The Scarred Woman

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  Carl scrutinized the page further. Five of the years had two different phrases, while only one had three.

  “We do know why the change occurred in 2014, right, Carl?” said Assad. “She chose to use a new phrase just after the hypnosis, isn’t that right, Gordon?”

  He nodded, looking slightly surprised. “Yes, exactly. And it’s actually the only year that has a few empty days in the middle. She starts off writing: ‘IT ISN’T HAPPENING IT ISN’T HAPPENING.’ Then we have three empty days, which she just marks with separating lines, and then for the rest of the year the phrase: ‘AWAY AWAY AWAY.’”

  “All very peculiar,” observed Assad. “What happens when a new year begins? Does she just come up with new phrases every time?”

  Gordon’s expression changed. It was very difficult to see how this really affected him. On the one hand, he was serious like a relief worker coming to the last-minute rescue of someone in peril, and on the other hand, like an elated boy who had just scored his first girlfriend.

  “That’s a brilliant question, Assad. She actually starts all twenty-seven years except four with a new sentence on January 1st.”

  Assad and Carl stared at the years, especially 1998 and 1999. DIE! It made them feel uneasy. Could it really be their Rose who in such an agitated frame of mind had written “DIE DIE DIE DIE” again and again every day for a year and a half?

  “It’s almost sick,” said Carl. “How can a young woman sit night after night and write this terrible stuff? And then suddenly turn on a dime and constantly cry for help? What was going on in her head?”

  “Really scary,” Assad said quietly.

  “Have you also worked out on which date the phrases change in 1999, Gordon?” asked Carl.

  “It was May 18th,” answered Gordon immediately. He looked proud and had every reason to be.

  “Jesus Christ, no,” sighed Carl.

  Gordon looked confused. “Did anything special happen on that day?” he asked.

  Carl nodded, pointing to a thin yellow folder hidden between two binders with white indexes in the back.

  REGULATIONS was written on them. That was one way to make sure that no one in Department Q would come anywhere near the yellow folder.

  Gordon reached out for the yellow folder and handed it to Carl.

  “Here’s your explanation,” he said, pulling out a page from a newspaper from the folder and laying it out on the desk.

  He pointed at the date on the top of the page—May 19th, 1999—and ran his finger down the page, stopping at one of the minor news stories.

  47-YEAR-OLD MAN KILLED IN STEEL PLANT ACCIDENT, it read.

  Carl let his finger slide down the text to the victim’s name.

  “As you can see, the man was called Arne Knudsen,” he said. “And that was Rose’s dad.”

  They stood speechless for a moment, digesting what they had just read, their eyes moving from the article to Gordon’s sheet.

  “I think we can agree that Rose’s notebooks are a collected statement of her state of mind throughout more than twenty-six years,” said Carl, pinning Gordon’s sheet to the notice board.

  “You probably don’t want it hanging there when Rose comes back,” said Gordon.

  Assad nodded. “Of course not, she’d never forgive us—or her sisters.”

  Carl agreed, but it would have to stay for now.

  “We know from her sisters, Vicky and Lise-Marie, that Rose’s dad was always after her and that Rose sought escape in these notebooks when she was alone in her room at night,” he said. “Apparently, it was a form of therapy for her, but something indicates that it didn’t help her in the long run.”

  “Did he hit her?” Gordon clenched his fists, but it didn’t look very menacing.

  “No, not according to her sisters. And neither did he abuse her sexually,” said Assad.

  “Then the bastard was all mouth?” Gordon’s face had turned scarlet. It actually suited him.

  “Yes, again according to her sisters,” answered Carl. “He terrorized her without mercy. We just don’t know how, so we need to find out. We can conclude that there wasn’t a single day in more than twenty-six years when this systematic harassment didn’t affect her, leaving her with deep mental scars.”

  “I just can’t believe that this is the Rose we know,” said Assad. “Can you?”

  Carl sighed. It was hard.

  They stood in front of Gordon’s sheet, studying it closely. Just like the others, Carl examined each line carefully before moving on to the next.

  At least twenty minutes passed before anyone said anything. They had all taken mental notes based on their reading. Carl had felt a stab to his heart at least ten times thinking about Rose’s self-initiated and lonely therapy. Years of silently screaming for help.

  He sighed. It really was surprisingly hard to think about this woman whom they thought they knew so well but who for all these years had had to live with overshadowing and profound emotions that she was able to deal with only through writing all these harsh phrases.

  Oh, Rose, thought Carl. Despite the way she had been feeling inside, she had still had the energy to help and support him when he was down. And on top of that, she had found the strength every day to engage wholeheartedly with the tough cases they worked on in Department Q. So long as she had had this safe system to come home to, she had been able to cope with all the negativity she had inside.

  Intelligent, clever Rose. Everyone’s annoying, wonderful, tortured Rose. And now she had been admitted again. Ultimately, her system hadn’t been enough for her.

  “Listen,” said Carl.

  The other two looked up.

  “There is no doubt that her relationship to her dad determined her choice of words. But can’t we also agree that when a phrase changes in the middle of a year, it must be related to a very specific event, and for many years at the beginning they only change for the worse?”

  They both nodded.

  “And we can deduce that there have also been positive developments later on. A nightmare in 2000 slowly becomes easier over the following years, ending with the phrase, ‘I AM GOOD.’ So if we want to understand what happened to Rose, which of course we do, our task is to uncover the events that triggered either bad or good phrases. The development is most prominent when her dad died in ’99: from something completely irreconcilable to almost the opposite.”

  “What do you think? Is she talking to herself or her dad when she writes?” asked Gordon.

  “Yeah, that’s what we need to ask for help in working out from those who knew her best back then.”

  “Then we’ll have to talk to her sisters again. Perhaps they know what happened in the years when the phrases suddenly changed.”

  Carl nodded.

  Gordon had regained his natural pâté-colored hue. Apparently he was at his best when he looked most ill. Carl had never thought about that before.

  “What if we speak to a psychologist to get their interpretation of Rose’s varying states of mind? Then we’ll also have someone who can pass on the results to her psychiatrists in Glostrup,” suggested Gordon.

  “Good idea. We’ll need to talk to Mona, won’t we, Carl?” For once Assad had wiped the smile off his face when talking about her.

  Carl folded his hands, resting his chin on his knuckles. Even though he and Mona were working in the same building, it had been several years since he had really spoken with her. And even though he wanted to, she appeared so unapproachable and fragile that it seemed like a risky undertaking. Of course he had asked Lis if she was ill, but Lis had said she wasn’t.

  Carl tried not to frown but without success. “Okay, Gordon. You call the sisters now that you’ve developed such a rapport with them. Maybe some of them will have time to come to the meeting. Assad, you organize that meeting. Tomorrow if possible, okay? Have a word with Mo
na and fill her in on the situation.”

  There was Assad’s cheeky smile. “And what about you, Carl? Are you going home to slack off, or would you rather visit the second floor to see what you can find out about the Zimmermann case?” asked Assad, looking mischievous.

  Why the hell did he even ask when he already knew the answer?

  20

  Tuesday, May 24th, 2016

  They had been standing for a long time in front of the bathroom mirror. Jazmine and Denise in front, Michelle in the middle behind them, chatting away like old friends while they commented on and touched one another’s hair. They looked smashing. If Michelle had not been living with them, she would have simply copied them. Jazmine’s method of accentuating her high cheekbones with a soft brush, Denise’s totally cool way of pushing up her breasts, and all sorts of things she thought made them different from her.

  “My guy gave me four thousand yesterday,” said Denise. “What about yours, Jazmine?”

  She shrugged. “He wouldn’t give me anything at first. He actually got pissed off and said it wasn’t that kind of dating site, but then he threw me two thousand anyway because he was horny. But when I gave him a condom he demanded one thousand back, the idiot, and I had no choice because he looked like he meant it.”

  Michelle stuck her head in between them. “But you said you were going to try and get pregnant with him?”

  Jazmine raised an eyebrow in the mirror. “Not with him; he was too ugly. Not that it matters, but I would have wanted more money out of him on the spot.”

  Michelle looked at her face. Would she be able to do what the others were doing? And would anyone want her the way she looked now? Two black eyes, a bandage on the back of her head, and a bloodshot right eye.

  “Do you think this will go away?” she asked, pointing at her eye. “I’ve heard that blood in the eye can turn the whites brown if it doesn’t heal quickly enough.”

  Denise turned around, dangling her eyeliner in midair.

  “Where on earth have you heard that? Do you also believe in fairies?”

  An unpleasant feeling of being revealed as an idiot came over her. Were they now going to be the ones to belittle her? Wasn’t she just as good as them? Didn’t they actually like her? If she hadn’t been extremely lucky, she would be lying in a coffin now instead of being here. Didn’t they even think about that? Didn’t they consider that she had nothing and that she wasn’t like them? She couldn’t sleep with strange men like they did. Did that make her stupid too?

  In a way, Michelle knew that she wasn’t quite as clever as her parents had led her to believe. Maybe they weren’t as clever as they thought they were either. Her upbringing in the small, modest, light concrete house in Tune had certainly sheltered her from the reality that while she was walking around in her own fairy-tale world, thinking about her complexion, hair, and matching clothes, many of the other girls on her street had slowly and almost imperceptibly stepped out of the fairy-tale world and started to develop their skills.

  The first time her confidence suffered a blow that really hurt was when she, in all earnestness, claimed that Ebola was a city in Italy, and later the same night that the past had been in black and white because she had seen it like that lots of times in films. These and other blunders had resulted in harsh and nasty comments about her intelligence, and the looks alone were enough to make her feel deeply ashamed—a feeling she had often felt ever since. She had a tendency to express herself with words that made sense to her but which didn’t actually exist. And when she was called out, she had learned to disarm her critics with a laughter that she thought showed that she was in on the joke. However, the reality was that she felt deeply hurt when these things happened. And over time she had learned only to talk about things she knew about and otherwise keep her mouth shut in the company of people she didn’t know, losing herself in her own fantasy world.

  A world in which a handsome knight in shining armor came riding on a white horse. In which she was rich, adored, and waited on hand and foot. She was fully aware that she was good-looking and a nice person, and that that was what all knights were looking for. She knew that from romance novels, quoting proudly from them when she spoke with Denise and Jazmine over breakfast. The way they spoke about prostituting themselves in one way or another! It was up to her to show them a different path.

  Denise looked up from her yogurt. “A knight? Do you really think they exist?” she said. “Because I don’t—not anymore.”

  “But why not? There are plenty of nice guys in the world,” said Michelle.

  “We’ll be thirty soon, Michelle. That ship has sailed, all right?”

  Michelle shook her head. No, it wasn’t all right. It was unthinkable.

  She sat up straight. “Do you want to play truth?” she said, attempting to change the subject, pushing the plate of breakfast rolls to one side with a smile.

  “Don’t you mean truth or dare?” asked Jazmine.

  “No, let’s play without the dare. That’s only fun if you’re playing with guys. Just truth.” She laughed. “Can I start? The one with the worst answer does the dishes.”

  “Worst answer? And who gets to decide that?” asked Denise.

  “We’ll know when we hear it. Are you in?”

  The others nodded.

  “Okay, Jazmine, what’s the worst thing you’ve done in your life, apart from giving those babies away?” She noticed Jazmine’s expression, realizing that she hadn’t needed to say the last bit. She had just wanted to make sure that they didn’t have to touch on the subject again.

  “I’m not answering that,” she said.

  They were already ruining the game, making Michelle feel unsure if it would be a good idea for her to live with them. But what other option did she have?

  “Come on,” said Denise. “Out with it, Jazmine.”

  She drummed on the table with the tips of her fingers and took a deep breath. “I slept with my mom’s boyfriend. He was the first guy I got pregnant with,” she said with a cheeky smile, throwing her head back.

  “Oh my God,” said Michelle, looking at Denise’s raised eyebrows. “Did she find out?”

  Jazmine smiled, revealing the dimples in her cheeks.

  “And that was the end of that affair, right?” Denise said, laughing.

  Jazmine nodded again. “You can be sure of that! For both of us!”

  Michelle was delighted. You really got to know each other with this game.

  “What about you, Denise? What’s the worst you’ve done?”

  It was apparent that she would have to think hard about this by the way she inspected her bright red nails.

  “To myself or someone else?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.

  “That’s up to you. There are no rules about that.”

  “Lots of things, I think. I steal from my sugar daddies if I can get away with it. For example, yesterday I stole a picture of this guy’s wife. Sometimes, if I want to be rid of them, I blackmail them, and they get the photo back and disappear once they’ve paid up.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the worst you can come up with,” Jazmine said dryly.

  A roguish smile spread over Denise’s face. “If you say the worst thing you’ve done, Michelle, I’ll come up with something better in a bit.”

  Michelle bit her bottom lip. She didn’t know how to get the words out.

  “It’s soooo embarrassing!”

  “Come on, your turn,” Jazmine said, sounding annoyed and pushing her dirty plate over toward her. “Otherwise you can just start washing up now.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Give me a second.” She hid the bottom of her face in her hand. “If I could get a job as an erotic model, I really think I could imagine sleeping with the photographer. It would round things off.”

  “What sort of shit is that to come out with, Michelle? Start washing u
p!” Jazmine looked sternly at her. “You make us come up with something real and then spout out some bullshit. What do you think we’d do in that situation? Do you think it was fun for me to fuck that ugly bloke yesterday and demand money for it?”

  “At least it was better than getting pregnant again, wasn’t it?” said Denise.

  Jazmine nodded. “Come on, Michelle, don’t be such a silly cow. Tell us what you’ve done that’s soooo embarrassing.”

  Michelle looked away. “I love watching Paradise Hotel.”

  “Shut up, you little Goody Two-shoes, you can—”

  “And often dream about being on the show.”

  Jazmine was about to get up. “You’re doing the dishes.”

  “And if Patrick isn’t at home, I masturbate all the way through the show. I take off all my clothes and touch myself while watching it. It feels really hot.”

  Jazmine made herself comfortable again. “Okay, crazy! You get credit for that, you little slut.” She smiled.

  Michelle was back in the game.

  “I know it’s because I’ve been so sick of Patrick. In a way, I hate him just now. All night while you two were partying, I was thinking about how I could take my revenge. Tell his boss that he steals cables and sockets and uses them to make money on the side. Or slash the tires of that car he loves so much. Or just slash it all the way around. Or I could make sure he would make a fool of himself at the club where he works. He’d hate that more than anything. He—”

  “Well,” Jazmine interrupted her, which didn’t feel nice. “Are we getting anything from you, Denise?”

  She nodded while considering her answer. “The worst I’ve done? I’d probably say it’s that I lie all the time. That no one can trust me, and that goes for you two as well.”

  Michelle frowned. What a horrible thing to say.

  “But now I’ll tell you something else that will definitely be bad enough.”

  “Out with it, then!” Jazmine’s expectations were clearly high, but not Michelle’s. Denise had just said that she lies about everything and to everyone. So what was the point of listening to her?