A Conspiracy of Faith

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  This delightful little cottage was his. He would grow old here.

  He opened the door of the outbuilding, flicked on the battery lamp that hung from a post, and emptied most of a ten-liter jerrican into the tank of the generator.

  He always had the feeling of a job well done by the time he reached this stage in the proceedings, when he stood and pulled on the starter cord.

  He switched on the electric light and turned off the lamp. In front of him, an old monument of an oil tank told of days gone by. Now it was to be put to use again.

  He stretched up to remove the metal lid that had been cut out of the top, noting that the tank seemed to be dry and had thus been properly emptied the time before. Everything was right.

  Reaching up to the shelf above the door, he brought down a duffel bag. Its contents had cost him more than fifteen thousand kroner, but to him the value of what was inside was priceless. Gen HPT 54 Night Vision turned night into day. Military-grade night-vision goggles, as used in combat.

  He pulled the straps over his head, adjusted the goggles, and turned them on.

  Then he went outside, following the garden path through the wet undergrowth and pulling the rubber hose that protruded from a hole in the wall of the outbuilding with him to the water’s edge. With the goggles on, he could clearly see the boathouse there between the thicket and the reeds. In fact, he could see everything.

  Gray-green buildings, and frogs leaping for their lives as he approached.

  Apart from the gentle lapping of the fjord and the hum of the generator, all was quiet as he waded out into the water with the hose.

  The generator was the weakest link. Previously, he had kept it running during the entire procedure, but after a couple of years, the axle had begun to screech after only a week in use, so now he was obliged to make this extra trip to the house in order to start it up. He was thinking of getting a new one altogether.

  The water pump, on the other hand, was amazing. Before, he’d had to fill the oil tank with water by hand. He gave a nod of satisfaction as he listened to the efficient gulping of the hose above the undertone of the generator. Now it took only half an hour to fill the tank from the fjord, though still it was time spent waiting.

  And then he heard the sounds from the boathouse.

  Since he bought the Mercedes, those he held captive were easily surprised. It had been expensive, but comfort and a soundless engine cost. Now he could sneak up to the boathouse knowing that whoever was inside would be unaware of his presence.

  And so it was now.

  Samuel and Magdalena were special. Samuel, because he reminded him of himself at that age. Resilient, rebellious, and explosive. Magdalena was almost the opposite. The first time he watched her through the peephole in the boathouse wall he was astonished to discover how much she reminded him of a secret love he had once had, and of what it had led to. Events that changed his life forever. Looking at Magdalena, he remembered the girl only too well. The same eyes slanting down, the same pained expression, the same thin skin with its pattern of fine, blue veins.

  Twice he had crept down to the wooden structure and peeled back the strip of tar that covered the hole.

  And when he put his eye to the opening, he could see everything inside. The children a couple of meters apart. Samuel at the rear, Magdalena by the door.

  Magdalena cried a lot, though quietly. When her frail shoulders began to tremble in the dim light, her brother tugged at his leather strap to catch her attention so that she might find comfort in the warmth of his gaze.

  He was her big brother and would do everything in his power to release her from her chains, but he was powerless. And for that reason he too cried, though he wouldn’t show it. His sister wasn’t to see. He turned his head away for a moment, composed himself, and then looked at her again, clowning with his head and jerking his upper body.

  Just like him and his sister when he imitated Chaplin.

  He had heard the muffled sound of Magdalena laughing behind her tape. The smallest, briefest of laughs, after which reality and fear returned. This evening, as he came to quench their thirst one final time, he heard the girl humming ever so gently to herself even from a distance.

  He put his ear to the planks of the boathouse wall. Even with the tape covering her mouth, her voice was clear and bright. He knew the words, for they had followed him throughout his own childhood, and he hated every one.

  Nearer, my God, to thee,

  Nearer to thee!

  E’en though it be a cross

  That raiseth me,

  Still all my song shall be,

  Nearer, my God, to thee,

  Nearer, my God, to thee!

  Cautiously, he removed the tar and put his goggles to the peephole.

  Her head was bent forward, her shoulders drooping, making her seem smaller than she was. Her body swayed gently from side to side in time to the hymn.

  And when she had finished, she sat back, drawing in air through her nostrils. Short, sharp inhalations. As with small, frightened animals, one could almost see how fast her heart had to pump in order to keep up with her thoughts, her thirst, her hunger, and the fear of what was to come. He turned his green gaze to Samuel and realized immediately that the boy had not succumbed in the same way as his sister.

  He sat wriggling his upper body against the sloping wall. And this time he wasn’t clowning around.

  This was the sound he had heard, which at first he had taken to be simply more discord from the generator.

  It was obvious what he was trying to do from the way he rubbed the strap against the planks of the wall behind him, struggling to wear down the leather.

  Perhaps he had found some little projection in the wood, a knot rough enough to provide the necessary friction.

  Now he saw the boy’s face more clearly. Was he smiling? Had he made enough progress to make him smile?

  The girl coughed. The damp nights had worn her down.

  How frail the body is, he thought to himself as she cleared her throat behind the tape and began once again to hum.

  He felt a shock. The hymn was a fixture of the funeral services his father had conducted.

  Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;

  The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.

  When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

  Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

  Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;

  Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;

  Change and decay in all around I see;

  O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

  He turned in disgust and went back to the outbuilding, where he pulled two heavy chains a meter and a half in length from a nail in the wall, then found two padlocks in the drawer underneath the workbench. The last time he had been here, he had noticed that the leather straps around the waists of the children had looked slightly worn, but then they had been used so often before. If Samuel carried on working as intensely as he was doing now, reinforcements would be needed.

  The children looked up at him in bewilderment when he turned on the light and crawled inside. The boy in the corner struggled in his chains, but it was no use. He kicked out and protested vociferously behind the tape that covered his mouth as the new chain was placed around his waist and attached to the one that was already affixed to the wall. But he no longer had the strength to resist. Days of hunger and the awkward sitting position had taken their toll. He looked rather pathetic with his legs drawn up at an angle beneath him.

  Like all the others before him.

  The girl had stopped humming immediately. His presence drained what little energy she possessed. Perhaps she had believed her brother’s efforts would be of use. Now she knew that nothing could be more futile.

  He filled the cup with water and tore the tape from her mouth.

  She gasped, then stretched her neck out and opened her mouth. The survival instinct, ever intact.

  “Don’t gulp like
that, Magdalena,” he said softly.

  She lifted her head and looked fleetingly into his eyes. Confused and afraid.

  “When are we going home?” she asked, her lips quivering. No violent outburst. Just this simple question, and then she stretched again for more water.

  “A day or two yet,” he said.

  There were tears in her eyes. “I want to go home to my mum and dad,” she wept.

  He smiled at her and raised the cup to her lips.

  Perhaps she sensed what he was thinking now. In any case, she paused and looked at him for a moment, her eyes moist, then turned her face toward her brother.

  “He’s going to kill us, Samuel,” she said in a trembling voice. “I know he is.”

  He turned his head and looked straight at the boy.

  “Your sister’s confused, Samuel,” he said in a low voice. “Of course I’m not going to kill you. Everything will be fine. Your parents are wealthy, and I am not a monster.”

  He turned again to Magdalena, whose head hung low now, as though she had given up. “I know so much about you, Magdalena.” He passed the back of his hand over her hair. “I know how much you wish you could wear your hair short. How dearly you’d like to be able to decide things for yourself.”

  He put his hand in his pocket. “There’s something I want to show you,” he said, producing the sheet of glossy paper he had taken from her hiding place in the garden.

  “Do you recognize it?” he asked.

  He sensed her surprise, though she concealed it well.

  “No,” she replied.

  “Oh, but I think you do, Magdalena. I’ve been watching you with your little secrets there in the garden.”

  She turned her face away. Her innocence had been violated. She was ashamed.

  He held the paper up in front of her. It was a page torn from a magazine.

  “Five female celebrities, all with short hair,” he said, then read out their names: “Sharon Stone, Natalie Portman, Halle Berry, Winona Ryder, and Keira Knightley. I’m afraid not all of them are familiar to me, but I’m pretty sure they’re all film stars, is that right?”

  He took hold of her chin and turned her face toward him. “What could be so wrong about finding that interesting? It’s their hair you like, isn’t it? Because it’s not allowed in the Mother Church?” He nodded. “I’m right, aren’t I? You’d like to wear your hair like that, wouldn’t you? You’re shaking your head, but I think you would. But listen to me, Magdalena. Did I tell your parents about your little secret? I didn’t, did I? So perhaps I’m not such a bad person, after all.”

  He withdrew slightly, taking a knife from his pocket and unfolding the blade. Always so clean and sharp.

  “With this knife, I can cut your hair easily.”

  He grasped a tuft and sliced it from her scalp, startling the girl and prompting her brother to thrash at his tether, though to no avail.

  “There we are!” he said.

  She reacted almost as if he had cut into her flesh. What he had just done was obviously a deeply ingrained taboo for a girl who had lived all her life with this dogma of the sanctity of women’s hair.

  She sobbed as he taped her mouth. And then she wet herself.

  He turned to her brother and repeated the procedure with the gaffer tape and water from the cup.

  “And you, Samuel, have your own secrets, don’t you? You look at girls from outside the congregation. I’ve watched you on your way home from school with your older brother. Is that allowed, Samuel?” he asked.

  “I’ll kill you as soon as I get the chance, so help me God,” the boy replied, before he too was silenced by tape. It was the only reasonable thing to do.

  His decision was right. The girl would be the one to go.

  For all her daydreaming, her reverence was the greater, her faith the more entrenched. She would grow up to be a Rachel, or an Eva.

  What more did he need to know?

  Having reassured them that he would be back to set them free once their father paid the ransom, he returned to the outbuilding and saw that the tank was now quite full. He stopped the pump and rolled up the hose, then plugged in the heating element, which he immersed into the water before flicking the switch. He knew from experience that lye was much more effective once the water temperature rose above twenty Celsius, and at this time of year, the nights could still plunge below zero.

  He picked up the container of lye from the pallet in the corner, noting that he would soon be needing more. And then he turned it upside down and poured the contents into the water.

  Once the girl had been killed and her body dumped in the tank, the corpse would be dissolved within a couple of weeks.

  Then all he had to do was to wade out some twenty meters or so with the hose in his hand and empty the whole lot into the fjord.

  With a bit of wind it would wash away from the shore in no time.

  He would rinse the tank twice, and all trace would be gone.

  Chemistry.

  24

  They made an odd couple as they stood there in Carl’s office, Yrsa with her bloodred lips and Assad, his face so belligerently stubbled that a hug from the man would be tantamount to attempted murder.

  Assad was looking highly dissatisfied. Carl couldn’t recall him ever radiating as much disapproval as now.

  “It cannot be right what Yrsa is saying! Can we not bring this Tryggve to Copenhagen, Carl? What about the report?”

  Carl blinked. He still had in his mind’s eye the image of Mona opening the door into her bedroom, making him rather distracted to say the least. He hadn’t been able to think of anything else all morning. Tryggve and the world’s insanity would have to wait until he was ready.

  “Sorry, what did you say?” Carl stretched in his chair. It had been ages since his body had felt this drained. “Tryggve? No, he’s still in Blekinge. I asked him to come to Copenhagen, even offered him a lift, but he wasn’t up to it, he said, and I couldn’t force him. He lives in Sweden, Assad, remember? If he won’t come of his own accord, we’re not going to drag him here without the help of the Swedish police, and it’s early days for that, wouldn’t you say?”

  He anticipated a nod from Assad, but it was not forthcoming. “I’ll write a report to send up to Marcus, OK? Then we’ll have to see. Apart from that, I don’t really know how to proceed just at the moment. We’re talking about a thirteen-year-old case that’s never been investigated. It’s up to Marcus whose desk he drops it on.”

  Assad frowned, Yrsa likewise. Was Department A going to run off with the honors, after all the work they’d put in? Was that really what he was saying?

  Assad glanced at his watch. “We should go upstairs right away and get it sorted. Jacobsen comes in early on Mondays.”

  “OK, Assad.” Carl straightened up. “But I want a word first.”

  He looked at Yrsa, bouncing on the balls of her feet, full of anticipation as to what might now be revealed.

  “That’s me and Assad alone, Yrsa. In private.”

  “Oh, I get it,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes. “Men’s talk.” And then she turned on her heel and left them in a haze of her perfume.

  He fixed his gaze on Assad, forcing his eyebrows almost to the bridge of his nose, hoping that this might be enough to make his assistant come clean. Instead, Assad peered at him solicitously, as though at any moment he might offer Carl a glass of something for heartburn.

  “I was over at your place yesterday, Assad. Heimdalsgade, number sixty-two. You weren’t there.”

  A tiny furrow appeared in Assad’s cheek, only to miraculously transform into a cheerful dimple. “What a shame, Carl. You should have called me first.”

  “I did, Assad, but there was no answer.”

  “It would have been nice, Carl. Some other time, perhaps. Yes?”

  “But that’d be somewhere else, wouldn’t it?”

  Assad nodded, then lit up. “You mean we should meet somewhere in town? Yes, that would be nice, too.”
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  “I’d want you to bring your wife along, Assad. I’ve been looking forward to meeting her. And your daughters.”

  A pained expression passed fleetingly across Assad’s face, as though his wife was the last person on earth he wanted to drag out in public.

  “I had a little chat with some people there at Heimdalsgade, Assad.”

  The pained look returned, and Assad narrowed his eyes in puzzlement.

  “You don’t live there at all, do you? In fact, you haven’t lived there for quite a while. And as for your family, they’ve never lived there, have they? So tell me, Assad, where do you live?”

  Assad threw up his arms. “It’s a very small flat, Carl. There was too little room for us.”

  “Shouldn’t you have informed me of a change of address in that case? And given up the lease on the place?”

  Assad looked pensive. “You are right, Carl. I will do so right away.”

  “So where do you live, exactly?”

  “We have rented a house. Housing is cheap now, Carl. Many people have two places on their hands. The property market, you know.”

  “All right, Assad, I understand. But where are you living? I need an address.”

  Assad’s head dropped. “OK, Carl. We are renting the place on a fiddle. Otherwise it would be too expensive. Can we not keep the other place on as a postal address?”

  “Where, Assad?”

  “In Holte, Carl. A small house only, on Kongevejen. But will you please call beforehand, Carl? My wife does not care for people turning up all of a sudden.”

  Carl nodded. He would return to all this another day. “One more thing. Why would your neighbors from Heimdalsgade say you were Shiite? Didn’t you tell me you were from Syria?”

  Assad thrust out his fleshy lower lip. “Yes, I did, Carl. And what about it?”

  “Are there Shiites in Syria, Assad?”

  The man’s bushy eyebrows relocated halfway up his forehead. “You know, Carl,” he smiled, “Shiites are everywhere.”

  Half an hour later, they stood in the briefing room in the company of fifteen Monday-morning miseries, with Lars Bjørn and homicide chief Marcus Jacobsen at the center.