The Hanging Girl (4 page)

Wanda Phinn had married
an English cricket player who’d come to Jamaica to teach black people what he was best at: playing and winning innings. This Chris McCullum was steadier on his feet than most of the guys in whites, and armed with these skills had been tasked for six months with one mission: to get the Jamaican national team to score 10 percent better on their runs.

For that reason, McCullum stood on parched grass in the baking sun from March to September sweating buckets more than ever before.

During a training match he saw Wanda out of the corner of his eye running around the cinder track with long muscular legs, skin glistening, and thought he was seeing things.

Wanda was very aware of what people thought they were witnessing. She’d had it banged into her since her figure had developed and she’d learned to move around the track like a leaping gazelle.

“Are you Merlene Ottey?” McCullum asked her outright after the match.

Wanda bared her white teeth and dark gums in a smile. It wasn’t the first time she’d been asked and it was flattering, even though Merlene Ottey was at least twenty years her senior, because Merlene Ottey, Jamaica’s top track sprinter for many years, was as beautiful as a goddess.

She flirted a little and nudged McCullum cheekily on the shoulder for the compliment. And then he took her with him to England.

Wanda loved white men. Not because they were particularly sensual. A man from Jamaica had the fire of many races in him, which the white
just couldn’t live up to, but on the other hand, white men knew who they were and, more important still, what they wanted to do with their lives. You could find security and a future with them, which was far from certain in Tivoli Gardens, the poor slum quarter in West Kingston where Wanda had grown up. For someone whose daily life consisted of shootings and cocaine in backyards, Chris McCullum’s proposal was a fairy tale that required no more than a millisecond to think over.

He installed them in Romford on the outskirts of London in a tiny terraced house where she was about to die of boredom until the day when McCullum broke his ankle and was forced not only to sell the house but also to get a divorce from her. If he was going to continue living in the style to which he felt he was entitled, he was going to have to find a woman who was in a position to provide for him.

And so after two years of security, Wanda was back to square one and a situation where she had only her own limited resources to keep her head above water.

Wanda was uneducated, without hope of obtaining any kind of support, no special talents to speak of other than being a fast runner, and that wouldn’t take you far, as her father always used to tease. So the job as a security guard at the rear entrance of a large company on the Strand in London was not only her salvation but also the only viable alternative to Jamaica’s tin huts and bodily degradation before one hit forty, which would otherwise have been her destiny.

And like a lion in a cage she stood and facilitated those more important than her to come in and out of the glass doors of the large building, nodding to them as they went over to a better-dressed woman who had the privilege to take their ID and press the button that enabled them to continue in the system.

Here she was, alone in an empty room between freedom and riches, watching like a custodian over the secrets of the building without knowing what they were about.

And while time went by, she had nothing else to think about other than that it was there—outside—that life ruled. It all happened out there while she stood here.

Day in, day out, she stared through the glass doors looking out over Savoy Place directly to the wall that surrounded Victoria Embankment Gardens.

There, behind that wall, is adventure, she thought. And the laughter from people who soaked up the rays of the sun in striped deck chairs or licked ice cream bought with money they’d never miss, tortured her in silence and, what’s more, without anyone worrying about it.

And so her new identity was born.

She was just the woman who looked at walls.

In those hours stolen from her by routine, the clouds of the past gathered over her. Wanda knew that all the serendipities and meetings of fate that had taken place before she came into the world must have had higher expectations than to simply create a person with an utterly subordinate security guard job on the Strand. As her Rastafarian father said with pride, through Wanda’s veins flowed equal measures of Dominican Arawak Indians, Nigerians, and Christians, washed down with a dash of Rastafarian gunpowder. And Wanda’s mother had laughed and said that she should just forget all about it and keep a cool head, then everything would be all right.

Keep a cool head! That was what seemed so especially hard in her grey and inconsequential existence. Was it really meant to be that all the advantages and history should end with an unflattering grey uniform and hair hidden under a cap?

But despite the hopelessness of the situation and the bad prospects, Wanda stood up straight when the better-off guests of the park and building sauntered by, and tried to rediscover that part of her that could get her away from the wall.

As fate would have it, Shirley—the only friend she had and who lived in the room two doors down—invited her to come along to something she called Nature Absorption Intro.

Shirley was into the occult and as such very open on her views and expectations of life. She listened to heavenly inspired music, had an interest in Polynesian kahuna fortune-telling, and used playing cards or the tarot before making decisions. Through all these changeable guides
she’d encountered in her life, she’d gained insight, as she called it. Wanda never knew exactly into what, but Shirley could make her smile like no one else.

And now she wanted to introduce Wanda to Atu Abanshamash, who, according to the website, was the beautiful radiant spirit who’d come from the Scandinavian dream world to London with his new teaching that could sweep everything else to one side and create a complete understanding of the energy and connections of all humanity.

Shirley was ecstatic and the price was reasonable, so if Wanda wanted to come along she would pay. It could be so much fun if they had something to share together.

*   *   *

Atu Abanshamash Dumuzi was not like the gurus Wanda had seen in Shirley’s myriad of brochures and on the TV. He didn’t sit in the lotus position or in a carved chair in elevated serenity. He wasn’t preachy, and he was neither fat nor ascetic. Atu Abanshamash was a real man of flesh and blood, who with a smile and a twinkle in his eye showed them the path to how the study of nature absorption could renew a person to such a miraculous degree that you finally felt as if each and every cell in your body could suddenly resist any sort of attack, and that your body in its entirety melted together with the universe that surrounded it.

The universe and the energy of the sun were Atu Abanshamash’s mantra. And there, in that simple light Bayswater apartment, where the Nature Absorption Academy London branch was housed, he walked around those sitting on the floor and regarded them with magical eyes, making their throats blush and shoulders sink while they in rhythm to his words inhaled well-being deep down in their lungs.

“Abanshamash, Abanshamash, Abanshamash,” he chanted slowly in a deep voice, and asked them to follow him in chorus.

When they’d sat for a while with their eyes shut repeating the mantra, Wanda noticed her sense of orientation and desire to return to reality disappear.

“Open your eyes now and look at me,” Atu said to his followers.
“Abanshamash, Abanshamash,” he whispered, stretching his arms, causing his light yellow coat sleeves to fan like angel wings. “I see you,” he whispered. “I see you now for the first time, and you are beautiful. Your souls are beckoning to me. You are ready.”

“You are as beautiful as the sun itself,” he said afterward to each man and woman as he walked in between them.

When he came to Wanda he stood very still for a moment and let his eyes disappear into the abyss of her own. “You are as beautiful as the sun itself. You are as beautiful as the sun itself,” he said twice this time. “But do not listen to anyone! Do not even listen to me! Listen only to your own Atman, your own soul, and surrender yourself.”

As if she was under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, these words penetrated Wanda like a long-awaited recognition and clarity. Of their own accord, her eyes opened, her skin burned, and her hands twitched with the sort of cramp she knew only from her orgasms.

With lowered head, he caressed her cheek, returning ten minutes later to stretch out his palms toward her a few centimeters from her forehead.

“Let yourself relax, my flower. You have been through the first journey toward the rapture and rebirth of the empty moments, and now you are ready,” he finished.

Then she fainted.

Wednesday, April 30th, 2014

They stood for a
moment or two and took in the whitewashed ramshackle of a house, very probably one of the most unkempt on the centrally located Jernbanegade in Aakirkeby.

Just as in many Danish market towns, streets like this were good examples of how one hundred years ago the workers had clawed their way up to own their own brick houses and small plots of land. A street like this was the daily bread in the past for stonemasons and carpenters, but it was apparent that it was a long time since they’d had much to do here. In a place otherwise called Flower Town in summer and Christmas Town in winter, there was neither much of a flower paradise nor a Christmas atmosphere to be found here on the worn-down backdrop of Jernbanegade.

Through the crack in the door, Habersaat’s ex-wife could smell, much like a sniffer dog, the police badge in Carl’s pocket the very second she nudged it open.

“Move your foot,” she snarled at Assad, when he tried to push the door open. “You’ve got no business here.”

“Mrs. Habersaat, we . . .” attempted Carl.

“Can’t you read? It says ‘Kofoed’ on the door.” She pointed demonstratively down to the nameplate and pushed the door once again. “There is no Habersaat here anymore.”

“Mrs. . . . Kofoed,” said Rose quietly. “We’re here with bad news about Bjarke.”

The subsequent five seconds were intolerably long. First her wavering look from one of the three petrified faces and on to the others. Then the
second that reality kicked in to all the nerve systems and blocked them, followed by the realization that what was left unsaid was already too much, until finally a spark died in her eyes and her legs gave way from under her.

Her unconsciousness didn’t last long but long enough that she had lost all sense of time and didn’t know why she lay stretched out on her sofa in the utmost of spartanly decorated living rooms. She was obviously still in the state of shock that had caused her to collapse.

They looked around the living room. There wasn’t much to write home about. Unopened bills in the fruit bowl, piles of dusty Danish easy-listening CDs, furniture from discount stores, ugly ashtrays and vases in peeling ceramic. They let her lie there for a short while to come around, her stony eyes directed at the ceiling, while they went out to the kitchen where abnormally ugly tiles from the seventies sucked the light out of the room many Danes called the heart of the home. Even Carl could see that that description by no stretch of the imagination matched the owner’s ramshackle chaos of a room.

“We can’t be hard on her, not in her state,” Rose whispered. “If we go gently, we can always come back tomorrow.”

They both noticed that Assad didn’t seem to agree. “Come in here,” June shouted with a weak voice.

“You started this, Carl, so I think it should be you who says it to her. And tell it like it is, okay?” said Rose.

He was just about to point his finger at her but felt Assad’s hand on his arm. Then he walked in to the woman and looked her straight in the eye.

“We’re here to inform you that your son is dead, June. But that’s not all, unfortunately. I’m sorry to have to tell you that he took his own life. At approximately four o’clock, according to the medical officer.”

She sucked in her cheeks and sat a moment as though looking at herself in a mirror and trying to pull back the years from its merciless image of reality.

“Four o’clock?” she whispered, stroking her arm up and down. “Oh
God, that was just after I called and told him about his dad.” She tried to swallow a couple of times, held her throat, and then said no more.

When they’d sat with her for half an hour, Carl nodded to Rose. She could let go of the woman’s hand now so that they could get going.

They had only just made it through the living room before Assad started.

“Would you mind if I asked you something just before we go?” he said. “Why didn’t you go up to your son yourself and tell him about his dad, June? Did you really hate your husband so much that you never asked yourself if your son felt the same way? Did you think he wouldn’t care if his dad was dead or alive? I’d like to know.”

Rose beat Carl to it in firmly grabbing Assad’s arm. What on earth did he think he was up to?

Empathy wasn’t normally one of his weaker points.

Trembling, June looked down at the floor, as if everything in her wanted to grab Assad’s throat and squeeze.

“Why do you want to know that, you ugly ape?” she said with a muffled voice. “What’s that got to do with you? Was it your life that bastard Christian took from you? Take a look around, would you? Do you think this was what I said yes to when that once handsome man kneeled in front of me on the grass out in Almindingen forest?”

Assad held his chin in his hand. Maybe to keep his mouth shut after her degrading tirade, maybe to show her that he was prepared to take the next round if it could help the case.

“Are you going to answer or what?” spat out from her hateful face.

Assad pulled free of Rose’s grip and stepped forward. Unusually for him, his voice was slightly shaky.

“I’ve seen worse houses than this, June. And I’ve seen people who’d sacrifice their arm or leg for your ugly dilapidated roof over their heads and your bloody awful junk food in the fridge. I have, and I’ve known people who’d kill for your dress and the half pack of smokes lying there. But no, now that you ask: I don’t think it was what you dreamt of. But aren’t dreams something you have to fight for? As I see it, it isn’t only
Christian Habersaat’s fault that you’re sitting here and your son is lying in the morgue. Something doesn’t add up in this story. For example, why did your son write
Sorry, Dad
in his little suicide note? Why doesn’t he say sorry to you instead?”

This time it was Carl who grabbed Assad’s sleeve. “What the hell’s gotten into you, Assad? Come on, we’re going.”

June raised her arm toward them as she hoisted herself up from where she was lying. It wasn’t just that the information about the suicide note shocked her, but they could see that she also refused to believe it. That it was absurd. That it belonged to another world than hers.

“It isn’t true what you’re saying, you evil liar,” she said with clenched fists. “It isn’t true.”

Rose nodded affirmatively that it was, as Carl pulled Assad out with him.

When the group had reached the van on the other side of the road, Carl and Rose turned quizzically toward Assad.

“Is there something going on inside you that you ought to tell us about, Assad?” Carl asked. “This must be striking a chord or why on earth would you pull a stunt like that in there? What good did it do?”

“Clown!” was Rose’s only comment. Surprisingly concise.

A thud came from behind as June banged the gate wide open.

“Now I’ll answer you, you little shit!” she shouted as she crossed the road.

“Bjarke had nothing to say sorry to me for, just so you know,” she spat out at Assad.

She turned to Carl and Rose. The tears streamed from her but the face was stone-cold. “We had a good life without Christian. How should I know why Bjarke would write that? He’s just a bit complicated.” She stopped, realizing her slip of the tongue. “Was complicated,” she corrected herself, her lips beginning to tremble.

Then she grabbed Rose’s arm. “Do you know the story about Alberte?”

Rose nodded.

She looked surprised and let go of her grip. “Well, good. Then there’s no more to say.” She dried her eyes on the back of her sleeve. “My
husband was obsessed with her. Ever since the day he found her body, he no longer existed in our world. He became loathsome, spiteful, and creepy. He disgusted me. Have you heard what you came for now?”

She turned to Assad. “And to you I’ll say that despite what you think, you know nothing of my dreams or about how I’ve fought to make them come true, do you?”

Something happened to her in that moment. As if she didn’t know the answer herself. As if standing on the road in the twilight knocked her down a gear.

It was at this moment Carl saw her properly for the first time. Not just a scorned woman over sixty, but a woman who in her mind had missed out on a huge chunk of life, while her body deteriorated. Just now, she seemed to find herself in that state of limbo that from time to time Carl wished he could bury himself in.

And then she pointed to Assad, collecting herself before opening her mouth again.

“I wish I had a river I could skate away on,” she almost sang. “But it don’t snow here, it stays pretty green . . .” She looked like she’d continue in her own train of thought, but gave up, her expression changing as she got back on track and remembered her aversion toward the dark curly-haired man standing in front of her.

“So just keep your mouth shut about my dreams,” she said and let her hand fall. “And you took the liberty to ask me why I didn’t go to my son and tell him about his dad instead of just calling. Do you really want to know?”

Assad nodded.

“You see, that’s exactly why I won’t tell you.”

She moved step by step backward over the road, observing them individually with contempt. “And now get out of here. I won’t open the door for you a second time, if you hadn’t already worked that out!”

*   *   *

They sat down in the hotel dining room with Rose’s PC in front of them. It was dark outside now, so they agreed to wait until the day after to meet
with the substitute accountant representing Listed Community Hall. There were a few questions and impressions that needed to be processed first. The woman who’d heard about the death of her son and ex-husband on the same day without totally losing it still haunted them.

“Why did she say that about the river she wanted to skate on?” said Assad. “Do we know if she’s had a stay in the laundry bin?”

“Loony bin, Assad, the other is for sorting out your clothes!” Rose chipped in. “And you appear to be the loony after the scene you made today.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it? What does it say about her?”

“That she worked for many years in Brændegårdshaven Amusement Park, now known as Joboland. Make sense of that if you can. In the winter she works as a waitress in various places, so I don’t see any obvious gaps in her life that point to any sort of nuthouse.”

“When we go to Listed tomorrow to see Christian Habersaat’s house and the community hall, we might meet someone or other who can help us try to understand the Habersaat family better, so leave it for now. Shall we get going with the DVD?” Carl turned to Rose. “Are you sure you want to stay and watch, Rose?”

She looked puzzled. “Why shouldn’t I? I’ve gone to police academy, too, you know, and seen pictures of corpses before.”

“Fair enough, but these aren’t photos. As far as I know, it’s a very clear recording of a man who shoots himself in the temple. It isn’t quite the same.”

“I’m with Carl, Rose,” said Assad. “Be careful. It can make you quite noxious when you see it the first time.”

Carl shook his head. Some words were obviously harder than others. “This time it’s actually nauseous, Assad. And yes, Rose, it can be really unpleasant.”

If he imagined that she was finished protesting, then the following minute-long tirade about how absolutely ridiculous they both were convinced him that any further shielding of Rose’s mental well-being was useless.

He pressed
PLAY
.

“According to the meager report we have to date about the event, the recording was filmed by one of Habersaat’s acquaintances who lived on the same road,” Carl said. “A guy known by everyone on the island as Uncle Sam. As far as I know, it was Habersaat’s own camera, so Sam wasn’t too hot at handling it in the first few minutes.”

The last part was certainly true. There were some panning shots around the room, filmed with the speed of an Afghan hound and as shaky as a Lars von Trier Dogme film. It didn’t make for pleasant viewing if you were prone to motion sickness.

The room wasn’t exactly full. According to the list, there was the chair of the civic association and her substitute accountant, who had seen to the formalities. Then there was the police commissioner, the local representative from the police union, Police Superintendent Birkedal, the neighbor from one door down, Uncle Sam, a retired sexton from Nexø, a former cooperative manager, the village handyman, and one further individual who felt sick and left early.

“A poor turnout to honor someone,” Assad grunted. “Maybe that’s why he blew his brains out.”

“He shot himself because Carl couldn’t be bothered to listen to him,” came the dry response behind him.

“Thanks, Rose. It’s impossible for us to know that. Now, can we continue?”

It was only after a few minutes, and after Habersaat had poured the white wine, that Uncle Sam worked out how to use the video camera. Now the camera panned slowly around in the lofty run-down hall with a couple of doors leading out to smaller rooms, then to a single hatch in the wall, probably opening out to the kitchen for serving on more festive occasions, and over the walls where a series of paintings hung of different merit and size.

Habersaat stood in his finest clothes at the end of the hall in front of the windows overlooking a road that Carl took to be Hans Thygesens Vej, with the sea somewhere in the background. Okay, the dress uniform wasn’t exactly modern, but then neither was Carl’s. In their line of work, there was seldom cause for dusting down formal wear.

“Thanks for coming,” began Habersaat. He seemed surprisingly calm, as if he had not given a thought to what he was about to do.

Carl observed the timer on the recording. In less than four minutes it would happen because that was when the recording ended. If it had been one of Carl’s acquaintances who killed himself as Carl was filming, he’d also have had enough after a couple of minutes. A damn hellish thought.

He glanced over at Rose. No doubt she was noting the timer, too, her eyes already half closed. There was certainly no protest from him if they were.

Habersaat toasted his guests and talked calmly to them, while the cameraman panned past the expressionless faces of the assembled group. He mentioned his time as a country copper in the good old days and apologized that he couldn’t have stayed as he once had been. At this point the cameraman zoomed in on his pain-filled eyes, and publicly and without any sentimentality Habersaat apologized for allowing himself to be consumed by the infamous Alberte case that had robbed him of his former life. Then he directed his attention to his colleagues in the force and gave vent to his frustration and shame about the work that had been carried out.