Текст книги "Disgrace"

Автор книги: Jussi Adler-Olsen

Соавторы: Jussi Adler-Olsen
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Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Epilogue

It was a twilight lit up by columns of blinking, blue lights coming from the train crossing and along the road heading towards the estate. The entire landscape was awash with this blueness and the air rang with the yowling sirens of fire engines and police vehicles. Police badges were everywhere, along with ambulances, a sea of journalists and cameras, and inquisitive locals standing on the fringes as people received crisis counselling. Down on the tracks themselves, crime-scene techs and paramedics were busy, all getting in each other’s way.

Carl was still dizzy, but his shoulder wound was no longer dripping blood; the medics had made sure of that. It was inside that he was bleeding. The lump in his throat was still large.

He sat on the wooden bench at the Duemose whistle-stop, leafing through Kimmie’s notebook. Her notes disclosed the gang’s deeds – they were mercilessly honest. The assault on the brother and sister in Rørvig. How they’d been selected at random. How they had humiliated the boy and undressed him after the fatal blow. The twin brothers whose fingers they’d chopped off. The couple that had vanished at sea. Kåre Bruno and Kyle Basset. Animals and people, one after another. Everything was there. Plus the fact that it was always Kimmie who had committed the murders. The methods were different, and she’d documented each one in detail. What was incredibly difficult for Carl to comprehend was that this was the same person who had saved his and Assad’s lives. The same woman who lay there, under the train, together with her dead child.

Carl lit a cigarette and read the final pages. They spoke of remorse. Not in Aalbæk’s case, but in Tine’s. That she hadn’t wanted to give her an overdose. There was a tone of tenderness in the ugliness of the words, a kind of presence and insight that was missing in her descriptions of all the other atrocious acts. She’d used words like ‘farewell’ and ‘Tine’s last, heavenly high’.

This notebook would send the media into a frenzy and stock values plunging, once those men’s complicity was revealed.

‘Take the notebook to headquarters and make copies immediately, OK, Assad?’

He nodded. The aftermath would be hectic, but short. With no one else other than this trio implicated, apart from the man who was already in prison, it was primarily a question of informing bereaved relatives and ensuring proper distribution of the no doubt enormous damages to be paid by the estates of Pram, Florin and Dybbøl Jensen.

He gave Assad a quick hug and waved off the crisis psychologist who had decided it was now Carl’s turn.

When the time came, he had his own crisis psychologist.

‘I’m driving to Roskilde now, so you go with the crime-scene techs back to headquarters, OK? I’ll see you tomorrow, Assad. Then we’ll talk about all of this, eh?’

Assad nodded again. He’d already resolved it all in his head.

At that moment things between them were good.

The house on Fasanvej in Roskilde seemed so dark. The blinds were shut and all was quiet. On the car radio they were reporting on both the violent events in Ejlstrup and the arrest of a dentist whom the police were convinced was behind the rubbish-bin assaults downtown. He had been arrested during an attempted attack on an undercover female officer on Nikolaj Plads near Store Kirkestræde. What the hell had the idiot been thinking?

Carl glanced at his watch and then again at the darkened house. Old people go to bed early, he knew, but it was only half past seven.

Then he nodded at the nameplates that read JENS-ARNOLD & YVETTE LARSEN and MARTHA JØRGENSEN and rang the doorbell.

His finger was still on the bell when the frail woman opened the door and attempted to shield herself against the cold with her thin kimono.

‘Yes?’ she said sleepily, looking up at him in confusion.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Yvette Larsen. It’s Carl Mørck. The policeman who came to visit you recently. You remember, don’t you?’

She smiled. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘That’s right, now I remember.’

‘I have some good news, I think. I would like to share it personally with Martha. We’ve found her children’s killers. Justice has been served, one could say.’

‘Oh,’ she said, placing a hand to her breast. ‘What a shame.’ Then she smiled an unusual smile. Not simply sad, but also apologetic.

‘I should have called, I’m very sorry. You could have saved yourself the long drive here. Martha is dead. She died the same night you were here. Though not because of your visit, of course. She simply didn’t have any more strength.’

She put her hand on Carl’s. ‘But thank you. I’m sure that it would have been an immense relief for her to know.’

For a long time he sat in his car, staring out across Roskilde Fjord. Lights from the city showed way out over the dark water. Under other circumstances it would infuse him with calm, but just now there was none to be found.

The phrase ‘Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today’ rotated ceaselessly in his head. Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today, because suddenly there are no tomorrows.

Had it been just a few weeks earlier, Martha Jørgensen could have died with the knowledge that her children’s executioners were dead. What peace of mind it would have given her. And what peace of mind it would have given Carl, knowing that she knew.

‘Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today.’

He looked at his watch again, then picked up his mobile. Stared a long while at the display before he finally punched in the numbers.

‘This is the spinal clinic,’ said a voice. In the background the television was on at high volume. He could make out the words ‘Ejlstrup’, ‘Dueholt’, ‘Duemose’ and ‘comprehensive animal-rescue mission’.

Yes, the news had even reached there.

‘Carl Mørck speaking,’ he said. ‘I’m a close friend of Hardy Henningsen. Would you be so kind as to tell him that I’ll be visiting him tomorrow?’

‘Of course. But Hardy’s asleep right now.’

‘OK, but please tell him first thing tomorrow morning.’

Staring out over the water again, he bit his lip. He had never made a bigger decision in his life.

And misgivings settled in him like a knife to the abdomen.

Then he breathed deeply, punched in the next number and waited year-long seconds before Mona Ibsen answered.

‘Hi, Mona, it’s Carl. I’m sorry about how things ended last time.’

‘Never mind that.’ She sounded as if she meant it. ‘I heard what happened today, Carl. It’s on every TV station. I’ve seen pictures of you. Lots of pictures. Are you badly hurt? That’s what they’re all saying. Where are you now?’

‘I’m sitting in my car, looking out over Roskilde Fjord.’

She was silent a moment, probably trying to gauge the depths of his crisis.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I can’t say that I am.’

‘I’ll come right away,’ she said. ‘Stay where you are, Carl. Don’t move an inch. Look at the water, be calm. I’ll be there in no time. Tell me precisely where you are, and I’ll be there.’

He sighed. That was sweet of her.

‘No, no,’ he said, allowing himself a little chuckle. ‘No, don’t worry about me. I am OK. I just have something to discuss with you. Something I’m not sure I can handle on my own. If you can meet me at my place, that’ll make me very, very happy.’

He had spared no pains. Neutralized Jesper with money to be spent at Pizzeria Roma and Allerød Cinema. More than enough for two people, plus a shawarma down at the station afterwards. He had called the video-rental store and asked Morten to go straight down to the basement when he got home from work. He’d made coffee and boiled water for tea. The sofa and coffee table were as tidy as they’d ever been.

She sat beside him on the sofa, hands folded in her lap. Her eyes were intense. She listened to every single word he said, nodding when his pauses were too long. But she said nothing herself until he was as finished as he possibly could be.

‘You want to take care of Hardy in your house, and you’re afraid,’ she said, nodding once more. ‘Do you know what, Carl?’

He felt his whole physical presence shift gear, slipping into slow motion. Felt as though he’d been shaking his head for an eternity. That his lungs were working like a leaky bellows. ‘Do you know what, Carl?’ she’d said. Whatever her question would turn out to be, he wouldn’t know the answer. He just wanted her to sit there for ever, her unasked question hanging on lips he would die for to kiss. Once she received an answer, there would be all too little time before her scent became just a memory, the sight of her eyes fading into unreality.

‘No, I don’t know,’ he said hesitantly.

She laid a hand on his. ‘You are simply gorgeous,’ she said, and leaned herself against him so that her breath met his.

She’s wonderful, was what he thought, just as his mobile rang. She insisted he answer it.

‘Hi, it’s Vigga!’ came the strongly provocative voice of his runaway wife. ‘Jesper called. He says he wants to move in with me,’ she said, as the feeling of Paradise that had just begun to settle in Carl’s body was torn from him.

‘But that won’t work at all, Carl. He can’t live with me. We have to talk about it. I’m on my way over. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.’

He was about to protest. But Vigga had already hung up.

Carl met Mona’s enticing gaze and smiled apologetically.

This was just his life in a nutshell.

Acknowledgements

A warm thanks to Hanne Adler Olsen for her daily encouragement and tremendous insight. Thanks, too, to Elsebeth Wæhrens, Freddy Milton, Eddie Kiran, Hanne Petersen, Micha Schmalsteig and Henning Kure for indispensible and thorough commentary, as well as Jens Wæhrens for his consultation and Anne C. Andersen for all the juggling and her eagle eye. Thanks to Gitte and Peter Q. Rannes and the Danish Centre for Writers and Translators at Hald Hovedgaard for their hospitality when the urge struck, and to Poul G. Exner for being uncompromising. Thanks to Karlo Andersen for his all-round knowledge of hunting, among other things, and to Police Superintendent Leif Christensen for his generosity with his experience and for his sharp corrections on police procedures.

Thanks to you, all the fantastic readers who’ve visited my website, www.jussiadlerolsen.com, and encouraged me to keep writing.

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First published in Denmark as Fasandræberne by Politikens Forlag, 2008

This translation first published 2012

Copyright © Jussi Adler-Olsen, 2008

Translation copyright © K. E. Semmel, 2012

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-0-14-196252-8

Read on for an extract from the next novel in the Department Q series …

Redemption

Jussi Adler-Olsen

Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken

Available from Penguin in spring 2013

Prologue

It was the third morning, and the smell of tar and seaweed had got into his clothes. Under the boathouse floor, the mush of ice lapped against the wooden stilts and awakened memories of days when everything had been all right.

He lifted his upper body from the bedding of waste paper and pulled himself sufficiently upright as to be able to make out his little brother’s face, which even in sleep seemed tormented, perished with cold.

Soon, he would wake and glance around in panic. He would feel the leather straps tight around his wrists and waist and hear the jangle of the chain that constrained him. He would see the snowstorm and the light as it struggled to penetrate the tarred timber planks. And then he would start to pray.

Countless were the times desperation had sprung forth in his brother’s eyes. Through the heavy-duty tape that covered his mouth came the repeated sound of his muffled beseechings that Jehova have mercy upon them.

Yet both of them knew that Jehova no longer paid heed, for blood had passed their lips. Blood that their jailer had let drip into their cups. The cups from which he had allowed them to drink before revealing to them what they had contained. They had drunk water, but in the water was blood, so forbidden, and now they were damned for ever. And for that reason, shame pierced deeper even than thirst.

‘What do you think he’ll do to us?’ his brother’s frightened eyes seemed so incessantly to ask. But how could he ever know the answer? All he knew was the instinctive feeling that it would all soon be over.

He leaned backwards and scanned the room once again in the dim light, allowing his gaze to pass across the collar beams and through the formations of cobwebs, noting each and every projection, each and every knot. The frayed paddles and oars that hung from the apex of the ceiling. The rotten fishnets that had long since made their last catch.

And then he discovered the bottle. A gleam of sunlight playing momentarily on the blue-white glass to dazzle him.

It was so near, and yet so hard to reach. It was just behind him, wedged between the thick, rough-hewn planks of the floor.

He stuck his fingers through the gap and tried to prise the bottle upwards by the neck, only for the air to freeze to ice upon his skin. When the thing came loose he would smash it and use the shards to cut through the strap that held his hands tied tight together behind his back. And when it succumbed, his numb fingers would find the buckle at his spine. He would loosen it, tear the tape from his mouth, remove the straps from around his waist and thighs, and as soon as the chain that was fastened to the leather strap at his waist no longer constrained him, he would lunge forward and free his brother. He would draw him towards him and hold him tight until their bodies ceased to tremble.

Then, he envisaged, he would use all his strength to dig into the timber around the door with the broken glass. He would see if he could hollow out the planks where the hinges were placed. And if the worst should happen and the car came before he was finished, he would stand in wait for the man. He would wait behind the door with the broken glass in his hand. That was what he told himself he would do.

He leaned forward, folded his freezing fingers behind his back and prayed for forgiveness for his wicked thought.

Then he scraped again in the space between the planks in order that the bottle might come free. He scraped and scratched until the neck angled sufficiently for him to grab hold of it.

He listened.

Was that an engine? Yes, it was. The powerful engine of a large car. But was it approaching or simply passing by in the distance out there?

For a moment, the low sound seemed to become louder. He began to pull so desperately at the neck of the bottle that his knuckles cracked. But then it died away. Had it been the wind turbines, rumbling and whirring? Maybe it was something else entirely. He had no idea.

He expelled warm breath from his nostrils. It steamed the air around his face. He wasn’t so afraid any more, not now. As long as he thought about the grace of God, he felt better.

He pressed his lips together and kept on. And when finally the bottle came free, he struck it so hard against the timber of the floor that his brother lifted his head with a startled jolt and looked around in terror.

Again and again, he brought the bottle down against the floor. It was hard to get a swing with his hands behind his back. Too hard. Eventually, when his fingers were no longer able to maintain their grip, he let the bottle slide from his hand, turned himself around and stared emptily at it as dust gently descended through the cramped space from the beams.

He couldn’t break it. He simply wasn’t able. A pathetic little bottle. Was it because they had drunk blood? Had Jehova abandoned them?

He looked at his brother, who rolled deliberately back into his blanket and fell back on to his bedding. He was silent, not even attempting to mumble a word through his adhesive tape.

It took a while to gather the things he needed. The hardest part was to stretch himself sufficiently within the confines of his chain as to be able to reach the tar between the roofing planks with the tips of his fingers. Everything else was at hand: the bottle, the sliver of wood from the timbered floor, the paper on which he was seated.

He pushed off one of his shoes and stabbed so sharply at his wrist with the sliver that tears welled involuntarily in his eyes. He let the blood drip on to his polished shoe for a minute, perhaps two. Then he tore a large shred of paper from his bedding, dipped the sliver of timber in his blood and twisted his body, pulling at his chain until able to see what he was writing behind his back. As best he could, and in the smallest of handwriting, he put down in words what was happening to them. When done, he signed the letter with his name, rolled up the paper and stuffed it inside the bottle.

He allowed himself plenty of time to press the lump of tar down into the neck. He shifted his weight so as better to see, and checked and double-checked to make sure it was well done.

When finally there was no more to do, he heard the dull sound of a car engine. This time there was no mistake. He cast a pained glance at his little brother and stretched for all his might towards the light that seeped in through a broad crack in the timbered wall, the only opening through which the bottle would be able to pass.

Then the door was opened and a thick shadow stepped inside amid a flurry of white snowflakes.

Silence.

And then the plop.

The bottle released.