The Scarred Woman

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  She passed a notebook to Carl: “1990” was written on the front with a permanent marker.

  Assad looked over Carl’s shoulder as he opened it.

  Had it been graphic design, it would have been interesting. But as it was, it could only be sad and shocking.

  He leafed through the notebook. Just the same thing again and again. Every page was covered with the same sentence, written with the characteristic capital letters of a ten-year-old. Close together and uneven.

  “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP,” written page after page.

  Assad reached out to take another notebook, which had “1995” written on the front in black.

  He opened it, holding it out so that Carl could also see.

  “I CAN’T HEAR YOU I CAN’T HEAR YOU I CAN’T HEAR YOU,” was written on page after page.

  Carl and Assad looked at each other.

  “Rose and our dad didn’t get along,” said Vicky.

  “That’s a hell of an understatement,” said Lise-Marie. Apparently the younger sister had gained enough composure to join the conversation.

  “I know.” Vicky looked exhausted. “Our dad was killed in a work-related accident at the steel plant in 1999. After that, we never saw Rose with her notebooks. And yet here they are.”

  She threw one of them over to Carl, who caught it in midair.

  On the front was written “2010,” and like the others it was completely covered with a single sentence, only now in a more adult hand.

  LEAVE ME ALONE LEAVE ME ALONE LEAVE ME ALONE LEAVE ME ALONE.

  “I wonder if this might be her way of communicating with your dad, dead or alive,” said Assad.

  The others all nodded.

  “It’s totally messed up,” cried the youngest.

  Vicky was more composed, nothing like the wild and witty girl Rose always spoke about. “Dad bullied her,” she said calmly. “We don’t know exactly what he did when it was at its worst because she never told us, but we’ve always known that she hated him for it. So much that it’s difficult to imagine.”

  Carl frowned. “Bullied her, you say? Do you mean he abused her? Sexually, I mean.”

  They both shook their heads. Their dad wasn’t like that. He was all bark and no bite. At least that was what they claimed.

  “I just don’t understand why it didn’t stop when Dad died. But here are all the notebooks. And now all the writing on the walls.” Vicky nodded at the walls. The writing was so dense that there was hardly an empty surface.

  “It doesn’t make any sense.” Lise-Marie sniffled.

  “Come out here, Carl!” Assad shouted from the hallway.

  He was standing in front of the mirror looking at the bureau. Despite its diminutive size, it was piled high with books. Wide and flat like atlases—though that wasn’t what they were.

  “I looked through the pile, Carl, and you won’t believe it.”

  He picked up the one on the top, a medium-size book with a hard cover.

  “Copenhagen Police HQ,” it was called, and Carl knew it well. It was an overview of the police headquarters in Copenhagen, and rather detailed apart from the glaring absence of Department Q in the basement.

  It left no doubt about their status in the grand scheme.

  “Look!” Assad pointed at the next book in the pile, approximately one and a half centimeters thick and bound in shirting like the many others piled underneath in different colors.

  He opened the book to the first page. “Look at the title. She’s called it ‘Bag Lady.’”

  Assad turned the page and pointed at a photo of a young woman.

  “She’s created a personal ID card for all those involved in the case,” he said, pointing at the writing underneath: “Kirsten-Marie Lassen, alias Kimmie.”

  Carl read further.

  “Summary: lives in a small brick house by the train line parallel to Ingerslevsgade. Has lived on the street for eleven years. Gave birth to a stillborn child some years back. Father lives in Monte Carlo. Mother, Kassandra Lassen, lives in Ordrup. No siblings.”

  He scanned the page. It contained all the important information about the person in the first case Rose had been involved in.

  He leafed quickly through the following pages. No one was forgotten, with photos, biographies, and newspaper clippings of the most important events in their lives.

  “There are more than forty cases in the pile, Carl. All cases that Rose has worked on in Department Q, and she’s given them names. For example, ‘Message in a Bottle,’ ‘Scandal on Sprogø,’ and ‘Marco,’ just to name a few.”

  He pulled out a rust-red scrapbook from the bottom of the pile.

  “I think this one will interest you more than the others, Carl.” Carl opened it. “The Hanging Girl,” she had named it.

  “It’s the Habersaat case, Carl. Have a look at the next page.”

  Carl turned the page and saw a face he didn’t recognize.

  “It looks like Habersaat, but I suppose it isn’t,” he said.

  “No, but read the text underneath, and go to the next page.”

  “Arne Knudsen—12.12.1952–5.18.1999,” was written under the photo. “Okay,” said Carl and turned to the next page, where there was a photo of Christian Habersaat.

  “Turn the page back and forth; then you’ll see it.”

  He did and it was true. Seen one after the other, the resemblance was striking. The eyes were almost identical, except that Arne Knudsen’s were totally expressionless.

  “I think Rose’s dad was a very unpleasant man,” said Carl.

  —

  “She must’ve been really crazy to cut up all the furniture and tear everything to bits,” said Assad, sitting as usual with his feet up on the dashboard.

  They had been driving for ten minutes without saying a word, but someone had to break the silence.

  “Yes, more crazy than we could’ve imagined,” admitted Carl.

  “Now I’m wondering what her dad did to her,” continued Assad. “Why only her and not the other daughters?”

  “I asked Vicky about it, but you probably didn’t hear. If there was any sign that he was about to bully her sisters, Rose stopped him in his tracks.”

  “How? Why couldn’t she stop him when he was going for her?”

  “Good question, Assad. None of the sisters could answer that either.”

  “It’s like camels. No one has any idea why they do what they do.”

  “I’m not sure I appreciate the comparison, Assad.”

  “That’s because you don’t respect camels enough, Carl. But they are the ones who get people safely across the desert, remember.”

  Respect for camels? He shook his head. He’d need to find some respect for them even if just to get some peace.

  They were silent for the remainder of the journey, struggling with their own thoughts and self-reproach. Why the hell hadn’t they been more involved in Rose’s life?

  Carl sighed. Now he had three cases to focus on: the murder of a woman twelve years ago, a three-week-old murder case, and now the death of what they knew as Rose’s personality.

  He no longer knew which of these cases to prioritize.

  16

  Friday, May 20th, to Monday, May 23rd, 2016

  Anneli undressed in a daze and lay down on the bed, still shaking from the cocktail of exhilaration and adrenaline from murdering Michelle out in the North West district. It was really an unknown sensation for this nice girl who for almost fifty years had been something of a Goody Two-shoes, having never hurt anyone or anything. How could she have known how good it would feel to play judge and jury over people’s lives? It was like uninhibited sex that you hadn’t expected. Like eager hands on your body that awoke latent desires that seemed otherwise forbidden. She had once refrained from rejecting a man next to her in the cinema who ha
d put his hand on her thigh uninvited. Just let him do what he wanted while she lost herself in the on-screen embraces that would never be hers anyway. And now, as she lay there touching herself, recalling the effect he had had on her when he pushed his hand all the way up to her crotch and how she had controlled her orgasm in silent ecstasy, her body was struggling to cope with the inconceivable fact that she had killed another human being.

  Michelle Hansen had been exactly the easy victim that Anneli had expected. She had plodded across the street without looking and naively tried to defend herself with her arm, but it was already too late.

  Anneli had anticipated feeling nervous about what she had planned to do. That she would have felt sick to her stomach and that her heart would have been pounding, but up until the moment she put her foot down on the accelerator, there had been no reaction at all of that sort. A huge, ten-second injection of adrenaline was all she experienced, and then it was over.

  Maybe Anneli had thought that the impact would feel different, but the dull thud when she hit the body didn’t measure up to the sight of Michelle Hansen’s body being flung backward and her head hitting the pavement.

  Their eyes had met for a split second before the impact, and that had been the biggest satisfaction. The fact that the girl had drawn her last breath knowing that she had been targeted, that the driver was someone she knew, and that she got what she deserved.

  The small Peugeot Anneli had chosen had been surprisingly suitable and easy to maneuver, so she reckoned that if she was going to go after her next victim this weekend, she could use it again.

  With Michelle Hansen’s terrified face still fresh in her mind, Anneli forgot about the cancer, pain, and anxiety, resting her head back on her pillow. In reality, it was maybe a sort of divine gesture that this stupid girl could give another person such heavenly pleasure with her last gaze. Perhaps fate had somehow chosen both victim and perpetrator for this symbiotic act. One by giving her life, the other by taking it.

  —

  Anneli woke feeling rested and her mind occupied with the project. In just one day, she would have disposed of another expendable human being, and what a great thought that was. Of course, she was well aware that it was wrong in a societal sense. Taking the law into one’s own hands, not to mention murder, was illegal. But when she thought about the thousands of hours these parasitic girls had spent on making fools of her and the system, wasn’t it about time and good for everyone that someone finally took action? And considering the moral decline in Denmark at present, there were many other things that deserved harsher criticism than her little vendetta. The politicians were acting like pigs, taking society for a ride with stopgap measures and insane ideologies that were better suited to dictatorships. What did a few petty murders matter compared to the character assassination of an entire nation?

  She sat down in her small kitchen with the hideous cupboard doors and, slowly and steadily, in the comfort of her own little world, built up a feeling of justified indignation and omnipotent power. In this tiny, humble room, she temporarily represented all the executive power in the world, and no one could argue against her.

  She had wanted to celebrate the media coverage of Michelle’s death by spoiling herself today, buying things she otherwise didn’t allow herself, indulging herself with something nice to eat, and only then planning the details of her next retaliation.

  But when she turned on her computer to check the news and found the headline she was looking for, she felt a violent stab in her chest, and any feeling of euphoria was gone.

  “Young female victim of a hit-and-run in Copenhagen’s North West district miraculously survives,” it read.

  Anneli froze. She read the text over and over before collecting herself enough to click on the link to read the full story.

  The victim’s name was not mentioned—of course it wasn’t—but there couldn’t be any doubt that it was Michelle Hansen.

  In her desperation, she searched the text for the words “in critical condition” but didn’t find them. She was in shock. Couldn’t even breathe.

  Everything went black and she fell backward onto the kitchen floor.

  When she woke she managed to push herself up into the corner next to the fridge. Her head was full of unpleasant questions.

  Had Michelle Hansen really seen her face? How could she have when the windshield was so filthy and it was only a question of a split second? And even if she had seen her, like she had initially hoped, what would that even prove? Anneli knew that middle-aged women with faces like hers were a dime a dozen, so she could just deny it. Explain it away by saying that the girl must have imagined it or was purposely trying to frame her because she hated her. That she was nothing but a drain on society and that she was trying to get revenge in this petty way because Anneli had made things difficult for her.

  Anneli convinced herself that no one else could have seen her. The street had been completely empty, and even if there might have been witnesses who had been looking out of their windows, it would be impossible for them to identify her.

  Pensively, she reached out for a bottle of red wine and unscrewed the cap. What if someone had managed to see the license plate? The thought made her hand shake when she poured, because then the police would already be searching for the car.

  She emptied the glass in a few gulps while thinking.

  How could she find out if the car had been reported missing? And if it had, was it parked far enough away from her home on Webersgade?

  Anneli assessed the situation over and over. There was so much that felt wrong just now. First and foremost that Michelle Hansen was still alive, but also that this could hinder her entire project.

  “No!” she shouted out after her third glass. Now she had finally felt alive. Had finally felt the joy of life rushing through her veins. She wasn’t about to give that up. Not even at the risk of being caught.

  So Anneli got dressed without having a shower first and stepped out determinedly into the gentle sunshine toward the street where she had parked the red Peugeot.

  She waited until the street was empty. Then she removed the plastic from the broken side window, opened the door, got in the car, and forced the screwdriver into the ignition.

  Anneli had a plan that was not only smart but also simple. She needed to find out if the police had been informed about the number plate of the car involved in the hit-and-run. And what better way to find out than to park the car in a public place where there would be a lot of traffic and police presence? Then it would only be a question of time before she knew if they were looking for it.

  During the two hours when Anneli kept an eye on the parked car from a distance, at least four patrol cars had driven slowly past it. And as nothing had happened, she bought a parking ticket with some spare change and left the car. If it was still parked on Griffenfeldsgade tomorrow, she could keep her weapon of choice.

  —

  Senta Berger had named herself after a famous Austrian film star, which Anneli had struggled to get used to. Senta had formerly been called Anja Olsen, which she changed to Oline Anjou before eventually deciding on this glamorous name that she could by no means live up to. She had been Anneli’s client throughout the years, in which the girl had gone from being an annoying, self-promoting, and demanding eighteen-year-old to being an insipid, glitter-covered, and pompous pest of twenty-eight.

  The mere thought of Senta made Anneli feel nauseous, and therefore she had been happy when she was reassigned to another office and could leave the harpy to be judged by others. But even if she was rid of the sight of this odd Barbie imitation in her professional life, she constantly saw her in town.

  Senta was always carrying shopping bags from various clothing stores and lived for nothing else but this urge to waste public money, which, even hours after these chance meetings, accentuated Anneli’s natural indignation and anger. So it was no coincidence
that Anneli picked Senta’s profile from her list of parasitic girls, which would now ultimately end in Senta Berger’s death.

  Anneli took her time. The day after Saturday night’s parties that kind of girl rarely ventured out before late afternoon, so Anneli leaned back in the car seat with her thermos, concentrating on the door from which she expected the girl to appear.

  If she was with someone, Anneli would wait until another day, and the same applied if there was any other sort of obstacle.

  On a Sunday afternoon, it was as dead out here in Valby as in a restaurant in Lyngby on New Year’s Eve. Once in a while someone ventured out to buy Danish pastries for their coffee or a cyclist took a shortcut down toward Vigerslevvej, but otherwise absolutely nothing was happening. It was just as it should be.

  Approaching five o’clock she saw movement in Senta Berger’s apartment. The curtains were opened and she could see the outline of a figure behind the window.

  Anneli screwed the lid back on her thermos and pulled on her gloves. Less than fifteen minutes later, the main door opened and Senta pranced out with a fake designer bag, miniskirt, leather boots up to her thighs, and a scarlet faux-fur cape.

  She was killed a hundred meters farther down the street on the sidewalk. The stupid bitch had apparently turned up the volume on her headphones, because she didn’t manage to react before her body was crushed against the wall of the building.

  This time the victim was definitely dead, but it was still with a sense of frustration that Anneli reversed the car onto the road and left the neighborhood. Damn it, the girl was supposed to have noticed her executioner just before her mind went blank and her brain was splattered on the wall. Then she would have acknowledged a lifetime of mistakes and misuse at the moment of death—that was supposed to be the beauty of it.

  That was what excited Anneli. So no, she wasn’t satisfied. It hadn’t gone exactly to plan this time either.