Part 37 (2/2)

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 twenty feet.

If she and Malene could be back on equal footing, like the old days, then it would be all right for Iben to phone Gunnar.

The window next to the ladder isnt closed properly, just secured with a hook. Its somebodys study. She sees a computer and a shelf full of magazine boxes and folders.

Iben listens for sounds. There arent any. She wont go in, of course that isnt part of her plan.

She thinks of what she will tell Gunnar when she calls him. She leans farther across the windowsill. Right in front of the window stands a large desk with stacks of papers and files. Its too tempting. Iben pulls off her bulky jacket and hangs it on the edge of the open window. Then she takes off her shoes and hangs them by their laces on the window hook.

She estimates the distance across the desktop and then from the desk to the door. The seconds spent crawling over the desk are the most critical. Afterward she will put a chair under the door handle. If they try to get in, the chair should hold them off long enough for her to escape.

She manages to climb in without any problems. Her thick black winter gloves feel too warm, but she keeps them on. A wooden chair seems perfect for jamming the door shut, but she checks it to make sure. Putting the light on is out of the question, and it takes time to locate the computers volume k.n.o.b in the dark. The bedrooms are likely to be on this floor too and she doesnt want the Windows start-up to wake somebody.

The computer is pa.s.sword protected, and she tries everything she can think of, first pressing Enter, then keying in Anne-Lise, Henrik, their childrens names, and their initials. Nothing works. She starts checking through the bookshelves. Its difficult to read in the frail light and everything has to be brought close to the screen. Then she finds a lot of odds and ends some coins, a battery, a plastic bag. Underneath the bag lies a small bicycle LED lamp. Its batteries are low, but the faint red glow it emits is better than nothing.

With the help of the lamp she realizes quickly that everything in here is related to Henriks job and his finances. Theres nothing here. This is as far as sh.e.l.l go. She knows she should get out now.

She listens at the door. Still nothing. After gently extracting the chair from under the handle, she opens the door a fraction. It moves smoothly on its hinges. She peers through the crack, then opens the door a little wider. The floorboards are bound to creak in a house this old.

Behind one of these doors Anne-Lise is sleeping at Henriks side. Her two children are asleep behind other doors. Iben hears a few grunts and, for a while, a mans snoring. The noises come from behind the door farthest away.

Only a few steps to the top of the stairs.

If Henrik wakes up and sees her, itll be easy enough to run back to his study, jam the door shut, and speed down the ladder.

She tries her weight on the floor outside. It doesnt creak. Sweeping the red light around the landing, she can see that they have had a smart new floor laid. She creeps toward the top of the stairs.

From the ground-floor hall she walks into a room that was probably three rooms in the original design. The red light from her lamp is lost under the high ceiling.

The first thing she looks for is a quick exit route. Two large French windows lead out into the garden, but they are locked and she would need a key to open them. The main door probably has the same kind of lock. They make it harder for a thief to get away and a burglar alarm less essential. If Iben needs to escape she will have to break the gla.s.s.

She starts investigating the living room. The walls are white and a large sofa covered in black leather has been placed in the middle of the floor. Almost everything is in the style of the 1980s, including the blue Montana shelving system and the large framed Wala.s.se Ting print. Seeing the quality of everything in here, shes certain that the Ting lithograph is an original.

But still nothing to show Malene.

The door to the dining room is open and so is the door between the dining room and the kitchen. The entire ground floor smells slightly of pizza, and the floor is littered with small cars and toys. Iben tries to memorize where the cars are so she wont slip on them if she has to switch her lamp off and run.

Here and there on the tables and shelves are bundles of old mail and other papers. She leafs through them: bills, notes from Ulriks soccer club, information leaflets from the Pensions Authority, messages from the a.s.sociation of Librarians, and a handful of old furniture catalogs.

Then theres the telephone. It has an answering machine. Its not blinking, but there might still be some old messages stored. Fumbling in her thick winter gloves, Iben turns the sound down and presses Play.

When the tape starts up she raises the volume just enough to hear whats being said. A slurred womans voice begins uncertainly: Jutta. If you Well, I was, you know, talking to a friend and then I thought of you and An upper-cla.s.s accent. She is high as a kite.

Anyway, remember the time wed all gone around to what was his name? And wed just got the trousers, or at least Id just got them. But she said we should go. And you were so smart and said wed just arrived from Odense. Ha ha! It was brilliant. I thought about that just now. Because Ive been talking to a friend and she didnt think so at all.

The message rambles on for a while longer. Iben cant make any sense of it. Its weird, though. Why is a drunk woman confiding in Anne-Lise over the phone? Has Anne-Lise called her in the same state? Does Jutta know that Anne-Lise hits the bottle too?

No more messages. The house is so silent that Iben has become uncertain about how loud any noise she makes is and how far it will travel.

The stairs creak. She starts as if the sound were an explosion. Is someone coming downstairs? She takes a few long steps to reach the fireplace and grabs hold of the heavy poker. Iben would never use it against anyone it would be as remote a possibility as pulling her knife on Anne-Lise or Henrik but she needs a heavy implement to break the French windows. She has a vision of herself running through shards of gla.s.s into the dark garden.

She switches off her lamp, takes up a position facing the glazed door, and freezes on the spot, the poker raised. With any luck sh.e.l.l respond quickly if someone does come in, so that whoever it is wont see anything just a shadow slipping into the darkness.

She listens intently. Henrik could be watching her from only a few yards away without her having heard a thing. Once more, shes unable to distinguish whether the sounds are imagined or real. Faint noises from the bedroom, perhaps? Whispering? Like the voices she thought she heard before Rasmus fell.

After a while she lowers the poker. Her hand and shoulder ache. Turning around, she tries to make out if someone is standing in the dark room.

No one, it seems.

She really must get out of the house.

Still, she shouldnt miss the kitchen. There might be some sign of Anne-Lises alcoholism. She peers into the kitchen cupboards. Theres nothing as obvious as empty bottles of spirits.

There is a magnetic calendar stuck on the fridge. In the light of the cycle lamp Iben reads all about Henrik and Anne-Lises dates. It says where they have been tonight. A + H Meet in nursery. Re Clara. Whats that about? Why a meeting about their daughter?

Theres nothing else of interest on the refrigerator door.

The rubbish bin is stuffed with folded pizza cartons, but underneath them Iben finds a scrunched-up piece of paper with handwritten notes, partially soggy from the tomato sauce. She flattens the page between sheets of paper towels, which she is careful to put in her pocket.

The writing isnt Anne-Lises. It is in a small, precise hand with very straight uprights that slope slightly to the left. It must be Henriks.

Meeting re C.

It upsets us to hear about children hit by C. We want to apologize to their parents.

What can we do to improve things?

It is true that Clara has been aggressive toward friends who have come home to play. (Okay, well accept that they call her unusually aggressive but will stand for nothing stronger. Do not tell them about the episode with Victor in our house.) Stress this: Our willingness to cooperate. Remind them that we both turned up for the PTA day in August. (Try s.h.i.+fting talk away from the other meeting.) Important remember: we have not had any anger management problems with Clara before and we both believe that she will get over this phase soon.

(Agree with A-L in the car.) ONLY if necessary: That the family is angry about other matters and it might have affected Clara. Not angry at her. She is not to be blamed.

No problems, that is, apart from her mothers terrible situation at work.

Stress that were optimistic.

We hope that the Center will become part of Human Rights, surely quite soon. Then A-L gets new colleagues. Well become stronger as At this point the paper is too stained to read. The only other words she can read are in confidence.

What a relief. Shes found something!

With clumsy gloved fingers, she folds the notepaper and puts it into her jeans pocket too. She becomes aware of an itch on her s.h.i.+n, just above the strap for the knife. She tries to scratch it with the toes of her other foot but her knee bangs into the open door of a kitchen cabinet and it slams shut.

On tiptoe she runs back to the living room and takes up the same position as before, the poker ready to smash the glazed garden doors. She stands absolutely still. Her heart is thumping and her mind is churning with fantasies about Henrik coming into the room brandis.h.i.+ng a baseball bat or maybe a gun.

<script>