Lene Kaaberbol - Invisible Murder

“Do you want me to heat up a little water for you?” she asked.

“No,” he said, because that would mean she would have to light the wood stove, and it was most certainly warm enough inside already. “I’ll just rinse off down by the pump.”

“No, do it here,” she said, passing him the basin. “You don’t wash in the middle of the street.”

That was a subtle dig, he thought, noticing the hint of a smile in one corner of her mouth. Apparently there was more than one thing people didn’t do in the middle of the street in Galbeno. He took the pink plastic basin but didn’t move. Neither did Valeria, standing less than a meter away from him. The light from the open door etched deep shadows under her cheekbones and chin and made her look older and sharper. From inside the house, he heard a sleepy little boy’s voice whining, and Vanda mumbled something reassuring in response.

“Mama, what’s going on with Tamás?” he asked quietly. Maybe she would say more now that Vanda and Feliszia weren’t listening.

“Why would anything be going on with Tamás?”

“Because the NBH is very interested in what he’s up to. Mama, they arrested me because he had borrowed my computer and used it to visit some sites on the Internet.” He faltered a bit, having no idea how much or how little Valeria might know about the Internet. It wasn’t like Galbeno was crawling with laptops. Could you even get online out here? Apparently there was some mobile coverage, but the Internet?

Valeria raised her head, and the moonlight gleamed in her eyes.

“The police,” she scoffed, sounding harsh and hostile. “They’re always after us.”

“It wasn’t just police, Mama. It was the NBH, the security service!”

“They’re still police,” she said. “Stay away from them, Sándor.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly go and ask to be arrested,” he said, unable to hold back a spark of irritation. “Mama, what I’m trying to say is that I think Tamás is mixed up in something dangerous.”

She touched his cheek with a damp, soap-scented hand.

“Well then, Sándorka,” she said in that Mama voice that went right to his gut. “You’ll just have to get him out of it. Won’t you?”

T’S MERCURIAL BYnature,” Torben said.

Søren rested his paddle across the kayak in front of him and looked at his friend and boss with a certain impatience.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Islam. We’re never going to be able to get the idea, because there isn’t just one. There isn’t any one thing to understand. That’s why it’s so hopeless to work with.”

Torben ran both hands over his clean-shaven scalp. They had been paddling for almost two hours at a blistering pace, and there hadn’t been a sound between them other than the soft whistle of the paddles as they sank down into the water, leaving swirling, black holes in the smooth surface. After the last sprint, they were both breathing hard, Torben of course half a boat-length ahead of Søren. Lake Furesø spread out smooth and dark beneath their kayaks. It was evening, and utterly still. Søren’s fingers were reddened and chilled, but all the same, spring was in the air. The trees along the shore were displaying a light green mist of freshly budding leaves.

He didn’t really want to talk shop right now, but Torben was relentless as usual. Did they ever really talk about anything else? Søren suddenly had his doubts. They had been friends since they were both junior officers in the Danish police force. Torben had been just that much faster and that much smarter. He had been made deputy director of the PET’s counterterrorism branch at almost the same time that Søren had finally worked his way up to inspector. The ambiguous relationship usually worked out okay, but sometimes Søren wasn’t sure if he listened to Torben because he was his boss or because they were friends.

Torben either hadn’t noticed his lack of interest in the conversation or didn’t care. Torben whipped out his water bottle, took a couple of swigs, and proceeded undaunted.

“Now take that Imam who’s coming over for the opening of that cultural center in Emdrup. A highly educated man with honorary doctorates from several European universities. Of course we’ve had the analysts take a look at him, and apparently he’s supposed to be an advocate of Euro-Islam. In other words, a way of practicing Islam that doesn’t conflict with European values. That causes certain groups to accuse him of being too moderate or even a lapsed Muslim.…”

Søren could feel the evening chill, even in his long-sleeved hoodie. He was ready to come ashore now and was thinking, with a certain amount of longing, about warm, dry clothes and maybe even a quiet, friendly beer. But Torben hadn’t finished yet.

“But when Muslims who take an interest in Islam on a more intellectual level read his texts, the result is all over the place. They can be interpreted pretty much any way you want. Some people say he’s an advocate of the hijab, total gender separation, sharia, the lot. Other people insist the opposite is true. And do you know what I say?”

Resigned, Søren shook his head.

“I say that no matter how hard these people look, they’ll never understand what that man says or find the definitive truth about Islam. Because there isn’t one. It’s a rubberband. You can stretch it into any shape you like.”

Torben grabbed his paddle again and started slowly paddling back toward the jetty.

Søren knew Torben was more than normally frustrated. To be fair, the politicians, particularly the parties on the right, had allocated plenty of resources to fighting terrorism since 9/11, but the demands placed on the PET were also sky high, and the upcoming Summit had gobbled up most of the annual budget. The government’s decision to invest so heavily in the Copenhagen Summit certainly hadn’t made the pool of potential terrorists any smaller.

“Do they have the Emdrup business under control?” Søren asked, thinking without envy of the five-man team that had been assigned to babysit the cultural center until the opening.

“Um,” Torben grunted with a shrug. “We’ve had to cover ourselves on multiple fronts—the Muslims who think he’s too moderate, Danish right-wing extremists, plus anyone else who might want to celebrate his arrival in an undesirable fashion. And now the minister has decided he wants to attend the opening ceremony. It’s a bit of a nuthouse. But what about you? How are your own nutters coming along?”

Torben looked at him inquisitively, and again Søren had the uncomfortable sense he was meeting with his boss rather than out kayaking with a friend.

“We’re having some trouble getting things through tech. That’s the bottleneck for us at the moment. And then there’s this little Hungarian affair.…” Søren let the kayak nudge the jetty gently and held himself still for a moment, regaining his balance. Then he swung himself up onto the rough, wet boards. “The NBH picked up this student who has been searching in places he shouldn’t and has also been in touch with someone here. They think it might be some kind of arms trade, but they didn’t get anything definite out of him.”

Torben was already carrying his kayak toward the cars, but Søren could tell from his back that he was still listening. Torben was in charge of the eighty people who worked in the counterterrorism center and investigation details that literally multiplied by the hour, but he could still remember every individual case and was able to pick out the main points whenever necessary. That was what had made him such an incredibly talented intelligence officer.