The Exception Page 37

  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.

  She tries to imagine the two police officers telling Malene that Rasmus is dead. God knows how she will react after having slammed Rasmus for several days. Shouldn’t Iben get home as soon as possible? Or would Malene prefer to be alone?

  Iben knows that she must go back up to Malene’s flat to fetch her jacket and her bag with her mobile phone, wallet and bicycle keys. But first she has to see the yard once more.

  Rasmus’s body is covered with a pale-grey tarpaulin. It looks like a big sack, suspended only by the thin wire netting. The area around it is cordoned off with red-and-white tape.

  The police photographer has left. An officer is keeping an eye on the place, his hands firmly clasped behind his back. It’s quiet. Are there faint noises coming from the neighbouring flats? Or is her hearing overly sensitive? Like the moment in Malene’s kitchen – did she actually hear the voices?

  She moves closer to Rasmus’s covered body and looks up at the broken window in the dirty brick wall rising high above her. He landed far away from the wall. He must have slid down the stairs at some speed.

  That’s how he was. Always in a rush.

  When her father died it was cold too. She paced back and forth in the hospital parking lot, across its hard asphalt. She looks at the surface on which she stands now. It’s not black – more like a pale grey.

  Police tape cordons off the landing where Rasmus fell and the flight of stairs to Malene’s flat. Another officer tells Iben to go back down and then up the back stairs. However, when she explains who she is, he lets her through.

  There are no signs of the police having been in the flat. Everything looks the same as before. Iben uses the telephone to call Malene.

  ‘They’ve told you, haven’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’ Malene’s voice is composed, low, and without any trace of emotion.

  After waiting for her to say something more, Iben breaks the silence. ‘Shall I come home now?’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘Didn’t they tell you?’

  ‘Yes. But weren’t you there?’

  Iben tries to describe exactly how it was. Then she warns Malene about Anne-Lise, realising she’d rather not go home at all.

  When they finish, Iben picks up her bag and her jacket and walks into Malene and Rasmus’s sitting room. She stands there for a moment. Not a sound to be heard. She walks into the bedroom. It too is quiet. Then she visits every room in the flat to memorise them. Back in the sitting room she calls out in a low voice, ‘Rasmus, I’m taking the posters down now.’

  Silence. She slams the kitchen door behind her and takes the narrow stairs back down. Dorte Jørgensen is still in the yard.

  ‘There’s something I didn’t tell you earlier.’

  Dorte looks uninterested.

  ‘Something factual.’

  Dorte turns away from the policeman she was talking to.

  ‘OK. Let’s deal with this in the car.

  They go to sit in the police car. Iben explains that she thought she heard a woman’s voice. And that it could have been Anne-Lise’s.

  Dorte pulls out her notebook. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure. It was very faint. A woman’s voice, I think.’

  ‘Are you sure that it was Anne-Lise’s voice?’

  ‘No, I’m not. As I said, I can’t be sure.’

  ‘It could have been, say, Malene’s voice?’

  ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘The most common murderer by far is the spouse or partner.’

  ‘But I know Malene. She’d never kill anyone.’

  Dorte looks at her.

  Iben repeats herself. ‘I’m certain she’d never think of doing something like that. She wouldn’t. Never.’

  ‘Take it easy, Iben. I believe you. You’re the one who brought up the idea of murder, not me.’ Dorte’s voice drones on monotonously, as if everything she is saying is routine.

  ‘If you’re sticking to this statement, then I have to pursue it. The flat will be out of bounds for quite some time. My superior will call Malene and your colleague to ask them where they were at the time of the accident and if they can prove it.’

  ‘Will Malene be questioned?’

  ‘Yes. And if the case proceeds I shall have to call you in to make a formal statement, which you will be asked to sign. Are you aware of all this?’


  ‘Yes. I am.’

  Dorte might have noticed Iben’s hesitation. ‘You also know that perjury carries a prison sentence?’

  ‘But I haven’t said that I know for sure that Anne-Lise was there. All I’ve said is that I heard a woman’s voice. Maybe. And that maybe it was her voice.’

  The look on Dorte’s face gets to Iben. Iben is aware that she’s acting in a way that, coming from someone else, and at another time, would annoy her more than anyone.

  Dorte speaks calmly: ‘Now, you must think carefully about what you did and didn’t hear. Take your time.’ She waits, rolling her biro between thumb and index finger.

  ‘I’ve said before … I’m not absolutely sure.’

  Dorte puts her notebook away. ‘Tell you what. Just for now, I won’t make this a priority.’

  She straightens up and starts to open the car door. It’s time for Iben to get out of the car again.

  Rasmus’s parents have arranged for the funeral to take place in six days’ time. Most of his belongings are already packed, which makes things easier. His parents pay off his student loans and Malene takes over what he owes on his Illum shop card. She is allowed to keep the pieces of furniture she and Rasmus bought together. Legally his parents and his brother have a right to claim all Rasmus’s possessions, but they let Malene hold onto what she wants from their life together.

  No one mentions Rasmus’s new girlfriend.

  Others are also alert to Malene’s needs. Iben talks to her on the phone every night and goes to see her often. She also helps Malene with the many practical issues that she must now deal with. It is her chance to prove to Malene that she is a loyal and reliable friend. Ever since Kenya, when she failed to reply to Malene’s phone calls and emails, Iben has been unable to convince Malene that she would never abandon her.

  Iben finds grief has made Malene less attractive. She has lost weight, maybe a couple of kilograms, and because she was already so thin, her sharpened features make her look older. Not that it seems to matter to men. Malene still turns as many heads as ever when she walks down the street with Iben at her side.

  Gunnar offers to help Malene as well. Before he heard about Rasmus’s death Gunnar had left a message on Iben’s answering machine: ‘Hi. This is Gunnar. Good to see you the other night. It was a terrific evening …’ A pause. When Iben played back his message for the third time, she decided he must have worked out what to say, only to change his mind and improvise something else instead. His voice sounded a little flat at first, as if he had rehearsed what he was saying. ‘I’m sitting here reading an article in the Guardian that reminded me of what you said about the lack of political awareness in American literature. It’s an interesting article, but not as interesting as what you said.’

  During this last sentence his tone became a little livelier. When Iben listened for the last time, she thought it sounded as if he was faintly amused.

  ‘Did you notice there’s a poetry reading by Inger Christensen this Thursday? She’ll read some of her early work. Would you like to go? Anyway, you know my number.’

  Iben can’t call Gunnar now. She comforts herself by switching off the machine so that new messages won’t record over his voice.

  It is barely a week after the funeral when Iben and Malene set out for IKEA to look for a new dining table. Even though it’s a weekday and they have left DCGI early, the huge furniture halls are crowded with happy-looking young couples, talking loudly about their future. Many of the women are pregnant and just as many of the men are carrying babies in carriers fastened around their bellies.

  Malene doesn’t cry, but she is very tense. She selects one of the cheapest tables. It will be some time before she can afford good furniture again. The trouble is that she doesn’t really feel like living with any of the cheap IKEA tables. Iben feels Malene probably doesn’t want any of the more expensive tables either.

  She pats a small birch-wood table for 789 kroner. ‘Once the flaps are up it’ll look a little like your old one.’

  Malene isn’t paying attention.

  Iben can’t help thinking: What will this table look like when it falls from the fourth floor? Will the corner crack, or the legs come off? Will the top split?

  The model rooms along the back wall are not only furnished but also warmly, invitingly lit and carefully decorated with posters in striking colours. There are books on the shelves and plastic models of food ready to be eaten. But the cosy Swedish style extends only about three metres up. Overhead is a span of concrete beams some fifteen metres long. Iben looks up at the colossal air-conditioning units suspended by thin cables from the industrial ceiling. She wonders how much one of these units might weigh. If one of them fell, would it crush a person underneath? – bend him double?

  While Iben thinks, she holds on to another flimsy-looking table in white Formica and steel tubing.

  It occurs to her to think: If someone were after us, we’d be easy targets now, walking close together, our attention on things like table tops, designs, heights and widths.

  Malene’s voice breaks into her thoughts: ‘You know, regardless of whether Anne-Lise poured the oil on the floor or not, he would still be alive if it wasn’t for her.’

  Iben knows what’s coming next. It’s not the first time she’s heard it.

  ‘He’d never have wanted to move in the first place, if I hadn’t felt so worn out all the time. You know, by Anne-Lise’s … Rasmus always wanted a low-maintenance woman with no problems. I knew that perfectly well. But instead I … it was me who ruined our life together. But it was Anne-Lise’s fault. I was always finished after another eight-hour day with her. And I had to explain to Rasmus. I had to. Didn’t I?’

  Iben has heard all this before and has stopped listening.

  ‘But if Anne-Lise hadn’t started her warfare … it makes me so angry. It’s weird. You’ve never experienced anger like this, Iben; you don’t know what it’s like. And there’s nothing I can do. Nothing at all.’

  When Malene returned to the office for the first time after Rasmus’s death, Anne-Lise expressed her sympathy. She seemed so convincing, when she opened her eyes wide and said, ‘How dreadful it must be for you. It’s the worst thing that could happen. The thing we all fear the most.’

  Paul had told Malene to take as much time off as she needed, but every day off was another day for Anne-Lise to dig her claws into the Centre’s users. And if the merger happens, Anne-Lise’s close association with them – and therefore with the board – will matter when the time comes to decide who should be fired.

  The work on the Turkey issue carries on, although Iben and Anne-Lise’s collaboration is of course under strain. Still, Iben has to admit that Anne-Lise isn’t completely useless when it comes to newspaper research. She seems to know not to interfere with Iben’s writing and editing. Also it’s surprisingly helpful when she uses her librarian’s skill to check data and chase articles and author names in the databases of foreign libraries. During the last couple of weeks Iben has come to realise that it was rash of her to jump to the conclusion that it was Anne-Lise who murdered Rasmus. So much might have happened on the staircase that day.

  Malene and Iben give up on finding the right dining table. In the IKEA restaurant they buy the traditional Swedish dish of meatballs in cream sauce, with cranberry jam on the side. They buy themselves glasses of wine as well. While Iben eats, Malene again expands on what a wonderful man Rasmus was and how miserably wrong her own behaviour was. She doesn’t touch her food.

  ‘It’s like holding a blowtorch in your hand and not knowing what to direct it at. You have no idea of what it’s like to be this furious.’

  She fiddles with the food on her plate, pushing sauce and potatoes and cranberries from side to side with small, picky movements. ‘I tell you one thing. Now Anne-Lise will soon learn what it’s like when I can’t stand someone!’

  Iben doesn’t reply.

  38

  Iben knew the garden would be large, but not
this large.

  It is three o’clock in the morning. She is walking in the tall, wet grass in the winter moonlight. The trees, bushes and hedges do not look black, but somehow it is difficult to distinguish the many shades of green and brown that are visible during the day. The only colour she can see clearly is a bush with bright red branches.

  The tall, old-fashioned villa at the far end of the garden is also red.

  She doesn’t feel the cold when she slowly makes her way to stand under one of the old fruit trees. She wears her thickest jacket with the hood up. Above her she can see bare branches and, here and there, an apple silhouetted against the dark sky.

  The red villa is dark too. No one is up at this time of night along this suburban road. And no one is likely to be awake enough to cycle, as Iben has just done, all the way from Nørrebro to Vaserne, north of Holte.

  If a light goes on anywhere in the house, Iben can get away long before they come outside to investigate who is roaming around in their garden. But why should anyone discover her?

  She moves closer to the house, walks around it and peers through the dark windows of the ground floor, trying to make out what is in the rooms. As always, the knife is strapped to her shin, even though she fears Anne-Lise least of all.

  Iben should cycle back home after peeking through all the windows on the ground floor. The whole excursion seems a complete waste of time. She can’t think what she hoped to find.

  A week has passed since she realised that her suspicions that Anne-Lise murdered Rasmus were stress-related. It’s different for Malene. She won’t be able to move on until she has a clear picture of what happened. She needs to know more about Anne-Lise. Iben came here tonight more for Malene’s sake than for her own.

  If only she could find something tonight that would help Malene. Then maybe Malene could finally put it behind her how Iben owes her for getting the job at the Centre.

  She looks up at the first floor again. Dark, no signs of life.

  She places the ladder she found in the garage near a first-floor window and climbs up. The rooms must be unusually high-ceilinged, because the climb is more than seven metres.