He glanced at Lis affectionately as she eased past him. He preferred the pre-metamorphosis version of her, but hey, Lis was Lis.
From over by her desk, Rose Knudsen and her dimples, deep as the Mariana Trench, seemed to be saying, I’m looking forward to joining you down in Department Q.
He didn’t return the show of dimples, but then again, he didn’t have any.
Down in the basement Assad was ready, afternoon prayers completed. He wore an oversized windbreaker and held a small leather briefcase under his arm.
‘The mother of the murdered siblings lives with an old friend in Roskilde,’ he said, adding that they could get there in less than half an hour if they stepped on the gas. ‘But they’ve also called from Hornbæk, Carl. It wasn’t such good news.’
Carl pictured Hardy. Eighty-one inches of lame flesh, face turned towards the Sound, watching the pleasure boatmen sailing for the final time that season.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked. He felt awful. It had now been more than a month since he’d last visited his old colleague.
‘They say he cries so very often,’ Assad replied. ‘Even though they give him a lot of pills and all, he still cries.’
It was a completely ordinary detached house at the end of Fasanvej. The names Jens-Arnold and Yvette Larsen were etched on to the brass plate, and below that a small cardboard sign in block letters: MARTHA JØRGENSEN.
A woman fragile as fairy dust and quite a few years beyond the age of retirement greeted them at the door. She was the kind of attractive old woman who brought a slight smile to Carl’s lips.
‘Yes, Martha lives with me. She has since my husband died. She’s not feeling so well today, I should say,’ she whispered in the corridor. ‘The doctor says it’s progressing rapidly now.’
They heard her friend coughing before they stepped into the conservatory. She sat staring at them with deep-set eyes. There was a variety of pill bottles in front of her. ‘Who are you?’ she asked, flicking ash from her cigarillo with a trembling hand.
Assad made himself comfortable in a chair covered with faded wool blankets and wilted leaves from the potted plants on the windowsill. Without hesitation, he reached out and took Martha Jørgensen’s hand. ‘Let me tell you, Martha. The way you are feeling right now, I have also seen my mother go through that. And it was not much fun.’
Carl’s mother would have withdrawn her hand, but not Martha Jørgensen. How did Assad know to do that? Carl thought, as he considered what role he would play in this production.
‘We have time for a cup of tea before the home help arrives,’ Yvette Larsen said, smiling insistently, and afterwards Martha wept softly as Assad explained why they had come.
They drank tea and ate cake before she gathered her wits to speak.
‘My husband was a policeman,’ she finally said.
‘Yes, we know that, Mrs Jørgensen.’ It was the first time Carl spoke to her.
‘One of his old colleagues gave me copies of the case file.’
‘I see. Was it Klaes Thomasen?’
‘No, not him.’ She wheezed, and with a deep drag on her cigarillo quelled a coughing fit. ‘It was someone else. Arne he was called. But he’s dead now. He gathered everything in a folder.’
‘May we have a look at it, Mrs Jørgensen?’
She raised a nearly transparent hand to her head, her lips trembling. ‘I’m afraid not. I don’t have it any longer.’ Her eyes narrowed. Apparently she had a headache. ‘I don’t know who I loaned it to last. Quite a few people have had a glimpse at that folder.’
‘Is this it?’ Carl handed her the pale green folder.
She shook her head. ‘No. It was grey, and it was much bigger. It was impossible to hold in one hand.’
‘Are there other materials? Anything you can let us have?’
She glanced at her friend. ‘Can we tell them, Yvette?’
‘I don’t really know, Martha. Do you think we should?’
The ailing woman fixed her deep-set blue eyes on a double portrait on the windowsill, resting between a rusty watering can and a tiny sandstone figure of St Francis of Assisi. ‘Look at them, Yvette. What did they ever do?’ Her eyes grew moist. ‘My little ones. Can’t we do it for them?’
Yvette placed a box of After Eight mints on the table. ‘I suppose we can,’ she sighed, and moved towards the corner where old, crumpled-up Christmas paper and recyclable, corrugated cardboard boxes were stacked: a mausoleum to old age and those days when scarcity was an everyday word.
‘Here,’ she said, pulling out a Peter Hahn box, stuffed to the brim.
‘Over the past ten years Martha and I have added newspaper clippings to the files. After my husband died, it was just the two of us, you see.’
Assad accepted the box and opened it.
‘They’re about unresolved assault cases,’ Yvette went on. ‘And the pheasant killers.’
‘The pheasant killers?’ Carl said.
‘Yes, what else would you call people like that?’ Yvette rummaged around a bit in the box to find an example.
Yes, pheasant killers did seem a fitting description. Standing together in a large PR photo from one of the weeklies were a couple of members of the royal family, some bourgeois riff-raff and Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen, Ditlev Pram and Torsten Florin – each holding a broken-open shotgun, with one foot triumphantly planted before scores of dead pheasants and partridges.
‘Oy,’ Assad exclaimed. There wasn’t much more to say on the matter.
They noticed something stirring in Martha Jørgensen, but couldn’t tell where her agitation was leading.
‘I won’t stand for it!’ she suddenly cried out. ‘They must be got rid of, every single one of them. They beat my children to death and killed my husband. To hell with them, I say.’
She tried to get up, but instead fell forward under her own weight, crashing forehead first against the edge of the table. It seemed almost as though she hadn’t noticed.
‘They, too, must die,’ she hissed, with her cheek on the tablecloth. Then she proceeded to lash out with her arms, knocking over the teacups.
‘Calm down, Martha,’ Yvette said, ushering the gasping woman back to her stack of pillows.
When Martha got her breathing under control and once again sat passively puffing on her cigarillo, Yvette led them into the dining room next door. She apologized for her friend’s behaviour, explaining that the tumour in her brain was now so large that it was hard to know how she would react. She hadn’t always been that way.
As if they deserved an apology.
‘A man came to visit and told Martha he’d known Lisbet well.’ Yvette raised her almost non-existent eyebrow a smidgen. ‘Lisbet was Martha’s daughter, and the boy was called Søren. You know that, right?’ Assad and Carl nodded. ‘Maybe Lisbet’s friend still has the file, I don’t know.’ She gazed towards the conservatory. ‘Apparently he expressly promised Martha he’d bring it back someday.’ She looked at them so sadly, one felt the urge to give her a hug. ‘He probably won’t be able to do so before it’s too late.’
‘This man who took the case file, can you remember his name, Yvette?’ Assad asked.
‘I’m afraid not. I wasn’t there when she gave it to him, and her memory isn’t what it used to be.’ She patted the side of her head. ‘The tumour, you know.’
‘Do you know if he was a policeman?’ Carl added.
‘I don’t think so, but maybe. I don’t know.’
‘Why didn’t he take this with him then?’ Assad asked, referring to the Peter Hahn box under his arm.
‘Oh, that. It was just something Martha wanted to do. Someone has already confessed to the murders, haven’t they? I helped her collect newspapers clippings because it was good for her. The man who borrowed the case file probably didn’t believe they were especially important. And they most likely aren’t.’
They asked about the key to Martha’s summer cottage, which Yvette told them about, and made inquiries about the days around th
e time of the murders. But Yvette had nothing else to add. As she explained, it had happened twenty years ago. And besides, it wasn’t the kind of thing anyone wanted to remember.
When the home help arrived, they said goodbye.
Hardy kept a photograph of his son on his bedside table, the only hint that this prostrate figure with matted, greasy hair and tubes in his urinary tract had once had a life other than that which the respirator, the permanently turned-on television and the busy nurses provided for him.
‘Took your bloody time to get your arse here,’ he said, eyes fixed on an imaginary point a thousand yards above the Clinic for Spinal Cord Injuries in Hornbæk. A place with a 360-degree view, and from which a person could fall so hard and far that he’d never wake up again.
Carl racked his brain for a good excuse, but gave up. Instead he picked up the framed photo, saying, ‘I hear Mads has begun studying at the university.’
‘Who told you that? Are you banging my wife?’ he said, without even blinking.
‘No, Hardy. Why the hell would you say such a thing? I know because ... because, oh, I don’t fucking remember who at headquarters told me.’
‘Where’s your little Syrian? Have they thrown him back into the sand dunes?’
Carl knew Hardy. This was just small talk.
‘Tell me what’s on your mind, Hardy. I’m here now, OK?’ He breathed deeply. ‘In the future I’ll visit you more often, old boy. I’ve been on holiday, I’m sure you understand.’
‘Do you see the shears on the table?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘They’re always there. They use them to cut the gauze. And the tape that secures my probes and syringes. They look sharp, don’t you think?’
Carl looked at them. ‘Sure, Hardy.’
‘Couldn’t you take them and stab me in my carotid artery, Carl? It’d make me very happy.’ He laughed briefly, then stopped suddenly. ‘My arm is twitching, Carl, right below my shoulder muscle, I think.’
Carl frowned. So Hardy felt some twitching, the poor man. If only it were so. ‘Do you want me to scratch it for you, Hardy?’ Pulling the blanket a bit to the side, he considered whether he should yank the shirt down or scratch over it.
‘Damn it, you dumb bastard. Listen to what I’m saying. It’s twitching. Can you see it?’
Carl moved the shirt. Hardy had always made it a point to look attractive. Well groomed and tanned. Now, apart from delicate, pale blue veins, his skin was white as a maggot’s.
Carl touched Hardy’s arm. There wasn’t a muscle left; it felt like tenderized hung beef. And he didn’t notice any twitching.
‘I can feel you in one small spot, Carl. Take the shears and prick me, but not too fast. I’ll tell you when you hit it.’
Poor man. Paralysed from the neck down. Just a touch of feeling in one shoulder was all that was left. Everything else was just the hope of a person in despair.
But Carl did as Hardy asked. Quite systematically, from his elbow down and then up and all the way round. When he neared the back of Hardy’s armpit, he gasped.
‘There, Carl. Use your pen to mark it.’
He did. A friend was a friend, after all.
‘Do it again. Try to trick me. I’ll tell you when you hit the mark. I’m closing my eyes.’
When Carl reached the spot again, Hardy grinned, or perhaps it was a grimace. ‘There!’ he cried. It was goddam unbelievable. Enough to give you the shivers.
‘Don’t tell the nurse, Carl.’
Carl wrinkled his brow. ‘Huh? Why not, Hardy? This is wonderful news. Maybe there’s a glimmer of hope in spite of everything. Then they’ll have something to work from.’
‘I’m going to try to enlarge the spot. I want my one arm back, do you hear?’ Only then did Hardy look at his old colleague for the first time. ‘And what I use the arm for isn’t anyone’s business, got it?’
Carl nodded. Whatever improved Hardy’s mood was fine with him. The dream he had of picking up the shears by himself and stabbing himself in the throat was apparently all he’d been living for.
The question was whether or not that little sensitive spot on Hardy’s arm had been there the whole time. But it was better to let it lie. In Hardy’s case, it hardly made any difference.
Carl adjusted Hardy’s shirt and pulled the blanket up to his chin. ‘Do you still see that lady psychologist, Hardy?’ Carl imagined Mona Ibsen’s delectable body. A vision that was balm for his soul.
‘Yes.’
‘And? What do you talk about?’ he asked, hoping his name would be wedged somewhere in the response.
‘She keeps poking around in the shooting episode out in Amager, though I don’t know what good it’ll do. But whenever she visits, that damn nail-gun case is what interests her most.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
‘You know what, Carl?’
‘What?’
‘She’s got me thinking, in spite of myself. I mean, what’s the fucking use? And yet, the question lingers.’
‘Which question, Hardy?’
He looked directly into Carl’s eyes. In the same way they would cross-examine a suspect. Not accusatory, and not the opposite – just unsettling.
‘You and I and Anker were out at the shed at least ten days after the man was murdered, right?’
‘Right.’
‘The culprits had oceans of time to remove any traces. Oceans. Then why didn’t they? Why did they wait? They could have set the fucking house on fire. Taken the body and burned the place down.’
‘Yes, it does make you wonder. I do, too.’
‘But why did they come back to the house right when we were there?’
‘Yes, that also makes you wonder.’
‘Wonder? Do you know what, Carl? I don’t wonder so much. Not any more.’ He tried to clear his throat, but didn’t succeed.
‘Maybe Anker could have said more if he were still alive,’ Hardy continued.
‘What do you mean?’ Carl hadn’t thought of Anker in weeks. Only eight months had passed since their best colleague had been shot before their eyes in that rotten house, yet he had already floated out of Carl’s consciousness. It made him wonder how long he would be remembered if the same happened to him.
‘Someone was waiting for us at the house, Carl. What happened there doesn’t make sense any other way. I mean, it wasn’t a typical investigation. One of us was involved, and it wasn’t me. Was it you, Carl?’
9
Ditlev stuck his head out the passenger window and signalled the drivers of the six four-wheel-drives parked in front of the yellow-washed facade of Tranekær Inn to follow him.
The sun was wavering on the horizon as they reached the forest and the beaters disappeared behind the hedgerow boundary of the hunting ground. The drivers knew the routine and after a few minutes they were standing beside Ditlev with their coats buttoned and their gun barrels broken open. A few had dogs trotting at their side.
As always, the last to step forward was Torsten Florin. Plaid knickerbockers and a tailored, snug-fitting hunting coat was his unique combination for the day. He could attend a formal ball in that get-up.
Ditlev looked warily at a bird dog that had hopped from the rear of one of the four-wheel-drives at the last moment, and then he scanned the faces at the gathering. There was one participant he certainly hadn’t invited.
He leaned close to Bent Krum. ‘Who invited her, Krum?’ he whispered. Bent Krum, lawyer for Ditlev Pram, Torsten Florin and Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen, was also the one who coordinated their hunts. He was a versatile man who’d been putting out their fires for years and was now totally dependent on the ample sum they transferred into his bank account each month.
‘Your wife invited her, Ditlev,’ he responded softly. ‘She said Lissan Hjorth was welcome to come with her husband. Just so you know, she’s also a better shot than Hjorth.’
Better shot? Bloody hell, that had nothing to do with it. There were plenty of reasons why women weren’t a
llowed on Ditlev’s hunts – as if Krum didn’t know. Thelma, that bitch.
Ditlev put his hand on Hjorth’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, old boy, but your wife can’t come with us today,’ he said. Though he knew it would cause problems, he asked Hjorth to give the car keys to his wife. ‘She can drive down to the inn. I’ll call ahead and have them open up. And have her take your unruly dog with her. This is a special battue, Hjorth. You ought to know that.’
A few of the others tried to mediate, as if they had any say in the matter. They were old-money idiots without proper fortunes. But maybe they didn’t know what that damned bird dog was like.
He kicked the toe of his boot against the ground and repeated: ‘No women. Goodbye, Lissan.’
Ditlev handed out orange scarves and avoided Lissan Hjorth’s eyes when he skipped her. ‘Remember to take that creature with you,’ was all he said. He was sure as hell not letting them change his rules. This was not going to be your average hunt.
‘If my wife can’t come with us, Ditlev, then neither will I,’ Hjorth tried to argue. He was a pathetic little man in a pathetic, worn Moorland coat. Had he not felt Ditlev Pram’s wrath once before when he’d tried to contradict him? Didn’t his relationship to Ditlev benefit his business? And didn’t he almost go bankrupt when Ditlev re-routed his granite purchases to China? Would Hjorth really want Ditlev to punish him again? He could of course do that.
‘That’s your decision.’ He turned his back on the couple and looked directly at the others. ‘Each of you knows the rules. What you experience today is no one else’s business, do you hear?’ They nodded, as he expected. ‘We’ve put out two hundred pheasants and partridges, both cocks and hens. Enough for everyone.’ He grinned. ‘OK, so it’s a little too early in the season for the hens, but does anybody care?’ He turned towards the men from the local hunting club. They would certainly keep quiet. Everyone worked for him in one way or the other. ‘But why bother discussing the poultry? You’ll score some kills, no matter what. What’s more interesting is the other game I’ve brought for the lot of you today. I won’t tell you what it is. You’ll see for yourselves.’
Disgrace Page 5
