Glenda

The forensic policeman approached her again.

— I learned something about the victim. Are you ready?

— Yes. Nothing can surprise me anymore.

— Jornas Kronwood, student at the University of Copenhagen at Rigshospitalet. A call boy from the red light district, he began to play a dangerous game with some rich entrepreneur. He paid for his studies, and in return received intimate services.

Glenda was not one of the people intolerant of homosexuality, but nausea involuntarily rose in her throat, and she vomited right onto the lawn. Fortunately, they had long since moved away from the crime scene so that it would not be attributed to evidence.

— But he didn't look gay? I slept with him.

— We do not know the name of the businessman. There is only the testimony of his colleague. The investigator called the number in the victim's phone book and spoke with him. All kinds of notes and gifts from a person whose name is not shown anywhere. It could also be a woman.

— Clear. But you can call the hospital where this guy arranged for Jornas. They should know who is transferring money to their account. — Now Glenda’s cheeks were already pink, she no longer looked like a grief-stricken friend. Iver Larsen looked at her with admiration again. This happens when only men are present at a political evening, and suddenly someone’s wife, who knows absolutely nothing about politics, begins to say smart and very useful things. — Take me with you.

— Do you want to participate in the investigation?

— Yes. They killed my boyfriend. Besides, I definitely don’t want to go home. Please, please, please. — A girl with the figure of a fashion model and long, slightly tangled black hair folded her brushes into a prayer lock, and her eyes looked pitiful, so Iver, after hesitating for a few seconds, finally gave up.

— Okay, you will go with me to the station, give your testimony, and then I will take you to my place. I'll go ahead and collect evidence myself.

“Okay.” Glenda agreed, but not to everything. He doesn't need to know now that she's not going to sleep tonight.

The spacious, bright floor with glass-enclosed offices looked very European. The metropolitan police were luxurious with taxpayers' money, although if you look closely, you could see here and there shabby walls, furniture, burnt-out lamps here and there, and the smell of decay.

"What?" Glenda didn't believe herself. There was a disgusting smell of carrion in my nose.

— God! Do you have a morgue here or something? Are you bringing the corpses here right away? — indignant, she plugged her nose with two fingers and looked questioningly at Iver.

— Um. No. — the criminologist was embarrassed. — No one has ever complained about the smell in the room.

“It can’t be, it stinks like…” Glenda stopped and looked in horror at her hand that was holding her nose. From the terminal phalanges right up to the elbow, the arm was like a dried piece of meat: flayed skin, dried blood spreading from torn vessels, tendons cracked and hanging like strings on an out-of-tune guitar. Pale gray bone was visible here and there.

Glenda fainted.

Chapter 4

— Glenda! Glenda! — a familiar and very pleasant voice called her to come to her senses. She opened her right eye. — Finally. What's happened?

— What happened to whom?

— With you, silly. You collapsed in the middle of the office a minute ago, although you looked pretty healthy.

The girl remembered the last picture before fainting and, opening her eyes wider, instantly examined her hand. The hand is just like a hand, nothing unusual, as well as the smell. Pleasant fresh office smell.

— It's probably from hunger.

— Now Jack will feed you. Hey bro, bring your dry sticks here, the lady is hungry.

“Dry sticks? Bro? This is another Iver, whom I don’t know. It seems that he does not communicate very delicately with his colleagues. But I myself am not a pupil of a boarding house for noble maidens. If my father knew who I talked to after his death in order to get to work at the Guardian, what criminal structures I had to deal with. Once I drank vodka and coffee with a drug lord to prove to him that even this was no more harmful than cocaine, and then I concocted an article about our meeting. Only when I earned three thousand a month did I become addicted to fashionable clothes and stopped looking like a tomboy, otherwise I’m no better than Mr. Larsen.”

Jack, a short, stocky cop in his mid-thirties, brought some pre-cooked fish sticks. Now Glenda really liked the smell, the smell of food, she will finally have dinner.

— So, miss, you are a witness? — Jack began, waiting until Glenda chewed the last bite with gusto.

— Oh, no, God forbid! I arrived late, Jornas was already dead.

— How did you end up there?