An Old Debt

by Doriana Cantoni

  All the cops in the precinct, including Inspector Thomsen, looked suddenly up. They knew the case was complicated, but they didn't think it was that important.

  "Be careful, all of us. We are armed and allowed to use force in case of need, but we do not start shooting for nothing. Now let's go, it's time to move," said the inspector, and he left the precinct followed by Poulsen and two other officers who were tall and muscular almost like him.

  Twenty minutes later Petersen was watching with horror Else Mertens' lifeless body. She was lying face down on a mattress in the first floor bedroom she shared with her husband. Someone had dumped her there after killing her. There was no trace of Mertens in the house, and the officers had to force the door lock downstairs to enter the house.

  "Do you think her husband killed her?" asked Poulsen.

  "I'm afraid not. Mertens was just an accomplice to the real killer. When I heard her screaming on the phone, I didn't realize she was in danger. That monster of her husband even reassured me, by telling me that she was having a nervous breakdown. If I had rushed here, I might not have been able to save her, but at least I would have caught the culprits," said the inspector, clenching his fists.

  "If you're right, Søren and I let the killer slip out of our hands, because it had to be the man Mertens presented to us as the psychiatrist who was treating his wife."

  "Tomorrow you and Janssen will check if he really has a studio in Copenhagen, but he must have left everything to go and hide somewhere, maybe together with our former colonel. They couldn't seriously think we wouldn't find the body as soon as possible."

  "Toft mentioned the fact that the sergeant used to go to Copenhagen to keep in touch with some of the big names in the extremist movement, so he could be the one he met."

  "Most likely. Confirmation may be given later by the superintendent. Now we leave this place, or you'll see me throwing up, and it doesn't happen to me for almost twenty years," said Petersen, white in his face.

  "Should I ask the officers in the precinct to have the forensic team come with the coroner?" Lene asked as soon as they were out.

  " Yes, and be sure they move immediately."

  Poulsen spoke quickly on the radio, then she confirmed that they would arrive as soon as possible.

  "Werner, you stay here and make sure no one comes into the house. We are now going to Lassen," the inspector said suddenly, addressing one of the two cops.

  "Are you sure? Wasn't Thomsen's team going there? Maybe we should warn them," said Lene.

  "They're still busy at Jonas Krogh's farm, otherwise they'd have us updated. Until the operation is over, it's radio silence," Lars replied, quickly getting into the car and ordering both Poulsen and the other cop to follow him.

  Sergeant Lassen's cottage was plunged into darkness and there was no car on the esplanade facing the front door, this was the first thing Petersen noticed a few minutes later.

  "Let's be careful. It looks uninhabited, but there may be someone armed inside," he said, holding the weapon.

  He was the first to enter, forcing the entrance door and turning on the corridor switch, then heading with Lene to the inner space, while Officer Meyer controlled the other rooms on the ground floor.

  "There's a wounded man on the floor," screamed Poulsen right after turning on light in the kitchen.

  "Meyer, find the phone and call an ambulance," then shouted Inspector Petersen.

  The wounded was Sergeant Lassen, the two of them immediately understood it from the uniform he was wearing. His hands were soaked in blood, since he was holding down his belly where he had been shot. On the ground, a blackish pool continued to swell.

  He opened his eyes and said, "He asked me to kill him, but I couldn't do it."

  "Who was it?" asked Petersen.

  "Dieter, I refused and he shot me. I feel sorry for the boy. I knew him well, tell his father I tried to stop him."

  "Where is he?"

  "Down here, but now there's nothing more you can do for him, as for me," said the sergeant, breathing with difficulty.

  "What happened?"

  "Michael, as a good soldier, has pleased him."

  "Mertens"?

  "That's him. They ran off together. I pretended to be dead, so I wouldn't get the final blow, but I know I'm dead anyway."

  "Do you know where they went?"

  "No idea, otherwise I'd tell you. I had to go too, but the only one who knew the final destination was Dieter," said Lassen coughing. He'd started spitting blood.

  "Catch those bastards," he whispered with a thread of voice and then reclined his face. He looked like he was sleeping, but he had just died.

  Petersen got up and went to check the cellar. He only went down a couple of steps and immediately saw Svend dead, killed with a bullet in his head.

  "Damn," he yelled and slammed his fists against the wall. "All I had to do was tell Thomsen to come here first, instead of going to Krogh."

  "There was no indication that the boy was being held hostage in this very house," Poulsen tried to say to reassure him, but she too was tired of seeing all those dead, and she was holding back the tears with difficulty.

  "Let's go out in the open. I'll have to tell his parents later," replied Lars.

  A couple of minutes afterwards, the car radio started croaking. It was Thomsen.

  "Are you listening, Inspector Petersen?" he asked.

  "Yes, go ahead."

  "We're done here at the farm. The suspects greeted us with gunfire, so we had to respond to the fire. The father died, along with one of the three sons, while the others finally surrendered. We searched the house and the other two buildings, but there's no sign of the boy. On the other hand, we found a lot of weapons. It’s a small arsenal, and there’s also Nazi propaganda material."

  "We found the boy here in Lassen's house, where we preceded you, but he's dead," said Petersen.

  "Dead?" repeated Thomsen incredulously.

  "I'll update you as soon as you can reach us," replied the inspector, stopping the communication.

  He was tired of giving explanations and arriving late, when the crimes had already been committed.

  The sky was clear, unlike the night before when it had been snowing most of the time. Not even two days had passed since his arrival in Torslunde, and the deaths had multiplied, as he had not been able to save anyone.

  An hour later, at the precinct, Superintendent Nielsen was listening carefully to his report on the events that had just occurred. Fischer and his scientific team had already arrived, along with the coroner. Svend Karlsen's parents had been informed of the boy's death by Poulsen who had offered herself for that ungrateful task, freeing Petersen from a huge burden.

  "I'm really sorry about the way things went," Lars said, looking at the wall in front of him with a lost look. "Unfortunately, I couldn't save Else Mertens and neither the young Karlsen."

  "From what you just told me, it was only bad luck. You have nothing to reproach yourself," said Kurt.

  "We have set up checkpoints and also alerted the coastal areas, in case they think to flee to Sweden, but so far no one has seen them," replied Petersen.

  "They just ran off, maybe we'll be able to stop them by tonight. They are dangerous and have a network of connections that we can't even imagine. If we don't get them right away, it's just for that."

  "You still haven't told me how the meeting with the Prime Minister went."

  "He revealed to us the contents of the letter that the pastor had sent to Bishop Madsen on the day of his death. As you suspected, Knudsen had become a fervent supporter of the Aryan cause immediately after the Nazi occupation. He was recruited by a German officer, a certain Dieter Kraler who spoke our language perfectly since his maternal grandparents came from Denmark. A few years later, however, he left the movement because of the terrible ruthlessness of that man, who incited his followers to beatings or even political murders, so that he was later declared a war criminal. Knudsen was informed at the end of the w
ar that the officer in question had died during the Allied offensive for the liberation of Berlin."

  "So far I've been following you, but what does it have to do with now?"

  "The fact is that Kraler was still alive. He had only pretended to be dead, so as not to be judged and sentenced to death like others of his kind. He probably put his documents in the pockets of some newly deceased German soldier. As you know, at the time there weren't many checks made," Nielsen said, looking for an ashtray somewhere in the room. He absolutely needed to smoke.

  "How did Knudsen learn about this?"

  "Else Mertens told him last week," he replied, lighting up a cigarette and enjoying the inspector's astonished gaze for a moment. "Although she was a fervent believer, she had always embraced her husband's ideas about race, even though in recent times she had disagreed with the violent turn that their group was taking. She blamed it on an old friend of her husband's who she called 'the Recruiter', a man she considered ruthless and without scruples. She decided to confide in Pastor Knudsen and from the precise description she gave him of that man he immediately suspected that it was Dieter Kraler. Now he called himself Dieter Völler and had become a respectable psychiatrist, but he remained a war criminal."

  "Then that's why the pastor was killed, so that he wouldn't reveal that Dieter Kraler was still alive, right here in Denmark."

  "That's right. Almost certainly Mertens realized that his wife had talked to Knudsen about this subject, and he decided to warn his friend. Only then must Kraler have realized that the pastor was his old adept. He may have come to Torslunde to reconnect and convince him to keep quiet, then things must have gotten worse," said the superintendent, shaking the ashes in a paper cup.

  "Not succeeding, he had to eliminate him, both him and Ingrid Skov who had probably entered the church at the wrong time, becoming an uncomfortable witness," concluded Petersen.

  "That's my opinion, too. Apparently, all the pieces are in place now."

  "Not all of them," replied Lars, "because there are still some shadows left, but the picture is now outlined. For instance, it must have been Sergeant Lassen, who had heard it from Holst, to tell Kraler about Jan Slovak, giving him a cover to enter the intensive care unit. It must always have been him who called the Copenhagen hospital to ask if Skov was still alive, right after she was rescued."

  "Lassen was in it up to his neck, but at least he wasn't a murderer, so we have to give him credit for that," Kurt said, then he looked around and added, "I don't see Janssen and neither Poulsen. What happened to them?"

  "They're out with the other officers. They're turning this place around, hoping that something will come up. They took it very badly."

  "Like all of us. I don't think there's anything worse for a policeman than not being able to put a delinquent in jail, so you can imagine in this particular case," Kurt said, lighting up another cigarette.

  "Don't you smoke a little too much, recently?" Lars asked him with a half smile.

  "With what's happened, be glad I'm not drinking. I'm about to have to update the Chief of Police, and I'm not sure he won't make a fuss."

  "The responsibility is mine."

  "Don't be stupid, we're a one team. Is Hansen still here, as far as you know?"

  "She told me she was leaving tomorrow morning with her cameraman."

  "Very good. Maybe, to sweeten the pill since they are good friends and he had recommended her to us, I can suggest to our big chief to let her know about the entire operation. For her, it would be a gigantic scoop and by giving her the information I'm sure she could not speak badly of the police."

  "If you give me the go-ahead, I'll get her out of bed."

  "Let me call the high places for confirmation and in a few minutes you can go," Nielsen said, beginning to dial a reserved number.

  Petersen walked away to let him speak privately. As he approached the window, he saw that it was starting to snow again, even though the snowflakes coming down from the sky were smaller than the day before.

  He hoped that the snow would stop the two monsters that had just escaped from the village and throw them into hell from where they had come out, but then he thought that it was the men who had to straighten out the wrongs, making sure that people like them could no longer do harm. So he swore he'd find them, wherever they were, and make them pay.

  CHAPTER 13

  Six days had passed since Petersen took over the case of the murder of Pastor Knudsen. Lars and his team had just come back from Torslunde after turning the whole town around in search of the fugitives, but unfortunately that didn't lead to any results. The reality was that Michael Mertens and Dieter Kraler had managed to escape, leaving several dead behind.

  In the police station, the general feeling among the officers who had taken part in the operation was one of extreme disappointment, because that war criminal had not yet been captured. The checkpoints had been useless, as well as the searches carried out both in Torslunde and in the psychiatrist's office.

  The man must have prepared over the years a safe escape route in case he was discovered, and also his accomplice, the former Colonel Mertens, must have long thought about how to get out of the village in a hurry, if necessary. He had withdrawn from the bank the entire amount in his account the day after the murder, a sign that he was already thinking of getting away.

  The inspector had a thorough check carried out, but there was no evidence in Denmark either in his own name or in Kraler's name of any property they could have escaped to. The doubt was that they had used in the past some cover name to buy a safe haven, since the psychiatrist seemed to have fun creating false identities.

  Alternatively, they could have also found refuge with some sympathizer, perhaps in Sweden which was the closest and easiest to reach.

  Ole Toft had not yet revealed the names of the members of the group of extremists who met in Torslunde, so his detention status continued. He was the one who had the least to lose from the whole thing, yet he was persuaded that if he spoke to the magistrate his life and that of his family would be in serious danger, so he stubbornly remained silent. The assurances of the General Prosecutor, who had promised him protection for an indefinite period of time in exchange for a complete testimony had not served to convince him either.

  The same was with the other people arrested, Holst and Jonas' two sons still alive. They were the only ones who might have known something about the external network of pseudo patriots of the extreme right to which Toft had referred, but swore on everything possible from the prison in which they had been locked up that they would not speak. Instead, they threatened to take revenge for the losses they had suffered.

  "You've done everything you could, you can't blame yourself for anything, you know it, too. We just had a terrible misfortune," Nielsen said while lighting another cigarette.

  The superintendent was with Petersen in his office on the upper floors of the police station. The two of them were talking about the investigation that had ended with a criminal who had not yet been captured.

  "It's just that the bastard walked past us without us noticing, and then it was too late to catch him. Janssen has no peace for letting him go like that and neither has Poulsen," said Lars.

  "They're great elements, and they've given more than they've been asked. I swear I'm not gonna make any more jokes about women in the police, this case has served as a lesson to me."

  "Then at least we got a good result," said Lars smiling, but his face was tired.

  The inspector slept badly since they discovered Else Mertens dead in the bedroom of her house, thrown on the mattress as if it were an old blanket to get rid of in a hurry. That evening he had heard her screaming on the phone, and yet he could never imagine that at that very moment Kraler was strangling her. Her husband had remained calm on the other side of the line, in fact he had told him not to get him alarmed that the woman was in the grip of a nervous breakdown. Lars had stupidly believed him, but that cry remained within him, buried in his soul
.

  "Consider it just a setback. We still have a lot of cards to play and sooner or later we'll get them, but we don't have to be in a hurry or freak out. The Prime Minister also congratulated the Chief of Police on how we were able to handle this difficult case quickly. No one could imagine that here in Denmark with our anti-Nazi past there were those groups of fanatics. Bringing them to light is only good," Kurt said.

  "I agree with you perfectly on that. Have you seen how much space Hansen is getting on television with her in-depth show? She has also started to talk about us in a good way," said Petersen.

  "It's thanks to you that she made the scoop of life. Evidently, she's showing some appreciation. But how about Skov?"

  "She's better. She's now conscious, and she's been in the internal medicine department for a few days. We continue with day and night surveillance, even if at this point it seems to me quite unlikely that Kraler will show up in the hospital, unless he’s in the mood to get himself arrested. If Skov's recovery goes on like this, the doctors told me that she should be able to give testimony within a week, but I'm afraid she won't help us much, at least as we hoped. She suffered a huge shock, and when they tried to talk to her about what happened she closed in on herself."

  "It's understandable, but give her some more time, and she'll recover. Also, it may be that the boy decides to give us the names of the other members of the group in Torslunde."

  "I really hope so because we're at a standstill. Of all the unresolved mysteries, there is one that could perhaps make us go on with the investigation. We are not yet able to understand what Pastor Knudsen did in the abundant hour in which he left the group immediately after the proclamation of the new queen. My intuition tells me it's important to find out," said Petersen.

  "I've been wondering, too, reading the notes on the case you kindly handed me. Pastor Knudsen had been warned by Else Mertens of the existence of a recruiter. From the description she made of the man, he suspected it was Kraler, the war criminal he believed had died during the fall of Berlin which occurred shortly before the end of the war. That's why I don't understand who he might have met in Copenhagen in that occasion," said the superintendent.