The Purity of Vengeance

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  She went out into the kitchen and collected eight bowls, taking them with her to the room at the end of the hallway.

  She spread newspapers out over the dining table just in case, and on top of them she placed the bowls, filling each with strongly scented or malodorous liquids. Eau de cologne, lavender water, turpentine, paraffin, benzine, vinegar, methylated spirits, and finally ammonia.

  The latter gave off an invisible cloud that impacted suddenly, stabbing at her nostrils and throat and making her gasp with discomfort.

  She left the bottles where they were and backed out of the room as quickly as she could, closing the door behind her.

  Groaning, she dashed into the bathroom and rinsed her face over and over in cold water. The fumes of these combined substances were truly abominable. It felt almost as if they were corroding her flesh, seeping into her brain through the membranes of her nose.

  She hobbled through all the rooms of the apartment, opening the windows wide to let out the fumes that had escaped when she had left the airtight room or which still clung tenaciously to her clothes.

  After an hour she closed the windows again, placed the bottles of formalin in the cupboard underneath the sink, left the apartment, and went down to sit on the bench by the lake.

  A little smile curved the corners of her mouth.

  This was going to work.

  • • •

  After another hour she was ready to go back. Her breathing was now unencumbered, her clothes aired by the gentle breeze of late summer. It was good to have come this far. She felt serene.

  If, against all expectation, even the slightest trace of fumes still lingered in the stairwell or the apartment, she would have to work all night to rectify it. Her task now was clear. She had no way of knowing for certain if the formalin would work according to plan, so the room had to be completely airtight. If it wasn’t, she wouldn’t be able to go to Mallorca, no matter how much her mind was set.

  She entered the hall of the building and stood for a long time at the bottom of the stairs, sniffing the air. There was a slight scent of the neighbor’s dog, but that was all. Her sense of smell had always been good.

  She repeated the procedure on every landing with the same result, and when finally she came to the fourth floor she got down on her knees in front of her door, pushed open the letter box, and inhaled deeply.

  She smiled. Still nothing.

  Then she entered the apartment and was met by the same fresh air that had wafted in through the windows an hour before. She stood for a moment, eyes closed, concentrating on this one sense that could mean the difference between success and failure. But still there was nothing.

  Another hour passed without a trace appearing, and finally she let herself into the room at the end of the hallway.

  In less than a second her eyes were streaming. Like a veritable nerve-gas attack, the overwhelming fumes seemed to penetrate every exposed pore. She closed her eyes tight and held a hand in front of her mouth as she fumbled her way to the window and managed to fling it open.

  Like a person about to drown, she stuck her head out into the air and gasped for oxygen, coughing and spluttering as if she would never stop.

  After fifteen minutes the contents of all eight bowls had been poured into the toilet and flushed away repeatedly to make sure. Then she once again opened wide all the windows in the apartment before washing the bowls thoroughly. By the time evening came, she knew her work had stood the test.

  She laid a white cloth over the dining table in the airtight room, took out her finest porcelain, and set the table. Crystal glasses, silver cutlery, and a meticulous little place card for each of her guests.

  It was to be a festive occasion.

  When she was done she looked out at the tops of the chestnut trees, whose leaves were already turning yellow. Happily, she would soon be gone.

  She remembered to close the windows of the airtight room before going to bed, sealing them with clear silicone. And then at last she stood back and admired her work.

  It would be a long time indeed before these windows were opened again.

  20

  November 2010

  It was like a curtain of cloud had descended to darken Carl’s thoughts, black and ominous, crackling with electricity: the nail-gun case, Hardy’s suspicions and the coins with Anker’s and his own prints on them, Vigga’s wedding plans and how they would impact on his financial situation, Assad’s past, Rose’s oddities, Ronny’s idiotic blatherings, and the total backfire of his evening with Mona. Never before had he felt so many different issues weighing him down all at once. He could hardly shift buttocks before the next disaster came crashing down. Such brooding was in no way befitting for an otherwise competent servant of the state employed to solve mysteries confounding to all others. He found himself wondering if they might set up a department whose prime function was to solve his mysteries.

  Carl sighed, lit a smoke, and switched on the news channel. It helped a bit to see that others were in deeper shit than himself.

  A single glance at the flatscreen on the wall and he was down to earth again with a bang. Five grown men arguing about the government’s pocket philosophies on matters economic. Could anything be more inconsequential? What was the point?

  Carl picked up the sheet of paper Rose had placed on top of the report while he’d been upstairs with Marcus. Half a page, written by hand. Was that really all she could dig up on Gitte Charles?

  He read it through, finding it to be anything but encouraging.

  Though Rose had inquired extensively, no one from Samsø’s community home health care unit could remember anything about a Gitte Charles, and for that reason no one had the slightest recollection of her thefts from the elderly whom she had visited on her rounds. Her spell at the hospital in Tranebjerg likewise drew a blank, the place having been closed down in the intervening years and the staff dispersed to all corners. Her mother was long since deceased, and her brother, who had emigrated to Canada, had also died a few years back. The only real connection was the man who had rented out a room to her on Maarup Kirkevej twenty-three years ago.

  Rose’s description of him was a hoot. The bloke was an idiot, or maybe just a grumpy old git. After Gitte Charles, he’s rented out his dwarf-sized flat (21 m2) to 15 or 20 others. He remembers her well, but had nothing intelligent to say. One of those yokels with cowshit on his shoes and tractors left to rust round the back of the house, who thinks undisclosed earnings are the only income worth having.

  Carl put the paper down on his desk, then began studying the summary of the investigations into the Gitte Charles case. Here, too, pickings were meager.

  The picture changed a couple of times on the flatscreen, cutting quickly between a couple of large gatherings in congress halls and the faces of a pair of aging men beaming smiles at anyone who might care to notice.

  The reporter relating the story accorded them little respect in his voice-over:

  “Now that the Purity Party, after a succession of failed attempts, has finally managed to gather enough signatures to be eligible to stand in the next parliamentary elections, many will be asking themselves whether Danish politics has finally hit rock bottom. Not since the days of the Upsurge Party have we seen a party running on such a controversial and, in many people’s opinion, contemptible platform. At today’s inaugural general assembly, the party’s founder, the fanatical and often disparaged fertility doctor Curt Wad, presented the party’s parliamentary candidates, and in contrast to the days of the Upsurge Party these included several prominent men and women with scholarly backgrounds and high-profile careers. With the average age of their candidates being forty-two, accusations by political rivals that the Purity Party consists solely of geriatrics have been clearly refuted, despite Dr. Wad himself being eighty-eight and many of the party’s executive committee having long since retired from professional life.”
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  The TV producer then cut to a tall man with white sideburns who looked considerably younger than eighty-eight. Dr. Curt Wad, Physician and Party Founder, read the caption.

  “Have you had a look at my note and the report on Gitte Charles’s disappearance?” Rose interrupted.

  Carl turned to look at her. After having spoken to her real sister, Yrsa, it was hard to know what to make of her persona. Was this, too, just an artificial facade? These black expanses of material, the kohl, and the shoes that could skewer a cobra?

  “Er, yeah. Sort of, anyway.”

  “There’s not much to go on apart from the first report we got from Lis. Seems there was nothing the investigators could get a handle on at the time, so all they did was issue a description. Gitte Charles’s drinking was emphasized, and even though the term ‘alcoholic’ funnily enough isn’t mentioned directly, it’s obvious their logic was telling them she most likely died on a binge somewhere or other. There was no next of kin and no work colleagues, so it all got shelved. Exit Gitte Charles.”

  “There’s something about her being seen boarding the ferry to Kalundborg. Any theory of her maybe having fallen overboard?”

  Rose gave him a look of irritation. “No, Carl, she was seen disembarking, I’ve already told you that. How many seconds did you spend going through it, anyway?”

  It was a question he chose to ignore. Sarcasm was his own specialty. “What did her landlord have to say about her disappearance?” he asked instead. “He must have wondered, once his rent stopped coming in.”

  “It didn’t. The social services paid it directly, otherwise she’d have boozed it all away. So the landlord, that shite, wasn’t going to tell anyone she was gone as long as the money kept coming in. In the end it was the manager from the local co-op store who reported it. He said Gitte Charles had come into the shop all cocky on the last day of August with fifteen hundred kroner in her pocket. She told him she’d inherited a lot of money and now she was off to Copenhagen to collect. He laughed at her, and she got miffed.”

  Carl recoiled in his chair. “An inheritance? Was there any truth in that?”

  “None whatsoever. I’ve already been in touch with the probate court about it, and there wasn’t a thing.”

  “Hmm. It’d have been too good to be true, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but listen. There’s a sentence here that might make you wonder.”

  She picked up the folder from the desk and found a place about halfway through the report.

  “Here it is. The co-op manager reported her missing a week later because she’d put a five-hundred-kroner note in his hand and said if she didn’t come back ten million better off the next week, the money was his. And if she did, he could give it back to her along with a cup of coffee and a dram. He had nothing to lose, did he? Which was why he entered the bet.”

  “Ten million!” Carl whistled. “But a pipe dream all the same?”

  “Most probably, yeah. But listen to this. The co-op manager found her bike down by the harbor a week later and thought something might be up.”

  “Seems like a reasonable assumption. He still had his five hundred kroner. And from what we know, it sounds like she wasn’t one to throw money away,” said Carl.

  “Exactly. The report says this: Co-op manager Lasse Bjerg stated that unless Gitte Charles really had collected her ten million kroner and left her old life behind once and for all to start afresh, something terrible had most likely happened to her. And here comes the bit I want you to take note of: Five hundred kroner was a considerable sum of money for Gitte Charles. Why would she give so much away of her own free will?

  “Maybe we should make the trip to Samsø, have a chat with our man from the co-op and the landlord, check out the lay of the land,” Carl mused. The break would do him good.

  “That won’t turn anything up, Carl. The manager’s in the nursing home with advanced dementia and I’ve already spoken to the landlord. The man’s a meathead and Gitte’s stuff’s long since gone. Would you believe he sold it all off at a flea market when she didn’t come back? Talk about making the most of a situation.”

  “So what we’ve got is nothing, basically?”

  “In spades!”

  “OK, what do we do now, then? We know that two people who must have known each other disappeared without a trace the same day. Gitte Charles and Rita Nielsen. Gitte Charles leaves nothing behind, and in Rita Nielsen’s case her former employee, Lone Rasmussen, still has some of her personal effects, though nothing with any bearing on the case.” He was about to tap a smoke from the packet, only for his fingers to remain suspended in the air at the sight of Rose’s arctic glare. “We could pay a call on Lone Rasmussen and have a rummage round in what Rita left behind, but who could be arsed driving all the way to Vejle for that?”

  “She doesn’t live in Vejle anymore,” said Rose.

  “Where, then?”

  “Thisted.”

  “Even farther away. Brilliant.”

  “Like I said, she doesn’t live in Vejle.”

  Carl fished out his cigarette and was about to light up when Assad came in through the door, wafting the air to get rid of smoke that had yet to materialize. Had they all gone soft, or what?

  “Have you discussed this Gitte Charles woman?” Assad wanted to know.

  Both nodded.

  “I haven’t got round yet to that fisherman, Viggo Mogensen,” he went on. “But we are coming along nicely with this Philip Nørvig. I’ve made an appointment with his wife. She still lives in their house in Halsskov.”

  Carl recoiled. “Not now, I hope?”

  Rose hoisted her eyelids slowly to a level marginally above her pupils. The girl looked knackered. “Use your head, Carl. Don’t you think we’ve been here long enough for one day?”

  He looked at Assad. “So it’s tomorrow, then?”

  Assad gave him the thumbs-up. “Perhaps I can drive the car?” he ventured.

  If that’s what he thought, he could bleeding well think again.

  “Your mobile’s ringing, Carl,” said Rose, indicating the rotating contraption on his desk.

  He glanced at the display without recognizing the number before answering.

  It was a rather less-than-friendly female voice. “Hello, would this be Carl Mørck?” it inquired.

  “It would.”

  “In that case I’d ask you to come over to the Tivoli Hall and pay the bill your cousin left behind.”

  Carl held his breath and counted to ten. “What’s it got to do with me?”

  “I’m standing here with an order slip and a load of spiel scrawled on the back. It says: ‘Sorry, must dash to catch a flight. My cousin, Detective Inspector Carl Mørck of the homicide division at Police HQ, has promised to come over in a bit and pay the bill. You know who he is. The bloke who was sitting here with me at the table. He asked me to give you his mobile number in case he got caught up on the way, so you can make arrangements for payment.’”

  “You what?” Carl exclaimed. It was all he could muster.

  “We found it on the table after he’d gone.”

  Carl felt like a new cub scout whose pack leader had sent him off on a fool’s errand to fetch sparks for the campfire.

  “I’ll be right over,” he said, resolving on the spot to stop off in Vanløse on his way home and pay a certain freeloading cousin of his a social visit.

  • • •

  Ronny’s rented dwelling wasn’t exactly impressive. To call it a slum would have been a compliment. A rusty iron stairway led up the side of a building, whereafter the visitor arrived on a filthy concrete platform in front of a steel door that seemed to have been put in about halfway between the first and second floors. A bit like the access to a projector room in a disused cinema, only a shoddy prototype. He hammered a fist against the door a couple of times, hearing a voice shout
from within, followed eventually by the rattle of the lock.

  This time Ronny was dressed rather more homogeneously in his undies, briefs and wife-beater both embellished with the same roaring dragon.

  “There’s a beer if you want one,” he said, leading Carl into an incense-filled room dimly lit by lava lamps and colored rice-paper lanterns bearing steamy erotic motifs.

  “This is Mae, as I call her,” he said, nodding in the direction of an Asian woman small enough to fit inside Ronny’s carcass three or four times over.

  The woman didn’t turn to greet him. She was busy at the stove, tiny hands fluttering over saucepans, the air filled with aromas of Pattaya and something that reminded Carl of his barbecue back home in Allerød.

  “Little gem, she is. Won’t be long before the food’s ready,” Ronny said, sitting down on a bombed-out sofa camouflaged by saronglike pieces of cloth in various shades of saffron.

  Carl sat down opposite him and accepted the bottle of lager Ronny placed on the ebony coffee table between them.

  “You owe me six hundred and seventy kroner, as well as an explanation as to how you can possibly be eating again so soon after the meal you shoveled down your neck at the Tivoli Hall.”

  Ronny smiled and patted his gut. “All a question of training,” he said, prompting the Thai woman to turn round with the whitest smile Carl had ever seen. She wasn’t the usual twenty-five-year-old with skin as smooth as a mirror, like most other imported Thai girls. This one was weathered, her face creased with laughter lines, eyes keen and bright.

  One–nil to Ronny.

  “You were picking up the tab, Carl, I told you so on the phone. You scheduled a meeting during working hours, so the rules say you pay.”

  Carl took a deep breath. “Scheduled a meeting? Working hours? May I ask what you actually do for a living, Ronny? No, let me guess. Professional stretcher of undershirts, perhaps?”

  He saw the Thai woman shudder with stifled laughter over by the stove. Not only did she understand Danish, she had a sense of humor, too.