Dead Souls

by Elsebeth Egholm

  ‘The girl is eighteen. Besides, she’s sent us a postcard.’

  Her eyes clung to Peter’s for reassurance. Jens Vang took her hand.

  ‘They make their own decisions at that age,’ he said.

  ‘We were hoping it was just a phase,’ Ulla said, freeing herself from her husband’s hand. ‘Normally she’s a responsible girl. Mature for her age.’

  ‘Ea-Louise knows Bella’s son, Magnus,’ Peter said. ‘Could she be with him?’

  The parents looked at each other. They clearly knew nothing. Peter decided to try another approach.

  ‘Melissa’s dead. Nils Toftegaard is dead.’

  Ulla Vang looked like a corpse in a sitting position. She nodded vacantly.

  ‘We heard. It’s awful. But . . .’

  ‘Has it occurred to you that these killings might be connected?’

  They looked at each other. A horizontal frown appeared on Jens Vang’s forehead.

  ‘But Nils drowned. This is completely different. And the others . . . They didn’t really know each other . . .’

  ‘They’re all friends on Facebook.’

  Ulla dismissed the suggestion.

  ‘So many of them are. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re friends in real life.’

  Jens shook his head. ‘It must be a coincidence.’

  ‘Nils didn’t drown,’ said Peter, knowing he was breaking every rule now. But, as he sat there in the head teacher’s office, the truth finally dawned on him: he was the only one who knew of the link between the teenagers. No one else, neither their parents nor the police, had joined the dots yet.

  ‘Nils was garrotted. Exactly like Melissa.’

  A few seconds passed. Peter looked at their faces and he saw the change. Anger in the husband. A ferment of emotions in his wife.

  He produced the letter to the editor from his pocket and unfolded it on the table. They stared at it, confusion written all over their faces.

  ‘I could be wrong, but this is what I think,’ Peter said. ‘When you wrote this, you pissed someone off big time.’

  He tapped his fingers lightly on the paper. ‘But I don’t think you stopped at writing letters.’

  He looked at Ulla, whose face went scarlet. Jens also looked at her. Peter stuck his hand in his jacket pocket. One by one, he produced Gumbo’s photographs and spread them over the table in front of them.

  ‘Ulla?’ her husband said. ‘What’s all this about?’

  She said nothing but sat with her lips pressed together, staring into space. Peter continued:

  ‘At some point, you went from word to deed. Am I right?’

  No reaction.

  ‘Words were no longer enough, didn’t really get the point across. Your letter was printed, but it didn’t change anything. Then Alice Brask had an idea. Time to go to the barricades. Time to go out and fight, rather than just sit behind a computer. Am I right?’

  Ulla Vang opened her mouth but no words came out. She cleared her throat and tried to find her voice. There was defensiveness in her eyes, Peter could see. Protest, even. And when she finally spoke, there was no sign of regret.

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ she said. ‘You come here and slander us with half-lies and half-truths. What gives you the right to do that? Are you a police officer?’

  ‘Ulla!’

  Her husband put his hand on hers again. She shook it off.

  ‘Ea-Louise just left. She’ll come back. She’s mature and sensible. Don’t you dare come here and try to frighten us.’

  ‘You planned and executed raids on mink farms and shops selling furs,’ Peter said. ‘You went beyond the law. You hurt someone’s business. You made enemies.’

  ‘Is this true, Ulla?’

  Her husband was looking more and more confused.

  ‘You sneaked out during the night in your black clothing and opened mink cages and sprayed slogans and beat a girl half to death.’

  ‘Ulla! Say something!’ Jens Vang was practically shouting.

  She snarled into his face.

  ‘So? This has got nothing to do with anything else! We only do what we think is right.’

  ‘But you can’t . . .’

  Jens Vang’s face contorted in anger. His eyes welled up. ‘That Brask cow,’ he said. ‘I knew she was bad news from the start.’

  His wife stared at him as if he hadn’t understood a thing.

  ‘What would you know about fighting for what you believe, about the feeling of making a difference? The only place you do anything heroic is on the football pitch.’

  Jens Vang threw his arms in the air.

  ‘Heroic? Making a difference? Tell me, have you gone completely mad? There’s a difference between expressing your opinions and breaking the law. Hasn’t that occurred to you?’

  ‘Animals are suffering!’

  ‘They may well be. But there are other ways. Pressure. Demos . . .’

  He pointed to the letter to the editor: ‘The pen is mightier than the sword. Democratic methods!’

  He was starting to sound more and more desperate. She glowered at him.

  ‘But it doesn’t bloody work. Democracy is a pile of overrated shit! It doesn’t get you anywhere.’

  Jens Vang looked stunned, as if he had been the victim of a dirty tackle.

  ‘Nevertheless . . .’ he finally stuttered. ‘You still have to try. Otherwise you’re no better than them.’

  He asked quietly: ‘Is it true that you beat up a girl?’

  ‘It was her own fault. She was a spy,’ Ulla Vang said in an agitated voice. ‘She was trying to infiltrate us!’

  Peter observed the quarrel for a little while. This wasn’t helping him at all. It wasn’t helping anyone.

  He got up and left.

  57

  THE DEVIL INCARNATE.

  Lise Werge let herself into the Woodland Snail. It was one o’clock in the afternoon and her mother was having a midday nap. This was her strict routine. You could set your watch by Alma’s snoring. She heard it the moment she stepped inside.

  The Devil incarnate was how old Hans, the police officer’s grandfather, had referred to the Cardinal. What did that make her – second-generation Devil’s Spawn? What and where you come from – how much did that really mean? Were you forever imprinted with the same stamp as your fathers and ancestors, or did it stop at some point? Did the line quite simply come to an end, so that you could be liberated?

  Old Hans had had no doubts. She could still feel his grip on her wrist and smell his breath by her face:

  So what’s your secret?

  If he only knew.

  She tiptoed through the kitchen where a newspaper lay open at the crossword and a solitary coffee cup was left behind after the morning ritual. She looked in the bread bin. Her mother’s vast appetite had made deep inroads into the loaf Lise had brought the day before. Much too deep. But Alma never had visitors. At least, not the kind other people had.

  Lise slumped on her mother’s chair and flicked randomly through the newspaper. Then she got up and walked through the house, touching the heavy furniture as if it could tell her the truth; she glanced at the countless knick-knacks placed on window sills and shelves, her heels sinking into the soft carpet. She opened the curtains in an attempt to entice the light inside, but to her it seemed just as dark, as though the sun couldn’t really find its way in. Dark and heavy and oppressive, like the memories rumbling around deep inside her.

  She went to the staircase. There was a portrait of her grandfather on the wall. The resemblance between her mother and herself had always frightened her. The tortoise neck was thick and short. The face square and creased, even in this picture, which was supposedly from his youth. But the most disturbing feature was the eyes. They looked out at her, cold and penetrating. They were her mother’s eyes when she told her off. They were her own eyes when no one was looking. When she washed old Hans and felt a deep urge to scald him with the shower.

  She started climbing the stairs. It
was ages since she had been on the first floor. A cleaner came every now and then, but most of the time her mother coped on her own. No one was allowed upstairs. Nor was anyone allowed access to the basement. Mere mortals were allowed on the ground floor only; all other areas were strictly out of bounds.

  But today Lise decided to ignore the rules. Her heart was pounding. She felt she was just what she used to be; a little girl snooping in places where she was not allowed. An inquisitive little girl who knew nothing about the evils of this world.

  That had soon changed.

  She opened the doors to each of the three bedrooms. But they were empty and the made-up beds stood ready, awaiting new guests like a Hotel of Evil.

  Then she caught sight of a hatch to the attic and remembered what Lone had said. That the last draft was up there. The history which Alma had dictated, first to Lone and then to Lise. The story she hated and feared.

  There was a ladder to the attic. She climbed up and then stopped for a moment while making up her mind. Down below, she could still hear Alma’s snores, vibrating through the house.

  She flipped aside the hatch and clambered inside. Her eyes had to acclimatise to the light seeping in through the cracks.

  Then she saw the furniture: a mattress, a small table and a chair.

  Her skin tingled with fear. There was a crust of bread and some cheese on the table. There was also a knife. And something else.

  She looked around, into the darkness. She wanted to utter a name but it got stuck in her throat. She walked across to the table. On it lay an old exercise book like the ones they’d had in school. It was open. She recognised Lone’s handwriting. She looked around furtively. Then she stuffed the exercise book down the waistband of her skirt and buttoned her cardigan over it.

  For a long time she stood there holding her breath, expecting to hear something. A rustle. A cough. Something. But nothing came. He wasn’t there.

  She climbed down the ladder and closed the hatch. Then she went downstairs and sat in the kitchen until her mother appeared.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Alma was far from pleased. She sniffed the air. Lise was annoyed with herself for putting on perfume that morning. Her mother had a very acute sense of smell. Now her nostrils were flared like a dog’s. Alma walked from the kitchen into the living room and saw the open curtains. Lise followed her as she walked to the stairs, stopped and looked up.

  ‘You’ve been upstairs.’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘Where else have you been?’

  ‘In the attic.’

  Alma spun around. She was agile for her age and size. An arm shot out. Lise took a step backwards. She looked at her mother, whom she hated. Like she hated all of her accursed family because it was such a big part of her and because she couldn’t escape it.

  ‘He’s out. You’re hiding him. You’ve been hiding him all this time.’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  Alma pushed her out of the way and waddled back to her kitchen. Lise followed her.

  ‘Why haven’t I been told? I have a right to know. He’s dangerous!’

  ‘I can control him,’ her mother said without turning.

  ‘Where is he? It was him, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Him? What do you mean?’

  ‘The girl in the moat.’

  Alma shook her head.

  ‘Rubbish. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘Then where?’

  There was no reply. Her mother’s face had closed. She sat down and stared at her crossword. The body withdrew into itself.

  Lise had only one ace left to play. She felt impotent, but she had to play it.

  ‘I know where they found those bones,’ she said.

  Her mother was like a stone which had suddenly come to life. Everything about her started to move. The head shot out of its tortoise carapace and stretched on the neck towards her. The hands lowered the newspaper. The heavy body leaned across the table.

  ‘Where?’

  For once Lise resisted the pressure. For once she disobeyed an order and responded with an unyielding stare.

  ‘First you tell me where he is.’

  ‘I don’t know. He has somewhere else.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘With a friend, I think.’

  ‘Did he escape?’

  Alma looked at her with a thinly veiled smile of triumph.

  ‘They let him out. The doctors think he’s cured.’

  Cured. The word reverberated inside Lise’s head. It bounced from wall to wall inside her skull, giving her an instant headache.

  ‘He’ll never be cured. He’s just faking it,’ she said.

  ‘Where did they find those bones?’

  ‘In a box at the bottom of the Koral Strait. By Kalø Bay.’

  Her mother sprang to her feet and half-pulled the tablecloth off the table, followed by the coffee cup. She glared at Lise, and for once her voice was trembling:

  ‘Don’t you tell anyone he’s out. Not a living soul, do you hear?’

  58

  PETER DROVE HOME from the meeting with the Vangs. As he drove, he tried to analyse his anger.

  There was nothing at all wrong with having strong beliefs; he had to keep telling himself that. The mothers of the beleaguered teenagers were in that category: women with opinions. Women who fought for certain causes. Yes, they were also activists and yes, they were breaking the law. But it was not a law of nature that their children should therefore be persecuted by an avenging murderer. No one could have predicted that.

  Even so, he was angry. He directed his anger where it belonged: at his own mother. Her actions had given him an Achilles heel, he was painfully aware of that. Parents failing their children made him angry. Full stop. And these parents had failed their teenage children. Not because they fought for their causes, but because they hadn’t been attentive. They hadn’t seen that their children were frightened and inadequately protected.

  He turned off by Gjerrild and let the countryside filter in and soften him, lessening his anger until it became a weak undercurrent. Here were fields, a mink farm and pig farms. Here was the cliff and the Kattegat by the northern corner of Djursland, where tankers rode the waves. Here was everything that usually made him feel calm.

  The lane wound its way towards the cliff and the cottage where his dog was waiting. He searched for the calm and the peace and the feeling of freedom, but it all seemed beyond reach, like mirages shimmering in the air.

  He thought about Victor and Ea-Louise. He only hoped they were with Magnus. Clever, capable Magnus, who was somewhere out there clinging to life by his fingertips. But for how long? How long until he also ended up on this madman’s garrotte?

  After Hasle he had driven to Skejby Hospital. There he had met a carbon copy of Ea-Louise’s parents, in the singular, because Ketty Nimb was a single parent with two children. Victor had been gone for two days now. He had sent her a postcard. He had turned eighteen. You couldn’t control them once they were of age, could you?

  Peter had just returned to his house on the cliff and was about to switch off the engine and take the dog for a walk when his mobile rang.

  ‘My name is Anders Klein. I’m the manager of the Brugsen supermarket in Fjellerup by the camp site . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You put up a kind of missing person notice, about a boy called Magnus?’

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘He was here yesterday. I’m fairly sure it was him.’

  If he found Magnus, he might also be able to find Victor and Ea-Louise.

  ‘Was he alone?’

  ‘He was with a young woman.’

  ‘You’re sure there weren’t three of them?’

  There was a small pause, then the man said:

  ‘They seemed very confused. They left behind a rucksack with some clothes in. I still have it.’

  ‘OK. I’ll be there in fifteen min
utes.’

  Most people would probably have preferred Fjellerup Beach on a beautiful summer’s day with the sun baking the sand dunes.

  Today wasn’t one of those days. Today, the sand was airborne, helped on its way by a sharp northerly wind. The air was full of stinging drops of seawater and the lyme grass rose like a toupee from a bald pate. Peter was reminded of this image when he stepped inside the supermarket to meet Anders Klein as they had arranged. He was anything but klein, small, that is, and tufts of a blond comb-over clung to his egg-shaped head.

  ‘They appeared at around four o’clock yesterday afternoon,’ the Brugsen manager said. ‘I was here on my own. There’s not much business at this time of the year. They bought some packets of soup and milk.’

  ‘Did they say anything?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Nothing. On the contrary, they were very quiet. They looked as if . . . Well, as if they didn’t know quite what to do.’

  ‘How did they pay?’

  ‘Cash. He paid. The girl offered, but he insisted.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  The man handed Peter the rucksack. It was a small, blue Fjällräven model. A single glance told Peter it didn’t belong to Magnus. Bella had said he had taken his scout rucksack with him. No matter how confused you were, you didn’t take two rucksacks if you were hoping to survive in the wild. It made no sense. You could only carry one at a time.

  A quick look at the contents of the rucksack told him that the clothes didn’t belong to a girl.

  Peter nodded to Anders Klein.

  ‘And you’re quite sure there wasn’t a third person? On his own?’

  ‘Yes, I’m quite sure. I would have remembered. As I said, not much happens at this time of year.’

  Peter nodded by way of thanks as he left. When he reached his car, he drove down to the beach, let the dog out and gave him a jumper to sniff from the rucksack.

  ‘Search, Kaj!’

  The dog stood still for a moment as if he had no idea what to do. The wind was blowing from every direction. Sand and seawater mixed in the air. Peter knew it was a very slim chance, but it had to be tried.

  ‘Search!’

  Kaj regarded him, unconvinced. Then he padded first in one direction, then in another, until he suddenly seemed to make up his mind and move inland, up towards the dunes.