“He had some form of autism, is that right?”
“Well, sort of, but rather a mild form, I believe. People with AS are often highly gifted. Nerdish is how most people would think of them, I suppose. Einsteins. But Poul had practical talent as well. He was very special in all sorts of ways.”
Assad smiled. He too had noted the horn-rimmed glasses and the hair gathered in a bun. She seemed to be just the right teacher for someone like Poul Holt. Nerdish minds think alike, as they said.
“Poul had his younger brother with him that day, the sixteenth of February 1996, you say, after which you never saw him again. How can you be so sure of the date?” Carl inquired.
“We kept a register of attendance in the first years. So we checked back to see when he’d been here last. He never came back after the holiday. Would you like to see the registers? They’re all filed away in the office next door.”
Carl glanced at Assad. He didn’t seem that interested, either. “No, thanks, I think we can take your word for it. I understand you contacted the family when Poul failed to show up again, is that right?”
“Yes, but they were very standoffish. Especially when we suggested a meeting at home to talk things over with Poul.”
“Did you speak to him on the phone?”
“No, the last time I spoke to Poul Holt was here at the college, and that would have been a week before the winter break. Later, when I called his home number, his father said Poul wouldn’t come to the phone. And that was that. Poul had just turned eighteen, so of course he was free to decide for himself what he wanted to do with his life.”
“Eighteen? Are you sure he wasn’t older than that?”
“Yes, he was very young. He completed his upper secondary at seventeen and went straight on from there.”
“Have you kept any data on him?”
She smiled. Naturally, she had come prepared.
Carl read aloud with Assad hovering at his shoulder.
“Poul Holt, born 13 November 1977. Maths and Physics major from Birkerød Gymnasium School. Final average 9.8.”
And then came the address. Not far away, forty-five minutes by car at the most.
“Bearing in mind this would be the old grading system with thirteen as top of the scale, I’d say that wasn’t a particularly impressive average for a genius,” Carl mused.
“True, but that’s how it pans out across the board with thirteen science and seven arts subjects,” she replied.
“Are you saying, then, that he was poor in Danish?” Assad chipped in.
She smiled. “In written Danish, certainly. His reports left a lot to be desired in terms of his writing skills. But we often see that. Even in his spoken language he expressed himself rather primitively if the subject at hand failed to interest him.”
“Is there a copy of this I could take with me?” Carl asked.
Laura Mann nodded. If it hadn’t been for her tobacco-stained fingers and greasy skin, he would have given her a hug.
“Fantastic, Carl,” Assad enthused as they approached the house. “We solved our problem within a week. We know who wrote the letter. This is the way to go! And now we are outside the family’s home.” He thumped the dashboard as if to underline their success.
“Yeah.” Carl nodded. “Now we just have to hope it was all a joke.”
“If so, then we must give this Poul a bollocking, Carl.”
“And what if it wasn’t, Assad?”
Assad nodded. If it wasn’t, they would have a job on their hands.
They parked outside the garden gate and noted immediately that the name on the nameplate wasn’t Holt.
When they rang the bell and the door was opened by a small, crumpled man in a wheelchair claiming to be the only person who had lived in the house since 1996, Carl clenched his teeth together on instinct and felt himself growing irritable.
“You’ll have bought the place from the Holts, then?” he said.
“No, as a matter of fact it was from some Jehovah’s Witnesses. The man of the house was a priest of some sort. The main room had been a kind of meeting place. You can come in and have a look, if you like.”
Carl shook his head. “So you never met the family who lived here?”
“That’s right, I never met them,” the man replied.
Assad and Carl thanked him and went away.
“Do you get the feeling all of a sudden, Assad, that we’re not dealing with boyish pranks here?” Carl said.
“Carl, just because people move house…” He stopped on the garden path. “OK, perhaps I know what you are thinking, Carl.”
“Am I right, would you say? Would a lad like Poul be the sort to do something like that? And would it be the kind of thing a couple of young Jehovah’s Witnesses would get up to? What do you reckon?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that they are allowed to lie, only not to each other.”
“You mean you know someone who’s a member?”
“No, but that is how it is with these highly religious people. The members of the Church will shield each other against the world by whatever means. Also with lies.”
“True. But the kidnapping thing can’t have been a necessary lie. That’d be overstepping the boundaries. I’m sure all Jehovah’s Witnesses would be able to see that.”
Assad nodded. On that point they agreed.
So what now?
Yrsa was like an army of ants on the march back and forth between her own office and Carl’s. For the moment, the kidnapping case was hers and she wanted to know everything, preferably in small installments. What did this Laura Mann look like? What did she have to say about Poul? What was the house like that they had lived in? What more did they know about the family, besides that they were Jehovah’s Witnesses?
“Take it easy. Assad’s checking the Civil Registration System. We’ll find them before long.”
“Come out here into the corridor with me for a minute, would you, Carl?” she said, dragging him with her to the blowup on the wall. Now she had added Poul’s name at the bottom, as well as filling in a couple of the smaller words in the main body of the text.
HELP
The 16 febrary 1996 we were kidnaped he got us at the bus sdop on Lautropvang in Ballerup—The man is 18. tall with short hair …. …. … ….—Hes got a scar on his rite … .r…. a blue van Mum and Dad know him—Fr.d.. .nd …t.in. with a B—He thretned us .. ..ve us ….…. ……—Hes going to kil us—.. .ressd . … .. .. .ace ..rst …. .. brother.—We drove nearly 1 hour … … .. … by warter ….. … …. win. .urb..s ….. .. It smels here—….. .p … …. .. ……r .. .ry.gv.—.. ..…. …. .. years
POUL HOLT
“Right then! He was kidnapped along with his brother,” Yrsa summed up. “His name is Poul Holt, and he says they drove nearly an hour, my guess being that they drove to some water.” She planted her fists on her narrow hips. Now, clearly, she was going to present her own standpoint.
“If this lad had Asperger’s or something like it, I don’t think he would be making that kind of thing up, about them driving out to the water.” She turned to face Carl. “Would he?”
“Maybe his younger brother’s behind it. So far, we’ve no way of knowing, strictly speaking.”
“No, but think about it, Carl. Laursen found a fish scale on the original message. If the younger brother had written it, would he go to the bother of sticking a fish scale on just to make his story more believable? Not to mention fish slime?”
“Maybe he’s as bright as his brother. Only in another way?”
At this point, she stamped her foot, causing a resounding echo to clatter through the basement rotunda. “Carl, you’re not listening. Put your thinking cap on. Where were they kidnapped?” She patted him on the shoulder as though to soften the harshness of her tone.
Carl noted how a few flakes of dandruff were sent whirling into the air in the process. “In Ballerup,” he answered.
“Right, so what do you think if they were kidnapped in
Ballerup and yet drive for nearly an hour to get to some water? It wouldn’t take them an hour to Hundested, would it? How long does it take to Jyllinge from Ballerup? Half an hour at the most, I’d say.”
“Stevns would be a possibility, yeah?” He growled slightly under his breath. No one liked to have their intellectual capacities dragged through the mud. And that included Carl Mørck.
“Exactly!” She stamped her foot again. If there had been rats in the crawl space beneath them, they were there no longer.
“But if the message is just a flight of fancy,” she went on, “why make it all so difficult? Why not just write that they drove for half an hour to get to the water? Surely that’s what any young lad making up a story would do? That’s why I don’t believe it’s made up. We should be taking this letter very seriously, Carl.”
He inhaled deeply. He hadn’t the energy to share his take on the gravity of the situation. Maybe he would have done so with Rose, but not Yrsa.
“Yeah, OK, no need to get worked up,” he said, trying to talk things down to a sensible level. “Let’s see how things are looking once we’ve got hold of the family.”
“What is going on?” Assad popped his head out of his pygmy-size office. It was obvious he was trying to weigh up the mood. Was this a proper argument, or what?
“I have the address, Carl,” he announced, thrusting a piece of paper into Carl’s hand. “Four times they have moved since 1996. Four addresses in thirteen years, all in Sweden.”
Shit, Carl thought to himself. Sweden, the country with the world’s largest mosquitoes and dullest cuisine.
“Let me guess,” he said. “They moved up north to where even the reindeer get lost? Luleå or Kebnekaise, somewhere like that?”
“Hallabro. The place is called Hallabro, and it’s in Blekinge. Approximately two hundred and fifty kilometers from here.”
Two hundred and fifty kilometers. A jaunt, unfortunately. He saw the weekend disappear before his eyes.
He tried to wangle his way out. “OK, but they won’t be in when we get there. And if we call them beforehand, they won’t be in, either. And if by chance they’re in, all they’ll speak is Swedish, and how the hell’s anyone from Jutland to understand a word? Am I right?”
Assad frowned, as if this were slightly too much information for him to process all at once. “But I already called. And they were in.”
“You did what? Chances are they’ll be out tomorrow, then.”
“Not at all, Carl, because I did not tell them who I was. I slammed down the receiver at once.”
A crabby pair, these two assistants of his. And such a flair for sound effects.
Carl shuffled back into his office and called home, giving brief instructions for Morten on what to do if Vigga turned up while he was away. Who knew what she was capable of next?
Then he instructed Assad on the continuing investigation into the arsons and told him to keep an eye on what Yrsa was up to. “Give her a good long list of religious sects to look into. And then go upstairs to Laursen and ask him to get on to Forensic Genetics, see if he can hurry them up a bit on those DNA tests, eh?”
After that, he stuffed his service pistol into his bag. You never knew with the Swedes.
At least not the ones from Denmark.
15
The next night, he made sure he brought his hostess and temporary lover to the brink of climax. In the seconds before she threw back her head and drew in breath to the very bottom of her lungs, he removed his fingers from her crotch and left her lying there, muscles quivering, eyes flickering.
He rose quickly, leaving Isabel Jønsson alone with the issue of how best to discharge her arousal. She looked bewildered, which was exactly his intention.
Above her little row house in Viborg, the moonlight contended with thick, downy clouds. He stood naked on the patio and looked up at them, exhaling cigarette smoke through his nostrils.
From now on, the hours would proceed according to a familiar pattern.
First the arguments. Then she would demand some explanation for why their relationship had to end, and so suddenly. She would plead and they would argue, and then she would plead again. He would spell it out to her and she would tell him to pack his things and go, after which he would be out of her life for good.
At ten o’clock the next morning he would be leaving the hills of Dollerup Bakker with the children next to him on the front seat, and when they asked why they had turned off the road too soon, he would chloroform them. He knew exactly where this could be done without fear of discovery. His research had been thorough. A dense copse of trees that would conceal the van and his activities during the few minutes it would take for him to neutralize them and transfer their sedated bodies into the back of the vehicle.
Four and a half hours after this took place, having crossed the Storebælt Bridge and stopped off for lunch at his sister’s on Fyn, he would be back on Sjælland, at the boathouse by the woods of Nordskoven, north of Jægerspris. Just twenty paces through the thicket to the low-ceilinged space with the chains. Twenty paces, shoving two cowering figures on in front of him.
He knew the sound of urgent invocations from previous times crossing that little stretch of ground. He would hear it again.
Only then could negotiations with the parents begin.
He emptied his lungs of smoke and stubbed the cigarette out on the tiny lawn. He had a busy night and day ahead of him.
He was compelled to put aside his unpleasant suspicions that something was awry at home, something that threatened to turn everything on its head. If his wife was being unfaithful, it would be the worse for her.
He heard the patio door squeak behind him and turned toward Isabel’s confused face. Her bathrobe barely concealed her trembling nakedness. In a moment, he would tell her it was over on account of her being too old, though she was nowhere near. Her body was exciting and piquant, her presence made him hungry for her. It was a shame, in more ways than one, that their relationship had to end, though the feeling was by no means new to him. It had happened so many times before.
“You’ll catch your death out here with no clothes on. It’s freezing cold.” She tilted her head, not focusing on him. “What’s happening between us?”
He stood in front of her and took hold of the collar of her robe. “You’re too old for me,” he said without feeling, drawing the garment around the bareness of her throat.
For a second, she seemed to be paralyzed. Ready to either lash out at him or scream her anger and frustration into his face. Invective surged, only to stall on her tongue. He knew she would say nothing. Respectable divorced public servants such as she would never make a scene with a naked man on their patio.
People would talk. They both knew that.
By the time he awoke early next morning, she had already gathered up his things from around the house and thrown them into his bag. There was no breakfast, not even coffee, just a barrage of rather pertinent accusations and questions indicating to him that she was still on her feet.
“You’ve been into my computer,” she said, composed, though her face was bleached with anger. “You did a search on my brother. Fifty great big, elephant-size footprints in my data. Couldn’t you have gone to the trouble of finding out what I actually do in the local authority while you were at it? Don’t you think that was rather disrespectful of you? Rather stupid, perhaps?”
As she spoke, his mind was on the fact that he needed to use her shower, no matter what she said. The family out at Stanghede would surely not leave their children in the hands of an unshaven man smelling of sex.
What she said next, however, mobilized all his senses.
“I work in IT. I’m an expert. In charge of data security and IT solutions for Viborg Municipality. So I know what you’ve been up to. What the hell do you take me for? Don’t you think I can read the log files on my own laptop?”
She looked him directly in the eye. She was quite calm now. The first crisis was over. She had aces u
p her sleeve, could rise above self-pity, tears, and hysteria.
“You found my passwords,” she said. “But only because I put them there for you to find. I’ve been watching you. To see what you might get up to. There’s always something not right about a man who tells so little about himself. Something not right at all. You see, what men love more than anything else is to talk about themselves. Obviously, you had no idea!” She smiled wryly, sensing his alertness. “How come he never says anything about himself, I wondered. And to be honest, it was rather intriguing.”
He knitted his eyebrows in a frown. “So now you think you know me, because I’m silent about my own life and curious about yours?”
“Curious, that’s an understatement. I can see why you might want to check my dating profile, but why would you want to know about my brother?”
“I thought he was your ex and that maybe I could figure out what went wrong.”
She wasn’t buying. She didn’t care about his whys and wherefores. He had misjudged her, that was all there was to it.
“I will say to your credit, though, that at least you didn’t empty my bank account,” she said.
He forced an overbearing smile at her audacity. It was an expression he had been saving for their farewell after his shower, but these were new developments.
“But do you know what? We’re as bad as each other when it comes to being inquisitive,” she went on. “You see, I’ve been rummaging around in your things, too. And do you know what I found in your pockets and in your bag? Not a thing. No driver’s license, no social security card, no credit cards, no wallet, no car keys. Nothing. But do you know what else, mister? Just like women always leave their passwords in the most obvious of places, men are always stupid enough to leave their car keys on top of the front wheel if they don’t want to carry them around. And what a fine little bowling ball you have on your key ring. Does that mean you go bowling, then? You never said. And with a number one on it, too. Is that because you’re so good at it?”
A Conspiracy of Faith Page 13
