Assad asked afterward, his foot resting on the open drawer of Carl’s desk.
“They told me it was Lars Henrik Jensen.”
“Lars Henrik. Strange name. Not many people could be called that.”
Probably not where Assad comes from, thought Carl. He was considering making a sarcastic remark when he noticed the oddly pensive expression on Assad’s face. For a moment he looked completely different than usual. More present, more focused. More of an equal, somehow.
“What are you thinking, Assad?” he asked.
It was as if a film of oil slid over his eyes, and their color changed. He frowned and grabbed the Lynggaard file. It took only a second for him to find what he was looking for.
“Can that be a coincidence?” he asked, pointing to a line on the top document.
Carl looked at the name and then realized which report Assad was holding.
For a moment Carl tried to picture everything in his mind, and then it happened. Somewhere inside of him, where cause and effect were not weighed against each other, and where logic and explanations never challenged consciousness, in that place where thoughts could live freely and be played out against each other — right there in that spot, things fell into place, and he understood how it all fitted together.
34. 2007
The biggest shock was not to look into the eyes of Daniel, the man to whom she had been so attracted. Nor was it the realization that Daniel and Lasse were one and the same person, even though that made her legs weak. No, the worst thing was knowing who he really was. It simply drained everything out of her. All that remained was the heavy weight of guilt that had rested on her shoulders her entire adult life.
It wasn’t really his eyes that she recognized — it was the pain she saw in them. The pain and the despair and the hatred, which in a split second had taken over this man’s life. Or rather, the boy’s life. She knew that now.
Because Lasse was only fourteen on that frosty clear winter day when he looked out of the window of his parents’ car and saw in another car a girl, full of life and thoughtless, teasing her brother so vigorously on the backseat that she diverted her father’s attention. Diverting for a few milliseconds her father’s sense of judgment and prevented him from gripping the steering wheel. Those precious fractions of a second of lapsed vigilance, which could have spared the lives of five people and prevented three others from being maimed. Only Merete and the boy named Lasse had escaped from the accident with their lives and health intact. And precisely for that reason, it was between the two of them that the account now had to be settled.
She understood that. And she surrendered to her fate.
During the next months the man whom she’d once been attracted to under the name of Daniel, and now detested as Lasse, appeared in the outer room every single day to look at her through the porthole. Some days he merely stood there, observing her as if she were a civet cat in a cage, about to fight to the death with a superior force of cobra snakes; on other days he spoke to her. Only rarely did he ask her any questions. He had no need to. It was as though he knew what her answers would be.
“When you looked into my eyes from your car, at the moment when your father was passing us, I thought you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in my whole life,” he said one day. “But the next second when you grinned at me, and didn’t bother to notice what a ruckus you were causing in your own car, I knew even then that I hated you. That was the instant before our car spun around, and my little sister sitting next to me broke her neck against my shoulder. I heard it snap, do you realize that?”
He stared at her intently, trying to make her look away, but she refused to avert her eyes. She did feel shame, but that was all. The hatred was mutual.
Then he told his story about the moments that had changed everything. About how his mother tried to give birth to the twins in the wreck of the car, and how his father, whom he had loved and admired so much, stared at him with a loving expression as he died with his mouth agape. About the flames that crept up along his mother’s leg, which was jammed fast under the front seat. About his beloved little sister, so sweet and playful, who lay crushed beneath him; and about the second twin to be born, who lay in such an awkward position, with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck; and the other one, who lay on the windshield wailing as the flames approached.
His words were terrible to hear. She remembered all too clearly their desperate screams as his story savaged her with guilt.
“My mother can’t walk; she’s been crippled ever since the accident. My brother never went to school; he was never able to learn what other children learn. We all lost our lives because of what you did back then. How do you think it feels to have a father, a sweet kid sister, and the prospect of two little brothers, and then all of a sudden nothing is left? My mother always had a fragile psyche, but even so, she was sometimes able to laugh light- heartedly. Until you came into our lives, that is, and she lost everything. Everything!”
By that point the woman had come into the room, and she seemed clearly upset by his account. Maybe she was crying. Merete couldn’t be sure.
“How do you think I felt during those first few months, all alone with a foster family that beat me? A boy like me, who had never experienced anything but love and security in his life. There wasn’t a single moment when I didn’t want to strike back at that shithead who insisted that I call him ‘Dad.’ And the whole time I could see you before me, Merete. You and your lovely, irresponsible eyes that annihilated everything I ever loved.” He paused for so long that the words he spoke next were shockingly clear. “Oh, Merete, I promised myself that I would take revenge on you and all the others, no matter what the cost. And you know what? Today I feel good. I’ve exacted revenge on all of you fuckers who took our lives away. You should know that once I even considered killing your brother. But then one day while I was watching you, I saw what a hold he had on you. How much guilt there was in your eyes when the two of you were together. How much his presence clipped your wings. Did I really want to lighten that burden for you by killing him too? And besides, wasn’t he another one of your victims? So I let him live. But not my foster father, and not you, Merete. Not you.”
He’d been sent to the children’s home after the first time he tried to kill his foster father. The family never told the authorities what he’d done, or that the deep gash in the foster father’s forehead had come from the blade of a shovel. They just said that the boy was sick in the head, and that they could no longer take responsibility for him. That way they could get another foster child from the state, to make money off.
But the wild beast inside Lasse had been awakened. No one would ever take control of him or his life again.
After that episode, five years, two months, and thirteen days passed before the insurance claims were paid, and his mother felt well enough to allow Lasse, now an adult, to move back home to live with her and his handicapped brother. One of the twins had been burned so badly that his life couldn’t be saved, but the other had survived in spite of the cord wrapped around his neck.
Lasse’s infant brother had been placed with a family while their mother was in the hospital and the rehabilitation center, but she brought him home before he turned three. His face and chest had scars from the fire, and he had very poor motor control because of the oxygen deprivation he’d suffered. But he was his mother’s solace for a couple of years while she regained her strength so that Lasse could come home. The family received a million and a half kroner in compensation for their ruined lives. A million and a half for the loss of his father and his successful business, which no one else was able to run; for the loss of a little sister and the infant twin brother, along with his mother’s loss of mobility and the whole family’s well-being. A paltry million and a half kroner. When Merete was no longer their daily focus of attention, Lasse was going to direct his revenge at the insurance people and the lawyers who had cheated his family out of the compensation they deserved. That was something Lasse had promised his mother.
Merete had a great deal to pay for.
