The Purity of Vengeance

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  • • •

  They didn’t say much on the way back. Each was lost in thought.

  “Did you notice the arrogance of this bastard? The house did not even have a burglar alarm,” said Assad at one point. “A person could break in there in a jiffy. What is more, somebody ought to before Wad destroys important evidence. I think he will do this for certain, Carl.”

  He didn’t specify who that somebody might be.

  “Don’t even think about it, Assad,” Carl replied. “One break-in a week is more than enough.” There seemed little reason to elaborate, so he left it at that.

  They had only been back at HQ for five minutes when Rose came into Carl’s office with a sheet of paper in her hand.

  “This was in the fax machine. It’s for Assad,” she said. “From Lithuania, as far as I can make out. Pretty gruesome photo, don’t you think? Any idea why they might have sent it to us?”

  Carl glanced at the image and felt his blood run cold.

  “Assad, get in here!” he hollered.

  It took a bit longer than usual. It had been a hard day.

  “Yes, what is it?” he asked, when he eventually slunk in.

  Carl pointed to the fax.

  “Recognize the tattoo, Assad?”

  Assad studied the dragon that had been divided in two by the near severance of Linas Verslovas’s head. The face of the man whose acid attack had disfigured Børge Bak’s sister was captured in an expression of simultaneous fear and astonishment.

  Assad’s was rather more composed.

  “This is unfortunate,” he said. “But I have nothing to do with it, Carl.”

  “So you don’t think this might be your doing in some way, directly or indirectly?” Carl asked, slapping the fax down on the desk. His nerves were frayed, too. It was hardly surprising.

  “A person can never know about indirectly. But this is not something I did on purpose.”

  Carl fumbled around for his cigarettes. He needed a smoke and he needed one now. “No, I don’t believe you did either, Assad. But why the hell would the Lithuanian police, or whoever the fuck it was who sent this, think you ought to be informed? And where’s my fucking lighter, have you seen it anywhere?”

  “I don’t know why I should be informed, Carl. Perhaps I should call them and ask?” It was a question delivered in a tone more sarcastic than the situation warranted.

  “Do you know what, Assad? I reckon it can wait. For the time being I think you should get off home, or wherever it is you go to when you’re not here, and concentrate on trying to clear your head. Because as far as I can see, you’re heading for a blow-out any time now.”

  “In which case it is only strange that you are not, Carl. But if you insist, then I shall go.” He didn’t show it, but he was angrier than Carl had ever seen him.

  And then he turned round and left, with Carl’s lighter sticking demonstratively out of his back pocket.

  This did not bode well.

  36

  September 1987

  When Nørvig’s head flopped down onto his chest, Nete’s world was consumed by silence. Death itself had appeared before her, beckoning her unto the flames of hell. But now she was alone.

  Never before had she felt it to be as close. Not even when her mother died. Not even when she lay in her hospital bed and was told her husband had been killed in the car accident.

  She kneeled down in front of the chair where Philip Nørvig sat slumped, open eyes still red from weeping, no longer breathing.

  Then she reached out her trembling hands to touch his clenched fingers, searching for words that could not be found. Perhaps she wanted only to say “sorry,” but somehow it didn’t seem enough.

  He has a daughter, she thought, and felt a queasiness spread from her stomach to the rest of her body.

  He had a daughter. These lifeless hands had a cheek they would never again caress.

  “Stop it, Nete!” she shouted abruptly, sensing where she was leading herself. “Bastard!” she snarled at Nørvig’s corpse. Who was he to come here, repentant, and think her life would be made better on that account? Was he now to rob her of her vengeance, too? First her liberty, her fertility and motherhood, and now her triumph?

  “Come here,” she mumbled, putting her arms round his torso, immediately registering the smell that filled her nostrils. He had emptied his bowels at the moment of death. More work to do. And time was short.

  She looked at the clock: 4 P.M. In fifteen minutes it would be Curt Wad’s turn. Although Gitte came after him, Curt would be her crowning achievement.

  She pulled Nørvig from the chair and saw the malodorous brown stain of excrement on the upholstery.

  Nørvig had left his final mark on her life.

  • • •

  After she had wrapped his nether regions in a bath towel and dragged him into the sealed room, she knelt at the armchair, scrubbing frantically with all the windows in the living room and kitchen thrown wide. Neither the stain nor the smell would go away, and now, at fourteen minutes past four, everything in the room, down to the minutest piece of bric-a-brac, seemed to announce to her that something in the apartment was terribly amiss.

  Two minutes later, the armchair had been pushed away into the corner of the sealed room, its usual place now glaringly vacant. For a moment she thought about substituting a dining chair, only then to decide against it. She had nothing else that would do.

  Curt Wad will have to sit on the sofa by the sideboard while I mix the tea and the extract, she thought. I’ll just have to stand in between so he won’t see.

  Time passed and Nete stood anxiously at the window. But Curt Wad didn’t come.

  • • •

  After Nete had spent more than eighteen tormented months on the island, a man stood one day in a corner of the courtyard, photographing the view down to the sea. A gaggle of Sprogø girls were gathered around him, whispering and giggling, eyeing him up as though he were fair game. But the man was big and stout, and the occasional hand that ventured to brush against him was firmly dismissed.

  He seemed to be a good sort, as her father would have said. Ruddy as a farmer and hair that shone with life and spoke of something other than crude soap flakes.

  Four of the female wardens came out to waylay him, and when things seemed to be getting out of hand they shooed the girls away, back to their chores. In the meantime, Nete drew back behind the tall tree in the middle of the courtyard, waiting to see what would happen.

  The man looked around, taking in the surroundings, producing a notebook and jotting down his impressions.

  “Would it be possible to speak to one of the girls?” she heard him inquire. One of the women laughed and told him that if he held his virtue dear, it would be better he left the girls alone and spoke to them instead.

  “I’ll behave myself,” said Nete, stepping forward wearing the smile her father always called her “twinkle.”

  Right away she saw in the eyes of the staff the punishment that now awaited her.

  “Go back to work,” said the one they called Weasel, the smallest of the four women, the matron’s assistant. She tried to keep it civil, but Nete knew better. Weasel was an aggrieved woman, much like her colleagues, a person who seemed to have nothing left in life but harsh words and embitterment. “A woman no man in his right mind would ever want,” Rita always said. “The kind who takes pleasure in the calamity of others.”

  “No, wait,” said the man. “I’d like to speak to her. She seems harmless enough.”

  Weasel snorted but said nothing.

  He stepped closer. “I’m from a magazine called Photo Report. Do you mind if we talk?”

  Nete shook her head eagerly, despite the four pairs of eyes she felt glaring at her.

  The man turned back to the wardens. “Ten minutes, that’s all. Down by the jetty. Just some quest
ions and a couple of photos. If you want, you can be on hand to intervene if it turns out I’m unable to defend myself,” he added with a chuckle.

  As the women withdrew, one of them made off for the matron’s office after a nod from Weasel.

  You’ve only a moment, Nete thought to herself, walking on ahead of the journalist through the passage between the buildings and down to the water.

  The light seemed unusually bright that day, and at the jetty the motorboat that had sailed the reporter out to the island lay moored. She’d seen the boatman before on some occasion. He smiled and waved.

  She would have given years of her life to be sailed away in that boat.

  “I’m not retarded or abnormal in any way,” she explained hurriedly to the journalist, turning to face him. “I was sent here because I was raped. By a doctor called Curt Wad. You can look him up in the phone book.”

  The man was immediately alert.

  “Raped, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “By a doctor? A Curt Wad?”

  “Yes. You can check the court records. I lost the case.”

  He nodded deliberately, though without making notes. Why wasn’t he putting this down?

  “And your name is?”

  “Nete Hermansen.”

  This he jotted in his notebook. “You say you’re quite normal, and yet I happen to know for a fact that everyone here has been given a diagnosis. What might yours be?”

  “Diagnosis?” She didn’t know what it meant.

  He smiled. “Nete, can you tell me the name of the third largest town in Denmark?”

  She turned her eyes toward the hillock and its fruit trees, knowing full well where things were heading. Three more questions and she would be pigeonholed.

  “I know it’s not Odense, because that’s the second biggest,” she answered.

  He nodded. “Sounds like you’re from Fyn yourself.”

  “I am. I was born not far from Assens.”

  “Then perhaps you can tell me about Hans Christian Andersen’s childhood home in Odense. What color is it?”

  Nete shook her head. “Won’t you take me away from here? I’ll tell you such a lot of things you’ll never find out otherwise. Things no one knows.”

  “Such as?”

  “About the wardens. If any of them are nice to us, they’re sent back to the mainland. And if we’re disobedient, they beat us and lock us up in the contemplation rooms.”

  “Contemplation rooms?”

  “Yes, punishment cells. Just a room with a bed, and nothing else.”

  “But this isn’t supposed to be a holiday, is it?”

  She was desolated. He didn’t understand. “The only way we can get away from here is if they cut us open and sterilize us.”

  The man nodded. “Yes, I’m aware of that. It’s so that you won’t put children into the world that you can’t look after. Don’t you find that humane?”

  “Humane?”

  “Yes, kind.”

  “Why shouldn’t I be allowed to have children? Are my children worth less than others?”

  He looked past Nete at the three wardens who had followed on behind, doing their utmost to listen in on what was said.

  “Which of these women beats you?” he asked.

  Nete turned. “They all do, but the smallest one’s the worst. She hits us on the neck and it hurts for days.”

  “I see. Look, the matron’s coming now, so one more question, that’s all. Tell me something you’re not allowed to do here.”

  “The staff keep the herbs and spices for themselves. All we’re allowed is salt and pepper and vinegar.”

  He smiled. “Well, if that’s the worst you can think of, I’d say you were doing quite nicely. The food’s decent enough. I’ve tasted it myself.”

  “The worst thing is that they hate us. They don’t care about us and they treat us like we’re all the same. They never listen to anything we say.”

  He laughed. “You should meet my editor. I think you’ve just described him.”

  She heard the wardens disperse behind her, noticing just before the matron gripped her arm and marched her off that the man in the boat had lit a cigarillo and was in the process of trimming his nets.

  She had not been heard, at least not properly. Her prayers had been in vain. She was no more worthy of attention than a tuft of grass.

  • • •

  To begin with, she lay in the punishment cell and wept. And when it didn’t help, she screamed at the top of her lungs for them to let her out, kicking and clawing at the door. Eventually, when they tired of her commotion, two of them came in, twisted her arms into the straitjacket, and strapped her to the bed.

  For hours she was distraught, sobbing uncontrollably and imploring the grimy wall to fall away and reveal her pathway to freedom. Eventually, the door opened and the matron stepped inside, followed by her zealous little weasel of an assistant.

  “I have spoken to Mr. William from Photo Report, and you can thank your lucky stars he won’t be publishing any of the cock-and-bull stories you’ve been telling him.”

  “I didn’t tell him stories and I never tell a lie.”

  Nete failed to see the hand that swiped through the air and struck her on the mouth, but she was prepared when Weasel drew back her arm a second time.

  “All right, Miss Jespersen, I think that will suffice,” said the matron.

  She looked down at Nete again. Of all the staff, the matron may have had the kindest eyes, but right now they were as cold as ice.

  “I’ve telephoned Dr. Wad and informed him that you continue to put forward these outrageous and wholly insubstantial lies about him. I was interested to hear what he thought we should do about you. His opinion was that in view of your intransigent and mendacious character, no period of confinement would ever suffice as punishment.” She patted Nete on the head. “The decision is not his to make, but nonetheless I have decided to follow his advice. You can remain here for a week to begin with, and we shall see how you get on. If you behave and refrain from making such a racket we shall remove the straitjacket tomorrow. What do you say, Nete? Do we have an agreement?”

  Nete twisted slightly under the belt.

  A silent protest.

  • • •

  Where on earth’s he got to? Nete wondered. Had Curt Wad really decided not to come? Was he really so arrogant that not even the prospect of ten million kroner could lure him from his lair? It was a situation she hadn’t anticipated.

  She shook her head despairingly. This was the last thing she needed. Though she closed her eyes, the body of the scrawny lawyer still stared pitifully at her, but Nørvig had been little more than Wad’s errand boy, and if she wouldn’t spare him, she certainly would not be kind to Curt Wad.

  She bit her lip and looked over at the grandfather clock, its pendulum swinging relentlessly.

  Would she be able to go to Mallorca with her job incomplete? She wouldn’t, she was certain of it. Curt Wad was the most important of her intended victims.

  “Come on, come on, come on, you swine!” she spat in frustration, gathering up her knitting and frenziedly picking up stitches. And with every click of the needles her gaze out of the open windows and down the path along the lake grew more intense.

  Was that him? That tall figure by the bunker? Or what about the man behind him? But that wasn’t him either.

  What to do now?

  And then the doorbell chimed. Not the entry phone downstairs, but her own front door. She gave a start and felt a chill go through her body.

  She dropped her knitting and glanced around, satisfying herself that everything was ready.

  There was the extract. The cozy was on the teapot. The documents bearing the fabricated letterhead of her fictitious lawyer were laid out on the lace cloth on the coffee table in
front of the sofa. She sniffed the air. As far as she could tell, the stench of Nørvig’s passing was gone.

  Then she went to the door, wishing she’d had one of those little spyholes fitted. She took a deep breath and lifted her head, ready to look Curt Wad in the eye when she opened up.

  “I discovered I did have some coffee all along. It took a while with these foolish eyes of mine,” said a voice from about half a meter lower down than she’d been anticipating.

  Her neighbor held out a pack of Irma’s own brand and craned her neck to peer down the hallway of Nete’s apartment. What could be more exciting than a peek into the unknown world of one’s neighbor?

  But Nete refrained to invite her in.

  “Thank you so much,” she said, accepting the coffee. “The instant was all right, but this is better, of course. Can I pay you for it right away? I’m afraid I shan’t be able to return in kind for the next couple of weeks. I’m going away, you see.”

  The woman nodded and Nete hurried into the living room and took her purse from her bag. It was 4:35 now and Curt Wad still hadn’t arrived. It was imperative the neighbor be gone if the entry phone rang. Imagine if a missing persons bulletin went out to the newspapers or television. Women like Nete’s neighbor sat staring at the box all day long. Nete could even hear it droning when the rush-hour traffic died away.

  “You’ve done the place out nicely,” said the woman behind her.

  Nete swiveled round like a top. The woman had followed her in and was now standing in the living room, looking about inquisitively. The open windows and the documents on the coffee table were an immediate source of interest.

  “Yes, I like it,” Nete replied, handing her a ten-kroner note. “Thanks for helping me out, it was very kind of you.”

  “What have you done with your visitor?” she asked.

  “Oh, some errands to do in town.”

  “Perhaps we could have a cup while you wait?” the woman suggested.

  Nete shook her head. “I’m afraid I can’t. Another time, certainly. I have some paperwork I need to sort out.”

  She gave the woman a friendly nod, noting her look of disappointment before taking her by the arm and leading her back out to the landing.