The Absent One (3 page)

Because it wasn’t about getting high. It was about being their own masters and defying the authorities in the biggest way possible. And smoking hash right next to the boarding school was pretty much the worst you could do.

So they passed the pipe around and mocked the teachers, trying to outdo each other imagining what they would do to them if they could.

And that’s how they spent most of the autumn until the day Kristian and Torsten were nearly caught with hash on their breath, which not even ten cloves of garlic could hide. After that they decided to eat it, because then there was no scent.

It was shortly afterwards that everything began in earnest.

When they were caught in the act, they were standing beside a thicket close to the stream, high as kites and acting silly, while melting frost dripped from the leaves.

One of the younger boys suddenly appeared from behind a bush, staring straight at them. He was a blond, ambitious little shit, an irritating goody-two-shoes on the prowl for a beetle he could display in biology class.

Instead, what he found was Kristian busily shoving the whole works back into the hollow of the tree, while Torsten, Ulrik and Bjarne giggled like idiots and Ditlev’s hands rummaged inside Kimmie’s shirt. She, too, was laughing like a lunatic. This shit was some of the best they’d ever had.

‘I’m telling the headmaster!’ the boy screamed at them, noticing too late how quickly the older students’ laughter fell silent. A sprightly boy who was used to taunting others, he could have easily outrun them, given how loaded they were. But the thicket was overgrown and the danger he’d put them in too great for them to let that happen.

Bjarne had the most to lose if he were kicked out, so once they got hold of the little twit, he was the one Kristian pushed forward. And it was he who landed the first blow.

‘You know my father can crush your father’s business, if he wants to,’ the boy shouted, ‘so bugger off, Bjarne, you pile of shit! Otherwise it’ll be worst for you. Let go of me, you idiot.’

They hesitated. The boy had made life terribly difficult for many of his classmates. His father, uncle and big sister had been pupils at the school before him, and were regular contributors to the school fund. Giving the kind of donations Bjarne was dependent on.

Then Kristian stepped forward. He didn’t have the same financial concerns. ‘We’ll give you twenty thousand kroner to keep your mouth shut,’ he said, meaning it.

‘Twenty thousand kroner!’ the boy snorted mockingly. ‘All I have to do is phone my father once, and he’ll send me double that amount.’ Then he spat in Kristian’s face.

‘Damn you, you little shit,’ Kristian said, punching him. ‘If you say anything, we’ll kill you.’ The boy fell backwards against a tree trunk, breaking a pair of ribs with an audible crack.

For a moment he lay there, gasping in pain, but his eyes remained defiant. Then Ditlev came forward.

‘We can choke you right now, no problem. Or we can hold you under water in the stream. Or we can let you go and give you the twenty thousand kroner to keep your mouth shut. If you go back now and tell everyone you fell, they’ll believe you. What do you say, you little shit?’

The boy didn’t respond.

Ditlev went and stood right over him, curious, searching. The little bastard’s reaction fascinated him. With a sudden movement he raised his hand as if to strike, but the boy still didn’t react, so he whacked him hard on the head. When the boy crumpled in fright, Ditlev struck again, smiling. It was a tremendous feeling.

Later he told the others how that slap had been the first real rush of his life.

‘Me, too,’ Ulrik grinned, shuffling towards the shocked boy. Ulrik was the biggest of them all, and his clenched fist put an ugly mark on the boy’s cheek.

Kimmie protested weakly, but was neutralized by a fit of laughter that flushed all the birds from the underbrush.

They carried the boy back to school and watched as the ambulance came to pick him up. Some of the gang were concerned the boy would rat on them, but he never did. In fact, he never returned. According to rumour, his father took him back to Hong Kong, but that might not have been true.

A few days later, they attacked a dog in the forest, beating it to death.

After that there was no turning back.

On the wall above the three panorama windows was inscribed the word ‘Caracas’. The manor had been constructed using vast sums earned in the coffee trade.

Ditlev Pram had instantly recognized the building’s potential. A few pillars here and there, walls of icy, green glass elevated yards in the air. Straight rows of water basins trickling water and manicured lawns with futuristic sculptures stretching towards the Sound were all that was required to create the newest private hospital on the Rungsted coast. Dental and plastic surgery were the specialties here. It wasn’t an original idea, but it was incredibly lucrative for Ditlev and his Indian and Eastern European staff of doctors and dentists.

After his older brother and two younger sisters inherited the enormous fortune their father had accumulated through stock speculation and a series of hostile takeovers in the eighties, Ditlev managed his money craftily. By now his empire had expanded to include sixteen hospitals, with four new ones on the drawing board. He was making good progress towards realizing his ambition to channel fifteen per cent of the profits from all of northern Europe’s breast-implant operations and facelifts into his account. It was hard to find one wealthy woman north of the Black Forest who hadn’t had nature’s caprices adjusted on one of Ditlev Pram’s steel tables.

In short, life was good.

His only concern was Kimmie. Eleven years with her rudimentary existence in the back of his mind was long enough.

He straightened his Mont Blanc fountain pen, which was slightly askew on his desk, and glanced at his Breitling watch again.

There was plenty of time. Aalbæk would arrive in twenty minutes. Five minutes after that Ulrik would pay him a visit, and maybe Torsten, too, but who knew?

He rose and made his way down ebony-clad corridors, past the hospital wing and the operating rooms. He nodded agreeably to everyone who knew he was the unchallenged man at the top, and pushed through the swing doors into the kitchen on the lowest level, with its fine view of the ice-blue sky over the Sound.

He shook the cook’s hand and praised him until he blushed, patted his assistants on the shoulder and then disappeared into the laundry.

After many calculations, he knew that Berendsen Textile Service could deliver the bed sheets faster and cheaper, but that wasn’t the point of having your own on-site laundry facility. It was handy, of course, but so was having easy access to the six Philippine girls he’d hired to do the work. What did money matter?

He noted how the young, dark-skinned women recoiled at the sight of him, and, as always, it amused him. So he grabbed the nearest one and dragged her into the linen cupboard. She looked frightened, but she’d been through it before. She had the narrowest hips and the smallest breasts, but she was also the most experienced. Manila’s
brothels had given her a solid training and whatever he did to her now was nothing by comparison.

She pulled his trousers down and, without being told, latched on to his cock. While she rubbed his belly with one hand and masturbated him in her mouth with the other, he punched her shoulders and arms.

With this one he never came; his orgasm settled into his tissue in another way. His adrenalin was pumping fast as he landed his blows, and after a few minutes his tank was full.

He stepped back, hoisted her up by the hair and rammed his tongue deep in her mouth, yanking her underwear down and forcing a pair of fingers into her vagina. By the time he thrust her back on the floor, they’d both had more than enough.

Then he straightened his clothes, shoved a thousand-krone bill in her mouth and departed the laundry, giving a friendly nod to all. They seemed relieved, but they shouldn’t have been. He was going to be at the Caracas clinic for the whole of the following week. The girls would come to know who was boss.

The private detective looked like shit that morning, in stark contrast to Ditlev’s shiny office. It was all too clear that the scrawny man had spent the entire night on the streets of Copenhagen. Yet wasn’t that what they paid him for?

‘What’s the word, Aalbæk?’ Ulrik grunted next to Ditlev, while stretching his legs under the conference table. ‘Any news in the case of the missing Kirsten-Marie Lassen?’ Ulrik always opened his conversations with Aalbæk that
way, Ditlev thought, as he stared with annoyance at the dark grey waves beyond the panorama windows.

He wished to hell this would all be over soon, so that Kimmie wouldn’t be gnawing at his memory all the time. When they got hold of her, they would make her vanish for ever. He was sure he would figure out a way.

The private detective craned his neck and suppressed a yawn. ‘The locksmith at the central train station has seen Kimmie a few times. She goes around dragging a suitcase, and last time he saw her she was wearing a tartan skirt. The same outfit she wore when the woman near Tivoli spotted her. But as far as I’m aware, Kimmie isn’t a regular at the train station. In fact, there’s nothing about her that’s regular. I’ve asked everyone in the station. Security, police, homeless people, shopkeepers. A few of them know of her, but they don’t know where she lives or even who she is.’

‘You’ll have to set up a team to observe the station day and night until she turns up again.’ Ulrik rose from his seat. He was a large man but seemed smaller when they were discussing Kimmie. Maybe he was the only one among them who’d seriously been in love with her. Perhaps it still pained Ulrik that he’d been the only one who’d never had her, thought Ditlev for the thousandth time, and laughed to himself.

‘Round-the-clock surveillance? That will cost you an arm and a leg,’ Aalbæk said. He was about to pluck a pocket calculator from his ridiculous little shoulder bag, but he didn’t get that far.

‘Stop that,’ Ditlev barked. He considered throwing something at him, then leaned back in his chair. ‘Don’t
discuss money as though it’s something you know anything about, you got that? What are we talking about here, Aalbæk? A few hundred thousand kroner? How much do you think Ulrik, Torsten and I have made while we’ve been sitting here discussing your pathetic hourly wages?’ Then he picked up his fountain pen anyway and threw it at him. He aimed for the man’s eyes, but missed.

After Aalbæk’s thin corpus had closed the door behind him, Ulrik picked up the Mont Blanc and put it in his pocket.

‘Finders keepers,’ he said, laughing.

Ditlev said nothing. Ulrik had better think twice before doing that again.

‘Have you heard from Torsten today?’ he asked.

At this, the energy drained from Ulrik’s face. ‘Yes, he went up to his country estate in Gribskov this morning.’

‘Doesn’t he care at all about what’s going on here?’

Ulrik shrugged his shoulders, which were beefier than ever. That’s what happened when you hired a chef specializing in foie gras.

‘He’s not at his best right now, Ditlev.’

‘I see. We’ll have to take care of it ourselves then, won’t we?’ Ditlev clenched his teeth. They’d have to expect that Torsten would have a complete breakdown someday. And then he would be as big a threat as Kimmie.

Ditlev felt Ulrik scrutinizing him.

‘You won’t do anything to Torsten, will you, Ditlev?’

‘Of course not, old boy. Not Torsten.’

For a moment they watched each other like beasts of prey, with lowered heads and measured glances. In the sport of stubbornness, Ditlev knew he would never
outlast Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen. His father had founded the family’s stock market research firm, but Ulrik had expanded its influence. When he doggedly pursued something, he would invariably get his way. Even if that meant forcing it through by any means necessary.

‘Well, Ulrik,’ Ditlev said, breaking the silence. ‘We’ll let Aalbæk do his job, and we’ll see what happens.’

Ulrik’s expression changed. ‘Is the pheasant hunt set?’ he asked, eager as a child.

‘Yes. Bent Krum has gathered the entire team. Thursday morning at six we meet at Tranekær Inn. We have to invite the local wallies, but that’ll be the last time.’

Ulrik laughed. ‘You have a plan for the hunt, I imagine.’

Ditlev nodded. ‘Yes, the surprise is ready.’

Ulrik worked his jaw muscles. The thought clearly excited him. Excitable and impatient, that was his true nature.

‘What do you say, Ulrik, do you want to come with me and see how it’s going with our Philippine wenches down in the laundry?’

Ulrik raised his head. His eyes narrowed. Sometimes it meant yes, other times no – it was impossible to tell. The man had too many contradictory impulses.

‘Lis, do you know how this case ended up on my desk?’

She glanced at Carl’s file as she adjusted her new, stylishly messy hair. Her frown suggested she didn’t.

Carl gave the file to Mrs Sørensen. ‘Do you know, then?’

It took the woman five seconds to scan the first page. ‘I’m afraid not,’ she replied, eyes triumphant. She liked to see Carl struggle. Moments such as these were among her finest.

Deputy Commissioner Lars Bjørn didn’t know, either, nor did any of the investigative officers. Apparently the file had somehow placed itself on his desk.

‘I’ve called Holbæk Police!’ Assad shouted from his shoebox-sized office. ‘As far as they know, the file is in their archives as it is supposed to be. But they’ll check when they have the time.’

Carl raised his legs and planted his size 11 shoes in the centre of the table. ‘What do they say in Nykøbing Sjælland?’

‘Just a second, I’ll call them.’ While tapping in the number, Assad whistled a few notes of one of his native country’s melancholic songs. It sounded as though he were whistling backwards.

Not good.

Carl studied the noticeboard on the wall. Four newspaper headlines echoed one another: the Merete Lynggaard case had been expertly solved. Department Q, the newly established department for cases of special focus, led by Detective Superintendent Carl Mørck, was described as an absolute success.