The Forgotten Girls (22 page)

T
HIS TIME
L
OUISE
didn’t notice the old sawmill or the other houses because Eik was driving so fast down Bukkeskov Road that rocks sprayed from underneath the car. She had her eyes fixed on the tall chestnut trees around the gamekeeper’s house.

Louise had called Mik from the car to briefly update him on their interview with Lillian Johansen and share the information that they had dug up on Jørgen Parkov and the family’s background.

“He lived here back when the first series of rapes happened as well,” she pointed out.

But she had been unable to answer one of Mik’s questions:

“What about the intervening twenty years?” he had asked. “Doesn’t it seem unlikely that he would take that long a break and then pick back up where he left off?”

When they pulled up in front of the gamekeeper’s house,
the gate in the fence as well as the front door were both wide open.

“Something is not right,” Louise said to Eik when she noticed Jørgen’s rake in the middle of the courtyard.

She tore off her headset and hurried toward the house while calling Bodil’s name. The place was eerily quiet. The only sound was from a bird, which flushed from the thatched roof. Her heart was beating fast as she placed her hand on her gun and slowly stepped into the hallway. There was no one in the living room and not a sound to be heard from the rest of the house. She nodded to Eik, signaling for him to proceed to the living room while she headed for the kitchen.

Empty. Two used dishes were left on the table along with an empty milk glass. There were crumbs on the table still, and the butter had not been put away.

Louise continued slowly toward the door to the room behind the kitchen; then she quietly pressed down the handle and opened it.

T
HE ROOM WAS
shaded by a large tree in the yard and a cool, faintly perfumed scent hit her nostrils as she stepped into Bodil’s bedroom.

Bodil was sitting in a rocking chair between the two windows facing the garden. She was holding a heavy piece of knitting, a pair of large headphones covering her ears while she rocked mechanically back and forward.

Louise registered her tense breathing and loosened her grip on her pistol while she watched the older woman’s focused work with the knitting needles. She called her name a couple of times before walking over to position herself in front of the rocking chair.

Bodil gave a little start. She looked up and as she removed her headphones, Louise could hear the classical music that had filled her ears. She didn’t speak. She only stared up at Louise with sad eyes while her hands stopped and then dropped limply into her lap.

Louise squatted down in front of her.

“Where’s Jørgen?” she asked.

The woman pressed her lips together and shook her head.

“Bodil,” Louise said, this time a little more sharply. “I need to speak with him and it would probably be best if you were there, too.”

Bodil’s chin quivered and her lips trembled.

“He’s not home,” she said almost inaudibly.

Louise placed a hand on the armrest of the rocking chair and stopped its movement.

“Where is he?”

“In the woods. I told him he had to bring back the lady.”

“Which lady?” Louise asked, standing back up.

“The one he brought home.”

“Who’s that?”

“The one from the woods that everyone is looking for,” Bodil answered without meeting Louise’s eye.

“The runner?” Louise asked. “Has he been keeping her here?”

“Yes. Down in his room.”

L
OUISE SPRINTED OUT
of the bedroom, through the kitchen, and into the living room. She registered Bodil following her to the small hallway leading out to the back of the house, where a solid oak door separated Jørgen’s section from the rest of the house. Louise contemplated the heavy bolt at the top of the door. The bolt was unlocked, and the door was open now.

The front room was Jørgen’s bedroom. It was larger than Bodil’s, and one wall was lined with long shelves on which small cars were neatly displayed. Not just Matchbox cars but real collector’s items.

Louise quickly continued toward the small room in the back but stopped abruptly when the stench hit her. Both windows were open yet the smell was nauseating and acrid. The only object in the dark chamber was a bed, and on it was a crumpled sheet soiled with urine and feces. For a second she felt completely paralyzed as she let the impression sink in; then she walked to the bed and picked up a rope from the floor. It was tied to the headboard.

“Has he been keeping her tied to the bed?” she asked without turning around.

“Jørgen was always good at knots,” Bodil answered. She walked over to the mattress and started folding up the sheet. “That smell will probably be hard to get out, don’t you think?”

Louise bent down and looked under the bed. There were more ropes and rope snippets but nothing else.

“Jesus,” she whispered, straightening herself up. Through the open windows, she heard Eik’s swift footsteps moving across the gravel of the courtyard; a second later he was by the door.

“You’ve got to come over here really quick. There’s something you need to see,” Eik said, his voice sounding grim.

L
OUISE SPRINTED AFTER
Eik toward the barn, which was attached to the main house at an angle. The black double barn door was open, and from the courtyard she could see the bars in front of a horse pen.

Eik grabbed her and put a finger to his lips. He held on to her arm as they stepped inside the barn. It was dark in there and the air felt cool. The only source of light came from two crescent-shaped barn windows facing the courtyard.

“She’s in there,” he whispered.

They walked together to the two horse pens located side by side. Both doors were decorated with hand-painted signs that said
LISEMETTE.

Louise looked inside the one that Eik pointed to and gasped.

She estimated that the pen was about six by ten feet. The woman lay on a bed pushed up against the partition wall to the other pen.

They stood there quietly and watched her. She lay motionless, her eyes closed, and next to her on the pillow was a doll with blond hair. The only part of her that was visible was her severely battered face, which was swollen and bloodstained. Next to the simple bed was a small nightstand with a rose in a tall water glass. Against the brick wall on the opposite side was an old grandfather clock and a low table with an embroidered table mat. Two flower plaques hung on the wall along with a heavy painting in a gilded frame. Louise figured that the decor probably came from the old merchant’s villa in Rungsted.

Louise grabbed the lock on the door to the horse pen and carefully slid it open. She slowly opened the door and waited to see if the woman would react. She didn’t stir.

Louise didn’t say anything as she tiptoed toward the bed and looked down at the woman’s closed eyes and the large wounds on her forehead. Eik stayed in the barn corridor.

“Don’t wake her,” Bodil said behind them. She was standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips.

“What’s been going on in here?” Eik asked, turning to look at her.

“Jørgen’s girls live out here.”

Apparently she won’t try to hide anything
, Louise thought. She seemed to be aware that the game was up and now merely waited to see what was about to happen.

“I’ve had to give her some of Jørgen’s medicine to keep her at rest so she wouldn’t keep harming herself.”

“Have they been living out here in the barn since 1980?” Louise asked, appalled, and retreated from the pen.

“Yes,” was Bodil’s only reply.

Louise was conflicted. While the mother in her wanted to protect Viggo Andersen, she had promised to keep him involved and aware of every bit of movement in the case as it
pertained to his daughters. He’d been through so much, and wanted only the truth now. And he deserved that respect. Already holding her cell phone, Louise walked into the courtyard to call him, leaving it to Eik to contact Mik.

“We found your daughter,” she began and quickly added: “She’s alive, I can tell you that. But that’s all I can say for now. Do you want to come?”

He did. She gave him the address, explaining that the house was right by the woods.

“Bukkeskov Road,” she repeated, figuring that it should take him about fifteen or twenty minutes to get there. It was eerie to think that he and his children had been that close to each other through all those years.

“Did you write the twins out of the system so your brother would have something to screw after he couldn’t get his needs met at Eliselund anymore?” Eik asked, standing by the barn door, each word vibrating with anger. “And so you could escape his assaults?”

Bodil looked at him with puzzlement.

“Yes, but we always took good care of them. They’ve had it better here than they ever did at Eliselund.” His anger seemed completely lost on her.

“Was it your brother who raped and killed the child care provider in the woods?” Eik continued, breaking the filter off a cigarette before lighting it.

Finally he got a reaction. Bodil’s eyes wandered and she started pulling away, but Eik grabbed hold of her.

“Why did he take the runner?” Louise asked, walking over to them. “Mette was still here after all.”

“He never laid a hand on her; she’s just a child. It was always just the other one,” Bodil answered as if that made perfect sense. She told them that it was like the time many years ago
when Lisemette had some feminine trouble and was bleeding all the time. “That summer I worked the night shift at the Saint Hans psychiatric center during the weekends, which was lucky because that way I was able to bring home antibiotics for her.”

“The summer of 1991?” Louise asked.

Bodil nodded. “He would steal out into the woods in the morning before I got home. Even though I told him not to.”

“And then he raped the women he came across,” Louise said.

Bodil’s eyes shifted once again before she looked away.

“So how come Mette is in such a state?” Eik asked, gesturing toward the pen. “What did you do to her?”

“She has been difficult ever since her sister disappeared,” Bodil answered, looking at them again. “Unless someone is standing over her, she’ll hit her head against the wall, and she refuses to eat or drink. But that’s what they do when they miss someone.”

“How did her sister get away?”

“Jørgen must have forgotten to close the door. I’m always on him about it because they’re not used to being outside. But when he’s raking, he sometimes opens up the door.”

Louise looked inside the empty pen where the comforter was smoothed neatly across the narrow bed. On top of the white linen were two yellow roses like the ones Jørgen had cut for her on their last visit to the gamekeeper’s house.

The pen was decorated the same as Mette’s with simple antiques and things from Bodil and Jørgen’s childhood home. It was a stark contrast with the rough brickwork of the barn and the peeling wood boards of the horse pens—but the furnishing was undoubtedly well intentioned, Louise thought. At the end of the corridor was an old saddle rack and on the wall
behind it were bridles, which must have been there when Bodil and her brother took over the old farm.

She walked back in to see Mette, who was still lying motionless on the bed, and squatted down next to her. She looked like her sister with the same long, dark hair. Her age did not seem to be taking a toll on her yet. From what Louise could tell, her features were as delicate as her sister’s beneath the bloodied wounds and the swelling that distorted the shape of her head.

Louise checked the woman’s pulse: weak. Then, as she was about to stand up, Mette suddenly started thrashing her head around as if invisible forces were pulling at her from every direction. Her eyes were still closed but her entire body was twitching.

A car pulled into the courtyard. Louise had overheard Eik calling an ambulance and the Holbæk Police Department, but she thought it most likely that Lisemette’s father would be the first to arrive. She went outside to greet him.

Viggo Andersen had left his house so quickly that he was still wearing his slippers.

“Your daughter is in there,” she said, showing him into the barn. “I’m afraid I have to warn you that she has caused herself quite a bit of injury.”

He followed her hesitantly without asking questions, staying tentatively behind Louise as they walked to the horse pen.

“She’s asleep, but I think she might be waking up.”

Just then some restless sounds rose from the bed. Mette thrashed her head to the side again, hitting it hard against the wooden planks of the partition wall. Her arms jerked under the comforter and she emitted a series of mournful sounds as her head fell back once more, her long hair covering her face.

“We’ve already called for an ambulance, and it’s on its way,”
Louise said quietly. She stepped aside when Viggo Andersen asked if he could go in.

His eyes were full of tenderness as he laboriously knelt down next to his restless daughter and put a hand on her shoulder. Softly he started to sing:

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are.”

He gently stroked his thumb over the fabric of the yellowish nightshirt that Mette was wearing. Her chest rose with heavy breaths before she flung her head against the wall yet again.

“Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky.”

From where Louise was standing, it looked as if her breathing was becoming somewhat calmer. She didn’t want to get any closer and risk ruining the father’s attempt at soothing his daughter.

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.”

It was as if sleep embraced Mette once more. Her tense body settled into the mattress a little deeper, and her cheek rested on the pillow.

The father’s smile was heartbreaking as he told Louise he always used to sing that song to the girls at bedtime.

“You found her,” he said and looked down at his daughter again. His hand was still on her shoulder as he quietly started to cry. He let his eyes wander across the clock and the small table. “Someone has been taking care of them.”

Louise swallowed an outburst; this was not the time to share with the father what his two girls had lived through in the past thirty-one years. She realized that the horse pens at the gamekeeper’s house probably seemed like a preferable alternative to death. She could tell that Viggo Andersen had yet to notice that a similar box had been furnished next door, and so she decided to wait to tell him more. He would know soon enough what had happened to his two little girls after they were erased from history.

“The ambulance is here,” Eik said from the doorway.

Louise heard footsteps in the gravel and someone opening the tailgate. Soon after, one of the paramedics stepped into the barn.

“She’s in here,” she said, pointing into the pen. The young man opened his eyes wide and dropped his jaw but Louise stopped his outburst by shaking her head sternly and putting a finger to her lips.

Outside in the courtyard more cars were arriving. She made room as they carried the stretcher across the uneven concrete floor of the barn corridor and indicated to Viggo Andersen to do the same.

“Has she been conscious in the time that you’ve been here?” the young paramedic asked when Louise came back into the barn.

“She’s sedated at the moment,” she explained. “But when she wakes up, you’ll need to be aware that she can get quite restless and…”

“My daughter is severely disabled,” Viggo Andersen took over. “As a child, she would always react very strongly to any situation that felt unfamiliar or unsafe to her. I’d like to ride along with her if that’s possible?”

The young guy was unfolding a blanket, and his older colleague nodded. “Of course,” he said. “Just get in the back next to her.”

The two men wheeled in the stretcher next to the bed and very carefully lifted Mette onto it. She was slight, almost bony, Louise noted when her legs were uncovered. Her body was devoid of muscle tone, atrophied like that of a patient who’d been bedridden for a long time.

As they were about to edge the stretcher back out of the pen, she started moving about restlessly again. The sound that
rose from her throat sounded like an angry growl. The young paramedic shot a startled look at the father, who stepped forward and put a hand on his daughter’s arm. Louise was standing right next to them when Mette opened her eyes and started screaming. Her eyes were darting around the room and she balled up her hands in front of her chest.

Her father started mumbling soothingly, but she swatted at his hands and thrashed her head while the screaming continued.

“Let’s get her in,” the older paramedic announced firmly. He asked Viggo Andersen to step back a little while they pushed the stretcher into the ambulance.

“I’ll strap her in,” said the young paramedic and jumped into the back.

Mette was flailing and her sounds were angry and rejecting. Two long safety belts were fastened around her on the stretcher.

“What medication has she been given and how much?” the older paramedic asked Louise.

“I don’t know.”

She looked around for Eik and spotted Mik.

“Mik,” she called. “We need to know when Mette received her last dose of medication and what it was.”

After they put Mette in the ambulance, she heard Mik inform the driver about the medication. Viggo Andersen had settled in the low seat next to the stretcher. He appeared unaffected by her violent behavior. He gazed unwaveringly at his daughter’s face as he started to sing to her again.

Louise leaned against the timber frame of the barn and watched thirty-one years of captivity come to an end. Behind the father, an IV was being prepared and the young paramedic struggled to place an oxygen mask across Mette’s nose and mouth. They closed the back, and soon after the ambulance pulled out of the courtyard and left.

M
IK WAS GIVING
the group of police officers a quick briefing by the white fence. Louise made eye contact with Eik before he walked over to tell them what they knew about Jørgen Parkov.

“We have confirmation that he was keeping the female runner here until just a few hours ago, when he brought her into the woods. She was alive when they left the gamekeeper’s house but she’s probably in pretty bad shape.”

“We’ve already warned the residents of the woods against Jørgen Parkov and asked them to contact us if they see the young woman,” Mik said, taking over. “And you need to be aware that René Gamst is most likely somewhere out there with a loaded firearm. So be sure to identify yourselves clearly whenever you run into anyone.”