ignored her.

“What happened?” Nymand asked Louise. She still held Jonas. Gasoline dripped from his hair.

“The boy is still alive because of us,” Thomsen said. He tried to put his hand on Jonas's shoulder, but Louise slapped it away. “We saved him from these madmen.” He nodded at the butcher and his father.

“You didn't save anyone,” Louise snarled. She stepped in front of him. “You may have gotten away with letting your own daughter disappear. But you're not touching my son.”

The old police chief glanced at her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Eik walk behind her, and somehow she knew, she sensed him putting his arm around Jonas.

“I have no idea what you're babbling about.” He turned to Nymand, who had caught his breath and regained his color. “By the way, it's in your best interests to release my son and his friends. You lack evidence, and it could end up in court. You'd be better off working with him on this. He can tell you what happened out in the forest the night that young woman lost her life.”

“You won't get away with trying to blame the butcher and his father, not this time,” Louise said coldly, looking him right in the eye. “For two generations, you've terrorized the people around here, threatened them into silence. And all the time you've known exactly what was going on, but you did nothing. You were scared shitless that people would see you as the weak man you are. You make me sick.”

She turned to Nymand. “Lars Frandsen is willing to make a statement about what happened when Roed Thomsen's daughter disappeared. He was present the night she took her life, and there are more witnesses to her father covering up her death by turning it into a missing person case. He can also tell you about the vows of silence taken to conceal other crimes.

“We won't be needing your son's statement,” she told the former police chief. “This is the end of all the years of cover-ups. Even though you all have something on each other, this time you can't stop the truth from coming out. René Gamst and Lars Frandsen are talking.”

“I don't think you want everything to come out,” he said under his breath, so low that she could barely hear him. “Your boyfriend helped kill my daughter. And I'll wager that everyone will say he's the one who decided to bury Eline out in the forest, because he knew they could be charged with murder.”

He stepped closer to her, but Louise looked up into his fleshy face without budging. “You stupid bastard. That's just one more attempt to blame someone who can't defend himself. Anyone who breaks out of your sick circle becomes the scapegoat. And now you try to shut me up with threats.”

She shook her head at him scornfully. “You were the oldest. You're the one who should've stopped it all. But you didn't. You let it go on, because it worked out perfectly for you to have something on your son and his friends. That way they could never talk about how you abused your position, all your cover-ups. But it's over now.”

She turned to Jonas and Eik. Before climbing back up the hillside, she stopped in front of Nymand. “Call if you need me.”

T
he tones from the organ and the first hymn they'd sung died out, leaving the tiny chapel silent. Lissy's chair clattered when she stood up and walked to the coffin, holding a folded sheet of paper.

Louise squeezed Eik's hand and glanced at Jonas, who sat on her other side.

They had both offered without a moment's hesitation to accompany her to the memorial ceremony Klaus's parents wanted to hold, immediately after the police had released his remains. At first she had said no; she had to go by herself. But as they packed Eik's clothes and toilet bag—he was going to stay with her while Camilla, Frederik, and Markus borrowed his small apartment in Sydhavnen—it somehow began to feel right for them to be with her. Eik, and Jonas, too.

“You shouldn't do this alone,” he'd said, when she told him that she hadn't attended the service back when Klaus was buried.

Lissy began speaking. She told of the many years of doubt that had finally ended. About the peace in her soul, long overdue.

Her words echoed in the upper reaches of the chapel. Ernst sat on the other side of the coffin, together with his daughter and son-in-law and their little Jonathan. Several of Klaus's aunts and uncles she'd never met sat alongside them. And that was it.

“It will be a small, private ceremony,” Lissy had said when she called. “A farewell.”

Lunch would be served afterward at their home on Skovvej, but Louise had politely declined.

For her, it all ended right here.

W
e have to bring his bike,” Louise reminded Eik as he walked onto the sidewalk with two huge IKEA bags filled with linens and towels. Jonas was leaving for boarding school; they were packing the car with all his stuff.

“We can strap it to the roof,” Eik said, energetically, heading back toward the basement door to pick it up.

Louise heard Jonas rumbling down the stairs inside. Leaning against Eik's massive monstrosity of a vehicle, she closed her eyes and exhaled. The past month had flown away. After the kidnapping and the shocking experience in the woods, she'd feared that Jonas had been damaged to an extent that could lead to a trauma. But she'd been wrong. What became clear from the very first interview with the crisis psychologist was that what really mattered to her son was that she and Eik had reached him in time. Before everything went really wrong. Jonas found great comfort in the fact that they had found him; that was what he focused on. Fortunately, he didn't fully understand how close he had been to actually being killed.

It was Jonas who had asked if he could go to boarding school with Markus. Louise had seen it as a healthy sign that he had the courage to embark on new challenges and new environments despite what he'd been through, so she immediately approved, agreeing that it was a good idea. Even if it meant that he'd be away for so long.

After Ingersminde burned down, Camilla and Frederik had accepted the offer to stay in Eik's tiny and cramped one-bedroom apartment in Sydhavnen while they tried to figure out their future. They'd lost everything in the fire; the only belongings they had left were the clothes they were wearing when Frederik was rushed to the hospital.

Markus had found the school in Odsherred all by himself, and Louise couldn't quite figure out whether it was because he couldn't handle having to live in such close quarters with his mother and Frederik in the small apartment, or if it was an urge to put everything that had transpired behind him. But over the summer holidays both boys were excited and looking forward eagerly to everything new that lay ahead. Which made Louise feel comfortable about her own decision to let Jonas go. Luckily the school had room for both of them. They'd already met with the other students in the group they were assigned to at the school, which helped to alleviate that uncertainty and nervousness that accompanied embarking upon something new.

“I forgot my sneakers,” Jonas said, throwing his big weekend bag on the pavement and turning around to run back up to the fourth floor. “What about your toiletries?” Louise shouted after him. Eik leaned the bike against the car and walked over; he wrapped his arms around her.

“Are you okay?” he whispered, pulling her close.

“Yes,” she muttered. “But he'll be gone for a whole year. It's going to be so empty here not having him home.”

“He'll visit every weekend,” Eik reassured. “And truthfully, empty is not exactly what it will be. It sounds like you've forgotten that I've moved in. And, of course, there's Dina and Charlie.”

Louise knew that the students didn't go home over the first weekend; it would be two weeks until she'd get to see Jonas again. She pushed herself gently out of Eik's arms and smiled at him. “If there is one thing I cannot forget, it's your leather jacket lying around everywhere. Not to mention that your dog eats ten kilograms of dry food every week.”

Just then Dina, whose smarts and expert sense of smell likely combined to get her safely out of the fire, and Charlie, with their tails wagging, came running playfully out of the front door, with Jonas right behind them. “C'mon, let's go,” Jonas said as Eik finished attaching his bike to the roof of the car. Louise noticed the expectant tone in her son's voice.

Three hours later they were heading back to Copenhagen. Jonas had immediately connected with a few of the other boys who would be living in his dorm section. He was so caught up, Louise had noticed, that he had to squeeze in a quick good-bye with his mother and Eik.

The landscape expanded and contracted. Forests were replaced by grassy open areas and gentle hilly terrain; the fields looked ready for harvesting. In the backseat both dogs were snoring, as if in harmony. Of course, Louise would miss having Jonas around, but seeing him with the other kids at school was amazing and heartwarming. It was so clear he was looking toward his future, and excited about embarking upon his next chapter. She was genuinely happy for him, but not completely certain she was equally ready to see him move on and away from her. It was only natural, though; she'd have to adjust.

Feeling drowsy, Louise leaned her head sleepily against the passenger window, closing her eyes. She had never really
lived
with a man. But now circumstances had overtaken Eik's life—he had turned over his own apartment to Camilla and Frederik in their time of need. It had all happened as if by chance. But for Louise, embracing the possibilities and floating with the stream, though a bit scary, just felt right.
Yes
, she thought, she was ready for this. Something had finally fallen into place inside her.

Louise opened her eyes and looked at Eik as he drove, humming and focused. She was no longer alone.