“I need to shower and change first.”
“Now, damn it! Don’t you get it? It’s already bloody late. We’ve slept through the day, and Michelle could already have fucked up everything for us. We’ve committed robbery and maybe killed someone. Who knows what Michelle might say to cover her own back. We could end up taking the rap for this alone if she tries to save her own ass. It wasn’t her who committed robbery and she wasn’t the one to stick a bullet in Birna.”
Jazmine shuddered. “It wasn’t bloody well me either, Denise,” she blurted out, regretting it immediately.
Denise’s face froze, and her expression became suddenly hostile. Jazmine couldn’t tell whether she was just angry at the remark or about to attack her, but it scared her. Hadn’t she seen what Denise was capable of?
“No, sorry. That was a stupid thing to say, Denise,” she said with emphasis. “I didn’t mean it. I saw Birna attack you with that knife, and we didn’t know the pistol was loaded, did we? We’re together on this, I promise.” She made the sign of the cross on her chest. Not because she was religious but because she felt it made her promise seem more serious.
Denise drew a deep breath. Her expression changed from aggressive to scared. “Jazmine, we don’t know if that Birna girl is dead,” she said. “We know nothing about what’s happened to her. If she’s dead, we’re fucked. If she’s alive, we’re also fucked. Why the hell did we get so drunk last night when we came home? How could we sleep so late that Michelle managed to sneak off? It’s totally fucked up.”
“If Birna’s dead, they’ll mention it on TV2 News,” said Jazmine, dragging Denise with her.
The sight that met them in the sitting room came as a shock. Not because the room looked like a herd of elephants had marched through it, or because of the candle wax and red wine stains on every surface, or the potato chip crumbs scattered all over the floor. No, they froze because the TV was already on and the screen was plastered with images of someone they knew all too well. It wasn’t Birna, as they had anticipated, but Michelle. And underneath on the yellow text banner, the breaking news was:
Woman in Stenl?se killed by hit-and-run driver. Same woman was hit in a separate hit-and-run on May 20th. Possible connection between this incident and yesterday’s shooting at Victoria nightclub in Sydhavnen.
They started throwing things at the walls and shouting at each other, and then Jazmine almost went into shock, whereas Denise reacted quite differently. Every part of her being was screaming for action as she impressed on Jazmine what Michelle had said on two different occasions. Hadn’t she said that she thought she had seen Anne-Line Svendsen in a car across from the nightclub? And hadn’t she said the same thing when she had been hit the first time?
“But when you were with that bitch and tried to make her admit that it was her Michelle had seen, you said afterward that you didn’t think it was her after all. What the hell do you think now, Jazmine?”
“What do you want me to say?” she answered, sounding choked up. “Michelle has been killed, and the police might link her to us. And if it really was Anne-Line Svendsen who Michelle saw last night, she must have seen us when we came out of that alleyway. Who knows if she’ll talk to the police?”
Denise sneered at her. “You really are an idiot, Jazmine. Don’t you think that’s the last thing she’d do? She’s a damn murderer, and we might be the only ones who could give her away. So don’t you think that’s what she’s considering just now?”
Jazmine was taking the wrapper off a pack of Prince cigarettes with her long nails. When the pack was open she tapped a few cigarettes out onto the table and lit the first one. Now Denise looked at her with a seriousness Jazmine hadn’t seen before. It was hard to believe that this was the same Denise who had partied hard last night and who only the other day had been frolicking in her room with one of her sugar daddies.
“Damn it,” said Denise. “I’m just as shocked by all this. That Michelle is dead and that everything on the news is to do with us. It’s just too much. And then all this stuff with Anne-Line Svendsen. It’s bloody scary. If I was her, I would be making sure that we were her next victims. She must know where we live. What else would she have been doing out here in Stenl?se?”
Jazmine could feel the fear in the pit of her stomach. Denise was right. Anne-Line might be out there keeping tabs on them as they were speaking.
“What should we do if she comes here?”
“What do you mean?” said Denise angrily. “There are knives in the kitchen, and my grandfather’s pistol is on the balcony.”
“I don’t think I can do it, Denise.”
“I don’t think Anne-Line would dare to show her face here so soon after the thing with Michelle. There must be police all over the place. They are probably doing door-to-door inquiries right now. But we need to be extra-careful and keep our eyes peeled: for the police, Anne-Line . . . and each other,” she ended, looking directly at Jazmine.
Jazmine closed her eyes. She wanted to return to her dream. “Denise, I think we have more than seventy thousand each. We can jump on a plane and get out of here. Shouldn’t we just do that?” She looked at her imploringly. “What do you say? We could fly to South America somewhere. That’s far away. Don’t you think that would be far enough?”
Denise looked at her condescendingly. “Yeah, because you’re just so good at Spanish, aren’t you? You do know that you can’t really learn a language in bed, right? There’s more to it than just giving someone a good tit wank. And then you will end up having to earn a living flat on your back when the money runs out. Is that what you want?”
A look of despair appeared on Jazmine’s face. Denise had hurt her feelings. “I don’t know. Isn’t that what we do already? At least the police and Anne-Line won’t be on our backs if we’re in South America.”
“Anne-Line won’t be on our backs for long if I’ve got anything to do with it, because we’ll get to her first. We’re two against one. We’ll make a plan and get her. Maybe we could do it in her home late at night when she least expects it. We can threaten her and make her write a confession and then kill her and make it look like suicide. And if she has any cash lying around, which wouldn’t surprise me, we steal that too. Then we can discuss escaping somewhere.”
Jazmine looked puzzled and shushed her. Denise stopped talking and heard someone knocking on the front door, followed by the sound of a key turning in the lock.
“What should we do?” Jazmine just managed to whisper before a woman staggered into the apartment, as pale as a corpse and wearing so much eye makeup that you could hardly see her eyelids.
“Who the hell are you?” asked the woman aggressively as she looked around the room.
“None of your business,” answered Denise. “Where did you get those keys?”