Three Dog Night (33 page)

‘My was different. She was very … innocent.'

They lay very still and he thought she had fallen asleep when suddenly she said: ‘What happened?'

‘What do you mean? To My?'

‘And to you? Why did you go to prison? It had something to do with her, didn't it?'

Her breathing came in short gasps and he could hear the question had been hard to ask. He supposed it had been like a barrier between them, as was always the case whenever the past and the present collided around him. He lay looking into the night for a long time before speaking.

He cast his mind back more than five years, to a distant day he still cursed for his inattentiveness. He and My had been sitting with his dog, Thor, at a pavement café in Grenå one summer. My drank juice, he recalled. She had been chatting away, enjoying the moment as only she could. He had to concentrate to keep up because My had a habit of speaking in codes and disjointed sentences. Thor was the most handsome and cleverest Alsatian in all the world. They sat there, a small family triangle of their own, unaware of the two men approaching. My gesticulated as she always did, completely at random. An arm would go up, then her bad leg would twitch and kick out at Thor, who shifted position. She was talking about a traffic accident she had seen on her way there on the bus. She was agitated in her usual intense way, savouring the drama.

‘She was talking about the cars that had crashed,' he said. ‘She knew exactly what make and colour they were. She was really excited about the yellow ambulance.'

He didn't dare ask if there were any casualties or fatalities. My's brain hadn't got that far. She was more interested in tangible facts about the cars.

‘Then the two guys entered the café. They were drunk and they sat down at the table next to us. Trouble was brewing.'

Peter carried on in short bursts. My hadn't noticed the men. She was lost in a world of her own, reeling off her impressions. Her excitement caused her legs to kick more than usual and she hit the man sitting closest.

‘He glared at her, but she didn't see it. Then he got up and stood right in front of her and shouted: “Shut your mouth, you stupid bitch.”'

‘My asked him a classic My question. She looked at the man and asked him in a puzzled tone: “Who are you?”

‘She had no sense of danger. The man asked whose business it was and My replied honestly, as she always did: “Mine”.

‘The situation got out of hand. The man pulled My by the hair. Thor growled and his hair bristled. The man's friend tried to drag him away. He succeeded, but as they left they threatened to come after us one day.

‘I thought it was just an empty threat,' Peter said. ‘But two days later they turned up at my house out here and they shot Thor.'

‘And then what happened?' Felix asked.

‘I had a hunting rifle. I had taken it out because Manfred and I were going hunting.'

The truth was on the tip of his tongue and he was tempted to tell her. But it wasn't an option, so he sighed into the night, knowing she might very well decide to leave him at this point.

‘The man I shot was called Hans Martin Krøll. He turned out to be the brother of a gang leader called Grimme. Grimme was already serving a sentence in Horsens Prison for a double murder when I was sent there. As a result it wasn't exactly a mini-break at Lalandia.'

He could feel her heart pounding against his body. It was contagious. Was she about to get up and leave him? Was this when he realised that the door to his new life was well and truly shut?

‘Some say you didn't pull the trigger,' she said.

‘Who is some? Who have you been talking to?'

‘Is it true?'

She might have been talking to Mark Bille. Or she might have worked it out for herself.

‘No,' he said. ‘No, it isn't.'

She snuggled up to him and muttered drowsily: ‘I thought you'd say that.'

They lay for a while without speaking. The dog stirred on the fleece. The air was dry and crackled with frost.

‘How did My die?' she asked quietly.

‘It's complicated.'

She lifted her face from his chest and simply looked at him.

‘Cato killed her,' he said. ‘He didn't mean to, but he always had a temper. It was an accident. He whacked her and she died. Then he tried to make it look like suicide by hanging her in a tree.'

‘Cato? From prison? Is that why you're no longer friends?'

He sighed. He couldn't begin to describe his wretched life and the ties that bound him to it. He couldn't even explain it to himself. So how would he be able to explain it to her?

He touched her hair. So soft against his skin.

‘That's one reason,' he said.

Dawn arrived in cold, purple colours. It had stopped snowing and the fresh snow on the cliff glittered like mother-of-pearl. The sea was the brightest shade of blue. There was a thin layer of hoarfrost on the duvet, but they were warm inside the sleeping bag. They made love again and afterwards she raised a hand to his face to feel his skin, as though she were blind.

‘I've been wondering what it would feel like,' she said.

‘And how does it feel?'

He held his breath, but sighed with relief when she said: ‘It feels good.'

They were interrupted by his mobile beside the dog's fleece. He could see from the number that it was Elisabeth.

‘Do you remember me telling you I was going to get a new tattoo?'

‘At Rollo's Kennel?'

She confirmed his recollection.

‘I asked him if he had ever tattooed a fleur-de-lis on a girl's thigh.'

‘And?'

‘He had. One day last autumn three girls came in and asked for identical tattoos.'

‘On the inside of their thighs?'

‘Yes. Exactly. A place no one sees. Or only a few. I just thought you should know.'

T
HE CAT WAS
dead. Someone had covered its mouth with gaffer tape and shoved a fat stick up its rectum. It must have been a dreadful death.

Kir only found it because she wanted to go for a walk around the barn to see the new roof from every angle, composing herself to face her mother. And there it was, on the dung heap, half-covered by a load of fresh manure tipped there after the previous day's snowstorm. Its ginger fur stood out against the brown pile. She carefully pulled it out by its front paws and saw the tragic sight. The cat's name was Georg, one of many cats on the farm and as such not irreplaceable. They were inured to cats dying from time to time. But this wasn't an accident and it made her go cold all over, even colder than the outside temperature, which was a biting minus seven.

She stroked the cat's fur as it lay there on the dung heap. It wasn't the first animal she had seen suffer a painful death on the farm, but it was a long time since the last one. Several years, in fact. She didn't like to think about it and had repressed the memory. But sometimes the memories would return, like now, when she remembered how another cat had died: with a piece of string tied around its front paws and another around its hind legs, it had been ripped apart while still alive. And years back – fifteen perhaps – there was the incident with the burned cockerel: someone had taken the cockerel from the hen coop, poured petrol over it and set it on fire. They discovered this when the small ball of fire ran screeching around the yard before falling down dead. Animal cruelty, said Kir, who threatened to go to the police. But her father called it a boyish prank and threw the cockerel on the dung heap with a shrug, making it quite clear that if any member of the family brought the police home, he never wanted to see them again.

Kir had no doubt his response would be the same this time as well. She stood for a while contemplating the cat, which was frozen solid. Then she turned and went back to the house, where she found her mother busy hoovering. For a moment she watched her mother from behind. She was wearing a checked casual skirt and a brown knitted jumper. Her back was broad and short; her arms moved in powerful sweeps; her legs, clad in thick nylon tights, were set in sturdy brogues.

Kir was muscular like her mother, but she had inherited her height and sinewy build from her father. Appearances, however, could be deceptive. From the back her mother looked like a robust farmer's wife, but when she turned around, her eyes revealed what her body was hiding: the permanent nervous twitch in her left eye, which always increased at times of tension; her habit of blinking in fear and beating a hasty retreat like a chastened dog; her expression of distrust, bordering on contempt, in the face of all kindness and love. Kir didn't remember her father ever hitting her mother, but she had often thought that it might have been easier to deal with if he had. Perhaps the threat of violence and humiliation was worse than the act itself. And threats had never been in short supply, both verbal and non-verbal.

‘Mum?'

It was the dog that made her mother turn around and notice her when it left its basket and went to greet Kir, wagging its tail. Her mother turned off the Hoover.

‘Is that you, Kirstine?'

As always, she sounded frightened. Last night's dinner had exhausted her and now her daughter had turned up two days on the trot. Kir forced herself to continue into the living room and ignore the sensation that the walls were trapping her in a spider's web.

‘Have you seen the cat?'

Her mother frowned and smoothed her skirt. For a moment they stood facing each other.

‘Is that why you're here?'

Kir shook her head.

‘Why don't we go into the kitchen? Where's Dad?'

‘He's gone to the DIY store to get some tools.'

Kir persuaded her mother to sit down at the long kitchen table. She put the kettle on and fetched some cups.

‘And Tomas?'

‘In the pig barn, I think. I don't know. What's wrong with the cat?'

Kir told her about Georg.

‘You really ought to contact the police.'

‘Your father'll get really angry. And it's too late now.'

That was how it always was. Too late, they'd say. It's already dead.

Kir made tea and left the pot to brew on the table.

‘It's not too late for the next cat.'

Her mum shuddered.

‘It probably won't happen again. Your dad says these things are just boyish pranks. All sorts of people live around here. It's hard to stop this kind of thing.'

In a way she was right. The farm bordered the forest where schools often went on trips, where, since time immemorial, boys had played cops and robbers or whatever they called their games. She herself had played in the forest with her friends from school. As had Tomas and Red.

‘Even so,' she insisted. ‘It's not the first time, is it?'

Once her mother had been a beautiful woman, Kir thought. Not film star looks, of course, but she'd had a luxuriant, full-bodied kind of beauty, curves which hadn't yet turned into a staunch, defensive corset. Her cheeks were as round as apples, her face was almost wrinkle-free and her eyes were dark blue like her own. Cut in a short, practical style and shaped like a soldier's helmet, her hair had in recent years gone from salt-and-pepper to completely white.

‘You haven't come here to talk about the cat, surely?'

Kir poured tea for both of them, asking herself what her plan really was and why she had come. Was she hoping to help Mark unravel any threads related to her own family? Or was this a final attempt to heal her family, to clear up all the misunderstandings and misdeeds and start afresh?

‘I didn't know you'd become a property investor.'

Her mother was startled.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Fredensgade twenty-seven is registered in your name.'

Her mother looked at her without seeing.

‘Have you been speaking to the police?'

Kir forced herself to ignore the implied threat, as she had done most of her life.

‘Of course I've spoken to the police. I'm working for the police on this case. And suddenly my mother's name appears on the deeds to a house where one of the victims lived.'

Her mother shook her head.

‘It means nothing.'

‘Everything in an investigation means something. What do you know? I'm perfectly aware that Dad is just using your name. What does he do with the property?'

Her mother brushed some crumbs from the table.

‘You know we hire seasonal workers every now and then.'

‘The Poles?'

An eye muscle twitched. The dark blue eyes focused on her. It was a nightmare. She'd dreaded facing a moment like this: having to choose between what was morally right and her loyalty to her family. She had always known the day would come.

‘This is a murder case, Mum, and I'm involved. Was it so that the Poles could have fun with prostitutes? Was that why Dad did it?'

Her mother looked away, down to where her wedding ring cut into her flesh on the left hand. There might never have been much love between her parents, but that ring meant more than every law in the whole wide world, and it wasn't just because of her father's regime of terror. It was so much more than that. It was about tradition and tribal identity. For better or worse, they were a farming family, united against the rest of society. You kept to yourself and stuck with your own.

They sat in silence for a while. Her mother's mouth had tightened and Kir knew perfectly well that she wouldn't get any more answers to her questions today. She felt exhausted as she always did after a confrontation. This was followed by a longing for the little closeness they had once shared. This dreadful longing would be the death of her.

‘Can you remember the days when we went to the beach in the summer, Mum, the whole family?'

It happened so seldom, maybe once a year. That was probably why she remembered so well and why she cherished the memories of those days as if they were precious stones she had found in the sand.