The Purity of Vengeance

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  He nodded in the direction of Rose as she vanished up the steps.

  Carl shook his head and carried on walking. Isaksen could take a running jump with all his crap. Shagging Rose! He’d rather join a monastery in Bratislava.

  “Just a minute, Carl,” said the duty officer as he passed the cage half a minute later. “That psychologist woman, Mona Ibsen, left this for you.” He thrust a gray envelope at Carl through the open door as though it were the highlight of his day.

  Carl stared at it, nonplussed. Maybe it was.

  The duty officer sat down again. “Assad was here at four this morning, so I heard. He sees to it he has plenty of time on his own, I’ll say that for him. What’s he up to down there, anyway? Planning a terrorist strike?” He chortled to himself for a moment, then thought better of it when he saw Carl’s piercing gaze.

  “Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Carl said, recalling the case of the woman who had been arrested in the airport for merely uttering the word “bomb,” a slip-up of front-page dimensions.

  To his mind, what he’d just heard was a lot bloody worse.

  • • •

  Even from the bottom step of the rotunda stairwell he could tell this was one of Rose’s better days. A heavy scent of cloves and jasmine assaulted his nostrils, reminding him of the old woman back in Øster Brønderslev who used to pinch the backsides of all the men who came to visit her. When Rose smelled like this, it gave him a headache, besides the one he always got on account of her usual grouching.

  Assad’s theory was that she’d inherited the perfume, while others reckoned this kind of putrefying blend was still available in certain Indian shops that couldn’t care less if they ever saw another customer again.

  “Hey, Carl, come here a minute, would you?” she bellowed from inside her office.

  Carl gave a sigh. What now?

  He walked stiffly past Assad’s shambles of a cubbyhole, poked his nose into Rose’s clinically disinfected domain, and immediately noticed the voluminous shoulder bag she’d just been toting. As far as Carl could tell, Rose’s perfume wasn’t the only disconcerting aspect of the day. The enormous wad of documents peeping out of her bag seemed just as disheartening.

  “Erm,” he ventured cautiously, indicating the reams of paper. “What’s all that, then?”

  She glared at him with kohl-rimmed eyes. It did not bode well.

  “Some old cases that have been lying around various commissioners’ offices this past year. Cases that should have been handed on to us. You of all people would know about that kind of slovenliness.”

  To the latter suggestion she added a kind of guttural growl that might have passed as a laugh.

  “The folders here had been sent over to the National Investigation Center by mistake. I’ve just been to pick them up.”

  Carl raised his eyebrows. More work, so why the hell was she smiling?

  “OK, I know what you’re thinking: bad news of the day,” Rose said, beating him to it. “But you haven’t seen this yet. This one’s not from the NIC, it was already on my chair when I came in.”

  She handed him a battered cardboard folder. She looked as if she expected him to flick through it on the spot, but on that count she had another thing coming. For Carl, bad news wasn’t an option before a man’s first smoke of the morning. There was a time and a place for everything, and he’d only just got here, for Chrissake.

  He shook his head and wandered off into his own office, tossing the folder onto his desk and his coat over the chair in the corner.

  The room smelled musty and the fluorescent light on the ceiling flickered even more frantically than usual. Wednesdays were always the worst.

  He lit a smoke and trudged across the corridor to Assad’s little broom cupboard, where everything seemed to be as usual: prayer mat rolled out on the floor; dense, myrtle-laced clouds of steam; transistor tuned in to something that sounded like the mating cries of dolphins interspersed with a gospel choir, played on an open-reel tape recorder with a dodgy drive belt.

  Istanbul à la carte.

  “Morning,” Carl grunted.

  Assad turned his head slowly toward him. A sunrise over Kuwait could not have been ruddier than the poor man’s impressive proboscis.

  “Jesus, Assad, that doesn’t look too good,” he exclaimed, retreating a step at the sight. If the flu was thinking of rampaging through the halls of Police HQ, he could only hope it would give him a wide berth.

  “It came on yesterday,” Assad sniffled. His runny eyes looked like a puppy’s.

  “Off home with you, on the double,” Carl said, withdrawing even farther. No point in saying any more, given that Assad wasn’t going to take any notice.

  He went back to his safety zone and slung his legs up on the desk, wondering for the first time in his life whether it might be time to take a package holiday in the Canary Islands. Two weeks under an umbrella with a scantily clad Mona at his side wouldn’t be half bad. The flu could cause as much havoc in Copenhagen as it liked while they were away.

  He smiled at the thought, took out the little envelope from Mona, and opened it. The scent alone was almost enough. Delicate and sensual. Mona Ibsen in a nutshell. A far cry from Rose’s dense, daily bombardment of his olfactory system.

  My darling, it began.

  Carl melted. Not since he’d lain incapacitated on a ward of Brønderslev Hospital with six stitches in his side and his appendix in a jar had he been addressed so with such affection.

  My darling,

  See you at my place at seven thirty for Martinmas goose, OK? Put a jacket on and bring the wine. I’ll do the surprises.

  Kisses, Mona

  He felt the warmth rise in his cheeks. What a woman!

  He closed his eyes, took a deep drag of his cigarette, and conjured up images to accompany the word “surprises.” Not all of them would be deemed suitable for a family audience.

  “What are you doing with your eyes closed and that big grin on your face?” came a harping voice from behind him. “Aren’t you going to have a look in that case folder I gave you?”

  Rose stood in the doorway with her arms folded and her head cocked to one side. It meant she was going nowhere until he did as she said.

  Carl stubbed out his smoke and reached for the folder. Might as well get it over with or else she’d be standing there till she’d tied knots in her arms.

  The folder contained ten faded sheets of paper from Hjørring District Court. He could see what it was at a glance.

  How the hell did it wind up on Rose’s chair?

  He skimmed the first page, already knowing what he was about to read. Summer 1978. Man drowned in the Nørreå river. Owner of a large machine works, passionate angler, and a member of various clubs, accordingly. Four sets of fresh footprints around his stool and creel. None of his fishing tackle missing. Abu reel and rods at more than five hundred kroner apiece. Weather fine. Autopsy revealing nothing abnormal, no heart disease, no coronary thrombosis. Just drowned.

  Had it not been for the river being only seventy-five centimeters deep at the spot in question, it would all have been written off as an accident.

  But it wasn’t the man’s death in itself that had awakened Rose’s interest; that much Carl knew. Nor was it the fact that the case had never been solved and hence now resided in the basement of Department Q. No, it was because attached to the case documents were a number of photographs, and Carl’s mug appeared on two of them.

  Carl sighed. The name of the drowned man was Birger Mørck, Carl’s uncle. A jovial and generous man whom both his son, Ronny, and Carl himself had looked up to and often accompanied on excursions. Just as they had done that very day, to glean whatever they might about the mysteries of angling.

  But a couple of girls from Copenhagen had cycled the length and breadth of the country and were now approaching their destinati
on in Skagen, their flimsy tops arousingly moist with perspiration.

  The sight of these two blonde beauties as they came toiling over the rises impacted on Carl and his cousin, Ronny, like a blow from a hammer, prompting them to put down their fishing rods and leg it across the field like a pair of young bulls setting their hooves on grass for the first time in their lives.

  When they returned to the river two hours later with the contours of the two girls’ tight tops forever imprinted on their retinas, Birger Mørck was already dead.

  Many hours of questioning and many suspicions later, the Hjørring police shelved the case for good. And although they never succeeded in tracing the two girls from the capital who were the young men’s only alibi, Ronny and Carl were released without charge. Carl’s father was enraged and inconsolable for months, but apart from that the matter had no further consequences.

  “You were quite a looker in those days, Carl. How old were you?” Rose intervened from the doorway.

  He dropped the folder onto the desk. It wasn’t a time he cared to be reminded about.

  “Seventeen, and Ronny was twenty-seven.” He sighed. “Have you any idea why this should turn up here all of a sudden?”

  “What do you mean, why?” She rapped bony knuckles against her skull: “Hello, Prince Charming, anyone home? How about waking up a bit? That’s what we do here, isn’t it? We investigate unsolved crimes!”

  “Yeah, but this one was closed as an accident. And apart from that, it didn’t just emerge from out of your chair, did it?”

  “You mean I should ask the police in Hjørring how come it’s landed here?”

  Carl raised his eyebrows. Ask a stupid question . . .

  She turned on her heel and clattered off toward her own domain. Message understood.

  Carl stared into space. Why the hell did this of all cases have to turn up now? As if it hadn’t caused trouble enough already.

  He looked once again at the photo of Ronny and himself, then shoved the folder over toward the other cases that lay piled up on his desk. Past was past but this was now. Nothing could alter that. Five minutes ago he’d read Mona’s note. She’d called him “darling.” He needed to keep his priorities straight.

  He smiled, delved into his pocket for his mobile, and stared despondently at the minuscule keys. If he sent Mona a text message it would take him ten minutes to write it, and if he called her he could wait just as long before she answered.

  He sighed and began to text. The technology of mobile keypads was seemingly the work of Pygmies with macaroni for fingers, and the average northern European male who needed to operate such a contraption could only feel like a hippopotamus trying to play the flute.

  When he was finished he studied the result of his efforts and allowed a string of wrong spellings to pass with a sigh. Mona would understand well enough: the Martinmas goose had a taker.

  Just as he put the mobile down on his desk, a head popped round the door.

  The comb-over had been given a trim since he’d seen it last, and the leather jacket looked like it had been pressed, but the man inside it was as crumpled as ever.

  “Bak. What the fuck are you doing here?” he inquired mechanically.

  “As if you don’t know already,” his visitor replied, lack of sleep advertised by his drooping eyelids. “I’m going out of my mind. That’s why!”

  He plonked himself down on the chair opposite, despite Carl’s obvious disapproval. “My sister Esther’s never going to be the same again. And the bastard who threw acid in her face is sitting in a basement shop on Eskildsgade, laughing his head off. I’m sure you can understand why an old copper like me isn’t exactly proud of his sister running a brothel, but do you think the scum should get away with doing what he’s done?”

  “I’ve no idea why you’re here, Bak. Have a word with City, or Marcus Jacobsen, or one of the other chiefs if you’re not happy with the way the investigation’s proceeding. Assault and vice aren’t my field, you know that.”

  “I’m here to ask you and Assad to come with me and force a confession out of the fucker.”

  Carl felt his brow furrow all the way up to his hairline. Was the man out of his mind?

  “You’ve just had a new case turn up. I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Bak went on. “It’s from me. Old mate of mine up in Hjørring passed it on to me a few months back. I left it in Rose’s office last night.”

  Carl scrutinized the man as he considered his options. As far as he could make out, there were three.

  He could get up and punch him in the mouth. That was one. Another would be to kick his arse all the way down the corridor. But Carl chose the third.

  “Yeah, that’s it, there,” he said, pointing toward the nightmarish pile on the corner of his desk. “How come you didn’t deliver it to me? It would have been less devious, I’d have thought. More honest.”

  Bak smiled briefly. “When did honesty ever lead to anything with us two? Nah, I just wanted to make sure someone other than you down here laid eyes on it, so it wouldn’t mysteriously disappear. Know what I mean?”

  The two other options became attractive again. A good thing this dick was no longer around on a daily basis.

  “I’ve been saving that folder until the right moment came along,” Bak continued. “Do you get my drift?”

  “No, I fucking don’t. What moment?”

  “The moment when I need your help!”

  “Don’t think I’m going to cave some potential perp’s skull in just because you’re waving a thirty-year-old drowning in front of my nose. I’m not interested, and I’ll tell you why.”

  Carl extended a finger into the air for each point he made.

  “One: The case is time-barred. Two: It was an accident. My uncle drowned. He took a turn and fell in the river, exactly as the investigators concluded. Three: I wasn’t there when it happened and neither was my cousin. Four: Unlike you, I’m a decent copper who doesn’t go around beating up his suspects.”

  Carl paused for a moment, the last utterance lingering in his throat. As far as he knew, Bak couldn’t possibly have anything on him of that kind. His expression certainly didn’t indicate it to be the case.

  “And five.” He extended all five fingers, then clenched his fist. “If I ever do get nasty with anyone, it’ll most likely be with a certain ex-cop who doesn’t seem to get the fact that he’s no longer on the force.”

  Bak’s expression hardened at once. “OK. But let me tell you this. Former colleague of mine from Hjørring likes to go to Thailand. Two weeks in Bangkok with all the frills.”

  “So?” said Carl, wondering what that had to do with anything.

  “It seems your cousin, Ronny, has similar tastes. Likes a drink as well, he does,” Bak went on. “And you know what, Carl? When your cousin, Ronny, gets tanked up, he starts talking.”

  Carl suppressed a deep sigh. Ronny, that bloody idiot! Was he getting himself into trouble again? It had been ten years at least since they’d seen each other at a fateful confirmation party in Odder, on which occasion Ronny had claimed more than his fair share of not only the booze but also the girls who’d been helping out as waitresses. Which would have been OK if only one of them hadn’t been rather too willing, underage, and sister to the confirmand. The scandal had been contained, though remained an indelible blight on the Odder branch of the family. No, Ronny wasn’t exactly the retiring sort.

  Carl waved his hand dismissively. What did he care about Ronny?

  “Go upstairs to Marcus and sound off as much as you like, Bak, but you know him as well as I do. You’ll get exactly the same thing out of him as you’re getting out of me. We don’t beat up suspects, and we don’t give in to threats from former colleagues with old history like this.”

  Bak leaned back in the chair. “In this bar in Thailand, in the presence of witnesses, your cousin was boasting to anyone
who cared to listen that he killed his dad.”

  Carl’s eyes narrowed. It didn’t sound plausible.

  “Oh, he was, was he? So report him and his rat-arsed confession, if you want. I know for a fact he couldn’t have drowned his dad. He was with me.”

  “He says you were both in on it. Nice relative you’ve got there.”

  The frown that had appeared on Carl’s brow plunged at once to the bridge of his nose as he rose to his feet, summoning all his poorly distributed body weight into his chest region. “Assad! Get in here, will you?” he bellowed at maximum velocity into Bak’s astonished face.

  Ten seconds later, Carl’s feverish assistant stood sniffling in the doorway.

  “Assad, my dear, flu-ridden friend. Would you be so kind as to cough all over this idiot here? Go on, take a deep breath.”

  • • •

  “What else have you got in that pile of yours, Rose?”

  For a second she looked like she was considering dumping the lot into his lap, but for once Carl had read her correctly: something had already grabbed her attention.

  “That business about the madam who got attacked last night made me think of a case we just got in from Kolding. It was in the stack I picked up over at NIC.”

  “Did you know the woman is Bak’s sister?”

  Rose nodded. “Don’t really know him myself, but word gets round, doesn’t it? Wasn’t it him who was here just now?” She jabbed a finger at the case folder at the top of the file, then opened it with a flutter of black-painted nails. “Now listen up, Carl, otherwise you can read it yourself.”

  “OK, OK,” said Carl, his gaze skating about her uncluttered gray-white office. He almost felt a twinge of sadness as his mind went back to her alter ego Yrsa’s inferno of pink.

  “This case here’s about a woman called Rita Nielsen, ‘stage name’”—Rose drew quotes in the air—“Louise Ciccone. That’s what she was calling herself for a time in the eighties when she organized so-called”—more quotes—“‘exotic dancing’ at nightclubs in the Triangle region of southeast Jutland. Several convictions for fraud, later for procuring prostitutes and running a brothel. Owned an escort service in Kolding up through the seventies and eighties, after which she disappeared into thin air in Copenhagen in 1987. Mobile Unit concentrated its investigation on the porn scenes in mid-Jutland and Copenhagen, but after three months they shelved the case with the suggestion it was most likely a suicide. A lot of serious crimes had come up in the meantime, so they no longer had the manpower to carry on the investigation, so it says.”