The Hanging: A Thriller (37 page)

“Yes, but … that was different.”

She gave up on him with a shrug and tossed an impatient question into the studio.

“Can’t we get on with it, I’m about to go crazy with this Stone Age talk.”

CHAPTER 58

Konrad Simonsen stopped in Østerport Station, bought a cup of coffee, and retreated to one of the tables at the very back of the cafeteria. The morning had started well and ended terribly. The evening with the Countess had been fantastic. They had promised each other to go out again soon, and he had woken up in a great mood with a delicious feeling in his body. He had even sung in his bath, which he had not done for years. Then, just as he was about to walk out the door, the mail arrived and his world was shattered.

The letter was from Per Clausen: a yellow A4-size envelope, postmarked in Fredericia yesterday and containing six fuzzy pictures of Anna Mia. One where she was seen leaving her building, a second where she was unlocking her bicycle, and a third, where she was biking toward the photographer. Then there were two lines of a psalm, the contents of which Simonsen knew all too well:
Though death may enter in the night, you come with the morning light.
A thousand thoughts jostled in his mind while fear churned in his stomach and sweat beaded his brow. The papers fell out of his hand and he sat down on the floor in their midst, gradually starting to overcome his panic attack and forcing his thoughts in a more realistic direction. The day before, Anna Mia had gone to Bornholm to visit a friend who had just had a baby, so she was not in any immediate danger. Common sense also told him that the letter’s thinly veiled threat was meant to trouble him rather than to be taken literally. A cool and measured conclusion that his body had initially refused to accept. Only slowly did he regain enough control to order his thoughts. How could Per Clausen know that Anna Mia was his daughter? Or where she lived? Was he being watched? Had the newspapers last Tuesday written about his and Anna Mia’s interrupted holiday? Was there another explanation? These questions could not be answered as he sat there, and that added to his feeling of impotence. But he managed to quell them until another emotion slowly took over and got him back on his feet. Then he was able to muster the strength to compartmentalize the incident and put it aside. When he finally managed to pull himself together to leave, his exterior showed no signs of turmoil but inside he experienced a white-hot personal hatred with an intensity he had never before felt.

Simonsen’s thoughts about the morning’s events meant that he did not notice the person he was waiting for before he turned up at his side. He locked up his foul mood inside and greeted him in a friendly way.

“Good morning.”

The man was well dressed in a conservative way. His tie testified to his managerial position. He was middle-aged but his almost-bald head and his slightly stooped posture made him appear older than he was. His voice was toneless.

“Good morning, Inspector, or whatever it is that you are now.”

“It was nice of you to come.”

The man flashed a sarcastic smile. “Did I have a choice?”

“This isn’t an interrogation. In fact, I want to ask you a favor.”

“When the police ask for a favor they usually have a solid threat in their back pocket.”

“Not this time. What I want to ask you pushes at the limits of the law, so if you don’t want to help me our friendship won’t suffer.”

“So we’re friends?”

It was a reasonable question. To call their loose connection “friendship” was to take liberties with the meaning of that word. He had on several occasions played chess with the man in a couple of open tournaments but had not seen him other than that after he had interrogated him and later witnessed against him in court some twelve years ago now. Simonsen said thoughtfully, “No, of course we are not. That came out wrong and you’ll have to excuse it. We are not
friends
.”

He drank some of his coffee. It was already cold. For a split second he considered divulging his frustration with the social stigma that clung to those who had served time. That only created more criminality and was unreasonable. If you asked him, the slate ought to be wiped clean when a person had served his sentence, but he kept this to himself and said, “Perhaps you could tell me how things are going for you?”

The man answered haltingly and with some reluctance, “Things are as they are. I go to my treatments, I take my medicine, I never interact with children, I don’t look at pictures, I don’t watch movies, and I don’t like magazines.”

“I know that. I’ve checked up on you as much as I’ve been able but that wasn’t what I meant. I meant, how things are going in a more general sense.”

The man looked at him in surprise. Then he answered, “Well, in general things aren’t going particularly well now that you’ve put it so directly. I mostly keep to myself, watch some television, sometimes go to the theater, read books to get the time to pass. The weekends are long, as are holidays. Weekdays are better. I do have my work.” He stared down at the table. “I miss my boys terribly. Every single day. They are both adults now but I never see them, and that’s understandable.”

Simonsen found it hard to answer. “It is understandable,” he said.

“Yes, yes, of course it is.” The man looked up. His pain was fully apparent. “Thank you for asking. Tell me, what is it that I can help you with?”

“Tell me first what you think about the current pedophilia debate.”

“
Debate.
Well, I guess that’s one way to put it.”

“I couldn’t find a better word.”

“The truth is that I am afraid but there isn’t much I can do except keep my head down and wait until it dies down.”

Simonsen nodded sympathetically and then explained his errand: “I don’t have a good alternative channel for quick information about telephone calls. You know, who is calling whom, where and for how long—but I have no warrants, and if I did, the risk in the current climate is that one or another unfortunate error will end up affecting the very data that I am after. So I don’t dare to put pressure on our official sources and my unofficial ones have dried up.”

He had the Countess’s word for that last part. Under normal circumstances, she was able to find telecommunications information in the wave of a hand.

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“It can end up being quite a lot. Will you help me? And are you able to help me?”

“I think I can, yes. I have a colleague who has security responsibility for our switches and he has free access to all of our databases including the old backup tapes. I have to speak with him first, but I’m fairly certain that he will agree. Even if my past would end up … coming out.”

“Are you nervous about that?”

“Tell me, weren’t you even listening?”

Simonsen thought that it was starting to be a pattern that people asked him that question. He didn’t answer. Instead he took an envelope out of his pocket and fished a card out of his wallet. He wrote on it.

“Here, take this. My private number is written on the back. The envelope contains a list of things that we would like to have cleared up, and the truth is that time is of the essence, but I understand that you can’t perform magic. Call me when you have spoken with your friend and also call if you run into any problems.”

The man took the materials. He stuck the card into his inner pocket and put the envelope in his briefcase.

“Will you find the one who slaughtered those people?”

“Oh yes, I will. I shall find them. Each and every one. If not today then tomorrow or next week or next year, but at some point I will find them and with a little luck it’ll go fast.”

“I’m hoping it’ll be sooner than later, so this hatred dies down a little.” He didn’t sound particularly confident, more like he was saying an incantation.

They walked together for a while and then shook hands before they parted.

CHAPTER 59

Pauline Berg argued enthusiastically for her case and Simonsen let her speak her mind. Only when she started to repeat herself did he stop her and summarize her points without indicating if he agreed or not.

“You claim that Stig Åge Thorsen is afraid of women, or more precisely of intimate contact with women of his own age group, and you are suggesting that we should take advantage of this presumed aversion during his interrogation, which can only mean that you yourself should be the interrogator even though objectively speaking you are the least qualified of us all. And your suggestion comes less than two hours before we are planning to start, based on a ten-minute conversation with someone who got to know the man during a cruise to Greece. Is this correct?”

The youngest member of the Homicide Division stuck to her guns: “Yes, it is.”

“The woman from the cruise called of her own accord, so we have no basis from which to judge the truthfulness of her information. Is that also correct?”

“Yes, we don’t know anything for certain.”

“Go on.”

“Me and the Countess should handle the interrogation and we should also move the furniture around in the room so that it is more intimate. All of us should sit closer together.”

Arne Pedersen stared up at the ceiling. Simonsen, however, nodded approvingly. Not in favor of the suggestion—he had not yet formed his final opinion on that—but over her determination. He said, “Am I also shut out?”

Berg became vague and answered indirectly: “The woman from his vacation told me about the same signs that I have often noticed in men who have been nervous—or even afraid—of me. These reactions are particularly typical of men who had an insecure childhood, or so I’ve read. Which fits nicely with the fact that Stig Åge Thorsen sought help from Dr. Jeremy Floyd.”

Pedersen looked at her with some astonishment. This was truly a new side of Berg that he did not know. She did not return his gaze but kept her focus on Simonsen, while he watched the irregular path of the raindrops down the outside of the office windows. Her self-confidence was at its peak.

Last night she had turned up—unannounced and sobbing—at Kasper Planck’s home. Her bad conscience about having lied to the Countess about her conversation at the Gudme Sport Complex café tore at her insides. Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore and went to see the former head of the Homicide Division, who she thought was the only person who could understand her.

The old man gave her a handkerchief and listened calmly. Afterward he laid a wrinkled hand on her head and said softly, “I think you will be forgiven. Why would you go unaffected when so many have been drawn into this madness? There are many people who don’t even want us to find the killers, if one is to believe the media.”

“But what about Frank Ditlevsen’s friend? One of his old boys. That is an important piece of information. I should have shared that a long time ago.”

“Let Simon figure it out for himself. He should have done so already anyway.”

“How could he do that? He can’t know about it.”

“Of course he can. The murder of the brothers was personal. Frank Ditlevsen was hanged in the middle of the event and Allan Ditlevsen was Mr. Extra—an excellent and meaningful choice of words. And the personal always comes from somewhere.”

Berg gaped. “How long have you known this?”

“Known—bah. It’s still a kind of thought-play but I have a meeting later this week that should cast some light on the situation. So we shall see. Time will tell. But come over here. There’s something I want to give you.”

The old man drew a box out of the deep interior of a mahogany bureau. He held up a necklace, a fish of gold, very pretty, the chain simple and light.

“It belonged to my wife. Now it is yours.”

“But…”

He held a finger up to his mouth, and she stopped. Then she put it on. It fell elegantly over her throat and was hardly noticeable. As if she had always worn it.

“This is wonderful, but…”

The finger across the mouth again. Her spirit felt relieved and lightened and her tears this time were of joy. She borrowed the handkerchief a second time and when she composed herself she asked, “You give and give—isn’t there anything I can do for you?”

Planck’s face lit up. “You can water my flowers, they need it so badly.”

Berg smiled at the thought of her round with the watering can under the direction of the old man, and that clinched the matter. Simonsen decided that when it came to the matter of men’s nervousness, he was sitting across from an expert.

“The Countess is the primary driver in this and your role is to assist. I will only make the final decision when the Countess has also talked to this vacation flirtation and agreed with your suggestion. And then one more thing, Pauline.”

He looked directly into her eyes.

“If you make one wrong move, or if the Countess needs more help, you will immediately be replaced and I don’t want to hear any griping about it afterwards. Understood?”

“Completely, and I appreciate this vote of confidence. I think it is a reasonable decision.”

“It’s not a decision yet. You only have two hours with the Countess, use the time wisely.”

She did. She was out before Pedersen had time to stand up.

*   *   *

Stig Åge Thorsen and his lawyer arrived on time and that Berg had interpreted the situation correctly was revealed early on. The witness apparently did not appreciate being in close proximity to two women, and especially the close contact with the younger woman appeared to embarrass him. He basically whipped his hand back when Berg warmly and kindly laid her hand on his as she greeted him. Simonsen and Pedersen were sitting behind the mirror. Simonsen said, “She’s right. Did you see that? It’s obvious if you’re looking for it. See how he pulls back. He may not even be aware of it himself. His lawyer is not, at any rate.”

In the interrogation room, the Countess was gesturing and explaining something to the lawyer.

“Please have a seat. As you can see, we have had to rearrange the furniture in here temporarily but I think we can manage.”

They had in all haste managed to get hold of a relatively small square table with a chair placed on each of the four sides so that Berg would be able to sit close to Stig Åge Thorsen regardless of which chair the lawyer chose.