The House That Jack Built (23 page)

Chapter 49

I
t was past
two in the morning before she'd arrived home. Martin had been ready for her, angry and drunk, ready to interrogate her. Where had she been? What had she been doing and who had she been with?

She hadn't gotten much sleep on the hard sofa either, and when she woke up, the argument continued. There was a throbbing behind her eyes as she climbed the stairs to the dark red corridor and walked to the green door at the end.
Don't think. Coffee, lots of coffee. And then straight to work
.

Balancing a brown envelope from her mail slot in one hand and a plastic cup in the other, she managed to open the door to her office. She hurried in, slammed the door behind her, and practically fell into the chair. Cold, sticky sweat drops ran down her forehead and got caught in her eyebrows.

She drank the lukewarm coffee. The burnt, bitter taste made her throat constrict and her stomach implode, but it was strangely invigorating. Then she grabbed the end of the envelope between her teeth and tore it open with her free hand. She shook two DVDs out of the envelope. Yesterday's footage from the surveillance cameras at the entrance of the office buildings of the Danish State Railway on Øster Voldgade, just across from the National Gallery of Denmark. Someone had been working fast.

She turned on her computer and popped in the first DVD.

The recordings started at 5:00 p.m., just as the thick rush of office workers was streaming past. The warm summer afternoon had drawn the jackets off the sweaty bodies. Employees marched past in shirt sleeves and T-shirts. She fast-forwarded to 7:30 p.m., let the video play at double speed. She stared at the screen for more than an hour until the timer showed 10:03 p.m.: the time when a guest at the Danish Bankers Association event had found the body.

Nothing.

Sanne swore and started from the beginning. She had just printed the pictures of the passersby when Allan knocked. “Are you ready?”

She looked up. “What?”

“Seferi is waiting in my office.”

Elvir Seferi. Of course.

“Sorry, I'm a little . . .” Sanne got up and followed Allan into the office he shared with Toke. She closed the door behind her and sat down next to Allan. Bent double on the other side of the table was a small man with a bushy moustache and stubble up to his eyes. He had close-cropped white hair, and the top of his head was tanned. A greasy ivy cap lay on the table next to his restless fingers.

Allan turned on the recording device and introduced himself. Then he leaned over the table. “You know why you're here?”

“No.” His fingers were fiddling with the cap.

“Break-in at a dental clinic in Valby in February, does that ring a bell?” Sanne crossed her arms, observing the man from the other side of the table. He was sweating.

“But that wasn't me. You know that?”

“Do you know the Bukoshi brothers?” Allan said.

“Buk . . . ?”

“They both claim that you can give them an alibi for the evening of May 4. You were playing cards with them in Shqiptarë?”

The light brown eyes came to life.

“Yes.” He nodded. “That's right.”

Sanne and Allan looked at each other.

“But that evening you were in lock-up in Middelfart.” Allan pushed the report from their Funen Island colleagues across the table.

“Um, yeah,” Seferi mumbled.

“You came here from Kosovo in 1999?” Sanne smiled. “You're a trained veterinarian?”

Seferi nodded. Then he shook his head. “Doctor. Difficult to get work at a hospital, better as veterinarian.”

Sanne's heart jumped an extra beat. She tried to stay calm, but the adrenaline was pumping. “What was your specialization? Gastroenterology, cardiology . . . ophthalmology?”

“No specialization, just doctor.” Seferi straightened in the chair.

Sanne took out the box with the reconstructed glass eye from her purse and placed it on the table. “What is glutaraldehyde used for?” she said.

“Glutaraldehyde?” Seferi gave them an inquiring look. “For cleaning instruments after surgery. Why?” Neither of them answered. “Ah, the stuff stolen from that dentist? But I told you, that wasn't me.”

Sanne opened the box, placed a napkin on the middle of the table, and laid the glass eye on it. The pupil stared up at Elvir Seferi.

“Did you do any eye surgery in Kosovo?” she said.

Seferi shifted in his seat. “No.”

“You know we can get the hospital records from Pristina and Skopje, right?”

Seferi blinked, folded his hands. He watched Sanne as she placed the glass eye back in the box. Allan gathered up the break-in report from February, closed it.

“I think we'll take a break here,” Allan said. “Elvir, you're going to detention in the meantime.”

Sanne walked through the canteen door. Lars was nowhere to be seen. She went up to the counter and asked about the daily special.

It was lunchtime, the canteen was packed, yet she was still able to find a place on her own. She forced herself to eat. Strangely enough it helped. She felt better. Her headache faded.

Back in her office, she sat down by the desk, lingering over the pile of printed pictures. The anonymous mass of faces fluttered up at her. She had to close her eyes and press her thumbs against her eyelids until it hurt before the flickering disappeared.

The door opened and Lisa poked her head in. No “Hi,” no attempt at any kind of greeting, just the bare essentials of the message.

“Ulrik wants to see you. Now.”

The door closed behind Lisa with a dry click that made Sanne's heart skip a beat. This was it; Langhoff had filed a complaint. Ulrik couldn't use her anymore. She was going back to Kolding. She was freezing on the inside, her skin blazing hot.

* * *

“Sanne, thanks for coming.” Ulrik looked up from his place by the desk in front of the window. The smell of linoleum, dust, and stale sweat was even more pronounced today.

Kim A stood next to Ulrik in front of the window. The
Ekstra Bladet
tabloid was open on Ulrik's desk.

“Lisa didn't mention what this was about.” Without thinking, Sanne stood with her legs slightly spread, her hands behind her back, in the middle of the room. Her fingernails started clicking before she was even aware of it. It was a habit she had not been able to shake.

Ulrik cleared his throat, exchanged looks with Kim A. Then he turned the paper so Sanne could read along.

COPENHAGEN IN PANIC — WHERE ARE
THE POLICE?

How much longer will the rapist be given free rein?

“Where is Lars?” Ulrik asked.

She closed her eyes for a moment. “I don't know.”

“That —” Ulrik pointed at the newspaper article. “There's no place for this.” He took a deep breath. “I'm not accusing any of you of the leak, but . . .”

Sanne focused on Tivoli Gardens' Star Flyer ride behind her two colleagues. What was Kim A doing here?

Ulrik folded the newspaper and threw it into the wastepaper basket.

“There — that's where it belongs.” He coughed. “The attorney general called the police commissioner, and he has spoken with the head of Homicide. We're all under pressure. I have,” he looked at his watch, “about an hour before I have to issue a statement. It's not something I'm happy about, but I have no choice. This affects the entire squad.”

Sanne didn't answer. She looked at Kim A through half-closed eyes.

An irritated grimace crossed Ulrik's face. His thin fingers were tapping the table.

“Lars is off the case until further notice. Kim A is taking over. I've asked you to come in to . . . Right now you're the only one Lars speaks to.”

Sanne blinked, a sharp retort on the tip of her tongue. But what could she do? She nodded, accepted the Judas mission. Went along with it, as usual. She tried forming the words in her head, the way she would say them to Lars when she got hold of him. But the sentences kept unravelling.

Ulrik placed a hand on Kim A's shoulder. “Come on. Let's go brief the others.”

Sanne slumped into her office chair. What had just happened? And where did she and Lars stand after yesterday?

She grabbed the phone and dialled Lars's number. “Come on,” she mumbled while the ringing echoed in her head. When Lars's voice mail came on, she hung up and slammed the receiver down.

Just then, the door flew open and Allan ran in. His face was split in two by a broad grin.

“This just came through the wiretap — Meriton and Ukë's shipment, it's down at Strandhuse, in the southern part of Zealand. Just as you had predicted.”

May 4, 1945

“A
t this moment,
Montgomery has just announced that German troops in Holland, northwest Germany, and Denmark have surrendered. This is London. We repeat: Montgomery has at this moment announced that German troops . . .”

The contractions hit her. Her back arches over the bed of ammunition sackcloth. The voice drones from another world. It is only after a long time, between two contractions and interrupted by the cheering and shooting outside, that she understands: the war is over; the Germans have surrendered.

But for her, everything ended months earlier. Her Jack is dead. And last winter, Mother quietly faded away. In the end, there was no one left. Father has kept her down here ever since her bump could no longer be concealed. Hidden away, wrapped in the smell of dust and gun oil. If she concentrates, she can still capture Jack's scent, the last thing she has left of him. That and his eyes in the jar on the shelf above her. Two whitish lumps floating in the yellowish liquid, blind and silent, suspended in an eerie dance.

The gunshots outside are getting closer now. Then they disappear. She feels another contraction press on her lower back and pubic bone. She is one single throbbing vein.

When she comes around again, she is drenched in sweat. Someone has switched off the radio. The kerosene lamp flickers on the table in the corner, its light caressing the machine gun on the tablecloth.

Father observes her with feverish eyes. It'll be over soon he says. It's a big day. Then the contractions return and she disappears in the pain.

Over the next few hours, she slips in and out of consciousness. She hears herself panting; she is a foaling mare. When she comes to, Father is back, bringing news from the outside world. The HIPOs and collaborators are everywhere. There's shooting by the town hall. He has been in a firefight with a group on Brogårdsvej. Arno won't bother them anymore, he tells her, as if it's an afterthought. She knows not to ask.

Something is on its way, sliding through her, moving out between her legs. The pain slips away; everything disappears. Then with a disgusting sound it bursts its way out of her. When she looks up, Father is standing by her feet. Something wet and living is moving over her stomach. Blood and fetal fluids soak through her already drenched shirt. Tiny clutching hands open and close around nothing. A small greedy mouth seeks, sucks blindly in the empty air. Father's rough hands tear open her shirt, find her breasts, and then he gives the creature a nudge. She gasps as the child latches on, clings to her, and sucks greedily.

“Look at him, look. My son.” Father tries to turn her head, but she refuses to look.

Father is between her legs again, pulling more out of her. A pair of scissors glistens under the light. He cuts, then throws something in a garbage can while the child feeds.

“Look or don't look. It's all the same to me.” Father sits down by the machine gun and lights his pipe. “Don't count on getting out of here until my son's finished breast-feeding. And then, if anyone asks, the child is your cousin's. It's our duty to support and protect the family. We can't have the neighbours gossiping.” On her breast the child lets out small whimpering sounds.

Father leans forward and turns the knobs on the Bakelite radio. “We shall give him my na —”

“I'll call him Jack,” she whispers and turns her head away.

In that moment she swears never to speak to that which she has brought into the world. From that moment on, she will never speak again.

The radio crackles, the tubes come to life, glowing behind the rough felt. Then comes the voice.

“We repeat: Montgomery has reported that the German troops . . .”

Chapter 50

S
anne was sitting
with her legs up on the back seat. The car tore through the bright evening. Allan drove; Ulrik was in the passenger seat. No one spoke. Bint was in the Crime Scene Unit's vehicle behind them. They had three quarters of an hour before they were meeting Gregers Vestberg from the local police near the village of Sjolte.

Allan looked at her in the rearview mirror.

“I had a colleague in Pristina ask around a little. It doesn't look like Elvir Seferi was involved in any kind of eye surgery there.”

Ulrik followed the conversation but said nothing.

Green fields and woods streaked past. What a way to spend Midsummer's Eve.

“Well, he could still be involved,” she said.

“Well, yes.”

Ulrik turned in his seat. “Did you get hold of Lars?”

Sanne shook her head.

“Me neither.” Ulrik closed his eyes and leaned back against the headrest.

No one said anything. The asphalt kept rolling away beneath the car.

The first bars of “Upside Down” filled the car. Sanne bent down and dug her phone out of her purse. A German number?

“Yes?”

“Frau Bissen?
Hier
Dr. Henkel
aus
Mülheim. I just thought I would get back to you. I spoke today with an older colleague . . . and well, between us, we recalled another colleague — unfortunately he died in a traffic accident a few years ago. We both seem to remember him having had a Danish student in the 1960s.”

“A Dane?” Sanne sat up, shushed Ulrik and Allan. Neither of them had said anything.

“Yes, a young man. Our colleague fired him rather quickly. The young man was incompetent. Comical, really. I think his grandfather was a doctor.”

Sanne held her breath, counted to five. “And can you remember the name of the young man?”

“Unfortunately not.”

When she had hung up, Sanne got Professor Lau's number from the duty officer. Moments later she threw the phone down on the seat.

“Isn't his voice mail picking up?” Allan accelerated, passed a red Opel.

She shook her head and forced her breathing down.