Isabel gave an answering nod.
The name of the place ended in “slev.” Assad was unable to decipher the first part.
“We’ll take a break until Karsten gets back. Is that OK?” Carl asked the nurse.
She nodded. A break would be more than welcome.
“I thought Isabel was going to be moved?” Carl added.
The nurse nodded again. “Given the circumstances, I think it’s best to wait a few hours.”
There was a knock on the door, and a woman entered. “Telephone call for a Carl Mørck. Is he here?”
Carl stuck his finger in the air and was handed a wireless phone.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Hello, my name’s Bettina Bjelke. I understand you’ve been trying to get hold of me. I’m the secretary from Intensive Care who was on duty earlier.”
Carl waved Assad over so that he could listen in.
“We need a description of a man who came to visit Isabel Jønsson just before your shift ended,” he explained. “Not the policeman but the other man. Can you describe him to us?”
Assad’s eyes narrowed as he listened. When the call was over, he and Carl exchanged glances, shaking their heads.
The description of the person who had attacked Isabel Jønsson fitted perfectly with the man who had stepped out of the lift on the ground floor when they had been talking to Karsten Jønsson.
Mid-fifties, grayish hair, sallow complexion, glasses, rather stooping. A far cry from the image of a tall, athletic, thick-haired man in his forties that Josef had provided them with.
“This man was in disguise,” Assad concluded.
Carl nodded. They had failed to recognize him despite having stared at the police artist’s likeness of him at least a hundred times. Despite the broad face. Despite the eyebrows that almost met above the nose.
“Goodness gracious,” said Assad at his side.
Carl’s words exactly. Goodness fucking gracious. They had seen him. They could have touched him, apprehended him. They could have saved the lives of two children. Just by reaching out and grabbing hold of him.
“I think Isabel wants to tell you something,” said the nurse. “And then I think we need to have that break. Isabel is exhausted.” She indicated the monitors, which were showing a lot less activity than before.
Assad returned to the bed and placed his ear to Isabel’s lips for what seemed like a minute, perhaps two.
“Yes,” he said eventually and nodded. “Yes, I will tell him, Isabel.”
He turned to face Carl.
“Some clothes belonging to the kidnapper were on the backseat of the car they crashed. Clothes with his hair on them. What do you reckon now, Carl?”
He said nothing. It sounded good in the long run, but not much use to them at the moment.
“And she says the kidnapper has a small bowling ball with a number one on his key ring together with his car keys.”
Carl thrust out his lower lip. The bowling ball! So he still had it. After more than thirteen years, it was still on his key ring. Was it special to him in some way?
“I’ve got the address.” Karsten Jønsson came in with a notepad in his hand. “Place called Ferslev, north of Roskilde.” He handed the address to Carl. “Owner registered as Mads Christian Fog, one of the names Isabel gave us.”
Carl stood up immediately. “Let’s get going,” he said, waving Assad into action.
“I don’t think you need to hurry,” said Karsten Jønsson hesitantly. “Emergency services were called out to the premises on Monday evening. According to the fire service in Skibby, the place burned to the ground.”
Burned to the ground! The bastard was ahead of them.
Carl exhaled sharply. “Any idea if this place is by the fjord?”
Jønsson pulled an iPhone out of his pocket and typed the address into the map function. A moment passed, and then he shook his head. He handed the phone to Carl and indicated the spot. Clearly, the boathouse was somewhere else. Ferslev was several kilometers from any body of water.
But if it wasn’t there, then where was it?
“We should get over there anyway, Assad. Someone in the local area must know something about him.”
He turned back to Karsten Jønsson.
“Did you happen to notice a man who stepped out of the lift just as we got in, after we ran into each other on the ground floor earlier on? Gray hair and glasses. He was the one who attacked your sister.”
Jønsson looked shocked. “Jesus Christ. No, I didn’t. Are you sure?”
“Didn’t you say they kicked you out because Isabel was going to be moved? He was probably the one who spoke to you. Did you happen to get a good look at him?”
Jønsson shook his head and seemed genuinely distressed. “No, I’m sorry. He was bent over the other woman. I had no idea. He had a white coat on.”
They stared in unison at the figure beneath the sheet on the adjoining bed. This was dreadful, indeed.
“Well, thanks anyway, Karsten,” Carl said, extending his hand. “I only wish we could have run into each other under more pleasant circumstances. But it’s a good thing you were here.”
They shook hands.
A thought flashed through Carl’s mind. “Hey, Assad and Isabel. One more question. Apparently, our man has a visible scar. You wouldn’t know where, would you?”
He looked at the nurse at Isabel’s bedside. She shook her head. Isabel Jønsson was already asleep. His question would have to wait.
“We must do three things now, Carl,” said Assad as they left the room. “We must drive around and check out all the places Yrsa picked out for us. Perhaps also think about what Klaes Thomasen said, don’t you think? And also the bowling issue. We must take our drawing to places where people go bowling. And we must make inquiries with the locals at the place where the house burned down.”
Carl nodded. He had just spotted Rose still leaning against the wall by the lifts. That was as far as she had got.
“Are you all right, Rose?” he asked as they approached.
She gave a shrug. “Having to tell him about his mother was hard,” she said in a quiet voice. Judging by the black streaks down her cheeks, she had been having a good cry.
“Oh, Rose. There, there,” said Assad. He put his arm around her gently, and they stood like that for a while until Rose withdrew, wiped her nose on her sleeve, and looked up at Carl.
“We’re going to get this bastard, all right? I’m not going home. Just tell me what I can do, and I’ll frigging well make sure he won’t do it again.” Her eyes were ablaze now.
Rose was back.
After instructing Rose to pinpoint bowling centers in Nordsjælland and fax them the artist’s likeness along with the various names the killer might be using, Carl went back to the car with Assad and entered Ferslev into the GPS.
It was already late afternoon, time most people would be going home. But he and Assad weren’t most people.
At least not today.
They reached the scene of the fire just as the sun was giving up. Half an hour more and it would be dark.
The blaze had been fierce. Not only was the house completely razed, with only the outer walls remaining upright, the same was true of the barn and everything else within a range of thirty to forty meters from the house. The trees reached toward the darkening sky like charred totem poles, and the neighbor’s winter cereals in the adjoining field were scorched.
No wonder fire services had been called in from Lejre, Roskilde, Skibby, and Frederikssund. It could have turned into a disaster.
They walked around the house a couple of times, and the wreck of the van jutting out of the living room prompted Assad to say it all reminded him of the Middle East.
Carl had never seen the like.
“We’re not going to find anything here, Assad. He’s covered his tracks. Let’s go over to the neighbors’ and hear what they have to say about this Mads Christian Fog.”
His mobile rang. It was Ro
se.
“Do you want to hear what I’ve got?” she asked.
He didn’t get a chance to answer.
“Ballerup, Tårnby, Glostrup, Gladsaxe, Nordvest, Rødovre, Hillerød, Valby, Axeltorv, and the DGI leisure center in central Copenhagen, Bryggen in Amager, Stenløse Shopping Center, Holbæk, Tåstrup, Frederikssund, Roskilde, Helsingør, and Allerød, where you live. Bowling centers located in the area you said to check. I’ve sent faxes out to all of them, and in a minute I’ll start calling them on the phone. I’ll get back to you later. Oh, and don’t worry, I won’t be taking no for an answer.”
Poor bastards.
The neighbors on the farm a few hundred meters away from what remained of the cottage invited them in. They were in the middle of dinner. An indulgence of potatoes and pork with all the trimmings, mostly their own produce, Carl assumed. Big, hearty people, with big, hearty smiles. Clearly, they had made a nice life for themselves.
“Mads Christian? To be honest, I’ve not seen the old bugger for years. He did have some woman on the go in Sweden, so I reckon that’s where he’ll be,” said the man of the house. He looked like he’d been born wearing a lumberjack shirt.
“We do see that van of his sometimes, that blue thing,” the wife interjected. “And the Mercedes. He earned his money in Greenland, so he can afford it. Tax-free, I imagine.” She smiled.
Tax-free was something she obviously knew all about.
Carl leaned across the solid wooden table, planting both elbows on its surface. If he and Assad didn’t find somewhere to eat soon, they would be driven by the irresistible aroma of roast pork to confiscate it in the name of the law.
“Old bugger, you say. Are we talking about the same man?” he asked, almost drooling. “Mads Christian Fog, yeah? According to our information he’d be forty-five at the most.”
The man and his wife laughed.
“Maybe that’d be a nephew or something,” said the man. “But you people can get all that sorted in a jiffy at the computer, can’t you?” He nodded at his own insight. “Maybe he lends the place out to someone. We’ve wondered a few times, haven’t we, Mette?”
The wife nodded. “It was the van coming, you see, and then the Mercedes leaving shortly after. Then there’d be no sign of life for a long time, until the Mercedes would turn up again and the van would drive away.” She shook her head. “Mads Christian’s too old for that sort of carry-on. I say that every time.”
“The man we’re thinking of looks like this,” said Assad, producing the drawing from his pocket.
The couple stared at the likeness without a hint of recognition.
“That isn’t Mads Christian. He must be knocking on for eighty now,” she said. “And looks like something fished out of a slurry tank. This man’s well groomed. Noble-looking, almost.”
“OK. What about the fire, then? Did you see it?” Carl went on.
They smiled. It was an odd reaction.
“They could see it as far away as Orø or Nykøbing Sjælland, I shouldn’t wonder,” said the man.
“I see. Did you notice anyone drive up to or away from the cottage that evening?”
They shook their heads. “I’m afraid not,” said the man with a smile. “We’d gone to bed. We country folk get up early in the mornings, you know. Not like you lot in Copenhagen, sleeping in until six o’clock.”
“We need to stop off at a petrol station,” said Carl once they were back at the car. “I’m starving, aren’t you?”
Assad shrugged. “I’ve got my nibbles.”
He thrust a hand into his pocket and produced a couple of garish packets of something clearly Middle Eastern. From the decoration on the paper, it seemed they contained mainly dates and figs. “Would you like one?” he asked.
Carl sighed with satisfaction as he got into the car and began munching. Fucking all right, they were, Assad’s nibbles.
“What do you think happened to the man who lived there?” Assad gestured toward the scene of the blaze. “Nothing good, if you ask me.”
Carl nodded and swallowed. “That place needs sifting through with a fine-toothed comb,” he replied. “If the SOCOs do their job properly, I reckon they’ll find what’s left of an octogenarian, assuming he hadn’t already shuffled off the coil.”
Assad put his feet up on the dashboard. “My feelings exactly,” he said, albeit looking slightly perplexed. “What now, Carl?” he went on.
“Don’t know, really. We need to get hold of Klaes Thomasen and ask him if he’s managed to have a word with the sailing clubs and that forest officer at Nordskoven. Then maybe we could call Karsten Jønsson and get him to check if any Mercedes fitting the description got caught in any of the speed traps around here. Like Rachel and Isabel were.”
Assad nodded. “Perhaps they will find the Mercedes from the license plate number. Perhaps we will be lucky, even if Isabel Jønsson wasn’t certain.”
Carl started the car. He doubted things would be that easy.
And then his mobile chimed. Couldn’t it have rung thirty seconds earlier, he thought to himself with a sigh, thrusting the gearshift into neutral.
It was Rose, and she was excited.
“I called all the bowling centers, and no one knows the man in the drawing.”
“Shit,” said Carl.
“What is the matter?” Assad wanted to know, returning his feet to the floor.
“But that’s not all, Carl,” Rose went on. “Like we reckoned, there was no one answering to any of the names we’ve got, apart from Lars Sørensen. There were a couple of Lars Sørensens.”
“It figures.”
“But then I spoke to this bloke in Roskilde. Very keen to help, he was. He was new to bowling, but he handed me on to one of the other players who happened to be there having a drink. They’ve got a game on tonight, apparently. Anyway, he reckoned there were several players he knew who looked like the man in the drawing. But there was one thing in particular he noticed.”
“And what was that, Rose?” Why did she always have to drag things out?
“Mads Christian Fog, Lars Sørensen, Mikkel Laust, Freddy Brink, and Birger Sloth. He almost fell about laughing when I told him the names.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, he didn’t know anyone with the exact names. But on the team he’s playing with tonight, they’ve got a Lars, a Mikkel, and a Birger. He was the Lars. And what’s more, there’d been a Freddy, too, a few years ago, who used to bowl with them at another center, but he got too old. No Mads Christian, mind, but still a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
Carl put the uneaten half of something figgy on the dashboard. He was all ears now. It was by no means unusual for a perpetrator to be inspired by the names of those around him. Names in reverse order. A “K” becoming a “C.” First and last names mixed together. The psychologists could most likely account for the underlying mechanism, but Carl called it lack of imagination.
“And then I asked him if he knew anyone who had a bowling ball with the number one on it on their key ring, and he cracked up laughing again. They all have them on their team, he said. Seems they’ve been playing together for years, in various places.”
Carl sat staring at the beam of the car’s headlights. First the coincidence of the names, now the bowling ball.
He turned his gaze to the GPS. How far were they from Roskilde? Thirty-five kilometers?
“Hey, are you still there, Carl? Do you think there might be anything in it? Like I said, Mads Christian wasn’t among the names he mentioned.”
“No, he wasn’t, Rose. But that name’s from a different place entirely, and we know where now. And yes, I do think there might be something in it. Of course there is. Fucking hell, Rose, we’re on to something here. What’s the address of that bowling center?”
She sifted through some papers in the background. Carl gestured toward the GPS, so Assad would be ready to enter the address.
“Right,” he said, as she read it out. “Well d
one, Rose. I’ll call you back later.”
He turned to Assad.
“Københavnsvej 51, Roskilde,” he said and thrust his foot down immediately on the accelerator. “For fuck’s sake, Assad, get it on the GPS!”
43
Use your brains, he kept telling himself. Do the right thing. Nothing hasty you might regret.
He drove the car slowly up the road. Returned the nods of his neighbors, then turned into the driveway with the weight of disaster bearing down on his shoulders.
He was out in the open, where keen-eyed birds of prey could watch all his movements from a distance. What had happened at the hospital could hardly have gone more wrong.
He glanced at the child’s swing dangling loosely on its ropes. Less than three weeks had passed since he put it up in the birch tree. His image of a lazy summer at play with their little boy had been snatched away. He picked a small, red plastic shovel out of the sandpit and felt welling grief threatening to overpower him. It was a feeling unknown to him since boyhood.
He sat down on the bench in the garden for a moment and closed his eyes. Only months before, he would have been inhaling the scent of roses and a woman’s nearness.
He could still sense the quiet joy of the child’s arms around his neck, the gentle breath against his cheek.
Stop it, he told himself, and shook his head. It was all in the past now. Like everything else.
His parents were to blame for his life having turned out like it had. His parents and his stepfather. But he had hit back on many occasions since then. How often had he struck against men and women like them? What was he supposed to regret?
Any struggle would claim its victims. He would have to live with that.
He tossed the toy shovel onto the lawn and stood up. There were new women out there. He would find Benjamin a good mother. If he realized all his assets now, he could make a good life for the two of them somewhere in the world, until the time came for him to carry on his mission and bring in money again.
A Conspiracy of Faith Page 42
