far wall behind the colonnade, Bak was having an intense conversation with one of his men. They gave Carl a look as if he’d spat on them and offended their honor.
“Buffoon briefing?” he fired off, his words echoing among the pillars as he turned his back on them.
An explanation came from Bente Hansen, who had been a member of his former team. He met her in the vestibule. “You were right, Carl. They found the piece of the victim’s ear in the witness’s flat. Congratulations, old boy!”
Fine. At least something was happening in the murdered cyclist case.
“Bak and his men have just been out to the National Hospital to make the witness cough up the whole story,” she went on. “But they didn’t get anywhere. She’s terrified.”
“Then maybe she’s not the one they should be talking to.”
“Probably not. But then who?”
“When would you be most likely to commit suicide? If you were under an insane amount of pressure, or if it was the only way to save your kids? I’d say it has something to do with her children.”
“The children don’t know anything.”
“No, I’m sure they don’t. But the witness’s mother might.”
He looked at the bronze lamps on the ceiling. Maybe he should ask for permission to trade cases with Bak. That would undoubtedly shake things up in this colossal building.
“So, Carl. The whole time I have gone around, thinking thoughts. I think we should go on with the case then.” Assad had already set a steaming cup of coffee in front of Carl. Next to the case files sat a couple of sweet pastries on top of the paper they’d been wrapped in. Apparently he was launching a charm offensive. At any rate, Assad had cleaned up in Carl’s office, and several documents from the case were lined up on his desk, almost as if he was supposed to read them in a specific order. Assad must have been on the job since six in the morning.
“What have you found for me?” Carl pointed to the papers.
“Well, here is a bank account statement that tells just what Merete Lynggaard took out during her last weeks. But there is nothing at all with food at any restaurant.”
“Somebody else paid for her, Assad. It’s not unusual for beautiful women to get off cheaply in such situations.”
“Yes, exactly, Carl. Very smart. So she got somebody else to pay. I think maybe a politician or some guy.”
“No doubt. But it wouldn’t be easy to find out who it was.”
“Yes, I know that, Carl. It was five years ago.” He tapped another piece of paper. “Here is a summary of the things that the police took from her house. I do not see any appointment diary like the woman, her new secretary, talked about. No. But maybe there is diary at Christiansborg. Maybe it will show who she was going to meet at the restaurant then.”
“She probably had her diary in her purse, Assad. And the purse disappeared along with her, didn’t it?”
He nodded, looking a bit chagrined. “Yes, but, Carl. Maybe we could ask her secretary then. There is a transcribing of her statement. She did not say anything then about the person who ate with Merete. So I think we should ask her again.”
“It’s called a transcript, Assad! But that’s still five years ago. If she couldn’t remember anything important at the time she was asked, I’ll guarantee she won’t remember anything now.”
“OK! But it says she could remember that Merete Lynggaard got a telegram for Valentine’s Day, but it was some time after, so. I think one could find out about something like that, couldn’t one?”
“The telegram doesn’t exist anymore, and we don’t have the exact date. So it would be hard to track down since we don’t even know the name of the company that delivered it.”
“It was TelegramsOnline.”
Carl looked at him. Was it possible this guy was a diamond in the rough? It was difficult to tell as long as he was wearing those green rubber gloves. “How do you know that, Assad?”
“Look there.” He pointed at the transcript of the statement. “The secretary remembered that it said ‘Love & Kisses to Merete’ on the telegram, and there were also two lips. Two red lips.”
“And?”
“Well, it had to be a telegram from TelegramsOnline. They print the name on the outside of the telegram. And they always have those two red lips.”
“Show me.”
Assad pressed the space bar on Carl’s computer, and the TelegramsOnline home page appeared on the screen. And there it was, the telegram just as Assad had described it.
“OK. And are you positive that this is the only company that makes these types of telegrams?”
“Really positive, yes.”
“But you still don’t have the date, Assad. Was it before or after Valentine’s Day? And who was it from?”
“We can ask the company. Maybe they have a list of when telegrams were sent to Christiansborg Castle.”
“That was all done during the first police investigation, wasn’t it?”
“There is nothing about this in the case file, no. But you have maybe read about something else?” He gave an acidic smile that stopped just short of insubordination.
“OK, Assad. Fair enough. You can check with the company. That’s a perfect job for you. I’m a little busy right now, so why don’t you use the phone in your own office.”
Carl gave him a pat on the back and ushered him out. Then he shut the door, lit a cigarette, picked up the Lynggaard file, and sat down in his chair, propping his feet on the desk.
He might as well dive in.
It was a stupid case, full of inconsistencies. They’d been searching high and low without any real prioritizing. In short, they had no plausible theories. No clear motive. If her death was suicide, what was the reason for it? The only thing that could be verified was that her car had been parked at the back of the line on the car deck. And that Merete Lynggaard had disappeared.
Then it occurred to the investigators that she had not been alone. A couple of witnesses had stated that she had argued with a young man on the sun deck. This was documented in a chance photo taken by an elderly couple on a privately arranged shopping trip to Heiligenhafen. And when the photo was made public, word came from City Hall in Store Heddinge that the man in the picture was Merete Lynggaard’s brother.
Carl actually remembered it all quite well. Reprimands were handed out to the police officers who had overlooked the existence of this brother.
And new questions arose: If the brother killed her, why did he do it? And where was the brother now?
At first they thought that Uffe had fallen overboard, but then they found him a few days later, exhausted and confused, a good distance out on the flatlands of Fehmarn. It was an alert German police officer from Oldenburg who identified Uffe. They never found out how Merete’s brother had managed to get so far. And Uffe himself had nothing to add to the case.
If he knew anything, he wasn’t letting on.
The subsequent harsh handling of Uffe Lynggaard revealed just how far up shit creek Carl’s colleagues had been.
He listened to a couple of cassette tapes from the police interviews and concluded that Uffe had remained as silent as the grave. At first they’d tried the “good cop, bad cop” ploy, but nothing worked. Two psychiatrists had been called in; then later a psychologist from Farum who specialized in that sort of thing. Even Karen Mortensen, a social worker from Stevns municipality, had been brought in to try to pump information out of Uffe.
To no use.
Both the German and the Danish authorities had trawled the waters. Police divers had searched the area. A body that washed ashore was put on ice and later autopsied. Fishermen were told to pay particular attention to any objects they found floating in the water-items of clothing, purses, anything at all. But nothing was found that could be traced back to Merete Lynggaard, and the media went even more berserk. Merete was front-page news for almost a month. Old photographs from a secondary-school excursion when she posed in a snug swimsuit came out of hiding. Her high marks at the university were made public and became the subject of analysis by so-called
