The Scarred Woman

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  —

  Benny and Leo had been gone for five minutes, and when they finally returned, neither of them looked comfortable with the situation.

  It was Leo who spoke first.

  “We are agreed that we don’t regret the part we played in what we’re about to tell you, and I’m convinced that the others feel the same. Just to set the record straight, Arne Knudsen was a real shit, and the world is a better place without him.”

  Carl nodded. They were a couple of vigilantes and murderers who had ruined Rose’s life. Nothing could justify their heinous crime, but it wouldn’t benefit Rose if the truth became public.

  “Don’t expect me to condone what you’ve done, but a promise is a promise.”

  “It’s a harsh thing to say, but Rose was our useful idiot. Even though it sounds worse than intended.”

  “That’s one of the reasons why I was against it at first, because I had a more personal relationship to Rose than the others,” said Benny. “But I gave in when Arne started to make life hell for everyone. You can’t imagine how intolerable he could be.”

  Carl wasn’t so sure. “Out with it, and don’t beat around the bush. We don’t have all day. Assad and I have an appointment in town we can’t be late for,” said Carl.

  “Okay. Well, Rose was the only one who could really get her dad so agitated that he didn’t notice what was going on around him. He simply loved those situations. It was almost as if they gave him an orgasm,” said Leo Andresen.

  “There were five of us who devised the plan,” interjected Benny Andersson. “Leo wasn’t at work that day but ‘coincidentally’ turned up shortly after the accident,” he said, sketching apostrophes in the air when he said “coincidentally.”

  “I made sure no one saw me at security and disappeared afterward just as quickly as I had arrived,” added Leo. “My mission was to delete all the data regarding the power cut, which one of our colleagues had been instructed to cause at the exact moment he received a signal on his pager. Our problem wasn’t the power cut but getting the timing right.”

  “We agreed that immediately before the incident was due to take place, one of our foremen, who unfortunately isn’t with us anymore, should lie to Rose’s dad that she’d been slagging him off in the worst possible way, which of course she would never have dared,” said Benny. “So her dad was already fuming when the man who was controlling the overhead crane in the old hall gave the signal that he was ready. Then Benny walked over to Rose and explained to her that they wanted to teach him a lesson he wouldn’t forget, and that she just had to make sure that she was standing on a specific spot in hall W15, just by the conveyor belt to the pusher furnace, when her dad began to have a go at her. She had been told that when her pager vibrated it would be time for her to take up her position. That was all she knew. She had no idea about what was in store for him. The rest of us called it an accident and said that we hadn’t meant it to end like that, but it completely crushed Rose,” Leo ended.

  “So there were five of you behind this?”

  “Yes, five plus Rose.”

  Assad didn’t look pleased with the explanation. “I don’t understand, Leo. Last time we spoke, you said you thought it wasn’t an accident, but that it was deliberate and calculated. Why didn’t you just keep silent about it? You must have known that we wouldn’t be able to leave it at that.”

  He hung his head. “If you don’t plan to arrest us, then the best thing that could happen for me is that all this comes out in the open. You might think that Rose is the only one who has been suffering after what happened. But that’s not the case at all. I haven’t been able to sleep for years, and the others also had their own problems. Your conscience nags away at you when it isn’t clean. I told my wife, as did a few of the others. Benny here was divorced, and you can see what that led to.” He pointed around at all the rubbish and mess, which didn’t seem to bother Benny. “And the supervisor, who was otherwise a really plucky and good guy, committed suicide. You can’t run away from the sort of thing we did. And so when you turned up, I was split between wanting to clear my conscience, on the one hand, and hoping to avoid punishment, on the other.” He looked imploringly at him. “Does that make any sense?”

  “It does,” said Assad. He looked away for a moment as if he just needed some distance before he could react to the two men. “How do you propose we convince Rose that she isn’t guilty? Give us a solution.”

  As if he had been waiting for a cue, Benny Andersson stood up and edged his way past a couple of man-size piles of newspaper and junk, stopping in front of a sideboard and pulling out a drawer stuffed full of cardboard and plastic wrapping.

  He rummaged around in the drawer and finally pulled out a small object.

  “Here,” he said, placing a pager in Carl’s hand. “It’s the pager used that day. She dropped it on the floor when she saw her dad being crushed. If you give it to her and tell her that Benny Andersson says hello, you can tell her the rest of the story yourselves. Okay?”

  55

  Tuesday, May 31st, 2016

  “Hello, it’s Olaf Borg-Pedersen,” said the man on the telephone. There was no need for further introduction.

  Assad rolled his eyes, which made them look even bigger.

  “I’m sorry, Borg-Pedersen,” said Carl. “We can’t speak just now.”

  “Lars Bjørn tells me that you’ve made a lot of progress, so we’d like to get some footage of you and Assad bringing our viewers up to date.”

  That Bjørn never gave up.

  “Okay, but it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

  “We’re airing tomorrow and will need some time to edit before then. So . . .”

  “We’ll see,” said Carl, about to hang up.

  “We’ve heard that the car that was involved in the crash yesterday has been reported stolen by the owner. So we tried to contact Anne-Line Svendsen at her address to ask her about it, but she wasn’t there. And they told us at her work that she’s signed off sick. You wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you?”

  “Who did you say?”

  “The woman who owns the Ka from yesterday.”

  “No, we don’t know anything about her. Should we? As you said, the car has been reported stolen.”

  “Yeah. But as you know, Carl Mørck, this is TV, so we need footage and interviews, and when the crime affects ordinary people like Anne-Line Svendsen, who lost her car in this violent accident, it’s bound to interest our viewers. In a sense, Anne-Line Svendsen is also a victim, right?”

  Assad shook his head and, pretending to slit his throat with his hand, indicated to Carl to end the call.

  “If we discover anything important, you’ll be the first person to know, Borg-Pedersen.”

  Assad and Carl roared with laughter for half a minute about their lie. Who the hell did the man think he was?

  Carl put the cell phone back in his pocket and watched in amazement as they drove past the extensive building project around the University Hospital on Blegdamsvej. Had it really been so long since he had driven past here?

  “Where the hell have they moved the radiation therapy section to? The entrance should be just over there.” He pointed at a chaos of portable buildings and temporary fencing.

  “I think it’s in that maze somewhere. I think I can see the sign,” said Assad.

  Carl pulled in and parked halfway up on the sidewalk.

  “We’re in good time. Anne-Line won’t be here for another fifteen minutes,” he said, looking at his watch. “It’ll be as easy as taking candy from a baby.”

  They entered the labyrinth of portable buildings and followed the signs toward entrance 39, where radiation therapy was located.

  “Have you been here before, Carl?” asked Assad. The situation seemed to make him feel uncomfortable as they walked a few floors down the spiral staircase to the X-ray s
ection. Carl understood him. It felt like the word “cancer” was hanging ominously in the air.

  “You only come here if you really have to,” he answered. And he hoped he never would.

  They pulled the string to open the automatic door and entered the large reception area. If you could disregard the reason why people were here, it was almost cozy. A large aquarium on the end wall, mint-green concrete pillars, beautiful plants, and lots of natural light softened the impression. Carl and Assad walked up to the reception desk.

  “Hello,” Carl said to the nurses and produced his badge. “We’re from Department Q at police headquarters and are here to arrest one of your patients who has an appointment in a few minutes. It will be a subdued affair to make sure we don’t cause any unnecessary stress. But now you know.”

  The nurse looked at him as if to say that he had no business coming down here and bothering their patients.

  “We’ll have to ask you to do it outside the radiation therapy section,” she said. “We’re dealing with patients in a critical condition, so if you wouldn’t mind obliging.”

  “Er, I’m afraid it’ll have to be here. We can’t allow the patient to catch sight of us from a distance.”

  She summoned a colleague, and they whispered together for a minute.

  Then the other nurse turned toward them. “Which patient are we talking about?”

  “An Anne-Line Svendsen,” answered Carl. “She has an appointment at one o’clock.”

  “Anne-Line Svendsen is already having her treatment. We had a cancellation, so we took her in as soon as she arrived. She’s in room 2, so I’ll have to ask you to wait. I suggest that you wait over by the entrance and do what you need to do very discreetly.”

  She pointed at the door where they had entered.

  During the following ten minutes the nurses glanced over at them frequently with stern expressions on their faces. Maybe he should have told them what they were arresting Anne-Line Svendsen for. That might have changed their tune.

  She came out of the room with a large canvas bag over her shoulder and continued directly toward the entrance. A completely ordinary, frumpy woman with uncombed hair and no charisma. The type of woman you could walk past on the street without knowing if it was a man or a woman, or whether you had even seen her at all. They couldn’t know for sure how many lives she had taken, but it was at least five.

  The woman looked directly at them without a clue who they were, and if it hadn’t been for the commotion behind the reception desk and the nervous looks the nurses sent her, it would all have gone smoothly.

  She suddenly stopped ten meters away from them and frowned, looking back and forth between the reception desk and them.

  Assad was about to walk over to her to make the arrest, but Carl stopped him. She had killed with firearms before, and the way she looked at the moment, she might do it again.

  Carl slowly pulled his badge out of his pocket and held it up so she could see it from a distance.

  Then a strange thing happened. She smiled at them.

  “God, have you found my car?” she asked with an expression that was intended to convey happiness and anticipation.

  She walked closer. “Where did you find it? Is it okay?” she asked. She was really putting on a show. Did she really think they would buy it? That they wouldn’t think it odd that she never questioned the fact that two policemen had sought her out here just to inform her that they had found her car?

  “Yes, so you must be Anne-Line Svendsen? It was a blue and black Ka,” said Carl in order to lure her closer while he watched her every movement. Was her hand in the canvas bag? Was she turning something in her hand? Was all that rubbish she had just spouted off only meant to distract them?

  Carl took a few steps forward to seize her, but this time Assad stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “I think we’d better let her go, Carl,” said Assad, nodding toward the metal cap she demonstratively let fall into the canvas bag.

  Carl stood absolutely still. Now he could see her slowly pulling a wooden shaft out of the bag. At first he couldn’t make out what it was but suddenly realized that it was a hand grenade of the sort used by the Germans in the Second World War.

  “I have the ball in my hand,” she said, holding a small white ceramic ball between her fingertips. “If I pull it, this place will look like a slaughterhouse within a few seconds. Do you understand?”

  They certainly did.

  “Move away from the door,” she said, walking over to the mechanical door opener hanging down from the ceiling. She pulled the black ball-shaped handle, and the door opened.

  “If you come anywhere near me, I’ll detonate this and throw it at you. Don’t even walk up the stairs. Just stay where you are until you’re sure that I’m far away. I might just be waiting for you up at the entrance.”

  She really looked like she meant it. The grey woman from before had transformed into a devil who was capable of anything. Her eyes shone with genuine madness, determination, lack of empathy, and, most of all, a completely incomprehensible absence of fear.

  “Anne-Line Svendsen, where will you go?” asked Carl. “Everyone will be looking for you. You won’t be able to go anywhere without being recognized. I don’t think any disguise will be able to conceal your identity. You won’t be able to use public transport or cross borders. You won’t feel safe even if you hide in a summerhouse or out in the open. So why not just let go of that ball in your hand before something goes wrong? We will—”

  “Stop!” she shouted so loudly that everyone looked up. She pulled the automatic door opener once again and stepped out into the stairwell.

  “If you follow me, you’ll die. And I don’t care how many others join you. Got it?”

  And then she slipped out of sight.

  Carl immediately grabbed his cell phone and nodded to Assad to open the door so they could follow her.

  In a matter of seconds, Carl had informed HQ about the situation and hung up again.

  They heard the sound of her running at the top of the stairwell, and when they almost couldn’t hear her anymore, they nodded to each other and sprinted up the stairs two steps at a time.

  When they reached the top, they looked out through the glass doors of the main entrance at a green wooden fence and the side of a blue container. But Anne-Line Svendsen was nowhere to be seen.

  Carl pulled out his pistol. “Stay behind me, Assad. If I can get her in range, I’ll try to hit her in the leg.”

  Assad shook his head. “Don’t try to hit her, Carl. You have to hit her. Give me the pistol.”

  He put his hand around the barrel of the gun and pulled it carefully from Carl’s hand. “I won’t try, Carl,” he said calmly. “I will hit her.”

  What the hell? Was he a marksman all of a sudden?

  Then they rushed out the door and down the narrow passage between the fence on one side and a low stone wall on the other. Of course, the woman was already far ahead of them, but what they hadn’t bargained for was that Olaf Borg-Pedersen was waiting at the corner of the fence with his cameraman and sound technician already recording.

  Borg-Pedersen smiled at them. “A little sweet talk and an incentive convinced the secretary to tip us off that we might find you out here somewhe—”

  “Get out of the way!” shouted Assad, and they did when they saw the pistol pointing straight at them.

  Carl and Assad turned the corner and caught sight of Anne-Line Svendsen down at the far end of the fence, where she was lunging at an old woman who was just about to secure her bicycle on its kickstand.

  “She’s stealing the bike!” shouted Carl. “She’s going to get away.” Carl’s lungs were wheezing when they came to a halt at the end of the fence. They stared at the waiting taxis, the traffic on Blegdamsvej, and a mass of frightened people who had come from the direction of the main
hospital entrance only to be suddenly confronted with the sight of a frantic-looking brown man with a firearm in his hands. Some of them screamed spontaneously and ran for cover, while others stood paralyzed.

  “Police!” shouted Carl, jumping out into the road, followed by Assad.

  Borg-Pedersen came running up behind them, his crew in tow, encouraging them to make sure they recorded everything, and telling them that this was live action at its best.

  “She’s down there,” said Assad, pointing toward a side street about a hundred meters down toward Ryesgade.

  Then the woman stopped on a street corner and laughed maniacally and unashamedly in their direction. It was obvious that she thought she was safe now.

  “Can you hit her from this distance?” asked Carl.

  Assad shook his head.

  “What’s she doing?” asked Carl. “Is she waving the hand grenade?”

  Assad nodded. “I think she’s trying to tell us that it’s a dummy. Look, she’s pulling the ceramic ball and letting the grenade fall. Shit, Carl. It was just a dummy, it—”

  The sudden explosion shattered all the windows on the corner, and while it wasn’t exactly deafening, it was enough to make the taxi drivers who were standing chatting at the taxi rank instinctively fall to their knees and look around in confusion.

  They heard Olaf Borg-Pedersen let out a satisfied sigh behind them. Station 3 had their footage in the bag: the remains of the banknotes rising like a mushroom cloud above Blegdamsvej, mixed with particles of the flesh that had once been a woman by the name of Anne-Line Svendsen.

  EPILOGUE

  Tuesday, May 31st, 2016

  Olaf Borg-Pedersen was spluttering with rage through his red beard when Lars Bjørn coldly informed him that even if they were to be dragged through a complaints procedure with the ombudsman, internal investigation, press complaints commission, court orders, abuse from the press, political pressure, and all kinds of obstacles, Station 3 would never obtain permission to use the last half hour of footage. They would just have to hand over the memory cards immediately.