The Absent One (14 page)

‘Hi, Rose, and welcome to Department Q. I’ve made everything ready for you, you bet,’ said the little traitor.

As Assad pulled her towards the neighbouring room, she gave Carl a telling glance that said,
You can’t get rid of me.
But it damned well took two to tango. As if he could be bought for the price of a pastry and a biscuit.

He glanced at the plastic bags in the corner and then pulled a sheet of paper from the drawer.

Then he wrote:

Suspects:

Bjarne Thøgersen?

One or more of the others in the boarding-school gang?

Johan Jacobsen?

Random murder?

Someone connected to the boarding-school gang?

He frowned in frustration at this meagre result. If Marcus had left him in peace, he probably would have simply shredded the paper himself. But Marcus hadn’t. He’d given Carl a direct order to let the case go; therefore he was unable to.

When Carl was a boy, his father had been on to him. He gave Carl explicit orders not to plough the meadow, so Carl ploughed it. He admonished Carl not to join the military, and Carl enlisted. His crafty father had even tried to steer him towards the lasses. This farmer’s daughter and that farmer’s daughter weren’t good enough, he said, so Carl went after them. That was Carl’s way, and always had been. No one was going to make his decisions for him, which actually made him easy to manipulate. He knew this, of course. The question was whether or not the police chief also knew it. It was hard to imagine.

But what the hell was this really about? How did the police chief even know he was involved with the case? Only a handful of people were aware of this.

He imagined the possibilities: Marcus Jacobsen, Lars Bjørn, Assad, the team in Holbæk, Valdemar Florin, the man from the summer cottages, the victims’ mother …

For a moment he stared off into space. Yes, these people knew, and a bunch of others knew, too, if he really thought hard.

At this point anyone else might have applied the brakes. When names like Florin, Dybbøl Jensen and Pram became associated with a murder investigation, you could quickly find yourself on thin ice.

He shook his head. He really couldn’t give a shit about people’s titles and what favours the police chief owed whom. Now that they’d started, no one was going to stop them.

He looked up. New sounds were emanating from Rose’s office across the corridor. That guttural, peculiar laughter of hers – booming outbursts of it – plus Assad at full throttle. If they kept at it, someone might suspect there was a rave going on.

He knocked a fag from its packet, lit it and stared at the cloud of smoke that enveloped the sheet of paper. Then he wrote:

Tasks:

Similar murders abroad at the same time? Sweden? Germany?

Who from the old investigation unit is still active today?

Bjarne Thøgersen/Vridløselille State Prison.

Accident with the boarding-school pupil at Bellahøj Swimming Centre. Coincidence?

Who from the boarding-school gang can we speak with?

Lawyer Bent Krum!

Torsten Florin, Ditlev Pram and Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen: any current cases? Did anyone working for them report them? Psychological profiles?

Find out about Kimmie, alias Kirsten-Marie Lassen: any next of kin we can speak with?

Circumstances of Kristian Wolf’s death!

He tapped the paper repeatedly with his pencil, before jotting down:

Hardy.

Get Rose the hell out of here.

Thoroughly shag Mona Ibsen.

He glanced at the last line a few times and felt like a naughty, pubescent boy scratching girls’ names into the surface of his desk. If only she knew how heavy his balls got whenever he fantasized about her backside and bouncing breasts. He took a couple of deep breaths, plucked an eraser from his drawer and began removing the last two lines.

‘Carl Mørck, am I disturbing you?’ said a voice at the door, which made his blood boil and turn to ice at the same time. His spinal cord sent five commands through his infrastructure: get rid of the eraser, cover the last line, put away the cigarette, drop the stupid facial expression, close your mouth!

‘Am I disturbing you?’ she said, as his bulging eyes tried to look directly into hers.

They were still brown. Mona Ibsen was back, and he was scared to death.

‘What did Mona want?’ Rose asked with a silly smile. As if it were any of her concern.

She stood in the doorway, steadily chewing on her custard-filled pastry as Carl attempted to return to reality.

‘What was it she wanted, Carl?’ asked Assad, his mouth full. Never before had Carl seen so little custard coating so much stubble.

‘I’ll tell you later.’ He turned towards Rose, hoping she wouldn’t notice his glowing cheeks, which his hammering heart had bombarded with blood. ‘Have you made yourself comfortable in your new digs?’

‘Oh my! You care? Thank you. I suppose if a person hates sunlight and colours on the wall and having friendly people around, then you’ve found the most perfect place for me.’ She elbowed Assad. ‘I’m only joking, Assad. You’re OK.’

Oh joy. This was going to be such a lovely partnership.

Carl rose and laboriously scribbled the list of suspects and tasks on the whiteboard.

Then he turned towards their newly installed wonder of a secretary. If she thought she already had enough on her plate, she had another thought coming. He’d make her work so hard that a job as cardboard-box presser at the margarine factory would seem like paradise.

‘The case we’re working on is a little tricky because of who might be involved,’ he said, glancing at the pastry she was nibbling with her front teeth, like a squirrel. ‘Assad will brief you in a moment. Then I’d like you to put the papers in these plastic bags in chronological order and match them with the papers here on the desk. Then make a copy of the whole shebang for you and Assad – except for the folder here. That’ll have to wait until later.’ He pushed Johan Jacobsen and Martha Jørgensen’s grey folder to one side. ‘And when you’re done with that, find out everything you can about this item here.’ He pointed
to the line on the whiteboard concerning the diving-board accident at the swimming centre. ‘We’re a little busy, so go ahead and make it snappy. You’ll find the date of the accident on the summary page that’s on top in the red plastic bag. The summer of 1987, before the Rørvig murders. Sometime in June.’

Maybe he’d expected her to grunt a bit. Just a tart little remark that would win her a couple more tasks, but she was surprisingly dispassionate. Unmoved, she merely glanced nonchalantly at the hand that held the remainder of her pastry, then shoved it sideways into a mouth that seemed as though it could swallow anything.

He turned to Assad. ‘How would you like to take a break from the basement for a few days?’

‘Does it have something to do with Hardy?’

‘No. I want you to find Kimmie. We need to begin forming our own picture of this gang. I’ll start on the others.’

Assad appeared to be trying to imagine the bigger picture. Himself, hunting for a bag lady on the streets of Copenhagen, while Carl sat, nice and cosy, indoors with the wealthy folks, tossing down coffee and cognac. That was how Carl saw it, at any rate.

‘I don’t understand, Carl,’ he said. ‘Are we continuing with this investigation? Were we not just told to stay away from it?’

Carl furrowed his brows. Maybe Assad should have kept his trap shut. Who knew if Rose was loyal? Why was she down here anyway? He sure as hell hadn’t asked for her.

‘Well, yes, now that Assad has mentioned it, the police
chief has given us a red light on the case. Do you have a problem with that?’ he asked Rose.

She shrugged. ‘It’s OK with me. But it means you’re the one who buys pastries next time,’ she said, lifting the plastic bags.

After Assad had received his instructions, he slunk off. Twice a day he was to phone Carl’s mobile to report his findings regarding Kimmie. He had been given a to-do list that among other things included checking the Civil Registration System, talking to cops on the beat at City Station, Social Services at City Hall, staff at the Red Cross shelter on Hillerødgade and a number of other locations. Quite the assignment for a man who was still wet behind the ears, especially when all they knew so far about Kimmie’s whereabouts came from Valdemar Florin. According to him, she walked the streets of downtown Copenhagen with a suitcase, and had done so for years. Even if you could trust what the man said, this wasn’t terribly specific. It was probably rather doubtful she was even alive, considering the gang’s reputation.

Carl opened the pale green folder and wrote down Kirsten-Marie Lassen’s Civil Registration Number. Then he went into the corridor where Rose was already running reams of paper through the copier in unusually irritating and energetic fashion.

‘We need some tables out here so I can sort the sheets,’ she said, without looking up.

‘Is that so? Do you have a certain make in mind?’ he said, smiling crookedly as he handed her the Civil Registration Number. ‘I need all her personal data. Last place of
residence, any hospitalizations, welfare payments, education, parents’ residence if they’re still alive. Hold off on the copying for a bit. I need this quickly. And all of it, thanks.’

She rose to her full, stiletto-heel height. Her direct gaze at his larynx didn’t feel pleasant. ‘You’ll have the order list for the tables in ten minutes,’ she said drily. ‘I’d go with the Malling-Beck catalogue. They have height-adjustable ones priced between five and six thousand apiece.’

He swept items into his grocery cart half consciously, with visions of Mona Ibsen swirling in his head. She hadn’t worn her wedding ring, which was the first thing he’d noticed. That and how dry his throat got when she looked at him. Another sign that it was getting to be a long time since he’d last been with a woman.

Bloody hell.

He glanced round, trying to orient himself since the Kvickly supermarket’s enormous expansion, just like everyone else who was wandering about, searching for toilet paper where there were now cosmetics. This kind of thing could make a person crazy.

At the end of the pedestrian shopping street, the razing of the old dry-goods shop was nearly complete. Allerød was no longer a quaint little town with small, independently owned shops, and Carl almost didn’t give a toss any more. If he couldn’t have Mona Ibsen, then for all he cared they could level the church, too, and build yet another supermarket.

‘What the hell did you buy us, Carl?’ asked his tenant, Morten Holland, as he unpacked the groceries. He’d had a difficult day, too, he said. Two hours of political science
at the university followed by three hours at the video-rental store. Yes, these were indeed hard times, Carl could plainly see.

‘I thought you might make chilli con carne,’ Carl said, ignoring Morten’s reply that it would’ve been cool if he had bought a little beans and meat.

Leaving him scratching his head at the kitchen table, Carl went upstairs where the nostalgia renaissance was about to blow Jesper’s door out on to the stairwell.

He was in the midst of a Led Zeppelin orgy while splattering soldiers on his Nintendo, as his zombie girlfriend sat on the bed, texting her hunger for contact to the rest of the world.

Carl sighed and thought about how much more adventurous he’d been with Belinda in his bedroom loft in Brønderslev. Long live electronics. As long as he didn’t have to have anything to do with it.

Then he tumbled into his own room and stared blankly at his bed. If Morten didn’t call him down to dinner within twenty minutes, the bed would have already won the round.

He lay down, put his hands behind his neck, and gazed at the ceiling, imagining Mona Ibsen stretching her naked body under the duvet. If he didn’t pull himself together soon, his goddam nuts would shrivel up. Either Mona Ibsen or a few quick fishing trips at the bodegas, otherwise he might as well just sign up for the police corps in Afghanistan. Better to have one hard ball in his skull than two limp ones in his drawers.

An unusually dreadful cross between gangsta rap and an entire town of collapsing corrugated metal houses
thundered through the wall from Jesper’s room. Should he go in and complain, or close his ears, or what?

He continued lying where he was, his pillow stuffed against his head. Maybe that was why he came to think of Hardy.

Hardy, who couldn’t move. Hardy, who couldn’t even scratch his forehead when it itched. Hardy, who could do absolutely nothing else except think. If Carl were in his position, he would’ve lost his mind ages ago.

He looked at the picture on the wall of Hardy, Anker and himself, standing with their arms around each other’s shoulders.
Three damn fine policemen
, Carl thought. Why had Hardy thought otherwise when Carl last visited him? What had he meant when he said someone had been waiting for them at the building in Amager?

He studied Anker’s face. Though he’d been the smallest of the three, he’d had the strongest gaze. Dead now for almost two thirds of a year, and yet Carl could still see these eyes so clearly. Did Hardy truly think that either he or Anker could have had anything to do with the people who killed him?

Carl shook his head. It was hard to believe. Then his eyes panned across a framed photo of him and Vigga, back when she still fancied putting her fingers in his belly-button, then to the picture of the farm in Brønderslev, and finally the photograph Vigga had taken of him the day he’d returned wearing his first, real parade uniform.

He squinted his eyes. It was dark in the corner where the photograph hung, but still he could tell that something about it was not as it should be.

He let the pillow drop and stood up just as Jesper
started a new horror orgy of sound on the other side of the wall. Then he slowly approached the photograph. At first the stains appeared to be shadows, but when he drew closer he saw what they were.

Fresh blood like that was hard to mistake. Only now did he see how it streamed down the wall in thin streaks. How the hell had he not seen it before? And what the hell was it doing there?