Finn Gelf always had something stronger than beer and mineral water at the book fair, so I went through the boxes until I found a bottle of Smirnoff. I took an empty cup, half filled it with vodka and swallowed a large gulp. The acrid taste made me grind my teeth, but I forced down another mouthful. It nearly came right back up again, but I managed to wash it down with what was left of Ironika’s mineral water.
At that moment, Finn opened the door to the cubicle.
‘Are you OK?’
I nodded and he entered and closed the door behind him.
‘Christ, she’s grown tall, hasn’t she?’ His eyes registered the bottle I had left on the table. ‘Listen, I’m really sorry I said that stuff about—’
‘It’s all right, Finn,’ I said and swallowed the last vodka in my cup. The alcohol was starting to take effect. A pleasant sense of lethargy spread through my body. ‘What did you want?’
Finn straightened up and a broad grin transformed his face.
‘The reviews,’ he exclaimed. ‘You’ve got to see the reviews!’ He took out a pile of newspapers with yellow Post-it notes sticking out. ‘Not at all bad … I mean compared to what we’re used to.’ One by one, he placed the newspapers on a small camping table and found the reviews of In the Red Zone.
Four newspapers in total had decided to review the book on the date it was published, which was fairly rare. Literary editors had been allocated extra column inches on account of the book fair, but it had happened to me several times that a few newspapers completely failed to review my books or did so several months after they had been published and then by some random trainee. The four reviews were critical, but not downright repelled as I had expected. One called the book ‘the best Føns since his breakthrough’ and another ‘vintage Føns’ and practically everybody agreed that fans of the genre wouldn’t be disappointed.
‘What have you got to say to that?’ Finn said when he could no longer keep his excitement at bay. ‘Great, isn’t it?’
I nodded, but failed to be carried away by his exhilaration. Neither his words nor the reviews could penetrate into my consciousness after the meeting with Ironika, and the knowledge that my moderate success had cost one woman her life made it impossible for me to celebrate. Instead I poured more vodka into my cup.
‘Party time!’ Finn roared and helped himself to a dash of vodka to which he added plenty of orange juice. ‘Congratulations, old boy!’
Near the stage where I was going to be interviewed, I was met by Linda Hvilbjerg, who gave me a polite hug and we exchanged pleasantries. She looked great. We were roughly the same age, but she looked younger. She was still slim and stylish in a grey suit with a black shirt and high-heeled shoes. Her dark hair was gathered in a bun and she wore a pair of glasses with a square steel frame that gave her a strict secretarial look, straight out of some sexual fantasy. We hadn’t spoken since Media Whore had been published, which was understandable, but she wasn’t even slightly frosty. On the contrary, she seemed positively forthcoming, though it’s possible my level of intoxication clouded my judgement, or she might have helped herself to her own medicine. It wouldn’t be the first time we got high together. In fact, it was something of a tradition.
Two upholstered leather armchairs had been placed on the stage, angled so they faced each other and the audience. Behind the chairs was a blue background on which a flat screen displayed today’s programme. Next: Linda Hvilbjerg in conversation with Frank Føns. In front of the stage were seats for around fifty people and every seat was occupied when we made ourselves comfortable. Sound engineers rushed over to help with our microphones. I wondered if all those people had come to hear about my book or to see this TV darling. The billing on the screen suggested the latter.
Linda Hvilbjerg introduced both of us and described me as one of the genre’s loyal contributors. She was witty and charming, avoided fawning excessively, but kept a good, sober tone.
‘If this interview had a title it would be “Fiction and Reality”,’ Linda Hvilbjerg began. ‘Frank, many of your fans explain their passion for your books by describing them as real and authentic, despite the very colourful depictions of murder.’
I smiled and nodded while I tried to work out where she was going with this. I knew for certain that she had an agenda and her initial politeness was merely camouflage.
‘To what extent is it important to you that your stories seem real?’
‘It matters a great deal to me,’ I replied immediately. ‘Even though my stories are scary, even terrifying and repulsive some might say, then it’s of the utmost importance that the reader will think, this could happen, and if it were to happen, then this is exactly how it would be … it’s often the realism in my books that my readers find most shocking.’
Linda Hvilbjerg nodded. ‘It was certainly shocking to read the newspaper the other day.’ On the screen behind her a newspaper headline flashed up: ‘Woman murdered in Gilleleje Marina’. ‘I can tell those of you who haven’t read In the Red Zone, without revealing too much of the plot, that a woman is mutilated and drowned in Gilleleje Marina.’
My scalp was sweating and itchy and I was suddenly aware of the heat from the spotlight above the stage. The audience was murmuring.
‘Now the police haven’t released much information about the murder yet, but it seems like an incredible coincidence. How do you feel about that?’
I took a sip of my vodka and cleared my throat before I replied.
‘I read that article too,’ I replied. ‘It’s awful that something like that can happen in a lovely place like Gilleleje, but it proves that evil is everywhere, that we’re never safe, no matter where we are or how secure we feel …’
‘But doesn’t the similarity upset you at all?’
‘Of course it does,’ I said and I think I might have snapped at her. ‘But you also have to be careful about jumping to conclusions just because you’ve recently read a book.’ I paused. ‘If you’ve got a hammer, all problems look like nails,’ I quoted. ‘I can’t imagine that every detail of that murder matches the book. It must be a coincidence.’
I hated lying so brazenly and I didn’t think for a moment that I was fooling anyone, certainly not Linda Hvilbjerg. She fixed me with her eyes and I could see that the reporter part of her brain battled with the entertainer part over which one of them would be allowed to continue. Fortunately, the entertainer part won.
‘As I mentioned, your fans regard the realism as the appeal of your books, while your critics claim you’ve written the same book ten times over,’ she said. ‘What have you got to say to them?’
‘That they can’t have read them properly,’ I replied and was rewarded with a few laughs from the audience and a brief smile from Linda. ‘I get numerous letters from my readers stating precisely the opposite. Many look forward to the next book and express how they’re surprised time and time again at the imaginative plots and range of characters …’
‘But, Frank … is it correct to say that every single one of your books follows a particular template, a model you have used since your best-known work, Outer Demons?’
It was a reasonable question and I had no reason to think she was trying to provoke me, I just objected to Outer Demons being referred to as my best-known work yet again. It was as if I would never improve on my breakthrough novel in the eyes of the critics. It had dragged after me like a ball and chain ever since; it rattled every time I tried to move and drowned out my voice, no matter what I did.