The Scarred Woman

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  “Where you come from, they probably haven’t learned to tell the difference!” hissed Denise. “But shit sticks together, they say, and the first land the Nazis invaded was their own. Did you know that, you idiotic punk?”

  Michelle shook her head. That was a weird thing to say.

  In a split second, the mood changed; you could have cut the air with a knife. The punk girl clenched her fists. She looked like she was capable of doing anything at that moment. Michelle didn’t like it one bit.

  Then a number was called and the Jazmine girl breathed a sigh of relief when the punk gave in and stood up. But the look she sent their way as she walked over to the caseworker’s office didn’t bode well.

  “Who the hell was that? It looked like you knew her,” Denise asked Jazmine.

  “Not someone you should give the finger to, I can tell you. She lives a few streets away from me and comes from Iceland. Her name’s Birna, and she’s totally sick in the head. I mean, really screwed up.”

  4

  Friday, May 13th, 2016

  “Yes, it was me who did it. I bashed her head in with an iron rod. She really screamed, but I didn’t care, just kept hitting her.”

  Carl tapped the cigarette on the back of his hand, bringing it up to his lips a couple of times before putting it back down.

  With his eyes screwed almost shut, he looked at the ID the man who sat opposite had handed him without being asked. Forty-two years old, but he looked at least fifteen years older.

  “You hit her and she screamed, you say. But how hard did you hit her, Mogens? Can you show me? Stand up for a minute and demonstrate.”

  The slender man stood up. “You mean you want me to hit the air and pretend I’m holding the iron bar?”

  Carl nodded, hiding a yawn as the man stood up. “Hit out just as you did at the time.”

  The man opened his mouth and screwed up his face in concentration: a pitiful sight. Sallow skin, shirt buttoned up incorrectly, pants hanging off his hips, the man grabbed his imaginary weapon and raised his arms, ready to strike.

  When he let rip, his eyes opened wide with a perverse pleasure, as if he could see the body falling. He quivered momentarily, as if he had cum in his pants.

  “That’s how I did it,” he said, smiling with relief.

  “Thanks, Mogens,” said Carl. “That was exactly how you killed the young substitute teacher from Bolman’s Independent School in Østre Anlæg, right? And then she fell forward facedown?”

  He nodded, looking at him remorsefully, like a naughty child.

  “Assad, can you come in here?” Carl shouted out to the basement hallway.

  There was a sound of huffing and puffing from the corridor.

  “And bring your Mexican coffee with you, Assad!” shouted Carl. “I think Mogens Iversen is a bit thirsty.” He looked at the man, whose face switched mechanically between friendly and subdued gratitude.

  “But check first what information we have concerning the murder of Stephanie Gundersen in 2004!” he shouted again.

  He nodded to the man, who smiled and squinted with confidence. His expression seemed to suggest that in this moment they were almost colleagues. Two souls working together successfully to clear up an old murder case. Nothing less.

  “And then you hit her again while she was lying on the grass, is that right, Mogens?”

  “Yes. She screamed, but I hit her three or four times more, and then she just stopped. I don’t remember exactly. It was twelve years ago, after all.”

  “Tell me, Mogens, why are you making this confession? And why now?”

  His gaze faltered. His mouth hung open, quivering, revealing a set of hideous teeth in his lower jaw, which much to Carl’s irritation reminded him that his own dentist had unsuccessfully tried to get ahold of him three times to remind him of his yearly checkup.

  It was obvious from the way the guy’s diaphragm was shaking that he was fighting bravely with himself. It wouldn’t surprise Carl if he suddenly started crying.

  “I just couldn’t keep it to myself any longer,” he said, his jaw quivering.

  Carl nodded while typing the man’s social security number into their system. “I understand you, Mogens. A murder like that is an awful burden to carry alone, isn’t it?”

  He nodded gratefully.

  “I can see here that you live in Næstved. That’s quite a distance from Copenhagen—and from the scene of the crime in Østre Anlæg, I might add.”

  “I haven’t always lived in Næstved,” he said almost defensively. “I used to live in Copenhagen.”

  “But why have you come all the way here? You could just as easily have reported this gruesome crime at the local station.”

  “Because you’re the ones who deal with the old cases. Even though it’s a while ago since I read about you in the papers, it is still you lot, isn’t it?”

  Carl frowned. “Do you read many newspapers, Mogens?”

  He tried to appear more serious than he was. “Isn’t it our duty to keep up with the news and preserve the freedom of the press?” he asked.

  “The woman you murdered . . . why did you do it? Did you know her? I can’t imagine you’ve had any connection to Bolman’s Independent School.”

  He dried his eyes. “She just walked past when it came over me.”

  “Came over you? Does that happen often, Mogens? Because if you’ve killed anyone else, now is the time to get it off your chest.”

  He shook his head without batting an eye.

  Carl looked down over the screen. They had quite a bit of information on the man, so there was little doubt what he might come up with next.

  Assad entered, placing a slim case file in front of him. He didn’t look happy.

  “That’s four more shelves that’ve collapsed out in the hallway, Carl. We need to get more shelf space; they get too heavy otherwise.”

  Carl nodded. All this damn paperwork. They could burn the lot for all he cared.

  He opened the case file. They hadn’t received much down here in the basement concerning the Stephanie Gundersen case. So it was presumably still in the spotlight up with homicide.

  He turned to the last page, read the last few lines, and nodded to himself.

  “You forgot the coffee, Assad,” he said, still looking at the file.

  Assad nodded. “For him?”

  Carl winked. “So make it extra extra good. He needs it.”

  He turned toward the man while Assad disappeared out into the hallway.

  “I can see you’ve been down here at headquarters before to make a confession in other cases, Mogens.”

  He nodded guiltily.

  “And each time you’ve had such a flimsy knowledge of the nature of the case that you’ve been sent home, encouraged to seek psychological help and never come back again.”

  “Yes, that’s true. But this time it is me who did it. You can trust me on that.”

  “And you couldn’t just go up to homicide and tell them because they’d send you straight home with the same advice as before, am I right?”

  He seemed thrilled that someone understood. “Yes, that’s exactly what they’d do.”

  “Have you been to see a psychologist in the meantime, Mogens?”

  “Yes, many times. And I’ve been admitted to the psychiatric ward at Dronninglund and the lot.”

  “The lot?”

  “Yes, medication and so on.” He looked almost proud.

  “Right. Well, I can tell you that you’re getting the same answer from me as you got upstairs in homicide. You’re a sick man, Mogens, and if you come down here again with these false confessions, we’ll have to detain you. I’m sure another stay in psychiatric would help you, but it’s up to you.”

  Mogens frowned. Crazy thoughts rushed through his mind—that much was clear.

  L
ies seasoned with real remorse and a pinch of the facts he could have sneakily obtained were now mixed with desperation. But why? Carl had never understood people like Mogens.

  “Don’t say another word, Mogens. If you thought we wouldn’t know about all this down here in the basement, you were mistaken. And I also know that everything you’ve told us about the attack on this poor woman is downright wrong. The direction of the blow to the head, the angle the blow came from, how she fell after the attack, how many blows there were. You had nothing to do with this murder, and now it’s time you went back home to Næstved, okay?!”

  “Hi, here’s that little Mexican coffee in a fancy cup à la Señor Assad,” trolled Assad as he placed it in front of the man. “Sugar?” he asked.

  Mogens nodded in silence, resembling a man robbed of his release just as he was about to orgasm.

  “It’s a good drink to send you off on your way, but you need to down it in one,” Assad said smilingly. “It will be so good for you.”

  A hint of suspicion came over the man’s face.

  “If you don’t do it, we’ll arrest you for making a false statement, Mogens, so drink,” Carl said harshly.

  They both leaned in toward him, watching his reluctant grip on the cup as he brought it up toward his mouth.

  “In one gulp!” Assad threatened.

  His Adam’s apple went up and down a couple of times as the coffee went down. It was just a question of time. Poor man.

  —

  “How much chili did you actually put in that cup, Assad?” asked Carl when they had cleaned up the remaining vomit from the table.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Not that much, but it was a fresh Carolina Reaper.”

  “And that’s strong?”

  “Yes, Carl. You saw him.”

  “Can it kill him?”

  “Unlikely.”

  Carl smiled. Mogens Iversen would definitely not be bothering Department Q with that sort of nonsense again.

  “Should I write the man’s ‘confession’ in the report, Carl?”

  He shook his head as he flicked through the paperwork. “I can see that it was one of Marcus Jacobsen’s cases. It was too bad for him that he never managed to solve the case.”

  Assad nodded. “Did they ever find out what weapon was used to kill the woman?”

  “Not as far as I can see. With some kind of blunt object, it says. We’ve heard that before.”

  Carl closed the case file. When the time came for homicide to archive the case, it would be their job to get to the bottom of it.

  They would deal with that when the time came.

  5

  Monday, May 2nd, 2016

  Anne-Line Svendsen wasn’t exactly one of the happiest people you could meet, and there were plenty of reasons for this. As far as looks went, she’d been well enough endowed. A good head, an attractive enough appearance, and a body that in its day had turned men’s heads. But she’d never learned to make the best of what she had, and as time went by, she’d also begun to doubt the usefulness of her physical attributes.

  Anne-Line, or Anneli, as she liked to call herself, had never really managed to navigate life, as her father used to put it. When men walked by, she seemed to be looking left when they were standing on the right. When she bought clothes, she listened to what she wanted to hear rather than what the mirror showed her. When she chose what to study, she considered short-term over long-term financial gains. As time went on, she ended up in a situation she couldn’t have imagined and certainly hadn’t wished for.

  Following a string of pitiable relationships, she was one of the 37 percent of Danes who lived alone; as a result, over the past few years, she had eaten too much and more often than not of the wrong sort of food, ending in a permanent state of disappointment about her amorphous body and almost unbearable tiredness. But the worst of all these miscalculations in life was the job she had ended up with. When she was younger, a sort of idealism had convinced her that working in the public benefits sector would aid society and also give her personal satisfaction. How could she have known back then that in the wake of the millennium there would be a series of reckless and badly thought through political decisions that now resulted in her being caught in a so-called collaboration between incompetent middle management and just as equally unrealistic political decision makers lacking in solidarity? Neither she nor her colleagues had had a chance to keep up with all the memos, directives, and analytical measures that had been thrust on them, leaving her working in a social security system that was totally misgoverned, often administered contrary to the law, and with a system for distributing social security benefits that could never work in practice. Many of her colleagues were suffering from stress, just like Anneli. She had had two months off work, lying under her duvet with dark, depressing thoughts and a total inability to concentrate on a single objective. When she finally returned to work, it was almost worse than before.

  In this morass of political mismanagement, she not only was supposed to take care of the usual clients but had also been put in charge of what she regarded as a ticking time bomb in the system: a group of mostly young women who had never learned anything and who in all likelihood never would.

  When Anneli went home from work she was dead tired and irritated. Not because she had been doing useful work but precisely because she hadn’t. And today had been no different. In other words, it had been a terrible day.

  She was shortly due to attend a routine mammogram at Copenhagen University Hospital, following which she intended to buy a couple of cakes to take home, put her feet up, and snuggle under a blanket before heading out to meet the girls from the office for their weekly yoga class at eight o’clock.

  The truth was that Anneli hated any form of physical exercise and especially yoga. Her body ached all over afterward, so why on earth did she do it? When it came to it, she didn’t even like her colleagues and knew for certain that the feeling was mutual. The only reason they didn’t leave her out was that she could help with anything they were unsure about at work.

  That was another side to Anneli.

  —

  “Have you ever experienced any discomfort in this area lately, Anne-Line?” the doctor asked as she examined the scan.

  Anneli attempted a smile. She had taken part in this research project for ten years now, and the answer had never really changed.

  “Only when you flatten my breast out like a pancake to take the scan,” she answered dryly.

  The doctor turned around. The normally expressionless face looked worried, sending an unexpected shiver down Anneli’s spine.

  “There’s actually a lump in your right breast, Anne-Line.”

  Anneli held her breath. Bad joke, she thought in a moment of confusion.

  Then the doctor turned back to face the screen. “Look here.” She outlined a large mark with her pen before quickly typing something on the computer to bring up a new image.

  “This scan is from last year, and there was nothing there then, Anne-Line. I’m afraid we’ll have to escalate this from a routine check to treating it as an acute situation.”

  She didn’t understand. The word “cancer” seemed to float past her. Such a shitty word.

  —

  “How come you’re late?”

  The four women smiled condescendingly, but she was used to it.

  “Where on earth have you been? We’ve been twisting our bodies into all sorts of impossible positions.”

  She sat down at their regular table in the coffee shop and attempted a smile. “I just had so much to do today. I’m totally exhausted.”

  “Have a cake; that’ll put a smile back on your face,” said Ruth. She was the one who had worked at the social security office for twenty-two years before finally giving in and had now been working as an office assistant for a taxi company for six months. In many ways she wa
s a bit peculiar, but she was certainly more competent than most.

  Anneli wavered for a moment. Should she take this band of irrelevant people into her confidence and explain why she hadn’t been able to find the energy to stretch toward the sun and free her mind to the sound of so-called world music? If she blurted it out, would she be able to control her feelings? She definitely wasn’t going to start crying while the others were watching.

  “Jesus, you don’t seem well. Is anything wrong, Anne-Line?” asked Klara, the most approachable one.

  She looked around at her colleagues, sitting there without makeup, their cake forks in full swing. What damn good would it do her if she ruined this lovely harmony with the harsh reality of her news? She didn’t even know what sort of bloody lump she had.

  “It’s just those awful girls,” she said.

  “Oh, them again!” One of them nodded, looking bored. As if Anneli didn’t know that no one should waste their energy on that subject, but what the hell else was she meant to talk about? She didn’t have a husband at home she could complain about. No children she could boast about. No new exclusive curry-colored sofa she could show everyone a photo of and tell them just how expensive it had been.

  “Yes, I know it’s my problem, but it still makes me feel sick, okay? There are those in need and then there are those who are just full of it, sitting there blowing hot air, all dolled up in their boots, makeup, and hair extensions. You just can’t find fault with those girls. Everything matches: bags, shoes, clothes. It’s all bling, bling, bling!”

  The description made the youngest of the group smile, but the rest of them just shrugged their shoulders. They were the diametrical opposite of the girls: the grey public servants who, when they finally did let their hair down, did no more than apply a little henna to their hair or wear black ankle boots with neat little studs. Of course they didn’t care. Why would they? No one cared in this society anymore. They just turned a blind eye when it was time to act. How else could everything have gone so wrong?