Frost and Ashes (Daniel Trokics Series Book 2) Read online

  Trokic returned to his office and presented the new information to Mathias. "All right, listen. Two of our men searched your room an hour ago and found a cell phone under your bed. Can you explain what you use it for?"

  The teenager turned red and looked down at the table. His arms were crossed, and he was hugging himself tightly as if his body couldn’t hold itself in. The sweltering room stunk of sweat. His teeth were clenched; obviously, he wasn’t going to answer.

  "We found a few clips on it. But that wasn’t really a surprise; we’ve also found your clips on videoglobe.net. Would you like to tell us a little bit about them?" Trokic leaned forward in his chair to establish eye contact with the boy, but it didn’t work.

  "I didn’t kill Lukas if that’s what you’re thinking. Why would I do that?"

  "We’re just trying to get a clear picture about those clips. And, personally, I’d like to understand why people do this. What makes you want to hit someone and film it? I can’t find the motivation for that. Anger I can understand, how that could end up with hurting strangers. Getting rid of your aggressions that way. But is that it? Or is it for the recognition?"

  "I didn’t kill him. That’s all I have to say."

  Trokic bit his lip. He wasn’t going to get an answer. And there was something in the boy’s eyes that didn’t fit with what he was expecting. It was as if he’d opened the boy up and touched something dirty, depraved. He also sensed the boy’s anxiety. Was he scared about the sentence he’d likely receive for hitting the other kids? Or was it something else?

  He took a different tack, along the lines of the next thing they’d found during the search. "Do you take any kind of drugs?"

  After a moment’s pause, Mathias said, "I smoke some pot a few times a week."

  "Which you buy from Poker Johnny?"

  "Yeah."

  "Anything else?"

  "That’s it. I don’t take ecstasy and all that crap if that’s what you mean."

  "No mushrooms, no psychedelics?" Trokic said.

  "No. I don’t even think any of that goes on in Mårslet unless somebody picks the wrong mushrooms in the woods and eats them."

  "Okay. Your teacher says you’ve had serious problems in and outside school. Fighting, that sort of thing. He also says it’s gotten worse this past year. You’ve been skipping school a lot. And flipping out when you are in school. What do you say to that?"

  "They’re a bunch of idiots. I’m sick of school."

  "What do you do when you skip school?"

  "I play computer games."

  "How does your mother feel about that?"

  "She doesn’t know. I keep my window open, and I get in that way. And even if she did find out, she wouldn’t give a damn."

  Trokic fiddled with his pen while he thought about his next move. They had enough to arrest the boy and charge him with assault, but he wanted to get as many details as possible. "You like playing with fire?"

  Mathias’s eyes narrowed, and he made a face. "I hate fire."

  Out of the corner of his eye, Trokic caught Lisa’s warning glance. Someone knocked on the door again, and Jasper stuck his head in. He pulled Trokic aside and closed the office door.

  "They found something else. And it’s worse. Much, much worse."

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  It was the first thing Sidsel noticed when she stepped out into the sunroom that morning. Tracks out in the yard again. Like gray shadows marking the snow that glittered in the intense winter sun. At once, she set down her cup and thermos with coffee and peered out the window. The tracks disappeared around the house. They looked deep like before but clearer, more pronounced. She noticed the snow was beginning to thaw.

  * * *

  She strode out into the hall and put on her boots, coat, and scarf. When she stepped outside, the cold wind blew the swirling icy particles up her nose and onto her face, where they melted. She followed the tracks along the side of the house and into the backyard. It looked as if the person had circled a spot under the ivy next to the living room window, then had backtracked. Sidsel stopped at the ivy and looked up at the house, the brown walls towering above her. Then she studied where the boots had tromped down the snow. Through the melting layer of snow on top, she glimpsed something dark, and she brushed the snow away with her glove to reveal a large metal ring, black but rusty with age. She kicked mounds of heavy, wet snow aside. The ring was screwed onto a wooden door, a hatch.

  After a moment, she decided it must be another way to get down to the basement. She’d just been down there; this must be the larder that Mette already had filled up with pickled rosehip and ginger, elderberry juice, dried herbs from the garden, and a freezer with a quarter of a beef. Where Søren was building a small wine cellar with shelves for each country.

  She sighed in resignation and let go of the cold, heavy metal ring. She walked back along the house, but when she reached the corner, she suddenly realized it couldn’t be right; the hatch was on the south side of the house, while the basement under the kitchen was at the other end. Besides, she hadn’t noticed any other entrance down there. Uneasy now, she walked back to the hatch and pulled up on the metal ring. There was still too much heavy snow on top to lift it more than a crack, so she scraped more off and opened it partway.

  The stink of mildew, urine, and something else–wet coal?–exploded in her face, and she gasped for air. She peered into the murk; seven small steps led down into what looked like an abandoned cellar, dingy and moldy, with whitewashed walls. She hesitated. Maybe she should just leave the cellar to itself and go back inside for a nice soothing cup of hot valerian tea. Later, she could ask Mette what was down there. Or maybe the snow would melt so the hatch could easily be lifted all the way up. It was just that her explorer instinct was awake now. She looked around in vain for a light switch on the filthy walls. The cave looked dark and uninviting, to say the least.

  She was about to give up the whole enterprise when she remembered the small flashlight she’d used the last time she’d gone out for firewood. Without removing her gloves, she fumbled around in her pocket and brought it out. The light was weak and bluish, but it was just enough. She checked out the walls; luckily, there didn’t seem to be any cobwebs.

  Finally, she started down, shining the light carefully on each step and supporting herself with a hand on the cold brick wall. A few of the steps were covered with some sort of thread that she kicked off. Was it fishing line?

  She reached the floor and looked around. The room was about three by four meters, empty except for a few old things. A loom with a wooden bench, an old trunk, and a bicycle that looked like some relic from the fifties. Something had definitely been burned down there, and in one corner, she noticed what was left of a small fire. Who would start a fire in a cellar? Crazy. Then she saw it among the coals and small half-charred pieces of wood. Sidsel froze. The ladybug on the flap of the schoolbag stared back at her in the dim light. Off to the side lay a cell phone on shreds of a blanket.

  Something banged from behind and startled her, and immediately the light above disappeared. It took her a split second to realize what had happened. She turned and looked up; the small cellar door had slammed shut.

  * * *

  Sidsel’s heart raced as she stared at the steps. How was it possible? The hatch was heavy, and she’d needed every ounce of her strength to open it. Then she stared at the school bag. The young boy, Lukas, had been down here. The boy who had been murdered. Her throat tightened–had someone shut the hatch; were they standing outside? She climbed up and listened intently, but it was total silence outside. With both hands, she pushed up against the hatch, and it opened a crack, just enough for the wind to whistle through. But no more. She couldn’t hold it.

  A few seconds later, it hit her how deadly serious the situation was. Not only was she trapped, but for now no one would miss her. And even if they did, this would definitely not be the first place they looked for her. And even worse. What if the boy had been killed here, and
someone outside for some reason was holding her captive? Because she’d discovered this place. And he needed his phone, maybe? The phone there in the cellar underneath all the snow. Which had been ringing, she realized that now–and she thought she’d been going crazy! Desperately, she ran over to the phone and tried to turn it on, again and again, but the humidity and cold had been too much for the battery. She threw it back on the floor.

  * * *

  A loud thump from above startled her. She swallowed; someone had just stepped on the hatch. Definitely. The cellar was full of evidence–the schoolbag, fishing line, maybe even fingerprints. He must be desperate to clean it all up. She looked all around for something she could use as a weapon if it came to that, but there was nothing.

  Something smelled. She raised her face and sniffed. An unusual odor. For a moment, she was confused as it spread and made her nauseous, nervous. Then she noticed the liquid dripping from one edge of the hatch, down onto the steps. The wooden steps. Now she recognized the odor. Gasoline.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Mårslet was breaking free of winter. The ice in the streets and lawns was receding. Here and there a blackbird trilled a few notes, and cars and bicycles ventured out again.

  He stared at Skellegården’s renovated stable and thought about the secrets it held. During the search of the house, Trokic’s colleagues had found a gateway to darkness. But would they also find the answer they were looking for?

  * * *

  "How can you bear to do this sort of thing?" Jasper asked the teacher, as two officers handcuffed her and led her out to the waiting squad car.

  Jonna Riise’s mouth formed a superior smile, though her face was quivering from the rage inside her. "One day, I decided to rid myself of the unnecessary concept of morality. It’s an annoying creation of society."

  The woman kept twisting around between the two officers, so much so that her blouse came unbuttoned. A scar that looked like a landscape of stain over her thin breasts revealed itself in the cold winter air.

  "Jesus Christ," Taurup said. "And a teacher, no less."

  Trokic ignored the woman and entered the house with Jasper on his heels. It felt colder than the last time he’d been there, likely due to the open window looking out on the yard. The officer in charge of the search, Morten Lind, met them.

  "Just happened to find this," he said. He didn’t look happy about his discovery. Trokic swallowed hard when he looked at the long coffee table.

  "We found the photos in a box in the attic closet. We were only going to search the boy’s room, but we noticed the closet and figured we ought to take a look at it too. The warrant only mentions his room, but we decided the closet was part of it. The photos are of her own children." He looked like he was about to throw up. Lind had only been in the department a short time, and Trokic doubted he’d ever been exposed to photos like these. And there were several piles of them. The children were naked. Tied to chairs, radiators, hanging from the ceiling.

  "Right now, she’s been charged with possession of child pornography," Lind said. "And we haven’t even opened her computer yet. Kornelius is going to be plenty busy."

  A minute later, Trokic had seen more than enough. A wave of nausea hit him; he gagged at the thought of what had gone on there. He glanced at the grandfather clock still ticking away. The things it had seen. It all felt anachronistic, a reality that should have stuck to its own time. Back thirty-four years ago, when Eigil Riise had preferred death to what his parents were doing to him. Now he was sure that the photos Lisa had shown him came from here. Why had Jonna gone down the same path as her parents? One thing Trokic had learned during his time as a cop: genuine evil like what he saw here, like what Lukas had met, grew in very few places. Had he found the killer? Had she strangled and burned Lukas?

  * * *

  Except for the three police officers, the apartment was empty. The kids’ bedroom doors stood open, and Trokic peeked into the room of the youngest boy, Frederick. It was small, filled mostly with role-play toys. Half of the shelf was filled with painted figures. A man he’d once questioned who took a special interest in these things had said this was an expensive hobby that required a lot of time and effort.

  His phone rang. Agersund sounded oddly disappointed. "We got the photo back from England. The one from the bakery."

  "And?"

  "It wasn’t what I was expecting."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It’s not a man. We were wrong; the photo was simply too blurry."

  "So, who is it?"

  "It’s a boy."

  Neither of them spoke. Trokic looked around the room and suddenly felt a chill as the pieces began falling into place. His eyes stopped at a sliver of yellow material sticking out of the closet. Something about the color seemed familiar. The world stood still a second, then he rushed over and opened the door. A long yellow scarf fell off the top shelf, and in his mind’s eye, he saw Torben Bach at Forensics plucking out a fiber with tweezers. A thought too horribly far out for his mind to reach before now suddenly appeared.

  "I’ll call you back," he mumbled. He hung up.

  In the sequence of events Mathias had described, Frederick had been with Thomas. Frederick was always with Thomas. He looked over at the boy’s computer on a small table in one corner. It tugged at him like a magnet. He leaned down and turned it on, and a moment later the Windows icon appeared along with the password box. He cursed under his breath, then he turned and hurried out.

  * * *

  "Frederick is with a boy named Thomas," Lind said. "Jonna Riise mentioned that before we took her away."

  Trokic absentmindedly massaged his shoulder with one hand. The muscle was hard as a rock. And it was freezing cold in the room. "He’s probably a classmate. Do we know his last name, did she say?"

  Lind hesitated, afraid he’d made a terrible mistake. "No, she didn’t. But I saw a class list stuck on the refrigerator."

  Trokic and Jasper followed him out into the kitchen, where he pulled off the sheet of paper. "Take a look."

  Trokic glanced down the list. "How old is this? I don’t see any Thomas."

  "That’s strange; it’s from this year. Maybe he’s not a classmate?"

  Trokic pulled out his phone and called the first name on the list. Line, the class teacher. After being put through to a different number a few times, he finally got hold of her and explained what he was looking for. She hesitated a few moments, then said, "We don’t have a Thomas in the class any longer. He left two years ago. His family moved to Kolding because his father got a job at an attorney’s office there, so it can’t be him you’re looking for."

  "What about the parallel class?"

  "There’s no Thomas there either. It isn’t a common name for boys his age, and I don’t think there are any Thomases in the other grades either."

  "Thanks for your help."

  No Thomas. He hung up and stared into thin air. He’d just realized something that made his head feel as if he’d been sucked into a whirlpool.

  * * *

  Back in the room, Trokic looked around again. He opened the closet and lifted up all the stacks of clothes, opened the Monopoly box, checked the racing car cards and the roller skates on the bottom shelf. He looked under the bed, under the sheets, the pillowcase, the curtains in the window. Finally, he pulled all the books out of the shelves and looked behind them. He was about to give up when he noticed the schoolbag on the chair in front of the desk. He pulled out several tattered covered schoolbooks and leafed through them. Nothing. Then he noticed the thin folder. A sketchbook covered with soft leather. It was a bit conspicuous, though it didn’t exactly seem out of place. When he opened the folder, dozens of sheets of paper slipped out onto the floor. Drawings of every sort of subject imaginable. Pictures that told a story. Trokic had a very bad feeling as he picked the first one up.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  The drawing had caught his eye among all the cars, monsters, dragons, soldiers, etc. The sharp
lines made the hairs on his arms stand up. It was surprisingly well-done, a pencil drawing of a small person walking along a field or open area. A gigantic school bag with the imprint of a ladybug hung on his back. The insect had seven dots, circles not filled in all the way, and six thin legs. In the background were trees and something that looked like a stream; further away stood a long building with several windows. It looked like a school. The details were scarce, but the drawing told a story; that much was clear. Farthest away stood a house under a black sky that Trokic thought he recognized: Muspelheim, the name of the house where Sidsel was staying. It seemed to have about the right number of windows, and one of the trees on the south side of the house had also been drawn. Snow crystals fell down from a single cloud in the sky.

  He sat down on the bed and searched through the other drawings on the floor. Several cars: Mercedes, Maserati, BMW. A farmhouse with a horse. A motorcycle. Finally, he picked up a drawing he wasn’t sure he wanted to see, but he studied it under a light. A house, primitively

  sketched, the only colored drawing. In the middle of a square box beneath the house, obviously the basement, an orange-yellow fire seemed to blaze up out of the paper. It stood out among all the black strokes. A boy beside the fire cried enormous tears out big, frightening holes–eyes. His mouth was a small gray line, and his stick arms reached out toward the flames; the schoolbag, again drawn with seven dots, was in the fire. A line of ants marched at the bottom of the picture as if the tears had fallen to the ground and come to life. At the paper’s edge lay an animal, probably meant to look dead. Trokic squinted to make sense out of the lines. Then he remembered something the aide at the club had told him about. The dead rabbit.

  He focused, concentrated, ran all this information through his brain as fast as he could. Was this some sort of cellar in Muspelheim? If so, they’d overlooked it. Though if the entrance was outside, it might be covered with snow. It had begun snowing after Lukas disappeared.