The Killing Forest (2 page)

He caught sight of his father. Sune wanted to run to him, but his body felt like a lead weight. Before he could move, someone from behind pushed him so hard that he almost fell. The men's voices returned as he tried to wrestle free, but whoever held his arm wouldn't let go.

“Fuck her!” someone yelled.

“No! I don't want to!” Sune screamed.

The young woman stepped back and leaned over to pick up her clothes.

Immediately one of the men was at her side. “You're not going anywhere,” he said, ordering her to get back over to Sune.

“No one should force the boy if he doesn't want to,” she said. When she made a move to put her skirt back on, she was punched in the face.

“You'll do what we paid you to do.” He punched her again, and a thin stream of blood ran out of her nose.

Before Sune could react, two strong hands pulled his pants down and dragged him over to the woman.

“You get that dick of yours up and get to work!”

“No, I don't want to,” he whined, shaking his head. His lips were quivering, his cheeks stretched out; he lost all control and began to cry. He bit his lip in a desperate attempt to stop the tears while his father, right beside him now, spoke into his ear.

“Do it, boy. Don't make a goddamn fool out of me.”

The young woman rushed over and shoved his father. “Leave him alone!” she screamed. “You can't force him to do this if he doesn't want to!”

The arms holding Sune relaxed for a second, just long enough for him to pull his pants up and sprint into the forest, away from the bonfire's flames, the torches, and the men. He didn't stop until he was dizzy from the blood pounding in his temples. He leaned over with his hands on his knees and spit on the ground. He gasped for breath as sweat ran cold under his shirt.

The image of the woman's naked body returned to him. Again, he felt an unaccustomed stir down below. He squeezed his eyes shut, but it didn't erase the image of the thin red line of blood. He jerked up at the sound of her screams splitting the darkness.

Reluctantly he stopped, turned around, and began walking back.

By the time he was close enough to see the bonfire's flames through the trees, the woman had stopped screaming. Sune leaned against a tree in shock when he saw why. Her mouth was bound with something white. He couldn't see her face, but she was struggling, desperately.

He tried to force himself to look away, but his eyes locked on to the men holding her. He noticed his father hunched over behind her. Then he zipped up his pants and stepped aside for the next in line.

The young woman kept struggling as the line continued, every man having at her. Each time she pushed or kicked, they punched her, and only when the last man had finished did the two who had held her arms during the gang rape let go. She sank to the ground and lay motionless.

Sune's scream stopped at his throat. Suddenly he was freezing. He ached for the warmth of the fire but couldn't move. He watched the men pull at the woman's arms, shaking her shoulders. Finally the gothi leaned over and felt for her pulse. He let go of her arm and shook his head.

The men gathered at the bonfire. Sune heard them speaking but couldn't make out what they were saying. Then several of them walked behind the van and disappeared into the forest while the rest began to pick up in the clearing.

Sune had no idea how long he'd stood there motionless, staring. All he knew was that the young woman, the same one who only a brief time ago had stood smiling in front of him, was no longer moving.

“We're ready!” someone yelled from behind the van. The gothi walked over to the woman and lifted her. Her arms and legs dangled limply as he carried her into the forest.

Sune trembled. His right foot was asleep, and his leg gave way when he tried to back into the woods. It was as if his brain refused to accept what his eyes had just seen. His body felt leaden, his heart pounded in terror. He knew the young woman was dead; he'd known it the moment she fell to the ground motionlessly.

He crawled a few meters away. Finally he got the circulation going in his foot. It stung. He should run and hide, he thought, but where to? He peered into the coal-black darkness of the forest. A few limbs cracked as he struggled to get to his feet and grope his way through the trees.

Suddenly he heard voices calling his name. He knew they were coming for him. He held his breath and hunched up, then crawled in under some branches on the forest floor.

The voices called again. They were closer now.

“Sune, come on out here!”

It was his father.

“Come out, now, you're a part of this. You can't just run and hide!”

Twigs broke as someone strode by him. He held his breath; then they were gone.

He didn't dare move. Soon he heard limbs crunching, leaves rustling—they were back. He hugged the ground and held his breath again, the forest floor moist against his cheek.

They crisscrossed the area where he lay until he heard a sudden loud whistle. Then another. Like a siren voice in the oppressive quiet of the forest night. The men returned to the clearing around the bonfire as if the search had been called off.

Finally, when the footsteps had disappeared, Sune relaxed. He breathed deeply and turned, glimpsing the moon shining clearly through the treetops. His heart pounded as he prayed to the gods that the men wouldn't find him.

Down by the sacrificial oak, the gothi put his robe back on. The men gathered again. The bonfire was dying out, its flames flickering as darkness overtook the clearing. The men formed a circle, and the gothi closed it. Sune stared at what was being passed around from hand to hand. The oath ring.

The chill of the night spread into his chest as he realized that this was the reason they had been looking for him. He was a grown man now, a part of all this. He had sworn with his blood that he was one of them. They expected him to stand together with his brothers as they took an oath of silence, one they could never break.

L
ouise Rick glanced around the allotment cottage. She had gotten up early to pack and load the car. While on sick leave, she'd been staying in this small, black wooden house in Dragør that she and her neighbor Melvin Pehrson had bought.

She was returning to her apartment in Frederiksberg and her job at National Police Headquarters. Not that the easygoing routine out here she and her foster son, Jonas, had slipped into hadn't been pleasant. In fact, it had fit her frame of mind perfectly. It was exactly what she needed.

Every morning after sending Jonas off to school on the bus, she'd made a pot of tea, packed it in her bike basket, and ridden to the beach with their dog, Dina, running beside her. Dina also went along on her morning swims. Dina had a puzzled look when Louise swam back to land, as if the dog were trying to convince her to stay in the water longer. And once in a while, Louise had the urge to do just that. To swim all the way out and be swallowed by the waves; to disappear. But each time she had signaled to her deaf pet to follow her in.

She'd kept Dina at a distance until she shook off. If the morning was gray and rainy, she would wrap herself up in a thick towel and crawl in under the Scotch roses, gazing out over the sea while drinking her tea. Dina loved to run back and forth across the sand and eat mussels that washed up on the beach.

She'd been on a leave of absence since the shooting at the gamekeeper's house, where a man had been killed while attempting to rape her. But it wasn't the images of her own naked body and the man behind her that haunted her. Nor was it the bullet wound in his head or the blood that had spurted all over her body.

René Gamst, the man who had saved her. The lust in his eyes as he waited to fire the fatal shot, the scorn in his voice when he said it was clear she liked it. That's what she couldn't shake.

But worst of all was what Gamst said about Klaus, Louise's first love, who had hanged himself the day after they moved in together:

“Your boyfriend was a pussy. He didn't have the fucking guts to put the noose around his own neck.”

The words had been echoing in her head since the ambulance drove off with her that day.

The hospital examination had revealed three broken ribs on her left side, but otherwise only scratches and bruises. She was released that evening. Her boss, Rønholt, suggested she take sick leave, and she had agreed, but only because Gamst's words had reached that private place inside her she'd hidden away for many years. Not only from the outside world, but from herself.

She and Klaus had been together since Louise was in ninth grade in Hvalsø School; on her eighteenth birthday he had given her an engagement ring. A year later, after he finished his apprenticeship as a butcher, they had moved into an old farmhouse in Kisserup. Two nights later he was dead.

In all the years since stepping into the low-ceilinged hallway to find him hanging from the stairway, a rope taut around his neck, she had been plagued by guilt. For going to a concert in Roskilde the previous evening and staying over with her friend Camilla. For apparently not being good enough. Because if she had been worth loving, he wouldn't have taken his life.

She'd never understood what had happened that night, all those years ago. Not until Gamst spoke up.

If he were telling the truth, Klaus hadn't slipped the noose around his own neck.

René Gamst was being held in Holbæk Jail. Shortly after his arrest, he had admitted to firing the two shots, and everyone knew he had shot to kill. The rapist had first broken into his home and assaulted his wife, but Gamst claimed he meant to save Louise. He stuck to that story, and it was difficult to prove otherwise—that he had killed to take revenge.

The day before she prepared to move out of the cottage, she had gone through every detail in the case again with Detective Lieutenant Mik Rasmussen in his office at Holbæk Police Station. She wasn't proud of what had happened. Especially when she had to explain how René Gamst ended up with a broken arm. He hadn't said anything about it, and up until then her explanation had been vague. Yesterday, however, Mik had put her through the wringer when she finally admitted that she'd been rough with him after the shooting.

Many years earlier, Louise had been stationed in Holbæk for a short time, and afterward she and Mik had been lovers. He ended it after a big scene, but even though several years and some distance had passed between them, he knew her well enough to know when she was hiding something.

And it came out. The entire story about Klaus and all the years she'd been saddled with guilt. About the reason she had treated Mik badly, and her anxiety about committing: Since Klaus's death, she had entered relationships only halfheartedly.

Louise knew this last confession hurt him, even though he tried to hide it. But she also sensed that he understood her better now.

She described what happened after René's revelation about Klaus: She had kicked the rifle out of his hands, twisted his arm around his back so violently that he had screamed, and thrown him on the ground and handcuffed him.

“But I didn't hear his arm break,” she'd said, trying to forget how it had sounded as she tightened the narrow plasticuffs. “I just wanted him to tell me what he knew.”

Louise hauled the last things out to the car, then went back to see if she'd forgotten anything. Melvin had complained a few times about how high the weeds had grown, but she
had
cut the grass. Actually Jonas had, because he thought the old push lawn mower was fun, and because the whole lawn could be trimmed in ten minutes.

A message came in from Jonas when she pulled out of her parking spot. He had stayed overnight with a friend; they were probably on the way to school, she thought. She missed him. This evening she would hang out with him, lie around on the sofa and order takeaway.

Going home to Nico's and out to see a movie, okay?

Louise didn't see much of her fifteen-year-old foster son these days, and even though she would never say it out loud, once in a while she felt rejected when he wanted to be with his friends instead of her. But before that feeling hardened, she scolded herself, so harshly that any hint of jealousy disappeared.

She was happy that he was doing well; very well, in fact. Recently he'd had a difficult period at school, and she had been seriously worried about him. He'd had enough sorrow in his life. Both his parents were dead, and not long ago he had lost a very close friend. She needed to get a handle on her own loneliness. Which was her fault, she reminded herself, before writing
OK
, followed by a smiley face, a heart, and a thumbs-up.

On her way into town, she thought about what it was going to be like back at the office. The work didn't worry her; questioning looks and, especially, pity from her colleagues did. They all knew what had happened, of course. She just really didn't want to talk about it.

And then there was Eik.

“You go out together, you go back in together,” her partner had said when he wanted to ride with her in the ambulance. But she had said no. She'd crawled into her shell, huddled up with René's words.

Eik had called several times since then, but she hadn't gotten back to him. One day a letter lined with bubble wrap arrived; inside was a Nick Cave CD. She hadn't even thanked him for that.

Louise knew that Eik meant well, but she just couldn't see him. All this about Klaus had simply been too much. So much so that the night she and Eik spent together, right before everything fell apart for her, seemed more like a distant dream than a fresh memory about great sex and the surprising feeling of falling in love.

After parking and turning in the key, she sat for a moment and gazed at the tall windows of her department. Suddenly she felt his presence again, in a way that made her skin tingle.