Terminalen
A short story and tribute to Scandi-noir.
The divers first went down when the sun came up. Now it was noon, and they had only pulled bones from the kanal. Not a shred of flesh or gristle. These were old bones. The pelvis would confirm they belonged to a female.
Jan Damgaard’s fingers fumbled for the last cigarette in the box. He lit it with his Zippo and took a long drag.
His officers worked quickly, rigidly to protocol. Nobody had vomited, which surprised Jan, for there was always one. Barriers had been erected to hold back the inquisitive pedestrians. Already, the January light was fading fast, and the officers erected work lamps to light the water. They would be here a while yet.
Jan could feel a migraine stirring behind his eyes.
“Thorsen, can you take over here?”
Thorsen was huge, hirsute, and his usually warm brown eyes were narrow, his gaze vacant. Today had drained him.
“Of course, sir,” he said, his voice soft and deep as the snow in which they stood. He tramped towards the water’s edge, rubbing his bucket hands for warmth.
Jan stooped under the barrier, waded through the crowd and asked his driver to take him home.
“Jan, these scans are… not encouraging.”
There was a delicate pause. Dr Ølgaard waited until Jan was braced. Then she continued.
“There’s a tumour, growing right here-”
Dr Ølgaard pointed to a dark spot, the size of a squash ball, on Jan’s scan. It was nestled snug and tight behind his left eye. Jan’s ears were open to the doctor’s explanations and sympathies, but he wasn’t listening.
Instead, his mind wandered back to the wet bones on the edge of the kanal. Suddenly, Jan felt Dr Ølgaard’s eyes on him. He felt the weight of his legs on the wooden chair, the heat emanating from the radiator, the sweat on his palms. He looked up at the doctor. She had finished speaking a while ago. He had to say something.
“At least we know what’s causing these fucking migraines,” muttered Jan.
The room was buzzing with shutter clicks. Jan coughed to warm his dry throat.
“My department are doing everything we can to identify the female and her killer. All I can say now is that we believe she died at least ten years ago.”
Identifying the female was proving pretty fucking difficult with no teeth, hands or feet to be found. Jan decided to keep that to himself, than divulge that bleak truth to the horde of snapping vultures gathered before him.
He slugged back the glass of water in front of him. Suddenly, a new thought pushed it’s way to the front of his brain.
What the hell am I still doing here?
He allowed himself to drift away from the press conference, and he arrived in his office, yesterday, on the phone with the commissioner, Lars Bruun. He had never liked the man. He was intense. Fussy, frigid, but he could work with him, and that’s all he cared about. Jan hadn’t got into this to make friends.
“I need you to stay on a little longer — the press know you, they need a familiar face if they’re to print that we’re on top of this one. Christ, it’s all over Denmark, Jan. I need someone who can get a result and handle the… pressure that goes with cases like these.”
Meanwhile, words were tumbling off his tongue.
“We have been working closely… around the clock… with former Copenhagen police officers serving around the time when the deceased…
“I understand. Goodbye, Lars.” Jan had put the handset down hard. He hadn’t mentioned the migraines. Or the scans. Or that he’d already written his retirement speech.
…We are absolutely confident that there will be justice.”
There was silence. Jan found he had stopped speaking. Though the journalists were now hungry, waving their notepads and calling for his attention, there would be no questions.
Jan rose from the microphone and headed for the fire exit, dazzled by the countless flashguns. He thought his skull was going to explode. Bursting outside, he sucked on the cold air and the pain eased for a moment.
Thorsen appeared at his side and they got into the waiting staff car.
“The press love this. God, it makes me sick.”
“Morbid curiosity, Ulrik. It drives every one of us.”
Thorsen pulled up a forensic report on his tablet and held it out for Jan to scrutinise. But he noticed the chief’s body was now slack, like a rag doll. Jan’s eyes flickered shut and his head lolled to one side.
The last thing Jan heard before slipping out of consciousness was Thorsen’s bark to the driver.
“Stop the car.”
January had come around again, and winter had returned with a vengeance.
Jan peeled away the shrink-wrap of a fresh pack and placed a cigarette between his teeth. The prim attendant swooped down on him.
“You can’t smoke here, sir. You can smoke outside the station.”
“I know.”
She swallowed as Jan turned to face her. An angry red scar wormed down his forehead and into his eyebrow. The eye below it was covered with a patch. At least, she assumed there was an eye beneath the white wadding and medical tape.
There wasn’t.
The attendant disappeared as quickly as she had come and Jan sparked up on the platform. He turned up his collar to the biting wind. Out the corner of his good eye, he saw a newspaper stand. The thick print hooked his whole gaze.
CANAL GIRL KILLER “WITHIN REACH”
Well done, Ulrik, thought Jan. Somehow he’d managed to keep Canal Girl’s real name out of the papers. Just how close were his old department? The story was on Denmark’s lips. This monster had been thorough. They did not want to be caught, and had planned accordingly. Thorsen had been right. The country loved a good murder.
The more gruesome the better.
Jan smirked at the thought as he looked up the platform.
His train was coming.
“Police!”
Thorsen flashed his credentials to the bewildered guard and vaulted the ticket gate. He drew his gun and took the platform stairs in threes.
When he arrived, blood was smeared down the platform and the stationary commuter train, as though a careless painter had kicked over a tin of red emulsion. The doors were still closed. The people trapped inside were peering through the windows, thrashing on the plexiglass. The crowd gathered on the platform was hysterical.
The station thrummed with whispers, murmurs and screams. Somebody had jumped, or had been pushed.
“I don’t know, I didn’t see it.”
Thorsen, breathless, holstered his weapon.
The half-burned cigarette, flecked with blood, was balanced precariously on the platform edge, as though contemplating a suicide of it’s own.
Officers scurried around the station like spiders. Police tape hung like cobwebs across every doorway. Lars Bruun got there as fast as he could. A fresh-faced officer with red hair led him to Thorsen.
The huge man was alone in his car, his gorilla arms draped over the wheel. Bruun got in the car with him.
Thorsen needed a shave and an unbroken sleep. He was silent for a long time. Eventually, a whisper worked it’s way out of the man’s dry, cracked lips.
“He got away with it.”
Bruun let him be.
He got out and watched two officers carry what was left of Jan Damgaard on a covered stretcher through the barriers to the ambulance.
Bruun heard somebody vomiting. Turning around, he saw the red-haired officer bent double, wiping a saliva stalactite from his lips. The officer spat, stood upright, and straightened his coat.
There’s always one, thought Bruun.
He walked back to his own car. What would he give the press? The truth? He snorted. No, he’d give them something.
Still, he toyed with the idea. Perhaps the note they had found in Damgaard’s home? Bruun thought the first sentence would make a good headline.
“I thought you’d never find her.”
