Life and Limb (22 page)

‘S
eriously? That angle is useless.'

Dicte scrolled down the article about East Jutland State Prison on the screen.

‘Social workers are “guilt-ridden liberals” and prison guards know “what reality is” and work in a “mentally exhausting environment which obviously affects them.”'

She looked up at Holger Søborg, whose lips were pursed into a thin line.

‘Am I to understand that it's permissible to act like a state within a state because you're dealing with hardened criminals? I need more sources and more depth.'

Holger turned his back on her and started flicking through the newspapers on the table. Helle typed away and pretended not to have pricked up her ears. Davidsen had appeared for once and was on the telephone while Cecilie was lying on the floor practising her back exercises, which bore a close resemblance to foreplay. Perhaps Dicte should have spoken to Søborg in private, but he would never have shown her the same courtesy. Old grudges from the days when Holger and Cecilie had worked their socks off and he had put his byline on Cecilie's stories sometimes reared their ugly heads.

‘There wasn't time to do much research,' Holger sulked. ‘We're behind with our stories and, you know, people are really reluctant to go on record.'

‘Because they're afraid of the consequences? But that's understandable. Perhaps that was the angle you should have approached it from? That there's a tyranny of silence within the prison. The law of the jungle applies just as much to the people who guard the inmates as it does to the criminal underworld. Isn't that the real story?'

She said this because Bo had long since given her his version of the prison visit. Holger had been mesmerised by the latest technology in the country's most secure unit and awestruck at the prison officers who reigned in such a place, whereas Bo had got a different impression, even though he'd had to leave his camera behind most of the time and had only been given very limited permission to take pictures.

Bo had found an opportunity to talk to the inmates, had mentioned Peter Boutrup's name and learned that he was in the notorious C block, where nobody wanted to be because brutal prison officers ran the block with an iron fist.

‘And another thing,' said Dicte, who had called the prison governor following Bo's comments. ‘Back in March there was an incident which says a lot about the state of the prison. A paedophile who had been moved to the most secure unit, E block, for his own safety was found battered and bruised in his cell, apparently attacked by two members of a bikie gang.'

Holger just stared at her with jaw agape.

‘Only prison officers had access to that cell. Someone had left the door open so the bikies could go in. A little curiosity from your side could have uncovered that story. Or don't you think it's worth writing about? Do you think it's acceptable to be punished twice for having sex with little girls?'

She could tell from Holger's face that he was struggling to find the words. But the words were queued up, that much was obvious. Unfortunately it was just as obvious that he didn't take his job as a reporter very seriously: his article limped along like a lame horse.

She wrote down names and numbers of sources, ranging from the Prison Officers' Union to the Probation Service, whom he ought to have contacted before writing the article.

‘Who's responsible here? Where are the cracks in the system? If you really want to write a story about the conditions and the working environment in the prison then at least do your homework first.'

The hatred in the glare she received was unmistakable. Not for the first time she wondered whether or not being the editor of the crime section was worth the hassle. She had been sent threats by people who felt they had been exposed or misrepresented – sadly, hate mail was par for the course. But resentment within her own ranks was almost worse.

She closed the article and left Holger to be Holger. She hadn't had time to follow up the story about the melted glass eyes or to explore the possible right-wing connection with organised crime. There had only been time to work on features for the weekly crime section. In addition, the hospital had rung to say she had an appointment with the transplant nurse the following day.

She rolled her swivel chair away from the desk and walked down the corridor to the photo lab, where Bo was hiding from the rest of the staff.

‘Tell me more.'

He looked up from the screen, which displayed photos of the prison.

‘What do you want to know?'

‘Everything you can't tell by looking. The mood. The things people didn't say. The culture, if you like.'

‘Anything about Peter Boutrup?'

He spoke carefully, as if afraid of offending her.

She nodded.

‘What do they say about him? The others? Did you form an impression of him?'

‘Not an unequivocal one.'

She had sat down on a chair opposite him when he suddenly leaned forward and stared hard at her.

‘You need to remain detached. I know it's hard, but you have to try.'

She responded by blinking. It was all she could do because she knew that he had kept something back from her, but she hadn't dared ask him what it was until now.

He held her gaze for a long time before letting go.

‘Okay,' he said. ‘He would appear to be respected both by the prisoners and the prison officers. And also a little feared.'

‘But he's ill. Why would anyone be scared of him?'

‘Illness doesn't turn people into better versions of themselves. In a prison like that there are those who are strong and those who are weak. The strong aren't necessarily physically stronger. Their strength could be their knowledge of the others, or because they have contacts the others don't.'

‘Drugs?'

Bo shrugged.

‘No idea. It could be lots of things. Not necessarily something illegal.'

‘So what is it?'

‘He's dangerous and capable of manipulating absolutely everyone. He pits people against each other for his own personal gain. Prisoners
and
prison officers. I don't think you'll ever find Peter Boutrup beaten to a pulp in his cell. There's something about him. No one would ever risk it. Not even the bikies, if they got the chance.'

Bo searched among the papers on the worktop. In the meantime she asked herself what Boutrup really knew about the stadium murder. Bo might be right when he said Boutrup could be mixed up in it – possibly even be a major player. She didn't know what it was yet but something was going on in that prison, Boutrup was involved, and he could help her solve the case.

‘Here, I've got something for you.'

Bo handed her a scrap of paper on which there was a long number.

‘What is it?'

‘It's a Polish mobile number. The woman whose husband was found killed at Lublin Stadium. She'd like to talk to you.'

‘Have you been in touch with her?'

He shook his head.

‘I spoke to my colleague in Poland thirty minutes ago and got the number.'

She wanted to ask what the actual reason had been, although she knew what was coming next.

‘I'm flying to Warsaw tomorrow morning with Jan Nielsen. We're doing a series of articles about Poles who go west to find jobs in the building trade. We'll also be visiting Lublin.'

She wanted to say something nice but couldn't think of anything other than, ‘How long for?'

‘Four days. Do you think we'll survive?'

‘Of course.'

She hated it when he was away, and he knew it. She also hated herself for feeling like this and always tried – but never successfully – to hide it. In those two little words, ‘of course', even she could hear jealousy and her reluctance to let him go.

She unfolded the note again and looked at the number while cursing her own complex nature. Sometimes she would get irritated and withdraw for periods, but she couldn't manage without him.

She closed the note again, squeezing it harder than she intended.

‘Thanks for this. I presume the woman speaks English.'

He smiled.

‘I imagine so. She's a language teacher at Lublin Business School.'

It wasn't until they had put the crime section to bed much later, and she had read every story and reluctantly praised Holger Søborg for the new version of the prison feature, that she pulled out the number from her jeans pocket. Bo had gone to say goodbye to his children, so she went to the photo lab to make the call in private. Without quite knowing where it would take her, she keyed in the number and was soon greeted by a female voice so clear it sounded as if the woman was sitting right next to her.

She introduced herself in English.

‘My name's Petra,' the woman replied in a friendly voice. Her English was easy to understand. ‘I've been expecting your call.'

A short pause followed.

‘I'm very sorry about your husband,' Dicte said.

It felt strange to offer condolences for a death that had taken place years ago. But Petra Jakobowski sounded sincere when she said, ‘Thank you so much. It was a very difficult time for me and all of my family.'

Dicte cleared her throat.

‘I understand. As you may be aware, there has been a similar killing here – a young girl found by a stadium. The same thing happened in Pristina in Kosovo a couple of years ago.'

‘So I've heard,' the woman said. ‘And I've asked myself how I can help. The police here have visited me again and asked more questions, but I'm not sure how willing they are to reopen a cold case. I don't think they really want to get to the heart of this.'

‘And what do you think “the heart of this” is?'

Dicte sensed the woman's hesitation.

‘Am I speaking to you in a professional capacity or as a private person?'

The fear of having her name published when the killer was still at large was completely understandable. Dicte suggested that they could begin by having an informal chat, off the record.

‘I won't use any of what you say in an article – it's more background information,' she promised. ‘If I want to quote you, I'll only do so with your permission and I'll show you the copy, which will include the context in which the quotes will appear.'

That did the trick. The tone of Jakobowski's voice was notably lighter as she thanked her.

‘I have to be careful,' she said. ‘I hope you understand.'

‘Of course. I should have made it clear from the start. Was your husband mixed up in anything dangerous? Did he have contacts in the criminal fraternity?'

A hollow laugh rang out from the other end of the line.

‘Many people in Poland do. It's a way of life. That's how we get what we need beyond the bare necessities. There's a black market here for almost everything, even all these years after the fall of communism.'

‘Do you think your husband's death was in any way related to that – racketeering? And, if so, what were they trading in?'

‘People,' the woman declared, her voice harsh again.

‘Human trafficking?' Dicte said, thinking of women from poor countries being sold into prostitution in the West.

She heard the woman in Lublin hesitate.

‘I don't know, but I don't think so. All I know is that prior to his death, Miro had been acting strangely and dropping hints about some of the organisations he was working with. Especially a private hospital. They wanted him to sign off some death certificates in his capacity as a medical officer, but he was unable to vouch for the cause of death. He never got to the bottom of it and he was very troubled.'

Dicte thought long and hard before asking her next question.

‘Do you know if he had a theory as to what the problem was?'

There was another significant pause, and the woman's anxiety could be clearly heard all the way down the phone line.

‘He believed that the patients there must have been exposed to some sort of unauthorised procedure, one which resulted in several deaths over a certain period.'

‘What was the cause of death? What kind of surgery had they had?'

Jakobowski chose to answer the second question first and, again, not without some hesitation.

‘Various forms of minor surgery. Often knees and jaws. Surgery that shouldn't go wrong – low risk. Inserting a new piece of cartilage, reconstructing a damaged jaw, skin grafts and so on.'

Dicte took notes and also had her tape recorder switched on. She looked at the words she had jotted down and she understood less and less.

‘And the causes of death?' she tried again.

‘Everything from rampant infections to full-blown AIDS.'

‘A
nd she's his mother?'

Janos Kempinski looked at Inger Hørup, who was the hospital's most senior transplant nurse and, in that capacity, usually met potential donors.

‘So he says.'

‘She's coming in at two o'clock. I called her yesterday. She didn't sound as if she had thought it through properly yet, so I intend to question her decision. If, indeed, she has made one.'

‘You don't think so?'

Hørup shook her head. They were sitting in her office, from which post she supervised the order of battle, also when a cadaveric donor suddenly became available and the entire team needed coordinating to ensure that everyone was in the right place at the right time. Everyone respected her, even the most arrogant of the thoracic surgeons.

‘Boutrup is up to something, but I can't put my finger on what it is and whether or not he's pressuring her into something she isn't ready for. I don't think she was ever any sort of mother to him.'

Kempinski nodded.

‘He told me he was adopted. He might have only made contact with her in order to get her kidney.'

They left that one hanging in the air, and he knew that they both felt the unease hovering in the room like cigarette smoke.

‘If she says she's prepared to do it, though, there's probably nothing we can do but accept,' the nurse said. ‘If it turns out she's a match.'

He sat for a while staring into space while his discomfort grew. Boutrup was a fascinating man and Kempinski was intrigued by his paradoxical personality. But he didn't trust him.

‘How can we be sure that no money is involved?'

‘We can't. But I don't think there is. I think it's more of a mind game.'

‘You mean he's exploiting her sense of guilt? Because she gave him up for adoption?'

Hørup hunched her shoulders.
She
is
a beautiful woman
, he thought. Big in many ways, but also very feminine in a way that inspired trust. If donors or their families felt secure enough to voice their doubts, she was the right person in whom to confide.

‘I'd be very surprised if this is a first,' she said. ‘Children, including adult children, can wield fiendish power over their parents with just the tiniest amount of guilt, and most parents feel that.'

‘A sense of guilt?'

He knew nothing of that. There were times when not having had children precluded him from understanding certain situations, and this was one of them. Perhaps that had to change?

He stood up.

‘But you'll make sure to give her a way out, won't you?

Hørup nodded.

‘We always do. You know that.'

He looked at his watch as he walked down the corridor. It was the day of the week when they removed live donor kidneys, and the schedule was tight. Even so, he allowed himself to indulge in the euphoria that had consumed him and the concomitant floating feeling. Not even the conversation with Annelise, when he had ended their relationship and told her honestly that he was in love with someone else, could ruin his mood. She hadn't taken it well, but it was done and dusted. From now on, he would look only to the future.

He had no time to spare and still he let himself be drawn in the direction of his office. His pulse started to beat faster. He smiled to himself. He was a doctor and accustomed to registering the body's reactions as pure biology, but the last few days had taught him that there was another dimension, beyond interpretation, and he had no desire to dissect it – he who up until now had always had the urge to find rational reasons for everything betwixt heaven and earth.

It had started the evening they'd had dinner together. He wondered briefly what he should call it – the word ‘affair' didn't cover it and also carried a hint of something that wasn't beautiful, as this relationship was. ‘Love affair' might be better. Wasn't that what they were having?

He had driven her home after the meal in the restaurant. ‘Beautiful' was exactly the right word. It had all been so easy; he saw that now with hindsight. She had made it so. Easy and natural. Miraculously, she had made his awkwardness and shyness disappear, and she had taken care of them both as effortlessly as putting a plaster on a bleeding finger or a bandage on a grazed knee. She had fixed a plaster on his soul right where it hurt most, where the pain and the yearning for her tenderness were greatest.

It was a miracle. That sort of thing could not be understood.

This was what he was thinking as he passed the bathroom near his office and heard strange sounds coming from behind the door. It sounded like sobbing, so he opened the door carefully and saw her bent over the sink with the tap running. Her body was contracting in spasm after spasm.

‘Lena.'

He said it tentatively and at first she didn't react at all, then she straightened a little and stood for a moment, staring at herself in the mirror, before she started to cry again.

‘Lena. What's wrong?'

She spun around. She looked as if she was trying to focus on him but couldn't. She blinked. The tears rolled from her eyes and the shininess of them made them look as if they were swimming towards him. He stepped forward and took her in his arms.

‘My love. What is it? Tell me, please.'

She felt so frail against his body and the tenderness welled up in him in a way he had never known before. He had time to think,
It is like that with her
. Everything seemed so new and untried.

‘It's nothing,' she sobbed. ‘Nothing.'

He held her in front of him and there was so much he wanted to say; he ended up looking into her eyes. Then he realised.

‘What's wrong with your eyes? What did the ophthalmologist say?'

She pulled away from him, beyond his reach, and he knew that from this moment on everything would be changed.

‘I should have told you that day. The first day,' she said softly. ‘But I couldn't. It seemed so … unreal.'

‘Told me what?'

She filled her lungs with air. He could see that from the way her chest heaved and sank, and he knew she was summoning up the courage.

‘My corneas are deteriorating. My eyes can't filter the light.'

He didn't say anything.

She continued, ‘I'm going blind.'

His immediate reaction was to move towards her and embrace her again, but he was scared. There was something about her – her pride – that kept him at bay.

‘It hurts so much,' she continued. ‘The light. It hurts so much.'

Her voice cut him all the way to his heart. She stood all alone and seemed utterly isolated in the room. He thought he could hear a faint echo, which merely served to underscore her fear and loneliness.

‘Can't anything be done? Can't the ophthalmologist help?'

She nodded, shrugging at the same time and turning to tear paper tissue from the dispenser. She dabbed her eyes carefully.

‘He says we must hope that new corneas become available. But it's difficult, he says. The waiting list is long. Few people donate corneas.'

She stopped. Her eyes met his, and he saw they were still watering and he suddenly knew that this was because of the light. He reached out for the switch and flicked it off, and they stood in twilight. Perhaps that was why she found the courage to come closer; at any rate she pressed her face into his chest.

‘Sometimes I just want to bury myself in darkness,' she mumbled. ‘Just close my eyes and keep the light out.'

He kissed her and held her tight.

‘We'll get through this, I promise you. We'll think of something.'

‘Do you think so?'

Her doubt was heartbreaking. Somewhere an alarm bell went off but he ignored it; he knew he would do anything for her.

‘It's not just something I think. It's something I know,' he said, without knowing anything.