Next of Kin (15 page)

‘That's what I've been saying all along. We should have run that story right away. Now we're lagging behind everybody else like a bunch of useless boy scouts.'

Kaiser was on the warpath next morning and the telephone receiver in her hand had been transformed into a stick of dynamite. He had conveniently forgotten that it had been his decision to act responsibly in the first place by not publishing the killers' demands. The beheading in England and the demand for the return of the death penalty had reached the Danish media with the speed of lightning. The
Daily Mirror
story was already headline news on the radio and as a result Dicte's paper had been inundated with calls from other journalists seeking confirmation that the two cases were linked and an explanation as to why they had decided to keep the story and the true nature of events quiet. Their website, switchboard and even their fax machine were all about to melt down due to the high number of messages pouring in from readers. Meanwhile the rest of the press more than hinted that they and the public had been kept in the dark and that a misguided attempt to protect individuals had been allowed to overshadow the real issue, which was freedom of speech and the obligation to tell Danish citizens the truth.

‘We're going to be in every editorial tomorrow. Both
Ekstra Bladet
and
Politiken
are going to chop us into little bits. And don't even get me started on
Jyllands-Posten
,' Kaiser predicted gloomily. ‘They've been so bloody holier than thou ever since the Mohammed cartoons.'

Graciously Dicte chose to ignore the implied personal criticism of her. Right from the start it had been she who had held back and persuaded him to wait. She had been the one who had wanted to delay the publication of the film. She still felt that she had done the right thing, yet she sympathised with Kaiser's frustration. So if he could vent his anger by sticking needles into his Svendsen doll, it was okay by her.

‘The United Victims,' she said, doodling on a press release from the unscrupulous Arla Dairy whose sell-by date had long passed. ‘Perhaps we should have known it was going to go global. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, as they say.'

Kaiser grunted. How could they have anticipated that? How could anyone expect them to think along the same twisted lines of the killers?

‘So what do you want?' she asked.

She had to give him something, she knew that. Neither she nor the paper would accept their rivals taking all the glory. Out went any thought of the police or PET or even national security. Journalism and the risks associated with telling people the truth, or something that came close, was once again a top priority. That was how it had to be right now. They would face the music later, whatever form it took. No one could reasonably expect them to continue to lie low and be economical with the facts.

‘You write the entire story as it happened to you,' Kaiser demanded. ‘Subjectively. With emotions, fear and anger; the whole shooting match. What it means to you and your family. What you make of it all.'

Dicte nearly snapped her pen in mid-doodle. She could visualise it: Bo and Rose plastered all over the front page. There were limits.

‘We'll set up a team over here in the Copenhagen offices,' Kaiser continued. ‘Frandsen, Lise Henningsen and maybe a third person. We'll have to call in the experts. We need a perspective from someone who can analyse whether Muslims are really involved or not. You stay in contact with the police and write a piece about where the case is right now: what the link is between Denmark and England; whether the Danish police have received a copy of the film from the UK; what the similarities are between the attack here and over there; whether the manifestos are identical in content or if we're talking about two different authors.'

She rested her elbow on the table while he brainstormed. Again she was struck by the thought that they were doing the killers' work for them. They had achieved a victory with their action in London: their message would be broadcast worldwide. The British press would probably never have published the Mohammed cartoons but as soon as there was a whiff of Al Qaeda there was no stopping them. This, of course, provided Kaiser and the rest of the Danish press with a watertight alibi for forging ahead full steam. After all, they could always blame the Brits.

‘And what's going on in Rosenborg?' Kaiser asked abruptly.

‘Rosenhøj Centre,' she corrected. He meant the Aarhus immigrant suburb with the night-time disturbances. ‘Bo and Helle were there yesterday and the day before that. She's off sick today.'

This comment wasn't made without gleeful malice. The trainee had lasted three days. Kaiser made a sniffing noise which could have been interpreted as a sneer.

‘Disaffected young immigrants throwing cobblestones and torching property,' she explained. ‘It seems more like a social issue.'

‘Some might call it terrorism,' Kaiser pointed out.

‘Ordinary people, perhaps. But it's not political terrorism. No way would professionals do that.'

‘All the same,' ruled Kaiser, who loved to draw parallels, ‘go back and have another look today. Something might crop up.'

‘Okay,' she said, trying to oblige him so as to get on. ‘I suppose it's all related somehow.'

She wasn't sure that was actually the case. However, it was always a good idea to have several hooks to hang a story on, and she decided on the spot that she would definitely get a couple of comments from the front line in Rosenhøj about recent developments, given that there were now two beheadings.

She found Bo in the photo lab. There hadn't been much time to talk that morning and last night he had come home late. She had a stabbing feeling she had been neglected and it forced its way out between her lips, even though she knew it was stupid.

‘I know my name's not Helle, but do you fancy coming with me to Rosenhøj?'

For a moment Bo looked at her as if he were searching for something in her, and she suddenly felt embarrassed and childish.

‘Of course,' he said with a kindness only he was able to make sound ambiguous. ‘Now?'

She shrugged. They might as well get it over with so she could go home and write the other things Kaiser had told her to.

They drove there in his car with cameras, lamps and tripods rattling about on the back seat. She wanted to ask him where he had been the previous night and whether Helle, by some strange chance, had been there too. But the words stuck in her throat while the silence between them grew.

She was relieved when they reached Rosenhøj and had a job to do—even though there wasn't anything more to be gleaned about the beheadings since no one wished to comment on it. Probably because they already had enough on their plates with their own problems, she thought.

‘I've lost about fifty per cent of my business. How am I going to pay the rent?'

Dicte could see genuine distress in the shop-owner's eyes. He was an immigrant himself. Even so a gang of angry young men hadn't stinted on their enthusiasm or the stones, which had been hurled though the windows of the corner shop. He showed them to Dicte. They were in a neat little pile to the right of the counter.

‘What's going on out there?' the little man asked in the same breath. ‘Why are they doing this?' He shook his head, tossing his dark curls.

Dicte had no answer, and for that very reason felt oddly to blame. She looked around. Soot stains on the concrete floor revealed where the fire had gone out, a few centimetres from a stack of cardboard boxes. This was the third time his windows had been smashed, but this time an incendiary had also been thrown. There was no doubt that things were escalating, and the atmosphere everywhere in Rosenhøj Centre was thick with anger and frustration. There might not be anyone willing to comment on either the beheadings, or even the Mohammed cartoons, but she couldn't help thinking that it could only exacerbate what was beginning to look more and more like hatred.

‘Why?' She asked Bo after leaving the shopkeeper and had gone on to see his next-door neighbour who owned the pizza place. Again, he was an immigrant and it had seemingly made no difference as the young troublemakers had decided to throw stones and smash five windows before proclaiming the area as their own and demanding that the police keep away.

Bo shrugged. ‘They're bored. They've got no jobs,' he said.

‘Well, that's no excuse for vandalising and setting fire to other people's property, and endangering other people's lives.'

Dicte knew she sounded riled. The smell of the smoke and the sight of the wanton destruction enraged her. What the hell was going on in a society that would allow something like this to happen? Whose fault was it? Whose responsibility? Young people, of course, but were there any other reasons? Was there anything at all that could justify their behaviour?

Bo held up his hands defensively. ‘I'm not making excuses for anyone, but you did ask,' he said.

They had a look around and saw more broken windows in the semi-deserted shopping centre. She felt like a tape recorder recording on two tracks. On one was the story in all its horror. On the other, the haunting thought of Bo and Helle together in his city centre apartment, which he insisted on keeping. At some point the question would have to be asked.

‘What's up with Helle? Can't she stand the heat?'

It was a stupid metaphor, she knew that. Not just because of all the vandalism they were surrounded by, but because she suspected that Helle and Bo had shared a few joints after a hard day's work and that was the real reason Helle had phoned in sick the next day.

Bo kicked a charred board, causing it to career across the pavement. ‘How should I know?'

‘I thought you were the last person to see her.'

‘It's not a crime to be sick.'

She could hear the frustration in his tone of voice. ‘That depends on the reason.'

He flushed. ‘What the hell do you mean by that?'

She stopped. They locked eyes and she saw that she had crossed a line and quickly regretted it. In the short second that passed she looked for love and maybe even found it somewhere in the anger that flared up in him as his fingers closed around her arm and squeezed it, and in the words that came gushing out.

‘What's the matter with you? You don't tell me anything anymore. You just disappear without any explanation. You think I'm pulling away from you when all the time it's you who's shutting me out,' he said.

‘You're a good one to talk about disappearing,' she retorted. ‘As soon as some new glamourpuss sails into the office you give her your undivided attention and pretend you're out of sight and sound. You weren't there! At least, not mentally.' She shook her head as they crossed towards the car.

‘I haven't got the faintest idea what you're on about.'

The remote key flashed, unlocked the car and they got in. With suppressed anger, Bo started the car and reversed at such a high speed that he only just missed hitting a cyclist, who was forced to swerve.

‘You're jealous,' he said.

‘No, I'm not. I've got other things on my mind.'

‘Like looking up old boyfriends, for example.'

He gave her a searching glance as he changed gears. She regretted casually having mentioned anything to him at breakfast this morning before they went off to work in separate cars.

‘Who said anything about jealousy?' she said to no one in particular, except for a passing moped.

‘All right then, you don't understand,' Bo corrected himself. ‘Why not?'

She didn't want to tell him. Nevertheless he managed to get it out of her and before they reached her office he knew all about her meeting with PET and Morten and the tattoo.

She had hoped for his support, or at least some sympathy, but she could tell from his face that support was not at the top of his agenda. It might have had something to do with her mentioning that she had called Torsten to ask for advice. Bo had always been allergic to her ex-husband.

‘What?' she asked as they were parking in the yard behind the office. He got out and slammed the door shut and they trudged over to the rear stairs together.

‘I'm sure you'll twist things,' he said and they struggled up the stairs, which creaked ominously.

‘What the hell do you mean by that?'

‘It always comes back to the same thing. Your son. In the end, somehow, you twist things so that it's all about your son.'

Dicte stopped halfway up the stairs and felt the shock reverberate through her body. It felt like she'd walked into an electric fence. ‘But he's got nothing to do with this.'

‘Of course he has. Otherwise why would you behave so idiotically and withhold information from the police and PET? You want to do this on your own. You regard this as your personal crusade simply because you once had a baby, gave him up for adoption and because there might be a peripheral link to the commune where that child was conceived.'

His voice had changed. It consisted of so many layers that she was unable to tell them apart.

‘You're forgetting that lives are at stake here,' Bo went on. ‘You just pursue your ego trip without a second thought,' he panted as they made their way up the last few steps. ‘Without thinking how important it is for the police to solve the case and prevent any further executions.'

She opened the door to the newspaper office and they staggered in. ‘You're awfully keen for me to be PET's little lapdog,' she said. ‘That's not like you.'

He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I'm growing up. Perhaps I can see that you're heading for trouble. Perhaps I'm just trying to help.'

Dicte spun on her heels and headed for the main computer room. ‘You could have fooled me,' she said in English.

She ignored the others, pulled her notepad out of her bag and sat down to write the articles to shut Kaiser up. She found the fine balance between her personal story and professional objectivity and was, in fact, very pleased when she was finally able to press the ‘send' button.