of alarm had been replaced by a more pragmatic attitude. If an otherwise level-headed guy like Carl could accompany his apology with such a dramatic breakdown, then he must have really meant it.
“OK. So we agree to forget all about this little episode, right, Carl?” said Morten, looking solemn.
Carl nodded. He’d agree to anything that would give him some peace and quiet and a few hours to recover before Mona Ibsen started digging around inside him.
32. 2007
Carl had hidden a couple of half-empty bottles of whisky and gin behind some books on the living-room bookshelf — booze that Jesper hadn’t yet sniffed out and magnanimously contributed to one of his improvised parties.
Carl drank most of both bottles before a sense of calm finally descended over him, and the weekend’s endless hours were spent in a deep, deep sleep. Only three times in two days did he get up to grab from the fridge whatever it had to offer. Jesper wasn’t home, and Morten had left to visit his parents in N?stved, so who cared if the food was past its expiration date and the menu was an awkward mishmash of ingredients?
When Monday arrived, it was Jesper’s turn to try to rouse Carl out of bed for a change. “Get up, Carl. What’s with you? I need money for food. There’s nothing left in the fucking fridge.”
Carl looked at his stepson with eyes that refused to comprehend, let alone accept, the daylight. “What time is it?” he mumbled. For a moment he couldn’t even remember what day it was.
“Come on, Carl. I’m going to be late as hell.”
He glanced at the alarm clock that Vigga had so generously left for him. This was a woman who had no respect for the extent of the nighttime hours.
He stared at the clock, suddenly wide awake. It was ten minutes past ten. In less than fifty minutes he needed to be sitting in a chair, looking into the exquisite eyes of psychologist Mona Ibsen.
“So you’re having a hard time getting out of bed these days?” she ascertained, casting a quick glance at her watch. “I can see that you’re still sleeping badly,” she went on, as if she’d been corresponding with his pillow.
He was annoyed. Maybe it would have helped if he’d had time for a shower before he rushed out the door. I hope I don’t stink, he thought, turning his face slightly toward his armpit.
She looked at him calmly as she sat across from him, hands resting in her lap, legs crossed, and clad in black velvet trousers. Her hair was cut in wisps, shorter than before, her eyebrows a thundering black. All in all quite terrifying.
He told her about his collapse out in Farmer Shit’s fields, perhaps expecting some show of sympathy.
Instead, she went straight for the jugular. “Do you feel that you failed your colleagues during the shooting episode?”
Carl swallowed hard a few times, and rambled on about how he could have taken out his gun faster and about instincts that might have become blunted by years spent dealing with criminal elements.
“You feel that you failed your friends. That’s my opinion. And in that case, you’re going to continue to suffer unless you acknowledge that things couldn’t have happened any other way.”
“Things could always have happened differently,” he said.
She ignored his remark. “You should know that I’m also treating Hardy Henningsen. Which means I’m seeing the case from two sides, and I should have recused myself. But there are no regulations requiring me to, so I need to ask if you wish to continue talking to me, now that you know this. You have to realize that I can’t say anything about what Hardy has told me, just as whatever you tell me will naturally also remain confidential.”
“That’s OK,” said Carl, but he didn’t really mean it. If it weren’t for her downy-fine cheeks and lips that simply cried out to be kissed, he would have stood up and told her to go to hell. “But I’m going to ask Hardy about it,” he said. “Hardy and I can’t have secrets from each other; that just won’t work.”
She nodded and straightened her back. “Have you ever found yourself in other situations you felt you couldn’t handle?”
“Yes,” he said.
“When?”
“Right now.” He sent her a penetrating look.
She ignored it. Cold broad.
“What would you give to still have Anker and Hardy around?” she asked, and then quickly fired off four more questions that stirred up a strange feeling of grief inside Carl. With every question she looked him in the eye and then wrote down his answers on her notepad. It felt as if she wanted to push him to the edge. As if he would have to fall dramatically before she was prepared to reach out and catch him.
She noticed that his nose was running before he did. She lifted her gaze to look at him, and then took note of the moisture that had started collecting in his eyes.
Don’t blink, damn it, or the tears will fall, he told himself, not understanding what was going on inside him. He wasn’t afraid to cry, and he had nothing against her seeing his tears; he just didn’t know why it was happening at this particular moment.
“Go ahead and cry,” she said in the same worldly-wise manner that someone might use to encourage a gluttonous infant to burp.
When they ended the session twenty minutes later, Carl had had enough of spilling his guts. Mona Ibsen, on the other hand, seemed satisfied as she shook his hand and gave him another appointment. She assured him again that the outcome of the shooting incident couldn’t have been prevented, and that he would undoubtedly regain his sense of equilibrium after a few more sessions.
He nodded. In a certain sense he did feel better. Maybe because her scent overshadowed his own, and because her handshake felt so light and soft and warm.
“Call me if there’s anything you want to talk about, Carl. It doesn’t matter whether it’s something big or small. It might be important for the work we’ll be doing together. You never know.”
“Well, then, I’ve already got a question for you,” he said, trying to draw her attention to his sinewy and purportedly sexy hands. Hands that had often won high praise from the ladies.
She noticed his posturing and smiled for the first time. Behind her soft lips were teeth even whiter than Lis’s up on the second floor. A rare sight in an age where red wine and caffeinated beverages made most people’s teeth look like smoked glass.
“So what’s the question?” she asked.
He pulled himself together. It was now or never. “Are you currently involved with someone?” He was startled by how clumsy that sounded, but it was too late to take back his words. “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. He was having a hard time figuring out how to go on. “I just wanted to ask if you might be receptive to a dinner invitation someday.”
Her smile stiffened. Gone were the white teeth and the silky skin.
“I think you need to get back on your feet before you engage in that sort of offensive, Carl. And you’d be wise to choose your victims with greater care.”
He felt disappointment settling throughout his entire endocrine system as she turned her back and opened the door to the hallway. Damn it all, anyway. “If you don’t think you’re a good choice,” he grumbled, “then you have no idea what an amazing effect you have on the opposite sex.”
She turned around and held out her hand to show him the ring on her finger.
“Oh yes, I’m aware of it,” she said, retreating from the field of battle.
He was left standing there, shoulders drooping. In his own eyes he was one of the best detectives the kingdom of Denmark had ever produced, so he wondered how in the world he’d managed to overlook something so elementary.
