by Lotte Hammer
‘Unfortunately not, I think we’re being watched.’
‘What does Bjarne say? Does he agree we should shut everything down?’
‘It’s by no means certain that’s how it’ll end.’
‘So what you’re telling me is, you haven’t spoken to him?’
Her father failed to answer, nor was it necessary. Instead he asked:
‘What are you doing today?’
‘Buying myself a car, going for a walk with Henrik, going to the university, helping Karina with—’
As she counted things off on her fingers, he interrupted her.
‘OK, I get it. Let me ask in another way: what can you cancel?’
‘Everything except Henrik.’
He smiled for the first time that morning.
‘You’ve taken quite a shine to him, haven’t you? Don’t forget to take a coat if you’re going for a walk. They say it’s going to rain.’
She got up without replying. Henrik Krag was none of his business.
‘I’ll be down in your office in half an hour.’
CHAPTER 77
Every time Helena Holt Andersen visited Viborg the town seemed increasingly alien to her.
It was where she was born, had gone to school and college, and she had lived here half the time she attended university. But that was a long time ago now, the town had changed and so had she. Today she felt more at home in Copenhagen, possibly because she now had children of her own, and they had grown up in the capital. It was hard to pinpoint what made you belong to one place rather than another, and yet it was often a matter of huge importance. Despite her diminishing sense of belonging, she had continued to represent her old constituency, although she had had many opportunities to replace it with one closer to the capital, which – and this was the crucial part – was an equally safe seat.
It was the centenary of the local party branch. She was the main speaker this morning – and tonight as well. She looked around and met smiling faces, but also many she didn’t recognise. Clearly she had no excuse for declining the invitation when she was asked, and at the time – more than six months ago – she had also wanted to attend. Unfortunately the centenary now clashed with frantic negotiations within the area of social care in which she was her party’s spokeswoman, making it tricky for her to be away from Folketinget right now, and her fellow party members had dropped many heavy hints about her cancelling her trip to Jutland. Which might explain why she hadn’t done so.
The guests were singing. She sang along as she took out her speech and placed it beside her plate. She was due to speak next, but she had to pick the right moment to start – people should also have time to enjoy their food. And their drink; a bottle of bitters was making the rounds. She passed it on with a brief shake of her head. At the same time she tried telling herself that she ought to be sensible and give the speech she had prepared.
In theory she had had free range when it came to picking the topic. The party chairman’s suggestions were wide and varied. The current political situation. Or something about the future, something you can build on, Helena, you choose. Something you can build on . . . God help us all! Nevertheless, it was what she told her secretary. Please write something about the future we can build on, visions and, well, you know what I mean. Which she had done, and the result lay ready on the table. Easy, uncontroversial, an assured success – if she could pull herself together for fifteen minutes and deliver it. Helena was a good public speaker; it was one of her strengths, possibly her greatest. And now all she had to do was give her damn speech, nothing more.
The problem was that last night she’d happened to flick through a copy of Viborg Folkeblad and had stumbled across an article written by the local branch chairman. Headline: There’ll always be hookers. Subheading: Why we shouldn’t ban sex for money.
Hookers . . . how she hated that word. Hookers, monkeys, pakis, retards – those words all represented the same thing, the natural right of the stronger to linguistically denigrate the weaker. In the article the branch chairman had echoed all the usual ridiculous objections to a ban, arguments which didn’t bear closer scrutiny, but which were nevertheless repeated over and over, as if the debate never moved forwards, but had to start at the beginning every single time.
If you banned selling sex for money, prostitutes would become even more vulnerable, relegated to shady backstreet brothels. Many sex workers – another expression she hated – were absolutely fine with their profession and would not have chosen another. Disabled people should also have the opportunity to have sex. A ban would be impossible to enforce. She shook her head and tried yet again to dismiss her thoughts, again in vain.
It was ultimately about power. Men’s power over women, although in rare instances rich women’s power over poor men. The power to have a sexual relationship where the buyer didn’t have to deal with the seller, their humiliation, their degradation – and the countless cases she knew from the Copenhagen prostitution scene where women were subjected to indescribably awful things – all of this the buyer could shrug off. It wasn’t his problem. After all, he had paid.
It was eight years since she had embraced this cause. It was a lost cause, her Achilles heel, if she wanted to rise in the political firmament, but it was a cause for which she burned. Back then she had the support of exactly two of her colleagues, and had become a target for personal attacks that more than hinted that her views were about her having issues with her own sexuality. She had achieved a lot since then; a party congress decision opposing sex for money was no longer the stuff of fantasy. But, more importantly, she was taken seriously; the powers that be had been challenged, albeit they were still far from vanquished. The local branch chairman’s moronic article was proof of that. Besides, it was obviously aimed directly at her, though he had not, of course, mentioned her by name. He didn’t have the guts, the coward.
She took a sip of juice, got up, crossed to the middle of the floor where she focused on the chairman. Then she began to speak in a loud, clear voice:
‘The happy hooker is a myth . . .’
CHAPTER 78
The officer who entered the room was in uniform. Even so, no one took any notice of him; everyone was looking at Helena Holt Andersen.
She gesticulated, fingers synchronising with her voice almost as if she were performing her own sign language. Her gaze shifted from audience member to audience member, convincing, confronting, conscious of her effect on pretty much every single person there. She spoke quickly with three, sometimes four, points intertwined, but at the same time with a brilliant command of language, which meant that she brought her arguments elegantly home . . . a display of intelligence, which was attractive in itself, without at any point coming across as manic or excessive. However, neither of those factors explained her well-deserved reputation for getting through to people. It was based on something much simpler: she believed what she said with every fibre of her being, and she was honestly committed to the people she championed.
The police officer debated whether to let her finish her speech or interrupt her but concluded he had no choice. The information he had been given over the phone about the attack in Vallensbæk was too distressing to wait.
The young man and woman had been dragged through a semi-basement window and down to the end of a residential road. Here the truck had stopped for a passenger car, a taxi, which had turned down the road just as the truck was leaving. Despite their serious injuries, the couple tried to get up and away, only to be pulled back down and knocked over a second later and swung around the corner. Here one of the young man’s eyes had been ripped out by a loose wire fence. The young woman’s head was smashed against a road sign and then another as she was dragged across the central reservation. The next hundred metres were down a straight road and the truck had accelerated.
There was no doubt that the couple would have died except that the taxi driver spotted them as he turned into the road, and reacted with impressive speed. Ignoring the protest
s from his astonished customer, who had seen nothing, he spun the car one hundred and eighty degrees, hit the accelerator and raced as fast as he could down the wrong side of road before cutting in front of the truck and blocking it.
The truck driver slammed on the brakes and got out furiously; the taxi driver dragged him to the back of his vehicle, where he collapsed when he saw what he had done to his own daughter. The taxi driver called an ambulance while a nurse, who had been woken up by the noise, came running out into the road in her nightdress and administered first aid.
The officer could see the fear in the politician’s eyes; she was a mother first and foremost. He broke the news as sensitively as he could.
‘Your son has been in an accident. He’ll survive, but one eye is badly damaged.’
Helena Holt Andersen left with the officer, dazed, unable to take in the information. A few people clapped but were hushed by the others. The chairman rushed after the officer and the politician; his face was grave, but inside he was cheering.
Helena Holt Andersen was right: it was all about power, and the exercise of power was ruthless.
CHAPTER 79
‘It’s as if Svend has found some way of disciplining me my whole life, a way to mould me into what he wanted me to be. Later, when I learned to put up with it – or possibly even fight back – he would just think of something else.’
Benedikte Lerche-Larsen’s father had been her pet subject in recent days. Henrik Krag listened and interjected brief, suitable remarks from time to time. They were walking together through the forest, trying to keep as straight a line as possible. He thought that even when they went for a walk, she dressed well. She wore camel-coloured suede brogues, black jeans, a white silk shirt and an emerald green tweed jacket.
She had suggested that they took the direct route through the forest from the main road rather than walk down the country lane and around the hunting lodge. I don’t need to see that blasted place again. Henrik Krag agreed, but for him that applied to everywhere in that cursed forest, including the lake they were currently heading towards. He had a hangover after this morning’s terrible . . . incident, and had taken a few pills, though they had yet to make much difference. They crawled under an upended tree, she waited for him on the other side and snuggled up to him, resting her head against his chest, which made it difficult for them to walk. The rain had held off. It was cloudy above the spruces, but it wasn’t cold.
‘As a child – not long after I’d started school – I would often dream that I was dead. I would lie there, a little girl tossed among lots of other bodies in my red coat, and I would be the only thing you could see on the pile. All the other dead people were anonymous, pale, black and white, gone somehow, as they ought to be. But I stood out and I wanted to adjust my coat so it would cover my legs better, but I couldn’t. I had to, my father shouted at me, but it was impossible. He threatened to kill me if I didn’t look decent. Kill me again, I mean, I was already dead. It was ridiculous and at the same time so frightening, you can’t imagine. Kill me again.’ She threw back her head dramatically. ‘Isn’t that crazy?’ Henrik Krag responded without paying her much attention, he had enough problems of his own. She didn’t seem to notice his lack of interest, and carried on.
‘I always had to look decent, respectable, take care of all my things, always know where they were, stay on top of everything that was mine. After I became a grown-up that has mostly been money. Not only, but mostly. I’ve been thinking, Henrik, maybe I could get an ordinary job and perhaps we could manage on less?’
‘Says the girl who has just bought a flat for four million kroner in cash.’
He caught a glimpse of her disappointment before she covered it up with a smile. He apologised, genuinely sorry, and hugged her, trying to tell her how much he loved her, although he struggled to find the right words. The embrace also made him feel better. It was easy to imagine they were the only two people left in the world, or that they were far removed from all their problems out here in the forest. He thought that whatever happened . . . whatever happened to him that is, not to her, nothing must happen to her . . . then it would all have been worth it.
They stood like this for a while before she snapped out of her reverie. As if she could read his thoughts, she said:
‘Something good is about to happen, Henrik. And in the long run I’m sure we’ll be all right – I know we will. We have our whole lives in front of us and we have each other. That’s no bad thing, we must never forget that.’
He tried to kiss her, it was the only response he could think of. She put her hand on his chest and gently pushed him away.
‘No, don’t interrupt me. I’m nervous, that’s why I’m rambling like this. But even so I still have to know. Was that you in Karlslille – Jan’s girlfriend?’
His mouth felt dry, knowing what her next question would be.
‘No.’
‘I’m so glad about that, but then it must have been you this morning, the two teenagers in Vallensbæk?’
‘I didn’t think . . .’
She interrupted him softly.
‘Was it, Henrik?’
He nodded.
CHAPTER 80
Henrik Krag and Benedikte Lerche-Larsen were lost; by now they should be near the lake and the deciduous part of the forest. They split up in order to search more efficiently, but kept within sight of one another. Perhaps it was just as well. He needed privacy to compose himself; it had been easier when she didn’t know anything about this morning. When no one knew anything. But it didn’t take long before she came back to him, took his hand and pointed. He followed her.
‘What’s the good news? You said earlier that you had some good news.’
She squeezed his hand a little harder; they could see the lake diagonally in front of them.
‘So I have but I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this trip. We should have come here ages ago. I know we’ve both been scared to come back, but putting it off was a mistake.’
She pointed to the deer stand, which had just come into view. They could see across to the other side of the lake, to where they had carried the body of the Nigerian girl into the water. It wasn’t a great distance, shorter than Henrik Krag remembered. He stood still. Now it was his turn to ask a question.
‘There’s something I need to know. I haven’t dared ask it before. Why me, Benedikte? And why so quickly? Two weeks ago, I was walking up and down some stupid beach missing you like crazy, today we’re a couple about to move in together. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy about it – happier than I think I’ve ever been – but I don’t understand it.’
She replied matter-of-factly:
‘Because we’re alike. You don’t think so, but we are. And because you love me, it makes me feel safe.’
He blurted it out because he knew he would never dare ask otherwise. ‘Do you love me?’
She stood for a long time without looking him in the eye, and eventually she replied.
‘Now don’t get upset, Henrik, but I don’t think I can really love anyone. It’s not about you, sadly. It’s just the way it is. But perhaps I can learn, perhaps you can teach me. Who knows?’
She caressed his cheek, and he couldn’t decide whether that was good or bad. She continued:
‘Right, do you want the good news? I think we could do with some.’
He would.
‘You’re going to be a dad.’
The deer stand was nearly five metres high, but it was made of pressure-treated timber and looked solid enough. Benedikte Lerche-Larsen was the first to scale the ladder. When she had climbed a few steps, Henrik Krag ran his hand up the inside of her thigh; she turned to look down at him. Hands off, you fool. He didn’t do it because he wanted her, he always did, but more to prove to himself that he could, that he was allowed. He grinned and smacked her calf, then waited until she was at the top before following.
When he joined her, she was looking shocked. The picture they had received from Ida w
as lying in her lap from where it had slipped out of her hands. He took it, looked across the lake, compared the two and reached the same conclusion that she had: it hadn’t been taken from up here, it couldn’t have been, it was obvious once you sat here. All this time they had been thinking this must be what had happened. A bird-lover with a camera zoom. But it was impossible, the angles were all wrong. He felt his old fear return.
‘So what do we do now?’
She didn’t reply. Instead she climbed down with a grim expression on her face. He picked up the picture and rushed after her.
There was a post at the spot where they had lugged the Nigerian girl into the water. It hadn’t been there before, as far as Henrik Krag could recall. He wondered if it had been put there because of her, and concluded that it must have been.
Benedikte Lerche-Larsen squatted down with the photograph in her hands; she peered up the slope and would occasionally move a little closer or further away from the lake. He was standing behind her, looking at the picture. It was clear that the angles were right. Nevertheless, she kept shifting position before suddenly taking the picture out of its plastic folder and tearing it into tiny pieces. Not angry, slowly, almost lazily.
‘Jan Podowski.’
She shook her head and pressed her hands over her ears.
‘Jan Podowski . . . and your dad.’
She screamed. Shut up! He was to shut his big mouth, she just wanted to go home. She flung aside the last fragments of paper. She wanted to go home, it was the only thing she wanted to do, go home. Now. He held her, she shook off his arm, but by now he was starting to know her and he persisted. All right, Benedikte, then let’s go home. When they had walked a few steps, she said:
‘The picture is gone, I’ll never think about it again.’
She was crying, and he gently dried her cheeks with the back of his fingers. Yes, the photograph was gone, but he could vividly recall the yellow dot pattern, and in his flat he had several photocopies of instructions from when he had worked for Svend Lerche. He would examine and compare them. He had to, for her sake . . . and for the sake of their child. He lifted up his head and nodded towards the sky. Yes, that was what he was going to do.