the last mouthful.
“Did you get the e-mail I sent?”
“Yes,” she told him. She was sitting there looking at the three files.
“Click on the first one and tell me what you see.”
“That’s Daniel Hale. Your assistant already showed me a picture of him. But I’ve never seen him before.”
“Then click on the second file. What about that one?”
“Who’s that?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. His name is Dennis Knudsen. Have you ever seen him before? Maybe a few years older than in the picture?”
She laughed. “Not wearing a silly cap like that, at any rate. No, I’ve never seen him before. I’m sure of it. He reminds me of my cousin Gorm, but Gorm is at least twice as fat.”
It seemed to be a family trait.
“What about the third picture? It shows a person talking to Merete at Christiansborg shortly before she disappeared. I know you can only see him from the back, but is there anything about him that seems familiar? His clothes, hair, posture, height, body type, anything at all?”
She paused for a moment, which was a good sign.
“I’m not sure, since the picture only shows him from the back, as you said. But I may have seen him before. Where did you think I would have seen him?”
“That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me.”
Come on, Helle, thought Carl. How many possibilities could there be?
“I know you’re thinking about the man who delivered the letter. I did see him from behind, but he had on very different clothes, so it’s not easy to tell. He looks familiar, but I can’t say for sure.”
“Then you shouldn’t say anything, dear,” said the allegedly backdamaged pizza eater in the background.
Carl had to make an effort not to sigh. “OK,” he said. “I have one last photo that I’d like to send you.” He clicked on his e-mail.
“It’s here,” she said ten seconds later.
“Tell me what you see.”
“I see a picture of the guy who was also in the second picture, I think. Dennis Knudsen. Wasn’t that his name? Here he’s only a boy, but that funny expression on his face is unmistakable. What odd cheeks he has. Yes, I’ll bet he drove go-karts when he was a boy. My cousin Gorm did too, strangely enough.”
That was probably before he weighed a thousand pounds, Carl was tempted to say. “Take a look at the other boy standing behind Dennis. Do you recognize him?”
There was silence on the phone. Not even the malingerer husband said a word. Carl waited. Patience was supposedly a virtue for detectives. So it was just a matter of living up to this maxim.
“This is really creepy,” Helle Andersen said at last. Her voice seemed to have shrunk. “That’s him. I’m positive that’s him.”
“The man who brought the letter to you at Merete’s house? Is that who you mean?”
“Yes.” Another pause, as if she needed to gauge the photo against the ravages of time. “Is he the man you’re looking for? Do you think he had something to do with what happened to Merete? Should I be scared of him?” She sounded genuinely worried. And maybe at one time she would have had reason to be.
“It was five years ago, so you have nothing to fear, Helle. Take it easy.” He heard her sigh. “So you think this is the same man who brought the letter. Are you sure now?”
“It has to be. Yes, I’m sure of it. His eyes are so distinctive, you know what I mean? Oh, this is making me feel weird.”
It’s probably just the pizza, thought Carl as he thanked the woman and put down the phone. Then he leaned back in his chair.
He looked at the tabloid photos of Merete Lynggaard that were lying on top of the case folder. Right now Carl felt more strongly than ever that he was the link between the victim and perpetrator in this case. For the first time he felt that he was on the right track. This Atomos had lost his grip on life during childhood and grown up to do the devil’s work, to use a colorful phrase. The evil inside him had led him to Merete; the question was why and where and how? Maybe Carl would never find the answers, but he was going to try.
Mona Ibsen could sit and polish her wedding ring in the meantime.
Next he sent the pictures to Bille Antvorskov. In less than five minutes Carl had an answer in his e-mail inbox. Yes, one of the boys in the pictures did look like the man who’d been part of the group at Christiansborg. But Antvorskov couldn’t swear that it was the same person.
That was enough for Carl. He was sure that Antvorskov was not the sort to swear to anything without first examining it from head to toe.
The phone rang. It wasn’t Assad or the man from the Godhavn children’s home, as he expected. Of all people on earth to be calling him at this moment, God help him, it was Vigga.
“What happened to you, Carl?” she said, her voice quavering.
He tried to decipher what was going on but didn’t come up with anything before she launched into him.
“The reception started half an hour ago, and not a soul has turned up. We have ten bottles of wine and twenty bags of snacks. If you don’t show up either, I simply don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“At your gallery? Is that what you mean?”
A couple of sniffles told him that she was about to start sobbing.
“I didn’t know anything about any reception.”
“Hugin sent out fifty invitations the day before yesterday.” She sniffled one last time and then pulled the real Vigga out of the goody bag. “Why can’t I count on your support at least? You’re an investor in the gallery, after all!”
“Try asking your wandering phantom.”
“Who are you calling a phantom? Hugin?”
“Do you have other lice like him crawling all over you?”
“Hugin is just as concerned as I am that this gallery is a success.”
Carl didn’t doubt it. Where else could the man exhibit his torn-off scraps of underwear ads and smashed McDonald’s Happy Meal figures splattered with the cheapest paint you could find?
“I’m just saying, Vigga, that if Einstein actually remembered to post the invitations on Saturday, as you claim, then they won’t show up in anyone’s letter box until they get home from work sometime later today.”
“Oh my God, no! Damn it!” she groaned.
So there was probably a man in black who wasn’t getting laid tonight.
Carl couldn’t resist feeling gleeful.
Tage Baggesen knocked on the doorframe to his office just as Carl was lighting the cigarette that had been yelling and nagging at him for hours.
“Yeah, what is it?” said Carl, his lungs filled with smoke. Then he recognized the man clad in a nicely acquitted state of mild intoxication that sent a scent of cognac and beers wafting into the room.
“I just wanted to apologize for cutting off our phone conversation so abruptly the other day. I needed time to think, now that everything is going to be made public.”
Carl invited Baggesen to sit down and asked if he’d like something to drink, but the MP dismissed the offer with a wave of his hand as he took a seat. No, he wasn’t thirsty.
“Which things did you specifically have in mind?” asked Carl, trying to make it sound as if he had more up his sleeve, which wasn’t the case at all.
“Tomorrow I plan to resign from my position in parliament,” said Baggesen, looking around the room with weary eyes. “I’m going to meet with the chairman after we’re done talking here. Merete told me this would happen if I didn’t listen, but I didn’t want to believe her. And then I did what I never should have done.”
Carl narrowed his eyes. “Then it’s good that the two of us clear the air before you start making confessions to everyone and his uncle.”
The stout man nodded and bowed his head. “I bought some stocks in 2000 and 2001, and made a killing on them.”
