that we want to help each other out, OK?” He looked Sos right in the eye; she was still trying to hide her selfloathing behind a hostile expression. “I’ll call you Sos, OK? I’m usually on first-name terms when I share a smoke with someone.”
She moved the hand with the cigarette to her lap.
“So now I’m going to ask you this, Sos. Do you know about any incidents that happened just before Merete disappeared? Anything we ought to investigate further? I’m going to rattle off a list of possibilities, so just stop me if I come to anything relevant.” The nod he gave her wasn’t returned. “Phone conversations of a personal nature? Little yellow notes that were left on her desk? People who behaved toward her in an unprofessional manner? Boxes of chocolates, flowers, new rings on her fingers? Did she ever blush while staring into space? Was she having a hard time concentrating during those last few days?” He looked at the zombie sitting across from him. Her colorless lips hadn’t moved a millimeter. Another dead end. “Did her behavior change in any way? Did she go home earlier? Did she leave the parliament chamber to make calls on her cell phone out in the corridor? Did she arrive later than usual in the morning?”
Again he looked up at Sos, giving her an emphatic nod, as if that might wake her from the dead.
She took another puff of her cigarette and then ground the butt out in the ashtray. “Are you done?” she asked.
He sighed. Stonewalled! What else did he expect from this cow? “Yeah, I’m done.”
“Good.” She raised her head. For a moment he saw a woman who possessed a certain gravitas. “I told the police about the telegram and about her meeting someone at Cafe Bankerat. I saw her write that down in her appointment diary. I don’t know who she was going to meet, but it did make her cheeks flush.”
“Who could it have been?”
She shrugged.
“Tage Baggesen?” he asked.
“It could have been anybody. She met so many people at Christiansborg. There was also a man who was part of a delegation who seemed interested. But there were lots of men who were interested.”
“A delegation? When was that?”
“Not long before she disappeared.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“After five years? God, no.”
“What sort of delegation?”
She gave him a surly look. “Something to do with research on the immune system. But you interrupted me,” she said. “Merete also received a bouquet of flowers. There was no doubt she had some sort of relationship that was quite personal. I have no idea what was connected with what, but I’ve told the police all this before.”
Carl scratched his neck. Where had this information been recorded?
“Who did you talk to about this, if I might ask?”
“I don’t remember.”
“It wasn’t Borge Bak from the Rapid Response Team, was it?”
She pointed her index finger at Carl, as if to say “Bingo.”
That damned Bak. Did he always leave out so many details when he wrote up his reports?
Carl looked over at Sos’s chosen cellmate. She wasn’t exactly lavish with the smiles. Right now she was just waiting for him to disappear.
Carl nodded to Sos and stood up. Between the bay windows hung various tiny studio photographs in color, as well as a couple of large black-and-white pictures of Sos’s parents, taken in better days. They must have been quite attractive at one time, but it was hard to tell, given the way Sos had scratched and scored all the faces in the photos. He leaned down to look at the small framed pictures. From the clothes and posture, he recognized one of the many PR photos of Merete Lynggaard. She too had lost most of her face in a network of scratches. So Sos collected pictures of people she hated. Maybe he could have won a place for himself if he’d made an effort.
For once Borge Bak was alone in his office. His leather jacket was even more creased than usual. Indisputable proof that he was working hard, day and night.
“Didn’t I tell you not to come barging in here, Carl?” He slammed his notepad on the desk and glared at him.
“You fucked up, Borge,” said Carl.
Whether it was the use of his first name or the accusation, Bak’s reaction was instantaneous. All the furrows on his forehead went vertical, reaching right up to his comb-over.
“Merete Lynggaard got a bouquet of flowers a few days before her death. And from what I’ve heard, she never used to receive flowers.”
“So what?” Bak’s expression couldn’t have been more condescending.
“We’re looking for someone who might have committed a murder. Has that slipped your mind? A lover could be a likely candidate.”
“We looked into all that.”
“But it wasn’t included in your report.”
Bak shrugged. “Take it easy, Carl. You, of all people, should talk about other people’s work. The rest of us are working our asses off while you’re just sitting on your backside. Don’t you think I know that? I put what’s important into the report, and that’s that,” he said, smacking his pad on the desktop.
“You neglected to include the fact that a social worker named Karin Mortensen observed Uffe Lynggaard playing a game that indicated he remembered the car accident. Maybe he also remembers something from the day when Merete disappeared. But apparently you didn’t pursue that angle very far.”
“Karen Mortensen. Karen spelled with an
“Does that mean you realize how significant this piece of information from Karen Mortensen could be?”
“Shut the fuck up. We checked it out, okay? Uffe didn’t remember shit about anything. That kid’s got nothing upstairs.”
“Merete Lynggaard met a man a few days before she died. He was part of a delegation on research into the workings of the immune system. You didn’t put anything about that in your report either.”
“No, but we looked into it.”
“So then you must know that a man got in touch with her, and there was clearly strong chemistry between them. That’s what her secretary, Sos Norup, says she told you, at any rate.”
“Yes, damn it. Of course I know that.”
“Then why isn’t it in your report?”
“I don’t know. Probably because it turned out that the man was dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yes, burned to death in a car accident the day after Merete disappeared. His name was Daniel Hale.” He enunciated the name carefully, so that Carl would take note of what a good memory he had.
“Daniel Hale?” Apparently Sos had forgotten his name over the years.
“Yes, he was working on the placenta research that the delegation was trying to get funded. He had a laboratory in Slangerup.” Bak presented these facts with supreme self-confidence. He had a good handle on this part of the case.
“If he didn’t die until the following day, he still could have had something to do with Merete’s disappearance.”
“I don’t think so. He came home from London on the afternoon she drowned.”
“Was he in love with her? Sos hinted that might be the case.”
“If so, I feel sorry for the man. She wasn’t having any of it.”
“Are you sure, Borge?” His colleague clearly wasn’t comfortable hearing Carl use his first name. So that settled things — he was going to hear it nonstop. “Maybe it was this Daniel Hale she had dinner with at Bankerat. What do you think, Borge?”
“Listen, Carl. There’s a woman in the cyclist murder case who’s talked to us, and now we’re hot on the trail. I’m busy as fuck right now. Can’t this wait until some other time? Daniel Hale is dead. He wasn’t even in the country when Merete Lynggaard died. She drowned, and Hale didn’t have shit to do with it, OK?”
