Bo Michaëlis: Copenhagen Noir

“It wouldn’t have hurt enough, darling. Not long enough.”

“And he helped you! My partner, your lover, Frederik Vesterlund.”

“It was a sheer pleasure. For him too. He raped her while I held her down. But don’t worry. He didn’t come. Only you did.”

I could hardly believe my ears. Christian and Frederik stood staring at each other, two kings on the same platform. Like some fake arbitrator I walked between them. “But you’re forgetting one thing,” I said.

“What the hell is this Norwegian doing here?” Vesterlund bellowed.

“He’s the crown witness for the prosecution,” I said. “I can testify that I saw you two leave the building before Mogensen arrived. And when he came, he wasn’t in there long enough to have done any of these things at the scene of the crime that you’re babbling about.”

The train for Ǻrhus and Struer whistled in the tunnel behind us.

It all happened within a few seconds.

Svanhild pointed at me, and as if she was commanding a dog, said: “Frederik, get him!”

Frederik Vesterlund lunged at me, but Mogensen stepped in before he reached me. Vesterlund swung at him, but Mogensen stepped to the side, grabbed his arm, and pushed him along. They stumbled toward the edge of the platform, and in the moments before the train was about to thunder past, they tottered at the very edge. The people behind us screamed in terror, the brakes screeched, and with a violent shove Christian Mogensen took Frederik Vesterlund with him down onto the track, where a fraction of a second later they disappeared under the massive train. Then it got quiet. Completely quiet.

Svanhild Mogensen stood like a limestone pillar in the middle of the platform. Then she began moving, slowly and studiously. She opened her handbag, found a pack of cigarettes, stuck one between her lips, and lit it with a gold lighter. She gazed at me through the blue smoke with the look of a cobra just before it strikes.

She walked toward me, her hips swinging discretely. As she passed, she blew a lungful of smoke in my direction. “Oh well,” she murmured. “I had no use for either one of them any longer.”

I stood and watched her leave. Several railroad employees passed. One of them stopped in front of me.

“Did you see what happened?”

“I saw the whole thing.”

“We have to call the police.”

“Do it.”

After I had given my statement to the police, they insisted I follow them down to Lille Istedgade.

They broke the lock, and I walked into the apartment. We found Heidi where they had left her. Lying in bed, naked and dead, with a blue and yellow necktie tight around her throat and a dead man’s sperm inside her.

Her face was blue-gray, her eyes empty and lips distorted in a grimace that showed she hadn’t left this world voluntarily. Someone had pushed her over the edge and let her dangle. It wasn’t a pretty sight, even for a hardened detective.

I said to myself: What if I hadn’t found her back in 1985? Would she be lying here now? Or would life have been entirely different for both her and Christian Mogensen?

I told the police the whole story, and I saw their skepticism grow with every word I spoke. “How the hell are we supposed to prove that?” groaned the policeman leading the interrogation.

“You have to bring her in for questioning.”

“We already are. She’s on her way.”

“If you need a witness, I’m more than willing to come back to Copenhagen.”

“You’re not too scared?”

“Not yet.”

The last hours before I left for the airport I spent at Jernbanecafe on Reventlowsgade, close to Central Station, where the service was first-class. I ordered a Tuborg Classic and so many Brøndums that I finally lost count. A small model railroad ran back and forth under the ceiling. I sat and followed it with my eyes to be sure. But no one threw himself in front of it. Not a single person.

It wasn’t pleasant news I brought back home with me to Bergen. No one put their arms around me when I told them what had happened, though I’m not exactly used to having that happen.

Several weeks later I stumbled onto a Danish paper at a kiosk in the park. A teaser on the front page piqued my curiosity. I flipped through to a spread inside the paper. There was a beautiful photo of Svanhild Mogensen, smiling cooly at the photographer. The short article explained that after the tragic death of her husband at Central Station earlier in the month, she reported that she intended to continue their successful Amager business and would lead it forward as its new director. Nothing was mentioned about any regrets she might have had; no doubt she didn’t have any.

It’s said that crime doesn’t pay. And who said this, I’d like to know? More on target was the man who said that hidden behind every great fortune is a crime.

I sent her a card with my name on it. But I never got an answer. She surely had better things to do. And so did I, for that matter.

NAJA MARIE AIDT(b. 1963) is one of Denmark’s most acclaimed lyricists and short story writers; her latest collection, Bavian (2006), received the Critics’ Award and the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize. In 2008, Aidt moved from Copenhagen to Brooklyn, New York.

JONAS T. BENGTSSON(b. 1976) published his debut novel Amina’s Letters in 2005, and has since written a novel about brothers, Submarino (a 2010 film by Thomas Vinterberg), which like his story in this volume takes place partly in the Northwest district, Bengtsson’s home ground for many years.

CHRISTIAN DORPH(b. 1966) and SIMON PASTERNAK(b. 1971) have attracted considerable attention in the Danish crime fiction community with their novels In a Moment in Heaven (2005), The Edge of the Abyss (2007), and I’m Not Here (2010), which have been translated into six languages.

AGNETE FRIIS(b. 1975) and LENE KAABERBØL(b. 1960) debuted in Danish crime fiction with The Suitcase Boy (2008)-the first book in a series featuring the Red Cross nurse Nina Borg. Kaaberbøl has been for many years an internationally best-selling fantasy writer. Friis is a journalist and also a fantasy writer.

HELLE HELLE(b. 1965) is the author of various short stories and novels, including the acclaimed novels Down to the Dogs (2008) and Rødby-Puttgarden (2005). The latter won the Critics’ Prize. Helle Helle lived in Vanløse from 1988-1993 while employed at Bakken (an amusement park north of Copenhagen) as an information girl clad in a green uniform with shoulder padding; later she attended Copenhagen’s Writer’s School.

BENN Q. HOLM(b. 1962) is a Copenhagen writer best known for the novels Hafnia Punk (1998), Album (2005, adapted into a TV series in 2008), and Copenhagen’s Mysteries (2008).

GRETELISE HOLM(b. 1946), author and national commentator, has in recent years achieved much success as a writer of crime fiction, inside and outside of Denmark.

LENE KAABERBØL(b. 1960) and AGNETE FRIIS(b. 1975) debuted in Danish crime fiction with The Suitcase Boy (2008)-the first book in a series featuring the Red Cross nurse Nina Borg. Kaaberbøl has been for many years an internationally best-selling fantasy writer. Friis is a journalist and also a fantasy writer.

MARK KLINE(b. 1952) has translated the fiction and poetry of a number of contemporary Danish writers. He has had many short stories published, and for years he has been a bluegrass musician in Denmark. He and his wife live in the South Harbor section of Copenhagen.