The Absent One (21 page)

‘Sjölund & Virksund’ he read on the letterhead. Quite a proper bunch of bloody high-society bandits, to polish and cleanse the tall tales of such a loser.

The time frame was good enough. Exactly when Carl startled Aalbæk at the bus stop. The dialogue, too, was relatively accurate, but the thump on the back had been turned into repeated hard blows to Aalbæk’s face with his fist and the shredding of his clothes. There were photos of his injuries. Aalbæk sure as hell didn’t look too good.

‘That meathead is being paid by Pram, Dybbøl Jensen and Florin,’ he said in self-defence. ‘They’ve made him let someone beat him up in order to get me away from the case, no doubt about it.’

‘That may well be your view, Mørck, but we must address this, nevertheless. You know the procedure whenever there’s a report of violence committed on duty.’ The police chief looked at him with the same pair of eyes that had helped her rise to that stratum where there was really something to see. He, too, was neutralized by them for a moment.

‘We won’t suspend you, Carl,’ she continued. ‘You’ve never previously abused anyone, now, have you? But earlier this year you suffered both traumatic and sad events. Maybe it’s all affected you more than you think. Don’t get the impression we’re not sympathetic.’

Carl gave her a lopsided smile. ‘Never previously abused anyone,’ she’d said. It was good that she believed that.

The homicide chief looked at him thoughtfully. ‘There
will be an investigation, of course, and during the investigation we’ll use the opportunity to let you go on an intensive treatment programme so you can get to the bottom of what you’ve been through these past few months. In the meantime you will not be allowed to do anything here but administrative tasks. You can come and go as you please, but naturally – and I’m sorry about this – we’ll have to ask you to turn in your badge and your pistol during this period.’ He extended his hand. It was a suspension, pure and simple.

‘You’ll find the pistol up in the weapons depot,’ Carl said, handing over his badge. As if not having it would keep him from doing anything he wanted. They ought to know that. But perhaps it was exactly that they wanted him to do – be reckless and stupid. Get caught in dereliction of duty. Was that it? Did they want him to do something dumb so they could get rid of him?

‘Aalbæk’s solicitor Tim Virksund and I know each other,’ the police chief said, ‘and I will explain to him that you’re no longer on the case, Mørck. That will satisfy him, I suspect. He’s well aware of his client’s provocative style, and nobody will benefit if this ends up in court. It also solves the problem of your difficulty in following orders, doesn’t it?’ She pointed her finger at him. ‘Because this time you’ll have to. And in the future, Mørck, I’ll have you know I won’t accept any disruptions in the chain of command. I hope you understand. The Rørvig case ended with a conviction, and you’ve been told we want you to work on other cases. How clearly and how often do we need to tell you?’

He nodded and glanced out of the window. He hated
this kind of shitty explanation. For all he cared, the three of them could clear off right now and stuff it.

‘Is it unreasonable to ask the real reason why this investigation has to be halted?’ he asked. ‘Who gave the order? Politicians? On what grounds? As far as I know there’s a principle of equality before the law in this country. I presume that also goes for people under suspicion of a crime. Or am I misunderstanding something?’

They all gazed sternly at him, as if they were Inquisition judges.

What would they do next? Toss him in the harbour to see if he would float like the Antichrist?

‘You’ll never guess what I have for you, Carl,’ Rose said excitedly. He peered down the basement corridor. It wasn’t that the height-adjustable tables had been assembled, in any case.

‘Your resignation, I hope,’ he said drily, planting himself on his chair in his office.

That statement seemed to make her mascara look even heavier. ‘I have two chairs for your office,’ she said. He cast a glance at the other side of his desk, wondering how in the world five square inches of space could suddenly house two chairs instead of one.

‘We’ll wait on them,’ he said. ‘What else?’

‘And I’ve got a few photos from
Gossip
and
Her Life
,’ she said in an even tone of voice, but tossed the clippings down a little more brutally than she ordinarily would have.

Carl glanced at them disinterestedly. Now that the case had been taken from him, what did he care about the clippings? In reality he should be asking her to pack away the
whole mess and find some guileless soul to assemble her bloody tables in exchange for a kind word and a pat on the cheek.

Then he picked up the copies of the articles.

One of them dated back to around Kimmie’s childhood.
Her Life
had drawn a portrait of the Lassen family, and the title read: ‘No Success without the Security of Home’. It was a paean to Willy K. Lassen’s beautiful wife, Kassandra Lassen, but the photograph showed something else. The father in a grey suit with tapered legs and the stepmother in bold colours and severe late-seventies make-up. Well-groomed people in their mid-thirties. Self-confident, with stern faces. That little Kirsten-Marie stood clamped between them didn’t seem to register for them in the slightest. But it clearly affected Kimmie. With her large, frightened eyes, she was a girl who was simply there in body, not in spirit.

Then, in the
Gossip
photograph seventeen years later, she had a totally different look.

It was from January 1996, the same year as she disappeared. It was taken somewhere along the ‘death route’ of downtown Copenhagen bars. Probably outside the Electric Corner, but it could also be Café Sommersko or maybe even Café Victor. This was a Kimmie in good spirits. Tight jeans, feather boa around her neck and pissed to the gills. Showing a lot of cleavage in spite of the snow on the pavement. Her face was frozen in a rapturous roar, surrounded by high-society types, among them Kristian Wolf and Ditlev Pram, all wearing enormous overcoats. The caption was gracious: ‘The jet set pulls out the stops. Twelfth Night party gets its own queen. Has Kristian
Wolf, 29, Denmark’s most eligible bachelor, finally found a life companion?’

‘They were awfully nice at
Gossip
,’ Rose added. ‘Maybe they’ll find more clippings for us.’

He gave a quick nod. If she believed those vultures at
Gossip
were nice, then she was incredibly naive. ‘You’ll have the desks in the corridor assembled in the next few days, OK, Rose? Whatever you find for me regarding this case, you’ll put out there and I’ll bring it in here myself when I need it. You understand?’

Judging by her facial expression, she didn’t.

‘What happened up in Jacobsen’s office, boss?’ came Assad’s voice at the door.

‘What happened? Well, I’m suspended. But they want me to stay down here. So if you two want to talk to me about anything involving this case, write it on a note and put it on the table just outside the door. You can’t talk to me about it, because they’ll just send me home. And, Assad, help Rose get those ridiculous tables assembled.’ He pointed into the corridor. ‘And keep your ears open: if I want to say anything to you about the case or give you orders, I’ll write it down on one of these.’ He motioned to his sheets of ledger paper. ‘I’m only allowed to administrate when I’m here, just so you know.’

‘Crappy arrangement,’ Assad said. A more grandiose way to express it would be hard to find.

‘And on top of it all, I’ve got to go to therapy. So perhaps I’m not going to be in the office the whole time. Let’s see which idiots they stick me with this time.’

‘Yes, let’s see,’ a voice in the corridor said unexpectedly.

He had misgivings as he turned towards the door.

Of course it was Mona Ibsen. Always on the scene when the bullfrog croaked. Just as he was standing there with his trousers as far down as they could go.

‘We’ll be going through a longer course of treatment this time, Carl,’ she said, squeezing her way past Assad.

She held out her hand to him. It was warm and hard to let go of.

Smooth, and without a wedding ring.

As they’d agreed, she found Tine’s note behind the car-rental company’s drab sign on Skelbækgade. It was right on top of the black panel’s bottom screw, and moisture had already made the letters bleed together.

It had been difficult for the unschooled girl to find enough room to fit all the big, block letters on the little slip of paper, but Kimmie was used to deciphering people’s scribbles.

HI. THE POLICE CAME BY MY PLACE YESTERDAY – CARL MØRKE HE WAS CALLED – ALSO ANUTHER DOWN ON THE STREET WHO’S LOOKIN FOR YOU – THE ONE FROM THE CENTRAL STATION. DON’T KNOW WHO HE IS – BE CAREFULL – SEE YOU ON THE BENCH. T. K.

She read the note several times, halting each time she reached the letter ‘K’, like a freight train at a railroad crossing barrier. The letter was frozen on to her retina. Etched into it. Where did the ‘K’ come from?

The policeman’s name was Carl. Carl with a ‘C’. That was a better letter. Better than ‘K’, even though it sounded the same. Him, she wasn’t afraid of.

She leaned against the wine-red Nissan that had been parked under the sign for ages. Tine’s words injected her with an overwhelming weariness. Like there were devils whirling around inside, sucking the life out of her.

I won’t leave my house
, she thought.
They’re not gonna get me
.

But how could she know it wouldn’t happen anyway? Apparently Tine had spoken with people who were looking for her. People were asking Tine things. Things that only Tine knew about Kimmie. Lots of different things. So she was no longer just Rat-Tine, a danger to herself. She was now also a danger to Kimmie.

She mustn’t speak to anyone
, she thought.
When I give her the thousand kroner I’ll have to tell her so she understands it.

Turning round instinctively, she caught sight of the pale blue nylon vest of the bloke distributing free newspapers.

Did someone put him up to keeping an eye on me?
she wondered.
Was it possible?
They knew where Tine lived now. Presumably they also knew she and Tine were in contact. Who’s to say that Tine hadn’t been followed all the way to the rent-a-car sign when she placed the note? What would have stopped the people who followed Tine from reading the note?

She tried to gain control of her thoughts. Wouldn’t they have removed it? Of course they would have. And yet: would they?

She glanced again at the newspaper guy. Why wouldn’t the dark-skinned man trying to make a living from his thankless job delivering piles of newspapers to busy, pampered people welcome the opportunity to make a few extra pennies? After all, he would just have to watch her go down Ingerslevsgade and along the railway tracks. If he moved a little closer to the stairwell down to Dybbølsbro Station, it would be easy. There wasn’t a better lookout spot. Standing that high up, the man would be
able to see exactly where she was going and where she ended up. At most it was only five hundred yards down to her iron gate and the little house. At most.

She chewed her upper lip, cinching her wool coat tighter.

Then she went over to him. ‘Here,’ she said, handing him fifteen thousand-krone notes. ‘You can go home now, right?’

Only early sound movies showed black men with wide eyes so large and white as this man’s now. As if the bony hand giving him money were no less than the materialization of a dream. The deposit on a flat of his own. Or a small shop. His ticket home. To a life among other black men under the burning sun.

‘Today’s Wednesday. How about calling your employer and telling him you won’t be coming back till next month? Do you catch my drift?’

Fog was settling over the city and Enghave Park, enshrouding her like an alcoholic haze. Her surroundings were disappearing in a white cloak. The tall windows of Kongens Brewery went first, then the blocks before it, the gazebo at one end of the park, and finally the fountain. Damp air with the scent of autumn.

‘Those men must die,’ said the voices in her head.

That morning she’d opened one of the hollow spaces in the wall and removed the hand grenades. She had studied the devilish devices and seen everything so clearly. They would die individually. One at a time, so fear and remorse would have time to devastate each of those remaining.

She laughed to herself, shoving her ice-cold hands deep in her coat pockets. They were already afraid of her, that had been proven. And now the bastards would do anything to find her. And they were getting closer. Cost what it may. Being the cowards they were.

Then she stopped laughing. She hadn’t thought through the last part.

They
were
cowards. That was a fact. And cowardly people didn’t wait. They ran for their lives while there was still time.

‘I’ll have to take them all at once,’ she said aloud. ‘I’ll have to find a way, otherwise they’ll disappear.’ She knew she could, but the voices inside her demanded something else. They were stubborn, they were. It was enough to make a person crazy.

She rose from the park bench and kicked at the seagulls gathered round her.

Which way to go?

Mille, little Mille
, flowed her inner mantra incessantly. This was a bad day. There was too much to consider.

She looked down, saw how the fog put moist droplets on her shoes and thought once again of the letters at the end of Tine’s note. ‘T. K.’ Where did the ‘K’ come from?

They were coming up to the break prior to fifth-form exams. Not long after Kimmie had cut Kåre Bruno loose and let him sink, crushed by the lecture she had given him on how mediocre he was, both in terms of intelligence and personality.

It was during the following days that Kristian began to tease her.

‘You don’t have the guts, Kimmie,’ he whispered each day during morning assembly.

And each day he would nudge her and clap her on the shoulder as the rest of the gang formed a ring round her. ‘You wouldn’t dare, Kimmie!’