Next of Kin (4 page)

Rose bit off the top of the carrot with a crunch and stared at the ragged stump for a moment. The professor was continuing his lecture in the auditorium, but she wasn't listening.

Decapitation. Her mother had called to tell her, perhaps in an attempt to prepare her for the shock. For the millionth time a stream of thoughts popped up in her head, dancing around like the many section headings in Karnov's
Code of Danish Laws
: fanatical Muslims, banners with quotations from the Koran, sharpened sabres, blood-stained jalabiyas. Terror, fear and death. Mustapha, Metin, Aziz.

The story would be published in the Saturday edition. From then on the world would no longer be the same.

Aziz.

A sleepless night had left her feeling as though she had lead weights attached to her arms and legs. The lecturer's voice barely penetrated her brain and her eyelids kept threatening to close.

Rose had stayed up most of the night waiting—no, hoping. She had heard nothing from him. Like a mirage in the desert he had appeared out of nowhere in the café. He had left no trace, no message for her. No one appeared to have seen where he had gone.

But he had been there. She was absolutely sure of that; just as she was sure she knew what love was.

His world, too, would change on Saturday. He would have to face even more opposition than he already did. More prejudice. More looks filled with fear mixed with hate when he got on a bus, went to a club or a café. Yet again he would have to prove his loyalty to Denmark and convince people that he was not the bearer of hatred, fanaticism and bombs: to his friends at the Police Academy, the cashier at the supermarket, bureaucrats and officials. Their suspicion would eat its way into him and prevent him from being what he truly wanted to be: a Dane.

Rose munched her carrot noiselessly and tried without success to concentrate on her lecture.

She was desperate to see him, but it was impossible. They must not be seen together, it would start rumours in his community and she might become a target for his enemies to exact their revenge. So they had told everyone that she had broken up with him because he was violent.

He had sacrificed himself and taken on the role of the bad guy. It didn't bother him, he claimed. They already suspected him of so many other things.

That had been his logic then, but a whole year had passed since the incident at the port where, in some people's eyes, he had betrayed his own. Perhaps a year would be enough.

When the lecture was over, Rose left the hall with a clock ticking inside her head. Saturday. Tomorrow. She had to find him before their world was turned upside down.

She made a beeline for her bicycle while making plans that rose like bubbles and burst just as quickly: take the train to Copenhagen where he lived now and seek him out at the academy. Find his uncle's house in Vanløse. They no longer called each other on their mobiles. No emails. No contact. After all, they were no longer an item, not any more. All the leaks had been plugged.

She had just unlocked her bike when she noticed the figure walking towards her like a grey ghost. A long coat reaching all the way down to her feet covered what was clearly a short, chubby body, and a white scarf hid neat hair, neck and shoulders; everything but the face. With surprising agility the ghost slalomed between the students and their bikes which were now causing a jam in the middle of the tarmac.

‘Are you Rose?' She spoke perfect Danish with an Aarhus accent.

Rose nodded. She met the girl's eyes and saw her own scepticism reflected in her dark brown eyes.

‘I'm Aziz's sister,' the girl said, her voice brimming with unwillingness. ‘My name's Nazleen.'

Rose didn't know if she was supposed to hold out her hand to greet her. Something made her hold back; perhaps it was Nazleen's obvious reserve.

Nazleen rummaged through a pocket deep inside her coat. She clearly couldn't find what she was looking for and her face began to crease in annoyance while she searched through another pocket. No luck there either.

Flushed, she looked at Rose and finally flashed her an embarrassed smile. ‘I was in bit of a hurry. Please wait.'

She partly unbuttoned her coat and briefly revealed a pair of tight fitting jeans. Why, Rose had time to wonder. She would never understand what made modern Danish immigrant girls wear scarves and long coats. As a form of protest, Aziz had said once. Against their parents? Against the Danes?

At last Nazleen produced a scrap of paper and handed it to Rose. Soft skin touched hers as she held out her hand to take it.

‘Take care,' Nazleen said. ‘Both of you.' Then she gave a brief nod, turned on her heel and started to walk back the same way she had come.

Rose stood for a moment, watching her. Then she unfolded the paper and, as she read, her pulse went into overdrive:

22.30. The grey house in Humlehusvej.

It was signed with a slanted, confident A.

Detective Chief Superintendent Christian Hartvigsen popped the cap off a lager and tilted the glass expertly before filling it to the brim with the golden liquid.

Wagner watched him with disgust. He couldn't understand how the man could stomach anything at all after having seen Dicte Svendsen's film. But Hartvigsen was of solid rural stock and a part-time farmer himself, to which his powerful body and ruddy cheeks bore witness. Perhaps, Wagner thought maliciously, he had chopped enough heads off geese and nothing touched him anymore.

‘What do you think?'

It was a question Wagner ought to have asked, but the words came from his boss while Wagner was visualising him with his arms around a struggling goose, white feathers flying everywhere.

‘I ran it past IT,' Wagner informed him, taking a step back. Now Hartvigsen had pulled his packed lunch from his briefcase and the unmistakable smell of liver paste filled the room. The food served in the canteen was not usually filling enough, so the Detective Chief Superintendent's wife was in the habit of making a few extra open sandwiches for her starving husband.

‘And what do they say?' munched Hartvigsen.

‘Just that it appears to be the real thing,' Wagner said. ‘Nothing to suggest a hoax,' he added.

‘And nothing else came with it, you say? Apart from the envelope?'

Wagner shook his head.

‘But something still might,' Hartvigsen suggested, scrunching up a piece of greaseproof paper from his lunch into a small, compact ball.

‘Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' Wagner asked, lowering his voice even though there was no one else in Hartvigsen's office.

‘Terrorism?' Hartvigsen mentioned the unmentionable just as casually as if he had been discussing the best way to pluck a hen.

Wagner nodded.

‘Svendsen, did you say?' Hartvigsen asked, changing the subject. ‘That journalist?'

Another nod.

‘Why her, I wonder. Something in her past? That business down at the port? She's involved with immigrant communities, isn't she?'

More greaseproof paper rustled. Wagner watched as liver paste sandwich number two was lined up and dispatched into the huge mouth.

‘Well, I wouldn't say she was involved.'

‘Something about her daughter, as I recall?'

‘Rose has a Pakistani boyfriend—or rather, had,' Wagner corrected himself. ‘He was studying medicine. But after that business at the port he dropped out and applied to the Police Academy.'

‘After nearly butchering a man halal-style,' Hartvigsen pointed out gently. ‘Someone must have helped him to get onto the course.'

‘We did.'

‘Was that wise?' Hartvigsen caught a limp sliver of cucumber with his tongue as it was about to slide off the liver paste and land on the desk. He washed it down with a gulp of beer.

‘He was found not guilty in accordance with paragraph 14.'

‘Which is self-defence.'

Wagner nodded. ‘We recommended him to the Academy because we felt that he was basically decent and he needed to get away from Aarhus. Besides, we need his kind in the force. We all know that.'

Hartvigsen nodded, his mouth full of food. ‘Well, we'll get someone with experience now, that's for sure,' he declared and took a deep breath. ‘So, you don't think there's anything in that? In Svendsen's link with this Pakistani—what's his name?'

‘Aziz Sami. No, not really, though it's too soon to tell at this stage. If anyone has problems with the immigrant community, it's Aziz. Not Dicte Svendsen.'

Hartvigsen looked quizzical as he raised his eyebrows.

‘Before his studies he was just a street urchin like so many other young men in the Gellerup area,' Wagner explained. ‘During the case at the port he started mixing with this community once again and many people considered him a traitor for helping us.'

‘So the man's got a problem? Do we have any more information?'

Wagner sighed. He couldn't really see where this conversation was leading. ‘Nothing.' He could hear his own impatience.

Hartvigsen waved his hand in the air, as if wiping a slate clean. ‘It's worth keeping in mind,' he said. ‘There might be a link where you'd least expect it.'

‘But what do we do with this?' Wagner nodded towards the computer screen. ‘Initially, it's a murder investigation.'

Hartvigsen sent Wagner a searching look. ‘Murder. I suppose it is,' he said. ‘But where's the victim? Where's the killer? Where's the crime scene?' He flung out his hands. ‘What's the point of all this?'

Wagner cleared his throat and made a last attempt, but even he realised that the case had greater implications than the Aarhus Crime Squad could handle. ‘If we had a little more time we might be able to identify the victim and locate the crime scene. And take it from there.'

Hartvigsen reached for the telephone. ‘A-division! On their own? I don't think so. Not in today's world. New York, Madrid, London. Bomb threats. Heightened levels of security ...' He punched in an extension number.

Wagner couldn't see what it was but he didn't need to, either. He knew it was the police commissioner's and that he would probably be leading the murder investigation—and that from now on he would have all the top brass in the Ministry for Justice, PET and Special Operations breathing down his neck. It would be tricky and the workload immense. He wasn't looking forward to this at all.

Half an hour later, when he left Hartvigsen and Hans Erik Dagø, the police commissioner, Wagner went down to the canteen, more out of habit than anything else. Or a reluctance to sit in his office staring at his computer.

Jan Hansen appeared to have the same idea. He was sitting with a cup of coffee and a huge snail-like Danish pastry, reading the newspaper. Wagner felt weak at the knees and longed for a straightforward murder case without any blood-drenched videos or End of Days overtones, so for once he bought a cake under the pretext of low blood sugar and an imminent fainting fit.

‘Anything interesting?' He sat down with his tray.

Hansen dipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘Usual stuff. And then there was the bomb threat, of course.'

‘A bomb threat?'

Hansen turned to page seven of the newspaper and showed it to Wagner.

‘Oh, that.'

He scanned the page. Dicte Svendsen had been in town doing a robot-watch. Hellish times they were living in, he thought. Nothing was straightforward any more. One way or another crime nearly always turned political these days. Even local politicians were demanding their own Marie now.

‘Not much to report from Grønnegade,' Hansen declared, folding the paper and putting it on the table. ‘I spoke to most of the residents in the apartment block. I've arranged to speak to three more when they come home from work. Then I'll have done them all except for one who's still on his holiday.'

‘What does he do?'

‘He works down at the Ceres Brewery. I called them and they told me he'll be back on Monday.'

Wagner nodded absent-mindedly. The film was running in his head. He stared into empty space and blinked to make it go away, but the body was still squirming on the block and the sabre gleaming in the sun.

‘Are you feeling all right?' Hansen sounded worried, as though on the point of calling an ambulance.

Wagner looked at him, yet saw nothing when the moment of truth dawned on him. No straightforward murder for him this time around. No easy solutions, no obvious answers. Dicte Svendsen's film was spreading like a virus through his blood, and it couldn't be stopped.

The wine did the trick. It usually did.

Dicte looked around Anne and Anders' friends and acquaintances. They had finished eating. Music was playing softly in the background and above it the sound of voices intertwined and created a concert of their own. Indeed, there were several musicians present, Anders' colleagues from the symphony orchestra. And then there were the ‘overlaps'. Their mutual friends, the ones she herself and Bo also saw.

She swallowed a larger mouthful of red wine than she had actually intended. It spread pleasantly throughout her body and the last remnant of tension evaporated. Sod the film and sod the mad terrorists or whatever they were. Here, they couldn't get to her. Here, surrounded by real people rather than angry, bloodthirsty monsters that appeared from nowhere and without warning. Here she could relax, if only for a little while.

‘What are you thinking about?'

Ida Marie sidled over holding her glass, looking lovely with long blonde hair all the way down to her waist and a dress that matched the turquoise of her eyes.

‘That your husband is one lucky guy. You look gorgeous,' said Dicte.

Ida Marie pulled up a chair. Only if you knew her very well would you be able to tell that her movements were slightly less controlled than normal. The wine was having an effect on her, too.

‘That's sweet of you. Do you think he notices? Sometimes he's all policeman and nothing else.'

Dicte observed John Wagner sitting in a corner and talking to Anders, probably about classical music. Even though Wagner had a glass of wine within easy reach there were no visible signs of its effect. His features signalled deep preoccupation and he was perched on the very edge of his chair leaning forward, on his guard. She wondered briefly what had happened to the film before she pushed it out of her mind. Not tonight. Not right now.

‘It probably comes with the job,' she said to reassure Ida Marie and found, as always, that it was hard to strike the right balance between being a friend and being an investigative journalist with a press pass to her friend's husband.

‘He's worried about something,' Ida Marie said. ‘He barely slept a wink last night.'

He clearly hadn't told his wife anything and she guessed it was typical of him. However, it didn't make things any easier and Dicte rummaged round her brain to find the right words of comfort, without revealing that in all probability it was her and her damned film that bore the responsibility for his sleepless night. It was an unspoken rule and Ida Marie knew it. Never mix business with pleasure. That was the theory, anyway.

She was saved by the bell as Anne came staggering towards them in a state of joyous inebriation. That was Anne for you. Her exotic genes couldn't take alcohol. ‘Are you sitting here and gossiping? Can I join in?'

The man sitting next to Dicte, a trumpet player from the symphony orchestra, got up gallantly. ‘You can have my seat. I'm off to dance with the clarinet,' he declared and went looking for his wife.

Anne made herself comfortable. Dicte drained her glass, went looking for another bottle of wine and refilled their glasses.

They drank a toast to Anne and Anders' move and everything from husky dog trips to beautiful icebergs to world peace.

‘You won't forget me, will you?' fished Anne, who was now on an even higher plane of dottiness.

‘What was your name again?' Ida Marie giggled in a rare display of humour. After all, she was and always would be deeply Swedish.

Anne's eyes were brimming with tears, which was most unlike her. ‘I'm really gonna miss you both.'

‘And we'll miss you,' Ida Marie sniffed without even needing to ask Dicte for permission to include her. ‘Now who's going to tell us off when we do something wrong?'

‘You never do anything wrong,' Anne stated magnanimously. ‘You're just too hard on yourselves sometimes.'

Dicte took time out and leaned back in her chair with her glass in her hand. They had known each other since the dawn of time. Her and Anne first, then later, Ida Marie had descended on them from Swedish Värmland to Danish Aarhus and two had become three. They went to the gym together, did dinners together—sometimes their men got invited too. They were each other's network and now there was going to be a big hole.

‘What do you mean we're too hard on ourselves?' Ida Marie asked, a little offended.

‘You work too hard and keep trying to make everything perfect,' Anne said to Ida Marie, her trademark honesty mixed with a dash of wine.

Her eyes turned to Dicte. ‘And you,' she said, warming to the subject as the music turned into something resembling rock and more people headed for the dance floor. ‘Somewhere deep down you still think that you'll die in a bloodbath. Somewhere there is a little Dicte hoping Mummy and Daddy will love her and who wishes she'd stayed in the fold.'

It was a direct hit and the pain felt both good and bad at the same time. Only Anne could get away with saying the sort of thing that caused every counter-argument to disintegrate before it had even been aired.

‘But you hate rules,' Anne persisted. ‘You can't stand authority so it would never have worked out anyway. And thank God for that.' She stuck her nose forward as she always did when she wanted to stress something. Skin rubbed against skin and nose against nose. ‘You're so bloody used to being in opposition, fighting the system, that you don't even realise it. Think about what I've said.' The torrent ceased with
a light kiss on Dicte's cheek.

‘When did you say your plane was leaving on Monday?' Dicte slurred, looking at Ida Marie. ‘Who's giving a champagne party?'

‘I'm game,' Ida Marie offered and filled up their glasses once more.

So they sat for a long time knocking back the wine until an arm was put around Dicte's shoulder from behind and Bo's voice whispered.

‘Come and dance.'

And together they melted into a dance as though there were no evil in the world. As though Anne would still be there to tell them home truths after Monday and as though it wasn't all going to blow up the next morning when the front page hit the streets.