The Absent One (51 page)
Authors: Jussi Adler-Olsen
Carl glanced at his watch and then again at the darkened house. Old people go to bed early, he knew, but it was only half past seven.
Then he nodded at the nameplates that read J
ENS
-A
RNOLD
&
YVETTE LARSEN
and
MARTHA
J
ØRGENSEN
and rang the doorbell.
His finger was still on the bell when the frail woman opened the door and attempted to shield herself against the cold with her thin kimono.
‘Yes?’ she said sleepily, looking up at him in confusion.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Yvette Larsen. It’s Carl Mørck. The policeman who came to visit you recently. You remember, don’t you?’
She smiled. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘That’s right, now I remember.’
‘I have some good news, I think. I would like to share it personally with Martha. We’ve found her children’s killers. Justice has been served, one could say.’
‘Oh,’ she said, placing a hand to her breast. ‘What a
shame.’ Then she smiled an unusual smile. Not simply sad, but also apologetic.
‘I should have called, I’m very sorry. You could have saved yourself the long drive here. Martha is dead. She died the same night you were here. Though not because of your visit, of course. She simply didn’t have any more strength.’
She put her hand on Carl’s. ‘But thank you. I’m sure that it would have been an immense relief for her to know.’
For a long time he sat in his car, staring out across Roskilde Fjord. Lights from the city showed way out over the dark water. Under other circumstances it would infuse him with calm, but just now there was none to be found.
The phrase ‘Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today’ rotated ceaselessly in his head. Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today, because suddenly there are no tomorrows.
Had it been just a few weeks earlier, Martha Jørgensen could have died with the knowledge that her children’s executioners were dead. What peace of mind it would have given her. And what peace of mind it would have given Carl, knowing that she knew.
‘Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today.’
He looked at his watch again, then picked up his mobile. Stared a long while at the display before he finally punched in the numbers.
‘This is the spinal clinic,’ said a voice. In the background the television was on at high volume. He could make out the words ‘Ejlstrup’, ‘Dueholt’, ‘Duemose’ and ‘comprehensive animal-rescue mission’.
Yes, the news had even reached there.
‘Carl Mørck speaking,’ he said. ‘I’m a close friend of Hardy Henningsen. Would you be so kind as to tell him that I’ll be visiting him tomorrow?’
‘Of course. But Hardy’s asleep right now.’
‘OK, but please tell him first thing tomorrow morning.’
Staring out over the water again, he bit his lip. He had never made a bigger decision in his life.
And misgivings settled in him like a knife to the abdomen.
Then he breathed deeply, punched in the next number and waited year-long seconds before Mona Ibsen answered.
‘Hi, Mona, it’s Carl. I’m sorry about how things ended last time.’
‘Never mind that.’ She sounded as if she meant it. ‘I heard what happened today, Carl. It’s on every TV station. I’ve seen pictures of you. Lots of pictures. Are you badly hurt? That’s what they’re all saying. Where are you now?’
‘I’m sitting in my car, looking out over Roskilde Fjord.’
She was silent a moment, probably trying to gauge the depths of his crisis.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I can’t say that I am.’
‘I’ll come right away,’ she said. ‘Stay where you are, Carl. Don’t move an inch. Look at the water, be calm. I’ll be there in no time. Tell me precisely where you are, and I’ll be there.’
He sighed. That was sweet of her.
‘No, no,’ he said, allowing himself a little chuckle. ‘No,
don’t worry about me. I
am OK
. I just have something to discuss with you. Something I’m not sure I can handle on my own. If you can meet me at my place, that’ll make me very, very happy.’
He had spared no pains. Neutralized Jesper with money to be spent at Pizzeria Roma and Allerød Cinema. More than enough for two people, plus a shawarma down at the station afterwards. He had called the video-rental store and asked Morten to go straight down to the basement when he got home from work. He’d made coffee and boiled water for tea. The sofa and coffee table were as tidy as they’d ever been.
She sat beside him on the sofa, hands folded in her lap. Her eyes were intense. She listened to every single word he said, nodding when his pauses were too long. But she said nothing herself until he was as finished as he possibly could be.
‘You want to take care of Hardy in your house, and you’re afraid,’ she said, nodding once more. ‘Do you know what, Carl?’
He felt his whole physical presence shift gear, slipping into slow motion. Felt as though he’d been shaking his head for an eternity. That his lungs were working like a leaky bellows. ‘Do you know what, Carl?’ she’d said. Whatever her question would turn out to be, he wouldn’t know the answer. He just wanted her to sit there for ever, her unasked question hanging on lips he would die for to kiss. Once she received an answer, there would be all too little time before her scent became just a memory, the sight of her eyes fading into unreality.
‘No, I don’t know,’ he said hesitantly.
She laid a hand on his. ‘You are simply gorgeous,’ she said, and leaned herself against him so that her breath met his.
She’s wonderful
, was what he thought, just as his mobile rang. She insisted he answer it.
‘Hi, it’s Vigga!’ came the strongly provocative voice of his runaway wife. ‘Jesper called. He says he wants to move in with me,’ she said, as the feeling of Paradise that had just begun to settle in Carl’s body was torn from him.
‘But that won’t work at all, Carl. He can’t live with me. We have to talk about it. I’m on my way over. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.’
He was about to protest. But Vigga had already hung up.
Carl met Mona’s enticing gaze and smiled apologetically.
This was just his life in a nutshell.
A warm thanks to Hanne Adler Olsen for her daily encouragement and tremendous insight. Thanks, too, to Elsebeth Wæhrens, Freddy Milton, Eddie Kiran, Hanne Petersen, Micha Schmalsteig and Henning Kure for indispensible and thorough commentary, as well as Jens Wæhrens for his consultation and Anne C. Andersen for all the juggling and her eagle eye. Thanks to Gitte and Peter Q. Rannes and the Danish Centre for Writers and Translators at Hald Hovedgaard for their hospitality when the urge struck, and to Poul G. Exner for being uncompromising. Thanks to Karlo Andersen for his all-round knowledge of hunting, among other things, and to Police Superintendent Leif Christensen for his generosity with his experience and for his sharp corrections on police procedures.
Thanks to you, all the fantastic readers who’ve visited my website,
www.jussiadlerolsen.com
, and encouraged me to keep writing.
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First published in Denmark as
Fasandræberne
by Politikens Forlag, 2008
This translation first published 2012
Copyright © Jussi Adler-Olsen, 2008
Translation copyright © K. E. Semmel, 2012
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-0-14-196252-8
Read on for an extract from the next novel in the Department Q series …
Redemption
Jussi Adler-Olsen
Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken
Available from Penguin in spring 2013
It was the third morning, and the smell of tar and seaweed had got into his clothes. Under the boathouse floor, the mush of ice lapped against the wooden stilts and awakened memories of days when everything had been all right.
He lifted his upper body from the bedding of waste paper and pulled himself sufficiently upright as to be able to make out his little brother’s face, which even in sleep seemed tormented, perished with cold.
Soon, he would wake and glance around in panic. He would feel the leather straps tight around his wrists and waist and hear the jangle of the chain that constrained him. He would see the snowstorm and the light as it struggled to penetrate the tarred timber planks. And then he would start to pray.
Countless were the times desperation had sprung forth in his brother’s eyes. Through the heavy-duty tape that covered his mouth came the repeated sound of his muffled beseechings that Jehova have mercy upon them.
Yet both of them knew that Jehova no longer paid heed, for blood had passed their lips. Blood that their jailer had let drip into their cups. The cups from which he had allowed them to drink before revealing to them what they had contained. They had drunk water, but in the water was blood, so forbidden, and now they were damned
for ever. And for that reason, shame pierced deeper even than thirst.
‘What do you think he’ll do to us?’ his brother’s frightened eyes seemed so incessantly to ask. But how could he ever know the answer? All he knew was the instinctive feeling that it would all soon be over.
He leaned backwards and scanned the room once again in the dim light, allowing his gaze to pass across the collar beams and through the formations of cobwebs, noting each and every projection, each and every knot. The frayed paddles and oars that hung from the apex of the ceiling. The rotten fishnets that had long since made their last catch.
And then he discovered the bottle. A gleam of sunlight playing momentarily on the blue-white glass to dazzle him.
It was so near, and yet so hard to reach. It was just behind him, wedged between the thick, rough-hewn planks of the floor.
He stuck his fingers through the gap and tried to prise the bottle upwards by the neck, only for the air to freeze to ice upon his skin. When the thing came loose he would smash it and use the shards to cut through the strap that held his hands tied tight together behind his back. And when it succumbed, his numb fingers would find the buckle at his spine. He would loosen it, tear the tape from his mouth, remove the straps from around his waist and thighs, and as soon as the chain that was fastened to the leather strap at his waist no longer constrained him, he would lunge forward and free his brother. He would draw him towards him and hold him tight until their bodies ceased to tremble.