The Hanging: A Thriller (13 page)

“I thought you had received a report about me. Haven’t you had a chance to read it?”

Haven’t had a chance
was the polite version;
haven’t bothered
would be more accurate.

“What leads you to believe that we have a report about you?”

Her answer came without sarcasm: “Among other things because I spent an hour on the phone last night with the detective from Ringkøbing who was supposed to write it.”

“I am trying to get these facts straight from you.”

He could hear himself how unconvincing his explanation sounded. She glanced at his bag, then looked him in the eye and caught him out as if he were a child who had not done his homework.

“It
is
straight from me. Now I will get us something to eat. You can have a cup of coffee while you read.”

And so it went.

Alma Clausen graduated in 1972 from Copenhagen University with a degree in theoretical physics and was accepted by the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen. In 1977 she defended her doctoral dissertation. That same year she gave up her academic career for a life as farmer’s wife in Ådum. She and her husband eventually celebrated their silver anniversary. When he died, she sold the farm and moved to Tarm. There she read up on the latest research in her discipline and was now an online instructor for the universities of Copenhagen, Berlin, and Stockholm. She had no children.

She called out to him from the kitchen, almost to the second when he was done reading.

“Come out and help me with the salad and I’ll tell you about my work.”

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to follow you.”

“Nonsense. Everyone understands it to some extent. No one understands it completely. That’s what’s so interesting about physics.”

She was right, it was genuinely interesting. He sliced away and listened with fascination.

It was almost four o’clock before he got to the heart of his errand, which was Per Clausen’s personality. By that time he had long ago turned off the tape recorder, which had appeared to irritate her. In turn she made every effort to answer his questions, as if one favor deserved another.

“How well did you really know your brother?”

“That’s difficult to say. We don’t see each other so often, and when we do, I’m almost always the one who comes to him, that is, except for last week. We sometimes e-mail and we call from time to time, often in regard to a mathematical problem.”

“You help him with mathematics?”

“Unfortunately, no. It’s always the other way around. He helps me. Per is the brains in the family.”

“And when you communicate, is it only about science?”

“You could say that. Mathematics, physics, and statistics mainly, but we also discuss other areas such as religion, for example.”

“Religion? Is your brother religious?”

“No, quite the opposite. I am, he is not.”

“What about relationship matters? Do you talk about that?”

She didn’t answer directly but continued to elaborate.

“It’s only these past few years that Per has started to show an interest in spirituality, and that should be understood very broadly. Not in Christianity, that is, more precisely in questions of faith, morality, hate, love, compassion, and judgment … those kind of things.”

“That strikes me as very lofty. No, that’s the wrong word. ‘Theoretical’ is more what I mean.”

“I wouldn’t say that. Per is always very practical. Would you like an example?”

“Yes, please.”

“Last Thursday we talked about demonization, about public morality and humanity. Per took as his starting point the large numbers of German refugees that Denmark was forced to accept at the end of the war in 1945—that is to say, mainly people who were fleeing from the advancing red armies in the east. After liberation, the authorities refused to grant these people medical care, and this was not because there was a shortage of medical care, or because there was no need for it, but simply because they were German. This resulted in a number of deaths, especially among children, who could have been saved.”

She recited, “‘If you hammer in the idea of an “us” and a “them” into the national consciousness, then the majority of the population will passively accept anything. Especially in these times when there is no common moral denominator to be found.’”

“That is your brother’s claim?”

“To the extent that I can remember it, yes, but I think I do. Naturally I disagree with him, I have to.”

“It sounds a bit fascist to my ears.”

“Per is no fascist. I don’t believe he has any political orientation whatsoever, and if he has one, he is a confirmed cynic.”

“We see him as a bit of a provocateur, if that is the right word. What do you say to that?”

“That it’s true. Per does like to tease people but it is seldom mean-spirited, and if he runs circles around you it’s just to show that he can.”

“What does he get out of it?”

“Nothing except a crooked little smile.”

She smiled to herself.

“Hm, interesting. Back to the question of relationships—do you talk about them?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what?”

“If we do, it’s always with a kind of agreement.”

“I’m not sure I understand. Can you elaborate a little further?”

She reflected on this for a while before replying.

“As you must know, there was a period when Per drank a great deal. He was an alcoholic, no doubt about it. We never talked about it but after a couple of years when he got more control over his alcohol abuse we did sometimes talk about it, that he was beginning to live a healthier lifestyle.”

“A kind of code?”

“You could call it that, but ‘indirect little comments’ covers it better. Of course it is a silly way to communicate. You can never know if both people mean the same things with the same words, but that’s how it went. And it certainly doesn’t happen very often that we touch on personal matters.”

“So you are not very close to your brother?”

“I don’t think anyone is. I’m no exception.”

“You say that he used to drink. It began when your niece drowned?”

“Yes, it did. It was intense and very self-destructive; I think Per was trying to punish himself.”

“Did he feel guilty about his daughter’s death?”

“Yes, of course, and on top of that he was desperately unhappy.”

“How was their relationship?”

“I don’t know except that he loved her very much. Helene was a delightful child.”

“Tell me about her. What was she like?”

“Fragile. Fragile and gifted. She had inherited her father’s intellect, but not his robustness. She was also quite pretty. Probably took after her mother; that kind of thing doesn’t exist in our side of the family.”

Troulsen asked further questions about the girl. Simonsen had discussed the interview with him by phone the whole way from Nyborg to Odense, and Helene Clausen’s fate was one of the subjects he was expected to clarify. But the girl’s aunt was unable to shed much light; beyond the fact that the girl had had a nervous temperament, nothing of interest was revealed. He focused on the topic of her death.

“Do you know the details of the circumstances that led to her death?”

“Not really. She drowned but you already know that. It was a summer evening in 1994 at a Bellevue Beach with her school friends. More than that I don’t know.”

“You say that he felt guilty about her death. Why is that?”

“It’s hard to explain. Perhaps he felt he hadn’t watched carefully enough over her.”

“Do you think he didn’t?”

This time she waited so long before speaking that he thought she was not going to answer. When she finally said something, the result was not in proportion to the time taken to prepare it.

“I don’t know.”

He tested the waters gingerly: “Do you want to tell me what you think?”

Again a pause, as long as before.

“I think that Per came to say goodbye this last week. I think that my brother intends to do away with himself. I believe that Helene was a mental wreck when she returned from Sweden. And I believe that he was involved in the terrible things that happened at the school where he worked.”

Troulsen felt blown away in his chair.

“That was something.”

“Yes, I know, but it won’t help you to ask more questions. I have nothing concrete to give you and what I just said is based on vague feelings and may be completely wrong.”

She was right once more. He probed and probed for almost two hours before he gave up, after which she—despite his halfhearted protests—showed him up to the guest room.

CHAPTER 21

Konrad Simonsen and Kasper Planck were playing chess. From time to time they discussed the case and at other times one or other’s comments simply hovered unanswered in the air. One of the advantages of a chess game was that there was no need to observe social niceties in conversation. As opponents the two men were well matched, perhaps because their strengths were so different. Planck’s strength lay in tactics and combinations, while Simonsen was best at theory and strategy, and although he was exhausted after an all-too-long day he had—as usual—gotten off to the better start. This evening he would have preferred to skip the chess game, but whenever he was with his former boss it was the latter who called the shots. His vague hints about only discussing the case were summarily ignored and the old man went to get the chess set and the cognac. Tradition was going to be observed, mass murder be damned.

Simonsen focused on his opponent. Planck was a stately old man with a slim, sinewy body and gray-white hair that fanned out in great swirls around his tanned face. His clear green gaze swept the board.

As a boss he had been hard, a leader of the old school. At the same time, he was respected and—in his last years—almost loved. But what had made him into a legend in his own time was neither his leadership abilities nor his success rate at solving cases, for that matter. His status as a living legend stemmed primarily from the fact that he was able to handle the press, which reciprocated by making him into an icon. His revolutionary approach consisted of treating journalists as if they were people. An art that he had not necessarily been able to pass on to his successor.

Planck moved a pawn in the center without further reflection.

“What’s the real reason you have gotten me involved in your mass murder, Simon?”

“You’ve assisted in other cases before since you retired. This is nothing new.”

“Bullshit. You have never asked for my help before at the outset like this. And definitely never officially.”

“Elvang thought it would be a good idea.”

“That’s neither here nor there.”

A more truthful answer would have been that Planck was in possession of exactly those attributes for which Simonsen had the most pressing need in this case that was so different from anything else he had experienced. Time after time his predecessor had demonstrated an almost terrifying intuition in the course of an investigation. He was able to pick up and interpret very simple pieces of information differently and often more precisely than others, and if there was such a thing as a sixth sense, he was without doubt in possession of one. But at the heart of it, this ability was probably due mostly to the fact that the old man’s mind always let one or more parallel possibilities remain open, in contrast to the systematic approach that characterized traditional police work.

They played a couple of moves, then Simonsen said, “When they carried the bodies out of the gymnasium, it was like back in the first couple of months after your retirement, and…”

He paused and the pause grew too long.

Planck commented sarcastically, “Take your time, the night is young.”

“I would like to have had a strong conviction, something edifying, if you understand. For example, the confidence that I will be able to track the perpetrators down no matter what. But I imagine that mostly I just felt alone and it has not gotten better today, to put it mildly.”

“Well.”

Simonsen thought that it had been too long since they had last worked together. Now he remembered again—his former boss had never been particularly warm. Nor was he himself, for that matter. Nonetheless, he had been hoping for some support. He asked with some trepidation, “Did that sound stupid?”

“Yes, extremely so.”

“But for God’s sake, man, who in the world builds a podium in order to execute five people? And at a school of all places.”

Planck nodded slowly. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

Planck’s use of the plural warmed Simonsen’s heart. That was what he had been angling for. He took a sip of his cognac. That warmed, too. Then he refocused on the game.

In the middle of the match, when their positions were as good as even, Planck casually injected, “Turns out, I made a new female acquaintance today.”

“I see, and who would that be?”

“I think you’ll be more interested in what she is.”

“And what is she?”

“A reporter at the
Dagbladet
; she was here for three hours this afternoon. You and I might make the front page tomorrow if we’re lucky.”

Simonsen dropped the piece he had just won and had to leave his chair in order to pick it up. The interruption muted his immediate reaction and he reined in his irritation.

“I wish you would communicate with me before you talked to the press.”

“I would never dream of it.”

“I know, but you should. So who is she and why is she interesting?”

“Anita Dahlgren, a student reporter under—well, take a guess.”

“Oh no, you don’t mean what I think you do.”

“It may comfort you to know that she cares as little for Anni Staal as you do. Perhaps even less.”

“That’s not possible. But why did she come here in the first place?”

“Her boss knows that you’ve dusted me off. She wants to do a story about it.”

Simonsen sighed. It wasn’t hard to guess the angle the article would take, but he would get over it. What was worse was that his department was apparently as open as a sieve. He said, sourly, “She certainly has her sources, that Staal woman.”