The Purity of Vengeance

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

The sound of the loom stopped and Pia put her hands in her lap. She needed to sit for a moment and digest what Nete had said. To grasp the consequences, and Bette and Betty’s unspeakable treachery.

  “They said you were going to stick a pair of scissors in Gitte Charles, too,” Nete whispered. “Is it true?”

  And then something snapped inside the girl, and seconds later she got to her feet and showed them just how hard a streetwalker from Århus could get stuck in.

  Nete backed away and out of the room as the warden called for help and the ruckus between the three prostitutes spread to the other girls.

  They came running from the kitchen and the stores, and someone rang the bell that hung outside the matron’s office. In no time at all, an otherwise uneventful day became a deluge of yells and screams, the air filled with words decent girls ought never to utter.

  She was up the stairs and into Gitte’s room in seconds, finding the key on the ledge above the door.

  Nete had never been inside before, but now she saw how tidy the place was, with fine drawings on the walls and the bed neatly made. Gitte had only a small number of possessions in a small chest of drawers, and a pair of sturdy walking shoes Nete had never seen her wear.

  Inside them she found almost five hundred kroner and a ring with an inscription: Alistair Charles to Oline Jensen, Tórshavn, August 7, 1929.

  She left the ring where it was.

  • • •

  That evening, both the punishment cell in the basement and the one upstairs were occupied by the sewing-room combatants.

  It was one of those days when not a word was exchanged during dinner. None of the girls felt inclined to draw attention to themselves as long as several of their guardians still wore the bruises of the brawl earlier in the day. Tension crackled in the air.

  Rita stared at Nete and shook her head. Stirring up this kind of trouble was not what she’d had in mind.

  She raised all ten digits in the air, then two on their own. It meant they’d be leaving at midnight, though how on earth Rita thought they were going to get out of this seething place Nete had no idea.

  She wouldn’t in a million years have guessed that Rita would set her roommate’s bed on fire. Of course, matches were an item the wardens were extremely careful about, but Rita was Rita, and all she needed was a single safety match and a scrap of the striking surface of a matchbox stolen from the kitchen. It had been well hidden under her bosom most of the day, waiting to be put to use when her imbecilic roommate had fallen asleep.

  The roommate it was who raised the alarm when she awoke to find her blanket alight and the room filled with smoke. Everyone was up and out in no time, for it had happened before. The stables had been ablaze on several occasions, and a number of years ago the whole institution had gone up in flames. The lighthouse keeper and his assistant appeared, too, almost within seconds, shirts hanging out and braces dangling at their hips as they organized pumps and buckets and instructed water-carriers.

  Rita and Nete met up behind the herb garden and looked back at the fire that made the skylight of Rita’s room suddenly burst with a bang, sending smoke spiraling into the clear night sky.

  It wouldn’t be long before Rita was suspected and a search initiated, so time was short.

  As Nete had guessed, boatmen awaited them in the glow of the Retreat’s paraffin lamp. What she had not expected was that Viggo would be among them and that he would fail to recognize her.

  He eyed her up with the same lustful grin on his face as when Nete had seen him and his mate look on as a third man took Rita from behind. The kind of look a woman might want from her lover, but not from a stranger, and a stranger was what he was now.

  When she told him she was the girl from the fair, he couldn’t even remember the episode. He laughed and said if they’d already rolled in the hay once, they might as well do it again.

  Nete felt her heart being wrenched in two.

  Another of the men had counted the money, and now he declared that it wasn’t enough. They’d have to lie down on the table and spread their legs to make up the difference.

  This clearly wasn’t part of the agreement. Rita began to kick up a fuss, lunging at the man in anger. It soon turned out it was the wrong thing to do.

  “Right, you can stay behind on the island,” the man said, then slapped her in the face. “Get lost.”

  Nete glanced at Viggo, hoping he would protest, but he remained passive. It told her he wasn’t in charge and was content with his inferior status.

  Rita changed her mind. She pulled up her dress, but the men were no longer interested. Why bother with an insolent harpy they’d shagged before on countless occasions, when they could have someone new? That was how they put it.

  “Come on, Nete, let’s go. Give us our money back,” Rita demanded. It only made the men laugh even louder as they divided the cash between them.

  Nete was horrified. Gitte Charles would know that Nete had stolen her savings. How could she possibly go back to the home tonight? It would be hell on earth.

  “You can d-do it with me,” she stammered, climbing onto the table as the men bundled Rita out of the shed.

  She heard Rita cursing outside, but then all was still, apart from the grunting of the stranger inside her.

  When he had finished and it was Viggo’s turn, the thought came to her that she would never again be able to cry, and that life as it ought to have become had now been irrevocably snatched from her hands. She had never imagined so much betrayal to be possible, so much malice.

  And while Viggo satisfied himself, her eyes wandered around the small space as though she were saying farewell not only to Sprogø, but also to the girl she once had been.

  At the same moment as Viggo’s body tensed toward climax, his friend grinning in the corner, the door was flung open and she was confronted by Rita’s accusing finger and the piercing glare of Gitte Charles.

  The men were gone in an instant, leaving Nete as though fixed to the table, her sex laid bare.

  From that moment Nete’s hatred of both women, and of Viggo, who called himself a man but was little better than a pig, knew no bounds.

  41

  November 2010

  Rounding the bend by Brøndbyøster Church, Curt was surprised to see such hectic activity, clusters of onlookers huddled in the cold.

  A shiver ran down his spine when he realized they were standing outside his house. Flashing blue lights, shouts and cries, and the drone of fire-engine pumps. It was everyone’s nightmare.

  “I’m the owner. What’s happened?” he barked, defense mechanisms primed and ready.

  “Ask the police. They were here until a few minutes ago,” a fireman shouted back, as he doused down the last glowing embers inside the outbuilding. “What was his name, that detective who was here? Can you remember?” he asked a colleague who was busy rolling hoses.

  “Mørck, wasn’t that it?” He shook his head, apparently unsure, but the answer was sufficient.

  Curt had already heard enough. This wasn’t good.

  “You’ve been lucky, sir, I can tell you,” the second fireman continued. “A few more minutes and the outbuilding would have been gone and most likely that thatched place on the other side of Tværgaden, too. There was a badly injured person inside, I’m afraid. Looked like a gypsy. Maybe some derelict who’d found himself a place to kip down. We reckon he’s probably the cause of the blaze, though we don’t know for sure yet. He burned some paper in there, probably to keep warm I shouldn’t wonder, but it’s still only guesswork at the moment. I suggest you keep in touch with the police.”

  Curt didn’t respond. Nothing could be further from his intentions.

  He shone his flashlight into the outbuilding and saw that the sliding door of the strong room was open, the floor beyond a slush of ash. It was a sight that shocked him.

  He waited unti
l the firemen had gone, then waded through the sopping wreckage into the archive only to realize that nothing, absolutely nothing was left.

  What there was, however, was writing on the walls.

  ASSAD WAS HERE!

  He almost collapsed.

  • • •

  “It’s all gone,” he said to Lønberg on the secure line. “Everything. Files, cuttings, documents of constitution, membership lists, patient records. The blaze took it all!”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Lønberg. “It’s dreadful, of course, but we must hope everything was indeed lost. You say this Hafez el-Assad was still alive when you left him, but do we know how the police found him? Did his mobile phone lead them perhaps?”

  “No, we took that and switched it off. Mikael and the others are going through its memory to see if it might give us something to go on. But the phone itself has been turned off since it’s been in our possession. So no, I’ve absolutely no idea how Mørck could have found him.”

  “All right, give me ten minutes to check with the hospitals. I’ll call you back.”

  Curt trembled with anger and grief. If only he’d put off going to see the undertaker until tomorrow, if only he hadn’t known the man from his sterling work in the party, none of this would have happened.

  He shook his head in frustration. Why did they have to have that second cup of coffee? And why had the undertaker’s wife spent so much time offering her condolences? But what the hell use were all these questions now? What good was “if only”? It had happened, and that was it.

  What they had to do now was follow the plan. It was simple enough. Once they had eliminated the Arab they would go straight for his colleague. And when he was out of the way, which could be as early as the following day, they could send their man from Station City into the basement of Police HQ to remove Nørvig’s files.

  As such, the most immediate threat to the party would soon be averted. This was their primary task.

  The fact remained, however, that there was a female assistant in the department, too. She wasn’t that bright, their informant had told them, so that hurdle would be easily surmounted. And if their man was wrong, they’d soon find a way to compromise her and have her out of the system in no time. That much he could promise.

  Søren Brandt was no longer a problem either, as far as Curt was informed. And Mikael would soon be dispatched to Madagascar to take care of Mie Nørvig and Herbert Sønderskov.

  After that, only one potential threat would remain. Nete Hermansen.

  It was imperative her death appear natural. A death certificate and a quick funeral, and that would be the end of it.

  Forever, he hoped.

  Now Curt’s archive had succumbed to fire, just as his comrades in The Cause had destroyed their own records, and with Carl Mørck and Hafez el-Assad’s imminent demise the police investigation would most likely cease to be a threat if, as Curt had been told, Department Q preferred to keep their investigations to themselves. The party would soon be left in peace to establish itself, and his life’s work would thus bear fruit.

  Curt nodded to himself. Now he’d thought things through, he felt certain no damage had been done. On the contrary.

  All he had to do was wait for Lønberg’s report from the hospital where the Arab had been admitted.

  He went upstairs and lay down for a while beside his beloved. Her skin looked like snow and felt colder already.

  “Let me warm you, dearest Beate,” he said, drawing her body toward him. It was no longer yielding. Rigor mortis had set in while he had been having coffee with people who meant nothing to him. What had he been thinking?

  His mobile rang.

  “Yes, Lønberg. Have you found him?”

  “He’s been taken to Hvidovre, condition critical. He’s not doing well at all, apparently.”

  Curt heaved a sigh of relief.

  “Who’s with him?”

  “Carl Mørck.”

  “I see. Do you know if he retrieved anything from the strong room?”

  “I doubt it. Can’t be much, if he did, anyway. Our contact at the hospital is sitting in the waiting room opposite Mørck as we speak. I’ll ask her on the other phone if she knows anything. Just a sec.”

  He heard Lønberg’s voice in the background, and then the rustle in his ear as he returned.

  “It seems it’s hard to tell. She can’t get that close to see. Mørck’s got something that looks like a list, but it might be just the hospital’s information sheet for patients’ friends and next of kin.”

  “A list, you say?”

  “Yes, but take it easy, Curt, it’s probably nothing. The worst is over, my friend. From the historical perspective it’s a shame, obviously, that we’ve lost all our documentation regarding the founding of The Cause and the Purity Party. But just as we consigned our patient records to the bonfires, it could well turn out for the best that your archives have gone up in smoke, too. How are you anyway, Curt? Bearing up all right?”

  “No.” He took a deep breath. “Beate’s dead.”

  A long silence ensued. Curt knew how Lønberg and a number of the older members of the organization felt about Beate. Not only as an excellent organizer, a person who made them gel, but also as a woman. Beate had been quite unique.

  “May God bless her,” was all Lønberg could say.

  • • •

  The agreement with the undertaker was that he and his assistant were to come and collect Beate’s body at ten o’clock the next morning. The procedure should not be postponed further, they informed him. The timing was unfortunate, to say the least.

  Curt gazed with sadness upon her. He had decided he would follow her that night. When the undertakers arrived, they would discover they would have to make two trips.

  But events had now dictated otherwise.

  First he needed to know for certain that Carl Mørck and Hafez el-Assad were out of the way, and that the list the investigator at this moment sat reading in the antiseptic waiting room was not what Curt feared it to be.

  He dialed Mikael’s number.

  “Unfortunately, Hafez el-Assad survived the blow to his head and managed to set fire to the archive,” Wad reported. “But it seems likely he won’t survive the effects of his injuries. We’re trying to keep abreast of the situation with the assistance of a good and loyal contact at the hospital. A nurse who has come to our aid several times in the past and who will not hesitate to help us again. All in all, I don’t think we need to worry too much about the Arab. Our problem is Carl Mørck.”

  “OK,” came the reply at the other end.

  “This time you’re not to let him out of your sight for a second, Mikael. You’ll find him at Hvidovre Hospital. I want him closely monitored wherever he goes, do you understand? I want him eliminated at the first available opportunity. Run him over, whatever you need to do. But do it, and do it without delay.”

  42

  November 2010

  The way Rose stood staring at Assad’s deathly pale face, her nerves all on edge as they took him out of the ambulance in front of the emergency entrance, Carl reckoned a long night’s waiting around for bulletins on Assad’s condition would be too much for her.

  “You all right to drive home on your own?” he asked her, in the reflection of flashing blue lights. He handed her the car key, only to remember what a truly awful driver she was, but by then it was too late.

  “Thanks,” she said, hugging him for a brief, transcendent moment before sending a pitiful little wave in the direction of Assad’s stretcher and wandering off back to the Ka.

  At least there’s not much traffic on the roads at this time, Carl thought to himself. If anything should happen to Rose as well, he’d be packing in his job first thing.

  Maybe he would, anyway.

  • • •

  They toiled with Assad i
n surgery until finally a doleful-looking doctor appeared before Carl in the waiting room and informed him that his assistant’s lungs thankfully seemed to be all right, but the fracture he’d sustained to his skull and the subsequent accumulations of blood were such that they couldn’t promise anything. In fact, Assad’s condition was so serious, they would be transferring him to the Rigshospital, where the trauma center was already preparing for his arrival. He would be given a thorough examination and most likely sent into surgery again before being admitted to intensive care.

  Carl nodded, anger and grief tussling inside him. He wouldn’t be passing this on to Rose just yet, he sensed.

  He clutched one of the sheets of paper that Assad had hidden under his shirt to his chest. Curt Wad was going to pay for this. And if they couldn’t nail him lawfully, there were other ways of going about it. He didn’t give a shit now.

  “I’ve only just heard,” a familiar voice said from the corridor, and Marcus Jacobsen bounded toward him.

  So fucking sad and touching all at once that Carl had to dry his eyes.

  • • •

  “We might as well get back to HQ, Marcus,” said Carl. “I can’t face going home, and there’s a lot needs getting on with first.”

  Marcus Jacobsen looked up into the rearview mirror and adjusted it slightly.

  “Funny, how long that car’s been on our tail,” he said, then looked at Carl. “Yeah, I understand. But you’ll be no good to anyone without sleep and sustenance.”

  “OK, you can start by pouring me a Gammel Dansk as soon as we get back. The sleep bit can wait.”

  He briefed Marcus on what had happened during the day. He didn’t see how he could get out of it.

  “I ordered the two of you to stay well away from Curt Wad, Carl. You disobeyed me, and now look where it’s got us.”

  Carl nodded. Fair enough. It had to come.

  “That said, it’s a good thing you persisted,” he added.

  Carl turned his head to look at him. “Thanks, Marcus.”

  His boss hesitated for a moment before dropping his bombshell. “There are people I need to consult before I can let you go on with all this, Carl.”