Invisible Murder

by Lene Kaaberbol Agnete Friis

  Brave new World Wide Web. There were times when Søren felt sure there had to be a devil somewhere, gleefully contemplating the effects of his latest attack on humanity. In the past, people with shady, bizarre, or downright disgusting interests had had a much harder time locating each other. These days, even the most loathsome proclivities could find affirmation from likeminded nutters via the Internet, easily and more or less anonymously. And no matter what they wanted, it was out there—stolen antiquities, endangered species, illegal World War II souvenirs, pornography in all shapes and forms, weird drugs, and, yes, also arms, explosives, and dangerous chemicals.

  “Fresh coffee, my liege?” asked Gitte, who was on her way to the kitchenette, and Søren nodded gratefully as he typed hospitalequip.org into his browser window. The page appeared, bland, pale green, a simple layout with a menu bar completely devoid of any graphic interest or stylish Flash animations. There were currently five chat rooms open. The discussion in one of them was apparently about “aggressive treatments for infections,” while another was simply about “equipment.” He could see which users were online—or, at least, he could see the pithy little aliases they were hiding behind. In the last three chat rooms, Søren couldn’t tell what the topic of conversation was or who was participating. When he tried hitting the Enter Chat button, he was asked to enter his PIN. He typed in four random numbers, and a few seconds later an automated message popped up: access denied. Please contact moderator.

  He gave up trying to gain access. This was NBH’s ball game, and they hadn’t asked him to play. Besides, he could easily guess what was hiding behind the access codes—hospitalequip.org was by no means unique. Like other similar websites, it functioned as a marketplace where buyers and sellers could find each other and make that first contact. They announced what they had for sale or what they were interested in buying, anonymously of course, and then the hospitalequip people took care of the rest. NBH believed they were marketing their own stolen goods this way as well as earning a hefty sum by steering customers into interest-specific chat rooms that were set up and taken down so fast that it was hard for the intelligence service to keep up. The money flow was also hard to follow—the hospitalequip people made creative use of gold-based Internet currencies like e-bullion and e-gold.

  What was interesting from a Danish perspective was that a group of Danes appeared to have been poking around on the site. At least one of them had made a connection and then subsequently dropped out of the chat to continue the discussion more discretely via mobile phone. The trail petered out at that point because the telephone number obtainable from the chat records had only been used briefly, presumably to exchange more secure numbers that the NBH had not been able to trace.

  The Hungarian end of the contact was an IP address associated with the university in Budapest. The Hungarian colleague who had written the e-mail, a man by the name of Károly Gábor, reported that in addition to hospitalequip.org the Hungarian user had also visited a number of other suspicious pages, including the Islamic hizbuttahrir.org. Thus, NBH were hereby giving due notification, according to instructions, etc., etc., etc.…

  Søren sighed softly. The flag-burning and the riots might have subsided, but the Mohammed cartoons and Denmark’s participation in Iraq and Afghanistan were still making the country a target. In the old days, e-mails like this would have slumbered gently in archives unless there were further alerts in the matter. Now they had to follow up on every single Islamist whisper that had Denmark’s name in it. Especially now that the Summit was so close. His thoughts went to the morning’s partially botched training exercise, and he suppressed a wave of irritation. The damned Summit was moving Copenhagen even further up the list of attractive targets, whether you were an Islamist terrorist, a swastika-waving neo-Nazi, or just an attention-seeking grassroots organization with a spare bucket of red paint.

  It made him tired. The hatred that flowed in wide, black rivers across the Internet, venting itself at Danes, Muslims, Gypsies, gays, Jews, liberals, conservatives, women—at every conceivable and inconceivable minority, in Denmark and the rest of the world … it was more than just stupidity. It was evil. He wasn’t a religious person, and he usually resisted such simplistic terms, but when he read what people wrote online on a regular basis about “stupid bitches” and “sheep fuckers” and “horny homos” who, according to vox populi, all deserved to be hanged or burned or mutilated, that was the only word he could think of: evil.

  “Gitte!”

  She had tiptoed into his office, set the coffee down, and was already on her way out again.

  “Could you forward this to the techies right away?”

  Gitte took the printout of the email and quickly scanned through it.

  “These three,” Gitte said, pointing at the first three addresses with a long, slender finger. “I think I can guess who they are without any help from the IT department.” She smelled of apples and lemons now, Søren thought fleetingly, with a faint pang of emptiness somewhere in his abdomen.

  “Yes,” he said quickly. “It looks like our very own bunch of flag-waving White Pride idiots are at it again. These others, on the other hand, could be just about anyone. This one is probably the most significant.” He circled the Danish IP address that had been in touch with what he quietly thought of as “the Islamist whisper.” “But we ought to get them all checked out. Ask them to send us a list as soon as possible.”

  Gitte nodded briskly and left, and Søren turned back to the flickering pale-green screen on his desk. Despite Denmark’s restrictive gun laws, it really wasn’t all that difficult to get hold of an ordinary hand weapon if you knew where to go. Gun-shopping in Hungary seemed a bit extreme, what with all the delivery problems and border crossings it entailed, so maybe the buyer was looking for something a little more exotic. Søren scrolled down through the bare-bones layout one last time. “Buy now, good stuff, new needles, from Russia with love.”

  In my next life, he thought, I want to do something else. Something that actually permits the existence of love.

  UCK!”

  Nina jumped back a few steps, swearing, but it was too late.

  The aerator from the kitchen faucet had come off. It shot down into the dirty pan soaking in the sink, and a cascade of greasy dishwater sprayed indiscriminately across the wall, the counter, the floor, and Nina’s T-shirt and jeans. She turned the water off and gave the little piece of thoroughly corroded metal that should have been replaced a long time ago a dirty look. Now the kitchen floor was awash with water and dust bunnies, and on the counter, the parade of salad bowls, plates, cutlery, and cups remained unstacked and unwashed. Nina felt her already bad mood descend into a thoroughly foul temper. It wasn’t really the water on the kitchen floor and the unappetizing onion skins and carrot peelings at the bottom of the sink, although none of that helped. It was Morten. Morten and the damn duffel bags in the bedroom.

  Morten was packing.

  He had done it many times before. He was a geologist and had been the resident “mud logger” at one of the North Sea oil rigs for years. Recently he had been promoted to project manager, which did mean fewer days at sea, but he still had to go on a regular basis, and every single time, Nina had the same aching anxiety in the pit of her stomach when he started packing. She missed him when he was gone, and once the door had closed behind him, Ida’s hostile, brooding silence would hang over the apartment like a sort of teenage curse. It wasn’t that Nina had much trouble from Ida while Morten was away. She went to her friends’ houses most nights, but she also dutifully picked up Anton and did the grocery shopping a couple times a week. On the face of it, a fourteen-year-old marvel of daughterly obedience. But Nina knew she did those things only because Morten had asked her to do them and because doing them quietly was one more way of avoiding conversation. If Ida did deign to join them for dinner, her complete lack of expression squashed any attempt at small talk. Ida seemed barely able to tolerate Nina’s presence, and Nina asking her to pass
the potatoes was obviously a major imposition.

  Nina would almost have preferred the arguments they used to have, and she felt sorry for Anton, who fidgeted in his chair as he tried to lighten the atmosphere with jokes and quotes from his favorite show on Cartoon Network. He did sometimes manage to wring smiles out of Ida or Nina, but God, he had to work at it.

  Nina got out a cloth and mopped up the water from the kitchen floor while she tried to concentrate on the seven o’clock news. The police didn’t have enough manpower for the Copenhagen Summit, and the far right was up in arms again because some new Islamic cultural center was building “what amounted to minarets,” according to the professionally outraged spokesman for the party. As he went on about the importance of “upholding Danish values,” Nina’s ability to concentrate plummeted abruptly. She dried her hands, turned her back on the rest of the mess, and went into the bedroom.

  He was almost done.

  Socks, underwear, T-shirts, and a variety of electronic gear were laid out in small, separate mounds on the double bed, so that all he had to do was dump them into the waiting bags. He had done it so many times that he could now pack for a two-week absence in under half an hour.

  “Have you seen my iPod?”

  Nina shook her head. Morten put his arms around her and pulled her to him so her shoulders pressed against his chest. He was so tall that his chin rested naturally on top of her head, and it gave her a feeling of being tugged inside a big, friendly fur coat. He bent to give her a fleeting kiss on the back of her neck before he let her go and once again directed his attention to the piles on the bed.

  “I lent it to Anton, so it could be anywhere.”

  Nina nodded. Anton scattered things throughout the apartment—and everywhere else, too—pretty much at random. In many ways it was like living with an eight-year-old Alzheimer’s patient. Or maybe just with an eight-year-old, Nina corrected herself.

  Morten began the process of transferring the piles into the duffel bags. He was working quickly and methodically now. He put his phone, train pass, and wallet in his jacket pocket, and that was pretty much it.

  Nina felt the dull ache of longing already. It was her fault he had had to take this inconvenient job in the first place. It was all he had been able to get at short notice, and it would take time for him to work his way up from being an itinerant mud logger to a more family-friendly Copenhagen-based job. She hated it, and Morten probably did, too, although he was far too polite to complain about it to her face. Working on the rigs was a cross he had chosen to bear, like he bore everything else life had asked of him, or more accurately, everything else that Nina had put him through. Shaken, not stirred. James Bond-style.

  “When are you leaving, Dad?”

  Ida was standing in the bedroom doorway with an open book in her hand. She was reading The Lord of the Rings and had been discussing it with Morten as if she had personally invented the universe, or at least been the one to discover the books. The film version had, of course, been part of her classmates’ stable diet since they were Anton’s age.

  Ida would say things like, “I’m not sure about Tolkien’s view of women,” and Morten would listen to her and answer her without batting an eyelid, never letting on that she had seized on the stalest of topics in one of the most endlessly debated books in the galaxy. James Bond teaching Literature. Nina was profoundly envious.

  “I’m off in a minute,” Morten said, casting a quick glance at his watch, “but call me on the train, and we can say goodnight.”

  Ida smiled, and planted a quick kiss on her father’s cheek. She was wearing scent of some kind, Nina realized. Something sweet and a little too heavy.

  “Keep your fingers crossed for my hockey match,” she said. Then she waved and vanished back into her bedroom without even giving Nina a glance. The sound of muffled music seeped out into the hallway and on into their bedroom, and Nina knew she wouldn’t be seeing any more of Ida tonight.

  Morten didn’t seem to have noticed any of this. He was leaning toward her so she could feel the warmth from his body.

  “We still have our deal, right?” he asked softly.

  Nina nodded. Their deal. Their Big, Important Deal. No underground work for the Network while Morten was away. She hoped no one from the ever-changing flock of illegal immigrants that Peter from the Network took under his wing would break an arm or a leg or come down with symptoms of appendicitis in the next fortnight.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “And remember.…” Morten whispered, pulling Nina in tight against him and kissing her mischievously on the nose. Feeling patronized, Nina wrapped her arms around his neck and stood with her nose right up against his throat.

  “Remember you’re driving the girls to roller hockey on Wednesday. It’s our turn.”

  Nina nodded quickly. Roller hockey was one of the few of Ida’s activities Nina was still allowed to attend. Maybe more out of necessity than desire on Ida’s part, but Nina had to take what she could get. Morten gently maneuvered his way out of her arms and went to say goodbye to Anton.

  NINA STOOD THERE for a moment in the hallway, listening to his light, energetic steps descending the stairs. Then she turned around and went back to the kitchen. Ida had turned up her music, and a significant amount of bass penetrated the wall, reaching Nina and the chaotic kitchen table that still hadn’t been cleared. Anton had brushed his teeth and was in bed in his room with a comic book and his bedside light on, and Nina suddenly felt utterly miserable. Alone.

  Two weeks, she thought, glancing at the calendar. Come on. The world won’t fall apart in two weeks.

  ÁNDOR HAD HIS half of the window wide open, but it didn’t seem to do much good. There was hardly any draft, just lots of construction dust and street noise. He had taken off his shirt and trousers and was sitting on his bed in just his underwear, studying. Sweat trickled down his chest from his armpits, and the paper stuck damply to his fingers every time he turned a page.

  He had left his door ajar to admit at least a trickle of cross ventilation; to Ferenc, that was obviously an invitation.

  “When’s your big exam?” Ferenc asked.

  “Thursday.” Sándor was hit by a surge of nerves at the mere thought. But he had it under control, he told himself. He knew his stuff. He just needed to take another look at—

  His thoughts were interrupted when Ferenc suddenly grabbed hold of him. “Good. We of the Sándor Liberation Committee have officially nominated you the best-prepared student in the history of this university. And we’ve also decided that it’s high time we intervene to prevent your body’s ability to metabolize alcohol from atrophying completely. Put some clothes on, pal.”

  Sándor found himself standing in the middle of his room, still wearing only his underwear and desperately clutching Blackstone’s International Law.

  “Knock it off, Ferenc. I can’t—”

  “I’m afraid the Committee’s decision cannot be appealed. Please don’t force us to resort to violence.”

  Ferenc wasn’t alone. Out in the hallway stood Henk, a Dutch exchange student who was studying music like Ferenc, and Mihály, who was in Sándor’s class. And also Lujza.

  Ferenc threw Sándor’s trousers in his face.

  “Here. Hop to it, or you’re going as you are.”

  Sándor’s whole body was stiff with passive resistance. It’s just for fun, he told himself, relax. But he couldn’t force the appropriate you-guys-are-crazy grin onto his face, and his lack of response gradually caused the others’ broad smiles to fade.

  “Come on, Sándor,” Ferenc said.

  He finally “hopped to it,” as Ferenc put it. He could move again. He set Blackstone on his desk and then balanced awkwardly on one foot while he tried to stuff his other foot into his chinos.

  “You guys are crazy,” Sándor grumbled, and their smiles returned.

  Ferenc patted him on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit,” he said in the fake British accent he was cultivating because it
went so well with his Hugh Grant style. Lujza smiled at Sándor, candidly and warmly like in the old days before the baptism.

  I can always get up extra early tomorrow, Sándor promised himself. After all, he was better prepped than anyone else he knew.

  WHEN THEY GOT downstairs, there was a police car parked across the street from them. Two officers were just getting out.

  Sándor was trying to close the defective front door without much luck. The others stopped to wait for him.

  “Just leave it,” Ferenc said. “In five minutes someone else will come out, and then it’ll be wide open again.”

  Sándor gave up. When he turned around, the two police officers were a few meters away. The older one, a muscular man whose light-blue uniform shirt had big sweat stains under his arms, checked a printout he had in his hand.

  “Does a Sándor Horváth live here?” he asked.

  Sándor froze. The other four also suddenly went still, their laughter faded, their faces stiffened.

  “What seems to be the problem, officer?” Ferenc asked politely.

  “That’s him,” the other officer said, pointing at Sándor.

  “Turn around,” the first one said sharply. “Hands up against the wall. Now!”

  When Sándor didn’t move, remaining rigid and mute, they grabbed his arm, spun him around, pushed him up against the wall, and kicked at his ankles until he was leaning against the sun-baked bricks at an angle. If he moved his hands, he would fall over. They frisked him quickly and matter-of-factly.