Death Sentence

an agenda and her initial politeness was merely camouflage.

‘To what extent is it important to you that your stories seem real?’

‘It matters a great deal to me,’ I replied immediately. ‘Even though my stories are scary, even terrifying and repulsive some might say, then it’s of the utmost importance that the reader will think, this could happen, and if it were to happen, then this is exactly how it would be … it’s often the realism in my books that my readers find most shocking.’

Linda Hvilbjerg nodded. ‘It was certainly shocking to read the newspaper the other day.’ On the screen behind her a newspaper headline flashed up: ‘Woman murdered in Gilleleje Marina’. ‘I can tell those of you who haven’t read In the Red Zone, without revealing too much of the plot, that a woman is mutilated and drowned in Gilleleje Marina.’

My scalp was sweating and itchy and I was suddenly aware of the heat from the spotlight above the stage. The audience was murmuring.

‘Now the police haven’t released much information about the murder yet, but it seems like an incredible coincidence. How do you feel about that?’

I took a sip of my vodka and cleared my throat before I replied.

‘I read that article too,’ I replied. ‘It’s awful that something like that can happen in a lovely place like Gilleleje, but it proves that evil is everywhere, that we’re never safe, no matter where we are or how secure we feel …’

‘But doesn’t the similarity upset you at all?’

‘Of course it does,’ I said and I think I might have snapped at her. ‘But you also have to be careful about jumping to conclusions just because you’ve recently read a book.’ I paused. ‘If you’ve got a hammer, all problems look like nails,’ I quoted. ‘I can’t imagine that every detail of that murder matches the book. It must be a coincidence.’

I hated lying so brazenly and I didn’t think for a moment that I was fooling anyone, certainly not Linda Hvilbjerg. She fixed me with her eyes and I could see that the reporter part of her brain battled with the entertainer part over which one of them would be allowed to continue. Fortunately, the entertainer part won.

‘As I mentioned, your fans regard the realism as the appeal of your books, while your critics claim you’ve written the same book ten times over,’ she said. ‘What have you got to say to them?’

‘That they can’t have read them properly,’ I replied and was rewarded with a few laughs from the audience and a brief smile from Linda. ‘I get numerous letters from my readers stating precisely the opposite. Many look forward to the next book and express how they’re surprised time and time again at the imaginative plots and range of characters …’

‘But, Frank … is it correct to say that every single one of your books follows a particular template, a model you have used since your best-known work, Outer Demons?’

It was a reasonable question and I had no reason to think she was trying to provoke me, I just objected to Outer Demons being referred to as my best-known work yet again. It was as if I would never improve on my breakthrough novel in the eyes of the critics. It had dragged after me like a ball and chain ever since; it rattled every time I tried to move and drowned out my voice, no matter what I did.

‘It’s correct, Linda, that my books have a unique style and that the tension builds up according to a pattern, but that’s also my strength. The reader recognizes a Fons thriller when they read it, just like you recognize a song by Depeche Mode, even if you haven’t heard it before.’ I shrugged. ‘All my books are about murders and the detection of them, so in that sense they’re identical. However, if you look closer, you’ll see that it’s not entirely true.’

Linda nodded. ‘So you’re saying that if I read a passage from one of your books, you’ll be able to tell me which one it is?’ She pulled out a piece of paper and the audience greeted the challenge with scattered laughter.

I held her eyes for a second. She smiled at me with a cheeky expression around her lips. I wasn’t entirely clear what she was up to, but it was too late to back down. My day was already ruined: how much worse could it get?

‘OK,’ I replied. ‘Any children present?’

The audience tittered, but Linda peered across them, temporarily wrong-footed. Nevertheless, she must have decided that it was acceptable to carry on and coughed before she started reading:

The girl squeezed her eyelids together as hard as she could. Her face was bathed in sweat and tears and the gaffer tape had started to peel off her cheek. She whimpered.

‘Look!’ he ordered her. ‘Look, or the eyelids will be next!’

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. They were filled with tears and terror. He held up the severed nipple in front of her. She tried to scream and she fought against the cable ties pinning her to the chair, but they only dug themselves deeper into her flesh.

He moved the nipple to his lips and sucked it as if he were a nursing infant. The woman thrashed her head from side to side spraying sweat, tears and snot around.

He laughed and lifted the shears to her other breast. She froze at his touch and he smiled while he fondled the breast with the cold metal. Slowly, the nipple hardened.

‘Look, she likes it,’ he exclaimed and leered again.

With his thumb and index fingers he pinched the nipple, rubbed it a little and pulled it. He opened the shears and placed the steel jaws around the nipple.

The flesh quivered …

Linda stopped reading. The audience had fallen silent, completely silent.

She was good at reading aloud; I had to give her that. Her stresses were accurate, the pauses precisely measured and the characters brought to life despite the brevity of the passage. Personally, I didn’t like reading my own books aloud. There was something revealing about reading to others. It was proof of what I had written, an open declaration that I stood by it. Consequently I carefully selected the sections I read aloud, unless I could avoid it altogether. The choice itself would expose me. How would it reflect on the author if I read the most bestial passages? After all, the mood should ideally remain pleasant and, for that reason, I typically chose the more subdued chapters, preferably those with a little humour that wouldn’t offend anyone and which had no direct link to me.

However, it wasn’t Linda Hvilbjerg’s plan to let me get away with that.

‘Inner Demons,’ I replied. ‘Not exactly a bedtime story.’

The audience laughed with relief bordering on gratitude.

‘Correct,’ Linda declared. Some members of the audience applauded. ‘What this passage doesn’t mention is that the woman is heavily pregnant – otherwise we would have made it far too easy for you.’

She smiled and I laughed briefly.

‘Inner Demons was the follow-up to your breakthrough novel, Outer Demons,’ she explained to the audience. She turned her gaze back on me.

‘Is it true that you wrote it while your then wife was expecting your second child?’

17

‘THAT WENT GREAT,’ Linda Hvilbjerg said, having checked that the microphones had been switched off. The interview was over, but I didn’t have the energy to get up from the armchair. She had grilled me for forty-five minutes, pursuing her ‘theme’ of fiction mirroring reality by bringing up examples from my earlier books and linking them to events in my private life. From Nuclear Families she had drawn parallels to my divorce from Line; she viewed You Don’t Have To Call Me Dad as a book that criminalized