He had lost the advantage of surprise, and the more she looked at him, the less afraid she was. The mask was no advantage to him in a fight; on the contrary it limited his view. Slowly she inched towards him with her feet angled and her body slightly leaning forward, as she aimed a kick towards his testicles. As if he was reading her thoughts, he hitched up his sweater and took out her pistol.
“She will follow him to his car.”
The pistol was pointed firmly at her abdomen, and at that distance he could not fail to hit. She did not answer him, Jeanette Hvidt’s howling behind her stopped, and only the low-frequency hum of the computer broke the silence.
“She will follow him to his car, otherwise he will shoot her.”
If it was courage or anxiety that drove her she never knew. Perhaps it was simply desperation, or possibly she had unconsciously registered how unprofessional it was to stick a pistol in the waistband of your pants, as if they were playing cops and robbers.
“Do you really know how to shoot a gun like that? Have you even released the two safeties? That’s a police pistol you’re holding, a kind you’ve never had in your hands before, I can see.”
Her voice probably shook, she could hear it herself, but the words were said. He took another step backwards and turned the pistol while he observed it as best he could through the holes in his mask.
“She must not say such things to him.”
“I’m not a stupid little goose you can scare with your childish devil facade.”
“She does not say such things, she will get the staff.”
“I can’t see any staff, Andreas. You must have forgotten it.”
He stamped on the floor.
“She is not saying that. I can’t… he will… ”
She was no longer afraid of the gun, which was now limply pointing at the ground. Her disdain about the safety had hit the bull’s eye. Again she started to inch forward, while she mocked him venomously.
“You’re messing up your performance. Think if your father saw you now, how he would laugh. See, he was a man who knew how to take a girl… did you get that, little Andreas?… take a girl, but you’ve seen that yourself, of course, so you’re not unaware of it. You on the other hand are nothing more than a shell of a man, an overgrown boy who caused his mother to get beaten, because you… ”
Falkenborg let the pistol drop and left the room. Immediately after that she heard the key being turned in the lock.
Without wasting a second she gathered up the pistol and discovered to her annoyance that there were no bullets in it. The next priority was the window. If she got out quickly he would not be able to catch her before she reached the forest. That idea wouldn’t work, though; the window was blocked from outside. She shoved and pounded on the window frame with all her strength, to no end. Plan C was the computer. She turned it off by pulling out the plug, then turned it on again and restarted the machine, after which all the power in the house went out.
In the darkness she sat down on the floor, her limbs shaking and her heart galloping in a wild ride. She forced herself to think. Her reaction was normal, she knew, and the most important thing was not to feel like a victim. She had won the first round, but now the situation had again turned to his advantage. He had the initiative and the chance to get another weapon besides, this time one that was more effective.
For a while she considered trying to block the door, but ended up only setting a chair under the door handle. In the darkness it was difficult and would hardly hold him up for long. Then she pulled the curtain from the window without fearing that he was standing outside. The mask didn’t scare her any more, only the man inside was dangerous. The rain had stopped, and a pale moon illuminated the night, but there was no trace of Falkenborg. Then she caught sight of her car out in the driveway and happened to think about the extra keys in the desk drawer. In the moonlight she found the drawer and felt her way to the keys, which she put in her pocket. Then she pulled one curtain down, tore a solid strip off and folded the fabric around her right hand, while she squeezed the ceramic mug. She smashed the pane with five hard, quick blows, which removed most of the glass from the frame, and without deliberating jumped outside on to the garden path.
When she hit the ground, she quickly unwrapped her hand, let go of the mug and seized a long shard of glass, around which she folded the strip of curtain. Then she got up, looked around and called with the full force of her lungs.
“Well, Andreas, are you coming to fight with me, you disgusting wretch. What about it?”
Determined, but without hurrying, she went over to her car, opened the door and got in. As soon as she was inside, she locked the doors, after which she set her weapon on the passenger seat and put the keys in the ignition. Her foot did not encounter the pedals however, but instead hit something unfamiliar and soft. She reached down, picked it up, and saw her dead cat staring at her through the plastic wrapped around its little head.
Pauline Berg was able to suppress her instinctive horror and force herself to look quickly out of the rear window. She turned the key, heard the engine start, thought that it smelled like a hospital in here without understanding why, looked back one last time and this time stared directly into his grotesque countenance. The rag over her mouth and nose struck her mercilessly a moment later. The last thought she had was that he was much too strong.
CHAPTER 46
There was a high level of activity in the Homicide Division starting in the early-morning hours. Large numbers of detectives were deployed in the hunt for Andreas Falkenborg. He and Jeanette Hvidt would be found before it was too late. If it wasn’t already, which everyone feared but no one said out loud. Across the country the case had the highest priority in local police districts, and those close to Copenhagen had called in extra personnel upon instructions from police leadership. In many places officers who otherwise would be off duty also came in to work.
Konrad Simonsen sat at the top of the hierarchy among the myriad of men and women involved in the operation. As division head it was his job to use his resources as effectively as possible and above all to ensure that all enquiries from the general public were quickly and competently followed up. Yesterday the case received big headlines with extra news broadcasts and long TV reports. This morning the front pages of the newspapers also had Jeanette Hvidt’s kidnapping as the lead story and the finding of Annie Lindberg Hansson’s corpse in Præstø as a titillating aside. The result was predictable. Any Dane with eyes in their head now recognised Falkenborg’s portrait and quite a few his white commercial van and its licence plate too, for which reason phones in police stations all over the country, and Police Headquarters in Copenhagen in particular, were abuzz with tip offs from well-intentioned citizens.
Arne Pedersen was in Simonsen’s office, waiting while his boss finished a phone call. It was the third time within half an hour, which was irritating but unavoidable. Simonsen could not isolate himself for the callers who were transferred to him were carefully screened and deemed to have very important information, which unfortunately was not always the case. Like now, for example, when with eyes rolled up he slammed down the receiver.