Chapter 55

Jacob shared a dorm with five other men. The room couldn’t have been much larger than twenty square metres, so there wasn’t a lot of space between the beds. At first Jacob had enjoyed sharing a room – the camaraderie, having someone to talk to after the long workdays. But that was before all the punishment, discord, and forced sleeplessness. These days the place looked more like a room in a ghetto, and the odour of unwashed bodies was often intolerable.

Jon, who slept in the next bed, was so close that Jacob would only have to reach out a hand to touch him. The bed creaked mercilessly. So Jacob had to lie perfectly still.

He squeezed the phone tight, listening to the heavy breathing and occasional snores of the others. It was midnight. He had to stay awake for three hours. At three o’clock, the guards would go to the kitchen for their sandwiches. Then he would freeze the security images and warn Sofia. If only she was still in the cellar.

He was worried that Simon would decide to call. He hadn’t dared to turn off the phone – he didn’t know how to start it up again.

Jon flipped onto his stomach and let out a long sigh that smelled of the kale and beans they’d had for dinner. Jacob turned to face the wall. His eyelids were drooping; his body was crying out for sleep.

Just then he heard steps from the hallway. Quick, heavy, purposeful. Exhausted staff members dragged themselves to their dorms for the night; Jacob had learned to recognize their shuffling steps. This was different. Still, he jumped when a knock came at the door, which soon flew open. There was Benny, shouting that they had to gather for assembly in the dining room right away.

Dazed faces squinted in the light. But, like firefighters or soldiers, they were used to this. It was an exercise they had mastered: bouncing out of bed, throwing on their clothes, urging their bodies to be fully awake within minutes. No one speculated on who had called the meeting – there was only one person who did so in the middle of the night. Instead, each person ransacked their conscience. Jacob hoped no one would notice that he had been fully dressed under the covers. But the others were too busy stumbling around, grabbing their clothes, and looking for their shoes in the mess.

He lingered for a moment after the others had left the room, pretending to have trouble with his shoelaces. His cheeks were hot and his heart was pounding. That goddamn phone – he couldn’t let go of it, but it would seal his fate if there was a body search. He had no idea what was going on, but he had an unpleasant hunch that whatever it was it somehow involved him. He hoped the meeting would be short. If everything went well, there was still time. If everything went to hell, he would have to try to sneak to the barn and call Simon – unless the meeting ended with him under orders to dig the ditch with Erik, under guard.

Oswald wasn’t standing by the lectern; instead he was in the middle of the room with his arms crossed over his chest. His face was a mask, impossible to read. As Jacob walked by, he thought he felt Oswald’s gaze on him. He shuddered and tried to look unconcerned and, above all, innocent.

The staff seemed unsure what was expected of them; they stood around in small clusters, waiting for directions.

Lina popped up beside Jacob and tugged gently at his shirtsleeve.

He looked down at her and smiled but didn’t dare say anything.

‘Line up along the wall!’ Oswald said. ‘Facing me. Can you manage that?’

A moment of chaos ensued. They pushed and shoved, crashing into each other and stumbling over one another’s feet until they were in a long line against the wall.

Oswald glanced around, a resigned look on his face.

‘What a team,’ he said dryly. ‘I’m impressed.’

These rapid shifts between sarcasm and suppressed rage were the worst. You never knew when he would explode or who would be the target. This would be the worst moment to annoy him.

Jacob had ended up far down the line, just a few people from the end.

‘Fine,’ Oswald sighed. ‘This will have to do. Here’s the deal. In this room is an imbecilic whackjob who thinks he can defy me. The guards have seen someone sneaking around the property in the middle of the night, near the cellar. As I’m sure you understand, I am a little tired of being disobeyed. Perhaps this person would like to reveal himself?’

Total silence. Not a sound. Most people cast their eyes downward. Jacob vanished into a state of shock, no longer aware of his surroundings, but was dragged back to the room by the sound of his heart pounding. His first thought was that it was all over. But then he felt the others’ fear, the terror that spread through the dining room, and he realized he was far from the only one harbouring a secret.

‘Okay then. I guess you’ll each have to look me in the eye, one by one,’ Oswald said. ‘It won’t take long, I assure you. I can expose guilty people in the blink of an eye. Furthermore, guilt has a smell – and the odour of burning is strong in here at the moment.’

He walked up to the first person and stared intently at them, lingering for a moment before moving on. Slow but determined. There was something about the way he moved: he was graceful and resolute, but he had an impenetrable aura that made you feel small and insignificant. It struck Jacob that the impeccability Oswald projected might be just a shell that hid his true demons. The thought helped him relax a little; he stopped squeezing the phone so hard. He, too, could put up a façade. He must not look guilty when Oswald reached him.

He noticed that Anders, who was standing next to him, was already breathing too fast, nervously.

Oswald stopped in the middle of the row and shook his head.

‘Well. If this isn’t quite the doughface parade. Why do I put up with you all?’

He moved on. So close. Jacob was flooded with thoughts. What if they find the phone? And trace it to Simon? What will happen to Sofia? Oh my god, what will I do?

He was dragged back to the present moment by Anders’s voice, which sounded unusually squeaky.

‘It was me, sir!’

Oswald stopped.

‘I’m sorry, sir! I was working late. I thought I saw Elvira in the courtyard in only her nightgown. I went to check on her. I wasn’t going to the cellar, I swear, I was just passing by, I…’ The words caught in his throat.

By now Oswald was in front of Anders, leaning over him. His face was twisted with rage; his eyes flashed. It was as if electricity was streaming off him. Anders stared at him in fear, completely paralysed.

Jacob smelled the sharp odour of urine first, and when he turned his head he saw the dark stain spreading down Anders’s trouser leg. Oswald, who had noticed it too, was flummoxed.

All of a sudden, his face went back to normal. He took a step back and began to crack up. No one dared to join in. His laughter echoed through the room, so chilling that Jacob got gooseflesh.

‘Look at this bastard! He pissed himself like a dog. He looks like a fucking dog. All that’s missing is his tail.’

The staff began to laugh too. It was hesitant at first, but then it grew and exploded, all mixed up with relief and Schadenfreude. The tense atmosphere became a little less oppressive now that they could take comfort at the expense of a fellow staff member.

Anders was trembling uncontrollably, and Jacob thought for a moment he might faint, but he just reeled backwards and sunk his chin to his chest in a pose of absolute submission. Jacob had never seen Anders so shattered.

Oswald turned to Corinne.

‘He will be sleeping in the doghouse with that fleabag of a mutt tonight. And he has to salute the dog each time he runs into it. Maybe that will get him to listen to me. At least the fucking dog comes when you call it.’

With no further ado, Oswald turned to look at Jacob. His eyes were vacant. But then something glimmered deep down in his pupils. Recognition, or maybe suspicion. His eyes narrowed, his mouth opened – all while Jacob fought to keep his gaze steady. For some strange reason, his scalp was sweating. He tried to calm his wild pulse. He could feel his scrotum retracting. A frightening thought gnawed in the back of his mind. What if he can see straight into my brain? But Jacob decided he was not about to give Oswald that sort of access.

Then Oswald closed his mouth again. He turned to the staff. ‘You can go now. Make sure Anders bunks down with the dog. We need more peer pressure around here.’

Oswald stayed put while the staff hurried off. A group had already gathered around the doghouse by the time Jacob walked outside. He saw Anders’s back, how he knelt on the ground to crawl into the tiny house. Anders – the toughest, the loudest, the one who always picked on everyone else, who had testified against his own daughter – now completely destroyed.

A chilly wind from the northwest whipped across the manor. You could hear the sea crashing in the bay. It must be freezing in the doghouse. Jacob pictured Elvira’s look of despair and realized he didn’t feel sorry for Anders. He only hoped he would be nice to the dog.

Back in the dorms, he had trouble calming down and felt doubt creeping in for the first time. What he was about to do was so reckless and dangerous after tonight’s intermezzo that he wondered if it would only make everything worse and put Sofia in a more serious bind than she was already in. Once again, the others were asleep. Their grunts, snores, and odours, and the merciless darkness, brought out his courage again. Not a chance he was going to tolerate this for another day. Even another second was unbearable.

He stroked the back of the phone with his thumb and steeled himself.