Christian Jungersen - The Exception

Iben whispers, ‘I’m not very well.’

‘We can see that. You mustn’t worry.’

She closes her eyes and tries to think. Her clammy forehead rests on Malene’s hand.

What exactly do I remember from the day Rasmus was moving out? He was very serious and said he had to ‘talk to me’. He told me about the spyware and how he had designed it. I had expected him to ramble on about Malene and himself, but he started to lecture me about programming and … he lost me. Afterwards I helped him carry things to the van. What was the subject he approached so hesitantly? Why was it important to talk to me?

‘Iben, come with me. Let’s get you back on the sofa.’

Malene stinks like piss.

She listened to Rasmus talk about his program, but then what happened? Did I take some cycling gear downstairs? A can of oil without a stopper? Did I spill some oil on the steps, just in front of the only window without a guardrail? Did I tell myself to wipe it up and warn Rasmus? Did I carefully skirt around the oily spot instead? And fail to warn Rasmus? Did I look at my greasy hands and think: Oh, I’d better wash my hands before I carry anything else down — why am I so filthy? Did I drop something?

Malene looks down at Iben. ‘It feels so good that I can take care of you, just for once.’

‘Malene, I feel so … confused.’

‘You’re to rest now. Relax. We’ll sit here with you and open Rasmus’s files.’

Iben gags again but her stomach is empty.

Malene double-clicks on the file attached to the return email from revenge_is_near. It doesn’t open. A dialogue box asks about the correct application for this unknown file type.

‘I haven’t the faintest. Rasmus created the file type himself. What am I supposed to do now?’

Gunnar makes a few suggestions, but nothing works.

Malene is becoming irritated. ‘Why is it messing with us?

When we’re so close to finding out who sent those fucking emails that started everything!’

Gunnar has another suggestion: ‘Maybe Rasmus wrote a special file-opening program as part of his spyware.’

Iben says: ‘Maybe it’s not installed on this computer at all.’

Malene brightens. ‘Are you feeling better now, Iben? I’m so glad.’

After exhausting all the possibilities, the file is still closed. Defeated, they sit looking at the little machine on the table in front of them.

Iben drinks a whole pitcher of water. No more smells now. Her thoughts are more coherent and she recalls what a good atmosphere there was between Rasmus and herself when she helped him move out. It makes no sense to think that Rasmus accused her of sending the death threats. She makes up her mind that, like the emails, she imagined what had happened in the stairwell. As before, her illness made it all seem real. She glances at her friend. Something has changed. The warmth has returned to Malene’s eyes.

Malene, however, sounds let down. ‘What I don’t understand is why Rasmus didn’t tell me that he had found out who sent the emails.’

Iben notices that Gunnar seems to withdraw a little every time Malene mentions Rasmus.

‘Maybe it’s because you had broken up two days before Zigic’s data arrived?’

‘But all the same …’ Malene looks at Iben. ‘And you were with him when he moved out. Why didn’t he tell you then?’

Iben struggles to find an answer. Nothing comes to mind. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’

It’s late now. Iben convinces herself that it would be too paranoid to argue that Zigic is still watching the street. She agrees that they should call the police.

Shortly afterwards, the entry phone rings. ‘Police here.’

Iben has an urge to warn them: ‘Be on your guard! You might be attacked when the door unlocks,’ but doesn’t want the man to think that she’s neurotic.

While Malene and Gunnar go to the hall, Iben looks for a way to defend herself. Zigic mustn’t find her knife if he does a body search this time. She runs to Gunnar’s desk, finds a roll of tape and quickly tapes the knife underneath the middle of the three armchairs. Zigic won’t look there.

She has just enough time to put the tape back and return to the sofa.

Malene screams. The next moment the front door slams and then, with a kind of cracking noise, it is pushed open again.

Iben’s heart starts hammering. Driven by an instinct to jump, she runs to the window. They are on the fourth floor, but it doesn’t matter. What else can she do? She turns her head to scan the room while she pulls back the handles on the largest window.

Nenad is at her side in an instant. She tries to put up a fight. But he easily throws her to the floor and orders her to lie face down with her hands behind her neck. It will be so much worse this time. They will take no chances. She chokes on her sobs. It’s hard to cough in such an awkward position.

Gunnar and Malene are led in and ordered to lie on the floor in the same position as Iben. They are all searched. The men are much less relaxed this time, tougher and more efficient. Even so, they play with Malene and search her repeatedly. Denim Suit is so rough that Malene cries out with pain and fear until she is told to shut up.

Zigic jams his hand up hard between her legs, but looks at Iben when he speaks. ‘You wish you got that, don’t you?’

She knew it was coming. She knows what he is like. Gunnar and Malene had no idea. I should have acted, Iben tells herself. The phrase sticks. I should have acted. I should have acted.

From somewhere above her she hears Zigic parroting a woman’s voice, meant to be Iben’s. ‘Oh, dear! I think I’ll just run away from Mirko Zigic.’

She raises her head a little. He brings a heavy boot down on the back of her head.

Something cracks — like when a pair of poultry shears cut through a strong chicken thigh. Pain suddenly shoots into every part of her face. Iben screams in agony. In front of her eyes the pale, mottled surface turns a deep red.

Zigic kicks her in the side. ‘Shut up. I tried to be kind and take it easy on you. You didn’t want to cooperate, did you? You forced me to treat you differently.’

Nenad has spotted the computer. The open email with its attached file makes him whistle excitedly, which attracts Zigic’s attention.

Iben raises her head cautiously and turns it sideways to shift its weight from her broken nose. Now the coffee table is in her line of sight. She can see Nenad is talking and pointing to the screen, and Zigic is smiling, obviously pleased. The new position of her head slows the flow of blood to a steady drip. Iben watches the drops and tries to forget the pain by thinking ahead. Zigic will have to move his prisoners somewhere else, she thinks. Sooner or later Gunnar’s neighbours will call the police. And besides that, the police station will begin to worry about the lost radio contact with their men, who are probably lying dead downstairs.

Where will Zigic take them? Some secret place where he can hold them indefinitely. He will need to torture them until he knows who might have seen the file or made copies of the disk. He will make the outside world seem utterly distant and meaningless to them. Will he want all three of them? Three prisoners are harder to control than two, or one. Will Zigic pick them out one by one to find out if they know anything, then kill them if they don’t? If he decides to get rid of someone right now, who will he choose?

Zigic lifts the laptop’s keyboard and fiddles with the small hard disk until it comes out. He puts it in the breast pocket of Nenad’s jacket and addresses him in Serbian.

Then he turns to his three captives. ‘OK, now I have one copy of the file. Where are the back-up copies?’