Part 16 (1/2)

”Hi,” she called with all the cheer she could muster.

Flemming leaned forward and pulled her into a hug, and they stood for a moment swaying back and forth before he let her go.

”I brought these,” he said, tossing a pack of Prince Ultra Lights onto the table, even though he knew she didn't smoke.

Louise looked at him surprised, guessing he had categorized her as the kind of smoker who has only just managed to fight her nicotine addiction.

She was just about to decline, to avoid revealing her weaknesses to him, when he beat her to it and said, ”It helps to have some kind of bad habit you can beat yourself up about. It takes the edge off the other stuff. Plus, then there's something else going on in your life besides just being that poor thing who got dumped,” he said, smiling at her.

She smiled back and took one. She had always liked people who could smile openly while breaking rules. It was liberating. Plus, Flemming knew what he was talking about. His wife had left him about two years ago now. Not that Louise had noticed people feeling sorry for him because of it, but it did seem like he probably knew what he was talking about.

Once she had lit the cigarette, she decided she didn't need to hide her misery from him. She relaxed and started telling him about how she had found Peter sitting in the living room when she came home. His empty beer bottles were still in there, she noticed. She sighed and stood up to clear them away. She only wanted to see the fallout from her own sorrow and misery.

”When you're in the thick of it, you may not be able to imagine something better waiting on the other side,” Flemming said when she returned to the kitchen.

She listened without admitting she didn't understand what he meant.

”People have to hit bottom before something new can take root,” he continued, ”and maybe that new thing is what will make you truly happy.”

He fidgeted a little in his chair before awkwardly conceding that he was sure this wouldn't be much help to her right now, but still maybe it would bring her a little comfort now when things seemed bleakest. Anyway, it had helped him.

She sat for a moment staring into s.p.a.ce and then asked him if he was happy again.

”That's the whole problem with you, you know,” Flemming said. ”You're always so sensible and matter-of-fact; you won't let anyone squeak by with anything less than a concrete answer or hard-and-fast data. I guess, no, I'm still working on it. Give me time. But I have no doubt it's coming-and I've got a better life now living on my own than I did there at the end with my wife. It's hard to admit that when you have kids, but that's how it is.”

Louise knew that Flemming's wife had gotten married again right away. Probably to someone who worked more normal hours, she thought. She had the impression that communication was good between Flemming and his wife-well, ex-wife. But actually Louise knew practically nothing about his personal life, and she decided not to ask him about it because she wasn't used to this new level of intimacy in their relations.h.i.+p, which had always been strictly professional.

”Um, so, anyway, why did you call me again?” she asked after they finished their lengthy discussion of failed marriages and relations.h.i.+ps.

For a moment Flemming looked as though he had no idea what she was talking about, but then he figured out what she meant.

”I had an addendum to the autopsy report I just submitted. It's hard for me to say whether she died from the a.s.sault itself or afterward. It depends on when the gag he put in her mouth triggered her gag reflex and caused her to vomit. Her gag reflex could also have been triggered if she was lying there with saliva collecting in her mouth and then she suddenly swallowed it.” He shrugged uncertainly. ”It's impossible to say.”

Louise nodded, noticing that she felt tired, but she promised she would remember that.

It was late when he left. Louise felt a little dazed when she finally lay down in bed. She found herself in a place where she wasn't quite sure she had understood what had happened. There was something unreal about the hours since she had come home from work. On the other hand, she was bitterly aware of the fact that, after six years, her Peter had chosen to move on without her. And she really had no f.u.c.king idea how she felt about that.

She turned off the lamp next to her bed and rolled onto her stomach. It had occurred to her as she sat there talking to Flemming that she actually was not that unhappy about the prospect of a future without Peter. All the relations.h.i.+p pressures and always having to feel guilty about everything would end. But she had been with Peter because she loved him, and what would happen now?, she thought before she slipped exhausted into sleep.

- HER TEMPLES WERE POUNDING WHEN SHE WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING. She had gone to the bathroom at some point overnight, and on the way back to bed her legs had steered her into the living room and she sat down where Peter had been sitting with his beer bottles. Her sobs were so intense that she was shocked by the depth of her emotions. In a daze, she staggered back to bed once the tears had slowed a little. Her eyes were so swollen that there were only two narrow slits left, and she deliberately avoided looking at herself in the mirror when she finally decided to get up. Half-asleep, she called in sick to work, and then she went back to bed and slept hard until almost noon. In the kitchen she put the kettle on, took out a large mug, and filled the infuser with loose tea leaves. The persistent pounding in her temples had spread to her forehead, so she swallowed a couple of Tylenol before turning on the hot water and stepping into the shower.

What the f.u.c.k was that f.u.c.king a.s.shole thinking? she thought, lying back down on her bed wrapped in a bathrobe with a steaming gla.s.s of tea in her hand. Peter, who was usually such a rule-follower, had been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around behind her back instead of doing the decent thing and breaking up with her first before plunging into something new. It was like he was trying to hedge his bets, just taking a test drive before making his final decision. a.s.shole.

Late in the afternoon, she got up again and started getting rid of any of Peter's things that caught her eye as she moved around the apartment. She'd have to live with his furniture, but she tossed everything else into a giant heap in the guest room that she would ask him to come pick up in a few days while she was at work. She got a kick out of seeing the mess she had made of his things: books, CDs, folders, knick-knacks... all randomly strewn on top of each other. This will p.i.s.s him off, she thought before shutting the guest-room door and going to look up the number of the pizza place around the corner to order dinner.

When she went to bed that night, she felt better. She wasn't exactly doing great, but she would survive. He could go f.u.c.k himself. She would focus on her work, and he could focus on his domestic bliss. She repeated this to herself a few times; she could tell it didn't sound totally convincing yet, but it was a start.

20.

”WE CAN'T FORCE YOU TO GO. PERSONALLY, I DON'T THINK YOU should do it.” That last part slipped out before Louise had time to change her mind.

”I'm coming,” Susanne said, with a conviction in her voice that indicated that the matter was settled.

She'd spent two days at National Hospital and had had many long conversations with Jakobsen during that time. Louise noticed the change right away. There was something calm and open about her movements. Her face also didn't bear such clear reminders of the a.s.sault anymore, although the area around her left eye and cheekbone was still discolored.

”I've wanted to go to that party all along,” she continued after a little pause. ”Ever since I heard about it. If he comes, I want to see him again.”

Louise stared at her. She didn't have a chance to launch into a dismayed tirade, because Susanne put out her hands to calm Louise.

”Not like that,” Susanne rea.s.sured. ”But he's in my mind all the time, and it's bugging me that I can't picture him. I can't remember what he looks like. Jakobsen calls it normal, even outstanding, repression,” she said in a tone that revealed that she did not agree that it was helping to protect her. ”But I don't think I can move on until I can picture him and accept that what happened wasn't my fault.”

Louise thought it was amazing what a crisis psychologist could accomplish, but she wasn't completely convinced about this new Susanne who was so enthusiastically on display before her. If Jakobsen hadn't stopped by police headquarters that morning to partic.i.p.ate in the discussion about whether or not it made sense to take Susanne to the party, Louise would not have wanted to even consider the option.

Jakobsen had given his permission for them to ask Susanne if she wanted to help as he simultaneously filled them in, confidentially, about Susanne's h.e.l.lish adult life of constant suffocation by a mother whose husband had left the second she uttered the p in pregnant.

The mother had raised Susanne to believe that the two of them belonged together, thus forcing Susanne to completely fixate on her mother in the most abominable way, a way that would have relegated many young girls to psych wards with their wrists slashed or that would have sent them spinning into terrible rebellions, probably with consequences for the rest of their lives.

But Susanne did not rebel. She put up with it, adjusted to her mother's compulsive possessiveness, and gave up her childhood-along with a sizeable chunk of her adult life-before she finally ventured out, trying to escape her biological straitjacket. But then things went so horrendously wrong that there was almost no chance in h.e.l.l she could cope with it, Jakobsen concluded, stroking his beard with a sad look on his face.

”She's getting out of that environment now,” he continued. ”I stopped by to talk to her mother and find out how aware she is of what she's doing to her daughter's life. It's almost as sad to report that she's using her daughter to fend off loneliness and to hold up as a trophy to taunt the man who left her. Even though he'll probably never even realize it. The mother ought to be in treatment, because when you get right down to it, she's a sick woman.”

Louise could only nod in agreement to that. She'd thought the same thing whenever she had encountered her.

- ”HERE'S WHAT WILL HAPPEN,” LOUISE EXPLAINED AS SHE SAT FACING Susanne in the cafeteria at National Hospital over a cup of coffee. ”I'll come pick you up tomorrow night, and we'll go out there together.”

Susanne was going to be discharged the next morning. Jakobsen had found her a temporary place to stay at an undisclosed address, which would be ready for her on Monday, but until then she would stay in her own apartment on Lyshj Alle in Valby.

”When we get to the mixer, we'll look around and hope, of course, that he's there. We won't do anything else. If you see him, let me know, but under no circ.u.mstances should you go over and talk to him. If he sees you, we'll leave. We won't apprehend him while he's inside, and maybe he'll follow you if he sees you leaving the event. We'll have people ready to apprehend him outside. But remember,” Louise added when she noticed Susanne nodding in concentration, ”that this whole thing is a shot in the dark. There's only a minuscule chance that he'll be there. He's just committed two very serious crimes and is probably in hiding.”

- BEFORE LOUISE LEFT NATIONAL HOSPITAL, SHE CONSIDERED CALLING Flemming La.r.s.en to ask if he wanted a cup of coffee. She hadn't talked to him since he left her apartment, and now, since she was here anyway.... But maybe it was best if they brought their relations.h.i.+p back to a professional level.

The night before, she had called Camilla to update her on her personal life. At first, her friend had refused to believe Peter had found someone else.

”He's an idiot!” she'd finally exclaimed in irritation, and then in the same breath suggested that she try to talk him out of it.

”Are you insane?” Louise cut her off. ”You're not going to persuade him to come back. The only way he's f.u.c.king moving back home is if he wants to and decides it's the only right choice. But I'm not even so sure he'll try,” she concluded.

”No-I'm sorry. You're not some consumer product with a money-back guarantee,” Camilla said affectionately. ”Anyway, you don't come crawling back to someone unless you're prepared to have the door slammed so hard in your face it hurts.”

Louise smiled. She wasn't sure she was that tough, but she also didn't picture herself as the kind of woman you leave and then come crawling back to.

She gave up on the idea of a cup of coffee with Flemming and went back to headquarters instead.