Anneli swallowed hard. Was that old lie really going to cause her trouble all these years later? It would have been laughable if the situation wasn’t so serious.
“I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed, Denise. That story with the lottery is only a rumor. I’ll happily show you my bank statement, but you’ll probably be disappointed. But what’s happened to make you do this, Denise? It’s not like you. Why don’t you put that weapon down, and I promise I won’t take this any further. You can tell me—”
The second blow hurt really badly. A guy had once punched her in the face with his fist, which was the end of that relationship, but this was much worse.
She held a hand up to her cheek while Denise demanded to know where she was hiding the money if it wasn’t in her bank account.
Anneli sighed and nodded.
“It’s in the room next door,” she said, pushing open the door into the mechanical engineer’s sitting room. “I have a couple of thousand in here for emergencies. We can start with that,” she said as she grabbed the gun with the untested silencer from the shelf.
As she spun around, directed the gun at Denise’s forehead, and pulled the trigger in the same movement, she realized with relief that the silencer as well as the gun worked brilliantly.
A muted pop. That was it.
Denise was stone dead.
42
Monday, May 30th, 2016
“Isn’t Rose’s apartment in Sandalsparken the one closest to the stairwell?”
Carl looked at Assad and nodded, but why in the world was he talking about that?
“Carl, you do know that I’m the one who buys the sugar down here in the basement, don’t you?”
Carl was confused. What the heck was he on about? “Yes, Assad, and I know it’s been a long day, but aren’t you being a bit random just now?”
“And the one who buys coffee and other stuff, I might add. And why do you suppose I do that?”
“I’m thinking it’s probably because it’s part of your job. But why are you saying all this? Are you trying to get a raise out of me? Because if that’s the case, I’ll just go to the supermarket and buy the coffee myself next time.”
“You don’t get it, Carl. But in the unbearably sharp light of hindsight, things sometimes pop up that suddenly make sense.”
Had he really said “the unbearably sharp light of hindsight”? He used to always say “the unbearable cleverness of backlight.” He was really sounding more and more fluent with every day.
“Well, you’re right. I don’t get it at all.”
“Okay, but it’s really quite logical. I buy the coffee and stuff because Rose doesn’t—even though that was the agreement. She just forgets, Carl. That’s why.”
“Get to the point, Assad. We have enough to do. I need to find some way to talk with Rose so I can ask her about Rigmor Zimmermann. Maybe she knows something about her neighbor’s movements and habits that could help us.”
Assad looked at him drowsily. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Don’t you get it? Rose always forgets to buy things for Department Q, and I’ve teased her about it and asked if she also forgets to buy groceries for herself at home. So she told me about her nice neighbor who always lets her borrow sugar, milk, oatmeal, and stuff like that when she runs out.”
Carl frowned. Okay, so that was where this was going.
“And since we now know that Zimmermann was her neighbor, and Rose only had one neighbor because she lives next to the stairwell, it must be Rigmor Zimmermann she borrowed things from. She was the nice neighbor Rose talked about—the same woman whose murder we’re investigating.” He nodded as he concluded. “So we know now that Rose knew her well, Carl. Really well.”
Carl rubbed his forehead with both hands. This was so strange. Then he grabbed the telephone and dialed the number for the ward where Rose was committed.
“You want to speak to Rose Knudsen?” asked the ward nurse. “I’m afraid she’s no longer with us. She left voluntarily back on . . . let me see . . .”
Carl heard her typing in the background.
“Yes, here it is. Her file says it was on May 26th.”
Carl couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. May 26th? That was four days ago. Why hadn’t she called them?
“Was she deemed fit to leave, since she just up and left?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that. On the contrary, she was very introverted and rather aggressive. However, Rose Knudsen was here voluntarily, and so it was her decision, and hers alone, to leave, but it certainly wasn’t something we would have recommended based on her mental state. I’d be surprised if we didn’t hear from her again soon. That’s usually the case.”
Carl hung up quietly. “She left the ward on Thursday, Assad. Four days ago, and not a word to us. It’s not good.”
Assad looked at him in shock. “That’s the day she was shouting in the background when I was speaking with the receptionist on the ward. So where is she now? Did you ask?”
Carl shook his head. “I don’t think they know.” He picked up the phone again and dialed Rose’s number.
After a few beeps came the automatic response: “The number you’re calling is currently unavailable.”
He looked at Assad. “No answer,” he grumbled, turning toward the door to the corridor.
“Gordoooon!” he shouted.
—
Gordon seemed totally stunned when they told him what Rose had done. And when they called her sisters, their reaction was the same. This was news to all of them.
Having discussed it among themselves, the sisters decided to call their mother in Spain, who confirmed that she had been informed that Rose had left the hospital. She had called Rose without getting through but almost immediately after received a text message from her.
After some difficulty and guidance, their mother managed to forward the message to the sisters and Carl.
Carl read it out to Gordon and Assad:
Dear Mom, I’m on the train just now to Malmö. The connection is bad so I’m texting instead of calling. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I discharged myself today because a good friend in Blekinge has offered to let me stay in their lovely house for a while. It will do me good. Will be in touch when back. Rose
“Have you ever heard about Rose’s friend in Blekinge?” asked Carl.
Neither of them had.
“So what do you make of the message?”
Assad jumped in first. “If she knows someone in Blekinge, it’s strange that she didn’t mention it when you drove to Hallabro in connection with the case about a message in a bottle.”
“Her friend could have moved there since then,” Gordon said in her defense.
Carl was of a different opinion. “Do you really think this is Rose’s style? She wrote ‘dear’ to her mom, but we know how much she hates her. Remember what she wrote about her mom when she left them: ‘Bitch’! And then Rose writes that she’s texting because the connection is bad on the Malmö train. That’s just bullshit! She also mentions her friend’s ‘lovely’ house. This is the same Rose who doesn’t give a damn about orderliness and aesthetics in her own home!”
“So you think that the text message is a diversion?” asked Gordon.
Carl looked out of his tiny window, gauging the weather. Bright sunshine and a clear sky. There was no reason to put his jacket on.
“Come on,” he said. “We’re driving over to her apartment.”
“Could we wait half an hour, Carl?” interrupted Gordon. He looked pained. “We have a visitor in a minute. Have you forgotten?”
“Er, who?”
“I explained that I would try and lure Patrick Pettersson down here after he had been questioned by Bjørn. And I also have this for you.”
Carl sat back down while Gordon placed a sketch in front of him of a man in
a very big jacket.
“This is what the sketch artist makes of the person who the woman on Borgergade saw on her birthday. The day Rigmor Zimmermann was murdered.”
Carl looked at the sketch. Artistically, it was detailed and well executed, but from a police point of view, it was unfortunately useless and anonymous.
“Was that all she remembered about the man? This is just a big coat with a pair of legs underneath seen from behind. It could be any old hobo in a Storm P. picture. But thanks, Gordon, it was worth a try.”
Gordon nodded in agreement.
“And one more thing, Carl.”
“Yes?”
“It’s about the parking meter on Griffenfeldsgade. A brilliant man up in homicide—let’s call him Pasgård—had the bright idea that the person who parked the first attack vehicle on the street may have paid the parking ticket with coins. And that is sound enough reasoning given that it would have been rather revealing if the person had used a credit card. So, they’ve already emptied the contents of the parking meter.”
“And now you’re going to tell me that they’re searching the coins for fingerprints?”
Gordon nodded, and Carl couldn’t hold back a roar of laughter.
Did supersleuth Pasgård think this would lead him to the killer? That one single fingerprint would have hit-and-run driver written all over it? And on a coin of all things! It was laughable.
“Thanks, Gordon, you’ve made my day.”
Gordon looked flattered and tried to laugh like Carl.
Yes, the people on the second floor were out on a limb in this case. Perhaps they could use some help with a professional questioning.
—
Carl caught a glimpse of a huge guy through the open door to the situation room, where Gordon had arranged to meet him.
Muscular upper arms covered in tattoos of the type that made goofy TV stars look like they were covered in mediocre graffiti.
Carl pulled Gordon to one side and asked him under his breath if he was completely insane, bringing a possible suspect and accomplice to the very room where they had all their notes and photos on display. But Gordon had taken precautions.
“I stapled a sheet in front of the notice board, Carl. Don’t worry.”
“A sheet? Where the heck did you find a sheet?”
“It’s the one Assad uses when he sleeps here once in a while.”
Carl turned to Assad with a questioning expression, as if to ask if he planned to sleep in the office again, but it was apparently not a subject Assad intended to comment on.
Carl nodded to Patrick Pettersson as he sat down opposite him. As could be expected after having been questioned for several hours, he looked somewhat pale, but apart from that he came across as a robust type, and his gaze was steady. Surely that gaze did not indicate the brain of a genius, but he was able to answer all Carl’s initial questions quickly and precisely.
“You’ve probably been asked a hundred times before, but we’ll just try again, Patrick.”
He nodded to Gordon and placed three photos in front of Patrick while Assad came in and put a cup of coffee in front of the guy.
“It’s not your special brew, is it, Assad?” he asked as a precaution.
“No, it’s just Nescafé Gold.”
Carl pointed. “These are photos of Senta Berger, Bertha Lind, and Michelle Hansen, Patrick. All killed by a hit-and-run driver within the last eight days. I understand that you can account for your whereabouts when these incidents happened, so I would like to stress that you are not a suspect.”
Did Patrick look at him gratefully as he lifted the coffee cup to his mouth?
“We haven’t found any direct link between the three women, but as far as I understand, Michelle knew two other young women—let’s call them friends—who you believe she hadn’t known for long. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Was Michelle normally good at keeping secrets?”
“No, I don’t think so. She was pretty straightforward.”
“And yet you say that she left you a few days before she died. Wasn’t that a huge surprise?”
He lowered his head. “We had been fighting because I wanted her to see her caseworker and sort out her mess.”
“What mess?”
“She’d lied about where she was living without telling me. So she needed to set up a repayment schedule with the municipality and accept the work placement she’d been offered.”
“And did she?”
He shrugged. “I met her a few days later at the nightclub where I work as a bouncer, and she told me she’d pay what she owed me, so obviously I thought she’d gotten things sorted.”
He stared at the photo with melancholy eyes.
“You miss her?” asked Assad.
He looked at him, surprised, perhaps at the gentle nature of the question or perhaps because it came from Assad. Then he nodded.
“I thought we had something special together. And then those two bloody girls came on the scene.”
The little bit of moisture that had gathered in the corners of his eyes dried up. He took a sip of his coffee. “I don’t know what they dragged her into, but it wasn’t anything good.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I’ve seen the surveillance videos from the robbery at the nightclub. They showed me them upstairs. You can’t really see the girls because their faces are covered with scarves, but I think I recognize them. And they also showed me that selfie they found.”
“I don’t understand. What selfie?”
“One that Michelle took of herself and two girls. I immediately recognized them as the same girls I saw at the hospital where Michelle was admitted. The police I talked to earlier said that they’ve identified the place where it was taken as the canal by Gammel Strand. It was taken on May 11th, which is a long time before she left me. And she hadn’t told me about that day, so apparently I wasn’t supposed to know anything about it.”
“You say you saw the two girls at the hospital?”
“Yes, after Michelle had been run over the first time. It was in the waiting room the day she was discharged.”
Carl frowned. “You seriously believe that Michelle knew the two girls who committed the robbery and possibly shot Birna Sigurdardottir?”
“Yeah.”
“So what if I suggest that Michelle was their accomplice and that she came to the nightclub to distract you? What would you say to that?”
He looked down for a moment. Reality hit him; it was written all over his face and visible from his clenched fists. With a sudden jolt and a yell of frustration, he pushed himself away from the desk and threw his coffee cup violently against the wall on the opposite side where the bedsheet was hanging.
In other circumstances, Carl would probably have reacted strongly to such an outburst. But when the coffee-stained bedsheet fell down, revealing the entire Department Q investigation, the guy stood up and apologized.
“I’ll pay for a new cup and whatever else,” he said, embarrassed, pointing at the bedsheet on the floor. “All this has really gotten to me. And sorry for the stain on those pictures . . .”
He froze, frowning, as if he couldn’t believe his own eyes.
“I don’t think . . . ,” said Gordon as the guy walked around the desk toward the notice board.
“There she is again,” he said, pointing at the enlarged school photo from Bolman’s Independent School. “It’s the same bloody girl that was in Michelle’s selfie and who I saw at the hospital. And I’d swear on it that she’s one of the two girls I saw on the nightclub surveillance videos, even though she’s much older now.”
They all stared at him as if he’d stepped out of a UFO.
—
After their talk, Carl asked Patrick to wait in Gordon’s office while he tried to analyz
e the new information. He might have some further questions for him before he could leave.
Assad, Gordon, and Carl looked at one another for a while before Assad finally broke the silence.
“I don’t get it, Carl. It’s as if all the cases are connected now. Michelle from the hit-and-run case knows Denise and the other girl from the nightclub case, and Denise knows Stephanie Gundersen and obviously her grandmother, Rigmor Zimmermann, who Rose unbelievably also knows and lives next door to!”
Carl heard what he said, yet didn’t answer. They were all in shock. He had never experienced anything like this in his time as a policeman. It was so incredibly strange.
“We’re going to have to get Bjørn down here, Carl. You’ll just have to face the music,” said Gordon.
Carl could picture the scenario. Disciplinary proceedings, revenge, and fury combined with all his colleagues feeling bitter and let down by him. But if they hadn’t looked into these cases and put them on the notice board, what then?
Carl nodded to the other two, picked up the telephone, and asked Lis to send Lars Bjørn down to them immediately. And then they waited, trying to figure out how on earth these different cases could possibly be connected.
—
Bjørn came bursting into the room with such force that they were left in no doubt as to his mood. When he glanced over at the notice board, his expression became even more severe and his presence in the room even more overwhelming.
Carl gave Gordon the nod to bring Patrick back, and when the wannabe gangster was standing in the doorway, Bjørn’s face turned bright red. He looked like he was ready to explode.
“What the hell is my witness doing down here? And why the bloody hell do you have the hit-and-run case, the nightclub case, and the Zimmermann case down here in Department Q? So this is what that idiot Olaf Borg-Pedersen was rambling on about. I just didn’t think it could be true.”
He turned toward Carl, pointing his finger right in his face. “You’ve gone too far this time, Carl Mørck. Don’t you understand that?”
Carl took a risk, stopping him in his tirade with a brave hand across his mouth. Then he turned calmly toward Patrick. “Would you please tell Chief of Homicide Lars Bjørn what you told us a moment ago?”
The Scarred Woman Page 36
