Текст книги "Disgrace"

Автор книги: Jussi Adler-Olsen

Соавторы: Jussi Adler-Olsen
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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

25

The blast was like a muffled thud against the windows in the homicide chief’s office.

He and Carl glanced at each other. This wasn’t just premature New Year’s fireworks.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Marcus said. ‘Just as long as no one got killed.’

A friendly, empathetic person, who in this instance was probably thinking more of his workforce than potential victims.

He faced Carl again. ‘That number you pulled yesterday, don’t try it again, Carl. I understand what you’re saying, but next time you come to me first, otherwise you’ll make me look like a fool, understand?’

Carl nodded. Fair enough. Then he told the homicide chief his suspicions regarding Lars Bjørn. That he in all probability had had a personal motivation for interfering with Carl’s investigation. ‘We’ll have to call him in, right?’

Marcus Jacobsen sighed.

Maybe he knew the party was over, maybe he believed he could manoeuvre around it. Whatever the case, for the first time ever Bjørn wasn’t wearing his customary tie.

The homicide chief got right down to it. ‘I understand that you were our liaison between the ministry and the police chief in this case, Lars. Would you mind explaining how this adds up before we offer our own interpretation?’

Bjørn sat scratching his chin a moment. A military man by training. A classic, unblemished police CV. The right age. Continuing education courses at the University of Copenhagen. Law, of course. Good administrative abilities. An enormous network of contacts and a good deal of experience in fundamental police work as well. And now this glaringly obvious blunder. He had politicized his job, stabbed his colleagues in the back and helped hinder an investigation he in principle had nothing to do with. And for what? For solidarity with a boarding school he’d left ages ago? For old friendships’ sake? What the hell was he supposed to say? One wrong word and he was finished. They all knew it.

‘I wanted to spare us a resource-draining fiasco,’ he said, and instantly regretted it.

‘Unless you can produce a better defence, consider yourself out, you hear me?’ Carl saw how painful it was for the homicide chief. He and Bjørn were an excellent team, however irritating Carl thought the deputy commissioner was.

Bjørn sighed. ‘You’ve no doubt noticed that I have a different tie on.’

They both nodded.

‘Yes, I went to the same boarding school.’

Needless to say, they would have figured it out – and Bjørn could see that.

‘There was some very negative press in connection with a rape case at the school a few years ago, so they didn’t need the Rørvig case being reopened.’

They knew that, too.

‘And Ditlev Pram’s older brother, Herbert, was one of my classmates. He’s on the same school’s board of directors today.’

That bit of information, on the other hand, had regrettably slipped under Carl’s radar.

‘His wife is the sister of one of the department heads in the Justice Ministry. And this department head has been a rather good sparring partner for the police chief during the reform process.’

Isn’t that a nice kettle of fish, Carl thought. It was straight out of one of Morten Korch’s sentimental cinematic dramas. Soon they’d probably all turn out to be illegitimate children of some rural landowner.

‘I was being pressured on both sides. It’s like a brotherhood, all these old boarding-school alums, and I admit I’ve made a mistake here. But I assumed the department head was doing the justice minister’s bidding, and that therefore I wasn’t completely in the wrong. She didn’t want the case drawing any interest, partly because those who were involved – who aren’t exactly nobodies, of course – hadn’t been accused of anything when the crime was committed, and partly because there had already been a conviction with an almost-served sentence. To me it seemed as though they wanted to avoid an evaluation of whether or not procedural mistakes had been made and all kinds of other potential problems. I don’t know why I didn’t check with the minister, but at our lunch yesterday it became clear that she didn’t know anything about the investigation, so unfortunately she never took any measures. I know that now.’

Marcus Jacobsen nodded. He was ready to do the hard work now. ‘You didn’t notify me of any of these matters, Lars. You just told me the police chief had given us the directive that Department Q was to shut down its investigation. Now I see that it was you who single-handedly advised the police chief to give us this order after you personally misinformed her. What did you tell her, anyway? That there weren’t any grounds to reopen the case? That Carl Mørck was messing with it just for fun?’

‘I was in her office with the department head from the Justice Ministry. He was the one who informed her.’

‘Is he also an old pupil from the same boarding school?’

Lars nodded, a pained expression on his face.

‘So in reality, Pram and the others in the gang could have set the whole process in motion, Lars, don’t you realize that? Ditlev Pram’s brother’s plea to you! The department head’s highly questionable lobbying!’

‘Yes, I’m aware of that.’

The homicide chief threw his pen down hard on his desk. He was positively furious. ‘You’re suspended from this moment forward. Please write an account that I can present to the minister. Remember to include the department head’s name.’

Lars Bjørn had never looked so pathetic. If it weren’t for the fact that Carl had always found him to be a haemorrhoid in his arse, he would almost have felt sorry for him.

‘I’ve got a suggestion, Marcus,’ Carl interrupted.

A tiny spark lit up Bjørn’s eyes. After all, there had always been such a good, antagonistic understanding between them.

‘Let’s drop the suspension. We need all the men we can get, don’t we? If we make an issue out of this, word will get out. The press and all that crap. You’ll have journalists screaming out there in the courtyard, Marcus. Besides, the people we’re investigating will be much more careful, and I don’t need that.’

Bjørn sat nodding mechanically at each of these statements. Poor sap.

‘I want Bjørn on the case. Just to lead some of the work in the next few days. Searches, surveillance, everyday legwork. We can’t do it all ourselves, and now we have something to work with, Marcus. Do you see? A little effort now and maybe we’ll solve some other murders as well.’ He tapped his finger on Johan Jacobsen’s list of assaults. ‘Damn it, I think it might just happen, Marcus.’

No one was injured by the blast at the rail yard near Ingerslevsgade, but Channel 2 News and their infuriating helicopters were already circling the location as if seventeen platoons of terrorists had just demonstrated their strength.

The news anchor was clearly in a state of excitement, although trying hard not to show it. The best news was always the kind that could be delivered with gravity and concern, sensational items especially, and the police were once again in the journalists’ hot seat.

Following the events on his TV in the basement, Carl was glad it had nothing to do with him.

Rose entered his office. ‘Lars Bjørn has activated the Copenhagen Police search team. I sent them a photo of Kimmie, and Assad has filled them in on everything he could from his surveillance. They’re also looking for Tine Karlsen. She’s caught in the eye of the hurricane, that’s for sure.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The search team’s office is on Skelbækgade, you know? Isn’t that where Tine Karlsen usually turns tricks?’

He nodded, glancing at his notes and directives.

The list of tasks seemed endless. It was a question of prioritizing and working methodically.

‘Here are your tasks, Rose. Complete them in order.’

She took the paper and read aloud:

1. Find policemen who participated in the Rørvig investigation in 1987. Contact Holbæk Police and the Mobile Investigation Unit on Artillerivej.

2. Find classmates of the gang members. Get eyewitness accounts describing their behaviour.

3. Go back to Bispebjerg Hospital. Find a doctor or nurse who was working at the gynaecological ward while Kimmie was there.

4. Get details surrounding Kristian Wolf’s death.

5. Contact Berne University and get hold of any files they may have on Kimmie.

    Today, thanks!

He thought she’d take the very last word as being conciliatory. She didn’t.

‘Jesus! Apparently I should have come to work at four o’clock this morning instead of five thirty,’ she said quite loudly. ‘You’ve gone completely batty, man. Didn’t you just tell us we could go home an hour early?’

‘Yes, but that was a few hours ago.’

She spread her arms and dropped them again. ‘And … ?’

‘Now things are a bit different. Do you have anything you have to do this weekend?’

‘What?’

‘Rose, this is your opportunity to prove what you’re made of, and to learn what it’s like to do real investigative work. And think about how much time off in lieu you’ll have when it’s over.’

She snorted. If she wanted to hear jokes she would make them up herself.

The telephone rang just as Assad walked into the room. It was the homicide chief.

‘You were just about to get me four men from the airport, but then you didn’t?’ Carl fumed. ‘Is that what you’re telling me?’

The homicide chief confirmed it.

‘Do you really mean we can’t get anyone to help us trail the suspects? If it slips out that the investigation hasn’t been shut down after all, then where do you think Pram, Florin and Dybbøl Jensen will be by tomorrow? Not around here, I can tell you that. Maybe Brazil.’

He breathed deeply and shook his head. ‘I know damned well we don’t have any real proof of their involvement, but how about the circumstantial evidence, Marcus? It’s there, for God’s sake, don’t you agree?’

After the call, Carl sat in his office, eyes glued to the ceiling, and rattled off the best countrified curse words he’d learned off a kid from Frederikshavn at a Boy Scout jamboree in 1975. Not something Baden-Powell would have approved of.

‘What did Marcus say then, Carl?’ Assad asked. ‘Are we getting help then?’

‘What did he say? He said that first they just had to solve the Store Kannikestræde assault and then there’d be more resources to go around. And they have to get that explosion at the rail yard under control.’ Carl sighed. It was something he’d got pretty good at. If it wasn’t one thing it was another.

‘Sit down, Assad,’ he said. ‘We need to find out if Johan’s list is worth anything.’

He leaned towards the whiteboard and began copying out:

14/6/1987: Kåre Bruno, boarding-school pupil, falls from the ten-metre diving board and dies.

2/8/1987: The murders in Rørvig.

13/9/1987: Assault, Nyborg Beach. Five young men/one girl in the vicinity. The female victim in shock. Doesn’t make a statement.

8/11/1987: Twins, football pitch, town of Tappernøje. Two fingers cut off. Thoroughly beaten.

24/4/1988: Elderly couple disappears on Langeland. Various articles belonging to them turn up in Lindelse Cove.

When he had written down all twenty cases, he looked at Assad.

‘What’s the common denominator? What would you say, Assad?’

‘They all occurred on a Sunday.’

‘I thought so. Are you sure of that?’

‘Yes!’

Logical enough. Of course they must have started on Sundays. They certainly didn’t have any other possibilities as boarders. Boarding-school life was restrictive.

‘They must have got into the habit of carrying out the attacks on Sundays when they were at school, and then incorporated that as part of their ritual after they’d left,’ surmised Carl.

‘And they could drive from Næstved to the crime scenes in a couple of hours,’ Assad said. ‘There were no assaults in Jutland, for example.’

‘What else do you notice, Assad?’

‘During the period 1988 to 1992 none of the victims disappeared.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘As I say – that it was just violent assaults. Beatings and such. No one who was found dead or went missing.’

Carl studied the list. A civilian employee at headquarters had compiled it, and he was personally and emotionally involved. How could they know he hadn’t been too selective? There were thousands of cases of violence in Denmark each year, after all.

‘Bring Johan down here, Assad,’ Carl said.

In the meantime he would contact the pet shop where Kimmie had worked. That might help him develop her profile, learn something of her dreams and values. Maybe he could arrange a meeting tomorrow morning. Then in the evening he had an appointment with the teacher at Rødovre High School. They were having an alumni party that same evening. ‘Lasasep’, they called it. The last Saturday in September, 29/9/2007. Real cosy, with dinner and dancing, he’d said.

‘Johan is on the way,’ Assad reported, as he mulled over the list on the whiteboard.

‘Kimmie was in Switzerland during that period,’ he said very quietly, a moment later.

‘Which period?’

‘From 1988 to 1992.’ He nodded to himself. ‘No one disappeared or was killed while Kimmie was in Switzerland,’ he said. ‘Not anyone on this list, in any case then.’

Johan didn’t look good. He’d once run around headquarters like a baby calf that had just discovered the paddock’s limitless size and abundance. Now he seemed more like the battery calf that had been penned in once and for all. With no room to move or grow.

‘Are you still going to the psychologist, Johan?’ Carl asked.

He was. ‘She’s good. I just don’t feel so well,’ he replied.

Carl glanced at the photo of the two siblings on the board. Maybe it wasn’t so strange.

‘How did you select the incidents on your list, Johan?’ Carl asked. ‘How do I know there aren’t hundreds and hundreds you didn’t include?’

‘I started by including all instances of reported violence between 1987 and 1988 that were committed on a Sunday, where the assault wasn’t reported by the victims themselves and the distance to Næstved was less than a hundred miles.’ He looked quizzically at Carl. It was important for him that they were one hundred per cent on the same page.

‘Listen. I’ve read a great deal about those kinds of boarding schools. The wants and needs of the individual mean next to nothing. The pupils are kept to a tight schedule where lessons and duties come first, and everything is mapped out. All week long. The goal is to establish discipline and a sense of community. Based on that I concluded that the violent crimes committed during the school year’s weekdays or before breakfast on the weekends or at any point after dinner weren’t worth looking into. In short, the gang had other activities to keep them occupied at those times. That’s how I selected the crimes. Sundays, after breakfast and before dinner. That’s when the assaults had to take place.’

‘They committed their crimes on Sundays in the middle of the day, you say?’

‘Yes, I believe so.’

‘And during that time span they could drive a maximum of a hundred or so miles, if they also had to find their victims and carry out their plan.’

‘During the school year, yes. Summer breaks were another matter.’ He looked down at the floor.

Carl checked his perpetual calendar. ‘But the murders in Rørvig were also committed on a Sunday. Was that just a coincidence, or was it the gang’s trademark?’

Johan seemed sad when he replied. ‘I think it was a coincidence. It was right before the school year began. Maybe they felt they hadn’t got enough out of their summer holiday, I don’t know. They were psychos, after all.’

After that, Johan explained he’d used his intuition to create the list covering subsequent years. Not that Carl thought it was inaccurate. But if they were going to act on intuition, he’d rather it be his own. So for the time being the investigation would focus exclusively on the years before Kimmie went to Switzerland.

After Johan had returned to his daily duties, Carl sat for a bit evaluating the list before calling the police in Nyborg. From them he learned that the twin brothers who’d been attacked on the football pitch in 1987 had emigrated to Canada many years ago. In a voice that might have belonged to an eighty-year-old, the duty officer informed him that they’d inherited a small sum of money and had established a farm-equipment supply business. At any rate, that was what they’d been told at the station. Nobody was familiar with the boys’ personal lives. It was, of course, a long time ago.

Carl then looked at the date of the elderly couple’s disappearance on the island of Langeland, and let his eyes wander across the case file Assad had requisitioned and put on his desk. It involved two schoolteachers from Kiel who’d sailed to Rudkøbing and then travelled from one bed and breakfast to the next before finally spending the night in Stoense.

The police report stated that they had been seen at the harbour in Rudkøbing the day they vanished, and in all probability had sailed out to sea and sunk. But there were some people who’d seen the couple in Lindelse Cove the same day, and later two young guys were observed in the harbour near where the couple’s boat had been moored. The witnesses stressed that they were nice-looking young men. Not the kind of local boys with Castrol or BP caps, but the kind with pressed shirts and neat haircuts. Some suggested they were the ones who’d sailed off in the boat, not the owners. But that was only local speculation.

The report did also mention some effects that had been found on the beach near Lindelse Cove. Though they couldn’t say for sure, relatives thought they might belong to the missing couple.

Carl looked through the whole list of effects for the first time: an empty thermal box with no distinctive labelling; a shawl; a pair of socks; and an earring consisting of two pieces. Amethyst and silver. With a little silver hook. To put through the earlobe and without any locking mechanism.

Not a terribly detailed description, as one might expect from a male police constable, but it sounded like an exact replica of the earring in the little plastic pocket in front of Carl, right next to the two Trivial Pursuit cards.

It was at this astonishing moment that Assad arrived, looking like the incarnation of someone who’d struck gold.

He pointed at the rubber band in the bag next to the earring.

‘I’ve just learned that this type of rubber band was used at the pool at Bellahøj so you could see how long you’d been in the water.’

Carl tried to rise to the surface. He was still far away in his thoughts. What could be as important as his truly incredible discovery concerning the earring?’

‘Those kinds of rubber bands were used everywhere, Assad. They still are.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But in any case, when they found Kåre Bruno smashed on the tiles, he’d lost his.’

26

‘He’s waiting up at the front desk now, Carl,’ Assad said. ‘Would you like me here then, when he comes down?’

‘No.’ Carl shook his head. Assad had enough to do. ‘But bring us some coffee, will you? Just not too strong, please.’

With Assad whistling in the Saturday silence, when even the sanitation pipes thundered only at half strength, Carl quickly skimmed Who’s Who for information about the man he was about to meet.

Mannfred Sloth was his name. Forty years old. Former room-mate of Kåre Bruno, the deceased school prefect. Graduated in 1987. Royal Guardsman. Lieutenant in the reserves. MBA. CEO of five companies since his thirty-third birthday. Six board appointments, one of which was in a state-owned organization. Promoter and sponsor of several exhibitions of modern Portuguese art. Since 1994 married to Agustina Pessoa. Former Danish consul in Portugal and Mozambique.

No wonder that Sloth could add a knighthood and international orders to the list.

‘I only have fifteen minutes,’ he began his handshake with. Sloth sat down, crossed his legs, tossed his autumn coat casually aside and lifted the creases of his trousers a tad so his knees wouldn’t stretch the fabric. It was quite easy to picture him in a boarding-school environment. Much harder to envision him in the sandbox with his children.

‘Kåre Bruno was my best friend,’ he said, ‘and I know he would never have entertained the thought of going to an outdoor public pool, so it’s very odd that he was found at Bellahøj. A place such as that was far too close to all kinds of people, you understand.’ He actually meant it. ‘Besides, I’d never seen him dive before, and most certainly not from a ten-metre board.’

‘You don’t think it was an accident?’

‘How could it be an accident? Kåre was a smart chap. He wouldn’t just dawdle about up there when everyone knows falling off would be fatal.’

‘And it couldn’t have been suicide?’

‘Suicide! Why? We had just graduated. His father had given him a Buick Regal Limited as a graduation gift. A coupé model, you know?’

Carl nodded hesitantly because he didn’t bloody know. He knew that Buick was a type of car, and that would have to do.

‘He was set to go to the US to study law. Harvard, right? Why would he do something so idiotic? That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.’

‘Was he lovesick?’ Carl asked cautiously.

‘Ha! He could have had whoever he wanted.’

‘You remember Kimmie Lassen?’

He grimaced. The memory of her didn’t please him.

‘Was he upset that she’d dumped him?’

‘Upset? He was furious. He didn’t like being dropped. Who does?’ He smiled, teeth gleaming whitely, and swept the hair from his forehead. Hair that was tinted and newly cut, of course.

‘And what was he going to do about it?’

Mannfred Sloth shrugged, brushing a few specks of dust from his coat. ‘I’m here today because I think we both believe he was murdered. That he was pushed over the edge. Otherwise, why would you bother contacting me twenty years later? Am I correct?’

‘We’re not absolutely certain, but naturally there’s a reason we’re working on the case again. Who do you think might have pushed him?’

‘I have no idea. Kimmie had some sick friends in her class. They ran around her like satellites. She had them in the palm of her hand. Lovely breasts, you know? Tits rule, am I right?’ He gave a short, dry laugh. It didn’t suit him.

‘Do you know if he tried to win her back?’

‘She already had something going with one of the teachers. One from the suburbs without the common sense to know pupils were off limits.’

‘Do you remember his name?’

He shook his head. ‘He hadn’t been there terribly long. He taught a few Danish classes, I think. He wasn’t the kind of person you noticed if you didn’t have him as a teacher. His …’ He paused and raised a finger in the air, his face radiating remembrance and concentration. ‘Yes. Now I’ve got it. His name was Klavs. With a “v”, for God’s sake!’ He snorted. The name alone was pathetic.

‘Klavs, you say! Klavs Jeppesen?’

He raised his head. ‘Yes, Jeppesen. I believe that was it.’ He nodded.

Pinch my arm, I must be dreaming, Carl thought. He was going to meet Jeppesen that very evening.

‘Just put the coffee there, Assad. Thank you.’

‘Well, I must say,’ Carl’s guest said with a crooked smile. ‘You have humble conditions down here, but at least the help is well trained.’ He laughed the same dry laugh and Carl could imagine only too well how he had treated the natives in Mozambique.

Sloth tasted the coffee and with the first gulp clearly had had enough.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I know he was still keen on the girl. There were many who were. So when she was expelled he wanted her all to himself, naturally. She was living in Næstved then.’

‘I don’t understand how he came to die in Bellahøj.’

‘When we were done with our exams, he moved in with his grandparents. He had stayed with them before. They lived in Emdrup. Very sweet, fine people they were. I spent a lot of time there back then.’

‘His parents weren’t in Denmark?’

He shrugged. No doubt Mannfred Sloth’s children also went to boarding school so he could devote himself to his own affairs. Fuck him.

‘Did anyone in Kimmie’s circle live near the swimming centre?’

He looked right through Carl. Now, finally, he recognized the gravity that the room exuded. The files with the old cases. The photographs on the noticeboard. The list of assault victims, with his friend Kåre Bruno’s name at the top.

Shit, Carl thought, when he turned round and realized what Sloth was staring at.

‘What’s that?’ Sloth asked, with a menacing seriousness, his finger pointing at the list.

‘Oh,’ Carl said. ‘The cases aren’t connected. We’re in the process of categorizing our files in chronological order.’

Idiotic explanation, thought Carl. Why in the world would they write on the board what could just as easily be in files on the shelf?

But Mannfred Sloth didn’t ask any questions. He wasn’t the type who did that kind of slave labour, so how would he know about such basic procedures?

‘You must have your hands full,’ he said.

Carl spread his arms. ‘That’s why it’s so important that you answer my questions as precisely as you can.’

‘What was it you asked?’

‘I simply asked if anyone in the gang lived near Bellahøj.’

He nodded without hesitation. ‘Yes, Kristian Wolf did. His parents owned quite an impressive, functionalist house down by the lake, which he moved into when he threw his father out of the firm. And actually I think his wife still lives there with her new husband.’

He didn’t get any more out of him. But what he got wasn’t so bad.

‘Rose,’ he called, when the hard sound of Mannfred Sloth’s Lloyd shoes had faded. ‘What do you know about Kristian Wolf’s death?’

‘Hello, Carl?’ She tapped her head with her notepad. ‘Do you have Alzheimer’s or what? You gave me five tasks, and that one was number four according to your own prioritization. So what do you suppose I know about it?’

He’d forgotten. ‘So when can you tell me something? Can’t you switch the order around?’

She put her hands on her hips like an Italian mama about to yell at her scoundrel of a husband lounging on the sofa. Then she suddenly smiled. ‘Oh, to hell with it. I can’t keep a straight face anyway.’ She licked her finger and riffled through her notepad. ‘Do you think you get to decide everything? Of course I did that one first. It was obviously the easiest.’

When he died, Kristian Wolf was only just under thirty years old, but filthy rich. His father had founded the shipping company, but Kristian outmanoeuvred and ruined him. People said his father had it coming; he’d raised a son without feelings and when push came to shove, that’s what he got in return.

He was a bachelor rolling in money, and for that reason his June marriage to a countess – the third daughter of Baron Saxenholdt, Maria Saxenholdt – caused a sensation. Their wedded bliss lasted barely three months, the press wrote, before Kristian Wolf was killed in a shooting accident on 15 September 1996.

It all seemed so pointless, and maybe that was the reason the newspaper coverage was endless. There were far more articles about his death than about the new bus terminal at Copenhagen’s City Hall, and nearly as many as about Bjarne Riis winning the Tour de France a few weeks earlier.

He had gone out alone very early one morning at his weekend estate on the island of Lolland. He was supposed to meet the rest of the hunting party half an hour later, but more than two hours passed before they found him with an ugly gunshot wound in one thigh, his body completely drained of blood. It had to have been a fairly quick demise, the autopsy report concluded.

That was true. Carl had seen it before.

The investigators had been surprised that things could have gone so terribly wrong for such an experienced hunter. But many of his hunting buddies explained that Wolf had a habit of carrying his gun with the safety latch off. Once he’d missed the chance to shoot a polar bear in Greenland because his fingers had been too cold to release the latch, and he wasn’t going to let that happen again.

In any event, it was a bit of a mystery how he’d managed to shoot himself in the thigh, but the conclusion was that he had stumbled over a ploughed furrow and accidentally fired the shotgun. Reconstructions of the accident showed that it was just possible.

That the young wife didn’t make a bigger issue of the accident was more or less unofficially ascribed to the fact that by that time she’d already regretted the marriage. After all, he was older than her, and very different, and the inheritance was a rather nice consolation, all things considered.

The country house practically jutted out over the lake. There weren’t many properties of its calibre in the vicinity. It was of the kind that makes all those around it appreciate considerably in value.

Carl estimated it was worth 40 million kroner before the real estate market had been brought to its knees. Now this sort of place was just about unsellable. Still he suspected the owners had voted for the very government that had created the conditions for this economic slump in the first place. But what the hell, it was all just words, anyway. A consumer orgy followed by an overheated economy. Who gave a hoot about that around here?

It was people’s own fault.

The boy who opened the door was eight or nine years old at most. He had a stuffy, red nose and was wearing a dressing gown and slippers. A quite unexpected sight in this enormous hall where businessmen and finance moguls had held court for generations.

‘I’m not allowed to let anyone in,’ he managed to say, through a couple of highly inflated bubbles of snot. ‘My mother won’t be home for a little while. She’s in Lyngby.’

‘Can you call her and tell her the police would like to speak with her?’

‘The police?’ He eyed Carl sceptically. It was in these kinds of situations that a long black leather coat like Bak’s or the homicide chief’s would help develop mutual trust.

‘Here,’ Carl said. ‘This is what my badge looks like. Ask your mother if I may wait inside.’

The boy slammed the door.

For half an hour he stood on the steps, observing people running around on the paths on the other side of the lake. Ruddy-cheeked people with swinging arms and mincing gaits. It was a Saturday morning. The citizens of the Welfare State were out getting their exercise fix.

‘Are you looking for someone?’ the woman asked, when she’d stepped from her car. She was on her guard. One wrong move and she would throw her purchases on the ground and race to the back door.