Death Sentence

2

THE TOYOTA HADN’T been exercised for several months and it protested loudly when I turned the key in the ignition. Finally, it surrendered and I drove along the coast to Gilleleje. Most of the road was flanked by holiday cottages and spruces, but in a few places there was a clear view of the sea. The waves had white crests and in several places the beach was reduced to three to four metres of shingle by the salty foam. It was high tide.

There were few people out and about. November is well outside the tourist season and the cafés and pubs had put away their outdoor furniture, leaving me room to park the Corolla on the marina, close to the quay.

The book didn’t state precisely where in the marina the murder was committed so I stayed in the car, peering out through the windscreen. The strong wind formed sharp crests on the waves in the basin. Many of the boats had already been put into dry dock for the winter. Those that remained ground restlessly into one another, producing the unpleasant squeal of rubber against rubber, drowned out only by the noise of steel wires lashing aluminium masts.

Five cars were parked on the far side of the basin; one revealed itself to be a police car. I suddenly felt dizzy and grabbed the steering wheel, closed my eyes and inhaled sharply. I sat like this for a while, breathing as regularly as I could. Relax, I told myself. There could be hundreds of reasons for the police to be in the marina; it didn’t have to mean that Verner was right.

After a few minutes I summoned up the courage to open my eyes. Some people were standing around the cars, but more had gone out on to the breakwater and were looking out to sea. There was no police tape as far as I could see.

I left my car and strolled to the far side of the basin as calmly as I could. As I approached I could hear voices and the crackle of police radios. A couple of divers in wetsuits were sitting at the back of an open van drinking coffee in silence. A uniformed officer followed me with his eyes as I passed them. I didn’t look at him, but carried on walking towards the breakwater. Out there twenty or thirty people had gathered, adults as well as children, all peering out to sea. Some had brought binoculars and cameras. I joined a group and followed their gaze.

A hundred metres out were two boats, a large yellow and red rescue boat and a black rubber dinghy. Four buoys with red flags marked out a square of twenty metres by twenty metres.

‘They fished out a woman this morning,’ a voice chirped up. ‘She didn’t have any clothes on.’

A red-haired boy of about ten, wearing a yellow raincoat and blue wellies, was standing on a bench next to me. Around his neck he had a pair of binoculars almost as long as his upper arms.

‘She was completely white,’ he carried on. ‘And red.’

‘You saw that?’ I asked. My voice was trembling slightly.

He nodded eagerly.

‘I’ve been standing here all day.’ The boy planted his hands on his hips and turned his gaze towards the boats. ‘They came this morning. Loads of divers and police officers. At first, they told me to go away, but I kept slipping past them. They’ve given up trying to get rid of me now.’ He smiled and stuck out his chest.

‘And … the woman?’

‘She was completely white,’ he repeated. ‘There were chains around her and a stone.’

‘Did she have red hair?’

Wide-eyed, he turned to look at me. ‘How did you know that?’

I shrugged. ‘You just told me she was red as well.’

He nodded. ‘She had red hair. But she was also red here and here.’ He made a cutting movement with his hand across his chest and then his throat. ‘And on her arms and legs.’

I didn’t know what to say, or if I could even speak at all, so I turned to look at the boats. We stood like this for a couple of minutes until I cleared my throat and pointed to his binoculars.

‘That’s a very smart pair of binoculars you have there. Could I borrow them, please?’

The boy nodded and lifted the binoculars over his head. ‘But I want them back if anything happens.’

I put the binoculars to my eyes and zoomed in on the boats. In the rubber dinghy a man in a wetsuit was sitting down and holding a rope that trailed over the side and into the water. The dinghy was rocking precariously and every now and again he was forced to take one hand off the rope and grab hold of the gunwale for balance.

Obviously I knew there wouldn’t be an outline of the body on the surface on the water, but I think I had expected something. At any rate, I felt disappointed. There should have been some evidence that a violent act had happened there, but the water revealed nothing, and only the boats and the buoys suggested the area was special.

‘What’s happening?’ the boy asked.

‘Nothing,’ I said and gave him back his binoculars.

He lifted them to his eyes immediately to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

‘Do you think there’s another one?’ His voice sounded hopeful.

‘There won’t be,’ I said and turned around to walk back to my car.

‘Are you a policeman or something?’ the boy called out, but I ignored him and carried on walking.

As I passed the officers on the quay, they threw me a look filled with contempt.

‘Get a good eyeful, did you?’ one of them sneered as I passed them.

I sympathized. Rubbernecking is tasteless, but I hadn’t come out of curiosity. At least, not the kind of curiosity that drives some people. I wasn’t here to get a rush of adrenaline at the sight of blood, bones, intestines and brain matter. Though they were my props when I depicted murder and mutilation in my books, my inspiration didn’t come from real-life accidents. Simply closing my eyes sufficed. The images my own brain could conjure up were more than enough.

But, yes, I saw what I came to see in Gilleleje Marina.