Death Sentence

17

‘THAT WENT GREAT,’ Linda Hvilbjerg said, having checked that the microphones had been switched off. The interview was over, but I didn’t have the energy to get up from the armchair. She had grilled me for forty-five minutes, pursuing her ‘theme’ of fiction mirroring reality by bringing up examples from my earlier books and linking them to events in my private life. From Nuclear Families she had drawn parallels to my divorce from Line; she viewed You Don’t Have To Call Me Dad as a book that criminalized decent step-parents and which, as Linda pointed out, had been written after Line moved in with Bjørn and their shared children, including mine.

I hadn’t tried very hard to defend myself. All I could do was refuse to discuss my private life and argue that the best stories take as their starting point experiences that are familiar to us all or which we can easily imagine. In order to describe the horror that had made me famous, I had to explore every detail of it, no matter how revolting it might be. If it meant using my own experiences and feelings as a springboard, then that’s what I did. It improved my motivation, the book and, ultimately, the reader’s reaction.

All in all, I was quite pleased with my performance. After the shock start with the Gilleleje murder, I had quickly spotted in which direction the interview was heading and, though alcohol coursed around my body, I felt more sober than I had for a long time. Not once did I lose my temper or reply in anger, even though it required enormous restraint not to react emotionally. I knew that was what she wanted, an outburst that would reveal the monster who produced what she could never bring herself to refer to as literature. If she was disappointed at her failure, she didn’t show it. Perhaps muddling up fiction and reality and presenting it as her ‘evidence’ had been enough for her?

‘You failed to mention Media Whore,’ I sniped. ‘That would have proved your point.’

Linda Hvilbjerg shrugged. ‘That’s water under the bridge, Frank. Let’s call it quits?’

‘Quits? So this was payback?’

‘Payback?’ Linda exclaimed, smiling. ‘Not at all. I’ve just given you forty-five minutes of free publicity. Your books will carry on selling, don’t you worry.’

I snorted. ‘Possibly, but you also made sure that no one will ever speak to me again because they think I’ll end up killing them in a book.’

She gathered her papers and stood up. ‘Can you blame them, Frank?’

I shot up and was about to inform her just how little importance I attached to her opinion, but the words never came out of my mouth.

‘Take care,’ Linda Hvilbjerg said and hugged me as if nothing had happened. ‘Good luck with the book.’

I had no time to reply before she had turned around and stepped down from the stage. She attracted a fair amount of attention; the crowds moved out of her way and let her glide through as if an invisible force was parting them for her. Behind her, the crowd filled the vacuum and, after a few seconds, I could no longer see her.

‘What a bitch!’

Finn Gelf was standing in front of the stage, holding out his hand to me. I took it and stepped down to him.

‘I saw most of it,’ he said sympathetically. ‘She really managed to open up old wounds, eh?’

I nodded.

‘But don’t worry about it,’ Finn said, patting my shoulder. ‘It can only boost sales. Including the back catalogue.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘People will read the books she mentioned to gain an insight into your writing process.’

‘And my private life,’ I added.

‘That too,’ Finn Gelf admitted. ‘But then again, you don’t give many interviews, so where else can they look?’ His face took on an animated expression. ‘People want to know how the famous and mysterious Frank Føns is put together, what makes him tick. It’s perfect. It couldn’t have happened at a better time.’

‘I really don’t think—’

‘Yes, yes, it all fits.’ He leaned into me. ‘And linking it to the murder in Gilleleje … it’s going to be massive,’ he whispered and nodded conspiratorially. ‘And when they’ve read all your books, we’ll launch the biography.’

‘Biography?’

‘Yes, we’ll have no choice,’ he carried on, now in a normal voice. ‘The true story of your life in murder and mutilation.’

‘Sounds like a death sentence,’ I declared.

Finn Gelf snapped his fingers. ‘That could be the title – Death Sentence!’ He nodded, pleased with himself. ‘Bloody hell, it’ll be brilliant.’

We were interrupted by a middle-aged woman pressing a book in between us with a request for an autograph. I grabbed my pen and signed the book without looking at it, but kept my eyes fixed on Finn Gelf.

He looked like he really meant it. His eyes shone with a passion I hadn’t seen in him for a long time. Once he got that look in his eyes, it was hard to talk sense to him. I remembered what Ellen had told me about the company’s finances. ZeitSign was Finn’s life. There was nothing he wouldn’t do, and – in many cases – hadn’t already done to keep the company afloat, and when there was money at stake, he could be very convincing.

‘I’ll think about it, Finn,’ I said.

He smiled. ‘Super,’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s going to be great, just you wait.’ He checked his watch. ‘I’ve got to go, but I’ll be seeing you tomorrow as arranged.’

I nodded and we said goodbye.

I wanted to tell Finn about Verner, but I didn’t want to do it at the book fair, and Finn was the book fair. He breathed it for the three days it lasted, moving between the stands and the crowds such that no one could keep up with him and he heard everything, despite the noise level. He seemed indefatigable. Everyone knew him and he knew them, but he wasn’t there for the small talk. His brain was set on business, making new contacts and nurturing his existing network. I was tempted to believe he had a filter that would remove Verner’s murder, if I tried to talk to him. Everything but publishing would be white noise to Finn.

To some extent that was why I had indulged his idea of a biography, but part of me was just as excited as he was. I wasn’t keen on exposing my private life, but I was intrigued by the premise, and I discovered that my brain was already working on possible angles for the story, not least – I’m ashamed to admit – how I could use the murders of Mona Weis and Verner to spice up the narrative. They might have been murdered to harm me, but now it looked like it could have the opposite effect. However, it would only work if I could play the hero, the detective who uncovers the plot and catches the killer at the end.

Now that would be a biography I’d want to read.