The Scream of the Butterfly (15 page)

OCTOBER 1999

HE HASN'T SLEPT
a wink. Meriton's anecdote about the bear hunt has been spiralling through his brain all night. The story is a thinly veiled threat, there can be no doubt about that. But this is Denmark, and he's the son of a government minister. He tries to laugh it off, and force the faint, nagging fear back in the box.

It is quiet; Margretheholm is deserted today. Staff have arranged a day out for the residents — a proper tourist trip around Copenhagen by bus to visit various historical sites like the Little Mermaid, the parliament building, the Stock Exchange, and the Liberty Memorial. But not all the residents have joined in. Arbën is waiting for him at the entrance.

The boy doesn't come running toward him like he usually does and he doesn't call out his cheerful Moo-genz. His sullen face just stares at the gravel, and he kicks a beer can.

“Arbën.” Mogens puts an arm around his shoulder and gives him a squeeze. “How are you?”

Arbën stuffs his hands in his pockets, and doesn't reply. He just follows him to the main entrance.

Mogens stops. “Your uncles . . . Did they get on the bus?”

The boy nods and peers up at him.

Relief washes over him. Today, at least, he is free.

“I'm just running up to the office to fetch the keys. Then I'll be back, okay? Why don't you think about what you want to do today in the meantime?”

Arbën disappears down the corridor. Mogens walks up to the office, which is deserted. He checks the log where his colleagues and the night shift note any incidents. Nothing unusual has happened.

Mogens pops his head into Søren's yellow office.

“I'll try organizing a game of softball for the kids.”

Søren is distracted, and stares at his screen without saying anything, bashing the keyboard with his very own two-finger system.

Arbën isn't in the sports hall when he gets back. Mogens walks back up the stairs and down the next flight that leads into the corridor where Arbën lives with his sister. The corridor is empty and deserted again. Only silence can be heard from behind the closed doors. He tiptoes past the uncles' room. It's ridiculous, really. No one is there. For a moment he lingers outside the door to the children's room, unable to make up his mind. Then he knocks.

Afërdita opens.

“Hi Afërdita. Is Arbën here?” Then he notices the bathrobe and the makeup. “Why are you dressed up like that?” The petite, fifteen-year-old girl looks almost like a grown-up.

She shrugs and turns away. A cigarette is burning in the ashtray on the table below the window.

“And you've started smoking?” Mogens walks inside. Her heavy perfume is suffocating in the small room. Afërdita turns, leaning against the edge of the table. She raises the cigarette to her lips.

“Arbën isn't here.” She exhales through her nose and looks at him under heavy eyelids. “Maybe outside?”

The whole mood is strange — wrong somehow. He laughs, a small nervous giggle that gets stuck in his throat.

“Afërdita, I've been meaning to ask you something.” He might as well get it over and done with. It might be nothing after all. “A few days ago I saw a man leave this room. He put something in his pocket . . .”

The hand holding the cigarette drops. Afërdita looks down. Then she peels back her dressing gown, revealing her shoulder. She takes a hesitant step forward, reaches up on her toes, and kisses him on the lips. He is far too shocked to react and freezes in the unfamiliar embrace. Her hand fumbles down along his side, finding his hand. She lifts it up and slips it under her bathrobe, pressing it against her breast while she sticks her tongue into his mouth.

Mogens tears himself away, staggering back to the door. Afërdita raises the cigarette to her lips once more and looks at him with empty eyes.

He is back outside her door later that afternoon. He can still taste her lips and feel his hand cupped over the quivering breast. He hesitates, confused at the signals from his body. She's just a child. He doesn't want to, but his body reacts to her touch. Just the image of her . . . What's wrong with him?

It's time for him to go home — home to Kirsten and Sarah — home to play and cook. But still he lingers.

He can't leave. Not yet. He has to stay. Just a little longer.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

35

THE COUGHING WOKE
him up. The pain seared through his brain. The blood-red light behind his eyelids.

How much did he smoke yesterday? Lars reached out, rummaging around on the bedside table. He grabbed a crumpled cigarette packet. One left. He'd smoked nineteen then. He opened his eyes, trying to adjust to the light. Flashes of last night returned. The scene with Christine in his living room played out in technicolor in his mind.

He swung his legs over the bed and sat up. The headache almost floored him. He had finished the whole bottle of wine, including the glass he had poured for her, right after she left. Didn't they say you couldn't handle red wine with age? Or had he drunk a second bottle as well? He staggered out into the kitchen. No, thank God.

Half an hour later he'd had a shower and made coffee. The day had taken a tiny step closer toward being tolerable — but just a tiny one. If only he could focus on his work. He was supposed to meet with Malene Meisner later today.

He sat down in front of his computer with a second cup of coffee and scrolled through the homepages of various newspapers.
Politiken
featured a lengthy interview with Sarah Winther-Sørensen with the headline
DAD IS MY ROLE MODEL
, and a huge colour photograph of her outside Copenhagen Town Hall. Merethe Winther-Sørensen's instinct was spot-on, he had to give her that. Mogens Winther-Sørensen's daughter would be an increasingly valuable asset for the Radical Party: young, female, and pretty. It was almost too good to be true.

Lars sighed and returned to Mogens Winther-Sørensen. He had already searched his name several times, and tried the websites of parliament, the Radical Party, various newspapers, and also blogs — each probably more than once, though it was impossible to keep track of them all. Now he went to Google's homepage and entered
Mogens Winther-Sørensen
in the search field.

The computer pondered his request before it started listing links. The first few, framed in yellow, were for Radical Party sites promoting local council elections later this year. They had yet to remove Mogens from the list of candidates. Then again, they would probably have to find a replacement first. The next link was to Wikipedia. Lars clicked on it and started reading the entry. It was long and written in dense, formal language. It contained details about his education and marriage to Kirsten Winther-Sørensen, along with a passage about his youth. The last few lines of that passage read:

Toward the end of September 1999, Mogens Winther-Sørensen took leave from the city council. This period was supposed to have lasted six months, but at the end of October, only one month later, Mogens Winther-Sørensen returned, as leader of the council and mayor of Copenhagen. The Radical Party fired Mogens Winther-Sørensen's stand-in, who had been promised at least six months' work, immediately afterward.

Lars blinked. He wouldn't go as far as calling it a lead, since the stand-in wasn't named, nor was there any information about what Mogens Winther-Sørensen had been up to during his leave of absence, but it was during the time frame that had been removed both at Infomedia and at the Royal Library.

Lars finished his coffee in one gulp. It was time to go to police headquarters.

Toke sat in his office looking miserable.

“Toke?” Lars closed the door behind him. “You look like you've been hit by a truck. What's the matter?”

Toke turned his head. This minimal movement appeared to cause him physical pain.

“Ukë and Meriton were released yesterday.”

“I heard. What happened?”

“The money . . . the banknotes they had in their possession when we arrested them were ours, with consecutive serial numbers starting at twenty-three.” Toke pulled hard on his lower lip. “Yesterday in court, the serial numbers didn't match.”

“And you're sure that you didn't make a mistake — when you arrested them, I mean?”

“One hundred percent. I checked them myself. That's what's driving me crazy.” He tried straightening up. “I don't suppose that's why you're here?”

“Is your computer on?”

Toke turned on his screen without saying a word.

“Please, may I?” Lars stood next to Toke, opened a browser window, and wrote
Mogens Winther-Sørensen
in the search field. He clicked on the Wikipedia article when the list of links appeared. Toke watched from the side with mild interest.

Lars scrolled down the article, searching for the paragraph about Mogens Winther-Sørensen's youth. There it was, but . . . what was this?

In 1999, the Socialist People's Party and the Conservatives ended their traditional support for the Social Democrats and decided to back the Radical Party's candidate. As a result, Mogens Winther-Sørensen became mayor of Copenhagen. Nearly one hundred years of Social Democratic rule of the capital came to an end.

Toke read along with him.

“You didn't know?”

Lars straightened up and stared into space.

“Less than one hour ago it said he had taken a leave of absence in 1999 and was represented by a stand-in until he returned to become mayor.”

Toke turned the screen back, taking over the mouse.

“Wikipedia is user generated, so someone obviously altered the text. It's usually right . . . here.” Toke clicked
View history
and a new page appeared. “You can see all the changes made to an entry — line by line — displayed and organized chronologically.”

Toke used the mouse to point out parts of the screen.

“As you can see, the same two changes are being repeated. “This” — he circled the first passage — “must be what you looked at originally. And this” — again he circled with the mouse, this time below the first passage — “is what it says now. Two users keep editing the same passage back and forth.”

Lars's fingers trembled.

“Is it possible to see who the they are?”

Toke continued clicking and reading. He leaned in closer to the screen. Finally, he sat up and let go of the mouse.

“Hmm. There's usually a username connected to any edits. If you don't enter one, Wikipedia will automatically list your IP address next to the change.”

“So we know who they are?” Excitement forced him to sit down. Finally he was getting somewhere.

“Sort of. Only in this case, it's a bit more complicated. Neither of them seems very keen on being identified.”

“But you just said . . .”

“Yes, the IP address shows where you are, but there's a way around it, of course. And that's what the two of them are exploiting. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. Fortunately, our people are good.” Toke took a screenshot and looked up. “I'll send this off immediately.”

36

A GROUP OF
ducks glided through the water toward the concrete banks by the planetarium. The pale sun was reflected in the spray from the fountain behind the birds.

Malene Meisner broke small pieces off her baguette and tossed them into the water. The ducks darted after the white bread — they had to be quick or the seagulls would beat them to it. A pair of swans circled the ducks, their wings majestically lifted, too aristocratic to mingle with the rabble.

“I rarely come to Copenhagen these days. Too many bad memories.” Malene Meisner pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and squatted down by the edge of the lake.

Lars remained standing and lit up a King's. They were by Sankt Jørgen's Lake on the corner of the Tycho Brahe Planetarium and Gammel Kongevej. He had spent many happy, sweaty evenings here in the early 1980s after visiting the long-gone Saltlageret for concerts by bands like The Birthday Party, Sods, Ballet Mécanique, UCR, and Dead Kennedys. The smell of hairspray and leather still lingered in his nostrils. The music had been wild, loud, razor sharp, and was sorely missed. And now he was back here, a guardian of the bourgeoisie and investigating the murder of the mayor. It wasn't quite where he'd imagined he would be back then.

“Pardon?”

Malene Meisner got up, brushing her long hair away from her face. Up close, her skin looked ravaged. Her eyes were glassy and bloodshot. He would have guessed she was at least ten years older than her actual age of forty-two. To be fair, she'd celebrated an opening night yesterday, but perhaps life really had treated her that badly?

Lars took a drag on his cigarette. Ducks and seagulls fought over the last bits of baguette in the water in front of them.

“Let's walk.” She started moving around the planetarium, down toward Gammel Kongevej. Lars followed.

“You want to know about my relationship with Mogens Winther-Sørensen?” Malene Meisner stuffed her hands into the pockets of her coat. She wore jeans and black boots: the same clothes she had worn to the funeral.

Lars crushed the cigarette butt under the tip of his shoe and waited. Malene Meisner looked across the lake and said nothing.

“I thought you must have known him well . . .” Lars tried catching her eye. “Since you turned up for his funeral after all these years.”

“I hated him.”

Lars stopped in his tracks, but Malene Meisner continued, forcing him to follow.

“Why?”

They were now a fair distance from the west bank of the lake. She still hadn't answered his question. Lars tried again.

“Something must have happened?”

“My life — what you see now . . . publicity officer at the City Theatre in Malmö.” She gathered up her hair and flipped it over her shoulders. “It wasn't always like that.”

They carried on walking for a little while longer. Lars waited, letting her set the pace.

“I graduated as a journalist in 1997 and worked for
Berlingske Tidende
for two years. It was a great job, but when Merethe Winther-Sørensen offered me the position of head of communications for the mayor of Copenhagen . . .” Another pause. “I obviously couldn't turn it down.”

“But what happened? Did you and Mogens have an affair?”

Malene Meisner let out a short, harsh laugh.

“Not in the way you think. Mogens was friendly and helpful. Everything was fine for the first few weeks. It was quite simply a frictionless partnership.”

“What was your role?”

“The Danish People's Party had just been voted onto the council and they were questioning every grant given to integration projects, usually vociferously. As I recall it, I was thrown straight into the deep end. But like I said, Mogens was supportive.”

Malene Meisner kicked a pebble. It flew across the tarmac in a distorted arc before skipping under the hedge lining the walkway.

“You have to understand that the Radicals see themselves as the perfect political party: we're in charge; we're the kingmakers; we make prime ministers and mayors. But that struggle for power also triggers internal rivalries. Every now and then there would be unrest in the party. Don't forget, politics is about power — too many generals, not enough grunts.”

They had reached Åboulevarden. The traffic, leaden and relentless, churned past the Lake Pavilion on the way out of the city. Malene Meisner stopped.

“How about a cigarette?”

Lars fished out a King's and lit it for her.

“Thank you.” She inhaled, then blew out smoke. “I haven't smoked for years. But sometimes . . . Sorry, where was I?”

“Too many generals, not enough grunts?”

“Oh, yes. Mogens's family was obviously an asset, but some people hated him for that very reason. I managed to get to know him fairly well in the short time I worked there, and I quickly realized that Mogens did very little out of choice. His whole life — personally and professionally — was stage-managed by his mother. She even picked his wife, did you know that?' She rolled her eyes, tapping the ash off her cigarette. “Kirsten worked at the office of the the party's Copenhagen branch. Rumour has it that she was essentially ordered to marry Mogens. Merethe had plans for everything Mogens did. He used to tell me about the portraits of his grandfather and great-grandfather on the walls of the house on Amicisvej. Merethe always talked about how, one day, his portrait would hang there next to hers.”

“I've seen them. They're . . . unique.” They walked for a little while in silence. Malene Meisner looked across the lake. Low clouds drifted in from the west.

“You said earlier that you hated him.”

She shrugged.

“To be perfectly honest, I never really found out what happened. We were at a Christmas party and I had gone outside to get some fresh air.” She made a face. “Mogens was in the courtyard on the phone to someone, having a heated conversation. I quickly realized that he was talking to Kirsten.”

“What were they talking about?”

“I don't know. I could only hear that they were having a fight. Mogens's face changed completely when he noticed me and he hung up straightaway. He was convinced that I had heard every word.”

“Did he say anything?”

“I made my excuses, explaining that I should have gone back inside when I saw that he was on the phone, that his personal life was none of my business. But eventually I began to realize they had been talking about more than just personal problems.”

“Why?”

“The rumours quickly started in the following days. First, I was supposed to have badmouthed some colleagues at the Christmas party. Then I was an alcoholic. I had no doubt that Merethe Winther-Sørensen orchestrated the whole thing. The first newspaper articles about me being addicted to prescription pills appeared in the days leading up to Christmas. And then I was fired. I got depressed and started drinking heavily. My boyfriend dumped me. I knew I had to get away. My aunt lived in Malmö, so I moved there and took my mother's maiden name.”

They were back at the last of the lakes. The diagonally sliced cylinder of the planetarium loomed at the end. Malene Meisner stopped.

“That iron grip Merethe has on the party and her family . . .” She paused and looked at her watch. “It was all a very long time ago, and my head is starting to hurt, so unless you have any more questions . . .”

Lars thanked her. Malene Meisner walked down the steps to Vester Søgade, stopping at the last one.

“And yet I must have been fond of him, since he can make me return to Copenhagen twice in one week.”