The Hanging

by Lotte Hammer

  Simonsen immediately stiffened. For a second or two he closed his eyes, then he took a bag of licorice from his inside pocket, helped himself, and offered it to the others. No one wanted any.

  Pedersen said, “You usually hate this stuff. What happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  He still didn’t like licorice, but Piratos licorice was an excellent antidote to a sour mouth. What could he say? That the photos of Anna Mia that he had been sent occasionally invaded his mouth? Who would understand it when he didn’t even himself? And what business was it of the others? It had no meaning, he had it under control. That was exactly what he had—control. As soon as he got his fingers on those assholes who had threatened his daughter he would show them that he had it under control. Psychopathic bastards.

  Planck managed to get the conversation back on track. “Now listen up and stop wasting time on that nonsense. I have an idea for how to tell an alternative truth but I’ll need help from all three of you. It will also demand a small sacrifice from each. Do you want to hear it?”

  It was a theatrical tactic and Anita was the one who told him what they were all thinking: “Sometimes you are so smug. Of course we want to hear it.”

  Planck did not address the criticism. Instead he turned to his guests, starting with the first: “Anita, you have to forget everything about your journalist ethics, not to speak of your loyalty to your employer. I’m going to force a boyfriend on you, if only temporarily. Arne, you’ll have to be prepared to lead astray that voluptuous girlfriend of yours from the Dagbladet. And while I’m at it, I’m going to give you some good advice from an old man. You should get some professional help with your gambling before it gets out of control and you would also do well to get your private life in order.”

  Pedersen’s face went beet red; he said nothing, but wiped his forehead with his tie. They had never seen that before.

  Planck turned to Simonsen. “Simon, you get the hard part. First, you can’t take the rules too seriously the next couple of days. Many of the methods that I will suggest are illegal. Second, you’re going to give an interview with Anni Staal, and third, you’re going to have to keep Helmer Hammer and everyone at HS in the dark about our plans.”

  Simonsen nodded cautiously.

  Planck addressed them all: “Perhaps you should take a couple of minutes to think it over before I proceed. If you want to hear my proposition.” Anita did not need to think it over.

  “Fuck my workplace, and as far as my reporter ethics go, they’re pretty much nonexistent. I think it sounds exciting. Is my boyfriend cute?”

  The two men also agreed but with a little less enthusiasm.

  Chapter 62

  Planck’s dinner party ended abruptly and unpleasantly for Simonsen. As soon as the arrangements for a media campaign had been discussed and everyone was able to relax and enjoy himself, he received a call from Herlev Hospital, where a nurse in the orthopedic-surgery division had found his card. He excused himself and left at once.

  A good half hour later he arrived there. The patient, who was not a friend of his, was sleeping fitfully. Simonsen studied him and shook his head as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light in the room. The light-blue duvet was pulled up over the sleeping man’s body and the upper part of the bed was raised so that the upper body was slightly elevated. A set of tubes had been inserted into the man’s nose and were connected to an electrical outlet in the wall, from which a faint sighing sound bore witness to a connection. He had a turban of white gauze around his forehead and a thick bandage across his broken nose, giving him a macabre appearance.

  “Do you want to hear what happened?”

  Simonsen turned in astonishment. A man was sitting on a chair pushed away from the bed. Without waiting for an answer, the man launched into the story.

  “There were seven or eight of them, waiting for him in the stairwell. Some of them had clubs, all of them with boots. They held me back and went after him. He didn’t have a chance. They kicked and hit without stopping and in under a minute he had collapsed bleeding and unconscious on the floor.”

  Simonsen answered in a low voice, “That’s terrible, and he isn’t the only one. The same thing has happened in several places all over the country.”

  “You haven’t heard the worst of it. One of them cut his forehead with a penknife. For your abominable desires, for the childhood you ruined, for the pain you caused, he said. Like a perverted ritual. The others even seemed like they thought it was too much but did nothing to stop it.”

  “What are those phrases? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s from a grandiloquent hate poem on one of those antipedophilia sites. I can’t remember which one but I remember the stanzas. They were recited six times, corresponding to five numbers and an ellipsis: five, six… seven, ten, twenty! His whole forehead is carved up.” The man’s voice broke. “I can’t bear to think about it. Let me sit for a moment.”

  Simonsen turned his back to the voice. Some time went by, then the man said out of the dark, “I’m okay again.”

  “Would you remember the one who did the cutting?”

  “It was a woman. Well, she wasn’t more than a girl. I’ve never seen anything so terrible, not even in a movie, and the men just stood there. They seemed to think she was going overboard and it was almost as if they were afraid of her.”

  The man stared helplessly into the dark room. The faint light from the night-light fell over his face, which was set in a kind of bleak melancholy. Then he added in wonderment, “There have been women all day. When he was sacked, the knife, and now here.”

  “Oh no, has he also been fired?”

  “He was let go this afternoon. That was why I took him home. I didn’t want him to be alone. They called it a restructuring, but everyone knew that was a lie. A young bitch from human resources had the pleasure and I promise you she enjoyed it. Good God, she was awful. Like hatched from the business school in their brand-new fall collection of polished arrogance and powdery morals. She even brought flowers with her, and do you know what she talked about?”

  Simonsen shook his head.

  “Envy.”

  “Envy?”

  “In a long, self-indulgent monologue. She was envious of the new freedom he was getting, envious of all the possibilities he had for choosing a new life, envious of the fact that he would now be able to sleep in in the mornings, envious of his severance pay, envious of all kinds of other things, all the time as her victim abased himself. He talked about his Androcur treatment, about how he sends most of his salary to his sons each month without ever hearing from them, about his remorse, yes he pleaded and cried but that didn’t help in the least. The witch was oh so sympathetic and also envious of his courage to show emotions. People enjoyed and smiled at her scornful remarks. He had known some of them for fifteen years. I don’t know what to say other than that those people …”

  He came to a halt, at a loss for words. Simonsen also said nothing, and only the soft hum of the electricity could be heard. After a while he tried again.

  “Those people and the ones who started this… it’s just wrong. Evil and horrible, I can’t find any other words for it.”

  The patient moaned, as if he wanted to indicate his agreement. The man didn’t reply.

  Simonsen felt exhaustion creep over him. If he sat there much longer he would fall asleep. He said, “What did you mean by ‘now here’? Are there more?”

  “You’ll experience her soon enough. She’s almost the worst.”

  Simonsen did not have to wait long. Suddenly, hair-raising laughter filled the room and a woman’s voice screeched through the loudspeakers, like high-pitched screams from another world. The patient woke up and began to sob briefly but soon fell asleep again, as full of medicine as he was. Simonsen had jerked up like a spring and calm returned only slowly. He felt a nauseating disgust.

  “What in the world was that?”

  “A devil who doesn’t think that he deserves to sleep,
I think.”

  “What is she shouting?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Something about being the daughter of the night, the one who never rests, and that she has an eternal rage. I don’t understand the rest.”

  “That’s madness. Why don’t the hospital staff put an end to it?”

  “I’ve been to see the nurse on duty and told her off four times but no one knows where the voice is coming from or else they don’t care. Maybe they’re even in on it, I don’t know, but it’s hard to take.”

  Simonsen noticed an unfamiliar—even foreign—desire to hit not something but someone. To go after the nurse with a couple of jabs first to one and then the other side of the head and to see her flee down the corridor in her ugly dust-yellow clogs. This only for starters. At once he realized that he was afraid. Afraid of the hidden society he was unable to uncover. The conspiracy without a face, the public mood, which followed its own unwritten laws—frightening in its hatred and worse in its indifference. In the absence of anything better, he kicked the wall in frustration and banged a heating pipe so that it rang out through the room. The man on the bed shivered nervously.

  “Dammit.”

  He didn’t even know himself if he was lamenting the situation or the noise that he had caused. Then he tried with all his mental efforts to turn to something more constructive.

  “Are you the one who can help me with the telecommunications information?”

  “Yes, that’s me, and I got your message. This morning I was a bit lukewarm, but definitely not anymore, so you’ll get the help you’re looking for.”

  “What about the other companies, that is, your competitors. Can you help me there as well?”

  “There’s no database in the telecommunications sector that I don’t have access to. Us security people work together and we cooperate, but I’ll need a contact person on your end to get into the citizen registry and the like. We can make further arrangements tomorrow.”

  “I’m glad, but I thought of another thing that I’m not even sure can be done.”

  “Tell me what it is.”

  Simonsen told him. The man didn’t seem surprised.

  “What telephone number did you have in mind?”

  Simonsen told him and the man took a cell phone out of his pocket. The blue light of the display lit up his face. Simonsen was able to get a good look at him for the first time and thought that he didn’t even know his name yet. The man’s thumbs were working with a teenager’s speed, and when he was done, he nodded a couple of times.

  “The police starting to spy on our free press—such times, such times.”

  His voice had taken on a somewhat inappropriately humorous tone, and Simonsen understood it well. It was a way to keep the beastliness at bay. Overcome despair and smile the three women back to the kind of hell where they belonged. In the half darkness he gestured theatrically, with relief.

  “Yes, we’ve reached a new low.”

  Chapter 63

  Anni Staal was waiting for Konrad Simonsen.

  Only a few minutes earlier, Anita had called and said that her earlier efforts had yielded results.

  “The kilometer stone at City Hall Plaza at two o’clock, and Simonsen only has five minutes.”

  Anita had hung up before Anni managed to get a word out, so she couldn’t do much other than go to the meeting, and privately she wondered whether she had misunderstood the message before she noticed the chief inspector heading her way. He looked exhausted and wasted no time with unnecessary pleasantries.

  “I’m sorry about the location but I have an errand nearby and this is what I was able to think of in a hurry, but let’s skip all that. I hear you want an interview and a long one at that.”

  Anni smiled, pleased. This was a promising beginning.

  “Yes, I’d like that, and I hope that you will. We are useful to each other.”

  “Maybe you are right, even though I admit that it took me a while before I saw the sense in this alliance. And I should clarify that I can’t stand your line of work in general and that I despise your treatment of my investigation in particular.”

  She circumvented his disapproval with a short, cloying laugh and said, “But you have concluded that the police have an image problem?”

  “That you have played a part in creating.”

  “So it will be good to get your angle out there.”

  “I guess so, but I have a few conditions and it is a take-it-or-leave-it situation. There will be no negotiating.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “I want a formal, legal document signed by both you and me, your editor in chief, and someone from the executive level, that says that you can’t publish a single line of the interview before I have read through it and given you my written permission. You may also not print any of the information that I will give you whether directly or indirectly, and if you do, it will cost you a five-million-kroner donation to the Red Cross.”

  Anni did not have to reflect on his proposition very long before she said, “You don’t have much faith in us.”

  “I think that the only thing you have respect for is money, especially money out of your own pocket.”

  “You’ll have your document to your home address by courier by the end of the day.”

  “That’s great, push it through the mail slot, I’ll be out. Tomorrow at ten at the Dagbladet?”

  “What about at your home? That’s more private.”

  “You are sick.”

  “Not completely. If you want to reach the people you have to invite them to your home. That gives me a better opportunity to present you in a more human way—that is, not just brains but also heart. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

  Anni crossed her fingers. The thought was apparently appalling to him but her arguments had struck a chord. It took a long time before he answered.

  “At my home, ten o’clock, no photographers.”

  “Wonderful. Ten o’clock at your place, and the photographer will simply take a single picture of the two of us as we are talking and then he’ll leave. I swear on my mother’s grave.”

  Simonsen waved his hand in an irritated gesture, which she took as his assent. They parted without warmth.

  No one could accuse Anni Staal of resting on her laurels. The solo interview with Konrad Simonsen was an enormous triumph but back at the office she pushed the thought aside and the following hours she concentrated on the next day’s edition, rejecting a proposal for an article from her intern and paying her back for her lack of telephone manners earlier in the day. She smoothed a folded piece of paper on her desk.

  “You can throw this away.”

  Anita Dahlgren looked up furiously. The rejection did not come as a surprise. “Did you even read it? His forehead was carved up while he was unconscious.”

  Anni Staal’s voice was cold and her choice of words more cynical and provocative than she actually felt. She’d had her interview now so there was no reason to thank the girl more.

  “I don’t care if they cut his dick off. What you have written is not our line and you know that very well. It’s not what people want to read and, my sweet… it is not getting into print.”

  Anita stood up and her voice was shrill. “I am not your sweet and you should pay better attention too. Things are not always as they appear. If it turns out that the motive of your poison pen is a little less noble than hanging pedophiles up as a deterrent—well then, this whole thing will blow up in your face. Just wait until your beloved people go looking for another scapegoat. I know at least one who will have to eat crow.”

  Anni Staal stiffened but her warning bells were going off and several colleagues were watching. Even in a workplace where the language was direct and salty, her intern’s speech exceeded the acceptable limits. But it was not the insult that bothered the star journalist.

  “What do you mean? Try to explain yourself.”

  That was not something that Anita wanted to do. “I’m protecting my
sources.” She took her bag and left.

  Anni Staal kept working, but Anita’s comments proved difficult to shake off and it gnawed at her the rest of the day. For a while it bothered her so much that she seriously thought about contacting her police source even though she knew he would be furious. But it never went further than a thought because that evening he called of his own accord, with a message that felt like a déjà vu from the morning.

  “The parking lot by the civic building in Nansensgade in half an hour and make sure you have some cash on you.”

  She hardly had time to confirm before he hung up.

  When she arrived, Arne Pedersen was dozing in his car. She got in and sat down next to him.

  “Good evening, my little songbird. You’re out late. Are your personal finances squeezing you again?”

  Her words stung and Pedersen thought that he hated her more than was reasonable.

  “Hello, Anni. I wish you wouldn’t call me that. I find it embarrassing.”

  She apologized, clear over the fact that she had made a mistake: “That wasn’t my intention, you’ll have to forgive me. But do tell… what do you have for me?”

  “It’s going to cost you five thousand and you have to clear it with Simon before you print anything. My boss has started keeping his cards close to his chest. He doesn’t seem to trust anyone, even me, only Kasper Planck. It’s totally paranoid. This case is about to crack him and the mood at HS is at a new low.”

  He thought that the description was not completely off. “Five thousand is a lot of money.”

  “Maybe, but I’ll tell you what’s worth even more. Five vacation trips to Thailand at twenty-four thousand a pop, plus five times twenty thousand in pocket money, that’s only two hundred fifty thousand. Add to that three cash cards where the original owner was more than willing to share the pin codes when they got going with the chainsaw—another one hundred ten thousand. Furthermore, Frank Ditlevsen’s account in Zurich has been tapped for around two million, so the total sum is about two-point-three million, and these are only preliminary findings. New information is coming in all the time. I have account statements from two of the victims with me going back three weeks so that you can see for yourself. Remember that they died fourteen days ago and look closely at the dates from the last withdrawals, but then give the documents back to me. If you put this in the paper I’ll be nailed quicker than quick.”