They all jumped at the sound. Ulrik looked at Per, while breaking into a sweat. His hands were clammy, and it was hard to hold onto the silverware. He kept staring at his baby brother. He could tell how it tore the little boy up to not say anything.

  “You’re just no good, are you?” their father asked Peter.

  Per opened his mouth to say something. Ulrik felt his heart stop.

  “He didn’t do anything bad, Daddy,” Per yelled. “The old man is bad. The old man is very very bad…he deserved what…”

  Before he could finish his sentence, Per was interrupted by a loud yell coming from Ulrik. Ulrik jumped to his feet and ran over to grab his baby brother and toss him to the ground. He held him down while Per yelled and screamed. Their mother started screaming as well.

  “Get off your brother, Ulrik! You’re hurting him!”

  Ulrik let go of Per, whose face had almost turned blue, and that was when Ulrik realized he had been choking him. Ulrik stared into the eyes of his younger brother as he tried to catch his breath, and sensed something had broken between them. Something vital. Per no longer trusted his older brother, and Ulrik no longer trusted him.

  60

  November 2014

  I couldn’t believe what we had discovered. This was all very very strange. Could Dr. Sonnichsen and Dr. R.V. Devulapallianbbhasskar be working together? Were they both living here in this small apartment? Or, what was going on here?

  My hands were shivering in anger as I examined the computer. Morten rummaged around the living room, opening drawers.

  “I can’t believe this!” I exclaimed. “She’s been watching me. Look what I found. Morten appeared behind me, and I showed him what I had discovered. I showed him the videos, the many hours of recordings from my house. “She’s been monitoring our every move.”

  Now I saw the anger in Morten’s eyes as well. “What the hell is this? Did she put cameras up in your house or something?”

  “Sure looks like it. That’s how she knew I’d been hacking; that’s the proof she claimed to have in the article on Facebook. I can’t believe this. I feel so violated, so invaded.”

  “Tell me about it. I mean, she has footage of the two of us…?” Morten said, shocked.

  “I know. It’s really intimidating.”

  “It makes me so angry.” Morten made a growling sound. “I can’t believe this.”

  “The question is, what to do about it?” I said. “We need to figure out if she is any relation to Dr. R.V. Devulapallianbbhasskar, because she’s a criminal and there’s a warrant out for her arrest, am I right?”

  “Yes, you’re damn right. That’s my case, but the woman left the country, according to our investigation. Traveled to Korea and never came back. How is she even in this country without our knowledge? She can’t have come back by plane. I have her picture up in every airport in the country. Even Interpol is looking for her.”

  I leaned back in the chair, while looking at the two passports on the table. “Korea, huh?”

  “Yes, we got her route from the travel agent who sold her the tickets. There was a return ticket, but she wasn’t on board that flight.”

  “Hm,” I said.

  “What?” Morten asked.

  “Could we check who else was on that flight? “

  “You think Dr. Sonnichsen could have been on board instead? You can’t just give someone your plane ticket, you know.”

  “Nah you’re right. Plus Dr. R.V. Devulapallianbbhasskar’s passport is here, so that means she must be too, right?”

  Morten grabbed a chair and sat down next to me. “Yeah. I guess so.”

  I clicked on the doctor’s mailbox and opened it. “But Korea. There’s something that rings a bell for me about that place. Something I read recently. An article about how far they are in South Korea in the technology of transplantations and plastic surgery. Lots of Asian women travel to South Korea to get to look more like us here in the West. You know, the cheekbones, the bigger eyes, the rounder butt, the skin. They want to look like us. And they’re so good at it down there that people have trouble entering their homelands afterwards, because they don’t look like the picture on their passport.”

  “What are you getting at?” Morten asked. “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “What if someone came to them and asked them to do the opposite?” I asked.

  “You mean, turn someone Asian?” Morten looked puzzled. “Is that really possible?”

  “Why not?” I searched the emails, and quickly found several coming from a Korean address. “See here,” I said. “This is a correspondence she’s had with a Korean doctor. He’s helping her get a new passport as well. See what he’s written here. A name and an address. Plus, he asks her if she has experienced any pain since the operation. Look, she wrote back that she is very satisfied with the results, except the nose…she’s a little concerned whether it looks real enough. It’s still very swollen. It all makes sense, Morten. I always thought she looked at little off, that her skin was a little light and her face looked a little strange. But I figured she was only half Asian, that either her mother or father was Danish. I often wanted to ask, but never did.”

  “That’s true. Now that you say it, I can totally see it. You really think she had her face changed?”

  “And now she’s here getting her revenge. It makes sense, Morten. We ruined her career by discovering what she was up to. Now she wants to get back at us. Oh, my gosh, I feel awful. I’ve had her this close to Maya this whole time! Maya, whom she held captive, whom she experimented on with drugs. What kind of a mother am I?”

  Morten put his hand on my shoulder. “It’ll be alright. But now I believe we must hurry out of here before she gets back. We have no idea what she might do if she finds us here.”

  “You’re right. Just let me do one last thing.” I pulled out a USB-drive and put it in her computer. Then I copied everything, all the videos, the emails, everything on the computer to the drive, and pulled it out. “There. If she tries to destroy the evidence, then I have a backup.”

  “I’ve always heard back-up is very important. Now, I finally understand,” Morten said.

  He had barely finished his sentence when my phone rang. It was my lawyer. “Michael has been beat up. It’s bad,” she said.

  “How bad?” I asked anxiously.

  “He’ll live, but he’s in the hospital. He says you and Morten did this to him. He says Morten threatened to kill him when he was at your house. Is this true? This is not good, Emma. He’ll use it against you. Morten might be charged with attempted murder. His lawyer says the two men who beat him up told him they were sent by Morten. When the police in Copenhagen spoke to them, they told them they had been paid by Morten as well. It doesn’t look good, Emma.”

  “But, Morten would never…I would never?”

  “I hope not. But the evidence is pretty strong against you, Emma. It’s getting harder and harder to defend you.”

  61

  November 2014

  She saw them leave the apartment building as she drove onto the street. She parked the car and shut the engine off to avoid attracting their attention. They looked angry. Both Emma and Morten walked with very firm and angry steps. It didn’t take the numerologist many seconds to figure out that they had been to her apartment.

  Her cover had been blown. They knew who she was. They weren’t dumb people. They were annoying and irritating, and she hated their guts, but they weren’t stupid. They knew who she was. If only she had gotten back a little earlier. If only she hadn’t spent all that time talking to that stupid politician in the supermarket, then she would have gotten back earlier, maybe just in time to kill them both in her apartment. It wasn’t how she had planned to take them down, but it would do.

  Now, she had to come up with something completely different.

  The numerologist sighed and looked at Misty, sticking out her little face from the purse on the passenger seat.

  “I think you’re right. We can’t go home. It’s too dangerous.”

  She watched as Morten and Emma drove off, and then started the engine. She had to get out of there. She decided to follow Emma and Morten, to see if she could somehow come up with a great way to get rid of them, but as she watched them drive off to the police station, she stopped and turned the car around. This was worse than she thought. She had to think of something fast.

  She drove back to Emma’s house and parked the car far enough away for them not to see it when they came back. She walked into the backyard and found the spare key, where Emma always left it. She hadn’t moved it yet, even after what happened to Kenneth. She really wasn’t being very careful.

  The numerologist let herself in and walked into the kitchen. She went through the drawers to find a knife or something else she could use as a weapon. Frantically, she pulled things out, but none of them were spectacular enough. She wanted Emma to be in pain when she stabbed her. She didn’t want her to die immediately. She wanted her to look in her eyes and plead for the numerologist to kill her. She opened another drawer, when suddenly, she heard a sound coming from behind her. She gasped and turned to look straight into the eyes of the big dog.

  “Brutus. You scared me,” she said. “You gotta stop sneaking up on people like this.”

  But, as the numerologist looked into the eyes of the dog, she suddenly pulled back. There was something in the way he was looking at her with his white shining eyes that made her feel uncomfortable all of a sudden.

  The dog let out a low deep growl, then raised the hairs on its back and showed its teeth.

  “Brutus. It’s me, Dr. Sonnichsen. Don’t you remember me?”

  The dog growled and soon cornered her. The numerologist’s heart started to race.

  “Come on, Brutus. You know me, don’t you? You can’t be mad at me for what happened to your friend, can you?”

  The dog came closer and started barking. A deep intense bark that frightened the numerologist so much, she jumped up on the kitchen table with a small shriek. She sat on her knees while the dog growled and stared at her from the floor.

  “Shush. Go away,” she said, her voice shivering in fear.

  But the dog didn’t listen. It kept growling, and they stayed like that for a long time. Every time the numerologist tried to move, the dog got to its feet, growled and showed its teeth. So, the numerologist stayed still.

  “You’ll have to sleep at some point,” she whispered. “All dogs sleep during the day. As soon as you close those big ugly white eyes of yours, I’ll be down from here. And that kitchen knife over there will be the last thing you ever see. Just you wait.”

  62

  November 2014

  “We’re telling the truth here, Allan. You’ve got to believe us. She’s trying to ruin everything for us. She even had some guys beat up Michael, Emma’s ex-husband, and made it look like I paid them to do it. But I didn’t. I would never do such a thing. You’ve got to believe me.”

  Morten was pleading with his colleague. We had just finished telling him everything about Dr. Sonnichsen, and how she had framed us. I had even showed him what we had found on the computer and put on the USB-drive.

  “First of all, shame on you, Emma. You know you’re not allowed anywhere near a computer,” Allan said. “Second of all, I do believe you. I’ve believed in your innocence all along, Morten. I haven’t known you long, Emma, but Morten, I know. I’ve known you for more than ten years. I know you don’t watch illegal porn on your computer. But I’m not the one you have to convince.”

  I looked at Morten sitting next to me in Allan’s office. I could tell how much he missed being at the station.

  “We know. But we’re asking for your help,” I said, and put my hand on top of Morten’s. “We don’t know where else to turn.”

  Allan drummed with his fingers on the desk. “I can understand that. It’s a difficult situation, I have to admit. But I’m swamped with this case and…”

  “The case of the two brothers?” I asked.

  “The Larsen brothers, yes,” Allan said. “I can’t seem to crack this case open. I mean, we’ve arrested this kid, this Tommy Malthesen, who claims to have killed the man in his letter to your daughter, but he refuses to speak. All he does is sing this annoying tune when we try to interrogate him.”

  “What tune?” I asked.

  “I don’t know all of it, or where it’s from, but it ends like this:

  He has no face

  He hides with the trees

  He loves little children when they beg and scream…

  Please!

  “Have you googled it?” I asked.

  Allan looked puzzled. “No. Can’t say I thought it was important.”

  “Well, try.” I nodded towards his computer.

  Allan shrugged. “Can’t hurt, I guess.” He tapped on the computer, and pressed enter. “I just put in the last lines, let’s see what it comes up with. Ah, I see. It’s a lullaby. Slendy’s lullaby?”

  “Slender Man,” I said, and looked at Morten. “I had a feeling. So, you think Tommy Malthesen killed Ulrik Larsen as well?”

  Allan shrugged. “I guess.”

  “But another knife was used to kill Ulrik Larsen,” I said. “That one belonged to Jens Krohn. Whatever happened to him?”

  “We had to release him,” Allan said.

  “What about Rasmus, his son?” I asked. “Did you ever question him about the murder?”

  “I…we had him in here, yes. We asked him about the knife and whether he could have taken the knife. I didn’t really think he could have done it.”

  “Hm,” I said, and looked at Morten.

  “I know that look,” Morten said. “What are you thinking?”

  “Mayor Bang’s wife said there was a guy in her house on the night of the fire, right? He was dressed in a suit and tie and had no face, just like Slender Man. Two teenage boys connected to two other killings. Actually, it’s three if you count in William Korsvig, whose bike was found near the mayor’s house. There’s something that doesn’t add up here. What’s the connection between the mayor and the two brothers?”

  Allan shrugged. “I don’t believe there is any connection. The two brothers have a clear connection, of course, but the mayor?”

  “Wasn’t there a third brother?” I asked.

  “What?” Allan said.

  “Yes, there was. I’ve been reading Helle Larsen’s letters to my grandmother. Helle Larsen was her sister. She was also Peter and Ulrik Larsen’s mother. She had three sons, not two.”

  63

  November 1965

  “We need to do something.”

  Ulrik looked at Peter. His hands were shivering when he bit his nails. He had been a wreck the last couple of months. They all had. Ulrik couldn’t eat anything, nor could he sleep. He was constantly afraid of what Per might say. So, he had asked Peter, Erling, and Jonna to meet him for a walk on the beach. He hadn’t seen Jonna since the day of the incident. It hurt to see her again, especially seeing how she looked at him now. So differently. Like she was disgusted by both him and Peter.

  “Per will tell if we don’t do something,” Ulrik continued.

  It was drizzling, and Jonna’s hair was getting soaked. She was still beautiful beyond anything he had ever seen, but she had gotten older, he thought. It seemed like years had been added to her face since the last time they saw each other.

  “I heard him last night with our mother,” Ulrik said. “He asked if God knew everything. He asked if God could forgive murder. I don’t think he can keep his mouth shut. That’s why I have asked all of you to come here.”

  Ulrik looked at Erling. He was the same age as Per, but seemed so much older, so much more mature. Ulrik never worried about him telling anything. He was as scared as any of them. Plus, he was used to keeping secrets.

  “So, what do you suggest we do?” Erling said.

  “I think we need to scare him a little. Just enough to keep his mouth shut. Let him know we mean business. I mean, if he tells anyone about this, then it’s all over. It’s not just my life that get’s ruined. It’s all of our lives. Forget all your dreams for the future. Forget everything.”

  Erling and Jonna both looked serious.

  “Do you really mean to tell me you want to hurt your own brother to shut him up?” Jonna asked. “You really have changed, Ulrik. Or maybe I just never really knew you.”

  “Shut up!” Ulrik yelled. “Do you think I enjoy this, huh? You think I’m happy about how everything has turned out? I did it for my brother, for crying out loud. The man was hurting him. I tried to protect him. I tried to protect any children he might come across in the future. The world is a better place without him.”

  “But he’s our brother,” Peter said. “Per is our brother.”

  “So what?” Ulrik said. “I’m not talking anything bad. Just a little scare, that’s all. Make sure he doesn’t speak about it ever again. I tried talking to him. I’ve tried everything, but he doesn’t want to listen to me anymore. I’m afraid of what he might do. I’m so scared he’ll get angry at me and rat me out. I don’t think he fully understands how serious this is, how serious it will be if he tells.”

  Jonna and Peter looked at each other. Erling looked at Ulrik. “I’m with Ulrik on this,” he said. “I can’t have my life destroyed. I have big plans for my future. My dad was just elected to Folketinget. He’s a very important politician. I want to follow in his footsteps when I grow up. I want to go into politics. I can’t have a criminal record. My dad tells me every day. Keep your path clean, he says. Even just a minor misconduct, and they’ll be able to dig it out. That’s what he tells me.”