The Mirror Man Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Five Years Later

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Copyright

  1

  Through the classroom’s grimy windows, Eleonor watches the bushes and trees bend in the stiff breeze as dust is blown along the road. It almost looks like a river is flowing outside the school, murky and silent.

  The bell rings, and the students gather up their books and notes. Eleonor gets to her feet and follows the others out of the classroom.

  She watches Jenny Lind button her jacket in front of her locker. Her face and blonde hair are reflected in the dented metal.

  Jenny is pretty, different. She has intense eyes that make Eleonor feel nervous, make her cheeks flush.

  Jenny is artistic. She likes taking photos, and she also happens to be the only person in school who actually enjoys reading. When she turned sixteen last week, Eleonor said happy birthday to her.

  But no one cares about Eleonor. She isn’t attractive enough, and she knows it, even if, Jenny once said she wanted to take a series of portraits of her.

  It was after PE, as they stood in the showers.

  Eleonor grabs her things and follows Jenny towards the main doors.

  The wind whips up the sand and dry leaves along the white walls of the building, scattering them across the playground. The rope snaps against the flagpole.

  When Jenny reaches the bike racks, she pauses and shouts something. She gestures angrily and then sets off on foot without her bike.

  Eleonor had punctured her tyres that morning, hoping it would mean she could walk home with Jenny. They would start talking about photography again, about how black and white photographs are like sculptures made of light.

  She has to rein in her imagination before she pictures them kissing.

  Eleonor follows Jenny past the Backavallen sports centre.

  The seating area outside the restaurant is empty, the white umbrellas flapping.

  She wants to catch up with Jenny, but doesn’t dare.

  Eleonor is about two hundred metres behind her on the footpath running parallel to Eriksbergs Road.

  The clouds race by above the spruce trees.

  Jenny’s light hair whips around and blows back into her face as one of the green line buses drives by. The ground shakes as it passes.

  They leave the built up area behind, passing the ranger station. Jenny cuts across the road and continues on the other side.

  The sun breaks through, and the remaining clouds cast shadows that seem to dart across the fields.

  Jenny lives in a nice house down by the lake in Forssjö.

  Eleonor knows this because she once came by after she found Jenny’s missing book – a book she herself had hidden. In the end, she didn’t dare ring the doorbell, and after waiting outside for an hour she just left it in the postbox.

  Jenny pauses beneath the power lines to light a cigarette, then sets off again. The buttons on the cuff of her sleeve glint in the light.

  Eleonor can hear the rumble of a big lorry behind her.

  The ground trembles as a huge lorry with Polish number plates thunders past at high speed.

  Its brakes screech, and the trailer careers to one side. The lorry turns sharply off the road and swings straight up onto the grassy verge, rolling onto the footpath behind Jenny before the driver manages to bring the heavy vehicle to a halt.

  ‘What the hell!’ Jenny shouts.

  From the roof, water streams down the blue fabric on the side of the trailer, cutting a slick channel through the dirt. The engine is still running, and the smoke from the chrome exhaust pipes rises in thin columns.

  The cab door opens and the driver climbs down. His black leather coat has a strange grey patch on the back and fits his broad frame snugly. His tight curls are almost to his shoulders.

  He strides towards Jenny.

  Eleonor stops dead and watches as the driver hits Jenny in the face.

  A few of the straps on the side of the lorry have come loose, and a section of the fabric covering the trailer catches the breeze, obscuring Jenny from view.

  ‘Hello?’ Eleonor shouts, moving forward again. ‘What are you doing?!’

  As the thick fabric goes slack, she sees that Jenny has fallen to the ground and is lying flat on her back.

  Jenny raises her head and gives a confused smile, her teeth streaked with blood.

  The loose section of fabric starts flapping again.

  Eleonor’s legs are trembling as she steps into the wet ditch. She realises she should call the police and reaches for her phone, but her hands are shaking so much that it slips from her fingers. It falls through to the ground.

  Eleonor bends down to retrieve it, and when she glances up again, she sees Jenny’s legs kicking as the driver picks her up.

  A car sounds its horn as Eleonor steps out into the road and starts running towards the lorry.

  The driver’s sunglasses flash in the sunlight as he wipes his bloody hands on his jeans and climbs back into the cab. He closes the door, puts the lorry into gear and pulls away, one wheel still on the footpath. The dry strip of grass
smoulders as the lorry thunders into the road, quickly gaining speed.

  Eleanor comes to a halt, gasping for air. Jenny Lind is gone.

  A trampled cigarette and her bag of books are all that are left on the ground.

  2

  Jenny Lind is lying in the bottom of a small, tarred boat on a dark lake. The rolling waves make the wood beneath her creak.

  She wakes with a sudden urge to throw up. The floor is rocking.

  Her shoulders are aching, her wrists burning. She realises she must be inside the lorry.

  Her mouth is taped shut. She’s lying on her side with her hands bound above her head.

  She can’t see much – it’s as if her eyes are still asleep. Lines of sunlight break through the tarpaulin.

  She blinks, and her vision blurs.

  She feels unbelievably sick. Her head is pounding.

  The huge tyres roar against the tarmac beneath her.

  Her hands have been bound to one of the poles holding up the trailer’s covering.

  Jenny tries to work out what happened. She remembers being knocked to the ground, someone holding a cold rag over her mouth and nose.

  A wave of anxiety washes over her.

  She looks down and sees that her dress is bunched up around her waist, but she is still wearing her tights.

  The lorry is speeding along a straight stretch of road, the engine steady.

  Jenny desperately searches for some kind of logical explanation, a source of misunderstanding, but deep down she knows exactly what is happening. She is in the very situation everyone fears most. This is the kind of thing that only ever happens in horror films.

  She left her bike at school and was walking home, pretending not to notice Eleonor following her, when the lorry pulled up across the footpath behind her.

  When the driver hit her, it was so unexpected that she didn’t have time to react, and before she could get back on her feet, he shoved a wet rag in her face.

  She has no idea how long she was unconscious. Her hands feel numb from the lack of blood. Her head is spinning, and her vision disappears completely for a moment. She rests her cheek against the floor. She tries to keep her breathing calm. She knows she can’t afford to throw up while her mouth is taped shut.

  There is a dried fish head wedged next to the tailgate, and the air in the trailer smells sweet and heavy.

  Jenny raises her head again. Blinking, she notices a padlocked metal cabinet and two large plastic troughs at the very front of the trailer. The troughs have been secured with thick straps, and the floor around them is wet.

  She tries to remember what women who have survived serial killers say about fighting back or trying to forge a bond by talking about orchids or something.

  There is no point trying to shout through the tape. No one would hear her.

  If anything, she needs to keep quiet. It’s better if he doesn’t know she is awake. She shuffles upright, tenses her body and raises her head to her hands.

  The trailer lurches, making her stomach turn. Vomit fills her mouth.

  Her muscles start to shake.

  The cable tie around her wrists is cutting into her skin.

  She manages to grip the end of the tape with her numb fingers and pull it from her mouth. She spits and slumps back onto her side, trying to cough as quietly as she can.

  Whatever was on the rag has affected her vision.

  She peers up at the metal frame holding up the tarpaulin that runs down either side of the lorry. It feels like she is looking through a sack.

  Each of the poles runs up to the ceiling, where it makes a sharp ninety-degree turn, and then continues beneath the roof and down the other side.

  Like roof trusses, linked together with horizontal bars along the sides.

  She blinks, trying to make her eyes focus, and sees that the bars are missing on the other side of the trailer, where the curtain is reinforced with five rows of sewn-in poles instead.

  Jenny realises that it must be so that the side can be rolled up for loading.

  If she can follow the metal pole across the roof with her bound hands, she might be able to get to the other side and open the cover, and shout for help.

  She tries to lift the cable tie up the post, but immediately gets stuck. The sharp plastic digs into her skin.

  The driver changes lane, and Jenny loses her balance, hitting her temple on one of the struts.

  She slumps to the floor again, swallowing several times, and thinks back to that morning. To the breakfast table, with toast and marmalade on plates. Her mother was talking about her aunt, saying that she’d had four stents placed in her heart the day before.

  Jenny’s phone was on the table beside her mug. It was switched to silent, but the notifications on the screen still caught her eye, and that annoyed her father. He thought she was being disrespectful, and she had been frustrated by the unfairness of it all.

  ‘What did I do? Why are you always on my case? Just because your life is so miserable!’ she’d shouted, storming out of the kitchen.

  The floor tilts and the lorry slows, changing gear as they drive uphill. Occasional flashes of sunlight burst through the tarpaulin, making the filthy floor shine.

  Lying among the lumps of dry mud and dark leaves, Jenny notices a front tooth. Adrenaline surges through her.

  Her eyes scan the trailer.

  No more than a metre away from her, she spots two broken nails, painted with red polish intact. There is a trickle of dried blood on one of the poles, broken strands of hair still clinging to a dent in the tailgate.

  ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God,’ Jenny mumbles.

  She gets to her knees and sits still, taking the weight off the cable tie around her wrists and feeling the blood come flooding back to her fingers with thousands of tiny pinpricks.

  Her body is shaking all over, and she tries to get up, but the plastic tie has caught on something.

  ‘I can do this,’ she whispers.

  She needs to remain calm. She can’t allow herself to panic.

  Wiggling her hands, she moves to one side and realises that she can shuffle along the bottom bar.

  She is breathing too quickly as she works her way forward, past bumps in the pole, reaching the front section of the trailer. She grips the bar with both hands and tries to pull it free, but it has been welded to the front post and is impossible to bend.

  Jenny peers over to the metal cabinet. The padlock is open, swinging on its shackle.

  Another wave of nausea rises up inside her, but she doesn’t have time to wait. The journey could be over at any moment.

  She leans as far as she can towards the cabinet, stretching her arms to their full length and managing to reach the padlock with her mouth. She carefully lifts it clear and carries it back, crouching down to drop it into her lap. She slowly parts her thighs and it falls to the floor without a sound.

  The lorry turns, and the cabinet door swings open.

  The shelves inside are full of brushes, pots, pliers, hacksaws, knives, scissors, cleaning products and rags.

  Her heart rate increases, and her pulse thunders in her ears.

  The sound of the engine changes, and the lorry seems to slow down.

  Jenny gets up again, leaning to one side, and holding the cabinet door open with her head. She spots a knife with a dirty plastic handle on a shelf between two tins of paint.

  ‘Dear God, please save me, dear God,’ she whispers.

  The lorry swerves, and the metal door slams shut on her head with such force that she loses consciousness for a few seconds, dropping to her knees. She throws up.

  She gets back onto her feet and notices that blood has started dripping from her wrists to the filthy floor.

  Jenny leans forward, reaches the handle of the knife with her mouth, and bites down on the plastic as the lorry comes to a halt with a hiss.

  There is a soft scraping sound as she lifts the knife from the shelf.

  She carefully lowers her head to her hands and pre
sses the rusty blade to the plastic tie with as much force as she can.

  3

  With the rusty knife between her teeth, Jenny tries to saw through the cable tie around her wrists. When she realises that the blade has made only a faint nick in the white plastic, she bites down harder on the handle, increasing the pressure.

  She is thinking about her father. About his sad face as she shouted at him that morning, the scratched glass on his wristwatch, his resigned gestures as she stormed out.

  Her mouth is hurting even more, but she keeps sawing. Saliva trickles down the handle of the knife.

  A sudden wave of dizziness hits her, and she is just about to give up when the plastic snaps. The knife has cut through the tie.

  Trembling, she slumps onto her side and hears the knife clatter across the floor. She quickly gets up and finds it, then moves over to the right-hand side of the trailer and listens.

  She can’t hear a thing.

  Jenny knows she needs to act quickly, but her hands are shaking so much that at first she struggles to even push the knife through the fabric.

  She hears a buzzing sound that lasts only for a few short seconds.

  Jenny adjusts her grip on the knife and makes a vertical cut in the fabric, right next to the last post. She parts the material slightly and peers out.

  They have stopped at an unmanned lorry park. The ground is strewn with pizza boxes, oily rags and condoms.

  Her heart is pounding so hard that she can barely breathe. There is no sign of anyone else nearby, no other cars.

  The wind carries a plastic cup over the pavement.

  Jenny’s stomach cramps, but she manages to repress the urge to throw up, swallowing hard.

  Beads of sweat trickle down her back.

  With trembling hands, she makes a horizontal cut in the fabric, just above the bar.

  Her plan is to climb out, run into the woods, and hide.

  She hears heavy footsteps, a metallic scraping sound. Her vision blurs again.

  She climbs out, teetering on the edge of the trailer with the wind in her face. As she clings on to the tarpaulin, she sways and drops the knife. The dizziness seems to ripple through her head, and as she peers down at the ground it feels like the entire lorry might topple over.

  She feels a searing pain in her ankle when she lands, but takes a step forward anyway, managing to maintain her balance.

  She is so dizzy she can’t walk straight.

  Her head pounds more fiercely with every step she takes. The diesel pump pulses loudly.