The Considerate Killer

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  “Thank you,” murmured Nina.

  The card was, not surprisingly, from a local florist. Viola. Bouquets for every occasion! proclaimed one side of it, followed by an address and a phone number. On the other side a few words in English had been carefully typed: His peace passeth understanding.

  There was no name. Nothing to indicate who the sender was.

  His peace passeth understanding? It had to be biblical. Some sect that did missionary work in a slightly bizarre way? Like the Social Democrats and their red roses . . . but no. The sects stuck little pamphlets into people’s hands, printed on cheap paper; they didn’t shower them with elaborate bouquets. There had to be several hundred kroner’s worth of flowers here. It made no sense. She stared hostilely at the white, wax-like petals surrounding each fat, yellow, incredibly genital-looking . . . what was it they were called? It wasn’t just an overgrown stamen. Spadix. That was it. They couldn’t be from Søren, could they? No, she decided. Not with that card.

  It wasn’t just the toilet air freshener effect that bothered her. She felt somehow invaded by those damned lilies and their Bible-quoting card.

  Maybe they aren’t for me at all.

  The moment she had the thought, a rush of relief raced through her. No, of course they weren’t. That was the explanation. No one who knew her at all would think to send that greeting.

  She caught a glimpse of the aid through the open door and forgot that she wasn’t really supposed to get out of bed alone yet—dizziness, the risk of falling, and so on.

  “Hey,” she shouted in a fairly controlled manner. “Wait a second . . . I think there’s been a mistake.”

  The NA stopped and came back.

  “A mistake?” she asked.

  “Yes. Those can’t be for me . . .”

  “But they are,” said the NA. “I accepted the delivery myself.” Her tone suggested that this kind of mistake did not happen on her watch.

  “Yes but . . . who from?”

  “Didn’t it say on the card?”

  “No.”

  “There was a messenger,” said the NA. “A young man, I don’t think he spoke Danish. But he showed me a note with your name on it. Nina Borg. So there’s no doubt.”

  “Give them to someone else,” said Nina. “I . . . would prefer not to keep them.”

  “But why not? It’s a beautiful bouquet. And so big . . .” There was a hint of disapproval in the NA’s tone. A suggestion that she found Nina’s behavior both peculiar and ungrateful. Nina didn’t care.

  “I’m allergic,” she lied. “Put them in the common room if no one else wants them.”

  It helped to get them out of her sight, though the scent hung in the air for quite a while. She looked at the card one more time before crumpling it up. Peace? That was pretty much the last thing she felt.

  Hanne Borg did not look like a woman with one foot in the grave—and hopefully she wasn’t, Søren quickly corrected himself. The short brown hair must be a wig, but you had to look closely to suspect it. Her eyes were some degrees lighter than Nina’s, but had a little of the same intensity.

  “Welcome,” she said. “I’m actually very pleased that you’ll be staying here while you are in Viborg.”

  In spite of her clearly sincere invitation, Søren had at first thought that he would prefer a hotel room. It felt fairly transgressive—of his own limits and Nina’s—to move in with his “mother-in-law” without having met her before. But then he had remembered that there was a reason that Nina had gone home to Viborg. It was tough to go through chemotherapy like Hanne Borg’s alone, and there was the added complication that Nina’s mother didn’t like to drive. If nothing else he could act as chauffeur and help with shopping and the like while they waited for Nina to be discharged.

  “What a cozy place,” he said, and meant it.

  The house on Cherry Lane was part of a terraced estate from the fifties. Functional and well designed, red brick walls and tile roofs, with small, attractive, almost identical front yards, white doors and windows and a general air of being from before things went wrong. Inside, there were blond wood floors and kilim rugs, Danish Modern furniture and cheap bookshelves rubbing shoulders in eclectic harmony, piles of books and a multitude of pictures, ceramic vases and green plants.

  “Is this where Nina grew up?”

  “Partly,” said Hanne Borg. “We moved here after Finn—Nina’s father . . . after he died. It was cheaper, and I thought it would help to get away from . . . from the actual scene.” She observed him as she said it, as if to measure how much he might know.

  Søren knew perfectly well that Finn Christian Borg had committed suicide one September day in the eighties when Nina was twelve. But that was because it said so in one of the background files he had read and saved after their first meeting in the middle of an anti-terror case, and not because Nina had told him. Should he pretend he didn’t know anything? To pretend ignorance was patently false but the opposite would make it appear that Nina had taken him further into her confidence than he had so far ventured.

  “It can’t have been easy,” he said, as a form of compromise.

  Hanne Borg smiled bitterly.

  “No,” she said. “It wasn’t. Nina found him. But you probably know that.”

  “Oh . . . no, she . . . didn’t tell me that.”

  “The old house had a bathroom in the basement. That’s where he was, in the bathtub . . . For a child to see something like that . . . it’s not something you get over in a hurry.”

  It seemed to him that there was a kind of warning in her tone—perhaps an attempt to ensure that he knew what he was getting into?

  “No, I understand,” he just said. “It’s pretty remarkable that she . . . functions so well in a crisis now.” Terrifyingly effective was the description that occurred to him. He would never forget the expression on her face when she rammed the knife in between his fourth and fifth rib.

  “Oh, yes,” said Hanne Borg. “She’s excellent in a crisis.”

  That was all she said, but Søren didn’t need glasses to read the subtext: it was life between the crises that was a challenge for Hanne’s daughter.

  That was probably his own Achilles heel as well. He certainly had not excelled when it came to creating a life beyond the stresses of his job. He felt he was at his best at work—his sharpest and most alive. Or . . . that was the way it had been.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  He pushed aside the thought of Torben and his damned sick leave and checked his watch.

  “Yes, thank you, a quick cup,” he said. “I have a meeting at the police station in an hour or so.”

  “About Nina?”

  “Yes. I’d like to see if I can help the investigation along a bit. It would be nice if we could find the assailant.”

  Caroline Westmann was perhaps not exactly happy to see Søren, but she took it well.

  “How is your friend?” she asked.

  “Making progress,” he said. “She’ll probably be able to go home in a few days.”

  “She still doesn’t remember anything about the attack?”

  “No, unfortunately not.”

  “Ah, well. Can’t be helped, I suppose.”

  “In some cases memory returns with time,” he said. “I’m just not sure we have that time.”

  She waved in the direction of her colleague’s empty chair, and he sat down. The office was so newly renovated that you could still smell the paint, and the bulletin boards had not yet taken on the usual patina of old agendas, memos, newspaper clippings and family photos.

  “Any particular reason for this urgency?” she asked.

  “I took the liberty of calling a coroner I know.” Søren fished a folder out of the weekend bag that still contained everything he had managed to bring from Copenhagen. “Viborg Hospital was kind enough
to forward her records, X-rays, scans, and so on.”

  Caroline Westmann raised one eyebrow.

  “And?” she said.

  “I wanted to determine the intention of the blow —was it just to pacify, or was this, in fact, an attempt to kill. The doctors in Viborg were somewhat cautious about offering an opinion.”

  “But your friend the coroner wasn’t?” There was a clear irony in Westmann’s tone.

  “Oh, yes, the usual reservations. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  He pushed the folder across the table to her. Written conclusions, he had learned in the course of a long career, simply carried more weight than oral summations.

  “The first blow would have been more than sufficient to make the victim unable to fight back. And the second blow could have killed her. If there had been just slightly more power behind it, if the angle had been a bit different . . .”

  “I can guess where you’re going with this,” said Caroline Westmann. “But for now we’re calling it aggravated assault, not attempted murder.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the victim’s life—according to the doctors—was not in immediate danger.”

  “She has a fractured skull!”

  “I can only repeat what Viborg Hospital said. Neither of the blows were struck with what they would describe as ‘deadly force.’”

  She hadn’t opened the folder. Søren fought an urge to do it for her, to force her to read the words—even though most of them were his.

  “If the angle had been different . . .” he began.

  “Children who grab playmates by the neck while fooling around in the school yard can put their lives at risk,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that they intend to kill each other.”

  “He hit her in the head with an iron bar. Twice! Are you suggesting he was just being playful?”

  His tone had become as corrosive as it did on the occasions when had reason to call one of his people out for carelessness of the kind that could put lives in danger. He couldn’t quite help himself, and he saw her react—because he was older, because he was of higher rank.

  “No, okay, poor example,” she said. “But it is really hard to say precisely when something stops being simple violence and becomes deadly force—particularly when the victim does in fact survive. You know the fine points of the law at least as well as I do.”

  “And it’s a question of resources,” he said.

  “Yes, frankly, it is—a challenge with which you are also familiar!”

  She looked at him with a hint of defiance, and he reminded himself that he still wanted to keep what access he had to her information. If he made her lose all sympathy for him and for Nina’s case, it would be the easiest thing in the world for her to simply refuse to speak with him. He had no professional role whatsoever in her investigation, folder or no folder.

  “Any news about the car?” he asked mildly.

  Her shoulders relaxed a bit—she didn’t like being in conflict with him, he noted. Good. He might be able to use that later.

  “It was found in the parking lot behind a shopping center this morning. He had set fire to it, but the night watchman saw the flames and was able to put out the fire with a foam extinguisher before it burned altogether.” She sighed. “We probably shouldn’t count on finding too many DNA traces there, though.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s on the outskirts of town and quite deserted after closing hours. Not a soul except the watchman and his German shepherd. But he thought he heard a car drive off—he described the sound of the engine as ‘sports car–like.’”

  “That doesn’t give you much to work with,” Søren growled.

  “No. I really hope your girlfriend recovers enough to give us a lead.”

  Søren nodded slowly.

  “So do I,” he said.

  Nina considered the lunch tray with an acute lack of enthusiasm. According to the menu that had been circulated, it was “oriental veal casserole with mashed potatoes and a symphony of seasonal vegetables,” but she didn’t think there was anything remotely orchestral about the spoonful of defrosted supermarket greens.

  “Would you like some?” she asked her mother.

  “No, thank you.” Hanne Borg rummaged around in her bag and handed a cell phone to her. It was Nina’s own Nokia. “Here. Daniela dropped by with it yesterday.”

  Daniela was one of the secretaries at the clinic. She lived not far from the house on Cherry Lane.

  “Thank you.” Nina put it in the night table drawer. Then she set aside to barely sampled lunch tray.

  “Are you allowed to get out of bed?” her mother asked.

  “Yes. As of today. They’d like me to move around a little now, in fact. The risk of thrombosis and all that.”

  “Why don’t we go into the lounge and have a cup of coffee instead? I brought you one of my old robes.”

  There wasn’t a soul in the lounge—most people were in their rooms, having their lunch. On the corner table stood that damned vulgar bouquet, spreading its cloying soap-like scent. Nina decisively turned her back on it, liberated a thermos from the rolling cart, and sat down by the large window facing the park. It was a grey, blustery day, but the Japanese maples flamed bright yellow and scarlet against the darker backdrop of the evergreen hedges, giving Nina a violent attack of indoor claustrophobia. She looked with envy at the lucky visitor seated on one of the lime-green benches across from the main entrance. A greenish-brown parka with a fur-lined hood made it impossible to determine whether it was a man or a woman, at least from up here. Was it already so cold that you needed polar equipment?

  Nina poured coffee into two white institutional cups.

  “It says ‘patients only,’” her mother pointed out and with a flip of her finger indicated the Dymo strip that adorned both the thermos and its lid.

  “You’re a patient too,” said Nina.

  Her mother gave a small snort.

  “Yes, I suppose I am.”

  “What did they say?” Her mother had come straight from a checkup in oncology.

  “That I’m well enough to receive the next dose of poison.”

  “Good.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. All things considered.”

  Silence descended between them, heavy and brooding. Nina freely admitted that she was no expert in small talk, but her mother was usually better at it.

  “What’s wrong?” she finally asked.

  Her mother raised her head. The wig looked so much like her own hair that it was only the unnaturally well-coiffed look that gave the game away. That and the fact that Hanne Borg had applied a bit more makeup than usual. Camouflage. Don’t show weakness!

  “You’ve got children, Nina,” said her mother at last.

  Nina just barely stopped the sarcastic I know that that was on her lips.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I think you know.”

  “No. Not really.”

  “Ida and Anton are coming tomorrow.”

  “Half-term break.” Oh God, she actually had managed to forget. She was a bad mother. “With a bit of luck I’ll be able to go home tomorrow,” she said quickly, “or at the latest, the day after. Can you manage for that long?”

  “That’s not the issue.”

  “What do you mean then? I’m sorry if I’m a bit slow, but that can happen when someone cracks your skull.” Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid comment, she knew it as soon as she’d said it.

  “Nina. Do you want your sixteen-year-old daughter to ask herself why she never meant enough to her mother for you to stop all of that? And Anton. Anton is only nine. Do you really want to create an abyss in his life to match your own?”

  “Mom!” The outburst was everything she had hoped it wo
uldn’t be—hurt, accusing, shaky, and on the verge of tears.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. But sooner or later you have to realize that it can’t go on.”

  “It wasn’t me . . . I didn’t do a damn thing to deserve—”

  “No. Not directly. Not this time. But Nina, it’s no more than . . . what is it, five months? . . . since the last time you ran out on them.”

  “I didn’t run!”

  It wasn’t fair. No way was that fair. She had tried. The entire vacation had been an attempt to see if they could make it work again, she and Morten and the kids. Morten had a conference in Manila—the Sixth Annual Offshore Oil and Gas Conference in the polished and globalized SMX Convention Center, very exciting. They’d had a week’s beach vacation at a resort before the conference began, and the second week they stayed with one of Morten’s business connections in a gilded, middle-class ghetto about twenty-five kilometers from the polluted congestion of the city proper, with a pool and palm trees and a housekeeper—sweet, motherly Estelle, who had fallen for Anton’s blond charm within seconds.

  “What would you call it then? Morten said you were gone from dawn to dusk for four days straight.”

  “Three. It was only three! Mom, there was an accident. A terrible one. There were so many dead and wounded, and they had no idea . . . They needed qualified people. Did you expect me to sit and twiddle my thumbs by the pool while people were dying around me?”

  “Nina-girl, you can’t save the entire—”

  “Don’t call me that!” Nice. Now she had shot out of her chair and stood with two fists floating somewhere near chin level, like a boxer with his dukes up. Her head was pounding, and she forced herself to lower her hands and breathe more calmly.

  Her mother had not twitched an eyelid. She merely sat there sipping the patients-only coffee, wearing her wig and chemo camouflage, and considered Nina with a relentless and unshakable Mom-gaze.

  “Nina. You have two children who are afraid of losing you, and you need to deal with that, whether you want to or not.”

  She had no defense. She couldn’t deny it. But she really had tried. She had turned down several offers for overseas work; she had even quit her job at the refugee center. She no longer used her free time to help illegal immigrants who didn’t dare approach the normal healthcare system. There was a clinic now where they could receive help anonymously, she had told herself sternly. She had started therapy. What more did they want? Yes, from a narrow Danish nuclear family point of view, it had been idiotic to volunteer that day in Manila. But it had happened less than five kilometers from that fucking swimming pool, and Estelle had been frantic because she had a little sister who lived in one of the apartment buildings that had collapsed. Nina hadn’t exactly sought it out.