The Purity of Vengeance

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  It had some effect, but the woman was clearly not without authority of her own. She withdrew a couple of steps and put a walkie-talkie to her ear. Words were exchanged, after which she turned toward them with the full clout of officialdom behind her.

  “Here,” she said, handing him the radio.

  “Carl Mørck, Department Q, Copenhagen Police. Who’s this?”

  The man at the other end presented himself. Some officious exec from the offices of the agency that ran the bridge link in Korsør. “You can’t just access Sprogø without prior clearance. Surely you can understand that?” the bloke barked.

  “Course I do. Same as I can’t pull my pistol on a crazed gunman if I’m not a trained policeman on duty. More than our job’s worth, isn’t it? Thing is, we’ve got a job on here. We’re dead busy investigating some very nasty stuff that seems to be linked to what went on here on Sprogø.”

  “Like what?”

  “Can’t say, I’m afraid. But feel free to call the police commissioner in Copenhagen. That’ll get you your clearance before you get your breath back.” It was a slight overstatement. Sometimes it could take a quarter of an hour just to get through to the commissioner’s front desk. They were run off their feet these days.

  “In that case I’ll do so right away.”

  “How kind of you. Thank you, indeed. You’ve been a great help,” Carl said, shutting off the walkie-talkie and handing it back.

  “He gave us twenty minutes,” he told the woman in the hi-vis vestments. “Is that enough time for you to show us round? We want you to tell us everything you know about when this place was a women’s home, OK?”

  • • •

  There was hardly anything left of the original layout, the place having been rebuilt at various stages since, their guide explained.

  “Down at the far end of the island was a small building they called the Retreat, where the women could be on their own for a week in the daytime. It was like their holiday. Back in the old days it was actually a quarantine station for plague-stricken sailors. It’s all gone now, though,” she told them, leading them into a closed courtyard where a tree towered above cobbles.

  Carl looked around at the four buildings that surrounded the yard.

  “Where were the girls’ quarters?” he asked.

  The woman pointed. “Top floor, those little windows in the roof. It’s all been rebuilt now. Today it’s used for seminars and courses, that sort of thing.”

  “What did the girls actually do while they were here? Did they have any say?”

  She gave a shrug. “I doubt it. They grew vegetables, tended the fields, looked after the animals. In there they had a sewing room,” she said, indicating the east wing. “Apparently the mentally challenged were good at using their hands.”

  “So the girls were actually mentally challenged?”

  “Well, that’s what they say. They probably weren’t, though. Not all of them. Do you want to see the punishment cell? It’s still there.”

  Carl nodded. He certainly did.

  They passed through a dining room with high wooden paneling and a fine view of the strait.

  Their guide swept her arm around the room. “This is where the girls had their meals. The staff dined in the room next door. They made sure to keep things separate. The other end of this building here was where the matron and her deputy lived, but again it’s all been done up since then. Follow me.”

  She led them up a steep flight of stairs to more humble surroundings. A long washing trough of terrazzo ran along one wall of the narrow corridor. On the other side were a number of doors.

  “It must have been rather cramped, sharing two to a room,” she said, showing them a low-ceilinged room with sloping walls.

  Then she opened a door that led into an oblong attic containing musty furniture, shelves, and numbered coat hooks.

  “The girls could keep things here they didn’t have space for in their rooms,” she explained.

  Their hi-vis hostess led them out to the corridor again and indicated a little door equipped with two heavy bolts.

  “This is the punishment cell. They threw the girls in here if they didn’t behave.”

  Carl stepped up and went inside through the low, heavy wooden door to find himself in a space so small there was barely room enough to lie outstretched.

  “They could be holed up in here for days at a time or even longer. Sometimes they’d be put in restraints, and if they were too hard to handle they’d be sedated. It was no party.”

  An understatement if ever there was one, Carl thought. He turned to Assad, who had a frown on his face and looked clearly out of sorts.

  “You OK, Assad?”

  He nodded slowly. “It’s just that I have seen marks like this before.”

  He pointed to the inside of the door where a recent paint job had been unable to conceal a number of irregular grooves in the wood.

  “These marks are from people clawing at the wood, Carl. Believe me.”

  He reeled out of the room and leaned against the wall for a moment.

  Maybe one day he’d tell him what it was all about.

  There was a beep from their guide’s walkie-talkie.

  “Yes?” she said, her expression changing in seconds. “I see. OK, I’ll pass it on.” She put the device back in her belt and gave them a look of disappointment.

  “I’m to say from my boss that he wasn’t able to get hold of the police commissioner and that some of my colleagues have seen us going about on their monitors. He wants you out of here immediately. Which means now, in case it hasn’t sunk in.”

  “Sorry about that. Tell them I tricked you into it. But thanks, we’ve seen enough.”

  • • •

  “You all right, Assad?” he asked after a long period of silence crossing Fyn.

  “Yes, no need to worry, Carl.” Assad straightened up in his seat. “Leave the motorway by exit 55,” he said, indicating the GPS.

  Carl was sure the little contraption would let them know itself before long.

  “In six hundred meters, turn right,” came the tinny voice.

  “No need to tell me, Assad. The GPS is looking after us.”

  “And here we pick up route 329 to Hindevad,” his human assistant went on, unabashed. “Then about ten kilometers to Brenderup.”

  Carl sighed. Right now it sounded like ten K too far.

  Assad’s commentary continued at intervals of about twenty seconds before finally he indicated their destination.

  “This is the house Tage lived in,” he said, two seconds ahead of the GPS.

  “House” seemed to be stretching things a bit. More like a wooden barracks stained black and stuck on a heap of surplus materials ranging from breeze blocks to sheets of corrugated iron. Its various stages of development were visible like growth rings, from the foundation to the weathered tin roof. Not much of a recommendation for the area, Carl thought, getting out of the car and hitching up his trousers.

  “You’re quite sure she’s expecting us?” he asked, after ringing the doorbell for the fifth time.

  Assad nodded. “Oh, yes. A most charming lady on the phone,” he said. “She has a stutter, but the appointment is good, Carl.”

  Carl nodded back. A most charming lady. He was beginning to sound like a phrase book.

  They heard the coughing fit before the footsteps, but at least there was life.

  It was a cough nourished by a blend of smoking-induced emphysema, cat hairs, and concentrated alcohol fumes, but despite such obvious handicaps and the utterly unsuitable nature of the dwelling with respect to human habitation, this aged individual by the name of Mette Schmall nevertheless managed to negotiate her way through the establishment with the kind of elegance that more properly belonged to a lady of the manor.

  “Tage and I were n-n-never married,
but the l-l-lawyer knew that if I m-m-made an offer for the house, it’d be most f-f-fitting if I g-g-got it.” She lit a smoke. It wasn’t the day’s first, not by a long chalk.

  “T-t-t-ten thousand k-k-kroner. Lot of m-m-money in those days. N-nineteen n-n-ninety-four, by the time it all got s-s-sorted.”

  Carl looked around the place. As far as he remembered, ten grand was about what a camcorder cost back then, which might have been a lot of money for a camcorder, but definitely not for a house. On the other hand, who wouldn’t rather have a camcorder than this heap of rubble?

  “This was Tage’s h-h-hideaway,” she said, gently nudging aside a pair of cats whose tails were raised like flagpoles. “N-n-never come in here myself. It’s like s-s-somehow it’d be wrong.”

  She pushed open a door papered with old adverts for various engine lubricants and they stepped into a pong far more malodorous than the one they’d just left.

  It was Assad who found a passage into the open air, and then the source of the acrid stench. Five wine bottles in a corner behind the bed, each containing stale urine. Judging by the state of them, they’d all been filled to the brim, for the glass was now completely opaque with whatever it was that was left behind when piss evaporated.

  “They should have been ch-ch-chucked out ages ago,” the woman said, tossing them into the weeds outside the house.

  The room they were standing in was a combined bicycle and moped workshop. A jumble of tools and old junk, and in the midst of it all a bed whose covers were approximately the same color as the oily floor.

  “Didn’t Tage ever tell you what he was doing when he went off that day?”

  “No. Very s-s-secretive he was, all of a s-s-sudden.”

  “OK. Mind if we have a look round?”

  She made a gesture, indicating the place was theirs.

  “There’s been n-n-no one here since the l-l-local officers were here b-b-back at the t-t-time,” she said, absently smoothing the bedcovers. A fat lot of good it would do.

  “Nice ladies,” said Assad, nodding toward the pin-ups.

  “Yeah, from the days before silicone knockers, tattoos, and the lady shaver,” Carl grunted, grabbing a stack of assorted papers balanced precariously on top of an egg carton full of ball bearings.

  It really was hard to believe any of these piles of junk would tell them anything at all about the fate that had befallen Tage Hermansen.

  “Did Tage ever talk about a man called Curt Wad?” Assad asked.

  The woman shook her head.

  “Who did he talk about? Anyone you can remember?”

  Negative again. “No one, really. M-m-mostly he went on about K-k-kreidler Floretts and P-p-puchs and SCOs.”

  Assad was lost.

  “Mopeds, Assad. You know, vroom, vroom,” Carl explained, twisting a pair of imaginary throttles.

  “Did Tage leave any money?” he went on.

  “Not a p-p-penny, no.”

  “Might he have had any enemies?”

  She laughed, sending her headlong into a coughing fit. When she had finished and dried her eyes, she looked at Carl with a telling expression.

  “What do y-you think?” She threw out an arm. “Not exactly the kind of p-p-place that makes a person f-f-friends, is it?”

  “OK, so the neighbors might have wanted him to tidy the place up, but I’m probably right in saying it all looks pretty much the same now as it did then, so that’s not likely to be the reason for his disappearing like that, is it? Do you have any thoughts as to what might have happened to him, Ms. Schmall?”

  “N–n-none w-w-whatsoever.”

  He sensed Assad rummaging through the girlie mags. Was he thinking of taking some home with him, or what?

  He turned round to find himself facing an envelope Assad was holding up in front of his nose.

  “It was stuck up over there.”

  He pointed to a drawing pin stuck into a sheet of particleboard above one of Tage’s pin-up girls.

  “You can see the hole. The envelope was attached with two drawing pins. See for yourself.”

  Carl peered at the board. If Assad said so, he was probably right.

  “The second drawing pin must have fallen out so the envelope slipped down behind the poster, still hanging from the first one.”

  “So what about it?” Carl asked, taking the envelope from Assad.

  “It’s empty, but read what it says on the back.”

  Carl read: Nete Hermansen, Peblinge Dossering 32, 2200 Copenhagen N.

  “Yes, Carl. Now turn it over and look at the postmark.”

  He did so. It was rather obliterated, though still legible.

  28-08-1987. Just a week before Tage disappeared.

  Not that it had to be significant. Things would always be turning up that bore some relation to the time leading up to their owner’s disappearance. Few people had a thorough tidy-up just before going missing. Not without a good reason. Like knowing you weren’t coming back.

  Carl looked at Assad. The man’s mind was churning, that much was obvious.

  “I’ll give Rose a ring,” he mumbled, dialing her number. “She must hear about this envelope. It’s down her street, I feel it.”

  Carl scanned the workshop. If there was an envelope, there must have been a letter as well. Maybe it, too, had got stuck behind Tage’s pin-up girl. Maybe it was under the bed or in the wastepaper basket. They needed to sift through.

  “Do you know who this Nete Hermansen is, Ms. Schmall?” he asked.

  “N-no idea. F-f-family, though, I should th-think. If the n-n-name’s anything to g-g-go by.”

  • • •

  After an hour rummaging in vain through Tage’s stuff, followed by three-quarters of an hour in the car, they once more approached the colossal bridge linking the islands of Fyn and Sjælland, its towering pylons striving upward into the cloud.

  “Our cursed island again,” Assad said, pointing to Sprogø as it appeared out of the mist ahead.

  He stared in silence for a while, then turned to Carl. “What if this Herbert Sønderskov and Mie Nørvig are still not in, Carl?”

  Carl glanced across the island as they drove past. It looked peaceful, its man-made extremity cradling the motorway in the transition from the low-level western section of the bridge to the high-level suspension bridge in the east, the lighthouse white on its hill of green, pleasant yellow buildings sheltering from the wind, wide-open meadows and wild vegetation.

  Hell on earth, Rose had called the place, and at once Carl sensed the malice of old breaching the crash barriers of the motorway, ghosts of the past appearing before him, souls torn asunder, barren wombs forever scarred. Had Denmark really allowed, even encouraged, such violations to be perpetrated by its well-trained doctors and those supposed to provide care? He found the idea hard to swallow. And yet. Discrimination was always rampant, even today, even if much of it failed to cause scandal.

  He shook his head and put his foot down on the accelerator. “What was that you said, Assad?”

  “I asked what we should do if Herbert Sønderskov and Mie Nørvig have not returned.”

  Carl turned his head to look at him. “Well, you’ve still got your pocket-knife, haven’t you?”

  Assad nodded. So that was settled. They were going to have a good nose in that bloody archive and see what this Hermansen case Mie Nørvig had mentioned was all about. Warrant or no. They’d never get one anyway, even if they applied.

  Carl’s mobile chimed. He switched on the speaker. “Yeah, Rose, what is it?” he said.

  “I went into HQ when Assad called. Better option than gawping out of the window in Stenløse. Anyway, I’ve delved into things a bit.” She sounded excited. “I might as well tell you straight off, I got a shock, I did. Would you believe there’s still a Nete Hermansen registered at that address in Nørrebro
? Brilliant, eh?”

  Assad stuck his thumbs in the air.

  “OK, but she’ll be getting on a bit now, won’t she?”

  “Yeah, I haven’t checked her out yet, but I can see she’s been living in the same place in the name of Nete Rosen. Nice name, don’t you think? Maybe I ought to be called that. Rose Rosen. It’s all right that, isn’t it? Maybe she could even adopt me. Can’t be any worse than the mother I’ve got.”

  Assad chuckled, while Carl refrained from comment. Officially he knew nothing about Rose’s private life. If it got out that he’d been poking around and had spoken to her real sister Yrsa, all hell would be let loose.

  “Nice work, Rose. We’ll have a look at that later. In the meantime I want you to check up on whatever else we’ve got on her, OK? We’re on our way to Halsskov now to have a look at Nørvig’s files. Anything else we should know?”

  “Well, I’ve got more of a handle on Curt Wad’s escapades now. Been in touch with a journalist, name of Søren Brandt. He’s collated a whole lot of stuff about the party Wad’s behind.”

  “The Purity Party?”

  “Yeah. Doesn’t look like Wad’s private life’s been that pure, though. Not a nice man at all, it seems. He’s been reported loads of time over the years, with charges preferred, but never been convicted of anything, amazingly enough.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He’s been up to all sorts, but I’ve not got that far yet. This Søren Brandt’s going to send me more info, but right now I’m trawling through old case documents, and you can safely assume it’s not what I’d prefer to be doing, not by a long sodding chalk.”

  Carl nodded. He wouldn’t be best pleased either.

  “There’s an old rape charge from 1955—no details, only that Wad got off. Then there’s three different cases of proceedings brought by Legal Aid. In 1967, 1974, and most recently in 1996. He’s been reported for racist remarks on several occasions, for inciting hatred, invasion of private property, slander. None of it’s ever stuck, though according to Søren Brandt most of it ought to have. Lack of evidence, mostly.”

  “Nothing for manslaughter or anything like that?”

  “Not exactly, but sort of. Charged with performing forced abortions more than once. I’d call that killing, wouldn’t you?”