The Scarred Woman

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  Carl smiled wryly at Assad. Wasn’t it just the sort of alternative but extremely effective method of communication he had used to shut up Gordon? Assad smiled back and shrugged. As long as it worked, what was the problem?

  They pressed the buzzer several times again before a drawling female voice finally answered.

  “Police,” said Laursen. A clumsy introduction, but then communication had never been his strong point—he was a technician after all.

  “Hello, Mrs. Zimmermann,” Carl said in a friendlier tone. “We’d appreciate it if you could spare us five minutes of your time.”

  There was a crackling buzzing sound at the door, and Carl gave Laursen a knowing look as he pushed open the door to the entrance. Let me do the talking, his look had indicated.

  She opened the door wide wearing a kimono that was opened almost just as wide, revealing her pale skin and wrinkled panty hose. It was already obvious from the stench of alcohol on her breath how she spent her days.

  “Yes, sorry we didn’t inform you we were coming beforehand, Mrs. Zimmermann. I apologize. But we just happened to be in the neighborhood,” said Carl.

  She stared at the three men as she swayed a little from side to side. She found it especially hard to take her eyes off Assad.

  “Lovely to meet you,” said Assad, offering his hand with a twinkle in his eye. He had a way with women, especially if they were a bit tipsy.

  “Excuse the mess. I’ve had a lot on my plate lately,” she said, attempting to clear some space on the sofa. A few indefinable objects fell to the floor, and then they sat down.

  Carl began by offering his condolences. It must have been hard losing her mother in that terrible way.

  She attempted to nod normally, struggling to keep her eyes open so that she could follow the conversation.

  Carl looked around the room, counting at least twenty-five empty wine bottles as well as numerous liquor bottles spread across the floor, cabinets, and shelves. She certainly hadn’t been holding back.

  “Birgit Zimmermann, we’d like to ask you if you have any idea why your mother chose to walk through the King’s Gar—” Carl looked at Assad. “. . . I mean through Rosenborg Castle Gardens instead of walking to the metro at Kongens Nytorv or up to Østerport Station. Do you know?”

  She cocked her head. “She thought it was nice in the park.”

  “So she always did that?”

  The woman smiled, revealing front teeth covered with lipstick.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding excessively before composing herself enough to continue. “And she did her shopping in Netto supermarket.”

  “At Nørreport Station?”

  “Yes, exactly! Always!”

  It took fifteen minutes before they admitted to themselves that the timing wasn’t optimal if they wanted to go into more complex questions.

  Carl signaled to the others that it was maybe time to go, but then Assad jumped in.

  “Why was your mother walking around with so much money? You said she was carrying ten thousand kroner, but how did you know that, Birgit?” Assad took her hand, which made her flinch, but he didn’t let go.

  “Well, she showed me the money. Mother really liked cash—and she bragged about it.”

  Nice one, Assad, Carl said with a look. “Did she also boast about her money to strangers?” he then asked.

  Birgit Zimmermann lowered her head and let it bounce against her chest a couple of times. Was she silently laughing?

  “My mother always boasted, ha-ha. To all and everyone.” She was now openly laughing. “She shouldn’t have done that.”

  Touché, thought Carl.

  “Did your mother also have money lying around at home?” asked Assad.

  She shook her head. “Not as such. She wasn’t stupid, my mother. You can say a lot about her, but she wasn’t stupid.”

  Carl turned to Laursen. “Do you know if the mother’s home was searched?” Carl asked in a hushed tone.

  Laursen nodded. “They didn’t find anything to help in the case.”

  “Was it Pasgård?”

  Laursen nodded. Apart from Børge Bak back in the day, there was hardly anyone Carl respected less.

  Carl turned toward the woman. “You wouldn’t happen to have an extra key to your mother’s apartment, would you, Birgit?”

  She huffed a couple of times, as if he was putting her to a lot of bother. They needed to hurry things along before she fell asleep.

  Then she suddenly lifted her head, answering with surprising clarity that she did because her mother was always losing her keys. She had once had ten sets cut, and there were still four sets in the drawer.

  She gave them a single set but insisted on seeing their ID first. When she had scrutinized Carl’s, he passed it behind his back to Laursen so she would see the same one again. She seemed satisfied with this. She forgot about Assad.

  “Just one final thing, Birgit Zimmermann,” said Carl when they were standing in the doorway. “Denise Zimmermann, is that a relative of yours?”

  She nodded joylessly.

  “A daughter?” asked Assad.

  She turned awkwardly toward him.

  “She isn’t home,” she said. “I haven’t spoken with her since the funeral.”

  —

  Back at HQ, Carl sat down heavily in his chair, staring at all the papers on his desk. Two piles were current cases that could wait, so he put them to one side. Then there was a case Rose wanted him to look at, so he threw that one in the corner. The rest of the papers were just notes and various printouts and other miscellaneous things people thought might interest him. Most of it normally ended up in the trash, but he couldn’t just throw Marcus’s notes away. It was apparent that the case was nagging away at him and that he was bound to see connections whenever the chance presented itself. That’s just the way it was with retired policemen. Carl had seen it all before. But did he want to get involved? Wasn’t he just going to end up down a blind alley like those before him? And wouldn’t he just disappoint Marcus, leaving the man without any hope of the case being solved, which would cause him to withdraw into himself? That was Carl’s biggest fear.

  He reached for a color printout. “Stephanie Gundersen,” someone had written in block capitals at the bottom.

  He noticed the eyes in particular. Slightly slanting, green, and without doubt piercing and enchanting.

  Why would anyone kill a girl like her?

  Was it because the eyes weren’t enchanting but rather bewitching?

  That was probably the question.

  18

  Monday, May 23rd, 2016

  It was deadly quiet in the S-train car because almost all the passengers were surfing on their smartphones and iPads. Some were enthusiastic and concentrated, while others were just scrolling their thumbs over the screen in the desperate hope for some form of contact.

  Contact wasn’t the first thing on Jazmine’s mind when she looked at her telephone. She counted the days on her Google calendar since her last period, and everything indicated that she would soon be ovulating, so a decision had to be made.

  What was she meant to do? If she got pregnant again she would without doubt be thrown out of the house, but what did that really matter? Social services would just have to step in if that was the case.

  The thought made her smile. Then Anne-Line Svendsen could stick all her admonitions, plans, restrictions, and whatever else she could come up with right up her fat ass. Once she was pregnant and complained of back trouble, she’d be home free again. It wasn’t like they could make her have an abortion.

  Jazmine had hardly noticed her last pregnancy even though she had told the doctor a different story. No morning sickness and no remorse when they came to collect the baby, so that was easy enough. All the same, this time it seemed shortsighted to do it again. Because when the next baby
was handed over and she was again thrown into the benefits system, she would suddenly have turned thirty. Thirty! So even though she didn’t have any expectation of being saved by a knight in shining armor, she would suddenly have deflated the currency she had always cherished and which had always been her safest bet when it came to invoking the miracle: her youth.

  Because who would want a woman of thirty who has had five children with God knows who and given them all up for adoption? Yeah, or four children, for that matter, she thought soberly.

  She looked up at the other passengers. Was there anyone here who she would even care to have as her husband the way things had turned out for her? And was there anyone in here who would want her for that matter? Maybe the guy over in the corner, who looked thirty-five and was moving clumsily around in his seat as if he were smothered in Vaseline. But should she really waste her time and life on someone like him? That would be pointless.

  Jazmine shook her head and opened the dating app that gave the quickest results. Victoria Milan was supposed to be for people in steady relationships looking for a bit on the side—and Jazmine wasn’t exactly in the target group—but why should she care? If she could arrange casual sex with a decent man who understood the importance of personal hygiene and didn’t cause her any trouble, and whom she might be able to extort some money out of by showing him her pregnant stomach, then the website was just what she needed. The site also had a panic button you could press if partners of the users suddenly came and looked over their shoulder. Perfect for Jazmine, especially because up until now she had been living in a tiny apartment where the dining table was the only space where you could surf the Internet. She had sometimes used the panic button when her mother came snooping. Pow! And no one could see that date.

  She logged on to her brilliantly disguised profile and looked over the prospects. If she could choose for herself, she would find a man who was nothing special. It would make it much easier for her to give up the baby when it turned out not to be particularly beautiful. And besides, in her experience, ordinary men were just better lovers than the good-looking ones.

  The thought made her smile. Those nerdy guys really did go the extra mile.

  —

  “So what did she say?” asked Michelle, impatiently tugging at Jazmine’s sleeve. Despite the abrasions and bandaging on the back of her head, she looked much better now that she was up and dressed in her own clothes.

  “Wait,” said Denise, pointing to the duty nurse who was just popping her head around the corner.

  “All the best, Michelle. Look after yourself,” the nurse said, handing her a bottle of tablets. “Take two of these a couple of times a day if you still get headaches, but come and see us if you feel at any time that something else is wrong, okay?” Michelle nodded, and the nurse shook her hand somewhat formally.

  “Come on, then. Out with it, Jazmine,” said Michelle when the nurse had gone.

  Jazmine nodded questioningly to the screen separating them from the other bed.

  “The skunk who was lying there? No, she was discharged this morning.” Michelle wrinkled her nose, turning her attention back to Jazmine. “Did you get Anne-Line to reveal anything? What did you say to her?”

  “In the middle of all the usual caseworker crap she always comes out with, I told her that you would be okay and then asked her if she had a preference for driving red cars.”

  “God, you didn’t!” Michelle put her hand to her mouth.

  Jazmine nodded. “Yup. Of course she reacted—we would have done the same—but I don’t think she seemed shaken.”

  “You don’t think it was her I saw?”

  Jazmine shrugged. “No, I don’t think so.”

  Michelle seemed momentarily uneasy on hearing this but nodded anyway. She collected her belongings and went with the others out into the reception area that divided the ward’s four units, where there was an information desk, a waiting area, and elevators. From the panoramic windows looking out over a vast part of northern Copenhagen, the light was pouring in as if it was the middle of summer, and almost everyone in the waiting room was sitting facing the view of the city rooftops.

  “God, there’s Patrick,” whispered Michelle worriedly, pointing over toward the sofa, where a big bundle of muscles was sitting sprawled out with his sleeves rolled up and looking like a body builder.

  Jazmine looked over at him. He must have just arrived, because he hadn’t been there when she and Denise were sitting there.

  Denise reacted quickly, standing in front of Michelle, but it was already too late. He obviously had an animal instinct and had sensed prey, standing up in the same split second he caught sight of them. Six steps later, he was standing next to them, staring at Michelle as if he was ready to give her another reason to stay on ward 32, or whatever it was called.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Michelle? Why couldn’t I visit you?”

  Michelle grabbed Denise’s arm, hiding behind it. She was obviously scared of him, which Jazmine could easily understand.

  “Who are these bitches?” he asked angrily.

  “Denise and Jazmine, not that that’s any of your business,” she said quietly.

  “What Michelle is trying to tell you is that she’s moved out,” Denise answered on her behalf. “She doesn’t want to live with you anymore.”

  Two wrinkles appeared between his eyes. He wasn’t satisfied with that answer.

  “Fuck you, bitch. Until Michelle has paid what she owes me, you should keep your nose out of our business,” he said, pushing Denise away from Michelle and up against the wall.

  A few of the people in the waiting room shuffled in their seats at the commotion, and a nurse at the information desk looked up. Maybe that was why he lowered his arm.

  “What does she owe you money for? For living with you and waiting on you hand and foot?” asked Denise without batting an eye. “Did you think it was free to have sex with a girl like Michelle?”

  Michelle looked worried now, and Jazmine shared her worry. Maybe it would be wise if Denise toned it down a bit.

  “You look big enough to understand the basic principles, buster, but maybe you haven’t had enough experience with women,” she continued.

  The guy smiled. Apparently he was too smart to let himself be provoked in front of all these witnesses. He turned toward Michelle instead.

  “I couldn’t give a damn what you do. But if you move out, you need to pay your share of the rent for February, March, April, and May, Michelle. Six thousand, that was what we agreed, do you understand me? Once you’ve paid, you can fuck off wherever you want, but not before, got it?”

  Michelle said nothing, but her hand on Jazmine’s arm was shaking. How do you expect me to do that? her expression seemed to say.

  Then Denise stood between them again. For a moment the big guy and she stood staring at each other. If they had been anywhere else it would have ended badly.

  Denise pushed him in the chest fearlessly a couple of times. “You can get half now and that’s your lot,” she said. “Or you can just fuck off with nothing.”

  She put her hand in her bag and pulled out three one-thousand-kroner notes.

  —

  “Don’t expect too much,” said Denise as she put the key in the lock. “My grandmother was just a stupid old bitch, so the furniture is ugly and the place stinks of cheap perfume.”

  Jazmine nodded. Denise had said the same thing ten times on the way here, as if it bothered her how the apartment looked or smelled. As long as there was a bed to sleep on until she found something else, she was happy and could see that Michelle felt the same.

  “Oh my God, there are photos of you over there and there, Denise. And is that your mother?” exclaimed Michelle excitedly. She pointed at a black-and-white photo of a beautiful, shapely woman who had been cut out from another photo and placed on a color photo
background of a park.

  Denise nodded. “Yes, but that’s from ages ago. She doesn’t exactly look like that now.”

  “Why has the photo been cut out like that?”

  “Because my dad was standing next to her and my grandparents didn’t waste any time erasing him from our lives.”

  “Oh.” Michelle appeared to be really sad for having asked. “But where is he now? Do you see him?”

  “He was an American and a former soldier. My grandmother couldn’t stand him, and my mother didn’t back him up, so he went back and joined the army again.”

  “Then why do you have your mother’s name and not his? Weren’t they married?”

  Denise snorted. “What do you think? Of course they were, and I do have my father’s surname. Denise Frank Zimmermann.”

  “That’s weird—it’s a boy’s name. Can it also be a surname? I had no idea. Do you write to each other?” Michelle continued.

  Denise smiled wryly. “A bit hard seeing as he was blown to smithereens by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan just before Christmas 2002. Great Christmas present, right?”

  This information didn’t dull Michelle’s curiosity.

  “He’s dead? Then in some way it was your grandmother’s fault,” said Jazmine.

  Denise pointed accusingly at a faded photo of her. “That’s exactly what it was.”

  Jazmine looked around the sitting room. Nice furniture if you liked oak tables and smooth brown leather. Personally, she preferred the modern Scandinavian style.

  Not that she would ever be able to afford furniture like that, but at least she had taste.

  The apartment had enough rooms for them each to have their own bedroom, she realized with satisfaction, and there was also a dining room and large sitting room with panoramic windows looking out over a broad canopied balcony, a lawn, and behind that another block of apartments like the one they were in. Far better conditions than what she was used to.

  She walked through the hallway to the bathroom to inspect it—there was no more important a room in an apartment. It wasn’t terribly big, but it would do. Washing machine, tumble dryer, and a couple of bathroom cabinets that could be cleared of all the woman’s old junk, so that would be fine. The mirror was enormous. In fact it took up the whole recess where the sink stood, so they wouldn’t even need to use it one at a time.