velvet trousers. Her hair was cut in wisps, shorter than before, her eyebrows a thundering black. All in all quite terrifying.
He told her about his collapse out in Farmer Shit’s fields, perhaps expecting some show of sympathy.
Instead, she went straight for the jugular. “Do you feel that you failed your colleagues during the shooting episode?”
Carl swallowed hard a few times, and rambled on about how he could have taken out his gun faster and about instincts that might have become blunted by years spent dealing with criminal elements.
“You feel that you failed your friends. That’s my opinion. And in that case, you’re going to continue to suffer unless you acknowledge that things couldn’t have happened any other way.”
“Things could always have happened differently,” he said.
She ignored his remark. “You should know that I’m also treating Hardy Henningsen. Which means I’m seeing the case from two sides, and I should have recused myself. But there are no regulations requiring me to, so I need to ask if you wish to continue talking to me, now that you know this. You have to realize that I can’t say anything about what Hardy has told me, just as whatever you tell me will naturally also remain confidential.”
“That’s OK,” said Carl, but he didn’t really mean it. If it weren’t for her downy-fine cheeks and lips that simply cried out to be kissed, he would have stood up and told her to go to hell. “But I’m going to ask Hardy about it,” he said. “Hardy and I can’t have secrets from each other; that just won’t work.”
She nodded and straightened her back. “Have you ever found yourself in other situations you felt you couldn’t handle?”
“Yes,” he said.
“When?”
“Right now.” He sent her a penetrating look.
She ignored it. Cold broad.
“What would you give to still have Anker and Hardy around?” she asked, and then quickly fired off four more questions that stirred up a strange feeling of grief inside Carl. With every question she looked him in the eye and then wrote down his answers on her notepad. It felt as if she wanted to push him to the edge. As if he would have to fall dramatically before she was prepared to reach out and catch him.
She noticed that his nose was running before he did. She lifted her gaze to look at him, and then took note of the moisture that had started collecting in his eyes.
Don’t blink, damn it, or the tears will fall, he told himself, not understanding what was going on inside him. He wasn’t afraid to cry, and he had nothing against her seeing his tears; he just didn’t know why it was happening at this particular moment.
“Go ahead and cry,” she said in the same worldly-wise manner that someone might use to encourage a gluttonous infant to burp.
When they ended the session twenty minutes later, Carl had had enough of spilling his guts. Mona Ibsen, on the other hand, seemed satisfied as she shook his hand and gave him another appointment. She assured him again that the outcome of the shooting incident couldn’t have been prevented, and that he would undoubtedly regain his sense of equilibrium after a few more sessions.
He nodded. In a certain sense he did feel better. Maybe because her scent overshadowed his own, and because her handshake felt so light and soft and warm.
“Call me if there’s anything you want to talk about, Carl. It doesn’t matter whether it’s something big or small. It might be important for the work we’ll be doing together. You never know.”
“Well, then, I’ve already got a question for you,” he said, trying to draw her attention to his sinewy and purportedly sexy hands. Hands that had often won high praise from the ladies.
She noticed his posturing and smiled for the first time. Behind her soft lips were teeth even whiter than Lis’s up on the second floor. A rare sight in an age where red wine and caffeinated beverages made most people’s teeth look like smoked glass.
“So what’s the question?” she asked.
He pulled himself together. It was now or never. “Are you currently involved with someone?” He was startled by how clumsy that sounded, but it was too late to take back his words. “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. He was having a hard time figuring out how to go on. “I just wanted to ask if you might be receptive to a dinner invitation someday.”
Her smile stiffened. Gone were the white teeth and the silky skin.
“I think you need to get back on your feet before you engage in that sort of offensive, Carl. And you’d be wise to choose your victims with greater care.”
He felt disappointment settling throughout his entire endocrine system as she turned her back and opened the door to the hallway. Damn it all, anyway. “If you don’t think you’re a good choice,” he grumbled, “then you have no idea what an amazing effect you have on the opposite sex.”
She turned around and held out her hand to show him the ring on her finger.
“Oh yes, I’m aware of it,” she said, retreating from the field of battle.
He was left standing there, shoulders drooping. In his own eyes he was one of the best detectives the kingdom of Denmark had ever produced, so he wondered how in the world he’d managed to overlook something so elementary.
Someone from the Godhavn children’s home called to tell Carl they’d got hold of the retired teacher, John Rasmussen, and that on the following day he’d be in Copenhagen to visit his sister. He wanted to pass on the message that he’d always been interested in seeing police headquarters, so he’d be happy to pay Carl a visit between ten and ten-thirty, if that was OK. Carl couldn’t call him back, because it was the home’s policy not to give out private phone numbers, but he could leave a message if he wouldn’t be able to meet with Rasmussen.
It wasn’t until after Carl put down the phone that he returned to reality. His failed efforts with Mona Ibsen had disconnected certain parts of his brain, and the job of reconnecting them had only just started. So the teacher from Godhavn, who’d been on holiday in the Canary Islands, was going to come and see him. It might have been reassuring to hear that the man actually remembered the boy known as Atomos before Carl agreed to play tour guide at police headquarters. But what the hell.
He took a deep breath and tried to chuck Mona Ibsen and her catlike eyes out of his system. There were plenty of threads in the Lynggaard case that needed to be tied up, so he’d better get started before self-pity sank its claws into him.
One of the first tasks was to ask Helle Andersen, the home help from Stevns, to take a look at the photos he’d borrowed from Dennis Knudsen’s house. Maybe she too could be persuaded to come down to headquarters for a tour guided by a deputy detective superintendent. Anything so he wouldn’t have to drive across the Tryggev?lde River again.
He called her number and got hold of her husband, who claimed to still be on sick leave with unbelievably bad pain in his back, but who otherwise sounded surprisingly fit. He said “Hi, Carl” as if they’d gone to Scout camp together and shared all their meals.
Listening to him was like sitting next to an old aunt who’d never snagged a husband. Of course he’d be happy to get Helle to come to the phone if she were at home. No, she was always busy with her clients until at least… But wait a minute, he thought he heard her car in the driveway. She’d bought herself a new one, by the way, and he could always hear the difference between a 1.3- and a 1.6-liter engine. And it was true what the man on TV said; damned if those Suzukis didn’t deliver what they promised. At any rate it was great to get rid of their old Opel for a good price. The husband’s voice churned on and on while his wife could be heard announcing her arrival in the background with a shrill: “Hi, O-o-o-le! Are you home? Did you stack up the firewood?”
Lucky for Ole that Social Services didn’t hear that question.
Helle Andersen was cordial and obliging when she finally caught her breath. Carl thanked her for talking to Assad the other day and then asked if she would be able to receive by e-mail some photos he’d scanned.
“Right now?” she asked, and in the next breath was probably going to explain why this wasn’t the most favorable moment. “I’ve brought home a couple of pizzas.” Here it came. “Ole likes them with lettuce on top, and it’s not much fun when the lettuce has a chance to sink into the cheese.”
Carl had to wait twenty minutes before she called him back, and it sounded as if she hadn’t quite swallowed
