'Thank you, Birthe,' said Kortmann. 'Henning?'
The man from the fiction section leaned forward with his elbows on the table. The light from the fluorescent lamps revealed that his greying hair was very thin on top of his head, and little beads of sweat were visible on his scalp. His eyes kept blinking erratically like defective windscreen wipers, making him appear unnecessarily nervous.
'My name is Henning Petersen. I'm forty-two years old, and I work in a bookshop on Kultorvet.' His dark eyes flickered from Jon to Katherina. 'I'm single, as we say nowadays, and I'm fond of cooking and going to the theatre – in addition to books, of course.' He smiled self-consciously. 'I've been active for over thirty years, and I'm the Bibliophile Society's treasurer.'
He leaned back in his chair and nodded to the next person in line, a woman of about thirty who was holding hands with a man of the same age. Both were a bit stout. They radiated great joy, maybe because they were together.
'My name is Sonja,' she began in a bright, somewhat piercing voice. 'And this is my husband Thor.' She lifted his hand in triumph. 'I met him through the Society almost three years ago. We're both teachers. Thor works at a school in Roskilde, while I'm at Sortedam School right over there.' She gestured with her hand past Katherina. 'We don't have any specific tasks within the Society, but we always show up at the reading sessions, when it's necessary.' She turned to look at her husband. 'Your turn, Thor.'
Thor cleared his throat behind his big, full beard.
'I don't think I have anything to add – after that,' he said and gave a brief chuckle, while his wife chimed in with a shrill squeal.
The next person in line was a teenage girl who blushed bright red and looked down at her hands.
'My name is Line,' she said in a low voice. 'I only became a member a month ago, so…' She shifted her gaze to the next person, the man with the Asian features whom Katherina had seen in the non-fiction section. Narrow, rectangular glasses framed his dark eyes, which were turned towards Katherina. His Asian features made it hard to guess how old he was, but she thought he had to be in his mid-twenties.
'The name is Lee,' he said with no trace of an accent. 'I'll spare you my first name, since most people can't pronounce it correctly anyway. For my day job I work in the IT field as a software engineer, if that means anything to you. I try as much as possible to help the Society on that front, but it's not as if we're expanding via the Internet or using IT in that way,' he remarked, with regret in his voice. 'So I don't do much other than collecting data. Well, I guess that's all,' he concluded and nodded at Katherina.
She cleared her throat and was about to introduce herself when Kortmann cut her off.
'Thank you for the introductions. Unfortunately, not everyone was able to be here today. You all know Iversen, but we have three additional members in the Copenhagen area who were unable to make it. But they've all been told that Jon and Katherina will be paying them a visit in the near future as part of the investigation.'
'Could we now hear what this is all about, Kortmann?' asked Henning Petersen, clearly annoyed.
'Yes, you can,' said Kortmann, looking at Katherina for the first time that evening before he continued. 'The receivers feel thatwe are the source of what's been happening lately, that in thebest case scenario we may have a traitor among us.'
12
From his seat next to Kortmann, Jon had an excellent view of the reactions of everyone present. Lee's expression didn't change and he kept his eyes fixed on Kortmann, as if he were waiting to hear more. The teenage girl, Line, looked as if she didn't know how to react, and her flitting eyes sought help from the faces of the others. But there wasn't much help to be found there. The married couple stared at each other in shock, for the first time without smiles or romantic sentiment, while the librarian looked down at her hands, which were shaking slightly. Only Pau looked unconcerned. The whole situation actually seemed to amuse him.
'What do you mean, "In thebest case scenario, we may have a traitor among us"?' Henning Petersen wanted to know. He spoke the words slowly and with his eyes narrowed, as if it were taking all his concentration, but not for a moment did he take his gaze off Kortmann.
Katherina abruptly leaned forward.
'That it's not the receivers who are behind these events,' she replied before Kortmann had time to respond. 'And if it's not the receivers, then it must be you, the transmitters, but since you deny any knowledge of it, you're either lying or there are one or more traitors among you.' Katherina paused to take a breath. Jon watched her from the corner of his eye. She kept her green eyes stubbornly fixed on Henning; her expression was neutral but her breathing revealed how upset she was, and her chin with the little scar was trembling faintly. 'Of the two possibilities, we regard the latter as a more likely scenario than the former.'
Henning stared at her. His eyes blinked involuntarily, as if they couldn't believe what they saw.
'Ah, now I remember you,' he exclaimed. 'You're Katherina, right? The receiver?' He didn't give her time to reply before he went on: 'And one of the best, from what I've heard.'
Jon noticed that Katherina's cheeks turned a bit pink. She nodded and sent a defiant look towards Kortmann before she again spoke.
'That's right. My name is Katherina. I'm a receiver and have been for fifteen years now. Ten of those years I've spent with Luca Campelli and Svend Iversen, and they deserve all the credit if my powers happen to be better than most.'
'Okay, no offence,' said Henning, raising his hand. 'It wasn't meant to be an accusation.'
'No one should have any doubts as to Katherina's loyalty,' Jon interrupted. 'I saw how she fought the flames last night, and she's really the one you should thank for the fact that the bookshop didn't burn to the ground, not me.' Katherina leaned back with her arms crossed as everyone now turned their attention to Jon. 'Kortmann has asked me to undertake an investigation of recent events, including my father's death, and there's no one else I'd rather have helping me than Katherina. Right now she's the only one I trust.'
Looks were exchanged around the table, but most nodded their approval to both Jon and Katherina.
Kortmann cleared his throat.
'As Jon said, he's going to carry out an investigation among us, but also among the receivers. The purpose is to find out who's behind the attacks we've experienced lately – whether we like what he finds out or not.'
'But…' Birthe began hesitantly. 'Could anyone besides a receiver be responsible for Luca's death? No transmitter would be capable of provoking heart failure like that.'
'I wouldn't say that,' replied Henning calmly. 'A transmitter's powers could very well cause an elevation in the pulse and other physiological reactions in a listener. But no one has yet exhibited powers that are strong enough to kill someone outright in that way. Besides, it would be relatively easy to protect yourself against such an attack.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'All you'd have to do is cover your ears.'
'Forgive my ignorance,' said Jon, 'but is that all? Covering your ears?'
Henning nodded. 'A transmitter's powers depend on having the text heard by a listener. It's the text combined with the emotions that it evokes that open the channel and make the person in question susceptible to the Lector. So the best defence is to cover your ears, or simply walk away.'
'Does that mean we can rule out that it was a transmitter who murdered my father?'
'Well, it's very unlikely that it was done by using a transmitter's powers – unless Luca was tied down, but there was no sign of that, was there?'