Dead Souls

by Elsebeth Egholm

  ‘Why don’t you come over to ours for dinner tonight?’ Manfred said. ‘Jutta is cooking chilli con carne. Bring the dog, that’ll give the kids something to look forward to.’

  Later, when they broke for lunch, Peter made his excuses and went looking for Sister Beatrice. He didn’t find her, but he did find the abbess busy trying to catch a bird that had strayed through a window into the dining room.

  ‘Poor wee creature. It’s dazed. Oh, goodness, it’s you, is it?’

  She sank down on a chair.

  ‘Perhaps you could help me, Peter?’

  He smiled at the sight of the blanket she was holding to her chest.

  ‘Well, chasing after it won’t work. It’s not a burglar.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I know nothing about birds.’

  She looked at him. He recognised his own wan expression from the mirror.

  ‘I barely understand human beings.’

  ‘I was telling myself the same only last night.’

  She put down the blanket on a chair beside her and stroked the checked pattern.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault. If it was your fault, then it was certainly our fault too. Nobody really noticed her going. We were all busy with our own thoughts.’

  She said it again as if to establish it as fact:

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘I believe opinion is divided on that.’

  She opened her mouth to say something, but he held up a hand.

  ‘And please don’t try to fob me off with your God.’

  She smiled like a young girl caught kissing her friend’s boyfriend.

  The bird had settled in a corner of the room and was pressing itself against the wall. It was a swallow. Its plumage shone, black and midnight blue. Peter could see how fast its heart was beating.

  He went over and squatted down on his haunches near to it. It looked up at him with black, blinking eyes filled with fear. He reached out for the bird and held it in his cupped hands. He felt tiny sharp claws against his skin as he carried it to the open window.

  ‘Fly up to God, Little Bird,’ the abbess mumbled as he released it.

  ‘And fly away home? I thought that was for ladybirds?’

  Sister Dolores smiled.

  ‘Whatever, as they say in the outside world.’

  She heaved a deep sigh.

  ‘We had exchanged so many letters, Sister Melissa and I. She was fascinated by our life here. Within the walls, as she used to call it, like the Henri Nathansen play. She thought it sounded so safe. She so passionately wanted to experience convent life.’

  She looked at him.

  ‘It was unusual, of course, for such a young girl, and a Dane at that. She was never going to become a nun, but she was at a point in her life when she needed safety and a regulated life. That was how she put it.’

  ‘And I expect she had a strong faith?’

  ‘Mm, perhaps.’ She picked at the fabric of her habit. ‘That was her private business. But she begged and pleaded to come here. Just for one year, she said, so we knew right from the start that her time here would come to an end.’

  She looked at him.

  ‘And so it did. A brutal, premature end.’

  A place of safety, he thought as he returned to the scaffolding where Manfred had already started work after the lunch break. But was that really why Sister Melissa had come to the convent: because she was scared and she believed she would be safe behind its thick walls?

  It could have been a young girl’s logic based, perhaps, on some romantic notion of what life was like at a place like St Mary’s. No one would think to look for her here, she might have thought. No one who wanted to harm her would be able to get a toe inside such a place of sanctity.

  14

  KIR KNEW THE car pulling up in her drive all too well.

  She had just finished her workout and had stowed the mat in the garage. With a towel around her neck, patches of sweat on her T-shirt and her hair piled up in a messy heap with a clip, she didn’t feel at her most attractive. She felt Mark’s expressionless eyes on her, looking her up and down.

  ‘Busy?’

  ‘Just my usual workout,’ she said, holding the door open so he could at least step inside.

  ‘And what can I do for you?’

  She was perfectly aware that she was not making things easy for him, but yesterday’s rejection still stung. She had no intention of letting him off lightly.

  ‘I’ve come straight from the autopsy.’

  She sniffed the air.

  ‘Strange, you smell of perfume.’

  He blushed. Bullseye! He reeked of hooker a mile off, she thought, and retreated behind her dining-room table, nodding to indicate that he could sit down on the furthest chair.

  ‘We’d like to resume the search in and around the moat.’

  ‘For the murder weapon?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘She wasn’t killed there. But to be on the safe side, we need to go through that moat with a fine-tooth comb, so to speak. It’s all we’ve got to go on right now.’

  ‘Anything specific in mind?’

  ‘Not really. Mobile, credit card, condom . . .’

  ‘Surely that’s likely to be on the bank, if there is anything?’

  ‘True,’ he conceded. ‘But . . .’

  ‘You’re grasping at straws?’

  He made no reply. She hadn’t been able to get a good look at the body. The Falck crew had quickly moved it inside the ambulance, and only the pathologist and the police had had access.

  ‘So all you’ve found is Melissa and her shoe?’

  ‘Yep.’

  She got up and filled the kettle with water. She was starving and needed something in her stomach or she would start to feel sick.

  ‘Coffee?’

  She made the offer purely out of politeness.

  ‘Er . . . Perhaps I had better . . .’

  She turned around.

  ‘Come on, make up your mind.’

  ‘Well, OK, yes, please.’

  ‘Bread roll?’

  She halved a home-made roll. She had baked the remains of the dough this morning, and the smell drowned his hooker’s perfume, almost.

  ‘I don’t think . . .’

  ‘Yes or no?’

  ‘Yes, please. Christ, you don’t take any prisoners, do you?’ he sighed.

  ‘That’s how you get when someone screws you over,’ she said with her back to him and turned around with the bread knife in her hand. ‘Correction: that’s how I get.’

  He grinned and held up two palms.

  ‘As long as you don’t slice me in half with that knife, I guess we’ll be all right.’

  She looked at the knife.

  ‘Hm. If I were you, I’d watch . . .’

  ‘Please, Kir.’

  He lowered his hands. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been such an idiot.’

  ‘What am I supposed to make of that?’ she asked, still holding the knife. ‘That you’re sorry and that you know you’ve been an idiot? Or that you’re sorry you’ve been an idiot?’

  ‘Aren’t we just splitting hairs now?’

  ‘Only an attempt to clarify: are you an idiot who is sorry, or are you just an idiot?’

  He threw up his arms.

  ‘All of it, I guess. Christ, you’re hard work!’

  He looked her in the eye.

  ‘Can we bury the hatchet and be nice to each other? And please, cut those rolls and put the damn knife away.’

  ‘Bury the hatchet? No explanation?’

  She kept the knife at her side. He gulped. She could see it was hard for him, and she felt sorry for him, almost.

  ‘I can’t cope with anything right now,’ he said, sounding deflated. ‘Or anyone . . .’

  Finally, she lowered the knife.

  ‘A truce? Is that what you want?’

  Immediately she wished she had picked a better word. But her life choices had left their mark and her vocab
ulary didn’t come from glossy psychology magazines.

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Just friends?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I can’t have a girlfriend. I’m no good right now.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I can barely function, after the illness. I can’t get anything right.’

  ‘Except your job?’

  He nodded. ‘Except my job.’

  She buttered the rolls and forced the slicer through the cheese.

  ‘Is that the best you can do?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  She put the bread rolls on a plate, made two mugs of coffee and put everything on the table. Then she rubbed her palms on her tracksuit bottoms and offered him her hand across the table.

  ‘OK, deal. Just friends.’

  He looked a little surprised, as if she had accepted his offer too quickly. Perhaps he had hoped for more resistance. He took her hand.

  ‘Deal!’

  ‘Now eat.’

  She was well aware he’d had his eye on the bread rolls on the cooling rack from the moment he’d arrived. He grinned and tucked in like someone who hadn’t seen food for days.

  ‘So what’s this murder weapon you’re hoping to find somewhere?’

  ‘A garrotte.’

  The hand with the bread roll stopped just before it reached her mouth.

  ‘Why a garrotte?’

  ‘She’d been strapped to something,’ he said. ‘And a spike had been pressed into the back of her neck to break her spine. Apparently that’s a tell-tale sign that someone has been garrotted.’

  She took a bite and munched for a while.

  ‘How weird.’

  ‘What is?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘It’s probably nothing . . . But I found a box of bones, late last summer. Out in Kalø Bay, in the shipping channel.’

  She told him about the incident and the phone call from Jarmer, while he wolfed another bread roll and washed it down with coffee.

  ‘Someone must be investigating that case,’ she said.

  He nodded.

  ‘But they’re probably not working flat out to get a result,’ he said, and got up. ‘I’ll speak to Anna about it. It definitely sounds like something we need to take a look at.’

  ‘But it’s sixty years ago,’ said Kir, walking him to the door. ‘It’s highly unlikely to be related to Melissa’s murder.’

  ‘You’re probably right. See you at the moat?’

  She nodded and looked at her watch.

  ‘I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.’

  Privately, she thought that finding a body was one thing, but if the murder weapon wasn’t in the moat, what exactly were they looking for?

  Could there be anything else in the stagnant, brackish water?

  15

  JUTTA’S CHILLI CON carne was famous all across Djursland. Or, if it wasn’t, it ought to have been. It was strong without being too fiery, suitably spicy with fresh chillies, and it had been simmering on the stove all day. Jutta served it with cold beer and Peter discovered to his surprise that he was still hungry after his first helping.

  ‘There you are. Can’t risk you fading away,’ Jutta said and piled another steaming mound onto his plate. ‘That’ll put the colour back in your cheeks!’

  The children giggled at the sweat streaming down his face, as always happened when he ate spicy food. He gave seven-year-old Joachim a light punch.

  ‘Mind your own business, you cheeky monkey.’

  ‘I’m not a monkey,’ the boy grinned, spluttering rice everywhere.

  ‘Yes, you are, you wriggle like a monkey!’

  The boy practically doubled up laughing. His sister, four-year-old Mie, joined in, with chilli all around her mouth, a milder version than the hot dish the adults were eating.

  ‘OK, that’s enough,’ Manfred shouted and banged the table with his fist in mock anger, making the beer bottle wobble. Jutta caught it before it fell.

  ‘You’re just as bad as the kids,’ she said.

  ‘You chose me,’ Manfred smiled sheepishly.

  ‘OK, kids. If you’ve had enough to eat, off you go,’ said Jutta.

  ‘Yes, go outside and play with the chainsaw,’ Manfred added and playfully smacked his daughter’s bottom as she passed him on her way to Kaj, who was lying down on a rug.

  A measure of peace descended and Peter leaned back holding his beer, grateful that Manfred had embraced him into the heart of the family. It did him good to have his thoughts distracted by the children, the food and the company, and he felt his problems recede and melt away.

  They finished eating and helped to clear the debris. Later, while Jutta made coffee, Manfred set out the chessboard on the coffee table.

  ‘Did you actually know Melissa?’ Manfred asked when they were well into their game and Peter was on the defensive.

  ‘Only superficially,’ Peter said. ‘I know Sister Beatrice better.’

  Manfred took his bishop.

  ‘So you don’t know who her mother is?’

  Peter looked at him.

  ‘I think you’re trying to put me off my game here.’

  He took Manfred’s pawn with his rook.

  ‘So who is her mother?’

  ‘Alice Brask. Name mean anything to you?’

  ‘Nope. But it sounds as if it ought to.’

  ‘Check,’ Manfred said, taking the queen with his knight.

  Peter leaned back with his hands folded behind his head. He could see that he had already lost, and it wasn’t the first time.

  ‘OK, who is she?’

  They finished playing and Manfred checkmated him as expected. He, too, leaned back from the chessboard.

  ‘A journalist from FrokostBladet. One sharp sister. Writes mostly about health and consumer issues.’

  ‘A sharp reporter whose daughter is a nun? That’s what I call teenage rebellion.’

  Peter thought about his own mother, who was a crime reporter for FrokostBladet’s rival. The nearest he came to her these days was on the rare occasions he saw the newspaper and was confronted with her photograph above the byline for one of her articles. It wasn’t so much hostility between them; it was more like patient anticipation. One day they would meet again, they both knew they would.

  ‘Yes, it’s a bit more radical than becoming a carpenter,’ Manfred conceded.

  He tipped the pieces off the chessboard, folded it over and started putting pawns, bishops, rooks and knights into the box.

  ‘Just for your info, in case you didn’t know, she’s run campaigns on everything from dangerous chemicals in toys to the risk of getting brain tumours from mobile phones.’

  ‘I thought that myth was busted long ago,’ Peter said.

  ‘Alice Brask is one of the last believers,’ Manfred said. ‘She says she has evidence from various pieces of research that underline the risk.’

  ‘Poor Melissa. It can’t have been much fun having a mum who wants teenagers to stop using their mobiles,’ Peter said. ‘That must have given her street cred among her friends.’

  ‘Yeah, I bet.’ Manfred closed the chess set with a click. ‘But perhaps you should take a look at her blog. Alice Brask has already written about the murder of her daughter and she mentions you.’

  ‘Me?’

  Manfred put the set back on the shelf under the coffee table.

  ‘Not by name. Just something along the lines of “a carpenter saw Melissa talking to a man”.’

  Peter stood up. This was all getting too much for him. He had enough enemies as it was. Would he now be hung out to dry in his role as a witness?

  Manfred went out of the room and came back with a laptop.

  ‘Here. Take it. You need all the help you can get.’

  Peter protested, but Manfred ignored him.

  ‘I’ve just bought an iPad. I can use that until you get your own computer back.’

  He winked at Peter.

  ‘
You can start by checking out Alice Brask.’

  Peter gave in. Once Manfred had made up his mind he was unstoppable, and it was true that Peter needed internet access.

  ‘And you’ll want to get yourself a new mobile,’ Manfred said. ‘So people can get hold of you.’

  Peter nodded. Neither of them was particularly good at saying thank you; it was implicit in the nod and their friendship as a whole. He looked around him.

  ‘Right, where did the monkeys go? Two of them have to say goodnight to me.’

  When he got home, he looked up Alice Brask on the internet and soon found her blog. Manfred had been right. Besides expressing her views on everything from the use of depilatory creams to the dangers of eating meat, there was also an update on the murder of her daughter. Her item was framed in black. It was illustrated with a photograph of a smiling Melissa – in her normal clothes – and entitled ‘My beloved Melissa RIP’.

  The text was brief and precise, like the style of the homepage, but even so emotions filtered through:

  I have previously written about the pointless violence in our society and the fear it creates. I have written about young people going into town for a night out, finding themselves caught up in an unprovoked attack, and about parents who are woken up the next morning by a phone call telling them their child is in intensive care. I have argued for moderation and sought to avoid panic. It is important that young people are given the freedom to decide where they go and who they see. We can’t keep them on a leash.

  My daughter made a decision, which I didn’t agree with, but which I supported because it was her wish. She wanted to try living as a nun in a convent, if only for some months. Melissa had faith. I don’t. But I had hoped she would find herself in the process. And I believed that, if nothing else, she would be safe from the unprovoked violence every parent fears.

  She wasn’t. Yesterday she was reported missing from St Mary’s Abbey, where for five months she had lived the life she had begged to have. Later that afternoon she was found dead in the convent moat. She had been, as the phrase goes, ‘the victim of a crime’.

  No thick walls, no faith and no prayers were able to protect Melissa. The question is now if anyone – be it higher forces or those of law and order – has the ability or the desire to hold the perpetrator to account.