‘No, not any more. Go to the garden.’
‘Aw, Mu-uum.’
Once she is sure her son has gone outside, she whispers into the mouthpiece: ‘I don’t want you any more. You don’t understand me at all.’
Dragan laughs. ‘I’m staying at the Plaza and I’ll be in my room tonight. My name is Guido Pirandello.’
She can see Dennis. He runs up to the window, presses his face against it, grimaces and giggles. She tries to smile back at her little boy and speak to Dragan at the same time.
‘Dragan, I’ll report you. I’ll tell the police where you are. Don’t phone me again!’
She slams the receiver down. Afterwards she collapses on the sofa and cries, listening for Finn or Dennis at the door.
Finn doesn’t return until about an hour later. She hugs him and kisses him warmly. They chat, mostly about the pipes Finn is supplying for the office kitchen in a large clothing company. She has made fishcakes for supper, served with boiled potatoes and her own home-made sour-cream-and-mustard dressing.
When Finn has helped with clearing the table, they brew a pot of tea and settle down to watch Good Evening, Denmark and News & Views on the television.
Later on, as she makes her way to the Plaza Hotel, she thinks: He’s the Devil! Her head is full of images of Dragan. I haven’t hated anyone so much since I left school.
She’s told Finn that she’s going over to Vibeke’s to practise a few songs for the choir. ‘You’d better put the kids to bed,’ she told him. ‘I might be a bit late.’
She imagines her children grown up and when they somehow learn what their mother got up to once or twice a year, she can hear them ask, ‘Mum, is it true? When we were little, did you really make love to a murderer?’
As the hotel lift ascends, Camilla can feel her skin crawl as she thinks about her answer.
‘No, no, I didn’t. I’d never do that.’
‘So what did you do together? You were unfaithful to Dad, weren’t you?’
‘Goodness, where do you get such dreadful ideas? I wouldn’t dream of it. How can you? I’m your mother!’
56
It is half past one in the morning. Iben is leaning against the headboard of Gunnar’s big bed. He is next to her and they are both writing on their laptops. Documents and books are spread all over the duvet. They are both absorbed in what they’re doing, but now and then one of them tells the other about a thought or a piece of text. Or they touch, kiss and wait to see what will happen next.
Quietly, in the light from the bedside lamps, their minds play with each other in a private game they both love. Their bodies are at rest, as if they were floating in a warm swimming pool.
Gunnar’s chest bears a small, pink scar from Zigic’s knife. Iben covers it with her hand, as if she could protect him now, one month too late. Her hand moves on, slips through the hair on his chest and her other hand lets go of a book about the Armenian genocide.
Iben and Gunnar stay awake most of the night, but at DCGI the next morning Iben is bursting with energy. She will always remember Malene and respect her memory, but it’s a fact that the office is running much better without her and there are no more problems with people not getting along. Anne-Lise has flourished in a totally unexpected way and Paul turns up every morning in top form.
Iben’s only worry concerns the Turkey issue of Genocide News. It has been a source of anxiety for her ever since she learned, on one hand, that Paul is pretty sure he will be the next head of the DIHR and, on the other, that he is chummy with a representative of the nationalist Danish People’s Party.
All of a sudden Paul whipped the planned Chechnya issue off the schedule, meaning that a study of Christians killing Muslims went down the tube. Instead all the Centre’s resources are to be brought to bear on Turkey — including how Muslims killed more than a million Christians.
Paul’s stated reason was that Turkey was up for discussion in Brussels. Still, these days no one talks about the genocide carried out by the Turks. Inevitably, the suspicion comes to mind that Paul has made some secret agreement with influential figures in the People’s Party, who are against all immigrants, but the Muslim contingent most of all. They already stopped Ole from firing Paul. Maybe their next move is to install him at the top of the Human Rights Institute?
And, if so, does Iben’s work serve, above all, to fan the fear of Muslims and the growing hatred of them? And perhaps doing her bit to target the large Turkish community in Denmark? Naturally Paul would never tell her so straight out. She has no choice now, except to make the Turkey issue as good and comprehensive as possible, supporting the Centre and the cause in general.
After work she goes to Gunnar’s place. Every second week his daughters are there too. Iben has liked them immensely from the very first time they met. It seems that they like her too. At a stroke Iben belongs to a family — a brand-new one, but a family all the same.
It’s incredible that less than half a year ago Iben and Gunnar met for the first time. At Sophie’s party. Three days later, they both received threatening emails.
She is sitting on the bed in the oldest daughter’s room, listening to music, looking at the girl’s latest download of pop-star photos from the Internet.
When the entry phone rings Iben answers. It is Dorte Jørgensen.
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you?’
Iben pulls herself together and smiles, even though no one is there to watch her. ‘Not at all, Dorte. Come straight up.’
All in all, Iben is happy. During the last few weeks she has discovered how much she’s capable of. Although she’s felt close to the edge once or twice, she’s realised that it’s best to stay in her own flat during those moments. She doesn’t want Gunnar or the girls to notice anything odd about her.
Whenever Dorte turns up, her feeling of being in control begins to slip. Lurking at the back of Iben’s mind is the fear that one of these visits will provoke an anxiety attack — and the agonising fear that she might give things away about herself.
Iben says hello and welcome, calls Gunnar, and offers to make coffee. The daughters wander in too and they all gather round the coffee table. Gunnar’s bloodstained sofa has been thrown out and replaced by Malene’s elegant designer one, which her mother insisted that Iben should inherit although she has no room for it in her flat.
Dorte looks around with an expression that seems to suggest that Iben’s staying here is suspect. Iben serves coffee and asks Dorte what is on her mind this time. They will try to help in every way.
Keeping an eye on Iben, Dorte explains that she has been examining Malene’s confessional letter to Rasmus. ‘Everything about it is consistent with her other letters to Rasmus. With one exception. All the other letters have been saved repeatedly. It seems that Malene was a nervous writer and kept pressing Save every five minutes. But, if you check the Statistics option under File Properties for this particular letter, it has been revised only once.’
‘I see. What does that mean?’
‘The significance is that the letter might have been written by someone else. Not by Malene and, therefore, possibly after her death. It’s easy to add a false Save date.’
‘Really? Do you think …’
‘Well, we’ve been wondering about it. Interestingly, we established that someone did boot up the computer and used it after the police had sealed Malene’s flat.
‘So it could only have been one of you … or …?’
‘That’s always possible, of course. Given that there seems to have been no break-in, it’s the likeliest answer, I suppose.’
Iben feels that she’s still herself. But the girls look worried. Maybe she’s more transparent than she imagines. Iben glances at Gunnar, who understands at once.