Life and Limb (20 page)

Dicte nodded.

‘Sloppy, yes.'

‘T
ake off your clothes.'

The wheelchair squeaked as it rolled across the floorboards, away from her and over to the CD player. He selected a CD and inserted it, Joe Cocker's gravelly voice rasping through the air as he turned the wheelchair around and got ready to watch the show.

You can leave your hat on
, Cocker sang, but she wasn't wearing a hat. Nor was she in the mood for performing, but perhaps
he
didn't know what she knew: that by obeying him she would ultimately cause him distress? She had bought the shoes on her way home, to retain a kind of relationship with her own sanity. They were red with a glittery pattern and bordered on slutty. The heels were so high that she felt like she was floating across the floor. She stood some distance away from him and started to swivel her hips to the music. The snaking movement transmitted down to her feet and up to her neck; she had no control over it, nor was it something she had ever been taught. It originated from her and had to be a legacy from her father.

She turned her back to him and continued to wiggle, remembering how they used to dance: his hands on her hips, her arms around his neck. He had been a fabulous dancer. That was how they had met, at the wedding of a mutual friend. That marriage had long since ended in divorce, while she and her husband battled on.

‘Bravo. More!'

He clapped his hands. She could see the lust in the beads of sweat on his forehead and in his half-closed eyes. She also saw the pain emerge before he saw it himself. His frustration that everything was trapped inside him.

Her body undulated from her head to her toes as the intensity of the music increased, while her hands travelled up the lining of the scarlet wrap dress and revealed the tops of her stockings and a glimpse of bare skin that ended where her panties began.

He loved her in red. Most men did.

He had picked the dress himself and told her to wear it. To him, dressing her was almost as erotic as undressing her.

She undid the belt of the dress and slipped it up and over her shoulders, letting it slide further and further down her back and finally over her buttocks, where she grabbed it and whirled it around the room a couple of times to the beat of the music. A cheap trick, she thought, but it worked. Then she threw the dress away and he reached for it, but it landed just outside his reach and he was unable to bend down and pick it up. She heard him gasp as he tried.

‘Fucking whore!'

He spat out the words. Then he leaned back against the headrest and gave up. His eyes were swimming with unfulfillable desire.

‘Come here.'

She approached him but kept her distance. The black slip was transparent and the material delicate. Through it he could see the top of her breasts in the bra whose only function was support; her nipples caressed the fabric from above.

‘Come here, I said.'

His voice was almost as hoarse as Cocker's. She relented slightly and circled him. She was wet and aroused and would never fully understand her own sexuality. Was it his impotence and his frustration that turned her on? Did she ultimately take pleasure in hurting him and easing her own conscience at the same time?

She disconnected her thoughts, pulled the slip up over her thighs, took it off and let it float down to him. This time he reached for her, but she eluded him and balanced on her high heels, feeling as powerful as an avenging angel, although she didn't know if it was
him
or herself on whom she was taking revenge.

‘Come on, Kiki. Touch yourself, Kiki.'

It was the second best option for him. She pinched her nipples until they stiffened, half a metre away from him. His breathing got heavier and she heard his little gasps. She climbed onto the bed, kneeling right in front of him, still wearing the shoes, and slipped a hand down her knickers as she threw back her head and felt the desire for something she couldn't have.

‘Right. Now go get it.'

He rolled the wheelchair over to the console table, opened a drawer and picked out one of her dildos. It was brightly coloured with a rotating tip. She took it and ran her fingers up and down the soft rubber that didn't smell of man or woman.

‘Use it. Let me see you use it.'

His eyes were dreamy and still almost closed. The words came out in spasms. She took the dildo and switched it on. It writhed in the palm of her hand. Then she started pleasuring herself with it, running it along the edge of her panties and inside. She guided the dildo up and inside, felt the vibrations and the yearning they provoked.

She didn't fake her orgasm. But even as it subsided around the hot rubber, the feeling of emptiness announced its presence.

‘Satisfied?' she asked him afterwards.

Her words were ill chosen and deliberately so. ‘You're way too sexy for him,' he snarled. ‘And what do you get in return?'

The welts from the whip were still visible on her body. But they were no secret, so she didn't reply.

‘Let me help you into bed.'

He didn't object when she got up and, still wearing only underpants and the open bra, pushed the wheelchair right up to the edge of the bed and helped him out.

‘Has he said anything about where he was on the day of the match?'

She helped him undress.

‘At the stadium. He watched the game. People like him go to that kind of thing.'

‘And afterwards? Where did he go afterwards?'

They had always been honest with each other. In this way, at least, they lived a more uncomplicated life than most couples. She would never have told him anything unsolicited, but lying when she was asked a direct question was unthinkable.

‘He was there. He was there and he saw the girl. That's all I know.'

‘And what do you intend to do with your knowledge?'

‘Nothing.'

‘You should go to the police. Otherwise you risk being charged as an accessory. You could go to prison.'

His voice was nowhere near as grave as his words. She knew he was only trying to provoke her. The truth was that he didn't care what she did, and that was the problem. He never objected. He never forbade her anything. He might get jealous, but jealousy had become as driving a force for him as sex had once been. He needed it. She felt him egging her on every time she did something dangerous. He wanted it for her, the same way she wanted it for herself. He was her puppet master.

He couldn't get to sleep and he asked her to fetch his sleeping pills. Later, she lay in the darkness listening to his breathing until she could bear it no longer; it was tearing her apart, so much so that the emptiness echoed around her.

She got out of bed and dressed. She thought about the envelope, which she had placed in the office safe. She hadn't opened it and had made up her mind to forget all about it. It was none of her business. She was merely looking after it.

She left the house quietly, started the car and drove to Jægergårdsgade. The time was 23:10 according to the digital clock blinking on the dashboard. She didn't know what she would do once she got there, but she believed it was around this time that he took the dog for its last walk.

The light was on in his flat. She parked a short distance from the building and waited. Should she go up? Her body was craving fulfilment, even if only for a few seconds.

She had been waiting for fifteen minutes when a black van pulled up at the kerb and blocked her view of the entrance. She heard the van door open but couldn't see who got out. She heard the front door open and through the small windows in the stairwell she could see the outline of a man struggling up the stairs. She was tempted to follow him; she was too scared, though, so she waited in the car with a sinking feeling that something was very wrong. If, indeed, it had ever been right.

She rolled down the window and inhaled the scent of the summer night. Young people wearing next to nothing strolled up and down the street; a bottle clinked somewhere and loud music blared from various directions, while people sat outside under patio heaters enjoying a glass of wine or a draught beer in front of cafés and restaurants. She had heard that this area had become fashionable. It was the familiar story: not all that long ago Jægergårdsgade had had a reputation for dingy pubs, tattoo parlours and, of course, Pan, the gay club. Then a fairy godmother had passed through the street and transformed the foul-smelling watering holes of the damned into chic cafés and restaurants for a stylish, affluent clientele. She knew some people would mourn the passing of the old Jægergårdsgade. Personally, she regarded it as the normal, healthy development of a market economy: if demand was there – and it was, right now, for anything trendy – supply would follow.

Suddenly the light in the stairwell came on again and she saw what she believed to be two figures and the dog moving down the stairs. She got out of the car, crossed the road and walked behind the van.

‘It's your own fault. Now get in,' she heard a voice say.

‘Lay off, you moron. We're in this together, aren't we?'

The reply was his voice, and the two men's exchange rose to a full-blown argument, drowned out by the dog, which was barking for all it was worth.

‘Shut up, you stupid mutt.'

The dog howled as if it had been kicked and she heard a commotion as the men started fighting. Then there was the sound of the van's side door sliding open.

‘Leave him alone.'

She stepped out. A tall man with a beanie pulled down over his forehead froze for a moment and glared at her.

‘Fuck off, you stupid bitch.'

Arne Bay looked at her but didn't have time to say anything before the other man pushed him into the van and shut the door with a bang. She tried to pull it open, but her hands were yanked away from the handle, she was pushed backwards and lost her balance. While she struggled to get back on her feet, the man jumped onto the driver's seat, started the engine and pulled out from the kerb. The dog ran after the van, barking. The van accelerated and nearly knocked down a young woman on a bicycle before heading for Bruunsgade, where it turned left.

Without thinking, she ran back to her own car to give chase, but lost valuable seconds when a drunk with a bottle of beer in his hand staggered across the road. Reaching Bruunsgade, she took a left and thought she saw the van turn right by the railway station and carry on down Ny Banegårdsgade. She looked around and decided to follow it over the junction, even though the lights were just turning red, and she had to brake hard when a young couple stepped onto the pedestrian crossing. Again she sped up and saw the van turn right at the bus station with the police station on the left. She accelerated and took the corner in third gear just before the lights changed. She went quickly on to the junction with Spanien Swimming Pool, but she didn't know if the van had gone left or right and had to make a spur-of-the-moment decision, choosing to go left down Dynkarken, when again she caught sight of a black van zigzagging between the few cars that made up the late-night traffic, before shooting into the outside lane.

She had time to see it turn left towards Nørreport and had just safely manoeuvred her way across the junction when she heard the sound of a siren behind her, and a police officer on a motorbike waved her to the side. There was nothing else to do but pull over close to the old Nørre Boulevard School, roll down her window and wait for the police officer, who bent down towards the passenger side and said, ‘May I see your driver's licence, please?'

‘W
here did your father die?'

‘At the Kommunehospital. Well, it's not called that any more, but it's the one in the city centre. You know the one I mean. He had lung cancer.'

Marie Gejl Andersen still sounded angry.

‘Have you made any progress?' she wanted to know. ‘Have you found out if it has happened to anyone else?'

Dicte told her about her conversation with the glass artist.

‘Glass eyes,' Andersen repeated, now sounding even more appalled. ‘What on earth is going on? My father didn't have one glass eye, let alone two. So where have they come from? Someone must be responsible for this.'

Dicte held the phone away from her ear. She could understand the woman's outrage but her voice had climbed to a higher pitch than Dicte could bear.

‘I would like to investigate it further. Could you possibly get hold of your father's medical notes?' she asked. ‘As a relative you're entitled to see them. I need to follow your father's journey through the system to work out where, or indeed if, an error was made.'

‘What do you mean
if
an error was made?' said the desperate voice. ‘It can't possibly have been deliberate, can it? Why would anyone put two glass eyes in my father's coffin?'

Yes, why indeed? Dicte wondered if there was a straightforward explanation. Perhaps relating to the man's illness. If the cancer had reached his eyes, though, surely his family would have known?

‘Were you close to your father?'

‘Very. He was my best friend.'

‘Were you with your father when he died?'

‘Yes. We were all there. The hospital called the previous day, suggesting we prepare ourselves, and from then on we were there all the time.'

So no one could have removed the man's eyes prior to death. If they were removed, it must have happened later.

Dicte cleared her throat.

‘What happened afterwards? Where did they take your father? Did you see him again?'

Little by little, they pieced it together. Once the family had had some time with the deceased, the nurse arrived to lay out the body. She had washed it, removed tubes and a drain, closed the eyes and put a sling around the head to keep the mouth closed once rigor mortis set in. The family had waited outside while this work was being undertaken and afterwards they were given an opportunity to say goodbye.

‘And then?'

There was a long silence down the other end of the telephone.

‘Then we drove home. By “we” I mean Jørgen and I, our son and daughter, my sister and brother-in-law and their three children.'

‘What about the funeral arrangements? Who arranged the cremation?'

‘There was someone at the hospital – a porter I believe – who liaised with the chapel. He gave us the name of an undertaker he said they used regularly. We called him and he came out to us in Harlev the next day and took care of all the practical matters, such as the funeral itself, notifying the probate court and so on.'

‘Did you see your father again?'

‘No. In consultation with the undertaker, we decided what clothes my father should wear, and we chose a coffin and an urn. I think my father's body was collected from the hospital chapel and taken to the undertaker's, or perhaps everything was done in the chapel? I don't actually know which it was.'

‘That's okay,' Dicte said. ‘I'll find out, but it might take a little while. I'm working on some other stories. Do you still want me to continue?'

To her gratification, there was no sign of any hesitancy.

‘Yes,' Andersen declared. ‘Something happened which shouldn't have. And it shouldn't happen to other people either. We would like to know what it was. Someone must be held accountable, whether that's the hospital, the crematorium, the undertaker or someone else. It's unacceptable that you can die with your body being subjected to all sorts of things you haven't agreed to.'

Dicte was about to end the conversation when yet another question arose in her mind.

‘Was there, at any point, a discussion about whether a post-mortem should be performed on your father's body? Or had he expressed a wish to donate his body to science?'

Another long pause followed.

‘Yes, they asked us if we had any objections. They said something about wanting to see the effect of their treatment, learning from some statistics, but we just couldn't face it.'

‘Who asked you?'

‘A nurse, I think – no, the doctor – no, I don't remember. We were all very upset at the time.'

‘Did you feel pressured?'

Another noticeable pause ensued.

‘Not pressured as such. But it was clear which answer they preferred.'

She asked Andersen for the names of the doctor and the undertaker, but the woman couldn't remember either of them and promised to get back to her.

After the conversation Dicte wrote the story about the break-in at the Glass Museum and as her angle used the curator's impression that the police weren't treating it as a serious matter. Afterwards she rang the Police Federation for a comment and spoke to an obviously frustrated union representative. It was the same old story, only worse now that the Police Reform had entered its implementation phase. The reform – which involved moving 800 police men and women out of offices and on to the beat, and making the police more streamlined and efficient by simplifying its procedures – had so far created nothing but chaos. The Copenhagen Police alone had more than 44,000 open cases and the average time for processing a criminal case had now reached 458 days. A survey showed that more than half the officers across Denmark were considering leaving the force.

‘And when you do finally catch a criminal, they can't appear before a court because the courts are too busy. It's highly unsatisfactory,' said the spokesperson, Otto Ring.

She would have liked to speak to the Justice Minister for a comment; instead she had to leave a message with her questions and hope that someone would get back to her before the deadline. If they did, her story might be upgraded to the front page with a link to the crime section.

She leaned back in her chair, looked across the office and concluded that the problems faced by the police weren't dissimilar to those faced by the press. There was rarely time to work in depth, and more and more tasks were shouldered by fewer and fewer people. In today's vocabulary it was known as ‘adapting to a new reality'. In the old days they would have called it ‘cuts'. Once upon a time newspapers had room for unusual and eccentric journalists, those who might not submit very many stories but would make an impact through sheer force of personality.

She looked at Holger and Helle, both tapping away at their keyboards. Cecilie was filing her nails during a telephone conversation. They were okay. But that was all they were. None of them would ever win prizes or become legends. The age of legends was over. It was now the age of facts and figures, and all in the name of efficiency.

She got up, went over to the window and looked down at the street, where people in summer clothes milled past Telefontorvet and up Frederiksgade. It was a long time since the thought had last crossed her mind, but occasionally she would stop and wonder if this was the life she wanted and whether she even fitted in to it.

‘I'll be back in a little while. I'll transfer my phone.'

She threw the information out into the room and everyone nodded without hearing. She had to get out, even though she had so little time. Journalists had to live in the present, but where was that? At the hospital, where they clamoured for your body even after your death? At the stadium, where you risked ending up as a deboned corpse? Or at large in the city? How much time did reporters spend in the real world? The stories they published were mainly received over the telephone or in press briefings, although the journalists were physically present in he centre of town. Sometimes, though, you needed inspiration; sometimes you had to get a sense of perspective, and she knew there were links she had overlooked. She closed the door behind her and wandered out into the summer.

Dicte walked down to Aarhus River and Immervad and onwards across Lille Torv, where Ida Marie's travel agency was located. She wondered briefly whether she should pop in, but their friendship had soured recently. It was as if they were distancing themselves from each other, she and Ida Marie, due to the potential conflicts of interest between Dicte's work and Wagner's. And she and Anne – well, she had to face it: Anne had pulled away. She rarely called and when she did it was only brief. Nor did she invite them over and Dicte, in return, held back out of a fear of rejection. Anne seemed stressed and hostile, and perhaps Torsten had something to do with it.

She decided not to fret about her friends any further. Their time would come again. Instead, her conversation with Marie Gejl Andersen blurred with her two encounters at the hospital with Boutrup and became a song about life and death and the accompanying fears. And in the middle of it all there was the late Mette Mortensen, whose body had been cruelly mutilated. She also thought of Rose. What would it be like if someone did that to your child? What would be worse: the loss itself or the manner of it?

She had reached Pustervig and walked down the cobbles in Rosengade.

There were so many kinds of death. If you didn't know how to enjoy life, you could end up a zombie. Most people had a choice: you could let others eat you up or you could decide that your body and soul belonged to you alone.

In Mejlgade she stopped in front of the building where Frederik Winkler lived. She was about to walk through to the courtyard when she saw him walking towards her carrying two full shopping bags.

‘Dicte Svendsen?'

The man stared at her.

‘Are you looking for me?'

She nodded, aware of the many questions she had for the man who had once played football with a son who now preferred a very different game.

‘Is it all right if I come in?'

He looked at her as though he could see their kinship with the naked eye.

‘Of course. You look as if you've seen a ghost.'

She smiled wryly.

‘Perhaps I have.'

The cat purred loudly to welcome her as it rubbed itself up against them.

‘Let's go into the living room. Just let me put my shopping in the fridge. Cup of coffee?'

‘Only if you're making one for yourself.'

He disappeared into the kitchen.

‘I can't live without coffee,' he muttered and she heard him clattering about with water, a kettle and mugs.

He soon returned to the living room, this time with everything on a tray where he had also placed a plate of chocolate biscuits. She took one to be polite as the cat settled down on her lap.

‘Fire away,' he said after his first mouthful of coffee, placing the mug on the tiled coffee table.

‘This group of young people we're talking about. Including your own son …'

She looked at him expecting a reaction, but none came. ‘Do you think they might be mixed up in something criminal? Organised crime of some sort? A business, perhaps?'

Winkler considered the question carefully. Here is a father, she thought, a parent who lives his life as his son's enemy, as someone who is out to get him. Somehow she felt at home in this place where love between parents and children was not an automatic assumption.

‘What makes you think that?'

‘An inmate in the new East Jutland State Prison told me as much.'

He reached for the mug and cradled it, as if to warm himself, even though the room was already hot.

‘I've thought about it, but I've never been able to prove anything,' he said eventually. ‘Some of them have jobs; others are on benefits. But they've a lot of money to splash about. My son, for example, has paid off most of the mortgage on his flat in Jægergårdsgade and the money has to come from somewhere.'

He flung up his arms, spilling coffee in the process.

‘It's not unlikely that they're doing something illegal, but in that case I think they're working for others.'

‘Why?'

He shrugged. His hair seemed unwashed, and he wore the same waistcoat and shirt as at their previous meeting. He fixed his eyes on her and she detected sadness, but also a certain amount of disquiet.

‘It takes more than raw muscle to be a kingpin if you want to make real money out of crime,' she said. ‘I'm not saying they're idiots, but I think their focus is on ideology. What sort of crime could it be? Drugs is the most obvious, I suppose. Or some other kind of smuggling?'

He nodded. ‘Don't forget they also have to fund their propaganda activities. There might be a completely different side to them, or to some of them. Yes, that does sound likely,' he said and added, ‘but whatever it is they're very discreet. They're under a fair amount of surveillance by PET, though I don't suppose even they have the resources to monitor them twenty-four-seven.'

She stroked the cat. Her lap was getting too warm but she didn't have the heart to push it away.

‘You hear about bikie gangs controlling the drugs trade,' she said. ‘And most recently immigrant gangs, at least in Copenhagen. I wonder if there's room for any more?'

He shook his head, doubtful.

‘That's a good question. Maybe it's something completely different.'

‘A new commodity? Not your usual drugs or cigarettes or girls, but something entirely different?' She was briefly tempted to tell him everything and benefit from his experience as a parent and all the things they now had in common. But she was only tempted for a second, then she turned her attention back to his answer.

‘A need arises and the criminals seem to spot it before we do. A demand for something we didn't even know we wanted. The criminal underworld is extremely good at supplying something we suddenly feel we can't live without.'