Disgrace

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  Kimmie didn’t say a word as the mobile beeped its way through the digits. She just hacked her heel into the woman’s calf and slapped the phone from her hand so it smashed against the wall. Then she lurched back and freed herself of the iron bar, which now lay slack in the woman’s hand. Finally Kimmie stood up and grabbed the bar.

  It had taken less than five seconds to restore the balance.

  Kimmie caught her breath for a moment as the woman tried to pull herself up, her face knotted in anger.

  ‘I won’t hurt you,’ Kimmie said. ‘I’m going to tie you to a chair, that’s all.’

  But the woman shook her head and snuck a hand behind her until she got hold of the banister. Clearly she was trying to find something to push off from. Her eyes darted back and forth. She was far from defeated.

  Then, with outstretched arms, she lunged for Kimmie’s throat, digging in her nails. Kimmie backed up against the stairway wall and brought one knee up as a wedge, giving her just enough leverage to shove the woman backwards until half of her body swayed over the banister, five yards above the hallway’s stone floor.

  Kimmie screamed for her to stop resisting, but she wouldn’t, so Kimmie reared back and head-butted her. Everything went black for a moment before flashes of light exploded in her brain.

  Then she opened her eyes and leaned over the banister.

  The woman lay on the marble floor as if crucified, arms outstretched and legs crossed. Completely still and very, very dead.

  For ten minutes she sat on the chair in the hall, observing the twisted, dead body. For the first time in her life she saw a victim for precisely what it was: a human being who had possessed a will of its own and the right to live. It surprised her that she had never had this feeling before. She didn’t like it at all. The voices upbraided her for having thoughts like these.

  Then the doorbell rang. She heard them talking. Two men who seemed impatient. They rattled the door and a moment later the telephone rang.

  If they walk around the house they’ll see the smashed door. Get ready to run upstairs for the pistol, she urged herself. No, do it now.

  She bounded up the stairs in just a few soundless steps, found the pistol and returned to the landing with the silencer aimed at the front door. If the men came in, they wouldn’t be leaving again.

  But leave they did. Through the window on the landing she could just get a glimpse of them walking to their car.

  A tall man with a long stride and a small, dark man shuffling along at his side.

  37

  The horrible conclusion to the previous evening – Mona Ibsen laughing uncontrollably at the shocked expression on Carl’s onion-smothered face – was still festering in him. It was as embarrassing as having the runs the first time you used a potential lover’s bathroom.

  Oh God, how do I get beyond this? he thought, lighting a morning cigarette.

  Then he began to concentrate. Maybe today was the day he could give the prosecutors the final, decisive information they needed to issue an arrest order. The earring from Lindelse Cove, some of the other contents of the box – there was certainly enough to go on. If nothing else, there was the connection between Aalbæk and Pram, and therefore the rest of the gang. Carl didn’t care what grounds he used for getting them into the interrogation room. Once he had them there, he’d make one of them talk about what mattered.

  What had begun as a double homicide investigation might well bring to light other crimes. Perhaps even murders.

  All he needed was a direct confrontation with the gang members. Be able to ask them the questions that would make them panic, maybe even cause a rift in their friendship. And if he couldn’t do that with them in custody, it would have to happen on their own turf.

  The hardest nut to crack was finding the weakest link. Whom should he focus his attack on first? Of course Bjarne Thøgersen was the most obvious choice, but years in prison had taught him how to keep his mouth shut. Besides, he had shielded himself by being behind bars. Thøgersen couldn’t be made to talk to Carl about something he had already been convicted of. If they wanted anything out of him, they would need airtight evidence of new crimes.

  So no, he couldn’t be the first. Who then? Torsten Florin, Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen or Ditlev Pram? Which of the three would be easiest to get under the skin of?

  To answer this question properly he would first have to have met each of them personally, but his intuition told him this wouldn’t be easy. Yesterday’s botched visit to Pram’s private hospital demonstrated as much. Because of course Pram had been aware of their presence from the very first moment they had shown up at the hospital. Maybe he had been close by, maybe not. Either way, he had known they were there.

  And he had stayed away.

  No, if Carl were to get one of these men to talk, he would have to take them by surprise. That was why he and Assad were getting such an early start that morning.

  Torsten Florin would be the first, and that choice wasn’t entirely coincidental. In many ways he seemed literally the weakest, with his slender figure and effeminate profession. His press releases on fashion also gave the impression of there being something beneath the surface that was vulnerable. He seemed to stand out from the others.

  In two minutes Carl would pick up Assad at the Triangle, and hopefully in half an hour they would be at Florin’s estate in Ejlstrup for a most inconvenient surprise visit.

  ‘I assembled all the information about the ones in the group,’ Assad said from the passenger seat. ‘Here’s Torsten Florin’s file then.’ He pulled a case file from his bag as they drove out of town on the Lyngby motorway.

  ‘His house I think looks like a fortress,’ Assad went on. ‘He has a super-enormous metal gate that blocks the road up to the estate. I’ve read that when he has parties, people’s cars are let in one at a time then. And that’s actually true.’

  Carl turned his head to look at the colour printout Assad held up. It was difficult to get much from it since he also needed to keep his eye on the narrow road that wound through Gribskov.

  ‘Have a look at this, Carl. You can see really well everything in the aerial photograph. Here is Florin’s estate. Apart from the old building where he lives, and that wooden house there,’ he tapped a spot on the map, ‘everything was built in 1992, including this gigantic building and all the tiny houses behind it.’

  It actually looked rather strange.

  ‘Are those houses all the way inside Gribskov? Did he get permission to build in the forest?’ Carl asked.

  ‘No, they’re not in the forest. Between Gribskov and his little patch of woods here there is a fire ... a fire ... ? What’s this kind of thing called, Carl?’

  ‘A firebreak?’

  He felt Assad looking at him, sensed his puzzlement. ‘Well, in any case you can clearly see it in the aerial photo. Have a look. It’s a narrow, brown strip. And then he has put up a fence around his property – the lake and hills and all the rest.’

  ‘I wonder why he did that? Is he afraid of paparazzi or what?’

  ‘It has something to do with him being a hunter.’

  ‘Yes, of course. He doesn’t want the animals on his land to escape into the state forest. I know the type.’ Up in Vendsyssel where Carl was from, people made fun of folks who did that sort of thing. But in northern Zealand this was apparently not the case.

  They had reached a point where the landscape opened up, first clearings in the forest and then far-reaching fields where pale brown wheat stubs still poked from the ground.

  ‘Can you see the Swiss chalet over there, Assad?’ He pointed at a low-lying house to their right, not waiting for Assad to respond. One couldn’t miss it, down there in the glacier-carved valley. ‘Behind it is Kagerup Station. One time we found a little girl there we thought was dead. She had hidden in a sawmill because she was afraid of the dog her father had brought home.’

  Carl shook his head. But was that really the reason? Suddenly it sounded so wrong.

  ‘Tu
rn here, Carl,’ Assad said. He pointed at a road sign for Mårum. ‘Up there at the tophill we need to turn right. There’s a couple of hundred yards from there to the gate. Do I call him up first then?’

  Carl shook his head. No fucking way. Florin wasn’t going to get the chance to vanish, just like Ditlev Pram did the day before.

  It was correct that Torsten Florin had fenced in his property good and proper. The name DUEHOLT stood out in oversize, brass letters from a granite boulder next to the cast-iron gate that rose above the windbreak.

  Carl leaned close to the intercom that was attached to a post at window height. ‘This is Deputy Detective Superintendent Mørck,’ he said. ‘I spoke to your solicitor, Bent Krum, yesterday. We would like to put a few questions to Torsten Florin. It should only take a minute.’

  At least two minutes passed before the gate opened.

  On the other side of the hedge the landscape spread out. To the right, lakes and rolling hills dotted a meadow that was surprisingly lush, given the time of year. Further down, scattered groves became forest, and in the distance, Gribskov’s enormous colonnade of century-old oak trees was visible, the crowns nearly leafless.

  This is a hell of a lot of land, Carl thought. Given the price of an acre up here, this place would have to be worth millions.

  When they reached the estate that was nestled near the forest, the impression of tremendous wealth was confirmed. Dueholt Manor itself boasted a tasteful alliance of carefully restored cornices and glazed, black-tiled roofs. Several atriums had been added, each one probably facing a point of the compass, and the grounds and driveway were so well maintained as to put the royal gardeners to shame.

  Behind the manor was a red, wooden building that was probably listed as an architectural treasure. In any case, with at least a couple of hundred years’ history, it stood out from the rest. It was undeniably quite a contrast to the massive, yet quite attractive, steel construction towering behind it. All glass and glittering metal, just like the Orangery in Madrid that Carl had seen on a poster in the airport.

  Ejlstrup’s own Crystal Palace.

  A few small houses were clustered near the edge of the forest, like an entire little village with miniature gardens and verandas, surrounded by plots of ploughed land, probably for growing vegetables. There were still lots of leeks and green cabbages.

  Jesus Christ, this place is incredible, Carl thought.

  ‘Wow, this is really something,’ Assad said.

  They didn’t see a single soul in this landscape until they rang the doorbell and Torsten Florin, in person, opened up.

  Carl extended his hand and introduced himself, but Florin saw only Assad and stood like a block of granite, blocking the entrance to his home.

  Behind him, stairs wound their way up through the hall in an orgy of paintings and chandeliers. Rather vulgar for a man who made his living selling style.

  ‘We’d like to speak to you about a few incidents we might be able to connect Kimmie Lassen to. Perhaps you can help us?’

  ‘Which incidents?’ Florin asked drily.

  ‘Finn Aalbæk’s murder on Saturday night. We know Ditlev Pram and Aalbæk had a number of conversations. We also know Aalbæk was looking for Kimmie. Did one of you hire him? And if so, why?’

  ‘I’ve heard the name a few times over the course of the last few days, but otherwise I don’t know anything about this Finn Aalbæk. If Ditlev had conversations with him, then he’s the one I suggest you speak to. Goodbye, gentlemen.’

  Carl stuck his foot in the door. ‘Excuse me a moment. There was also an assault on a couple on Langeland and an attack on Kåre Bruno at Bellahøj back in the late eighties, both of which are connected to Kimmie Lassen. Most likely three murders, actually.’

  Florin blinked rapidly several times, but his visage was like stone. ‘I can’t help you. If you want to speak with anyone, then speak with Kimmie Lassen.’

  ‘Perhaps you know her whereabouts?’

  He shook his head, an odd expression on his face. Carl had seen his share of odd expressions, but he didn’t understand what this one meant.

  ‘You’re certain?’ he asked.

  ‘Absolutely. I haven’t seen Kirsten-Marie since 1996.’

  ‘We have a lot of evidence connecting her to these events.’

  ‘Yes, my solicitor told me. Neither he nor I know anything about the cases you’re talking about. I must ask you to leave. I’m busy today. Remember a warrant if you come by another day.’

  His smile was incredibly provocative, and Carl pressed him with additional questions. But Torsten Florin moved aside and three dark-skinned men who must have been waiting behind the door stepped forward.

  Two minutes later Carl and Assad were back in their car. Threatened with death and destruction, the media, the public prosecutor and the whole kit and caboodle.

  If Carl had previously thought Torsten was weak, then it was high time he considered revising his view.

  38

  On this morning, the day of the fox hunt, Torsten Florin had woken as usual to classical music and the light pattering of feet that announced the arrival of the young black woman, bare-chested and with outstretched hands, who stood before him now. As always, she was holding the silver tray. Her smile was stiff and feigned, but Torsten Florin didn’t care. He had no use for her affection or devotion. He needed order in his life, and order was created when daily rituals were followed to the letter. That’s how he’d lived for eleven years now, and that’s how he planned to continue. For some wealthy people rituals were a way of marketing themselves. Torsten used them to survive daily life.

  He took the napkin from the tray, enjoying its scent, laid it on his chest and received the plate on which lay four chicken hearts, freshly slaughtered organs without which he remained convinced he would waste away.

  He ate the first heart in one bite and prayed for a successful hunt. Then he polished off the remaining three and had his face and hands dried with a camphor-scented cloth, a procedure the woman executed with practised hands.

  Then he waved the woman and her husband – who’d been on guard duty all night – out of the room and savoured the emerging day’s first rays of sun as they illuminated the forest. In a few hours it would begin. At nine o’clock the pack of hunters would be ready. This time they weren’t hunting their prey at sun-up; the animal was too sly and crazed for that. It would have to be done in broad daylight.

  He imagined how the rabies and survival instinct would rage within the fox when they set it loose. How easily it would be able to stick close to the ground and wait for the right moment when the beaters were close. A single lunge for the groin and it would be gone again.

  But Torsten knew his Somalis; they wouldn’t let the fox get that close to them. He was more concerned for the huntsmen. Well, concerned was probably the wrong word. Most of them were shrewd enough people who had partaken in his games often before, who burned with a desire to live on the edge. All of them influential men who’d made their mark. Men whose ideas were greater and more far-reaching than those of the man on the street. That’s why they were here today. They were folk of the right mould. No, he wasn’t so concerned for them, he was more absorbed by a nagging uneasiness.

  If it hadn’t been for Kimmie and that fucking cop who’d approached Bent Krum, and if those cases that should’ve been long forgotten hadn’t been reopened – like the assaults on Langeland and on Kyle Basset and Kåre Bruno – this day would have been perfect.

  These were thoughts he would be revising a few hours later.

  How the hell was it that this jumped-up policeman who suddenly appeared on his doorstep could actually know about these things?

  He stood inside the glass hall, surrounded by the din of the animals, and stared at the fox as the Somalis pulled its cage from the corner. Its eyes were wild, and it kept lunging at the bars, gnawing at them as though they were living flesh. The thought of these teeth and the deadly bacteria that was slowly killing the animal sent a s
hiver down Torsten’s spine.

  To hell with the police, to hell with Kimmie and all other trivialities in this world. Stepping towards the edge of eternity, which was what setting the animal free in their midst would represent, made everything else seem insignificant.

  ‘You’ll soon be meeting your fate, Fantastic Mr Fox,’ he said, launching his fist against the cage.

  He glanced around the hall. It was a sight fit for the gods. More than a hundred cages, containing every imaginable animal. The last addition had been the predator’s cage from Nautilus. It had been placed on the floor, and inside it, scowling, was an enraged hyena with a crooked back. It would soon take the fox’s spot in the corner, along with the other exotic quarry. The hunting expeditions from now until Christmas had already been arranged. He had things under control.

  He heard the cars glide into the courtyard and turned, smiling, towards the hall entrance.

  Ulrik and Ditlev had arrived, on time as usual. Yet another detail that separated the sheep from the goats.

  Ten minutes later they were down in the shooting tunnel with crossbows and watchful eyes. Ulrik was in a masochistic mood, quivering blissfully after their discussion about Kimmie and her uncertain whereabouts. Maybe he had taken one line too many of the white powder that morning. Ditlev, on the other hand, was clear-headed, with especially alert eyes. The crossbow lay in his arms like an organic extension of himself.

  ‘Yes, thank you, I slept wonderfully last night. Kimmie and everyone else can bring it on,’ he said, in answer to Torsten’s question. ‘I’m ready for anything.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Torsten replied. He wasn’t about to ruin his hunting companions’ high spirits by telling them about Deputy Detective Superintendent Mørck and his digging around in the past. That could wait until after they’d shot a practice round. ‘I’m glad you’re ready for anything. I think you’re going to need to be.’