Read Online The Considerate Killer by Agnete Friis, Lene Kaaberbøl - Free Book Online Page A

smiled professionally. She was around fifty, grey-haired and steely, but in a friendly way.
    â€œThere was a card, I think,” she said. “It must have fallen off when I put them in water . . . Just a moment, I’ll find it.”
    She disappeared out of the room and Nina could hear her Crocs pattering down the hall. The bouquet was enormous, an explosion of waxen white calla lilies wrapped in pink tissue paper. They looked like something made out of marzipan and the heavy scent they emitted prompted a mixed association of florist, funeral parlor, and air freshener. Perhaps she should ask to have them placed in the window after all.
    The NA came pattering back and handed her a small white card.
    â€œI found it!” she said triumphantly. “I knew I had seen it . . .”
    â€œThank you,” murmured Nina.
    The card was, not surprisingly, from a local florist. Viola. Bouquets for every occasion! proclaimed one side of it, followed by an address and a phone number. On the other side a few words in English had been carefully typed: His peace passeth understanding.
    There was no name. Nothing to indicate who the sender was.
    His peace passeth understanding? It had to be biblical. Some sect that did missionary work in a slightly bizarre way? Like the Social Democrats and their red roses . . . but no. The sects stuck little pamphlets into people’s hands, printed on cheap paper; they didn’t shower them with elaborate bouquets. There had to be several hundred kroner’s worth of flowers here. It made no sense. She stared hostilely at the white, wax-like petals surrounding each fat, yellow, incredibly genital-looking . . . what was it they were called? It wasn’t just an overgrown stamen. Spadix. That was it. They couldn’t be from Søren, could they? No, she decided. Not with that card.
    It wasn’t just the toilet air freshener effect that bothered her. She felt somehow invaded by those damned lilies and their Bible-quoting card.
    Maybe they aren’t for me at all.
    The moment she had the thought, a rush of relief raced through her. No, of course they weren’t. That was the explanation. No one who knew her at all would think to send that greeting.
    She caught a glimpse of the aid through the open door and forgot that she wasn’t really supposed to get out of bed alone yet—dizziness, the risk of falling, and so on.
    â€œHey,” she shouted in a fairly controlled manner. “Wait a second . . . I think there’s been a mistake.”
    The NA stopped and came back.
    â€œA mistake?” she asked.
    â€œYes. Those can’t be for me . . .”
    â€œBut they are,” said the NA. “I accepted the delivery myself.” Her tone suggested that this kind of mistake did not happen on her watch.
    â€œYes but . . . who from?”
    â€œDidn’t it say on the card?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThere was a messenger,” said the NA. “A young man, I don’t think he spoke Danish. But he showed me a note with your name on it. Nina Borg. So there’s no doubt.”
    â€œGive them to someone else,” said Nina. “I . . . would prefer not to keep them.”
    â€œBut why not? It’s a beautiful bouquet. And so big . . .” There was a hint of disapproval in the NA’s tone. A suggestion that she found Nina’s behavior both peculiar and ungrateful. Nina didn’t care.
    â€œI’m allergic,” she lied. “Put them in the common room if no one else wants them.”
    It helped to get them out of her sight, though the scent hung in the air for quite a while. She looked at the card one more time before crumpling it up. Peace? That was pretty much the last thing she felt.
    Hanne Borg did not look like a woman with one foot in the grave—and hopefully she wasn’t, Søren quickly corrected himself. The short brown hair must be a wig, but you had to look closely to suspect it. Her eyes were some