The Absent One (19 page)

‘Shit!’ Torsten exploded.

Ditlev looked at each of them in turn. ‘Helmond was still under the influence of the anaesthetic. No one will believe him.’ He glanced at the floor. ‘It’ll work out. But there’s something else. My man also got a telephone message from Aalbæk. Apparently none of us has our mobiles on.’

He gave them the note and Torsten read over Ulrik’s shoulder.

‘I don’t understand the last part,’ Ulrik said. ‘What does it mean?’

‘Sometimes you can be so damned dim-witted, Ulrik.’ Torsten glared at him disrespectfully. Ulrik hated that.

‘Kimmie’s out there somewhere,’ Ditlev cut him off. ‘You’ve not heard, Torsten, but she was seen at the central station today. One of Aalbæk’s men heard a junkie calling her name. He only saw her from behind, but he’d observed her earlier in the day. She was wearing expensive clothes and she looked good. She’d been sitting at a café for an hour or an hour and a half. He just thought it was someone waiting for a train. At one point she also walked past them at close range while Aalbæk was briefing his men.’

‘Bloody fucking hell!’ Torsten blurted.

Ulrik hadn’t heard this last part, either. It wasn’t good news. Maybe she knew they were after her.

Damn. Of course she knew. It was Kimmie, after all.

‘She’ll get away from us again,’ he said. ‘I know it.’

They all knew that.

Torsten’s fox-face narrowed even more. ‘Aalbæk knows where the junkie lives?’

Ditlev nodded.

‘He’ll take care of her, right?’

‘Yes. The question is whether or not it’s too late. The police already paid her a visit.’

Ulrik massaged the back of his neck. Ditlev was probably right. ‘I still don’t understand the final line of the message. Does it mean that whoever’s investigating the case knows where Kimmie lives?’

Ditlev shook his head. ‘Aalbæk knows the policeman well. If the cop had known where Kimmie lived he would have taken the junkie back to headquarters after paying her a visit. Of course he could still do that later on. We’ll have to consider that possibility. Look at the line above it, Ulrik. What do you think it means?’

‘That Carl Mørck is after us. But we’ve known it all along.’

‘Read it again, Ulrik. Aalbæk writes: “Mørck saw me. He’s after us.” ’

‘What’s the problem?’

‘That Mørck’s begun to connect Aalbæk and us and Kimmie and the old case up into one big patchwork. Why, Ulrik? How does he know anything about Aalbæk? Did you do anything we don’t know about? You talked to Aalbæk yesterday. What did you tell him?’

‘Just the usual, when people get in the way. That he ought to give the policeman a warning.’

‘Bloody fool,’ muttered Torsten.

‘And this warning – when did you think you’d get around to telling us about it?’

Ulrik looked at Ditlev. Since the attack on Frank Helmond it had been difficult to come back down to earth. He’d gone to work the next day feeling invincible. The sight of the deathly frightened and bleeding Helmond had been like an elixir. Every trade and index went his way that day. Nothing could or would stop him. Not even some stupid copper digging into matters that didn’t concern him.

‘I just told Aalbæk he could apply a little pressure,’ he said. ‘Drop a warning or two somewhere where they would make an impression on the man.’

Torsten turned his back to them and stared across the marble staircase that sliced through the foyer. His thoughts on the situation were stirring inside him.

Ulrik cleared his throat and explained what had happened. It was nothing special. Just a few telephone calls and a few splats of chicken blood on a photograph. A little Haitian voodoo. Like he said: nothing special.

Then the other two looked directly at him.

‘Get Visby, Ulrik,’ snarled Ditlev.

‘Is he here?’

‘Half the ministry is here. What the hell do you think?’

Section Chief Visby from the Justice Ministry had long been in pursuit of a better job. Despite his obvious qualifications, he couldn’t count on becoming department head. And since he’d stepped off the beaten path for top lawyers ages ago, thereby eliminating his chances of securing a judgeship in the higher courts, he was now searching
high and low for new bones to chew on before age and misdeeds caught up with him.

He’d met Ditlev on a hunt, and their agreement was that he, in exchange for a couple of favours at work, could prepare himself for assuming the job as their lawyer when Bent Krum soon departed for the eternal happiness of retirement and red wine. The job didn’t come with fine titles, but it did offer short working days and unusually high wages.

On several occasions Visby had proved to be a good man for them. Quite the right choice.

‘We need your help again,’ Ditlev said, when Ulrik led him into the foyer.

The section chief looked around furtively, as if the chandeliers had eyes and the wallpaper ears.

‘Right here and now?’ he said.

‘Carl Mørck is still investigating the case. He needs to be stopped. Do you understand?’ Ditlev said.

Visby fumbled with his dark blue tie with the scallop insignia, the boarding school’s coat of arms, while his eyes skated round the hall. ‘I’ve done what I could. I can’t issue any more directives in other people’s names without the minister getting suspicious. As it stands now, it could still seem like an honest mistake.’

‘Do you need to go through the police chief?’

He nodded. ‘Indirectly, yes. I can’t do anything more with that case.’

‘Do you understand what it is you’re saying right now?’ asked Ditlev.

Visby pressed his lips together. Ulrik could read in his face how he’d already planned his life. His wife expected
something more at home. Time and holidays and everything people dream about.

‘We may be able to get Mørck suspended,’ the section chief said. ‘For a short while, anyway. It won’t be easy after his work on the Merete Lynggaard case. But that shooting incident a few months ago really affected him, so maybe he could have a relapse – on paper at least. I’ll look into it.’

‘I can get Aalbæk to accuse him of assault and battery,’ Ditlev said. ‘Is that something you can use?’

Section Chief Visby nodded. ‘Assault and battery? Not bad at all! But we’ll need witnesses.’

‘I’m quite certain it was Finn Aalbæk who broke into my house the day before yesterday, Marcus,’ Carl said. ‘Are you the one who authorizes warrants for timesheets, or do I do it?’

The homicide chief didn’t glance up from the photos of the bloodied woman who’d been assaulted on Store Kannikestræde. She looked like hell, to put it mildly. The blows sat like blue tracks on her face, the region around her eyes terribly swollen. ‘Am I right to assume your request is connected to the Rørvig murders, Carl?’

‘I just want to know who hired Aalbæk, that’s all.’

‘You’re not investigating that case any more, Carl. We discussed it.’

First-person plural? The dimwit said ‘we’? Wasn’t the homicide chief familiar with first-person singular? Why the hell didn’t they just leave him be?

He took a deep breath. ‘That’s why I’m coming to you, of course. What if it turns out that Aalbæk’s clients are the same people who were suspects in the Rørvig case? Doesn’t that seem significant to you?’

The chief set his bifocals on the table. ‘Listen up, Carl. First of all, follow the police chief’s order. The case led to a conviction; they prioritize differently further up the system. Second, don’t walk in here and play dumb. Do you really think people like Florin and Pram and that stock
market analyst are so foolish as to hire someone like Aalbæk through normal channels?
If
, and let me emphasize that,
if
they’ve hired anyone at all. Now leave me alone. I’ve got a meeting with the police chief in a few hours.’

‘I thought that was yesterday.’

‘It was, and today. Now go, Carl.’

‘Damn, Carl!’ Assad shouted from his office. ‘Come have a look.’

Carl heaved himself out of his chair. Since Assad had returned, Carl hadn’t noticed anything peculiar about him, but he could still picture it: that cold glare of the man who’d lashed out at Assad at the central station, a look that seemed to have been built up over many years of hatred. How could Assad tell an experienced detective that it meant nothing? Nothing whatsoever?

He waded across Rose’s half-finished tables, which lay like beached whales on the basement floor. It was time she got them out of the way. At any rate, Carl wasn’t going to be the one held accountable if someone came downstairs and tripped over all the clutter.

He found Assad beaming.

‘Yeah? What is it?’ Carl asked.

‘We have a picture, Carl. We have simply a picture then.’

‘A picture? Of what?’

Assad tapped the computer’s space key, and a photograph emerged on the screen. It wasn’t in focus and it wasn’t a frontal shot, but it was Kimmie Lassen. Carl recognized her at once from the old photographs. Here was Kimmie as she looked now. A quick side glimpse of a fortyish-year-old woman turning her head. Very distinct
profile. Straight nose with slight ski-jump. Full lower lip. Lean cheeks and tiny wrinkles clearly visible through the shield of make-up. With a little ingenuity they could manipulate the old photos of her to accommodate for her ageing. She was still an attractive woman, albeit careworn. If they got the computer folks to play with the photo programs, then they would have excellent material for instigating a search.

They just needed a valid reason to get the search started. Maybe someone in her family could request it. He would have to check it out.

‘I have a new mobile, so I didn’t know whether I’d got the shot in the box,’ Assad explained. ‘When she ran away from me yesterday I just pressed the button. Reflexes, you know. I tried to get something up on the screen last night, but I did something wrong.’

Was that actually possible?

‘What do you say? Isn’t it fantastic, Carl?’

‘Rose!’ Carl shouted, twisting his head towards the corridor.

‘She’s not here. She’s out on Vigerslev Allé.’

‘Vigerslev Allé?’ Carl shook his head. ‘What’s she doing there?’

‘Didn’t you tell her to investigate whether or not the tabloid magazines had anything on Kimmie?’

Carl glanced at Assad’s dour-looking old aunts in the picture frames. Soon Assad would be looking like them, too.

‘When she gets back, give her the image so she can have it manipulated along with some of the old photos we have. It was good that you took that picture, Assad. Well
done.’ He clapped his partner on the shoulder and hoped in return that Assad wouldn’t offer him any of that pistachio glop he was chewing on. ‘We have an appointment out at Vridsløselille State Prison in half an hour. Shall we get going?’

Already on Egon Olsens Vej, which was the new name of the street to the prison, Carl noticed his partner’s obvious discomfort. Not that he broke into a sweat or was reluctant. But he grew unusually quiet, and stared blindly at the front gate towers as if they were waiting to crush him.

Carl didn’t feel that way. For him Vridløselille was a convenient drawer into which some of the country’s worst arseholes could be shoved. If one combined the sentences the nearly two hundred and fifty inmates were serving, the total figure would be somewhere over two thousand years. A complete waste of life and energy, that’s what it was. It was pretty much the last place a person would want to draw a breath, but most of them damned well deserved to be there. That was still his firm conviction.

‘We need to head to the right,’ Carl said, after they’d arrived and gone through the formalities.

Assad hadn’t uttered a word the whole time and emptied his pockets without being asked, following instructions automatically. Apparently he knew the procedure.

Carl pointed across the courtyard at a grey building with a white sign that read
VISITORS
.

Here Bjarne Thøgersen awaited them, no doubt armed to the teeth with dodging tactics. In two or three
years he’d be out. He wasn’t going to get himself into any trouble.

He looked better than Carl had expected. Eleven years in prison normally takes a thorough toll. Bitter lines at the corner of the mouth, unfocused eyes and a fundamental recognition of not being any use to anybody, which eventually settles in the body’s posture. Yet here was a man with clear, teasing eyes. Skinny for sure, and on guard, but unusually upbeat nonetheless.

He stood up and extended his hand to Carl. No questions or explanations. Someone had evidently told him what was in store. Carl noticed these things.

‘Deputy Detective Superintendent Mørck,’ he said anyway.

‘This is costing me ten kroner an hour,’ the man replied with a wry smile. ‘I hope it’s important.’

He didn’t greet Assad, but then again, Assad hadn’t encouraged it. He just pulled his chair back and sat down at a slight distance.

‘You spend time in the workshop?’ Carl glanced at his watch. Quarter to eleven. Yes, it was smack in the middle of the workday.

‘What’s this about?’ Thøgersen wanted to know, sitting down a trifle too slowly. Also a telltale sign. So he was a tad nervous, after all. Good.

‘I don’t hang out much with the other inmates,’ he continued, unsolicited. ‘So I can’t give you any information, if that’s what you’re here for. Otherwise I’d be happy to strike a little deal, if it could get me out sooner.’ He grinned briefly, trying to assess Carl’s low-key attitude.

‘Twenty years ago you killed two young people, Bjarne. You’ve confessed, so that part of the case we won’t need to discuss, but I do have a missing person you’re more than welcome to tell me about.’

Bjarne nodded, raising his eyebrows – a nice blend of a bit of goodwill with a pinch of surprise.

‘I’m talking about Kimmie. I’ve heard you two were good friends.’

‘That’s correct. We were at boarding school together, and we also dated at one point.’ He smiled. ‘A fucking awesome lady.’ He would say that about anyone after eleven years without having real sex. The guard had told him that Bjarne Thøgersen never had any visitors. Never. This was his first visit in years.

‘Let’s start at the beginning. Is that OK with you?’