There were fifty printouts from Google in front of her, all detailing the simplest and safest way to steal a car. A mass of exciting information and many things that seemed very obvious when one had read the advice and learned the techniques a car thief needed to know by heart to ensure nothing went wrong. If one knew these basic sentences like the back of one’s hand, then one had the essentials necessary to gain access to a locked car without a key, and also how to get it started.
The only crime she could think of that she had committed up until this point was when she neglected to tell the checkout staff in the supermarket if she was given too much change. Fuck that, she’d always thought, because public employees like Anneli didn’t have much to play with to start. But to steal cars with the intention of using them to kill was a totally different matter. The thought made her giddy.
She thought of the idea after seeing a crime report that had been all over the media. A murderer on Bornholm had deliberately driven into a girl so brutally that she had been flung up into a tree. She could picture the scene. It was a murder that had taken twenty years and a lot of luck to solve, and that was on the sparsely populated island of Bornholm. So if one were to do the same in a densely populated city like Copenhagen and took the right precautions, who on earth would work out that it was her?
With good preparation and meticulousness, it will all be fine, she thought. And she was both meticulous and well prepared.
It was alpha and omega that one didn’t use a car that could be traced back, which was why it was necessary to steal one—something she now knew quite a bit about.
Whether one was a professional or an amateur in the field, the first step was to ensure that the car wasn’t fitted with an alarm. The easiest way to check was to push the car roughly when walking past. If an alarm went off, the idea was to skip the next ten cars and try again with the eleventh. Only when an old banger had been spotted and proven not to have an alarm could step two be brought into play.
Were there any security cameras in the vicinity? People at windows or on the street, passersby on bikes or mopeds or in cars who might notice her when she got under way? All very logical for a young entrepreneurial car thief, but not for a so-called respectable woman in her prime.
Following this, the make and state of the vehicle should be thoroughly inspected. Anneli had no plans to sell the car to a mechanic in Lodz or strip it of airbags and expensive GPS equipment, so expensive vehicles were of no interest to her. She just needed any old car that was reasonably reliable, and which could be rammed directly into a human for an easy kill.
When that had been done, it was her intention to leave the car in some random place far from the crime scene.
The most important thing of all was that it was an easy car to steal. An older model where the steering lock could be wrenched apart, or which could even be started with a screwdriver stuck in the ignition. It certainly shouldn’t be a vehicle with an immobilizer, but she could check that on her smartphone. And then there were the basics, like checking whether the tires were flat. If there were any items in the car that might lead to problems, like a child safety seat with a child in it, for example. And then whether or not it was possible to maneuver the car out of the parking lot quick enough. Was there even enough room to get out of the parking space? Anneli needed at least forty centimeters in front of and behind the car, but that wasn’t that unusual.
Anneli smiled as she went through her checklist. Where would she run if she was caught red-handed? And if she didn’t make it, what story would she come up with?
Anneli practiced. “God, isn’t that my car? I wondered why the key wasn’t working. Oh no, God, if that isn’t my car, then where have I parked mine?” Wouldn’t most people believe she was a law-abiding but confused woman? That she had panicked or was maybe slightly senile?
Anneli completely forgot the pain she was in that Saturday. She just popped pills and emptied the liquor cabinet, reading so much that she became dizzy. It was decades since she had felt so warm inside, so ready for action and full of life. So it couldn’t be totally wrong.
The next day she made her first attempt.
Using Google Street View, she picked a large parking lot in Herlev, where she reasoned that the vehicles wouldn’t be as fancy and unapproachable as in Holte or H?rsholm, for example.
While she was still on the S-train, Anneli began to feel a tingling sensation in her body. All the other passengers suddenly seemed so grey and insignificant. Young people laughing or kissing didn’t irritate her like they usually did, and she almost felt sorry for the women her own age who would be returning home to their families and domestic chores at some point.
Then she patted the bag where the screwdriver, inflatable cushion, little crowbar, emergency hammer, and thin, expensive nylon string from Silvan waited for her.
The feeling was almost like being reborn.
—
Anneli looked around. It was a quiet Sunday the day after the Eurovision Song Contest. It probably didn’t affect the mood out here in the suburbs that Denmark had been knocked out; it was just as dull and quiet as always.
The goal for the day wasn’t to actually steal a car but just to get as far as gaining access and sitting in the vehicle. She wasn’t in a rush at the moment because safety had to come first. She would take the next step later in the week, attempting to short-circuit the ignition and go for a drive. She was setting the pace.
She found a promising Suzuki Alto with rust marks under the doors that looked like it had already been stolen. There was limited activity around her; it was the time when most normal people were relaxing with breakfast or busying themselves preparing the Whitsun lunch.
The grey wreck was parked between a couple of older BMWs, the type that neither steel rims nor noisy stereos could improve. It was a good quiet place to give the Suzuki a knock.
It rocked silently on the wheels: no alarm.
There were three options. Either the one with the string, which could be forced through the crack in the passenger door and down to grab hold of the locking tab on the door; the more difficult option with the inflatable cushion, which could be pushed in the door of the trunk to force it up, allowing one to kick down the passenger seats; or then there was the more simple option of smashing a window.
Anneli was more in the mood for smashing windows.
She had learned on the Internet that the best way to do it was with a short hit down in the corner of the window, so that was what she did. Firstly with the flat side of the hammer, which didn’t work, and then a hit with the pointy end.
Not too hard, she reminded herself. She shouldn’t risk her hand going through and cutting herself.
After the third attempt, she concluded that the window was irregular and therefore impossible to smash.
Then she tried the door handle. She ought to have tried that earlier: It opened.