then, of course. But there are people here who haven’t forgotten. Jens Bendrup is one of them, and he’ll be happy to speak to you as soon as you like.”
“Thank you,” Winter said.
“No problem. It was a nasty business.”
Poulsen sat down on one of two austere chairs by the window. She waved her hand toward her hair, as if to push away bangs that weren’t there. The black-and-white border tartan jacket she’d popped into her office to grab took on another color in the glow from outside. Her eyes were just as blue when they met Winter’s.
“That’s what I’m here for,” he said. “It would be great if you could fill me in on a few details.”
“Let’s bring in Jens first,” she said, and stood up and walked out.
From the desk Winter picked up a binder with a registration number on its spine. He counted five binders and also some brown A4 envelopes that might contain photographs or other materials.
When he looked up, Poulsen was back with Detective Jens Bendrup. Casually dressed in a shirt and sweater with jeans, he was a burly man, broad across the neck but shorter than Poulsen. Winter guessed he had only two or three years left to go before retirement, and he smelled of cigar smoke when Winter greeted him-along with a whiff of the two beers he’d had with lunch.
“Welcome to the scene of the crime,” Bendrup said.
“I’m grateful for the reception.”
“I need a smoke,” Bendrup said. “This is your room, so I guess it’s your call.”
Bendrup had pulled out a cigar that looked life threatening and Poulsen nodded. “The boss is usually restrictive,” Bendrup said, waving toward Poulsen with the match he’d just used to light his cigar. “Better do the same while you have the chance.”
Winter shook his head and let his Corps remain where they were in his jacket pocket. He would relish the secondhand smoke. Bendrup sat down.
“A young police officer sacrificed his life,” Bendrup said, and his face was no longer soft. “I was the one who had to deliver the news to his fiancee, and that’s something you never forget. She was pregnant as well.”
“What happened?” Winter asked.
“It was an inside job, of course, but we were never able to prove it. Maybe that’s what bothers me the most.” He drew in and blew out some smoke, and Winter thought about a locomotive. “But there was seven million in there that afternoon, and the ones who came for it knew about it.”
“Wasn’t the bank locked?” Winter asked. “It was after closing, wasn’t it?”
“It was officially closed, but the door was still open,” Bendrup said. “Everyone blamed everyone else. But that’s not what makes me think it was an inside job. You see, back then it wasn’t that usual to lock the doors. Not here in good old Denmark anyway.”
“That’s why they could just walk in,” Poulsen said. “The money was there, and four men entered. Black stockings over their faces, of course. Three marched straight in and one remained by the door.”
“You know that? Precisely?”
“There was a camera,” Bendrup said. “This may seem, for the most part, like something out of the 1800s, but there was a camera in the bank. So we could see.”
Winter nodded.
“And then all hell broke loose,” Bendrup said, and sucked on his cigar, which glowed in front of his face.
“As it turned out, we were already on our way over there before the crooks even stepped back out across the threshold.”
“So I understand,” Winter said. “How did that happen?”
“It’s the sort of thing that only happens to fools and geniuses,” Bendrup said.
“A group of morons from the electric company was putting new wiring in the vault and tripped the alarm to the police station, which also stood right here but wasn’t quite as beautiful.”
Winter nodded. Poulsen was leaning against the desk. A truck had pulled up outside the window and was revving its engine. Someone called out. Winter heard a train. The truck suddenly rattled and went silent.
“Meanwhile, the staff was sitting there with seven million in used bills. We called, course-well, not me because I wasn’t on duty-but they called and didn’t get any answer because those idiots managed to cut the phone lines at the same time that they set off the alarm. So there was no answer, and the first car careered down Osteragade and arrived right in the middle of the party. Or just as it was ending. The robbers were on their way out, and the police car came screeching to a stop on Nytorv and Soren Christiansen was first out and the first to get killed. The robbers brought guns with them, see. AK-4s that rip a body apart even if you’re a bad shot.” Bendrup fixed his eyes on the window and then on Winter. He sucked at his cigar, but it had gone out while he was talking. “Jesus Christ. With a bit of imagination you can still see the stain left by Soren’s blood.”
“But there was return fire, right?” Winter asked.
“Yes. The officers who’d arrived with Soren took cover behind the car and opened fire. Just then another car came up from Ved Stranden-I can show you later, when we go down there-and those officers saw what was going on and more or less took the bastards from behind. There was more shooting. A few of the guys called it the ‘Bonnie and Clyde case’ afterward,” Bendrup looked at Poulsen. “But not me. It was too serious to joke about.”
“Two robbers died,” Winter said.
“One died on the spot. A bullet in the eye that must have been a lucky shot. The other was still alive when it was over, but he was in a bad way. We thought he’d make it, but he died without ever regaining consciousness. The doctors said he’d had something called a fat embolism. Know what that is?”
“Vaguely,” Winter said.
“Same here, but I learned a bit about it. He’d been hit in several places, and the resulting fractures caused bone marrow to enter the bloodstream, which in turn caused a clot that resulted in his death. It was-well, disappointing. We had no one to question.”
“No,” Winter said. “The others got away.”
“They got away. Two men and the driver and maybe the kid. The driver was a woman. Two detectives and a uniformed officer swore they’d seen a child’s face lying on the floor of the getaway car when the doors were opened before they took off.”
“They were sure of it,” Poulsen said. “Just as sure as they were that the driver was a woman.”
“Brigitta Dellmar,” Winter said.
“Apparently she was later identified as such,” Poulsen said.
“She was unknown here,” Bendrup said.
“So they got away.” Winter kept his voice neutral.
Bendrup looked at him suspiciously. “That’s the story, in broad strokes. The epilogue is that they hid out in a holiday home in Blokhus. And that the third robber floated up in the fjord a few weeks later. At least it’s believed that it was him. He was buddies with the two who died. Or one of them anyway.”
“What was their connection to the biker gangs?” Winter asked.
“Well…” Bendrup tried to light up his cigar again.
Winter waited. Michaela Poulsen, irritated by the noise, walked over to the window. It quieted down just as she looked out.
“Well, the organization was being built up here back then. They’d come over from California, like the Beach Boys and all kinds of other crap. Somehow they got a stronger foothold here in Denmark than in other European countries. I think. In any case, there were a few trail-blazers, and two of these hapless bank robbers were among them. At least two. But that’s about all we know, which, of course, isn’t the same thing as what we think.”
“So, what do you think?” Winter asked.
“We think-or I think anyway-that it was a straightforward attempt to raise funds. Seven million was a lot of money back in ’72. Anyone wanting to build up a strong organization needs capital. Bear in mind that the Danske Bank heist wasn’t the only one that took place at the time, nor the first. It was probably just one in a series of planned robberies, even if it was the biggest. And the bloodiest.”
“Supporting that theory,” Poulsen added, “is the fact that one of the robbers was probably killed by his own-”
“How do you mean?” Winter asked.
“He was executed since he was no longer needed. That may sound shocking, but things got pretty nasty
