He went into the father’s study and quickly found what he was looking for. Documents confirming the family’s wealth, the annual appraisal specifying the Mother Church’s assessment of each individual’s place within it, and finally the contact lists that provided him with a new overview of the geographical distribution of the sect, both in Denmark and around the globe.
Since the last time he had struck within this particular movement, approximately one hundred new members had come to the fold in mid-Jutland alone.
It was not a pleasant thought.
Once he had checked all the rooms, he slid out of the window and pushed it back into place. He stared down the garden. Magdalena’s little corner wasn’t a bad spot at all in which to play. There she would be almost unseen from the main house and the rest of the garden.
He looked up at the blackening low-hanging cloud. It would soon be dark. He needed to get a move on.
He knew where to look, otherwise he would never have found it. Magdalena’s hiding place was revealed only by a twig sticking up from the edge of a piece of turf. He smiled when he saw it, then carefully levered up the hand-size clod.
The hole was lined with a yellow plastic bag, and in it was a folded sheet of glossy paper.
He smiled when he unfolded it.
And then he put it in his pocket.
In the congregation hall, he stood for a long time watching this girl, with her long hair, and her brother Samuel, who was smirking defiantly. Here, they were safe among the congregation. Among people who would live on in ignorance, and those who very soon would be compelled to live with a knowledge that would be unbearable.
The terrible knowledge of what he was going to do.
When the singing was over, the worshippers surrounded him, caressing his head and face and upper body. This was how they expressed their delight in his seeking the Mother of God. This was how they repaid him for his trust, and all were enraptured, in transports of delight, for they had been blessed with the opportunity of showing him the way to eternal truth. Afterward, the flock stepped back and stretched its hands to the heavens. In a moment they would begin to caress one another with the palms of their hands. Their caresses would continue until one of them fell to the floor and allowed the Mother to enter her quivering body. He knew which of them it would be. The ecstasy of it all was already radiant in the woman’s eyes. A slight, young woman whose greatest achievement in life was three fat children jumping up and down at her side.
Like all the others, he cried to the ceiling when it happened. The only difference was that he held back what everyone else with all their might now tried to release. The Devil within.
When the congregation eventually said their good-byes to one another on the steps outside, he moved imperceptibly forward and stuck out his foot, sending Samuel tumbling from the top step into empty space.
The crack that sounded as the boy’s knee hit the ground was a release. Like the crack of a neck in a gallows.
Everything was right now.
From now on, he was in charge. From now on, it was all a foregone conclusion.
10
When he came home to Rønneholtparken on a night like this, with crap TV resounding through the concrete blocks and silhouettes of women in kitchen windows, he felt like a tone-deaf musician in a symphony orchestra unable to read music.
He still found it hard to grasp how things had come to this. Why he should feel so alone.
If a bookkeeper of ample waist and a computer nerd with upper arms like matchsticks could start families and make them work, why the hell couldn’t he?
Reluctantly, he returned the wave of his neighbor Sysser, who was standing in the frigid light of her kitchen, frying something at the stove. Thank God she’d made her way back to her own place after that dodgy start on Monday morning. If she hadn’t, he’d have been at his wits’ end by now.
He stared dolefully at the nameplate on the door. There were new names on it now, besides Vigga’s and his own. It wasn’t that he felt a lack of company sharing these walls with Morten Holland, Jesper, and Hardy, and even as he stood there he could hear an inviting murmur of activity around the back. Perhaps they were a family of sorts, too.
Just not the kind he had dreamed about.
Normally, his sense of smell could inform him of the evening’s menu the moment he stepped into the hallway. But what wafted into his nostrils now was not the aroma of Morten’s culinary exertions. At least, he hoped not.
“All right?” he called into the front room, where Morten and Hardy were usually to be found. He put his head around the door. There wasn’t a soul in sight. On the patio outside, however, it was all go. At the center, under the warmth of the patio heater, he could just see Hardy’s bed with all his IV apparatus, and around it stood a crowd of neighbors in thermal jackets, stuffing themselves with grilled sausages and throwing bottled beer down their necks. By the gormless looks of them, they’d been at it for a couple of hours at least.
Carl tried to localize the foul odor that had assailed him as soon as he came in through the front door. His nostrils led him to a saucepan on the kitchen counter. The contents most of all reminded him of tinned food that had passed its sell-by date and been reduced to carbon on a glowing red hotplate. Most unpleasant. And a shame about the saucepan, whose future prospects were now decidedly dim.
“What’s going on?” Carl inquired as he came out onto the patio, his eyes fixed on Hardy, who lay motionless under four duvets with a big grin on his face.
“Hardy’s got some feeling back in a small area of his upper arm,” Morten told him.
“So he says, yeah.”
Morten looked like a boy who had just laid hands on his first dirty mag and was about to behold the contents. “So you know he’s got a slight reflex in the index and middle fingers of one hand?”
Carl shook his head and glanced down at Hardy. “What is this, some kind of neurological guessing game? Just make sure it stops when we get to the nether regions, OK?”
Morten revealed wine-tinted teeth in a grin. “And two hours ago, he moved his wrist, Carl. Straight up. Made me forget I had dinner on the go!” He threw his arms wide with glee, revealing the full outline of his corpulent figure. He looked like he was about to leap into Carl’s arms. Carl hoped he wouldn’t.
“Go on then, Hardy, let’s have a look,” he said drily.
Morten pulled back the duvets to reveal Hardy’s chalk-white skin.
“Come on, mate,” Carl reiterated.
Hardy closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, his jaw muscles a clear indication of the extent of his exertion. It was as though he was commanding every impulse in his body along the nerves to this intensely monitored wrist. The muscles in his face began to quiver, and kept doing so for some time until eventually he was forced to exhale and capitulate.
A sigh ran through his audience, accompanied by various expressions of encouragement. But Hardy’s wrist didn’t move.
Carl gave him a comforting wink, then drew Morten toward the hedge.
“You’ve got some explaining to do, Morten. What’s all this supposed to prove? You’re responsible for him; it’s your job, for Chrissake. Stop building the poor sod’s hopes up. What is he, anyway, some kind of circus act? I’m going upstairs to slip into something more comfortable. In the meantime, you’re sending everyone home and putting Hardy back where you found him, understand? We’ll have a talk about this.”
He wasn’t in the mood for excuses. Morten could save them for the rest of the audience.
“Say that again,” Carl said half an hour later.
Hardy’s gaze was calm. He looked dignified, lying there. Two hundred and seven centimeters of life gone wrong.
“It’s right enough, Carl. Morten didn’t see it, but he was standing beside me. I moved my wrist. I’ve got a bit of pain, too. In my shoulder.”
“How come you can’t do it again, then?”
“I don’t really know how I did it, but it was a controlled mov
ement. Not just a spasm.”
Carl put his hand on his crippled friend’s brow. “From what I know, what you’re saying is close to impossible. But OK, I believe you. I just don’t know what to do about it, that’s all.”
“I do,” said Morten. “Hardy still has this little area of his shoulder where he’s got some feeling. That’s where the pain’s coming from. I think it needs stimulating.”
Carl shook his head. “Hardy, are you sure this is a good idea? Sounds like bullshit to me.”
“So what?” Morten intervened. “I’m here with him, so what harm can it do?”
“We’ll run out of saucepans, for a start.”
Carl glanced toward the hallway. One jacket short on the coat hooks again. “Won’t Jesper be here for dinner?”
“He’s with Vigga in Brønshøj.”
That didn’t sound right. What would he be wanting in that freezing garden shed? Besides, Jesper didn’t get on with Vigga’s new boyfriend. Not because the guy wrote poetry and wore thick-rimmed specs, more because he insisted on reading it out loud and being the center of attention.
“What’s he doing there? He’s not skipping school again, is he?” Carl shook his head in despair. The lad only had a couple of months to go before his final exams. With that pathetic new grading system and the government’s miserable reform of upper secondary education, he would have to hang in there and at least pretend to be learning something, otherwise he’d be fucked.
Hardy interrupted his train of thought. “Relax, Carl. Jesper and I go through his homework together every day when he gets home from school. I test him before he goes off to see Vigga. The lad’s doing all right.”
Jesper doing all right? It sounded almost surreal. “Then what’s he doing with his mother?”
“She called him and asked if he’d go and see her,” Hardy replied. “She’s not happy, Carl. She’s fed up with her life and wants to come home again.”
“Home? You mean this home?”
Hardy nodded. Carl had never felt closer to shock-induced collapse.
Morten had to bring the whisky twice.
The night was sleepless, the morning weary and subdued.
Carl was a lot more tired by the time he eventually sat down behind his desk at the office than he had been when he went to bed the night before.
“Any word from Rose?” he inquired as Assad put down a plate in front of him, on which were assembled lumps of some indeterminate substance. Apparently, the man was trying to pep him up a bit.
“I called her last night, but she was out. That is what her sister told me.”
“You don’t say.” Carl wafted away his trusty old friend the fly and then endeavored to pick up one of the syrupy objects from his plate, only to find it surprisingly resistant. “Did this sister of hers say if she would be in today?”
“The sister, Yrsa, will come, but not Rose. Rose has gone away.”
“What? Where’s she gone? Her sister’s coming, you say? Are you winding me up, Assad?” He extracted his fingers from the sticky fly trap on his plate. It felt like he lost skin in the process.
“Yrsa said Rose sometimes goes away for a day or two, but that we should not worry. Rose will return like she always does. This is what Yrsa told me. And in the meantime, Yrsa will come and look after Rose’s job. They cannot afford to lose the money. This is what she said.”
Carl tossed his head back. “You’re kidding? So full-time employees can just swan off whenever it takes their fancy, eh? Not bad, is it? Rose must have lost her marbles.” He would make sure to tell her as much in no uncertain terms as soon as she got back. “And this Yrsa! She won’t get past the desk upstairs, not if I can help it.”
“Oh, but I have already sorted this with the duty officer and Lars Bjørn, Carl. It’s no problem. Lars Bjørn is not arsed, as long as her wages are still paid out to Rose. Yrsa is the temp while Rose is off sick. Bjørn is very happy we were able to find someone so quickly.”
“Not arsed, you say? And Rose is off sick?”
“This is what we call it, am I right?”
It was tantamount to mutiny.
Carl picked up the phone and pressed Lars Bjørn’s number.
“Hello, gorgeous,” said Lis’s voice on the other end.
What now?
“Hi, Lis. I’m trying to get through to Bjørn.”
“I know. I’m taking his calls. He’s in a meeting with Jacobsen and the commissioner about the staffing situation.”
“Can you put me through? I just need to speak to him for five seconds.”
“About Rose’s sister, you mean?”
The muscles in his face tensed up. “This wouldn’t by any chance have anything to do with you, would it?”
“Carl, you know I’m in charge of the temp lists.”
As a matter of fact, he didn’t.
“Are you telling me Bjørn gave the go-ahead for a temp to fill in for Rose, without asking me first?”
“Hey, take it easy!” she exclaimed in English, and snapped her fingers at the other end as though to wake him up from a stupor. “We’re short-staffed. Bjørn’s approving everything at the moment. You should see who we’ve got working in some of the other departments.”
Her laughter did nothing to alleviate his frustration.
K. Frandsen Wholesalers was a limited company with equity amounting to little more than two hundred and fifty thousand kroner but whose value was estimated to be in the region of sixteen million. In the last financial year, ending in September, its paper stocks alone were set at eight million, so at first blush the company hardly seemed to be in financial difficulties. The only problem was that the company’s clients were primarily weeklies and free newspapers, a sector that had taken a hammering during the current financial crisis. Which, as far as Carl could see, might well have impacted rather suddenly and with considerable force on K. Frandsen’s coffers.
This line of inquiry became all the more interesting when similar pictures emerged for the companies owning the premises that had burned down in Emdrup and on Stockholmsgade. The firm in Emdrup, JPP Fittings A/S, turned over some twenty-five million kroner a year supplying mainly DIY stores and major timber outlets. Most likely a thriving business last year, and a struggling one now. The same seemed to be true of the Østerbro company, Public Consult, which earned its money generating tendering projects for leading firms of architects, and which had probably also felt the effects of hitting that nasty concrete wall called recession.
Besides the obvious vulnerability of all three companies in the present financial climate, however, they seemed to have little else in common. Different owners, different clients.
Carl drummed his fingers on the desk. What about the Rødovre blaze in 1995? Would that fit the picture? A business suddenly finding itself struggling against a headwind? This was where he needed Rose. Fucking woman.
“Knock, knock,” said a husky voice at the door.
That’ll be Yrsa, Carl thought to himself, glancing at his watch. It was a quarter past nine. She was even on time.
“What time do you call this?” he said with his back turned. It was something he had learned once. The boss who addressed minions with his back turned reigned supreme.
“I didn’t know we had an appointment,” a rather nasal male voice replied.
Carl whirled around in his chair so fast he carried on half a turn too far.
It was Laursen. Good old Tomas Laursen, forensics officer and rugby player. The man who won a fortune in the lottery, only to lose it again and end up working in the cafeteria on the top floor.
“Tomas. Fucking hell! What are you doing here?”
“Your kind assistant asked me down to say hello.”
Assad put his cheeky face around the door. What was he up to? Had he really been upstairs to the cafeteria? Weren’t his spicy specialties and culinary colon busters enough for him anymore?
“I popped up to buy a banana, Carl,” Assad said, waving the curviform fruit in front of
him. Who was he kidding? All the way to the top floor for a banana?
Carl nodded. Assad was a monkey. He’d known all along.
He and Laursen greeted each other with a handshake and squeezed as hard as they could. The same excruciatingly painful joke as always.
“Funny you should turn up, Laursen. I’ve just been hearing about you from What’s-his-face, Yding from Albertslund. I gather your return to the madhouse isn’t entirely voluntary?”
Laursen shook his head deliberately. “Well, it was my own fault, I suppose. The bank put one over on me, told me it was a good idea to borrow with a view to investment. The capital was there, so all I had to do was sign. And now there’s fuck all left.”
“They should cover your losses, the bastards,” said Carl. He had heard it said on the news.
Laursen nodded. There was no doubt that he agreed, but here he was back again. Last man in. Buttering smørrebrød and washing up. One of the finest forensics officers on the force. What a waste.
“Still, I’m happy enough,” he said. “I see a lot of people I know from when I was out in the field, without having to get back out there with them again.” He smiled awkwardly, just like in the old days. “I got sick of it, Carl. Picking at corpses at all hours of the day and night. Not a single day went by the last five years when I didn’t think of jacking it all in. So the money got me out, even if I did lose it all again. That’s how I choose to look at it, anyway. Nothing’s ever so bad as not to be good for something.”
Carl nodded. “You won’t know Assad, of course, but I’m sure he didn’t drag you down here to discuss the cafeteria menu with an old colleague over a cup of peppermint tea.”
“He told me about the message in the bottle. I think I got the gist of it. Can I see the letter?”
The crafty little—!
Laursen sat down as Carl gingerly removed the document from the folder. Assad came waltzing in with a chased brass tray with three minuscule cups on it.
A Conspiracy of Faith Page 8
