The duty doctor at Næstved Central Hospital had declared him dead on arrival. Time of death was called at 9.33 a.m., and the cause of death was attributed to institutio cordis, cardiac arrest – probably due to a massive, acute, myocardial infarction. The duty doctor and the medical officer who examined the body six hours later both agreed.
Michael assumed his favourite position at the balcony. Heart failure. Ultimately wasn’t that what we all died from? The post-mortem report was brief and cursory: the pathologist had discovered an unusual hardening of the arteries given the patient’s age and a coronary thrombosis which had caused a major part of the heart’s left side to die. Flemming Caspersen had passed away in his sleep. There were no outward signs of violence. His blood alcohol level was what one would expect to find in a man who had consumed a few drinks the night before. No toxin screens had been carried out and no one had examined the body for hidden needle marks between toes or fingers, under the tongue, in his scalp, in his ears or the mucous membrane of the anus.
Michael was far from impressed by the pathologist’s work. Hardening of the arteries, coronary thrombosis, dead, the end. There were literally hundreds of ways to make a murder look like a natural death, but not one of them had been considered in the report.
And now Flemming Caspersen’s body had been cremated.
Michael had dissolved two Treo painkillers in a glass of water when his telephone rang.
He swallowed the bitter, white liquid.
‘Hello?’
‘You’re invited to dinner at Pederslund tonight,’ Elizabeth Caspersen said without introduction. ‘We both are. Victor almost had a fit when I told him about Miss Simpson in New York. Can you make it?’
‘Of course I can, Elizabeth. Great. Did you write the letter yourself?’
‘Yes. It was devastating.’
‘And the picture of the little one? Do you have one?’
‘One of my secretary’s grandchildren. Ugly little brat. He looks like Winston Churchill.’
‘With the cigar?’
‘Yes, Michael. I pretended one of my daughters needed it for some homework about overpopulation. I don’t think she believed me.’
‘When should I get there?’
‘Drinks are served at six o’clock, on the dot, and dinner is at six thirty. They eat early in the country. They’re all there. I can pick you up from your hotel at four thirty. That’s in one and a half hours. We can talk in the car. Any news?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But let’s save it for later. Dress code?’
‘I don’t think there is one, but if you’re out of clean shirts, perhaps you should invest in a new one.’
Michael closed the door to the balcony.
‘I will, and while we’re on the subject of money, I need to ask for you for an advance. I’ve already had some expenses and I’m about to incur a lot more. For starters, I need to charter a helicopter.’
‘A helicopter …?’
Elizabeth Caspersen sounded taken aback.
‘It’s just for a couple of days,’ he added.
‘A couple of days?’
Her voice faltered and Michael pulled a face.
‘Do I have to remind you that yesterday you were willing to spend all the money you have to get to the bottom of this? A case which might prove that your father was responsible for the murder of a random hiker in Norway. I can make do without the helicopter when I visit Finnmark, of course, but I think that the cost will be more or less the same. When you factor in my fee.’
Her silence was eminently expressive.
‘Of course …’ came the self-possessed response. ‘Of course, I am. And I apologize. I just have to … I just have to get used to this level of expenditure. I came to you and you’re doing an excellent job. How much?’
‘200,000 kroner should cover it for now.’
‘I’ll transfer the money immediately,’ she said in her newly humbled voice.
‘Thank you.’
He gave her the number of the client account with his accountant in Odense. He knew that Sara would be thrilled. Or she would be, until he started renting helicopters in Norway.
‘I’ll see you at four thirty,’ she said.
‘I look forward to it,’ he replied.
‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ she said and hung up.
*
Michael flicked through that day’s newspapers. The Rigspolitiet were still investigating the veteran’s apparent suicide in Holbæk. There was a new photograph of the deceased, surrounded by his army mates on the bonnet of an armoured personnel carrier outside Baghdad. Kim Andersen’s naked chest glistened beneath the Middle Eastern sky, a black-and-white-chequered partisan scarf tied around his neck. Michael smiled at the sight of all the tattoos that covered the soldier’s arms, shoulders and torso.
Michael himself had a single tattoo on his shoulder, which was more than enough. He had been blind drunk one night in Manila when Keith Mallory had dragged him into a small, unhygienic tattoo parlour.
Michael only discovered what had happened twenty-four hours later when, still somewhat under the influence, he was drying himself in front of the mirror after a shower. He had screamed when he noticed his right shoulder, where a big, orange Homer Simpson looked over his shoulder with a smirk. The character had his trousers around his ankles and was baring his naked backside to anyone who cared to look. Sara hated it.
In another newspaper there was a new picture of Superintendent Lene Jensen in a car park outside Holbæk Police Station. She was photographed midstride and she was looking at the photographer. As always, her face was grave.
Lene Jensen was a doer, Michael concluded.
The journalist had spoken to Kim Andersen’s colleagues from the carpentry firm, a couple of old school friends and fellow hunters, and everyone expressed surprise. Coming home must have proved tougher for Kim than they had all realized. In the past year he had become introverted and morose. He had been limping, his leg was hurting and he could no longer climb scaffolding or roofs. Perhaps his suicide wasn’t so hard to understand after all.
Michael flicked through the other newspapers without finding anything except speculation and predictable coverage.
A dead, highly decorated veteran. With a limp. Just like one of the rhino horn thieves.
*
Elizabeth Caspersen’s black Opel Insignia pulled up in front of Admiral Hotel at exactly four thirty. Michael opened the passenger door and got in. He had managed to buy a clean shirt and the hotel had pressed the only suit he had packed.
She looked tired and stressed. The driver’s seat was pushed right back to make room for her long legs. She wore black, perforated driving gloves and drove with skilful concentration. They crossed Langebro, passed the SAS Hotel and headed east down Ørestads Boulevard.
Neither of them spoke until they joined the motorway.
‘You look very nice, Michael.’
‘Thank you, so do you.’
She smiled feebly.
‘What have you discovered? You look terribly serious.’
Michael sighed and stared at his hands.
‘A young Danish-Norwegian couple disappeared on a hiking trip north of Lakselv around the 23 March 2011. Kasper Hansen and Ingrid Sundsbö,’ he said, without looking at her. ‘Thirty-one and twenty-nine years old. He was an engineer and she was a graphic designer. They arrived at Lakselv from Copenhagen via Oslo on the eve of 22 March and spent the night at Porsanger Vertshus. The following day they headed north and caught a lift with a Norwegian long-distance lorry driver. Since then no one has seen them, except their killers. They were experienced hikers with good equipment and the weather was fine and warm.’
The car swerved into the middle lane and she straightened it up with a jerk.
‘Two people …? Please, not two?’
‘I’m afraid so. Like I said, a young couple. She was probably killed the same day. Her body has never been found. Neither has his, obviously.’
‘Mi
chael … Jesus Christ … oh, God.’
She leaned back and closed her eyes. Michael kept a nervous eye on a truck in the wing mirror.
‘Do you want me to drive?’ he offered, but Elizabeth Caspersen didn’t appear to have heard him. ‘Two …’ she whispered again in despair, and he felt genuinely sorry for her. ‘They didn’t have any children, did they? Michael … please tell me they didn’t have children …’
‘Two. Twins. A boy and a girl. Four years old now,’ he said mercilessly. ‘I’m sorry. Kasper Hansen’s sixty-five-year-old mother was granted custody of them. They live in a small house in Vangede. I visited her this morning, pretending to be a journalist interested in the case.’
‘Michael, that’s awful! What do I do? And it is them? You’re one hundred per cent sure?’
‘There is no doubt. Family and friends held a memorial service last autumn for two empty coffins in the Norwegian Seamen’s Church in Copenhagen. They were well-liked. Facebook is full of requests for information. Like you said, people want to know.’
‘Stop it … I get it, okay …’
Her eyes were blinded with tears; Michael put his hand on the handbrake.
‘No more details?’ he asked.
‘Not right now.’
‘I tried telling you, Elizabeth, I really did. Now they have a face and a name.’
‘I know, and I want to know everything, I just want you to ration it. I didn’t know … It never even crossed my mind that there could be others. At the same time, I mean.’
‘Of course not, but you didn’t do anything wrong, Elizabeth. You’re doing the right thing now. Remember that.’
‘Yes, but it’s my insane, murderous father. I can’t help feeling responsible. I know perfectly well that it isn’t rational, but I do.’
She started crying again. ‘Those poor kids, I feel so sorry for them.’ She blinked away the tears on her eyelashes. ‘Do you have children of your own?’
‘A four-year-old and an eighteen-month-old,’ he said.
She nodded and stared straight ahead while her mind tried to process a storm of fresh horrors. Michael watched a tear make the journey from the corner of her eye; it fell from her jawbone and left a small, dark stain on her silk collar.
Eventually she regained control of her emotions – and the car – and he leaned back and noticed that his nails had left small, red crescents in the palms of his hands.
‘And the others?’ she asked. ‘The hunters. The murderers?’
‘Nothing yet.’
‘But you’ll find them?’
‘I think so.’
‘You have to find them, Michael!’
‘Of course.’
‘My father was a customer of Guns and Gents,’ she said a little later. ‘Their gunsmith looked after his weapons. They ordered the Mauser rifle for him in January 2011, and they sighted it in for him with the telescopic sight it’s fitted with now. All the stamps, receipts and numbers match. You still don’t think it was him?’
Michael said nothing.
‘Sonartek’s Gulfstream flew my father to Stockholm on 20 March 2011 in the morning,’ she went on. ‘It returned without passengers in the afternoon, flew back to Stockholm on 27 March and returned with my father.’
‘I see,’ he said.
‘Is that all you have to say?’
‘It is for now.’
‘I can’t work out whether you’re listening to me and understand what I’m saying, or if you simply don’t want to believe that he did it,’ she exploded. ‘Seriously. It was just him and a bunch of crazed killers, not a conspiracy dreamt up by the CIA, or Victor, or anyone else, to blacken his name or cause me problems. They killed two innocent people, Michael!’
‘I hear you and I understand you, Elizabeth,’ he said. ‘But –’
‘But what?! Isn’t that enough, for God’s sake?’
He sighed and desperately wished that he could smoke.
‘Nothing.’
‘I’m not an idiot, Michael. What is it?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t, it’s just something I’ve learned along the way.’
‘What?’
‘Patterns, Elizabeth.’ Michael made a helpless gesture. ‘When something is too easy, when everything fits, it’s because it’s too good to be true. Always.’
‘If you say so,’ she mumbled. ‘I know it was him.’
He changed the subject: ‘What should I be expecting down at Pederslund?’
‘Victor will try to intimidate you. He’ll never trust you – or me, for that matter. No one, least of all him, likes outsiders prying into their private lives. He’ll resent it deeply. As far as his wife, Monika, goes, she’ll be a great hostess. Unless Victor has knocked her about recently.’
‘Recently?’
‘It happens,’ she said. ‘If you hear strange noises during the night, don’t open your door.’
‘Tonight?’
Michael stared at her.
‘It’ll be too late to drive home tonight. Victor won’t be satisfied until every stone has been turned. An illegitimate son of his business partner, a baby in the US, with their insane legal system? Forget it.’
‘I didn’t pack my toothbrush,’ he said.
‘The guest bedrooms are well equipped. I think you’ll find everything you need.’
‘And the sons?’
‘Henrik will barely notice you. He’ll be hunched over his mobile phone or his laptop. He works all the time. If he does notice you, he’ll be hospitable, but distracted. Charming, but wise beyond his years.’
‘Is he married?’
‘He’s asexual, I believe. I’ve certainly never heard of a girlfriend, or boyfriend for that matter. He works.’
‘And Jakob, the army officer?’
‘Reserved. Doesn’t take after his mother or his father. He travels all the time. Lives very frugally.’
‘Single?’
‘He finds it hard to fall in love. To my knowledge he has only had one serious relationship in his whole life.’
‘Who with?’
She furrowed her brow. ‘When he was on leave from the army, he travelled around Nepal and met a girl. A girl just like him. An explorer. And worth exploring, clearly.’
‘What happened?’
‘It was five, six years ago. Jakob came back from the army and had lost ten kilos. He locked himself in his room for a month. He refused to talk to anyone and never about her. I don’t remember her name.’
‘She dumped him?’
‘Jakob isn’t the kind of guy you dump. But I don’t know the details. No one ever talks about it.’
‘Did you read the post-mortem report?’ she asked when they had driven for a while in silence.
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing. Your father just died.’
Chapter 22
The hunting lodge was beautiful and enchanting, and there was nothing along the narrow, private sunken road to reveal its existence. Hedges and trees grew together above the road and blocked out the light evening sky.
Elizabeth Caspersen threw the car through a gap between two hedges, an opening that Michael would have missed. He caught sight of a set of red gateposts and black cast-iron gates overgrown with ivy. They drove a few hundred metres on a rust-coloured gravel track before the park opened up with its winding waterways, ponds covered with water lilies, thatched and darkened tenant-farmer buildings, ruler-straight flowerbeds and lawns so smooth you could play snooker on them.
The park and the buildings were just as well kept as the entrance to the hunting lodge had been wild and discreet. The main house was white, harmonious, light and crisp. It had an Italianate feel to it, delicate like pastry. Behind the buildings, the park sloped towards the sea. White enclosures and neat red stable buildings stretched to the right of the main house. A couple of thoroughbreds with clean, blue blankets were grazing in the enclosures.
‘How marvellous,’ he said.
‘It’s a
lovely place,’ she agreed. ‘The horses are Monika’s hobby. She breeds Danish Warmbloods and leaves Victor to his own devices. That’s the deal. Pederslund is a hunting lodge built by King Frederick VI for one of his four illegitimate children by his mistress, Frederikke Dannemand.’
‘More illegitimate children.’ Michael smiled.
‘Yes, and while we’re on the subject,’ she said, ‘the boy – my American half-brother – is called Charles, named after Ms Simpson’s grandfather.’
‘Nice detail,’ Michael said.
She parked between a Volvo estate and a dark BMW. Michael got out and stretched his back.
‘Does Victor work from home?’
‘He has a flat in Copenhagen. It’s mainly Monika who now lives here.’
Elizabeth Caspersen walked around the car to Michael: ‘It’s an open secret that he also has a mistress in Copenhagen, and Monika, well … she takes the occasional lover. An arrangement that suits them both, I believe.’
A pair of large lamps either side of the front door came on automatically as they walked up the main steps and the door was opened by a tall, lean man. Iron-grey hair, well-trimmed moustache and a hawk nose. Light brown Italian loafers, a soft, cinnamon coloured pullover and a pale blue shirt, rolled up his sinewy forearms. The man’s movements were fast and energetic and he greeted Elizabeth Caspersen profusely, but his dark eyes were busy scanning Michael.
‘Come in! So nice, Elizabeth. So nice to see you. You’re well?’
He didn’t wait for an answer, but pulled her through the doorway so he could concentrate on her companion.
Michael smiled politely. Victor Schmidt’s hand was long, cool and dry. He looked to be in excellent physical shape even though he was in his late sixties.
‘Welcome to Pederslund, I’m Victor Schmidt.’
‘Michael Sander.’
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