The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘What for?’
‘That’s the last of our thoughts.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s easy to miss something important if you’re searching for something else. Clear your
mind. You’ll know what you’re searching for when you see it.’
‘OK,’ Katrine said with exaggerated slowness.
‘You start up here,’ Harry said, going to the trapdoor and pulling at the inset iron ring. A narrow
staircase led down into the gloom. He hoped she didn’t see his hesitation.
Dry cobwebs from long-dead spiders stuck to his face as he descended into the damp murk which
smelt of soil and rotten boards. The whole of the cellar was underground. He found a switch by the
end of the staircase and pressed it, but nothing happened. The only light was the red eye at the top
of a freezer by the side wall. He flicked on his pocket torch, and the cone of light fell on a
storeroom door.
The hinges screamed as he opened it. It was a carpenter’s cubbyhole full of tools. For a man with
ambitions to do something meaningful, Harry thought. Besides catching murderers.
But the tools didn’t look as if they had been used much, so maybe Rafto had realised that in the end
he was no good at anything else, he wasn’t the kind to make things, he was the kind to clear up
afterwards. A sudden noise made Harry whirl round. And he breathed out with relief when he saw
that the freezer thermostat had activated the fan. Harry went into a second storeroom. A rug had
been spread over everything. He pulled it off, and the smell of damp and mildew hit him. The torch
beam revealed a rotting parasol, a plastic table, a pile of freezer drawers, discoloured plastic chairs
and a croquet set. There was nothing else in the cellar. He heard Katrine rummaging around upstairs
and was on the point of closing the storeroom door. But one of the drawers had slipped down into
the doorway when he removed the rug. He was about to nudge it back with his foot when he
stopped and looked at it. In the light from his torch he could see the raised lettering on the side.
Electrolux. He walked over to the wall where the fan on the freezer was still humming. It was an
Electrolux. He grabbed the handle and pulled, but the door didn’t budge. Beneath the handle he
noticed a lock and realised that the freezer was simply locked. He went into the tool store to fetch
the crowbar. As he returned, Katrine came down the stairs.
‘Nothing up top,’ she said. ‘I think we should just go. What are you doing?’
‘Breaking and entering,’ Harry said, with the tip of the crowbar inserted in the freezer door just
above the lock. He put all his weight against the other end. It didn’t give. He readjusted his grip, put
one foot against the staircase and pushed.
‘Bloody –’
With a dry snap the door swung open and Harry fell headlong. He heard the torch hit the brick floor
and felt the cold hit him, like the breath of a glacier. He was fumbling for the torch behind him
when he heard Katrine. It was a sound that chilled to the marrow, a deep-throated scream that
passed into hysterical sobs sounding like laughter. Then it went quiet for a couple of seconds as she
drew breath, before it started again, the same scream, long and drawn out, like the methodical, ritual