Dead Souls

by Elsebeth Egholm

  Back in the house with the dog, he looked at his watch again. The external inspection had taken fifteen minutes. He had fifteen minutes left. He spent them checking all the internal locks. All the chains, bolts and locks were set on all the windows and doors on the ground floor. He switched off the lights downstairs and outside. Then he went upstairs with the dog.

  He was still wearing his heavy boots. Now he put on his bulletproof vest under his camouflage jacket. He knelt down and pushed aside one of the low bookcases. His book collection had grown steadily in recent years as Manfred and he read extensively and discussed literary classics together.

  He opened the secret room in the space under the sloping roof by pushing a spring lock on the right-hand corner of the hidden panel. He took out a fabric bag containing a hunting rifle which he had bought from one of Matti’s connections. Peter was disqualified from owning or handling firearms, but he had regarded the purchase of the rifle as essential nevertheless. The police couldn’t or wouldn’t protect him. They didn’t have the resources either, and he preferred to rely on himself. To that end he needed a weapon and he had chosen this rifle.

  He put five cartridges in the magazine and pushed forward the bolt. He heard the click as the first cartridge slid into the chamber. He put the box of ammunition on the table. Then he picked up the night scope and attached it to the barrel. He turned off all the lights upstairs, opened the two south-facing eaves windows and left the balcony door open. This was the advantage of living in a house on the shore of the Kattegat. The enemy would not be arriving from the sea.

  He positioned himself at the window overlooking the lane and waited with the rifle resting on the window sill, his senses fully alert.

  The darkness had deepened. The world was at rest, but the quiet felt ominous.

  Finally, he heard them. He couldn’t distinguish the sound of one Harley from another and had to take Cato’s word for how many there were. He tensed every muscle and leaned against the window. The dog growled from his place on the fleece in the corner.

  He counted the seconds. The engine noise rose steadily. The air started to quiver.

  Then the bell rang and the vibrator by the door started humming. They were one hundred metres from his cottage.

  He took the remote control out of his pocket and held it at the ready. Now he could see them through the night scope. The six motorbikes calmly moved closer. Ninety metres. Eighty metres. Seventy-five metres. He had his finger on the button. At fifty metres he pressed. Puff and up went one as a spark ignited the petrol. The rider at the front was turned into a living fireball and rocked from side to side. Peter pressed the remote control again and the same thing happened. Now there were two fireballs in the summer night.

  The engines came to an abrupt halt. He could hear agitated voices, but couldn’t make out what was being said. However, he could see everything from the window in the glare of the fire. The four remaining bikers tried desperately to save their colleagues, rolling them around on the ground and stamping out the flames. The two bikers were screaming in pain. Then came the sound of shots. One, two, three. Half-hearted attempts to save face in a battle they had already lost. Peter responded with silence.

  The two burning motorbikes lay on the ground like huge torches as the bikers put their injured friends on the pillions of the other motorbikes and fled from this accursed cliff in the back of beyond where a madman had just thwarted an attempt on his life, one man against six. Peter imagined that was how they would be thinking. They wouldn’t be coming back in a hurry at any rate.

  It wasn’t until they had left, the fire had burned down and silence had descended over the cliff again that he lowered the rifle, closed the windows and went downstairs to feed the dog.

  Next afternoon

  Grenå Nursing Home

  ‘Happy birthday, Grandad.’

  Mark Bille Hansen bent over the wheelchair to deliver his message. His grandfather, who was ninety-five, grabbed his elbows with two strong hands and held him at arm’s length.

  ‘Let me see your mouth when you talk, Mark, otherwise I can’t hear you.’

  Mark was really too busy to celebrate the old man’s birthday. Shots had been heard on Gjerrild Cliff last night and they had found two burned-out motorbikes. Everyone knew this was part of an ongoing feud between Peter Boutrup and his biker enemies, but Boutrup himself had been tight-lipped. Mark, in his capacity as Head of Grenå Police, should have been there, but now he was here because he had made a promise to his mother and she always got her way.

  He repeated his congratulations to his grandfather, now with exaggerated lip movements.

  ‘Thank you. There’s no need to shout!’

  ‘Who wants some cake?’ someone called out, to Mark’s enormous relief.

  A trolley was wheeled in by an anonymous-looking woman who reminded Mark of a tortoise.

  ‘Where are my ninety-five candles?’ Mark’s grandfather demanded.

  ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ Mark’s mother said. ‘You’d never be able to blow them out in one go.’

  ‘Of course I can. I could blow you all out if I wanted to. Get out, the lot of you!’

  The birthday boy waved his arms about. Mark’s mother took hold of the wheelchair and pushed him to one side while the guests waited anxiously for the cake to be cut and the ceremony to be over so they could get away from this crazy old man.

  Mark heard his mother trying to mollify her father.

  ‘Come on, Dad. It’s just for one day. You’ve been looking forward to it.’

  ‘There’s too much noise.’

  ‘Your hearing isn’t what it was.’

  ‘I can still hear noise.’

  ‘Please, Dad. Eat some cake.’

  She gestured to Mark to fetch a plate. He cut a wedge of cake and brought it over. His grandfather grabbed it greedily and immediately set to.

  Mark looked around. He liked his grandfather. And he liked the fact that he protested about his mother’s fussing. He too hated birthdays, and his mother had a tendency to overdo everything. He had an idea.

  ‘Fancy a trip outside, Grandad?’

  This time he was sure his grandfather could see his lips. The old man nodded.

  ‘Can we go to Tirstrup? To the airport?’

  Mark had had in mind a walk down the long corridors of the nursing home and possibly outside into the sun just to get away from the guests and the noise and breathe in some fresh air – but what the hell. He nodded and lined up the wheelchair.

  ‘We’re just going out for a bit,’ he announced to the guests, who seemed relieved. Even his mother nodded and waved. She too thought he meant a short walk around the gardens.

  Instead Mark sneaked the old man down to his car and helped him into the passenger seat, folded the wheelchair and set off for Tirstrup.

  ‘Are you going flying?’ he asked his grandfather.

  ‘No.’ His grandfather seemed to be chewing on something; perhaps a bit of cake that had got stuck in his teeth. ‘I just wanted to get out and feel the air on my skin.’

  ‘And feel your hatred for the Germans?’

  His grandfather chuckled. It sounded almost like sobbing.

  ‘I want to go there to remember my comrades.’

  ‘Men who died during the war?’

  ‘And those who died afterwards,’ his grandfather said.

  He looked at Mark.

  ‘Never underestimate them. The dead. You learn that when you grow old.’

  To himself he added, almost in a whisper:

  ‘They have a nasty habit of coming back.’

  1

  PETER RAN HIS hand down the new door frame in the music room, pleased with his work.

  ‘That’ll do,’ he declared.

  ‘Do? Yes, we certainly hope it will. Otherwise it’s a waste of time and money.’

  He looked up. Sister Beatrice had stopped playing and turned to him. A cheeky smile lingered at the corner of her mouth. A smile she wouldn’t readily adm
it to and which she quickly brought under control.

  ‘Just a figure of speech,’ he said.

  ‘From the real world, I presume?’ She pointed to the tall convent window. ‘Out there?’

  He returned her smile. Of all the sisters, he found her the easiest to get on with. When he thought about it they had actually struck up something that bordered on friendship.

  She got up and joined him. The nun’s white outfit – there probably was a name for it – wrapped itself around her body, concealing generous curves no one must see, let alone think about. Her face was about to crack into a smile again. The abbess must have had a job keeping her under control when the nuns were in silent prayer. He had been told that they prayed twenty-four hours a day at the convent. Always. Night and day, at least one of them would keep the flag flying and the line open to Him upstairs.

  It was a mystery how Sister Beatrice had ended up here. She was young, mid-twenties. On the whole the nuns were nowhere near as old as he had imagined and they came from all over the world. Several times he had heard their muffled laughter in the corridors and seen their eyes sparkle, but no one laughed more readily than Beatrice.

  Her face revealed her every thought. It broke into all manner of expressions, ranging from giggles to profound sorrow and gentleness. Peter had had the pleasure of seeing that face several times during the summer while Rimsø Carpenters carried out repairs to the buildings that formed the St Mary’s Abbey. Talking to this young German nun, who spoke perfect Danish, had been an even greater pleasure. So far they had covered every topic from faith, hope and love to a dog’s delicate sense of smell and the difference between a hacksaw and a plane. There was always genuine interest in her eyes and voice. Always a fine sense of where to draw the line between the intimacy of friendship and that which went beyond. Like now, when she suddenly switched from jest to earnestness in a millisecond.

  ‘And you caught most of them?’

  ‘They don’t take much persuading. They’ve no idea what freedom is.’

  ‘They’re lucky,’ she said, sending him her glance which said more than the famous thousand words.

  He had been telling her about this morning’s events at Gjerrild: during the night some (probably well-intentioned) activists had released six thousand mink belonging to Henrik Hansen and knocked down the mink farmer’s daughter when she had gone after them. Neighbours and friends had spent the night and the early morning catching the mink, but a couple of hundred were still paw-loose and fancy free.

  ‘They can’t survive in the wild,’ he said.

  ‘So much for the dream of freedom.’

  He wasn’t sure he liked the subtext. Was she thinking about herself or him? He scrutinised her face, but it was blank. Then she changed the subject once again, a past mistress of conversation.

  ‘It’s still so peaceful out there.’

  She nodded – another nod to the real world – towards the convent courtyard, which was being lashed by rain and wind from the north-west in the deepening twilight.

  ‘Still?’

  ‘Tonight the dead and the living will meet. If we are to believe the stories.’ Something soft had crept into her voice. Her face was serious.

  ‘In our church we celebrate All Hallows. All Saints – the thirty-first of October. But for you it’s about the souls of the dead, Halloween. The living and the dead.’

  ‘The night of dead souls?’

  She nodded.

  ‘If there’s someone you’re hoping to meet, you’d better keep your eyes open . . .’

  A mischievous glint reappeared.

  ‘Oh no, that’s right, you don’t believe in that stuff.’

  She made her voice unnaturally deep and he heard himself being quoted: ‘It is what it is. Everything else is superstition.’

  Peter started packing up. He smiled at his toolbox as his hammer and screwdriver slotted into their places. She was the quirkiest person he had met since My, his unusual friend from the Titan Care Home days. But in a completely different way. While My was a vulnerable, wounded soul, Beatrice was a small, round apparition with dimples and a talent for cheering him up.

  ‘Now, now,’ he muttered and straightened up. ‘I suppose I could make an exception and go to a meeting like that, just to be on the safe side.’

  She tilted her head and gave him a penetrating look, not without a sense of triumph.

  ‘Man is more than pure reason. He has feelings too. Do I detect a heart beating for someone you hope to meet at the cemetery at midnight?’

  ‘Is that where it happens?’

  ‘According to what you call superstition, yes.’

  He put the last hammer in his toolbox and got up with it in his hand.

  ‘I can always take the dog for a walk to see if anyone is dancing on the graves.’

  She ran after him as he raised two fingers to his forehead to go.

  ‘Wait. Here.’

  She rummaged round at the bottom of her pocket. Taking his hand, she pressed something into his palm and closed his fingers around it.

  ‘To be on the safe side. You need it more than I do.’

  It wasn’t until he came down to the courtyard with his toolbox that he looked at the object she had given him. A rosary. A string of black beads. He had seen her winding it around her fingers as she mumbled inaudibly. He wondered for a moment if it would help. Probably not, he concluded. Nevertheless, he put it carefully in his pocket.

  As he did so, he spotted a figure moving across the courtyard and down behind the far end of the moat. On impulse he followed and watched the person cross the bridge over the water and head in the direction of the herb garden at the back. From the clothing, he was able to identify her as Sister Melissa, an eighteen-year-old girl, the only Dane in the convent and, as far as he had understood, a kind of trainee. That was why her outfit was a darker colour than the usual white of the Cistercian nuns. Melissa had told him she wasn’t going to be a nun, but she had been attracted by the idea of a year of peace and contemplation in the convent and the abbess had granted her request.

  He had observed that there was a special relationship between Beatrice and Melissa. Unspoken, but eyes could tell you so much, and Sister Melissa’s in particular. The word ‘devotion’ crossed his mind. It was old-fashioned but appropriate. For a moment he followed Melissa with his eyes. Should he offer to help her? Fetch an umbrella from his van? Warn her that the rain would only get worse and she would get soaked because the herb garden was some distance away?

  He was about to go closer when he saw another figure appear out of the twilight. A man, blurred in the rainy mist. The two of them stood together for a while. Suddenly, Sister Melissa became agitated. She waved her arms about and her head bobbed from side to side. The other person, nondescript in dark trousers and a short dark jacket, seemed calm but also intimidating. He took Melissa by the elbow and led her away. It was impossible to know whether it was against her will or not.

  Peter was seized by a feeling of unease and for a moment he considered walking down to the two of them and intervening. But what was it, after all? A private meeting, or an argument? Besides, he had his policy, he reminded himself: not to get involved in other people’s affairs. It was Sister Melissa’s own private business who she met.

  Even so, he waited until the figures had disappeared from view. Then he picked up the toolbox, went to his van and drove home to the dog.

  It was late. He had checked his alarm system and already dragged his mattress onto the balcony when he remembered the rosary and what Sister Beatrice had said about the souls of the dead. He took out the rosary and slid the beads through his fingers one by one. He wasn’t a man of faith. In fact, he hated religion with all his heart because other people’s faiths had given him nothing but trouble. Nevertheless, he couldn’t get the idea of a midnight meeting out of his mind. He could hear the voice. A girl’s reedy voice with a core of obstinacy:

  ‘I’m bloody freezing. Sodding, shitting, bollocking hell.’


  My’s language could be fruity when the mood took her. Her ashes had been released and he had found a site for her urn at Gjerrild Cemetery. No family members had come forward to claim her.

  He looked at the dog lying on his fleece, watching him. The rain had stopped them from going out for a long walk earlier. Now, in the darkness, it had eased. He stared through the window. On the Kattegat he could see lights from a couple of vessels at anchor or crossing the sea. Otherwise it was pitch-black, but that had never bothered him or the dog.

  ‘Come on, Kaj. Walkies?’

  My’s dog – he had inherited the Alsatian when she died – came up to him, wagging his tail and putting his big head in Peter’s hand. The dog’s eyes confirmed what his tail had already said.

  Other people had had the same idea. Not to turn up in person, but lit candles had been placed on some of the graves, perhaps so that the dead souls would feel welcome if they happened to make an appearance.

  I must be out of my mind, he thought, as the dog ran around sniffing.

  What am I doing here?

  Well, while he was here, he might as well have a look at her grave. Perhaps he should have lit a candle as well, but his mind had been elsewhere. He hadn’t even brought flowers.

  Beatrice knew nothing about My. In general, they rarely discussed personal matters. It was as if they shared a mutual respect for the choices each had made and the events which had led them to the margin of windy Denmark, on the nose of the face that formed Djursland at the edge of the blackest sea. But she knew everything about him, of course. Most people in the area did. A man who had done time for manslaughter can’t avoid a certain level of notoriety.

  He found her grave quickly. There was already a small candle flickering in a plastic cup. He trawled through his memories to work out who might have left it. Not many people knew of this place.

  He stood for a while staring into the flame. He had chosen a natural, unpolished stone. The wording was in simple, black letters: My Johansen 30-11-1984–26-9-2010. My’s life had been nowhere near as simple.