"Victor?" I asked. I was confused as well. Usually Victor kept that notebook close to himself and he hardly even let me look at it. "Victor? What is it, buddy?"
Victor didn't speak, he just stood with the notebook between his hands pointing it towards Morten.
"I think … Do you think he wants me to take it?" Morten asked.
I shrugged, slightly baffled. "I have no idea. Usually, he never lets any of us look in it, but maybe he likes you. I don't know."
"Should I take it? I don't want to do something wrong."
"With Victor, it's hard to know what is right and wrong," I said.
Victor took a step closer still with the book pointing towards Morten. Now it was touching his arm.
"I think he wants me to take the book," Morten said.
I inhaled deeply. "Is that what you want, Victor?" When he didn't answer I looked at Morten. "I think you're right. Just take it."
"Okay," Morten said and grabbed the book. As he put his hands on it, Victor let go and stormed out the room without a word. Morten looked at me.
"Was it wrong?"
I chuckled. "No. If it was wrong he would have screamed. Storming out the room is when Victor is happy. Probably going into the yard to play." I sipped my coffee and smiled at Morten. "He must like you. That's a good sign."
"But what do I do with it?"
"You read it. He wouldn't have given it to you if he didn't want you to read it," I said.
Morten chuckled, then put the book carefully on the table. He opened the front and started flipping through the pages.
"Makes no sense, right?" I asked and took another piece of bread from the basket. I buttered it and put jam on it while Morten kept flipping the pages. I realized he seemed to be interested in what he was reading.
"Actually, it makes perfect sense to me," Morten said.
I almost choked on my bread. "It does? How so?"
"It might be hard to believe, but before I was a cop, I was a scientist. A biologist and expert on animal echolocation."
"Really?"
"Yes. I worked at Aalborg University. We observed bats and …"
"Bats?"
"Yes you know how they use echolocation to find insects or animals, even when it’s dark? That's what we tried to identify and survey with the hope of being able to help blind people use this technique."
"So what you're saying is that what Victor has written in his notebook has something to do with bats and echolocation?" I asked, startled and stared at the many numbers and charts.
"This looks exactly like my work, except it seems to be much more accurate. I can't believe your son wrote this?"
Morten looked at me like I was trying to trick him or something.
I put my hands in the air. "I have no idea what it is. To me it is nothing but letters and numbers."
Morten shook his head in disbelief. "I don't understand this. How?" he looked at me for explanation.
I shrugged. "I have no idea."
"How could he have done this?" Morten asked. "How would he know how to depict the sounds? Did he draw this? These charts and numbers showing the bats’ vocalizations? How can he hear them? Bat calls are in a frequency mostly beyond the range of the human ear."
I was about to drink from my cup, but put it down to not drop it. "Are you telling me he heard this?" I asked.
Morten shook his head. He flipped more pages and stared at them. "I have no idea what I'm saying. It's impossible. Yet I have never seen anything like this. But how would he write these things without the proper instruments? Some of the sounds bats make, we can hear, but not the ones he depicts here on these charts …" Morten paused. He looked at me again.
"I had no idea. I thought it was just random numbers. He hardly ever lets me look at it."
Morten nodded. Then he smiled. "You know what?"
"What?"
There is no way that kid could know these things that people go to university for years to learn. I think he must have copied it from somewhere. Maybe he just picked it up from the Internet or something and then copied it in his book. That has to be the explanation. Yes, that is probably it."
I sipped my coffee pensively while nodding, but not agreeing. I knew my Victor too well. He heard them alright. That was why they kept him awake at night. And by giving the notebook to Morten, he was trying to tell us something.
33
February 2013
THOMAS HADN'T SLEPT in days. Only an hour here and there on the couch. The rest of the days and night he used to try and locate Ellen. After he had been knocked out by the police officers on the day Ellen moved away, they had thrown him in jail and kept him for twenty-four hours. When they let him go, he could hardly walk and had to spend three days in bed to recover from his bruising.
They had told him they were keeping an eye on him and that he should stay away from Ellen and, if he tried to find her, they would beat him up again.
But Thomas didn't care. They could beat him all they wanted to. He wasn't going to give up on his great love. Life was simply not worth living without her. At first, he had tried to locate her via Facebook. That used to work, but now her account had been closed and he couldn't find a new one under her name or anything similar. Thomas figured the husband and the police were behind all of this. They were the ones keeping Ellen away from him and it hurt him so badly to know that she was somewhere out there all alone with no one to protect her from that husband of hers. It tormented Thomas that the husband could do with her as he pleased from now on. Day and night, he kept imagining all the bad things that husband of hers would do to her.
When Thomas recovered, he went to her house and broke into it going in through the small window in the basement, like he used to. First he went through the bedroom upstairs, but it was completely empty. It saddened him deeply to see this vacant room that reminded him that he had lost his beloved.
In the kitchen, he found an old garbage bag that they had left behind. Thomas went through it in the hope of finding a note, a receipt or something else to indicate where they were holding Ellen prisoner.
But he found nothing. After hours of combing through the entire house, crying while thinking about what he had lost, wanting desperately to get it all back again, he finally left the house and went back to his apartment.
The next day, he took the car and drove around town to see if he could find any trace of Ellen. He cruised slowly around in all the residential neighborhoods, looking for moving trucks, boxes in the front yard, anything indicating that someone had just moved in. He stopped at a house where the front yard was a mess and a moving truck was parked outside. He observed the house all day until the owners came home. Since it wasn't Ellen or her husband, he drove off.
Now it was almost a month since he had last seen Ellen and, as the days passed, he felt more and more sick. He was throwing up at night and could hardly eat during the day. He felt like his body had given up. Without his beloved, it simply refused to function. He still observed the house from across the road. A new family had moved in. A couple with two children, a young boy and a teenage girl. Rasmussen was their last name. Thomas had been observing the woman Lisa for several days in a row, but somehow it just wasn't the same. She wasn't the same. She wasn't Ellen. He kept comparing her to Ellen and she kept falling short. Lisa was pregnant and about to give birth any day now. But she wasn't nearly as radiant as Ellen had been when she carried both her children and she didn't carry the baby as elegantly as Ellen had done. She was well fit, yes, but clumsy and not graceful the way Ellen had been. Lisa was obsessed with cleaning and eating healthily; Ellen had never been any of that. As a matter of fact, Thomas grew more and more annoyed with this Lisa-person as the days passed, simply because she wasn't anything like Ellen and she could never replace her, no matter how badly he wanted her to. He started fantasizing about killing her, about stabbing her and yelling at her how incredibly ANNOYING she was and that he was doing the world a favor by removing her from the planet. He wanted to te
ll her she could never be anything like Ellen, that she could never take her place.
Thomas looked out the window and spotted the mailman as he approached Ellen's old mailbox. Then it struck him. If anyone knew where Ellen was, it had to be the mailman. He would know her new address, wouldn't he? Knowing their local mailman, he knew he would definitely know. He knew where everybody lived on the island and he knew where to send Ellen's letters.
Thomas grabbed his hammer, stormed down the stairs, and waited till the mailman entered Thomas' building.
"Well hello there, Thomas," the mailman said when he spotted him. The door shut behind him.
"Hi there," Thomas said, then lifted the hammer in the air and knocked the mailman out.
He dragged him upstairs to his apartment where he tied him to a chair and waited for him to wake up. When he finally did, Thomas pulled out his toenails one by one with a pair of pliers, until he finally gave him the new address. Thomas swung the hammer again and killed the mailman with one stroke.
Then he set fire to his apartment and drove off into the night.
34
November 2013
NORA FELT SOMETHING touch her skin and opened her eyes. Then she screamed. It was dark and something was on her face. It felt like it was licking her. Nora screamed again. What was this? An animal of some sort? She tried to knock it off with her fists and it left, sounding like it flew off. Nora moaned in pain. Her body was hurting so terribly. What had happened to her? She tried to see, but it was so dark where she was. Once again, an animal touched her on her back. Its claws scratched the skin. Nora screamed again and moved around to get it off of her.
A light came on and Nora could finally see where she was. She blinked her eyes quickly to try and focus. What was this place? A garage? And what was it that she was in? A cage of some sort? Nora finally managed to focus correctly and spotted twenty or thirty bats hanging from the ceiling.
Nora gasped. She hated bats. No it was more than that. She loathed them and was terrified of them. Had they been on her body? Had they been licking her face? Nora touched her lip and smeared blood on her fingers. She could hardly move her body because of the excruciating pain she was in. She tried to sit up. She could hardly remember what had happened to her and tried to recall the night before.
I remember being in my bed and not being able to sleep. Then I walked in to check on the baby and then … then outside in the hallway I heard something …
"Lisa!" she said out loudly. "Lisa?" she yelled. "Are you here?"
"No, but I am," another voice said.
Nora looked in the direction of the voice and spotted a man. He was walking closer to the cage she was in.
"Who … wh … who are you?" she asked.
"Does it matter who I am?" he asked with a grin.
"Why are you keeping me in here?"
The man laughed. He kneeled next to the cage and looked at her like she was an animal. "Because I can," he said.
"Please let me out of here. I'm terrified of bats."
"Are you now? Well, isn't that just peachy?"
"What do you mean? Why have you brought me here?" she asked, trying to pull herself up by the wired fence.
The man looked at Nora like he was examining her. "Some bad bruises you got there, he said. I could hardly recognize you when I found you. Did that bastard of a husband do this to you? Did Erik beat you up again, huh Nora?"
"How do you know my name? How do you know my husband's name? Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?"
"Back to the whys again, are we? I thought we covered that," the man said. "Do try and keep up here, Nora."
"What? I don't understand. Please, just let me out of here." Nora pleaded desperately. "Where is Lisa? Did she put you up to this or what is going on? Lisa? Where are you? It's not funny anymore."
The man sighed. "Do try to move on, Nora. Lisa is not here. And we're already behind schedule, so we'll have to move slightly faster; I hope you realize that."
"What schedule? What are you talking about?" Nora asked, feeling tired and confused.
"My schedule. I was supposed to have you already yesterday afternoon. I was waiting for you in the parking lot, but you weren't alone when you came out, were you? So I had to get you in your house instead. I had to risk so much for you, Nora. Just because that guy was with you. That Tim fellow. Yeah I watched you two meet up in the alley behind the café. I saw him kiss you. Both of you are pretty pleased with the fact that I killed his wife, aren’t you? Now you can finally be alone, huh? It's what you wanted isn't it? Both of you. Well too bad, that is not going to happen either."
"You're the one who killed Simone?" Nora gasped. "Who are you? How do you know about me and Tim?"
The man giggled loudly. "Let's just say I've been watching you."
35
November 2013
"THE WOMAN IS still alive."
Morten sounded tired on the phone. I was sitting in front of my laptop working on my book when he called.
"The woman you pulled out of the car last night is stable. They just called from the hospital. She is in a coma, but they think she might survive."
I leaned back on the couch filled with such a relief. "Boy, am I glad to hear that. Who is she?"
"Her name is Susanne Arnholm. She's a local girl from Nordby. She has two children. A man found her baby in a parking lot inside her car the day before yesterday. He called the police, and my colleague Allan, who was on duty, went to Susanne's house and found her other kid home alone. She had walked home from school when her mother didn't show up. Apparently, there is no husband. He died a year ago. Allan knows Susanne's mother who lives nearby and he brought the children to her."
"Oh my God. Are the children alright? How long was the baby in the car?" I asked.
"I don't know. But my guess is someone kidnapped Susanne from the parking lot. I can see no other explanation to why the baby would end up alone in the car."
"You've got a point. What's frightening is that it’s just like in the other case. They found that baby in the car as well, didn't they? In a parking lot?"
"Yes," Morten said.
"Is someone targeting mothers?" I asked.
Morten sighed. "It sure sounds like it doesn't it? There’s no doubt it’s the same guy. Susanne was covered in animal bites and shot three times as well. In the shoulder, in the leg and in her back. My guess is, the killer thought she was dead before he drove her into the water."
"The car stolen too?" I asked.
"Yes. Just like before. The car was a Land Rover, also. It was stolen a month ago somewhere outside of Aarhus."
"A month ago, huh? Someone has been planning this for quite some time."
"Yes. So it seems. "
"What about the plumber? Any news about him?" I asked and spotted Sophia through my kitchen window. She was crossing the road with her baby in a sling on her stomach. She seemed upset as she was walking towards my house.
"No nothing. But as long as he doesn't turn up in a car in the water, I assume he has nothing to do with this."
"Could he already be in there at the bottom of the sea?"
Morten exhaled. "I … I really hope not. We're still searching for him. I'm actually trying to track down his whereabouts today. It would be great to rule him out as one of this killer's victims."
"He doesn't quite fit the profile of the others," I said and walked towards the door when Sophia came closer.
"No he doesn't. You've got that right. But get this. Another woman has been reported missing this morning. This time it’s someone I know very well. Nora Willumsen is her name. She works here at the station as a secretary. Her husband reported her missing this morning. She was in bed last night, he said but this morning she was gone and hadn't taken the baby with her. He found blood on the kitchen floor and we have someone out there looking at it right now. The problem is, the husband is known to slap her around every now and then, so if something happened to her, he is our main suspect, the bastard."
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"Nora?" I asked, startled. "I think I know her."
"Well if you see her, then please let us know. I really don't want any more of these women ending up in the ocean at night. Listen, I gotta run. Busy day here at the station. Everybody was called in today. Even Tim, the poor creature. Well, at least it was good news about Susanne Arnholm. Back to work. Talk to you later."
I hung up just as Sophia stormed through the door to my house.
"Susanne Arnholm was the woman in your mothers’ group, right? The one who didn't show up yesterday at the hairdresser, right?"
Sophia looked at me without blinking. "Yes, she is, why? Is she dead?"
I shook my head. Sophia breathed in relief. "No," I said. "But she is in a coma at the hospital in Esbjerg. Someone shot her and tried to drown her, just like Simone." I paused and gazed at her. Baby Alma was sleeping heavily in the sling. "Nora is in your group too, isn't she? Nora Willumsen who works at the police station?"
Sophia nodded and put her diaper-bag down on the floor. "Yeah. She's the one who hardly ever says anything. Why?"
"Well I have a feeling someone is targeting members of your mothers’ group. Nora went missing this morning."
Sophia looked like her heart had stopped. "What are you saying?"
"First it was Simone who was killed, right? Then Susanne was shot but survived, now Nora is missing? The only connection between them is the fact that they all have babies and they're in the same group as you."
Sophia sat down on one of my kitchen chairs with a sigh. "You've got to be kidding me."
"I might be wrong, but it is kind of strange, don't you think?"
"But why? Why would anyone target us? We're just a bunch of stupid women with babies."
I grabbed a chair next to Sophia and sat down. "That's what we need to find out. Who else is in your group?"
"Lisa. Lisa Rasmussen. She and I are the only ones left."
"I guess we better talk to her then."