The Girl in the Ice aka A Price for Everything

CHAPTER 43

The evenings were getting darker, without anyone really noticing it. It was not all that long ago that the lilacs were blooming, the summer holidays lay ahead, and the light nights only got longer and longer. The woman in the S-train observed her reflected image in the window beside her. Without vanity, although she was quite pretty. She shrugged to herself. At the end of every summer she had a melancholy feeling of not having achieved what she wanted to, in the good part of the year. The time ahead of her always appeared longer than the time behind. Perhaps that would change when she grew old.

The S-train rolled into Nørreport Station, and many passengers got off and on, faces drawn and harassed. Endlessly trying to snatch back a second or two. She observed the new arrivals. It was an art she had mastered completely-looking at people without them realising it. And then drawing them, if the opportunity presented itself. But she was choosy about that. Not all faces were equally interesting, there had to be something particular about the ones she chose, and none of the newcomers found favour in her eyes. A young girl sat down beside her, not even noticing her, absorbed in a phone call. She moved her backpack slightly so the girl would have room. The doors whistled, and the S-train pulled out.

Shortly after that a man in his fifties came into the compartment. He seemed restless, constantly looking back and forth, as if someone were following him. He took a seat a little farther forward, still wearing a hunted expression. She studied him thoroughly, and her pulse raced.

It was his ordinariness that excited her. A face that could only be described by what it was not, by its very lack of distinguishing characteristics. As if he were created neutral. He could be a refuse collector, he could be a bank manager, in both cases he would pass unnoticed. At the same time there was something confidence-inspiring about him; this was a man you could feel safe with. What was ordinary was never dangerous. She took the sketch pad out of her backpack and decided to herself that when she was through drawing, he would be called the Middleman.

“Shut up! Those are beautiful. Can I take a look?”

The young girl had finished her phone call. The idiotic comment did not impress the artist, but nevertheless she handed over the pad. She did not like to reject people. Not even this evening, although basically she would rather go home. He wanted to pick her up at Grimstrup Station, a carefully chosen, deserted place where no one would see her getting into his car. Like a forbidden plaything.

“What is that?”

“A wall in England.”

“That looks boring. It’s nothing but stone. Why’d you draw it?”

It was hard to explain, she barely knew herself. Why had she saved for five months to go to London for just two days? Two days when for hours she had drawn a Roman wall in the middle of the world’s biggest financial district. A peeling ruin, dominated on all sides by luxurious, blue-glass facades. Forms, contours, surfaces, angles-she had enjoyed every minute.

It was as if the girl guessed her thoughts. The date under the drawing combined with the stickers on her backpack probably betrayed her.

“Did you go to London just for that retarded wall?”

“I want to be an architect someday. But take a look at this.”

She took back the sketch pad and leafed past the wall drawings.

“He was a guide on a horror tour. His name is Patrick.”

The young man had walked past her, leading a small group of tourists. With a booming voice and exaggerated gestures, he told lurid stories. She was intrigued by his larger-than-life presence, the confidence with which he wore his over-sized tweed jacket. She followed on behind the group. In the beginning she stayed on the edges, she hadn’t paid for the tour after all, then her confidence increased as she saw that she was welcome anyway.

“He was talking about Jack the Ripper, a serial killer in the 1880s, who terrified the East End of London. He murdered prostitutes, cutting them up horribly with a knife. He killed five women. At the time the Ripper roamed its streets Whitechapel was a slum. Today it’s an ultra-modern neighbourhood.”

She and Patrick had coffee together when the tour was over. They laughed together and acted silly. He told her he was going to drama school; recited Shakespeare just for her. It stayed at that.

The girl said, “I hope they hanged the murderer.”

“He was never caught, and since then there have been lots of theories about who he was. Every conceivable type of fine, highly educated gentleman, but I think he was more anonymous. The quiet type, someone no one would ever dream of suspecting.”

At Hillerød Station she took leave of the girl and joined up with a handful of people waiting for the local train toward Frederiksværk. Suddenly the Middleman was standing behind her, without her having heard his approach. She turned and smiled casually at him. Maybe she would have another chance to draw him.