An Old Debt

by Doriana Cantoni

  "Do you know him?"

  "Just by sight. He usually comes in the morning to bring us croissants, but leaves them on the counter and goes out. He's not a guy of many words and is always in a hurry. He goes around all the offices on behalf of his father. He looks like a good guy, but I don't know who he's seeing."

  "So you don't know if he has a girlfriend," said Lars.

  "I saw him sometimes with Helle Strøm last year, but I'm not sure they were a real couple, and since then they could have broken up. Kids now get together and leave each other at a speed that we didn't even imagine."

  "Helle, the innkeeper's daughter?"

  "Yes, that's the one. Erik and Olaf have been friends since they were kids, and now they often hang out with their families."

  Petersen hoped that nothing had happened to the boy, then he began to sip his coffee that was still hot. There was something that had been waving around in his head since that morning, but he couldn't focus on what it was.

  "When the reporter from the first channel arrives, you shut up. She's someone I know, and I can tell you that she usually enjoys making people uncomfortable," he said after a few minutes.

  "Sergeant Lassen used almost the same words yesterday afternoon after talking to her, but he expressed himself with less elegance," Holst replied.

  "Have they argued?"

  "No, but Lassen had just arrived at the church and that woman started to ask him questions, plus she made her assistant point the camera at him. He told her that the investigation had just begun, and that he could not talk about anything yet, but the journalist insisted, so he preferred to leave. As far as I know, things ended that way."

  "Did she ask you questions too?"

  "As soon as she saw us in uniform, she immediately pointed at us. I didn't answer any questions and she got tired of trying. To make us talk, she was kind and a little flirty, but it was clear where she wanted to go. I think you, Inspector, understand that I'm not insensitive to the charm of a beautiful woman, but in fact she seemed like a shark to me."

  "How did Toft behave?"

  "He's only 21, he's still inexperienced in these things. He was flattered by her attention but he's not stupid, and I don't think he told her anything."

  "You don’t think or are you sure about it?"

  "Let's say that I'm not sure, but he wouldn't have much to tell her anyway, even if he wanted to. We had found the pastor's body and Ingrid dying not even two hours before. Immediately after, the ambulance arrived and then the forensic team that drove us away," Holst replied uncomfortably. "Outside the church, I saw that they were talking to each other, so when the journalist left, I immediately took Ole aside and asked him what they had talked about. He remained vague, it’s why I told him that he could not release any news of the case, and it seemed to me that he understood."

  "I will see for myself. He needs to know that if he talks to the press about the case he's in danger of losing his job," said the inspector, then he added by looking out the front window at two people who were climbing the few stairs, "Our reporter is just coming. Be nice, Jens, go open the door to her and her cameraman."

  Susanne Hansen entered the room wheezing for the bitter cold after a few seconds, followed at a proper distance by her usual assistant who also on that occasion carried a camera on his shoulder. That day the reporter wore a long fur coat that she took off immediately, carefully leaning it on one of the chairs. Underneath, she was wearing a light gray men's tailored suit, which was her favorite when it came to recording an important interview.

  "Finally we see each other again, my dear Petersen. You already know Wang," she said pointing to her companion who made a gesture of greeting as soon as the woman pronounced his name. "I don't remember how many years have passed since the last time. Maybe two?" she continued to speak while sitting in front of the inspector.

  "More than three and I can say I haven't missed you," replied Lars shaking hands with her.

  "Always as nice and kind as I remembered you. Listen to me, I came only because my network asked me. This case has caused a certain stir among the population, since the murder concerns a man of faith. I'm willing to forget the past, at least for today. Let's do this interview, and then I won't bother you anymore."

  "The past, as you say, has been quite fortunate for you. I could incriminate you for obstructing justice in the investigation that you were following at the time. Anyway, let's not talk about it anymore. I can tell you that the inquiry into the death of the pastor is only at the beginning, and for the moment we do not have a precise track, so I'm afraid that your interview will be quite unsatisfactory."

  "Let me decide for myself," she said with an ironic smile. Immediately afterwards, the cameraman started filming.

  From her generic questions about the case, Petersen immediately understood that Toft must not have revealed any important details to her when they had spoken the day before, because the reporter had no idea of what had really happened in the church. She kept pushing him, trying to make him look stupid, but she didn't get the desired result.

  "So you haven't gotten any opinion on this brutal murder yet, and then we can deduce that the police are groping in the dark," she said sarcastically almost at the end of the interview.

  "I don't think that's the point," replied Petersen without fussing. "The crime only occurred yesterday afternoon, so we're just starting to investigate. It could be a robbery that ended in the worst possible way, like anything else, at the moment all tracks are open."

  "All right, that's all for now, here at Torslunde," Hansen concluded and signaled to the cameraman to stop the recording, then she said, "We'll send the tape straight to the headquarters, so it'll be broadcast during tonight's news. Our inspector hasn't told us anything relevant, but the public at home may be satisfied with seeing that the police are working on the case, at least for now."

  "I told you that it’s too soon, you can't expect any results after not even two days," Lars replied, crossing his arms.

  "Do you really think it could be a robbery gone wrong?" she asked.

  "It's possible, you can't exclude it. Unfortunately, these episodes of violence nowadays happen not only in the capital," said Lars lying. Actually, he was talking about robbery only to get her out of line.

  "I don't see the sergeant I spoke to yesterday. His name is Morten Lassen, if I remember right. "Did you send him to do some checking?"

  "His brother had an accident last night on the coast because of the snow fall, and so he had to reach him immediately. I seriously doubt you'll see him again," said Petersen.

  "That sounds like a lie to me. If you want, I can give you a hint about your sergeant. You know I like to check out who I'm dealing with, and yesterday I asked around about him. Apparently, he didn't leave a good memory in the last place he was. His hand was too heavy with some and too soft with others, depending on the political faith they professed," said Susanne Hansen, putting her fur back on.

  "Who was he privileging?" asked the inspector, not sure of the goodness of that information.

  "Not exactly peaceful groups, it’s people some would call xenophobic. You certainly don't believe me, and I was amazed when they told me, so I wanted to check better and got confirmation of the truth of the news. A few years ago in the sergeant's district there was a brutal beating of a southern immigrant who lost an eye as a result of the attack, in addition to the use of an arm. My fonts are crystal clear and say that Lassen tried to cover it up, but in the end he had to leave to avoid the worst."

  "Are you sure about this?"

  "You think I'm a bitch, but I can do my job. And one last thing, if I were you, I'd watch my back," she said, making sure that only he could hear her, not Officer Holst who at that moment was asking her assistant how the camera worked and on which media it recorded.

  "From whom?" asked Petersen.

  "Yesterday, I spoke to a young muscular-looking cop with very short blonde hair. He didn't tell me anything special, he was very button
ed up perhaps for fear of the consequences in revealing anything to me. I didn't insist and was about to leave, but at a certain point he checked the time and I saw that he had on his wrist, half hidden by his watch, the tattoo of a Nazi group, a swastika with two crossed hammers. Some time ago I did a report on the new right-wing and learned those by heart."

  "If that's true, I owe you a favor," Petersen said.

  "I'll collect it at the right time. We stay here until tomorrow. What do you do?"

  "I have to check a couple more things, then we'll go back to Copenhagen."

  "Aren't you alone?" Susanne asked him, surprised.

  "I brought two colleagues, one is a woman and she's got your determination, even if she's not a careerist."

  "Well, then maybe we'll see each other again before you leave, and perhaps you'll introduce her to me," said the reporter winking, then she signaled to Wang to follow her and quickly got out of the office.

  CHAPTER 10

  The farm where Jonas Krogh lived with his sons was located just outside the village, not even a kilometer from the church of Torslunde. Janssen had no problem getting there with his off-road vehicle, following the directions of officer Toft.

  The property consisted of a central body that had been converted into a manor house years before and a couple of other secondary buildings built around a large courtyard. One of the two buildings must have been a barn, judging by the noise made by the cows, while the second shed served as a garage. Inside, you could see a tractor, an old car, and other implements. All around there were the fields, at the moment completely whitewashed because of the fallen snow.

  Krogh was waiting for them sitting on a padded chair in the large kitchen where a fireplace burned the wood used to heat the room day and night. In the meantime, he had boiled some coffee in a pot that usually only his sons used in the morning for breakfast. He preferred the instant mix, but in that case he had made an exception for the guests.

  "Pour it into the other cups as well. They're clean, I just washed them," he told Poulsen, once they arrived.

  "I thank you, but I don't take it. My colleagues can do it themselves, if they want," she replied in the same rude tone of voice that the man had just used.

  Since she entered the house with Janssen, and Toft had introduced them, Krogh was looking at her with resentment.

  "Now women don't want to work in the kitchen anymore, and they prefer to steal the work from us men. I don't know where we're going to end up this way," he said, then he added, watching Toft carefully, "Why don't you order it to her?"

  The boy replied embarrassed, " She' s a senior, I can't do that," then Jonas spit into his handkerchief without saying anything else, although it was clear that he wouldn't answer any questions asked by the woman.

  Janssen cleared his voice and said, "If we can start now, we'd like to know what your relationship with Pastor Knudsen was."

  Before answering, the man took out of his pocket a box of tobacco, rolled a cigarette slowly and pulled his tongue out in the direction of Lene in such a vulgar way that Janssen had to keep from slapping him.

  Except he didn’t have a beard, he perfectly matched the profile that the officers on duty at the intensive care unit had made of the intruder who had passed himself off as Jan Slovak's friend to enter the ward. He was about sixty years old and had short hair, a muscular body, no scruples at all.

  "Jesper was a good pastor and also a friend. We've never had any fights," he answered after he started smoking.

  "So you didn't charge him with your wife's death?"

  "It was not in his power to heal her, since she was devastated by a cancer that gives no escape. We prayed together for her salvation, but it didn't do any good. After her death, he continued to believe in his God, but I didn't."

  "Do you know if he had an argument with anyone recently?"

  "He was always easygoing, sometimes too much, but he couldn't do anything about it. He wasn't a man of character, and maybe none of them are."

  "Who do you refer to?"

  "To clergymen, pastors, bishops, and crows alike, to whom else otherwise? They are half-men, even if some of them get married, but they don't have the balls," said Jonas as he got up to get some coffee.

  "So no one wanted to do him harm," said Søren.

  "That's right, neither to him nor to the scarred one, as far as I know," he replied sitting back down.

  "Are you talking about Ingrid Skov?"

  "Of course. With those burns, no one in their right mind would ever approach her, except perhaps after drinking a little too much."

  Toft escaped a laugh, that's why Poulsen exclaimed, looking at both him and Jonas in the eyes, "I don't find it funny at all. Instead, I’m sure it's just the opposite; to some men, who are just ignorant and hateful, no woman would ever approach, not even drunk."

  Janssen saw the man's jump and stopped Krogh just in time, after he had stood up from the chair with his fists closed.

  "You try to touch her and I'll throw you in jail, but first I'll have the pleasure of punching you, so maybe you'll understand how it feels to be beaten up," he said, and it was clear that he was not joking.

  "It was your colleague who offended me, but I don’t mind, let's pretend that nothing happened," said the man sitting down again. "However, if you have any other questions, ask them quickly, because you are no longer welcome in my house," he added with a look full of hatred.

  When the man had gotten up with the intention of hitting Poulsen, Toft hadn't moved, as if he didn't care at all. Janssen vowed to talk to the cop about it as soon as possible in private, and the conversation would not be the most peaceful.

  "All right. We only have a couple more questions. Did you go to Copenhagen yesterday?"

  "What do you think I should go for?" Krogh asked, seemingly surprised. "We have a car that is so old we are lucky when we get to the village, and it had also begun to snow."

  "So yours is a no," Janssen reiterated.

  "You heard me. I was here at home, and I can add that I haven't been to the capital in at least ten years."

  "So if you were called in for a confrontation with the officers who saw someone who looked like you in Copenhagen, would you be comfortable with it?"

  "Very comfortable. You can bring here whoever you want."

  "One last thing. Where are your sons?"

  "Around here. There's always work to be done on a farm."

  "Are you doing everything by yourselves, even at home?"

  "Since my wife died, we've been doing everything alone. But Asger, my oldest son, should get married next spring, and by then we'll finally have a woman back home."

  "I hope you will treat her better than my colleague if you don't want her to run away immediately," said Søren as he stood up.

  "In our house we do as we please, we do not answer to anyone. If there were more people like us, Denmark would be a great nation, not the pigsty that has become in recent years," replied the man, spitting this time on the ground.

  His opinion was terribly clear, race-orientated and chauvinistic to the extreme, but at least Krogh didn't hide behind words, Poulsen thought and stood up in turn.

  The interview had just ended with those rambling words. Unfortunately, they had not achieved much, because the man had not provided any reason why he would want to see the pastor dead.

  Lene said a silent prayer for the poor girl who would soon become part of that unhealthy environment and went out into the open air, followed by Janssen. Toft stayed behind, and they saw him talking to Krogh as they approached the off-road vehicle parked in the forecourt.

  "What do you think?" Søren asked her.

  "I'm sorry to say that, but Toft is almost certainly compromised," Lene sighed, then she added, "I thank you for your help."

  "I would never let that man touch you," Janssen replied, taking his eyes off her. "Anyway, I feel exactly the same way as you do about our colleague. Even if we don't have any men in the field, I'll still ask Petersen to s
uspend him from active duty and not just for how he behaved here. I'm afraid he might also be involved with the Krogh family in the pastor's murder."

  "Do you want to hear from that idiot's sons right away or should we go back to the precinct?"

  "Let’s go, I don't feel comfortable here. They are three young men and even the father seems to me quite fit, also we cannot trust Toft in case of conflict. If they reacted, we'd be outnumbered, so it's better if we leave right now," he said, looking around.

  Toft returned to the car just as Janssen was setting it in motion.

  "Sorry to make you wait," he said. "Even if it doesn't look like it, Jonas is a good person. He's just a grumpy stubborn old man with his own ideas."

  "If being racist and misogynist is the same as having one's own ideas, long live freedom of opinion," said Poulsen ironically.

  "He would never really hit you, you had only made him nervous," replied the cop in defense of the man.

  "We'll discuss it more calmly at the precinct," Janssen cut short, accelerating and heading for the village.

  It was just four o'clock in the afternoon, but it was already beginning to darken. Soon a total darkness would fall as if it were night. If Svend Karlsen didn't come home as soon as possible, they should start looking for him.

  In the meantime, Petersen was talking to Hans Fischer in front of the precinct. He had gone out, so Holst wouldn't hear what they were going to say.

  "You were right, someone went in," said Fischer as his men put their scientific instruments in the van, along with a box full of papers.

  "What did you find?" asked Petersen.

  "Only the slightest trace of mud in the places you told me to. Our female colleague has a good instinct, I must admit it, but it was not that fact which made us understand that the pastor's house had been searched."

  "What, then? Talk, it's freezing in here," said Lars.

  "It was you who didn't want me to come in, even though I don't understand why," Hans replied but then, faced with Petersen's suddenly uncomfortable gaze, he said, "Oh, oh, you didn't want the officer to hear us. Don't tell me that's a disciplinary thing."