The Marco Effect

17

For yet another entire night he had slept outdoors like one of the homeless as the gray tones of the street began permeating his clothes and countenance.

Marco was not afraid, yet he felt insecure and had every reason to be.

Kasim, who owned the Internet café, had already warned him as he drove down Randersgade in his shiny BMW and caught sight of Marco rummaging through the local supermarket’s Dumpsters in search of discarded fruit and bread. He was there by chance, though Dumpster diving was a lot more productive there than behind the big supermarkets like Netto or Brugsen, where there was competition from young Danes living in communes who were unwilling to share. Class warfare existed, even on that level.

“Every piece of scum on the street is out looking for you,” Kasim called out to him. “Best to stay away from here, Marco. Find somewhere safe.”

So the hunt was still on.

But Marco couldn’t just vanish. He didn’t really believe they would be looking for him in Østerbro, and he still had thousands of kroner stashed in Eivind and Kaj’s apartment. The money was his, and until it was in his possession again he would remain in the neighborhood.

Several times he had walked by and seen their windows lit up in the evening. He had also noted the sign was still hanging on the door of the dry cleaners, saying they were closed due to illness.

Apparently Kaj had yet to recover.

But when he did, and they began going to work again, he would force entry into the apartment in some way. The important thing now was to keep an eye out for Zola’s people. In a week’s time they would probably believe he’d disappeared and he would hopefully be able to move more freely.

For that reason he kept away from the crowds, wary of any sudden shadow, anything unexpected or untoward. He observed where the cars with foreign plates and tinted windows parked, and thus knew when all-too-alert, foreign-looking men were in the vicinity.

This Saturday morning everything seemed normal. Østerbro had awoken to a lazy summerlike weekend. It was the kind of day where the Danes mingled and meandered along the pavements, benevolent smiles of spring on their faces.

Marco had made his daily reconnaissance of the dry cleaners, hugging the wall on the other side of the street and noting that his wait would continue.

He wondered if Kaj was more badly injured than he had thought, since Eivind was apparently still unable to look after the shop.

He stood in the basement well of a disused corner shop on Willemoesgade and pondered for the thousandth time the series of events that had led him here. If Kaj and Eivind had helped him instead of throwing him out, he would have felt more guilty about what had happened to Kaj. He understood how scared they were and how reluctant to have him stay on with them after what had happened. But it wasn’t he who had assaulted them. He hadn’t volunteered to live the life of a slave in Zola’s service either, or chosen a father who was prepared to sacrifice the health and life of his own son in order to please his younger brother. And had he, Marco, ever killed a person?

He raised his head and straightened his shoulders. No, he had no reason to feel guilty or ashamed. Perhaps he was beginning to smell a bit rancid and his pockets were empty, but the important thing was he had broken free. He no longer stole, and he’d begun deciding for himself who he was and what he wanted to become. For the time being he was a gypsy, and when all this was over with he would just be himself.

Staring at the facades of the buildings across the street, he saw a pale face withdraw quickly from a curtain in a ground-floor apartment. Something’s wrong, he told himself instinctively, and in the same instant a van he knew all too well tore round the corner from Fiskedamsgade against the traffic and bore down on him.

Immediately he realized a second vehicle was headed toward him from the opposite end of the street and any second now he would be trapped.

When he recognized Hector behind the wheel of the van, his pulse raced wildly as he made a dash along the cobbles of Lipkesgade.

Where to, where to? he thought feverishly, as tires squealed behind him. Classensgade was too open and too wide, so he would make for Kastelsvej and see if he could find a bolt hole.

It was simply the worst possible place to be discovered. Here, of all places, where the traffic was so light and where he had felt safe. How could he have known they also had spies inside these apartment buildings?

He heard them shout from the windows for him to stop, that they meant him no harm.

Now the British Embassy loomed before him on Kastelsvej with all its labyrinths of gates and security sluices. A car parked outside the complex had attracted attention, drawing a swarm of security guards out onto the street where they now stood blocking the path that led down in the direction of Garnison’s Kirkegård cemetery. A security guard was exchanging words with the driver, who seemed ill at ease with the situation. Any irregularity in this particular neighborhood was a matter of utmost concern, and the last guard to arrive turned his stern authoritative face toward the oncoming vehicles bearing down on Marco, thereby prompting them to slow down.

Marco glanced toward Østerbrogade. The distance to the cemetery, where he knew of several hiding places, was too far.

A couple of men in bulletproof vests approached him, telling him in no uncertain terms to get lost.

Realizing he could expect no help from the guards, he ran on. Within seconds his pursuers had abandoned their car and had likewise been waved on by security, and now Marco had no choice but to turn down a street lined by lush trees and homes whose residents could never imagine the calamity that was about to befall him.

He heard the van brake behind him and the door being flung open. Their mission was almost complete.

Marco ran for his life, tearing to the bottom of the cul-de-sac where, thankfully, a path running between an apartment house and a fenced-in asphalt soccer pitch appeared before him.

A group of boisterous immigrant kids were running around after a ball on the pitch while their more indolent companions hung out on the other side of the fence, smoking and making comments about the match.

“Help me, the biker pigs are after me,” he pleaded, as he sprinted past.

For once his ethnic appearance stood him in good stead. Cigarettes were dashed to the ground, and the soccer game was abandoned so abruptly that the ball was still in the air as every dark face turned to confront Marco’s pursuers.

As he veered off toward side streets leading down to the marina, he glanced back and saw Hector and the others come to an abrupt halt, hands raised defensively before the immigrant kids jumped them.

He didn’t dare contemplate the results of such a one-sided match, but it was hardly going to make things easier for him next time he ran into Hector and company.

He had to make sure it didn’t happen.

–

He waited on Randersgade until the headlights of Kasim’s blue BMW appeared beyond the rows of parked cars.

He seemed tired, and yet somehow surprised, when Marco stepped out and held up his hand to stop him.

“Are you still here, Marco? I thought I told you to vanish.”

“I’ve got no money.” He bowed his head. “I know I already owe you. I haven’t forgotten.”

“Can’t you go to the police?”

Marco shook his head. “I know a place I can stay. Maybe you could drive me there. You live out of town, don’t you?”

“I live in Gladsaxe.”

“Can you give me a lift to the Utterslev marsh?”

Kasim leaned across the passenger seat and swept a pair of paper bags onto the floor. “Keep your head down until we’re out of the city, OK?”

–

It was a rather silent drive, Kasim clearly not wanting to know too much if anyone should ask.

“The neighborhood shopkeepers are frightened, they don’t want you contacting them again,” was about the only thing he said before dropping him off.

And what more was to say, really? Marco knew the trouble he had caused, and he wasn’t proud of it.

The walk from the log cabin at the beginning of the motorway along the lake to Stark’s house became a journey through the layers of Marco’s conscience. He did not wish to steal, but in Stark’s wardrobe were clothes he could use, and in the basement was a washing machine as well as jars of pickled vegetables, even though he wasn’t crazy about the taste. And there were beds with sheets and duvets. All of which could help him get back on his feet.

Thus he woke up on the Sunday morning with a fraudulent feeling of having entered a new period in his life. Even the curtains and the sunlight that edged its way into the bedroom where he lay seemed completely unfamiliar. To lie all alone in a nice, well-equipped bedroom was not only a luxury for him, it was practically a picture of the future he sought.

He stretched his limbs under the duvet and tried to push the thought from his mind. Of course there was no way he could stay here, it was too risky by half. They had almost caught him yesterday, and last time he’d been here had been a close call as well. If he was to avoid something like this happening again, he’d have to turn the tables on them, make it so he observed them rather than the other way round. He needed to be one step ahead at all times.

Looking around him as he chewed on a pickled gherkin in the kitchen, he found it hard to imagine anyone but the man in the shallow grave had lived in this house. In earlier times, if he had broken in to a house like this one in the same kind of neighborhood he would at least have expected to find a couple of good kitchen appliances and a set of easily flogged knives by Solingen, Masahiro, Raadvad, or Zwilling. But this place was different. No aprons or knickknacks or anything to suggest a woman had lived here either.

Presumably they had taken all the kitchen items with them when they moved.

Only one thing stuck out. A glossy magazine left by the side of the stove. An ordinary women’s weekly with the usual model on the front, the tantalizing captions about health and fashion. Nothing special, and yet it stuck out.

Marco got to his feet and picked it up. Thursday, April 7, 2011, read the date on the cover. Hardly a month old.

He frowned. How had it got there? Who had been in this house? The place seemed cleaner than might be expected. Did Tilde and her mother still come here? Had this magazine been in Tilde’s hands? Had they stood here waiting for the kettle to boil, flicking through the pages before enjoying a cup of tea together? Perhaps they had forgotten to take it with them again and hadn’t been here since.

He sniffed at the paper, but it smelled of nothing. He was disappointed.

He skimmed a few more pages before tossing the magazine back onto the counter. It was then that he noticed a small wad of what looked like crumpled plastic on the floor at the foot of the stove.

He went over and kicked it across the linoleum. Something about it made him curious, so he picked it up and flattened it out. It was some sort of foil bag with a label on it saying Malene Kristoffersen and her address on Strindbergsvej in Valby.

Kristoffersen! The same surname as Tilde’s. Maybe it was her mother.

Marco nodded to himself. Of course, it had to be.

So now he knew where she lived.

–

The house was bigger than he had expected. Yellow, with an odd, almost vertical section of roof where a normal one would come to an end. It was the kind of neighborhood the clan steered well clear of when out making their break-ins. Though there were gardens all round and no shortage of places in which to hide or routes by which to steal away, the houses were so close together that the neighbors could see most of what went on behind the windows next door. Accordingly he proceeded with caution as he sneaked through the parting in the hedge and up to the names on the two mailboxes hanging next to the red-painted door.

It meant two families shared the place. On the uppermost box was a weather-worn label, which read TILDE & MALENE KRISTOFFERSEN.

Marco took a deep breath and stared at the windows above. So this was where she lived, and since it was Sunday she might even be home.

Did he have the courage to ring the bell? What would he say to them?

He stood for a moment, a trembling finger raised toward the bell, when he heard two female voices and the rustle of shopping bags coming from the street.

Someone was coming, he realized, ducking reflexively behind a bush. Then he heard laughter and two figures appeared, walking their bikes through the opening in the hedge.

He couldn’t see their faces in his awkward position, but his eyes followed them as they went round the side of the house, where it sounded like they were parking their bikes.

Tilde’s mother was the first to appear again. Dark-haired and rather good-looking, with a bulging shopping bag under her arm.

“Have you got your key, Tilde? Mine’s underneath all this flea-market junk we hadn’t the sense to ignore.”

There was more laughter. It made Marco feel warm inside.

And when at last he set eyes on Tilde, he couldn’t help smiling from behind the foliage of his hiding place. She was so lovely. A bit thin and gangly with big feet, yet she seemed almost to glide across the flagstones like a ballerina, dangling her key in the air in front of her.

“You’re a treasure,” said her mother as Tilde opened the door.

“Takes one to know one,” she riposted. And then they were gone.

Marco froze the image in his mind. He wanted to remember her features. He wanted to remember them for having just made him feel so warm inside. Even the sound of her voice moved him.

Don’t forget your father killed her stepfather, he told himself. How would he ever be able to approach her, especially now, after he’d seen what she was like? Now, when that inexpressible tenderness he had previously felt for her on account of William Stark and her appeal to find him had materialized in flesh and blood, with light and luminous laughter to boot?

How could he approach her with the feelings he had, knowing he had done nothing in spite of what he knew?

Marco extracted himself from the bushes and wandered farther up the road, past gaudily painted homes that only made him feel dirtier inside.

He had to do something. Even though it would hurt her a lot to learn the truth, she needed to know. He felt he owed it to her. Which was why it had become necessary to go to the police, even if it meant sacrificing his father.

–

The next morning he rummaged through the wardrobe of women’s clothes and found a checkered shirt better than the one he had, and more or less his size. He took a Windbreaker from the hall and went down into the basement, where he pulled his clean underwear and socks out of the drier.

He considered himself in the bathroom mirror and nodded. He looked so decent all of a sudden, certainly tidy enough for what he had to do. All he needed now was a little cash, and that was the hard part.

If only he could sell off the clothes that Stark would definitely no longer be needing, his financial problems would be somewhat alleviated. But he knew no one who bought secondhand clothes or everyday china and furniture. No one wanted analog TV sets anymore, or computer towers or hi-fi systems, and nobody would ever buy the other knickknacks. So while it may have resembled a perfectly average Danish home, it contained absolutely nothing that could be sold for money. Danes simply adored spending money, so anything that was more than a few years old quickly became worthless.

Maybe it was better this way. The only things he had stolen in a long time were a few clothes and half a jar of pickled gherkins, and he wanted it to stay that way.

He walked round the house for five minutes in his bare feet just to savor the soft, ticklish feeling of plush carpets and imagine what it would be like to have a home of his own, surrounded by things he owned and was fond of.

When he came to the safe, the uneasiness rose up inside him again. He got down on his knees and peered inside to see if he could still remember the code.

He could. A4C4C6F67.

The enigma of it made him smile briefly, and then he suddenly realized the letters and the figures were not all written in the same way, but in different pairs of black and gray. The way the morning light slanted into the room made it obvious now. A4 was bold and black. C4 was lighter and rather more fuzzy, as though the pen had almost run out. Looking closer, he could see that C6 and F6 and 7 had apparently also been added at different times. So the code had gradually been extended. He sat down on the floor, leaning against the safe as he pondered the problem. Behind the sequence lay perhaps a series of separate actions rather than just one.

He let himself out through the back door, standing for a moment on the patio to take stock.

If there wasn’t a bike he could borrow in the shed, he would have to walk the whole way.

But there was.

–

His first stop was a library in Brønshøj, the closest to his route. He sat there reading for some time, close to the counter where he could keep an eye on who came in. Some went straight to the adults’ or children’s section, others first returning books they had borrowed. The latter were the ones he was waiting for because part of the process of returning books entailed scanning their national identity cards.

He picked out a boy his own age. Like most other young Danes, he lacked respect for the value of material things and was careless with his possessions. Marco watched as the boy slipped his ID back into his wallet, which he then casually stuffed into the open front pocket of his shoulder bag. Before long, the bag was lying on the floor at his feet while he surfed the Internet on one of the computers.

Marco approached slowly, and when the adjoining computer was vacated he sat down, silent as a cat, and typed in a Web address off the top of his head.

An hour later he parked the bike a couple of streets from his destination. Strictly speaking it was stolen, even though he was intending to return it.

Bellahøj police station on Borups Allé was rather bigger than he had anticipated, monumentally menacing and loathsome to the eye. Gray concrete surfaces, people endlessly coming and going. Marco couldn’t help feeling defenseless as he went inside.

Considering he had spent his entire life in the shadow of criminal activity, it felt more than a little strange that the first time he ever entered a police station, or even came in contact with the law, was something he was doing voluntarily. No one so much as looked at him as the automatic doors opened, and he walked in almost sideways in order not to expose his face to the cameras above the entrance. He gazed around the place in wonder. The duty desk was a study in streamline procedure and surprisingly devoid of drama. Neat sky-blue shirts and black ties all round, and most of the officers he saw were young.

Apart from Marco, only two women sat on the benches, waiting for their turn. As far as he could make out, one of them had had her bag snatched while the two were cycling together. Its contents had obviously been important to her, since she was sobbing and seemed to be in a state of shock.

It didn’t make Marco feel any better as he sat on the edge of the bench, trying to memorize what he was going to say when his turn came.

When eventually he was called forward, he placed Stark’s African necklace on the counter together with one of his missing persons notices.

The duty officer stared at them, slightly disoriented.

“The necklace belonged to the man in the picture,” Marco began, keeping an eye on the two officers who sat farther back behind the counter, typing away at their computers.

At this point he’d intended to say he had been given the necklace by a friend of his, and that this friend knew the man was dead and where he was buried. That this friend had told him who might have killed him and disposed of the body. And then he was going to say that his friend was too afraid to come in person, whereupon he would hand the officer the ID he had stolen from the boy at the library to “prove” that his friend existed. The boy would of course be unable to help the police if they contacted him, but at least they would have this to go on. And Marco they would never see again.

Only things turned out differently.

“Do you have any ID, son?” the officer asked.

It was a development Marco had not anticipated. Had he known, he would have stolen two cards, not one.

“You understand what I’m asking you for, don’t you?” the officer added.

Marco nodded and placed the ID on the counter.

The officer studied it for a moment.

“Thank you, Søren,” he said. “The way things work here, we’re going to have to speak to your parents because legally you’re what’s called a minor. So if you give me their mobile number, I’ll give them a quick call before we do anything else. Then they can be present while you tell us about it, all right?”

Marco’s brain went into overdrive. “I’m sorry,” he said, clutching at straws. “I can’t remember their phone numbers ’cause they’re always changing them. My mobile has their numbers, but it’s being repaired.”

The officer smiled. “That’s OK, Søren, I know what you mean. I’ll just look them up from your address here.” He indicated the ID card and rolled his chair over to a computer.

A second later he raised a finger in the air. He’d found them.

Marco backed away toward the entrance as the cop picked up the phone. It was all going wrong.

And as the duty officer waited for the reply, he looked up at Marco again and immediately sensed something was amiss.

“Hey, where you going, kid?” he asked, raising his voice.

At that moment Marco heard footsteps from the corridor behind the duty desk and a plainclothes policeman appeared, greeting a uniformed colleague and sending a shiver down Marco’s spine. It was the policeman he had seen through the window of Stark’s house only three days before, and this time their eyes met.

“All right, Carl, good to see you, too,” the officer said in return.

This was when Marco made a run for it, through the glass doors and away.

A cry went up behind him, commanding him to stop, and as he legged it past the parking lot two officers stopped in their tracks and stared open-mouthed. Before they had a chance to realize what was happening he was over the fence that ran alongside the building, tearing across a lawn and over another fence. A hundred meters farther on by the next road, Stark’s bike was parked outside a kindergarten, and seconds later he was pedaling hell for leather toward the city, choosing the narrowest, most inaccessible side streets he could find.

It had all gone wrong. He hadn’t been able to tell them where Stark’s body was buried or who had killed him. Almost even worse: he had been seen by the policeman who had spotted him outside Stark’s home.

Marco swore in as many languages as he knew.

Knowing the police as he did, they would not stop there. Before he realized it, they, too, would be after him. He only hoped that for all his caution he had not been caught on their CCTV.

Now you’ve got to find a place in the city to hide out where they won’t find you, and where you can keep an eye on them all, he told himself. Once he had found the place he would have to wait and see what happened before trying to retrieve his money from Kaj and Eivind.

Reaching the junction of Jagtvej and Åboulevard, he paused to consider his options, none of which were without peril. The issue was where he could best keep an eye on them in relative safety. Østerbro or the city center?

He stood for a moment straddling the bike and then made his decision. At four o’clock Miryam and the others would be picked up by the van at Rådhuspladsen. If he kept his distance he would be able to see who had been sent out to steal and who’d been sent out searching for him.

At Rådhuspladsen he looked around the square for a place to leave the unlocked bike without the risk of someone taking off with it. It was a tall order, considering this was perhaps the busiest place in all of Denmark.

And then, right next to the Tivoli Gardens, an enormous renovation project loomed up in front of him. He had seen it countless times before without ever properly having registered what it was.

Not until now.

His housing problem was solved.