The Absent One (40 page)

When Ulrik climbed off her, Kristian got into position between her legs and pounded his will into her, until only the whites of his eyes were visible and his lips curled with self-satisfaction. Second was Ditlev, who finished quickly
with his usual strange, cramp-like shuddering, and then came Torsten.

As his lean body was bulldozing her, Bjarne suddenly appeared in the doorway. She looked him straight in the face as recognition of his own inferiority was born inside him and the gang’s camaraderie broke his will and took over. She shouted at him to leave, but he didn’t.

After Torsten had pulled out of her, their collective deep breathing turned to jubilation when Bjarne took his place.

She stared into his detached, bluish-red face and saw clearly for the first time just what her life had become.

Resigning herself, she closed her eyes and drifted away.

The last she heard before completely disappearing into the protective fog of subconsciousness was their laughter when Ulrik wanted another try and failed once more to get an erection.

It was the last time she saw them all together.

‘My little darling, look what Mummy’s brought you.’

She unravelled the little person from the cloth and gazed at her with the sincerest tenderness. What a gift from God. Such small fingers and toes. Such tiny fingernails.

Then she unwrapped a package and held the contents in the air above the desiccated body.

‘Look, Mille, have you ever seen anything like it? Isn’t it just what we need on a day like today?’

She touched one little hand with her finger. ‘Mummy’s very warm, isn’t she?’ she asked. ‘Yes, Mummy is very warm.’ She laughed. ‘Your mum gets that way when she’s really excited. But you know that.’

She looked out of the window. It was the last day of September. Almost the same date she’d moved in with Bjarne twelve years ago. Except it hadn’t rained that day.

As far as she could recall.

When they’d finished raping her, they left her lying on the coffee table and sat in a circle on the floor snorting coke until they were totally blasted. They had screamed their lungs out laughing and Kristian had slapped her hard a few times on her naked thighs. Apparently as a sign of reconciliation.

‘Come on, Kimmie!’ Bjarne shouted. ‘Don’t be so prudish. It’s just us.’

‘It’s over now,’ she snarled. ‘Finished.’

She could tell they didn’t believe her. They thought she was too dependent on them, and that she would come crawling back before too long. But she wasn’t. Not ever. In Switzerland she had managed without them. She could do it again.

It took her a while to get up. Her perineum was burning. The ligaments in her hips were sprained, her neck ached and humiliation weighed her down.

That feeling returned with a vengeance when Kassandra greeted her at the house in Ordrup with scorn in her voice, and the words: ‘Is there anything in this world you are capable of doing right, Kimmie?’

The next day she learned that Torsten had bought her place of employment, Nautilus Trading A/S, and that she was now out of a job. One of the employees who had been her friend gave her a cheque and told her that unfortunately she would have to leave the premises. Florin had
made the personnel changes, her colleague said. So if she wanted to lodge a complaint, she would have to approach him personally.

When she went to the bank to deposit the cheque, she discovered that Bjarne had emptied their account and closed it.

Under no circumstances would she be allowed to escape from their clutches. That was the plan.

During the following months she stayed in her quarters in the house at Ordrup. At night she fetched her food from the main kitchen and took it up to her flat. During the day she slept, her little teddy bear clasped in her hand and her legs tucked beneath her. Kassandra often stood outside the door, exercising her shrill voice, but Kimmie was deaf to the world.

For Kimmie didn’t owe anything to anyone, and Kimmie was pregnant.

‘You have no idea how happy I was when I discovered I was going to have you,’ she said, smiling at the little one. ‘I knew instantly that you were a girl and what I would call you: Mille. It was simply your name. Isn’t that funny and strange?’

Her hands fumbled a bit as she swaddled the body again. There she lay in the white cloth, like a tiny, wee Jesus child.

‘I so looked forward to having you and to our living in our house, just like other people do. Your mother was going to find a job as soon as you were born, and after Mum picked you up from the day nursery, we were just going to be together all the time.’

She pulled out a bag, set it on the bed and stuffed one of the hotel’s pillows into it. It looked secure and warm.

‘Yes, you and I were supposed to live in that house, just the two of us, and Kassandra just would’ve had to go.’

Kristian Wolf began calling her during the weeks before his wedding. The thought of being shackled made him desperate, as did her repeated rejections.

The summer was a grey one, yet it was a blissful time for Kimmie, who began to take control of her life. She had put the terrible things they’d done behind her. Now she was responsible, beginning anew.

The past was dead.

It wasn’t until Ditlev Pram and Torsten Florin were standing in Kassandra’s living room, waiting for her one day, that she realized how impossible it was to escape the past. When she saw them scrutinizing her, she remembered how dangerous they could be.

‘Your old friends have come to visit you,’ Kassandra chirped, in her nearly transparent summer dress. She protested at having to leave her domain – ‘My Room’ – but what was about to happen wasn’t intended for her ears.

‘I don’t know why you’re here, but I want you to leave,’ Kimmie said, fully aware that that was just the beginning of negotiations over who would be in charge and who wouldn’t by the time the meeting was over.

‘You’re too deeply involved in everything, Kimmie,’ Torsten said. ‘We can’t have you pulling out. Who knows what you might do.’

She shook her head. ‘What are you talking about? That I’d commit suicide and leave ugly letters behind?’

Ditlev nodded. ‘For example. There are also other things we could imagine you might do.’

‘Such as?’

‘Does it matter?’ Torsten said, coming closer.

If they grabbed hold of her again she would smash them with one of the massive Chinese vases standing in the corner.

‘The main point is that we know where we’ve got you when you’re with us. You can’t live without it either, just admit it, Kimmie,’ he went on.

She smiled crookedly. ‘Maybe you’re going to be a father, Torsten. Or maybe you, Ditlev.’ She hadn’t intended to say it, but it was worth it to see their faces tighten. ‘Why would I want to go with you?’ She laid a hand on her belly. ‘You think it’s good for the child, maybe? I don’t.’

She knew what they were thinking as they exchanged glances. They both had children, and they’d both been through a number of divorces and domestic scandals. Another one wouldn’t destroy their reputations. Her insurrection was all that troubled them.

‘You’ll have to get rid of that child,’ Ditlev said, unexpectedly harsh.

‘Get rid of’, he’d said. With those three words, she knew the child was in mortal danger.

She raised her hand towards them to demonstrate the distance between them.

‘If you want to protect your interests, then let me be, understand? Just leave me alone – totally.’

She noted with satisfaction how her shift in tone made them screw up their eyes.

‘If you don’t, then you should know I have a box which
contains items that could completely destroy you. That box is my life insurance. Rest assured, if anything should happen to me, the box will see the light of day.’ In fact she’d never planned it this way. Granted, she did have the box tucked away, but she’d never considered showing it to anyone. They were just her trophies. A little object for each life they’d snuffed out. Like the Indian’s scalps. Like the matador’s bull’s ears
.
Like the hearts of the Incas’ victims.

‘What box?’ Torsten asked, as the wrinkles in his fox-face became more pronounced.

‘Just things I’ve collected from our assaults. With the contents of that box, everything we’ve done can be exposed, and if you touch me or my child, you’ll die behind bars, I promise you.’

Ditlev clearly bought it. Torsten, on the other hand, seemed sceptical.

‘Name one thing,’ he said.

‘One of the earrings from the woman on Langeland. Kåre Bruno’s rubber anklet. Remember how Kristian grabbed him and shoved him off the board? Then maybe you also recall how he was standing outside Bellahøj afterwards with the anklet, laughing. I don’t think he’ll laugh when he finds out it’s currently keeping company with a couple of Trivial Pursuit cards from Rørvig, do you?’

Torsten Florin looked away from her. As if he wanted to be certain that no one was listening on the other side of the door.

‘No, Kimmie, you’re right,’ he said. ‘I don’t think he will, either.’

Kristian visited her one night when Kassandra was passed out cold from drinking.

He stood over her by the bed and said the words so slowly and emphatically that every single one of them bored into her.

‘Tell me where the box is, Kimmie, or I will kill you right now.’

He pounded her brutally until he almost couldn’t raise his arms. Pounded her abdomen and her groin and ribcage until bones cracked. But she didn’t tell him where the box was.

Finally he left. Totally drained of aggression. Fully confident that his mission was completed and that Kimmie had simply made up the story about the box and its contents.

When she came to, she was just about able to call the ambulance herself.

She awoke with an empty stomach and no appetite. It was Sunday afternoon and she was still at the hotel. An hour’s worth of dreams had given her the assurance that everything would fall into place. What other sustenance did she need?

She turned to her bag containing the bundle, which was on the bed beside her.

‘Today I’m giving you a present, little Mille. I’ve thought about it. You shall have the best toy I’ve ever had in my entire life, my little teddy bear,’ she said. ‘Mummy has thought about giving it to you so often, and today’s the day. Doesn’t that make you happy?’

She sensed the voices lurking, waiting for her to make a blunder, but then she stuck her hand into the bag, felt the bundle, and let the warm feelings take over.

‘Yes, I’m calm now, my love. I’m completely calm. Today nothing will be able to hurt us.’

When she’d been brought in with massive haemorrhaging in her abdomen, the staff at Bispebjerg Hospital had asked her repeatedly how something like that could have happened. One of the head doctors even suggested calling the police, but she talked them out of it. The bruises on her body, she assured them, were the result of a fall from the top step of a long, steep staircase. She’d been having
dizzy spells sometimes, and she’d had one as she was standing on that top step. No one had tried to kill her, she swore. She lived alone with her stepmother. It was just a foolish and ugly accident.

The following day the nurses had given her faith that the child would survive. It wasn’t until they brought her greetings from her old school friends that she knew she needed to be careful.

Bjarne came to visit in her private room on the fourth day. It was hardly a coincidence that he was the one who’d become their errand boy. For one thing, Bjarne, unlike the others, was not a public personality; for another, nobody could bring a conversation down to basics like he could, to where empty rhetoric and offhand lies were unable to take root.

‘You say you have evidence against us, Kimmie. Is that true?’

She didn’t respond. Simply stared out the window at the pompous, run-down buildings.

‘Kristian apologizes for what he did to you. He wants me to ask if you’d like to be transferred to a private hospital. The baby’s OK, isn’t it?’

She’d given him an angry glare. It was enough to make him avert his eyes. He was well aware that he didn’t have the right to ask her anything at all.

‘Tell Kristian that it was the last time he’s ever going to touch me or have anything to do with me. Get it?’

‘Kimmie, you know Kristian. He’s not easy to get rid of. He says you don’t even have a solicitor. One that you’ve confided in about us, Kimmie. He also says he’s changed his mind and now believes you
do
have a box with those
items you claim to have. That it seems like something you’d do. He actually grinned when he told me.’ Bjarne made an unsuccessful attempt at conveying the impression by grunting like Kristian, but Kimmie was unimpressed. Kristian never laughed at anything that could threaten him.

‘And if you don’t have a solicitor, then Kristian’s wondering who you’ve allied yourself with. You have no friends, Kimmie, apart from us. We all know that.’ He touched her arm, but she jerked it away. ‘I think you should just tell me where the box is. Is it in the house, Kimmie?’

She turned on him suddenly. ‘Do you think I’m stupid?’

It was clear that he bought it.

‘Tell Kristian that if he just stays away from me, you can keep doing what you do, for all I care. I’m pregnant, Bjarne, haven’t you lot realized that? If those items see the light of day, then I will be hung out to dry, and my baby, too. Don’t you see that? The box is just an absolute emergency solution.’

It was the last thing she should have said.

Emergency solution. If there was anything that could threaten Kristian, it was those words.

After Bjarne’s visit she could no longer sleep at night. Just lay there in the darkness, on guard, with one hand on her belly and the other next to the cord to call the nurse.

He came wearing a doctor’s white coat on the night of 2 August.

She had dozed off for only a moment when she felt his hand on her mouth and the hard pressure of his knee on
her chest. He put it bluntly: ‘Who knows where you’ll disappear to when you’re released, Kimmie? We’re keeping an eye on you, but still, you never know. Tell me where the box is, and we’ll leave you in peace.’