The Exception (26 page)

She props her book up and reads while she eats her piece of cod with some red peppers and organic crisp-bread. The book is Raul Hilberg’s
The Destruction of the European Jews
, which she bought second-hand on the Internet.

After supper, she washes her hair. Then, her damp hair wrapped in a towel and a cup of tea at hand, she settles down to phone Grith, just to gossip. Nobody answers.

Iben doesn’t have Gunnar’s number in her address book, but knows it by heart after having heard it only once. She has never used it and doesn’t ring him tonight either. Instead she calls her mother and talks with her, while the television rumbles on in the background. Her mother says that she ran into some old friends recently and they thought it was great to see Iben interviewed on television about her captivity. They send their regards. Iben’s mother says that they asked her to tell Iben they’re pleased it all ended so well.

When Iben goes out again later that evening, it is still raining. It’s late – half past ten already. She dislikes being outside when it is too dark to see who is walking towards you or crossing the road in your direction. Inwardly she curses the plan she and Malene have made, which keeps her away from her cosy bed and Hilberg’s book.

Malene and Rasmus pick her up in a taxi. It takes them to the DCGI building. As Iben peers up at the office windows from under her umbrella, water trickles down the back of her neck.

‘No lights on.’

They need to spend at least one hour in the office without being disturbed and her greatest fear is that Paul might come by.

Once inside, Iben’s heart beats faster. This isn’t a ‘real’ breakin, she tells herself. If we had to face a guard, or the DCGI board, we could talk our way out of it.

Malene’s breathing tells Iben that she too feels anxious. She echoes Iben’s thoughts. ‘It’s not a real break-in. Why shouldn’t we be in our own workplace?’

They listen for sounds. Nothing. After taking the ancient lift to the top floor, they listen again. Somewhere below them, a person leaves an office. They almost stop breathing. The person calls the lift, its door bangs and they hear its customary whine as it descends. Is it a guard perhaps? Or somebody working late? A cleaner? What would Paul do if a security guard phoned him in the middle of the night? Ever since the confrontation about Anne-Lise’s mental health, their relationship with him has been somewhat strained. Paul would have to inform Ole and Frederik and the rest of the board.

What is the worst-case scenario? It has to be that Anne-Lise
didn’t write these emails and that somewhere in the darkness Mirko Zigic is waiting for them.

When the person downstairs has left, Malene enters the security code – it’s 110795, the date the massacre at Srebrenica began.

In the Winter Garden many small points of red or green light glow on computers, phones and other equipment. Hardly any light from the city penetrates the curtain of rain, but after standing about in the dark room for a while, the piles of paper take on a faint glow, like rectangular moons.

They avoid switching on any lamps. Iben and Malene, who know this place well enough to find their way around it blindfold, walk towards the library. Malene leads, Rasmus and Iben follow.

The darkness is more opaque in the library, but Iben and Malene have both brought their bicycle lamps. Rasmus sits down on Anne-Lise’s chair and the women stand on either side of him. He uses the keyboard with lightning-quick familiarity.

‘Yep, it’s password protected. I can’t get round it, but that’s OK. Just checking. Let’s go find the server.’

They make their way to the small, windowless storage room where the server is kept, close the door, and then turn on the lights.

‘I need the administrator’s password. Let’s look for it.’ Rasmus has good instincts about where people will write down things they shouldn’t write down. He checks underneath the blotting pad and the keyboard and behind the monitor. While he’s at it, he looks over the folders on the shelf. The others help, but in the end they give up.

‘Looks like I’ll have to switch off the server.’

Without waiting for an answer and without closing Windows, Rasmus switches it off at the wall. Iben leans against an unpainted chipboard shelf full of office materials. Safe behind a closed door and with the light on, she takes several deep breaths, almost like sighs.

Rasmus puts a disk into the drive and switches the terminal on again. After a while, he exclaims: ‘Just what I hoped! It’s
programmed to look for a start-up disk in the drive before it begins running its own program from the hard drive. That way, if there’s a problem, the administrator can start it up from disk. I’ve put in my own start-up program, which will direct the computer to read my copy of Windows. I’ve got the CD here.’

His little black bag holds innumerable home-made CDs. He loads one of them into the computer. It responds and a stream of numbers and letters flows across the screen.

‘Good. That worked a treat.’ Rasmus, like all true enthusiasts, is beginning to forget his surroundings. His whole being focuses happily on the computer. ‘There! It’s running my program. I’ll get the administrator’s password in no time.’

Iben watches him. There’s something touching about men and computers – so besotted by the mysterious possibilities inside the machine. It’s odd: only now can she see clearly what she has sensed before. Rasmus simply isn’t right for Malene. It actually saddens her to realise how true this is.

Rasmus is absorbed. ‘ … And to do that, I’ve the perfect hacker’s helpmate.’

He loads another program from a disk. It triggers another flow of windows and options. Boxes race across the screen, and Rasmus fills them in faster than she can read them.

The women exchange glances.

Iben constantly listens out for any noise on the other side of the closed door, but so far the only sounds are those made by the computer and Rasmus, who keeps saying, ‘Yes!’ or swearing.

After more typing Rasmus says he has cracked it. He removes both his disks, turns the computer off and then on again. Startup brings the usual password request and Rasmus keys in the code he has just broken. Bjarne has chosen to protect the computer system with the word ‘Superspliff’.

They laugh a little uncertainly. Rasmus looks more alive than Iben has ever seen him.

‘There. I’m logged on as the administrator for your entire
network. It’s set up in a rather outdated way, but it means we can read what’s in any of the office computers.’

‘What? Can Paul and Bjarne read everything on our computers?’

‘The lot! There’s no hiding place.’ He doesn’t bother to look up at Iben and Malene. ‘First, I’ll search for any file containing that email address “revenge_is_near”.’

Paul and Camilla’s computers are switched off and can’t be searched. Rasmus could turn them on, but there’s no point. Several of Iben and Malene’s files turn up, because they have been emailing people all over the world to ask about the possible identity of the sender. Anne-Lise, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have written a single email containing the phrase ‘revenge_is_near’. Strange. Hasn’t she told anybody what happened?

Rasmus starts looking for other revealing phrases.

‘Of course, what we’re specifically looking for is a trail to any private webmail address she might have on the net rather than in this computer. That is, apart from Outlook, has she been using Explorer to check email accounts held elsewhere? Like an anonymiser site?’

He makes several searches, but finds nothing. His next move is to go through her computer folders, searching for any interesting files.

‘Weird … Most people keep personal stuff somewhere on their hard disk.’ Rasmus stares at the screen, completely transfixed. Suddenly he calls out: ‘Hey! Look at this!’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a program that wipes all traces of your Internet activity. She must have downloaded it from the net. That’s why we can’t find anything. It means that she knows what she’s doing. Did you know that she was good at that kind of thing?’

‘No.’

‘No idea.’

‘With this, she’d be able to create her own addresses on the
net, and cover her tracks afterwards – that kind of thing?’ Malene asks.

‘That’s exactly what I’m thinking.’

While Rasmus searches Anne-Lise’s files, Iben and Malene go to the library to look through her papers.

The corridor is windowless too, so they could put the light on, but they don’t need to. Their bodies have memorised the precise layout of the office. Iben remembers a dream she had in which the tight passages between the shelving in the Centre merged with images from a film about the sinking of a German submarine. She had watched the film on television a few months earlier. The action mainly took place inside the torpedoed and fatally damaged submarine. In her dream its crew was locked into the narrow aisles between the office bookshelves. Lamps blinking ‘Red Alert’ warned them of the Centre’s slow, silent descent towards the bottom of the sea.

While they wait for Rasmus, Iben and Malene decide to play a game walking through the dark faster and faster to discover just how well they instinctively know where any obstacles are. Iben starts running and Malene runs after her.

They race through the Winter Garden. Their bodies compute distances and directions precisely. No need to use their head, or their eyes. Malene must be thrilled to be able to move so freely without pain.

Iben catches her breath.

‘You know, it’s great to be here and say and do whatever one likes. Just for once.’ Malene speaks loudly enough for Rasmus to hear.

‘Isn’t it? Look, I can say, for instance, “Paul, you simply have to relocate Anne-Lise to a fish-filleting factory in Svalbard, because she’s ruining everything here.”’

‘And I can say, “Paul, it’s time you woke up. If you don’t lock her into a phone box with a year’s supply of fish-paste sandwiches …”’

‘And a clock. She’ll need a clock.’

‘“ … then the Centre is going to become such a dump that Frederik will get Kjærum’s job at Human Rights, and not you!”’

‘Got that, Paul?’

‘You have no idea, have you? Always off to your bloody meetings, or whatever.’

They spend some time at Anne-Lise’s desk, searching her papers for evidence, before returning to see what Rasmus has found. He is busy tracing preserved fragments of Anne-Lise’s emails, the pieces her clean-up program couldn’t delete.

‘We should’ve brought a few beers.’

‘No problem. There’s a bottle of whisky in Paul’s cupboard.’

‘Do you think it’s really safe to have some?’

‘Sure. He’ll never notice. Camilla had some the other day.’

The whisky is an exclusive brand of single malt, but over time Paul has been given so many similar bottles that he doesn’t mind leaving one in the office. Iben goes to fetch it and three glasses.

‘Look, I’ve brought some water as well. I’ve read that water “opens up” a good whisky. Just a little, to release the aroma.’

‘Isn’t it a shame to dilute it?’

‘But it’s not diluting it – that really would be a shame. Only a drop or two. I’ll put it in my glass and you can keep your drink neat. Then we’ll swap to see if we can taste the difference.’

When they’ve all tested the whisky several times, mixed with different amounts of water, Iben and Malene return to Anne-Lise’s desk. This time they put on the overhead lights. No need to be neurotic. It makes their search much quicker and easier and, anyway, who’d be standing down in the street staring at the top-floor windows?

One of Anne-Lise’s desk drawers is locked. They try to shift the lock with a ruler, but it breaks. Iben puts the bits in the back pocket of her jeans. So what if Anne-Lise doesn’t find it tomorrow? All anyone can say is that it’s lost.

They try inserting a paperknife instead. Neither of them knows a thing about locks, but this time it works. It’s a cheap
desk and the locks are mainly just for show, but it’s fun all the same. They must have an unexpected talent for robbery.

It’s as if the normal rules no longer apply. Everything in the office is familiar and at the same time strange and new.

‘Now we can close that fucking door at last!’ Malene almost shouts.

She slams it shut and they both laugh.

Rasmus comes in and seems surprised at the lights and noise.

‘Doesn’t matter. Nobody will come here at this hour!’ Iben is very loud now.

‘Any way, we’re allowed. We work here.’

‘We work all sorts of hours!’

‘See? We’re just keen!’

Rasmus speaks quietly. ‘Listen, I’ve found something.’

They turn the light off and he explains as they walk along. ‘I’ve loaded a program that searches the whole network for fragments of deleted files.’

Back in the server room he shows them a few lines from a file that was probably on Anne-Lise’s hard disk. In two lines of apparently random characters the word ‘Malene’ turns up and, a little later on, a sentence: ‘I no longer know myself. I have never experienced hating anyone the way I hate her … I might do anything to her … she makes me feel sick through and through.’

They stand in silence, staring at the screen.

Malene suddenly needs to sit down. ‘You see … So what’s new?’

Iben feels a little groggy owing to lack of sleep. She leans forward over Malene’s shoulder. ‘I don’t think it will be enough for Paul. Surely he won’t admit this as evidence?’

‘No, he won’t. He knows perfectly well that she can’t stand me. His only reaction so far has been to hand my responsibilities over to her. Like I said: nothing we don’t know already.’

Rasmus goes off to have a pee. While he’s away, they read Anne-Lise’s latest incoming emails. Only two are marked as unread. The first one is a request.

‘Dear Anne-Lise. I need to know as much as possible about child killings in East Timor. Please collate a list of what is in the library and email it to me as soon as you can. Is tomorrow morning possible? Regards, Tatiana.’

Malene quietly deletes it.

The next mail is from Sweden.

‘Hi, Anne-Lise. Thanks a million for that list. Brilliant! Best, Lotta.’

They delete that one too.