So Kimmie had given the woman the pistol and told her she could use it however she wished. She had looked at it for a moment. Weighed it in her hand, and smiled. Indeed she seemed to know what to use it for. Exactly as the voices had predicted.
And Kimmie had wandered back towards the city with a bounce in her step, assured that by now the message was crystal clear to everyone. She was after them. None of them could feel safe anywhere. She had them in her sights.
If she was right about them, they’d put more people on the streets to track her down, and that thought amused her. The more there were, the greater the evidence of their attentiveness.
She would make them so vigilant they wouldn’t be able to think of anything else.
For Kimmie, the worst part about taking a shower around other women wasn’t their stares. It wasn’t the little girls’ curious peeks at the long scar on her back and stomach. Nor was it the unmistakable delight the mothers and their children took in doing something together. It wasn’t even the carefree noises and laughter out at the pool.
It was the women’s bodies that shone with life. That was the worst. Gold rings on fingers that had someone to caress. Breasts that nurtured. Potbellies waiting to bear fruit. It was sights like these that fuelled the voices.
So Kimmie quickly tore off her clothes and heaped them on top of the lockers without looking at anyone, letting the plastic bags filled with new clothes lie on the floor. The whole procedure should be done quick enough that she could be gone before her eyes began to wander on their own.
While she was still in control.
So within twenty minutes she was standing on Tietgens Bridge in a tailored coat, her hair up, an unaccustomed mist of exclusive perfume on her skin, staring across the tracks that vanished inside the central station. It had been quite some time since she’d dressed like this, and she didn’t like it one bit. At this moment she was the spitting image of everything she fought against. But it was necessary. She would head slowly down the platform and up the escalator and all the way round inside the central hall like any other woman. If she didn’t notice anything unusual in the first pass, she would sit at the corner of Train Fast Food with a cup of coffee, occasionally glancing at the clock. She would resemble anyone waiting to go anywhere. Streamlined, with eyebrows finely drawn above her sunglasses.
Just another woman who knew what she wanted in life.
She’d been sitting for an hour when she saw Rat-Tine waddle past with her head canted sideways, gaze fastened on the empty space a half-yard in front of her. The emaciated woman smiled soullessly to everything and nothing; clearly she’d shot some heroin recently. Never before had Tine seemed more vulnerable and transparent, but Kimmie didn’t move. Simply watched her until she disappeared somewhere behind McDonald’s.
It was during this long, scrutinizing stare that she saw the lean man standing against the wall, talking to two other men in light coats. It wasn’t three men huddled together that caught her attention. It was that they didn’t look each other in the eye as they spoke, but instead kept stealing glances around the hall. That, and the fact that they were wearing nearly identical clothes, caused her warning lights to flash.
She rose slowly, adjusting the glasses on her nose, and with long, sweeping stiletto-heel steps walked directly towards the men. When she was close she could see they were all around forty years old. Deep creases at the corners of their mouths indicated a hard life. They were not the kind of lines businessmen earned under the sickly glare of office lights while stacks of paper flowed across their desks during the wee hours of the morning. No, they were more like furrows carved by the wind, the elements and endless, boring assignments. These were men hired to wait and observe.
When she was a few yards away, they all looked at her in the same instant. She smiled at them and avoided showing her teeth. Then she passed close by and felt the silence cement the men together. When she was a little further ahead, they began talking once more. She stopped to rummage in her purse. One of them, she overheard, was called Kim. Of course it had to be a name with the letter K.
They were discussing times and locations and weren’t the faintest bit interested in her, which meant she could move around freely. The person she was pretending to be didn’t fit the profile they were looking for. Of course not.
She made a pass round the hall, accompanied by whispering voices, bought a women’s magazine in the kiosk at the other end and returned to her point of departure. Only one of the men remained. He was leaning against the brick wall, clearly ready for a long wait. Every one of his movements was slow, only his eyes were busy. These were precisely the kind of men Torsten, Ulrik and Ditlev associated with. Lackeys. Cold-hearted pricks. Men who did almost anything for money.
Jobs you wouldn’t read about in the classifieds.
The more she watched him, the closer she felt to the bastards she wanted to destroy. Excitement swelled inside her as the voices in her head contradicted one another.
‘Stop it,’ she whispered, dropping her gaze. She noticed how the man at the neighbouring table glanced up from his plate, trying to ascertain the target of her anger.
That was his problem.
Stop, she thought, catching sight of a tabloid headline: KEEP YOUR MARRIAGE ALIVE it read in large capital letters. But it was only the letter K she noted.
A big, capital K in a curved font. Another K.
The sixth-form pupils simply called him ‘K’, but his name was Kåre. He was the one who raked in nearly all the fifth-form votes when it was decided which final-year student would be the next prefect. He was the one who resembled a god, the one the girls whispered about on their bunks in the dormitory. But Kimmie was the one who scored him. After three dances at the comedy ball it was her turn, and Kåre felt Kimmie’s fingers where none had been before. For Kimmie understood her body and that of the boys, too. Kristian had made certain of that.
Kåre was in her grip, as though caught in a vice.
People commented on how, from that day forward, the popular prefect’s average began to slide, and how it was strange that so intelligent and focused a pupil could suddenly begin to lose it. And Kimmie enjoyed it. It was her handiwork, her body shaking this goody-two-shoes’s foundation. Her body alone.
Everything had been prepared for Kåre. His future had been determined long ago by parents who never found out who he actually was. All that mattered was keeping their son on track, ensuring he would bring honour to the tenderloin caste.
If a person could make the family happy and harvest success, then that person had found the meaning of life. To hell with the costs.
Or so they thought.
Kåre became Kimmie’s first target for that reason alone. Everything Kåre believed in nauseated her. Winning prizes for diligence. Being the best at shooting birds and the fastest runner on the racetrack. Being an eminent orator at festive occasions. Having hair trimmed a little neater, trousers ironed a little smoother. Kimmie wished all this gone. She wanted to peel him to see what lay hidden beneath.
And when she was through with him, she looked around for more challenging prey. There was plenty to choose from. She wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone.
Only occasionally did Kimmie glance up over her magazine. If the man by the wall left, she would feel it. More than eleven years on the street had sharpened her instincts.
These instincts awoke when, one hour later, she observed yet another man moving around the hall in an apparently aimless way, as if he were being led by legs set on automatic pilot while his eyes remained fixed on his surroundings. He wasn’t a pickpocket, attentively trying to spot a ripe handbag or loose coat. Nor was he the pickpocket’s little helper, sticking his hand out and asking for spare change while his accomplice did the dirty work. No, she knew the type better than most, and he wasn’t it.