The Hanging Girl

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  “So you don’t think Habersaat could have confided in Sam about the case he was so obsessed with?”

  “I’m a hundred percent sure he did the first ten years. But you know what? Even a man like Uncle Sam can get tired, okay? Sam’s a nice guy, but not that nice. No, no. They played cards once in a while. That’s all, if you ask me.”

  “You don’t think Sam knew just how bad things had become with Christian Habersaat?”

  “How would he know that? He’s out at sea most of the time and Habersaat wasn’t exactly the sort of man to show his feelings, now, was he? But why don’t you call Uncle Sam? Or maybe you don’t think we Bornholm folk have access to the telephone network?”

  He laughed, giving them the number. But the line was busy.

  * * *

  A strange feeling of loss hung over Habersaat’s otherwise totally normal redbrick house. It wasn’t a haunted feeling, more the impression of something that would never awaken. It was like the enchanted castle in Sleeping Beauty that had been lying in slumber, like something forlorn and stale, waiting in vain for the redeeming and liberating kiss.

  “The life never returned to this house after the family was split up, can you feel it?” Rose said as she put the key in.

  The acrid sour smell that hit them confirmed it.

  “Eugh, couldn’t the technicians at least have aired the place out?” she continued.

  In other cases, smells of this sort were usually due to waste and rubbish that had never been thrown out. Vegetables rotting in forgotten drawers. The fermenting contents of half-empty tins. Months’ worth of washing up. But Habersaat’s house wasn’t at all like that. Overwhelming, chaotic amounts of paper in every direction dominated the first impression, but if you looked at it through different eyes, everything seemed well organized, meticulously and thoughtfully arranged and laid out. The kitchen was spotless, almost shining, and the living room neatly vacuumed, just as the dusting had also been done to the extent it could with all the hundreds of piles of paper.

  “It stinks of nicotine and frustration here,” Assad said from a corner where a meter-high pile of journal papers threatened to collapse.

  “More like years of withdrawal and cellulose,” countered Carl.

  “Do you really believe that the technicians have been through all this?” asked Assad, his arms outstretched over the landscape of paper heaps.

  Carl took a deep breath. “Hardly,” he said.

  “Where on earth should we start?” sighed Rose.

  “Good question. Now maybe you know the explanation behind why he gave up, and why the police in Rønne were so willing to give us the key and let us take possession of Habersaat’s material. So thanks for that, Rose,” said Carl. “Maybe it would be an idea if Assad and I went home tonight and you stay here. With your talent for systematizing, you could have this lot in alphabetical and chronological order according to subject in . . . well, a month or two, I reckon.”

  Carl laughed but she didn’t react.

  “There is something or other buried here that could take this case forward. I have a strong feeling about it. I’m certain we can get further than Habersaat if we really want to,” answered Rose a little harshly.

  She was probably right, but it would take weeks for a whole workforce of people to plow through all this material, and it went absolutely against his will. With just a preliminary view, it looked as if Habersaat had mapped the entirety of Bornholm in the days after the fatal traffic accident, not to mention the hundreds of leads he’d followed in the years since. Each lead in its pile.

  But where was the pile that meant more than all the others?

  “We pack it all up and take it back to Police Headquarters,” said Rose.

  Carl frowned. “Over my dead body, and anyway we don’t have room. Where the hell do you think this mausoleum of paper should end up?”

  “We’ll make a special area in the room where Assad is painting.”

  “Then I’m not finishing the painting job,” came the reply from the corner.

  “Wow, wait a minute, you two. Wasn’t that room earmarked for Gordon, ready for when he’s finished with his training? What do you suppose our dear boss, Lars Bjørn, will say when his favorite doesn’t get the place in Department Q he’s insisted on?”

  “I didn’t think you cared about what Lars Bjørn thought or said, Carl,” Rose replied.

  Carl smiled drolly. He damn well didn’t care. He was the head of Department Q, not Lars Bjørn, even though he thought he was. And it was funds earmarked for Department Q that he was pinching, so if he had something to complain about, Carl knew whose ear to whisper in. No, Bjørn just had to keep his mouth shut, but that wasn’t what was at the heart of the matter. Carl simply didn’t want more paper and junk in the communal area of the cellar, and that was that.

  “Gordon is welcome to sit in with me while the case is running,” Assad said. “I like a bit of life around me.”

  Carl was shocked. They really meant it.

  “By the way, shouldn’t you be calling Uncle Sam?”

  “You can do it, Assad,” Carl grunted. There had to be some sort of quid pro quo. “My cell is about to run out of battery,” he explained.

  “You can just use the landline there,” said Curly, pointing to something that looked like it came from the ark, over on the dining table on top of yet another pile of cuttings.

  Carl sighed. Who was in charge of Department Q these days? Damn it, they hadn’t even taken the case on yet.

  For a second he considered manning up but then gave in for the sake of convenience and began to dial the number.

  From the other end came the sound of whistling and a shaken voice.

  “Damn creepy calling from Christian’s phone,” shouted Uncle Sam after Carl had stated his business and explained who he was.

  There was interference on the line and the sound of a motor in the background, so Carl had to put his finger in his other ear.

  “I got a hell of a shock when I saw where the call was coming from. But yes, Christian and I played cards together now and then, actually also the night before he shot himself. But listen, I can’t talk just now because there’s an idiot of an Estonian container ship from MSC wanting to sail through where we’re working, so this old man needs to get out on the open sea and snarl a bit.”

  “I’ll be brief. You were together the night before, you said. That’s news to me. Why don’t the police know that?”

  “Probably because they haven’t asked. I was over at his to get some training. I had to learn how to use that bloody camera, right?”

  “How was Habersaat at that point, was he okay? Could you sense anything?”

  “He was a bit tipsy, you know. Linie Aquavit and a couple of porters can moisten the eyes, isn’t that right? To be honest, he was a little sentimental, but then he often was, so I didn’t think anything of it.”

  “Sentimental? How?”

  “He cried a little. Sat and fumbled with some of Bjarke’s old things. A blue scarf and a wooden figure that the boy had carved.”

  “Would you say that he seemed unstable?”

  “No, not in the least. He thrashed me at cards, I can tell you. No, he was just a bit down; he often was.”

  “Did he often cry in situations like that?”

  “It might have happened a few times before, I can’t quite remember. But it wasn’t normal, no. Maybe he was just a bit drunker and maudlin than usual. He asked me if I could remember this and that several times, telling me about things he’d done with the family over the years. It didn’t seem so strange that night. He was really lonely, after all. But, looking back, I can better understand what was going through his head. A very odd evening, it makes me sad to think about it, but there’s no use in that now. Anyway, that Estonian idiot is portside now and he damn well shouldn’t be. I’ll have to cut you off
there because that old hulk needs to move before things go wrong. Call if there is anything, but I probably know damn all unfortunately.”

  Carl put the receiver down slowly. He didn’t like this. The case was getting too close and there would be no turning back.

  “What did he say?” asked Rose, sitting by the coffee table and flicking through one of the piles.

  Carl stood up. The glasses from Habersaat’s last round of schnapps at the coffee table were gone but the scarf and the little wooden figure were still there.

  He picked up the figure and looked at it. It depicted a male, awkwardly carved as if by a child, and yet touching and expressive.

  “Sam said that Habersaat was very down and cried the night before. That perhaps it wasn’t quite normal for him, now that he thought about it.”

  “So Habersaat didn’t act on the spur of the moment. I told you so. He knew he was going to shoot himself. It might even have been planned for some time.”

  “Maybe, but then it certainly isn’t my fault, is it?” Carl said, looking around as he put the wooden figure in his pocket. There was no doubt that there was a system to the mess. The piles to the right and over the sideboard were old with yellowed paper, while those lying in a row to the adjacent room were still white. Ring binders were assembled in alphabetical order according to theme, and on the windowsills all manner of videotapes and diverse catalogs were assembled.

  He stepped into the adjoining room where Assad was looking at a notice board covered in photos of differing sizes.

  “What the heck is that?” he asked.

  “Photographs of old vans.”

  As if Carl couldn’t see that.

  He stepped closer.

  “Yes, an old Volkswagen Kombi. They’re all photos of old VW Kombis.”

  “Comfy? They don’t look too comfy, Carl.”

  “That’s what people called that type of Volkswagen because they could be used for different things—a combination—Assad.”

  “Really! But isn’t it strange that they’re all taken from the front?”

  “Yes, and so different. I don’t think there are two that are quite the same.”

  Assad nodded. “I didn’t know there were so many types. Red, orange, blue, green, white, all sorts of colors.”

  “Yes, and lots of different models, too. That one there with the spare tire on the front is really old, and some have windows on the side, some don’t. Have you counted them?”

  “Yes, there’s a hundred and thirty-two.”

  Of course he had.

  “So what’s been Habersaat’s hypothesis?” asked Carl.

  “That Alberte was killed by a Kombo.”

  “Kombi! Yes, exactly. I think so, too!”

  “Most likely one of those with a cross.”

  “What cross?”

  Assad pointed out four to five photos. And right enough, each had a small cross in the corner.

  “Look! The cars in these photos are all light blue.”

  “Yes, but the light blue ones were the most common,” Carl said. “In the sixties and seventies you could see them on the road everywhere.”

  “But it isn’t all the light blue ones he’s marked, Carl. Only those with a mullion in the windshield and without windows in the back.”

  “That was still the most usual model, as far as I recall. A totally normal, ordinary van, even though it changed form slightly as time went on.”

  “There’s a finger mark on this one,” Assad said. “Look! It’s as if he’s tapped that fender a lot. As if he wanted to say: There you are.”

  Carl leaned in for a closer look. So there was. And it was one of the more special versions of that model, with heavy fenders consisting of vertical wings welded to the parallel steel pipes.

  “Out of those with crosses, this is the only one with a reinforced fender, Assad. Well spotted.”

  “Then look over there, Carl. The same model again.”

  He pointed over toward the wall that formed a partition to yet another room.

  It was an oversize photocopy stuck to the wall with masking tape in between two paintings that, strangely enough, had the same initials as the seaside painting down in the community hall. The painter was a local, then.

  As they stepped closer, it became apparent that the photocopy of the Volkswagen Kombi with the reinforced fender was very grainy and blurred, making it impossible to see the details of the license plate or the face of the man caught by the camera getting out of the driver’s seat. Perhaps the picture had been blown up too much for what was a run-of-the-mill amateur photo. Maybe it just hadn’t been done right.

  “Look at what’s written underneath, Carl. BCCR/BCCEC CI B14G27, July 5th, 1997. That’s exactly four and a half months before the accident, right?” Assad said.

  Carl didn’t answer.

  From a blurred mass of grey branches at the top of the photo, an almost unnoticeable arrow drawn with a marker pen pointed directly at the man in the car. An arrow that was ten centimeters long and accompanied by a few almost illegible words.

  It startled Carl when he read the words written in pencil: Here’s your man, Carl Mørck.

  “What are you looking at?” asked Assad.

  He gasped quietly. He’d located what Carl stood frozen to the spot staring at.

  “God almighty, he’s pressuring me,” sighed Carl. “And of course it doesn’t say what the man’s name is.”

  “Do you think we can make the man’s face clearer if the technicians back home help us?”

  “Not from this example.” He turned to face the door looking into the living room. “Rose, come in here.”

  From appearing in the doorway to seeing what they’d discovered took less than five seconds.

  “Hell, yes,” she said, nodding.

  Carl pursed his lips.

  “There’s no way back now,” Assad said.

  Carl stood for a long time looking at the enlarged picture, and then sighed. No way back? No, he supposed not. He turned to Rose.

  “I have to admit that there is a certain amount that indicates you were right about Habersaat. He might have had a specific suspicion about this guy for years without being able to find him, and then he grew weary. Now he wanted others to take over, wanted it out of his head, in full knowledge that he couldn’t solve the case himself. So suicide wasn’t just a way to get the case out of his head; it was a way to ensure it carried on. That means that I, like you, am now more willing to believe that he certainly expected that we’d sail over here and take over. His suicide was the ticket.”

  “And there is no return ticket,” concluded Assad. “But what about the meaning of BCCR/BCCEC CI B14G27?”

  “Maybe they’ve got something to do with the man’s name who took the picture, or maybe a journal number. Have you looked in the folders in there, Rose?”

  She nodded.

  “And nothing rings a bell when you see these initials and numbers?”

  “No. The system is quite straightforward and there isn’t much in the folders actually. They’re almost empty.”

  “What now, Carl?” asked Assad.

  “Yes, what now?” He looked at his assistants. They’d worked together for almost seven years, solved lots of cases, and yet their eyes could still light up with enthusiasm. Sometimes looks like theirs could rejuvenate his batteries, and sometimes not. Just now they couldn’t quite get through, so he needed to dig down to find some reserves.

  He drummed his fingers on the wall beside the photocopy. No way back, Assad had said.

  “Okay! Rose, book two extra nights at the hotel. And you, Assad, follow me around the house. We need to have an overview of how much needs to be packed up, and roughly in what order it should be placed.”

  11

  September 2013

  It was now the tenth time that
Pirjo read Wanda Phinn’s latest message about her imminent arrival, and Pirjo didn’t like it. Gut instinct wasn’t an applicable element in the teachings of nature absorption, but with Pirjo’s background it was a tool that couldn’t just be ignored.

  This time the gut instinct wasn’t good. With each new reading, she imagined new scenarios and probable consequences arising from Wanda Phinn’s arrival on the scene, and yet the end result was always the same. Regardless of how you looked at it, what was indicated between the lines in the woman’s e-mail was catastrophic. She’d disregarded Pirjo’s rejection of being accepted into a course, and now she would come to conquer Pirjo’s and Atu’s world, and that was something Pirjo simply couldn’t tolerate. Not now when her biological clock was ticking so quickly.

  Pirjo thought it was a good thing that she was the one in charge of these requests. If Atu had seen it, his curiosity and libido would’ve been awoken. She knew his weaknesses better than anyone. So no, she simply couldn’t allow this woman to come to the Nature Absorption Academy or the consequences would be impossible to control.

  She looked at her watch and thought the whole thing through. In an hour the woman would be standing with all her talents and firm flesh at Kalmar Central Station expecting Pirjo to simply bow out.

  But that was where she was mistaken.

  Pirjo decided to improvise; that’s what she was good at.

  Everything would be fine.

  * * *

  She took her scooter from the area in front of the wooden pier.

  She stood for a moment and watched the weathered planks out in the water with the seaweed dancing around the bottom of the poles. What could be more peaceful than that, and yet it had uncomfortable associations for her. It wasn’t the first time Pirjo had had serious threats to her existence hanging over her head, and last time it had ended here.

  She’d quarreled with one of the female disciples who she realized had become a dangerous rival. It had resulted in shouting, pushing, and slapping that had become gradually harder. For some weeks the woman had become a permanent fixture in Atu’s quarters, and ever so slowly had begun to agitate to take over some of Pirjo’s responsibilities; she’d felt it.