The director was uninterested in technology. “Smashing, smashing, but what are people thinking? I mean, when they have seen the videos. Is there support for our headline? Did we frame it correctly?”
“The film clip from the minivan with the one called Thor Gran hardens most hearts. You know, the one where he decides on his tasty little morsel—”
“Shush! I don’t want to hear that phrase again. Never again.”
“So you are typical. Almost everyone reacts like that.”
The director said sharply, “Let’s talk about something else.”
Anni ignored this order and went on: “Thor Gran has taken your language, dirtied what was clean. Now you can’t bear to use the words. You almost can’t bear to think them.”
“Now you’re a psychologist?”
“No, but I’ve been talking with someone who is.”
“Okay, you may be right. It still makes me sick.”
“But it’s also telling. People’s immediate reaction of sympathy goes quickly down the drain. The next time they see the images from the execution, it is with hardened eyes and a silent acceptance, or something closer to actual approval. I have been getting some e-mails.”
“Well, freedom of speech is there to be exercised, and there’s nothing in the law books about having to condemn murder.”
“And I can promise you that not many people will. Quite the opposite. But of course it’s the most outraged types who write. I tend to think that most people are not crying buckets over these victims. And I am sure that many people just like you have a sentence in the back of their heads that they don’t want to say and would very much like to forget when they form their opinions.”
The publisher smiled faintly. Then he glanced at his watch and thought longingly of his bed. He looked in vain down the street and saw nothing. They stood without speaking for a while, then he resumed the conversation.
“So keeping the news a secret worked?”
Anni hesitated before she answered, “Yes, I believe so. We took every precaution. Nighttime kiosk sales of the papers around Copenghaen were suspended and trusted people watched over the papers that were loaded on the night trains to the provinces. No employee was allowed to take any paper home with them, so the shock should have hit the country at about the same time. Were you afraid of a censure?”
“Not afraid exactly, but I feel you aren’t being completely clear, Anni. Did the news get out despite our best efforts?”
“I don’t really know. The police at least were taken by surprise and a number of officers on the periphery were openly puzzling over the fact that every time something significant happens in relation to the child-abuse murders, the state seems to be lagging far behind the events. Chief Inspector Simonsen doesn’t appear to have his foot on the gas. And the minister of justice was most certainly not forewarned. I heard the news on the radio at nine, where he ran the gauntlet at the Christiansborg parliamentary palace between several vociferous reporters. He was talking nonsense.”
“Poor man. First he is left behind, then slaughtered.”
“There’s an open season on politicians all year round and minister blood is one of the most dignified fluids one can press out of a story. It is something that results in personal prestige, and from time to time also a raise. Did you get any of that?”
“No, I’m tone-deaf when it comes to greedy scribblers. Tell me why you hesitated.”
“Not for any real reason. It just seems to me that this meeting has been a little too easy to arrange. You shouldn’t underestimate Helmer Hammer. He has powerful friends. Very powerful.”
“I don’t follow the connection.”
“Perhaps there isn’t one but we shouldn’t be blind to the fact that there are, shall we say, differing strands of opinion. We have seen this the past couple of days, and from time to time have stepped on some tender toes. For example, there have been discussions of making the travel industry financially responsible for any holidays where tourists end up getting too close to local children.”
The publisher was not impressed. “The travel industry. Give me a break.”
“Or banks, for transactions on the Internet with regard to child pornography. That’s also an idea that has been circulating and gaining in popularity. But look, your guests are here.”
Anni Staal pointed to the taxi that was just turning the corner. She had to poke at him to get him to look.
*