Death Sentence

When I turned to the table again, I got a shock.

The newspaper had concealed a book.

It took me only a moment to find the photo between the pages.

The book was Media Whore and the photo was of Linda Hvilbjerg.

26

PERHAPS LINDA HVILBJERG was already dead, I couldn’t know, but I hoped that – for once – I was one step ahead of the killer. Not only had I found his hotel room, whatever he used it for, but I had also come a little closer to discovering his identity: the copy of Media Whore bore my signature and it was very likely to be the same copy I had signed the previous day.

The killer had to be the man from the book-signing queue.

Even though I had nothing but a signature and a pair of sunglasses to go on, I was convinced I was on the right track. There was nothing to indicate a specific person, so my scheme to plant evidence in room 102 had come to nothing, but I wasn’t disappointed.

Now, at least, I knew where he was staying and my first thought was to wait for him. I wanted to surprise him and catch him myself. For a moment I considered contacting the police so they would be here when he returned, but I couldn’t cope with explaining everything to them, including how I had found the room. I would obviously have to answer questions if I overpowered the killer, but then at least I could produce the perpetrator and my story would sound more convincing.

However, I couldn’t wait for him. There was too much at stake. The killer might already be on his way to Linda Hvilbjerg. If I didn’t exploit my advantage, I might not able to prevent her murder. She wasn’t exactly my favourite person, but she didn’t deserve to die, and certainly not as described in Media Whore.

Media Whore is about a serial killer who kills female TV presenters. The killer hates TV personalities for the adulation they get and the way they behave as if they’re superior to everyone else and above the suffering of ordinary people. It’s the killer’s self-appointed mission to make them understand they are real like the rest of us. He wants them to experience the pain of being ordinary, a real physical pain that will be enough to kill them. One of the victims is the host of the literature programme LIX, a carbon copy of Linda Hvilbjerg in every respect, except her hair colour, which I did change. She and the other victims are tortured to death in a way that is appropriate to the programmes they front. A TV chef is boiled, the presenter of a gardening programme is mutilated with tools before being buried in a vegetable plot, and the host of LIX is murdered in the cutting room after being raped with a book. As the story progresses, the killer’s pattern is detected and the TV personalities are put under surveillance. However, this only serves to enrage him. Now that TV hosts have become so precious that they need protection from the public, it becomes more pressing than ever for him to bring them back down to earth. In the last scene, the killer hijacks an entire TV studio and murders two studio hosts on live TV at peak viewing time. However, the hero, a quick-thinking production assistant, manages to ambush the killer, who is roasted alive in a tangle of cables.

Before leaving the room at the BunkInn, I carefully returned everything to the way it was. I surveyed the room from the doorway. It looked just as I had found it half an hour earlier. I left the bed linen and towels I had brought upstairs outside one of the other rooms, after which I crept away.

The receptionist sat with his back to me watching football on a small portable television. I tiptoed over to the counter, put down the keycard and disappeared out of the door without him noticing.

It had started to rain outside. Grey clouds tumbled across the rooftops and powerful gusts of wind forced pedestrians to stagger or lean into the wind using unfurled umbrellas as shields. I ignored the drops lashing my face and walked to Copenhagen Central station and through the vast hall with its shops, sandwich bars and people making it their mission to block my way.

I rang Finn from a payphone. I was fairly certain Finn would have Linda Hvilbjerg’s number. He didn’t answer. I imagined him talking to some bookseller, glancing at his mobile and ignoring the call because he didn’t recognize the number.

I slammed the phone down and headed for the main entrance. There I jumped into a taxi and told the driver to take me to Forum. I must be the only person in Denmark not to own a mobile, something everyone I know reminds me of at every opportunity. Even Bjarne had succumbed years ago and, though he hated to admit it, he could no longer manage without it. For some reason it has never appealed to me. I wanted to be unavailable. I didn’t care for interruptions and constantly having to account for where I was the moment I answered it, or share my conversations with random passers-by or fellow passengers. There had been very few times when I really needed a mobile, but one of them was now, as I sat in the taxi on my way to Forum.

I found the drive torturous. The city centre traffic was heavy and the car was stationary more often than moving. I couldn’t know if Linda Hvilbjerg would be at the book fair and I wondered what I’d say to her if she was, or what I’d say to Finn if I needed to get her number from him.

The crowding in the book fair hall was worse than the city traffic. Faces paraded endlessly by and I registered none of them, other than that they didn’t belong to Finn or Linda Hvilbjerg.

At ZeitSign’s stand, Finn was in conversation with three men in suits. He waved me over as soon as he spotted me and introduced me to them. They congratulated me on the good reviews. I didn’t catch their names or where they came from, but mustered a smile, a sweaty handshake and a ‘thank you’. With a nod of the head I signalled to Finn that I wanted to talk to him. He nodded back and gestured he would be with me in two minutes.

The stand was packed with visitors. Some glanced at me and I feared they might pounce at any moment. My only friend in this mayhem was Finn, so I was loath to move too far away, but nor could I cope with hanging around while people stared at me.

I edged my way to the cubicle where I was alone, thank God. The beer keg was empty, I realized, when foam spluttered into the empty beaker with an angry hiss. There was an extra keg under the table, but I couldn’t work out how to replace it and instead hurled my beaker into the bin with such force that it shot out again and vanished in a corner. Having paced up and down the tiny area for a couple of minutes, I sat down on a chair and buried my face in my hands. I tried to ignore the constant hum of voices, imagining what a boon a hearing aid that you could switch off must be. It helped if I closed my eyes and focused on the spots that danced behind the lids. My thoughts began to drift and eventually the noises around me disappeared from my consciousness.

I don’t know how long I had been sitting like this when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

‘Are you asleep?’ Finn said, laughing. ‘Well, I never. If you can sleep through this din without being knocked out by a hammer, you must have a special gift.’

‘No, I was just nodding off.’

Finn laughed again. ‘OK, let’s call it that.’ His smile disappeared. ‘You’re late, Frank. In fact, you can’t even call it late, you failed to show up altogether. You had a signing session this morning, remember?’

I nodded drowsily.

‘That’s why I called you,’ Finn continued. ‘You told me you were on your way. We had an agreement, dammit.’

Anger started to rise in me. How could he think about book signings when people were dying around me as if I was the carrier of some deadly virus? I stood up abruptly, a little too quickly it would appear, as I felt dizzy and my body swayed.

‘Hey, watch it, mate,’ Finn said, grabbing my arm. ‘Take it easy.’

‘I need to get hold of Linda Hvilbjerg,’ I said, staring at Finn. ‘Now.’

Finn studied me for a moment. ‘Are you sure that’s wise?’