Trophy

by Steffen Jacobsen

  ‘It’s Kasper to the left and Sanne to the right,’ Tove Hansen said.

  ‘Yes, I recognize him. A couple of weeks ago I came across a photo of Kasper and Ingrid in an article in Verdens Gang. My editor thought it might be worth following it up.’

  ‘It has been two years now,’ she said. ‘It’s strange … I still can’t get used to it. Every morning when I wake up, I think he’s still alive … the moment I hear the kids, I know that Kasper is gone, of course, but at other times I think he’s still here.’

  ‘They’re four years old now?’ he asked. ‘A boy and a girl?’

  She looked at him as if she registered the words, but hadn’t quite taken them in. Then she nodded. ‘They’re at nursery. I can pick them up, if …’

  ‘There’s no need,’ Michael said with a weak smile, while fighting a feeling of profound self-loathing. He produced a notebook from his inside pocket, though he had no intention of writing anything down, and opened it.

  ‘They disappeared in Norway in March 2011?’

  ‘March the 24th or 25th,’ she said.

  ‘What were they doing in Finnmark?’

  ‘Hiking. They loved the mountains.’

  ‘Did anyone invite them or were they travelling with other people?’

  ‘No, it was a last-minute decision. They hadn’t been up there for two years and they were missing it. Ingrid missed it the most, seeing as she was born and bred up there. Kasper had saved up some holiday and Ingrid worked part-time, so she could look after the children. She was a graphic designer. They told me that the weather up there was unusually mild. A kind of early spring. They were only going to be away for a couple of days and asked me if I could have the kids. They dropped off the twins on the morning of the 22nd and I drove them to the airport.’

  Without warning Tove Hansen started to cry, but there was no reaction in her face. Michael watched her, wondering when she would realize. She jumped when a tear landed on her wrist. She muttered something and half ran out of the living room. He heard her on the stairs to the first floor.

  Michael quickly got up, took out a small digital camera from the pocket of his anorak and photographed all the pictures on the walls: the twins right from when they were born to when they could stand on the trampoline in the front garden, Tove Hansen’s wedding photo, Kasper Hansen’s student pictures, yet another portrait of her son, this time in his army uniform, a picture of Kasper and Ingrid at a party; she looked lovely with her raven-black hair done up, a green silk dress and bare, tanned arms.

  Michael put away the camera and slipped back into his chair a moment before Tove Hansen returned.

  ‘I get upset,’ she said.

  ‘Of course you do, Tove. Did Kasper grow up in this house?’

  ‘My husband and I have lived here since we were married. Sanne lives in California. She’s an engineer, just like Kasper. My husband … their father died five years ago.’

  Michael pointed to the picture of Kasper Hansen in uniform.

  ‘Where did Kasper do his military service?’

  ‘He was with the Horse Guards in Slagelse. It didn’t interest him. I think he was bored.’

  Michael almost did a double take. He himself had been a first lieutenant, and later a military police captain, at Antvorskov Barracks in Slagelse, but that was long before Kasper Hansen had completed his training there.

  ‘What do you think happened to them?’ he asked, closing his notebook.

  Tove Hansen moved a candlestick on the coffee table.

  ‘Everything. I’ve imagined everything. Sometimes it’s a happy ending and I see him again … Other times, not so good.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Did you say you work for Danmarks Radio or TV2?’ she asked.

  ‘Danmarks Radio.’

  ‘Danmarks Radio, fancy that. Kasper’s father was a butcher and I worked in a shop. But our children went to university, Sanne and Kasper both …’

  Her voice ebbed out.

  ‘Were Kasper and Ingrid in good health?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Pardon …? Yes, they were. There was nothing wrong with them. They loved to exercise. They ran and cycled, Kasper played squash with some colleagues twice a week. There was nothing wrong with them. Nor was Kasper ever ill when he was little.’

  ‘And they never called you from Norway?’

  ‘They just vanished. No one has ever heard from them.’

  ‘Did they know the area?’

  ‘They had been there several times. I’ve never visited it myself, but I’ve seen their recordings and photographs. There are rocks, glaciers and bogs. I imagine it’s easy to have an accident if you’re not careful.’

  Michael nodded.

  ‘Does anyone help you with the twins?’

  ‘I prefer to look after them myself. Ingrid’s parents travel down here every now and again, and the twins spend some of their holidays with them. Ingrid was an only child. Then there’s my daughter, whose children are the same age. She visits from the US as often as she can. I think the twins are doing well, they don’t remember their parents any more.’

  ‘And financially?’

  The woman straightened up.

  ‘I manage. What is it you’re going to do?’

  Michael leaned forwards: ‘We’ve done a series of programmes about missing Danes. The concept is very popular and we’ve managed to reunite friends and family on many occasions. This is different because Kasper and Ingrid went missing in a remote and dangerous area. The most obvious explanation is that they had an accident of some kind. Most of our other stories have been about people who had mental health issues or chose to disappear for financial reasons.’

  ‘I understand,’ Tove Hansen said.

  Michael sent her as much of an encouraging smile as he could muster.

  ‘On the other hand, it’s a good story, Tove. Don’t get me wrong, but we have some options. We can send a team up there to talk to the police, the army, the locals. We might find some leads and perhaps we can help raise awareness of the dangers of hiking in northern Sweden or Norway. Kasper wasn’t the first Dane to go missing up there, and he probably won’t be the last.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I think that would be good. But I still want to know what happened.’

  ‘Of course you do.’

  ‘I would like to have a place where I can take the twins and tell them that this is where their parents are buried. I think it’s important for them when they grow up. The way we live now is so strange. As if they were lost at sea.’

  ‘Of course it is. I do understand,’ he said. ‘I’ll carry on with my investigation if that’s all right with you, and I’ll be in touch. We’ll need some interviews with both families, friends and colleagues.’

  She got up and looked at her watch.

  ‘It’s time for me to go get the children.’

  Michael got up as well.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Would you like to see Kasper’s room?’ she asked. ‘It hasn’t been touched since he left home. It’s in the basement.’

  Every cell in Michael’s body was screaming to get out of the small, quiet house.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I would like that very much.’

  Chapter 20

  ‘How did it go?’ Charlotte Falster wanted to know.

  ‘Hang on.’

  For once Lene was delighted that her boss had called. She had found it hard to move on from the press briefing and welcomed the interruption. She put the earphone in her ear, the jack in her mobile and rested the mobile in the car’s ashtray.

  ‘Are journalists even human?’ she wondered out loud.

  ‘Not if you ask me,’ the chief superintendent said. ‘What have you found out?’

  ‘Kim Andersen killed himself. His wife handcuffed him when she found him hanging from a tree. She was and still is worried about some trouble he appears to have got himself into.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘Depression, insom
nia, excess drinking … and an unknown sponsor who used Credit Suisse in Zurich to transfer a small fortune to Kim Andersen’s account. The wife says she has no idea who it came from and I believe her. All that money spooked her. She proposed to him, and now she’s afraid she inadvertently pushed him into doing something criminal in return for money, so that he could give her a big wedding.’

  ‘How much money are we talking about?’

  As always, Charlotte Falster sounded composed, but Lene thought she could detect a certain fatigue in her voice.

  ‘200,000 Swiss francs just over a month ago.’

  ‘Nice. Any ideas?’ the chief superintendent asked.

  ‘None, other than to get the public prosecutor and the COM Centre to request information from Zurich.’

  There was a pregnant pause down the other end. Lene could sense that Charlotte Falster was intrigued.

  ‘You and I will be long gone before we ever get a reply,’ she said. ‘Why don’t I try?’

  Lene smiled.

  She had been hoping that her boss would make such an offer. Charlotte Falster’s husband was a permanent secretary in the Ministry for Justice and a member of the Danish Management Society, along with the governor of Danmarks Nationalbank and God himself. He could definitely pull a few strings completely beyond the reach of a humble superintendent.

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said. ‘I’d really appreciate that.’

  ‘What could he have done that was worth 200,000 Swiss francs?’ Falster mused. ‘It’s not likely he built someone a garage, is it?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, but I would like to find out. I’ve spoken to an army psychologist who described him as completely normal. She was actually very surprised to hear that he had killed himself. As was his GP. He was sent home in the autumn of 2008, but didn’t develop depression that needed treatment until the summer of 2011, after a hunting trip to Sweden and learning that two of his closest friends had been killed in Afghanistan. He was never wounded in action himself, but sustained a serious leg injury in Sweden. The forensic examiner says it looks like an untreated gunshot wound. My problem is that I want to file the case as a simple suicide so the media will leave me alone, but carry on investigating it as if it were a murder. By the way, someone put a 9-mm bullet on each of the children’s pillows. Kim Andersen found them just before he hanged himself. I’d say that’s sending someone a clear message.’

  ‘You’re saying someone told Kim Andersen to kill himself and save them the trouble? And why didn’t you tell me about the bullets earlier?’

  The professional sparring with Charlotte Falster was one of the aspects Lene liked most about her job, even though she didn’t particularly like the chief superintendent. Falster’s thinking was just as sharp as her words were direct, and few topics were off limits when the two of them discussed a case.

  ‘It must have slipped my mind,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t say,’ Charlotte Falster remarked drily. ‘This is highly unusual, Lene.’

  ‘It is. You’re right.’

  Falster fell silent and Lene knew that her boss considered, assessed and dismissed possibilities and scenarios with the speed of a computer.

  It was Charlotte Falster’s right and duty to allocate her scarce resources in an optimal manner in relation to the targets imposed on her from on high, and Lene was only too aware that the department was chronically understaffed and that there were other cases that could easily keep an experienced investigator busy. She accepted it and she rarely developed proprietorial feelings for her cases, but the Pavlovian response that was Kim Andersen’s suicide was too important to be left to others.

  ‘Okay,’ the chief superintendent said at last. ‘Stick with it and stay away from the press. If anyone asks, you’re taking the next few days off as leave. What are you going to do?’

  ‘If you deal with the money and the Swiss, I’ll look into the family’s finances and speak to Kim Andersen’s army mates and officers.’

  ‘And Sweden?’

  ‘And Sweden.’

  ‘And the person who left the bullet … Who is he or she? It doesn’t sound like someone you would want to meet in a dark alley.’

  Lene thought about the man with the scorpion tattoo. The guarded smile. The small, but significant distance between him and the rest of the world.

  ‘I’ll find out.’

  ‘Take care of yourself,’ her boss said casually, and Lene nearly drove off the road. Concern? Charlotte Falster? All that was left now was for Brøndby to win the cup again.

  ‘I will,’ she said, and ended the call.

  Then she tried the beekeeper’s landline once more. By now she had made at least a dozen calls without getting a reply and had left a similar number of messages on his answerphone, ranging from informal to borderline pleading. As far as she knew, Allan Lundkvist was no longer abroad with the Royal Life Guards and there could be a million other reasons why he didn’t answer his phone, but surely someone had to look after the damned bees? He lived on a farm in Ravnsholt, not far from the Royal Life Guards’ barracks in Høvelte.

  Lene looked at the clock on her dashboard. She wondered whether to swing by Ravnsholt on her way home, but decided she would rather have an hour with Josefine before her daughter went to work. Allan Lundkvist would just have to wait.

  On the way home she shopped for dinner in Copenhagen’s best foodie shopping street, Værnedamsvej. She bought a couple of delicious cheeses, French mineral water, grapes, artisan bread, big, fresh olives and Spanish ham. They would have time to eat together before Josefine had to go.

  *

  ‘Jose?’

  Lene put the shopping bags on the kitchen table. Her daughter mutilated a Shakira hit in the bathroom while Lene arranged the delicatessen food on a carving board, tipped the olives into a bowl and poured red wine for herself and a glass of mineral water for Josefine. She carried the plates and glasses into the living room and put on a Nina Simone CD.

  ‘Jose … Ham! … Olives! … Bread!’

  A hairdryer started up and Lene knew that her daughter hadn’t heard a single word. Lene ate a couple of olives, dipped a chunk of bread in olive oil and sprinkled it with coarse sea salt. She realized that she was starving. And that she needed the lavatory. She went out into the passage and slammed the palm of her hand against the door to the bathroom.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I need the loo, Josefine. Now! Dinner is ready.’

  ‘I’m not hungry, Mum.’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  Her daughter had the metabolism of an incinerator and when she was little she would consume her own body-weight every day. She could still eat whatever she liked without gaining weight.

  Josefine emerged from the steaming bathroom, buttoning an indigo blue silk shirt over a white lace bra that Lene didn’t remember seeing before. She got a quick hug and was enveloped in a cloud of Chanel Mademoiselle. Her daughter’s face was glowing after her bath and she had applied discreet make-up, while her lips were blood red.

  ‘Can I borrow your new pearl earrings, Mum?’

  ‘Is David Beckham in town?’

  ‘Too old for me. Can I?’

  Lene sighed and pulled her birthday present out of her ear lobes. David Beckham … too old? Christ, he was still a boy.

  ‘Can I use the bathroom now?’

  ‘Of course.’

  While Lene washed her hands, she noticed the exclamation marks, the zigzag lightning and the hearts drawn in the condensation on the mirror and felt a lump in her stomach. She took a deep breath and scolded herself. Get it into your skull, Lene! The girl is twenty-one … she’s an adult, for God’s sake! Though as far as Lene was concerned, Josefine would always be five years old.

  She blew the hairs from her daughter’s eyebrow plucking off the bathroom shelf and put the mascara wand back in its tube. Contraceptive pills? She opened the medicine cupboard and checked Josefine’s blister pack. Well, at least it was up-to-date.

  When she
returned to the living room, Josefine was bent over the coffee table. She carefully popped olives and tiny pieces of ham into her mouth so as not to ruin her lipstick. She had pulled back her hair in a tight ponytail and the earrings suited her. Her black jeans fitted as if they were painted onto her long legs, and she was wearing her new, hip-length suede jacket, an olive green scarf and her new, black boots.

  Lene was proud of her daughter. And worried sick.

  ‘Will you be sleeping in your own bed tonight?’

  ‘I sincerely hope not! No, Mum, joke! … I think … yes, I will. See you later.’

  ‘Be safe,’ Lene said automatically, but her daughter was already gone.

  Lene stood for a moment staring at the door.

  Then she tried calling the elusive beekeeper, Allan Lundkvist, again, and for the umpteenth time heard his slow drawl on the answerphone. She left a new message and flung down her mobile in frustration.

  Chapter 21

  Michael returned to the hotel in a terrible mood after interviewing Kasper Hansen’s mother. He cursed himself: he was a smooth-tongued fraudster. A snake. Poor woman. Now she was waiting for a call that would never come, a journalist who would never contact her again, a programme that would never be made.

  In reception the porter handed him a thick, yellow envelope with no return address, sealed with several staples. He started opening it as soon as he reached his room and spread the photocopies of Flemming Caspersen’s medical records across his bed.

  He started with a brief note from Næstved Central Hospital. Flemming Caspersen had been found in his bed at eight thirty in the morning on 14 January 2013 in the east wing of Pederslund. He appeared to be dead. An ambulance had arrived fifteen minutes later. Victor Schmidt and his wife had given Caspersen CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while they waited for it to come. On arrival the paramedics took over the resuscitation and continued during the journey to the hospital. They administered adrenaline directly to his heart and made several attempts to shock it back to life. Flemming Caspersen had exhibited no vital signs. His pupils had been non-reactive during transport and it was presumed that his brain had been deprived of oxygen for a long time.