The Exception (60 page)

I had such a sense of writing the truth. It felt so right: ‘You, Malene Jensen, have sworn to your secret evil …’And then: ‘You, Iben Højgaard, are for your actions recognised as self-righteous among the humans.’

She strides along, her muscles seeming stronger now that she has thrown up.

Outside Nørrebro Station she stops. Now where should she go? She’d like to go to Gunnar’s flat. He knows about danger. He’ll know what she should do to protect herself from Jelisic. But he mustn’t see her this way. At least she has the presence of mind to see that.

The other thing she’d like to do is go to Malene’s and tell her how sorry she is. It’s a good thought, even though she can’t imagine that Malene will ever forgive her.

It has become dark. Lights in shops and cars make a shifting pattern around her. She needs to tire out her brain, dampen down her emotions. Other people might take tranquillisers or splash cold water on their faces, but she gets the same kind of effect from working intensely. She must concentrate now to distract herself from all these emotions.

She will formulate an entire article in her head, leaving no room for any other thought. Later, all she’ll have to do is write it down.

The Psychology of Evil XXII

Here, the previous articles in
Genocide News
are followed up with an account of processes, uncovered by social psychologists, that allow perpetrators to reach the stage where they are capable of carrying out one murder after another
.

By Iben Højgaard

The social psychologist Albert Bandura recruited a group of students to help him with ‘an experimental study of learning’ that also involved a group of students from another university …

She thinks about Omoro in that hut in Kenya.

I’ll never have a chance to ask him to forgive me. He died because I hesitated. And I hesitated because I saw an advantage for myself in holding back. He is dead now.

She tries once more:

The Psychology of Evil XXII

Here, the previous articles in
Genocide News
are followed up with an account of processes, uncovered by social psychologists …
Two young women step out from a clothes boutique. Their aura of evil smells of pickled gherkins and rotten fish.

Iben’s concentration is going. She leans against a wall and tries to take up the thread.

The social psychologist Albert Bandura recruited …

His ‘helpers’ were to assist him in an experiment by administering electric shocks to members of the other group when they didn’t do well enough in tests. Just as they were ready to start, the helper group ‘accidentally’ overheard a senior assistant speak about the ‘pupils’.

I know why everybody praised me, she thinks: because I ran back to the policemen from Nairobi and tried to make them help the hostages. The press, as well as my friends, kept going on about how I put my life on the line to save the others. It’s because they need to hear such things – to be reassured that goodness exists. They dream of it. They watch it on television. But it’s all a lie! Those few seconds only proved that I couldn’t conceive of the possibility that the police would beat up or kill a white woman. I believed I was in no danger. My whiteness made me invulnerable, or so I thought.

She recognises the front door to Malene’s stairs. She must ask her forgiveness. Forgiveness would be such a relief. Or maybe it wouldn’t?

Malene doesn’t reply to the entry phone, so Iben uses her key to get in and goes upstairs to knock on Malene’s door.

Nobody answers. She could let herself in, but she doesn’t. She knocks again.

On her way downstairs she can’t see the large stained-glass patterns, because it’s too dark outside. A pane of clear glass has been fitted in Rasmus’s window.

She must pull herself together. Think of nothing but her article.

The Psychology of Evil XXII

Here, the previous articles in
Genocide News
are followed up …

The social psychologist Albert Bandura recruited a group of students to help him with ‘an experimental study of learning’ … We are rats, all of us.

Regardless of what has been written in the magazine previously. We’re simply

Regardless of what has been written in the magazine previously we may

Regardless, it must be admitted that I’m sick now. So dreadfully sick I cannot think any more.

Iben, concentrate!

The Psychology of Evil XXII

Here, the previous articles
…

The many lies presented in our magazine are … The truth is … We are also in each other’s heads. Murder each other, when no one is looking. The self-righteous theories previously described in
Genocide News
are …

Iben cannot walk now. She sits down on a litter bin at a bus stop. She’ll have to throw up again soon. It’s all these people that do it – their smells: fried food, piss, chlorine; decay. She’s disappearing. It’s so hard to stay in control. Only work to hold onto, and logical thought.

The Psychology of Evil XXII

Here, the previous articles in
Genocide News
will carry on, sickly as ever, and … unable to think any more. The reason is that we’re all rats and ready to bite each other’s heads off
.

I will stay sitting here despite the human rats that smell … on top of a litter bin at a bus stop … and on behalf of the Danish Centre for Genocide Information … evil under my nails, making them smell badly, and inside … the early wrinkles in my face. In my cells, in my DNA. In me.

I give up.

Two people in love are waiting for the bus. They don’t look my way. They wear the same kind of long coat in a colour like butterscotch and aren’t interested in the slightest in a confused woman sitting on a litter bin.

Now a teenage girl comes along to wait. She has painted names of bands and singers all over her rucksack, just as I did in my teens. She is about the same age as a lot of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge soldiery. I know what she could do to that couple.

What about the lovers? They look so innocent. ‘Waiting for the bus’, that’s all.

But close-up you see the fat is oozing out of their pores – long, whitish-yellow worms. Those two, their bad smell won’t go away, even though they probably wash every day. It should not have been like this. Never.

I shouldn’t have fallen ill again. I should’ve been with Gunnar, in his kitchen, pottering about with the bread and little dishes for a delicious Sunday lunch. He would come and stand close behind me and hold me tight while he kisses my neck. And his two daughters, who are mine too, would be running about, in and out of the kitchen.

I know this scene so well. That’s how it should have been. And
we would have been so happy. We wouldn’t have killed anyone then, not he nor I. Neither of us would have suffered from paranoia or been sick in the head.

Now I know it will never happen. I’ve become too weird for him. It shouldn’t –
should not
– have been like this.

A tall man with long, blond hair is approaching me. He speaks to me. Does he say that he wants to drop something into the bin? I get up, but he keeps saying things.

I have to speak to him. ‘Are you trying to use the litter bin? Is that it, the bin? I’ve moved off it now.’ Then it dawns on me that the man is speaking English, with a drawling accent. What’s that he’s saying?

‘Now tell me. What’s your plan?’

I don’t understand what he wants, but decide I’d better change to English too and repeat the bit about the litter bin.

He looks annoyed. ‘What’s wrong with you, Malene? I don’t care about that bin. What’s your plan?’

‘What? My name isn’t Malene.’

I look properly at him. He could have been an ageing rock star, once cool, but now on his way out. His skin is in poor shape and he has gone flabby, like men do when they’re past their prime. I want him to go away and leave me in peace.

‘My name isn’t Malene.’

He stares straight into my eyes.

‘I know who you are, Malene. I’ve waited for you when you come out of the Centre. And when you leave your house.’

I shake my head. ‘You’ve got it all wrong, I’m not …’

It is only then that Iben realises who the man is.

Like when you’re off, flying across the handlebars on your bike. Then, in the fraction of a second before you crash to the ground, all your muscles go tense and your mind suddenly focuses one hundred per cent.

How can she escape? She glances about her. Some five metres away from Iben and Mirko Zigic, a strong-looking man stands with his hands in the pockets of his pilot’s jacket. When his eyes catch Iben’s and he realises she has seen him, the corners of his mouth twitch slightly – something that is not quite a smile.

And opposite him, fifteen metres or so away, another man is standing. He too observes her. His hair is cut very short and there’s something very Eastern European about his matching jeans and denim.

Now she looks at Zigic again, sensing the weight of her knife against her leg. Her heart is pounding. Could she win a fight against him? Of course she couldn’t. Are these men armed with weapons other than knives? Of course they are.

Zigic interrogates her. ‘Who do you work for?’

‘The Danish Centre for Genocide Information.’

‘I know that. Who else?’

‘No one.’ She has no idea what he is after and how she should respond. Should she pretend to be confident? Friendly? Pathetic?

Zigic is already irritated. ‘You will tell me! Who are they? And what do they want? Or else, no deal.’

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. I work for DCGI and nobody else.’

He stares as if wanting to see straight through her. Her words only seem to make everything worse. ‘What? Malene, do you want me to believe you sent that email all on your own?’

‘I haven’t sent any email.’

Iben cannot understand why she didn’t instantly recognise Mirko Zigic. He looks exactly like the man in the old family photos unearthed by Interpol. Through a mutual friend, Iben had got hold of the photos from an information officer in DCGI’s British counterpart. The pictures were accompanied by a video and documents about his parents and younger siblings. His family had also made statements, swearing that Mirko couldn’t have been the executioner and torturer of the Serbian camps. He was kindness itself, they insisted. They must have got him mixed up with someone else. It was impossible that he could have built up his own section in the Serb mafia.

The video was a grainy black-and-white copy of CCTV footage from a Munich burger bar. As far as Interpol was concerned, it was the last time Zigic had been spotted. Poor-quality images showed him, a tall man with long, blond hair, having a row with one of the counter staff about his change, or something like that. Then Zigic jumps over the counter. He grabs the other man’s head, bends his neck back and pushes the handle of a white plastic fork up one of his nostrils. By driving the fork home Zigic caused so much brain damage that the man died almost instantly.

The camera records Zigic jumping back and calmly leaving the bar before anyone understood what had happened. Since then, no one has seen him.

Iben picks up a strong smell of male genitals. She can’t be sure if it’s coming from him or whether her mind is still malfunctioning.

He smiles when he notices her looking around at the men he has posted. Why make such a fuss about an ordinary Danish office worker?

He answers without being asked. ‘I take no chances, Malene. You’ve been a very smart girl.’

A pause, and he goes on. ‘I’d like to handle this peacefully. We will do a deal with you and your bosses. But if you and your
people won’t play along, I’ll defend myself – with force. And I can promise you won’t like that at all.’

‘OK. Let’s talk.’

‘That’s better. You’re being sensible. Now, tell me who you work for.’

A bus halts. Zigic edges forward, just enough to ease himself between Iben and the bus. She has no doubt what would happen if she tried to board it with the other passengers.

She watches as the lovers in their long coats, the teenage girl, and a few others disappear into the warm yellow light of the bus. The doors close with a loud sucking noise and the bus pulls away, leaving Iben and Zigic standing in the stench of diesel fumes.

‘I work alone.’

He laughs out loud. ‘That’s good. You won’t tell me who you’re acting for. I think I like you. But you must know I’m not stupid. I know what you’re saying isn’t true. If it were true, I would kill you right here. And you know that too, Malene; you have guts.’

As if she has passed some kind of test, he grins at her. She tries to smile back. ‘Yes. I suppose so.’

She observes how the skin on his face is oddly lifeless. It is exactly as Ljiljana Peric described it: carved in wax. In a horrible way it seems somehow to fit the way he smells. She looks down the dark street. No one is around now except his men.

‘I appreciate it that none of my men has been charged. That’s good and I understand. You want to do a deal.’

Iben doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about. Obviously, if she has any chance of getting out of this, she must remain calm and tough. She can do it. She is able to stand still, without trembling, she is able to look him in the eye. ‘I’m pleased you think so.’

‘But you know what we want from you.’

‘Well, no … it could be quite a few different things.’

He winks. ‘Come on then. Let’s go to your flat and start your computer. And we’ll see what’s in it.’

He signals to his men, turns and starts to usher Iben in the direction of Malene’s flat.

‘All I need is to get my list of addresses back, along with my diary and all the back-up copies. Please. Then you’ll be free to go.’

As they walk, everything Iben has learned runs through her mind.

He apparently believes that Malene got hold of a computer disk that contained not only his address book but also information that would indict everyone whose name appears in it. Without their support, Zigic will no longer be able to escape the clutches of the War Crimes Tribunal. He will wait for the file as long as he believes that she has it. But as soon as he realises the truth, he will kill her. She’s well aware that he has raped and mutilated hundreds of victims until they told him everything they knew.