Mercy (7 page)

‘Well, you know, considering the huge department I’m in charge of, there’s not much chance that he’ll hear about what goes on.’

Jacobsen tossed his pen on to one of the piles of documents. ‘Carl, you’ve taken an oath of confidentiality, and the man isn’t a police officer. Just keep that in mind.’

Carl nodded. He’d be the one to decide what was discussed and where. ‘How on earth did you find Assad? Through the employment office?’

‘I have no idea. Ask Lars Bjørn. Or ask the man himself.’

Carl raised a finger. ‘By the way, I’d like to have a floor plan of the basement, to scale, and showing the points of the compass.’

Jacobsen was looking a bit tired again. There weren’t many people who dared make such strange requests of him. ‘You can print out a floor plan from the departmental intranet, Carl. It’s easy!’

‘Here,’ said Carl, pointing at the floor plan spread out in front of Assad. ‘Here you can see that wall over there, and here’s where you’ve put your prayer rug. And here’s the arrow pointing north. So now you can position the rug in exactly the right place.’

The eyes that turned to look up at him were full of respect. They were going to make a good team.

‘Two people called with the telephone for you. I told both of them that you would be pleased to call them back sometime.’

‘Who were they?’

‘That man who is the director in Frederikssund, and a lady who talked like a machine that cuts through metal.’

Carl sighed heavily. ‘Vigga. That’s my wife.’ So she’d found out what his new phone number was. Any chance of peace and quiet was now gone.

‘Wife? You have a wife?’

‘Oh, Assad, it’s too complicated to get into right now. Let’s get to know each other better first.’

Assad pursed his lips and nodded. A trace of sympathy passed over his solemn face.

‘Assad, how exactly did you get this job, anyway?’

‘I know Lars Bjørn.’

‘You know him?’

Assad smiled. ‘Yes, I do. I was in his office every single day for a whole month to get job.’

‘You pestered Lars Bjørn about getting a job?’

‘Yes, I love police.’

Carl didn’t call Vigga back until he was in his living room in Rønneholt Park, breathing in the aroma of the hash that Morten was cooking while listening to emotional operatic arias. He’d thrown together the concoction from what had once been a genuine Parma ham from Super-Best.

Vigga was OK in small doses, as long as Carl was allowed to decide how much of her to take. It had been difficult over the years, but now that she’d left him, certain rules of the game applied.

‘Damn it, Vigga,’ he said. ‘I don’t like you calling me at work. You know how busy we are.’

‘Carl, sweetheart. Didn’t Morten tell you that I’m freezing out here?’

‘I’m not surprised. It’s a garden cottage, Vigga. It was cobbled together out of shitty building materials. Old boards and crates that were already surplus and worthless in 1945. You can just move somewhere else.’

‘I’m not moving back in with you, Carl.’

He took a deep breath. ‘I certainly hope not. It would be hard to squeeze you and your assembly line of confirmation-aged lovers into the sauna downstairs with Morten. But there are plenty of other houses and flats that do have central heating.’

‘I’ve got a really good solution for the whole thing.’

No matter what she had in mind, it already sounded expensive. ‘A really good solution would be a divorce, Vigga,’ said Carl. Sooner or later it had to happen. Then she would demand half the value of the house, and during the past few years it had increased considerably, brought on by the insane rise in the housing market in spite of fluctuations. He should have simply demanded a divorce while houses still cost half of what they did today. It was as simple as that. But it was too late now, and he’d be damned if he was going to move.

He turned his eyes to the vibrating ceiling under Jesper’s room. Even if I took out a loan when we divorced, my expenses couldn’t possibly be more than they are now, he thought. In that case, he imagined she’d have to take back responsibility for her son. They had the biggest electricity bill on this side of town; there was no doubt about that. Jesper had to be the energy company’s elite customer number one.

‘Divorce? No, I don’t want a divorce, Carl. I’ve tried that before, and it wasn’t a good thing. You know that.’

He shook his head. Then what the hell did she call the situation they’d been living in for the past couple of years?

‘I want to have a gallery, Carl. My very own gallery.’

OK, here it came. In his mind he saw Vigga’s paintings, which were nothing more than metre-high, deranged blotches of pink and bronze gilding. A gallery? Good idea, if she wanted to make more space in her garden cottage.

‘A gallery, you say? And I imagine that it will have a gigantic furnace. So then you can sit there all day, warming yourself on all the millions of kroner that are going to come pouring in.’ Sure. He could see the whole scam.

‘You’ve always been the sarcastic type,’ said Vigga. And then she laughed. It was the laugh that got to him every time. That damn seductive laugh. ‘But it’s really a fantastic idea, Carl. There would be so many possibilities if I had my own gallery. Can’t you just picture it? And maybe one day Jesper will have a famous mother. Wouldn’t that be fun?’

Infamous, Vigga. That’s the proper word, he thought. But what he said was: ‘So you’ve already found a place, is that right?’

‘Oh, Carl, it’s so charming. And Hugin has already talked to the owner.’

‘Hugin?’

‘Yes, Hugin. He’s a very talented painter.’

‘Better between the bed sheets than on the canvases, I’d guess.’

‘Come on, Carl.’ She laughed again. ‘Be nice.’

14

2002

Merete had been waiting on the restaurant deck. She’d told Uffe to hurry up just before the door to the men’s room slammed behind him. Only waiters were still in the cafeteria at the other end of the ferry; all the passengers had gone down to their cars. Uffe needs to hurry up, she thought, even though the Audi was at the back of the line.

And that was the last full thought she managed to formulate in her former life.

The attack came from behind and it was so surprising that she didn’t even have time to scream. But she did notice the hand pressing the rag hard against her mouth and nose, and then, more vaguely, she was aware of someone pushing the black button that opened the door to the stairwell down to the car deck. Finally, she was conscious only of a couple of distant noises and the sight of all the metal walls in the stairwell whirling around, and then everything went black.

The cement floor underneath her when she woke up was cold, very cold. She lifted her head, feeling an intense pounding inside. Her legs felt heavy, and she could hardly raise her shoulders off the floor. She forced herself into a sitting position and tried to orient herself in the pitch dark. She considered shouting but didn’t dare; instead she took a deep breath, without making a sound. Then she cautiously stretched out her hands to test if there was anything close by. But there was nothing.

For a long time she just sat there before venturing to stand up, slowly, every nerve on alert. She was determined to lash out at even the slightest sound. She would hit as hard as she could. Hit and kick. She sensed that she was alone, but she might be wrong.

After a while she felt more clear-headed, and then the fear came creeping in, like an infection. Her skin grew hot, her heart beat harder and faster. Her eyes, blinded by the dark, flickered nervously. She’d read and seen so many terrible things.

About women who disappeared.

Then she took a hesitant step forwards, holding out her hands. There might be a hole in the floor, an abyss just waiting to swallow her up. There might be sharp implements and glass. But her foot found the floor, and there was still nothing in front of her. All of a sudden she stopped and stood motionless.

Uffe, she thought, feeling her jaw start to quiver. He was on board the ship when it happened.

It took a couple of hours for her to sketch a floor plan of the room in her mind. The space seemed to be rectangular. Maybe twenty to twenty-five feet in length and at least fifteen feet wide. She had run her fingers over the cold walls; on one of them, at eye level, she’d found a couple of glass panes that felt like two enormous portholes. She’d hammered on them with her shoe, jumping back at each blow. But the glass didn’t break. Then she’d touched the edges of something that felt like an arched doorway set into the wall, although maybe not, because there was no door handle. She’d slid her hands over the wall, in the hope of finding a handle or maybe a light switch somewhere. But the surface was smooth and cold.

After that she systematically explored the whole room. She cautiously paced from one end to the other, turned around, took a step to the side, and then made her way back. Upon reaching the far wall, she repeated the whole exercise. When she was done, she concluded that she and the dry air were all alone in the room.

I need to wait over there, next to what feels like a door, she thought. She would sit down at the base of it so she wouldn’t be visible through the glass panes. When someone came in, she’d grab their legs and give them a yank. She’d try to kick the person hard in the head over and over.

Her muscles tensed and her skin felt clammy. She might have only the one chance.

After she’d sat there so long that her body had grown stiff and her senses were dulled, she got to her feet and went over to the opposite corner to squat down and pee. She needed to remember which corner she had used. One corner as a toilet. One where she sat and waited by the door, and one where she would sleep. The smell of urine was strong in the desolate cage. She hadn’t had anything to drink since sitting in the ship’s cafeteria, and that could easily have been hours ago. Of course it was possible that she’d been unconscious for only an hour or two, but it could also have been a whole day or more. She had no idea. All she knew was that she wasn’t hungry, just thirsty.

She stood up, pulled up her trousers, and tried to remember.

She and Uffe had been the last passengers near the toilets. They were probably also the last ones on the sun deck. At any rate, the two men over by the big picture windows were gone when she and Uffe passed by. She had nodded to the waitress who came out of the cafeteria, and she’d seen a couple of kids punch the door opener before disappearing below deck. Nothing else. She hadn’t noticed anyone coming that close to her. Her only thought had been that Uffe needed to hurry up and come out of the toilet.

Oh God, Uffe! What had happened to him? He was so unhappy after he’d hit her. And he’d been so dismayed that his baseball cap was gone. There were still red patches on his cheeks when he went into the toilet. So what kind of shape could he be in by now?

She heard a click from above that made her cringe. Then she quickly fumbled her way over to the corner with the arched door. She had to be ready if someone came in. Then there was another click, and her heart felt as if it might hammer apart. Only when the fan overhead started up did she realize she could relax a little. The clicking sound must have come from some sort of relay switch.

She stretched towards the warm air; it was life-giving. What else did she have to cling to?

And she remained standing there like that until the fan stopped, leaving her with the feeling that the warm air might be her only contact with the outside world. She closed her eyes tight and made herself concentrate so that the sobs trying to force their way out would be kept at bay.

It was a terrible thought. But maybe it was true. Maybe she’d be left here for all eternity. Hidden away to die. And nobody knew where she was; even she didn’t know. It could be anywhere. Several hours’ drive from the ferry-boat landing. In Denmark or Germany, anywhere at all. Maybe even further away than that.

And with death slowly emerging as the likely end to this whole scenario, she imagined the weapon that thirst and hunger would aim at her. The lingering death, in which her body would short-circuit bit by bit, the relay switches of self-preservation shutting down one after the other. And at last the apathetic, ultimate slumber that would set her free.

There aren’t many people who will miss me, she thought. Uffe, of course. He would miss her. Poor, poor Uffe. But she’d never let anyone but her brother get close to her. She’d locked out everyone else and caged herself in.

She tried very hard to hold back the tears, but without success. Was this really what life had held for her? Was it going to end like this? Without children, without happiness, without having a chance to realize all that she’d dreamed of doing during the years she was alone with Uffe? Without being able to fulfil the obligation that she’d taken on ever since her parents died?

It was a bitter, depressing feeling, and infinitely lonely. That was why she now heard herself sobbing quietly.

She was overwhelmed by the awareness that Uffe would be all alone in the world, and she imagined that this was the most terrible thing that could happen to her. For a long time it filled her consciousness completely. She was going to die alone, like an animal, silently and unaccounted for, while Uffe and everyone else would have to live on without knowing. And when she had exhausted all her tears, it occurred to her that maybe this wasn’t over yet. And things might get worse. She could be in for a cruel death. She might have been relegated to a fate so horrible that death would come as a relief. But first she might have to endure pain and bestiality. She’d heard all about such things. Exploitation, rape and torture. Maybe eyes were watching her right now. Cameras with infrared sensors observing her through the glass. Eyes that meant to harm her. Ears that were listening.

She looked towards the glass panes and tried to appear calm.

‘Please, have mercy on me,’ she whispered softly into the darkness.

15

2007

A Peugeot 607 is considered to be a relatively quiet vehicle, but that was hardly the case during Assad’s frantic parking manoeuvres on the road directly outside Carl’s bedroom window.

‘Awesome,’ muttered Jesper as he stared out the window. Carl couldn’t recall the last time his stepson had said even one word so early in the morning. But it sure as hell was appropriate.

‘I left you a note from Vigga,’ Morten called out after Carl as he headed out the door. But he wasn’t about to read any note from Vigga. The prospect of receiving an invitation to look at galleries in the company of an undoubtedly narrow-hipped artist named Hugin who painted big blotches on canvas wasn’t exactly at the top of Carl’s list right now.

‘Hello,’ greeted Assad as he stood leaning against the driver’s door. On his head he wore a camel-hair cap of unknown origin. He looked like anything but a private chauffeur assigned to the criminal police department, if such a title even existed. Carl glanced up at the sky. It was pale blue and clear, the temperature was tolerable.

‘I know just exactly the location of Egely,’ said Assad, pointing at the GPS as Carl got into the passenger seat. Carl cast a weary glance at the image on the screen. He saw an
X
on a road that was a comfortable distance from the waters of Roskilde Fjord, so that the residents of the nursing home wouldn’t be likely to fall in, but close enough so the director would have a good view of most of the delights of northern Zealand, if he ever bothered to look out of the window. That was where institutions for mentally disturbed patients were often placed. God only knew for whose sake the location had actually been chosen.

Assad started the engine, put the car in reverse, and sped backwards along Magnolievangen, stopping only when the rear of the vehicle was halfway up on the grass embankment on the other side of Rønneholt Parkvei. Before Carl’s body could even react, Assad had slammed through the gears and was now cruising along at ninety kilometres an hour, where the speed limit was only fifty.

‘Stop, damn it!’ yelled Carl just before they entered the roundabout at the end of the road. But Assad merely gave him a sly look, like a cab driver in Beirut, and yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. The next second they were headed for the motorway.

‘Fast car!’ shouted Assad, flooring the accelerator as they entered the slip road.

Maybe it would put a damper on him if Carl pulled that cap down over his rapturous face.

Egely was a whitewashed building that splendidly proclaimed its purpose. No one ever entered voluntarily, and it was far from easy for anyone to get out. It was obvious that this was not a place for finger-painting or guitar lessons. This was where people with money and status placed the weak members of their families.

Private care, in the spirit of the government itself.

The director’s office matched the overall impression, and the director himself, an unsmiling, bony and pallid-looking man, suited the interior as if specifically designed for it.

‘Uffe Lynggaard’s expenses here are paid by the proceeds from funds deposited in the Lynggaard trust,’ replied the director to Carl’s question.

Carl glanced at the bookshelf, which held numerous case files, many of them labelled with the word ‘trust’.

‘I see. And how exactly was the trust created?’

‘An inheritance from his parents, who were both killed in a car accident which also injured Uffe. And an inheritance from his sister, of course.’

‘She was a member of parliament, so I don’t imagine we’re talking about large sums of money.’

‘No, but the sale of their house brought in two million kroner, when a presumption of death was handed down by court order not too long ago. Thank God for that. At the moment the trust is worth about twenty-two million kroner, but I’m sure you already know that.’

Carl whistled softly. He hadn’t known that. ‘Twenty-two million, at five per cent interest. I suppose that would pay for Uffe’s expenses, wouldn’t it?’

‘Well yes, it just about covers things, after taxes.’

Carl gave him a wry look. ‘And since he’s been here, Uffe hasn’t said anything about his sister’s disappearance?’

‘No, he hasn’t spoken a word since the car accident, as far as I’ve been told.’

‘Have you done anything to help get him going?’

At that the director took off his glasses and peered at Carl from under his bushy eyebrows. He was the epitome of seriousness. ‘Uffe Lynggaard has been thoroughly examined. He has scar tissue from bleeding in the speech centre of his brain, which is explanation enough for his muteness. But he also suffered severe trauma from the accident. The death of his parents, his own injuries. As you may know, he was seriously hurt.’

‘Yes, I read the report.’ He hadn’t actually, but Assad had, and the man hadn’t stopped jabbering about it as they cruised along the motorways of northern Zealand. ‘He spent five months in the hospital with severe internal bleeding in his liver, spleen and lung tissue. His vision was also impaired.’

The director gave a brief nod. ‘That’s correct. It says in his medical file that Uffe Lynggaard was unable to see for several weeks. He had massive retinal bleeding.’

‘What about now? Is his body functioning as it should, from a physiological perspective?’

‘By all indications, yes. He’s a strong young man.’

‘He’s nearly thirty-four years old. So he’s been in this condition for twenty-one years.’

The pale man again nodded. ‘So you can understand why you’re not going to get anywhere with him.’

‘And you won’t let me talk to him?’

‘I don’t think it would serve any purpose.’

‘He was the last one to see Merete Lynggaard alive. I’d like to see him.’

The director straightened up. Now he looked out at the fjord, as Carl had predicted he would. ‘I don’t think I’m going to allow it.’

Pompous idiots like him deserved to be stabbed with a blunt knife. ‘You don’t trust me to behave myself, but I think you should.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Are you familiar with the police?’

The director turned to look at Carl. His face was an ashen grey, his brow furrowed. Years spent behind a desk had worn him out, but there was nothing wrong with his mind. He had no idea what Carl meant by that question, only that silence would not be to his benefit.

‘What exactly are you getting at?’

‘We police officers are an inquisitive lot. Sometimes we’ve got a question burning in our minds and we just have to find an answer. This time it’s obvious.’

‘And the question is?’

‘Where do your patients get their money? Five per cent of twenty-two million, minus taxes of course, is just a drop in the bucket. Do your patients receive full value for their money, or is the price too high when the state funding is added in? And is the price the same for everybody?’ Carl nodded to himself, drinking in the light coming off the fjord. ‘New questions always keep popping up when we can’t get an answer to the one we’re initially interested in. That’s just how policemen are. We can’t help ourselves. Maybe it’s a disease, but who the hell could we consult to find a cure?’

Maybe now there was a hint of colour in the director’s face. ‘I don’t think we’re going to reach any kind of middle ground here.’

‘So why don’t you let me see Uffe Lynggaard? To be perfectly honest, what harm could it do? You haven’t locked him up in a damned cage or anything, have you?’

The pictures in Merete Lynggaard’s case file didn’t do full justice to her brother, Uffe. The police photographs, the sketches from the preliminary examination, and a couple of press photos had all shown a young man with a bowed figure. A pale fellow who looked like what he apparently was: an emotionally retarded, passive, slow-witted person. But reality revealed something different.

Uffe was sitting in a pleasant room with pictures on the wall and a view that was at least as good as the one from the director’s office. His bed had been newly made up, and his shoes were freshly polished. His clothes were clean and had nothing institutional about them. He had strong arms and long blond hair. He was broad-shouldered and presumably quite tall. Many would call him handsome. There was nothing drivelling or pathetic about Uffe Lynggaard.

The director and supervisory nurse watched from the doorway as Carl moved about the room, but he wasn’t going to give them any reason to criticize his behaviour. He would come back again soon, even though he didn’t really have the energy for it. He’d be better prepared next time, and then he would talk to Uffe. But that could wait for now. In the meantime there was plenty for him to study in Uffe’s room. The picture of his sister, smiling at them. His parents, with their arms around each other as they laughed at the camera. The drawings on the wall, which bore no resemblance to the childish drawings usually found on walls in this type of place. Happy drawings. Not ones that might reveal something about the horrible event that had robbed Uffe of speech.

‘Are there more drawings? Are there any in there?’ Carl asked, pointing at the wardrobe and dresser.

‘No,’ replied the nurse. ‘No, Uffe hasn’t drawn anything since he came here. These drawings are all from his home.’

‘So what does Uffe do to keep himself occupied during the day?’

She smiled. ‘Lots of things. He takes walks with the staff, he goes for a run out in the park. Watches TV. He loves that.’ The nurse seemed like a kind person. She was the one Carl would consult next time.

‘What does he watch?’

‘Whatever’s on.’

‘Does he react to the programmes?’

‘Sometimes. He likes to laugh.’ She shook her head with pleasure, smiling even more broadly.

‘He laughs?’

‘Yes, he laughs like a baby. Not self-conscious at all.’

Carl glanced at the director, standing there like a block of ice, and then at Uffe. Merete’s brother hadn’t taken his eyes off Carl since he entered the room. Carl had noticed that. Uffe was observant, but if you looked at him more closely, you could see that his gaze was not fully conscious. His eyes weren’t dead, but whatever Uffe saw, it apparently didn’t sink in very deep. Carl had an urge to startle him, just to see what would happen, but that too could wait.

He took up position next to the window and tried to catch Uffe’s eye. Uffe clearly took things in but failed to comprehend fully what he saw. There was something there, and yet there wasn’t.

‘Move over to the other seat, Assad,’ Carl told his assistant, who’d been waiting behind the wheel of the car.

‘The other seat? You do not then want me to drive?’ he asked.

‘I’d like to keep this car a while longer, Assad. It has anti-lock brakes and power steering, and I’d like it to stay that way.’

‘And what does that mean then, that you are saying?’

‘That you should sit next to me and pay attention to how I’d like you to drive. If I ever let you drive again, that is.’

Carl keyed in their next destination on the GPS, ignoring the flood of Arabic words issuing from Assad’s mouth as he slunk around the car to the passenger’s side.

‘Have you ever driven a car in Denmark?’ Carl asked as they were well on their way towards Stevns.

Assad’s silence was answer enough.

They found the house in Magleby on a side road all the way out by the fields. Not a smallholder’s residence or a restored farmhouse, like most in the area, but a genuine brick house from the period when the facade mirrored the soul of a building. There was a dense grove of yew trees, but still the house loomed over them. If the property had been sold for two million kroner, then somebody had got themselves a real bargain. And somebody else had been cheated.

The name on the brass doorplate said: ‘Antique Dealers’ and ‘Peter & Erling Møller-Hansen’. But the person who opened the door looked more like an aristocrat. Delicate complexion, deep blue eyes, and fragrant lotion generously applied all over.

The man was cooperative and accommodating. He politely took Assad’s cap from him and invited both men into a front hall filled with Empire furniture and other bric-a-brac.

No, they hadn’t known Merete Lynggaard or her brother. Not personally, that is, although most of the Lynggaards’ possessions had come with the house, but they were not of any value.

The man offered Carl and Assad green tea served in paper-thin porcelain cups. He sat on the edge of the sofa with his knees together and his feet splayed out, ready to act the role of the responsible citizen to the best of his abilities.

‘It was terrible that she drowned like that. It must be an awful way to die. My husband almost died in a waterfall in Yugoslavia once, and that was a horrible experience, let me tell you.’

Carl noticed Assad’s confused expression when the man said ‘my husband’, but a quick glance was enough to wipe the look off his face. Assad obviously still had a lot to learn about the diversity of Danish living arrangements.

‘The police collected all the documents belonging to the Lynggaards,’ said Carl. ‘But since then have you found any diaries, letters or faxes, or maybe just some phone messages that might shed new light on the case?’

The man shook his head. ‘Everything was gone.’ He made a sweeping gesture with his arm, taking in the whole living room. ‘The furniture was still here, but it was nothing special, and there wasn’t much left in the drawers other than office supplies and a few souvenirs. Scrapbooks with stickers, a few photos, and things like that. I think they must have been quite ordinary people.’

‘What about the neighbours? Did they know the Lynggaards?’

‘Oh, well, we don’t socialize much with the neighbours, and they haven’t lived here very long, anyway. They said something about having come back to Denmark from abroad. But no, I don’t think the Lynggaards spent much time with anyone else in town. A lot of people didn’t even know that she had a brother.’

‘So you haven’t run into anyone around here who knew them?’

‘Oh, sure. Helle Andersen. She took care of the brother.’

‘She is the home help,’ said Assad. ‘The police interviewed her, but she knew nothing. Except that there came a letter. For Merete Lynggaard, that is. It came the day before she drowned. The home help was the one who received it.’