Jeanette thought for a moment about the proposal, after which she got up. Pauline Berg observed her body language while she explained to her friends. It was clear that she had a central place in the group. Shortly after that her friends left.
“Were they upset?”
“Really upset, really upset. No, they weren’t, I’ll see them later. The psychopath gets out Sunday at the earliest, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, Sunday morning.”
“So I can party the whole night without looking over my shoulder. This may be my last party.”
Her smile was lovely, but Pauline Berg shuddered anyway.
“Let’s not say things like that, this is not something to joke about.”
“No, I know, it just seems so unbelievable. Suddenly, in less than a week, there may be a monster like that chasing after me. Tell me, is he big?”
“Bigger than you.”
“If he tries to do anything to me, I’ll kill him if I can.”
Berg thought that sounded like a splendid idea, but was doubtful what she could allow herself to say, so instead she commented, “We were talking about boyfriends.”
“I don’t have one at the moment, but I can get one by Sunday if that’s what you mean. Are you thinking as a kind of bodyguard?”
“Yes, I am, and don’t say that you can manage by yourself. It’s not only about having a man taking care of you, it’s also about being two. That is, that you aren’t alone.”
Jeanette Hvidt had common sense.
“But that’s impossible, you can’t be together all the time. I mean, glued to each other day and night, who could stand that? And how long would it go on?”
Pauline Berg chose to be honest, apart from not directly saying that the investigation at the moment was at an impasse, and that the Homicide Division had produced no results worth mentioning in the past few days.
“Admittedly that’s a problem, but as you can imagine we are working at full steam. I’m talking here about many people whose sole job is to render Andreas Falkenborg harmless. We are turning over every stone in his life, and at one point or another I am convinced we will find something we can nail him with. The problem is that I can’t tell you when that will happen. Actually I want to hear whether it’s possible for you to go somewhere else for a while. A place that only you and I know about.”
The girl seriously considered the suggestion, while she finished her beer and reached for another from the plastic bag by her side. Pauline Berg considered suggesting a soft drink, but refrained. Jeanette did not seem intoxicated, nor even affected. She said, “It won’t work.”
“Because?”
“I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’m one year older than the others.”
Berg nodded that of course she had. The truth was she hadn’t noticed, but she could remember how, when she was nineteen, one year more or less had major significance.
“I really have to slave to finish school, almost all the others are more academic than me. That’s just the truth. Where they only need to study for fifteen minutes, I need an hour, and even though I really worked at it, I had to do second year over. It won’t do for me to be away from school for a long time, because then I won’t be able to prepare for my exams. I’m not that smart.”
“You seem very goal-oriented. Do you know what you want to be?”
“A doctor, and I’m going to be one some day.”
“I believe that. But tell me one thing, have you considered cutting your hair short? It could be very attractive on you.”
Jeanette looked at Pauline Berg’s hair and answered soberly, “The same for you.”
Berg said temptingly, “Okay, let’s get our hair cut together, it’s a deal! I’ll find a fancy salon in Copenhagen, and you won’t pay a thing.”
The girl shook her head.
“It won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
She shook her hair away on the left side and exposed her ear. It was deformed, curled together to half size.
“I’m saving up for an operation, but it’s expensive. I’ll have to go abroad, England or Germany, so there will be accommodation and travel on top of that.”
“Good Lord, it’s not that bad.”
“Well, you don’t think so.”
“You’re not just for decoration.”
Jeanette’s reaction was surprisingly aggressive.
“Do you really think I want to show off an ear like this? Are you stupid?”
Pauline Berg ignored the insult, but dropped the haircut idea. She tried an alternative.
“If we disregard your education for a moment, do you have a place you could go?”
“Yes, I have. And you’ll have to excuse me for snapping at you, I just had a few ugly experiences when I was younger. But that’s not your fault.”
Berg placed her hand on the girl’s arm and said kindly, “That’s all right. Where could you possibly go?”
“Helsingør, my uncle lives there, and he would be happy to have me stay with him for a while.”
A quick calculation told Berg that based on security-related as well as economic considerations this solution would be preferable. If the girl refused to leave her home, the police would be forced to protect her, and that sort of thing was very expensive. She said, “They have high schools in Helsingør too, and we’ll arrange all the practical aspects. I can also promise you competent tutoring to ease the transition, which we can suitably define as until you have earned your diploma, regardless of whether you move back or not. How does that sound?”
All things considered Pauline Berg did not know whether she had any authority to promise this, but surely the government would save a lot of money with such an arrangement and be better served besides. Jeanette Hvidt quietly shook her lovely head.
“It’s so strange, all this, like a bad dream.”
“Yes, I understand how you feel, but what do you say about Helsingør?”
“I say that I don’t believe in it that much. What about my subject combination? And then I’ll have new teachers too, not to mention new classmates.”
Pauline Berg swore to herself; it would be so much easier if the girl voluntarily found an arrangement.
“We have found traces of your picture on Andreas Falkenborg’s computer, and he has read your interview on the Internet.”
Jeanette reacted as Berg had both hoped and feared.
“That’s disgusting.”
“Yes, disgusting. But the truth is that he has his eye on you.”
“It was those retarded reporters. I didn’t want to say anything at all, but they persisted and persisted. Obviously that’s beside the point now. Is there more? I want to know.”
“When we questioned him, he said that they were breeding and putting new ugly cuttings into the world. We think he was referring to your grandmother and you.”
“I’m a new, ugly cutting. Is that how it is?”
“Yes, that’s how it is.”
Jeanette Hvidt started crying, and Pauline Berg held her quietly. Before she drove the girl home, they decided on Helsingør. She never made it to the party.
During the drive back to Copenhagen Pauline Berg daydreamed about the honour and prestige she would achieve if she could pressure Andreas Falkenborg into irrevocable confessions. Information he could not retract, and that would hold up in court. She had the means, if she dared. But it had to succeed, because if it did not… “Then the shit will hit the fan, Then the shit will really hit the fan,” she chanted to herself.
It was an expression she had learned from her grandfather, and she liked saying it. It sat well on the tongue.
When she hit Lyngby, she called Simonsen. After some difficulty she got hold of him on the landline in his own apartment where he was picking up a few things. She informed him that Jeanette Hvidt would go to stay with her uncle in Helsingør, and about the funds needed for various academic support arrangements, which he immediately accepted with the comment that he too could count. After the call she decided to stop by Police Headquarters briefly, after which she intended to devote the rest of the evening to Ernesto Madsen, although she’d had to reduce her plans considerably after she was sent to Hundested.