The Exception (21 page)

While Iben examines a cream-coloured blouse to see if it’s shaped properly at the waist, she tells herself that it doesn’t matter in the slightest what she wears.

Why would I start running into him now? Where, anyway? I’ve never met him by chance before.

She starts looking through the next box, wrestling with her thoughts.

The following morning Paul, carrying a stack of papers, wanders into the library to say something to Anne-Lise. He sounds annoyed. The new arrangements mean that the entire office can hear them.

‘Anne-Lise, there are some mysterious stains on the printouts you just gave me. They’re covered in fingerprints and something like toner, but it’s brown.’

When Iben looks up from her screen Malene is already watching her. They do their best not to smile.

‘Oh no,’ Anne-Lise replies. ‘The stuff’s all over my hands as well. What could it be?’

Now Paul sounds more confused than irritated. ‘And there’s some on your nose. A long mark. You must have rubbed it with your finger. And there are some stains on your blouse.’

‘Oh no!’

There are sounds of Anne-Lise rummaging through papers, and then of drawers being opened and shut. She can’t find the source of the powder. Paul leaves and walks back to his office. Iben and Malene don’t move.

A little later Anne-Lise comes into the Winter Garden to ask the others’ opinion. ‘You know, at first I thought maybe my lipstick had come apart, but it’s fine. My handbag is completely clean inside. And now I’ve no idea.’

Iben watches Anne-Lise. Does she suspect them of playing a practical joke? Anne-Lise shows them her hands. The reddish-brown material has stuck under her cuticles and in the deep crevices on the backs of her fingers.

Iben asks if it smells of anything.

Anne-Lise holds one of her hands a bit away from her nose and considers the odour.

‘I don’t know. It smells a bit like food. Slightly sweet, maybe?’

Later, back in the library, Anne-Lise screams. They all jump up and run to her.

She is standing in the middle of the floor, her hands stretched out stiffly in front of her with her fingers spread.

‘It came from the shelf … and I thought I’d …’

It’s easy to see what has happened. Anne-Lise had noticed more reddish-brown spots on a shelf unit she uses regularly. She pulled out books and box files and found a trail of dried drops that apparently came from a magazine box on the top shelf. When she reached for it, the box slipped from her hand. Anne-Lise leapt backwards and the box landed just in front of her, spraying her clothes and face. Fortunately, it wasn’t a large amount. Even so, it is now sticking to her hair and face, and her right hand and arm are moist and gluey with blood.

She stands still, gasping for breath, speechless. Nobody is keen on getting too close to her as that would mean stepping in the pool around her feet.

Iben steels herself to do something. ‘Anne-Lise, this is awful! I don’t … look, you lie down. We’ll clean up …’

Iben gasps and holds her breath in a futile attempt to escape the sweetly nauseating stench of the congealing blood that covers the floor. She would like to help, but has to run to the lavatory. As she hovers over the basin wondering if she’ll throw up, Malene joins her. She says she feels just as bad.

By the time they return, Camilla has opened all the windows and found a cloth and a bucket. She is wiping the floor. Anne-Lise is sitting limply in her chair, about to pass out. She has taken off her cardigan, dropped it on the floor and tried to clean herself up with damp tissues, but she still looks dreadful.

They can’t think of what to say. What does this mean? Who could’ve thought up such a thing?

When Paul finds out, his first reaction is to march over to each window and door, without a word, to check for any signs of a break-in.

‘When was it done?’ Iben asks Anne-Lise. ‘I mean the blood – when could it have been put there?’

Anne-Lise’s voice is a whisper: ‘I don’t … I don’t use that box often. It … When was it … last week?’

They are all immersed in their own thoughts as they clean up Anne-Lise’s books and papers. Each item has to be wiped with a damp cloth.

After a while Anne-Lise pulls herself together and goes off to the toilet to wash. Paul comes back to say that, as far as he can see, no locks have been tampered with. He manages to lower the shelf to the floor so they can clean behind it.

Most likely it was pigs’ blood from a butcher’s, they tell each other, as they work away. They’re doing absolutely everything they shouldn’t do at the scene of a crime, Iben thinks. Every single clue is being washed away. But they carry on, just the same. It seems that all of them, including Paul, tacitly agree that the police should not be asked to deal with this, which also means they must think that someone connected to the Centre is responsible.

Once the worst of the mess has been cleared up and Anne-Lise has returned from the bathroom, Paul takes charge. ‘We need to have a meeting about this. Anne-Lise, is there anything we can do for you? It must’ve been appalling. I mean the Centre will put up the money to pay for new clothes. But, well, I don’t know. Would you like to see a psychologist?’

Anne-Lise looks better – in one piece again. She doesn’t want any counselling, she says, but she would like to go home. Now. She is not in the mood for a meeting.

Paul orders a taxi for her. Everyone tries to be supportive and comforting until the taxi takes her away. Then they go into Paul’s office to talk.

Paul is calm.

‘I know this has been a terrible shock for everyone, especially for Anne-Lise. But looking at it from a broader perspective … you know, I think we should allow ourselves to feel slightly
relieved. It’s clearly not Mirko Zigic or some other experienced killer who’s threatening the Centre. They wouldn’t waste their energy on this kind of prank. It’s quite a relief, don’t you agree? This looks more like the handiwork of one of those neo-Nazi teenagers. They keep sending me letters, but they’ve never done anything worse than break three windowpanes back home. And they shoved a decaying fish through our letter box. This has been nasty but – when all is said and done – it has also clarified the situation: we’re not being chased by Zigic, or any of his kind.’

Paul has clearly prepared this little lecture for them, and they listen in silence, unwilling to interrupt him.

‘Now, many of us will have come to the conclusion that whoever is bothering us must have a link to the Centre. We can’t be certain, of course. Our front door isn’t locked during working hours, so anybody could slip inside.

‘I’ll take action immediately. Naturally, the board must be told and I’ll explain that we need a secure front door and a CCTV camera on the stairs. If the camera is wired up to our computers, we will all have access to an on-screen window showing us who is approaching our landing. And we’ll be able to lock both our front door and the street door with one keystroke, without moving from our desks. The board has to accept that it’s worth spending money on getting our security systems up to speed.

‘They will ask me how I can be sure that this isn’t an inside job. Now, I cannot imagine that any of you would want to do this kind of thing to Anne-Lise – it’s simply unbelievable. But, again, I have to say that we can’t be certain at this stage – just that we can choose either to trust each other, or not.’

Paul looks pleased with himself. ‘My experience tells me that trust always brings out the best in people. Much more effective than trying to control everyone, which is what I’ll tell the board. Unless there’s a strong reason for changing my mind, I choose to trust the people I work with.’

He pauses, but nobody speaks up.

‘Do you agree? Or does anyone want to comment?’

Nobody does.

They all stay on to chat, mostly about the reasons for a private war against DCGI and when the person might have sneaked in. Iben notices that Paul, for all his declared faith in his colleagues, is alert and watching them closely. Will someone give herself away? His casual questions and intent way of listening are quite transparent.

But then, he’s not the only one. They all make a point of insisting on their good intentions, each declaring, with slight variations, ‘The person who did this must be caught!’, meaning: ‘It wasn’t me!’

‘If we all agree that none of us has done this,’ Malene asks, ‘shouldn’t we call the police?’

Paul smiles. ‘Yes, of course. You’re right. I’ll do it at once.’

In the evening Iben visits her mother in Roskilde. It is the ninth anniversary of her father’s death and they have met on that day ever since he died. It has become a tradition for them to have a special meal together, with the fine wines and good food that Iben’s father liked so much. At the dining table, halfway through the first course, the appetising smell of sautéed lamb chops is wafting through from the kitchen. As usual, it is very quiet.

Iben’s mother wants to talk about the Centre and Iben’s safety. Iben would prefer to change the topic, but explains patiently: ‘Mum, it can’t have been any of the men you read about in our newsletter. The police checked the locks and said there was no sign of a break-in.’

‘But someone did get in all the same.’

‘I don’t think Serbian mass murderers can be bothered with sending emails or tricks like pouring blood into a magazine box.’

Iben could have admitted that, ever since receiving the threatening email, she has taken a combat knife with her everywhere she goes. In fact, she has taped the sheath upside down to her leg, the handle level with the top of her sock, and has practised drawing the knife in case of a violent attack. Her fastest time so
far is three seconds. But she hasn’t told anyone about the knife, not even Grith or Malene. Her own nervousness has started to annoy her, but it doesn’t abate.

Her mother seems to be concentrating on the remains of her portion of salmon terrine, but looks up quickly when Iben draws in her breath. She doesn’t say anything.

‘I know it must seem far-fetched to you, but what Grith said about split identities is the only thing that makes sense to me. It’s somehow reasonable that one personality needn’t know what the other one is up to. And, if all that is true, then Anne-Lise might have poured the blood into the box file herself. Maybe some part of her hates her everyday self. I know it sounds odd but … can you think of a better explanation?’

All this is somehow unbearably grim. Iben blinks a few times before starting up again. ‘Grith says that it’s not that unusual. And Anne-Lise seems different … I mean, I think she has psychological problems.’

Iben’s mother chews carefully on her last forkful of terrine before coming out with what’s on her mind: ‘By now you’ve been there long enough, haven’t you? It would look all right if you applied for other jobs, I mean.’

‘I don’t want to apply for other jobs.’

‘There you are … well, all I thought was …’

Iben interrupts. ‘What we do matters. Someone has to do it. And anyway, Malene works there too.’

‘Yes, of course.’

They take the plates through to the kitchen. Iben’s mother returns with the meat dish, and Iben follows with the red wine and salad.

Iben’s mother is a nurse and her father was a doctor. When Iben reflects on her childhood, she often thinks that she and her father were less than kind to her mother. From the age of six onwards, Iben devoured books and loved discussing them with her father. Iben’s mother was never a member of their smart little mutual admiration society. Grith has argued more than once
that Iben collaborated with her father because she was terrified that he would despise her as he did her mother. Later Iben became a medical student, just like her father. Within a year of his death, one of the outcomes of Iben’s breakdown was that she left medicine and took up literature instead.

They drink a toast to the dead man, speak a little about him and recall some of the things they did together. Then Iben asks her mother how her week has been.

Still, Iben can’t help feeling irritated at her mother’s remark about how she should get a new job. Her mother won’t leave it alone, hanging on even though she tries to change the subject.

‘But, it seems such a ghastly place. You wouldn’t want to stay on for ever, would you?’

‘It isn’t ghastly at all!’

‘Blood pouring from the shelves and …’

‘Mum, that’s an exception! I’ve been there for two years now, for Christ’s sake! Other things have happened. Please stop harping on about this.’

‘But of course … I didn’t mean …’

Iben really wants to be nice, to behave like the sympathetic person she finds it so easy to be when she is with other people. It’s strange, but the minute she sets foot in this house, she feels resentful, hemmed in, fighting to break free. Whenever she comes here it doesn’t take long before she starts slouching and dragging her feet across the pretty parquet floors. She waves her arms about more than usual when she holds forth at the dining table. This time, in the middle of their conversation, she hears herself allude to her sex life in Copenhagen (she doesn’t have one). Besides, true or not, she would never say anything like that even to her friends.

It’s a fact: ‘back home in Roskilde’ Iben becomes somebody else. She understands perfectly well why her mother finds it hard to get along with her.

Over the beautifully cooked lamb chops, Iben tries to explain. ‘Isak Dinesen wrote something to the effect that we take on the
identity of the masks we wear. In books about the psychology of social interaction, people are always discussing role-playing and how we pick roles for each other. But that’s not what really happens. It’s the other way round …’

Speaking of ‘roles’ reminds Iben’s mother about a previous neighbour, who once joined an amateur dramatic society attached to the open-air stage in the Dyrehaven Park. But Iben won’t be distracted by anecdotes.

‘We don’t just put on a different mask or choose to act out a role. The change isn’t external, just as it isn’t voluntary. Instead, we are transformed into shifting but fully realised people, or “identities”. Each of us contains a variety of identities.’