Murder at the Circle

By Dan Turèll

One cold winter Monday evening in Nørrebro in Copenhagen, Dan Turéll´s journalist detective witnessts the murder of a young woman.

It made a lovely front page, as good as the one, as the editor-in-chief Otzen put it later in the more informal context of the canteen, that "wrote press history".
    But nothing came of it. Not unless you count the innumerable and equally useless complaints we received from readers on the following days. They were as richly varied in attitudes and intelligence as is the general mentality of the population of Denmark.
    Various anonymous as well as signed letters were of the opinion that objectively, you had to take it into consideration that crime waves of this kind had not been seen in Copenhagen before the arrival of guest workers in the country. "In their own countries," wrote Kurt Jørgensen, Præstvej 34 C, Ballerup, on a great many people´s behalf, "human life counts for nothing. Is it now to be the same here, or are we to clean up Denmark before it is too late?"
    The chairman of the Association of Guest Workers eloquently allowed himself to draw attention to the fact that there "were bad men in all countries", which caused a large number of readers to reply that as he was so obviously dissatisfied with Denmark, he could just go back to Arabia - no one had asked him to come nor was there anything stopping him leaving.
    A not exactly sensationally successful young rock musician admitted in an interview with an illustrated weekly that he had had a relationship with Anne Lise and in that connection was able to produce a photograph of her on the beach in Gilleleje in a bikini, a photograph which must have brought him in a thousand or two from the magazine. However, a colleague told me the young man had demanded an in-depth photo-reportage of his coming LP, A Cold World, as a condition of his collaboration. If Ehlers understood why people were occasionally sickened by the police commissioner, I, for my part understood brilliantly why some people thumbed their noses at the concept of "the press".
    The minor everyday informers soon sprang into action. A torrent of letters to the News as well as to Ehlers at the police station in Halmtorvet came from people who suspected their neighbours of being involved in the murder, either because the neighbour had not been at home the previous monday or because he had been so nervous recently, or because he always regarded you with such a peculiar flickering look as if he hadn´t the courage to look you straight in the eye.
    But nothing came of anything. The week went by slowly, but was primarily a strain on the muscles: the constant drizzling rain was replaced by a hard frost, reducing the number of trains running, and the inhabitants of Copenhagen could not go on thinking about either Monica Lykke or Anne Lise Lund. Why should they, for that matter? "Life goes on", as they said to each other.
    I was not allowed to write the only other information I had.
    Anne Lise Lund had been pregnant.
    Dr. Bang had told Ehlers on the actual night of the murder, and Ehlers had told me later.
    "I daren´t say so," he confessed. "Two young girls, that´s bad enough, but both of them pregnant - that would put the whole city in panic. Are you mad? It would affect the birth rate. It could result in involuntary abortions! I didn´t even tell her mother. The impression she gave me was that it wouldn´t interest her."
    "Hadn´t she the right to know?"
    "What good would that do?"
    "We-ell..."
    So to sum up, yet another unsolved case in the police archives. Yet another case in which it could safely be confirmed that the state was powerless in all criminal matters except parking offences and riding a bicycle without a light, while others - equally convinced - saw yet another confirmation of the fact that the police needed more manpower and increased founding so that we could all walk the streets in safety - as if anyone had ever be able to do that anywhere.
    But I got my cigar, the traditional reward for excellent work in the interest of the paper, a fat, beautiful, well-shaped cigar wrapped in a fat, beautiful, well-written cheque.
    It´s just what I´ve always said. We all live on violence, death and fornication.



This excerpt first appeared in Danish Literary Magazine nr. 4, 1993

Translated by Joan Tate