Next of Kin (18 page)

The punch knocked the mobile out of Rose's hand and out of reach.

Using all her strength, she managed to put some distance between her and her pursuers. The sound of trainers on soft earth pounded in her ears. The rhythm of her heart went into an even higher gear, and her pulse followed.

‘Come on, then, you Danish whore!'

The words struck her in the back of the neck. She had almost no energy left to run any more, could hardly feel her legs, could only hear the rhythm. Ker-dunk. Ker-dunk. If only she hadn't gone to the student film club. If only she‘d walked with someone through the University Park.

‘Fucking slut!'

Thoughts exploded in her head and merged into an incomprehensible mush whose sole message was survival.

She could feel them getting quite close now. She zigzagged on the path and sensed an arm make a grab for her. It's here now, it flashed through her mind. The reckoning. The moment has come now. As she was thinking this, she knew she had been expecting it, that they would strike at him through her.

‘Come on. You want it. They all do.'

Greedy hands tore at her clothing, and she was sent flying. The world tumbled around her. She tried to pull out her tear gas, but they didn't give her a chance. The grass smelled wet and strong.

Survive, her head sang. Survive.

She lay still, only her chest was heaving. Everything she had learned was forgotten instantly as she met their eyes. They were so young, it struck her. Fifteen or sixteen probably. Maybe younger. Young enough for them to have been sent.

‘Kill me,' she goaded. ‘If you dare. Do you really want to rot in jail with Eihan?'

Don't provoke, the teacher had said. Don't look them in the eye. But she couldn't stop herself committing their faces to her memory. Crooked noses; brows meeting in the middle; black shadows above the top lip and hair clinging to their skin, dripping with sweat. She collected a mouthful of saliva and spat it out against a cheek.

The anger boiled up in both of their faces as though she had slapped them. But their hesitation was clear to see, and in the meantime her brain sparked her body into life and she coiled up before delivering a kick which hit one of them in the groin.

He howled like a wounded animal. She screamed for help, but no one came, even though she knew other people were in the park. Then she was pressed down into the soft earth by body number two. She saw the knife glint in the twilight as it sliced her clothes. The earth swallowed her up; the sky bore down on her. Blindly, she fumbled to her side, grabbed some material and pulled it closer. She didn't know how much time had passed and strangely she couldn't feel if she was being raped or not. She felt nothing and yet sensed everything as her hand struck something hard and cold and heavy.

By a miracle she managed to push herself away. Enough for her to point in the dark with trembling hands. The canister went off with a bang, and the impact sent her backwards, even further away. The two youths let out a scream as the tear gas got into their eyes. She heard their curses and their rage, and the sound of them running away as the police siren approached.

‘Why do you think she's in the University Park?'

‘The film club. It's always on Thursdays.'

Bo grunted something indistinct, went up a gear and accelerated. The bend in Skejby was taken on two wheels.

‘It's them,' she mumbled and cursed the whole Gellerup area and all of its inhabitants. ‘It's their revenge.'

Bo said nothing. Instead, he manoeuvred the car swiftly and efficiently through the traffic in Randersvejen, in and out of the overtaking lane. ‘If you're right, we'll probably hear the police soon,' he said. ‘They can get there quicker than we can.'

She hadn't rung the emergency telephone number; she had rung Wagner's home number instead. While Bo kept the accelerator pressed to the floor and broke all the speed limits, the brief dialogue rolled through her brain.

Ida Marie had answered the telephone.

‘Is he there?'

The pause was barely perceptible. ‘Dicte? What's up?'

‘It's Rose—'

Ida Marie twigged at once. ‘I'll get him.'

It didn't even feel like an eternity had passed when Wagner came to the telephone and asked without any preamble: ‘Where is she?'

‘The University Park, I think. She rang me on her mobile … They were after her. The phone went dead.' She heard herself speak, bitter and to the point.

‘Do you know anything else?'

‘No.'

‘I'll get a patrol car. Ring you as soon as I know anything.'

‘On my mobile. We're leaving now.'

‘Fine.'

Her mobile rang as they were approaching the water tower.

‘They've got her,' Wagner said.

‘Is she all right?'

She could hear that he was in his car, too. The chattering on the police radio was audible in the background.

‘There was some kind of assault. She's in deep shock.'

The word wouldn't come out. It didn't seem to want to cooperate with her tongue, but finally it did:

‘Rape?'

The pause was palpable. Wagner sighed. ‘We don't know. But she didn't want to go to the Rape Centre, so they'll take her to the station first. I'm on my way there.'

She knew he didn't have to do this, and she wanted to say thank you, but he had already rung off.

‘The police station,' she mumbled to Bo as she tried to keep all sorts of images out of her head. ‘She's been attacked.'

He nodded, and for the first time she noticed his visible concern, in the vertical wrinkle over the bridge of his nose and the tension in his body, which felt like a magnetic field spreading across to the passenger seat.

He glanced at her and drove through the lights on yellow. ‘Haven't got time to look at coloured lamps, have we!' he said as she instinctively grabbed the console with one hand.

She looked at him. At that moment everything had changed. That was how it must be when he was working in war zones, she thought. A very different Bo had taken over.

‘What?' he asked.

‘What's going on in your head?'

He tightened his grip on the wheel; his knuckles went white. ‘I'm wondering what sort of things I could do to the people who did this.'

Rose had been led into the small interview room. They had put a blanket around her shoulders and given her a cup of tea, which she was squeezing with both hands. She was sitting bolt upright on the chair, as pale and fragile as a spring bloom in the snow. Her hair looked darker than it usually did. Dicte realised that it was soiled with mud. There was also some mud on one cheek.

‘Hi, sweetheart.'

She wanted so much to touch her; put an arm around her narrow shoulders and kiss her child's cheeks, but something stopped her. Their eyes met, but Rose's didn't seem to register at all. In the little room it seemed as though a creature from a distant galaxy had dropped down on them and had taken a seat in the corner, exhausted from the journey.

‘Wagner says you would like to have me with you,' Dicte said, trying to keep emotion out of her voice.

Rose just looked at her.

‘They'll have to ask you questions. They would have preferred to take you up to Aarhus Hospital.'

She didn't want to use the words ‘Rape Centre'. But Wagner had briefly explained to her that it would have been a good idea, for possible evidence. Rose had refused. When asked whether she thought she had been raped, she had answered that she had no idea and couldn't care less.

The door opened and Wagner entered. Dicte noted with gratitude that he had chosen to conduct the interview himself.

He nodded to Rose, who watched him with large eyes.

‘Hi, Rose. We're old friends, aren't we?'

He didn't shake hands. He didn't want to frighten her with any sudden movements, it seemed.

Rose nodded, but there was no recognition in her eyes. Wagner's eyes met Dicte's for a brief second, and she understood. Shock, he had said. They would need patience and perhaps a psychologist, really, but Rose had refused that, too.

He placed a small tape recorder in the middle of the table. Rose backed away.

‘Don't take any notice of it. It's just so that I can remember what we've talked about,' Wagner said. ‘Naturally, we would like to catch the person or persons who did this to you.'

Rose didn't even react with a nod. Again Dicte sensed a silent communication from Wagner. It wasn't going to be easy. If there was any plan, the interview would not follow it. In this case, they would have to tread carefully.

Wagner sat down calmly and said nothing for a few seconds. Rose shifted on her chair and pulled the blanket tighter.

‘You're cold,' Wagner said. ‘Drink some more tea. It'll warm you up.'

Obediently, Rose drank. Wagner began to speak in a neutral voice.

‘We would like you to tell us what happened from the beginning. Your mother says you'd been to the university film club. What did you see?'

‘The Third Man.'

‘With Orson Welles?'

Rose nodded.

‘And the famous sitar music.'

Another nod.

‘Did you like it?'

Rose swallowed some tea. Something had appeared in her eyes, perhaps a flicker of interest. ‘There were some great pictures of Vienna in black and white. The mood was described well. The post-war mood, I mean.'

‘The post-war years, yes,' Wagner said, also interested. ‘What's the story about again? Something to do with a guy called Harry Lime?'

Rose hesitated, but, to Dicte's great surprise, began to tell the story. First of all, in short bursts, then in longer, coherent sentences. Wagner followed attentively and chipped in with explanatory questions along the way. Dicte felt like an extra in a surreal play. Beneath the woollen blanket that Rose kept pulling tight she could see loose flaps of material, as though someone had been cutting away at her clothes.

‘What did you do when the film was over?' Wagner asked at last.

Rose sat quite still, looking down at the table. ‘I went through the park to get to the bus stop,' she said. ‘My bike was being repaired.'

‘What happened then?'

‘I could hear them. Their footsteps and voices.'

‘Them? How many were there?'

‘Two. They started running, so I ran too.' She looked at Dicte. ‘My mobile was in my jacket pocket. I pressed 1 for the Kasted number.'

‘Voices, you said?' Wagner asked. ‘Did you hear what they were saying?'

Rose whispered something to the table top.

Wagner cleared his throat.

‘I don't think the tape recorder got that. Would you repeat it, please?'

Rose peered up. Her lips moved before the sound came. ‘Danish whore.'

Dicte heard herself utter a sound. Wagner sent her an admonitory glance.

‘So they weren't Danish?'

Rose shrugged. ‘They were second generation.'

‘Second generation immigrants,' Wagner clarified.

Rose nodded. Dicte swore revenge on all of them. Off with their heads, it echoed inside her. She would have loved to take a bloody machine gun and mow down the whole bunch.

‘Rose, this is important,' Wagner said. ‘Was there anyone you knew?'

‘No.'

‘Would you recognise them again?'

Rose shook her head.

‘Did they say anything else? Did they say why they were doing it?'

‘No,' said Rose, clenching her lips into one straight line.

After a while Rose agreed to go to the Institute of Forensic Medicine for a post-violent assault examination. Poul Gormsen would be ready for them.

Wagner took Dicte and Bo aside. ‘We're in a weaker position with a rape charge if she refuses to be examined,' he said. ‘But this is better than nothing. Gormsen will find whatever there is in the way of physical evidence, uncovering bruises and so on, but he won't examine her for the other business. We can't force her, of course.'

He cleared his throat. ‘Have you any idea why she's refusing? She isn't very communicative about her attackers, either.'

Emotions were out of place here, so Dicte packed them away. She repressed the fact that she was standing and discussing the possible rape of her daughter deep into her consciousness, making it merely an everyday matter which she would have to report on back at the office.

‘She's started seeing Aziz again,' she said in a low voice. ‘Could that have anything to do with this?'

Wagner nodded and comprehension spread to his eyes. ‘It may have everything to do with this. I suggest you keep an extra careful eye on her over the next few days. I presume you'll be taking her home with you?'

Dicte nodded. ‘If she wants.'

‘What's on your mind?' Bo asked. ‘Why should we keep an eye on her?'

Wagner sighed. Someone shouted his name and he half-turned. ‘Nothing in particular,' he said, moving away. ‘Just keep an eye open.'

Poul Gormsen was unable to persuade her to submit to the additional examination, but he didn't think there were any indications of rape.

‘We'll send her clothes for forensic analysis now and see what that turns up. I would put my money on violent assault,' he said, making it sound reassuring.

Rose reluctantly agreed to go home with them after the examination, when they had found some clean clothes for her in her flat in Christian Wærumsgade. She sat in the back seat of Bo's car without saying a word. Any willingness to communicate had vanished without a trace.

They had reached Skejby when Dicte's mobile chimed; she had a text message. She took her phone from her bag and looked at the screen.

‘I am the child you should have listened to. I am the child you should have protected,' the message said.

It had been sent from a private number.