That hit home. The tears would undoubtedly begin flowing again, even before Carl was out the door.
According to the Civil Register, Sos Norup’s last place of residence was the same as that of her parents, right in the middle of Copenhagen’s snooty Frederiksberg district. On the brass plate next to the front door it said: “Wholesaler Vilhelm Norup and actress Kaja Brandt Norup.”
Carl rang the bell and heard the sound reverberating behind the massive oak door. A moment later it was supplemented by a quiet “Yes, yes, I’m coming.”
The man who opened the door must have retired at least a quarter of a century earlier. Judging by the waistcoat he was wearing and the silk cravat around his neck, his fortune hadn’t dried up yet. He stared uneasily at Carl with eyes ravaged by illness, as if this stranger on his doorstep might be the Grim Reaper. “Who are you?” he asked bluntly, ready to slam the door.
Carl introduced himself, and again took his badge out of his pocket. He asked if he might come inside.
“Has something happened to Sos?” the man demanded to know.
“I don’t know. Why do you ask? Isn’t she at home?”
“She doesn’t live here anymore, if she’s the one you’re looking for.”
“Who is it, Vilhelm?” called a faint voice from behind the double doors to the living room.
“Just somebody who wants to talk to Sos, dear.”
“Then he’ll have to go elsewhere,” she replied.
The wholesaler grabbed Carl’s sleeve. “She lives in Valby. Tell her we want her to come and get her things if she’s planning to go on living like that.”
“Like what?”
The man didn’t answer. He gave Carl the address on Valhojvej, then slammed the door shut.
In the small co-op building there were only three names next to the intercom. In the past the place had undoubtedly been home to six families, each with four or five children. What had previously been a slum was now gentrified. It was here in this attic apartment that Sos Norup had found her true love, a woman in her mid-forties whose skepticism regarding Carl’s police badge manifested itself in pale lips that were pressed tight.
Sos’s lips were not much friendlier. Even at first glance, Carl understood why DJOF and the Democrats’ office at Christiansborg hadn’t fallen apart when she left. One would have to search far and wide to find someone who presented a less sympathetic aura.
“Merete Lynggaard was a frivolous boss,” she remarked.
“You mean, she didn’t take her job seriously? That’s not what I heard.”
“She left everything up to me.”
“I’d think that would be a plus.” He looked at her. She seemed like a woman who’d always been kept on a short leash and hated it. Wholesaler Norup and his wife, no doubt once very prominent, had probably taught Sos the meaning of blind obedience. That must have been hard to take for an only child who saw her parents as gifts from God. Carl was convinced it must have reached the point where she both detested and loved them. Detested what they stood for, and loved them for the very same thing. In Carl’s humble opinion, that was why she’d moved back and forth from home all her adult life.
He glanced over at her girlfriend. Dressed in loose-fitting garb and with a smoldering cigarette hanging from her lips, she sat there making sure he wouldn’t try to molest anyone. She was determined to provide Sos with a permanent anchor here from now on. That much was obvious.
“I heard that Merete Lynggaard was very satisfied with your work.”
“Oh, really.”
“I’d like to ask you about Merete’s personal life. Was there any reason to think that she might have been pregnant when she disappeared?”
Sos frowned and drew back.
“Pregnant?” She said the word as if it were in the same category as contagion, leprosy, and the bubonic plague. “No, I’m positive that she wasn’t.” She glanced over at her lover and rolled her eyes.
“How can you be so sure?”
“How do you think? If she was as together as everybody thought, she wouldn’t have had to borrow tampons from me every time she got her period.”
“You’re saying that she had her period just before she disappeared?”
“Yes, the week before. We always got our periods at the same time when I was working for her.”
He nodded. That was something she would know. “Do you know if she had a lover?”
“I’ve already been asked that a hundred times before.”
“Refresh my memory.”
Sos took out a cigarette and tapped it firmly on the table. “All the men stared at her as if they wanted to throw her down on the table. How would I know if one of them had something going on with her?”
“In the report it says that she received a valentine telegram. Did you know it was from Tage Baggesen?”
She lit her cigarette and disappeared behind a blue haze. “No, I didn’t.”
“So you don’t know whether there was something going on between them?”
“Something going on? This was five years ago, as I’m sure you’ll recall.” She blew a cloud of smoke right at Carl’s face, eliciting a wry smile from her lover.
Carl moved back a bit. “Now, listen here. I’m going to take off in four minutes. But before I do, let’s pretend that we want to help each other out, OK?” He looked Sos right in the eye; she was still trying to hide her selfloathing behind a hostile expression. “I’ll call you Sos, OK? I’m usually on first-name terms when I share a smoke with someone.”
She moved the hand with the cigarette to her lap.
“So now I’m going to ask you this, Sos. Do you know about any incidents that happened just before Merete disappeared? Anything we ought to investigate further? I’m going to rattle off a list of possibilities, so just stop me if I come to anything relevant.” The nod he gave her wasn’t returned. “Phone conversations of a personal nature? Little yellow notes that were left on her desk? People who behaved toward her in an unprofessional manner? Boxes of chocolates, flowers, new rings on her fingers? Did she ever blush while staring into space? Was she having a hard time concentrating during those last few days?” He looked at the zombie sitting across from him. Her colorless lips hadn’t moved a millimeter. Another dead end. “Did her behavior change in any way? Did she go home earlier? Did she leave the parliament chamber to make calls on her cell phone out in the corridor? Did she arrive later than usual in the morning?”
Again he looked up at Sos, giving her an emphatic nod, as if that might wake her from the dead.
She took another puff of her cigarette and then ground the butt out in the ashtray. “Are you done?” she asked.
He sighed. Stonewalled! What else did he expect from this cow? “Yeah, I’m done.”
“Good.” She raised her head. For a moment he saw a woman who possessed a certain gravitas. “I told the police about the telegram and about her meeting someone at Cafe Bankerat. I saw her write that down in her appointment diary. I don’t know who she was going to meet, but it did make her cheeks flush.”
“Who could it have been?”
She shrugged.
“Tage Baggesen?” he asked.
“It could have been anybody. She met so many people at Christiansborg. There was also a man who was part of a delegation who seemed interested. But there were lots of men who were interested.”
“A delegation? When was that?”
“Not long before she disappeared.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“After five years? God, no.”
“What sort of delegation?”
She gave him a surly look. “Something to do with research on the immune system. But you interrupted me,” she said. “Merete also received a bouquet of flowers. There was no doubt she had some sort of relationship that was quite personal. I have no idea what was connected with what, but I’ve told the police all this before.”
Carl scratched his neck. Where had this information been recorded?
