Christian Jungersen - The Exception

A whole fleet of police cars responded instantly to the shootings. Zigic was easy to arrest, hemmed in by the icy water and holding an empty gun. The disk Zigic had removed presented a much harder case. Detectives searched Zigic, his car, the wastepaper baskets and corridors of the Ministry, the rubbish bins in the yard and every other possible spot. Police divers combed the bottom of the canal several times. The disk was never found, but the man in the denim suit survived Iben’s gunshot and told the Serb police where to find Zigic’s computer. The data it held was sufficient to round up almost the entire organisation.

Malene’s aunt hugs her parents and, after a few quiet words, moves on to Iben.

‘Iben, this must be hard for you.’

‘Yes. It is.’

‘And you have much to be grateful for.’

‘Believe me, I know.’

The uncle talks to her too, as do other members of Malene’s family. Iben looks down at her feet. Do they see anything in her face? What are they thinking?

Frederik gets out of a taxi and catches sight of her. He walks quickly towards her, stumbles on the kerb, and saves himself by taking a couple of running steps.

Everyone has come: Malene’s friends as well as colleagues, Rasmus’s family, and of course Camilla, Anne-Lise, Paul and members of the DCGI board.

A transport van pulls up to lower two women in wheelchairs. Iben has never seen them before. Presumably they knew Malene from the Association for Young Arthritic People.

At last she spots Gunnar climbing out of another taxi. She observes his black suit, which looks new and expensive. His eyes are bloodshot and so swollen that his whole face looks different. She has been visiting him at the hospital over the last few days. Iben walks inside the chapel with Gunnar. She knows the music and hymns that Malene’s mother has chosen. All of them echo inside her head.

‘What happened on the quayside was an exception and I’m perfectly aware of it. In principle, it shouldn’t have happened. Her every instinct would have urged her to save her own life. So, what she did was — exceptional. Incomprehensible. Against nature.’

It is the day after the funeral and Iben is seated in the DC GI Small Meeting Room. There is only one other person in the room: Dorte Jorgensen, the plump woman detective, who spoke to Iben after Rasmus’s fall.

Dorte frowns and closes the door firmly. Iben is being interrogated. She doesn’t intend to cave in to the tension that the detective is trying to create, but continues her line of thought.

‘It was nothing short of miraculous. The way human beings behave is subject to natural laws. Then, suddenly, from one moment to the next, an exception occurs. That I am alive is precisely because of such an exception, as extraordinary as an apple rising from the ground to attach itself to a branch on an apple-tree. Or a malignant tumour regressing and disappearing without trace. Or blood dripping from a statue of Christ.’

‘Interesting. Now, do you have any explanation for how the hard disk from Rasmus’s computer could’ve disappeared?’

‘I guess Zigic must have thrown it away somewhere in or around the Ministry.’

‘You see, it contains data about his organisation. We have searched everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Even the bottom of the canal. We’ve drawn a blank every time.’

‘Well, I really can’t…’ Dorte is getting on Iben’s nerves.

‘That hard disk contained not only data on Zigic. It also held the name of your email sender, who is based here in Denmark. It’s not too hard to see what I’m thinking, is it?’

‘I’m afraid it is. I don’t understand.’

‘I should have thought it was pretty obvious. The man you killed in the car could’ve had the disk in one of his pockets. And you could have taken it before you ran. In all that excitement, nobody searched you.’

‘But I’d have no reason …’

‘Well, now, that’s questionable.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘One possibility is that it was you who sent the emails and that a file on the disk proved it. Rasmus might even have told you he knew when you helped him move.’

‘But… why would I send anyone threatening emails?’

‘Why indeed? Why should anyone?’

‘I had no reason at all.’

Iben has heard from Malene’s mother that the police have sealed Malene’s flat and that they can’t start clearing it yet. And with the discovery that Zigic was in Denmark, the police are now considering the theory that Rasmus may have been murdered.

Dorte pauses deliberately before continuing. ‘The special something I sensed between you and Gunnar when you were both at the station — am I wrong about it?’

‘What do you mean?’

Iben knows that Dorte can see something in her face, and she scratches the bandages on her nose.

‘If, before the emails were sent, you had already fallen in love with the man who was Malene’s lover … it could’ve caused bad blood between you, couldn’t it?’

Iben can’t reply. She takes a deep breath.

‘Maybe you regretted sending the emails. Or maybe you didn’t. One way or the other, the spyware found you out and Rasmus told you.’

Does Dorte do this to other people she interrogates? Is making wild accusations part of her method, just to see if one of them hits home?

Iben tries to prevent herself sounding strained. ‘Look, it doesn’t make sense! Rasmus and I had a good time together that day. I helped him carry some of his things. There is no way we’d get along so well just minutes after he accused me of emailing death threats.’

Dorte’s eyes are still fixed on Iben. ‘You might have told him that your laptop had been left in the office and that Anne-Lise had access to it. That would calm him down. After all, Anne-Lise is the one you people tried to pin the emails on.’

Iben can’t think what to say.

Dorte rests her arms on the table. ‘But, if Anne-Lise did not have access to your computer at the time when the emails were sent, that could have been established the following day. And you would have lost your job, your old friend, and all hope of Gunnar ever becoming your lover.’

It’s unbelievable. This woman, Dorte JØrgensen, is installed here, in their lunch room, calmly accusing Iben of having killed her best friend’s partner! Surely she doesn’t go that far with everyone?

Iben feels like waving her arms about and shouting that this is all totally insane. Living through these last few weeks has upset her terribly and somehow she feels that Dorte might even be right.

She pinches her thigh to wake herself up. She must concentrate.

What did happen? Should I give myself up? Should I say I did it and serve a life sentence in prison?

Once more her mind conjures up an image that has recurred since the first time she met Gunnar. She is in his kitchen, cooking lots of nice dishes, he stands behind her and puts his arms round her. And his daughters come running in, laughing, from the sitting room.

Iben is not herself during the rest of the interrogation. When Dorte gets up, opens the door and walks into the hallway, she turns and speaks over her shoulder. ‘Well, Iben, we’ll take a look at that. It’s a good idea. Malene’s mother has mentioned that Malene kept writing letters to Rasmus after his death. We are definitely going to follow up that line of enquiry.’

On the pavement a little ahead of me a man in a wheelchair was being pushed along by his wife. I caught up with them. They both seemed quite elderly and were deep in discussion. Just as I passed, the woman spluttered with laughter. A little later I turned to look at them and they were both still talking at the same time, apparently sharing a story that they enjoyed hugely. And I came to think of Iben.