“Yes, something like that. We’ll also spread the word of course. High and low. Anything else?”
“No, not really. Well, actually—I’ve received a letter from Helle, a real letter. She wrote that she isn’t doing very well. You know how she has trouble with thoughts of her uncle at night. So last night I drove to Hiller?d and called her from a telephone booth. What should I say? She sounded almost intoxicated and extremely unhappy, but she wanted me to send you her greetings. And to the Climber of course, if I see him, though I hope I don’t.”
M?rk answered briskly, “And you won’t. He will very soon be on his way to Germany. Most likely in a couple of days and at most by next weekend.”
“Why hasn’t he left already? I’m not the least bit comfortable with him, not after this business with the hot-dog stand. It was part of our agreement that he was supposed to leave as soon as it was over.”
“And he will. Unfortunately, he thinks he is invincible because so many people are backing us, but I haven’t been pressing the issue either, I should add. He’s not a bad thing to have up one’s sleeve. In a way he is my ultimate trump card with the media, even more than you, if you can see what I mean.”
They walked for a while without speaking. The wind swept through the tops of the trees above their heads and drops showered down from the branches. M?rk slapped his arms across his chest to get warm, and Stig ?ge Thorsen asked, “What now?”
“We’ll build you up the next couple of days and then we’ll do your online interview on Thursday. I’ll introduce it this afternoon and then we’ll call for a demonstration on Friday.”
“What if they sentence and jail me?”
“They won’t. They simply don’t have enough evidence to hold you.”
“And what about after that? What about our demands?”
“They will be made public immediately following the interview.”
“They aren’t up on the home page already?”
“No, until now there isn’t anything up there except vague formulations about combating child abuse. No one can disagree with that. In the final analysis all this comes down to politics and here we will have some heavy hitters, but apart from the fact that the people’s sentiment supports our populist-minded minister of justice, none of the others have shifted. They are leaning back, winning time, and hoping that things get back to normal in a couple of weeks. And of course that we will be found. Those are the ones we need to shake up, but believe me—they aren’t losing any sleep over a couple of days of a school strike. That isn’t enough to get them to act.”
“Then they’ll be indifferent to a demonstration and also to my interview.”
“Of course they are. But the situation is in our favor. We’re only missing the last little bit. Unfortunately, this bit will negatively influence public opinion. That can’t be helped. So we’ll have to create the illusion that public opinion hasn’t changed and I think that is possible to a degree. At least for a couple of days and that is sufficient. It’s mainly a question of angles and timing.”
Stig ?ge Thorsen stopped and put a hand on the shoulder of his comrade.
“I know that you and Per Clausen discussed these things in great detail but you sometimes forgot to inform the rest of us. You’re talking as if I know what the next step is but I don’t. To be perfectly honest, I don’t always understand what you are talking about.”
M?rk made a disarming gesture and said, “I’m sorry, I should have said as much, but the next step was taken this morning. The pedophile database has been distributed to our category-three members.”
Stig ?ge Thorsen’s face showed that he was still not following. M?rk had to spell it out: “Violence.”
CHAPTER 48
The entries in Erik M?rk’s database fell hard over the country and created much unhappiness. Jylland was heavily overrepresented since the client base of the Ditlevsen brothers was a significant source.
Thus, a handful of people were gathered outside a property in Kvaglund in Esbjerg. They all stood with their heads tilted back and were looking antagonistically at a man on the fifth floor who was half sitting, half standing in a window far above them. In one hand he was holding on to the transom that separated the lower panes from the upper, and he was crying. From time to time he looked down in terror. A middle-aged woman whose blue-fox-fur coat indicated that she did not live in the neighborhood shouted, “Jump, you beast. Come on, get on with it, we don’t have all day.”
A younger man chimed in. He sat on a moped, slightly apart from the others. “Yes, come on, dammit. Get it over with, you sissy.”