The Purity of Vengeance (12 page)

The timber outlet on Ryesgade promised delivery the next day. It suited her well, for circumstances demanded she wait no longer.

And when everything had been brought up into the apartment, the room was insulated and the joinery completed during the day while her downstairs neighbor was at work and the woman in the adjoining apartment was out shopping or traipsing round the city lakes with her little Tibetan rug pisser of a Lhasa apso.

No one was to hear what was going on in the flat to the left on the fourth floor. No one was to see her with a hammer or a saw. No one was to appear with prying questions, for she had lived anonymously in the apartment for two years now and intended to go on doing so until the end of her days.

No matter what else she was planning.

 • • • 

When the room was finished she stood in the doorway and admired her work. The ceiling had been the difficult part to insulate and clad, but also the most important along with the door and the floor, which she had raised and insulated with two layers of plastic sheeting and thick slabs of mineral wool. Then she had adjusted the door so it could still be opened inward, even though she had laid carpet over the new flooring.

Apart from the difference in floor level compared with the hallway, there was absolutely nothing that called attention to itself. The room was ready. Joins filled, walls and ceiling painted, chunky weather stripping around the doors and windows. The furnishings were arranged exactly as before: the same pictures on the walls, the same knickknacks on the windowsills, and of course the dining table in the middle with its lace tablecloth and six chairs. Her own chair, the one with the armrests, she placed at the head of the table.

She turned to the plant in the window and rubbed one of its leaves gently between her fingers. The smell was pungent, though not unpleasant. It was this smell of henbane that made her feel safe.

 • • • 

All the girls of Sprogø whispered about Gitte Charles when she arrived with the mail boat in the summer of 1956. Some said she was a trained nurse, but it wasn’t at all true. An auxiliary, perhaps, but not fully qualified, for besides the matron, none of the staff on the island had any formal training whatsoever. But Nete already knew that.

The new arrival caused a stir, and the reason was the girls now had something pretty to look at. Swinging her arms coquettishly, striding along with a gait some said reminded them of Greta Garbo, Gitte Charles was in a league of her own. Nothing at all like the other miserable old crones who were either spinsters, divorcees, or widows, and for that reason had felt obliged to seek employment in this diabolical place.

Gitte Charles carried herself proudly. She was blonde like Nete, her hair alluringly put up in a fashion not even the matron allowed herself. Feminine and with a spring in her step, the kind of woman Nete and many of the others dreamed of becoming.

The girls cast envious, in some cases libidinous, glances in the direction of Gitte Charles, but soon they discovered that behind the delicate exterior, a demon lurked. And apart from Rita, they kept their distance.

When Charles, as they called her, grew weary of Rita’s company, she turned her blue eyes on Nete, promising to ease her daily burdens, offering security and perhaps even the chance of getting away from the island altogether.

It all depended on how nice Nete was to Charles. And Charles let her know that should Nete ever happen to let the cat out of the bag as to what the two of them had together, she would do well never to drink anything ever again if she wanted to go on living. Because who knew if there might be henbane in her cup?

With this abominable threat, Charles introduced Nete to henbane and its ghastly properties.

“
Hyoscyamus niger
,” she said, dramatically and deliberately, so as to emphasize the gravity of the matter. The name alone made Nete shudder.

“They say witches used it for their flying ointment,” Charles went on. “And when they were caught, the priests and persecutors used the same plant to dull the witches’ senses during their torture. “Witches’ Herb,” they called it, so a person should be cautious indeed. Perhaps it would be better to do as I say, don’t you think?”

Nete came to heel and remained there for months, and the time was in every way her worst on Sprogø.

When Nete looked out over the sea she saw waves that could not only carry her away from the island to freedom, but also pull her down. Down into the darkness where no one would ever find her or do her harm again.

 • • • 

The seeds of the henbane plant were the only thing Nete took with her from Sprogø when she finally left the island. Nothing more, after four years of toil and torment.

Much later, after qualifying as a laboratory assistant, she heard of monastery excavations where centuries-old henbane seed had been activated, and immediately she planted her own seeds in a pot and set it in a sunny spot.

Presently a healthy green plant appeared like a reincarnation to greet her, as if it were an old friend who’d been gone a long time and had now returned.

For some years it had flourished in the soil of Havngaard, and the plant that now stood in the window of her Nørrebro apartment was directly descended from those original seeds. She had dried the plants and stored them with the clothes she wore on the day she finally returned to freedom. They were relics of a bygone age. Leaves, seed capsules, desiccated stalks, and the moistureless remnants of what had once been the loveliest white flowers with dark veins and a gleaming red eye in the middle. She had gathered two bags of the plant’s various parts and knew exactly how to use them.

Perhaps it had been henbane and its unrevealed secrets that had prompted Nete to continue her studies and become a biology lab technician. Perhaps it was what made her immerse herself in chemistry.

Whatever the reason, with her upgraded knowledge of substances and their effects on the human body she was more able to comprehend what a singularly lethal implement nature had allowed to grow so freely in Sprogø’s earth.

After a few experiments she succeeded in producing extracts of the three most important active ingredients of the plant in her kitchen on the fourth floor, and she tested the results on herself in tiny, mild doses.

The hyoscyamine made her constipated and dried up her saliva; small bumps appeared on her face and in her mouth, and her heart became strangely arrhythmic, without actually making her ill.

She feared the scopolamine more. She knew just fifty milligrams was a lethal dose. Even in the smallest amounts, scopolamine was highly soporific and at the same time a euphoriant. No wonder it had been used as a truth serum during World War II. A person with scopolamine in their blood became oblivious to whatever they might say in the dreamy, somnolent state the substance induced.

And then there was the atropine, a colorless crystalline alkaloid found in all plants of the nightshade family. Maybe Nete hadn’t been as careful ingesting this as she had with the two other substances. In any case, it impaired both her vision and her ability to speak, caused a fever and flushes, made her skin burn, and gave her hallucinations that very nearly delivered her into unconsciousness.

There was little doubt that a cocktail of these three ingredients would be lethal if sufficiently concentrated. Nete knew what would happen if she heated them up together and boiled away ninety-five percent of the water.

Thus, she now held a sizable bottle of henbane extract in her hands, with all the windows steamed up and the air inside the apartment heavy with its bitter smell.

All that remained was to find the right dosage for the right body.

 • • • 

Nete had not used her husband’s computer since she moved in. Why should she? There was no one to write to, nothing to write about, no accounts to be kept, no business correspondence to conduct. No spread-sheets or word processing. Those days were gone.

But that Thursday in August 1987 she switched on the computer and listened to its whirring as the screen slowly became green. A tingling sensation ran through her body, and her stomach knotted with apprehension.

When the letters were written and sent there would be no turning back. The path of Nete’s life was narrowing and would come to a dead end. That was how she looked at it, and it was how she wanted it to be.

She wrote several drafts of the letter she would send, but the final version was this:

COPENHAGEN, THURSDAY 27 AUGUST 1987

Dear . . .

Many years have passed since we last saw each other. Years I can proudly say have slowly evolved into an agreeable and gratifying life.

Throughout this time I have reflected upon my destiny and have come to the conclusion that events of the past were unavoidable and now, at the end of the day, I finally realize that I was not without blame for their occurrence.

Whatever took place then, whatever harsh words were spoken, whatever misunderstandings occurred, I am no longer tormented. In fact, quite the contrary. Looking back provides me with peace of mind and the knowledge that I survived it all, and now is the time for reconciliation.

As you may know from the press, I was for some years married to Andreas Rosen, and my husband’s inheritance has made me a very wealthy woman.

Now fate has decreed that I undergo hospital treatment. Regrettably, I have been diagnosed as suffering from an incurable illness, for which reason the time I have left for what follows is short indeed.

Since I have been unable to give birth to children who might inherit my estate, I have now decided to share my wealth with some of the individuals I have encountered for better or worse on my journey through life.

Thus I would hereby like to invite you to come to my home address at Peblinge Dossering 32, Copenhagen, on

FRIDAY 4 SEPTEMBER at . . .

For the occasion, my lawyer will be present to ensure that the sum of 10 million kroner be transferred to you. Naturally, this gift is subject to taxation by the authorities, but the lawyer will instruct you further on this matter, so you have no reason for concern.

I feel certain that, following these proceedings, we shall be able to speak freely of times past. Sadly, my future has little to offer. However, I would be highly appreciative of the opportunity to perhaps make comfortable your own. Such occasion would indeed give me pleasure and peace of mind.

I realize this comes at short notice, but regardless of whatever plans you might have for the day in question, I am certain you will find it worth your while to make the journey here.

I would ask you to bring this invitation with you and to arrive promptly at the time indicated, since the lawyer has been given a rather busy schedule that day.

I enclose 2,000 kroner in the form of a crossed check in order to meet your travel expenses.

I look forward to seeing you again in the conviction that our meeting will be beneficial to us both.

Yours faithfully,

Nete Hermansen

It was a good letter, she decided, and saved it in six versions, each with a different name and appointment time, after which she printed them out and added her signature at the bottom. A meticulous, confident signature, not at all the kind the recipients had previously seen from her hand.

Six letters. Curt Wad, Rita Nielsen, Gitte Charles, Tage Hermansen, Viggo Mogensen, and Philip Nørvig. For a moment she considered writing to her two surviving brothers, only to dismiss the notion. They’d been so young at the time and had hardly known her. Besides, they were at sea when it happened, and Mads, their older brother, had died. No, they couldn’t be blamed for anything.

So now there were six envelopes in front of her. By rights there should have been nine, but she knew death had stolen a march on her on three occasions, and those particular chapters had already been closed by time.

Her schoolmistress, the consultant physician, and the matron from Sprogø were already gone. They were the ones who got away. Three people for whom it would have been the easiest thing in the world to show mercy. Or perhaps rather to let justice prevail. All three committed grievous wrongs and made terrible mistakes, and all three went through life staunchly believing the opposite to be true: that their work and their lives had benefited not only society, but also the poor individuals in their charge.

And this in particular preyed on Nete’s mind. Preyed on her mind and tormented her.

 • • • 

“Nete, come with me,” the schoolmistress snarled. And when Nete hesitated she dragged her by the ear all the way round to the back of the building so that dust whirled in their wake.

“You contemptible little monster. You silly, half-witted child, how dare you?” she spat, striking Nete in the face with a bony hand. And when Nete yelled back at her with tears in her eyes and demanded to know why she was being punished, the mistress struck her again.

She looked around her as she lay on the ground with the incensed figure standing over her. It occurred to her that her dress would be dirty now, and that her father would be sorry on account that it had cost him so much money. She tried to shield herself and wished only to be consumed by the apple blossom that fluttered from the trees, the song of the skylark that chirped high above them, the cheerful laughter of her schoolmates on the other side of the building.