Consider the Verdict

By Anders Bodelsen

As Bendix left the police station he was photographed. A little click made him look up: a few meters away was a man with a camera in his hand. Bendix was about to go toward the photographer, but a gentle tap on the shoulder made him turn around. A new man asked if he was Martin Bendix. He answered yes before he had a chance to think. Then he added: Who are you? The photographer took another picture.
    The man who had tapped Bendix on the shoulder introduced himself as a reporter from a Copenhagen newspaper.
    "Is this legal?" Bendix asked, and pointed at the photographer.
    "Of course it´s legal. Mr. Bendix, can you tell us anything that we don´t already know? Perhaps I could invite you to have a cup of coffee with me?"
    "How do you know my name?"
    "That´s not hard to find out. I thought we could have a little talk over a cup of coffee or whatever you might feel like having. You´ve driven Annie after all, and I would like to do a background story, something about what kind of a person she was."
    It took Bendix a while to get rid of the reporter and in the meantime the photographer took more pictures. Bendix considered going after the photographer to try to get the film out of the camera, but realized that it would be two men against one; and besides, that would only give them more to write about. Where did they get his name? Maybe it wasn´t so difficult in a small town with talkative policemen. Did they know that he had already been questioned two times? If they had known that, they would certainly have asked what he had been questioned about rather than asking him to tell about the dead girl.
    Bendix walked down to the train station. It really amazed him that he had driven Annie as recently as the Sunday before last. He certainly remembered it as being much longer ago. But now something occurred to him, and he would remember to tell them if they contacted him again - which they would undoubtedly do since there were, after all, those three blank days in the driver´s log to explain. Enoch had not had any time to look at that during their conversation. Yes, the last time he had driven her - and that had been Sunday then, the ... the third of October it must have been - the last time he had driven her she had asked to be driven "right up to the door." Meaning that he should drive into the courtyard and stop outside the front door of her house. He had mentally calculated the size of the courtyard before he did it. It was one of those walled-in courtvards that are so small that it is difficult to turn around. But he bad calculated correctly that in Annie´s parents´ yard he could just manage to turn the car around without too much trouble, and so he had driven her - right up to the door- as she had requested. He would remember to tell them that so they could see that his memory was not totally hopeless.
    Ring´s Tanus was parked outside the station and he hesitated about going in. They had all four been in for questioning now; and Willumsen, Ring, Tove, and Mrs. Justesen probably knew that the police´s interest was focused on him today. In a way, he didn´t feel like seeing any of them - but least of all Ring, for some reason or other. Tove was on duty, and he could imagine her and Ring having a somewhat vulgar discussion of developments in the case. Ring, who undoubtedly had his driver´s log in perfect order, and Tove, who was always ready for risqúe conversation.
    Suddenly his legs began to give way under him and he had to sit down quickly on the bench in front of the train station. He had had only three hours´ sleep, and nothing but two cups of coffee to start the day on - the second a cup of instant coffee that he had put too much sugar in. He lit a cheroot and felt his legs stop trembling. The hot dog stand at the station was not open yet, but in a little while he would go and buy a candy bar at the kiosk.


From: Consider the Verdict, Harper & Row, 1976

Translated by Nadia Christensen