The Marco Effect: A Department Q Novel Read online

  3

  Autumn 2010

  The yellow van came and collected Marco in front of the scaffolding on Copenhagen’s Rådhuspladsen at precisely five in the afternoon, as always. This time he had waited twenty minutes in the square outside the town hall to be on the safe side. If he wasn’t there, ready when the van arrived, they would drive on without him. And if he had to join the city’s commuters on the S-train and the bus instead, they would beat him. The very thought was enough, not to mention the possibility of sleeping a whole night in some damp basement passage, for the weather was far too cold.

  So Marco was never late. He simply hadn’t the guts.

  He nodded to the others in the van who were sitting with their backs against the walls, but no one nodded back. He was used to that. They were all dead tired.

  Tired of the days, of life, and of themselves.

  Marco studied the group. One or two were still wet from the rain and sat shivering with cold. If he hadn’t known better he might have taken several of them to be ill, skinny and consumptive as they looked. It was no cheerful sight, but then not much was, on a clammy November day in Denmark.

  “How’d you do today?” asked Samuel, who was leaning against the wall behind the cab.

  Marco counted in his head.

  “I made four separate deliveries. The second time alone was over five hundred kroner. I think about thirteen or fourteen hundred in all, with the three hundred I’ve got in my pocket.”

  “I did about eight hundred,” said Miryam, the eldest of them. She always drew a sympathetic response with her bad leg. That kind of thing was good at boosting turnover.

  “I only got sixty,” said Samuel, in such a quiet voice that everyone heard him. “No one wants to give me anything anymore.”

  Ten pairs of eyes looked at him with pity. He was in for a hard time once they got back to Zola.

  “Then take this,” Marco said, handing him two hundred-kroner notes. He was the only one to do so, for there was always a risk that one of them would snitch to Zola. As if he didn’t know.

  Marco knew what was wrong with Samuel. Begging became a dwindling option once a boy began to look more like a young man. Though Marco himself was fifteen, he still resembled a kid, so things were easier for him. He was small for his age, unusually so, with the wide eyes of a child, his hair fine, skin still smooth. Unlike Samuel, Pico, and Romeo, whose skin had become coarse, facial hair sprouting. And while the others had already indulged in their first adventures with girls, many still envied Marco for his slow development, not to mention the keenness of his wits.

  As if he didn’t know all this.

  He may have been small for his age, but his eyes and ears were those of an experienced grown-up, and he was skilled at putting them to use. Very skilled indeed.

  “Father, can’t I go to school?” he had pleaded since he was seven, back when they lived in Italy. Marco loved his father, but on this issue, like so many others, the man was weak. He told him his brother, Marco’s uncle Zola, insisted on the children working the streets. And so it became, for Zola was the undisputed and tyrannical head of the clan.

  But Marco had a desire to learn, and in nearly all the small towns and villages of Umbria was a school where he could stand outside and absorb as though he were blotting paper. So when the sun began to warm the morning air he stood close up at the windows, listening intently, ears cocked for an hour or more before trudging off to scrape together the day’s earnings.

  Once in a while a teacher would come out and invite him inside, but Marco would run away and not return. Taking up the offer would mean being beaten black and blue at home. In that respect, moving around the way they did was an advantage because the schools were always new.

  Then came the day when one of the teachers nonetheless managed to get a firm grip on him. But instead of dragging him inside he handed him a canvas bag as heavy as the day was long.

  “They’re yours, put them to use,” he said, releasing him again.

  The bag contained fifteen textbooks, and wherever the clan settled Marco always found a secret hiding place where he could sit and study them without fear of discovery.

  And so it was every evening and all the days when the grown-ups had other things to do than keep watch over the children. After two years he learned to do sums and to read both Italian and English, and as a result his curiosity was turned toward everything in the world he had yet to learn or understand.

  During the three years they had now lived in Denmark, he was the only one among them who had learned to speak the language almost fluently. He was simply the only one inquisitive enough to bother.

  All the rank-and-file members of the group knew that when Marco was out of sight he was sitting somewhere on his own, immersed in a book.

  “Tell us, tell us,” Miryam in particular would urge, she being the one he was closest to.

  Zola and his associates would be rather less enthusiastic about his reading habits, if they ever found out.

  —

  That evening they lay in their bunks listening to the beating and Samuel’s screams as they penetrated the wall of Zola’s room, percolating down to Marco’s like an echo of all the other injustices Zola had committed. Marco himself was unafraid of thrashings, for as a rule they were milder in his case, thanks to the influence of his father. And yet he clutched his blanket: Samuel was no Marco.

  When once again silence descended and Samuel’s punishment was over, Marco heard the front door open. It had to be one of Zola’s gorillas, scanning the terrain before dragging the beaten and humiliated Samuel across to the house next door where his room was. The clan members were proficient at keeping up appearances and remaining friendly with the Danish families of the neighborhood. On the face of it, Zola was a somewhat reserved, rather elegant individual, and this was an image he definitely intended to maintain. He knew perfectly well that a presentable white man from the United States, speaking English—a language everyone understood—would in many ways be thought of as one of our own. One of those the Danes had no need to fear.

  For that reason, punishment was always administered under cover of darkness behind soundproofed windows and drawn curtains. Similarly, it was imperative that all bruises and other signs of beating were never visible. The fact that Samuel would be aching all over the next morning as he dragged himself up and down Strøget, Copenhagen’s pedestrian shopping street, was another matter entirely, but this, of course, went unnoticed by the masses. Besides, the boy’s miserable appearance was good for business, and all experience showed that genuine displays of discomfort produced a better yield than false ones.

  Marco got up in the dark, crept past the room shared by his cousins and knocked cautiously on the door of the living room. If the response was swift, then all was well. Hesitation, and one could never predict the mood Zola might be in.

  This time almost a minute passed before he was called in. Marco braced himself.

  Zola sat at the tea table like a king at his court, the television news blaring from the gigantic flat screen.

  Maybe he brightened slightly when he realized it was Marco, but his hands had yet to stop trembling. Some of the group claimed that Zola liked to watch when they were being punished, but Marco’s father said the opposite: that Zola loved his flock as Jesus loved his disciples.

  Marco wasn’t so sure.

  For three days and nights, Detective Inspector Carl Mørck sat imprisoned here in this hermetically sealed room in the company of mummified corpses and had . . . said the voice on the screen.

  “Turn that shit off, Chris,” Zola barked, with a nod toward the remote. Within a second it was done.

  He patted his new acquisition, a gangling, thin-legged hound no one else dared approach, then fixed his gaze on Marco’s. “How brave of you to give Samuel money today, Marco. But do so again and you’ll be punished in the same way, do you
understand?”

  Marco nodded.

  Zola smiled. “You’ve earned well for us today, Marco. Sit down.” He indicated the chair opposite. “What do you want, my boy? I suppose you’ve come to tell me Samuel didn’t deserve it. Am I right?”

  And then his expression changed. With a quick gesture he instructed his near-omnipotent henchman, Chris, to pour tea into a mug. When he had done so, Zola nudged it halfway across the table toward Marco.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you here in the living room, Zola. But yes, I wanted to say something about Samuel.”

  Zola was impassive as the words were uttered, but Chris straightened up immediately and turned slowly to look at him. He was big and paler than most in the clan. His sallow presence was sufficient to make most in the flock retreat, yet Marco kept his eyes fixed on his uncle.

  “I see. But Samuel is none of your concern, Marco. You understand that, I’m sure. Today he didn’t come home with enough earnings because he didn’t try hard enough. Unlike yourself.” Zola shook his head and leaned back heavily against the sheepskin that lay draped over the back of the armchair. “You must learn not to poke your nose in where it doesn’t belong, Marco. Listen to what your uncle tells you.”

  Marco studied him for a moment. In Zola’s view, Samuel, unlike Marco, had not tried hard enough. Was he thereby saying it was indirectly his fault Samuel had been beaten? If so, that would be even worse.

  Marco bowed his head and spoke his words as humbly as he was able.

  “I know. But Samuel has become too old now to beg on Strøget. Most people ignore him completely, and those who don’t seem afraid of him and keep their distance. In fact, the only ones who—”

  Marco sensed Zola making a sign to Chris. He looked up at the same instant as Chris stepped forward and slapped his face hard, making his ear ring.

  “I told you, it’s not your business. Do you understand, Marco?”

  “Yes, Zola, but—”

  Another slap, and the message was received. It wasn’t the kind of thing anyone who had been brought up in that environment made a fuss about.

  He got to his feet unsteadily, nodded to Zola, and withdrew toward the door, forcing a smile as he went. Two slaps in the face and the audience was over. And still he mustered some courage as he stood in the doorway.

  “It’s OK to hit me,” he said, lifting his head. “But it’s not OK to beat Samuel. And if you make that bully hit me again, I’ll run away from here.”

  He noted the inquiring look Chris sent his uncle, but Zola merely shook his head, indicating with a sweep of his hand that Marco was to get out of his sight. At once.

  —

  When he again lay under his blanket he tried as always to run through all the unuttered arguments in his mind. If only he had said this or that, things might have turned out for the better. As Marco lay there in the gloom, Zola often became more reasonable in these inner dialogues, on occasion even acquiescing.

  Such thoughts gave solace of a kind.

  “Samuel’s a good boy at heart,” he imagined having said to Zola. “He needs to learn, that’s all. If you let him go to school, then maybe he could become a mechanic and look after the van. He’ll never be a good pickpocket like me or Hector, he’s far too clumsy, so why not give him a chance?”

  And the words in his head made him feel better for a time. But as soon as he turned off the night lamp, the realities came tumbling down upon him.

  The life he and his cousins led was a misery.

  On the face of it they were decent people in yellow-brick houses, but the truth was they were criminals and delinquents with false passports, and in every sense they were in deep water. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, there was more. The worst was that the clan was even more secretive internally and that few of the kids knew where they were from any longer, who their real parents were, or what the adults did when they themselves were out on the streets raking in money for Zola’s empire. Marco knew the clan’s past was nothing to brag about, but the little good there had been had gone to the wall with the advent of Zola’s new style immediately before they left Italy. The only thing remaining from former times was the sum of their malicious crimes. Nothing had improved in any way. There were still only a couple among them who could read and write, though many would soon be grown up. But when they were out on the make they were full-blood professionals, albeit of the kind who saw no reason to boast of their peculiar areas of expertise: begging, pickpocketing, burglary, colliding with old ladies so they dropped their handbags, from fast-moving bikes drive-by grabs of anything hanging from a shoulder or hand that seemed like it might be worth something. They were proficient to their fingertips, and Marco in particular demonstrated talent in every reprehensible domain. He could beg, eyes wide and imploring, with a smile that awoke compassion. He could wriggle through the smallest of windows in private homes without a sound, and out on the street among the busy throngs he was truly in his element. Nimble and adroit, he would relieve his victim of watch or wallet. Never a wrong movement or sound, often gesticulating excitedly to distract attention, always eliciting sympathy.

  There was only one thing about Marco that was neither to his own nor the clan’s benefit.

  He hated his existence, and all that he did, to the depths of his being.

  And so he lay in his bed listening to the other kids’ breathing, trying to imagine the life he did not have. The life that other children had, the ones he saw outside. Children with mothers and fathers who went to work; children who went to school and perhaps received a hug or a small gift every now and then. Children who were given nice food every single day and who had friends and family who came to see them. Children who didn’t always look afraid.

  When he lay with these thoughts in his mind, Marco would curse Zola. Back in Italy they had at least formed a sort of community: play in the afternoons, songs in the evenings; summer nights around the fire, boastful stories of the day’s exploits. The women played up to the men, and the men puffed themselves up, on occasion clashing and exchanging blows, much to everyone’s amusement. That was when they still were Gypsies.

  How Zola had managed to declare himself their indisputable guiding light was something Marco had difficulty grasping. Why did the other adults put up with it? The only things he did were to terrorize them, dominate their lives, and relieve them of everything they had struggled to scrape together. And when such thoughts troubled Marco’s mind he felt shame on behalf of the grown-ups, and especially his father.

  This evening he raised himself onto his elbows in bed, fully aware he had ventured onto thin ice. Zola had not really done him harm back there in the living room, but his eyes had warned of miseries to come. Of that he was certain.

  He knew he must speak to his father about Samuel. He needed to speak to someone, at least. The question was whether it would help. For some time his father had seemed so distant. As though something had happened that had really affected him.

  The first time Marco had noticed it was almost two years before, when his father had sat one morning with his brow furrowed in a frown, passively staring at the food put before him. Marco had thought he must be ill, but the following day he was more energetic than he had been for months. Some said he had begun to chew khat like a number of others, but regardless of what he was up to, the furrows in his brow had come to stay. For some time Marco kept his concerns to himself, but eventually he confided in Miryam and asked if she knew anything.

  “You’re dreaming, Marco. Your father’s exactly the same as he’s always been,” she said, and tried to smile.

  They spoke no more of it, and Marco endeavored to put it from his mind.

  But then, six months ago, he had noticed once more the look on his father’s face, though now a slightly different variant. There had been quite a bit of turbulence throughout the night, but after ten the kids were not allowed to leave their rooms, for
which reason it couldn’t have been caused by any of them.

  Marco had been woken in the middle of a dream by the sound of tumult in the hallway. Judging by the nature of the groans he heard, hard punishment was being meted out. Punishment so harsh that knowledge of what had taken place seemed etched in his father’s face the next morning as though branded there by hot iron. But Marco had no idea who had been on the receiving end, or for what reason. Certainly not a member of the clan, otherwise he would have known.

  Since then, his father had slept in Lajla’s room on the other side of the living room.

  Now, hungry and unable to sleep, Marco threw off the bed covers and made his way down the hall toward the kitchen. As he passed the living-room door he heard his father’s voice protesting vigorously behind it, then Zola’s calming him down.

  “If we don’t put a stop to your son’s rebellion, it will not only mean lost earnings, it will also mean he will be spreading his poison to the other kids. You have to expect he will betray us one day and destroy everything, don’t you realize that?”

  He heard his father protest again. This time with more desperation to his voice. It wasn’t normal for him.

  “Marco will never go to the police, Zola,” he replied, urgency in his voice. “Once I’ve had a word with him he’ll toe the line. He won’t run away either. That’s just something he says. You know how he is. A bright boy with too many ideas in his head. A little too bright sometimes, but never with the intention of doing us harm. Zola, surely you can see that? Won’t you please leave him alone?”

  “No,” Zola replied curtly. It was his call. He had the power.

  Marco glanced down the passageway. Any minute now Chris could appear with the absinthe Zola always demanded for his nightcap. And when he did, Marco mustn’t be caught eavesdropping.

  “You should know that Samuel has told me he’s seen Marco hesitate when he’s pickpocketing and stealing handbags,” Zola went on. “If it’s true, he can put us all in peril. You know that as well as I do. Those who hesitate will sooner or later be caught. And they’re the kind who can’t keep their mouths shut, either, when it really counts. You can’t bank on him being loyal toward us or the clan when things go wrong. That’s a fact.”