disapproval. Even Carl’s big old Scout knife weighed less than this one.
The enormous hall was built on a concrete floor foundation that had been cracked from frost and water that had seeped in. The gaping holes where the windows should have been were black and rotting around the edges, and the laminated beams supporting the ceiling had also suffered from the weather. It was a huge space. Aside from some debris and fifteen or twenty buckets like the ones he’d seen scattered about the grounds, the room was completely empty.
He kicked one of the buckets, which spun around, sending up a putrid stench. By the time it stopped, it had cast off a ring of sludge. Carl leaned down to take a closer look. Were those the remains of toilet paper? He shook his head. The buckets had probably been exposed to all types of weather and then filled up with rain water. Anything would stink and look like this, given enough time.
He looked at the bottom of the bucket and identified the logo of the Merconi shipping company stamped into the plastic. The buckets were probably used for bringing home leftover food from the ships.
He grabbed a solid iron bar from the junk pile and went to get Assad. Together they walked over to the farthest of the three adjacent buildings.
“Stay here,” Carl said as he studied the padlock on the door that supposedly only Lasse had a key to. “Come and get me, Assad, if you see anything strange,” he added, then stuck the iron bar under the padlock. In his old police car he’d had an entire toolbox that could have sprung something like this lock in a flash. Now he had to clench his teeth and try brute force.
He kept at it for thirty seconds before Assad came over and quietly took the iron bar away from him.
OK, let the young gun give it a try, thought Carl.
It took only a second before the broken lock lay in the gravel at Assad’s feet.
A few moments later, Carl stepped inside the building, feeling both defeated and on high alert.
The room was similar to the one where Mrs. Jensen lived, but instead of furniture, a row of welding cylinders in various colors stood in the middle of the space, along with maybe a hundred yards of empty steel shelves. In the far corner sheets of stainless-steel had been piled up next to a door. There was not much else. Carl took a closer look at the door. It couldn’t lead out of the building or else he would have noticed.
He went over and tried to open it. The brass handle was shiny, and the door was locked. He looked at the Ruko lock; it too was shiny from recent use.
“Assad, come in here,” he shouted. “And bring that iron bar!”
“I thought you told me to stay outside,” Assad said as he joined Carl.
Carl pointed to the bar Assad was holding and then to the door. “Show me what you can do.”
The room they entered was filled with the heavy scent of cologne. A bed, desk, computer, full-size mirror, red Wiltax blanket, an open wardrobe containing suits and two or three blue uniforms, a sink with a glass shelf and plenty of bottles of aftershave. The bed was made, the papers were stacked up neatly. There was nothing to indicate that the person who lived here was unbalanced.
“Why do you think he locked the door, Carl?” asked Assad as he lifted up the desk blotter to glance underneath. Then he knelt down and looked under the bed.
Carl inspected the rest of the room. Assad was right. There didn’t seem to be anything to hide, so why lock the door?
“There
Carl nodded and began poking around inside the wardrobe. The smell of cologne was even stronger. It seemed to be clinging to the clothes. He knocked on the back wall, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. In the meantime Assad lifted up the carpet. No trapdoor.
They examined the ceiling and the walls and then both of them stared at the mirror, hanging there so alone. The wall around it was painted a dull chalk-white.
Carl knocked on the wall with his knuckles. It seemed solid.
Maybe we can take the mirror off, he thought, but it was fastened securely. Then Assad pressed his cheek against the wall and peered behind the mirror.
“I think it hangs on a hinge on the other side. I can see some kind of lock here.”
He stuck his finger behind the mirror and coaxed the latch out of the lock. Then he grabbed the edge and pulled. The whole room panned past in the mirror as it slid aside to reveal a pitch-black hole in the wall, as tall as a man.
The next time we’re out in the field, I’m going to be better prepared, thought Carl. In his mind he saw the pencil-size flashlight lying on top of the piles of paper in his desk drawer. He stuck his hand inside the hole in the wall, fumbling for a light switch and longing for his service revolver. The next instant he felt the pressure in his chest.
He took a deep breath and tried to listen. No, damn it, there couldn’t be anybody inside. How could they have locked themselves in with a padlock on the outer door? Was it conceivable that Lasse Jensen’s brother or mother had been told to lock Lasse in his hiding place if the police came back and started snooping around?
He found the light switch farther along the wall and pressed it, ready to jump back if anyone was inside, waiting for them. It took a second for the scene in front of them to stop flickering as the fluorescent lights came on.
And then everything became clear.
They had found the right person. There was no doubt about it.
Carl noticed how Assad slipped silently into the room behind him as he moved closer to the bulletin boards and the worn steel tables along the wall. He stared at the photos of Merete Lynggaard, taken in all sorts of situations. From her first appearance on the speaker’s podium to the cozy home setting on the leaf-covered lawn in Stevns. Carefree moments captured by someone who wished to do her harm.
Carl looked down at one of the steel tables and understood at once the systematic way in which this Lasse, aka Lars Henrik Jensen, had worked his way toward his goal.
The first papers were from Godhavn. He lifted up a corner of a few documents and saw the original case files on Lars Henrik Jensen, the files that had disappeared years ago. He’d used some of the sheets of paper to practice, making clumsy attempts at altering his CR number. Along the way he got better at it, and by the top sheet of paper, he’d done a good job. Yes, Lasse had tampered with the documents at Godhavn, and that had won him time.
Assad pointed at the next pile of papers, which contained the correspondence between Lasse and Daniel Hale. Apparently InterLab hadn’t yet been paid the balance for the buildings that Lasse’s father had taken over so many years ago. In the beginning of 2002, Daniel Hale had sent a fax stating that he intended to file a lawsuit. He was demanding two million kroner. Hale was bringing about his own demise, but he could never have known the determination of his adversary. Maybe Hale’s demands had set off the entire chain reaction.
Carl picked up the paper on top. It was a copy of a fax that Lasse Jensen had sent on the very day that Hale was killed. It was a message and an unsigned contract: I have the money. We can sign the papers and conclude the deal at my home today. My lawyer will bring the necessary documents; I’m faxing over a draft of the contract. Enter your comments and corrections and then bring the papers with you.
Yes, everything had been carefully planned. If the papers hadn’t burned up in the car, Lasse would probably have made sure they disappeared before the police and ambulances arrived. Carl noted the date and time of the proposed meeting. It all fit together. Hale had been lured to his death. Dennis Knudsen was waiting for him on the Kappelev highway with his foot on the accelerator.
“Look at this, Carl,” said Assad, picking up the paper on top of the next pile. It was an article from the
The perfect “cause-of-death” category to be filed under.
Carl looked at the next pages in the pile. There was no doubt that Lasse had offered Dennis a lot of money to cause the car accident. Nor was there any doubt that it was Lasse’s brother, Hans, who had stepped out in front of Hale’s car, forcing him to veer into the middle of the road. Everything went as planned, except for the fact that Lasse never paid Dennis, as he’d promised, and Dennis got mad.
A surprisingly well-formulated letter from Dennis Knudsen to Lasse presented an ultimatum: either he paid the three hundred thousand kroner or Dennis would obliterate him somewhere out on some road or highway when
