Pauline Berg was watching her first handball game ever. She had arrived in good time and had watched with some curiosity as the room gradually filled with excited hometown fans. Sports talk filled the air around her but even the videos of the day were discussed and snippets of disgust and anger swirled in the mix: “That kind has no pity; they got what they deserved; finally a solution for them; great to see the animals strung up; they should crush their balls next.”
She felt out of place. She didn’t belong in this aggressive audience. It was very different from the world of ballet and dance. The clothing alone was frightening. In the row immediately behind her were three women who had war paint on their faces and in their garish team shirts and scarves they looked more like goddesses of revenge than sports fans. The man to her left had a good-size belly and whitewashed overalls. From time to time he slapped his rolled-up program against his thigh in an ominous way, alternating from one to the other, apparently only for the sake of the sound. The seat on her right was empty for a long time but someone arrived at the last minute—a thin reed of a man who wound in and out among people and made his way down the row in a long, elegant slide that ended at her side. He greeted her with an insipid smile and a slight lisp. She nodded curtly and gave a cursory smile in return.
The umpire started the game and she tried to follow along. It was hard because the events transpired quickly and with a practiced ease. Then the audience exploded as one and gave a synchronized roar. Alarmed, she shrank down in her seat while the man to her left took the commotion as an opportunity to place a hand on her shoulder, and the commentator’s voice came booming through the loudspeaker with a recitation of names. Her gaunt neighbor did not take part and she thought that perhaps he was preoccupied.
But bit by bit she became caught up in the atmosphere, picked up the basics of the game, not least from the insightful utterances of the supporters who interpreted the events on the court with expert ease, and soon she was enjoying the passionate outbursts and eye-catchingly synchronized movements of the crowd. Like the leaves on a tree, which elegantly fall in line with the wind. She carefully clapped along and rose out of her seat at a goal, howling at appropriate moments.
People restored themselves in the breaks, rested their voices and built up their resources. Popcorn, chocolate, apples, and bananas were sold, while outdated music filled the air. She smiled at her neighbor to the left and he slapped his rolled up program in friendly reply.
She was ready when the whistle blew for the second half. The whole hall was seething and bubbling, and she was as loud as anyone. A preliminary climax arrived when the home team finally drew even and the crowd exploded in roars of triumph and popcorn. She cheered and jumped. An apple came sailing toward her in a gentle arc, lost, not thrown. Her neighbor on the right caught it with an impressively quick reaction. He licked his lips and took possession of his catch. But his selfish action and his total lack of engagement provoked her, so she prodded him roughly and shouted, “Today we’re going to win!”
A sigh rippling through the crowd must have drowned out her words because he misunderstood her comment and helpfully extended the piece of fruit. She grabbed his gift and tossed it indifferently into her bag to rid herself of his kindness.
The teams were neck and neck, creating excruciating tension as the clock ticked, and for a while it looked as if they were headed for a tie, but then came the decisive play. Five players in a counteroffensive before the ball finally landed in the opponent’s net. The goal caused a spring to go off in her body and she flew up into the air, screaming in delight. Then she threw herself deliriously into the arms of her other neighbor, patted his round cheeks, and received his joyful drool on her neck. Then she jumped up onto the chair and leaned back with her arms outstretched in victory, confident that someone would catch her.
After the game she steered her course to the café. Adjusting to the world of work felt strange and she had to concentrate in order to chase the feelings of rapture from her body. She managed it completely only when she laid her eyes on the man who was sitting alone at the back of the room, easy to pick out. A nice-looking gentleman in his late forties, well groomed, elegantly dressed, and neatly trimmed. Berg did not shake his hand—that would have been unprofessional—but she gave him a quick nod in greeting before she sat down.
She began with a test, to see if he was lying: “Thanks for coming. Did Allan Ditelvsen sell illegal videos from his hot-dog stand?”
She had to wait for an answer. He stared at her throat and she struggled with a feeling of aversion.
“Don’t bother with your games. I’m only here because of your gestapo methods and I see that on top of everything else you’re a Christian. By this sign thou shalt conquer.” He pointed to her necklace, which had fallen out of her shirt during her victorious rapture and was now visible. A prettily melded X and P in gold that she had been given a couple of years ago by a Greek boyfriend. It was their initials. “And you can’t even acknowledge other people’s views on love.”
She quickly tucked her necklace inside her shirt. “Drop that bullshit; it makes me sick.”
“The cultured veneer is thin, I see.”
“Since you obviously want to know, then yes. You rape and violate children one day and call upon cultural values and the protection of the law the next. Sometimes I wish that society didn’t give a damn about protecting the freedom of expression and human rights.”
“That’s a good start to this conversation, then.”
The meeting had become completely derailed. Berg pulled herself together.
“Just answer my question and we’ll both get this over and done with.”
The man appeared to see reason. “Yes, Allan sold videos,” he said.
Nothing else followed, even when Berg continued to wait.
“Better get your mouth going. I’m not going to drag every word out of you. Either you talk or we’re done here.”
The man elaborated sourly, “Allan sold videos from his stand and he had a lot of clients, especially from Jylland. He was very cautious and only did business with those he knew and always in cash. He was expensive but the quality was very high. Customers were supposed to buy three times a year or they were excluded but a lot of them came once a month. He had been in business for a long time, trading in cassette tapes before this. Those weren’t so good. I think he changed suppliers about a year or two ago. The material came from Germany, I believe, and the brothers edited it into final form.”
“Frank Ditlevsen was in on this?”
“Yes, Allan never did anything without Frank, and he was scared shitless by him. Frank was the brain. Allan was too stupid to manage that kind of enterprise on his own.”
Berg took out a copy of the Dagbladet and placed it in front of him. She smiled briefly when she saw how he shrank back.
“How many of them did you know?”
“All of them.”
“They had the same inclination toward children as you?”
“Yes.”
“They were going on a trip?”
“Three weeks in Thailand. Frank arranged it. It was incredibly cheap, under ten thousand including luxury hotel accommodations, meals, and excursions.”
“How did they find takers?”
“I don’t know. Probably from the hot-dog counter, but the whole thing was hush-hush. That goes for everything that the brothers were involved in.”
“You weren’t invited?”
“I couldn’t get the time off.”
“What about Allan Ditlevsen? Couldn’t he get the time off either?”
“He came down sick, with gallstones, so Frank must have found a replacement. I don’t know who it was, but it must have been difficult.”
“Did Frank Ditlevsen arrange the whole trip on his own?”
“I don’t think so, but that’s just a guess.”
“So guess.”
“Well, Frank had one of his old boys bring him the films from Germany and I got the impression that he was also involved in the trip but I have never seen him. Frank kept him close and Allan was not allowed to say anything. I am one of the few people who even knew he existed.”
“Old boy, what do you mean?”
“One of the ones from where they used to live. In Sjælland, I don’t remember where.”
Berg was filled with happiness and pride. This information was giving her the most significant leads in the case so far. She kept questioning him but he did not have anything else to tell her.
“We’ll stop here. Just one more thing and then you can go. I’m just curious how it can be that none of you have stepped forward voluntarily to help us now that you know that six of… your own have been murdered. We’re trying to find the perpetrator, you know.”
The man smiled a joyless smile.
“To find our killer? You are deeply naïve.”
He stood up and hurried away.
Once she was back at the hotel, Berg took a long, hot bubble bath. The evening had been incredible, both the game and the interrogation, and she could hardly stand to wait until the Countess got back. Old boy, two small words that could mean a significant breakthrough in the case.
After the bath she sat on the bed naked and took her time with her lotion. Then she glanced at her laptop and decided that it was actually a good time to engage in ten minutes of unpleasant background information. She started the video completely unprepared and paid the price. It was extreme, and she stared in terror.
The boy was young, far too young, no one could be so evil. She screamed aloud in the room, wanted to stop, couldn’t, and stared straight into hell. She cried. First, a silent weeping that turned to wailing. She folded the screen down with her foot and held her hands over her face but the images kept playing in her head and she rocked back and forth like a mental case. Her necklace became tangled in her wet hair and she struggled to get it loose, in order to focus on something else. Neither attempt was successful. Then suddenly her thoughts returned to the man in the café and an insane rage took over. High-quality. That was what the swine had called this assault. High-quality. She dried her eyes, first with her bare arm, then with a tissue from her bag, where she also had the apple from the game. She ate it, complete with seeds and all, while her rage slowly transformed into a controlled, glowing hatred.
The telephone rang and the display showed it was the Countess. She stood up. The necklace was still tangled in her curls and she tore it loose and flung it on the floor. Tufts of hair followed.
The fruit forced sucrose to her brain and she started to think clearly again, very clearly. She confronted her problem directly. Last Friday the Countess had threatened her into agreement and she had obeyed, had allowed herself to be dominated. Perhaps because she envied her colleague her talents and, if the whole truth be told, her summer villa. Which was actually a tax haven, a way in which to get even richer, but that was another story. These thoughts crowded her mind and she stole a little time.
“Wait a second, my battery is about to run out. I’ll get a charger.”
Working relationships were like marriages—if the disagreements became too large, one had to separate and find another bed partner. The fact was that she accepted the murders, and the Countess did not. Victims of incest hated their parents; society persecuted pedophiles. That was natural, the way it should be. Here she had slaved away all Sunday and a mean God in heaven had rewarded her with the rape of a child. Her belief in the compassion of others was gone, extinguished by the lost eyes of a five-year-old child, and another, more primitive truth was banging on the door. The right of the common man, the will of the people, good old-fashioned revenge.
She was ready. First, she listened: the Countess would be back in an hour, things had dragged on—then came her answer, which was delivered without hesitation.
“You know, I think I’ll hit the hay. I’ll see you tomorrow. That handball guy was a shyster. He didn’t know anything.”
They hung up. She smiled grimly and felt suddenly bashful in her nakedness.