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 Pr?st? 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.
“Anything interesting?”
“No, not really. You’ll have to go down to the switchboard, Arne, and reorganise the system. This isn’t working. I think they’ve deployed some inexperienced people in one of the chains. They’re afraid to make decisions and are transferring calls to me just to be on the safe side.”
“I’ll do that as soon as we’ve finished speaking.”
“We haven’t even started, as far as I recall. What was it you had?”
“Two things. First look at this, I want to show you a video.”
Pedersen had rigged his laptop. Simonsen stood behind him and muttered, “I hope it isn’t long.”
“It will take thirty-two seconds.”
“Okay, what is it we’re looking at now?”