The Hanging Girl

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  “Would you like me to book a couple of cabs, so they can go home?” asked Kazambra, when Carl had asked how long his partners might feel like this.

  That was probably enough of an answer.

  “Well, good-bye, then, Rose and Said,” he said, when the taxis arrived. “Please call me if you start feeling unwell. You might experience some nightmares tonight, but it’s nothing to worry about. Tomorrow everything should be back to normal, except for the small adjustments we’ve made today.”

  “You seem to have got over our session more easily,” he said, when he and Carl sat face-to-face again.

  Carl nodded. Actually, he felt oddly light and comfortable. Almost like in the good old days, visiting his aunt on a warm summer afternoon, a pitcher of homemade lemonade in front of him. Out of danger, just happy and free.

  It was a nostalgic, almost surreal feeling, he explained.

  Kazambra nodded. “Don’t count on avoiding a reaction, but that’s something we can get back to. After all, it wasn’t peanuts what you’ve just been through. But we’re on the right track, no doubt about that.”

  Normally, Carl would’ve insisted on knowing what they’d talked about, and what the man had done to him, but right now it just seemed insignificant. It was the feeling inside him that counted, and he felt good.

  “You wanted to ask about Frank Brennan, who I understand you’re looking for. Let me tell you straightaway that I haven’t been in contact with him for quite a few years. He came to me as a young man and made a scary impression on me, which is why I remember him so well.”

  “When was that, do you remember?”

  “Yes, it was in the summer of 1998. My wife, Helene, had just passed away, so it was a year of pain I’ll never forget.”

  Carl could understand that. “I’m sorry. You’ve been alone ever since?”

  He nodded. “We all have our crosses to bear.”

  “True, true. You said he was scary. Why?”

  “For several reasons. Firstly, he’s the only person I haven’t been able to hypnotize in my long career. But most of all, because I discovered that he’d come to me with insincere intentions. Usually, people want to get rid of something. But this Frank Brennan only wanted to be filled up, and that didn’t occur to me until the second time he came. He simply came to watch and learn the art, but I could sense he didn’t intend to use it only for good. I felt more and more that he didn’t just see me to learn hypnosis, but rather to acquire a tool to dominate people around him. At any rate, I’ve never met anyone who could manipulate others like he could. You could also sense it on the woman who was following him. She was like a puppy around him, almost as if he’d hypnotized her.”

  “A woman. Can you describe her?”

  “Yes, you wouldn’t forget her in a hurry either. She spoke Swedish with a Finnish accent, was slender and flighty, but also sinewy and slightly bony. I believe she was naturally blonde, but she was henna-dyed back then. A profound gaze, as if there were many things hidden in her mind that could lead to inner struggle. She wasn’t in harmony with herself. That was the impression I got.”

  “But you didn’t hypnotize her?”

  “No, that was never in the cards.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “The third time he came to me, I put my foot down, stopped taking him in. By then I knew with certainty that he’d been acting all along through our sessions, pretending to be in a trance. I also knew a good deal more about what he was doing, and I couldn’t relate to it. Working in the alternative world, I meet lots of people who have other people’s best interests at heart. In fact, that’s by far the majority, and they very often help people to feel better. Often, I don’t even understand myself how it happens, but does that really matter, as long as the effect is positive? Anyway, what he was planning to do in the alternative world made me nervous. Sometimes you meet people who want to found a new movement, gather followers around them, and when they succeed, these people are normally quite satisfied with the result. Perhaps they gather ten or a hundred followers, and that’s the scope of it. But in Frank Brennan’s case, I could see much greater ambition. He seemed to have an insatiable desire to influence people. He spoke about the disintegration of the great religions and new paths for humanity. Of course, we’ve heard it all before, but compared to most of the others, he was incredibly systematic and determined in his work. I believe that if he hadn’t been the person he was, he wouldn’t have come to me three times. He went very purposefully for the tools that could be used to carry out his plan, and he wouldn’t be stopped by anything. That’s why our work together had to stop. I was the one who decided that.”

  The old man looked at Carl with eyes that were completely different from his professional gaze. He almost seemed relieved, as if he’d been in the confessional and obtained an indulgence for his knowledge and actions.

  “We’re searching full out for him now, so I need to know more so we can find him,” said Carl.

  “I know. As I said, I haven’t seen him since, but for some time I followed him from a distance. I know he founded an academy, and that it’s based in Sweden.”

  He took a sheet of paper from his desk, and handed it to Carl.

  The Nature Absorption Academy, run by Atu Abanshamash Dumuzi. Head office on Öland, Sweden, it read in the old man’s neat handwriting.

  Carl could have squeezed him. No money had ever been spent better than the amount he’d been relieved of today.

  Carl sighed blissfully. The man called himself Atu. So it was a three-letter name.

  The old hypnotist pulled back. His mission had been accomplished.

  Carl shook his hand. “You’ve been a great help,” he said. “While we’re on the subject of names, why did you call Assad, Said?”

  The old man looked down at his feet. “That was a mistake. I accidentally overstepped my authority; client confidentiality is the cornerstone of my business; otherwise it’s no good. But that was the name he used during the séance.

  “Said, and a surname I never got.”

  45

  Wednesday, May 14th, and Thursday, May 15th, 2014

  When three days had passed, Shirley was out of likely explanations.

  She could’ve easily understood if Pirjo had been sick the first day, and the second, too. But after that, wouldn’t she have found someone to take over, so Shirley got what she needed? What if nobody knew she was there after all? Pirjo could have forgotten, or she could have been so sick she was sleeping constantly. Because it wasn’t possible that Pirjo was fine but had just left her in the lurch? Was it?

  She’d comforted herself from the beginning with the thought that she wasn’t in any danger. You could go three weeks without food. But when suddenly the water stopped running, it became a whole different story.

  Initially, she thought that it would return. That it was only a matter of time. But as the hours went by, and she thought more about the course of events, she got scared. Really scared.

  When the water supply stopped, it had happened suddenly. The flow hadn’t decreased gradually, and there hadn’t been air trapped in the system. From one second to the next, the supply had stopped, and precious drops had disappeared in the sink while she was looking.

  She’d waited half an hour before turning both the cold and the hot tap, but nothing had happened.

  Could something have occurred up at the building site? Had they cut a water pipe by accident? At any rate, the muffled sounds of hammering and shouting had stopped more or less at the same time that the water disappeared. Could there be a connection?

  She’d tried a few times to scream for help as loudly as she possibly could, even though she knew it was pointless. She’d tried it before, and now her throat felt even more raw and dry.

  She stared despondently at her playing cards and the manual that was meant to make her a better and more compl
ete person. No matter how much her soul was thirsting for relief, and no matter what she believed the meaning was behind her being in this room, her body was thirsting more. If she didn’t get help or water within a couple of days, she wouldn’t make it, she just knew it. She’d never kidded herself that she was strong in that sense, because she wasn’t.

  In her daily life, it only took a few hours without food and drink to make her desperate. She was such a creature of habit. Always a bottle of water in her drawer, always an energy bar in her purse. It made her feel secure.

  Once again, she let her eyes wander across the massive wood walls. Even though she tried really hard, she couldn’t spot any screw holes or nails anywhere. The boards had probably been hammered in place so the nail holes had been covered, but if she could only pry one of the boards loose, it would be easier to grab the next one, and maybe then she could reach the insulation material and pull that out. Then people outside would definitely be able to hear her. Or even better, she might be able to kick a hole in the outer cladding.

  For the thousandth time that day, she tried to swallow a little saliva but nothing came. Then she dug her nails in under the profile board where the gap was widest, trying to pull it loose.

  The only thing that came out of it was two broken fingernails. Not that they were anything special. The women at the perfume counter in Liberty had made that clear long ago.

  She rummaged through her bag. She had a pair of shoes with buckles and some things in her toiletry bag that might be useful instead.

  After a minute’s search, Shirley’s lips began to tremble, and her hands worked feverishly. Every nook and cranny in the bag was searched, until finally she stopped apathetically, her hands in her lap, the bag on its side on the floor.

  She almost couldn’t face it, but this was how it must be: Pirjo had helped her pack the bag, and now the shoes with the big buckles weren’t there, nor were the nail scissors or file. It couldn’t be a coincidence. In fact, not many things were when Pirjo had been involved.

  The conclusion was horrifying. She wasn’t meant to come out alive. She could sense that now.

  Shirley nodded to herself. She should’ve listened to her inner voice. As she’d sensed, Wanda Phinn had been at the Nature Absorption Academy, and Pirjo had made her disappear. But how? And where was she now?

  The outcome of an encounter between those two could easily have been fatal. Wanda wasn’t one to back off, and neither was she one to roll on her back on Pirjo’s say-so.

  But what then? What had Pirjo done about it?

  Had the worst imaginable happened? Was Wanda’s body rotting away in one of the other houses? Had her poor friend been on the academy premises all along, while Shirley had been walking about, naive and oblivious?

  There had been days when she’d almost taken her suspicion to Atu, and she regretted now that she hadn’t. Atu would have done something. She was almost certain. Pirjo might have a lot of power there, even over Atu now that she was carrying his child, but Atu was so open and made you feel so liberated with his profound, clever gaze. He would’ve listened and understood. She knew that.

  But what about Valentina? She’d also disappeared suddenly.

  A terrible thought hit Shirley. Imagine if she’d put Valentina in danger. After all, she’d let her in on her suspicion about what had happened to Wanda. What if Valentina had passed it on to Pirjo? Was that why she was trapped in this sterile cabin? Was that why Valentina had pushed her away, and then she’d disappeared?

  Shirley laid her hands over her face. She couldn’t keep up. These thoughts were so horrible. If she’d had enough liquid in her body, she would have cried, but how could she cry without tears?

  She felt the anger well up inside her with an intensity she’d never felt before. An anger that would make her strangle Pirjo if she ever got the chance. An anger which she wished she’d had every time she’d been bullied, teased, pushed aside, abused.

  She clenched her teeth, and pressed both her fists against her lips as hard as she could. She pinched herself until her skin started bleeding. Scratched her cheeks until she gasped for air.

  She needed the pain to feel alive, because she was alive, and bloody well intended to stay that way to make Pirjo pay for this.

  Shirley tilted her head back, catching a few glimpses of the stars in the skylight.

  In a couple of hours, the sun would appear there and heat up the purification room. The weather had been very changeable and mostly wet the last few days, but what if the sun returned with renewed strength? Her thirst would get even worse if the temperature rose even just a few degrees.

  * * *

  She woke up to a sky that was far too clear and a temperature in the room that was at least 8 to 10 degrees Celsius higher than the day before.

  If the pores in her skin opened and she started sweating, how long would she last, given that her fluid balance was already so critical?

  She got up and went to the bathroom, looking for the tenth time at the showerhead she’d sucked dry long ago.

  Images of a breakfast table with bread, juice, and coffee flashed in her mind’s eye for a moment. No, actually not all that. Just the juice.

  Shirley wrestled free of her imagination, and felt the heat grab her like a choke hold. Under no circumstances could she start sweating. Don’t sweat, don’t sweat.

  She thought about iced drinks. Evening swims in Brighton that she’d refused because the water had been too cold, because she looked terrible in a bathing suit, because she’d been alone and everyone else had had enough on their plates. She dreamt about cool breezes and downy drizzles.

  Then Shirley took the decision to undress. Put all her clothes in a pile on the sink, feeling with satisfaction how her skin could breathe again.

  She let her eyes wander down her pale, flabby body. How ironic that she, who had always struggled with her weight, was now dying of starvation and thirst.

  Shirley shook her head. She decided that she couldn’t allow that to happen. She wouldn’t die without getting her revenge. She’d regulate her body temperature by dressing and undressing, so it was constant regardless of the weather outside. And at the end of the day, she still had a way to quench her thirst, even though it was far from inviting.

  She looked down in the toilet, trying to gather courage. There was still water left in the S-trap, and the cistern wasn’t empty either. She’d been smart enough not to relieve herself there since the water stopped. If she economized with the water in the pan and the cistern, and did her business on the floor instead, just like she’d done the last two days, she’d still have about eight liters of water at her disposal.

  It wasn’t inviting, though. There were still traces of feces and urine around the edge of the water left in the pan.

  She thought that there was no point in being picky, dipping her hand in the water and bringing it up to her mouth.

  She gagged a couple of times, but when the water reached her lips, she knew she could do it.

  When she swallowed, she stared down in the pan and began to gag again.

  “Stop it, Shirley, you can do this,” she shouted, hitting herself hard on the side of the head. It hurt, but it felt good, too.

  And she was still here.

  * * *

  Throughout most of Thursday, the sun had shone more and more unrelentingly, while Shirley scratched away at her wallboard. She hadn’t managed to loosen it more than one and a half millimeters at the most. She’d admired the team working on the timber circle for their craftsmanship, but just now she cursed their skill. This was far too solid carpentry. It wouldn’t budge.

  Then the idea occurred to her that she could break off the drainpipe under the sink. She must be able to use a metal pipe like that to punch a hole, as long as she hit long and hard enough.

  She grabbed it with both hands, pressed her feet against the wall, and pulled
with everything she had in her.

  The pipe broke as if it were made of paper, which actually was the case, more or less. It was very thin plastic, covered with imitation chrome.

  “Damn it!” she screamed, and slammed it against the floor in sheer frustration.

  The splinters spread evenly across the floor.

  After a couple of hours’ futile work on the board, she gave up, then peed in the corner so she’d be ready to go to sleep and save energy.

  Only a few drops of urine came, that was all that was left, and it smelled strongly and sharply. Her body odor had also changed over the last day. She didn’t like that at all.

  After a couple of hours’ deep sleep, she woke up dizzy and dazed, feeling the need to pee again.

  It was only after she’d flushed the toilet that she realized she’d used it.

  She stood, shocked, and stared down into the pan in the half-darkness. What had she done? There was barely a liter left.

  Now she genuinely cried, even though her eyes were still dry.

  46

  Tuesday, May 13th; Wednesday, May 14th; and Thursday, May 15th, 2014

  It was a hellish night, and the following day wasn’t much better.

  Carl had slept heavily, much more than usual. It ought to have felt good, but when he woke up, his heart was pounding so hard he thought he was going to die.

  He stayed in bed for a long time, one hand on his chest, staring at his cell on the nightstand, considering whether to call the control center so they could send a doctor. What the heck was the new number? There’d been nothing but talk for the past few months about how bad the new service was, and now he couldn’t even remember the number. Being a policeman, he should know it better than anyone. How embarrassing! He could die before he managed to remember it.

  He counted the beats of his pulse, and when he reached a hundred in less than a minute, he stopped. That was far, far too many, almost like the time when he’d had his first anxiety attack. Only this wasn’t an anxiety attack. It was something different. He could feel it. Something buzzing around in his head that he couldn’t let go of.