A Conspiracy of Faith

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  His brother-in-law wheezed asthmatically as he bowed his head to his chest and said grace. Both he and his sister squeezed their eyes tight shut, though all their senses were directed toward the end of the table where he sat.

  “Haven’t you found God yet?” his sister asked after the prayer, her dead gaze fixed upon him.

  “No, I’m afraid Father must have beaten Him out of me.”

  His brother-in-law raised his head deliberately and sent him a malicious glare. There was a time when he had been a handsome young man. Exuberant and full of ambitions about sailing the seven seas, exploring the corners of the world and the delights of all its luscious women. When then he found Eva, he fell in awe of her vulnerability and the beauty of her words. He had always known Jesus, though never as his best friend.

  That was something Eva taught him.

  “Speak respectfully of your father,” Villy said now. “He was a reverent man.”

  He looked at his sister. Her face was without expression. If she had anything to say on the matter, now was the time. But she remained silent. Of course she did.

  “You think our father’s in heaven, don’t you?”

  His brother-in-law narrowed his eyes. That was his answer. One wrong word would suffice, it didn’t matter whether he was Eva’s brother or not.

  He shook his head and returned his brother-in-law’s stare. Ignorant, unenlightened individuals, he thought to himself. If the vision of a paradise housing that callous, small-minded, third-rate clergyman was so dear to Villy, then he would certainly have nothing against helping him get there as quickly as he liked.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “There’s thirty thousand kroner in an envelope for you and Eva. For that amount of money, you’d do well to keep a grip on yourself for the half hour I’m here.”

  He looked up at the crucifix on the wall above the disagreeable face of his brother-in-law. It was heavier than it looked.

  He remembered. Its weight had been brought down against him.

  He sensed them stirring in the back of the van as they crossed the great bridge that spanned the Storebælt. He pulled in for a moment at the toll area to give the two writhing bodies another whiff of chloroform.

  As they settled again, he drove on, this time with the windows down and the annoying feeling that the second dose had been rather uncontrolled.

  When eventually they reached the boathouse in Nordsjælland, it was still too light for him to lead the youngsters from the van. Out on the water, the last sailing boats of the day, the first of the season, were gliding back toward the marinas of Lynæs and Kignæs. One inquisitive soul with a pair of binoculars and all would be lost. The thing was, they were too quiet in the back of the van. It began now to concern him. Months of preparation would come to nothing if the chloroform had killed them.

  “Come on, go down, for Chrissake,” he muttered to himself, his gaze fixed firmly on the recalcitrant bloodred sphere in the sky that had wedged itself into the horizon amid flaming cloud.

  Then he took out his mobile phone. The family at Stanghede would already be worried by his failure to return with their children. He had promised them he would be back before the hour of rest, and it was a promise he had not kept. He pictured them at this moment, waiting at the table with their candles and their robes, their folded hands. This would be the last time they placed their trust in him, the mother would be saying.

  In a moment, she would feel the real pain of being right.

  He called. There were no introductions, just his demand of one million kroner. Used notes in a small bag they were to throw from the train. He told them which departure to take, when and where to change, and on which stretch and which side they were to look for the strobe. He would be holding it in his hand and it would flash as bright as a camera. They should not delay, for this was their only chance. On delivery of the ransom, their children would be returned.

  They should not consider cheating him. They had the rest of the weekend and Monday to raise the sum. And on Monday evening they were to take the train.

  If the amount delivered fell short, the children would die. If they involved the police, the children would die. If they should try to trick him during delivery, the children would die.

  “Remember,” he said. “Money can be earned again, but the children will be gone forever.” At this point, he always allowed the parents a moment to gasp for breath. To take in the shock. “Remember, too, that you cannot protect your other children forever. If I suspect anything to be amiss, be prepared to live in perpetual fear. That, and the fact that this phone cannot be traced, are the only two things on which you can rely.”

  And then he terminated the call. It was as simple as that. In ten seconds, he would hurl the phone into the fjord. He’d always had a good throwing arm.

  The children were as pale as two corpses, but they were alive. He chained them inside the low-ceilinged boathouse, keeping them well apart. Then he removed their blindfolds and gags and made sure they did not regurgitate what he gave them to drink.

  After the usual begging and pleading, the sobs and the fear, they accepted a small amount of food. His conscience was clear as he taped their mouths shut and then drove away.

  He had owned the boathouse for fifteen years now, and no one besides himself had ever been near the place. The house to which it belonged was well hidden behind trees, and the stretch down to the water had always been overgrown. The only place from which this inconspicuous construction could on occasion be picked out was the water, but there were obstacles even there. Who would ever put in to that foul-smelling mush of seaweed and algae that extended across the net? The net he had drawn out between the fishing stakes after the time one of his victims had thrown something into the water.

  The kids could whimper as much as they liked.

  They would never be heard.

  He looked at his watch again. He would not call his wife today before heading off toward Roskilde. Why should she know when to expect him home?

  Now he would drive back to the cottage at Ferslev, put the van back in the barn, and then continue on in the Mercedes. In less than an hour, he would be home. And then he would see what to do with her.

  The last few kilometers before he arrived, he found some kind of peace within himself. What had been the cause of this suspicion as regards his wife? Was it some failing of his own character? Did this unfounded doubt, these abominable thoughts, in fact find nourishment in the lies he thrived upon? Was it all not just a consequence of his own clandestine existence?

  “The truth of the matter is we’re happy together,” he told himself out loud. It was his last thought before seeing the man’s bike leaning against the willow in the driveway of their house.

  Before seeing it, and before realizing that it was not his own.

  17

  There had been a time when their morning phone calls had given her a boost. Just the sound of his voice had been enough to see her through days without human contact. The thought of his embrace could see her through anything at all.

  But it wasn’t like that anymore. The magic was gone.

  She had promised herself she would call her mother and patch things up with her. The day had passed, and morning came without her getting around to it.

  What was she supposed to say? That she was sorry they had drifted apart? That perhaps she had been wrong? That she had met another man, and that he allowed her to see things in a new light? That he filled her with words that made her unable to hear anything else? She couldn’t tell her mother any of this, that much was plain to her. But all of it was true.

  The unending vacuum in which her husband had left her had now been filled.

  Kenneth had been to the house more than once. He would be waiting there when Benjamin had been delivered to his day care. Always in a short-sleeved shirt and tight summer trousers, despite the vagaries of March. An eight-month tour of duty in Iraq, then ten months in Afghanistan had hardened him. The cold winter tamed
a serviceman’s hankerings for comfort, he explained.

  It was quite irresistible. And quite terrifying.

  Over the mobile, she had heard her husband ask after Benjamin and sensed his doubt that he could have fully recovered from his cold so quickly. She had also heard him say that he loved her and was looking forward to coming home. That he might be back sooner than expected. And she didn’t believe the half of it. That was the difference now. Compared to when his words had dazzled her. Now she realized she had been blind.

  She was frightened, too. Frightened of his rage, and of what he might do. If he threw her out, she would have nothing. He had made sure of that. There might be a little, but still nothing to speak of. Perhaps not even Benjamin.

  There were so many words in him. Clever words. Who would ever believe her when she claimed Benjamin would be better off with her? Was she not the one leaving? Had her husband not devoted himself entirely to the family, made the sacrifice of long periods away from home in order to ensure their livelihood? She could hear them already. The local authority, the regional state administration to whom divorce applications were sent. The arbiters who would take note only of his responsible nature and her own misdeed.

  She just knew.

  She would call her mother later, she told herself. She would swallow all her pride, and the shame of it, and she would tell her everything. She’s my mother, she said to herself. She will help me. I’m certain she will.

  And then the hours passed, and her thoughts weighed down upon her. Why did she feel like this? Was it because in the space of only a few days she had come closer to a stranger than to the man to whom she was married? For this was a fact. The things she knew about her husband were the things they shared in the few hours they were together in the house. What more did she know than that? His work, his past, the packing cases upstairs, all of it remained closed to her.

  But losing her feelings for him was one thing; justifying it was quite another. Had her husband not been good to her? Was her own fleeting infatuation preventing her from seeing things rationally?

  These were the thoughts that preyed on her mind. And they were the reason she once again found herself drawn to the first floor of the house, to the door behind which his packing cases were stacked. She stood, considering it. Was this the time to seek out knowledge? Was this the time to transcend the boundary? Was this the point of no return?

  Yes. It was.

  She dragged out the packing cases one by one and arranged them in reverse order in the corridor. When she put them back, they had to be exactly as before, properly closed and with the pile of coats on top. It was the only way she could feel in control of the project.

  That was her hope.

  The first dozen boxes, from the rearmost row beneath the roof window, confirmed what her husband had told her. They contained old family items handed down. The same kind of clutter her own grandmother had left behind: a jumble of documents, porcelain, cigar cutters, lace tablecloths, watches and clocks, a twelve-piece set of cutlery, woolen blankets, bric-a-brac.

  The picture of a family life long gone and consigned to memory. Just as he had described to her.

  The next dozen added detail that seemed only to lay a confusing veil over this picture. Here were the gilded photo frames. Scrapbooks of cuttings. Albums prompting memories of events and occurrences. All of it from his childhood, and all with the strong undertone that lies and deceit are the silent attendants of reminiscence.

  Because contrary to what he had always insisted, her husband was not an only child. There was absolutely no doubt that he had a sister.

  One photo showed her husband in a sailor suit, his arms folded against his chest as he stared into the camera with eyes that were sad. No more than six or seven years old. His skin soft, the thick shock of hair parted at the side. Next to him was a little girl with long plaits and an innocent smile. It might have been the first time in her life she had been photographed.

  It was a fine little portrait of two vastly different children.

  She turned it over and considered the three printed letters. EVA. There had been more, but they had been crossed out with a pen.

  She sifted through the other photographs, turning each one over. More words obliterated.

  No names, no places.

  Everything scribbled out.

  Why would anyone do this? It was like willing people to disappear.

  How often she had sat with her mother and peered blankly at old photos of people without names?

  “That’s your great-grandmother. Dagmar, she was called,” she heard her mother say, though the name was nowhere to be seen. What would happen when her mother died? Where would all the names be then? Who would know who had given life to whom, and when?

  But this little girl had a name. Eva.

  She was definitely her husband’s sister. The same eyes, the same mouth. In two of the photos in which they were pictured on their own together, she was gazing at her brother with admiration in her eyes. It was touching.

  Eva looked like any other little girl. Fair and pure, and, with the exception of the very first photo, facing the world with a look that contained more trepidation than courage.

  When brother and sister were pictured with their parents, they stood close together, as if to shield themselves from the world around them. Never touching, just standing close. Always the same tableau: children at the front, arms hanging limply at their sides; mother behind, her hands resting on the shoulders of the girl, and the father’s hands on those of the boy.

  It was as if those two pairs of hands were pressing down on the children, keeping them on the ground.

  She tried to understand this boy with the weary eyes who would later become her husband. It was no easy task. There was a gulf of time between them, and she sensed this now more clearly than ever before.

  Eventually, she returned the photos to their boxes and opened the scrapbooks, now with the certain conviction that everything would have been better if she and her husband had never met. That in fact she had been put into this world to share her destiny with a man such as the one she had now chanced upon and who lived only five streets away. Not the man she saw in these photos.

  His father had been a pastor. He had never told her, but it was plain from the photographs.

  He was an unsmiling man with eyes that exuded self-importance and authority.

  The eyes of his wife were different. They were empty.

  In these scrapbooks, she could see why. The father dictated everything. In the parish newsletters, he thundered against ungodliness, preached inequality, and renounced those who did not conform. There were pamphlets about holding the word of God in one’s hand, releasing it only to hurl it into the face of the infidels. And all these outpourings made it clear to her that her husband’s upbringing had been very different from her own.

  Too different by far.

  Throughout, this hateful torrent was infused with a nasty undercurrent of nationalist sentiment, malevolent opinion, intolerance, deep-rooted conservatism, and chauvinism. Though she acknowledged that this was the work of her husband’s father and not of her husband himself, she nevertheless sensed, both now and, on reflection, in their daily life together, how the blight of the past had left within him a darkness that was assuaged only when he made love to her.

  This was not what she wanted.

  Something had been terribly wrong in that childhood. Whenever a name other than Eva’s occurred, it was obliterated. And always it seemed with the same pen.

  Next time she went to the library, she would Google Benjamin’s grandfather. But first she needed to find out who he was. Something in these cuttings had to give her a name. And if she found a name, then she would surely be able to find some trace of this forceful and detestable man. Even in such a forgetful age as the present.

  Perhaps she might even talk about it with her husband. Perhaps it might work something loose.

  She moved on to a large number of shoeboxes stacked
in one of the packing cases. Those at the bottom contained various items of limited interest: a Ronson lighter that worked, oddly enough, cufflinks, a letter opener and accumulated office articles, various indicators of different stages in a life.

  The rest were a window on to what seemed to be a quite singular period. Cuttings, brochures, and political pamphlets. Each box revealed new fragments of her husband’s life. Together they formed a picture of a disgraced and damaged individual becoming at once a mirror image and the diametrical opposite of his father. The boy moving instinctively away from the precepts laid down in his childhood. The youngster substituting reaction with action. The man taking to the barricades in support of everything totalitarian that was not concerned with religion. Seeking out the buzz of Vesterbrogade when the anarchists gathered. The sailor suit made way for hippie coat, combat jacket, Palestinian scarf, the latter pulled up in front of his face when circumstances dictated.

  He was a chameleon in control of his colors. She saw that now.

  She lingered for a moment, wondering if she should put everything back and forget about what she had seen. Collected in these boxes were things he clearly did not care to remember.

  Was this not a sign that he was trying to put a lid on his past? Yes, it was. Otherwise he would surely have told her everything. Otherwise all these names would not be scribbled out.

  But how was she to stop now?

  If she did not immerse herself in his life, she would never be able to understand him. She would never know who the father of her child really was.

  And so she turned to confront the rest of his life, put away so meticulously. Filing systems in shoeboxes, shoeboxes in packing cases. Everything labeled in chronological order.

  She had been expecting to find periods in which he had ended up in trouble on account of his activism, but something prompted him to change direction. As though he had settled down for a while.