The Exception: A Novel Part 51

Yes.

And youve got a night pa.s.s to this place?

Yes.

Good. You should worry more about your pals than that b.i.t.c.h next to you. You come with me. And you know what happens if anything goes wrong? Anything at all?

Yes. So it isnt Iben who will have a chance to knife Zigic and flee from him in the long corridors of the ministry. It is to be Gunnar. Unarmed.

Iben winks at him when he climbs out. Its all she can do to try to tell him that he must feel free to do whatever he can, because when he returns to the car Iben and Malene will be either dead or gone.

Denim Suit gets out too. He starts pacing up and down restlessly away from the car. Perhaps hes beginning to worry.

Malene moves to sit next to Iben. Nenad watches them. His gun looks different from anything Iben knows. Its longer than other handguns, the muzzle cross-section is square, and there is a bulge below the stock in front of the trigger.

He keeps an eye on them, but cant see everything. Ibens knife is hidden in her underwear, across her b.u.t.tocks. She scratches her b.u.m. The next moment she has the knife in her hand, hidden behind the back of the drivers seat.

Malene sees it. Her face turns to stone, but she stays quite still.

Iben watches the pulse on Nenads neck. It beats in a slow rhythm. Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum. It is alive. Nenads life is there. She stares. Da-dum. Nenad is good at computers. He likes his coffee and cookies. Nenad treated Ibens nose with real care. There it is. That small beating thing, the spot that her knife must hit. Just there. And his life will be spurting out of him.

She leans forward, s.h.i.+fting the knife to her right hand behind the back of the drivers seat. Her leg muscles stiffen in readiness to leap.

She waits. The best possible moment may not be now. Maybe it will never come. Maybe Denim Suit will return any second.

It might have been Malenes quickened breathing that alerted Nenad, or the frightened look on her face. He moves over, craning to see. He will soon find out what Iben is hiding.

She throws her body across the small car and raises the knife with both hands. She plunges it in, straight into the life-sustaining pulse.

His blood sprays all over Iben and the car. His eyes roll up. His lips draw back over his teeth and his arms begin to shake. Still his eyes stare at her. Then slowly fade. He falls.

She grabs the gun from his lap. Denim Suit, who has been about thirty feet away, must have heard something and runs back to the car. Iben doesnt lower a window, just shoots at him through the rear window. She only touches the trigger, but a volley of shots ring out. It is some kind of miniaturized machine gun.

Malenes face is white. She might be about to faint. Iben shouts at her, Get out! Out! Out!

Iben shouts, Run!

Malene runs.

Iben searches Nenads pockets but cant find a spare car key. Sh.e.l.l have to get out and run too.

Shes only gone a few steps when Zigic and Gunnar come out through the brightly lit main door of the ministry. Zigic sees her. He doesnt turn toward Gunnar, but thrusts the knife sideways with an instant backhand stroke. The blade is driven precisely into the center of Gunnars chest, and he slumps to the ground.

Malene has reached the other side of the short channel of dark water flowing between the complex of ministry buildings and draining into the harbor ca.n.a.l. She shouts that she has seen a taxi. Iben runs after her, following the waterway.

She is in time to see the taxi on the far side of the ministry compound. Despite Malenes flailing arms and shouting, the cab drives off.

Zigic is closing in on her. It is the worst conceivable place for running. The cobbled quayside is deserted. Tall, dark warehouses on one side; on the other, the black, freezing water of the ca.n.a.l. Where can she hide? There is nothing. She runs on.

Zigic is fast. Iben turns to shoot at him, but after a short burst the magazine is already empty. It is much smaller than a real machine gun. She throws it into the snow and runs.

Only one brightly lit object stands out against the dark a large white shape: a houseboat. It is moving away from the quay. The mooring ropes have been pulled in and its decks seem completely abandoned. It is about to sail away, to leave them, but it is slow. They can still leap on board.

Iben overtakes Malene, whose arthritic feet must be hurting her badly. A few seconds more and then Zigic will be almost on top of them and everything will be over for them both.

Iben reaches the dock and leaps. She lands on the deck. Now rescue Malene. Theres only one short moment to spare. She turns to reach out for her friend.

Iben has a vision of a scene set in Gunnars apartment. Malene and Gunnar are together, damp with sweat, in his bed.

Does she hesitate for just a moment too long before reaching out? She doesnt know. How long before she acts? Two seconds, or three? She doesnt know. Perhaps she doesnt hesitate at all.

And now the distance is too great. Malene cant jump.

She screams.

Iben stands under the bright spotlight on the small area of the deck. In front of her, a white steel wall with one door set in it. She pulls at the handle. Its locked.

What? f.u.c.king what? The houseboat is only ten feet from the quay, moving so slowly its practically standing still.

She runs the few steps to the other side. The deck is barred there and she can get no further. She runs back. Barred again. She hammers on the door.

This boat will not mean freedom and survival. It is a floating cage. She climbs up a ladder welded to the white wall. She hangs on to the s.h.i.+ps flank, illuminated, like a black dot on a huge sheet of paper. She is just a few yards from Zigics gun.

She keeps climbing while she looks over her shoulder. She watches. Zigic stops a couple of feet behind Malene. He raises his gun and aims. Iben moves on up, but it takes time to climb so many small rungs.

He is so close she can see his finger bending to press the trigger.

He has her now.

iben.

malene.

anne-lise.

camilla.

chapter 52.

iben shows up in good time. Today looks like one of the first proper days of spring. The brilliant sunlight brings out every crack in the pavement where she stands. Weeds will soon push up through the gaps.

Malenes parents are the only other people who are present. Like Iben, they wait in silence, staring down the long one-way street. Cars should be coming into sight soon.

Over the last five days Malenes mother has phoned Iben almost every evening. Malenes parents arrived in Copenhagen yesterday and Iben went to meet them.

Not one day will pa.s.s when Malenes parents wont wonder why it was their daughter and not Iben. Even now they must lie awake at night, thinking that it should have been Iben.

As for herself, Iben watches Animal Planet and eats bowls of ice cream with marshmallows night after night. She thinks about what Malene did. In bed she twists and turns and thinks about what she herself did.

A green car shows up at the bottom of the street. Malenes father and mother wave. When the car draws near them Iben recognizes Malenes aunt and her three children, whom she has met on her visits to Kolding with Malene.

Another thing that Iben has been pondering: Should she go into therapy again? But then, how will it help now?

More cars pull up. She must not be so nervous. Zigic can no longer come anywhere near her.

A whole fleet of police cars responded instantly to the shootings. Zigic was easy to arrest, hemmed in by the icy water and holding an empty gun. The disk Zigic had removed presented a much harder case. Detectives searched Zigic, his car, the wastepaper baskets and corridors of the ministry, the trash bins in the yard, and every other possible spot. Police divers combed the bottom of the ca.n.a.l several times. The disk was never found, but the man in the denim suit survived Ibens gunshot and told the Serb police where to find Zigics computer. The data it held was sufficient to round up almost the entire organization.

Malenes aunt hugs her parents and, after a few quiet words, moves on to Iben.

Iben, this must be hard for you.

Yes. It is.

And you have much to be grateful for.

Believe me, I know.

The uncle talks to her too, as do other members of Malenes family. Iben looks down at her feet. Do they see anything in her face? What are they thinking?

Frederik gets out of a taxi and catches sight of her. He walks quickly toward her, stumbles on the curb, and saves himself by taking a couple of running steps.

Everyone has come: Malenes friends as well as colleagues, Rasmuss family, and of course Camilla, Anne-Lise, Paul, and members of the DCIG board.

A transport van pulls up to lower two women in wheelchairs. Iben has never seen them before. Presumably they knew Malene from the a.s.sociation for Young Arthritic People.

At last she spots Gunnar climbing out of another taxi. She observes his black suit, which looks new and expensive. His eyes are bloodshot and so swollen that his whole face looks different. She has been visiting him at the hospital over the last few days. Iben walks inside the chapel with Gunnar. She knows the music and hymns that Malenes mother has chosen. All of them echo inside her head.

What happened on the quayside was an exception and Im perfectly aware of it. In principle, it shouldnt have happened. Her every instinct would have urged her to save her own life. So, what she did was exceptional. Incomprehensible. Against nature.

It is the day after the funeral and Iben is seated in the DCIGs small meeting room. There is only one other person in the room: Dorte Jrgensen, the plump woman detective who spoke to Iben after Rasmuss fall.

Dorte frowns and closes the door firmly. Iben is being interrogated. She doesnt intend to cave in to the tension that the detective is trying to create, but continues her line of thought.

It was nothing short of miraculous. The way human beings behave is subject to natural laws. Then, suddenly, from one moment to the next, an exception occurs. That I am alive is precisely because of such an exception, as extraordinary as an apple rising from the ground to attach itself to a branch on an apple tree. Or a malignant tumor regressing and disappearing without trace. Or blood dripping from a statue of Christ.

Interesting. Now, do you have any explanation for how the hard disk from Rasmuss computer couldve disappeared?

I guess Zigic must have thrown it away somewhere in or around the ministry.

You see, it contains data about his organization. We have searched everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Even the bottom of the ca.n.a.l. Weve drawn a blank every time.

Well, I really cant Dorte is getting on Ibens nerves.

That hard disk contained not only data on Zigic. It also held the name of your e-mail sender, who is based here in Denmark. Its not too hard to see what Im thinking, is it?

Im afraid it is. I dont understand.

I should have thought it was pretty obvious. The man you killed in the car couldve had the disk in one of his pockets. And you could have taken it before you ran. In all that excitement, n.o.body searched you.

But Id have no reason Well, now, thats questionable.

What do you mean?

One possibility is that it was you who sent the e-mails and that a file on the disk proved it. Rasmus might even have told you he knew when you helped him move.

But why would I send anyone threatening e-mails?

Why indeed? Why should anyone?

I had no reason at all.

Iben has heard from Malenes mother that the police have sealed Malenes apartment and that they cant start clearing it yet. And with the discovery that Zigic was in Denmark, the police are now considering the theory that Rasmus may have been murdered.

Dorte pauses deliberately before continuing. The special something I sensed between you and Gunnar when you were both at the station am I wrong about it?

What do you mean?

Iben knows that Dorte can see something in her face, and she scratches the bandages on her nose.

If before the e-mails were sent you had already fallen in love with the man who was Malenes lover it couldve caused bad blood between you, couldnt it?

Iben cant reply. She takes a deep breath.

Maybe you regretted sending the e-mails. Or maybe you didnt. One way or the other, the spyware found you out and Rasmus told you.

Does Dorte do this to other people she interrogates? Is making wild accusations part of her method, just to see if one of them hits home?

Iben tries to prevent herself sounding strained. Look, it doesnt make sense! Rasmus and I had a good time together that day. I helped him carry some of his things. There is no way wed get along so well just minutes after he accused me of e-mailing death threats.

Dortes eyes are still fixed on Iben. You might have told him that your laptop had been left in the office and that Anne-Lise had access to it. That would calm him down. After all, Anne-Lise is the one you people tried to pin the e-mails on.

Iben cant think what to say.

Dorte rests her arms on the table. But, if Anne-Lise did not have access to your computer at the time when the e-mails were sent, that could have been established the following day. And you would have lost your job, your old friend, and all hope of Gunnar ever becoming your lover.

Its unbelievable. This woman, Dorte Jrgensen, is installed here, in their lunch room, calmly accusing Iben of having killed her best friends partner! Certainly she doesnt go that far with everyone?

Iben feels like waving her arms about and shouting that this is all totally insane. Living through these last few weeks has upset her terribly, and somehow she feels that Dorte might even be right.

She pinches her thigh to wake herself up. She must concentrate.

What did happen? Should I give myself up? Should I say I did it and serve a life sentence in prison?

Once more her mind conjures up an image that has recurred since the first time she met Gunnar. She is in his kitchen, cooking lots of nice dishes; he stands behind her and puts his arms around her. And his daughters come running in, laughing, from the living room.