Life and Limb (30 page)

K
iki woke with a start. In this state between dreaming and waking her claustrophobia kicked in again. It was a familiar feeling that had haunted her since childhood. She could only tolerate being tied up during sex games and then only for short periods. This was no game, and she couldn't utter a safe word to make it stop.

Panic rose like vomit in her throat and sweat threatened to flow from every pore, but she fought it. She was lost if she threw up or hyperventilated. That would mean certain death.

Perhaps she was already dead, though. A part of her had certainly died, she was sure about that, but she didn't know when it had happened. Earlier in her life, perhaps?

She writhed in the uncomfortable position she was in. Where was she? There was an acrid smell, as if there had been a fire long ago. He had tied her up. She lay in the pitch-black darkness, her hands and feet bound, squeezed into what felt like a box. She could kick out and she hit something hard, yet there was a sense of space around her. She forced herself upwards, pushing off with her feet, and again her head hit something hard. She turned over and pressed her feet against the side. A coffin. He had put her in a fucking coffin. Had he buried her, too? Was she in a hole in the ground? Would the worms start eating her soon?

Kiki tried to calm herself. There was no soil above her. There had to be holes in the lid, otherwise she wouldn't be able to breathe and he wouldn't be able to come over and abuse her as he had done once – or was it two or even three times? He wouldn't be able to do anything to her if she was six feet under. And he wanted to do things to her. Use her. She had learned this the hard way and discovered it was not the same with herself as it had been with the other one. This might be her one chance, if such a remote possibility existed.

She had no idea what time it was. She didn't know how many times she had half woken and he had been there. She realised that everything had merged into one and that this might be the first time she had been properly conscious.

With consciousness came the pain.

She hurt everywhere. Her genitals burned as if they were on fire; her throat stung as if she had swallowed acid, and her head pounded as if it had been in a concrete mixer. She winced.

‘Ouch, my black ass. Kiki, you ugly black brat.'

She wanted to swallow the words, but out they came in her mother's clear voice. Self-loathing followed in their wake. How stupid could she be? Blindly following her own black pussy and allowing herself to be seduced by some shit of a Nazi arsehole – she had deserved every punch, every cut of the rope into her wrist. That was what she was worth.

‘Am I, hell!'

She didn't want to think the thoughts that taunted her and dragged her through the mire where she had been dropped by her mother. She didn't want to believe that her initial attraction to Arne Bay was rooted in self-loathing. She didn't want to stoop that low. As if it was possible to stoop any lower.

Again she forced herself to stifle her panic, but it roared around inside her head and kept peeking out behind the wall of thoughts she had tried to build. She hated feelings. Feelings were the devil's work; they had never done her any good. And the worst of them was the fear of a cold, painful, clammy death all alone.

‘Help!'

She spoke the word and wanted to scream it out loud, but it was swallowed up by the gag he had stuffed in her mouth. The sensation of being choked returned.
Oh
God, please let me lose consciousness again. Let me return to the dream, even if it is a nightmare.

Anything is better than the present. Anything is better than this.

But it wasn't true. It could get much worse. She knew that when she heard a door – or was it a gate? – open and then his footsteps across the concrete floor.

Clonk, clonk.
Sudden images of what he had done to her earlier returned. As did the pain.

‘Sweet Jesus, my Lord and Saviour. Save me.'

But there was no help and there was no God, the lid was removed and the voice said, as it had earlier, ‘Rumour has it that you like being punished. I'll punish you like you've never been punished before.'

She pressed herself against the bottom of the coffin, but it was no use. He bent over and scooped her up. His breath stank as if decaying flesh was trapped between his teeth. He threw her over his shoulder and her head hung down, causing the blood to rush to it and press against her eyes and ears. She was flung onto a mattress and then the torture resumed as he untied her and parted her legs. Something icy and sharp was forced up into her groin.

The pain sent her spiralling into space and his voice sounded very far away.

‘Do you like that, eh? Are you going to come now? Does it turn you on like when he did it?'

He thrust again. Then he rolled her onto her stomach and grabbed her buttocks. She knew she was bleeding heavily. She knew the mattress must look like a blood-soaked sponge. She hated herself. She hated the pain. She hated her body.

Afterwards she felt the warm stream as he urinated on her. Finally her anger erupted.

‘You bastard,' she mumbled into the gag in her mouth. In great pain she thrust out one leg and kicked him in the groin.

‘Ouch, you fucking black bitch.'

He launched himself at her, pummelling her with his fists, but she didn't care. Or, rather, she cared a great deal. She was angry now, and her anger convulsed inside her, made her body curl up and kick and hit him again and again.

‘You thought you were so clever,' he grunted. ‘You and him.'

‘Where is he?'

She knew he could hear her through the gag.

‘He might be alive. He might be dead. But one thing is for sure: he got greedy. No one treats me like that. After all, we go back a long time – did you know that?'

She listened while she wriggled in an attempt to escape the pain. Was there an opening there? Did he have a weakness? An urge to confide something and, if so, then why not to her?

‘I knew you would come. I saw your car that night at the hospital and I knew that he had talked. I knew you would open the door to the morgue. Of course you would. Like a fly to shit.'

He was right. The morgue, where the dead must be left for six hours before being taken to the chapel. She had been told that was where she could find him.

‘Why are you keeping me alive?'

It was more a thought than an utterance. She barely voiced the words, but he seemed to hear her all the same.

‘You're no fucking good to anyone. The line's got to be drawn somewhere. I can't let your bones, tendons and corneas end up inside people who've paid good money.'

He spat on the floor.

‘Corneas from a black bitch? Shit, no.'

She was tempted to smile but she couldn't. For the first time in her life she was grateful for her skin colour. His outburst sounded plausible, given who he was, although she was sure it was only half the truth. She would have to discover the rest for herself, because he clearly had no intention of telling her. He worked for others and was used to following orders. But not this time. Not in her case and possibly not in the case of Arne Bay, either. Something had gone wrong and it had little to do with whatever business they had going on; no, it was a clash between two men who knew each other well.

Bay had lost – all her instincts told her so. He was either dead or buried alive somewhere. She had lost, too. Her captor wasn't going to kill her – possibly because no one had told him to, for reasons she could only guess. He might have gone too far with Bay. He might have killed him only to discover that his boss was now pissed off with him. Perhaps that was the explanation.

She sighed into the cold room when he returned her to the coffin and replaced the lid. He was going to let her live, for now – of that she was sure, though she was not sure she wanted to be alive.

J
ohn Wagner was parking in his usual spot outside the police station as Dicte Svendsen jumped out of her car. She looked fraught and frazzled, as always. Her hair was all over the place and her make-up slapdash, as if she hadn't bothered to check it in the mirror. And she probably hadn't. He wondered briefly why such a beautiful woman displayed so little vanity.

‘Wagner!'

There was no way he could pretend he hadn't heard her, so he stopped and walked back with a feeling that he had just been sent back to the start in a game of Ludo.

‘I've got something for you.'

‘Haven't you always?'

‘Something important.'

Isn't it always
, he thought but didn't say. He nodded to indicate that she should follow him, although for once he almost had to prompt her.

‘I'm a bit busy,' she said. ‘But I have so much to tell you.'

‘Then walk with me, for Christ's sake.'

They went up to his office.

‘Why are you so busy?'

‘I might be donating a kidney.'

If he wasn't already awake, he was now.

‘Have you gone mad? A kidney? To whom?'

He had overstepped the mark. He could see that instantly.

‘Sorry, it's none of my business. What did you want to tell me?'

She pulled something out of her pocket. A white envelope. She reached out to his bookshelf and selected a book with a dark cover, entitled
History of Danish Crime Between the Wars
. She tipped out the contents of the envelope onto the book. Two heart-shaped silver sequins sparkled against the black background, like stars in the night sky.

‘Please would you ask Forensics to compare these with the sequins found on Mette Mortensen's T-shirt?'

He stared at the two hearts, his brain spinning. They matched.

‘Where did you get them?'

She told him and his first instinct was to despatch the entire police force, the anti-terrorism corps, the army and the air force to the undertaker's and turn the place upside down. But they both knew that proper procedures had to be followed. In theory, the sequins could have come from anywhere. He picked up the book and carefully tipped the sequins back into the envelope.

‘I'll go there immediately. Anything else?'

‘Oh, yes.'

She rummaged around her bag. The glass eye lay in a plastic bag staring at him without expression.

‘Perhaps they could also take a look at this?'

She fixed her own eyes on him.

‘This case is about human tissue, I'm certain of it.'

So was he by now, but he didn't say anything.

She continued: ‘Someone procures corpses without the authorities' knowledge. All sorts of corpses – old, young, sick. Anything they think they can get away with. No health checks. The tissue isn't disinfected or tested for hepatitis or HIV. That's too expensive and takes too long.'

She was breathing heavily now.

‘The bodies end up on the slab at the undertaker's. There the tissue is removed and packaged so it looks as if it comes from an approved source. But there's a link missing.'

‘Storage,' Wagner said. ‘The undertaker doesn't have storage facilities. So there are four stages: one, procurement of the bodies; two, removing the tissue; three, storage of the tissue, and four, distribution.'

‘Five,' she corrected.

He looked at her inquisitively.

‘The buyers. We're forgetting the buyers.'

‘Hospitals and clinics abroad,' he said. ‘Preferably outside or on the fringes of the EU.'

‘What about here in Denmark?' she asked. ‘Is it really so outlandish to suggest that there may be buyers in this country? If the demand is there and the supply is insufficient, surely someone might be tempted.'

‘Do you have a particular item in mind?'

She shrugged.

‘Corneas would be the obvious choice.'

‘Why corneas?'

‘Because we used to have enough of them and the cornea bank – which is in Aarhus, incidentally – has a fine reputation.'

‘And now?'

She glanced at her watch and stood.

‘Up until recently corneas were categorised as “human tissue” and pathologists were free to remove them during post-mortems. But no longer. Corneas are now defined as organs and in order to remove them you need a donor card from the deceased or permission from their next of kin. And for some strange reason very few people are prepared to donate corneas.'

She headed for the door.

‘There's a terrible shortage of them. Might someone be tempted?'

He followed her all the way to the lift and waited there in a daze until he no longer heard the contraption humming. Then he pressed the button to take him to the fourth floor, wondering whether he should specifically list corneas as an exception on the donor card that he had ordered. Because she was right. It was noble to give away your heart. Kidneys and lungs – all right, at a pinch, they could save lives. But giving away your eyes, so that pathologists would have to insert prosthetics and your loved ones would see you for the last time with crude, cold inhuman eyes? He didn't think he could agree to that.

‘S
top!'

Bo obeyed and slammed on the brakes. They both watched as, in front of a green Mercedes, two tightly entwined figures released each other.

‘For God's sake, Dicte. Think about what you're doing.'

But Bo's warning came too late. Dicte had already flung open the car door and was racing across the hospital car park towards the couple. Bo got out and started walking in the opposite direction, towards the hospital, to entice her away.

She didn't have time to plan what she wanted to say – she barely had time to think – so the words erupted unfiltered. She jabbed a finger at her ex-husband.

‘A serial killer! And I was meant to fall for that? So that you could impress your mistress and justify a trip to Aarhus? And shine in the media with a theory so flimsy you could drive a truck through it?'

Torsten and Anne stared at her and multiple expressions – from anger via guilt to impotence – flitted across Anne's face. Torsten's face was cold.

‘Get a grip, Dicte,' he said in his familiar condescending Torsten-voice that told her she was barking up the wrong tree and that the mistake was hers, not his. The voice that he had usually employed to explain away his affairs as insignificant in the greater scheme of things. ‘We're all adults here. Jealousy is a completely natural feeling, but you must learn to control it.'

‘Jealousy!' she spluttered. ‘This has got sod-all to do with jealousy. If anyone wants to self-destruct by going after you, they're more than welcome.'

She looked at Anne, who looked away. Were those tears running down her cheeks?
Oh, please, anything but that.

‘But you might have told me. Someone
…
' she tried to catch Anne's eye and succeeded, but only for a split second,‘s
omeone
should have taken the trouble to trust me.'

Dicte stepped closer to the green Mercedes. All the pent-up frustration at Anne's silence and rejection gathered in a burning, agonising ball in her stomach.

‘I thought we were friends. I thought we were each other's family. That there were no secrets.'

Torsten put his arm around Anne, who sniffed and wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. Then she freed herself from him and stood utterly isolated between them.

‘I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't know where to start.'

Dicte struggled to maintain her anger. She was a martyr now; she knew it. Bo was standing across the street, probably wishing she would spare herself and them the outburst, but she had to let everything out now or she would explode into a thousand pieces.

‘Aren't you going to ask me what I'm doing here?' she asked Anne, with whom she used to share everything except a bed. ‘Aren't you curious to know why I have come?'

‘Why have you come?' Anne echoed obediently.

Dicte stepped up close to her.

‘I'm here to give a kidney to my son, who is in dialysis.'

She nodded in the direction of Building 6. ‘He's in prison. He's serving a sentence in Horsens for involuntary manslaughter.'

‘What?'

Anne was dumbstruck.

‘And you would've known if you'd been open with me. But you weren't. And you could have called to find out how I was after the brick was thrown through my window. But no. It's always me who does the calling. Me who drops by for a cup of coffee and then you're too busy anyway.'

She saw Anne reel.

‘I'm sorry, but it was such a mess,' Anne said. ‘It started such a long time ago. Anyway, you've been keeping secrets, too.'

Anne was right. But Dicte didn't want to hear that particular truth right now, so she spun on her heel. Anne ran after her. She grabbed hold of Dicte's arm, but Dicte tore herself free.

‘Leave her alone,' she heard Torsten say. ‘No one can get through to her when she's in one of her moods.'

Dicte blocked out the insult. She knew he was trying to provoke her into a response, but she refused to give in. Anne's footsteps slowed until they came to a complete standstill.

‘I'll call you,' Anne shouted after her. ‘I promise.'

‘The DNA test confirms the family relationship.'

They had only just said hello when Inger Hørup conveyed the news.

Dicte stood for a while, letting the information sink in. She had never been in any serious doubt, but even so the feeling of certainty was indescribable – a relief and a burden at the same time – and it triggered a profusion of thoughts in her head.

‘I'll start by checking your blood pressure.'

Inger Hørup put the cuff on Dicte's arm and it tightened as she pumped up the pressure. Slowly Inger proceeded to let out the air while the red numbers on the monitor's display gave a picture of Dicte's health, or part of it.

The nurse frowned.

‘It's much too high. Sky high, in fact. Were you aware of this?'

Dicte shook her head. The confrontation with Anne and Torsten, she thought. That must be the reason.

‘Have you been experiencing headaches recently?'

Had she? The days blurred into one. But then she remembered her visit to the undertaker's.

‘Yes, I think so. I used to suffer from cluster headaches, but they seem to have eased.'

Inger removed the velcro cuff with a rip.

‘We'll take a blood sample and then we'll give you a blood-pressure monitor so that you can measure it over the next few days.'

‘So I'm not staying here today?'

The nurse shook her head.

‘Not as things are now,' she said. ‘If this reading doesn't change – and I don't think it will, because your blood pressure really is far too high – then you'll be regarded as unfit to donate.'

Unfit.
She couldn't give away a kidney even if she wanted to. The consequences started piling up in her mind. She had looked for a way out and she might just have been given one, but she was far from relieved. To the contrary. The disappointment tasted bitter.

‘Are you sure you don't want me to stay?' Dicte asked. ‘Can't we start the tests anyway?'

She found it hard to take the news seriously, possibly because she felt fine. She was fairly certain that the monitor must have got it wrong.

Hørup shook her head.

‘It's best that we wait.'

‘But what if it turns out I can't donate?'

‘Don't forget that there is a waiting list. Peter Boutrup is very near the top and we might suddenly get a kidney that matches his tissue type. You can never tell.'

She hesitated.

‘But perhaps you should speak to him and prepare him. He's here today. If you like, I'll come with you and explain the situation.'

Dicte gulped. She had no desire to see Boutrup at all.
Unfit.
That was a new label and she bridled at it. Her high blood pressure meant she now had nothing to trade with – unless she decided to lie. And she was desperate to have a name – something – the smallest scrap of information about the man who had shared a cell with her son. She was desperate for a break in the case and Boutrup was the man to give it to her. But it was more than that. She recalled her first meeting with him in the cafeteria. The eyes that had looked like hers. The family bond tightened its grip, forcing a mass of emotions to the surface. Who would help him now?

She composed herself, politely declined the nurse's offer, let Hørup take some blood, grabbed the monitor and went down to the cafeteria where Bo was waiting with a newspaper and coffee. From a distance she saw him flicking through the paper so fast that the pages were rustling. He was probably still angry at the scene she had instigated in the car park.

Anne, Boutrup, Bo, Wagner: never mind which way she turned, an awkward situation awaited her – but the worst was with Bo. She had discovered she could manage without Anne. She could even accept losing Anne, at least for a while. But Bo was her cornerstone. A wobbly one, because he would sometimes pack his bag and go off on assignments, but she could always contact him if necessary. She didn't understand it herself and he didn't understand why she didn't always make use of that offer. It was one of the great mysteries that she loved him and needed him, but that every now and then, and usually with the worst possible timing, she had to prove that she could manage on her own. He had reluctantly accepted that – until now. How long would it last, though?

She went over and put the monitor on the table in front of him.

‘What's this?'

He stared at it as if it were a bomb.

‘I've been declared unfit. My blood pressure's too high.'

He looked up at her with a frightened expression.

‘Poor you. That's bad news. Will you have to start taking medication?'

She nodded.

‘I assume so. But I completely forgot to ask.'

He patted the chair next to him.

‘Sit down for a moment. Do you want anything? Coffee? Oh, no, not if your blood pressure is high. Green tea?'

She glared at him.

‘Are you mocking me?'

He had never looked more serious.

‘No more red wine for you. You'll have to start looking after yourself. That's an order.'

‘Who appointed you as my personal physician?' she said sulkily.

He leaned forward, smiled and kissed her.

‘I did. I'm worried about your blood pressure, but I'm delighted you can't be a donor. You're just mad enough to go through with it.'

‘What's mad about saving someone's life?'

He shook his head.

‘Nothing at all. But not like this. Not when it's blackmail, Dicte. It's unworthy of you. Can't you see that?'

She closed her eyes.

‘But what's going to happen to him now?'

Bo didn't reply; his eyes did it for him. They said that he saw no reason why Boutrup should be allowed to live.

‘Now what?' Bo asked.

She looked at him. She was in need of his arms around her and more kisses, but there was so much to be dealt with and she had to plan her strategy. She would have to speak to Boutrup later.

‘How about a bite to eat?' she suggested.

He leapt up.

‘I'll get it. Salad and bits. And mineral water, right?'

He bent down and kissed her neck. ‘Perhaps we should start running together?'

‘Running? Tell me, have I got a label on my forehead saying “idiot”?'

She pushed him away.

‘I want a cup of coffee and a big sticky pastry, thank you. And a glass of red wine.'

He returned with a slice of leek quiche and green tea.

She took the paper and stared at the photo of the missing Kiki Laursen. She remembered the day she had seen the woman wearing green shoes. She had looked so vulnerable and the alliance between her and Arne Bay had seemed incomprehensible: a woman of mixed race and a notorious Nazi. Even so, something had clearly united them. She could tell from their body language, by their physical proximity. Had Kiki loved the unlovable?

Had she set out to look for him, to rescue him after his disappearance?

Dicte inspected the picture. There was an enigmatic expression in Kiki's eyes, challenging and secretive. What kind of woman was she? And where was she now?

‘What do you think? Is she still alive?'

Bo looked at the photo.

‘She looks like someone who needs help,' he said. ‘And, yes, if it's any use to you, I think she's still alive.'

‘Why? Why not just kill her?'

Bo studied the photo again. Then he looked up at Dicte.

‘She looks like someone you fall in love with,' he said. ‘And no one kills someone they love.'

He gave a wry smile.

‘Not if they can help it.'