The Exception (46 page)

‘Nope.’

‘That’s really sweet of you. And to let me come here, just like that …’

‘Don’t think about it.’

‘And you don’t mind if I sleep here?’

‘No problem. This will be a tough night for you. I’m glad I am here for you.’

‘I’m glad too. Where were you earlier?’

‘Never mind. It doesn’t matter now.’

Iben is on her way upstairs to Malene’s flat. It is in an old building with stained-glass windows on each landing that run from floor to ceiling. With time, some of the panes have fallen out of their lead calms and the property manager has replaced them with cheap, plain glass. Iben has always thought the stairway rather beautiful, even though the blank fields of glass break up the images.

It is late on Saturday morning. Rasmus has said he will come to collect his belongings from the flat but Malene doesn’t want to be there. She is holed up in Iben’s flat, so Iben has promised to go and keep an eye on him instead. Rasmus mustn’t be allowed to carry off the wrong things or take more than he’s entitled to. Iben has a pretty good idea of what belongs to whom, and besides, she can always phone Malene if in doubt.

It will be strange to meet Rasmus now that their relationship has changed. Iben knows that she should be angry with him, but she can’t force herself.

Only four days have passed since Malene thought Rasmus loved her. Malene has since tried to persuade him that it’s all been a mistake, but now he’s certain that it’s ‘the right thing’ to stay with his new girlfriend.

Malene speaks about the way he shut her out completely. It was done in a day. He decided to be cold towards her and, straight away, he was. Rasmus’s behaviour towards Malene has made Iben question whether men’s feelings are as strong as women’s. There’s no way of telling. But there is one major difference: men seem to be able to postpone their emotional reactions until it suits them. Even men you think you know well can turn their backs on you in an instant, acting more distant than you ever thought possible.

The flat is on the fifth floor and when Iben finally reaches the landing she can hear Rasmus rummaging around inside. She is just about to press the doorbell when she realises that Rasmus doesn’t live here any more. This is Malene’s place and by now Iben, the owner’s best friend, has more right to be here than he has. She’s certain that Malene would prefer her to make a point of this and considers using her key, but then she decides against it and presses the doorbell.

Rasmus lets her in. His hair is all over the place. He must have run his fingers through it several times.

She has never heard him speak in such a serious tone. ‘Iben! We have to talk. Come inside and have a seat. There, on the sofa.’

She follows him into the sitting room. Many items are already in boxes: a few small pictures, some books and CDs. The music centre and the loudspeakers are dismantled and about to be packed, together with the large TV and the folding dining-table chairs.

‘Would you like coffee? Or something?’

‘Rasmus, I’m not sure … Maybe we shouldn’t … I think Malene …’

She settles down all the same. She has no idea what he wants to tell her.

Characteristically, he begins to talk about a computer program he’s written. Apparently he’s devised a long and complex piece of spyware, which he had intended to use in order to trace the sender of the emails.

What is he really saying? Is this technical stuff meant to prove how much Malene meant to him, even though he’s been unfaithful to her? Whatever the message, he spends such a long time on the details of the programming that her mind begins to wander.

Later on she helps him take his things down to the white van he has borrowed. She does several rounds with bags of clothes, CDs and boxes full of bits and pieces. She has always liked Rasmus. He’s a nice guy; simply not the right one for Malene. His parents, who live in Svendborg, are schoolteachers with a
shared enthusiasm for sailing. The pair seem to confirm the argument that people with a background in education are best equipped to bring up happy, stable children.

Malene and Rasmus have given a few parties that their parents have attended, and Iben has never met anyone who didn’t immediately warm to Rasmus’s mum and dad. Malene used to look forward to the summer holidays in Svendborg, unlike the few days she would spend with her own family.

While Iben helps Rasmus, she tries to think of something pleasant to say to him now that they aren’t likely to meet again. She would like to say that she’s pleased to have got to know him and that he was very good for Malene … for a time. Maybe she ought to say that she wishes him well, but that somehow seems disloyal. On her way back upstairs, Iben decides to keep the good wishes until Rasmus is all packed and ready to drive off.

She clutches an armful of posters and calls back to him from the landing: ‘I’m taking these down now!’

‘Iben, wait! Just a moment!’

She goes back in.

‘The heavy things should go in first. I’ll start with the table.’

‘Let me help.’

‘Don’t worry. It’s actually easier to do it by myself.’ He walks out, rather unsteadily, carrying the large birch-wood table.

Iben looks around to see if there’s anything useful for her to do. She goes to put away some of Malene’s glasses that are on the drying rack. While she’s at it, she decides to wash up some of the dishes that are still on the kitchen table.

Is that Rasmus’s voice she hears from the stairs? Who’s he talking to? Isn’t that a woman’s voice? She turns the water off before the basin has filled.

Is it Malene? For a second, Iben felt sure she heard Malene’s voice. What’s going on? What does Malene want?

No more voices. She must have been mistaken. Maybe it wasn’t Malene. And it’s unlikely to have been Rasmus’s new girlfriend. Maybe just a neighbour?

Iben stops and listens. Everything is quiet now. She walks into the short corridor outside the kitchen. In the silence of the stairway she hears Rasmus move with heavy steps. Then, suddenly, there is an echoing crash and a scream.

She runs along the hallway and out onto the empty landing.

‘Rasmus? … Malene? Rasmus?’

Nothing.

The next landing. Nothing.

Another empty flight of stairs and then she sees it.

A large hole has opened up in the wall. At first she can’t make herself go any closer. She stands a few steps above the landing, staring at the emptiness that is as tall as a man. It used to be a mosaic of stained glass.

She inches closer. She can see people moving around in the courtyard below and talking in frightened voices. Somebody screams. Iben doesn’t have the courage to look at what might be down there. Instead she takes another couple of quick steps forwards and discovers at the last moment that the step in front of the broken window is wet. She grabs the handrail with both hands. Her body slips sideways and lands heavily. Trying to get up she puts one hand down on the step, only to find that her palm slides on the slippery surface. She sniffs at her sticky hand. Someone has poured oil on the floor.

Iben manages to get up and manoeuvre around the fluid. She runs down into the street and looks around. Rasmus isn’t there. And Malene isn’t there either.

The door to the courtyard behind the building is locked. Iben fumbles in her pocket to find the keys. It takes so long. At last she gets the door open. She runs through the dark passage.

The yard is divided down the middle by a wire fence and Rasmus is hanging across it, his body bent double. Iben had no idea a human body could break in the middle like that. One of the vertical steel fencing posts protrudes through his back.

Despite all the blood, Iben can see that Rasmus’s face has slammed into the profiled steel. It is crushed. The impact of his
body has made the wire fence sag, but its sharp edge has sliced open his abdomen.

Iben backs away, knocking into something on the pavement, and sits back without wanting to. She looks at what she’s sitting on. It’s a piece of Rasmus and Malene’s dining table. It is quite clean and unused, as if the last few days haven’t happened, as if Rasmus and Malene and Iben might still gather around it, in this small yard.

Over by the wall a man is speaking on his mobile. The police will arrive soon. A woman is pushing against a door to the kitchen stairs. She must be trying to keep children away from the yard.

Iben stares at the table fragment. Not long ago it was cluttered with plates, bottles of wine, flowers. She hears the voices round the table. ‘Pass me the rice, would you? Rasmus, I met Ole from Film Studies in the bus. You won’t believe what happened in the Centre today …’

A dark knot in the light wood stares back at her, like an eye.

She tries to get up.

‘I was standing on the staircase and called out to Rasmus that I was on my way down with the posters. It was sheer chance that Rasmus asked me to wait until later. He wanted to take large things like the table down first.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘If someone had been waiting in the stairway to pour oil on the steps, that person would probably have assumed that I would be the first one to come down.’

‘I see. What happened instead?’

Iben breathes in quickly. ‘Look, where did the rail go? There’s usually a handrail across the window. A long strip of brown railing. When was it taken away? It can’t be a coincidence – there’s been several strange things happening over the last few months … anyway, it can’t have been an accident. Someone is after me. Or after Malene. It’s her flat. Someone might have thought she was the one on her way down.’

Iben and a woman police officer are sitting together in one of three police cars lined up in front of the door to Malene’s building. Detectives are cordoning off the stairs and the courtyard and interviewing the neighbours to find out if they saw anything.

‘Very well, Iben. Now, I’d like you to take me through what happened again, step by step.’

Iben describes how she offered to help Rasmus with the table and how, when he said he’d manage on his own, she went to the kitchen to clear away some dirty dishes. Then the next thing she heard was a crash and a scream. She ran downstairs at once, slipped and almost shot out through the broken window herself.

Iben also tells the officer about Anne-Lise and her suspicions that she might have some kind of personality disorder. She
mentions Anne-Lise’s trick of hiding blood in her own office and pouring it all over herself, and about her swapping Malene’s medication. She knows that Anne-Lise is capable of doing all sorts of things. She might very well have removed the railing and poured oil on the steps.

Iben gasps for air again. She feels she is presenting essential information. It might just lead to Anne-Lise’s arrest.

The detective, who is listening quietly, breaks her silence. ‘We’re called out to many fatal accidents. We can’t assume that one of the victim’s nearest and dearest is a murderer every time someone falls off scaffolding or hits a high-voltage cable.’

‘No, of course not. But in this case a section of handrail is missing.’

‘Bits and pieces are missing from lots of stairways in the old properties in central Copenhagen. Accident investigation is my job. Sometimes accidents are the outcome of the most terrible coincidences. But, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, an accident is an accident. It’s not like TV …’

‘Of course I know that. It’s just that—’

The detective interrupts her: ‘I understand your problems with the woman at work – I’m sure it makes sharing an office with her very uncomfortable. But, to put it plainly, it’s not relevant to the police investigation.’

‘But someone took the handrail away and poured the oil on the step!’

Iben might as well not have bothered.

‘My colleagues are looking into it right now. Some are upstairs taking photographs. They’ll find whatever was left or poured on the stairs and who could have done it.’

A male police officer knocks on the car window. He has come to tell them that there was no one else on the stairs at the time. No one saw Rasmus fall.

When he has left, the detective turns to Iben. ‘Here’s my card. Contact me if anything new occurs to you.’ Her tone of voice suggests that she doesn’t mean it.

Her name is Dorte Jørgensen. Iben knows that she must make herself sound more logical in order to make Dorte J#248;rgensen take her seriously.

‘I understand that you don’t believe me, but honestly, I’m not normally a nervous person. A couple of months ago, before everything I told you about started to happen, I was as calm as you are now.’

Dorte smiles at Iben, but Iben can see she’s distracted.

Iben’s voice is more forceful. ‘I don’t like the idea of going home on my own. Someone has probably just tried to kill me. What will stop her from trying again? Or trying to kill Malene?’

Dorte doesn’t respond.

‘You must do something about it!’ Iben goes on.

Dorte gets out, walks round the car and opens the door for Iben. She climbs out gingerly. Her coccyx and one of her hands are still sore after her fall.

Earlier, while she was carrying things down to the van, she felt warm. After the accident, she hadn’t noticed how cold it had become. When Dorte speaks, her breath condenses into little clouds in the chilly air.

‘What you have is a typical stress reaction. It’s quite natural after an experience like this. Spend the rest of the day with some close friends and take a couple of days off work. Talk to someone about it. And if you still feel on edge you can get free counselling from a trained psychologist because you knew the victim and saw the consequences of the accident first-hand.’

Iben thinks that now, for the first time, there’s a trace of warmth in this woman’s officious way of talking.

‘I’d like to help you, but I can’t. I’m not trained for it. It’s not my job.’

Iben walks a few paces behind Dorte towards the door to the yard. Maybe she should give in and accept the opinion of the professionals, but something inside her insists that they’re mistaken. What has happened is simply too terrible to be an accident.

She must phone Malene to warn her. Anne-Lise might be on her way to Iben’s flat right now.