Next of Kin (21 page)

‘It seemed to work,' he said. ‘Kjeld Arne was that type. He was able to do it, and he liked the money even though it wasn't a fortune. He lived in the block and they knew each other. It was a good arrangement and she was happy.'

He looked at them again. He doesn't know, Wagner thought wearily. He doesn't realise that he has probably sent us back to square one. Jens Jespersen may have had a motive for killing Kjeld Arne Husum, but he considered it increasingly improbable.

He stood up. He could feel the heaviness in all his limbs, as though someone had crammed lead into his pockets.

‘Naturally we will have to have a written statement,' he said, turning his back.

The response was as she had expected. Just multiplied many times over.

Dicte had lost count of how many people had phoned, emailed and faxed to express their protest, or the opposite, until the office fax machine was on the point of collapse. And all because of the articles about her and the famous manifesto which Kaiser had chosen to publish in its entirety and print next to a still of the execution. ‘Terrorists Want Death Penalty Back', the headline ran. That, combined with the story of the execution in England and experts speculating on whether this could indeed be a civilisation clash, had really turned the heat up. Great, she thought. Absolutely great.

The police had received applications for peaceful demonstrations, which she would need to cover, of course. A series of Muslim organisations wanted to take to the streets to demonstrate against the Danish ‘hunt for a scapegoat', which made them feel singled out even before anyone had ascertained who was behind the manifesto. Another group headed by a taxi driver from Harlev, urging Christians and Muslims to keep their nerve and denounce violence, wanted a torch-lit march through the pedestrian zone for peace and tolerance. Anonymous text messages spread like old-fashioned chain letters, calling for both war and peace; and then there were the individuals. Imams popped up with statements in bombastic rhetoric all over the place, like imports to another planet whose lifestyle they were unable to fathom. And then there were moderate Muslims and non-Muslims who defended the right of the press to cover the case in the name of freedom of expression.

‘Shit,' Davidsen sighed from his perch where he was busy writing an article. ‘This is huge now.'

‘Huge? In which way, cool or not so cool?' asked Bo, who was sprawled across the sofa munching an apple.

‘Time will tell,' Davidsen said. ‘Perhaps it will trigger something global,' he said dreamily. ‘A confrontation between cultures about values.'

‘Values,' Bo drawled, spitting a pip out into the palm of his hand. ‘Who said anything about values? I think we all need to chill out.' He half-rose and binned the apple core from three metres. ‘Why this sudden rush for the intellectual abstractions just because yet another nutter has got it into his sick, twisted brain that killing people is the new way to save the world? Haven't we been there before?'

‘Perhaps not this version of it,' Helle said, plucking up the courage to chip in. She had managed to rise from her sick bed.

‘It's the same old story,' muttered Bo in a patronising tone. ‘That's all it is.'

‘You're forgetting England,' Dicte said. ‘You're forgetting that it's international now and the same thing could happen anywhere in the world.'

‘Hop, skip, international. How easily we scare. What if it turns out to be a totally bog standard murder case that has no connection whatsoever to global politics or terror?'

Bo got up and strolled over to her, perching on the edge of her desk. Without asking for permission he leaned forwards, stretched out a hand to her neck and pulled her close.

Before she had time to say anything he kissed her gently and sucked her tongue into memories of the previous night. Then he released her, slipped off the table and sauntered leisurely out of the office without a sideways glance.

Helle's jaw had dropped. Dicte smiled her sweetest smile at her. ‘I'm so glad you're feeling better. I think it's time for all hands on deck now.'

Helle mumbled something which was drowned out by the sound of the telephone ringing. Dicte answered it.

‘Dicte Svendsen.'

‘Hello,' a hesitant female voice said, ‘I'm Astrid Agerbæk. We met the other day … At my home in Odder.'

‘Astrid. Hi,' she said cautiously as a myriad thoughts bombarded her. ‘What can I do for you?'

Was she too chipper? Did she come across as a butcher ready to serve his next customer? What was the appropriate form of address for a woman whose husband was the father of your son?

A short pause followed, then Astrid said haltingly, ‘I was wondering if you had time to meet. There's something I'd like to tell you.'

‘I'm really sorry about the weekend. Will I see you on Friday?'

Aziz's voice only worsened the pain. Fortunately he had been busy with an exam this last weekend, and he had another one coming up soon. She wanted to give him an answer, curt and dismissive, but her mouth was dry and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

‘Rose? Is something wrong?' he asked from his mobile in Copenhagen.

‘No, nothing,' she finally managed to say. Happy and cheerful was her mantra. Happy and cheerful, so that he doesn't find out anything.

‘I miss you,' he said again. ‘I think about you all the time.'

She had to sit down and press a cushion against her stomach to stop herself from screaming out loud. She hurt all over. But the bruises were the worst. He would notice them. No, what was worse was the feeling of other hands, other lips. She felt like the names they had called her.

‘I fell,' she said on a sudden impulse.

‘Fell? How?'

‘Down the stairs.'

A silence followed. He is working it out, she thought. He will make me tell him. He will force all the details out of me. She could sense his thoughts and fears. She was also aware that he was afraid to reveal them, perhaps not even voice them to himself.

‘Are you okay?' he asked.

‘Covered in bruises. That's all.'

This is where he clicks, she thought in the silence that followed. He is visualising the images. He can see their hands on my body. He can see them cutting my clothes to shreds. He can see their bodies on top of mine, in a muddy park. He can hear the words spoken through clenched jaws as zips are opened and buttons pop like popcorn.

‘I should have been there,' he said. ‘I should always be with you.'

She felt a lump in her throat. She didn't recognise her own voice. ‘You need to finish your course. That's important. I'll be fine.'

‘I could skip Friday and come to see you Thursday night,' he offered.

He wants to see me, she thought. He wants to pull me into the light, see the bruises, look into my eyes and then he will make me tell him the truth.

She was shaking. She drew up her legs and pressed the cushion against her stomach. She would give anything to be close to him and yet she couldn't think of anything worse. How could she ever be with him again? How would she ever manage that?

‘That's probably not a good idea,' she forced herself to say. ‘I'm a bit behind with my studies. I've got so much reading to do.'

‘Friday, then,' he insisted.

‘Friday, yes. Friday's better.'

Otherwise he would start to get really suspicious. Perhaps she might be able to camouflage her injuries. Perhaps she could manage that by then.

Another sudden inspiration brought a question to the fore. ‘Your sister, Nazleen. Would it be possible to meet her again? I'd like that.'

‘Why?' he asked with circumspection.

‘I just want to get to know her a bit better. I know she doesn't approve of us being together, but she does love you. It would be good to meet her.'

In the silence she could hear his doubts.

‘I don't know,' he said after a while. ‘She might not be interested. She can be very stubborn.' His voice had a smile to it now.

‘But she might be curious all the same. You could give me her mobile number. She does have a mobile, doesn't she? All she can say is no.'

He gave her the number, albeit somewhat reluctantly, and they finished their conversation.

For a long time she sat staring at the number. There had to be a ray of light somewhere, a way out, but right now she was finding it hard to see anything other than the pain and the shame and the feeling of being soiled, even though she had just had a shower and changed her clothes. They meant well, her mum and Bo, even John Wagner and the medical examiner. But they couldn't help her. No one could help her, not even Aziz. Especially not Aziz.

She crushed the paper with the number on it and hurled it across the room. It landed on the bookcase and slipped behind. It was irrelevant.

There was a threshold, and on the other side a space.

For many years she had stood outside and considered whether to enter. She had chosen not to. Until now, that is. The past was the past, best left, especially when it hurt so damned much, so unbearably.

Dicte went down the steps from her office and into the street, happy for a chance to get some fresh air and distance herself from Bo who, with his kiss, had tempted her to say too much. She had been evasive. She still hadn't told him that his instinct wasn't far off the mark.

Once there had been a child, but today that child was long gone, replaced by a young man who wasn't hers, although he had her genes. He hadn't been marked by her, nor by her parents, thank God. She had never comforted or encouraged him, or taught him to fight for what he believed. She had never given him anything other than life. Why couldn't she just let him go? Why couldn't the world let her go?

The heels of her boots clattered on the flagstones as she walked down Frederiksgade heading for Pustervig past the big Magasin department store. Somehow Astrid Agerbæk's call had rescued her because it had postponed the decision to step over the threshold into this space, one she'd never visited.

‘I am the child you should have protected.'

It could have been him. It was the obvious conclusion, but was it too obvious? Was there someone out there, somewhere, who knew her past and was exploiting it, edging her closer and closer to the flame?

She recognised Astrid Agerbæk immediately even though her frizzy Anisette-hair was under control, tied back with a headband, a broad red and black scarf. She was sitting at a window table in Café Carlton. Her face was a classic structure, high cheekbones, high arched brows, a straight nose and a mouth with clearly outlined lips. In a slightly smaller form she would have been a graceful beauty, but she wasn't a small woman; if one were to identify her with an art form, it would have been opera rather than ballet.

Astrid half-stood; her handshake was firm. The uncertainty on the telephone was gone.

‘I'm glad you could come so quickly. Coffee?'

‘Yes, please. Macchiato.'

She went to the bar and ordered. Dicte watched her. Her clothes emphasised her somewhat dramatic appearance: a long skirt with a seventies batik print that was back in fashion and an embroidered tunic on top, also in red and black. ‘Hippie chic' they called the style, reminiscent of India and gurus and expeditions into a spiritual world.

‘There we are. Sugar?' Astrid balanced the two cups and put them on the table.

Dicte shook her head. ‘No, thanks.'

They sat sipping their coffee. Dicte's was strong and creamy and infused her body with energy.

‘I know more than you think,' Astrid said out of the blue. ‘Also more than Morten thinks.'

Dicte was reminded of Wagner and his interviewing techniques. The opening gambit had come from Astrid. No interrupting. So she just nodded and hoped it seemed like encouragement.

‘I knew who you were when you arrived, when you and Morten disappeared into his office. I've known that all these years. I moved into The Dark Tower shortly after you stopped coming. There were rumours. Kjeld Arne told me the rest. About the pregnancy, I mean.'

Could it be her? Dicte rotated the little cup between her fingers.

‘I didn't stay for long,' Astrid went on. ‘Morten and I moved out a couple of months later. We wanted to have our own place and, anyway, the commune …' She searched for words while blowing her coffee, which must have been cold by then. ‘… There was something about the place. I sensed something,' she ventured. ‘Something dangerous …'

She looked into Dicte's eyes as though asking whether she had identified the right word. She tried again. ‘It was like floodwater running beneath the house. It seeped up everywhere, into the walls, the furniture and carpets, into the people. In a weird way everything seemed chill and damp.'

She drank. A tiny sip, then she put down the cup on the saucer. ‘I was insistent that we should get away,' she concluded.

Dicte thought about her visit to the old commune and the renovated cellar. She thought about the laundry room and the copper boiler and the clothes hanging on the line like empty human husks.

‘What happened in the cellar?' she asked. ‘What went on?'

Astrid shook her head. ‘Nothing. I don't know. Nothing while I was there.'

‘But before?'

‘Hmm, before. That's a good question. Of course, I asked, but I never received an answer. Kaspar had his instruments down there. But he was doped up most of the time. Otherwise …'

‘Otherwise what?'

‘Otherwise nothing, I suppose. But I know something.'

Astrid glanced around the café. More people had come in, and the bartender was busy. The noise level had gone up, but her voice found a space without any difficulty and a key in which it could be heard clearly alongside the rattle of cups, the gurgle of bubbling milk and excited chatter.

‘Kjeld Arne was involved in blackmail. I'm sure of that.'

‘Money?'

‘Don't think it was for money.'

‘What was it for then?'

Astrid's eyes sought hers. ‘You, amongst other things.'

‘Me?!' Dicte had to blink to withstand her stare.

‘I overheard a conversation,' Astrid said. ‘Between Morten and Kjeld Arne. He was threatening to tell the school about Morten's relationship with you and your pregnancy. He would have ended up being fired and it would have ruined his career prospects.'

Dicte took another sip. She had never told anyone who the father of her child was. They had all badgered her: her parents, the hospital, the doctor. She had taken the secret with her when she moved away from Aarhus. There had still been rumours, of course.

She used the raw strength of the coffee to ask a further question. ‘And what was Morten supposed to give in return for Kjeld Arne keeping his mouth shut? If it wasn't money?'

Astrid slowly shrugged her shoulders. ‘Morten must have known something about Kjeld Arne which he wanted to keep to himself. What do I know?'

Then she leaned forwards. Her eyes came closer, large, wide open, the colours brown and black overlapping. ‘That's what Kjeld Arne was like,' she said. ‘I had the impression he had something on everyone. I think he was the one who got the drugs for Kaspar. And then there was a fifth person, Dion Henriksen. Do you remember him?'

A blank face floated up and was punctuated with eyes, nose and a mouth. The name was on the list of the people living in the commune that Morten, with some reluctance, had handed her. Dion Henriksen had been a timid guy who walked around in stockinged feet, baked his own bran rolls and sought spiritual guidance in a pile of Tintin stories. She remembered him as a scrawny, eternally wandering phantom who always turned up when you least expected.

‘What about him?' she asked. ‘If Morten was vulnerable because of his relationship with a school pupil, and Kaspar with drugs, what was Dion's weak spot?'

Astrid sat up straight in her chair. ‘I don't know,' she said. ‘But there must have been something. Don't most people have something to hide? Weak spots we prefer to keep to ourselves? Shady corners of the mind. What do I know? When it comes to the crunch, perhaps we're all potential victims.'

Dicte drank the last of her coffee. Her feeling of unease had been there the whole time, and now it was making her skin creep. She wanted to scratch until she drew blood. Astrid knew more than she would ever have believed. And she was willing to go further than Dicte could reasonably demand. People may have weak spots, but they also have an agenda.

‘Why are you telling me all this?' she asked, putting her coat on.

Astrid also stood up and threw a black poncho over her shoulders. ‘Shadows,' she said. ‘Shadows dancing on the wall for all these years. You're one of them, fighting a lone battle. I know Morten; I know him inside out and know what he is. He has his faults and for far too long he has let the past cast a shadow over our lives.'

She bent down, picked up her handbag and tossed it over her shoulder. ‘When I saw you I knew it was time to rid the wall of shadows. Once and for all.'

Dicte buttoned her coat and pulled up the collar. Outside, a gale was blowing and dead leaves were swirling around Pustervig. ‘What about if this gets him into trouble?' she asked.

Astrid stood with the bag across her chest, fiddling with the strap. ‘You know him. Believe me, nothing has changed since those days. Other women. Young girls.' She looked at Dicte. ‘Naïve school kids who are easy to manipulate.'

Dicte said nothing, but felt herself going red.

‘I hope it won't be bad for him. Nevertheless, whatever happens, he's deserved it.'