The Purity of Vengeance

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  Carl glared at him blearily, still struggling to regain his senses. He tried to breathe as comfortably as possible, but only when he began to inhale through the corner of his mouth did he feel any kind of improvement, more control over the odd sensations coursing through his body. He became more aware of his swallowing movements, the numbness in his neck and palate dissipating. He could breathe deeper now.

  “You’re full of shit,” he spat.

  Wad heard him but merely smiled.

  “Ah, he speaks. What a wonderful development. We’re in no hurry, but let’s begin with you, shall we, Carl?” He peered into his bag on the table. “I shall make no bones about it. This night will be your last. Needless to say, that goes for the both of you. However, I can promise you that if you cooperate with me, death will be both painless and swift. If not . . .”

  He reached into the bag and produced a scalpel. “Need I say more? I’m sure you’re aware that the instrument here is far from unfamiliar to my hand.”

  Again Nete tried to speak but was seemingly still too confused.

  Carl focused on the scalpel and tried to gather himself. He twisted his wrists against the duct tape, but there was no strength in him. He struggled to shift his weight in the chair, but his body seemed loath to even react. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  What the fuck’s the matter with me? he asked himself. Was this how a concussion felt? Was that what it was?

  He looked across at Curt Wad. Did he see perspiration running down the bridge of the old man’s nose? Was it fatigue that made his hands tremble?

  “Tell me how you found each other. Did you get in touch with the police, Nete?” Wad wiped his brow and laughed. “No, I don’t suppose you did. After all, you’ve rather a lot to hide here, haven’t you?” He swept out a hand, indicating the macabre scene. “And who might the rest of these unfortunate people be, these sorry individuals with whom you intended I should end my days? That one over there, for instance. What kind of worm was he, I wonder?”

  He jabbed a finger toward the corpse directly opposite. Like the others, it was taped tightly to the chair, though no longer entirely upright. A shapeless individual whose former corpulence remained readily discernible despite the passage of time.

  Curt Wad smiled, only then to clutch his throat in an abrupt reflex, as though he were about to spew bile or had suddenly become unable to breathe. Carl would have done the same if he could have got his hands free.

  Wad cleared his throat a couple of times and wiped his brow again. “Tell me what documents you obtained, Mørck. Did you find anything of interest in my archive?” He raised the scalpel and slashed open the tablecloth. The instrument was hideously sharp.

  Carl closed his eyes. He had no intention of shuffling off the coil yet, and definitely not like that. But if his number was up, he was prepared to go out with a flourish. Wad wasn’t getting a peep out of him other than what he decided to tell him himself.

  “So you choose to remain silent. Very well. When I’ve finished with you both, I shall call my people and instruct them to remove your bodies, although . . .” Wad stared blankly into the air in front of him and took a couple of deep breaths. He wasn’t feeling well at all. He undid the top button of his shirt. “Although it seems a shame to spoil such a pleasant get-together,” he concluded.

  Carl wasn’t listening. He was concentrating on trying to breathe. Inhaling through the corner of his mouth, exhaling through his nose. It stopped the room from spinning so fast. He felt shit, and was painfully aware of it.

  Then Nete Hermansen came to life. A sudden, unexpected utterance.

  “You drank the coffee!” she said, hoarsely and yet almost without sound, glaring coldly at her tormentor.

  The old man stiffened for a moment, then gulped down some water and drew in air to the bottom of his lungs. He seemed addled and unsteady, and Carl knew exactly how he felt.

  Nete expelled a couple of sounds that could have passed for laughter. “I see it still works. I was in doubt.”

  The old man lowered his head and stared at her with piercing eyes that expressed anything but weakness. “What was in the coffee, Nete?” he asked.

  Her response was more laughter. “Let me go and I’ll tell you. But I’m not sure it’ll help.”

  Curt Wad put his hand in his pocket, produced a mobile phone, and pressed a number, his eyes still fixed on Nete. “You tell me what was in that coffee, Nete, or else I shall be forced to make an incision. Do you understand me? In a very short while, one of my people will be here and will administer an antidote. Tell me, and I shall let you go. Then we’ll be quits.”

  He sat for a moment, waiting for his call to be answered, then snapped the phone shut and dialed once more. And when again there was no reply he became frantic and pressed another number. Still nothing.

  Carl felt his diaphragm tighten. He drew in breath sharply, as deeply as he could. The pain was excruciating, but as he exhaled again the torturous cramp in his tongue and the muscles of his throat seemed to ease and he felt relief.

  “If you’re calling your pet gorillas, you’ll have a long wait,” he spat, looking Wad straight in the face. It was obvious the man had no idea what he was talking about.

  Carl smiled. It was hard not to. “They’re all in custody. We found the membership list of The Cause in that strong room of yours.”

  A shadow passed over Wad’s face and he winced. He swallowed twice, his eyes darting feverishly about the room, his air of supremacy suddenly vanished from the features of his face. He coughed a couple of times, then raised his head and glared at Carl, aflame with hatred.

  “I’m afraid I must eliminate one of your guests, Nete,” he snarled. “And when it’s done, you’re going to tell me what you’ve poisoned me with. Understood?”

  He straightened his long, bony frame and pushed back his chair. The scalpel lay firmly in his hand, his knuckles showing white. Carl lowered his gaze, unwilling to allow his butcher the pleasure of looking into his eyes when he began to cut.

  “How dare you call me by my first name?” came the sound of Nete’s rasping voice at his side. “I resent the familiarity, Curt Wad. You don’t know me. You don’t know me at all.” Her breathing was irregular, but her voice was clear now. “Before you get up, I think you should present yourself properly to the lady at your side, the way a gentleman ought.”

  The old man stared at her with empty eyes, then turned and inspected the place card. He shook his head. “Gitte Charles. The name’s unfamiliar, I’m afraid.”

  “In that case, I think perhaps you ought to have a closer look. Look at her, you beast.”

  Carl raised his head and saw Wad turn his face toward the corpse as if in slow motion, leaning forward and twisting over the table to get a better look at the woman’s features. His crooked hands took hold of the mummy’s head and drew it toward him. There was a dry, crackling sound.

  And then he let go.

  Slowly, he fell back in his chair, mouth agape, eyes out of focus.

  “But . . . it’s Nete,” he stammered, clutching suddenly at his chest.

  And with that he seemed to lose all control of his facial muscles. His expression changed abruptly, his face becoming almost deformed. His shoulders sagged, and what remained of Curt Wad’s status and poise seemed thereby to collapse.

  His head lolled as he gasped for breath. And then he slumped forward.

  They sat in silence and watched the spasms subside. He was still breathing, but it wouldn’t be for long.

  “I’m Gitte Charles,” the woman said, turning to look at Carl. “The only person I’ve killed at this table is Nete Hermansen. It was her or me, and it wasn’t murder. A single blow with the hammer she’d intended to slay me with.”

  Carl nodded, realizing he had never spoken to Nete at all. It seemed to explain a lot.

  They sat for a while in s
ilence, staring blankly at Curt Wad’s forlornly blinking eyes, the heaving of his chest as he struggled to draw in oxygen.

  “I think I know who all these people are,” Carl said eventually. “But which of them did you know?” he asked.

  “Besides Nete, only Rita.” Her eyes indicated the shrunken corpse at Carl’s side. “It was only when you came and questioned me that I understood the connection between the names on the place cards and the actual people who had crossed Nete’s path. I was just one of them.”

  “If we get out of here I’ll have to arrest you. You tried to kill me with that hammer, and that’s not all, I reckon,” Carl told her. “I don’t know what you put in that coffee, but you may have done away with me yet.” He nodded toward Wad, whose barely flickering eyelids revealed that the life inside him was now all but extinguished. The cocktail of poison, age, and shock would soon prove lethal.

  Time’s running out, Carl thought, and what could matter less? Curt Wad’s life for Assad’s. Justice of a kind.

  The woman next to him shook her head. “You hardly drank at all. I’m quite sure it won’t kill you. The mixture was old.”

  Carl studied her, perplexed.

  “Gitte, you’ve been living Nete’s life for twenty-three years. How did you pull it off?”

  She tried to laugh. “There was always a certain resemblance. I was older, of course, by a few years, and rather jaded by the time it happened. But I soon got myself sorted out again. A few months in Mallorca and I’d slotted into place, as it were. Bleached my hair, nice clothes for my wardrobe. It all suited me well. Nete’s life was so much more preferable to my own. I was afraid of being found out going through passport control, naturally. And in the bank, and a lot more places besides. But do you know what? I discovered that no one in Copenhagen knew Nete at all. As long as I remembered to limp a bit, that seemed to be the only thing people noticed. And my guests here weren’t going to tell. I found a stock of formalin in the kitchen, so it wasn’t hard to work out what Nete had been planning to do. Down their throats with it to stop them rotting, and here you see the result. All sitting nicely, exactly where they were put. What else could I do? Chop them up and throw them in the rubbish and risk being discovered by chance? I decided Nete had got it all worked out. And now we’re here with her and unable to leave.”

  She began to laugh hysterically. It was easy to see why. She’d carried it off, a double life for more than two decades. But what good was it now? Here she was, bound tight in a room sealed off from the rest of the world. It didn’t matter how much they yelled, no one was going to hear them. So who was going to find them? And when? Rose was the only person who knew he might be here, but he’d just given her a week off. What were the odds?

  He looked over at Curt Wad, who suddenly stared at them, eyes wide open. A tremor ran through his body as though he was trying to muster what little remained of his strength. Then he rolled over and thrust his hand toward Gitte Charles in a final, agonizing convulsion.

  Carl heard Curt Wad die. A brief, listless rattle. A tiny expulsion of air. And then the man was still, eyes staring emptily at the ceiling. Eyes that had looked upon humanity and divided his fellow human beings into those who were worthy and those who were not.

  Carl inhaled deeply. Perhaps in relief, or maybe despondency. He couldn’t tell. He turned his head to the woman at his side. The scalpel was embedded in her throat. Not a sound had she made.

  Silence was all there was.

  • • •

  For two nights he was entombed with these seven corpses. And at every moment his thoughts were elsewhere. With people he now knew he held more dear than he had ever thought possible. Assad, Mona, and Hardy. Even Rose.

  When the third night descended upon the lifeless figures in his midst, he let go and drifted away. It wasn’t hard. To sleep, and sleep forever.

  He awoke to loud cries and people shaking him. He didn’t know who they were, but they said they were from PET. One of them put his fingers to his neck and felt for a pulse, having seen immediately how weak he was.

  Only when they gave him water to drink did he sense the sublime relief of survival.

  “How?” he uttered, with the greatest effort, as they removed the tape from his legs.

  “You mean how did we find you? We’ve been making arrests all over the place. The guy who tailed you here and tipped off Curt Wad suddenly started talking,” a voice replied.

  Tailed me? Carl repeated to himself. Had he allowed someone to follow him?

  He was getting too old for this lark.

  EPILOGUE

  December 2010

  It was the kind of day Carl detested most. December slush in the streets and Christmas lights in everyone’s eyes. Why the sudden glee over water turning white and the department stores’ unscrupulous abuse of the world’s dwindling energy resources?

  It was bollocks, all of it, and his mood was long since ruined.

  “You’ve got visitors,” Rose announced from the doorway.

  He swiveled round, ready to spit out his annoyance. What was the matter with people? Couldn’t they phone first?

  It was an emotion compounded by the appearance of Børge Bak.

  “What the fuck do you want? Found a new dagger to stab me in the back with? How did you even get through . . .”

  “I’ve brought Esther with me,” Bak said. “She’d like to say thanks.”

  Carl stopped short and looked up at the woman as she stepped forward.

  She wore a jazzy scarf around her head and throat, and only little by little did she allow him to see her face. First the side that was only slightly discolored and swollen, then the side the plastic surgeons had worked on so intensely and that was still a blackened surface of scabs, partially covered by hospital gauze. She looked at him with one sparkling eye. The other was closed. She opened it slowly, as though not to startle him. It was milky white and dead, its luster gone. And yet he sensed a smile.

  “Børge told me how you made sure Linas Verslovas disappeared. I want to thank you. I’d never have felt safe anywhere again if he was still around.”

  She stood with a bunch of flowers in her hand. Carl reached out to accept them, suitably humble, when she asked if she might meet Assad.

  Carl nodded to Rose, and while she went to get him they waited in silence.

  So much for thanks.

  Assad appeared and didn’t utter a word as the woman introduced herself and explained why she had come.

  “Thank you so much, Assad,” she said, holding out the flowers.

  A moment passed before Assad extended his left arm, and another before he was able to properly grasp the bouquet.

  “This makes me very happy indeed,” he said. His head still trembled slightly when he spoke, but he was improving. He smiled awkwardly and tried to raise his right hand in acknowledgment but was unable.

  “Let me put those in some water for you, Assad,” Rose said obligingly, as Esther Bak gave him a hug and nodded good-bye to them both.

  “Be seeing you soon. I’m starting back on the first of January, in stolen goods storage. Still a whiff of police work, I suppose, registering burglars’ loot,” were Bak’s parting words.

  Christ. Børge Bak in Carl’s basement.

  “Here’s your mail, Carl. Even got a postcard for you today. You’ll like the picture, I’m sure. And once you’ve spelled your way through it we can get going, OK?”

  Rose handed him the card. The motif was mainly a pair of gigantic suntanned tits discreetly covered by a caption proclaiming Happy Days in Thailand. The rest was a miscellany of beaches, palm trees, and colored lanterns.

  Carl turned it over with trepidation.

  All right, Carl!

  Your old cousin here, saying hello from Pattaya to tell you I’m now done writing down my (our) story about the old man’s death. All I need now is a book c
ontract. Know any takers?

  Cheers, mate!

  Ronny

  Carl shook his head. Ronny’s knack of spreading joy seemingly knew no bounds.

  He tossed the card into the wastepaper basket and stood up.

  “Why’s it so important we drive out there, Rose? Can’t see the point, if you ask me.”

  She was standing behind Assad in the corridor, helping him on with his jacket.

  “Because Assad and I need to, OK?”

  “You get in the back,” she commanded five minutes later, having picked up the minuscule Ford and parked it half on the pavement outside Police HQ.

  Carl spluttered invective, requiring two attempts before managing to squeeze himself into the Ka. Marcus Jacobsen and his sodding budget.

  They drove for ten nerve-racking minutes in heavy traffic that respectfully made room as Rose experimented with novel rules of the road and lunged through the gears.

  Eventually, she swerved on to Kapelvej, almost hurling the vehicle sideways into a space between two unlawfully parked cars, even smiling as she removed the key and announced they were now at their destination: Assistens Cemetery.

  Thank Christ for that, Carl mused, extracting himself from the Ford.

  “She’s over here,” said Rose, and took Assad by the arm.

  He walked rather slowly in the snow, but the last couple of weeks had seen progress on that count, too.

  “There,” she said, spotting the grave from a distance. “Look, Assad, they’ve got the headstone up now.”

  “I’m glad,” he replied.

  Carl nodded. The case of Nete Hermansen had taken its toll on all three of them. Thinking about it, he could see why they needed some kind of closure. File No. 64 was now once and for all to be consigned to the past, and Rose had decided it should be done with a Christmas wreath of spruce, pine cones, and red ribbon. What else?

  “I wonder who that might be?” she said, indicating a white-haired woman crossing over to the grave from an adjoining path.