It’s been nailed shut from the inside.
This was where they got in, just as he thought.
In front of him is a pair of folding wooden doors leading to the boathouse. They look like big window-shutters, and they reach all the way from the floor to the ceiling.
Joona puts his hand on the old wood-burning stove that stands beside the modern electric one.
It’s cold.
There’s a dustpan and broom in one corner, containing fragments of a bowl and some sweets.
Joona crouches down and inspects bloodstains on one leg of the kitchen table, then sees a trail of blood leading across the floor towards the boathouse.
He raises his pistol, goes over to the folding doors and tries to open one of them, but it catches after opening a crack.
He pulls hard, but the door is stuck.
Suddenly he thinks he can see a white light flash in the boathouse. He leans towards the crack between the door and frame and peers in. From the little he can see through the gap, it looks like this part of the boathouse is used as a dining room. He can make out a long, narrow table, and the backs of the chairs along one side.
Joona tries to pull the door open again, but stops when he hears noises from inside.
Then everything gets quiet again.
He waits a few seconds, then pushes one arm through the gap, right up to his shoulder.
He can no longer see inside the room, but he starts to feel across the back of the door to find out what’s blocking it.
Joona hears the banging, thudding sound from the boathouse again.
He presses the barrel of his pistol to the door with his free hand as he feels across the other side.
‘What’s going on?’ Jack whispers.
Joona sinks to one knee and finds a sturdy bolt close to the floor. He carefully pulls it open with his fingertips.
It comes free with a gentle clunk, and the gap opens a little further.
He quickly pulls his arm back in, steps back and aims towards the opening at chest-height.
The banging noise has stopped.
He opens the door and looks into the darkness.
He moves sideways silently, with his gun raised, trying to make sense of the shapes he can see.
Suddenly he realises that there’s someone in the middle of the room.
A face, no more than a metre above the floor.
Joona sinks instinctively to one knee, immediately identifies a line of fire and puts his finger on the trigger.
In the faint light from the west-facing window, he can just see that it’s a young woman tied to a chair.
Her blonde hair is tangled, and she has tape over her mouth.
She stares at him and starts to rock violently, making the chair legs hit the floor rhythmically.
‘Caroline?’ Joona says.
77
The bound woman stares at Joona with wide eyes. She has dried blood under her nose, and tape has been wound around her arms and ankles.
‘Caroline?’ Joona repeats. ‘Don’t be scared. I’m a police officer, and I’m here to help you.’
Behind her on the dining table there are open tins with spoons in them, crackers and a large container full of water.
‘What the hell is this?’ Jack whispers.
The boathouse isn’t insulated, and a cold draught is blowing through the cracks in the floor. A window covered by a net curtain lets in dim light, and they see a pulley and a lifting hook hanging from the ceiling. On one beam brass lanterns and ropes are hanging. Along one wall is a trunk, and at the far end they can see varnished doors of a large tackle cupboard.
The young woman is shaking her head in terror, and tears start to stream down her cheeks.
‘Don’t be scared,’ Joona says. ‘I’m a police officer.’
He puts his pistol back in his holster and walks slowly across the creaking floor. The wind is pushing hard at the single-glazed window. Joona turns and looks back at the door to the kitchen, letting his eyes linger on the motionless shadows before going over to the woman.
Carefully he removes the tape from her face. She coughs and flexes her mouth several times before raising her head and looking him in the eye.
‘I’m going to kill you,’ she says quietly.
The sea laps beneath them and the chair legs scuff the floor as she rocks in an effort to get free.
‘Oscar thinks you’re going to rape me, but I don’t.’
‘No one’s going to rape you – we’re police officers.’
‘You don’t look like police officers.’
‘Where is Oscar?’
‘I have nothing to do with this,’ she whispers with a desperate look in her eyes. ‘I don’t even know Oscar. I just want to go home. I don’t care what you do to him.’
The floor creaks oddly beneath them and the spoon in a tin of ravioli starts to shake with the vibrations.
‘Tell me where he is,’ Joona repeats calmly.
‘There,’ she replies, nodding her head over her shoulder at the varnished doors.
There’s a weird ticking sound and Joona sees a little white light flicker inside the built-in cupboard, like a mobile phone flashing, only faster.
‘Is he armed?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know, but I don’t think so,’ she replies.
Joona moves towards the closed doors.
The whole room is creaking, like a taut rope.
Joona holds his pistol aimed at the cupboard, glances back towards the kitchen again, then takes a few steps back to get a better view of the entire boathouse.
The floor creaks.
Aiming directly at the doors, he looks quickly at the bound woman, the empty pulley block up in the roof, and Jack, who is approaching along the side of the dining table.
There’s a scraping sound beneath the boathouse, like wood being dragged across wood. The draught lifts a tuft of blond hair from the floor.
Jack takes a step forward, holding back the hook on the end of the chain beneath the pulley in order to get past.
‘I’m almost there now,’ Joona says towards the cupboard. ‘Can I ask you, please …’
There’s a loud crash as two huge trapdoors open up beneath Jack. They drop away abruptly, slam into the wall below and bounce back a short distance.
Jack falls through the hole in the floor, but is still holding onto the chain that runs through the wooden block.
The hook flies up and latches into the pulley.
Jack’s fall is abruptly halted and he yells out loud as his shoulder is dislocated.
Tables and chairs splash into the dark water below him.
Jack is swaying precariously, but manages to hold on.
The door to the cupboard opens and Joona sees Oscar rush out with a glass bottle in his hand with a burning rag stuffed in the top of it.
Oscar throws the bottle at Joona, but it hits an old pulley hanging from the roof instead. The glass shatters with a crash, and burning petrol spatters the woman taped to the chair.
She catches fire instantly, and Joona rushes over and pushes her in the chest with his foot. She topples backwards, the chair hits the edge of the large opening in the floor, and she tumbles into the water.
Oscar screams something and tries to light another petrol bomb, but his lighter won’t produce a flame.
Joona counts the seconds as he runs across the narrow strip where the hinges of the left-hand trapdoor are attached.
The woman sinks into the black water, her hair billowing around her.
Joona’s jacket snags on something and he almost loses his balance as he pulls himself free. He throws one arm out and grabs the curtain.
‘Leave me the fuck alone!’ Oscar screams.
The lighter sparks again just as Joona reaches the other side and rams his lower arm into the side of Oscar’s neck, making his head jerk back and sending his glasses flying.
They both crash into the wall and Joona drives one knee up into Oscar’s ribs, yanks him sideways, twists his own body in the other direction and flips him over his hip.
Oscar crashes to the floor with a groan, opens his eyes and stares up at the roof in confusion.
The bottle rolls over the edge and down into the water.
Joona knows that time is running out as he drags the man away from the cupboard.