Three Dog Night (11 page)

Only then was she able to point the torch at the water. But the image had seared itself on her retina. Nina Bjerre's face was blood and pulp with no skin. In some places white bones stuck out. It was as if someone had taken a very sharp knife and carved a mask.

Kir put down the torch and bent forward to zip up the bag again. At that moment she saw the Falck hearse pull up on the quay.

‘J
UST STAY HERE.
You're not well.'

‘I'm fine.'

Peter could clearly see the effort it took Felix to stagger downstairs and head for the front door. He blocked her path.

‘Don't be so stubborn. You were weak even before you were attacked.'

She tried to shove him aside. Her strength was no match for the effort required and he barely felt her push to the chest.

‘You can't keep me locked up here. Get out of my way.'

She refused to look him in the eye. He guessed she couldn't. She was incapable of focusing and in far worse shape than he had at first thought.

‘I'm not going to lock you in my house. But you need help.'

He put out a hand as she wobbled and reached for the door handle.

‘That burglar gave you a real bang on the head.'

She shook him off.

‘My life's none of your business.'

‘But my life appears to be yours. You invited yourself into my house.'

‘So now you're in charge, are you?'

The duality returned. Her mouth pushed him away with words, but her gaze and her trembling body were begging for his help.

‘I'm going home.'

She pushed him again with strength she didn't have and consequently tired herself even more in the process. She opened the door and stepped out into the cold. He knew she wouldn't make it home and quickly put on his boots. It was completely dark now, but the snow and the moon made it possible to see across to her house.

‘Here. Take my arm,' he offered as they crossed the yard in the snow covering the ice. She stubbornly continued to refuse his help. A moment later she slipped and fell, then lay in the snow, exhausted, lifeless.

‘Felix? Can you hear me?'

There was no reaction. She remained there, very still, as if asleep. A naughty child, a defiant teenager, a haughty woman; he didn't know which was worst. He lifted her up and carried her back to his house. He put her on the sofa and covered her with a blanket. She half-woke and he managed to get two spoonfuls of soup down her. She looked at him through blurred eyes.

‘Ramses,' she mumbled.

‘What about him?'

‘I knew him.'

‘You?
You
knew him?'

‘Yes.'

She said nothing more, just closed her eyes again. Peter called the doctor, Johannes Holm, who lived in Grenå, but who arrived forty-five minutes later. He took his time over the examination while Peter looked for some liquids to tempt her with.

‘She's malnourished, her blood pressure is far too low, she has a chest infection and she's concussed.'

Johannes Holm packed away his stethoscope and put it in his medical bag. He peered at Peter over the rim of his glasses and looked exactly what he was: a provincial doctor with plenty of experience and common sense. He was wearing sensible boots and had arrived wearing a green loden coat and a stripy scarf. He had hung his outdoor clothes over a chair, and now he was sitting on a stool next to the sofa, in corduroy trousers and a practical sweater, gentle blue eyes behind his glasses.

‘It's quite straightforward. She either needs to be admitted to hospital or looked after by someone who'll ensure she eats, drinks and gets plenty of rest. She's lost a frightening amount of weight. Has she got any family?'

‘No idea. I don't know her.'

‘Then I suggest we admit her to hospital, eh?'

A hand shot out and grabbed the doctor's arm.

‘No hospital.'

They were her first words since the doctor had been there. Peter could see her fragile fingers clinging to the sleeve of his sweater.

‘No hospital,' Felix repeated, her eyes open and looking straight at Peter.

Dr Holm looked at Peter, too. Peter nodded, even though something inside him protested.

‘OK. What do I need to do?'

The doctor rose and took him to one side.

‘She seems traumatised. Has she said anything?'

‘She told me a little about an accident. She was the sole survivor.'

‘Make her talk, tell you about herself. And above all, get some liquid inside her. Soup, milk. Something nutritious. No coffee, tea or alcohol.'

He took his medical bag and removed a flat box containing a small blister pack.

‘Antibiotics. Two tablets three times a day, preferably taken with some bread and milk. And here's a sedative – as and when it's needed. I'll be back tomorrow. Can you cope?'

They went back a long way. Dr Holm knew his history and all about his kidney disease. Peter and Manfred had built the doctor's new conservatory and were also acquainted with Mrs. Holm, a friendly lady who suffered from sclerosis.

‘Try to find out the names of family or friends so they can take over.'

‘What about substance abuse?' Peter asked. ‘Any sign of that?'

The last thing he needed was a junkie in the house. He had experienced that once too often.

‘None at all. I think for some reason she has gone as far as she can. Her system has broken down. Keep her sedated with the tablets and be there for her. Fluids and food, little and often. As much as she can keep down.'

‘Is this anything to do with her scars?'

The doctor looked across at Felix, who seemed lost to the world.

‘I think the worst scars are internal.'

He patted Peter on the shoulder on his way out. ‘Good luck.'

He cast a final glance at the patient and said in a low voice: ‘If there's no improvement by tomorrow, I'll hook her to a drip.'

It was a long and restless night. Felix slept most of the time, but now and then she would wake up or seem to have some sort of hallucination.

Whenever she opened her eyes, he tried to get some soup down her. He had found some more sachets of soup and had added an egg. The first time she vomited everything up again, all over his trousers and herself. He had washed her, taken a mattress upstairs and put fresh linen on the duvet and pillow. He would sleep on the sofa.

He watched her as she slept, curled up like an exhausted child, her skin glistening, her eyelids and mouth quivering. Presently she woke up, raving and sweating so profusely that he had to change the bed linen and remove her clothes again. Her fragile naked body revealed that her stomach was slightly bloated, a sign of the malnutrition the doctor had diagnosed. She looked like a Third World child. He managed to get a little more soup down her, then carried her to the toilet, where she swayed as she relieved herself. Afterwards he washed her again, wrapped her in a bath towel and carried her back to the mattress, where she instantly went back to sleep, but soon woke up, her teeth chattering, shaking with fever.

He found her a T-shirt from the wardrobe. It seemed seven sizes too big, and she stared at him with her dark, round eyes, and he didn't know whether she hated him or was grateful for his concern. In any case, she was too weak to react, and at length he lay down next to her on the mattress, holding her in his arms, aware now, if not before, how thin and weakened she was.

In the morning she was sleeping soundly, temperature-free at last, and he let her sleep while he drove into town to buy some groceries.

On his return, she woke up and he fed her tomato soup and noodles. For the first time she seemed both lucid and hungry.

‘What's going on?'

‘You're ill. The doctor's coming back today.'

‘There's nothing wrong with me.'

Obediently, she opened her mouth for a spoonful of soup and swallowed with a visible movement in her throat.

‘He says you're traumatised. What happened in the accident?'

She tightened her lips. Her eyes widened with panic.

‘Felix?'

She pushed the spoon away and hot soup splashed all over her. She started to sweat and shake, as if her fever had returned. Her head whirred from side to side.

‘Nothing. Nothing,' she repeated.

He put his arms around her and pulled her close. Her heart was pounding; her entire body was in overdrive. He fumbled with his hand and found the blister pack with the sedatives and pressed out one tablet.

‘Here. This'll help.'

She shook her head.

‘Come on. Open wide.'

She looked at him with wild eyes, tears streaming. He cradled her as she sobbed, then he tried again.

‘Here.'

This time she dutifully opened her mouth and he put the pill on her tongue and passed her a glass of water. She drank all of it and looked at him through blurry eyes.

‘Nothing,' she repeated.

He stroked her hair. It was smooth and sweaty.

‘It's OK. We'll talk about it later.'

The panic returned to her eyes. She tried to get up, but fell back into the duvet again. Beads of sweat were forming on her upper lip. Could he really cope with this? He hoped the pill would take effect quickly and Dr Holm would soon be here to take over.

‘I want to go home.'

‘You can't manage on your own.'

‘I don't care.'

‘I can't just let you give up. I should take you to hospital.'

‘No hospital,' she mumbled.

‘They can take care of you much better.'

‘Please let me stay here.'

She was begging now. This was his chance.

‘Only if you promise to do as you're told and eat. Food and pills,' he said, trying to sound strict.

She stared into space for a long time, then nodded, and he could see how much strength this simple movement cost her. She was a wreck. A lovely one, but a wreck all the same. He discovered that he no longer wished her gone.

‘Food and pills,' she repeated.

‘And you have to talk to me. The doctor says it's good for you to talk about what happened.'

‘No …'

She started to grow limp in his arms.

‘I can't …'

‘What is it you can't do, Felix?'

She shook her head. Her eyes seemed to become more and more vacant.

‘What about Ramses? You said you knew him?'

She tried to say something, but failed. Her eyes stared wildly round the room, then up at the ceiling, before closing completely. Her head slumped against his shoulder and he carefully leaned forward. He let go of her, and her thin arms flopped to the sides. He placed them on top of the duvet and sat for a while holding her hand in his. It was warm, moist and fragile.

He stroked her cheek.

P
ETER CALLED
M
ANFRED
to say he wouldn't be turning up and explained he had to look after his neighbour, who had fallen ill, but that he would try to get to work on the following day. Then he sneaked the keys out of Felix's jacket, checked she was still fast asleep, put on his coat and went over to her house.

He had told himself that he needed to get her some fresh clothes. Underwear, socks, hopefully some warm cotton nightclothes and a couple of sweaters. He let himself in and recognised her scent immediately, the distinctive perfume that had lingered in his nostrils since he first met her on the cliff. The scent mixed with other smells: sweat, sea, seaweed and the normal fug.

He looked in the fridge and kitchen cupboards and found only a packet of crackers, some mouldy rye bread, tinned food and salami well past its sell-by date. There were also some porridge oats and pasta, but there was no sign that anyone ever used the pots and pans, which hung from hooks on the wall, covered in dust. Ironically, a large cookbook was lying on the kitchen table. Spanish cuisine. There were plenty of photos of delicious dishes, as if she had been trying to tempt her appetite with the sight of air-dried ham, olives, prawns in garlic, various types of paella and a range of delicious cheeses.

In the sitting room, her duvet was on the sofa and there were biscuit crumbs on the coffee table and also on the duvet when he lifted it up to carry it back to her bedroom. It smelled of her, of her body and her hair.

In the bedroom, he pulled out drawers and opened cupboards, then packed some clothes into a bag that had been flung into a corner. Then he stopped and looked around. The place was far too impersonal – it was as if she didn't want anyone to see anything other than a blank canvas.

He returned to the sitting room. But then again, she had only lived here for a month. She must have come from somewhere. She probably kept her personal things elsewhere; a flat in town, possibly. And, he assumed, she must have had a job of some sort.

He noticed a door he hadn't opened yet. It was locked. He took out her keys and tried several until he found one that fitted. The lock clicked open and he pushed the door.

It was a small boxroom, shrouded in darkness. He fumbled for a light switch but couldn't find one. Then he spotted a lamp on the desk, turned it on and recoiled in surprise.

It was a kind of shrine, he thought. A room to commemorate the past, perhaps her history, the one she had forgotten or was trying to forget.

Dazed, he looked around. All four walls were covered in photos stuck randomly one on top of the other, along with newspaper and magazine cuttings. There didn't appear to be any overall system. The photos and the texts were intended to speak for themselves, as if they had been put up precisely to help jog someone's memory.

Felix had said that she didn't remember anything about the accident, but everything that could prompt her memory was here. He read the headlines, one after the other in bold black print above columns of text and the same photo of a small girl with plaits and a big smile, again and again.

‘Famous businessman and six-year-old daughter killed in helicopter crash,' one headline ran.