“Congratulations,” Mrs. Sorensen forced herself to say to Carl, as she gave Assad a sweet smile. “Here’s the paperwork you need to fill out. The course starts on Monday. ”
“A lovely woman,” said Assad after she had once again removed her purposeful body from their office. “What course was she talking about, Carl?”
He sighed. “You can’t become a superintendent until you go to school, Assad.”
Assad stuck out his lower lip. “So you are going away from here?”
Carl shook his head. “I’ll be damned if I’m going away from anything at all.”
“Then that I do not understand.”
“You will. But right now, tell me what happened when you went to see Hardy yesterday.”
Assad opened his eyes wide. “I did not like it. That big man under the covers, lying so still. Only his face showing so I could see it.”
“Did you talk to him?”
He nodded. “It was not easy, because he said I should leave. And then a nurse came and she wanted to throw me out the door. But it was OK. She was actually very much pretty in a way.” He smiled. “I think she noticed I thought so, then she went away.”
Carl gave him a blank look. Sometimes dreams of fleeing to Timbuktu could overwhelm him.
“What about Hardy? I asked you about Hardy, Assad! What did he say? Did you read any of the photocopies to him?”
“Yes. For two and a half hours. But then he fell completely asleep.”
“And?”
“Well, then he was sleeping.”
Carl sent a message from his brain to his hands that it was still illegal to strangle people.
Assad smiled. “But I will go over there again. The nurse said a very nice good-bye to me when I left.”
Carl swallowed hard. “Since you’re so good at handling all the harpies, I’m going to ask you to go upstairs and flatter the secretaries one more time.”
Assad’s face brightened. It was obvious he was thinking that would be better than going around wearing green rubber gloves.
Carl sat motionless at his desk for a moment, staring into space. His phone conversation with Karen Mortensen kept popping up in the back of his brain. Was there a tunnel into Uffe’s mind? Was it possible to open it? Were there explanations for Merete Lynggaard’s disappearance lurking somewhere inside there, and all that was needed was to press the right button? Could he use the car accident to find that button? It was becoming more and more crucial to find out.
He stopped his assistant as he was on his way out the door. “Assad, one more thing. I need you to bring me all the information you can find about the car accident that killed Merete and Uffe’s parents. Everything. Lock, stock, and barrel. Pictures, the police report, newspaper clippings. Get the secretaries to help you. I want the information ASAP.”
“ASAP?”
“That means in a hurry, Assad. There’s a certain person by the name of Uffe, and I’d like to have a little talk with him about the accident.”
“Talk with him?” murmured Assad, looking pensive.
Carl had an appointment during his lunch hour that he wished he could cancel. Last night Vigga had kept bugging him about coming to see her marvelous new gallery. It was on Nansensgade, which was not the worst place on the planet, but rent, on the other hand, cost an arm and a leg. Nothing in the world was going to force even a hint of enthusiasm from Carl at the prospect of turning his pockets inside out just so a lousy painter by the name of Hugin could display his work next to Vigga’s cave paintings.
As Carl was leaving headquarters he ran into Marcus in the lobby. The chief came walking briskly toward him, keeping his eyes fixed on the terrazzo floor and its swastika patterns. He knew full well that Carl had spotted him. Nobody at police headquarters was as keen an observer as Marcus Jacobsen. You wouldn’t know that by looking at him, but it was true. It was no accident that he was the boss.
“I hear you’ve been singing my praises, Marcus. Exactly how many cases did you tell those journalists we’d already tackled in Department Q? And according to you, we’re even on the verge of a breakthrough with one of them. You have no idea how happy I am to hear that. That’s really great news!”
The homicide chief looked him in the eye. It was the kind of look that demanded respect. Sure, Marcus knew he’d laid it on too thick, but he had reasons for doing so. And right now he conveyed that knowledge with a single glance. The police force always came first. The money was merely a means to an end. The goal was something the homicide chief himself would decide.
“Well,” said Carl. “I guess I’d better be heading out if I’m going to solve a couple of cases before lunch.”
When he reached the front entrance, he turned around. “Marcus, exactly how many salary levels am I going to go up?” he shouted, as the homicide chief disappeared past the bronze-painted chairs lining the walls. “And by the way, Marcus. Did you have a chance to talk to that crisis counselor yet?”
Carl stepped out into the light and stood there for a moment, blinking at the sun. Nobody was going to tell him how much gold braid would be plastered onto his dress uniform. Knowing Vigga, she probably already knew that he’d been promoted, which meant his pay raise had been spent. Who the hell felt like taking a course for that?
The premises she’d set her sights on had once been an old knitwear shop, which had since housed a publishing company, a typesetter, an art-import business, and a CD shop. By now the opal glass ceiling was the only thing left of the original furnishings. The space was no more than three hundred and seventy-five square feet, but it did have charm-that much he could see. Huge windows faced the passageway down to the lakes, there was a view of a pizzeria, and at the back a view with traces of greenery. And it was almost next door to the Cafe Bankerat, where Merete Lynggaard had met someone for dinner a few days before her death. There was nothing boring about Nansensgade with all of its cafes and hangouts. It was a real Parisian-style paradise.
Carl turned around and immediately caught sight of Vigga and her boyfriend passing by the baker’s window. She occupied the street with all the confidence and flair of a matador in a bullring. Her artist’s outfit spoke with all the colors of the palette. She’d always been a festive one, that Vigga. The same, however, could not be said of her sickly-looking male companion, with his tight-fitting black clothes, his chalk-white skin, and dark circles under his eyes. His type could best be found inside the lead-lined coffins in a Dracula film.
“Sweeeetheart,” Vigga called, as she crossed Ahlefeldtsgade.
This was going to be expensive.
By the time the emaciated phantom had taken measurements of the whole place, Vigga had softened Carl up. He would only have to pay two-thirds of the rent; she would pay the rest herself.
She threw out her arms. “The dough’s gonna be pouring in, Carl.”
Yeah, right. Or pouring out, he thought, calculating that his share was going to come to two thousand six hundred kroner per month. Maybe he should take that fucking superintendent’s course, after all.
They went over to Cafe Bankerat to read through the rental agreement, and Carl took a look around. Merete Lynggaard had been here. And less than two weeks later, she had vanished from the face of the earth.
“Who owns this place?” he asked one of the girls at the bar.
“Jean-Yves. He’s sitting over there.” She pointed to a man who looked solid enough. There was nothing pretentiously delicate or French about him.
Carl got up. “May I ask you how long you’ve owned this fine establishment?” he asked, taking out his police badge to show it to the man. That wasn’t really necessary, judging by the man’s amiable smile, but once in a while he needed to take the thing out of mothballs.
“I took over the business in 2002.”
“Do you remember exactly when that was?”
“What’s this about?”
“About a member of parliament named Merete Lynggaard. You may remember that she disappeared.”
He nodded.
