It was a theatrical tactic and Anita was the one who told him what they were all thinking: “Sometimes you are so smug. Of course we want to hear it.”
Planck did not address the criticism. Instead he turned to his guests, starting with the first: “Anita, you have to forget everything about your journalist ethics, not to speak of your loyalty to your employer. I’m going to force a boyfriend on you, if only temporarily. Arne, you’ll have to be prepared to lead astray that voluptuous girlfriend of yours from the Dagbladet. And while I’m at it, I’m going to give you some good advice from an old man. You should get some professional help with your gambling before it gets out of control and you would also do well to get your private life in order.”
Pedersen’s face went beet red; he said nothing, but wiped his forehead with his tie. They had never seen that before.
Planck turned to Simonsen. “Simon, you get the hard part. First, you can’t take the rules too seriously the next couple of days. Many of the methods that I will suggest are illegal. Second, you’re going to give an interview with Anni Staal, and third, you’re going to have to keep Helmer Hammer and everyone at HS in the dark about our plans.”
Simonsen nodded cautiously.
Planck addressed them all: “Perhaps you should take a couple of minutes to think it over before I proceed. If you want to hear my proposition.”
Anita did not need to think it over.
“Fuck my workplace, and as far as my reporter ethics go, they’re pretty much nonexistent. I think it sounds exciting. Is my boyfriend cute?”
The two men also agreed but with a little less enthusiasm.
CHAPTER 62
Planck’s dinner party ended abruptly and unpleasantly for Simonsen. As soon as the arrangements for a media campaign had been discussed and everyone was able to relax and enjoy himself, he received a call from Herlev Hospital, where a nurse in the orthopedic-surgery division had found his card. He excused himself and left at once.
A good half hour later he arrived there. The patient, who was not a friend of his, was sleeping fitfully. Simonsen studied him and shook his head as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light in the room. The light-blue duvet was pulled up over the sleeping man’s body and the upper part of the bed was raised so that the upper body was slightly elevated. A set of tubes had been inserted into the man’s nose and were connected to an electrical outlet in the wall, from which a faint sighing sound bore witness to a connection. He had a turban of white gauze around his forehead and a thick bandage across his broken nose, giving him a macabre appearance.
“Do you want to hear what happened?”
Simonsen turned in astonishment. A man was sitting on a chair pushed away from the bed. Without waiting for an answer, the man launched into the story.
“There were seven or eight of them, waiting for him in the stairwell. Some of them had clubs, all of them with boots. They held me back and went after him. He didn’t have a chance. They kicked and hit without stopping and in under a minute he had collapsed bleeding and unconscious on the floor.”
Simonsen answered in a low voice, “That’s terrible, and he isn’t the only one. The same thing has happened in several places all over the country.”
“You haven’t heard the worst of it. One of them cut his forehead with a penknife. For your abominable desires, for the childhood you ruined, for the pain you caused, he said. Like a perverted ritual. The others even seemed like they thought it was too much but did nothing to stop it.”
“What are those phrases? I don’t understand.”
“It’s from a grandiloquent hate poem on one of those antipedophilia sites. I can’t remember which one but I remember the stanzas. They were recited six times, corresponding to five numbers and an ellipsis: five, six … seven, ten, twenty! His whole forehead is carved up.” The man’s voice broke. “I can’t bear to think about it. Let me sit for a moment.”
Simonsen turned his back to the voice. Some time went by, then the man said out of the dark, “I’m okay again.”
“Would you remember the one who did the cutting?”
“It was a woman. Well, she wasn’t more than a girl. I’ve never seen anything so terrible, not even in a movie, and the men just stood there. They seemed to think she was going overboard and it was almost as if they were afraid of her.”
The man stared helplessly into the dark room. The faint light from the night-light fell over his face, which was set in a kind of bleak melancholy. Then he added in wonderment, “There have been women all day. When he was sacked, the knife, and now here.”