The Rabbit Hunter

  Rex stops then walks off, unbuttoning his soaking wet jacket as he heads towards his own suite.

  When he opens the door it sounds like someone’s taken a deep breath.

  The wind outside might have caused a difference in air pressure, he reasons as he pulls his boots off in the dark hallway.

  He walks out into the main room, and has just pulled his jacket off when he realises that someone is standing in the corner behind the lamp.

  The yellow lampshade is hiding his face, but he can see light glinting off the blade of a hunting knife.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ a voice says behind him.

  Rex turns and sees James aiming his hunting rifle at him.

  ‘No sudden movements now,’ he says. ‘Put your hands where I can see them, slowly.’

  ‘What are you—’

  ‘I’ll shoot, I’ll shoot you right in the face,’ James yells.

  Rex shows his empty hands and tries to figure out what’s going on.

  ‘Kill him,’ Lawrence whispers from the corner behind the lamp.

  ‘Where’s your rifle?’ James asks, waving the barrel at him.

  ‘I left it in some trees,’ Rex replies, trying to sound as calm as possible.

  ‘And your knife?’ Lawrence hisses. ‘Where’s your knife?’

  ‘In my belt.’

  James takes a step closer and stares at him with a fevered look in his eyes.

  ‘Loosen your belt and let the knife drop to the floor.’

  ‘Shoot him instead,’ the other man says, shuffling his feet impatiently.

  ‘I’m unbuckling it now,’ Rex says gently.

  ‘If you do anything stupid you’re dead,’ James warns, resting the rifle against his shoulder. ‘I promise you. I’d be only too happy to shoot you.’

  ‘He killed Kent,’ Lawrence says, in a louder voice.

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ Rex pleads.

  ‘Shut up,’ James shouts.

  Rex unbuckles his belt and the weight of the hunting knife pulls it onto the floor beside his leg.

  ‘Kick the knife over here,’ James commands.

  Rex kicks the knife, but it rolls only a metre across the carpet before coming to a stop.

  ‘Kick it again!’ James says impatiently.

  Rex moves forward and kicks it harder, sending it over to the armchair.

  ‘Now back away and get down on your knees,’ James says.

  Rex takes a few steps back and kneels down.

  ‘Shoot him,’ Lawrence repeats. ‘Right in the forehead.’

  ‘So you seem to think I had something to do with Kent’s death?’ Rex says tentatively.

  James marches over and strikes him in the face with the butt of the rifle.

  It hits his right eyebrow, his neck jerks and his vision fades for a few seconds. Rex slumps sideways. The pain throbs and burns.

  ‘You were in our zone!’ James shrieks, holding the barrel to his temple. ‘I’ll shoot. I don’t care what happens …’

  ‘Shoot him!’ Lawrence calls in a gruff voice.

  ‘I was looking for Sammy,’ Rex gasps.

  ‘Where the hell are our phones?’ James asks, pressing the barrel harder against his head.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t touched them,’ Rex replies quickly. ‘But I have an iPad in the suitcase on my bed. We can call for help on that.’

  ‘Shut up,’ James snorts. ‘You know perfectly well that there’s no fucking Wi-Fi …’

  The door opens and someone comes into the room.

  ‘Dad?’ Sammy calls into the dimly lit suite.

  ‘Get DJ!’ Rex shouts to his son before the next blow hits him.

  He falls onto his back, raises his head and sees that Lawrence has already reached the hallway.

  ‘Sammy!’ Rex gasps.

  Lawrence grabs his son by the hair, drags him across the floor and hits him across the face with the handle of his hunting knife. He forces Sammy down onto his stomach, sits astride him, pulls his head back by the hair and puts the knife to his throat.

  James is breathing faster now, and closes his mouth and moistens his lips before standing over Rex, and pressing the rifle to his forehead.

  ‘This ends here,’ he says. ‘Understand? This ends here. You’re done. Getting your revenge doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make anything better.’

  The barrel is shaking and James steadies it by pushing it harder into Rex’s face.

  ‘We didn’t know what we were doing,’ James goes on. ‘It just happened. We knew it was wrong, but we’re not bad people, we were just young and stupid.’

  ‘You don’t have to apologise,’ Lawrence shouts at James.

  ‘What did you do?’ Rex gasps.

  ‘I’d never rape anyone. It wasn’t me, it was Wille … and the whole fucking school looked the other way. We all knew that, because no one cared what we did in the Rabbit Hole.’

  ‘You’re talking about Grace?’ Rex says.

  ‘Shoot him! Now!’ Lawrence pants.

  James turns the gun around and hits Rex in the face with the butt several times. The room vanishes with each blow, only to reappear hazily before fading again.

  ‘Dad!’

  Rex hears Sammy scream as more blows strike his face. It’s like something from a different world. His mouth hurts, and one eye. He’s tumbling into darkness. He tries to resist, but loses consciousness.

  His head is throbbing when he comes to. His face is sticky with blood, and his wounds are stinging. He can vaguely tell that the men are tearing strips of cloth and tying his arms behind his back. He hears them hunting through his things, and realises that they’re looking for the phones.

  ‘I’ll go and check the boy’s room,’ he hears Lawrence say.

  Rex tries to turn his head to look at Sammy, but he can’t move. He tries to shout, but he can’t get any words out. The only sound that emerges is the bubbling of blood in his throat.

  104

  Four security guards from Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Centre led Saga to the gates where they waited for the police to arrive. They gave an account of the intrusion and handed her over to the two police officers.

  Saga dozed off on a bench in the police station’s holding cell. She wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone.

  The following afternoon she was moved to a windowless interview room. She still wasn’t allowed to make any calls, but a female officer took down all the names and contact numbers Saga gave her.

  Towards evening, when they began to realise she might actually be telling the truth, the FBI were called in. But because their offices had closed for the day she was taken back to the holding cell, where she slept on a hard rubber bunk.

  It’s nine o’clock in the morning when Special Agent Jocelyn López arrives at the custody unit. She already seems over-caffeinated, and she somehow looks even more unhappy than last time.

  ‘Did you like the hotel?’ she asks once she’s signed Saga out.

  ‘Not much.’

  They leave the police station in silence and get into López’s silver Pontiac.

  ‘I need to borrow a phone,’ Saga says.

  ‘To call your boss?’ López asks as she starts the car.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve already spoken to him, several times.’

  ‘Then you know that I need to make a call,’ Saga says.

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘It’s important.’

  ‘Bauer, you Swedes might be good-looking, but you’re not very smart, are you?’

  Saga doesn’t know exactly how the incident has been resolved between the various authorities, but it seems clear that the Swedish side has guaranteed she’ll go back home without causing any more problems.

  López leads Saga Bauer into Terminal 1 of O’Hare International Airport, thanks her for her cooperation and pins a large badge of a smiling onion with the words ‘My Kind of Town’ on her jacket.

  A transport officer assumes responsibility for her de
parture. He seems very good-humoured, and as he takes her to check in he says he’s been watching a television show about Vikings.

  The lines at security are long. After forty-five minutes they’ve reached only halfway. The police officer gets a call on his radio, replies, then looks over towards the escalators before turning to Saga.

  ‘I have to go, but you’ll be all right, won’t you? Your plane leaves in four hours. Grab a hamburger and keep an eye on the boards for your gate number.’

  He forces his way back through the crowd and hurries off, talking into his radio.

  Saga moves slowly forward in line.

  Her phone has been destroyed, so she has no idea what Joona has found out about Rex and Oscar.

  It’s possible that more people have died because she got stopped before she had time to talk to Grace.

  She’s not going to cause any more problems. She’ll head home, but first she just needs to get out to the rehab centre one last time, and then somehow call Joona.

  Something happened during the rape that Grace hasn’t told her.

  There was someone else in the Rabbit Hole.

  Could he be the murderer?

  Saga apologises and pushes her way back through the crowd, slings her bag over her shoulder and walks out of the departure hall.

  The man behind the counter at the car-rental firm looks oddly hopeful when he sees her come back in.

  ‘Not a chance,’ she says before he has a chance to open his mouth.

  She rents a Ford Mustang, like last time, and starts to drive back to the treatment centre.

  Chicago’s suburbs are laid bare in the grey light.

  The gates of Timberline Knolls are open and Saga drives straight past the security lodge and pulls up in the visitors’ car park.

  She bypasses reception and half-runs between the main buildings, cutting across the grass lawn she crept across in the darkness not all that long ago, to get to Grace’s building.

  She opens the door and walks straight through the cafeteria, where a few patients are having lunch, knocks on Grace’s door, and walks in without waiting to be asked.

  Grace is sitting with her back to the door, just like last time, staring out at the beautiful rhododendron bush behind the building.

  The white pill bottle is on the floor by the woman’s feet.

  ‘Grace,’ she says gently.

  The woman’s breath forms a patch of mist on the glass, and she wipes it off with her finger before breathing on the window again.

  ‘Can we talk?’ Saga says as she comes closer.

  ‘I’m not feeling very well today,’ Grace says, and slowly turns around. ‘I think I’ve taken three, I should probably get some sleep …’

  ‘Is three pills too many?’ Saga asks.

  ‘Yes,’ the slender woman says.

  ‘Then I’ll call for a doctor.’

  ‘No, they just make me tired, that’s all,’ she mumbles.

  Grace opens her thin hand to reveal more of the pink capsules, then picks one up and raises it towards her mouth before Saga gently stops her.

  ‘That’s probably enough now,’ she says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t want to upset you,’ Saga says. ‘But when I was here last time, you told me about the Rabbit Hole, and what the boys did to you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Grace says in a low voice.

  ‘Did anything else happen in the Rabbit Hole?’

  ‘They hit me, I fainted several times, and …’

  Grace falls silent and starts to pick at the buttons of her cardigan with trembling fingers.

  ‘You fainted, but you’re still sure that all the boys took part in the rape?’

  She nods, then puts her hand to her mouth as if she’s about to throw up.

  ‘Shall I call for help?’ Saga asks.

  ‘Sometimes I take five pills,’ Grace replies.

  She looks at the window and runs her finger through the condensation, making a squeaking sound. Saga sees a couple of women in nurses’ uniforms approach along the path from the right.

  ‘Grace? You say you’re sure they all joined in, but …’

  ‘I remember everything,’ the woman says with a smile. ‘Every little mote of dust in the air …’

  ‘Do you remember Rex?’

  ‘He was the worst,’ Grace replies, and looks at her through half-closed eyes.

  ‘You’re sure? You saw him?’

  ‘He’s the reason I ended up there. I trusted him, but he …’

  Grace rests her cheek against the wall, closes her eyes and lets out a silent burp.

  ‘Did he go with you to the clubhouse?’

  ‘No, they said he would be coming later.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘Have you smelled the stench that comes from a rabbit hole?’ Grace asks, gets up and walks over to the armchair. ‘It’s only a tiny opening in the ground, but down below there’s a whole labyrinth of dark passageways.’

  ‘But you didn’t see Rex, did you?’ Saga asks patiently.

  ‘They kept pulling at me, none of them wanted to wait … they were growling, all dressed up with big white ears …’

  She rests her hands on the back of the armchair and rocks forward – it looks like she’s nodded off in the middle of a thought.

  ‘You wouldn’t rather lie down on the bed?’

  ‘No, it’s OK, it’s just the pills.’

  She slowly tries to settle down on the armchair, but when there’s not enough room for her to curl up she gets to her feet again.

  Saga can hear knocking and cheery voices, and realises that medical rounds are underway.

  ‘Grace, what I’m trying to say is that memory is a complicated thing. Sometimes we think we remember things because we keep repeating them to ourselves. What would you say if I told you Rex wasn’t there, because—’

  ‘He was there,’ Grace interrupts, one hand fumbling across her neck. ‘I saw … I saw at once that they had the same eyes.’

  ‘The same eyes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You had a child,’ Saga whispers, and a shiver runs down her spine when she realises that the child is the unknown factor that Joona had been talking about.

  ‘I had a child,’ Grace repeats quietly.

  ‘And you think that Rex is the father?’ Saga asks, shaking her head.

  ‘I know he is,’ she replies, brushing away a tear. ‘But I didn’t tell Mum and Dad … I spent three weeks in the hospital, and said I’d been hit by a truck, and that all I wanted was to come back to Chicago …’

  She wobbles again and puts her hand to her mouth.

  ‘I … I should probably lie down,’ she whispers to herself.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ Saga says, guiding her slowly across the floor.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says, and sinks onto the bed, lies down on her side and closes her eyes.

  ‘Did you give birth alone?’

  ‘When I realised it was time, I went out to the barn so I didn’t make a mess,’ she says, blinking tiredly. ‘They say I became psychotic, but to me it was reality … I hid myself away in order to survive.’

  ‘And the child?’

  ‘Mum and Dad used to come some weekends, and when they did he would have to take care of himself, I used to hide him in a cot … because I had to be indoors, sit at the table, sleep in my bed.’

  Grace reaches to open the drawer in the bedside table. She puts her hand in and closes her eyes for a few moments, gathering her strength before pulling out a framed photograph and handing it to Saga.

  In the picture a young man with a shaved head is squinting at the camera. He’s wearing sand-coloured combat fatigues, and a bulletproof vest and is holding an MK12 by his side.

  He’s the unknown factor in the rape.

  The man in the picture has burned his cheeks and nose in the sun.

  On his shoulder is an oval black and yellow badge, bearing an eagle, an anchor, a trident, a flintlock pistol, and the words ‘Seal Team Thre
e’.

  The Seals.

  ‘Is this your son?’

  ‘Jordan,’ she whispers with her eyes closed.

  ‘Does Rex know about him?’

  ‘What?’ Grace gasps, and tries to sit up.

  ‘Does he know you gave birth to a child, and that he’s the father?’

  ‘No, he must never know,’ she says, and her mouth and chin start to tremble so much that she has trouble speaking. ‘He has nothing to do with Jordan. He raped me, that’s all. He must never meet Jordan, he must never look at him … that would be awful …’

  She sinks back onto the bed, puts both hands over her face, shakes her head and then lies still.

  ‘But what if he wasn’t there?’ Saga starts to say, but breaks off when she realises that Grace is asleep.

  Saga tries to wake her, but it’s impossible. She sits down on the edge of the bed, checks her pulse, and listens to her regular breathing.

  105

  DJ sits down heavily in one of the armchairs in the foyer and leans back against the headrest. The rain is drumming on the windows and roof. On the table in front of him lie three of the five hunting rifles.

  His heart is beating far too fast and his body is twitching spasmodically. His neck tenses, as if someone were holding it tightly. His narcolepsy threatens to overwhelm him.

  He’s destroyed all the phones, the wireless router and every computer in the hotel.

  He’s trying to think strategically, keeps asking himself if there are any other preparations he needs to make, but his thoughts devolve into peculiar fantasies each time.

  DJ was planning on finishing them all off inside the enclosure, but only managed to get rid of one of them because of the storm.

  He had stood in front of the deep ravine, watching the rain sweep in towards the valley.

  Over the course of nineteen minutes, Kent Wrangel had begged for his life something like a hundred times, and had sworn he was innocent almost as often.

  DJ hadn’t wounded him particularly badly, just stuck his hunting knife into his stomach, just above his pubic bone, then held his shaking body upright on the edge of the deep ravine.

  He stood there with the knife in Kent’s stomach, explaining why this was happening.