She felt the pack of eyes fastened on her and the tension that had already begun to spread along the tables and barstools.

She wore less make-up than all the other women, she realized. Less make-up and less fat on her bones.

Does he recognize me? she wondered, her eyes wandering slowly past imploring glances, all the way to the thin man. There he was, just like all the other men, coiled and ready to pounce at even the slightest signal. He put his elbow nonchalantly on the bar and lifted his head slightly. Professional eyes weighed whether she was waiting for someone or free prey.

When she was halfway past the tables she smiled at him, causing him to take a deep breath. He couldn’t believe it, but Christ, he would sure love to.

Not two minutes passed before she was out on the dance floor with the first sweaty, eager man, bouncing in the same steady rhythm as everyone else.

But the thin man had noticed her glance, and that she had made her choice. He straightened his back, adjusted his tie and tried as best he could to make his lean, beaten face seem relatively attractive in the smoke-coloured light.

He approached her in the middle of a dance, taking her by the arm. He clasped her back a bit clumsily and squeezed a little. His fingers weren’t practised, she could tell. His heart was hammering hard against her shoulder. He was an easy catch.

‘So this is my place,’ he said, nodding self-consciously towards his living room, which revealed a lacklustre, fifth-storey view of Rødovre’s S-station and lots of parking spots and streets.

He’d pointed at the nameplate in the lobby beside the lift’s lilac-coloured doors. FINN AALBÆK, it read. And then he’d declared that the building was safe, even though it would soon be torn down. He’d taken her hand and led her out on to the fifth-storey walkway as if he were a knight leading her safely across a seething river’s suspension bridge. He held her quite close, so his quarry wouldn’t be allowed to have second thoughts and bolt. Well assisted by anticipation and newly found self-confidence, his imagination already had him groping deep under the blankets, stiff and ready.

He told her she could go out on the balcony to see the view if she wished, and he cleared the coffee table, turned on the lava lamps, put on a CD and unscrewed the cap on the gin bottle.

It struck her that it’d been ten years since she’d been alone with a man behind closed doors.

‘What happened to you?’ she asked, running her hand inquiringly across his face.

He raised his wilted eyebrows, a gesture that was no doubt carefully practised before the mirror. He probably thought it was charming, but it wasn’t by a long shot.

‘Oh that! I ran into a couple of likely lads on my watch. They didn’t get out of the encounter in very good shape.’ He smiled crookedly. Even the smile was a cliché. He was simply lying.

‘What do you do, actually, Finn?’ she finally asked.

‘Me? I’m a private eye,’ he answered, in a way that made the word ‘private’ ooze with sleazy snooping and unseemly prying. It conjured up nothing exotic, mysterious or dangerous, as had doubtlessly been his intention.

She looked at the bottle he was waving about, and noticed her throat tightening. Take it easy, Kimmie, the voices whispered. Don’t lose control.

‘Gin and tonic?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Do you have whisky, by any chance?’

He seemed surprised, but not dissatisfied. Women who drank whisky were hardly sensitive types.

‘Well, well, aren’t you thirsty?’ he said, after she’d downed her drink in a single gulp. To keep pace, he poured another glass for her and one for himself.

By the time she’d had three more in succession, he was buzzed and distant.

Unaffected, she asked about the job he was working on and watched his alcohol-suppressed inhibitions lead him closer to her on the sofa. He gave her a fixed smile while his fingers strolled up her thigh.

‘I’m trying to find a woman who’s capable of making many people’s lives miserable.’

‘Ah, that sounds exciting. Is she an industrial spy or call girl or something like that?’ she asked, and illustrated her rapt submissivness by putting her hand on his and leading it determinedly to her inner thigh.

‘She’s a little of everything,’ he said, trying to spread her legs a bit.

She watched his mouth and knew she would throw up if he tried to kiss her.

‘Who is she?’

‘That’s a trade secret, love. I can’t tell you.’

‘Love,’ he’d said! Again the same pain.

‘But what kind of person hires you for such a job?’ She allowed his hand to move a little further up her thigh. His alcohol breath was hot against her throat.

‘People in the upper crust,’ he whispered, as if it would place him higher in the mating hierarchy.

‘What do you say to another shot?’ she suggested, as his fingers groped their way across her pelvis.

He pulled back slightly, looking at her with a wry smile wrenched into that swollen part of his face. He had a plan, it was clear. She would drink and he would pour, until she was completely lubricated and ready.

For all he cared, she could pass out. He didn’t give a hoot what she got out of it. She knew that didn’t matter.

‘We can’t do it tonight,’ she said, as his mouth ran parallel with his frowning eyebrows. ‘I have my period. We can do it another day, OK?’

It was a lie, of course, but deep within she wished it were true. Eleven years had gone by since she’d bled. Only the stomach cramps remained, and they weren’t caused by anything physiological. Years filled with anger and broken dreams.

She had miscarried and almost died. And now she was sterile.

That’s what she was.

Otherwise things might have turned out differently.

Carefully she stroked his lacerated eyebrow with her index finger, but failed to mitigate his growing resentment and frustration.

She could see what he was thinking. He had hauled home the wrong bitch, and he wasn’t going to stand for it. Why the hell did she go to a singles’ night if she was on the rag?

Kimmie watched his facial features harden. Then she pulled her handbag to her and stood up, stepped over to the balcony window and gazed out across the dismal, barren landscape of terraced houses and stark, distant high-rises. There was almost no light, only the cold gleam of the street lamps a little further up the block.

‘You killed Tine,’ she said softly, reaching into her bag.

She heard him squirm up off the sofa. In a second he would be all over her. He was woozy, but deep inside an instinct of self-preservation stirred.

Then she turned and pulled out the pistol with the silencer.

He saw it as he attempted to manoeuvre around the coffee table, and stopped in his tracks, astounded at himself and the dent that had been made in his professional pride. It was funny to see. She loved this mix of silent astonishment and dread.

‘No,’ she said, ‘that probably wasn’t very smart. You dragged home your work target without knowing it.’

He bent his head and studied her face. Clearly he was adding layers to the image he’d created of a ravaged woman on the streets. Confusedly he ransacked his memory. How could he aim so low? How could he let himself be fooled by clothing and find a bag lady attractive?

Come on, the voices whispered. Take him. He’s nothing but their lackey! Take him now!

‘Without you, my friend would still be alive,’ she said, now registering the alcohol burning in her belly. She looked over at the bottle, golden and half full. One more slurp and the voices and the fire would die down.

‘I didn’t kill anyone,’ he said, his eyes darting from her trigger finger to the safety latch. Looking for anything to give him a sliver of hope that she’d overlooked something.

‘Do you feel like a cornered rat?’ she asked. The question was superfluous, but he refused to answer. He hated to admit it, but who wouldn’t?