Retribution by Steffen Jacobsen; Charlotte Barslund

Author:Steffen Jacobsen; Charlotte Barslund
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2018-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

31

It was the sound he detested most. His wife’s mobile. It continued to ring and Otto Jarl Falster rose on his elbow and stared at his wife’s face. Her eyes were wide awake in the dim light, but she would appear to be paralysed. He let himself fall onto his back, reassured that at least she was still breathing. He watched the luminous hands on his wristwatch. Four-thirty in the morning. This was intolerable. Quite simply, intolerable.

After what seemed to him like eternity, her bedside lamp was switched on, she sat up and muttered something into her mobile.

The words eventually became clearer.

‘Who?’, ‘Where?’, ‘No, no, no …!’, ‘Don’t move her. I want a forensic pathologist to attend … Dr Helle Englund, perhaps. No, no, not perhaps. I want her.’ And finally the inevitably gritted, ‘I’ll be there right away.’

These days, she was faster at getting dressed than a fireman and was soon standing by the bed, looking down at her husband.

‘Don’t say anything, Otto.’

‘I didn’t say a bloody word, for Christ’s sake!’

‘No, but I know what you were going to say.’

He furrowed his brow.

‘You’re reproaching me for something you think I’m about to say?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bon voyage,’ he mumbled.

‘I’d be happy to swap,’ she said. ‘I’ll take your meetings instead.’

The permanent secretary emitted a burst of hollow laughter.

‘I don’t think you would make that offer if you knew that I have a two-hour meeting with the minister this morning. You would shoot her after thirty minutes.’

A soft expression flitted across her face. Perhaps she could see that he was suffering from heartburn and indigestion.

‘Poor you, darling,’ she mumbled.

He smiled bravely.

‘No, poor you. Has anyone died?’

She sighed and he clasped one of her hands; the one with the wedding ring.

‘I’m afraid so. Irene Adler. Someone killed her.’

‘Adler?’

He sat up in bed.

‘Yes.’

‘Poor woman.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do they know who did it?’

She stared into space.

‘I can think of only one person who had a motive and the determination necessary.’

‘Who?’

She withdrew her hand.

‘Oh, God, Otto. It’s impossible … Christ, I couldn’t bear it if it turns out that … that … Lene Jensen is an obvious candidate. Irene Adler treated her daughter. A young woman who committed suicide.’

‘I was at her funeral, Charlotte.’

He leaned his head against the bedstead and looked pensively at the predawn sky. His wife watched him, and he finally looked at her and rubbed his chin.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Thomas Thierry’s committee.’

‘The Interior Ministry? What committee, Otto?’

‘A top-secret committee. It reports directly to the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Defence. We coordinate Denmark’s intelligence services. All countries have such committees, though not many people know.’

‘I understand.’

‘I’ll be shot if this comes out, Charlotte, but … well, it was that committee, I mean the ministry, that allocated money to Adler’s centre. I was on it.’

She placed a small, warm hand on his shoulder and he looked searchingly at her.

‘We have to do something, Charlotte.’

‘Of course.’

‘They called the project creative and ground-breaking, but I thought all along that mixing psychiatric treatment with surveillance and intelligence activity was dangerous.

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