Disgrace by Jussi Adler-Olsen Page A

American and three European journals. Not the most prestigious, but they were good enough. ‘It will be published before Christmas. We call the treatment “The Stanislav Facial Correction”.’
    Ditlev nodded. There was bound to be a great deal of money in this, and they were smart, these people. Ultra-professional scalpel technicians. Each earned a salary equal to that of ten doctors in their homeland. It didn’t make them feel guilty, and in that way all those present were equals: Ditlev, who made money from their labour; and the doctors, who made money from everyone else. An unusually advantageous hierarchy, especially since he was the one at the top. And right now he was objectively calculating that one failed operation out of seven was completely unacceptable. Ditlev avoided unnecessary risk. His time at boarding school had taught him that. If you were headed into a shitty situation, you steered clear of it. For that reason he was about to reject the entire project and fire his director for having submitted the articles for publication without his approval, and it was for the same reason that, deep down, he couldn’t think of anything else but Torsten’s telephone call.
    The intercom behind him beeped. He arched backwards to push the button. ‘Yes, Birgitte?’
    ‘Your wife is on her way.’
    Ditlev glanced round at the others. The dressing-down would have to wait, and the secretary would have to put a stop to the articles.
    ‘Ask Thelma to stay where she is,’ he said. ‘I’m coming over. We’re finished here.’
    A glass walkway snaked from the clinic a hundred yards across the landscape to the villa, so you could walk through the garden without getting your feet wet and still enjoy the view of the sea and the beech trees. He got the idea from the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. But at his house, no art adorned the walls.
    Thelma was prepared to make a big scene. Just the kind of thing he wouldn’t want others to be witness to in his office. Her eyes were full of hate.
    ‘I spoke to Lissan Hjorth,’ she said bitingly.
    ‘Hmm, that took a while. Weren’t you supposed to be with your sister in Aalborg by now?’
    ‘I didn’t go to Aalborg, I was in Gothenburg, and not with my sister. You shot her dog, Lissan says.’
    ‘What do you mean, “you”? I assure you, it was an accident. The dog was utterly unmanageable and ran in among the quarry. I’d warned Hjorth. What were you doing in Gothenburg, by the way?’
    ‘It was Torsten who shot the dog.’
    ‘Yes, it was Torsten, and he’s very sorry. Should we buy a new pup for Lissan? Is that what this is all about? Now tell me, what were you doing in Gothenburg?’
    Shadows fell across her forehead. Only an unusually heated temperament was capable of creating wrinkles in her ridiculously tight facial skin, the result of five facelifts, but Thelma Pram succeeded. ‘You gave my apartment in Berlin away to that little nobody, Saxenholdt. My apartment, Ditlev.’ She aimed a finger at him. ‘That was your last hunt, do you hear me?’
    He approached her. It was the only way he could get her to step back. ‘You never used that apartment anyway, did you? You couldn’t get your lover to go with you, could you?’ He smiled. ‘Aren’t you getting a little old for him, Thelma?’
    She raised her head, admirably adept at taking insults. ‘You’ve no idea what you’re saying, you realize that? Did you forget to sic Aalbæk on me this time, since you don’t know who he is? Did you, Ditlev, since you don’t know who I was in Gothenburg with?’ Then she laughed.
    Ditlev was stopped in his tracks by the unexpected question.
    ‘It’ll be an expensive divorce, Ditlev. You do bizarre things – the kind of things that will cost you when lawyers enter the picture. Your perverse games with Ulrik and the others. How long do you think I’ll keep them secret for nothing?’
    He smiled. It was a bluff.
    ‘Don’t you think I know what’s on your mind right