Текст книги "Disgrace"

Автор книги: Jussi Adler-Olsen

Соавторы: Jussi Adler-Olsen
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

18

During the time Ulrik worked as a stock market analyst he had made many investors richer than anyone else in his line of business, and the key words were ‘information, information, information’. In this field, wealth was created neither through coincidence nor luck. Certainly not luck.

Nobody in the business had as many contacts, and there wasn’t a single media conglomerate where he didn’t know someone. He was confident and careful, and he scrutinized the publicly traded companies thoroughly and by every imaginable means before he estimated the profitability of their stocks. Sometimes he was so thorough, in fact, that businesses asked him to forget what he’d learned. And his acquaintances with people who were caught in a bind, or who knew someone who knew someone who needed help getting out of an ugly situation, spread like ripples in the water until they eventually covered the entire ocean upon which society’s largest platforms floated.

In some less advanced countries this would have made Ulrik an extremely dangerous man who for many would have been a much better ally with his throat slashed – but not here. In tiny Denmark the system was so ingenious that if you knew some dirt about somebody, they also knew something just as bad about you. If it wasn’t hushed up the one person’s offence quickly infected the other’s. A strange, practical principle which meant that no one would say anything about anyone else, not even if they were caught with their hands in the biscuit tin.

Because nobody wanted to spend six years in prison for insider trading. And nobody wanted to saw off the branch they were sitting on.

Up in his slowly growing money tree, Ulrik spun a spider web that in polite circles was called a ‘network’ – this wonderful, paradoxical word that functioned as intended only if the net filtered out more people than it caught.

And Ulrik made exceptionally good catches in his network. The kinds of people others read about. Respected people. The crème de la crème. All of them people who’d risen from their origins and were now soaring towards a stratum where one needn’t share the sunlight with riff-raff.

These were the people he hunted with. The ones he walked arm in arm with at the Freemason’s lodge. The ones who understood the importance of sticking with their own kind.

Ulrik was thus a vital cog in the boarding-school gang’s wheel. He was the gregarious one everyone knew, and behind him stood his childhood pals, Ditlev Pram and Torsten Florin. It was a strong, albeit oddly matched, triumvirate, one that was invited to everything worth being invited to.

This afternoon they had begun their high jinks at a reception in a downtown gallery that had connections to both the theatre scene and the royal family. Afterwards they’d wound up at a lavish soirée in the company of parade uniforms, medals and knightly orders. The event featured well-prepared speeches written by underlings who had not been invited, while a string ensemble tried to draw those present into Brahms’ world, and the champagne and self-praise flowed generously.

‘Is it true what I’m hearing, Ulrik?’ the cabinet minister at his side asked, his alcohol-dulled eyes trying to measure the distance to his glass. ‘Is it really true that Torsten killed a couple of horses with a crossbow on a hunt this summer? Just like that, in an open field?’ He tried again to pour a few drops in his much-too-tall glass.

Ulrik reached out in support of the man’s efforts. ‘Do you know what? Don’t believe everything you hear. And, by the way, why don’t you come and hunt with us sometime? That way you can see for yourself what it’s all about.’

The minister nodded. This was exactly what he’d wanted, and he would love it. Ulrik knew such things. Another important man snared in his net.

Then he turned to his dinner companion, who’d been attempting to get his attention all evening.

‘You look beautiful tonight, Isabel,’ he said, laying a hand on her arm. In another hour she would learn what she’d got herself into.

Ditlev had assigned him the task. They didn’t get a bite every time, but this was a sure thing. Isabel would do whatever they asked her to – she seemed to be up for a little of everything. Of course she would whimper along the way, but the years of boredom and lack of satisfaction would certainly be a plus. Perhaps she’d find it more difficult bearing Torsten’s method of handling her body than that of the others, but on the other hand they’d seen evidence that it was precisely this way of Torsten’s that made them dependent. Torsten understood women’s sensuality better than most. In any event, she’d keep it to herself. Rape or not, she wouldn’t run her mouth off. Why hazard the risk of losing access to the many millions her impotent husband controlled?

Ulrik stroked her forearm, up along her silken sleeve. This cool fabric, primarily worn by warm-blooded women – he simply loved it.

He nodded to Ditlev at one of the tables across from him. It should have been the signal, but a man was standing at Ditlev’s side, stealing his attention. He was whispering something to Ditlev, who sat there holding a forkful of salmon mousse, ignoring all else. His eyes were staring blankly into space as the wrinkles on his forehead deepened into furrows. It was impossible to misinterpret these signs.

With an appropriate excuse, Ulrik stood up and tapped Torsten on the shoulder as he passed his table.

The neglected woman would have to wait until next time.

He heard Torsten excuse himself to his dinner companion. In a moment he would kiss her hand, which was expected of a man like Torsten Florin. A heterosexual man who dressed women ought to also know how best to undress them.

The three of them met in the foyer.

‘Who was the guy you were talking to?’ Ulrik asked.

Ditlev’s hand fidgeted with his bow tie. He hadn’t fully recovered from what he’d just heard. ‘That was one of my people from Caracas. He came to tell me that Frank Helmond has told several of the nurses that we were the ones who attacked him.’

It was precisely this kind of mess Ulrik hated. Hadn’t Ditlev sworn he’d had the situation under control? Didn’t Thelma promise that she and Helmond would keep their mouths shut if the divorce and his plastic surgery went smoothly?

‘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.’

19

‘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?’

He shrugged, glancing down for a moment. Of course it wasn’t.

‘Why was Kimmie expelled from boarding school? Do you recall?’

He put his head back and stared at the ceiling. ‘Something about her getting involved with one of the teachers. That wasn’t permitted.’

‘What happened to her afterwards?’

‘She rented an apartment in Næstved for a year. She worked at a grill bar.’ He laughed. ‘Her folks didn’t know anything about it. They thought she was still in school. But they found out, of course.’

‘She was sent to boarding school in Switzerland?’

‘Yes. She was there for four or five years. Not just boarding school, but also the university. What the hell was it called again?’ He shook his head. ‘Never mind. I can’t remember the bloody name. At any rate, she was studying to be a veterinarian. Hey, wait. It was Berne. The University of Berne.’

‘So she spoke very good French?’

‘No, German. Lectures were in German, she said.’

‘Did she finish her studies?’

‘No, not completely. I don’t know why, but she had to quit for some reason.’

Carl glanced at Assad, who jotted it down in his notebook.

‘And then what? Where did she live after that?’

‘She came home. Lived for a while in Ordrup with her parents – that is, with her father and stepmother. And then she moved in with me.’

‘We know she worked at a pet shop. Wasn’t that beneath her level of training?’

‘Why? She never finished her studies to become a vet.’

‘And you, what did you do for a living?’

‘I worked at my father’s lumber yard. That’s all in the report, you know that.’

‘Wasn’t there something in the report about you inheriting the lumber yard in 1995, and then it burned down shortly afterwards? After that you were unemployed, right?’

Apparently the man could also appear hurt. ‘The unloved child has many faces,’ as Kurt Jensen, his old colleague who now sat twiddling his thumbs in parliament, always said.

‘That’s utter rubbish,’ Bjarne protested. ‘I was never accused of starting that fire. And what would I have got out of it? My father’s business wasn’t insured.’

No, Carl thought. He should probably have checked that out first.

Carl sat for a while, staring at the walls. He’d sat in this room countless times before. These walls had lent an ear to tons of lies. Tons of tall tales and assurances no one believed.

‘How did she get along with her parents?’ he asked. ‘Do you know?’

Bjarne Thøgersen stretched, already calmer. They’d entered the small-talk zone. The conversation wasn’t about him, and he liked that. He felt safe.

‘Terribly,’ he said. ‘Her folks were a couple of arseholes. I don’t think her father was ever home. And the slag he was married to was a mean bitch.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Yeah, you know. The type of person who only cares about money. A gold-digger.’ He savoured the word. It wasn’t one that was regularly used in his world.

‘They argued?’

‘Yes. Kimmie said they fought like hell.’

‘What was Kimmie doing while you killed the two teenagers?’

The sudden shift back in the sequence of events caused the man’s eyes to freeze on Carl’s shirt collar. If there had been electrodes attached to Bjarne Thøgersen, all the gauges would be flipping out.

For a moment he sat in silence, seemingly unwilling to respond. Then he said: ‘She was with the others at Torsten’s father’s summer cottage. Why do you ask?’

‘Didn’t they notice anything about you when you returned? You must have had blood on your clothes.’

Carl instantly regretted the last question. He hadn’t meant to be so direct. Now the interrogation would come to a standstill. Thøgersen would say he’d told the others how he’d tried to save a dog that had been hit by a car, just as it stated in the report. Damn it.

‘Did she think it was cool with all that blood?’ Assad asked from the corner, before the man was able to respond to Carl’s question.

Bjarne Thøgersen looked confusedly at the little man. A reproachful glare might have been expected, but not this naked, exposed manner indicating that Assad had hit the mark. He didn’t need to say anything. Whether the story held or not, they now knew that Kimmie had thought the blood was cool. Very unbecoming for someone who later wanted to dedicate herself to saving the lives of small animals.

Carl gave Assad a quick nod that was intended just as much to show Thøgersen that he’d noted his reaction. A reaction that had been too strong – and miscalculated.

‘Cool?’ Thøgersen said, trying to recoup. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘But she moved in with you,’ Carl went on. ‘That was in 1995, right, Assad?’

Assad nodded from his corner.

‘Yes, in 1995. The 29th of September. We’d been seeing each other for a while. An awesome lady.’

He’d said that before.

‘Why do you remember the exact date? It was very many years ago.’

He spread his hands. ‘Right, and what’s been happening in my life since then? For me, it’s still one of the last things that happened before I was sent here.’

‘I see.’ Carl tried to appear obliging. And then he changed his expression. ‘Were you the father of her child?’

Thøgersen glanced at the clock. His fair skin flushed slightly. Apparently one hour suddenly seemed endless to him.

‘I don’t know.’

Carl considered flaring up in anger, but he checked himself. It was neither the time nor the place. ‘You say you don’t know. What do you mean by that, Bjarne? Was she seeing others besides you when you lived together?’

He tilted his head to the side. ‘Of course not.’

‘So it was you who got her pregnant?’

‘She moved away, didn’t she? How the hell would I know who she went to bed with?’

‘From what we’ve determined, she miscarried at around eighteen weeks. Wasn’t she living with you when she became pregnant?’

Thøgersen lurched up from his seat and spun the chair round. This was the kind of jaunty attitude prison taught its inmates. Strolling nonchalantly through the central building. The laid-back waving of limbs to indicate indifference. Holding fags loosely between the lips out on the pitch. And then this habit of turning the chair round and taking the next questions with arms on the backrest, legs spread. Ask me your bullshit, I don’t care, the posture said. You’ll get nothing from me anyway, dumb copper pig.

‘Does it really make any fucking difference who the father was?’ he asked. ‘The kid died, after all.’

Ten to one he knew it wasn’t his.

‘And then she disappeared.’

‘Yeah, she just took off from the hospital. Really stupid.’

‘Was it like her to do such a thing?’

He shrugged. ‘How the hell should I know? She’d never had a miscarriage before, as far as I know.’

‘Did you go looking for her?’ came Assad’s voice from the corner.

Thøgersen glowered at him as if it were none of his business.

‘Did you?’ Carl asked.

‘It had been a while since we split up. So no, I didn’t.’

‘Why weren’t you together any more?’

‘We just weren’t. It didn’t work out.’

‘Was she unfaithful?’

Thøgersen glanced once more at the clock. Only a minute had passed since the last time he’d checked. ‘Why do you think she was the one who was unfaithful?’ he said, and gave his neck a couple of stretch exercises.

They discussed the relationship back and forth for five minutes. It was fruitless. He was slippery as an eel.

Meanwhile, Assad had been slowly edging his chair closer. Each time he asked a question, he inched forward, until he was nearly beside the table. No doubt about it, he was irritating Thøgersen.

‘We see you’ve had a bit of luck on the stock market,’ Carl said. ‘According to your tax documents you’re a wealthy man. Isn’t that right?’

He curled his lips. Smugly. This was something he would love to discuss. ‘I can’t complain,’ he said.

‘Who gave you the investment capital?’

‘You can see that in the tax documents.’

‘I’ve not actually been carrying your tax documents in my back pocket for the last eleven years, so I think you should just tell me yourself, Bjarne.’

‘I borrowed the money.’

‘Well done. Especially considering you were behind bars. Someone who wasn’t afraid to give a risky loan, that’s for sure. One of the drug kingpins in here, perhaps?’

‘I borrowed the money from Torsten Florin.’

Bingo, Carl thought. He would have loved to see Assad’s face at this moment, but he kept his eyes trained on Thøgersen.

‘Well, well. So you were still friends, despite your secret? That it was you who killed those kids. The abominable crime that Torsten, among others, had been suspected of committing. That’s what I’d call a friend, I must say. But perhaps he owed you a favour?’

Bjarne Thøgersen realized where this line of questioning was headed and fell silent.

‘You are good at stocks then?’ Assad had pulled his chair right next to the table. As imperceptibly as a reptile, he’d slithered into position.

Thøgersen shrugged. ‘Better than many, yes.’

‘Fifteen million kroner it’s turned into.’ Assad looked dreamy. ‘And still growing. Maybe I should get tips from you then. Do you give tips?’

‘How do you follow the market, Bjarne?’ Carl added. ‘Aren’t you rather limited in communicating with the outside world, and vice versa?’

‘I read newspapers and send and receive letters.’

‘So you know the buy-and-hold strategy, maybe? Or the TA-7 strategy? Is that how you do it?’ Assad asked calmly.

Carl slowly turned his head towards Assad. Was that poppycock, or what?

Thøgersen smiled curtly. ‘I follow my nose and KFX stocks. Nothing can go too wrong then.’ He smiled again. ‘I’ve had a good stretch.’

‘Do you know what, then, Bjarne Thøgersen?’ Assad said. ‘You should have a chat with my cousin. He started with fifty thousand kroner, and now, three years later, he still has fifty thousand kroner. He’d like you, I think.’

‘I’d say your cousin should refrain from trading stocks,’ Bjarne said, annoyed, and turned back to Carl. ‘I thought we were supposed to be talking about Kimmie? What does she have to do with my stock trading?’

‘That is true, but I have just one more question, for my cousin,’ Assad insisted. ‘Is Grundfos a good stock in KFX?’