"I'm happy to meet you," said the cop, shaking his hand, anyway the look they exchanged was anything but friendly.
Janssen studied him for a good minute. He had like most of the cops who worked in the homicide section a strange intuition regarding the suspects, and he would have sworn that Holst wasn't clean. Despite his unkempt appearance and non-athletic physique, in his head he classified the officer as a type to be careful with.
Olaf Karlsen and his brother left the precinct just as the forensics van was parking nearby. They greeted Lene, and then walked down the road to the center of the village, talking to each other.
"What are they doing here?" asked Holst.
"The inspector will explain you," said Poulsen as she entered the office.
Janssen, on the other hand, stopped outside to greet Inspector Hans Fischer from the capital's investigation department and his team of three good colleagues, all men, who had just got out of the vehicle.
CHAPTER 9
"The dog has been slaughtered," Fischer said, lifting himself from the remains that his men had just recovered from the bin.
"Are you sure?" asked Petersen.
He and Fischer were the same age and had known each other since the police academy they had attended together. Relationships had always been cordial, even if they had never met outside of work.
"Yes, and I can tell you one more thing, whoever did this is not a beginner. The cut is too precise, I would say almost surgical, and it was made with a sharp blade. Moreover, the suspect applied only the force needed to cut its throat, neither too much nor too little."
"Do you think he's a doctor?"
"Not necessarily. He could also be a butcher or one accustomed to the sight of blood, but he is still a person with considerable control of his nerves, and I would not rule out this is not the first time he makes such a thing," said Fischer.
"If my suspicions are correct, you may be right. We suspect it's the same person who killed Pastor Knudsen and wounded Ingrid Skov."
"And he would break into his house last night?"
"I told you that the dog belonged to an elderly couple who lives near the pastor's cottage. He probably killed it because it had begun to bark."
"I get it, but then it could be someone from the place. The animal doesn’t seem to have defended itself, at least judging from its teeth and paws, so in my opinion there can only be two options; either the aggression was lightning fast or the dog knew the man, if only by sight, and trusted him."
"It's also my guess, it'd explain a lot of things. How do you plan to proceed now? Do you still need the dog's body or are you going to leave it here? I think the owner would maybe like to bury it on her land," said the inspector, thinking of Mrs. Rasmussen who still didn't know that Bart was dead.
"As for that poor beast, we will take it with us. If you look closely, my men are already packing it. We have to check in the laboratory that it does not have on it any trace that escaped us from a first test. Its mistress may claim it in a few days. Once that's done, we'll check if there's any fingerprints on the garbage bin, but don't hope for it, the guy's too smart to have left any clues. Then we'll go and do the search at the pastor's house. If you ask yourself why we didn't do it yesterday, it's very simple. Nielsen hadn't asked us, and there were only two cops on the spot who weren't of any help. They were waiting for a sergeant who didn't show up, at least until we were there."
"I understand you very well, however it is important that you do it now, to verify if our suspicions about an incursion by the murderer are founded. The studio door is locked, and we haven't opened any drawers, so I don't know if the key is in the house."
"Don't worry about us doing a good job. Before I return with the team to Copenhagen, I'll come to the police precinct to update you. Are you going back there now?"
"I have to talk to a witness who should be in town any minute, so I'll be there until evening, as I'm also waiting for a reporter. At the moment I've left Poulsen and Janssen in the precinct, as well as one of the cops."
"How do they behave together? Rumors said that they were like cats and dogs."
"They're both good cops. Janssen has a little more experience, but Poulsen has an analytical mind that combined with the nose of the real detective could take her far. They didn't get along at first, but now I'm confident they can work well together."
"It's always difficult to have a beautiful woman on the team, luckily I don't have this problem," Fischer said, pointing at the three men he worked with.
"I'll see you later," said Lars, smiling at his joke, and went to the car where Toft was waiting for him.
"Did they figure it out?" asked the boy.
"The dog was killed as you thought, so we can conclude that the killer was here in the village last night," said Petersen as he entered the car.
Outside, the temperature had dropped abruptly and the white sky threatened snow again.
"Are you going to inform Mrs. Rasmussen?"
"Not now, we'll call her tonight when our forensic colleagues are done searching Knudsen's house."
"She's gonna be so upset, she talked to me all the time about how her dog was keeping her company."
"Unfortunately, we can't do anything else for her, but at least she won't keep waiting for it, constantly wondering what happened to her poor dog."
"You're right," concluded Toft who had the snout of the dog imprinted on him. It looked like it was sleeping, if it wasn't for the blood.
"Now start the car and let's get back to the precinct. Mrs. Hanne should be there by now. As soon as we get there, call Jonas Krogh right away. Your colleague told me that he takes care of the cemetery behind the church, and he's also a gravedigger. I need to talk to him today, to him and his sons," said Inspector Petersen.
"Shall I have them come to us?" asked the officer while he was starting to drive.
"Yes, I'll be at the office until tonight. Then there is one last thing quite important. Earlier I spoke with Olaf Karlsen. He's very worried about his son who didn't come home last night and didn't give any more news about himself. He doesn't know where he is, for this reason I agreed with him that if he doesn't show up within a few hours at most we’ll start looking for him. In the meantime, he’s going to contact all his friends and also acquaintances to see if they know anything about it."
"Is young Svend missing? He's a few years younger than me and I see him around often. What happened?"
"A friend left him last night at eleven o'clock in the square. He was supposed to go home, but since then we don't know what he did. He's an adult and it's early to worry, but I don't even want to overlook it if the boy doesn't come home soon."
"If there's the need, we could ask volunteers to help us looking for him. I know a lot of people who would gladly help us," Toft said.
"Let's wait a few more hours. The father will inform me immediately if the boy shows up or he phones him. Otherwise I'll call Karlsen's house by six, and then we'll start to gather all the available men, even if with this cold weather and the dark outside I'm afraid we won't be able to do much."
"That's not totally true, the city is enlightened and we can explore it all," replied Ole, confident.
By then they had arrived in front of the police station and saw that a big dark gray off-road vehicle, dirty with snow and mud, had parked right next to Janssen's one.
"This is the truck of Achim Møller, Hanne's son, I recognize it," Toft said as he got out of the car.
Inside, Poulsen had just had Mrs Hanne and her son Achim seated on two nearby chairs. The woman looked around curious, as if she could not see herself in that place. She was seventy years old and her life had always been peaceful, so she had never been to the precinct, nor had she ever been in front of cops.
"I don't feel at ease being here," she said, getting her white hair in order. It was partly hidden by a leather headgear, padded with wool. She was a tiny woman unlike her son who had a powerful peasant physique.
"You don't have
to worry, ma'am. Inspector Petersen just wants to ask you a few questions about the pastor," Janssen said, trying to make her comfortable, while Holst was making two cups of coffee for the guests. One was passed on to the elderly just as the inspector walked through the door followed by Toft.
After introducing himself, Petersen came straight to the point.
"As far as we know, you stayed with the pastor from the moment Knudsen arrived at the village until a couple of years ago, so for a period of almost twenty years. When you retired, Ingrid Skov took over," he said to the old lady.
"Yes, that's correct. I took up duty immediately after the pastor arrived here at Torslunde in 1952. My son Achim got married in church the first month that he had moved in, and I discovered, knowing him on that occasion, that he was looking for a woman to take care of his house. I didn't want to get in the way of my son's marital life, Knudsen offered me board, lodging and a decent salary, so I accepted immediately. I left two years ago when I was too old to take care of everything as I had done until then. I suggested Ingrid to the pastor as my substitute. I was friends with her parents, and with what had happened to her in that factory she needed to find some tranquility. How is she now? They say she's been badly hurt," said the woman with a worried voice.
"She's stable at the moment, but she hasn't been declared out of danger yet, although the doctors are optimistic," replied Lars.
"But they told me she was dead!" objected Achim really amazed, thus attracting the attention of all the policemen in the room.
"Who told you that?" asked Petersen.
Achim Møller didn't say anything, he just looked at Holst, and the cop replied in his place, "We have been friends for a long time. I didn't think I would do anything wrong in talking to him about it. Yesterday the girl seemed dying, luckily I was wrong."
"The doctor who's treating her explained that she did not die thanks to a congenital defect of her carotid artery, but she's still fighting for her life," the inspector reported in a neutral voice, observing Achim's reaction, then he continued, "Back to the pastor, could you tell me a little about him, madam? What personality did he have, for example? I’d also like to know if he had close friends in the village."
"I can only tell you what I know, hoping it can help," said the old lady, taking her son's hand. "When Knudsen arrived from Copenhagen twenty years ago, he was initially lost, as are all those used to the rhythm of the big city who find themselves in a small country town. Anyway, little by little our quiet life did well to his nerves, and he learned to relax."
"Do you mean that he was particularly nervous?"
"Nervous and apprehensive, he was shooting for nothing and was skinny as hell," Hanne said smiling at the memory. "In the first year he put on ten kilos and learned to trust others. I don't think he ever made friends in the traditional sense, but he got along with everyone, and his house was always open to the faithful."
"The doctor said he had a burn scar on his left forearm. Have you ever noticed it?"
"Some time after I moved in with him, only by accident. He told me he had bumped into a hot plate, I don't know what the occasion was."
"So he already had it when he came to Torslunde," concluded Petersen.
"Yes, he got it when he lived in the capital," said Hanne.
"Did he ever get visits from people he might have frequented in Copenhagen?"
"Not a single time, as I recall, no visits or phone calls. At first I was surprised, knowing that he had always lived in the city. I asked him why he no longer had any relationships with local people, so he told me that since he had dedicated his life to the Lord he had broken all ties with everything that had been before. His parents had long since died, and he had no other close relatives."
"Do you know what work he did before he took his vows?"
"I think he was an accountant at some firm in the center of the city. He told me once in passing, when I congratulated him on the management of the church's finances."
"Any news from the war period?"
"I have no idea about that. When he arrived, the memory was still a little too fresh for everyone, and nobody would want to talk about it, then he never felt the need."
"Let's come back to now. Did he have a fight with anyone lately, to your knowledge?"
"Ingrid was keeping me informed of how things were going in the pastor's house. Since she had taken my place, we'd often talk on the phone, and then we saw each other in church on Sundays, but she never said anything to me about something of that kind."
"So, according to you, nothing strange happened lately," said the inspector.
The woman looked him straight in the eye and replied decisively, "It's not exactly like that. In fact, I can tell you that something quite strange happened just last week."
"What is this about?" Inspector Petersen asked, suddenly on alert.
"I don't know if anyone has already told you about it, but Pastor Knudsen insisted immediately after the sudden death of our beloved king that the whole community go and see the proclamation of Queen Margrethe II last Saturday. As you know, it was taking place in Christiansborg palace in Copenhagen. Having asked for it with such short notice and above all being in the middle of winter, with temperatures below zero and even the risk of snow, we elderly people had to decline the invitation. But he seemed to care particularly, I think it was the first time in twenty years that he wanted to return to his hometown, so he went anyway joined by Ingrid and four other couples of devoted. One of them was my son Achim and his wife Beate."
"We went by train and it was a real good experience, although perhaps a bit tiring for our wives," said Møller. "After all, the event was one of those that will be in the history books. I'm just a farmer, but I wanted to see our queen up close."
"How did the pastor behave during the trip?"
"Very well, as he usually did with all of us. On that occasion, he was our guide since many of us had never seen the parliament building and the other buildings on the island of Slotholmen in person. He was in a good mood, even though towards the end of the ceremony he left us. He looked like he'd seen a ghost, suddenly becoming terribly pale. He asked us to wait for him, then he just disappeared into the crowd. So we went with Ingrid to a nearby bakery to get something hot. The pastor came back an hour later."
"Did he tell you where he'd gone?"
"No, he just apologized a lot and said he had had a sudden commitment, then we went back to the station. He never talked about it again."
"But in my opinion something serious must have happened," his mother Hanne intervened then, "because on Sunday at the mass Knudsen no longer seemed like himself, and on Monday Ingrid told me on the phone that the pastor had not touched food since they had come back."
"So we can assume he was upset about something or maybe someone he saw at the proclamation," Petersen deduced.
"Inspector, shall I have Mr. Møller give the names of the other participants in the event?" asked Janssen.
"Go ahead, so we can hear them more calmly to see if they remember anything more about Knudsen's sudden departure from the square."
"I hope you find the killer. We are all shocked by what happened; it is a wound that cannot heal if the pastor doesn’t have justice," said the elderly, while his son had begun to write on a sheet of paper the list of his travel companions.
"We will do our best to capture him as soon as possible. Thank you for coming. You've been a great help to us. We'll contact you, if we need to hear from you, but for now I think it's enough," replied Petersen, and immediately after handing over the list, her son took her out of the office.
"It's the first real trace we have," said Petersen as soon as they were alone.
"Who do you think the pastor met?" asked Poulsen.
"Surely someone he hadn't seen in twenty years, as he had never returned to the capital since he became a pastor. The meeting must have really upset him if he'd stopped eating ever since."
"Maybe it was a penance."
"
We need to dig into his past. Nielsen told me that he put a couple of men in the archives to look for what Knudsen was doing before he became a pastor. That's the direction we should be moving in."
"But if the killer is someone who comes from his past, then the assumption that he lives here in the neighborhood fails," objected Poulsen.
"That's true too," replied the inspector. "Something's not right."
"Jonas Krogh said that he cannot come here to the precinct. He and his sons are stuck at the farm because of the snow. They do not have a suitable means to move in the street, but if we want to go, he's waiting for us" intervened then Toft.
"Who is this Krogh?" asked Janssen.
"He was in charge of the cemetery with his three sons. He’s a kind of cheap undertaker and physically would fit the description of the man who entered the intensive care unit at the hospital, passing himself off as a friend of Jan Slovak. In addition, his wife died a year ago, and he accused God of not having saved her. He may have definitely lost his mind," answered the inspector.
"Sounds like a perfect suspect to me," Janssen said.
"I'm not sure. Holst says he went along with the pastor, but I wanted to hear from him in person to see if he's really clean. Let's do this, Søren. I have to stop here in the office to wait for that reporter, so you have Toft explain where he lives and then go to him with Poulsen. I trust your judgment but be careful, because it could be dangerous."
"I can drive them, if you like," said Toft.
"All right, but it's already three o'clock, be back in a couple of hours at the latest. If Svend Karlsen doesn't show up, we'll have to start organizing his research."
As soon as they were out, Holst approached him, lending him a cup of hot coffee. Only the two of them were left in the office, and Petersen was tempted to ask him why he had behaved inappropriately with Poulsen, but then he decided that it was better to wait for the investigation to be concluded, before going to the head-on collision. Holst could still be useful until they were in Torslunde.
"Do you really think that young Karlsen got into trouble?" asked the cop.
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