Dead Men (Marie and Lotte Book 1) by Mette Glargaard Page A

disorders; I would have to give away such a child.
    When I was only in my twenties, not long after I was raped, I had visited a private hospital to discreetly get sterilized; I would not risk anything and get pregnant. Several doctors had pointed out, at various stages of my life that I could possibly come to regret that I had not had children when I went into menopause and lost my fertility. They did not know me very well; fortunately.
    A child, quiet or not, would pose a threat to the life I had created for myself where I could always do what I wanted. A child would be in the way, a drag and then would grow up and start to question their upbringing and delve into other areas of my life; my morality would be no concern of theirs.
    Some of my contacts had children during our acquaintance. Usually this meant that they were phased out of my network because they were typically rarely able to talk about anything but their babies and their excitement could not give me anything. I felt that I was eaten up by their words, feeling desperate as they tried to make sense of the chaos that it was to reproduce.
    The hunt is my offspring. The feeling of possessing another person’s will without the person’s knowledge is nourishment for my introverted enthusiasm. I need it. I long to feel the warmth that spreads through my body brought on by success and triumph on my terms.
    I was married once and my husband had been exceptionally wealthy and quite a bit older than me; he wanted children but I did not. When he realized that I would not give in he was furious and beat me and began to talk of a divorce. After a while I begged for him to stay in my life and persuaded him to go on vacation, saying I needed to think and suggested that maybe I could change my mind. We went on a luxury cruise to Alaska with a small exclusive company; a second honeymoon we told acquaintances.
    One night I told him I wanted to go out on deck and at the front of the ship I rubbed up against him, inviting him to take me right there in the freezing cold with the silhouettes of the icebergs in the background. As usual, he could not resist me and I egged him more until I sat up on the railings, my legs wide apart and opened my fur coat. I was naked beneath it, my nipples hard and small and he just shed his own coat, opened his trousers and climbed up to me.
    Balancing on a 5 cm wide piece of white painted metal, he moved inside me and I pulled him deeper, whispering his name and he was soon lost in the excitement. Once he had finished, cramped and out of breath and leaning on the railings, I had simply slipped down, grabbed his ankles and tipped him over the side; amazingly easy. The icy water engulfed him in no time; there was no fighting, no shouting and I guessed that the cold had killed him almost immediately.
    Mikael’s body was never found; only his coat, which he’d thrown on the deck. I left it there to sow the idea of a heart attack or suicide; I’d decided that was a better option than throwing it to him to ward off the cold.
    In consultation with the lawyer who dealt with his will, I created a fund that gave financial support to the survivors of people who had disappeared on cruises; apparently it was not an unknown phenomenon. When I found that out it was a cause of much private amusement as I considered meeting all the other women who might also have tipped their men overboard.
    The fund was financed by just a very small fraction of the assets that had been created by my deceased husband exploiting and cheating unsuspecting investors; I felt no guilt seeing the money transferred to my own account.
    I mourned for a year, or so it seemed to the outside world, wearing black the few times I left my apartment; I was keeping a low profile just in case. Considering how well known he was I was a little scared of the attention his death might bring from the authorities, but I felt no remorse and certainly no need for the recognition of my accomplishments. To