Death Sentence

‘Frank …’

‘Or do you just clam up?’ My rage flared up, fuelled by the alcohol. ‘Is Daddy someone you don’t mention in polite society?’

Hanne shook her head. Her eyes were welling up.

‘So what is it? Do you tell her I’ve gone away?’

‘Frank, darling …’

‘Am I dead?’ I laughed bitterly.

‘Take it easy, son,’ said my father, who had entered from the kitchen. He was wearing a stripy apron and drying his hands on a tea towel. He looked like someone who wanted to get back to washing up as soon as possible.

I rose and threw up my hands in what I hoped was a disarming gesture.

‘I just want to know what you tell my daughter.’

The tears were rolling down Hanne’s cheeks.

I failed to see why. After all, she wasn’t cut off from her children, as I was. She could see my daughters whenever she wanted to, play with them, comfort them, sing to them, spoil them rotten if she felt like it.

I banged my fist on the table and they both jumped.

‘What do you tell them?’

‘We tell them you’re ill!’ Hanne shouted.

I stared at her.

‘What do you want us to do?’ she continued. ‘You are ill, Frank. You need help. What else do we say? She’s old enough to know what a court order is.’ She buried her face in her hands.

Niels placed his hands on her shoulders and gave me an accusatory look.

‘Was that really necessary?’ he said and shook his head.

I stared at my fists. They were trembling. I grabbed my glass and knocked back the rest of the brandy before I marched to the hall, snatched my jacket and the plastic bag from my publishers and left. Neither of them tried to stop me.

The road was dark and deserted. I walked briskly to the high street where I soon found a taxi. I threw the bag on the back seat and snarled the address of the hotel at the hapless driver. Wisely, he decided to keep quiet.

I looked through the window as the streets rushed past. The anger was still boiling inside me and I could feel tears pressing.

I turned my attention to the bag and peered inside it. There was a small pile of letters and a parcel. I pulled out the parcel and held it up to the window so the streetlight fell on it.

My heart started pounding.

In my hands, I held a yellow envelope with a white address label bearing my name. It was thick enough to contain a book.

12

THE REST OF the journey back to the hotel went by in a blur. Perhaps I said something to the driver before I went into the lobby and up to the lift, or maybe I just paid and walked away, I don’t know, but I remember the sensation of falling even as the lift carried me up to my floor.

The envelope felt heavier the last few steps down the corridor to my room. Once inside I locked the door behind me and left the letters on the coffee table. Fortunately Ferdinan had made sure to stock up the minibar, so I poured myself a double whisky and sat down in an armchair. The envelope was identical to the one I had received earlier, yellow and anonymous, with my name written on a white label. The only difference was that this time my publisher’s address had been added.

I swallowed a mouthful of whisky without taking my eyes off the envelope. There was plenty to suggest it was from the same person who had sent me the picture of Mona Weis, but I couldn’t know for sure until I opened it. I put the glass down. My hands shook as they reached out for what I was sure would be the worst letter I’d ever receive. I turned the envelope over, but there were no other clues. With great care I eased open the flap. Once I had done that, I placed the envelope on my knees and stuck my hand inside. I got hold of the book and pulled it out.

It was a copy of As You Sow, a novel I had written five years ago, in which a murder is committed in the very hotel where I was now staying.

I placed it on top of the envelope. A dryness in my throat made me reach for my drink and take a large gulp.

The book cover was a photograph of a Copenhagen street by night. You couldn’t make out which street it was, but it clearly wasn’t a salubrious area. Dark doorways and grey facades combined with neon lights and cobblestoned alleyways to convey a dirty, raw atmosphere, exactly what the book promised.

The killer and main character, Silke Knudsen, was a Copenhagen prostitute who had seen most things and been screwed out of everything. One day she has had enough and takes revenge on everyone who has ever hurt her. Violent punters are dispatched with the same savagery they have themselves inflicted on the girls, pimps die a slow, painful death for every krone they have taken in commission and a vile, corrupt superintendent dies in a hotel room. The victims include a woman: a fellow prostitute who cheated Silke out of her share of the money they were paid for a threesome. Silke arranges for her to be gang-raped. Afterwards, as the woman lies bound, beaten and ravaged on a bench in a cold warehouse in Sydhavnen, Silke injects her with an overdose of heroin. The murder of this woman happens early in the book and it causes the woman’s sister, Annika, to travel from Jutland to investigate. Annika is confronted with the dark underbelly of prostitution, but she doesn’t give up. She uses her background as a lawyer to investigate the case, assisted by a young police officer who has a crush on her. The showdown takes place at a hotel in the red-light district where the two women finally meet. Their fight takes them to the top of the building while the lower floors go up in flames. Silke falls six floors from the roof – with considerable help from Annika – and smashes into the pavement in front of the hotel. Annika has avenged her sister, but discovers that she has prostituted herself in the process. She has no real feelings for the police officer and she has given legal advice to criminals in exchange for information during the investigation. At the end of the book, Annika’s future is unclear; the reader doesn’t know if she goes back to Jutland or becomes a prostitute.

As far as I could see the book was unread. It was a first edition, not surprisingly; As You Sow hadn’t sold terribly well.

I turned the first ten or fifteen pages without finding anything. Then I flicked my way through the rest of the book.

It was a third of the way in, on see here. A Polaroid. The image showed a man, slightly overweight judging from his face. At first I couldn’t make out who it was. He had a broad strip of grey tape across his mouth. He was sweating and his small, deep-set eyes showed panic. Fear contorted his facial features, but eventually I recognized him.

It was Verner.

I turned the photo over. There was no information on the back so I focused my attention on the front. I tried to keep my emotions out of it by breathing deeply and concentrating on the details in the picture. Verner’s short hair was soaked in sweat and his face slightly pink. He didn’t appear to be wearing a shirt; I could see the top of his naked shoulders. Behind him was a brass frame of some sort.

I got up abruptly, tumbling the book and the envelope to the floor, and went to my bedroom. The bed was bigger than I was used to in hotels, but it was the same type – a sturdy brass frame with turned brass bars. I held up the photo to the bed frame to compare. There could be no doubt.