Next of Kin (16 page)

Later she would finish an article about tsunami victims and their traumas which she should have finished ages ago. She called her source, a psychologist, and asked to be put in touch with someone who had personally experienced the tidal wave. The psychologist called back ten minutes later and informed her that she would be contacted and it would probably be possible to arrange a meeting that same afternoon. It meant postponing a planned visit to Kaspar Friis, whom she had tracked down to an address in Ikast. Perhaps she needed some time to think, considering Bo's outburst.

Was he right? Was she on an ego trip? She asked herself the real reason why she hadn't simply told Wagner everything about the tattoo, and her past and her link to the commune in Ikast back in the seventies. Why did she have such an aversion to sharing her past? Was it shame? Guilt?

She came to the conclusion that it was just an intuition. Some kind of instinct, perhaps. And no matter how much she fought it and refused to accept it, this instinct brought her closer and closer to agreeing with Bo. It was about the baby, too. She didn't quite know how, but she couldn't help feeling there was some connection which kept tugging at her and, if she didn't watch out, might end up dragging her down.

When the telephone rang, the sound cut right into her nervous system and at first she almost dropped the receiver onto her desk before she grabbed it.

It was a woman who had survived the tsunami. Yes, she was prepared to meet and talk about how important it was to meet other survivors. They agreed to meet the following day.

As she hung up she detected a faint crackle on the line. She was probably being paranoid. Those days were long gone when you could hear anything, she knew that. Still, she was in absolutely no doubt that PET was tapping her phone.

The doctor's waiting room in Aabyhøj resembled Cairo airport.

Rose lowered the newspaper and discreetly scanned the patients, roughly half of whom were foreign. There were three women, two quite voluminous, covered with scarves and long coats, each with their silent baby. The third was a sophisticated-looking, dark-skinned woman in a tweed suit with long, red nails. Her beauty—her seductive eyes and slightly oblong face—emerged from beneath even heavy make-up. A large, narrow nose lent her an aura of pride and confidence which many Danish women would have envied.

There were also three men. Two of them Turkish from their appearance, with grey skin from too much nicotine; one had a bad cough and was as thin as the cigarettes he must have smoked eighty of every day. The other, a small round man wearing threadbare brown trousers and a patterned cardigan of doubtful origin, had a huge bandage around the forefinger of his left hand. The third man, a youth, couldn't have been more than eighteen years old. He was wearing a black tracksuit with stripes down the arms and legs, a hood and heavy rubber shoes. He sat bent over, with elbows resting on parted knees, his eyes alternately darting around the room and studying his hands with chewed off fingernails.

Rose stopped when the young man looked at her, feeling immediately nervous. Anger followed close after. It wasn't right. She shouldn't have to be frightened of every single foreign face in town. She tried to calm herself down. It was an open sore now. All the things she'd tried to put in a sensible, realistic light came thundering towards her: Did any of those waiting know anything? Did anyone know her or Aziz? It didn't seem possible to her, but after what happened in Bruuns Galleri it wasn't so far-fetched. They had enemies in the immigrant quarter; she knew that for certain now. Her sense that the whole thing would blow over, and they didn't need to be careful, had been exploded like a balloon straying too close to a candle. Aziz had been right.

She put her hand to her mouth and chewed her thumbnail, which was already frayed. She hadn't told Aziz about the warning on the escalator. She hadn't been able to find the right words because the potential consequences had begun to take on gigantic proportions in her brain. She had just won him back and couldn't imagine how it would feel to let go, for she knew Aziz now. He would be fierce. He would cut her out of his life instantly and tell himself it was for the best and for her own protection.

She was hot in her jacket, so she pulled it off, hung it on the overloaded hat stand and returned to her paper. The whole room exuded sweat and cheap perfume mixed with typical medical smells: iodine and surgical spirit. Her stomach was on the point of rebelling and she doggedly tried to concentrate on the newspaper, but there was little comfort for her in the columns.
Ekstra Bladet
carried the story of another beheading, this time in England, which might have occurred at the same time as the one on Samsø. It was revealed for the first time that behind these actions lay demands for harsher sentences for criminals. The executioners who so nonchalantly took others' lives wanted to draw attention to the fact that western legal systems were not in a position to deliver justice. Were it up to them, the death penalty would be brought back.

Rose squirmed on the uncomfortable chair. How was this going to turn out? How was it going to end?

The doctor came out with a patient, another woman with a small child.

‘Rose Svendsen.'

She got to her feet and went in. They shook hands and she sat down.

‘And you would like to talk about contraception,' the doctor said, consulting her papers. She peered up.

‘What had you in mind?'

The question was asked with a smile, as though she could take her pick from all the shelves in the supermarket. Rose almost began to wonder what the offer of the day was.

‘The pill, or the coil, maybe.'

The doctor launched into a lengthy discussion on the pros and cons of particular contraceptives. Rose's mind went into a spin. They hadn't used anything. Of course, it had been totally irresponsible, they both knew that. There was no excuse, other than it had just happened like that, and it had been impossible to control, but she could hardly tell the doctor that.

In the end she left with a prescription for the mini-pill.

It was the same at the chemist's. A motley group of dark-skinned people interspersed with pale Danes. Who were friends and who were enemies? Rose groped for the bulky tear-gas spray in her pocket, feeling ridiculously vulnerable because she was scared of a couple of mothers in Muslim dress with slumbering babies and an old man in slippers who sat muttering and moving a rosary between bony fingers.

It was no good. She couldn't live like this, and neither could Aziz.

‘Rose Svendsen.'

Once again her name was called out publicly, and terror shot through her. She didn't want to live her life like this. If she wanted to be able to live with Aziz without fear, she needed to take action.

She took her contraceptive pills and left. As she did so, she thought she could feel their eyes on her, so she straightened up and held her head high.

Perhaps she had to resolve this situation herself. A curse lay over Aziz and thus over her, too. There had to be a way of lifting the curse.

Kaspar Gefion Friis lived alone in an abandoned smallholding in the region immediately beyond Funder Downs.

A musician, Dicte had read on the net. She had found 145 hits on Google. He had dropped out of a teacher training course and for a while had existed on the margins of the seventies rock scene. Over the years he had been loosely connected with a variety of more or less well known bands with radical political agendas and clear left-wing sympathies. From the latest information it seemed as if the politics had faded into the background over time. As far as she could ascertain, Kaspar Friis now made a living from supplying specially designed sound effects for all kinds of musical recordings, from soft pop to garage rock via folk rock to the newer, almost symphonic, styles.

Thinking back, she could recall that one of the occupants of the The Dark Tower commune had owned a collection of weird musical instruments. Not that she had really seen any of them. But she could remember unusual sounds occasionally rising from the cellar as though there were a grotesque subterranean entity down there; a creature which never saw the light of day, but which provided background music for her few but passionate meetings on top of the sunken bed in Morten's room. That is, when Morten didn't turn his stereo up loud, which he usually did.

The house was set back behind a whole little forest of tall trees, casting a shadow over it, even now when the foliage was half gone. On a warm summer's day the dense growth would no doubt provide a cool temperature indoors, but on a raw autumn day like this it looked as though a chill darkness had descended over the property. The house would probably be damp and cold inside.

Dicte parked beneath a large copper beech and got out. As she crossed to the main door, semi-feral cats with bushy tails and nervous eyes darted in all directions. In a few seconds they were all gone, under loose boards, bushes and piles of rubble. She banged on the door's old-fashioned knocker, half-afraid the door would fall in and be left hanging on its hinges. The wood looked decayed, rotten, and the grey paint was peeling off in large chunks.

She had to knock two more times before she heard any movement. Despite the information on the net she was totally unprepared for the sight that met her when the door opened.

The man standing opposite her was like something from the distant past. His face was long with deep furrows and scars, and he had gold rings in his ears and nose; his back was a little stooped, suggesting a bone disease in his early life. Lean like a junkie, he looked as though he had spent long periods in the company of something much stronger than the cigarette that was hanging from the corner of his mouth, which was perilously close to falling and plummeting to the floor. He seemed to be dressed in a wardrobe he had bought from a pensioned-off rock band: leather, denim, chains, safety pins and rivets constituted the ingredients of the composition, rounded off with skull rings and arm bracelets that resembled handcuffs.

‘Yes?'

There was an impatience about the question as he stood there, leaning against the door frame. His eyes wouldn't really focus; they wandered round the yard, flicked back to the house and finally scrutinised Dicte from top to toe before settling somewhere on her right.

‘I was just in the middle of something. Come in and wait.'

He spoke before she had a chance to answer or retrieve him from her memory. There was something familiar about him and yet there wasn't.

Then he disappeared, leaving her to stand and freeze until she pushed the door open and followed him into the shadows.

It wasn't as cold as she had anticipated. On the contrary. A wood burner was roaring away in the sitting room, radiating a sauna-like heat. Apart from the stove there wasn't much furniture. The room was spartan: only a coffee table, sofa and old-fashioned armchair. No TV, no radio, no bookshelves or cushions or other home comforts.

She followed the sounds along a corridor and then down a staircase. Back to the cellar, she thought, not without unease, as she fumbled her way into the bowels of the house with the help of a dim, naked light bulb. At the end of a dark corridor there was light under the door, which she tentatively pushed open. Kaspar Friis was sitting on what looked like a bar stool. He had headphones on and some kind of percussion instrument between his hands. From time to time he tapped it with what looked like a couple of chopsticks and a short, metallic cow-bell like sound was emitted.

She saw him register her arrival with a nod and thereafter disappear back into his world of sound. She crept in and gingerly took a seat on the edge of a soft chair. The room in the cellar seemed to be Kaspar Friis's true home. Here was everything she hadn't been able to find in the room upstairs, even a bed. It was in one corner, neatly made with a brightly coloured patchwork quilt over it, and there was also a small sofa with soft, Indian-looking cushions with inset mirrors, and small glass tea-light holders on a table. The few square metres were otherwise crammed with all sorts of weird and wonderful instruments, a TV, a mixing console and loads of cables and black boxes, which she presumed were part of an advanced sound system.

‘Who are you?' he asked after finally taking off the headphones. His voice was spent from singing a few too many rhythm 'n' blues numbers into second-rate microphones.

Dicte introduced herself and, surprisingly, his hand shot out to shake hers in greeting. She continued to stare after he had retracted it. His finger joints were swollen as if he had arthritis, but his fingers were long and slim and might have been attractive at one time.

‘Morten gave me your address.'

‘Who's Morten?'

‘Morten Agerbæk. From the Dark Tower commune.'

Kaspar sniffed the air as though he had snorted too much white powder. ‘That Morten.' He said it in a way which suggested that he remembered neither the commune nor who lived in it. ‘What's this about?'

‘Kjeld Arne Husum.'

She hurled the name at him and observed the reaction, which was minimal: a minor twitch next to one eye; a flash of disgust and an imperceptible shift away from the person who had brought the name into the house.

‘What about him?'

‘He's dead.'

He shrugged. ‘We all have to pass that way. Perhaps it was better.'

‘Why should it be better? I thought you were friends.'

‘We were once.' A sudden distrust crept into his voice. ‘Why do you go round asking folk about Kjeld Arne?'

‘I don't ask “folk”. I ask those who lived with him on the commune. You can't remember, but when I was young I was in The Dark Tower too. With Morten.'

Comprehension lit up his face. ‘One of them.'

He said it without any further elaboration and without any special nuance in his voice. Nevertheless she understood. She had been one of many. Perhaps to punish him, she told him about the execution. For the first time she detected a clear reaction as an unmistakeable fear transformed his eyes into small, black buttons, as though coming to earth from a heroin high.

‘Shit, man. Fucking shit,' he said in English. Then, a sudden attack of the shakes. He couldn't conceal it. He mumbled as his teeth chattered. ‘Pissing cold. I always bloody freeze afterwards. Goes into my bones.'

Dicte sat waiting as the shakes persisted.

‘We really went for it in those days,' he muttered. ‘Drugs and so on. It exacts its revenge.'

She sent him a quizzical look.

‘Depressions. The shakes and the sweats. A memory riddled with holes like a firing squad victim,' he said and added with a skeletal grin, ‘Now that we're on the subject of executions.' Then he repeated, ‘We all have to pass that way.'

‘Not like that, I hope.'

He didn't answer.

She wasn't sure which route to take. Then it all flooded out. ‘I was pregnant with Morten's child. I was sixteen. The child was sent for adoption.'

Was that a glint of sympathy in his eyes? She was by no means certain, but his voice moderated. The volume seemed to have been turned down a notch.

‘I always told them. The past. At some point it will come back.'

‘To haunt you?'

She almost missed his nod, so imperceptible was it. ‘What happened then, Kaspar? What happened in the commune? Were you part of it? Or were you so high you didn't notice what was going on?'

He closed his eyes, but she saw he was hurting.

‘Pain,' he mumbled. ‘Pain everywhere.'

She didn't know if he meant his immediate pain or if the word was a general description for the time he lived in The Dark Tower.

‘If you have any knowledge of wrongful doings, you have a duty to pass it on,' she said. ‘A legal duty, but most of all a moral duty.'

‘The cellar,' he said softly and opened his eyes, which were swimming. ‘The cellar.'

He jerked away from her, grabbed the headphones and put them on. She considered tearing them off him, but realised she wouldn't get any more out of Kaspar Gefion Friis at this time. He had already disappeared into his world of sound. She retreived her purse from her bag and left her card on the table on her way out.

She hadn't planned it, but the farm was only five kilometres away, and the car seemed to find its own way there.

The terrain was as flat as a pancake; soil best suited to sheep breeding. The wind could sweep mercilessly across the open countryside where there was neither valley nor hill to detain it. She remembered the end of the world feeling and her insides felt hollow. She recognised the smells and sounds and the absence of people. She remembered the loneliness.

She had grown up here. Gone to school nearby. And she had hated it and dreamed of moving away even before she was completely aware it was a dream. Restlessness crept up on her slowly, reminding her of how it was, and her first instinct was to turn around and drive back to Aarhus, to Bo and her life there. In a while, she promised herself. In a little while.

She drove into the farmyard and got out. The farm looked pretty, and she guessed it had changed hands, that now it was owned by a family who cultivated the soil as a hobby and had jobs in Ikast or Herning. She rang the doorbell and a woman of her own age opened.

‘Yes?'

Dicte, somewhat apologetically, put out a hand. ‘This is just an impulse thing,' she said with a smile. ‘I used to live here. In a commune. I wanted to see what it looked like now.'

The woman smiled. ‘I remember that there was a commune here once. That's many years ago.' She looked at Dicte and apparently made up her mind that she was harmless, so opened the door to invite her in. ‘Would you like to come in? The children are in school and I have this afternoon off.'

‘That's nice of you.'

Dicte stepped into the hall. There was a lovely smell of newly planed floors and baking.

‘Oh, my goodness. The buns! Just a moment.'

The woman rushed off, and Dicte followed her into a large kitchen area. Of course. One wall had been taken down and half a wall built. She hardly recognised it. The furniture was pure Scandinavian design. There was a kilim carpet on the floorboards, and a large red cat lay asleep on the plaid blanket on the black leather sofa. A basket full of logs beside the roaring stove.

‘What a wonderful smell!' Dicte watched the woman deftly unloading the oven shelf and putting the buns on a wire rack.

‘The children love them. They're twelve and sixteen and insatiable. Sometimes I just feel like one big bread machine.'

She turned to Dicte. ‘Are you from this area? Perhaps we went to the same school?'

A sudden aversion rose from within and locked all her joints. She didn't want to remember her schooldays because there was nothing pleasant to recall. If you were a child of Jehovah's Witnesses, you were different. You stayed away from communities, and if you didn't, others made sure you did.

She shook her head. ‘I only lived here for a short while.'

The woman was kind and showed her part of the house. It had just been renovated, she explained, obviously enjoying her role as guide.

‘There used to be a big cellar, didn't there? One of us had a music room down there.'

The woman flashed a smile. ‘Funny you should say that. The children love it down there and Victor has threatened to put together a band so that they can practise down there. We're hoping the sound won't come through.'

‘It won't,' Dicte said, following her down a new staircase. She remembered the staircase had been an old hencoop ladder, but had she ever been downstairs? She couldn't remember.

‘We had an office put in here for my Jan, my husband,' the woman said.

The walls had been painted white and there were lots of small halogen lights in the ceiling so that the rooms were light and friendly. There was also a soft carpet on the floor and adjustable desks with ergonomic chairs and flat screen computers.

Another world, Dicte thought as she followed. A completely different world. Whatever happened here had long been erased. The walls had forgotten. The sounds and voices had penetrated the ceiling and gone up through the rafters into the roof. There were no ghosts here.

‘And then there's the laundry room.'

The door opened and the room was different. The walls were made of untreated granite boulders and cement, the floor was hard. A naked bulb in the ceiling provided a dim light, revealing rows of clothes lines hung with washing, like the human remains of beings that had torn off their trousers or ripped open a shirt. The ceiling was low. It felt as though they were being pressed into the ground.

‘We don't use the copper boiler, but we didn't have the heart to part with it.'

It stood in a corner. The copper had a glossy sheen. It was maybe half a metre in diameter, but it was deep and could hold a great deal of washing. Dicte stepped into the room. For a fraction of a second she seemed to hear a voice, but then it was gone.

It was only after she had said goodbye and was sitting in the car speeding on her way back to Aarhus that she realised what she had heard or imagined she had heard: the sound of a child crying for help.