The Hanging Girl

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  But Assad held out.

  * * *

  Pirjo had sat for a moment with her hands on the keyboard, her mind elsewhere. She was really exhausted now. Things were happening so quickly.

  Now there were hundreds of “n”s on the screen at the tail end of the words she’d written. Her finger must have been resting for a few seconds on the “n” key.

  She began to delete them.

  Just as she was thinking that it wouldn’t be long before Atu arrived, and that she’d have to be quick, she heard the door open to his quarters.

  She felt a stab in her heart when she caught his scent. If those two policemen hadn’t come, this would’ve been the most blissful moment in her life. She could almost feel the embraces that wouldn’t come to anything. The caresses that would never be between them. And worst of all, the smiles and giggles of the child they’d both wished for most would never come to be.

  Pirjo was about to faint in despair at the thought as she turned around and saw how Atu radiated. He was dressed all in yellow with tight trousers and a polo shirt, looking like a young man out for a good time. She tried to smile back, but her face wouldn’t obey.

  She knew that he wouldn’t be able to see the blood, thinking that it was fortunate that the front of the desk hid it.

  “You look wonderful, Atu,” she said, trying to raise her arm toward him so she could give his hand a squeeze, but she just didn’t have the energy.

  “I’m just finishing something,” she said instead, succeeding now to smile a little. “It’ll just take five minutes, and then I’ll be with you.”

  He took a step closer, his head to one side.

  “Is something wrong, Pirjo?” he asked. Of course he noticed that things weren’t as they should be.

  He scanned the desk instinctively, fixing his eyes on the little wooden figure that lay beside her hand.

  It made him start, and his smile disappeared immediately. The reaction was noticeable, as if he’d been punched. Several times his eyes jumped from the figure to her eyes with a mixture of confusion and shock.

  Then he grabbed the figure and looked at it close-up, his face contorted as if the sight of it brought on physical pain.

  “I recognize this figure,” he said, his voice full of unanswered questions. “Where did you get it?” he asked sharply.

  Now she noticed only too clearly what the loss of blood was doing to her. How her energy was ebbing away and the cells in her body lacked oxygen. She told herself that she needed to concentrate on speaking clearly. That she had to talk slowly or she’d end up slurring.

  She smiled with her eyes, which didn’t come easily. “You recognize it. That’s wonderful, Atu. But let’s talk about it in a little while. I’ll just finish up here.”

  “Has Bjarke been here?” he asked to her surprise.

  She looked at him, confused. What did he mean?

  “I don’t know who Bjarke is,” she said.

  It was obvious the answer irritated him.

  “You must know seeing as the figure’s here.”

  She shook her head slowly. Her heart began to beat faster in an attempt to oxygenate her blood.

  He really didn’t understand. That much was clear. “I remember it. It was a young man on Bornholm who carved it.” He frowned. “He said he wanted to give it to me because he was in love with me.”

  Pirjo didn’t understand. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. You’ve never mentioned that.”

  “Just tell me what that figure is doing here, Pirjo. It’s a simple question. It hasn’t come from me because I refused to accept it. He was a pest and I couldn’t stand his advances, so do me a favor and don’t deny that he’s been here.”

  “In five minutes, Atu,” she said, more insistently this time. If she was going to save the center and Atu, she had to finish writing her confession.

  “What is it that’s so important?” He was about to go around the table to check the text on the screen when she stopped him.

  “Fine, I’ll tell you! I’m taking all the blame, Atu, and you can’t stop me. Do you understand? I’m confessing to what you’ve done.”

  Now Atu looked at her in a way she’d never seen before. Displeasure was the first word that came to mind, but it could also be loathing.

  Loathing? Didn’t he understand that she was sacrificing herself for him?

  “What is it I’ve done, Pirjo, and what’s it got to do with the figure? Is it your way of telling me that you regret what you just promised me? I don’t understand anything just now.”

  She wanted to take his hand but didn’t dare lean forward for fear of passing out. She couldn’t let that happen.

  “You killed Alberte,” she said quietly.

  “What did I do? Alberte?”

  “Yes, the girl you were with on Bornholm.”

  She’d expected that he’d look at her with shock. That his face would express that his secret was out, but not that he’d fall backward against the wall as if his legs couldn’t carry him anymore.

  “Alberte! Is Alberte dead?” He swallowed a couple of times and groaned.

  Why was he denying all knowledge of it? Was he really so coldhearted?

  “I don’t understand why you’re acting as if it didn’t happen. You know more than anyone else what happened. That’s why you wanted to get away from Bornholm, so why don’t you just say it like it is? What’s wrong with you? You’re as white as a sheet, Atu. What’s going on?”

  He remained where he was, as if they were each in their own world, each with their own language, and it made her angry. So many years of silence between them, and now when it was finally out in the open, he kept silent. She hadn’t reckoned on this. That he was so cowardly.

  “You disappoint me, Atu. I saved you back then. I covered up that you’d killed her. I worked it out on the same day we left the island. Did you maybe think that I could ignore how much you talked about her? You hadn’t talked about anything else for a few weeks. Maybe you didn’t think it hurt, but it did. And then I heard on the radio that they’d found her murdered, thrown up in a tree following a hit-and-run. That was just two mornings before we left the island. I knew straightaway that it was you, Atu, and that they’d find you if I didn’t do something. They searched all over the island for the car. You do know that, right? And then I found the sign in the VW with blood on it.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. This is totally insane. I had no idea about any of this. I didn’t know Alberte was dead, and it makes me more than sad if it’s true. And what’s this sign you’re talking about?”

  “Do I need to explain that to you, too? The sign that hung over the house at Ølene, of course. The Celestial Sphere! You painted it yourself so don’t try and say you don’t remember it.”

  “Yes, of course I remember it. I caught myself on the screws when Søren Mølgård and I took it down, and I bled quite a bit. So what is it about that sign and what’s it got to do with Alberte?”

  Atu was a master at manipulating others, but did he really believe that he could now manipulate her, too?

  “Is it true? Is she dead?” he asked again. It was pathetic.

  Pirjo clenched her teeth. She’d met resistance often enough in her life. The least he could do for her under the circumstances was to be honest. “You secured the sign on the front of the VW and used it to fling her up in the tree when you ran her down. But relax. I got rid of it for us. I burned it, Atu, so you can thank me for that.”

  At that moment his eyes changed from desperation and anger to icy cold. “I’m very shocked over everything you’re saying, Pirjo. Really horrified!”

  Then his face changed expressions again. He suddenly smiled with a serene expression.

  He turned toward her.

  “Aha, this is a test. You’re testing me. It’s a game. But then, w
here did you get the figure, Pirjo? Is this something you’ve been planning for a long time?” He slammed it on the table in front of her.

  Didn’t he get just how vulnerable he was right now?

  “Get away from here, Atu! Go, they’re after you,” she said, her voice weak. She owed him that much at least.

  “Who’s after me?” He remained standing in front of her, smiling as if nothing was wrong. Didn’t he believe her?

  She took a deep breath. “The officers who came with the figure, that’s who. The police have been looking for you all these years. They know it was you. But I’m taking the blame for you, so just get out of here. It’s all lost anyway.”

  “I don’t understand anything. What officers?” He wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “I remember that time well, when you began to talk about wanting to stay on the island because of Alberte. You were totally obsessed with her, and she consumed you. You weren’t yourself when you came home. It wasn’t anything like with the other women, and that worried me. But you realized, thank God, that it went against what you wanted for your own future, against what we’d agreed. Against everything.”

  “Yes, I remember that discussion, and I also recall your jealousy, Pirjo. It’s always been your biggest weakness. But I promised you to rid myself of her, and I did, but not in the way you’re suggesting now. I don’t know what you take me for or think of me anymore, Pirjo. I don’t recognize you at all. I could never take another person’s life. I’d sooner take my own first.”

  He put his hand to his forehead, hovering momentarily between the totally incomprehensible and reality.

  “When did this happen with Alberte?”

  “I’ve told you. Two days before we left.”

  “That’s crazy.” He hit his forehead with a clenched fist, as if to knock everything in place. “Then it happened the day after I broke up with her. She cried about it, and I cried, too, but that was all, I assure you. I regretted it later, but too late.”

  Pirjo was getting cold now. Her legs were trembling beneath her, her lips quivering. It was difficult to concentrate. What was he saying? He regretted? Regretted what?

  “Well, where were you then, that morning, two days before we disappeared from Bornholm?” she asked.

  “Disappeared? We didn’t disappear. There was never any intention that we should stay there any longer. I was finished with what I’d come for, you know that.”

  “Where were you?”

  “How should I be able to remember that now? I was feeling down, so I was probably out somewhere meditating with the sunstone, like I normally do.”

  “There was also blood on the side of the fender. A lot of blood.”

  “But that was from the fox Mølgård hit. You know that, too. I told you.”

  Yes, that’s what he’d asserted. What else should he have said?

  “You say that two officers came here with the figure. What did they want with it? And where are they now?”

  Pirjo half closed her eyes. She was so tired now.

  Atu nodded and shook his head in turn. He was in a state of inner turmoil. Did he imagine that he could think everything away? Why didn’t he just make his escape?

  Pirjo looked at the screen and began again to delete the “n”s. Time was running out, she could feel it.

  Now the room changed color. Was this what death was like? Did the world become suddenly light and warm? She slowly turned her eyes toward the window. A flickering light caused her to blink. The sun was breaking through. How beautiful it was.

  Then she saw out of the corner of her eye how his hand took hold of the figure again.

  “It was him,” he whispered. “Of course it was him who did it.”

  He almost looked frightened. It seemed real, but was it?

  “Bjarke was just a big Boy Scout. He was obsessed with everything I did, so I let him help with the excavations. Up on Knarhøj. And then he wanted to give me this, declaring his love for me. Naturally, I didn’t want it. I told him that we were leaving, and he said that it was all Alberte’s fault. I remember it now. Oh God, it didn’t make any sense.”

  Pirjo was shocked. She didn’t know what to believe.

  “I broke up with her and never saw her again.”

  For a moment, Pirjo felt relieving warmth on her face. Now the sun was out at full force, and it was like her office was lit up by floodlights. Pirjo opened her mouth, trying to breathe in gasps. She thought how the strength of the sun would be sure to kill the men now. Then the muscles in her neck slackened, her chin fell toward her chest, and the shaking stopped. Her body didn’t even have enough energy for that.

  But if it was true what Atu was saying, what then?

  If it was really true, and if she’d known, none of these terrible things would’ve happened.

  In the next few seconds, the possible consequences became apparent to her. It could be true.

  If Atu hadn’t killed anyone, how could she do it? In that case, she’d lived a lie, reacted to a lie, and allowed others to pay for that lie. She’d killed three women, nearly four, including Shirley. Jealousy and misunderstandings had consumed her, eaten her up.

  There was a roar. Had it come from her? She didn’t know.

  Atu disappeared from the table and there were noises. He was shouting something or other.

  Pirjo opened her eyes. There were still “n”s that hadn’t been deleted. Still a few sentences that hadn’t been written.

  “What have you done?” came a shout from the control room. It was Atu’s voice.

  The screen flashed a couple of times.

  She fell back in her seat. She could no longer feel her arms and legs.

  “You lunatic!” Suddenly, Atu was standing in front of her, snarling in her face.

  “They’re unconscious but they’re alive. You can be grateful for that,” she thought he said.

  Then he grabbed the telephone on the table and started dialing like crazy. She heard words like “police” and “ambulance.”

  “Now you’ve seriously thrown suspicion on me for something Bjarke did. Do you realize that?”

  She tried to nod as he pulled open a drawer and took all the money that was inside. “You’ve ruined my life. Do you know that, Pirjo? My life’s work will be ruined if I don’t get Bjarke to confess.”

  Just now, she really wanted him to embrace her. To say good-bye and hold her hand until it was over. But he didn’t even look at her.

  “You’ll have to take your punishment for this, Pirjo,” he said, turning his back on her. “I demand it of you. In the meantime, there’s something I have to do.”

  It was the last thing he said to her before he disappeared.

  And the last things she heard before she finally gave up were desperate voices from down in the courtyard.

  “Fire!” they shouted. “Fire! Fire! . . .”

  51

  Carl woke with his face pressed against the cement floor. His entire body was throbbing and buzzing. His heart was pumping so much that he felt sick and had to regurgitate.

  “What happened?” he said and threw up, but no one answered.

  He looked down at his body. His arms were still shaking, but they were free. Now he noticed that there were bits of cable spread all over the floor. There was also a wire cutter a little farther away, and the door to the corridor stood wide open.

  “Assad, are you there?” he asked with a shaky voice.

  “Pirjo, why aren’t you doing anything? The place is on fire!!” he heard someone shouting out in Swedish.

  Then someone screamed. From inside the office came the sound of more and more hectic footsteps.

  “Don’t touch anything!” someone shouted. “She’s dead!”

  After that, the screams became deeper and more intense.

  “Help,” Carl tried to shout, but he c
ouldn’t make himself heard above the commotion.

  He tried to roll out of his position, but he couldn’t.

  A dark shadow covered the light from the office, and then he heard footsteps approaching.

  “Help!” he shouted again, feeling muscle group after muscle group beginning to relax. He became extremely hot as the blood began to rush, and it bloody well hurt. It was almost as if all his veins and arteries had hardened and couldn’t let the blood pass.

  The outline of a body stood in the room. “There are two men lying on the floor here in the control room. Something’s definitely not right, their feet are tied together,” screamed the voice suddenly.

  * * *

  For some time, Carl anxiously watched his unconscious friend being given mouth-to-mouth in the room they’d been moved to.

  Outside, people shouted for more water and makeshift firefighting equipment. Some people were trying to get hold of Atu, but without any success it would seem.

  They said that the body by the desk was Pirjo, and that she was dead. Someone had covered her with a cloth that’d been lying on the table in the reception. Probably Nisiqtu because she was standing totally paralyzed, white as a ghost, crying at her side.

  There were quite a few people in there, standing passively and watching. Men and women dressed in white who no doubt realized that the dream was over. They were probably dumbstruck, unable to take it all in.

  “Look at his hand,” one of them whispered, pointing at Assad’s severely burned hand and black thumb.

  Carl observed the men who were working on Assad, with gratitude. They knew what they were doing, that was for sure, so God bless them for that.

  “He’ll make it,” one of them said. “The heart’s beating fast and hard, but it’s beating.”

  Carl took a deep breath. As long as they helped Assad, he’d be all right himself.

  He sipped from the glass of water that a compassionate soul gave him, but found it very difficult to swallow. For a moment, he had to hold his head steady to stop it from moving from side to side like a pendulum in a clock. His left ankle ached as if it had been cut, and his lungs produced mucus as if they were inflamed. But despite the discomfort and pain, and the aftereffects that might come, he was alive and knew that everything would be okay. And only ten minutes later, he was already feeling better.