The Marco Effect: A Department Q Novel

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  Or had he simply always been like that?

  There was the rub. He didn’t know who he was.

  God, he had heard so many people blabber on about this classic existential issue over the years. Herein lay the psychoanalysts’ little gold mine, the office despots’ best ammunition, the self-development courses’ cornerstone: self-doubt.

  Carl stretched his muscles and clutched at the small of his back, trying to muster the energy to move his body normally.

  He looked upward at the seemingly endless winding stairway and decided to leave Laursen in peace. Why burden himself with another flight? William Stark had been in that shallow grave. All they needed to do was send that hair sample to forensics and let them do the rest. He would put Rose on to it straightaway, because all he was fit for right now was shuffling back downstairs and throwing his legs up on his desk. One anxiety attack a day he could manage OK. Two required coffee and a smoke.

  He descended the three steps back down to the second-floor landing and almost crashed into Mona.

  Unfortunately his mouth fell open and he stood there gawping like a teenager. Had he really heard her voice just before, as he was on his way up? In that case she might well have seen him sliding pathetically up and down against the staircase wall.

  Dammit.

  “Hey, Mona,” he said, as indifferently as his hanging jaw would allow. “On your way over to detention?”

  “Hello, Carl. You’re looking a bit pasty, are you all right?”

  He nodded. “In a bit of a rush, that’s all. Not much sunlight down there in the basement, you know, ha-ha. Just stocked up on some self-tanner, though.”

  He was prattling away like an effing idiot.

  “No, I’ve just come from there,” she eventually said, in reply to his question. “I had to get the department head to back me up with a couple of prison guards before I could talk to the hoodlum. An incorrigible psychopath if ever there was one. I wasn’t going to have him groping me like last time.”

  Carl nodded. As gorgeous as she was looking, it was not unthinkable he’d try it on with her himself.

  Then she frowned. A lattice of tiny lines appeared on her face that he hadn’t noticed before. She turned her head toward the light and all of a sudden he saw how loose the skin had become around her throat and how indefinable her features seemed for just a brief second. Not that she looked old, just suddenly aged somehow.

  “Are you OK, Mona?” he asked tentatively.

  She gave him an odd, fleeting smile and before he knew it she stroked his cheek, apologized for being so busy, and strode off, the clack of her high heels fading in the labyrinth of police HQ.

  Carl remained standing, oblivious to colleagues sidestepping him with acerbic comments and ill-concealed glee.

  Ignored questions burned inside him, and now they were bubbling to the surface like poison gas.

  It was obvious she preferred to avoid him. It was as if she stood more firmly on her own two feet with him at a distance. Was it because his presence made her feel uncomfortable, or was it because she was already uncomfortable with herself and didn’t want to be reminded of it in his company?

  Was the problem that she suddenly felt she was getting older and he was holding her back at a stage in her life when she needed to fulfil herself before it was too late? Was that it? Could it be because she just didn’t find him attractive enough? Or was it more concrete, the fact that his divorce from Vigga was now a reality? Had he come too close all of a sudden? Had she sussed he was going to propose to her and wanted to preempt him?

  He shook his head. Thinking about it was a risky business.

  The future prospects for him and Mona were definitely not bright.

  Then his mobile rang.

  “The two of you have a meeting with René E. Eriksen in his office in an hour and a half,” said Rose.

  “OK. But I don’t think Assad’s got time at the moment, and I’m—”

  “No, you’ve got it wrong. I mean you and Gordon. Haven’t you spoken to Lars Bjørn?”

  Oh, Christ. Would this day’s woes never end?

  “And another thing. Your ex-wife asked me to remind you about your agreement to visit her mother once a week and tell you you’re five weeks behind. If you don’t get up there this afternoon you’ll owe her five grand and she’ll be coming by to collect it tonight. She’s already phoned her mum and told her you were on your way. If you get your skates on, I’m sure you can get over to Bagsværd and back to the ministry in time for the interview. In the meantime I’ll make sure Gordon’s there when you arrive.”

  Carl swallowed twice.

  “Why are you standing there like a zombie, Carl? You’re as white as a sheet,” came a voice from farther up the stairs. It was Laursen in his white kitchen garb.

  But there was no time to explain when his ex-mother-in-law, Karla Margrethe Alsing, was already counting the seconds at the nursing home.

  —

  “Thank goodness you’re here,” said the care assistant, as he led Carl through the dementia ward. “We’ve had to move her out of her old room and into another because she kept smoking indoors and set fire to her duvet. Everything in that room is black with soot, and I mean everything. You should just see the wallpaper.”

  He opened the door of her old room. There certainly wasn’t much worth salvaging.

  “She was flirting with the firemen, getting in the way. Wearing nothing but her panties, I should add.”

  Carl gave a sigh. He had exactly twenty-five minutes before he had to be getting back. Much too much time.

  “I hope you’ve put some more clothes on her in the meantime,” he said, attempting a smile.

  The caregiver nodded. Maybe that was why he looked so knackered and withdrew so hastily as soon as the guest was delivered.

  “You’re not to smoke indoors, Karla,” the man admonished feebly. “You know you’re not, we’ve told you before. Otherwise the whole place might go up again. You’re only allowed to smoke in the garden, so please put it out now or else we’ll have to take all your cigarettes away from you,” was his parting shot. Probably for the twentieth time that day.

  “Hello, love,” she said, as though Carl had only been away five minutes. The way she sat there in her once-so-expensive, now-so-threadbare kimono, she was the queen of the Copenhagen nightlife. Elbow on the armrest, cigarette held casually between extended fingers. Nonchalant, in the way elderly women with an overinflated sense of social importance were fond of performing their smoking ritual. Rather than the cigarette being raised to the mouth, it was the mouth that was brought to the cigarette. She took a long, lazy drag through blood-red lips before slowly turning back in his direction, head shrouded in blue-gray clouds of nicotine-filled smoke.

  “Only a short visit today I’m afraid, Karla. I have to head back to town in twenty-five minutes. How are you doing, anyway?” he asked, expecting a tidal wave of complaints about her new surroundings and all the furniture she herself had never considered providing.

  “Oh, all right, I suppose,” she replied, through heavy eyelids. “The slot’s just a bit dry, that’s all.”

  Carl looked at his watch. Fourteen hundred very long seconds to go.

  30

  Marco was doing pretty well in the circumstances. He had spent most of the day sitting in his little hideout amid all the construction work, wearing a yellow hard hat he’d managed to liberate, just waiting.

  He had finally passed on what he knew. Carl Mørck had got his wallet back and he would already have found Marco’s note, provided all had gone according to plan. He would know that it was Zola who had killed William Stark and he would know where the body had been buried.

  If it hadn’t been for all the construction workers and the risk of being discovered, and if the entire city’s criminal lowlife hadn’t been hunting him, he would have kept sitting the
re, enjoying the view.

  Behind him the air was filled with shrieks from the children in Tivoli Gardens. Despite the heavy clouds, people were happy and full of exuberance. He saw legs sticking out from the Star Flyer eighty meters aboveground and children in free fall from the Golden Tower. Kids like himself having a fantastic time, testing their limits and courage. It was something Marco didn’t need to do.

  He had enough challenges as it was.

  The clan was one thing. He knew them. But what about those he didn’t? The ones who might suddenly catch sight of him from a window and with a quick call could summon assistance to bring him in?

  He knew now that if they caught him, they would kill him. Having so many people on the streets would be costing Zola a bundle. And the only reason he would accept that kind of expenditure was because he needed to make sure by any means necessary that Marco would no longer pose a threat. Now it was serious, and if the police had been to Kregme it was too late to call a ceasefire. He had thrown the dice. All he could do was hope and pray the police had picked them up.

  For the umpteenth time that day, concrete elements and steel girders were hoisted in through the side of the site facing Rådhuspladsen. The two steel structures opening out on to H. C. Andersen’s Blvd and Tivoli were taking shape, and the next level was already being built on top of the naked stories that comprised the previous House of Industry. So Marco kept to the rear corner toward Vesterbrogade since it was the least busy area of the site at the moment.

  When the majority of the workmen knocked off for the day he emerged like a badger from its lair, moving to the front of the building to keep a watchful eye on the square below. From here he had a perfect view of the spot where Zola’s van stopped to pick up the others.

  He didn’t notice the foreman in the fluorescent yellow vest until he was almost upon him, the noise from the crane hoisting iron mesh into the building having drowned out his footsteps.

  “Hey, you! How’d you get in here?” The man’s voice rang out through the concrete landscape. “That book and the other stuff stashed away over by the lift shaft, is it yours?”

  Marco shook his head. “I’m sorry. I came with my dad. I know I’m not supposed to be up here. I’ll go down now. It was just so exciting to see, that’s all.”

  The man eyed Marco’s hard hat, frowned, and then nodded. Maybe he couldn’t imagine a lad like him owning a book. “You tell your dad it’s grounds for dismissal if he brings you with him again, get it?”

  “I will. I’m sorry, really,” Marco replied, feeling the man’s eyes on the back of his neck until he reached the stairway. He mustn’t see me here again, he told himself, nodding to the workmen who were watching him on his way down.

  I won’t get past the guard, it occurred to him, so he cut diagonally across the ground floor toward the corner by the oddly named restaurant A Hereford Beefstouw. There he stashed his hard hat away as usual behind a stack of pallets before clambering over the fence like a squirrel.

  Now he was out on the street in the rain and it was just past three in the afternoon. He wouldn’t see the van from above today, but luckily the foreman had discovered him early enough for him not to risk running into the clan members who in two hours would be waiting close by to be picked up.

  But Marco was wrong. He hadn’t even made it across Jernbanegade before a cry pierced the air above the streams of cyclists in rainwear and sodden pedestrians on their way home.

  “Murderer!” The word had been shouted unequivocally, and in English. He knew the voice immediately.

  He stopped in his tracks halfway across the street and glanced around to see where Miryam was.

  “Now we know why they’re all looking for you. Chris told us, you murderer!” she yelled at him.

  Marco registered the reaction from passers-by. Half of them gave him caustic, disapproving looks while the other half looked the other way, eyes fixed on the ranks of bicycles parked in front of the Dagmar cinema.

  He caught sight of her in the midst of the throng, huddled beneath a poster advertising the premiere of The Tree of Life. Her hair was plastered to her cheeks and her clothes black from the rain. Her eyes shone with disappointment, hateful and full of sorrow at the same time.

  Marco stepped out onto the street and glanced around. Was she alone?

  “Yeah, you can look for the others, you coward, but there’s only me. They’re going to get you anyway. Murderer!” Then she turned toward the oncoming pedestrians, folding her arms and pressing her elbows tight against her body. She was clearly exhausted, had been on the street for hours, and Marco knew the pain in her leg was almost unbearable.

  “Someone grab him! He’s killed a man, come and help me!” she shouted, but no one seemed to think it was worth the trouble, once they saw where the cries were coming from.

  Marco was in shock. He crossed the pavement in three strides, gripping her shoulders hard. “I’ve done nothing. You know me, Miryam. It was Zola who did it.”

  But his words glanced off her. Still she refused to let herself believe him. “LISTEN TO ME!” he yelled, shaking her by the shoulders. “It was me who got the police to pay Zola a visit, don’t you understand? You’ve got to believe me.”

  Miryam twisted free. The expression on her face told him he was hurting her. “Murderer,” she said again, almost in a whisper this time. “The police said you’re trying to give Zola the blame. You’re a defector and a rat of the worst kind, stabbing your own benefactor and all the rest of us in the back.”

  Marco shook his head and felt tears beginning to appear. Was this really what she believed? Was this what Zola had got them all to believe? The bastard.

  “Miryam, Zola’s to blame for what happened to your leg. The accident you had, it was something he set up. Don’t you realize—”

  He didn’t see the hand she struck him with, but he instantly felt a deep sense of hopelessness and betrayal much stronger than the stinging physical pain.

  He dried his eyes and reached out to stroke her cheek in a gesture of farewell, only to be distracted by the fleeting glance she made over his shoulder.

  Instinctively, he turned to see Pico, his jaw bandaged, weaving through the crowd, forcefully shoving people aside as he went, his gaze locked on Marco.

  Marco reacted promptly, leaping toward a girl who was parking her bicycle and sending her headlong to the pavement. He cried out an apology as he grabbed her bike.

  He was up on the bike, cutting through the swarm of incensed pedestrians and out on to the street before the girl could react, but Pico had anticipated him, sprinting into the lane of traffic with arms waving.

  Marco heard him panting behind him, but not his silent Adidas sneakers against the asphalt. He was fast, his strides long, as people stopped on the pavement to stare silently at the pursuit without the will to intervene.

  Marco jerked the handlebars, wrenching the front wheel over the curb and hurtling on past the poster columns in front of the garish Palads cinema, where the hotdog stands and forest of café parasols on the open square provided a snarl of obstacles.

  Now he could hear Pico calling out behind him: “Stop, Marco, we’re not going to hurt you. We just want to make a deal.”

  Sure. A deal where he swapped the bike for a leg lock and a ten-minute wait before they threw him into the van. Fuck them!

  Marco leaned forward and pedaled as hard as he could as Pico charged through the crowds in his wake. Behind him he heard a woman fall to the ground with a yelp of pain. This wasn’t good.

  “Hey, are you crazy or something?” someone shouted at him as a man tried to jab the point of his umbrella into the spokes of his front wheel.

  And then all of a sudden Romeo was there in front of him, a flaming red burn across his cheek. Standing on the edge of the open area between the bike stands with his arms spread out, ready to risk leaping straight into the bicycle and knoc
k him flying.

  Time becomes most essential in a person’s life when none is left. Only then are seconds registered one by one, and right now Marco could feel them running out.

  The city traffic was flowing just behind Romeo’s back, and the rapidly approaching Pico was catching up to Marco from behind. What now? He could ride directly into Romeo and bring him down with him, or else let the bike crash straight into the parking stands, in which case he would be thrown over the handlebars and into the path of an oncoming bus. But why not? At least it would all be over, he thought in this measured fraction of time, his face contorted with anguish and tears streaming down his cheeks.

  “Help me!” he screamed, his voice resonating from the surrounding buildings. Rain-drenched faces turned toward him as his ankles grated agonizingly against the pedals and chains of parked bicycles before the full impact sent him somersaulting out into the street.

  He heard horrified screams behind him and the squeal of brakes in front. Then he felt something hit him hard and blacked out.

  —

  “Can you hear me?” asked a voice he didn’t know. He nodded cautiously, but hadn’t the strength to completely open his eyes. Only when a hand stroked his cheek and the voice asked his name did he surface into reality.

  “My name’s Marco,” he heard himself say from a distance. “Marco Jameson.”

  “You understand Danish, then?”

  He felt himself smile as he nodded. Then he opened his eyes fully and found himself looking into a face that was mild yet concerned. Had he just said his name?