She was unlikely to have been found yet, but if Line repeated what I had said, the police might follow it up and find the body sooner than they would otherwise have done.
Not that this made any difference to my plans.
I drove north, towards Hillerod, and stopped once at a petrol station. I filled up the car and bought newspapers, which I skimmed before I drove on. There was nothing about Verner or Linda Hvilbjerg. In Hillerod I went to the bank and emptied out my bank accounts. They added up to 150,000 kroner. The cashier studied me closely and demanded that I answer a series of security questions before handing over the money. It felt strange to hold so many notes in my hand. I couldn’t resist the temptation to sniff them before stuffing them in my inside pocket.
Then I drove on to Helsinge and onwards to Rageleje. As I drove down Store Orebjergvej, I slowed to a crawl. Nearly all the leaves had fallen from the trees. The wind knocked them about on the roadside and shook the naked branches of the bushes. I could see from a distance if I had visitors. I hadn’t. The drive was empty and the Tower was deserted, just as I had left it. The trip from Osterbro to North Sj?lland had taken roughly two hours, but the police didn’t appear to have discovered Linda yet. Still, it was only a matter of time before they did, so I mustn’t waver now.
I parked the car, got out, went straight to my front door and let myself in. Once inside, I locked the door behind me. The heating had been off during the five days I had been away; the autumn chill had accepted the invitation and seeped through the walls. The air was cold and damp.
I scrunched newspapers into balls and chucked them into the stove with some kindling. The fire was reluctant to accept the cold paper and wood, but after a couple of minutes the flames took hold and could look after themselves. I went upstairs and opened the trapdoor to the attic. It wasn’t very big; there was only room for three or four removal boxes. I grabbed one and eased it through the narrow opening and down to my study. I opened it to make sure it was the one I wanted. It was.
Back downstairs, I opened the box again. It was full of letters from my readers, letters I had received during my almost twenty years as a writer. Many of them had never been opened.
I took a handful and stared at them. They contained praise and criticism, admiration and abuse, flattery and disgust. I threw them on the fire, which seized the paper immediately, opening letters I had never opened and consuming the contents I myself hadn’t read.
Handful after handful of letters was thrown on the fire, which repaid me with a radiant blast of heat in the cold living room.
But I didn’t burn the letters to get warm.
Nor was it out of concern for the real victims, the people who had so generously shared their fear and horror with me. Burning the letters was part of the deal. I might not have promised to do so in the message I sent to the PO box, but it was implied that I would.
If the killer had written to me previously to mock me or to point out my mistakes, his letter might be in the box and there was a danger of someone finding it. As I didn’t know which sender to look for, they all had to go. Wasting time burning them was risky, but it was necessary in order to fulfil our agreement.
The fire transformed the paper into thin flakes of ash that took up more and more room in the stove. They fluttered at the slightest gust of wind and some whirled into the living room where they settled on the floor, on me or on the furniture around me. My clothes were soon sprinkled with ash and I stood up to dust myself down.
At that moment I heard someone try to open the front door.
I froze in mid-movement, just as I was brushing ash off my sleeve, and held my breath.
There was a knock on the door.
‘FF?’
It was Bent.
‘Are you OK, neighbour?’
Even though he couldn’t see into the living room from that side of the house, I still tiptoed to a corner that couldn’t be seen from any of the windows.
‘I saw your car,’ Bent called out on the other side of the door. ‘How was Copenhagen?’
I heard his steps move away from the front door and around the house. He was talking to himself. The decking on the terrace creaked. Soon I heard him tap on the window.
‘Frank? Is everything all right?’
He couldn’t see me in the corner, but I could see his shadow fall through the French windows. He was leaning towards the glass, cupping his hands either side of his head to peer inside.
‘Come on, Frank,’ he said, sounding mildly annoyed. ‘I can see that you’ve lit a fire.’
I clenched my teeth. Why couldn’t he just go away?
Bent knocked harder on the window.
‘Bloody hell, Frank.’
His shadow moved away.
‘Frank!’ Bent shouted. ‘Are you upstairs?’
I could hear that he had been drinking. The slurring in his speech would indicate five or six beers, which would be about right, given that it was one o’clock in the afternoon.
‘Fraaaank!’
I had a strong urge to open the door and tell him to piss off, but he persisted.
‘Frank, for Christ’s sake.’
I heard him shuffle across the terrace.
‘I know you’re in there!’ he called out from the garden. ‘Come on, Frank … I’m not going to go away, you know.’ He laughed briefly.
Ten or fifteen seconds passed when I could only hear mumbling. Then his tone changed.
‘Bloody writer,’ he sneered. ‘Bloody writer!’ he said again, now sounding like a petulant child. ‘You’ve always been so stuck up. You think you’re too good for the rest of us, eh. But let me tell you something.’
He fell silent for a few seconds as if he was plucking up the courage or waiting for a reaction.
‘You’re no better than the rest of us. Not one bit. Or you wouldn’t be rotting away up here like us, would you? No! But you think you’re so bloody clever and that we’re all so bloody lucky that you choose to hang out with us.’
Shouting appeared to sober him up. At any rate, he had stopped slurring.
‘But you’re no better than the rest of us,’ he scoffed again. ‘You’re worse. Good neighbours give and take. But not you. You’ve only ever taken and always when it suited you. You let us come over when you felt like it, the rest of the time you would just ignore us.’
Shouting had made him breathless and he paused.
‘Do you know something, Frank?’ He waited a couple of seconds for a reply. ‘Screw you! You’re on your own from now on, you stuck-up wanker!’
I heard him march through the garden back to his own house. A few minutes later, I moved out of the corner and went back to the stove. Bent’s words hadn’t upset me. I was almost relieved that he had ended our neighbourly relationship. One less thing to worry about.
The fire was dying down from lack of nourishment and I chucked in the rest of the letters in one big pile. The flames flared up with gratitude. I made sure they were burning properly before I ran back upstairs. In my bedroom I packed a suitcase of clothes that I left downstairs by the front door. Then I returned to my study and started unplugging computer cables. I carried the monitor downstairs, then the computer itself and the keyboard. Finally I brought down the printer as well as bag of essential cables and a ream of paper.
The letters in the fireplace had burned away. Only a few yellow envelope corners remained in the ashes. A gust of wind found its way down the chimney and wafted black flakes of burned paper out on the floor.
I opened the door a little and peered outside. Bent was nowhere to be seen. I grabbed the suitcase and sneaked out to the car. Carefully, I opened the boot and slid my suitcase over the parcel shelf and down on the back seat. Then I went back for the computer and the rest of my equipment.
I didn’t waste time locking up the cottage, but I stood for a moment staring at the place that had been my home for many years.
Then I got into the car and drove off.
