The Absent One (28 page)

‘Argh,’ he groaned, forehead on the floor, as Kimmie returned to the stairwell.

‘Who came? Some men, you say? Where did they come?’

‘The men from the central station. They came to my
flat and beat me up when I wouldn’t tell them about you, Kimmie.’ She tried to smile, but the swelling on the left side of her face prevented it. She pulled her knees to her chest. ‘Now I’m just staying here. Fuck ’em.’

‘Who are you talking about? The police?’

Tine shook her head. ‘Them? No way! The cop was kind enough. No, just some arseholes who want to find you because someone’s paying them to. You gotta watch out for them.’

Kimmie clutched Tine’s skinny arm. ‘They beat you! Did you say anything? Do you remember?’

‘Kimmie, please, I need a fix, right?’

‘You’ll get your thousand kroner, Tine. Did you say anything to them about me?’

‘I don’t dare go out on the street now. You’ve got to get it for me, Kimmie, won’t you, please? And some chocolate milk and some smokes. And a few beers, you know?’

‘OK, OK, you’ll get it. Now answer my question, Tine. What did you say?’

‘Can’t you get it first?’

Kimmie looked at Tine. She was obviously terrified that Kimmie wouldn’t give her what she hungered for once she’d told her what had happened.

‘Out with it, Tine!’

‘You
promised
, Kimmie!’ They nodded at each other. ‘OK. They hit me. They kept hitting me, Kimmie. I said we met on the bench every now and then, and that I’d seen you walk down Ingerslevsgade many times, and that I thought you lived down there somewhere.’ She looked pleadingly at Kimmie. ‘You don’t really live down there, do you, Kimmie?’

‘Did you say anything else?’

Tine’s voice grew thick, her shaking more pronounced. ‘No, I promise you, Kimmie. I didn’t.’

‘And then they buggered off?’

‘Yes. Maybe they’ll come back, but I won’t say more than I already have. I don’t know anything else.’

Their eyes met in the semi-darkness. She was trying to make Kimmie believe her, but she’d said the last thing wrong.

So she must have known more.

‘Is there anything else you’d like to tell me, Tine?’

The withdrawal symptoms had moved into her legs now, which twitched restlessly on the floor in her bunched-up position. ‘Just that about Enghave Park, that you sit there watching the children play. That’s all.

She had bigger ears and eyes than Kimmie had thought, which meant she picked up tricks further out than Skelbækgade or the stretch of Istedgade that ran from the train station to Gasværksvej. Maybe it was around here that she gave blowjobs to all those men. There were still enough bushes.

‘And what else, Tine?’

‘Aww, Kimmie, c’mon. I can’t remember everything right now. I just can’t think about anything but junk, you know?’

‘But afterwards, then. When you’ve had your fix, will you remember more about me?’ She smiled at Tine.

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘About where I go and where you’ve seen me? About my appearance? Where I shop? When I’m on the street? That I don’t like beer? That I look in the windows on
Strøget? That I’m always here in town? Is it things like that?’

She seemed relieved to have some help. ‘Yeah, it’s things like that, Kimmie. That’s the kind of stuff I’m not saying.’

Kimmie moved with utmost care. Istedgade was full of nooks and crannies. No one could walk down the street and know for sure that someone wasn’t standing ten yards further ahead, watching closely.

Now she knew what they were capable of. There were probably many of them out looking for her now.

That’s why this moment equalled Year Zero. Once again she’d reached the point when everything came to a standstill and new paths had to be opened.

How many times had it happened in her life? The irrevocable change? The big break-up?

You’re not gonna get me
, she thought, hailing a taxi.

‘Drop me off on the corner of Dannebrogsgade.’

‘What are you talking about?’ the taxi driver said, his dark-skinned arm already reaching for the backdoor handle. ‘Get out,’ he said, opening the door. ‘Do you think I can be bothered to drive you three hundred yards?’

‘Here’s two hundred kroner. Don’t bother turning on the meter.’

That helped.

She jumped out at Dannebrogsgade and quickly walked to Letlandsgade. Apparently no one was watching her. Then she circled round across Litauens Plads and edged along the house walls until at last she stood on Istedgade, looking directly across the street at the greengrocer’s.

Just a couple of leaps and I’m there
, she told herself.

‘Hi, you. You’re back again,’ the greengrocer said.

‘Is Mahmoud out the back?’ she asked.

Behind the curtain he and his brother were watching Arabic television. Always the same TV studio and always the same drab production.

‘Well,’ Mahmoud said. He was the smaller of the two. ‘Have you already chucked the hand grenades? And the gun, it was OK, wasn’t it?’

‘I don’t know, I gave it away. I need a new one now, this time with a silencer. And I need a couple of hits of good heroin. I mean really good, you get me?’

‘Right
now
? You’re crazy, lady. Do you think you can just barge in off the street and get these things? Silencers! Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?’

She pulled a bundle of bills from her trousers. She knew it was more than twenty thousand kroner. ‘I’ll wait out in the shop for twenty minutes. And then you’ll never see me again. Agreed?’

A minute later the TV was turned off and the men were gone.

She was given a chair and the choice between cold tea and a Coke, but didn’t want either.

Half an hour later a man arrived, no doubt a family member, and he didn’t want to take any chances.

‘Come in here, then we’ll talk!’ he commanded.

‘I gave the others at least twenty thousand. Do you have the goods?’

‘Just a minute,’ he said. ‘I don’t know you, so raise your arms.’

She did as she was told, and gazed steadily into his eyes
as he felt up her calves and ran his hands along her inner thighs directly to her groin, where he left his hand a moment. Then he slid his hands further up over her pelvis, around her back, across her belly, all the way under the fold of her breasts and further round to her neck and hair. Then he relaxed the pressure a little and once again felt her pockets and clothes before finally letting his hands rest on her breasts.

‘My name is Khalid,’ he said. ‘You’re clean. There are no microphones on you. And you have a hell of a fine body.’

Kristian Wolf had been the first to recognize Kimmie’s great potential and tell her she had a hell of a fine body. This was before the assault on the nature path, before she seduced the prefect, before her expulsion following the scandal with the teacher. Kristian had checked out what she was like, here and there and other places, and realized that without much trouble Kimmie was capable of converting her feelings – feelings that for most people develop into real emotions in the course of time – into huge, hard-hitting sexual explosions.

All he had to do was stroke her neck and declare how wild he was about her, and he would reap deep French kisses and all kinds of other sexual favours a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old dreams about.

And Kristian learned that if you wanted to have sex with Kimmie, you didn’t ask. You just got started.

Torsten, Bjarne, Florin and Ditlev quickly learned the art. Only Ulrik never got the message. Polite and courteous as he was, he seriously believed he needed to court her favour, so he never received it.

Kimmie was conscious of everything that was going on. Even how crazily enraged Kristian became when she later began harvesting blokes outside their circle.

Some of the girls said that he spied on her.

Nothing could surprise her less.

Once both the prefect and the teacher were out of the picture and Kimmie had her own apartment in Næstved, the five lads spent as many of their weekdays with her as they could. The rituals were already prepared. Violent videos, hash, discussing new assaults. And when the weekends came and everyone in theory was on the way home to their indifferent families, they climbed into her faded red Mazda and drove until they no longer knew where they were. Straight out into the blue yonder until they found themselves a park or a strip of forest, pulled on their gloves and masks and took the first person who passed. Age and gender were unimportant.

If it was a man who looked capable of putting up a fight, Kimmie removed her mask and stood in front of the gang with her coat and blouse unbuttoned and her gloved hands on her breasts. Who wouldn’t stop, disoriented, in a situation like that?

After a while they learned to tell which types of prey would keep their mouths shut, and which they would have to force into silence.

Tine looked at her friend as if she had saved her life. ‘Is it good stuff, Kimmie?’ She lit a cigarette and dipped her finger in the bag Kimmie held.

‘Great,’ she said after testing it on her tongue. She looked at the bag. ‘Three grammes, right?’

Kimmie nodded.

‘First tell me what the police wanted with me.’

‘Oh, it was just something about your family, Kimmie. Nothing about the other stuff, that’s for sure.’

‘My family? What does that mean?’

‘Something about your father being sick, and that you wouldn’t contact him if you just sort of found out. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Kimmie.’ She tried to squeeze her friend’s arm, but couldn’t manage it.

‘My father?’ The words alone were like being given a shot of poison. ‘Is he even alive? No way. And if he is, he should just die.’ If that wanker with the bag of beers had still been there, she would have kicked him in the ribs. One for her father, and then one for good measure.

‘The copper told me I shouldn’t tell you, but now I have. I’m sorry, Kimmie.’ She stared longingly at the plastic bag in Kimmie’s hand.

‘What did you say the cop’s name was?’

‘I can’t remember right now, Kimmie. Does it really matter? Didn’t I write it down for you in the message?’

‘How do you know he was a cop?’

‘I saw his badge, Kimmie. I asked to see it, you know?’

The voices in Kimmie’s head were whispering, telling her what she should believe. Soon she wouldn’t be able to listen to anyone or anything any more. A policeman sent to find her because her father was ill? Like hell. A police badge, what did that prove? Florin and the others could easily get hold of one.

‘How could you get three grammes for a thousand kroner, Kimmie? Not so pure, maybe? No, of course it’s
not. Boy, am I dumb!’ She smiled at Kimmie beseechingly. Eyes partly shut, skeletal, and shaking with withdrawal.

So Kimmie returned the smile and gave her the bottle of chocolate milk, the crisps, the beers, the bag of smack, a bottle of water and the syringe.

The rest she could do on her own.

She waited until twilight had settled in before she ran from the DGI building over to the wrought-iron gate. She knew what had to happen and this really wound her up.

During the next few minutes she emptied the hollow spaces of cash and credit cards, put two of the hand grenades on the bed and one in her bag.

Then she packed her suitcase with the bare necessities, removed the posters on the door and wall and laid them on top. Last of all she pulled the box out from under the bed and opened it.

The little cloth bundle had become brown and almost weightless. She picked up the whisky bottle, brought it to her mouth and drank until it was empty. This time the voices didn’t go away.

‘OK, OK, I’m hurrying,’ she said, setting the bundle carefully on top in her suitcase, covering it with her blanket. She gently stroked the fabric a few times and snapped the lid shut.

She dragged the suitcase all the way out to Ingerslevsgade. Then all she’d have to do was grab it.

When she stood in the doorway, she took a good look round inside the house so that this momentous intermezzo in her life had time to imprint itself.

‘Thanks for putting me up,’ she said, backing out of the door while releasing the safety catch on a hand grenade and throwing it next to the other one on the bed.

When the house exploded, she was a good distance beyond the gate.

If she hadn’t been, flying chunks of concrete would probably have been the last things she felt in this life.

The blast was like a muffled thud against the windows in the homicide chief’s office.

He and Carl glanced at each other. This wasn’t just premature New Year’s fireworks.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Marcus said. ‘Just as long as no one got killed.’

A friendly, empathetic person, who in this instance was probably thinking more of his workforce than potential victims.

He faced Carl again. ‘That number you pulled yesterday, don’t try it again, Carl. I understand what you’re saying, but next time you come to me first, otherwise you’ll make me look like a fool, understand?’

Carl nodded. Fair enough. Then he told the homicide chief his suspicions regarding Lars Bjørn. That he in all probability had had a personal motivation for interfering with Carl’s investigation. ‘We’ll have to call him in, right?’

Marcus Jacobsen sighed.

Maybe he knew the party was over, maybe he believed he could manoeuvre around it. Whatever the case, for the first time ever Bjørn wasn’t wearing his customary tie.

The homicide chief got right down to it. ‘I understand that you were our liaison between the ministry and the
police chief in this case, Lars. Would you mind explaining how this adds up before we offer our own interpretation?’

Bjørn sat scratching his chin a moment. A military man by training. A classic, unblemished police CV. The right age. Continuing education courses at the University of Copenhagen. Law, of course. Good administrative abilities. An enormous network of contacts and a good deal of experience in fundamental police work as well. And now this glaringly obvious blunder. He had politicized his job, stabbed his colleagues in the back and helped hinder an investigation he in principle had nothing to do with. And for what? For solidarity with a boarding school he’d left ages ago? For old friendships’ sake? What the hell was he supposed to say? One wrong word and he was finished. They all knew it.