The Purity of Vengeance (21 page)

“Well done.”

“Yes, she was a fine girl. So very Nordic. She’ll have a lovely child, a credit to the country.”

Beate smiled. “And what’s next? Something completely different, I shouldn’t wonder. Did Dr. Lønberg refer the patients out there in the waiting room?”

“That obvious, is it?” He smiled. “Yes, he did. Lønberg’s still a good man for us. Fifteen cases in just four months. Your scouts are always so very efficient, my dear.”

 • • • 

Fifteen minutes later the door of the consulting room opened as Curt sat reading the referral. He glanced up at the couple who entered and nodded a friendly greeting, comparing what he saw to what was written on the paper in his hand.

The accompanying description was brief, though no less vivid on that account.

Mother, Camilla Hansen, 38 yrs, 5 wks pregnant
, it began.
Six children by four different men. Welfare recipient. Five of children receiving remedial education, eldest currently institutionalized. Father of unborn child, Johnny Huurinainen, 25 yrs, welfare recipient, three times sentenced for offenses against property, drug abuser receiving methadone treatment. Neither parent educated beyond statutory minimum.

Camilla Hansen presenting with pain during urination. Cause: chlamydia, patient not yet informed.

Suggest surgical intervention.

Curt nodded to himself. A good man indeed, this Lønberg.

He raised his head and considered the dismal couple in front of him.

Like an insect whose only purpose was to breed, the pregnant woman sat in the chair, overweight, fidgeting for want of a cigarette, hair greasy and unkempt, confident in the assumption that he would help her give birth to yet another utterly useless runt of the kind she had already given life to six times before. That he would allow new individuals of the same miserable genetic inheritance to populate the streets of the country’s capital. But he would not. Not if he could help it.

He smiled at them, a gesture met only by vacant expressions and appallingly maintained teeth. Not even a decent smile could they muster. It was pathetic.

“I understand you’re having trouble when you go to the toilet, Camilla. Let’s have a look, shall we? You can sit in the waiting room, Johnny. I’m sure my wife will bring you a nice cup of coffee if you want one.”

“I’d rather have a Coke,” he said.

Curt smiled. He could have his Coke. He could have five or six, and by the time he’d drunk them Camilla would be done. She would be tearful because the doctor had seen no option but to perform a D&C, but happily ignorant of the fact that it would be the last time she’d be needing one.

17

November 2010

Once Carl had got
over the shock of a coin with his fingerprints on it having been found in the festering remains of a corpse, he gave Laursen a friendly squeeze on the arm and asked to be tipped off if he happened to get wind of similar information. Anything that might be of interest. New forensic leads the department conceivably wanted Carl to remain in the dark about, or snippets of information people might inadvertently let slip. Whatever it was, Carl wanted to be kept in the know.

“Where’s Marcus?” he asked Lis, down on the third floor.

“Briefing a couple of the units,” was all she said. Was she avoiding his gaze, or was it his paranoia kicking in?

Then she lifted her head and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Did you get that goose stuffed all right last night, Carl?” she asked, with a grin that would have been censored by the film board back in the fifties.

Good sign. If all she was interested in was whether or not he got off, the rumor of the coin with his prints on it probably wasn’t the talk of the department yet.

He barged into the briefing room, ignoring the thirty-odd eyes that latched onto him like leeches.

“Sorry about this, Marcus,” he announced to the pale and weary man with the raised eyebrows, loudly enough to make sure everyone heard him. “But as I understand it there are certain matters we need to address before things get out of hand.”

He turned to the assembled faces. A number of them were visibly marked by recent days of nasal discharge and sprinting to the lavatory, sunken-cheeked and bleary-eyed, and rather aggressive-looking.

“There’s a rumor going round as to my involvement in the Amager shooting that puts me in a bad light. So I’m saying this now, and then I want no more of it, all right? I haven’t the faintest idea why coins with our prints on them—mine and Anker’s—happened to be in the pockets of that corpse out there. But if you put those fever-ridden brains of yours to use, you’ll realize it’s more than likely because you were intended to find them if and when the body turned up. Get the drift?”

He looked around the assembly. It would be an exaggeration to say the response was overwhelming. “OK. We agree the body could just as well have been buried somewhere else, yeah? And whoever buried it could have just dumped it straight in the ground as it was. But they didn’t, did they? Which indicates they weren’t
that
bothered if we found it and dug it up again, because then the investigation would be focused on all the wrong things, wouldn’t it?”

His audience remained nonplussed.

“For Chrissake, I know you’ve all been wondering what the fuck happened out there and why I’ve kept well out of it since then.” He looked straight at Terje Ploug, who was seated in the third row. “But listen, Ploug, the reason I don’t want to be doing with that case is because I’m ashamed of what happened, OK? And if you only stopped to think, you’d realize that’s why Hardy’s laid out in my living room now. That’s
my
way of dealing with it, OK? I’m not leaving Hardy in the lurch this time, but I will concede I may have botched up that day in Amager.”

A couple of investigators now shifted uneasily on their chairs. Maybe it was a sign that something was beginning to dawn. On the other hand, it could just be hemorrhoids. Bloody public servants, you could never tell.

“One last thing. What do you think it’s like, having your best mates piled on top of you all of a sudden with blood gushing out of them, and then realizing you’ve just been shot yourself? I reckon you should have a ponder about that. Suffice to say it fucks you up.”

“No one’s accusing you of anything, Carl,” said Ploug. A reaction at last. “Anyway, that’s not what we’re here to discuss.”

Carl scanned the room. What was going on in those thick heads of theirs? Several of them couldn’t stand the sight of him, he knew that. It was mutual, too. Bloody morons.

“Right, then. In that case, I suggest that from now on you lot keep your shit-spouting mouths shut and think before you fucking open them again. End of fucking message!”

He slammed the door so hard that it echoed through the building, and he didn’t break stride until he flung himself down on his chair in the basement, fumbling for a match to light the cigarette that trembled between his lips.

They’d found a coin with his prints on it in the pocket of a corpse, and he had no idea how it had got there or why. What a pile of shit.

His thoughts churned. Why, why, why? It was impossible for him to turn his back on the case now. The mere thought of it made him feel sick.

He inhaled deeply through clenched teeth and felt his heartbeat rocket again. Think about something else, he told himself. No way did he want to find himself writhing on the floor again with pains in his chest that could do away with hardier men than him.

“Switch focus,” he muttered under his breath, closing his eyes.

Right now there was one person more deserving than any other of being flattened by the tornado that raged inside him, and that person was Bak.

“I’ll teach you, you fucking twat,” he growled, searching for his number.

“What are you doing, Carl, sitting alone here talking to yourself?” said Assad from the doorway. The man had so many furrows in his brow, his face looked like a washboard.

“Nothing for you to worry about, Assad. I’m about to give Bak the bollocking of his life for the shite he’s been spreading round the place about me.”

“I think you should listen to this first, Carl. I’ve just been on the phone to a man called Nielsen from the police academy. I talked to him about Rose.”

What a bloody time to pick. Just when he’d got himself worked up into a nicely constructive rage. Was it just going to fizzle out?

“All right, tell me, if it can’t wait. What did he say?”

“When Rose came to us the first time, do you remember Marcus Jacobsen telling us she was not a police officer, because she failed her exams and drove a car like a blind man with no arms?”

“Something like that, Assad, yeah. So what?”

“It is true that she was no good at driving. Nielsen said she turned over on a bend and smashed three very fine vehicles to figurines.”

“I think that’d be
smithereens
, Assad. But pretty impressive, all the same. Three, you say?”

“Yes. The one she was in, the instructor’s from the training facility, and one more that was in the way.”

Carl tried to picture the scene. “Pretty good going, that. I don’t reckon we should lend her the keys to the pool car for the time being, though,” he grunted.

“That’s not all, Carl. Rose had her Yrsa turn up in the middle of it all. With the cars still upside down.”

Carl sensed his jaw drop, but the words that came out of his mouth were beyond his control: “Holy jackpot!” he spluttered, unsure of what it meant. If Rose had morphed into her twin-sister alter ego Yrsa in that situation, it certainly wasn’t for the fun of it. It meant she’d completely lost touch with base.

“OK, not so good. What did the instructors at the academy do about it?”

“They had a psychologist take a look at her. By that time she was Rose again.”

“Good grief, Assad, have you spoken to Rose about this? And please say no.”

Assad gave him a look of disappointment. Of course he hadn’t.

“There’s more, Carl. She had an office job at Station City before coming to us. Do you remember what Brandur Isaksen said about her?”

“Vaguely. Something about her reversing into a colleague’s car, and then something else about her destroying some important documents.”

“Yes, and about drinking.”

“Yeah, she shagged a couple of her colleagues at a Christmas do that got out of hand. Brandur, that little puritan, told me to be wary about giving her alcohol.”

For a brief moment Carl’s thoughts went back longingly to the Lis he’d known before she met that Frank bloke of hers. In her case he reckoned a bit of a frolic at the Christmas do wouldn’t be half bad. He smiled to himself.

“Brandur was just jealous of the blokes Rose had cast her oddly cloaked womanhood upon, don’t you think? Anyway, what Rose does at a Christmas party is her own concern and that of whoever else happens to be involved. Nothing to do with Brandur, me, or anyone else, surely?”

“I don’t know anything about Christmas dos, Carl, or any other spicy matters. But I do know that when Rose did what she did at that party, she was all of a sudden Yrsa again. I just spoke to two people from Station City, and everyone remembers it.” Assad raised his eyebrows. Carl took it to mean “What do you think of
that
?”

“She most definitely was not Rose, that much is certain, because she spoke in a different voice and behaved quite differently, they said. Perhaps there is even a third person inside her,” Assad mused, his words trailing away as his eyebrows plunged again.

The idea was mind-boggling. A third personality? Christ on a bike!

Carl sensed that the steam had gone from the bollocking he’d planned for Børge Bak. The feeling riled him. The twat deserved all that was coming to him.

“Do we know what’s actually wrong with her?” he asked.

“She has never been admitted to the hospital, Carl, if that’s what you mean. But I’ve taken down the number of Rose’s mother, so maybe you can ask her.”

“Rose’s mother?” Assad certainly wasn’t daft. Straight to the heart of the matter, why not?

“Good idea, Assad. Why don’t you call her yourself?”

“Because . . .” He gave Carl a pleading look. “Because I just don’t want to, that’s all. If Rose finds out, it will be better if it’s you she’s angry with, OK?”

Carl threw up his hands in resignation. This was apparently one of those days over which he had no control whatsoever.

He reached out for the number Assad handed him and gestured for his assistant to leave him to it, dialed the number, and waited. It was a phone number from the good old days with a 45-prefix. Lyngby or Virum, as far as he remembered.

It may have been a crap day, but at least his call was answered.

“Yrsa Knudsen,” said the voice at the other end.

Carl didn’t believe his own ears. “Yrsa?” For a moment he was in doubt, until he heard Rose call out to Assad farther down the corridor. So she was still there. “Er, yes, I’m sorry,” he went on. “This is Carl Mørck, Rose’s boss. Is this Rose’s mother?”

“I hope not.” She laughed, a deep, resounding laugh. “No, I’m her sister.”

This was a turn-up. So Rose really did have a sister called Yrsa? The voice sounded fairly close to Rose’s interpretation of Yrsa’s, but was different nonetheless.

“Rose’s twin sister?”

“No.” Yrsa laughed again. “There aren’t any twins among us, but we’re four sisters in all.”

“Four?” Carl spluttered, perhaps rather too audibly.

“Yeah. Rose, me, Vicky, and Lise-Marie.”

“Four sisters . . . and Rose is the eldest. I had no idea.”

“There’s only a year between us. Mum and Dad tried to get it all over with as quickly as possible, but when no boys appeared, Mumsy eventually decided to stick a cork in it.” She guffawed, a throaty cackle that could have been Rose any day.

“I see. Well, I’m sorry, but the reason I was calling was to speak to your mother. Would that be OK? Is she there?”

“I’m afraid not. Mum hasn’t been home in over three years. Her new bloke’s apartment on the Costa del Sol suits her better, apparently.” She laughed again. The jolly type, it seemed.