The Purity of Vengeance (31 page)

Carl nodded, feeling the disturbing rumblings of a tempest brewing in his colon.

“And second, this Benefice thing is a privately funded think tank. Besides a couple of political analysts working freelance, they’ve got one journalist on the permanent staff, this Louis Petterson. They work according to what they call ‘the briefcase technique,’ which means they produce short copy that busy politicians can scan in a few seconds. Populist, tendentious crap, if you ask me.”

Carl didn’t doubt it for a second. “Who’s behind it?” he asked.

“A Liselotte Siemens. She’s chair of the board and her sister’s the managing director.”

“Hmm. Never heard of her.”

“Me neither, but I checked up on her background. I went back twenty-five years through all her various registered addresses, before I turned up something that might be a lead.”

“Go on.”

“In the late eighties she was living at the same address as a well-known fertility doctor out in Hellerup by the name of Wilfrid Lønberg. He’s the father of the two Siemens sisters. Which is pretty interesting, I’d say.”

“Yeah?” Carl leaned forward slightly. “Why’s that, then?”

“Because Wilfrid Lønberg is one of the founders of the Purity Party. Haven’t you seen him on telly?”

Carl tried to think back, only to find that his turbulent guts seemed to have severed all connection to his cerebral cortex.

“OK. And what are the newspapers for, then?” he went on, indicating the pile under Rose’s arm.

“Assad and I are sifting through the period our missing persons disappeared again, just different newspapers this time. We need to be certain we’ve covered everything.”

“Nice work, Rose,” he said, calculating how many strides it would take him to get to the bathroom.

Ten minutes later he stood in front of Assad looking decidedly pale. “I’m off home, Assad. Dodgy stomach.”

Now he’s going to say “Told you so,” Carl thought to himself.

But instead Assad reached underneath the desk, producing his umbrella and then handing it to him.

“Pity the camel that cannot cough and shit at the same time,” he said.

Whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean.

 • • • 

The drive home was a tap dance on the accelerator, sweat dripping from every pore, his stomach in utter turmoil. If he got stopped by the traffic police he’d have no option but to plead force majeure. He even considered turning on the blue light and the siren. It’d been decades since he last shit his pants, and he was banking on keeping up the good run for some while to come.

So when he got home and found the front door locked he almost tore it down. What the hell were they playing at in there?

Five minutes of relief on the crapper and he was feeling rather better. In two hours he was due to present himself and his Colgate smile at Mona’s, ready to play favorite uncle for her beast of a grandson.

Hardy was awake when he came into the living room, watching the rain spill over the roof gutters.

“Fucking weather,” he said, hearing Carl enter. “What I wouldn’t give to be out in it just for half a minute.”

“Nice to see you, too, mate.” Carl sat down by Hardy’s bed and ran his hand over his friend’s forehead. “There’s a downside to everything, you know. I’ve just got myself a dose of bloody stomach flu because of that weather.”

“Straight up? I’d give anything for stomach flu.”

Carl smiled and followed Hardy’s eyes downward.

There was a letter open on his duvet, and Carl recognized the address of the sender immediately. He was expecting one himself any day now.

“Ah, so your divorce from Minna came through. How do you feel about it, Hardy?”

Hardy clenched his teeth and made a heart-rending attempt to avoid noticing Carl’s sympathetic expression.

“Don’t think I can talk about it, Carl,” he replied, after a minute or so in the deepest silence.

Carl understood him better than anyone. It had been a good marriage. Probably the best in Carl’s circle of acquaintances. It’d have been their silver wedding in a few months, but the bullet Hardy caught had scuppered that, too.

Carl nodded. “Did Minna come round with it herself?”

“Yeah. Our boy was with her. They’re all right.”

Hardy understood, of course he did. Why should the life of the woman he loved stop just because his had?

“The funny thing is I gained a little bit of hope today.”

Carl raised his eyebrows, a reflex. He smiled apologetically, but too late.

“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, Carl. You think I’m a plonker who refuses to face facts. But half an hour ago Mika did something to me that hurt like fuck. Enough to have Morten dancing a jig round the room, anyway.”

“Who the hell’s Mika?”

“OK, you sure haven’t been home much lately. If you don’t know who Mika is, you better ask Morten. Only remember to knock first. They’re in the intimate phase at the moment.” He emitted a gurgling sound that could pass for a chuckle.

 • • • 

Carl stood quiet as a mouse outside Morten’s basement door until muffled laughter provided him with a cue to knock.

He went in hesitantly. The thought of seeing blubbery Morten in a close encounter with someone called Mika was enough to give anyone pause.

The two men were standing innocently in front of the open door of what had once been a sauna, their arms draped around each other’s shoulders.

“Hey, Carl. Just showing Mika my Playmobil collection.”

Carl sensed the lame expression on his face. If Morten Holland really had got this swarthy hunk down here on the pretext of inspecting his Playmobil collection, it beat hands down all his own ruses for luring unsuspecting women into his lair.

“Hullo,” said Mika, extending a hand hairier than Carl’s chest. “Mika Johansen. I’m a collector, like Morten.”

“Aaa,” muttered Carl, suddenly devoid of consonants.

“He doesn’t collect Kinder Eggs or Playmobil like me, but look what he gave me.”

Morten handed Carl a little cardboard box.
3218-A BAUARBEITER,
it read. And sure enough, inside was a little blue man in a red hard hat, holding what was presumably an oversized broom.

“Very nice,” said Carl, and handed it back.

“Nice?” Morten snorted, and gave his guest a big hug. “It’s not nice, it’s awesome, Carl. Now I’ve got a complete set of workmen from 1974, when it all started, right through to now. And the box is mint. Awesome, it is.”

Carl hadn’t seen his lodger sparkle like this since he moved in three years ago.

“So what do you collect, then?” Carl asked Mika, not really wanting to know.

“Antiquarian books on the central nervous system.”

Carl struggled in vain to find a fitting expression. The dark Adonis laughed.

“Funny thing to collect, I know. But I
am
a trained physiotherapist and certified acupuncturist, so maybe it’s not all that odd.”

“We met each other two weeks ago when I did something to my neck. My head was all stuck, don’t you remember, Carl?”

Was there any time when Morten’s head
wasn’t
stuck? If there was, he’d missed it.

“Have you talked to Hardy?” Morten asked.

“Yeah, that’s why I came down. He said something had hurt like fuck.” He turned to Mika. “What did you do, stick a needle in his eye?”

He tried to laugh, but was on his own.

“Not quite. I put needles into some nerves that still seem to be active.”

“And he reacted to that?”

“Too right,” said Morten.

“We need to sit him up,” said Mika. “He’s got feeling in a number of places. There’s an area on his shoulder, and two around the base of his thumb. It’s very encouraging.”

“How do you mean, encouraging?”

“I don’t think any of us can fully appreciate how hard he’s struggled to stimulate these sensations. But there seem to be indications that if he keeps working at it, he might be able to move his thumb.”

“His thumb? And what good’s that going to do him?”

Mika smiled. “A lot. It means contact, work, transport, the ability to take charge of himself.”

“Are you talking about a power wheelchair now?”

There was a pause, during which Morten gazed in admiration at his new conquest, while Carl felt his body temperature getting warmer, his heart beginning to pound.

“That, and a lot more besides. I’ve got loads of contacts in the health sector, and Hardy’s definitely a patient worth investing in. I’m absolutely convinced his life can change radically in the foreseeable future.”

Carl stood rooted to the spot. He felt like the ceiling was coming down on him, with no sense of where his feet were planted or where to direct his gaze. In short, he was flabbergasted, like a kid suddenly making sense of the world. It was a feeling largely unknown to him, and all he could do was step forward and draw this man toward him in a hug. He wanted to say thank you, but the words stuck in his throat.

Then he felt a pat on the back. “Yeah,” said Mika, an angel. “I know how you must feel, Carl. It’s major. Major indeed.”

 • • • 

Luckily it was Friday, so the toy shop on Allerød town square was still open. Just time to find some crap or other for Mona’s grandson, something that
couldn’t
be used as a weapon.

“Hi,” he said a short while later, as the boy stared up at him in Mona’s entrance hall, looking like someone who could do a person a lot of damage even without anything to hit them with.

He handed the boy his present, keeping a safe distance. An arm shot out like a striking cobra.

“Nice reflexes,” he said to Mona, as the boy disappeared with his prize. He drew her toward him, holding her so tightly not even a blade of grass could get in between. She really was exceptionally gorgeous, fragrant and appetizing almost beyond belief.

“What did you get him?” she asked, then kissed him. How the hell was he supposed to remember, with her lovely brown eyes so close?

“Erm . . . a Phlat Ball, I think it was called. You can press it flat and then it pops into a ball again. It’s got a timer on it . . . I think.”

She gave him a skeptical look as if to say Ludwig would have little trouble finding any number of uses for the toy that Carl most likely wasn’t anticipating.

This time Mona’s daughter, Samantha, seemed more prepared. She shook his hand and refrained from staring at his less flattering physical attributes.

She had her mother’s eyes. How the hell anyone could leave a goddess like her alone with a kid to bring up, he had no idea. At least, not until she opened her mouth.

“Hope you’re not going to dribble in the gravy again,” she said, bursting into resonant and highly inappropriate laughter.

Carl tried to go along with her, though his own laughter was rather less hearty.

They went straight in and sat down at the table. Carl was prepared for battle. Four tablets from the chemist’s had plugged his peristaltics, and his mind was clear and ready for the worst.

“How do you like the Phlat Ball, Ludwig?”

The boy didn’t answer. Maybe because he had two handfuls of fries stuffed sideways in his mouth.

“It went out of the window, first try,” answered his mother. “You go down and fetch it in the courtyard after we’ve eaten, do you hear me, Ludwig?”

Still no answer. The lad was consistent, at least.

Carl looked at Mona, who simply shrugged. Apparently his probationary period wasn’t over yet.

“Did any of your brains come out of that hole when you got shot?” the boy eventually asked, after shoveling a couple more handfuls of fries down his throat. He pointed at the scar on Carl’s temple.

“Some,” he replied. “So now I’m only twice as brainy as the prime minister.”

“That doesn’t say much,” his mother grunted from the sideline.

“I’m good at maths, are you?” the boy asked, his bright eyes looking directly at Carl for the first time. Contact.

“Brilliant at it,” Carl lied.

“Do you know about 1089?” the boy asked. Carl was surprised he could even name such a big number. How old was he, anyway? Five?

“You might need some paper for this, Carl,” said Mona, digging a notepad and a pencil out of a drawer in the chest behind her.

“OK,” said the boy. “Think of a three-digit number and write it down.”

Three-digit number. Where the hell did a five-year-old learn a phrase like that?

Carl nodded and did as he was told. 367.

“Now turn the number round.”

“Turn it round? How do you mean?”

“Write it back-to-front. Are you sure it was only
some
of your brains that leaked out?” asked the boy’s enchanting mother.

Carl wrote 763.

“Now subtract the smallest number from the biggest,” instructed the curly-headed genius.

763 minus 367. Carl covered the page with his hand, so they wouldn’t notice he still did sums like he was in year three.

“What’s the answer?” Ludwig’s eyes were wide with anticipation.

“Erm, 396, I think.”

“Now turn the number round and add it to 396. What does that give you?”

“You mean 693 plus 396? Like, add them together?”

“Yes!”

Carl concentrated on his addition, again using his hand to shield his scribble.

“Ten eighty-nine,” he said, after a bit of bother carrying his figures.

The boy howled with laughter as Carl raised his head, sensing how gobsmacked he looked.

“Nice one, Ludwig. Is it always going to be 1089, no matter what?”

The boy looked disappointed. “Yes, wasn’t that what I said? But if you start with 102, for example, you’ll get ninety-nine after the first subtraction. Then you have to write 099 rather then ninety-nine, because it always has to be a three-digit number, remember?”

Carl nodded as if he’d got the drift.

“Clever lad,” he said drily, sending Samantha a smile. “Gets it from his mum, I’m sure.”

She didn’t reply, so obviously he was right.

“Samantha’s probably one of the most gifted mathematicians in the country. But it looks like Ludwig’s going to be even better,” Mona informed him, then handed him the salmon.

OK, so mum and spawn were two of a kind. Part genius, part ball of fire, part impoliteness personified. Some mix. Not the easiest of families to join.