bar, and I don’t think anyone noticed that I left a little earlier than usual. I raced home and grabbed the bag. It took barely a minute. Then I rushed down to Bayswater Road and hailed a taxi. We drove to Paddington, and there I took the train to Heathrow. At five minutes past seven, I picked up my ticket and boarded as the last passenger. I took my shoulder bag on board as hand luggage. Then I had to grab it and make sure I was the first person off the plane so I wouldn’t lose time. The car was ready at Avis and I had taken care of all of the paperwork via the Internet. It is barely a fifteen-minute drive from the airport to the cottage.”
He took another mouthful from the glass and continued. “I had already decided on where I would park the car. In reality, finding the trail in the dark was a bit more difficult than I had expected, but at last I managed. Then I took off my coat and put on the sweater and the boots, and the rainsuit over them. The hood made it less likely that anyone would recognize me and decreased the risk that I would leave any hair I might shed. I put the gloves and plastic covers in my pockets, with the flashlight, compass, and map. I’m used to moving in the woods, but it was pretty difficult to make my way to the cottage.
“Luck was on my side: Jacob hadn’t come home yet. If he had been there, I had planned on killing him with an axe from the shed. There had been one in the chopping block when we were there in July, and it was still there. I put on my gloves and brought it in with me but as I said, I didn’t need to use it. I returned it to the block afterward. Since he wasn’t home, it was just a matter of opening the door with the key from under the flowerpot, putting on the shoe covers, pulling out the rifle, and loading it. Then I inserted the disk-formatting software and started running it. While it was running, Jacob came home. He opened the door and stepped into the hall, and I shot him.”
Rebecka started moaning again. Christian didn’t seem to notice. His expression was rigid, his voice a monotone, as he described the crimes in detail and at length. Neither Irene nor Glen had changed their positions during the whole time the computer had been on. They still stood, bent slightly forward. Now Irene felt that she needed to sit. She pulled an office chair toward her and sank onto it.
Christian had fortified himself with another swallow from the glass and was ready to continue. “I had plenty of time to erase his hard drive completely. I also found several diskettes and a few videocassettes in the hiding place behind the panel. I put them in a plastic bag and found charcoal and lighter fluid under the patio, which I took with me. I knew that there would be cassettes and diskettes at Pappa Pastor’s as well. Everything had to be burned, since there might be more tapes with Rebecka on them.
“In that secret space I also found a book about Satanism. Then I had an idea. Rebecka had told me how her father and brother had searched for Satanists on the Internet. With respect to what these two gentlemen had been doing, I thought it appropriate to mark their computers. So I dipped a pastry brush from the kitchen drawer in Jacob’s blood and drew a pentagram on the screen. And that’s why I turned the crucifix in the bedroom upside-down when—”
He stopped to finish his drink, then filled it up again.
“I made my way through the woods to the house, even though it was difficult. Along the way, I planted some fibers from the scarf that my cousin had so graciously bestowed on me as a Christmas present. I wanted to implicate him, in case the airplane passenger list was followed up. I wanted it to seem that he had been there; to confuse matters.
“The rectory was dark when I got there. The key was still lying under the pot, and after putting on the shoe protectors and gloves, I went in and sneaked into the bedroom. Both of them were sleeping. First I shot the pastor, and then his wife. They never woke up.