Bogman (21 page)

“There are lots of people called Aksel. How do you know he’s the right one?”

“I don’t know,” said Tobias. “But nobody called Aksel got in contact after the appeal. I thought maybe that was because he was up a tree with no television.” He hoped he sounded matter of fact, not sarcastic.

“Don’t be sarcastic, Dad. Yes, there’s someone called Aksel supporting our protest. He came to the camp a couple of weekends ago. The weekend you found the body in the bog.”

“What is Aksel’s surname?”

“I don’t know. I only know him as Aksel. He’s a nice guy.”

“Where does he live?”

“I’ve no idea, Dad.”

“Does Magnus know where he lives?”

Agnes sighed. “I don’t know. Ask him yourself. He’s up at the camp. I’ll get him to call you.”

“Can you give me his number?”

“No, Dad. I can’t do that without asking him first.”
 

“This is urgent, Agnes. We need to talk to Aksel. He may be the only person who knows where Emily Rasmussen is.”

“He may not even be the right guy, Dad. I’ll tell Magnus it’s urgent. OK? Now can we talk about something else? Something more cheerful?”

“So tell me something cheerful,” said Tobias.

“I’m going to have lunch next week with the wind farm developer.” Agnes sounded pleased. “Buying me lunch won’t change my mind, but I’m glad he’s taking the protest seriously. What do you think of that?”
 

Tobias thought Kurt Malling would be charmed by Agnes, would listen with every appearance of interest and would ignore what she said.
 

“I think you should go and enjoy your lunch,” he said.
 

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch, Dad. I know that’s what you think.”
 

“You’re not nervous about it, are you?”

“They’re all relying on me to put up a good show. I wish Magnus could come with me, he’s better at explaining our objections.”
 

Tobias wanted to say Kurt Malling would be instantly prejudiced against the bearded, be-studded Magnus. He bit his tongue.
 

”I’m sure you’ll be fine, pumpkin,” he said. “Where are you having lunch?”

“No idea. He’s sending a car for me.” She giggled.

“Very grand,” said Tobias. “Have fun.”
 

“You too, Dad. You don’t have enough fun in your life.”
 

Tobias thought that might be about to change.
 

When he got back to his flat, he was in the mood to listen to something joyous as well as ordered. The Six Bach Partitas, perhaps. He listened while he ironed a pale blue shirt and draped it gently over the back of a chair. He chose a brown leather jacket from a selection in his wardrobe. He didn’t want to seem too formal, but he didn’t want to be too casual either. He hadn’t gone to dinner with a woman in ages. Was this a date? Did anybody use that term anymore? When was the last time he’d done this? His relationship with Hilde had never involved food. He’d taken the librarian in Silkeborg to a fashionable restaurant on her birthday, when she’d asked him to move in with her or move on. He’d moved on. He put on the blue shirt, buttoned it, adjusted the cuffs.
 

The track ended. The last notes of the piano died away. Tobias switched off the CD player. He hoped Sofie liked Bach.
 

He was meeting her at a canal side restaurant not far from where she lived. As he walked there, he found himself thinking ahead to the your-place-or-mine-for-coffee conversation. He reined back his imagination. Easy now. Take it easy. Sofie could be seeing someone else.

She arrived two minutes after the waiter had shown Tobias to the table. She sank into the chair opposite him with a sigh of exhaustion.

“Hi, it’s been a long day. I got back from France this afternoon.”
 

“How was the chateau?”

“More dead animals on the walls than you could shoot in a lifetime. Tiger skins on the floors. Kurt loves all that. He’s a hunter.”

Of women as well, thought Tobias. He wondered again about Malling’s relationship with Sofie.

“Was it all work and no play?” He hoped she’d been too busy for cosy dinners with Kurt Malling, or anyone else for that matter.
 

“Luckily my job sometimes combines both,” said Sofie. “Kurt does a lot of business on the golf course. I get to play as well, naturally.”

“So you played golf?” Who did she play with? Malling? “With Malling?”

“Kurt got one game in. He had to fly back for a board meeting about the wind farm on the north west coast. I stayed on. I managed to play twice. Lucky me.”

“With the clients?” Tobias aligned his knife and fork with the edges of the table.
 

“With two of our funders and Marcus Thomsen. He’s a keen golfer. We played a four ball.”

“We should have a game sometime,” said Tobias.

“I’d like that,” said Sofie. “A two ball. How often do you play?”
 

“Golf?”
 

“Or anything else,” said Sofie.
 

“Not often enough,” said Tobias. “I’m out of practice.”
 

He straightened the spoon so it also lay exactly parallel to the edge of the table, adjusted the salt and pepper pots, re-positioned the narrow glass vase containing a single pink rose and the lighted candle in its crystal candlestick. The movement of his hands was careful and precise. He smoothed out a small crease in the white linen tablecloth, and squared the menu card. He was conscious of Sofie’s bemused gaze.

“I spent a lot of time in a boat when I was younger,” he said, “A small boat. Everything had to be tidy.”
 

“Shipshape,” said Sofie.

He looked up and smiled. “Yes. Shipshape.”
 

“You’re a tidy person. You play tidy golf. You like things neat and simple.”
 

“I don’t like things out of place.”
 

“Is that why you’re a policeman?”

“Not really. But it’s probably why I stay a policeman.”

“So why did you join the police?”

“I had a wife and a young child and I needed a job. It was as simple as that. What about you? Why are you in PR?”

“There’s a simple answer to that as well. I was at university with my friend Hannah. She started her own business and she asked me to join her.”
 

They sat in silence for a moment. Tobias decided to plunge in.

“How well did you know Emily Rasmussen?”

“What?” Sofie was startled.
 

“Astrid Thomsen’s daughter, Emily Rasmussen. She was the girlfriend of the young man whose remains we found in the bog at Roligmose.”
 

Sofie stared at Tobias in shock.
 

“We called him Bogman,” said Tobias. “But we now know his name was Lennart Praetorius. He was murdered about fourteen years ago. Around the time Emily Rasmussen had a row with her mother and left home.”

Sofie found her voice. “I didn’t know, about Emily’s boyfriend, I mean. I only knew Emily was estranged from her mother.”
 

“Were you friends with Emily?”
 

“Are we having dinner or am I being questioned by the police?”

Tobias put up his hands. “Sorry, but this will save time. One more question and I’ll stop and we can enjoy our dinner.” And everything else that might follow. Easy now. “What do you know about Emily Rasmussen?”

“That’s not a question, that’s an order.” Sofie sat up. “OK. Let’s get this out of the way. I didn’t really know her. I met her for the first time when Astrid and Marcus got married. Dad and I were guests at the wedding. Emily hardly spoke to me all day.
 
Strange, unhappy girl.”

“Why do you say that?”

Sofie shrugged. “She was all brittle and talkative one moment, morose and silent the next. I thought she was neurotic. But as I say, I hardly knew her.”
 

“You suggested to her mother that Emily might be on Facebook.”

“Did I?” Sofie thought for a moment. “Yes. I remember. It came up in conversation one evening. Not that long ago. In the last few weeks, I think. Kurt and I were having dinner with the Thomsens.”
 

“Was it the night I met you? You were with the Thomsens. I was with Norbert Fisker and my stepmother.”

“It was probably that evening. Kurt and Marcus were discussing the wind farm project. I was there as PR. Astrid came because Marcus wanted to cheer her up. She’d just had an email from Emily and it had upset her.”
 

“And you suggested Astrid look for Emily on Facebook?”

“I can’t remember if I suggested it first,” said Sofie. “There was a general discussion about using social media. I think it was Marcus who said maybe Astrid should look for Emily on Facebook. She said ‘I’ve heard people talking about Facebook but I don’t know anything about it and I wouldn’t know where to start’. He said he didn’t know either. So I said to Astrid, ‘I’ll help you.’ I went to see her the next day.”
   

“And you found Emily’s page?”

“I sat down with Astrid and we looked through all the Emily Rasmussens on Facebook. There were at least a dozen. Only about half of them had photographs, so we could rule them out. I thought it was going to be impossible, but as soon as Astrid saw the word ‘Sapmi’ she said, ‘that’s her’. There was no photograph, no personal details. But Astrid was convinced it was Emily’s page because she lived in Lapland. Emily had been to Lapland. She told Astrid she loved it and she’d love to go back there.”

Tobias nodded in satisfaction. It all fitted.

“I feel sorry for Astrid,” said Sofie. “She’s fragile. Whatever happened between her and Emily, it’s cruel of Emily not to contact her.”

“From what you and others tell me, she didn’t want her mother to marry Marcus Thomsen.”
 

“Perhaps she thought it was too soon after her father died.”

“Perhaps,” said Tobias. He paused before adding, “Do you think your father is re-marrying too soon?”

Sophie flushed. “Are we having dinner or is this another interrogation?”
 

“We’re having dinner,” said Tobias.
 

“Since you ask,” said Sofie, in a hard voice, “I think Dad is re-marrying far too soon. He barely knows Inge. She picked him up on a cruise.”
 

“That’s hardly fair,” said Tobias. “They’re both widowed, they’re both lonely.”
 

“A geriatric knocking shop,” continued Sofie. “There’s nothing else to do on a cruise but drink, play cards and …”

The waiter arrived with the menus.

“They’re not geriatrics,” said Tobias. “I’d like to think I’d still be up for it when I’m sixty-five.”

Sophie laughed. She opened the menu. The atmosphere eased.
 

Tobias heard a faint buzz. He swore softly.
 

“What’s up?”

“I’m being called.” He pulled the phone from his pocket. “Yes?” He listened for thirty seconds. He sighed.
 

“Sorry, Sofie. I have to go. They’ve found a woman’s body at the foot of high rise flats in Gellerupparken.”

She stared at him in dismay. “Do you have to go this minute? Can’t you at least stay and eat something?”

“I need to get there before they move the body,” said Tobias. “I’m sorry. Can we do this another time?”

“Not if we never get as far as the first course,” said Sofie.

33.

Tobias was still cursing his luck when he got to Gellerupparken. The estate had been the answer to housing problems in Aarhus in the nineteen-sixties but the concrete tower blocks, four and eight storeys high, had become a problem themselves. The area had high levels of crime and unemployment. Most residents of Aarhus had never been to Gellerupparken. Some residents of Gellerupparken, on the other hand, had never been to other parts of Aarhus. They stayed within their own immigrant communities. The Left said this was because they feared racism. The Right said it was because they wanted to create a state within a state. The Left called the area culturally enriched. The Right called it crime-ridden. The national intelligence service, PET, had it constantly under surveillance. Tobias hoped whoever had died that evening was of no interest to PET. He disliked working with them because they were inclined to keep information to themselves. He hoped whoever had died had no connection to any of the Gellerupparken gangs. Dealing with the gangs was like wrestling with an octopus. He wasn’t optimistic as he drove under a concrete walkway and headed towards the block where the body had been found, but the area was quiet. Four teenage girls wearing headscarves and swinging shopping bags strolled along the pavement. It was twilight. Tobias heard a whistle and saw there was a match on the floodlit football pitch watched by about thirty men. Further on, half a dozen nine or ten year-old boys were kicking a football against garage doors. As Tobias drove past them, the ball smashed a light above the garage. In the side mirror Tobias saw the boys scatter. He turned a corner and saw the police cars and the white Forensics van outside one of the eight-storey blocks. He drew up behind the van. Eddy Haxen was talking to three women, their faces whitened by the blue lights of the police cars winking in the dusk. He acknowledged Tobias with a wave and pointed to a balcony on the top floor of the block. Tobias looked up; saw a camera flash; a tall figure in pale blue overalls; another camera flash.

Eddy broke off talking to the women and came to meet Tobias.

“We weren’t going to call you,” he said. “We thought it was a straightforward suicide.”
 

They ducked under a tape sealing off thirty square metres of rough grass and concrete paving. A technician unfolded a portable floodlight. The brightness briefly dazzled. Tobias blinked; saw Harry Norsk crouching beside a broken body in a yellow T-shirt and black trousers, face down, one arm and both legs at an impossible angle on the blood-soaked grass.
 

“We thought she was a jumper, but there’s something not right,” said Eddy.

Harry looked up when they approached. “Hi, Tobias. There’s a rip in the back of her T shirt.” Harry looked up at the balcony. “I can’t see anything that could have torn it on the way down. Of course it might have been torn already. But I don’t think so.”