The Purity of Vengeance (57 page)

She expelled a sigh of indignation, as though for emphasis, then gestured toward Carl’s cup. “Drink your coffee and explain it to me again. And by all means take your time.”

Carl frowned. Nete Hermansen was unusually confident for a woman her age. With hardly a pause for thought, she seemed in little doubt. Well-formed sentences, and never a question posed. It was all so matter-of-fact:
Explain it to me again
.

Why should that be necessary? And why should he take his time? Was she trying to stall him? Was that it? Why had she made him stand outside the door all that time? Had she called someone? Someone who might help her out of a jam?

Carl couldn’t work it out. Had she joined forces with her archenemy, Curt Wad?

It seemed like he had nothing but questions. He just wasn’t sure what they were.

He scratched his chin. “Would you mind if we searched your apartment, Nete?”

This time there was a slight darting of her eyes. A tiny, almost imperceptible dissociation from the here and now. He’d seen it before, hundreds of times, and it told him more than as many words.

Now she would say no.

“Well, if you must, I’m sure there’d be no harm in your looking around. Just as long as you don’t make a mess.”

She tried to look coy but failed.

Carl leaned forward. “In that case, I think I will. But I must inform you that you have hereby granted me permission to search the entire property as I find relevant to our investigations. We’ll be thorough, and it may take some time. As long as you know.”

She smiled. “Drink your coffee. It sounds like you’ll be needing the energy. It’s not a small apartment, by any means, as I’m sure you realize.”

He swallowed a mouthful. It tasted horrendous and he put the cup down again.

“Let me just call my superior and then I’ll ask you to confirm to him what we’ve just agreed, OK?”

She nodded her consent, got to her feet, and went out into the kitchen. Maybe she needed to collect herself after all.

Carl was sure of it now. Something here wasn’t right.

“Yeah, hi, Lis,” he said when his call was finally taken. “I want you to get hold of Marcus . . .”

He sensed the shadow behind him. Startled, he turned his head.

And saw that the hammer aimed at the back of his neck was about to hit him full-on.

45

November 2010

He had held the
hand of his beloved all through the night and into the morning. Squeezing, kissing, and caressing it until the funeral director arrived.

Curt trembled with emotion when they asked him to come into the living room and he saw her laid out in the coffin in snow-white silk, hands folded around her bridal bouquet. For months he had known this day would come, and yet it was practically unbearable. The light of his life, the mother of his children. There she lay. Departed from the world, departed from him.

“Allow me a moment alone with her,” he instructed, his eyes following the besuited undertaker and his assistant as they left the room and closed the door behind them.

He bent forward and stroked her hair one last time.

“Oh, my dearest,” he murmured, barely able to find voice. He dried his eyes, but the tears had a will of their own. He cleared his throat but choked still on his sorrow.

Then he made the sign of the cross above her face and softly kissed her frigid brow.

The shoulder bag on the floor beside him contained everything he needed. Twelve 20 ml ampoules of Propofol, the contents of three already drawn into hypodermic syringes. Enough anesthetic to end the lives of five or six human beings. But there was flumazenil, too, to counter its effect should the situation so demand. He was well prepared.

“We shall be reunited tonight, my love,” he whispered, before straightening up. The way he’d planned it, two more would die before his own turn came.

He was waiting only for the word.

Where was Carl Mørck?

 • • • 

He was met by his informant two buildings away from Nete’s apartment on Peblinge Dossering. The man who had taken out Hafez el-Assad.

“I thought he was going to walk the whole way, so I just tagged along on his tail. I was right behind him until we got to the Central Station,” he said with an apologetic shrug. “It’s a good place to shove someone under a bus, but all of a sudden he was in a taxi. I took the next in line and followed him from a distance, but he was already on his way into the building when I came round the corner.”

Curt nodded. Another idiot incapable of doing a proper job.

“How long is it since he went in?”

The man glanced at his watch. “An hour and a quarter now.”

Curt looked up at the windows of the apartment. Apparently she had lived here ever since she sent him her invitation all those years ago. And who could blame her? It was an imposing building with a commanding view, centrally situated amid the vibrant hum of city life.

“Have you got that pick gun for me?” he asked.

“Yeah, but there’s a knack. Let me show you.”

Curt nodded and followed him to the front door. He was familiar with the basics.

“The lock here’s a six-pin tumbler and looks pretty tricky, but it’s not,” his man explained. “We can assume she’s got the same kind in her apartment door. I’d say they probably changed the whole lot when they installed the entry phone.”

He produced a small leather case and glanced about. Apart from a young couple idly strolling arm in arm along the path, there was no one around.

“First there’s the torque wrench here,” he explained, inserting it into the lock. “Don’t touch it until you squeeze your trigger. Place the gun all the way into the keyway right under the pins. You can actually feel them. Keep your needle at a slight angle like this, then squeeze and apply pressure to the wrench, OK?”

He squeezed the trigger a couple of times, tweaking the wrench simultaneously. The door opened almost immediately.

He nodded and handed Curt the tools. “Now you’re in. Are you going to be OK, or do you want me to come up with you?”

Curt shook his head. “No, I’ll be fine. You can go home now.”

From now on he preferred to handle things on his own.

 • • • 

The stairs were empty. Apart from the faint sound of a television, there was no indication that anyone else in the building was at home.

Curt put his ear to Nete’s door, expecting to hear voices inside but heard none.

He stuck his hand into his shoulder bag, producing two hypodermics. He made sure the needles were in place, then put them in his coat pocket.

His first attempt with the pick gun failed. He recalled his instructions and tried again.

Despite its age, the lock was rather stiff, but after angling the needle and squeezing the trigger again he eventually felt the cylinder turn. Cautiously, he pressed down on the door handle with his elbow, and the door opened.

An odd, musty smell filled his nostrils. Like moldy books or cupboards that hadn’t been opened for years. Old clothes and mothballs. A secondhand shop with no customers.

In front of him was a long hallway with doors leading off. It was dark at the end, but light seeped from the two rooms that were nearest. Judging by the cold flicker, the room on his right was a kitchen illuminated by fluorescent lighting, while the warm glow to his left most likely came from a number of incandescent lightbulbs of the kind the EU had now all but criminalized.

He took a step into the hallway, putting his bag down on the floor and reaching for a hypodermic in his coat pocket.

If they were both in there, he would need to go for Carl Mørck first. A quick jab into a vein in the neck and he would be out in a moment. If it came to a struggle, he would have to thrust the needle directly into Mørck’s heart, though this was a solution to which he felt less inclined. The dead were rather unforthcoming, and Curt wanted information. Errant information that could cause irreparable damage to his Purity Party and end up destroying the vital work carried out by The Cause.

Nete had been plotting some kind of vengeance against him, of that he was in little doubt. It all matched up. Her peculiar invitation all those years ago, and now Carl Mørck. It was imperative now to find out once and for all if there was anything in this apartment that might jeopardize his life’s work. Once he’d got the two of them under control, they would talk. And the information they gave him could then be acted upon by others within the organization.

He heard a sound in the room to the left. Light, rather shuffling footsteps that certainly did not belong to a man of Mørck’s stature.

He stepped forward and glanced over the startled woman’s shoulder as he appeared in front of her, quickly surveying the living room and finding it empty.

“Good evening, Nete,” he said, turning his gaze and looking straight into her face. Her eyes were duller than he recalled, gray and lackluster. So less sprightly she had become, her features not nearly as fine and angular as before, her proportions transitioned by time. It was only to be expected.

“Sorry to barge in on you like this, but the door was open and I took the liberty. I’m sure you don’t mind. I did knock, of course, but you mustn’t have heard.”

She shook her head slowly.

“We’re old friends, you and I, aren’t we, Nete? Curt Wad will always be welcome in your home, isn’t that right?”

He smiled as she stared at him in bewilderment, then scanned the room more closely. Nothing out of the ordinary here, it seemed, apart from the two cups on the table and Carl Mørck being nowhere in sight. He fixed his eyes on the cups. One was almost full. Black coffee, nearly to the brim. The other was half empty.

Curt stepped closer to the table, making sure that Nete stayed put. He reached out and put his hand to the first cup. The coffee was lukewarm rather than hot.

“Where is Carl Mørck?” he asked.

She seemed frightened. As though Mørck was concealed in some corner, watching them. He looked around the room again.

“Where is he?” he repeated.

“He left a short time ago.”

“No, he didn’t, Nete. We would have seen him leave the building. So I’ll ask you again: Where is he? You would be advised to answer me.”

“He went down the back stairs. I don’t know why.”

Curt stood still for a moment. Had Mørck spotted his shadow? Had he been one step ahead of them all along?

“Show me the back door,” he commanded, indicating for her to lead the way.

She put her hand to her breast and stepped hesitantly past him into the kitchen.

“There,” she said, gesturing toward the door in the corner, clearly ill at ease. Curt could understand her feeling out of sorts.

“So he went this way, did he? Meaning he moved all these bottles aside, the vegetable basket, and the rubbish bag, then put them all back again before he left? I’m sorry, Nete, but I’m afraid I don’t believe you.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders and twisted her abruptly toward him. Her gaze fell to the floor, and no wonder. The simple little bitch was a born liar. Always had been.

“Where is Carl Mørck?” he repeated, taking a hypodermic from his pocket, removing the safety cap, and placing the needle to her throat.

“He went down the back stairs,” she said again, a whisper.

And then he jabbed the needle into her neck and pressed the plunger halfway down.

Seconds later she began to sway, then collapsed like a rag doll.

“So, now I have you, Nete Hermansen. If there’s anything you wish to confide, I assure you it’ll remain between the two of us. Do you understand me?”

He left her in a heap on the floor and went back into the hallway, where he stood still for a moment, listening for the faintest sound, anything that might give cause for alarm. The sound of breathing, the creak of a floorboard, muffled movements. But there was nothing. He returned to the living room. Once it had been two rooms, now knocked into one. It was easy to see, looking up at the stucco that bordered the ceiling. Formerly there would have been a door over in the corner of the far room leading out to the hallway, but it was gone now.

All in all it was a home befitting a woman of Nete’s age and standing. Neither too old-fashioned nor too modern. A grandfather clock with a ticking pendulum next to a CD player. Some classical music but also one or two more popular albums that Curt’s own taste would have excluded.

He stared again at the cups on the table and then sat down. He tried to assess what might have become of Carl Mørck and what they would have to do to find him again, and as he did so he picked up the first cup and drank. The coffee tasted bitter, and he put it down with revulsion.

He reached into his trouser pocket for his secure mobile. Perhaps he should send a man out to Police HQ to see if Mørck had turned up there by some strange and inexplicable means. He looked at his watch. Or maybe he should get someone out to Mørck’s house in Allerød. It was getting late.

Curt’s head dropped for a second. He felt drained. Age was catching up to him. And then he noticed a tiny spot in the pattern of red and gold at his feet. It looked fresh. Strange, he thought, and dabbed his index finger to see if it was dry.

It wasn’t.

He stared in bemusement at his fingertip, trying to grasp what was going on.

Why would there be fresh blood on Nete Hermansen’s carpet? What could have happened? Was Mørck still here?

Abruptly, he stood up, went out to the kitchen, and stared at Nete lying there on the floor. He felt a dryness in his mouth and then sudden nausea. He rubbed his cheeks, drank water directly from the tap, moistening his brow while supporting himself against the counter. It was little wonder that the dreadful hours he had been through this last day and night should now take their toll.

He collected himself and reached for the next hypodermic with its contents of Propofol, making sure it was ready before putting it back in his pocket. If necessary, he could stab it into an assailant within seconds.

With caution he went out into the hallway, slowly proceeding along its length and gingerly opening the first door to find only an unmade bed and untidy piles of shoes and underwear.