The Considerate Killer

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  But who would recruit a man like V? No training, as far as Søren could judge. Not especially cold-blooded. Not especially callous or psychologically disturbed. Not especially dedicated or fanatic or certainly not a radical Muslim, or that beer would never have gone down so easily, nor would he have quoted the Bible. Once again, it was the inverse descriptions that came to you first. As if you could only see his outline when you had peeled away everything he wasn’t.

  But his nervousness was palpable. He couldn’t stand still out there; if he wasn’t marching up and down, he stood rocking on the balls of his feet like an anxious diver on the high board.

  The traffic on the Jutland country road was sparse but speedy—the drivers around here clearly saw no reason to take the eighty-kilometer limit seriously. However, the little red Triumph convertible that overshot the rest stop, braked schreechingly, and then reversed fifty meters in a few seconds made the local infringements fade into insignificance. Søren put an imaginary minus in the “international terrorism” box. No terrorist in his right mind would choose such a flashy mean of transportation, and then use it in such an attention-grabbing way. The roof was up, but even so, Søren’s eardrums were assaulted by a blast of synthetic pop that must have put the car’s speakers under considerable strain. Steel guitar, synthesizer and slightly asynchronous choir, like a Hawaiian orchestra on acid.

  The figure that leaped jack-in-the-box-like from the little car was not very tall. There was something odd about his physique. Broad shoulders and a shaved head as round as a bowling ball; slim, almost delicate-looking hips; and thighs as disproportionate as those of a prize turkey. He clapped his hands three or four times with obvious enthusiasm, gave V a chummy knuckle punch on the shoulder, and began to speak quickly and incomprehensibly. Tagalog again, Søren assumed.

  V handed his partner Søren’s cell phone—or that’s how it looked from Søren’s perspective; strictly speaking he couldn’t actually be sure that the little black thing was his. The man studied it for several minutes, patted V on the shoulder again, this time with a flat hand, and nonchalantly threw the telephone into the Triumph’s passenger seat. Then he headed for the Land Cruiser. V exclaimed in protest, but ended up rushing after him like a child afraid to be left behind.

  His partner pulled the front door wide open and bent his upper body at a right angle so his face was level with Søren’s. His eyes glinted with an odd oily shine.

  “You police?” he asked and revealed a set of gold teeth worthy of a James Bond villain.

  “I was,” said Søren.

  “Danish police?”

  “Yes.”

  For some reason the man apparently found that statement hysterically funny. He laughed heartily but more or less soundlessly—though his face cracked from ear to ear and his upper body rocked back and forth in good humor, a short chortling sound was all that came out at the end of each of his silent roars of laughter.

  “Danish police,” he repeated, with a new cascade of laughter. Then he grabbed Søren’s face with both hands and pinched his cheeks in much the same way Søren’s grandfather had done when he was a child. Søren didn’t like it then, and he didn’t like it now. One of the man’s thumbnails was less than a centimeter from Søren’s left eye, long and thickened and bone colored, and a fine spray of laughter-borne saliva hit him in the face.

  “Danish police,” the man with the gold teeth said a third time, jerking Søren’s head up and down a few times in time with the laughter eruptions before letting go with a final amiable pat to the cheek.

  “Leave him alone,” said V, with a timing that precisely aligned with the moment when the man was straightening up anyway.

  “Okay, boss,” said Goldtooth, and that was apparently even funnier than “Danish police” because he laughed all the way back to the convertible.

  “Okay,” he shouted again over his shoulder. “Let’s go find this guy’s wife.”

  Was he speaking English to be certain that Søren understood him? Deliberate or not, it worked.

  THE PHILIPPINES, A MONTH AND A HALF EARLIER

  Vincent was woken by someone shaking him and shouting.

  The room was dark because he had pulled the blinds down so only a small sliver of light could get in. He had no idea what time of day it was.

  “Vincent. Come on, you little pussy. Wake up.”

  This time he recognized the voice as Vadim’s, but there was a new ring to it. Something shrill.

  Vincent sat up and tried to orient himself in the almost total darkness. The air conditioner was humming at him from its usual position, with one green and two shining red eyes. Grey light was seeping in through the door from the apartment’s living room.

  “What time is it?”

  “Eight-thirty. Come on, damn it!” Vadim pulled the blanket off him in a short angry tug and turned on the overhead lights.

  Vincent blinked. It was Sunday. It had to be Sunday, and it wasn’t more than four hours since he had gone to bed. He had played World of Warcraft on Vadim’s computer most of the night while Vadim was out looking for a girl. He did that from time to time now that he and Diana no longer saw each other regularly. A man has needs, as he usually said, and then he was gone all night. Vincent had no idea when Vadim had gotten home, but here he was, physically dragging Vincent from his bed.

  “What?”

  Vincent had slept without boxer shorts and frantically tried to cover his dick and pubic hair, but Vadim didn’t seem to notice.

  “Victor is dead,” he said. “Abiog called me half an hour ago. Come on, you have to come with me.”

  The world froze.

  How could so large a human being die? Vincent wondered. He had seen Victor a week ago, and he had been fine. His enormous body was warm and calm. His heart beat. His lungs took in oxygen and exhaled CO2. He had hoisted Vincent up in an effortless fireman’s lift to swing him around a few times before putting him down again, just like he usually did when they hadn’t seen each other for a while. Hugging was such a girly thing, he said.

  Vincent’s mouth was dry, and all he could think about was water.

  “You’re fucking with me,” he said, edging past Vadim. Into the living room and on to the kitchen and the refrigerator. He found a bottle of water and emptied it without looking at Vadim. He didn’t dare.

  “Put on some clothes,” said Vadim. “We’re leaving now.”

  Las Pinas looked the same. And the smell was the same too.

  A violent shower had washed the smog from the sky in the course of the night and the slum was steaming in the morning sun. A bunch of children were playing in the puddles between the shacks, half-naked and with dirty feet. Lines of dirt on the round, smiling faces. White shining baby teeth amidst all the grime.

  Vincent tried to look straight ahead as he threaded his way through the narrow, tunnellike passages following Commissioner Abiog, Vadim, and a uniformed policeman who clearly knew the area. The heat and the dimness of the light created a flicker before his eyes. He ducked under low-hanging laundry and stumbled over plastic tubs and cackling hens that ran straight across the path. He tried to catch snatches of the conversation between Vadim and Abiog up ahead.

  “We don’t know precisely when . . . was dead when we got there . . . your friend . . . everything is gone . . .”

  They passed a couple of uniformed policemen who had fastened an inadequate length of red-and-white plastic tape across the small walkway. Abiog bent under the tape, puffing slightly with the effort. Sweat was pouring off him; he pulled a well-used handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face and neck. Then he continued toward the corrugated hut that housed Victor and Diana’s clinic.

  There were more uniforms guarding the doorway, but from the outside there was nothing dramatic to see. A dog had darted through the makeshift police line and was sniffing around at the corner of the house. It cocked a leg and pis
sed against the white wall. People were hanging out of window openings and doors, staring curiously.

  “I called you when I saw the address he had listed. He lives in your apartment?”

  Abiog tilted his head back and observed Vadim under half-closed eyelids. He looked like a fish, thought Vincent. A big dopey one. His face was completely expressionless.

  “Victor is a close friend,” said Vadim. “We’ve known each other for years. We studied together.”

  “So you’d be able to identify him?”

  Vadim cleared his throat and for once seemed physically unwell. His face was grey and the corners of his mouth stiff, as if he was fighting off tears or nausea.

  “Yes . . . unless he’s in very bad shape?”

  “We’d appreciate it if you’d try,” said Abiog, without answering Vadim’s question. “We’ve contacted his mother, but she lives outside Angeles, and that’s a drive of at least eight hours. It’s better if we take care of it now and send him north to his parents when the autopsy is finished.”

  He waved them on through the door. The clinic seemed smaller than the last time Vincent had been there. Claustrophobically small. Shelves and cabinets had been toppled across the floor, together with the little camping table with the electric kettle. Victor was lying on the examination couch. He was partially covered by a sheet of thick clear plastic, which reminded Vincent most of all of a trash bag. One long and muscular leg dangled over the edge, the foot still wearing its size fourteen flip-flop.

  There was blood on the walls. Large, explosive blotches like paint hurled against a canvas.

  It smelled like the meat market at home in San Marcelino. Meat and blood simmering in the tropical heat. Vincent held a hand up in front of his mouth and nose and remained standing in the door while he tried to make sense of what he was looking at. He had seen dead people in medical school, but they had been freed from a history. They lay naked in a white room, covered by a white cloth, and did not have names. Regardless of what they had suffered and experienced in their last moments, it was invisible there on the table. Their lives were completely erased.

  But Victor . . .

  His fight for survival was on the walls and in the coffee which dripped from the shattered cup on the floor. His light blue backpack still slouched against the wall where he must have dropped it when he came in. There was a crumpled up blanket in the corner and a toothbrush by the tiny sink.

  Vincent took in every detail. The story of Victor’s last moments. Vadim had to steady himself on the doorframe.

  Abiog didn’t say anything. Possibly he was attempting to be tactful, but his professional impatience was revealed in the rapid tapping of one foot and the way he kept wiping his forehead and cheeks. He produced a cigarette and lit it, taking long, demonstrative inhalations. After half a cigarette they had apparently had all the time for reflection that he could spare.

  “So . . .”

  He went over the table and pulled the thick plastic away from the dead man’s face.

  It really was Victor. A part of his face was missing, leaving a gap through which skull and jaw cavity and vertebrae were visible. But what was left was sufficient. The powerful jaw and the characteristic gap between the front teeth. The guy was built with extra room for everything, as Vadim used to say. Like a house where there was still plenty of space between the furniture.

  His white Manila Mustangs T-shirt was soaked through with blood, and his right arm had been all but ripped off at the shoulder. He must have fought, thought Vincent. Victor was a big man. He must have thrown things. And yelled. Maybe he had been afraid, even though that was hard to imagine. Vincent had never heard Victor express unease or fear of anything at all, and he would prefer to think it had been that way until the end.

  “It’s Victor,” he said calmly to Abiog.

  He felt cold and oddly distant. As if he wasn’t quite there. Strange, he thought, that it’s only warm and living blood that I can’t handle. He looked over at Vadim, who still stood leaning against the blood-spattered doorframe. He was pale as a corpse.

  “Did he suffer much?”

  Abiog looked at Vadim with surprise. Then he pulled the plastic sheeting over the corpse again and signaled one of the policemen outside.

  “He put up resistance, as you can see, but I doubt that it was a long struggle. Some of the neighbors heard a commotion from inside at about four in the morning and a shot shortly thereafter. Altogether we’re talking about a few hectic moments. I have no idea how it felt.”

  Vadim’s jaw muscles were so strained now that the sinews stood out under the skin like cables. His teeth ground against each other. Two EMTs made their way past him with a stretcher so he had to retreat backward out of the clinic.

  “When did you last see him?”

  Vincent hesitated.

  “About a week ago. But I thought he had gone to work at a hospital up north.”

  Abiog sucked the last vestiges from his cigarette and threw it in a puddle.

  “He had, but the old kook who takes care of the clinic when the young idealists aren’t here called to tell him there was some disturbance. People sneaking around and trying to break open the lock. We assume Victor Galang slept here for some days to prevent a break-in. The world is full of murdering thieves. Junkies maybe . . . Witnesses saw a couple of young guys drive away in a red Mazda.”

  Abiog looked as if he had dropped both the thread and his interest in the conversation. Instead he thoughtfully observed Vadim, who was squatting with his eyes closed, with his back and head leaned back against the white corrugated wall.

  “You’d better get our rich kid out of here. He doesn’t have the stomach for this.”

  He winked at Vincent.

  “Our rich kid?”

  Abiog smiled faintly.

  “Don’t pretend that the two of us are that different,” he said. “We both live off of his kind. He is what keeps our heads above water, isn’t that so? Mine and yours. What would your sorry ass be worth without him? I don’t know how it was with your third musketeer, but it might be worth finding out.”

  Vincent retreated, got Vadim on his feet.

  “Come on,” he said. “We can go now.”

  Nina-girl.”

  Her father was floating in the pool with both arms spread wide. The water flickered blue green around him, and the light in the Swim Center had been turned off. Only the underwater lamps were still on, so it was hard to see his face, hard to see him. But the voice, the deep, soft Dad voice, was unmistakable.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “Want? I don’t want anything. Just want to talk to you a little. Come on in. The water is nice and warm.”

  She took a hesitant step down the ladder. He was right. The water was warm, much too warm. It felt more like bathwater than pool water. The steam rose in misty spirals, and her breath felt wet, as if she was drowning a little bit every time she breathed.

  She was wearing all her clothes. He was too. And from his wrist spread dark, swirling streams of blood.

  “Help!” she yelled. “Help! He’s dying!”

  Her shout echoed in the empty hall.

  “There’s no one here but you and me,” he said. Totally calm, as if his life’s blood wasn’t leaving his body.

  She didn’t understand why she hadn’t seen it before. It was a spreading stain around him, dark like octopus ink, and there was so much of it—much more than a single human body ought to contain. If she wanted to reach him, she would have to swim through it. The thought was almost unbearable.

  Still she did it. With her head raised so her face wouldn’t touch the bloody water, stroke by stroke, closer and closer . . .

  “I’ll help you,” she said. “Dad, I’ll help you.”

  She made it to his side. Grabbed hold of his wrist, found the artery and pressed down as hard as she
could. She kicked her legs wildly to stay above water and with her free hand tried to pull the string from her hoodie so she could use it as a tourniquet.

  He flopped onto his side and rose half out of the water. His face was lit from below, but . . . but it wasn’t his.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It won’t take long, I promise.”

  It wasn’t her father. The shock paralyzed her stiff fingers, her kicking legs. It wasn’t him. The face was oddly smeared, as if it had been painted with watercolors that ran, but she knew it wasn’t his.

  He placed both hands around her throat and pulled her down into the bloody water. She didn’t even have time to scream.

  No. Oh no. Shock, fear and abhorrence clung to her body long after she had turned on the light and seized hold of waking reality as best she could. Her breath hissed from her lungs, troubled and uneasy, and she was soaked in sweat. She grabbed the watch she had dutifully taken off before bed.