A Conspiracy of Faith

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  “Sjørup?” the man repeated, and his eyes darted about the room, looking for something to fix on. “I’m not sure. But I’ll be able to tell you more on Monday, once I’ve had a look at the place.” He was smiling now. “What have you done with the children? Doing homework, I suppose?”

  She nodded. He seemed to be uncommunicative somehow. Had she misjudged him? “Where are you staying now?” She wanted a straight answer. “Have you got somewhere in Viborg?”

  “Yeah, with a former colleague of mine in the town center. We were reps together a few years back. He’s on a pension now because of ill health.”

  “I see. Worn out, like so many these days?” she asked, catching his attention.

  His eyes were kind again. It took a while, but perhaps he was just reticent by nature. That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

  “Worn out? No, though it would have been preferable. Charles lost his arm in a road accident.”

  He indicated the point of severance with the edge of his hand. Painful memories. He assessed her expression, then lowered his gaze. “A dreadful business, but he does all right for himself.”

  Then suddenly he raised his head. “Oh, by the way! There’s a karate tournament going on in Vinderup the day after tomorrow. I was thinking perhaps I might ask Samuel if he’d like to come along. Or would it be too soon with that knee of his? He didn’t break anything when he fell off those steps, did he?”

  She smiled and glanced across the table at her husband. This was just the kind of care and feeling on which their Church was founded. Take the hand of thy neighbor and caress it with love, as their pastor always said.

  “No, nothing broken,” her husband replied. “His knee’s swollen as thick as his thigh, but he’ll be right as rain again in a couple of weeks. Vinderup, you say? I didn’t know there was anything going on there.” He stroked his chin. She could see he would pursue the matter presently. “We could see what Samuel says. What do you think, Rachel?”

  She nodded. As long as they were back before the hour of rest it was fine by her. Perhaps he could take the other children along, too, if they wanted?

  His expression became suddenly apologetic. “Well, I’d like to, of course, but I’m afraid there’s only room for three on the front seat of the van, and it’s against the law to take passengers in the back. But I’d be more than happy to take two of them along. The others could have their turn later, perhaps. What about Magdalena, would she like that, do you think? She seems like such an energetic young girl, and very attached to Samuel.”

  She smiled, her husband likewise. It was a fine observation, and so nice of him to ask. It felt almost like there was some special bond between them already. As though he knew how close to her heart the two of them had always been. Samuel and Magdalena. The two children who resembled her most.

  “Well, I think that sounds marvelous, don’t you, Joshua?”

  “Indeed!” Joshua agreed. As long as no difficulty arose, he was easy enough to please.

  She patted the hand of their guest that was placed flat against the table. And found it oddly cold to the touch.

  “I’m sure Samuel and Magdalena would love to go,” she said. “What time should they be ready?”

  He pursed his lips and gauged the journey. “Well, the competition starts at eleven, so how about if I pick them up here at ten?”

  After he had gone, the peace of God descended upon the house. He had drunk their coffee and afterward he had taken the cups from the table and rinsed them at the sink as though it were the most natural thing in the world. He had smiled and thanked them for their hospitality. And said how much he looked forward to seeing them again.

  Her abdomen was aching still, but the nausea had gone.

  Charity was such a wonderful thing. Perhaps the greatest of all God’s gifts to man.

  13

  “It’s not good at all, Carl,” said Assad.

  Carl had no idea what he was on about. One two-minute story on DR.’s Update channel about green bailouts to the tune of trillions and he was off in the land of nod.

  “What’s not good, Assad?” he heard himself say, from miles away.

  “I have looked everywhere and now I am able to say with certainty that no incident of attempted kidnapping was reported at anytime in that place. Not for as long as any road called Lautrupvang has existed in Ballerup.”

  Carl rubbed his eyes. No, it wasn’t good, Assad was right about that. Assuming the message in the bottle was on the level, that is.

  Assad was standing in front of him with his trusty pocketknife stuck into a plastic tub covered with Arabic scribble and filled with some mystery foodstuff. He smiled in anticipation, dug out a dollop, and shoveled it into his mouth. Above his head, the faithful fly buzzed attentively.

  Carl looked up. Maybe it was time he expended some energy on its extermination, he thought to himself.

  He turned his head lazily in search of an appropriate murder weapon, finding it almost immediately on the desk in front of him. A battered bottle containing correction fluid, made of the kind of hard plastic flies most definitely did not survive collisions with.

  It’s all in the aim, he thought for a brief second before hurling the bottle toward the dratted insect and discovering the top hadn’t been screwed on properly.

  The splatter against the wall caused Assad to look up in perplexity at the white matter now slowly descending toward the floor.

  The fly was nowhere to be seen.

  “It’s very odd,” Assad muttered with his mouth still full. “All along I was thinking in my head that Lautrupvang was a place where people lived, but then I see that it is only offices and industry.”

  “So what?” said Carl, puzzling over what the smell of the mud-colored gunge in Assad’s little tub reminded him of. Was it vanilla?

  “Yes, offices and industry, you know,” Assad went on. “What was he doing there, the person who claims he was kidnapped?”

  “Presumably he worked there?” Carl suggested.

  Assad’s face contorted into an expression that could best be described as total skepticism. “Come on now, Carl. Think about it. He spelled so badly he could not even spell the name of the road.”

  “Maybe he just wasn’t born into the language, Assad. Do you know the type?” Carl turned to his computer and entered the name of the road.

  “Have a look here, Assad. There are all sorts of workplaces, schools, and colleges in that area. So there’s bound to be any number of people of ethnic background around there during the daytime.” He indicated one of the addresses on the screen. “Lautrupgård School, for instance. A school for kids with social and emotional difficulties. Maybe it was all just a sick joke, after all. Let’s see once we’ve deciphered the rest of the message. It might turn out to be just a perverted way of nettling some poor sod of a teacher.”

  “Deciphering here and nettling there. Such words, Carl. But what if it is someone who worked for a firm there? The businesses are plenty.”

  “Yeah, but don’t you think the firm would have reported it to the police if one of their employees went missing? I see where you’re coming from, but we have to bear in mind that nothing even resembling the kind of crime mentioned in the message was ever reported. Are there any other streets of the same name anywhere else in the country?”

  Assad shook his head. “You are saying perhaps that you do not think it to be the right kidnapping?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “I think you are mistaken, Carl.”

  “But listen, Assad. If there really was a kidnapping, what’s to say whoever was kidnapped wasn’t released again after a ransom was paid? It’s conceivable, wouldn’t you say? And then maybe it was all forgotten about. In which case, our investigations are going to lead us nowhere, right? Maybe only a very few individuals even knew about it.”

  Assad looked at him for a moment. “Yes, Carl. That is something we don’t know. But we will never find out if you say we should not proceed
with the case.”

  He turned and tramped off without another word, leaving his tub of goo and his pocketknife behind on Carl’s desk. What the hell was the matter with him? Was it what he’d said about poor spelling and immigrants? He wasn’t usually that sensitive. Or was he so wound up in the case he couldn’t concentrate on anything else?

  Carl cocked his head and listened to Assad’s and Yrsa’s combined voices in the corridor. Bellyaching, he shouldn’t wonder.

  Then he remembered Antonsen’s question and got to his feet.

  “Mind if I disturb you two turtle doves for a moment?” he quipped as he approached his two staff members, who were back in front of the blow-up on the wall. Yrsa had been standing there ever since she’d given him those annual reports he’d asked her for. Four or five hours that day, all in all, and not so much as an exclamation mark on the notepad she’d dumped on the floor in front of her feet.

  “Turtle doves! You should let those thoughts of yours rotate a while inside your skull before opening your mouth and letting them out,” said Yrsa, then turned once more toward the giant photocopy on the wall.

  “Listen up a minute, would you, Assad? There’s a superintendent over in Rødovre says he’s received an application from Samir Ghazi. Apparently, Samir wants to go back there. Do you know anything about it?”

  Assad looked at Carl as if he didn’t know what he was talking about, but he was definitely on his guard. “Why should I know about that?”

  “You’ve been avoiding Samir, haven’t you? Maybe you’re not the best of mates. Am I right?”

  Was that an affronted look?

  “I don’t know this man, Carl. Not really. Perhaps he just wants to go back to his old job again.” The smile that now appeared on his face was a tad too broad. “Maybe he can’t take the pace and wants to get out of the kitchen?”

  “Is that what I’m to tell Antonsen, then?”

  Assad shrugged.

  “I’ve got a couple more words here,” Yrsa then announced.

  She took hold of the stepladder and dragged it into place.

  “I’ll use a pencil so we can rub it out again,” she said from the highest rung but one. “So now it looks like this. It’s just a suggestion, mind, and I’m not entirely sure once we get past ‘Hes got.’ But the sequence fits and it makes sense, so why not? And whoever wrote it can’t spell for toffee, but in places it’s actually a help in a funny sort of way.”

  Assad and Carl exchanged glances. Hadn’t they told her that?

  “For example, I’m pretty certain that ‘retnd’ is ‘thretned,’ i.e., ‘threatened.’”

  She considered her work once again. “Oh, yeah, and I’m absolutely sure ‘an’ should be ‘van,’ there’s just no trace of the ‘v’ anymore. But have a look and tell me what you think.”

  HELP

  The .6 febrary 1996 we were kidnaped he got us at the bus sdop on Lautropvang in Ballerup—The man is 18. tall with short hair …. …. … ….—Hes got a scar on his rite … .r…. a blue van Mum and Dad know him—Fr.d.. .nd …t.in. with a B— .. thretned us .. ..ve us ….…. ……—Hes going to kil us—.. .ressd . … .. .. .ace ..rst …. .. brother.—We drove nearly 1 hour … … .. … by warter ….. … …. win. .urb..s ….. .. It smels here—….. .p … …. .. ……r .. .ry.gv.—.. ..…. …. .. years

  P… ….

  “What do you reckon?” she asked, still without so much as a glance in their direction.

  Carl read it through a couple of times. It appeared convincing enough, that much he had to concede. Hardly made up to slag off a teacher or anyone else who might have got the sender’s back up.

  Although there was definitely some authenticity about it, it was still by no means certain they were dealing with an actual cry for help. But if indeed it was genuine, a couple of sentences in particular gave rise to concern.

  Mum and Dad know him, it read. Surely not the kind of thing a person would make up. And then: Hes going to kil us.

  With no “might” or “perhaps” in sight.

  “We don’t know where he’s got that scar of his, either, which pisses me off a bit,” Yrsa continued, her fingers delving into her golden locks, then adding in English: “If you’ll pardon my French.”

  “It’s like there’s too many body parts with three letters,” she went on. “Especially if you can’t spell. Leg, arm, toe, foot if you spell it with a ‘u.’ Would you agree that we can assume this scar to be on a limb or some other extremity? Is there any other part of the body with only three letters?”

  “How about ear or eye?” Carl suggested. “Lip, or knee without the ‘k’?” Apart from those I can’t think of any more. But maybe we can rule out the legs. My guess is it’s somewhere reasonably visible.”

  “What part of the body is visible in February in this refrigerator country?” Assad wanted to know.

  “He may have taken his clothes off,” said Yrsa, her face brightening momentarily. “He may have been a pervert. Maybe that’s why he’s a kidnapper.”

  Carl nodded. Unfortunately, it was a factor that couldn’t be ruled out.

  “In the cold, only the head is visible,” said Assad. He stared at Carl’s ear. “The ear can be seen if the hair is not too long, so the scar might be in that place. But what about the eye? Can a scar be on the eye?” Assad was obviously doing his utmost to visualize it. “No, not a scar,” he concluded. “Not on the eye. That is not possible.”

  “Let’s leave it for now,” said Carl. “Hopefully, we’ll get a better picture of our perp if and when the lab people over at Forensic Genetics manage to find some useful DNA on the bottle. These things take time, so we’re going to have to wait. Any suggestions as to how to proceed in the meantime?”

  Yrsa turned to face them. “Yeah, it’s lunchtime!” she announced. “Anyone fancy a bread roll? I’ve brought my toaster with me.”

  When the gearbox begins to grumble, it’s time for a change of oil, and right now Department Q was having considerable difficulty moving up the gears.

  Time for an overhaul, Carl thought to himself.

  “I think we’ll try chucking the whole caboodle in the air and see how it all lands. Maybe it’ll give us some new angles. What do you reckon?” he said.

  They nodded. Assad rather reticently, perhaps taking the unfamiliar expression literally.

  “Excellent. We’ll swap around. You take a look at those company accounts, Assad. And Yrsa, you can ring around the colleges and other institutions in the area of Lautrupvang.”

  Carl nodded to himself. Of course. A cheerful female voice such as hers would have the desk jockeys running around the archives in no time.

  “Get the administrative staff in those places to ask around and see if any of their older colleagues can recall anyone, a pupil or someone who worked there, who stopped turning up all of a sudden,” he instructed her. “And Yrsa, give them something to go by. Landmark events in 1996. Remind them it was when the area had just been rebuilt.”

  At this point, Assad apparently felt he had heard enough and sloped off to his own office. It was obvious this new division of labor suited him badly. But Carl was in charge here, so he’d just have to put up with it. Besides, the arson case was more substantial, and as such it was the one that gave them most leverage in relation to their colleagues in Department A, a point not to be taken lightly.

  Assad would just have to put it behind him and roll up his sleeves. In the meantime, further musings about the message in the bottle could muddle along at Yrsa’s plodding pace.

  Carl waited until she was out of the door and then found the number of the spinal clinic in Hornbæk.

  “I want to speak to the consultant. No one else,” he said into the receiver, knowing full well he was hardly entitled to pressure anyone there.

  Five minutes passed before the senior registrar finally came to the phone.

  He didn’t sound particularly happy. “Yes, I’m aware of who you are,” he said wearily. “I assume this has something
to do with Hardy Henningsen?”

  Carl put him in the picture.

  “I see,” the doctor rattled. How come doctors’ voices always turned more nasal with each rung they climbed up the salary scale?

  “So you’re asking me about the likelihood of nerve paths being restored in a case such as Hardy’s?” he went on. “The problem is that Mr. Henningsen is no longer under our daily supervision, so we are unable to monitor his progress as we would otherwise wish. We did advise repeatedly against removing the patient from our care, as you well recall.”

  “If Hardy had stayed with you lot, he’d have been dead by now. Instead, he’s found a modicum of spirit to go on living. I’d say that was a good thing, wouldn’t you?”

  There was silence at the other end.

  “Couldn’t one of you come out and take a look at him?” Carl continued. “Perhaps it might be a good time to assess the situation from scratch. For you, as well as for him.”

  More silence. Then, “You say he has some movement in his wrist? We already noted some spasms in a couple of finger joints. Perhaps he’s mixing the two things up. It may be just some reflexive movement.”

  “Am I to understand that a spinal cord as damaged as Hardy’s is never going to function any better than it does now?”

  “Inspector, what we’re talking about here is not whether your friend is ever going to walk again, because he isn’t. Hardy Henningsen is paralyzed from the neck down and will be forever bound to his bed, and that’s a certain fact. Whether he might regain some feeling in some part of the arm in question is another matter. I don’t consider that we should expect anything more than such tiny contractions as those you have described, and probably not even that.”

  “So he won’t ever be able to move his hand?”

  “I can’t imagine it.”

  “So you won’t conduct an examination at home?”

  “I didn’t say that.” There was a rummaging of paper at the other end. Probably a planner. “When did you have in mind?”