Her hands shifted position on the steering wheel, which was clammy with her sweat. The traffic was slow but she was finally out of the city. She longed for her home, her small flat on the outskirts of Grenå. Nothing special, but it was hers and no one else’s. She very rarely received guests, except her neighbour every now and then. She didn’t let anyone in. Her security was the intercom downstairs and living on the third floor in a new block, which she told herself was safe. She had five chains on her door.
She couldn’t remember what had happened next that day in the basement. But they had told her afterwards. The adults had woken up after their nap and wondered where the children were, because it was so quiet. It was her father who had thought to check the basement, and who had saved her and insisted that Simon had to be seen by a doctor. Simon was ill, he insisted. Mentally ill.
‘That boy’s dangerous,’ she remembered him saying.
But nothing ever happened. Two months later her father fell ill and died. Simon was and would always be the apple of his mother’s eye, and no one could touch him. Until the day when everything went wrong.
At last. She switched off the engine in the car park and carried out a visual check of the area as always, but saw nothing unusual. Would he come here?
Her heart was pounding as she unlocked the door to the stairwell and took the lift to the third floor. Her hands were shaking so much the keys were jangling in her hand as she unlocked the front door, both at the top and the bottom. Finally, she could open the door and shut it behind her. She breathed a sigh of relief, fumbled to put the security chains on and, for a moment, rested her forehead against the door.
Then a hand was placed on her shoulder and she felt cold steel against her throat.
‘Welcome home, Sis,’ Simon said.
65
‘THINK HARDER. YOU must be able to remember something!’
Peter looked at Bella, who was wandering around her house touching different objects as if that could stimulate memories. She shook her head.
‘I don’t know what it could be.’
Then she returned to Magnus.
‘I just know you’ll find him, Peter. If anyone can find him, you can.’
To hell with them all. She had My’s faith in him, the faith she should never have had. My had called him wise. And look where that had got her. Bella stood still in front of him. He felt like shaking her. Instead, he took her by the shoulders, led her to the kitchen and plonked her down on a chair. Her son, Christian, was sleeping over at a friend’s house, she had told him. They were alone.
‘Finding Magnus and Ea-Louise isn’t enough,’ he said. ‘Although that alone might prove to be pretty hard. We need to get to the bottom of this. We need to go right back to the beginning.’
He looked at the posters in her kitchen, about furs and whales and animal transport.
‘OK,’ he said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into his voice. ‘Begin at the beginning.’
They hadn’t made much progress since last night. They had talked and talked and tried to narrow down the problem, narrow down the time to when something went wrong and the urge for revenge was born.
Then she had fallen asleep on his sofa, completely exhausted. And now, after she had been interviewed by the police, he had driven her home.
‘Again,’ she mumbled.
‘How did you meet Alice Brask?’
‘We were neighbours.’
‘Year?’
She calculated.
‘It was 1994. I was pregnant with Magnus.’
‘And My?’
‘My wasn’t there.’
‘Did Alice Brask ever meet My?’
‘No.’
She shook her head vehemently.
‘This has got nothing to do with My,’ she said. ‘It’s impossible.’
‘Nothing is impossible.’
Peter was thinking so hard his eyes blurred. The gnawing feeling had come back. Everything was connected. My was part of the story, he was convinced of it.
‘OK. Then what? You had Magnus.’
‘Yes, and Alice had Melissa soon afterwards.’
‘What about a mothers’ group?’
It was pure guesswork on his part. What did he know about becoming a parent?
‘What about it?’
‘Did you belong to something like that?’
She nodded.
‘You and Alice. But none of the others? Not Anni Toftegaard? Not Ketty Nimb or Ulla Vang?’
‘No.’
‘What about other women? Any names?’
She shook her head.
‘Ooh, Peter. This is a really long time ago.’
‘Try.’
She pushed herself up from the chair.
‘I’ll have to check.’
He followed her into a study-cum-guest bedroom, where she pulled down some old ring binders from a shelf. She sent him a thin-lipped smile.
‘From back in the days when they still used paper. These days everything is done online.’
She didn’t find anything in the ring binders, but dug out a pile of old diaries from a box under the futon he guessed served as the guest bed.
Peter’s hope soared. Diaries were treasure chests of gossip. In his experience, women wrote everything down.
Bella dusted off a white spiral diary from 1994 and flicked through it.
‘We took turns to meet at each other’s houses,’ she said. ‘Here.’
A date and a name followed by an address: Helene Sparre. Lystrupvej 5.
Peter found some paper and a pen and copied it down.
Meanwhile, Bella discovered another name: Isa Nielsen. Randersvej 334 in Lisbjerg.
Bella found a few more and he wrote them down as well. Maybe they could give him a lead. Maybe not. Peter would be lucky if he could track down these people.
‘OK. And you and Alice belonged to that group?’
Bella nodded.
A network, he thought. Somehow this is all about a network. If it’s not animal activists, then it’s something else. It was like overlapping circles. Some women belonged to several groups, others to just a single one, perhaps the mothers’ group. But what other groups had there been? That was what he needed to trace all the way back.
‘What about the men?’ he asked. ‘Where do they figure in all this?’
She shrugged.
‘You’re a man. What do you think?’
He had never regarded himself as typical of his gender, but perhaps he was more ordinary than he had believed. He had never been a member of any group and had never wanted to be.
‘Men watch football, drink beer together or play in a band,’ Bella said.
‘What did your husband do?’
The man who didn’t want My. Who thought her autism was the result of a childhood vaccination. Peter loathed him with all his heart.
Bella looked blank. There was nothing to be gleaned from her face or her body language as she bent over the pile of diaries.
‘Nothing,’ she said.
‘But he knew Alice Brask?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did they get on?’
He asked this, prompted by unashamedly primitive feelings of hatred.
‘They agreed on lots of things,’ Bella said, dodging the question.
‘And you? Did you agree as well?’
‘To a large extent.’
He sat down. He remembered the head teacher at the nursery saying Bella had had poor advisers. She might have been thinking about something that Bella’s husband and Alice Brask had pressurised her into.
‘I know they’re private, but please may I borrow these diaries?’
She nodded.
‘I’ll call you if I have any questions.’
Another nod.
‘Are you going to go now?’
Her voice had suddenly become very small.
‘That was the plan.’
She leaned back and looked up at him. She seemed so vulnerable and naive that he be
lieved her.
‘Stay,’ she said. ‘Just a little bit longer.’
She stretched up on her toes. He saw tears rolling down her cheeks, then she gently placed her hand on his shoulder and, with a small step, closed the distance between them.
‘Stay, Peter,’ she whispered.
He could feel her heart beating and remembered the swallow he had held in his hand the other day. He wanted to resist, the way he had in his dream about her, but his body obeyed her and not him as her hand fluttered up to his face and stopped when her lips were pressing against his.
‘Listen, Bella.’
He pushed her away in a friendly manner, but she quickly returned. He pushed her away again, but she had already pressed her body so close to his that it was impossible not to react.
‘This isn’t . . .’
Her lips opened and let him in. His whole body was pounding and he gave in and they collapsed onto the futon, she with her hands wandering down towards his zip and her fragile body glued to his.
It wasn’t the first time in his life he’d had sex knowing he would regret it later. Nor was it likely to be the last, he thought, before he allowed himself to be swallowed up completely by skin and flesh in a cocktail seasoned with lust and profound scepticism.
Afterwards they lay panting and she refused to look at him. He grabbed her by the arm, hard, and made her look.
‘What was that about?’
But he already knew. He had to be distracted. She didn’t want him walking all over her guilty conscience.
‘Nothing,’ she muttered. ‘You wanted it as well.’
He nodded.
‘But it’s not going to distract me, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Why would I think that?’
She spoke in an airy tone, a little girl’s voice once more. He sat upright.
‘What was the name of your doctor back then? You and Alice must have had the same GP.’
‘Why? He was a silly old buffer.’
‘Because I’m tapping in the dark here.’
Bella wrinkled her nose. He looked at her as she lay there, still naked, in front of him, small breasts and a thin shaved stripe. Not young but, in a strange way, ageless. Her eyes were close to his, dancing, even now, and he pulled a blanket over her.
‘He’s retired, thank God.’
She sat up, pulling the blanket right up to her neck in a sudden fit of modesty. ‘He lived in Lystrup.’
‘Name?’
‘Poul Gerrick.’
‘Why didn’t you like him?’
In a detached way she gazed at the wall and then up at the ceiling.
‘He never had any children of his own. What did he know about being a mother?’
66
WHAT WAS DONE was done, and he didn’t do remorse. But after the session with Bella Peter promised himself there would be no repeat performances. He checked the notes he had made and drove to Lystrupvej 5. Helene Sparre, it transpired, didn’t live there with her family any more and the new owners didn’t know where the family had moved to.
He Googled her on his mobile and learned that she had moved to Højbjerg. However, he decided to make for Lisbjerg and visit Isa Nielsen.
He was in luck this time. Her husband opened the door – fortunately he didn’t have a problem with letting Peter in – and called out to his wife, who was taking a shower.
‘I’m taking Anton to football,’ the husband said. ‘So she’s all yours. The big one is asleep. He was at a party last night.’
The big one. Peter thought that must be the child Isa had had when Bella had Magnus. What a long time ago this all was, it struck him. Would they be able to remember anything at all? And why would someone with a motive for revenge from way back wait for so many years before getting what he regarded as justice?
Isa’s husband looked more like a marathon runner than a football player. He zipped up a sports bag on the dining table.
‘Bella. Yes, I remember her. Nice girl, but very shy. Even so, we got to know the family a bit, of course.’
Isa Nielsen came in. She had thick chestnut hair reaching down to her shoulders and was as tall as a flagpole and as lean as her husband. She was also a bright woman. ‘Yes, I heard about Melissa. Poor thing. She used to be such a lovely little girl.’
She winked at Peter.
‘Not that her mother would allow that, of course. Alice dressed her as a boy. She went in for equality.’
‘There’s not much equality in that,’ Peter ventured.
A quick smile flashed across Isa Nielsen’s face.
‘You’d never say that to Alice, or she’d bite your head off.’
‘So even then she was . . . a woman of strong opinions.’
Isa shook her head at the thought.
‘She was terrible.’
‘You’re the first person I’ve heard say that.’
Isa Nielsen laughed. Peter wouldn’t call her beautiful, but her humour was infectious. Her mouth was big and looked as if it could swallow anything. As she laughed, her nose wrinkled and her eyes practically disappeared.
‘If you keep digging, you’ll probably discover that I’m not alone.’
She grew more serious.
‘It’s awful, of course. What happened to Melissa, I mean. She was the apple of Alice’s eye. But Alice herself . . . My God, she was always trying to tell us what to do in the group.’
‘And did she succeed?’
She wound a chestnut lock around a finger and was clearly giving the question due consideration.
‘Remember, we were so young and naive. Alice was older than the rest of us, and she knew so much about . . .’
Isa’s hand circled in the air. ‘Well, about everything.’
‘She blogs,’ Peter said. ‘Do you follow her?’
Another grin.
‘No, I certainly do not. I don’t need Alice telling me what to think.’
She added: ‘And I never did.’
‘But some did?’
‘Not all of them, but some people.’
‘And Bella?’
She rolled her eyes.
‘Silly little Bella. She knew nothing about the world, except what that idiot of a husband told her.’
‘Did Alice also tell her what to think?’
Isa nodded.
‘The pair of them shaped Bella like you’d shape putty.’
Peter waited for more. It came after a toss of her head sent her flowing mane into a swirl.
‘During the time we met – we hung around together for about four years – Bella turned into a passionate champion for everything Alice felt she ought to espouse. I still have my doubts as to whether she ever had an independent thought in her head.’
As though fearing that she might have crossed the line, she added:
‘Please don’t think I’m saying Bella was stupid. Far from it. She simply adapted. She survived in the waters her husband and Alice shared.’
‘Her husband made her give up her first child. Did you know that?’
Isa nodded.
‘She had some form of autism. Bella had her when she was very young.’
‘Bella’s husband reckoned her autism had developed after an MMR vaccination,’ Peter said.
Isa’s eyebrows shot up. She sat for a while as if ruminating on something.
‘Oh, so that was why . . .’
‘Why what?’
‘He and Alice were as thick as thieves when it came to the MMR. Alice was vehemently against it, and I don’t think Melissa was ever given that vaccination, even though the doctors recommended it.’
She added:
‘And they still do.’
‘And Magnus? Did he have it?’
Isa’s head turned slowly from side to side.
‘I don’t know. I opted out of that debate. I wasn’t going to trust Alice on science, even though there was conflicting information at the time.’
‘When does a child have the vaccination?’
She pulled a face.
‘If we had known then how the Net would develop, some of us might have considered blowing it up.’
She must have seen the question in his eyes.
‘I’m guessing you don’t have kids?’
‘Correct.’
She smiled. ‘You should see mine. When they’re not playing football or going to parties, they’re on Twitter or Facebook and they don’t live in the real world. Except when there’s food on the table, of course. They’re seventeen and fourteen and eat like horses.’
She paused briefly, then said:
‘Now you’re probably thinking I’m just as strident in my opinions as Alice.’
Peter got up.
‘You’re entitled to your opinions. Thank you for your time.’
When he got home, he took the dog for a short walk on the cliff and then started looking through Bella’s diaries.
Isa Nielsen had been a great help. But she and the mothers’ group had obviously lost touch with Bella and Alice before the point when the killer started seething with hatred.
The story about the vaccinations buzzed around his head. He considered calling Bella, then decided to check all the diaries first.
He read through 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997 very carefully, but found no appointments for vaccinations.
Instead, he found something else. ‘P-party, Alice’s’, he saw. And somewhere else. ‘P-party, Anni Toftegaard’. And then the address of Nils’s mother. And yet another one: ‘P-party, Ulla Vang’. And then her address.
It looked as if Bella had met both Ulla and Anni via Alice and the first P-party.
What was a P-party?
He gave up trying to guess and picked up the phone to ring Bella, who sounded drowsy, as if he had woken her up.
‘Did Magnus ever have the MMR jab?’ he asked and was met with a deafening silence.
Dead Souls Page 29