The Exception (25 page)

Because the arrangements were made at the last moment, there had been no time to inform the board members – including its deputy chairman, Frederik Thorsteinsson. And because Frederik didn’t know of the plans, his Centre for Democracy only heard about the conference when it was too late to join in the organising of it. Paul in his capacity as member of the Centre for Democracy’s board might have mentioned it to Frederik, but it seems that he didn’t. At least, Iben assumes he didn’t.

When Iben joins Paul and Ole on the terrace, Ole immediately changes the subject and, in his pleasant voice, asks her how she is. All the board members have been very attentive to Iben ever since she returned from Kenya. Ole goes on to praise her recent articles.

Back in the hall the next speaker is an ageing Bosnian journalist and intellectual.

‘Now we have to force ourselves to hope again. We want a better future for Bosnia. And we will achieve it, with the help of organisations such as those represented here today.’

The speaker’s elaborate descriptions of his captivity in a shed
outside Sarajevo make Iben feel oddly unfocused, as if her past is trying to return to her.

Omoro stands in the circle. He sings.

She pushes at the carapace of the dead beetle in the mud wall.

But she doesn’t want to think about that. Not now.

They break for lunch and Iben sits next to Malene at one of the long communal tables in Louisiana’s restaurant. Their table is at a right angle to the huge windows and to the panoramic view of Øresund’s glittering water. Beyond the straits, the outline of the Swedish coast is unusually clear.

All the delegates are busy networking in a mixture of languages, mostly English or the Scandinavian ones, and the noise level is terrific.

Malene scatters lots of salt over her food. She’s on a conference high.

‘I’ve had a chat with Frederik and slipped a mention of Erik Prins into the conversation. As far as I could make out Erik hasn’t said anything bad about me to Frederik. Naturally I didn’t ask him point blank; he wouldn’t have said anyway. It was just that I sensed he acted towards me the same way he always has.’

Iben then spots Anne-Lise at one of the tables in the middle of the room and whispers to Malene: ‘Look. Anne-Lise is talking to Lea.’

Lea is a young and successful sociologist who works closely with the only female member of the DCGI Board, Tatiana Blumenfeld. Tatiana is held in enormous respect by practically everyone. It would be very bad news if Lea passed on an impression that Malene is a troublemaker in the office.

‘I’ll talk to Lea during one of the breaks,’ Iben says reassuringly. ‘When it seems appropriate, I’ll explain the real situation.’

‘Thank you.’

Iben finishes chewing a bite of spinach quiche before she speaks again.

‘Brigitte is around, you know. I’ve seen her. If you have a word
with her, Tatiana will hear the truth from two independent sources.’

Brigitte is one of Tatiana’s PhD students.

Iben leans back to look across the backs of people at their table. She observes that Lea seems amused by something Anne-Lise has said.

The subject of the first lecture after the lunch break is: ‘Serbian Intellectuals and the University of Belgrade After Democratisation in the Balkans’.

At the next break Iben zigzags between the groups in the restaurant. She feels the weight of the knife against her leg. What if it was one of these delegates who hatched the plan to send the emails and deposited the blood on the bookshelf?

One of the academics who often comes to study at DCGI stops Iben. He seems puzzled. ‘Something about you has changed. What is it?’

‘What makes you ask?’

‘Nothing I can put my finger on … just something.’

‘Maybe I’m a little tired.’

‘No, no. That’s not it.’

He starts speaking about the emails, which he heard about when Zigic was top of the list of suspects. Now he is keen to tell her the latest news. ‘The story is that Zigic’s group of Serbian mafia is expanding its network into Russia and the USA. Zigic has been sighted recently in the States and in Germany.’

Suddenly Lea turns up at Iben’s side. She says that she truly likes everything about the DCGI. ‘Every few months or so, you seem to improve on some aspect of what you do!’

‘Oh, good. Thanks.’

‘Take what your Anne-Lise just told me about fixing up the library so there is space for readers again – clearing the book stacks off the reading desks and so on.’

This is the first Iben has heard of such a plan. She knows Malene will explode when she learns about it. Obviously, she had better go along with Lea for now.

‘Yes, it is one of the better ideas we’ve had.’

People are heading back to listen to the last lecture and Lea joins the movement in the direction of the concert hall, but she makes a final remark: ‘It’s so much better to be able to read with Anne-Lise close at hand. And the books as well. Such an improvement on using the meeting room.’

The silence is everywhere – over the desks and between the shelving units. It makes wandering round in the Centre feel strange. Bleak strip lighting, stillness. Despite the stacks of paper, the computer screens and all the usual office clutter, Iben feels as if she’s walking in the mist over a dank meadow.

It could be that her mind is somehow more porous because she woke up so early, after yet another wakeful night. Everything about the office and herself seems unreal and dreamlike.

Just in case Anne-Lise also turns up at work abnormally early and catches Iben on the library computer, Iben has an excuse ready. Her story is that she wants to add a few new keywords on the articles about Sudan that she is working on. The access codes to the database are kept in Anne-Lise’s computer. Iben has never used the program before, but that doesn’t matter much.

She sits down on Anne-Lise’s chair and can’t avoid looking at the photograph of Anne-Lise’s husband and children. It is placed right next to a digital clock; it blinks 07:18.

The computer is in stand-by mode. When Iben presses a key a dialogue box pops up. It denies access and asks for a password. She tries pressing Enter, which usually does the trick for most of the office computers, but Anne-Lise has actually installed proper password protection. Iben tries ‘Anne-Lise’, but still the system won’t let her log on.

Complete silence.

Iben and Malene need something tangible to show Paul if they are to defend the Centre and themselves against Anne-Lise. Without some proof that Anne-Lise sent the emails, he will not force her to take sick leave and she will keep wandering about
among the bookcases, growing weirder all the time, until her bottled-up rage finally explodes.

Iben doesn’t dare try any more passwords, because the computer might block any further attempts to log on and Anne-Lise mustn’t find out that someone has been tampering with it. Iben puts the light out, closes the door and settles back at her own desk, where she tries to concentrate on what a group of Dutch experts have written about Muslims in the southern Russian states.

The others arrive. She gives Malene a whispered account of what has happened and later, in mid-morning, she goes to the library.

‘Anne-Lise, tell me something: if I come across some new keywords that I think should be added to the library database, what should I do?’

‘You just tell me. I’ll key them in. That’s no problem at all.’

‘Yes, sure. But what if I thought I might as well do it myself? How do I go about it?’

‘Iben, it’s far easier if you give them to me. I’ll see to it.’

‘Thanks. But I’d like to be able to do it myself.’

‘Well now … I usually manage the database. I’ve the necessary overview. Why not just leave it to me?’

‘But what if I want to learn?’

Iben is aware that it doesn’t sound all that plausible, but she doesn’t care. How could Anne-Lise object? They repeat themselves a couple more times, but in the end Anne-Lise shows Iben how new keywords are entered for a title of a book or an article. Then Iben gets to the point.

‘If I’m in and you’re not here, can I just start your computer and get on with this?’

‘How do you mean – “If you’re not here”? Why shouldn’t I be here?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. If you were ill or had left early, or something.’

It is obvious that Anne-Lise doesn’t like the way this is going,
but she doesn’t attempt to find out what Iben is really after. ‘You simply start my computer.’

Iben smiles and tries to keep her expression innocent. ‘Right. You don’t have a personal password or anything?’

‘No.’

Anne-Lise looks as if she’s telling the truth. She is good at that and doesn’t let on that there’s any more to this than a chat about entering new keywords. It’s only to be expected. She has proved quite capable of coming in every day for months without giving away how deeply she hates them all.

Iben probes a little further. ‘What if your computer is on stand-by?’

‘That makes no difference.’

‘Still no password protection?’

‘Not at all. It shouldn’t be necessary, surely? Do the rest of you use passwords?’

Iben looks at her. ‘No, we don’t. It’s useful to be able to access everybody else’s computer if you want to look something up.’

‘There you are. I agree.’

They smile at each other. Irritated, Iben returns to the Winter Garden.

Today was the last chance of being alone in the office before nine o’clock. Tomorrow Bjarne will install the new computer-controlled lock and the CCTV camera on the landing. It means Camilla will be back at work and she always comes in much earlier than everybody else, because Paul has allowed her the same working hours as her husband.

It doesn’t take Bjarne long to install the camera, but then there’s the cable through the Winter Garden to the server and the new piece of software to be installed on everyone’s computer. Camilla loads it on first and Iben and Malene line up to test it. Malene goes out on to the landing.

‘Hey, can you save my picture?’

Iben fiddles with the new menu options and keyboard commands.

‘Yes, I think so … There, I’ve saved you.’

Malene hurries along to Camilla’s screen. ‘Oh no! I look awful!’

Iben has to laugh, because it’s true. Malene’s face is an enormous, bloated mask. Her greasy-looking skin is spotted with white blotches.

‘You must be standing too close! Wait.’

Iben runs outside. ‘Now save me too!’

Back at Camilla’s computer they burst out laughing. ‘I look just like you!’

‘I suppose if you stood farther away …’

‘Except, then it’s hard to see who it is.’

What kind of surveillance camera is this? It makes everyone look the same.

Malene wants Iben to take another picture of her and runs out again. She shouts from the landing: ‘Imagine the Wanted Persons descriptions! “Two females, both looking like blobby white frogs, wanted for …”’

Malene must be having a good day or she wouldn’t be able to run around like this. They can’t stop laughing.

Bjarne joins in the merriment. He turns towards the library door. ‘Hello in there! Anne-Lise, won’t you come and have your picture taken too?’

Anne-Lise says that she is busy.

Malene looks quickly at Iben before calling out. ‘Oh, Anne-Lise! Why not do something for the fun of it? Just this once!’

It seems that Anne-Lise doesn’t hear her, though the door is open, of course.

But the break ends. Phones ring. There are emails to be sent.

Bjarne is still there at lunchtime and helps divert the tension. He chews happily on a ham-and-beetroot-salad sandwich from his voluminous lunch box and laughs a lot, enjoying the attention the women pay him. Meanwhile Iben wonders about Anne-Lise’s behaviour. She has been odd since day one, but this is different. Isn’t she being strange in a new way?

Anne-Lise eats a fish-paste sandwich. The way she looks down
all the time, you see more of her eyebrows than her eyes. Knowing the kind of thing she’s capable of is enough to make you nervous about being alone with her in the office.

Bjarne is talking about his girlfriend, a landscape architect, and how hard it is for her to get commissions. He tells them about some of her recent job applications.

Iben looks at Anne-Lise’s mouth, tightly shut when she chews, and her cheeks, bulging as the lump of food is shifted about behind her closed lips. How little sets her apart from other withdrawn people, Iben thinks. If I didn’t know what I know about her, would I see what kind of person she is?

That evening Iben cycles home from work in the pouring rain through the dark streets lit only by reflections of car headlights on the wet pavement. Luckily she’s dressed for the weather. Inside the downstairs hallway she pulls off her waterproofs. Underneath them she is damp with sweat.

Walking upstairs to her flat, Iben is always glad to know that the knife is there, tied to her leg. Before unlocking the door to her flat, she always bends to touch it through her trousers. Images play in her head about how quickly she could draw it. It’s not very rational. Knife or no knife, she would be no match for an experienced fighter. Besides, that’s neither here nor there, now that it’s clear Anne-Lise sent the emails.

Once more she steps over the pile of junk mail on the doormat; once more she walks around her flat to make sure nobody is hiding; once more she sticks a square block of frozen cod into the microwave oven. And once more she checks her email – nothing new except spam – and glances at the answering machine, which doesn’t blink.

She sits down to eat at the small round dining table, a piece she inherited from her grandmother. Her sitting room is furnished with casually acquired bits and pieces and looks rather bare. Some time soon, she tells herself, I must follow Malene’s example – buy a sofa at least, just in case I have a guest. But he wouldn’t think it looked homey or pretty, like Malene’s. Maybe
a patterned throw, in hot colours, would help. Then the room wouldn’t be so plain – all white walls, bookshelves and dark wood. She has thought about this kind of thing so often, but now she feels ready to go ahead and do something about it.