Assad’s smile was perhaps a mite too overbearing in light of the sentence that followed. “Indeed I do, but not about young boys and girls.”
Malene Kristoffersen was shocked. She sucked her lower lip in and her face drained of color quicker than Carl had ever seen. She grasped the hem of her skirt, wringing the material so hard they could hear the stitching split. Though momentarily stunned, she shook her head like a metronome. The words she was looking for were on their way.
They came slowly and deliberately, like small, measured punches. “Are you telling me that William is suspected of being a pedophile? Is that what you’re saying, you little shit? Is it? Answer me! I want to hear the word from your own filthy mouth, do you hear me?”
The way Assad tipped his head and turned the other cheek was almost biblical. But things could develop fast.
“Let me say it, then,” said Carl. “Have you ever had the slightest suspicion that William might have pedophile tendencies? Have you ever seen him staring at children or spending too much time at the computer late at night?”
The tears in her eyes could have come from anger, but they did not. Everything about her body language suggested otherwise. She shook her head slowly. “William was a completely normal man.” She swallowed a couple of times to stifle her urge to cry. “And yes, he did sit up late at the computer, but it was his work. Don’t you think a woman like me knows how to uncover the inner workings of her husband—or of a computer, for that matter?”
“External hard drives are quite small these days, easy to hide away in a pocket. Did he use them?”
She shook her head. “Why did you come here, anyway? Don’t you think it’s bad enough not knowing what’s happened to William?” She was about to say more but turned her head away with a pained expression. Swallowing was no longer sufficient to stave off her crying. It was the kind of situation that revealed a person’s true age. Her skin seemed almost to become transparent. Then she took a deep breath and turned to face them again. “No, he didn’t have any external hard drives, he wasn’t good when it came to technology or electronics. In fact, William was as analog you could imagine. Real world, with both feet on the ground. That’s how he was. Understand?”
Carl nodded to Assad, who pulled a photo out of his pocket.
“Do you know this boy? I realize it’s hard to see his face, but perhaps you can recognize his clothes or something else about him?” he asked, showing her the still from the CCTV footage of Marco.
She frowned but said nothing while Assad described him in more detail, adding that the boy had been seen outside Stark’s house. “Don’t you think it strange for a boy of that age to be so interested in William, especially after such a long time?”
“Yes, of course I find it strange. But there could be any number of reasons, not just . . .”
Assad turned the screws. “The boy can’t have been very old when William went missing.”
She understood what he was getting at, and her claws were already extended. Carl gave Assad a prudent nudge with his elbow before taking over.
“The question is what relationship this boy, who must have been no more than twelve or thirteen at the time, could have to William. Can you suggest anything?”
“My suggestion is that you keep your mouths shut with such disgusting allegations, do you hear me? William was not a pedophile, he . . .”
She stopped, as if someone had switched her off, at the sound of padded feet in the hall.
All three of them looked toward the door as a sleepy, blonde-haired girl with angular eyebrows came into the room.
Carl tried to smile as Malene raised her hand in a motherly greeting, hoping her daughter hadn’t heard what had been said, but the expression on Tilde’s face was unambiguous.
“Are you OK now, darling?” Malene asked.
The girl ignored her. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice acidic.
Assad got up first. “We are from the police, Tilde. My name is—”
“Have you found William?”
They shook their heads.
“In that case I think you should go.”
Her mother tried to explain, but Tilde had already passed judgment.
“You two are a couple of idiots. William wasn’t like that at all. Or perhaps you knew him better than us?”
Neither of them answered. What could they say to a child like her, who had screamed out her loss on every billboard in the city?
The girl clutched her abdomen and her hands trembled. Malene made to get up, but Tilde gave her a look that clearly demonstrated just what kind of person they were dealing with. Here was a girl who knew all about pain. The body’s internal knife stab, the torments of the soul, and the realization that the future had not much else to offer. And yet she did not flee from the room and leave the grown-ups with all the accusations. She stood her ground, though everything inside her clamored for her to give up. She stood her ground and looked them each in the eye. “William was my father. I loved him, he was always there for me, even when I was really ill. Ask anyone I know and they’ll tell you he never did me or any of my friends any harm whatsoever.” She looked down at the floor. “And I miss him so very much. Now just tell me why you’re here; I’m not angry anymore. Have you found him?”
“I’m afraid not, Tilde. But we think there’s someone who knows what happened to him.” Carl showed her the photo of the boy. “He was at Bellahøj police station yesterday with your poster. And he had this with him.”
He nodded to Assad, who produced a clear bag containing the African necklace from his pocket, placing it carefully on the coffee table in front of her.
Tilde blinked, as though the repeated opening and shutting of her eyelids could keep the world at bay and reveal to her some new path forward. She remained so long in this apparent state of paralysis that Malene got to her feet and put her arms round her without the girl noticing. All she saw was the necklace.
Carl looked at Assad, who avoided his gaze. They all knew what Tilde was going through now. A person who had never felt what it was like to suddenly be overwhelmed by the realization of having lost a loved one had either never known loss or had never truly lived. Here at this particular moment were four people, each with his or her own way of dealing with that feeling, and Assad’s was definitely not the easiest.
“Where did he get it from, do you know?” she eventually whispered.
“We don’t know the answer to that, Tilde. We don’t know who this boy is, or where we can find him. We were hoping that you might be able to help us.”
She leaned toward the photo and shook her head.
“Is he the one you think William did those things with?”
“We don’t think anything at all, Tilde. We’re policemen. Our job is to solve mysteries, and right now we’re working on what happened to William. It was this that set us off. Have a look.”
Carl unrolled the poster in front of her. Her lips trembled as her eyes darted from the necklace on the table to its image on the poster.
“I’m afraid we have to take the necklace back with us, Tilde. It needs to be analyzed by our forensics officers. There may be something on it that can tell us where it’s been all this time.”
Her hands wafted before her face as the tears began to roll, and she nodded. “I skived off school to put the posters up. I didn’t have any left when I was finished, not even one for myself.” Her head dropped. All the hopes that had been pinned to her appeal now returned unfulfilled. She twisted free of her mother’s embrace and left the room. Her footsteps on the stairs were almost silent.
“The two of them were like . . .” Malene crossed her fingers. “William came into her life before she started school. She was lonely in those days. None of the other children could understand why she kept having pains, and no one would play with her. William saw to it that all of that changed.” She gave a sigh.
“Tilde was the reason we moved in together a couple of years before William went missing, because she really did love him like a father and because he was always there for her when she was feeling poorly. And it was Tilde who insisted that she and I move out of William’s house. She couldn’t live there without him.”
“Was it her idea for you to leave clothes and other items behind?”
She nodded. “Yes, that was Tilde as well. ‘Just imagine,’ she said. ‘When William comes home one day he’ll be able to see we’re still in his life.’“
“When he comes home?”
Malene looked at Carl with moist eyes. “That’s what she said. She has never said ‘if.’ But of course William has never been officially declared dead, and the house is still there. The interest from his bank assets takes care of the payments, so it hasn’t been so difficult for Tilde to keep thinking ‘when.’”
Carl didn’t feel like asking any more questions, but Assad persevered. “Did William do any gambling?” he asked.
Malene frowned. “What do you mean?”
“We know he paid much more for Tilde’s treatment at the beginning than he had at his disposal. Can you explain that?”
“He received an advance on his inheritance, I think.”
Assad’s dark eyebrows plunged. It was obvious that he, too, was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the situation. “No, I’m afraid we can confirm that he did not. His inheritance was first paid out when his mother died.”
“I don’t understand.” She shook her head, clearly at a loss.
“We are talking about two million kroner. That’s why I asked if he was into gambling.”
Again, Malene shook her head. “Tilde once gave him a scratch card for his birthday and he didn’t even know what it was. He was totally useless when it came to things like that. I can’t imagine him gambling at all. He was much too cautious to take chances.”
“What about the two million, then?”
She looked at Assad pleadingly.
Carl took a deep breath. “Can one rule out his having been involved in some kind of financial crime? Would you say he wasn’t capable of that either?”
Malene didn’t reply. She was visibly shattered.
—
Driving back to headquarters, the scene out the windows of the car were like a film flickering by as each of them grappled with his own problem. Carl’s was the fact that somewhere out there was a boy who represented a riddle inside an enigma. Assad’s was obviously that René E. Eriksen had stuck out his neck to tell a story that didn’t hold water, thereby raising a kind of suspicion that was hard to articulate.
“We’re going to have to talk to him again, Assad,” Carl suggested eventually, but Assad was silent.
A rather annoying habit he’d gotten into of late.
22
When Marco climbed over the fence of the construction site the night before, he first located a direct access route into the building that enabled him to move quickly and inconspicuously between the upper floors and street level. A crucial strategy for any good thief wherever there was a risk of running into guards or guard dogs.
Next, he made note of where equipment, tools, and building materials were concentrated in the various sections of the site so that he knew what places to avoid at the change of shift.
On the fourth floor he found a recess that was sheltered from the wind, gathered layers of cardboard, and made a bed from where he could keep watch through the empty window openings in the concrete walls. Here in this niche, where the lifts would be running in a couple of months, he could remain undiscovered until the morning shift arrived, then make off when they went for their break in the hut below.
Apparently there weren’t many workers on the job outside normal working hours, which gave Marco the considerable advantage of being able to move around relatively freely in the evenings, at night, and on weekends, as long as he made sure not to be discovered by passers-by when he squeezed behind the fencing and climbed up into the building by the Hereford Beefstouw restaurant. In any case the night watchmen and the dogs never ventured all the way up into the concrete landscape to the place in which he had installed himself.
The building was enormous. The facade had been stripped away and the entire interior demolished, so only the staircases, supports, and floors remained. Cold, gray concrete all over, as well as an abundance of temporary elevators, tools, and equipment, bordered by portable offices stacked like Lego blocks.
From here he could look out on the Tivoli Gardens as they awakened to yet another season, Rådhuspladsen and H. C. Andersen’s Boulevard, down the pedestrian street, Strøget, and a good stretch up Vesterbrogade on the other side. It was a perfect spot as long as the weather was reasonably warm, and the best possible surveillance point for keeping an eye on the Zola clan’s thieving and hustling in the city center.
This Tuesday morning the van came at nine as usual, dropping off Zola’s troops. This time it was Miryam, Romeo, Samuel, and six others. For a moment they conferred on the pavement before fanning out into the side streets of Vestergade, Lavendelstræde, and Farvergade, from where they could home in on the various sections of Strøget.
In the hours ahead, numerous unfortunate individuals would be relieved of possessions they failed to look after with due care. Watching his old friends spread out into the city streets like bacteria, Marco felt a growing sense of intense shame at having been a part of such beastliness.
Here, from above, he would consider how best to strike back. Perhaps he should try to win some of the other clan members over so that not all of them went down when he denounced Zola and his father. From this vantage point he could see how he might select a few and try to talk them into leaving. If it worked, they would be able to tell him who Zola had recruited to help track him down, and when they thought the hunt would be called off. Once he felt more secure he would venture out to Eivind and Kaj’s apartment to retrieve his money and get out of Copenhagen. He knew there were other cities, like Århus and Aalborg in Jutland, far enough away and yet big enough and with enough facilities for him to be able to pursue his education and absorption into Danish society.
But all that was a long way off. Now that the police had seen him and the items he’d left behind at the police station in Bellahøj, would they not be looking for him, too? And if they were, what would happen if they found him? Without any ID would he end up in a refugee center? Did he have anything with which to bargain in order to avoid it?
Seemingly not.
The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that he had nothing to offer the police. There was a strong likelihood that William Stark’s body was no longer where he had found it and that Zola’s people had removed all traces of the crime.
He scanned the scene from his concrete hideout, his stomach rumbling, feeling both isolated and abandoned.
—
She was sitting up against the grating outside the Church of the Holy Spirit, typically underplaying her role in such a way that people were neither repelled nor annoyed by the cautiously outstretched hand and exposed, crooked leg extended in front of her. Miryam had the unusual ability to catch people’s eye with a smile and with a single look make them feel like she was their friend. A look that told of suffering but also the will to endure it. That was how she operated. Even the police passed her by without intervening. If she’d had the chance of another profession she would most certainly have made something of herself.
But the warmth in her eyes drained away with her smile when Marco appeared in front of her, his arms spread wide in the hope of detecting some small sign of happiness at seeing him again.
“Just leave, Marco,” she urged. “Everyone’s out looking for you, and they’ll do you harm if they catch you, believe me. I don’t want to talk to you. Just go away, and don’t show up in town again.”
Marco’s arms dropped to
his sides. “Won’t you help me, Miryam? I’ll make sure they don’t see us together. If I keep a low profile, all you have to do is give me a signal once you know they’ve called off the search.”
“Jesus, you idiot, what’s got into you? They’ll keep on until they’ve got you. Of course they will, Marco, so get lost now! And if you come near me again I’ll get hold of the others. I might just do that anyway.”
She got to her feet, straightening her bad leg with difficulty, then offered him a handful of coins before she went. But Marco backed away, holding up his hands in front of him. He had anticipated her being reluctant and having her reservations, but not that she would threaten to denounce him or try to stick him thirty pieces of silver. Anyone else, certainly, but not Miryam.
He stood for a moment trying to recall the gentleness in her eyes, the caresses she’d given him when his mother did not.
And then he took off without a word.
Five streets farther down he leaned against a drainpipe and wept. He hadn’t cried since the first time Zola hit him. An unpleasant sensation began surging through his system, as though he had eaten food that had gone bad. His abdomen convulsed as if he was about to vomit. His nose ran faster than his tears. His arms and legs trembled.
Not just the others, but Miryam, too. He would never have believed it.
Most of all he wanted to close his eyes and let the world disappear. Just let himself go and scream out his despair, but he didn’t dare. He wouldn’t let himself be such easy prey. He was no little, simpleminded animal, oblivious to the predator. He knew how things worked.
A woman who was passing by stopped and put a hand on his shoulder, bending down to look him in the eye. “What’s the matter, dear?” she asked. But instead of embracing her and drawing solace from her kindness, he drew back, dried his eyes, and said: “Oh, nothing.”
Later he would wish he had thanked her, but it didn’t occur to him at the time, there being but a single thought in his mind: From now on, any member of the clan is fair game.
The Marco Effect: A Department Q Novel Page 28
