Disgrace

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  ‘The thought has crossed our minds, but why do you think that?’

  ‘Bruno sought me out when I was fired. We had been rivals, but now we were allies. Him and me against Wolf and the rest of them. He confided in me that he was afraid of Wolf. That they knew each from before. That Kristian lived near his grandparents and never missed an opportunity to threaten him.’

  Jeppesen nodded to himself. ‘It’s not much, I know, but it’s enough. Wolf threatened Kåre Bruno, that’s how it was. And Bruno died.’

  ‘You sound as though you’re certain of these things. But the fact is you’d already broken up with Kimmie when Bruno died, and the Rørvig assaults occurred after you left.’

  ‘Yes. But before that I’d seen how the other pupils drew away when the gang strutted down the corridors. I saw what they did to people when they were together. Admittedly not to their classmates, since solidarity is the first thing one learns at that school, but to everyone else. And I just know they attacked the boy.’

  ‘How can you know?’

  ‘Kimmie spent the night with me a few times during school weekends. She slept badly, as if there was something inside her that wouldn’t let her alone. She called out his name in her sleep.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘The boy’s! Kyle’s!’

  ‘Did she seem shocked or tormented?’

  He laughed a moment. It came from down where laughter is a defence and not an outstretched hand. ‘She didn’t seem haunted, no. Not at all. That’s not how Kimmie was.’

  Carl considered showing him the teddy bear, but was distracted by the coffee machine’s gurgling. If the coffee makers kept on like that until the dinner was over, all that would remain would be tar.

  ‘Maybe we could have a cup?’ he asked, without expecting an answer. A cup of mocha would hopefully make up for the hundred hours he hadn’t eaten properly.

  Not for me, Jeppesen gesticulated.

  ‘Was Kimmie evil?’ Carl asked, pouring his coffee and practically inhaling it.

  He heard no answer.

  When he turned round with the cup to his mouth, nostrils titillated by the aroma of a sun that had once shone on a Colombian coffee farmer’s fields, Klavs Jeppesen’s chair was empty.

  The audience was over.

  29

  She’d walked round the lake from the planetarium to Vodroffsvej and back, taking ten different routes. Up and down the stairs and paths that connected the lake with Gammel Kongevej and Vodroffsvej. Back and forth without getting too close to the bus stop across from Teaterpassagen, where she imagined the men would wait.

  Now and then she sat on the planetarium terrace, her back to the window and her eyes focused on the play of light in the lake fountain. Someone behind her marvelled at the sight, but Kimmie couldn’t have cared less. It had been years since she’d abandoned herself to such things. All she wanted to do was see the men who’d done the job on Tine. Get a sense of who her pursuers were, of who was working for the bastards.

  Because she didn’t doubt for an instant that they’d return. That was what Tine had been afraid of, and no doubt she’d been right. If they wanted to get hold of Kimmie, they wouldn’t just give up.

  And Tine had been the link. But now Tine was no more.

  She’d got away swiftly when the grenades went off and the house blew up. A couple of children might have seen her racing past the swimming centre, but that was it. On the other side of the buildings down on Kvægtorvsgade she’d shaken free of her coat and tossed it in her suitcase. Then she’d pulled on a suede jacket and covered her hair with a black scarf.

  Ten minutes later she stood at Hotel Ansgar’s well-lit reception desk on Colbjørnsensgade, flashing the Portuguese passport she’d found a few years earlier in one of her stolen suitcases. It wasn’t a one hundred per cent likeness, but on the other hand it was six years old, and who didn’t change during that amount of time?

  ‘Do you speak English, Mrs Teixeira?’ the friendly porter asked. The rest was just a formality.

  For about an hour she sat in the courtyard under the gas heaters with a couple of drinks. That way the hotel staff would get to know her.

  Afterwards she slept for nearly twenty hours with her pistol under her pillow and images of a trembling Tine in her head.

  It was from there that her world led her as she walked down to the planetarium and after eight hours of waiting finally found what she was looking for.

  The man was thin, almost emaciated, and his focus shifted between Tine’s window on the fifth floor and the entrance to Teaterpassagen.

  ‘You’ll be waiting a long time, you shit,’ Kimmie mumbled, as she sat on the bench in front of the planetarium on Gammel Kongevej.

  When it was approximately 11 p.m. the man was relieved of his watch. There was no doubt that the one replacing him had a lower rank. It was evident from the way he approached. Like a dog that was headed for its food bowl, but first had to sniff around to see if it was welcome.

  That was why he was the one who had to do the Saturday-night shift, and not the first man. And that was why Kimmie decided to follow the one who was leaving.

  She tailed the thin man at a safe distance, and reached the bus at the same moment its doors were closing.

  It was then that she saw how mashed up his face was. His lower lip was split, and he had a stitched-up gash above one eyebrow and bruises that ran along his hairline from ear to throat, as if he’d dyed his hair with henna and not rinsed it all off properly.

  He was looking out of the window as she climbed aboard. Just sat scowling out across the pavement, hoping to spy his target in his last glimpse. Only when the bus reached Peter Bangsvej did he begin to relax.

  He’s off duty now and not busy, she thought, with no one to come home to. That was evident by his attitude. His indifference. Had someone been expecting him, a little girl or a puppy or a warm living room where he could hold his girlfriend’s hand and they could listen to each other’s sighs and laughter, then he would be breathing more deeply and freely. No, he couldn’t hide the knots in his soul and stomach. He had nothing to go home to. No reason to hurry.

  As if she didn’t know what that was like.

  He got off at the Damhus Inn and didn’t ask any questions about the evening’s entertainment. He was late, something he apparently already knew. Many of the patrons had already paired off and were on the way out to their one-night stands. So he hung up his coat and walked into the spacious room, evidently without ambitions. And how could he have any, the way he looked? He ordered a pint and sat at the bar, glancing across the tables at the throng to see if there was a woman, any woman, who’d look his way.

  She removed her headscarf and suede jacket and asked the cloakroom attendant to watch her handbag carefully. Then she glided into the room, her self-confident shoulders back and breasts softly signalling to anyone who could still focus. Some low-ranking, high-volume band on the stage accompanied the cautiously groping dancers. No one on the dance floor under the crystalline sky of glass tubes seemed to have found their special somebody.

  She felt the pack of eyes fastened on her and the tension that had already begun to spread along the tables and barstools.

  She wore less make-up than all the other women, she realized. Less make-up and less fat on her bones.

  Does he recognize me? she wondered, her eyes wandering slowly past imploring glances, all the way to the thin man. There he was, just like all the other men, coiled and ready to pounce at even the slightest signal. He put his elbow nonchalantly on the bar and lifted his head slightly. Professional eyes weighed whether she was waiting for someone or free prey.

  When she was halfway past the tables she smiled at him, causing him to take a deep breath. He couldn’t believe it, but Christ, he would sure love to.

  Not two minutes passed before she was out on the dance floor with the first sweaty, eager man, bouncing in the same steady rhythm as everyone else.

  But the thin man had noticed her glance, and t
hat she had made her choice. He straightened his back, adjusted his tie and tried as best he could to make his lean, beaten face seem relatively attractive in the smoke-coloured light.

  He approached her in the middle of a dance, taking her by the arm. He clasped her back a bit clumsily and squeezed a little. His fingers weren’t practised, she could tell. His heart was hammering hard against her shoulder. He was an easy catch.

  ‘So this is my place,’ he said, nodding self-consciously towards his living room, which revealed a lacklustre, fifth-storey view of Rødovre’s S-station and lots of parking spots and streets.

  He’d pointed at the nameplate in the lobby beside the lift’s lilac-coloured doors. FINN AALBÆK, it read. And then he’d declared that the building was safe, even though it would soon be torn down. He’d taken her hand and led her out on to the fifth-storey walkway as if he were a knight leading her safely across a seething river’s suspension bridge. He held her quite close, so his quarry wouldn’t be allowed to have second thoughts and bolt. Well assisted by anticipation and newly found self-confidence, his imagination already had him groping deep under the blankets, stiff and ready.

  He told her she could go out on the balcony to see the view if she wished, and he cleared the coffee table, turned on the lava lamps, put on a CD and unscrewed the cap on the gin bottle.

  It struck her that it’d been ten years since she’d been alone with a man behind closed doors.

  ‘What happened to you?’ she asked, running her hand inquiringly across his face.

  He raised his wilted eyebrows, a gesture that was no doubt carefully practised before the mirror. He probably thought it was charming, but it wasn’t by a long shot.

  ‘Oh that! I ran into a couple of likely lads on my watch. They didn’t get out of the encounter in very good shape.’ He smiled crookedly. Even the smile was a cliché. He was simply lying.

  ‘What do you do, actually, Finn?’ she finally asked.

  ‘Me? I’m a private eye,’ he answered, in a way that made the word ‘private’ ooze with sleazy snooping and unseemly prying. It conjured up nothing exotic, mysterious or dangerous, as had doubtlessly been his intention.

  She looked at the bottle he was waving about, and noticed her throat tightening. Take it easy, Kimmie, the voices whispered. Don’t lose control.

  ‘Gin and tonic?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Do you have whisky, by any chance?’

  He seemed surprised, but not dissatisfied. Women who drank whisky were hardly sensitive types.

  ‘Well, well, aren’t you thirsty?’ he said, after she’d downed her drink in a single gulp. To keep pace, he poured another glass for her and one for himself.

  By the time she’d had three more in succession, he was buzzed and distant.

  Unaffected, she asked about the job he was working on and watched his alcohol-suppressed inhibitions lead him closer to her on the sofa. He gave her a fixed smile while his fingers strolled up her thigh.

  ‘I’m trying to find a woman who’s capable of making many people’s lives miserable.’

  ‘Ah, that sounds exciting. Is she an industrial spy or call girl or something like that?’ she asked, and illustrated her rapt submissivness by putting her hand on his and leading it determinedly to her inner thigh.

  ‘She’s a little of everything,’ he said, trying to spread her legs a bit.

  She watched his mouth and knew she would throw up if he tried to kiss her.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘That’s a trade secret, love. I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Love,’ he’d said! Again the same pain.

  ‘But what kind of person hires you for such a job?’ She allowed his hand to move a little further up her thigh. His alcohol breath was hot against her throat.

  ‘People in the upper crust,’ he whispered, as if it would place him higher in the mating hierarchy.

  ‘What do you say to another shot?’ she suggested, as his fingers groped their way across her pelvis.

  He pulled back slightly, looking at her with a wry smile wrenched into that swollen part of his face. He had a plan, it was clear. She would drink and he would pour, until she was completely lubricated and ready.

  For all he cared, she could pass out. He didn’t give a hoot what she got out of it. She knew that didn’t matter.

  ‘We can’t do it tonight,’ she said, as his mouth ran parallel with his frowning eyebrows. ‘I have my period. We can do it another day, OK?’

  It was a lie, of course, but deep within she wished it were true. Eleven years had gone by since she’d bled. Only the stomach cramps remained, and they weren’t caused by anything physiological. Years filled with anger and broken dreams.

  She had miscarried and almost died. And now she was sterile.

  That’s what she was.

  Otherwise things might have turned out differently.

  Carefully she stroked his lacerated eyebrow with her index finger, but failed to mitigate his growing resentment and frustration.

  She could see what he was thinking. He had hauled home the wrong bitch, and he wasn’t going to stand for it. Why the hell did she go to a singles’ night if she was on the rag?

  Kimmie watched his facial features harden. Then she pulled her handbag to her and stood up, stepped over to the balcony window and gazed out across the dismal, barren landscape of terraced houses and stark, distant high-rises. There was almost no light, only the cold gleam of the street lamps a little further up the block.

  ‘You killed Tine,’ she said softly, reaching into her bag.

  She heard him squirm up off the sofa. In a second he would be all over her. He was woozy, but deep inside an instinct of self-preservation stirred.

  Then she turned and pulled out the pistol with the silencer.

  He saw it as he attempted to manoeuvre around the coffee table, and stopped in his tracks, astounded at himself and the dent that had been made in his professional pride. It was funny to see. She loved this mix of silent astonishment and dread.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘that probably wasn’t very smart. You dragged home your work target without knowing it.’

  He bent his head and studied her face. Clearly he was adding layers to the image he’d created of a ravaged woman on the streets. Confusedly he ransacked his memory. How could he aim so low? How could he let himself be fooled by clothing and find a bag lady attractive?

  Come on, the voices whispered. Take him. He’s nothing but their lackey! Take him now!

  ‘Without you, my friend would still be alive,’ she said, now registering the alcohol burning in her belly. She looked over at the bottle, golden and half full. One more slurp and the voices and the fire would die down.

  ‘I didn’t kill anyone,’ he said, his eyes darting from her trigger finger to the safety latch. Looking for anything to give him a sliver of hope that she’d overlooked something.

  ‘Do you feel like a cornered rat?’ she asked. The question was superfluous, but he refused to answer. He hated to admit it, but who wouldn’t?

  Aalbæk was the one who’d beaten Tine. The one who’d really shaken her up, made her vulnerable. Aalbæk was the one who’d made her dangerous to Kimmie. Yes, perhaps Kimmie was the weapon, but Aalbæk was the hand that guided it. That’s why he had to pay.

  He and the ones who’d given the order.

  ‘Ditlev, Ulrik and Torsten are behind it. I know,’ she said, fully absorbed by the proximity of the bottle and its healing contents.

  Don’t do it, said one of the voices, but she did it anyway. She reached out for the bottle and saw his body first as a vibration in the air, then as a flailing mass of clothes and arms, punching and grabbing hold of her.

  In his wild rage he had her thrown to the floor. ‘Humiliate a man sexually and you have an enemy for life,’ she had learned. It was true. Now she was going to have to pay for the hungry looks and servile pawing he’d had to perform in order to get her back to his flat. For him having exposed himself and appeared v
ulnerable.

  He threw her against the radiator, the coils bashing against her skull. He grabbed a large wooden figurine that was standing on the floor and slammed it against her hip. He seized her shoulders and twisted her on to her stomach. Pressed her torso down and twisted the arm with the pistol round her back, but she didn’t let go of it.

  His fingers dug into her arm. She had felt pain many times before and it would take more than that to make her cry out.

  ‘Don’t you dare lead me on. Don’t you dare try and con me,’ he said, banging his fist into her lower back. After that he managed to unclasp her grip on the gun and fling it into a corner. Then he got a hand up under her dress, tearing her tights and pushing her underwear aside.

  ‘Damn you, bitch, you don’t have your period!’ he shouted. He took a hard grip on her, jerked her round and punched her in the face.

  They stared directly at each other as he held her down and boxed her with randomly placed blows. Sinewy thighs in worn polyester trousers straddled her chest. Blood-filled veins protruded from his pounding and hammering forearms.

  He beat her until her defences began to wane, and resistance seemed pointless.

  ‘Are you finished, bitch?’ he shouted, showing her a clenched fist that was ready to resume her punishment. ‘Or do you want to end up like your junkie friend?’

  Was it ‘finished’ he’d said?

  Not finished until I stop breathing.

  She understood that better than anyone.

  Kristian knew her best. He was the one who sensed when she felt that surge of excitement. This chemical feeling of being lifted off one’s base as the belly sends shivers of desire to every cell of the body. And when they sat watching A Clockwork Orange in the dark, he showed her where desire could lead.