'Who did it?' asked Jon through clenched teeth.
'What difference does it make?'
'Who killed my father?' shouted Jon, accompanied by yet another crash of thunder overhead.
'Patrick Vedel, the receiver,' replied Remer indifferently. 'It was necessary.'
'Patrick Vedel,' repeated Jon. It wasn't more than an hour ago that they were sitting side by side in the car on their way to the library. His anger grew stronger, and he knew that Vedel could feel it, because the hand he felt on his shoulder seemed to lose its hold for a moment, but then gripped even harder. Vedel was still keeping Jon inside the story, and he was wise to do so.
'Luca found out about our activities down here,' Remer went on. 'I think he realized he was out of his depth.'
'My father was here?' asked Jon. The idea that Luca would put so much distance between himself and the bookshop seemed unlikely.
'He could have been a good detective,' Remer acknowledged. 'Just like you, but even so I think he was shocked.' Remer shook his head. 'A man struck by panic could do anything. He had to be stopped.'
'So you killed him.'
'He might have gone to the authorities. That would have been equally bad for your little girlfriend and her reading buddies. It wouldn't have benefited any Lectors, any of us.'
The three figures behind Remer had assumed their final form and stood there looking about in amazement. One of them was Poul Holt.
Remer smiled. 'So, Campelli, what's it going to be?'
Katherina gasped for breath. The air in the reading room seemed to be getting heavier by the minute and the smoke was tearing at her lungs. Big sparks kept reaching out and making contact with the overhead beams, the pillars and other random objects. Some struck fleeing Lectors who were flung to the ground and either lay where they fell or tried to crawl away.
The energy in the room was stronger now than when they had arrived. At first it had seemed like an eiderdown settling over the space, but now it had changed character and felt like a rushing river, violent, roaring and overpowering.
Katherina had positioned herself next to a pillar so she could see both Jon and Remer. In the flow of images coming from Jon, she had caught a glimpse of a red-haired man. She recognized him as one of the men who had chased her through the marketplace, and judging by the emotions Jon attributed to the images, the red-haired man wasn't exactly a friend of his either. The accompanying anger was enormous, and when brief picture sequences of Luca got mixed in, she understood why.
The red-haired man was the receiver who had killed Luca.
Jon's concentration weakened due to his anger, and Katherina had to set aside her own fury to help him. Even though it pained her to do so, she muted the emotions in the pictures of Luca and instead supported the story as best she could. Slowly Jon regained his focus and began working his way through the text. She couldn't tell exactly what was happening in the place where he found himself, but something was certainly going on that went far beyond the words and sentences of the text, as if each letter of the alphabet was a landscape in and of itself.
Katherina moved closer to the podium and Jon. She didn't cover much ground, but she felt better being slightly nearer to him. Nothing was visible on his face – no emotions or expressions she could interpret.
She felt the hood of her robe being tugged from her head. A hand landed on her shoulder and slowly she turned around. In front of her stood the red-haired man, the man Jon had just pointed out as Luca's murderer.
'You shouldn't be here. You must have taken a wrong turn somewhere,' he said with a triumphant smile.
Katherina's heart pounded and she couldn't breathe. Without the protection of her hood she felt helpless. It was a hundred against one, and there was no place for her to flee. She had failed.
'You'd better come with me,' said the red-haired man.
The pictures of him she'd received from Jon popped up again, but now they were coloured by her own rage.
Katherina took a deep breath.
With a violent shove she sent the man toppling backwards. He staggered a few steps before he fell on his back with a yelp. Several people standing close turned towards Katherina with shouts of surprise. She started screaming as loud as she could and pushing at those who were nearest. The first participants moved away in fright, but she kept running into people and yanking at everyone she could reach. She managed to grab some of the books and tore them out of the hands of the astonished owners, hurling them as far away as she could. There was no chance that anyone would come to her aid, but she could at least break the concentration of the crowd, maybe long enough so that Jon could stop the reading.
The people around her began to understand what was going on, and more and more hands reached out for Katherina. She repeatedly tore herself free, but the crowd was getting rougher and rougher, and agitated voices were pelting her with words in many languages. She fought back as best she could, but then someone shoved a book at her face and stopped her shouts.
A voice cut through the noise. It was one of the hooded guards, pushing his way through the excited participants and speaking to them in an authoritative tone. He got Katherina in an armlock and one by one the others retreated. The guard ushered Katherina towards the door. The Lectors moved aside, glaring at her as they did. Almost everyone was watching the commotion while Jon still continued to read, as did a number of other Lectors close to the podium who appeared not to have noticed a thing. Desperation surged inside of Katherina, and she almost didn't have the strength to stay on her feet, but the guard ruthlessly pulled her along. When they had nearly reached the door, she made one last effort to tear herself away, but the guard merely tightened his grip.
'Take it easy, damn it,' he whispered in unmistakable Danish. 'It's me, Mehmet.'
41
Jon noticed when Katherina's support vanished.
The colours of the surroundings abruptly lost their strength and the details around him became blurred. He had to work harder to keep the scene intact. The features of the cemetery weakened and the atmosphere was not as palpable as it had been before.
At the same time a violent commotion occurred in the energy field. Instead of being a unified support that reinforced the intensity of the scene, the force now fluctuated for shorter or longer periods. It seemed like the signal from a transistor being run through the whole range of frequencies.
Remer had also noticed it, but instead of faltering, he smiled. 'Don't pay any attention to that,' he said confidently. 'We don't need them.' He held his arms out to the sides and tipped his head back to look up at the clouds in the sky.
The colours changed, starting from above and flowing downwards, as if someone were pouring paint over the landscape. Everything that was pale and pastel became so sharp and bright it hurt his eyes. The headstones moved back into place and acquired detailed decorations including gargoyles and mythical creatures.
Jon couldn't keep up. He'd lost control of the scene. The ball was now in his opponent's court. 'Not bad,' he admitted as he tried to hide his concern. What had happened to Katherina? He didn't have the strength to hold on much longer alone. Maybe she had escaped. He hoped she had. If only he could make sure she was safe. If only he could poke his head outside to determine whether she was okay.
Three more of Remer's people appeared.
It looked like he was defeated. Without Katherina's support, and with more and more of Remer's people being reactivated, he couldn't keep going. He noticed that his energy was fading, but he still couldn't stop reading. Patrick Vedel's influence had vanished, but there were other receivers who were keeping everyone captive in the text.
The main character at the grave stopped speaking, closed his eyes and bowed his head. Slowly he leaned forward until his forehead touched the stone.
Darkness. They were back inside the car. The sides and roof were pressing so close he couldn't move. He heard screams from behind him, inside the car, muted, as if someone were shouting into a quilt, but insistent and impossible to ignore. A strong smell of petrol made the main character cough. A shudder rippled through his body and a violent pain in his legs made him scream.