She nodded.
‘Let’s get to work.’
‘It’s pitch-black down there,’ Allan said, hauling the buoy up onto the dinghy. ‘We have to pull on this rope to the anchor until it’s taut to avoid wasting too much time. What would you rather do: locate or recover?’
‘Locate.’
‘Then you dive first.’
She nodded. They succeeded in pulling the rope taut and she fell backwards into the waves with an air line and was swallowed up by the agitated sea. As she sank towards the bottom, her inner screen flickered with images of two men, one restless and one calm: Mark and Peter. They had stood side by side in the convent courtyard examining the vandalised scaffolding while she watched them. One dark, one blond.
She could feel the pressure rising as she descended. It pressed against her ears and nose and throat and hissed inside her head. But she forgot all about it when she picked out the contours of a wreck on the seabed.
The Marie af Grenå was lying on her side. Kir attached the line for Allan Vraa to follow. Time was short, but visibility was poor and it was hard for her to find her bearings.
She found the wheelhouse and looked inside, as best she could. She thought she saw something orange inside. That might mean one, or perhaps both, fishermen were inside the boat. Orange was the colour of the overalls that most fishermen wore.
She tried to force open the door to the wheelhouse. When she finally succeeded, her time was nearly up. Kir reached in an arm and felt around. Two pairs of legs; she had been right. But she could see something else now. A bundle in the furthest corner. She wanted to examine it, but the clock was ticking.
A jerk on the line from above was confirmation. She had to make her ascent.
She took a risk and eased her way into the wheelhouse. She wanted to reach across the two bodies to feel the bundle, but her diving tanks got caught on something; for a moment she was stuck and she fought with her panic. Black lightning flashed through her brain. She gasped inside her mouthpiece until she had her mind under control. Easy now. Remember to breathe in and out.
There was another jerk from above. Allan Vraa was getting impatient.
She wriggled. First one way, then the other. Nothing happened. Seconds passed. Drastic measures were called for. She took a chance and pushed hard. Whatever was holding her would either have her trapped or it would break.
The jerk sent her flying into the cabin. She was free. She reached over and found the bundle in the corner. Some boxes must have shifted. Otherwise whoever was there would have been invisible. She could feel legs and arms and a head.
Kir tried to move the bodies, but they were wedged fast. She took her knife and cut at the ropes that had caught on her a moment before. And then it happened. She touched a body, it came away and she found herself held in a tight embrace from which she could not escape. Lifeless arms swayed in the water around her; a face came close to hers; a dead body pressed itself against her in an obscene advance. She pushed the bundle away and wanted to shout, but she couldn’t break free from the intimate contact.
She received the Morse signal through the line, which told her she had to rise NOW and no later. But the tug felt very distant.
She mumbled I’m coming, I’m coming. But soon afterwards there was another tug.
All right. I’m on my way.
Time was now an endless dimension. Something of which there was an abundance. Her head was buzzing and Allan Vraa’s jerking of the line felt like a threat. The sea embraced her. Her thoughts bubbled inside her head with a pleasurable lightness, as if she had drunk champagne. The dead body let go and she propelled herself forward as her ears filled with sweet music.
Then the music turned sinister and images of her family appeared: her father who had never accepted her decisions in life. Her brothers, Red and Tomas, who had proved such a terrible disappointment. Her mother with her nervous fidgeting and her small, compact body. She hadn’t seen them for a long time. The core, the very heart of her family had proved to be rotten. Could you avoid being contaminated by the corruption and evil if you had grown up with it?
This was something she had battled with ever since the events of last winter. She was one of them. Was she fundamentally rotten? Was that the reason she swam around all alone through her life? Maybe she should just let herself be carried away by the current and swallowed up by the sea.
Her head was spinning and ached from the pressure.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, Kir?’
Allan Vraa’s voice came from the heavy clouds passing across the sky above her. She felt nothing. She wasn’t aware that she had been pulled on board. She wasn’t even aware that she had lost consciousness and she didn’t hear herself say:
‘Three dead bodies.’
Nor was she aware that she was being ferried back to the navy vessel, hoisted up to the helicopter and flown to Frederikshavn.
34
MARK HADN’T TELEPHONED in advance. However, Alice Brask looked as if she had been expecting visitors when she opened the door. Her face was flawless and her skin obviously well looked after – apparently without the help of make-up. Narrow eyebrows rose in perfect arches and her smile seemed obligingly professional. She reminded him of the doctor at Rigshospitalet who had diagnosed his cancer and told him with a self-assured smile and sympathetic but remote gestures that his prospects were bleak.
‘I just came to proffer my condolences,’ Mark said after he had introduced himself.
This was enough for sesame to open and she invited him in, which allowed him to have a good look at her from the back:
A simple, long-sleeved and tight-fitting T-shirt with a hint of a bra. Well-fitting Replay jeans and a fashionable studded belt. Leather pumps with heels that made her hips sway. Her hair was short and a sharp contrast to Melissa’s flowing brown locks. In fact, it was hard to detect any family resemblance, except possibly the skin, which was pale, almost milky white.
‘Do sit down.’
He turned down an offer of coffee and took a seat on the black leather sofa. The house was spotless in every respect, just like its owner. Montana bookcases, Piet Hein dining table and Jacobsen’s Ant chairs. He recognised the design from the stolen property room at the police station. There was a pile of newspapers on the coffee table. He could make out photographs of Melissa and the convent and guessed that Alice Brask followed everything that was said or written about the case, on the Net, the television, the radio and in the press.
‘Did you know Melissa?’ Alice Brask said, taking a seat in an armchair opposite.
‘No, but I’ve heard a lot about her. The nuns were very fond of her. They’re in deep shock.’
She shook a cigarette out of a packet of Prince Light lying on the table. He wouldn’t have put her down as a smoker. And indeed the smell of smoke inside the house was very faint.
‘An old habit that has resurfaced,’ she said, passing the packet.
He refused.
‘No coffee, no fags.’
She lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke with sensual movements of her lips.
‘So what does a policeman do for fun?’
He shrugged.
‘Find the company of charming women and indulge in a little bit of passive smoking?’
Her eyes narrowed as she sized him up. He might have overstepped the mark. After all, she was a mother who had lost her child rather than a date to flirt with, and upon closer inspection he could see that the make-up failed to conceal the dark rims under her eyes and the tiredness in them.
‘What about the funeral?’ he continued quickly. ‘I expect it’ll be a relief to get that over with.’
She nodded and placed a hand behind her neck and moved her head in circles. She made the movements look graceful.
‘Her body will be released today. The funeral is on Saturday. I’ll put the time in my blog, as you might have seen.’
‘Are you sure that’s . . .’
‘Wise?’
‘You’re risking a large turnout.’
‘That’s not a risk,’ she said with an edge to her voice. ‘It’s what I’m hoping for.’
Her resolve was clear in the way she flicked ash into the Georg Jensen ashtray.
‘I have many . . . followers, let’s call them that. People who read and comment on my blog. People who think the way I do, who are critical of the system and the authorities telling us what to do as if we were little robots.’
Mark got the sense this was a line she was reeling off for the hundredth time. She came across as an authority figure herself, someone who liked influencing other people’s actions. He had read her blog. She was a woman of many opinions and her disciples seemed devoted to her. Their blogs certainly suggested as much.
He held up his hands in defence.
‘It’s your decision, of course. I’m sure most people would only want to express their support and sympathy.’
Except the killer, he thought. He was sure that whoever had killed Melissa also read the blog. But no doubt she was well aware of that. Perhaps she even felt it was a way of communicating with the killer. He decided not to broach the subject and risk antagonising her.
‘As you know,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘I’m not a part of the investigation, but I was asked to be present at the Institute of Forensics . . .’
This information clearly had an effect. Her cigarette hand froze somewhere between her mouth and the ashtray. Her face stiffened.
‘You were present at her autopsy?’
The last word had to be forced out.
‘Yes. Sara Dreyer is very skilled,’ he hastened to add. ‘It was performed with dignity.’
What must it be like to receive images on your retina of your child’s body, sliced open? This was beyond his imagination.
Her hand stirred and she took a drag on her cigarette.
‘Why do I need to know about that?’
He cleared his throat.
‘We’re wondering about something: Melissa’s hearing aids . . .’
The reaction came far too quickly and too fiercely:
‘What have they got to do with anything?’
Her eyes narrowed again. It was as if an invisible partition had shot up between the two of them. Half of his brain raced to come up with something with which to reassure her while the other half wondered what raw nerve he had hit.
‘I was wondering if her hearing might have been a factor. Maybe she didn’t hear her attacker . . .’
‘Nonsense. That carpenter saw them meet and speak,’ she said.
‘No offence, but that’s confidential information.’
The cigarette was squashed in the ashtray. She got up. It was quite clearly time for him to leave.
‘I’m her mother. I’m also a journalist, and I have my sources. I’m convinced the police work more effectively when the press is snapping at their heels.’
He, too, got up. This had not gone well.
‘The carpenter’s scaffolding was sabotaged. You wrote about that as well. An innocent man is lying paralysed in hospital.’
‘I know. I wrote it in my blog. You’re probably wondering why at the police station. You think I deliberately risk other people’s lives. But I’m of the firm opinion that getting things out into the open will help the investigation. Covering up the truth never leads to anything good.’
She was good at turning everything to her own advantage, Mark thought as he retreated towards the front door. He would hate to be a part of this woman’s life. You would risk being sacrificed to some cause which in her eyes was greater than normal consideration for others. Had Melissa felt the same? Had she fought to have an ordinary, loving relationship with her mother instead of clashing over her sacred principles and being cudgelled over the head with them?
He thought about the pallid young girl on the pathologist’s steel trolley. He was starting to understand why a girl like Melissa would seek refuge behind thick convent walls.
He turned in the doorway before leaving.
‘I came here to express my condolences, that was all.’
A conciliatory expression stole over her face and the tightness around her mouth softened slightly.
‘That’s all right. I’m used to being alone with my ideas and points of view.’
‘I don’t think you’re alone,’ he said. ‘And I’m sure your fans would be disappointed if you stopped writing your blog.’
She smiled and all of a sudden she was beautiful. Her eyes glowed, clear and strong.
‘Thank you for saying that. And for coming.’
They shook hands. Her handshake was persuasive, just like most of her behaviour. After he had walked down the steps he turned around again.
‘Melissa’s hearing. Was it congenital?’
She shook her head.
‘It was the result of an illness when she was seven.’
He clicked the remote to unlock the car.
‘What illness?’
‘Measles.’
She closed the door behind him.
35
THE STUDENTS HAD long since started filing out through the glass doors of Risskov Gymnasium. Individually or in clusters, chatting, they headed for their bicycles and cars, to freedom, their bags slung over their shoulders. The wind howled and took hold of the girls’ hair and their flapping coats, which were soon buttoned up tightly. The lucky ones with hoods pulled them up to ward off the rain, which was pelting down once again.
Peter sheltered by the van in the car park fingering the wire in his pocket.. He scanned the scene. He had spotted the black Golf under a tree parked on the road. He didn’t know what Gumbo looked like, but identifying him proved to be an easy matter. The dealer was lurking around the corner at the exit to the car park. He was wearing a shearling cowboy waistcoat and a thick red-checked shirt and looked like a lost Canadian lumberjack. He had a bushy moustache. The rest of his beard was dark stubble and his hair was cut so close to the scalp you could see the folds of flesh in his neck. A boy went up to him. They huddled together and spoke softly, while other students gave them a wide berth.
The two of them then sheltered inside a lean-to and carried on with what they were doing. It was almost impossible to see, but Peter was convinced that some goods were exchanging hands. Then the young boy strode on with a spring in his step and his hood pulled up.
Perhaps three minutes passed, then another customer came by and Gumbo repeated the choreography from before. There was grinning and nodding and a matey punch on the back with a fist.
Peter looked around. The stream of students had started to ease. He made up his mind to go and, unseen, jogged to the road and Gumbo’s car. He took the wire out of his pocket and bent one end of it into a hook. Then he coaxed the wire down behind the window seal on the driver’s side and kept wriggling it until he heard a click and the lock opened. He unlocked the back door and slipped inside. He locked both the driver’s door and the back door from inside and kept well down so that he could not be seen.
The Golf was as battered inside as out. The seats were worn, the foam padding protruded and there were black cigarette marks on the ceiling and burn marks everywhere. The ashtray was overflowing and the stench of tobacco and sweat was unbearable. Scattered on the floor and seats were fast food containers and empty Coke cans.
Soon afterwards he heard footsteps and the click of locks being opened with a remote key. He held his breath, forced himself down on the foul-smelling seat and got foam rubber up his nose. Gumbo opened the door. The entire car sank as around 100 kilos plumped down onto the driver’s seat. Gumbo reached for his seat belt and inserted the buckle. Peter sat up, careful not to make any noise. In one swift movement he flipped the wire over the man’s head and pulled it back against the neck rest.
‘Don’t move.’
Gumbo gurgled in protest.
His hands shot up and tried to loosen the wire, but Peter tightened it even more.
‘Hands on the steering wheel.’
Gumbo’s hands fluttered vaguely in the air for a couple of seconds before landing on the steering wheel.
‘OK. Drive.’
‘Wh . . .?’
The question came out as a wheeze.
‘Home. You’ve just invited me to coffee and biscuits. I can hardly restrain my excitement.’
Gumbo fumbled with the key. In the mirror Peter could see his eyes darting around the car, hunting for a way out.
‘Forget it. You’ve already lost.’
Starting the engine and tentatively joining the traffic, the dealer appeared to agree.
‘I know where you live, so no funny stuff.’
This was a lie, but spoken with sufficient authority for it to have the required effect. Gumbo groaned. Peter slackened the wire a little. They drove down Skejbyvej, on towards Vejlby Centervej and onto Grenåvej. Finally Gumbo turned down a rural lane and pulled up outside an old red-brick house which, in appearance and state of maintenance, resembled the car.
‘Open the glove compartment.’
Gumbo did as he was told. Peter could see the man’s hand shaking. In the glove compartment there was a gun, a pair of bolt cutters and a roll of gaffer tape.
‘Pick up the gun with two fingers and pass it to me.’
To be on the safe side, Peter jerked the wire tight. A whimpering protest erupted from the man’s throat.
‘No tricks.’
The fingers pinched the gun and passed it backwards. Peter took the weapon and pressed the barrel against Gumbo’s neck.
‘Now the bolt cutters and the tape.’
Gumbo fumbled for the tool and the roll of gaffer tape. Peter grabbed them and stuffed them into his jacket pocket. Then he whipped the wire from Gumbo’s neck, opened the rear door and stepped out onto the damp gravel, pointing the gun at the man in the front.
‘Out!’
Gumbo obeyed, and Peter floored him with one kick from behind. He sat down on him and forced his knees into Gumbo’s back while twisting his arms behind him and quickly tying steel wire tightly around his wrists. Then he forced Gumbo to stand up.
Dead Souls Page 17