Glenda

— Here is a list of all the married influential businesswomen in Copenhagen. Three hundred and forty people. According to graphological analysis, only ten were suitable. Of these, only three do not have an alibi for last night.

— Wow. When did you get everything done?

— The guys have been working on this issue since early morning. In addition, our database is simply huge.

— But then, why are we going to Rigshospitalet?

— Because none of the list fits.

— What does this mean?

— Bro, give Glenda a package with photos, please. — Iver was driving, and Jack handed over some kind of yellow envelope.

Glenda quickly unpacked it and began to look at the photos of the “criminals.”

One depicted a forty-year-old mother with a curvaceous figure surrounded by five children of the same age. Her happy face shone with confidence in her homely comfort.

On the second one, two retired spouses were cooing; on the wife’s hand there was a ring with a “kohinoor”.

The third was very young, in the photo she stood surrounded by thugs and bodyguards, and her face strongly resembled the daughter of a tycoon. It is obvious that all three shots were taken by a secret observer, since they hardly looked like they were staged.

— And why is none of them suitable?

— Because the bullet was directed from above, which means he was a tall man, taller than the victim by a full foot.

— It could have been one of the beauty's bodyguards in red.

— Perhaps, but as soon as we come to them with interrogations, their lawyers will quickly bury us under a pile of dirty money. Moreover, no one will give us permission to detain without serious evidence.

— Okay, then we have a chance to find out everything at Rigshospitalet.

— Hope.

Gray August Copenhagen looked strangely like London at this time of year. It even seemed to Glenda that she had never gone anywhere, but the nasty Danish language on the walkie-talkie quickly brought her back to reality.

An enormous multi-storey building made of granite tiles with metal crossbars looked menacingly at the three who drove up in a BMW.

A security guard in a black robe and constantly sniffling led them to the third floor to the office of the Hospital Manager. The pale yellow walls, the smell of medicine, and the patients slowly walking down the halls made Glenda remember her mother's death ten years ago. Then she and her father visited her every day after school. The cancer consumed all her tissue, so during the last days of her life, tormented by unbearable pain and living only on morphine, Mrs. Miller was practically unconscious. Glenda cleared her throat, choking on the wet lump in her throat. “You can't cry. I mean business. Everything here is already quite difficult, it would be completely risky to go limp.”

— Wait here, Mr. Johanson will call you himself! — he gloomily abandoned the guard and left.

— Yeah, it’s a gloomy atmosphere here. — Jack shuddered either from the cold or from fear.

— As in all medical institutions. Who likes to be sick? Why are you afraid of white coats? — Iver became interested, because he finally had the opportunity to make fun of his partner.

— No, I just hate hospitals. — the short cop frowned.

— Come here, I’ll fix your teeth and give you an injection. — Iver, like a teenager who wanted to have fun with his friend, stretched his hands towards him, playing himself as a creepy doctor. He began to imitate a dentist who is reaching into a patient’s mouth, and the “youngsters of one minute” were almost fighting, joking with each other about who would inject whom first, when suddenly someone’s voice was heard.

Mr. Johanson, like a strict professor who caught two rowdy students before class, cleared his throat and said:

— Gentlemen, please come to my office.

The adults quickly put on a decent appearance, and Glenda rolled her eyes.

“Like little ones. This is probably the only way they manage to maintain a healthy psyche, constantly working among corpses and cruelty.”

— I'm listening to you, Mr. Larsen. I was informed that you need information on all students who were assigned to the hospital.

— That's not entirely true. We only need a specific person.

— And who?

— Jornas Kronwood.

— Oh, a completely stupid young man. No desire for medicine. Only a constant desire for power and money. In our business this is impossible. If you have no desire to treat people, then even if you are the most skilled neurosurgeon, you will not see money. Sooner or later, medical error or negligence will close the path to freedom, wealth and fame forever.

Glenda almost began to defend the deceased, because he did not seem to her either stupid or vain, this old administrator thought a lot about himself: to make such conclusions without knowing the full picture is where arrogance lies, but Iver got ahead of her.

— Tell me, who paid for his education, since he is still at the faculty?

— What kind of rudeness do you allow yourself, Mr. Larsen? Only incorruptible people work in my hospital! No bribes, everything is done through exams. — the manager, red as a lobster, hissed with anger.

— We are well aware that last year Mr. Cronwood failed his annual exams. But as we know, he continues to study to this day. — the tall Scandinavian continued unshakably. — What do you think, Mr. Johanson, what will the University College do with you if it finds out about such illogicality? Will it hardly consider it a misunderstanding?

— How dare you threaten me? — the man at the table was literally exploding.

— Mr. Johanson, we only need the name of the person who paid for his studies. Give us a name and we won't tell anyone. — Barely keeping calm, Glenda intervened.

— I won't say anything. Look among politicians, period. — the administrator said more calmly and called security. A couple of seconds later, that same sniffling man entered the office and silently led the trio outside.

— Look among politicians? Now our trail has gone in a different direction. Those three people are not politicians, they are not suitable for us at all.

— You are sure?

— Yes. None of this trio was even close to politics. We're at a dead end.

— What about their relatives?

Glenda's question was new, but incredibly accurate. Iver looked at his friend with such admiration that it was not enough to think about friendly respect, everything looked like love.

Having requested data on their mobile phone, the three with hamburgers and hot coffee from a nearby eatery silently waited in the car for a response from the police station.

— Larsen, you're right. According to our secret sources, Katherine Anderson’s father, Karl Anderson, is going to become the Prime Minister of Denmark, he is from the Social Democratic party. This is my second week in Courchevel. So he definitely has an alibi for last night.

— Got it, bro. Thank you. — Iver hung up the phone and looked dejectedly at Glenda. — What did he tell you?

— Who is he?

— Well, Kronwood? Where do you fly? Or is it still the effect of the sedative? I hope you realized that this was the last time you took this stuff?

— Ugh, you're serious, daddy. — a girl in a purple Armani T-shirt and a black jacket teased him. The movement of the brush added richness to her sarcasm. This is what they do when they accidentally burn their palm.

“I actually forgot for a while about our conversations with Jornas. Surely they have a clue. Did the fear of my house, on which I wasted a tenth of my fortune, damn it, make me forget everything that happened in the last three days before?! But there was something interesting there.”

— Jornas has a brother.

— So. We know he is in the house of prosperity. And what? How can a madman help us?

— Let's find out. I suggest you talk to him right now.

For a long time, Glenda again wanted to enjoy life, to believe that there was still hope, but these visions of mutilated body parts could not leave her even for a minute: either the memory of them, or new hallucinations haunted the girl’s tired mind.

A gray day, dank like an autumn day, forced me to admit to myself that there is little light in this world, that these are thickets of thorns and nettles that have grown to the very sky, you cannot get out of them or break through without the help of friends and relatives. There is only one way, to fight yourself and make others fight.

The persistent rain poured down on the car windows, only occasionally allowing one to see passers-by, buildings, and other cars. Glenda, who had never visited a single museum in Denmark during her stay here, was now trying to look at at least something along the way.

Beautiful old houses alternated with modern high-rise buildings. People crowded at crossroads under umbrellas, in plastic raincoats, and some patiently endured the heavenly streams without anything.

Suddenly, at the crossroads, Glenda once again saw a frightening sight. She was numb.

Horror forced her to let out a short, sonorous breath.

Neither Iver nor his partner noticed such a reaction; the car was noisy from the rain drumming on the roof.

A man near a traffic light in a cap stood without a face or hands and stubbornly looked into her face. Next to him, a little girl with a grinning face looked more like a freak after a failed operation, but still without a superficial layer of skin. “Like a burn? But from what?”

Thoughts began to fill her frightened mind, and gradually Denmark’s guest finally came to her senses.

"What am I doing here? Why do I feel so bad here? Maybe it's the north wind that's bad for your health? Meningitis seems to cause problems with the brain.”

Tormented by thoughts about her visions, Glenda was driving in a car with two men, one of whom she had already seriously fallen in love with. And Jornas will forever remain in her memory as a kind and vulnerable boy, but who taught her to restrain his malice. If she hadn’t pressed him so hard that evening, they wouldn’t have argued and nothing would have happened.

— We've arrived.

The Grundtvig Church, built in the style of expressionism mixed with late Gothic, met with its severity and seemed to say: “Everyone who enters will never leave the same. Your sins will remain here forever.”

Covering their heads with jackets, the trio ran up the stairs and burst through the brick-red door. On Friday at four o'clock in the afternoon there was a communion service for tourists. A pastor in a white alb and green fabric with yellow stitching, in Lutheranism this is called stola, stood at the altar and distributed bread and wine to everyone who knelt near the fence.

A man in a black shirt and trousers, with a white insert on the collar, apparently a deacon, approached the guests.

— Greetings, brothers and sister. How can I serve you?

— We would like to get to the House of Welfare, our relative lies there.

— It will be my pleasure to accompany you. But first you need to cleanse yourself of your sins, leave them to Jesus our Lord. Everyone needs a Savior. — the slow, peaceful communication of the servant of God irritated Glenda. She didn't like churches.

— What does it mean?

— This means that you need to take communion.

— Oh no, thanks. I'm not very pious. — the girl giggled nervously. — Christ, Buddha, Mohamed, all good guys, but, unfortunately, I didn’t know them, and I won’t trust them with my sins.

Here Iver not very delicately poked her in the side with his elbow, hinting with all his appearance to shut up.

— Yes, of course, we will definitely take communion. — Jack concluded, and all three took their turn at the altar.

— I am an atheist. — Glenda whispered to her companions when the intrusive deacon was no longer around.

— We do too, but this is the only and easiest way to get to Yornas’s brother.

The girl just sighed resignedly, but agreed.

The pastor's hands touched her neatly laid head and he muttered something in Danish. “Prayer,” Glenda concluded. Then he asked her in English if she agreed to accept the body of God and drink the blood of God to atone for her sins. Glenda nodded.

The dry, thin flour tablet — prosphora — quickly melted on the tongue, leaving behind a pleasant aftertaste, and the cold monastery wine flowed down my throat, parched from fear.

"And it's all? And I was afraid. Nothing wrong, very tasty.” As soon as she calmed down, she suddenly felt a salty metallic taste in her mouth and the smell of rotten meat. She tried to swallow, but her gag reflex took over and the food she had eaten came out.

Bloody vomit with some contents very reminiscent of a tongue lay on the stone floor, causing Glenda to have a new attack of primitive horror.