—
After a few hours of breaking into different vehicles using different methods, she concluded objectively that with her pronounced lack of dexterity, everything pointed to smashing windows as the best method. All the fuss with string and inflatable cushions didn’t work for her. The string broke or the loop that was meant to go around the door lock became tangled, and the cushion punctured on the first attempt. At least you knew where you were when it came to smashing windows.
And all you had to do afterward was poke the broken glass out through the window frame and brush the shards of glass from the passenger seat onto the floor. Nobody would take any notice of the open window in this warm May weather, so long as the weather stayed as it was. And if one wanted to use the car multiple times and try to hide the fact that it was stolen, it was easy enough to get ahold of strong see-through plastic.
She was also able to conclude that her tools, and in particular the hammer, weren’t the best for the job. Therefore, a pointy carbon thingamabob like they suggested on the Internet would have to be the next thing she got hold of. And then there was the issue with the ignition. She tried once to press a screwdriver hard in the ignition and turn it, but that hadn’t sounded good.
Smaller and pointier screwdrivers next time and a better technique, she thought.
She still had homework to do.
—
It took Anneli until the following Friday before she began to feel experienced enough. The week had passed with a little work during the day and breaking into cars in different parts of town during the rest of the day. And she had now been successful in starting the cars using different methods.
When finally sitting in a car one hadn’t personally paid for and taking a street corner at full speed, the adrenaline rush felt extra-powerful. With a racing pulse and heightened senses in full swing, it was an altogether younger version of Anne-Line Svendsen sitting behind the wheel, or so it felt anyway. Sight and hearing were sharpened, as was the ability to quickly assess the surroundings, and the skin became warm and elastic.
Anneli suddenly felt shrewd and sly. Like someone who hadn’t yet reached her full potential; like a woman able to match a man in almost anything.
In other words, Anneli had become someone else.
On her kitchen table there was now a list of young women whom she had had professional contact with in recent years.
They were girls and women for whom nothing but their own needs meant anything. Everything around them seemed like it must be just for them. They scrounged off the feelings and charity of the world around them. Anneli hated every last one of them. In fact, “hate” wasn’t a strong enough word.
It had been a bit of a job finding relevant information from the other social security offices where she had worked in recent years. She needed a professional reason to check them first, but Anneli turned a blind eye to that regulation and now had fifty names to choose from, which satisfied her.
They were the ones the world was going to be rid of.
Midweek, she had made a list of priorities. First on the list were those who had irritated her the most, which was a mixed group from the three social security offices, so there wouldn’t be any immediate murder pattern, and then those who had been fleecing the system for years.
Anneli lit a cigarette and leaned back in the kitchen chair. If the police ever caught up with her, she would face her punishment with her head held high. She had nothing at home to hold her back and no one in society to stop her: Her relationships were dull and superficial. On the other hand, in prison she would get what mattered most for the majority of people: security, regular meals, routines, and lots of time to read good books. Far away from wretched work and stress. And there might even be some people in prison whom she would get on better with than those on the outside. Why not?
Well, if that was the alternative, it wasn’t the worst.
She printed out maps of Copenhagen’s different housing areas and marked with a pencil where the girls lived. Don’t shit on your own doorstep, she thought, selecting the girls who lived close to her in ?sterbro and placing them at the bottom of the pile.
After some consideration, she chose Michelle Hansen as her first victim. Firstly, the girl was less intelligent and therefore presumably easier to outwit, and secondly, she was a demanding and irritating rat who could make Anneli break out in a rash just from thinking about her.
She knew that the girl lived with her boyfriend, Patrick Pettersson, and that the building was so hidden among the labyrinth of small streets in the North West district that you could count on the traffic being limited, giving her peace to execute her plan. There didn’t seem to be any impediment to her taking the next step.
She threw her cigarettes in the bag and headed out into the morning traffic. Now she was going to find a car.
The hunt was on.
12
Friday, May 20th, 2016
When Michelle turned twenty-seven, she suddenly felt old. Twenty-six was already bordering on old, but twenty-seven! That was nearly thirty, and years since she had been the age at which all the stars had their breakthrough. She thought about Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, and all the other celebrities who had died at her age, and about everything they had achieved.
And then they just died. Before their time.
Michelle, on the other hand, was alive and kicking and hadn’t achieved anything other than living in a studio apartment in the North West district with Patrick. Admittedly, she was still somewhat in love with him, but was that all there was to life? Hadn’t she always been told that she was destined for great things? And yet now here she was, twenty-seven years old. What had happened to those great things?