Next of Kin
Authors: Elsebeth Egholm
NEXT OF KIN
ELSEBETH EGHOLM
Elsebeth Egholm is a Danish author and journalist. Her acclaimed first novel,
The Free Women's Club
, was published in Denmark in 1999, followed by
Scirocco
and
Opium
. In 2002 Egholm introduced Danish readers to heroine Dicte Svendsen, a journalist from Aarhus, and there are now six novels in this best-selling series.
Translation rights to the series have been sold in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Norway, Iceland and France. Miso Film is currently filming the series for broadcast on Scandinavian television.
Elsebeth Egholm lives in Aarhus, Denmark.
Also by Elsebeth Egholm
and coming soon from Pier 9
Life and Limb
Originally published in Denmark as
Nærmeste pårørende
by Gyldendal, Copenhagen in 2006 First English-language edition published in Australia in 2011 by Pier 9, an imprint of Murdoch Books Pty Limited
Murdoch Books Australia
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Phone:Â
+61 (0) 2 8425 0100
Fax: +61 (0) 2 9906 2218
www.murdochbooks.com.au
[email protected]
English-language edition
Publisher: Colette Vella
Editor: Roberta Ivers
Project editors: Elena Gomez, Sarah Hazelton
Production: Renee Melbourne
Copyright © Elsebeth Egholm 2006
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Translation copyright © Don Bartlett & Charlotte Barslund 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
A catalogue record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia
eISBN: 9781742665368
To Flemming
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They had been waiting for her as though she were a royal bride late for her own wedding, but there was no Princess Mary inside the white van from the bomb disposal unit. Nor was there anything remotely glamorous about the green and yellow robot on wheels, known as Marie, which, after several false starts, rolled sedately down the ramp.
âSod it. I can't see a thing.'
Dicte could clearly hear Bo muttering to himself as he darted in and out of the crowd hunting for a good camera angle. Everyone held their breath. Silence had descended over this pocket of Aarhus, in stark contrast to a few seconds before when light-hearted comments had been flying through the air like popcorn: âJust some kids messing about', âRidiculous. Who would want to bomb this place?' âBet someone just forgot their luggage.'
It was all on her notepad, plus an interview with the man whose car was closest to the suitcase. For a moment she wondered if such comments might be a kind of hubris and whether the gods would retaliate, the bomb exploding among them causing death and injury, just like in London, a pressure wave devastating the whole area. She forced these thoughts out of her mind, away from everything that was urgent now, everything she needed to observe and describe with the utmost objectivity: the robot approaching the blue nylon suitcase at a snail's pace; the police requests to the public to move further away from the red and white tape, already eighty metres from the bag; the re-directed city buses picking up passengers in the adjacent street; commuters from the train station using the Bruuns Bro entrance rather than the main one. It all needed covering.
The robot had now reached the suitcase. Bo was right. It was hard to see what was going on when you were so far away, but then again the press wasn't allowed to cross the cordon for obvious reasons. She knew Bo wouldn't be happy about that, accustomed as he was to bullets whizzing past his ears in war zones all over the world. He felt marginalised when he couldn't charm or blag his way to the front.
She watched him standing and arguing vehemently with a police officer. He waved his press card in the air, but to no avail. Bo took his place against the tape, stretching it as far as he could.
Then came the bang and the whole crowd recoiled. Dicte's ears rang and she dropped her notepad and her pen, which rolled between the feet of the onlookers closest to her. She bent down and searched for it in the confusion. A sports shoe shifted, crushing it, and blue ink ran out onto the grey tarmac. She straightened up and closed her eyes. For a moment she was transported back one year in time, to the very second when she had taken aim and felt the weight of the gun in her tremulous, wavering hands, knowing that the next second would change her life forever.
âAre you okay? You've gone all white.'
Bo put an arm around her shoulder. She wanted to run away. To reassure him that she didn't need help. For God's sake, it was only a shot fired by the robot into the innocuous-looking suitcase. No bombs. No terrorists. No danger in peaceful old Aarhus. False alarm.
Dicte avoided his gaze and nodded, but she knew he understood. That was the problem. He knew her so well.
Bo led her away from the crowd, down to the car, which he had left on Park Allé. His press ID on the windscreen had been joined by a parking ticket.
âBollocks.'
She wanted to quip something smart, about everyone being equal in the sight of the law, to which he would reply that some are more equal than others. But she said nothing.
âYou can phone in the rest, can't you?'
She nodded again, then called Rose to make sure that she was all right. Rumours spread like wildfire through this city. An empty suitcase soon became packed with plastic explosives. If you were nineteen years old and had only just left home, you would be uneasy. But true to form, her sensible daughter had tried to calm her down.
âSo you'll phone it in?' Bo asked once more when she had finished speaking. âWe're not going to the police station?'
âNope. We're going to the office. I haven't even had time to check my mail today.'
She couldn't be bothered going to the police. The traffic was chaotic now. It might take them half an hour to drive and her legs wouldn't take her there. Besides, she had enough on her notepad for a seven-screen article and all she needed was a final comment from the police about the day when international terrorism hadn't come to Aarhus after all.
Bo started the car and they had got as far as Mølleparken when Davidsen rang her on her mobile.
âBack you go. A suspicious suitcase has been spotted in Langenæsalle. The robot's on its way,' his voice said in her ear, which was still buzzing from the bang.
Bo looked at her. âWhat's up?'
Bombs, real or not, were not her strong point and Rose's words echoed through her brain: âYou'll be fine, Mum. Nothing's going to happen.'
âWe'd better turn around,' she said to Bo.
It was nine in the evening when they finally got back to the newspaper offices in Frederiksgade. The suitcase in Langenæsalle had met with the same fate as the one in the square outside the train station. The robot had fired a shot and it had sprung open, revealing yet another empty interior.
Dicte sat down and switched on her computer while Bo disappeared behind his screen to write captions for his best photos of the day.
It was only now that she was aware of the silence. Not an external silence, but a feeling of emptiness that had taken up residence inside her all day. She knew where it was coming from. Anne was going with her husband and son to live in Greenland for at least a year. Anne, who was her compass; whom she'd known since they met on a university preparation course in the seventies: two shipwrecked souls searching for someone to cling to. Dicte had been forced out of her home by parents who loved Jehovah more than their own child; Anne, with her slanted eyes and dark skin, adopted by a vicar, unloved by her father. They had lashed themselves to each other and stuck together through crises, divorces and illnesses. They knew each other's flaws and strengths, knew their way into each other's minds. How on earth would she manage for so long without Anne?
Exhaustion spread through Dicte's body as she leafed through her notes and tried to focus on her work. She had a sudden urge to run to Anne's. Away from bomb scares and terrorist threats.
One whole year, she thought, forcing herself to concentrate. She started writing while her thoughts whirled. It's only a year, she coaxed herself. But what if Anne really enjoyed working as a midwife in Nuuk? Anders might find peace with his music and his sensitive mind, and perhaps Jacob might grow to love his new school. They might never come back.
It was just too depressing. She shut it all away in a box inside her mind and locked it tight. It wasn't the end of the world, and she still had Bo. Love was there, even though at times it could be hard to locate. But then Bo was a completely different type of compass, with a more erratic needle.
Dicte created files, sorted through her notes and rang the duty officer at the police station. An hour and a half later the articles were in place with front-page links, human interest stories and a fact file about the robot and its long career as an electronic sniffer dog.
She had just hit send when Bo appeared in the doorway, his hair tamed into a ponytail, his long body leaning against the door frame like a cowboy exhausted after three days in the saddle.
âWant a drink?'
âHmmm.' She nodded as her eyes drank him in. She was still bewildered by her attraction to this man with whom she had been sharing her home and bed for three more or less continuous years.
âWater? Coke? Beer? Champagne?'
âChinese tea.'
She said it mainly to wind him up and noted the irritation in his movements as he swung into action and strolled towards the kitchen. The correct reply might have been Jack on the rocks or Mojitos, but this was neither Phnom Penh nor Cuba, nor wherever else he used to hang out. This was Aarhus, Jutland, and even though it was late summer, the rain was coming down in buckets. She needed something hot. Bo, she thought. But tea first.
âIt's in the cupboard next to the coffee maker,' she called out after him and received a grunt in response..
The comforting clatter of Bo's tea-making accompanied the sound of envelopes being torn open as Dicte saw to the day's post, twelve hours late.
It was the usual silly season stuff. A couple of press releases about weekend activities for children and an invitation to a floral display in Aarhus Old Town. There was also a white padded envelope addressed to the editorial office c/o Dicte Svendsen, with the word Personal heavily underlined.
âWhat's that?' Bo put a mug of tea down on her desk and cracked open a frothy can of beer. He took a swig.
âNo idea.' She turned the small parcel over a few times.
âSender's address?'
âNo.'
She thought about letter bombs and immediately felt foolish. All this talk of terrorism. It was too easy to panic.
She tore open the flap. There was a CD inside. No letter, nothing. Dicte sat holding it in her hand, carefully, as though it might blow up in her face.
Bo raised an eyebrow. âPerhaps it's a virus bomb?'
âMight be, but we've got anti-virus software, haven't we?'
He shrugged. Dicte considered her options, but her hand was governed by curiosity. Before she knew it the CD was in the drive of her computer.
âWhat's the worst that can happen?'
As she spoke, a film came onto the screen. The scene was a Danish summer and she could almost breathe in the post-rain aroma of flowers. Everything was as lush as the Garden of Eden; grass and bushes and trees whose colours merged in every shade of green. There was a tree stump flanked by two posts. The camera zoomed in on the stump. Its surface was clean, bright and even. Then the camera seemed to tilt slightly and there was a pause before a new scene emerged. It was the same garden. The same tree stump. But suddenly a figure lay across it, head on the block. It was a man. His muscular arms were forced to the sides, tied to the two posts in the grass. The figure was writhing and struggling to get free, but to no avail.
âWhat the hell?'
Bo's voice expressed shock. He stood bent over her and his words sent a current of warm air down the back of her neck. Dicte wanted to press stop, yet couldn't, and didn't know why.
Now a second figure was stepping in front of the camera. It was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman. The shape was shrouded in a black gown. Narrow slits for the eyes. Middle Eastern, Dicte wondered. North African, perhaps?
Then she heard herself gasp as a sabre-like object was swung over the head of the bound man. She watched and yet saw nothing. Her eyesight refused to cooperate and she stared at the screen as though hypnotised.
âJesus Christ,' muttered Bo, his fingers digging into her shoulder. âTurn that shit off.'
But she didn't. And nor did he.
Afterwards, when the blood had stopped spurting, and the body had ceased to convulse, and the sabreâafter several hacksâhad severed the man's head, only then did Dicte turn away and vomit all over the carpet.