Disgrace Read Free Page B

giggled like idiots and Ditlev’s hands rummaged inside Kimmie’s shirt. She, too, was laughing like a lunatic. This shit was some of the best they’d ever had.
    ‘I’m telling the headmaster!’ the boy screamed at them, noticing too late how quickly the older students’ laughter fell silent. A sprightly boy who was used to taunting others, he could have easily outrun them, given how loaded they were. But the thicket was overgrown and the danger he’d put them in too great for them to let that happen.
    Bjarne had the most to lose if he were kicked out, so once they got hold of the little twit, he was the one Kristian pushed forward. And it was he who landed the first blow.
    ‘You know my father can crush your father’s business, if he wants to,’ the boy shouted, ‘so bugger off, Bjarne, you pile of shit! Otherwise it’ll be worst for you. Let go of me, you idiot.’
    They hesitated. The boy had made life terribly difficult for many of his classmates. His father, uncle and big sister had been pupils at the school before him, and were regular contributors to the school fund. Giving the kind of donations Bjarne was dependent on.
    Then Kristian stepped forward. He didn’t have the same financial concerns. ‘We’ll give you twenty thousand kroner to keep your mouth shut,’ he said, meaning it.
    ‘Twenty thousand kroner!’ the boy snorted mockingly. ‘All I have to do is phone my father once, and he’ll send me double that amount.’ Then he spat in Kristian’s face.
    ‘Damn you, you little shit,’ Kristian said, punching him. ‘If you say anything, we’ll kill you.’ The boy fell backwards against a tree trunk, breaking a pair of ribs with an audible crack.
    For a moment he lay there, gasping in pain, but his eyes remained defiant. Then Ditlev came forward.
    ‘We can choke you right now, no problem. Or we can hold you under water in the stream. Or we can let you go and give you the twenty thousand kroner to keep your mouth shut. If you go back now and tell everyone you fell, they’ll believe you. What do you say, you little shit?’
    The boy didn’t respond.
    Ditlev went and stood right over him, curious, searching. The little bastard’s reaction fascinated him. With a sudden movement he raised his hand as if to strike, but the boy still didn’t react, so he whacked him hard on the head. When the boy crumpled in fright, Ditlev struck again, smiling. It was a tremendous feeling.
    Later he told the others how that slap had been the first real rush of his life.
    ‘Me, too,’ Ulrik grinned, shuffling towards the shocked boy. Ulrik was the biggest of them all, and his clenched fist put an ugly mark on the boy’s cheek.
    Kimmie protested weakly, but was neutralized by a fit of laughter that flushed all the birds from the underbrush.
    They carried the boy back to school and watched as the ambulance came to pick him up. Some of the gang were concerned the boy would rat on them, but he never did. In fact, he never returned. According to rumour, his father took him back to Hong Kong, but that might not have been true.
    A few days later, they attacked a dog in the forest, beating it to death.
    After that there was no turning back.

5
    On the wall above the three panorama windows was inscribed the word ‘Caracas’. The manor had been constructed using vast sums earned in the coffee trade.
    Ditlev Pram had instantly recognized the building’s potential. A few pillars here and there, walls of icy, green glass elevated yards in the air. Straight rows of water basins trickling water and manicured lawns with futuristic sculptures stretching towards the Sound were all that was required to create the newest private hospital on the Rungsted coast. Dental and plastic surgery were the specialties here. It wasn’t an original idea, but it was incredibly lucrative for Ditlev and his Indian and Eastern European staff of doctors and dentists.
    After his older brother and two younger sisters inherited the enormous