Christian Jungersen - The Exception

Frederik leans against the kitchen counter and gives her a quizzical look. ‘It sounds oddly formal to me.’

Malene wipes the dribbles off the mug with her finger. ‘We aren’t that formal, are we, Iben?’

‘Guess not.’

Malene touches Frederik’s arm to steer him towards the door. ‘Frederik, you go back to your reading. I’ll go and tell Anne-Lise what you want and then she’ll bring it to you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Not at all. From now on you’ll be working together with Anne-Lise. Just as we all try to do.’

Later that afternoon Malene and Frederik get together in the meeting room to discuss the English version of the invitation to the conference. They sit side by side at the large table, scribbling changes on Malene’s printout. Malene’s green marker pen dominates the top of the sheet, while Frederik’s additions in blue biro snake around the lines in the last paragraph.

Anne-Lise knocks and enters the room. ‘Hello there. Am I disturbing you?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Oh, good.’

Anne-Lise pauses briefly and looks at Frederik. ‘Frederik, we have the documents you want from the courts in Gryfice, Lobez and Nowograd, but not from Koszalin.’

Anne-Lise walks towards the table. She looks self-assured enough, but somehow her usually earnest expression seems about to disintegrate.

‘Places down there have several names, of course, so when I recorded the items in our Polish collection I took special care to enter automatic links into the database. The cross-referencing should ensure that everything is easy to locate, regardless of whether you search the German or the Polish name. Even so, I did take the precaution of starting a new search using the German name for Koszalin, which is Köslin, with a German “ö” and there are no documents under that name either.’

Anne-Lise must have prepared this little talk, her first customer since Paul’s directive. Malene notices that her eye-liner has been freshened up, probably just before she came in.

With an obvious effort, she turns to Malene. ‘So, I went on to phone a string of offices in Koszalin. I was told that all the papers in the town had been taken to the German Bundesarchiv’s “Ostdok” division in Bayreuth. I phoned Bayreuth and got them to give me the details of where the Koszalin documents are stored. Look, I’ve written down the phone number and I have an email address for you as well.’

Malene’s arms are stretched across the table top. One elbow obscures some of the text that she and Frederik have been working on.

She hesitates, then glances at Frederik. ‘I could’ve sworn the documents were here. How strange.’

Anne-Lise sounds more certain now. ‘But they’re not. I’ve checked everything carefully. I’m quite sure.’

‘Right, of course. If you say so.’

Anne-Lise puts a sheet of paper on the table. On it she’s written a few names, a phone number and an email address.

‘She’ll get your documents. I just wanted to keep you informed. I’ll phone these people myself.’

Frederik has also placed an elbow on the conference printout. He looks up at Anne-Lise and sounds a little confused.

‘Did you say “all the papers in the town” a moment ago? You do know, don’t you, that I wasn’t looking for papers from the town of Kozsalin?’

Anne-Lise blinks. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Koszalin is the name of a province as well as a town. It’s the documents from the small county courts in the province that I need.’

‘In the province …?’

Malene picks up the piece of paper with the address written on it. ‘Oh, Frederik, look! It’s Ilona’s address!’

Fredrik casts an eye on the paper. ‘Is it? I can’t remember.’

‘Yes, of course it is!’

Before Frederik has time to reply, Anne-Lise speaks up: ‘Malene! Didn’t you tell me to look for the Koszalin court?’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Malene looks at her blandly. ‘I never said that. I know very well that we haven’t a single document from a town of that size. What I said was “the documents from Koszalin and from the courts in Grufice, Lobez and Nowograd”.’

One of Anne-Lise’s heels taps audibly against the linoleum-covered floor. ‘Maybe you said—’

‘I did say “the documents from Koszalin”.’

Anne-Lise purses her mouth. Her lips tighten. She seems on the verge of saying something aggressive, but thinks better of it.

The room is filled for a moment by the dull rumble of a bus passing in the street.

Malene breaks the silence. ‘I’m one hundred per cent sure of what I said, you know.’

Anne-Lise doesn’t answer.

Malene tries a smile. ‘Anne-Lise, I can understand perfectly well how irritating it must be to have picked up the wrong end of the stick. Maybe I should’ve expressed myself more clearly, but it seemed much more complicated to say it all. We have documents from five courts in the province of Koszalin. Their names are Bielograd, Darlowo, Swidwin, Zlocieniek and Kolobrzeg.

In the street outside another large diesel engine follows the bus.

Then Malene continues: ‘But you’re the one who’s spent weeks and weeks typing all the information into the database. It simply didn’t occur to me that you wouldn’t know.’ Malene breaks off at that point.

Frederik tries to be just as sympathetic. ‘Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter.’

Anne-Lise is no longer looking at either of them. She straightens up and appears determined.

‘I’ll find what you want at once. Now that I know exactly what to look for, it’ll take no time at all.’

Malene clutches one of her hands in the other. ‘Great. You’ll manage just fine.’

On Wednesday evening one of Rasmus’s old friends turns up to talk. Malene fidgets about elsewhere, in the bedroom, the kitchen, the hallway.

She can’t help thinking about the office. I did say ‘the documents from Koszalin’, she tells herself bad-temperedly. Then, suddenly, the evening is over. By the time Rasmus’s friend leaves, she has already taken a tablet for her headache.

Both Malene and Rasmus are tired. They sit leaning against the sofa cushions, one in each corner with their feet in each other’s lap. Malene does her finger exercises.

She asks Rasmus what Jonas wanted. It seems Jonas has problems at work.

The sound of the clock radio. Toes on the tiled bathroom floor. Toothpaste. Wafts of damp air from the shower. The smell of Rasmus’s deodorant. Cotton wool. Low-fat yoghurt. Coffee.

When Malene turns up at the Centre on Thursday morning, the others are all in the Winter Garden, standing round Camilla’s chair. Malene glances quickly at Camilla, and sees that she must have been crying.

Even before Malene puts her bag down, Paul explains: ‘Camilla has received one of the emails too.’

He hands Malene a printout.

ANYBODY WHO HOSTS OR GIVES HELP TO OUR ENEMIES IS

OUR ENEMY. YOU, CAMILLA BATZ, WILL DISCOVER THAT

COLLABORATORS WHO THINK THEMSELVES INNOCENT

OFTEN DIE TOO.

The email was sent yesterday evening, at 9.57 p.m. The sender, as before, isrevenge_is_near@imhidden.com.

Malene is outraged. She looks up from the printout and stares at Anne-Lise, who avoids her eyes.

Anne-Lise is leaning against Camilla’s filing cabinet and resting one of her hands on top of it, next to the postage machine. She doesn’t seem as tense as you would expect. How accomplished a liar is she? A good one, to be sure. Just think of how she managed to hide the fact that she hates her colleagues for months. Besides, she might have blanked out writing the emails, like the cases of split personality Grith told them about. Maybe she’s dimly aware of having done it, as if it were a dream. Malene cannot bear even to look at Anne-Lise, and turns her back to engage with what the rest of the group is saying.