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at this moment.
    She pulled a mobile from her pocket. She had removed it from the dead man’s pocket while Peter had gone up the cliff to get the police.
    She turned it over and over in her hand but couldn’t bring herself to open the menu, even though it was still switched on. For a moment she wondered at humanity and its ability to adapt. She had never stolen anything in her entire life, and here she was with a dead man’s phone in her hand. Perhaps this was what survival felt like: you existed in a frozen zombie land. Other rules applied here. She wondered if that was true for Peter Boutrup as well.
    She left the room, locking it behind her, and put the mobile in the kitchen drawer. On her way back to the sofa, she had to clutch the back of a chair for support. She was tired. But she wasn’t too tired to wonder what it was he had survived.

8
    S TINGER’S SISTER, E LISABETH Stevns, had, to put it mildly, gained a lot of weight since Peter had last seen her. Fat bulged through the grey track suit; the top seemed too short and the trousers too tight. Blonde hair and dark roots were arranged in a messy pile on top of her head. When she bent down, he could see the tattoo on the small of her back, a psychedelic design a few centimetres above her bum crack, which was also revealed. But her face was pretty and her smile forgiving in face of life’s unpredictability, which included a useless brother with a criminal past and future.
    â€˜Here. Go on, take it all! I’m done with him! He can stay with you, can’t he?’
    She rummaged around for Stinger’s few belongings scattered around the flat in Teglværksgade in Århus: T-shirts, dirty underpants, jogging bottoms, a belt, a couple of porn mags and a pouch of tobacco. As she located the items, she stuffed them into a yellow Netto bag. Finally, the whole bag was shoved into Peter’s arms.
    She was panting from the effort, and brushed the hair from her face. There was a packet of crisps and a half-empty tub of Haribo’s Matador Mix on the coffee table. She took a couple of crisps from the bag and ate them noisily.
    â€˜I’ve done everything I could do for him. Two months! And not a bloody ØRE from him. The moment he lays his hands on some cash, he’s out of here. He only came back for a quick shower.’
    Peter took the cash to be the five hundred kroner he’d given Stinger with his coat, beanie and gloves.
    â€˜So where is he now?’
    â€˜Where do you think?’
    She sent him a knowing look.
    â€˜Anholtsgade? Lulu and Miriam?’
    A smile flickered in her eyes. She shook her head at her incorrigible big brother and took the Netto bag back from Peter.
    â€˜That’s a pretty good guess.’
    The financial crisis was having an impact, and Lulu’s half-days at the massage parlour had been reduced to once a week because people were short of money. She and Miriam spent most of their time running the brothel in Anholtsgade. The two of them serviced the customers, and they – the customers – didn’t grow on trees, or queue around the block, these days.
    â€˜They’re not exactly lining up,’ as Miriam said, letting him in. ‘We may have to do some retraining.’
    Peter kissed her on the corner of her mouth, which was red and heavily pencilled but capable of affection when the mood took her.
    â€˜Happy New Year! You’d make great nurses or French maids.’
    Miriam pulled a face at him.
    â€˜I’m looking for Stinger. You know, the tattooist.’
    Miriam adjusted the lipstick at the corner of her mouth with her finger.
    â€˜He’s down at the massage parlour with Lulu. They’ll be here later.’
    She examined his face.
    â€˜You look tired. Why don’t you stay and have some chicken with us?’
    She pulled him in from the stairwell. He relaxed the moment he crossed the threshold, as if someone had helped him remove a heavy rucksack