Free Next of Kin by Elsebeth Egholm Page B

stadium.’
    â€˜Now listen here.’ Ole shifted slightly on the warm woollen seat cover. He knew he ought to stop himself, but it required effort, and he was not really in that frame of mind today.
    â€˜A seven-year-old girl is fighting for her arm. She might very well lose it. It was your dog that bit her. According to the law, as the owner of that dog, you’re responsible. Do you mean to tell me you don’t feel even the slightest bit ill at ease?’
    He knew it was unprofessional. It went against everything he had been taught; all the rules and regulations about how to treat people in stressful situations. He ought to have been on the man’s side—that was his job. He ought to feel ashamed, but he didn’t.
    â€˜Look, pal. I didn’t do this on bloody purpose!’ Thor raised his voice.
    Ole had heard the words before. Spoken in exactly the same way and with the exact same self-righteousness and pathetic, wounded tone of voice.
    He had to wipe his brow with his shirt sleeve. His whole body was shaking. He remembered the court case and the young man in the dock, who hadn’t looked him in the eyes, not once. He remembered his almost indignant defence: ‘I didn’t do it on purpose!’
    He hadn’t drunk himself senseless on purpose and subsequently knocked down a young woman. He hadn’t hit Nanna while she was on the pedestrian crossing on purpose. He hadn’t killed her on purpose.
    Ole got up. The room was spinning and he had to support himself on a chair for a moment.
    â€˜I don’t think there’s any more to say,’ he said. ‘I’ll write a report confirming you feel okay about the incident and are unlikely to suffer long-term psychological damage.’
    Then he made a half-hearted attempt but failed miserably in keeping the sarcasm out of his voice. ‘Anyway, you don’t want to miss the start of the football match.’

13
    The sea was grey. The wind had brought rain from the west and now it was torrential, transforming the sun deck of the Samsø ferry into a water chute. In the USA, Hurricane Rita was wreaking havoc and flooding entire towns; on the weather map typhoons whirled across Asia, bringing death and destruction; and in Denmark the weather man on the morning news had spoken about a ‘nicely coherent’ cloud formation which was approaching the country and forcing temperatures down below 15 degrees Celsius. From one day to the next, summer was officially over.
    Dicte clutched the railings with wet hands. With her hood tight around her ears, the drumming of the rain sounded like hundreds of runaway horses. They ought to have gone downstairs and got themselves some lunch, but a touch of seasickness plus her hangover had forced her onto the deck, and all she really felt like was standing right in the middle of it all and letting the elements rage around her. That way it seemed as if everything else could be kept at a distance: saying goodbye to Anne; the tension all morning and throngs of journalists; Kaiser’s attempt to control her; the film with its bloody, bizarre contents—she imagined it all being washed away, hosed off the deck until it ran down hidden channels and disappeared into the sea.
    â€˜It’ll be tough examining a crime scene in this weather.’
    Bo looked up and let the rain lash his face. His ponytail was soaked and his skin red from the impact. She wanted to tell him that he could at least pull up his collar, but she refrained. She mustn’t fuss, and ever since his trip to Iraq where he had managed to get his leg smashed up during a night-time ambush, she had to be even more careful. Never mollycoddle wounded heroes. Instead she nodded. Her hood funnelled the rain down her nose and it tickled.
    â€˜They’re probably there already.’
    The Samsø coastline came closer and closer. She followed Bo’s eyes, which were scanning the trees and bushes all the way out