lawyer. A positive smile.
“You like Karen Borg,” she remarked amiably.
“She’s nice.”
He had broached the second bar of chocolate, and was following the same procedure as the first.
“Would you like her here now, or is it okay if we have a chat on our own?”
“Okay.”
She wasn’t entirely sure whether he meant the former or the latter alternative, but she interpreted it in her own favour.
“So it was you who killed Ludvig Sandersen.”
“Yes,” he said, more concerned with the pattern of the chocolate. He had knocked a piece out of alignment and spoilt the layout, which obviously upset him.
Hanne sighed and thought to herself that this interview would be of less value than the paper it was recorded on. But it was worth making the attempt.
“Why did you do it, Han?”
He didn’t even look up at her.
“Won’t you tell me why?”
Still no answer. The chocolate was half eaten.
“Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”
“Roger,” he said, loud and clear, with a steady gaze for a fraction of a second.
“Roger? Was it Roger who told you to kill him?”
“Roger.”
He had a faraway look in his eyes again, his voice reverting to that of an old man-or a child.
“Is he called more than Roger?”
But his communicativeness had come to an end. He seemed totally distant. Hanne called the two burly officers, forbade handcuffs, and gave the Dutchman the last bar of chocolate to take away with him. He looked content, and left smiling serenely.
The slip of paper with a note of the telephone number was hanging on the cork noticeboard. She got a response straightaway, and introduced herself. Karen Borg sounded friendly, if surprised. They talked for several minutes before Hanne came to the point.
“You don’t have to answer this, but I’ll ask anyway. Has Han van der Kerch mentioned the name Roger to you at any point?”
It was a hole-in-one. Karen was silent. Hanne said nothing either.
“All I know is that he may live in Sagene. Try there. I think you can look for a car dealer. I shouldn’t be saying this. I haven’t said it.”
Hanne promised her that she hadn’t heard it, thanked her profusely, cut the conversation short, and dialled a three-figure number on the internal phone.
“Is Billy T. there?”
“He’s off duty today, but I think he’ll be dropping by later.”
“Ask him to contact Hanne when he does.”
“Will do.”
The downpour was lashing the car windows obliquely, like furious scrawled invective from on high, the sleet adhering to the glass despite the valiant efforts of the wipers. The autumn had been unusual, alternating between unseasonally severe cold with snow and rain, and temperatures rising to eight degrees. For several days the thermometer had stuck defiantly somewhere in the middle, hovering on zero.
“You’re putting heavy demands on an old friendship, Hanne.”
He wasn’t annoyed with her, just rubbing it in.
“I work for the hit squad. Not as odd-job-boy to Her Royal Highness Hanne Wilhelmsen. And today was my free day. In other words, you owe me a day off. Write that down.”
He was having to lean his huge body right over the wheel to see anything at all. Had it not been for his size and his shaven head he could have been taken for one of those ladies in BMWs from the posher part of town who had just acquired a driving licence in their forties.
“I shall be forever in your debt,” she assured him, jumping as he braked hard at a sudden shadow that turned out to be a reckless teenager.
“I can’t see a damned thing,” he said, trying to rub off the mist that kept coating the inside of the windscreen as fast as he wiped it dry.
Hanne adjusted the heater control, but with no discernible effect.
“Typical public service tat,” she muttered, making a mental note of the number of the vehicle so that she could avoid it next time she had to take a trip in the rain.
“I found only one Roger in the motor trade in Sagene, so we won’t have to hunt far, anyway,” she said, in an attempt to console him.
The car veered up onto the pavement, and Hanne was flung against the door, bruising her elbow on the window handle.
“Hey-are you trying to kill me?” she cried, before she realised they’d arrived.
Billy T. pulled up beside a grey concrete wall displaying a prominent “no parking” sign. He switched off the engine and sat with his hands in his lap.
“What are we actually going to do?”
“Just take a look. Get him a bit worried.”
“Am I a cop or a robber?”
“Customer, Billy, you’re a customer. Unless and until I say something different.”
“What are we looking for?”
“Whatever there is. Anything of interest considered.”
She got out and locked the door rather unnecessarily; Billy T. just slammed his shut without further ado.
“No one will nick that old wreck,” he said, turning up his collar to protect himself against the rain gusting straight at them round the corner of the building.
“Sagene Car Sales.” In English. She guessed the name even though some of the neon letters had evidently been out of action for a long time. In the crepuscular half-light she could only see “Sa ene Ca S les.”
“International business, that’s for sure!”
A bell rang somewhere out the back as they went in the door. There was a smell of old Volvo Amazons, a suffocating perfume emanating from the largest selection of so-called air-purifiers that Hanne had ever seen. Four cardboard Christmas trees, fifty to sixty centimetres high, stood side by side on a five-metre-long counter. The trees were decorated with smaller trees on glittering threads and luscious comic-strip women inset with the same thread. An army of plastic tortoises exuding Magic Tree fragrance encircled the trunks of the trees like little Christmas presents, doing their bit to ensure that the air in the vicinity of the cash register was the purest in the whole city. Their heads were mounted on springs, and they were all nodding a welcome in the draught from the door.
The rest of the place was filled with every conceivable object connected with four-wheeled vehicles. There were exhaust systems and petrol caps, nylon leopard-skin seat covers, furry dice, and spark plugs. Between the shelf units, where there was no room for any kind of rack, hung old calendar pin-ups of seminude women. Their breasts took up three-quarters of the picture and the actual calendar dates were relegated to a superfluous narrow band at the foot.
A man emerged from the back rooms a few moments after the bell had rung. Hanne had to dig her fingernails into her palm to stop herself from giggling.
The guy looked an absolute stereotype. He was short and stocky, scarcely more than five foot six. He was wearing brown terylene trousers with a sewn-in crease. The seam had come undone at the knee to present a really
