HE HAD THE WHOLE car to himself when he first boarded the train in Helsingør, but as they approached Copenhagen, more and more passengers got on. By the time they got to Hellerup Station all the seats were full. Most people had headphones in and were flipping through the free newspapers, which had devoted pages to the Danish police’s search for him.
HERE IS THE SWEDISH KILLER!
HIS NAME: RUNE SCHMECKEL.
He grabbed a discarded newspaper and flipped to the articles that described — in great detail — how he had killed Jörgen and Glenn and, most recently, Mette Louise Risgaard. He burst into such loud laughter after reading the two-page story on the continuing conflict between the Danish and Swedish police that the woman beside him looked up curiously.
He devoted all but the last fifteen minutes of the train ride along the Danish Gold Coast to developing and polishing his new plan. The more he thought about it, the more the pieces seemed to be falling into place. His new idea had come to him the moment Risk opened the door for Lina Pålsson. He couldn’t explain the timing, since the plan had nothing to do with Lina at all. He had been preoccupied with two big and seemingly impossible roadblocks: Monika Krusenstierna’s unexpected heart attack and Fabian’s nerve-racking police work. It wouldn’t be the first time he had found it advantageous to have two problems rather than just one, since it was more a rule than an exception that each could provide the solution to the other.
He came up out of Østerport Station and was struck by the large, wide streets of Copenhagen. There were three or four lanes in each direction, as well as broad bike paths and sidewalks. Not many streets in Stockholm were this wide, and yet the Swedish city had stolen the title “Capital of Scandinavia” right out from under the Danes’ noses. No wonder those Danish bastards were angry.
He walked up Dag Hammarskjölds Allé toward Østerbro and saw that almost every single billboard was about the hunt for him, as well as Risk’s love affair. He also learned that he was now wanted internationally. Not bad, not bad at all, he thought, sitting down at a free patio table at Dag H Café.
*
HE ATE THE LAST of his chicken salad and emptied his glass of water. The waiter cleared the dishes off his table, and he took the opportunity to order a double espresso. He couldn’t complain. Right now, things were mostly going his way. He looked around the patio and listened. He was on everyone’s lips, and yet nobody recognized him. He might have been satisfied with a few days in the limelight in the past, but not now. He wanted more. When he was finished, no one would ever be able to overlook or forget him again.
He knocked back his espresso and looked at his watch. It was almost two thirty. According to the GPS, it would take him fifteen minutes to get to the location on foot. He left a generous tip and headed for Rigshospitalet.
It was time to take another innocent life.