them tell her why they had done this to her. Here he was, the man who made the decisions. This was the first time she was seeing him, and there was something disturbingly exciting about the moment. She sensed that he alone would decide whether she should be allowed to know more, and now she was going to demand her rights. But when he took a step closer and she saw his face, the words refused to come out.
She looked with shock at his mouth. Saw the crooked smile freeze. Saw his white teeth slowly appear. Saw everything gather itself into a whole and shoot electrical charges through her body.
Now she knew who Lasse was.
31
Out on the lawn at Egely, Carl apologized to the nurse for the episode with Uffe. Then he threw the photographs and Playmobil figures into the plastic bag and strode toward the parking lot, while Uffe kept on screaming in the background. It was only when Carl started up the engine that he noticed the chaotic scene as staff members tore down the slope. That was the end of his investigative efforts on the grounds of Egely. Fair enough.
Uffe’s reaction had been very strong. So now Carl knew that in some way or another Uffe was present in the same world as everyone else. Uffe had looked into the eyes of the boy named Atomos in the photo, and it had shaken him badly. There was no doubt about that. This signified an unusually big step forward.
Carl pulled over next to a field and tapped in the name of the Godhavn children’s home on the car’s Internet system. The phone number appeared at once.
He didn’t have to offer much in the way of explanation. Apparently the staff were used to having the police call them, so there was no need to beat about the bush.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “None of your residents has done anything wrong. I’m calling about a boy who lived at the home in the late eighties. I don’t know his real name, but he was called Atomos. Does that name ring a bell?”
“In the late eighties?” said the staff member on duty. “No, I haven’t been here that long. We have case files on all the children, but they’re probably not listed under nicknames like that. Are you sure you don’t have some other name we could look up?”
“No, sorry.” Carl glanced over at the fields that reeked of manure. “Do you know of any staff member who worked there back then?”
“Hmm. Not among the full-time employees. I’m pretty sure of that,” she said. “But, let me see… oh, that’s right, we do have a retired colleague, John, who comes in a couple of times a week. He just can’t bear to stay away, and the boys would miss him if he didn’t come in. I’m sure he worked here back then.”
“He wouldn’t happen to be there today, would he?”
“John? No, he’s on holiday. The Canary Islands for one thousand, two hundred and ninety-five kroner. How could he resist? as he likes to say. But he’ll be back on Monday, so I’ll see if we can get him to come in. It’s mostly for the boys’ sake. They like him. Give us a call on Monday, and we’ll see what we can do.”
“Could you give me his home number?”
“No, I’m sorry. It’s against our policy to give out personal phone numbers for staff members. You never know who might be asking for it.”
“My name is Carl Morck. I think I already told you that. I’m a police detective, you may recall.”
She laughed. “I’m sure you can track down his number if you’re so clever, but I suggest that you wait until Monday and call us back. OK?”
Carl leaned back in his car seat and looked at his watch. It was almost one o’clock. He could still make it back to the office in time to check out Merete Lynggaard’s cell phone, if the battery was still working after five years, which was doubtful. If it was dead, they’d have to get a new one.
Out in the fields, screeching clusters of seagulls rose to the sky behind the hills. A vehicle came rumbling underneath them, whipping up dust and dirt. Then the top of the driver’s cab appeared. It was a tractor, a huge Landini with a blue cab, lumbering steadily along the plowed field. That was the sort of thing a person knew if he’d grown up with shit on his wooden clogs. So it’s time to spread the manure here too, he thought as he turned on the engine, about to drive off before the stench blew over toward him and settled in the car’s air conditioning system.
At that very moment he caught sight of the farmer inside the Plexiglas windows. He was wearing a baseball cap, and all of his attention was focused on his work and the prospect of having a record harvest this summer. He had a ruddy face, and his shirt was red-and-black checked. A real lumberjack-patterned shirt. Easily recognizable.
Fuck, he thought. He’d forgotten to call his colleagues in Soro and tell them which type of shirt pattern he thought he could remember the shooter wearing out in Amager. He sighed at the thought. If only they hadn’t involved him in all that. Soon they’d probably be asking him to come back and point out the shirt for a second time.
He punched in the number and got hold of the officer on duty. He was immediately transferred to the head of the investigation, the one they called Jorgensen.
“This is Carl Morck in Copenhagen. I think I can confirm that one of the shirts you showed me matched the one worn by the perp out in Amager.”
Jorgensen didn’t respond. Why the hell didn’t he at least clear his throat so Carl would know he hadn’t croaked in the meantime on the other end of the line?
“Ahem,” said Carl, thinking it might prompt a reaction, but the man didn’t say a word. Maybe he’d put his hand over the mouthpiece.
“I’ve been having dreams the past few nights, you see,” Carl went on. “More scenes from the shooting incident have come back to me. Including a picture of the shirt. I can see it really clearly now.”
“Is that so?” Jorgensen said at last after yet another resounding silence on the line. He might at least have mustered a few cheers.
“Don’t you want to know which shirt on the table I’m thinking of?”
“And you think you can remember?”
“If I can remember the shirt after getting a bullet in my head and three hundred and thirty pounds of paralyzed deadweight on top of me while I was being sprayed with a gallon of my best colleagues’ blood, don’t you think I can remember how those damned shirts were laid out after four days?”
“It doesn’t really seem normal.”
Carl counted to ten. It was very possible it wasn’t normal on Storgade in Soro. That was probably also why he’d ended up in a police department with twenty times as many homicide cases as Jorgensen.
But what he said was: “I’m also good at playing the Memory Game.”
A pause to let the words sink in. “Oh, really! Well, then I’d certainly like to hear what you can tell me.”
Damn, what a country bumpkin the man was.
“The shirt was the one on the far left,” said Carl. “The one closest to the window.”
“OK,” replied Jorgensen. “That matches what the witness told us.”
“Good. I’m glad. Well, that was all. I’ll send you an e-mail so you have it in writing.” By now the tractor in the field had come precariously close. The spray of piss and manure that pounded out of the hoses and onto the ground was truly a joy to behold.
Carl rolled up the window on the passenger side and was just about to end the conversation.
“Just a moment, before you go,” said Jorgensen. “We’ve taken in a suspect. Well, just between the two of us, I can say that we’re convinced we’ve caught one of the perpetrators. When do you think you can come down here for the lineup? Some time tomorrow?”
“A lineup? No, I can’t do that.”
“What do you mean?”
