She interrupted him scornfully.
“Can you stop groping my thigh, you lecherous old pig? Tell me, have you no upbringing, Andreas?”
He leaped back. Pauline Berg was hoping for a miracle. The insult was an expression of desperation, she knew that, but she had to try something, and she could not think of anything else. Falkenborg was shaken for a moment.
“Sorry, I didn’t want . . . I, he . . . He says ugh to her repulsive thighs. She will not say such things, and he says ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh, he says.”
He shouted as he left, this time leaving the door open. Jeanette Hvidt sobbed in terror.
“Now he’s getting the staff. You have to beg for forgiveness, promise to behave. Oh, no, I’m afraid.”
Falkenborg was soon back, and sure enough he was holding a cattle prod in his hands. Jeanette Hvidt pleaded.
“Not me. She was the one who was bad. She was misbehaving, she should have the staff for her impudent mouth, but not me. I’ll do everything he says, everything he asks for.”
Berg noticed how Falkenborg’s formulations were encoded in Jeanette’s language, then her body exploded in a quivering, white pain that tensed her like a spring and sent unbearable spasms through her from head to toe. She screamed with the full force of her lungs, it was impossible not to. Jeanette Hvidt was right, the pain was indescribable.
Her tormentor took a step back while Jeanette shouted, “She deserves more, she was very bad, but not me. I’ll do what he says, she should have my shock.”
Falkenborg did not immediately follow Jeanette’s suggestion. Instead he said, directed at Berg, “She can scream as much as she likes. Scream, like she does on her way to the witches’ Sabbath, on her way to Blocksberg, and when she is burning for Saint John’s.”
Jeanette Hvidt pleaded.
“Yes, let her scream, she said bad things to him . . . ”
“She will keep quiet.”
Jeanette fell silent immediately. Then he aimed the prod again towards Pauline Berg, who tried in vain to avoid it, but the jolt never came. He only struck her lightly on the knee and again started his selection process, as he let the prod move from knee to knee with each new syllable.
“Ohn Dohn Dehn, Mamma Futta Fehn, Futta Fehn, Futta Fehn, Ohn Dohn Dehn.”
CHAPTER 48
In H?je Taastrup the Countess was at her first clairvoyant consultation ever. It took place on the fourth floor of an apartment complex not far from the station. She had expected a different setting, perhaps a gloomy villa with a tower room and ravens on the roof, but that was not the case. The nameplate on the door said Stephan Stemme & wife, and it was the husband who answered when she rang the bell. He was a skinny old man with a starved, bony face and deep-set eyes that drew things in but gave nothing back. They settled accounts in the entry, cash and no receipt. He carefully put the money in a worn, black pouch he removed from a bureau drawer. Then he locked the drawer, took the key and knocked on a door immediately to one side.
“You may call her Madame.”
His voice was dark bordering on rusty, and his French-sounding Madame grated gutturally, almost sternly, as he opened the door for the Countess.
The room she entered was light and pleasant, all philistine comfort as a shield against life’s shocks and spills, from the peach-coloured curtains to the collection of well-scrubbed and combed grandchildren whose portraits decorated the light-green walls. There was however a glaring surplus of mahogany, which the Countess found unbecoming, yes, ugly actually, although it was intended to be pretty.
Madame received her from the Biedermeier chaise-longue where she was reclining when her guest arrived. She did not get up, but was content to extend a limp, white hand in welcome and straighten herself up a little from her couch. She was a small, almost fragile woman in her late fifties, well-dressed in a modern, grey tailor-made suit and with an artfully draped white shawl around her spindly shoulders. Her face looked tired, mouth hanging partway open; only her glass-clear, sparkling eyes made an impression. She did not use makeup or wear any jewellery it seemed. The Countess sat down in a chair opposite her. The woman said, “You are busy, you have a meeting later this evening.”
Her voice was oddly flat and almost without intonation, as if she was reporting a series of numbers. The Countess asked sceptically, “Is that something you see?”
“It is something I know. Konrad just called. Apparently you turned off your cell phone. You should be back at Police Headquarters by seven-thirty and certainly no later than quarter to eight. I promised to give you the message.”
“Thanks, that was good of you.”