The Preacher

by Sander Jakobsen

Genres: Action & Adventure

Synopsis

'You will never find me.' Thorkild Christensen stares down at his murdered wife, Karen, and realises he knows almost nothing about her. How did she fill her days? Where did she disappear to every Thursday? Lead investigator Detective Thea Krogh is determined to find out. And then a second woman is shot dead. There is seemingly nothing to link the two victims, and the police move on, desperate for a lead. But someone out there has a deadly secret. And as events begin to play out - masterminded by a strange and bewitching figure - all of their worlds are about to come crashing down . . . An ingenious thriller from an exciting new Danish talent. Will you guess the secret to unlock the killer twist?

Release date: November 28, 2013

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 449

Sample

The day they released his wife’s murderer from the East Jutland State Prison, Thorkild Christensen was ready outside.

It was a September day in Denmark, blue but surprisingly cold. He was wearing an oilskin coat and had found a pair of mittens from last winter in its pockets. He could see his own white breath in the afternoon light, he had stood there for such a long time.

This was the day his wife’s murderer would be released. He’d been able to discover the date from the newspapers, but not the time. So he had brought food with him in the car, which lay untouched in the old ice-cream container he used as a lunchbox, and a thermos of strong coffee. He’d been parked at Enner Mark from eight o’clock in the morning, his eyes fixed on the prison which, he thought, looked like a typical Danish high school. It had, together with the harsh September sun, given him a violent headache.

A taxi pulled up in front of the main entrance at 16.12, and he knew that the moment had come. Hurrying across to it, he got in the back seat and asked the driver to wait. He registered the shadow of the person he was waiting for emerging from behind the prison doors. A black silhouette approaching. He was backlit. Thorkild Christensen squinted, focused, but had to give up and turn his eyes downwards. Damn headache.

When the man opened the door of the taxi, Thorkild noticed an almost imperceptible hesitation, a faltering in the elegant motion with which the man jumped in next to Thorkild. The man’s gaze was relaxed, with a hint of amusement.

And Thorkild was filled with regret. Regret that he now provided his wife’s killer with this pleasure. He cursed himself for not having anticipated precisely this reaction. But then he resigned himself to it – it could not be otherwise. He had waited a year for this. Finally it would happen.

Here they were. Two strangers, yet very connected.

There was a long pause, one that Thorkild Christensen deliberately prolonged. He would do anything, anything he could to make the man beside him lose his composure. He failed, with the exception of a small glimmer of impatience in the other’s voice.

‘Where to, Thorkild? I suppose it’s your taxi, even though I called for it. You sat here first.’

‘Århus. If that fits with a free person’s travel plans. I’ve something I want to show you.’

‘As long as it involves a cup of coffee. I need one.’

He’s not afraid, Thorkild thought. Not in the slightest. He’s not bothered about being in a car with me. The blood rushed to his brain, making the headache pound twice as hard. Nausea. He breathed deeply. It’s just provocation, he reminded himself. Nothing more. Everything this man says is calculated to provoke. I mustn’t rise to the bait. Maybe inwardly he’s trembling with anxiety.

The idea gave him strength. He handed the taxi driver his depleted credit card in advance. The man beside Thorkild shrugged his broad shoulders.

‘Suit yourself. It’s a long trip to Århus. I was only going to Horsens train station.’ He paused, then continued: ‘Aren’t you supposed to wave a Danish flag when you pick someone up from prison? I saw it in a film once.’

Thorkild turned his head and looked the man straight in the eye. ‘You find this amusing? Really?’

Again the man shrugged his shoulders. ‘Why not? As I said, it’s a long trip to Århus. You’re not looking too good, Thorkild.’

‘That’s quite possible. And I might say the same of you, by the way. A year in the shadows has leached some of the colour from you.’

The man chuckled. ‘There wasn’t much shadow, I’m afraid. The prison is divided into five living quarters they call villages. I mean, for God’s sake, the most beautiful green areas. Wonderful light in the textile workshop. Brand-new community centre – you could almost smell the wet paint. Not to mention the cultural events; there was a trio from the Århus Academy of Music who played Arvo Pärt every Thursday evening. It was positively ludicrous. Karen would have loved those concerts. It’s part of the Prison Service’s idea of a so-called normalisation principle. It’s a vision, a beautiful vision. Or mission, I can never tell the difference between such consultancy concepts. Can you? One is what you do. The other is what you dream about doing.’

‘I believe I’ve read,’ said Thorkild, suppressing his anger over hearing his wife’s name mentioned, ‘that you spent some time in the section that they use for the negative inmates. How was the light in isolation?’

The man’s face closed up. He looked regretful, his voice sounded almost disappointed: ‘I wanted to experience it, simple as that. That particular part of the world. It’s the first time I’ve been in prison. And it will be the last. This is what you have not quite accepted, Thorkild. I suppose that’s why we’re here.’

Thorkild thought it over, considered his options and decided that the truth and genuine, raw emotion would be the best strategy. He had spent each day of the long, hard year that had passed contemplating this meeting. He’d played the various scenarios out in his head, one by one, deciding on one and then rejecting it for an alternative. Formulated a game plan, staging what would happen. And somehow he had still wound up here, in the plush seat of a taxi with pounding heart and temples, speaking the truth that was right in front of him.

‘Yes. That’s why we’re here.’

He chose a café in the inner city, letting the taxi drive them straight to the door and signing the credit-card receipt without registering the staggering amount. Then they stood in front of the doors, both men staring at the tables inside, the steaming glasses of coffee, the candles in heavy, painted glass holders. There was soft jazz playing.

It felt like a date. Thorkild started giggling almost hysterically and for the first time he sensed uncertainty in the man next to him, emanating from his body. The discovery was like a soothing poultice on Thorkild’s sore head. It felt so good that he stopped with his hand on the door and took a deep breath, liberated.

The other man noticed and asserted control.

‘And if I don’t want to come?’

‘Then you don’t come. Then you get the hell out of here. Auf Wiedersehen.’

‘What is it that you think I owe you?’

‘Not a damn thing. Apart from the coffee. And half of the taxi fare, if we’re being fair. But fairness sure as hell doesn’t count when you are involved, does it?’

The glimmer of amusement returned to the man’s eyes.

‘Ah, the quest for justice – that’s the Thorkild I remember. When did you start to swear? You are still a vicar, aren’t you? So I owe you nothing, huh? But all of this is about debt, isn’t it? That’s what you want from me, right? Honestly, I can’t be bothered with an embarrassing scene—’

Thorkild stepped close to the man and hissed: ‘You are coming with me. And you are coming with me now. And you will do so because ten wild horses could not drag you from the pleasure of seeing me suffer and lose my temper. Because you have nothing better to do at this moment. Because you need a decent cup of coffee. And because I’m not about to sit here and plead with you. You think I’ve underestimated you. I have not. I know exactly what you are willing to give. And you are damn well going to give it to me. You are coming because it interests you. Because I interest you. And because it’s cold as hell out here.’

The man laughed. ‘OK, yes. But let’s get moving, eh? People are starting to stare. I bet there’s a reason why we have come here. What is it, Thorkild? Was it Karen’s favourite café?’

Thorkild nodded towards a table. ‘Even better. This was where I first met her. And this is where I proposed to her. I thought you would appreciate the pathetic irony in me bringing you here.’

The man looked at Thorkild as if seeing him in a new light. ‘Certainly, Thorkild. Certainly.’

The man drank his coffee, a full glass, revelling in long gulps of the boiling liquid. He gestured for another with a sigh of contentment. ‘Lovely. Really nice. You were right, Thorkild, I needed this. And to see people around me who are at the upper end of the normality scale. It would certainly make the good people in Prison Services happy to see their clientele here. Well chosen, I must say. And for courting, too! I can just picture you two back then, comely Karen and yourself in one of those velvet jackets people wear at the Divinity School. Did you get down on one knee?’

Thorkild glared at the man, making no attempt to disguise his anger. ‘That’s too cheap. To make fun of the people we used to be? I didn’t expect that from you. Obviously I’ve overestimated you. You’re nothing but a sadist. Are you trying to provoke me into attacking you? Fine, say the word. But I’ll be damned if you get to sit here and make derogatory remarks about her. You took her life.’

Thorkild stood up. The man waved, a deprecating gesture.

‘You misunderstand. And I apologise. Listen to me, Thorkild, for it’s probably the only apology you’ll ever get from me. I meant it affectionately. With respect. I didn’t despise Karen. But I realise that it could be misunderstood. It was…’ he searched for the words, ‘badly put. Clumsy.’

Thorkild sat down again. They drank coffee in silence until the man started to fidget with his fingers, drumming on the white paper tablecloth.

‘You brought me here, Thorkild. What is it you want? Do you have more questions?’

‘More questions? Such as, why did my wife have to die? Why did they all have to die?’

‘Like that, yes.’

Thorkild shook his head. ‘I suppose it’s too much to expect, that a single year in the ambient surroundings of prison would give you the insight that you might owe me an explanation. That there are many explanations owed.’

‘That’s not fair. You were given ample explanation the last time you and I saw each other. So no. There is nothing more to add. If you cannot accept that, it’s your problem, not mine. Unfortunately.’ He opened his hands with a gesture of regret. His eyes seemed sincere. Thorkild held his gaze for a long moment, the other didn’t blink.

‘Aren’t you afraid that I’m going to kill you?’

‘No,’ replied the man.

‘But I will.’

‘No. You won’t. So I ask you again: what is it you want?’

Thorkild emptied his coffee cup. ‘I want to know what you’re going to do next. Where will you go? What are you going to work on? I want to know how your life will be from now on.’

The man looked surprised, then he laughed, heartily. ‘Is that so? My dear Thorkild, how sympathetic of you, even though your motives are hardly sympathetic. I probably don’t need to tell you that that’s not going to happen.’

‘A lifeline,’ whispered Thorkild, suddenly desperate. ‘Something. An address. A telephone number. You cannot simply disappear now.’

They looked at each other.

‘I don’t get it, Thorkild,’ the man said. ‘What I do has no meaning for you now. None whatsoever. Close your eyes and sleep tight.’

‘Are you leaving?’

‘Am I leaving? What difference does it make if I’m leaving?’

‘I want to know. I just want to know.’

‘Are you sure it is … wise, so to speak? Good for you? Move on with your life now. Forget me. I have received my punishment, I’ve served my time.’

‘Served your time? You should have served twenty years!’

‘Nothing I have done justifies that kind of punishment. I have the court’s word for it. The system you believe in so strongly. State of the evidence.’

‘That trial was a farce.’

‘I agree.’

‘But you don’t want to be forgotten,’ said Thorkild. ‘And you don’t want to disappear. You want me to know where you are. Don’t waste our time. Give me what I’m asking for.’

The man sat there for a while. Nodded slowly. Then he wrote a phone number down on a coffee-stained napkin.

‘And who do I get if I dial that number? Alcoholics Anonymous? A call girl? Your local pizzeria?’

The man looked put out. ‘You asked me not to waste time. Dial the number.’

Thorkild fished his worn, old-fashioned mobile phone out of his pocket and dialled laboriously. A chirping ring tone sounded from the man’s breast pocket. ‘There, you see? A lifeline. A strange choice of words, Thorkild. Preferably during normal office hours, OK? Can I go now?’

‘Yes. You know what I’m going to say.’

‘Probably. So don’t say it.’

There was a long pause during which all the café’s sounds concentrated around the two men. Then Thorkild spoke, slowly and distinctly, as to a child. ‘You must leave her alone. All the fear you have created. Don’t pursue her any more. Do you hear me?’

‘Her?’ the man said and got to his feet. ‘I will hunt her until I have her.’

He stood up, neither slowly nor quickly, put on his overcoat and disappeared into the darkness, an imposing silhouette against the glittering city.

Thorkild sat there for some time without moving, his head throbbing again. It dawned on him that his car was at the prison, way out in Enner Mark. It was a long way home.

Only when he got up and grabbed his jacket did he see the man’s mobile phone. He had left it on the table.

It takes a while before the shooter approaches the woman on the ground.

It was quick. Fortunately.

The shooter’s eyes were closed when the shots were fired. Now they can see that they hit where they should. The woman on the ground is bleeding heavily from her chest. She’s already far away, barely breathing, her gaze distant.

The shooter comes up to her and breathes with a shiver, gives a wild shake of the head, knowing there’s no time to lose. It’s only half-light, but in theory someone could come walking down the trail at any minute. Panic and nausea lodge in the throat. This was not where it was supposed to happen. But this was where they had come face to face. The shooter and the woman who now lies on the ground.

The blood seeps into the dust on the trail, and the shooter hurriedly kicks a little gravel over it. But it is futile.

Away, away – hurry. The shooter grabs the woman’s army green jacket, which is open. Pulls. It is unreasonably heavy, heavier than the shooter could ever have imagined. This isn’t working. There are bubbles emerging from the woman’s chest and from her mouth, which is half open. Her eyes flicker. The shooter lets go of the coat, startled. But grabs it again, spins the woman around, into the reeds and the tall dewy grass beside the path.

The shooter lets the woman lie and runs, sweating with exertion. Returns with the car, which is too wide for the narrow path. Tows the body and hauls it into the car. When the woman is turned around, her eyes are closed.

The shooter plunges both hands into the blood-soaked soil, which is turning into ochre-coloured mud, scoops it up and throws into the car on top of the woman until there is no blood left on the ground.

The sun is almost up.

The construction site is abandoned, and the shooter brakes hard, gravel spraying from the tyres, and parks behind a bulldozer. In front lies the creek. Is it deep enough?

The shooter’s every fibre is taut with strain, listening for sounds, fighting the rising nausea, sick with fear. As the woman is hauled from the car, her head hits the sandy ground with a crunch that makes the shooter moan out loud before setting off down towards the river, the body trailing behind. Finally the body is rolled into the water.

As she hits the water the woman opens her eyes again in a last breath. Her face trembles in a cramp. Then she closes her eyes again.

Shaking violently, the shooter puts a gloved hand on the woman’s shoulder and pushes. The body slips out into the water with a sigh. It’s supposed to be sinking. Why doesn’t it sink? Instead, it settles at the water’s edge, rocking gently in the current. The woman’s body is like a small dam; the water rises up along her belly. And now it flows over her with a delicate little trickle. The caking of blood and dust in the woman’s hair loosens and dissolves in wine-coloured swirls.

She rocks back and forth. Is she dead?

Not a breath of wind. Then, a wood pigeon cooing.

The shooter looks up and sees the figure, standing on the far side of the creek. Two pairs of eyes lock for a few endless seconds. Then the outline of this other person fades in the mist. Gone.

The shooter bites hard into their lip to keep from crying out loud. Their hands will not stop shaking.

At first it was just a feeling. A feeling and an image on the retina. An image formed before consciousness took over to give it a more sensible explanation. Maybe it was his holiday reading – crime fiction – that led him to see it that way. Maybe it was the Danish late summer’s heavy rain that clothed everything in gloom, causing the soil to send out fumes and odours, making things appear strange and full of foreboding.

The creek in Roslinge, which was normally emerald green with pondweed, glittering and friendly, suddenly came sliding out of the mist all quiet and pale. The raindrops were scattered but heavy, making holes in the grey surface. It looked deeper than it was.

Thorkild Christensen saw something in the water. He’d popped out of the house to get a breath of morning air, clearing his thoughts for Sunday’s sermon. And what he saw reminded him of a human arm. A summer-brown arm with the elbow sticking out of the water, the ends bent downward. He quickly dropped the image. Decided that it was probably one of the brown PVC pipes used in sanitary installations, the sort of thing that sometimes landed down here with other debris from the construction site up on the hill. Thorkild shrugged, inwardly at least, and went inside to resume his writing. It was only six a.m., he was a morning person. The vicarage was silent.

It was not until some time later that he noticed the conspicuous silence. Not that she ever made much noise. But this was a new silence. He called out for Karen. Unconcerned at first. And then, with the process that we all follow when we find that we’re missing something important: keys, wallet, sunglasses. We look in the obvious places. We abandon the search, deciding that the item will probably turn up, and then we go back later when we think of a place where it might be. As the possibilities are exhausted, we become worried. Maybe we will save the most obvious place for last in order to maintain hope. And so it can take a long time before we admit to having lost something.

And that is what happened to the vicar, Thorkild Christensen, on the fourth weekend in August. It was not until Sunday afternoon that he allowed himself to feel fear.

The last place he checked before he systematically began to make phone calls to friends and acquaintances in the town was the bathroom that had been hers since the children had grown up. Went in there, feeling lost, and looked at the small signs of her. A space of understated femininity, much like Karen herself. Her favourite, practical soap, which she always rinsed after use to get rid of leftover foam. It used to amuse him. The room was tidy. A jar of hair accessories, a small woven basket with a single mascara, lip balm with only a hint of colour. Crisp and clean white towels neatly hung up, so unlike his own, always scattered over the floor.

It was ridiculous to suppose that she would have stayed here for that long, but he had avoided the room in order to have a place for hope, a place that would keep the creeping sense of anxiety away. Reluctantly he phoned Michael and Nadia, trying to sound casual. Instead, his voice was stiff and his words clumsy. They hadn’t seen their mother, and it was pretty much the one thing Thorkild had been almost sure of from the start. The trips to Copenhagen to visit their grown-up children were one of the few things he and Karen had continued doing together, enjoying together.

The last person he called was the local police officer.

When a death is suspicious, it is always a noisy affair. Detective Thea Krogh stood on the sidelines and took in the scene. A few technicians were helping the local police officer, Bjørn Devantier, to retrieve the corpse from the water. They had done their best to cordon the area off. The entire marsh area surrounding the creek, which was a continuation of the parsonage garden, was surrounded by red-and-white plastic tape. No wonder people are drawn like flies when crime-scene tape is the same colour as sales signs, she thought. It seemed a shame. Because even when death resulted from a crime, it was still a person who had passed away, a life abruptly ended, and that should call for silence and respect.

She lay on a white tarpaulin beside the creek.

The local police officer’s latex-clad hand lifted the woman’s arm.

‘Look,’ he said, his face colourless.

Thea was one step away. The body had been distorted by the lukewarm river water. Everything expanded into a slightly larger version, bloated yet without being grotesque. Eyes, fingers, toes, skin characteristics. The bullet wounds, jagged flesh around tissue, were white at the edges and decay was already working its way inside.

Bjørn Devantier let the arm fall with a thud on the tarpaulin. ‘Shot. Three times, as far as I can see. And the bullets have gone through. Where did your technician go? I suppose she wants access? She’s strong as an ox, that one, I doubt I could have hauled the body ashore without her. What’s her name?’

Thea nodded. ‘Alice Caspersen.’

The crime technician approached with her little suitcase. She stopped and pulled something from her inside pocket. Only then did Thea register the smell.

The woman’s unruly hair, stained with mud from the river bed, gripped like fingers on the white plastic. Her skin’s summer tan had been transformed by death to a white transparency, cold and distant, round and voluminous from the water penetrating every pore. Limbs like a rag doll, painfully bent and twisted. The policeman shook his head.

‘Where is the vicar?’ Thea said.

‘He hasn’t shown himself since I arrived. He’s up in the parsonage, I expect. He … I don’t think he came too close, fortunately. Good Lord, it stinks.’

‘Yes,’ said Thea. ‘It’s probably better that way.’ She looked down at the broken remains.

The local policeman sighed. ‘It’s not clear-cut, I can assure you – the vicar’s wife. I have nothing on the family, and water is the worst. It washes everything away. The techs say they hate water bodies. But then again, who doesn’t?’

Alice Caspersen stood up and blew a red strand of hair away from her mouth with a snort.

‘No bullets in her. So you know at least that. For starters.’

Bjørn Devantier rose from the tarpaulin and walked up the hill.

The slope down towards the river was the perfect arena. The stage at the bottom, then the stalls filled with curious people – mostly women – from the village, and at the top behind the fence, as if in a theatre box, the vicar suddenly appeared. Thea looked at him and felt sorry for him.

He stood there in isolation. He, who had probably taken part in quite a few people’s grief, standing all alone. Once the body was taken away, the crowd would dissolve and turn around. And it would only make him feel even more alone, Thea predicted.

She sighed. Before long, it would be her job as lead investigator to cast aside pity and approach him as a possible suspect. Most murders are committed by those who are closest. Spouses kill each other, enemies and lovers kill each other, we’re all capable of killing when whatever had existed between us is killed. And that Karen Simonsen was killed was beyond doubt. Three shots had penetrated the torso.

Thea squinted to get a better look at the vicar. Greyish hair, deep furrows in his face that indicated not only had he passed fifty but he’d endured another kind of life experience that went beyond mere age. Black clothes that resembled neither mourning apparel or pastoral everyday wear. It was smart black. Urban trendy. He stood out, in one way or another. Deviating from the small town’s standard repertoire of cheap jeans, fleece gilets, overalls, Icelandic sweaters, mouse-grey old women’s coats, scarves over grey hair. In the midst of all this stood the black-clad vicar, looking out over the field with eyes that sparkled, Thea could tell it from a distance. His shoulders drooped, he looked lost. As if that way of carrying himself was ingrained in him, as if he was a man who throughout life had felt too high in relation to the surroundings.

She lowered her eyes and began to systematically memorise the various individuals who had been standing along the cordon. This was her workplace for the forseeable future, here in Roslinge. There was probably no other setting that would cause the villagers to gather in the same way and offer her the same overview. Not the church. Possibly the local grocery shop on a Saturday morning. There didn’t appear to be any other significant institutions. But she probably wouldn’t even make it to Saturday morning before the crime was solved. On the contrary, these things were usually concluded quickly. Reality is not as fancy as the novel’s twisted universe. Reality is full of men who go down to the local post office in clogs with a toy gun in hand and rob 550 kroner and a toy mailbox made of tin for their grandsons, only to be caught twenty minutes later, at home, on the couch. This would probably turn out to be the case here, too. The easiest way to kill is with a gun. It’s not difficult, requires no muscle or special expertise. You can almost look away while you do it, and thus it is the easiest way to get yourself to do it if you’re not an experienced killer. One who aims for the torso is probably an inexperienced shooter who chooses the safe bet. Three shots is security. One or two shots in the head is the work of a professional. Four or five shots or more, distributed over the body, is an act of aggression. Three shots in the torso is the first-time killer who needs to be sure that he will succeed. The trickiest part is obtaining the gun. And for the same reason, shootings are the easiest to solve, because it really is all about finding the gun.

Thea Krogh had a plan ready in her head. The technicians would search the area for the murder weapon, the doctor would do the autopsy, her investigators, together with local officers, would question most of the town’s inhabitants, while she herself would interview the vicar. Wednesday morning they would meet and paint the picture together, and the same afternoon hopefully – no reason to believe otherwise – arrest the vicar’s wife’s murderer.

The first thought that occurred as the calm fell over him was that Karen would be sad to see what they had done to the garden and the house.

The second thought was that he felt lonely.

It was only in his third thought that he registered that Karen had died. Thorkild Christensen stood at the window in the living room, gazing out over the garden. He stood there for a long time. And saw nothing.

There was enough to see, though. An uproar of voices shouting and calling out foreign names. Squeaking voices in mobile phones, voices shouting out of windows, in through doors and up and down the stairs. Voices that searched, agreed and coordinated. Voices that changed the house. And because the heavy hall carpet had been rolled up to make room for equipment and dirty shoes and dusty suitcases, there were new sounds, harder sounds, long sounds. Humans and the stuff they brought with them. Machinery and bodies moved around each other in a subtle choreography, making discoveries, conclusions, establishing facts for the investigation, finding traces of anything. Outside and inside, the garden and the house had been invaded. Nooks that were not used to seeing sunlight were bathed in the cameras’ flashes. Garden paths that Karen had recently raked were torn up by busy boot heels. Corners that had never seen dust filled up with gravel and sand that was hauled in but not removed.

Then, once again, calm spread its wide blanket over the vicarage. At the end of the day it lay messy and disturbed, but silent. Only the red-and-white police tape that stretched across the garden was still somehow noisy.

It was Sunday night. The same day they had found Karen in the water.

Thorkild stood there. Dizzy, confused and with an inferno of sounds and impressions that violated his senses. But without a single thought in his head. All day, he had been asked to find things, move, explain himself. Not questioned outright – they had avoided that until now. He’d stood there, like an immovable tower, seeing it all. His body had sensed and recorded it, the distance to reality dulled by death itself.

Slowly he began to move. He moved around the house with heavy, laboured movements. Gradually he regained his ability to think, his mobility, the pull of his emotions. And while the heaviness lay upon him, Thorkild tried to comprehend.

The mobile phone in his pocket rang. He dug it out and refused the call, then fiddled with it for a while to put it on silent; he was not great with technical stuff. One rash push of a button and he managed to open a list of his outgoing calls. He wondered about the latest – Michael. He could not quite recall their conversation, but the display showed that it had taken him just four minutes and forty-three seconds to inform his son of his mother’s death.

Michael had offered to call Nadia, his sister, himself.

Th