Death Sentence

18

AFTER FINN HAD left, I stood there for a moment not knowing what to do with myself. The idea of the biography refused to leave me alone and everything else faded into a distant humming.

I wandered around aimlessly. I skimmed books and back-cover blurbs without really registering what I read. I stopped at some of the small makeshift platforms where authors answered questions with clenched fists and shaking voices, mercilessly amplified by microphones and speakers. But I didn’t listen to what they were saying and I didn’t notice where I was going. Eventually I found myself in a corner of the exhibition hall with a small bar in the style of an old English pub, quite unlike the other refreshment outlets at the book fair, which consisted mainly of plastic chairs and canteen tables.

I ordered a dark beer, which was drawn from a brass tap, and sat down in a corner on a bench upholstered in red velvet. It was the last free seat and I had to share the table with two raucous men in their fifties discussing the bookseller trade. Judging from their accents, they were from Jutland. This was probably their annual trip to the capital, which was spent on books, beers and hookers. One of them nodded to me as if he recognized me. I nodded back, but took out my notebook in order not to encourage further conversation.

I had to rein in the ideas buzzing around my head, write them down while I still remembered them. In a short space of time I had written four pages of notes without having drunk my beer. To reward myself, I raised the glass to my lips and drank half the contents in one go.

‘Someone’s thirsty,’ one of the booksellers remarked, but I ignored him, picked up my pen and carried on writing.

The murders would form an important part of the biography, but that required that they were solved, and what would be better than if I myself contributed to the detection? The possibilities made my head spin. For years I had written about ordinary people who found themselves in extreme situations where they were forced to act. Sometimes they took on the role of detective to solve the mystery. I could easily imagine the resulting publicity if somehow I helped capture the killer of Mona Weis and Verner. In the past few days I had been a paranoid nervous wreck, but now it was the thrill of having a mission that made my heart beat faster.

The only real clue I had was the name Martin Kragh in which room 102 had been booked, and it raised more questions than it answered. Nevertheless it was a start. It meant something – to me at least – and, I had to presume, to the killer. Mortis might be involved, he might even be in danger, but as I couldn’t get hold of his address until later tonight, I couldn’t progress any further down this route.

The image of Verner’s body in the hotel bed haunted me, but I forced myself to imagine what had preceded it, what he had done after leaving me at the restaurant.

He was probably worried about our conversation, knowing that he would get a dressing down when he told his colleagues he had withheld information from them. Perhaps they would freeze him out? Or he might be transferred to another department, a station in the provinces where nothing ever happened? He leaves the restaurant, walking briskly. In the lobby he spots a familiar face. It’s Lulu, or whatever they call themselves in that profession, and a smile forms at the corners of his mouth. He tells her she must have got lost, that this is a respectable hotel which doesn’t rent out rooms by the hour. Lulu looks frightened or she pretends to be and shows Verner the key. She isn’t doing anything wrong and has a right to be here, she says. Verner doesn’t believe her, mainly because he sees a chance to get into her knickers, and he threatens to take her down to the station.

‘Frank!’

The voice shattered my reconstruction of the meeting at the Marieborg Hotel. The booksellers had gone and David Vestergaard, editor-in-chief of the publishing house Vestergaard & Co., sat down next to me with a broad smile and two freshly drawn beers. He pushed one in my direction.

‘Good to see you again, Frank.’

We had spoken a couple of times before; in fact, he inflicted himself on me every year at the book fair, but I always ignored his ill-concealed offer to jump ship. Now I found myself trapped between him and a column of imitation mahogany. Besides, my glass was empty and I was in need of a refill.

I nodded by way of a thank you and we drank.

‘Have you started your next novel?’ he asked, glancing at the notebook in front of me.

There was no risk that he could read my handwriting, but I shut my notebook all the same and put it in my pocket.

‘Something like that,’ I replied and attempted a smile.

David Vestergaard grinned. ‘That’s just like you,’ he said. ‘Always busy, always productive.’ He nodded to himself. ‘That’s what I like about you, Frank. You’re a proper grafter. Nothing airy-fairy about you. No, it’s the product …’

His flattery would lead to the inevitable offer so I stopped listening. Instead I drank the beer he had bought me and nodded in the right places. David Vestergaard was the third generation of the publishing house Vestergaard & Co. He was considerably younger than me – in his early thirties – but he spoke like a much older man and used expressions such as ‘airy-fairy’ and ‘not inconsiderably’. His short haircut and trendy horn-rimmed glasses made people wonder if he was sending himself up or if he genuinely spoke like that, but having met him several times and talked to others who knew him, I had concluded that his manner was the product of private education and the literary tradition of the Vestergaard family.

David Vestergaard leaned into me and caught my attention again.

‘Just between us,’ he said. ‘ZeitSign is in serious financial difficulties.’

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ I replied.

‘I don’t imagine it’s something Mr Gelf acknowledges if he can help it,’ said David Vestergaard, and briefly looked as if he felt genuinely sorry for Finn. ‘Nor does he appreciate the necessity of developing his writers.’

‘Well, I can’t really—’

‘Not that you’re not a good writer,’ David Vestergaard interrupted me, holding up his hand as if swearing an oath. ‘But with the right guidance and publicity, you could sell twice as many books, at least.’ He drank his beer and so did I, mainly to hide my growing irritation. ‘When did he last inspire you?’

‘Inspire me?’

‘Yes, a good editor doesn’t just criticize and correct commas,’ David Vestergaard said.

‘Listen,’ I said, putting down my glass a little too hard on the table. ‘I’m not interested, OK? Whatever you’re offering, I’m staying with ZeitSign, no matter what happens.’

‘Suit yourself,’ David Vestergaard sighed. ‘But when Gelf goes bankrupt, you know where to turn.’

‘What about Tom Winter?’ I said. ‘You already have a crime writer, one who regards me as his biggest rival.’

David Vestergaard’s eyes flickered for a moment. ‘That’s not going to be a problem,’ he replied. ‘It’s simply a question of timing publications properly and, as far as the rivalry goes, that’s just playing to the gallery.’ He smiled and raised his glass.

I refused to join in. He shrugged and emptied his glass in solitude.

‘See you, Frank,’ he said as he left the bar.

His seat was quickly taken by two women with sore feet and plastic bags bulging with books.

I fished out my notebook again. The conversation with David Vestergaard had interrupted my reconstruction of the meeting between Verner and Lulu, the hooker who lured him to room 102, and I tried to pick up my train of thought. Verner had just threatened to arrest her for soliciting in the hotel.

Lulu suddenly becomes more cooperative; perhaps she puts her hand on Verner’s bull neck? There is no need to get angry. Why doesn’t he come up to see for himself?

I knew Verner well enough to know he wouldn’t refuse an offer like that, but there was something in my reconstruction that didn’t hold. It wasn’t the hooker, Lulu, who was out to get me and who had murdered Verner. Her job was simply to deliver him to the room, after which she would have left.

And then I realized that I might have seen her myself. After the meal, on my way into the lift, I had almost knocked over a small, slender woman. Verner frequently held forth about the type of women who turned him on. They had to be petite, slim and most importantly Danish. ‘I don’t mind them being seventeen as long as they look like thirteen,’ he had said once and roared with laughter. Anyone who wanted to ensnare Verner would send a girl like that, I was sure of it. Petite, slim and Nordic; a description that fitted the girl in the lift perfectly.

Someone must have hired her and this person had to be the real killer.

So where was Lulu now?