Mercy by Jussi Adler-Olsen Read Free Book Online Page B

the bluest eyes in the world, and at that moment they were filled with sorrow and doubt and an urgent plea.
    ‘For God’s sake, Hardy,’ he whispered. ‘You know I can’t do that. You need to get back on your feet. You need to get up and walk again. You’ve got a son who wants his father home. Don’t you realize that, Hardy?’
    ‘He’s twenty years old. He’ll be fine,’ whispered Hardy.
    That was just like him. He was perfectly lucid. And Hardy meant what he said.
    ‘I can’t do it, Hardy. You’re going to have to tough it out. You’re going to get well.’
    ‘I’m paralysed, and that’s how I’m going to stay. They gave me the prognosis today. No chance of recovery. Not a chance in hell.’
    ‘I imagine that Hardy Henningsen probably asked you to help him take his own life,’ said the psychologist, inviting Carl’s confidence. Her professional demeanour required no reply. She was convinced she was right. She’d seen it before.
    ‘No, he didn’t!’
    ‘Oh really? I was positive he would.’
    ‘Hardy? No, that wasn’t what he wanted.’
    ‘I’d be most interested to hear what he did say to you, if you wouldn’t mind telling me.’
    ‘I could do that.’ Carl pursed his lips and looked out the window at Havnevejen. Not a soul in sight. Damned strange.
    ‘But you’re not going to?’
    ‘It would make you blush if you heard what he said. I can’t repeat something like that to a lady.’
    ‘You could try.’
    ‘I don’t think so.’

9
    2002
    Merete had often heard about the little café on Nansengade called Bankeråt, with the strange, stuffed animals, but until that evening she had never been inside.
    There, amid the buzz of conversation, she was welcomed with a warm smile and a glass of ice-cold white wine. The evening was off to a promising start.
    She had just finished saying that she would be going to Berlin with her brother on the following weekend. That they made the trip once a year, and they’d be staying close to the Zoo.
    Then her mobile rang. ‘Uffe was really upset,’ the home help told her.
    For a moment Merete sat motionless, her eyes closed, swallowing the bitter pill of what she’d just heard. It wasn’t often that she allowed herself to go out on a date. Why did he have to ruin things?
    In spite of the slippery roads she made it home in less than an hour.
    Uffe had been shaking and crying almost all evening. That’s what happened occasionally if Merete didn’t come home at the usual time. Uffe didn’t communicate in words, so it could be difficult to decipher what was going on with him. Sometimes it even felt like nobody was there, inside his body. But that wasn’t true at all. Uffe was very much present.
    Unfortunately, the home help was clearly distressed. Merete knew she wouldn’t be able to count on her again.
    Not until Merete persuaded Uffe to come upstairs to the bedroom and put on his beloved baseball cap did he stop crying, but he was still upset. His eyes looked worried. She tried to calm him down further by describing all the people in the restaurant and the peculiar stuffed animals mounted on the walls. She recounted everything she’d done and thought during the day, and she could see how her words began to soothe him. It was what she had always done in similar situations, ever since he was ten or eleven. Whenever Uffe cried, the sobs came from deep in his subconscious. At those moments, the past and the present became linked inside Uffe. As if he remembered his life before the accident, back when he was a perfectly normal boy. No, that wasn’t right. Not normal. Back then he was an extraordinary boy with a brilliant mind filled with fabulous ideas, and excellent prospects for the future. He’d been an amazing boy. And then came the accident.
    For the next couple of days Merete was tremendously busy. And even though her thoughts had a tendency to drift away much of the time, there was no one else who could do her work for her. She arrived at the