The Scream of the Butterfly

by Jakob Melander

  As soon as he starts snoring, she checks out his clothes and his apartment. There is cash, a cell phone, and a watch — a Jaeger-LeCoultre. It looks expensive. Her heart is pounding as she scoops it all up. She is too scared to count the money there and just stuffs everything in her makeup bag. She grabs her clothes, finds a jacket in the hall, and lets herself out into the stairwell. She doesn’t get dressed until she is outside.

  Then she runs out into the street. There is neither time nor energy for regrets or plans.

  She doesn’t know how she found the stairwell or how long she has been asleep. She is about to count the money when she hears heavy footsteps on the stairs above. Then comes a light, something scratching on the linoleum: a dog or another animal? She can see people passing by on the street outside through the narrow windowpanes in the front door. Serafine presses herself into the corner of the stairwell. And then suddenly he’s there — a fat man with suspenders, standing right in front of her. He has an Alsatian on a leash. Its tongue flops out of its jaws.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” He spits out the words. “We’re fed up with junkies in our building.” The dog barks once. Serafine looks away from the dog, trying to disappear into the shadows.

  “Get out of here!” He is shouting now. The dog rears up on its hind legs and barks again.

  Her legs give way under her out in the street. A sign on the corner says Århusgade. She needs to sit down and have some coffee, and a shower. Her whole body is sticky with sweat and cum.

  She disappears into a café; she has no idea how far away she is from the guy she ran away from last night. It is not until she has an overpriced caffe latte in front of her that her body starts to calm down and she can breathe normally again.

  Various machines are lined up against the wall, with clothes whirling around behind circular windows. People are doing their laundry while having their morning coffee.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a pair of narrowed eyes watching her. Is that him? He’s out there somewhere, waiting. But no, it’s only a father hushing his son.

  More than anything she needs something to suppress it — the testosterone — at least until tonight, then she’ll see what she can do. There’s always someone in the community who knows how much it costs. And if she doesn’t have enough money, she’ll have to get some more. The guy she was with yesterday mentioned a place near the Town Hall called NeverMind. She must be able to find a street-doc there.

  She looks up. A police car passes by the window. That’s all it takes for her to be on the run again. Eyes are watching her everywhere, following her.

  25

  THORVALDSEN’S SCULPTURE OF Christ extended his arms to receive the surge of murmuring that rose from the aisle. The grey and white marble statue exuded the gentle authority required in a situation like a funeral — not that the congregation would seem to have noticed it. They chatted, adjusted their clothing, and swapped seats. Vor Frue Cathedral was overflowing with people. And more rubberneckers were waiting outside on Nørregade and the cobbled Frue Plads between the cathedral and the university. TV vans were ready to film. The funeral of Mogens Winther-Sørensen was a proper Copenhagen event.

  Lars was standing inside on the left-hand side, between statues of two of the apostles.

  “Is everyone in place?”

  “Yes.” Allan took up position next to him. Lars checked his watch. The funeral itself was due to start in five minutes. The body of the mayor was lying in a glossy white coffin in front of the altar. A carpet of flowers led from the plain coffin all the way down the aisle to the entrance.

  Sanne was standing under the arch opposite him, scanning the crowd. Their eyes met and locked for a brief second. Then she pulled an indefinable face and looked away. Allan scraped his shoe across a marble tile. It made a faint dragging sound, which was drowned out by the monotonous murmuring.

  “What is it with you two?”

  “What?”

  “You and Sanne? I thought — well, I don’t know . . . You can always tell me to mind my own business.”

  Lars didn’t reply, and scanned the crowd of mourners instead. There were politicians, both from the city council and from parliament, political friends and foes alike. Danish commerce was strongly represented. As for the media, you couldn’t hope to keep the fourth estate away.

  “She’s really got it in for you.” Allan shrugged his shoulders. “You’d think —”

  Lars interrupted him. “I think you need to take it up with Sanne. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Okay, okay.” Allan held up his hands. “If you don’t want to talk about it, fine, but you could at least tell me what you’re looking for here.”

  “I don’t know. I just have a hunch that something is wrong.”

  “Don’t you think we ought to use our resources on something else?”

  Lars wasn’t listening and was craning his neck to look up at the front pew, where the family were sitting, all dressed in black. Arne Winther-Sørensen was wearing a shapeless suit and staring straight into the air. Kirsten Winther-Sørensen was sitting furthest away from them, with Sarah close to her.

  “Where’s Merethe?” A sudden noise caused Lars to turn his head toward the entrance. Merethe Winther-Sørensen, wearing a small black hat with a veil, was standing under the arch to the right of the church door, in animated conversation with an older, compact man. Kim A was hovering a short distance away, stony-faced, his hands folded in front of his groin.

  “Who is she arguing with?”

  “It’s difficult to see.” Allan narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think I recognize him.”

  At that moment, Merethe Winther-Sørensen turned to Kim A and said something. Kim A took one step forward, grabbed the man by his arm, and dragged him away. The older man gesticulated in protest.

  Lars nudged Allan.

  “Off you go. Find out who he is.”

  Allan slipped behind him and ran down the walkway toward the exit. The doors were closing. The sound swelled as the first notes of “The Lord Is My Shepherd” poured out from the enormous organ. Kim A dragged the man outside, just as Allan rounded the corner. The first, tentative voices mixed with the pure note of the cantor. Then the priest stepped in front of the altar and welcomed the congregation.

  “Let us pray.”

  Lars heard footsteps approaching from the colonnade. Without taking his eyes off the mourners, he tilted his head and whispered, “Did you find out who he was?”

  “I beg your pardon?” The voice was bright and sharp, so very different from Allan’s meaty baritone. Sandra Kørner looked at him quizzically.

  “My first reading is taken from the Book of Job.” The priest had marked the passage in his Bible with a fraying bookmark. Lars was reminded of his own red bookmark back home in The Tempest. Merethe Winther-Sørensen slipped into the seat next to her husband.

  “Who is this ‘who’?” Sandra Kørner whispered in his ear as the priest’s voice boomed through the crackling loudspeakers.

  “Do you have any idea how many problems you’ve caused me with that article?” Lars kept his eyes fixed on Merethe Winther-Sørensen. She was staring straight ahead. The veil hanging from the pillbox hat fluttered slightly when the priest reached a particularly emotive passage.

  Sandra Kørner chuckled.

  “I’m just doing my job, like you. What are the police doing here?”

  The priest asked the congregation to sing “Fairest Lord Jesus.”

  Sandra Kørner shrugged. “Well, if you won’t tell me . . .”

  Lars pretended to be singing along, mouthing the words, but it had been too long since he’d last sung them — he couldn’t remember the lyrics. Eventually he gave up and whispered, “I thought this was supposed to be a quiet service for close family only?”

  “Oh, please. The minister made a point
of listing the time and place in the press release that asked us to respect the family’s privacy. So tell me: Do you think the killer is here in the cathedral?”

  Lars couldn’t help but laugh.

  “You don’t give up, do you?”

  She was about to reply when the priest stepped forward, took a small trowel, and started scattering earth on top of the coffin. Kirsten Winther-Sørensen and Sarah were sobbing loudly. Merethe Winther-Sørensen had bowed her head.

  When the last notes of the organ music faded away, an expressionless Arne Winther-Sørensen rose and walked up to the coffin. Five others followed. Together they carried the coffin through the cathedral, along the impressive path of flowers.

  “Anyway, I’ve got work to do. Catch you later.” Sandra Kørner slipped out the same way as Allan and left the building.

  When Lars finally managed to push his way out, the hearse with the coffin was about to depart up Nørregade toward Nørreport. The body would be cremated and Lars knew that the internment of the urn, in contrast to the church service, would be exclusively a family affair. Besides, it wasn’t as great a photo opportunity.

  The colonnade outside was packed with mourners still leaving. Others pushed in the opposite direction, up the broad marble steps from the street and into the colonnade where Merethe Winther-Sørensen was standing with her advisers, Kirsten, and Sarah. There was no sign of Arne Winther-Sørensen. Lars moved across the front of the cathedral, edging his way closer to the minister. Numerous microphones were aimed at her face.

  Just as he came within hearing range, Sandra Kørner pushed her way to the front.

  “Your political opponents are accusing you of exploiting your son’s murder to win the election. Would you care to comment?”

  Even the people standing further away fell silent. Merethe Winther-Sørensen bowed her head. Then she looked up.

  “Bear them from hence. Our present business is to general woe.” She raised her head. “Shakespeare. King Lear.” The minister paused briefly to regain control of her voice before she continued: “Today I bury my son. Tomorrow the election campaign continues. I have nothing further to say on the matter. However . . .” She reached behind her. One of her press officers pushed Sarah Winther-Sørensen forward, gently but firmly. Sarah glanced briefly at her mother, but Merethe Winther-Sørensen claimed her before Kirsten had time to react. “However, I would like to introduce my granddaughter, Sarah Winther-Sørensen. Sarah has just been elected the new chairman — or chairwoman, I should say — of the party’s youth branch. She is too upset to make a statement today, but —”

  Sandra Kørner interrupted her, thrusting her cell phone at Sarah.

  “Congratulations on your election, Sarah. Can you comment on the latest development in the case — the fact that the prostitute who was with your father when he was murdered is a transsexual?”

  Sarah Winther-Sørensen’s gaze flitted about. Merethe Winther-Sørensen stared hard at Sandra Kørner.

  “What do you mean?”

  Sandra Kørner addressed the minister: “Was your son gay?”

  Noise erupted around the columns — an ear-shattering cacophony. Lars didn’t hear the reply and forced his way out through the crowds, desperate to get away.

  Allan came through the door to Lars’s office, flopped down in the nearest chair, and tried to catch his breath. Beads of sweat stuck to his eyebrows.

  “I lost him on Rådhuspladsen. It’s a nightmare trying to get through central Copenhagen by car with all that construction work.”

  “And you didn’t manage to get any pictures, either?”

  Allan produced a small Sony camera and scrolled through the images.

  “This is the best one. Still not good enough.” He passed over the camera. The image showed Kim A pushing a man into the passenger seat of the ministerial car. The man had his back to them. He was wearing a grey coat and black shoes, and had short, white hair.

  Lars looked around at his colleagues’ tired faces. There was no reaction.

  “Okay. Let’s move to the pictures from the funeral itself. There’s one I want to look at.”

  Lisa looked at a series of photographs on her computer screen, stopping at a picture of the altar and Mogens Winther-Sørensen’s coffin. A slim, middle-aged woman in jeans, high-heeled boots, and a short, dark jacket was standing by the coffin. She wore a broad-brimmed black hat; her long hair, streaked with grey, covered her face.

  “She stood there, all alone, by the coffin for over a minute. Do you know who she is?”

  Allan stared at the picture, then shook his head.

  26

  LARS FOLLOWED THE Town Hall official down the second storey colonnade, which opened out to a large hall inside the building. Visitors could follow highlights from Copenhagen’s history on a frieze on three sides of the foyer, from when Bishop Absalon founded the city in 1167 up until the inauguration of the Town Hall in 1905.

  He fiddled with the printout of the photograph from Mogens Winther-Sørensen’s funeral in his inside pocket. None of the Radical Party’s city councillors had recognized the woman in the picture. But you never knew when politicians were lying. Through her private secretary, Merethe Winther-Sørensen had informed him that she didn’t recognize the woman by the coffin either, but Lars knew better than to trust her.

  A group of schoolchildren was crossing the granite floor in the foyer. Their happy voices collided and ricocheted between the naked stone walls. Lars stopped. Even if Mogens Winther-Sørensen’s mother and his fellow party members were all lying to him, there was always the chance that their political enemies, if such a thing existed in local politics, would love to help him.

  “How about Kristian Havholm?” He had to speak loudly to drown out the hard echo of the children’s voices. The Town Hall official turned around.

  “From the Danish People’s Party? Then we need to go back the way we came. I think you might just be in luck.”

  “Lars Winkler.” Kristian Havholm was in shirt sleeves and standing in the middle of his office reading a file. They shook hands. “I caught a glimpse of you at the funeral. Is this still about Mogens’s murder?”

  Kristian Havholm’s secretary was sitting in an armchair with a notepad on her knee. She put her pen and pad aside.

  “Would you like . . . ?”

  Lars shook his head and produced the photograph.

  “I’ll be quick. I can see that you’re in the middle of something. The woman in this picture.” He held up the photo. “Do you know who she is?”

  Kristian Havholm studied the picture.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t. But I haven’t been here all that long. She could be a personal friend.”

  “You’re suggesting . . .”

  Kristian Havholm shrugged.

  “I’ve heard nothing to indicate that Mogens had someone on the side, but who knows?”

  “Okay.” Lars folded up the printout. “Thanks for your time.”

  The secretary got up and reached for the photograph.

  “Please, may I?”

  “Edna has been here since the dawn of time.” Kristian Havholm looked almost proud. “If that woman has ever set foot in the Town Hall . . .” He didn’t complete his sentence.

  Edna took the photograph from Lars’s hand, walked up to the desk, and held it under the lamp.

  “No, I don’t think . . . And yet . . . that nose.” She stared at the picture for a few more seconds. Then she straightened up and returned it to him.

  “Malene Rørdam.”

  “Rørdam?” Lars had never heard the name before.

  “She was Mogens’s head of communications in the first few months of his time as mayor. Then suddenly she quit. There were rumours about an affair . . . and substance abuse. Prescription drugs, I believe.”

  27

  LARS NIPPED INTO the alleyway between
the fence and the front of Folmer Bendtsens Plads 2. He had left work early; it wasn’t even five o’clock yet. Construction was continuing on the Metro site — constant hammering and drilling chewed its way through the earth under his feet, and the whole thing was starting to feel strangely familiar. He needed an evening on the couch with the Thai takeout he had picked up at Aroii on Guldbergsgade. He couldn’t wait to kick off his shoes and listen to some loud music.

  He had asked Lisa to track down Malene Rørdam, the woman by the coffin. She might be able to shed some light on Mogens Winther-Sørensen’s past. But Lisa hadn’t got back to him yet. The day’s only highlight was that the guy from Den Blå Avis with the old newspapers in Haslev had returned his message. Lars was welcome to drop by tomorrow morning and have a good look through.

  The stairwell was very quiet; even the drilling and hammering from the construction site outside had stopped. The whole building was holding its breath. Lars put his foot on the last step before the landing and looked up. The door to his apartment was ajar — just a few millimetres, but it was definitely open. He paused with his hand on the banister. Had he forgotten to lock the door this morning? Or had he been burgled? That really would be the last straw. If they had nicked his stereo . . . He put down the takeout and nudged the door, which swung open slowly. Silence poured out toward him. He bent down, picked up the bag, and was about to enter when a faint hissing noise from inside the apartment made him stop dead in his tracks.

  Someone was breathing inside.

  He carefully put his foot inside the hallway, praying that the floorboards wouldn’t squeak. The hissing sound had disappeared. Had it been all in his mind? He risked another footstep. The hallway was dark; only the shapeless silhouettes of his coats were visible in the afternoon light coming from the kitchen and the living room at the end of the hall.

  “Is anyone here?”

  An echo was the only response. The hissing returned. Then it disappeared. Lars put down the bag on the floor, closing the door behind him. He tiptoed past the closed door leading to Maria’s room. The sound was coming from the living room. Out on the stairwell one of his upstairs neighbours came thundering down, pausing on the landing. Lars held his breath and waited. Then the footsteps continued down and out into the street. He craned his neck, looking around the door frame. The kitchen was empty.