Christian Jungersen - The Exception

Slow footsteps. Somewhere. Iben can’t quite make it out, but they could be coming from outside the door at the far end of the room.

She reacts without thinking. In an instant, the knife is in her hand. Her other hand, still flecked with drying blood, has grabbed a piece of orange stone that was on the coffee table. Before Gunnar can say a thing, Iben is standing, ready to fight.

Malene steps into the room, a damp towel wrapped round her head. ‘Iben? What are you doing here?’

Malene looks very sensual. Her hair and body are radiating warmth.

‘Oh, no! My God! Iben? Jesus, what have you done?’

Iben blinks several times and shouts: ‘What have you done?’

‘But … didn’t I tell you? Gunnar and I are together.’

Iben had no idea. ‘No, what’s going on with Zigic?’

‘Zigic? What do you mean?’

‘Have you stolen his address list? Are you blackmailing him?’

‘No! No way!’ By now Malene looks terrified. She must think that Iben is out of her mind.

Still, Iben can’t stop herself from almost screaming: ‘You and your tricks! You almost had me killed!’

‘What?’

‘Who do you work for? Apart from the Centre?’

‘But Iben, I don’t understand.’

Malene is so believable — as if she has done nothing wrong. It’s too much. Gunnar tries to intervene and calm the two women down.

‘You keep out of this!’

He reaches out to hold her, but Iben backs away quickly and raises her knife.

‘Watch out! Stay away from me!’

Gunnar and Malene stare at her. Suddenly Iben comes to her senses. ‘Oh, no, please. Gunnar, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. You know that I’d never …’

Everyone is frozen.

‘It’s all so confusing.’

‘Don’t worry. I understand, perfectly. Come and lie back down.’

‘I’m not at all like this … I don’t want you to think that I am …’

‘Iben, believe me, we both understand. We’ll look after you.’

Iben fights her suspicion that they are collaborating with Zigic. She must not be paranoid. She notices the bloodstains on the sofa. Gunnar won’t be able to use it any more. She mumbles, ‘I’m sorry,’ and lies down slowly, after putting Gunnar’s stone back in its place.

Iben begins to tell Gunnar and Malene the story, but more coherently this time. Several times she interrupts herself to ask Malene what kind of contact she has had with Zigic. Malene insists that she has had nothing to do with Zigic or his files. He must have mistaken her for someone else.

Gunnar goes to the kitchen to find something for Iben to eat. Iben starts cleaning her left arm but Malene stops her.

‘Iben, let me do it. Just lie down.’

How strange to be looked after by Malene. During the last six years it has always been the other way round.

For the first time Iben picks up the smell of sex that hovers in the air — as if Gunnar and Malene have been on a sexual rampage for days, using every available surface. Iben feels so bitter. Everything is falling apart. The pain is starting to get to her.

Malene must have noticed. She produces two strong painkillers from her handbag. Iben lies still, waiting for the pills to take effect, and looks at Malene’s hands. While she was being held captive by Zigic, those hands were caressing Gunnar.

Gunnar returns with a bottle of whisky, a plate of sandwiches and mugs of hot chocolate for all of them.

Iben repeats how Zigic captured her all over again.

This time Malene says they ought to phone the police.

‘But what if one of the men who chased me saw which street I ran to but not which door? Maybe they’re still waiting. When the police arrive, their problem will be solved.’

‘So that’s why you didn’t want me to phone earlier!’

Malene starts to mumble. ‘Isn’t it just a little …’

But instead, she changes tack. ‘I think I may know how all of this started. Remember, the very first time I called Rasmus on my mobile to tell him about the email threats? He talked about the possibility of writing a spyware program. He kept working on the program whenever he had time. The idea was to forward it to the sender. It would then copy data from the sender’s computer. Anything — like the address book and the calendar — and afterwards the data would be sent back to us, to help us trap the criminal. But I didn’t know he had got that far with it.’

‘But how would Zigic know who copied his files?’

‘I suppose he couldn’t — unless he got his own spyware set up after Rasmus’s death. I don’t know. But let’s say that he found my name from the subscriptions that I paid for on-line via Rasmus’s computer. Then if he Googled me he’d have found out that I work at DCGI and might think that I had something to do with his computer being infected.’

‘It’s just so … It means that if Rasmus’s software did copy everything, there has to be a file somewhere in your computer that could wipe out Zigic’s entire organisation — bank accounts, supporters’ names, details of people he is using or blackmailing.’

Malene goes and gets the laptop. She logs on as Rasmus, then experiments briefly with whatever other email identities he could use.

They watch her in silence, Iben on the sofa and Gunnar on an armchair. Gunnar is so close Iben could reach out her arm and touch him.

Suddenly Malene calls out excitedly. ‘Yes! Yes, look! Rasmus sent an email with the attached program to lperic@brat.org.yu. It has to be Ljiljana Peric — the woman you interviewed about Zigic.’

‘But why send it to her?’

‘I don’t know.’

Iben has an idea. ‘What if he wanted to see if it would work with the Serbian version of Windows? That would make sense, don’t you think?’

‘It would. And it must’ve worked all right, because the following day he sent an email to revenge_is_near@imhidden.com. And another one to zigl@tin.co.yu. That must be Zigic’s email address. I wonder how he got hold of that?’

‘What if the spyware program found it in Ljiljana’s Contacts list? She and Zigic were classmates, after all. She probably knows him better than she likes to let on.’

Malene talks while she clicks her way through Rasmus’s mail. ‘Look. The spyware has returned mail from both addresses. The header shows that Zigic’s mail goes via a Serbian server. The other mail was sent on from a Danish server.’

A wave of nausea flows through Iben, the same sickness as made her sit down on the bin at the bus stop. The inside of her mouth feels as if it’s coated in thick mucus.

Malene speaks, half to herself. ‘So, it obviously wasn’t Zigic who sent the threatening emails. It was someone in this country. And the name must be in this file!’

Gunnar and Iben lean forward, straining to see. Iben’s forehead is covered in drops of sweat. She tries to speak enthusiastically, but her tongue doesn’t seem to move. ‘Imagine! Rasmus found out who it is.’

Malene’s voice is dry. ‘So he did. And then he died.’

It happens so suddenly. Something contracts inside Iben and her nose fills with the stench of creosote and rendered pork fat. She can smell evil now.

Iben jumps up from the sofa and manages a few paces towards the bathroom before throwing up everything she ate. She kneels, as if about to dive head first. The pool of fluid is brown, darker than the world of evil into which she almost disappeared earlier.

Gunnar and Malene come to help her, one on either side. Malene’s hand supports her forehead.

‘Iben, you’ve had such a dreadful day. It’s understandable, you just can’t take any more.’

Iben’s head is churning again with the same thoughts she had earlier: What if my memories were real? What if I sent the emails and Rasmus found out? I would have known that he could destroy my life. Everything.