The Silenced by Anders de la Motte

Author:Anders de la Motte [de la Motte, Anders]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Two

He could still see her falling. See her hanging between ground and sky with her eyes open wide, her mouth gaping, for a moment almost weightless. And then he heard the sound when she stopped being weightless. A muffled, awful sound—a sigh rather than a bang. The sound of something breaking. Something that could never be mended.

Then the dry voice inside his head.

A necessary sacrifice.

It was her or you.

You had no choice.

Only when the voice became a scream—a scream that burned in his chest, tearing his vocal cords and echoing off the bedroom walls—did Jesper Stenberg wake up.

* * *

He unlocked the front door from inside and opened it. The moment the small box on the wall began to beep, he realized that he’d forgotten to switch the alarm off. He had thirty seconds before a whole fleet of police cars began racing toward the villa. His sleepy fingers slipped on the buttons and it took him two attempts before he managed to get the beeping to stop.

He let the dog out, fastened his robe, and stepped out onto the driveway barefoot. The pavement was still cool, but that would soon change. Even though it was only six o’clock in the morning, the sky was bright blue and the sunlight so strong that he had to shade his eyes with his hand. He fetched the Sunday papers from the mailbox and slipped back inside the silent house, accompanied reluctantly by the little spaniel. Karolina and the girls wouldn’t wake up before eight. They’d pad down to the kitchen and eat breakfast together in front of children’s summer vacation television shows.

He wished the same could apply to him. Wished he could get a whole night of dreamless sleep so that his weary brain had a chance to recuperate. But that was a vain wish. The nightmares were back, stronger now than they had been last winter.

A fourth night in succession in which Sophie Thorning’s naked body fell in slow motion before landing on his windshield with a heavy thud. Her white skin cut by hundreds of pieces of glass, the broken, accusing look in her eyes as she lay there just in front of his face. In the dream she was still alive. Her shattered lips moving, forming words.

“You’re finished, Jesper. I’m going to crush you. Crush you and your whole fucking family.” The next moment the windshield fell in and her body collapsed on top of him. Hands feeling his legs. Sharp fingernails digging into his thighs, feeling their way upward.

The dream scream was still echoing inside his head; it felt so real he could almost taste its bitterness in his throat. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass door of the wine cooler. His hair was sticking up, his posture was slovenly, and he had bags under his eyes. Hardly the image of a virile young man who was going to breathe new life into the party.

Stenberg switched on the coffeemaker, sat down at the kitchen table, and spread the papers out in front of him.

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