An Old Debt

by Doriana Cantoni

  "Don't make me talk for now, it's better. What did you find in the pastor's house?"

  "Actually, nothing, and it was precisely the absence of something that made us certain that the suspect had rummaged around. Let me explain; he thought he was very clever and wore gloves, so that we could not detect his fingerprints, but by opening the drawers downstairs and those in the upper bedrooms he erased all other fingerprints. Do you think that in a house inhabited by two people no handle would keep any prints?"

  Petersen escaped a fleeting smile and said, "Really clever, you did a great job, you and your team. One last thing, did the key to the studio come up?"

  "It wasn't there, and my men searched everywhere. Eventually, we had to force the lock. We've removed what we found in the drawers and we're going to look into it carefully, in any case I don't think it’s much. But the pastor had hidden a photo that had to be important to him. Whoever checked his papers didn't take the drawer off, and so he didn't find out."

  "Can I have a look at it?"

  "Of course, let me get it," Fischer said, immediately taking a bagged photograph out of his jacket pocket. "I don't know how useful it will be for your investigation, but it's really disturbing."

  The picture showed two boys smiling at the camera. They were dressed in black trousers and shirt and wore a band of heavy fabric with a swastika on their arm, the Nazi symbol for excellence. Behind them, one could see other people dressed in the same way waving German flags. Probably, they were taking part in a political demonstration or a similar event.

  "Do you think one of them was Pastor Knudsen?" asked Fischer.

  Petersen looked at the image carefully and then said, returning it to his colleague, "It could be him, even if the photo, assuming it's really original, must be several decades old. At the time of the Nazi occupation, Jesper Knudsen was twenty years old and, if you remember, the few collaborationists were young boys who were indoctrinated by clever German officers, often endowed with charm and lot of money. In this way they tried to convince the public that had always been against the Nazi belief. They organized meetings in the capital and often distributed rambling leaflets to the population. I remember it well, since they tried to convince me to join one of those awful circles."

  "I guess it was because you look like a Viking, but I suspect they didn't succeed," said Hans, smiling.

  "I punched one of those recruiters to the ground in May 1943 just before the strikes, and I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was a well-settled blow and the guy flew for several meters under the amazed and terrified gaze of my friends of the time. Then, of course, I had to escape, and I hid on my grandfather's farm until the end of the war, along with two Jewish families who had found refuge by them. That wasn't a very heroic act, but at least it saved my skin."

  "We too fled, like all those who had a place where to go, otherwise we wouldn't have survived. Do you think that Knudsen hadn't denied his former ideas? That he was still an extremist?"

  "Maybe it's just the opposite. He may have become a pastor to expiate his old sins, but sometimes the past returns," replied the inspector thoughtfully.

  "Nielsen expects to get results as soon as possible. He keeps saying you'll solve the case in a few days. Pretend that I didn't tell you," Fischer said, signaling to his men that he was almost done.

  "I'm afraid Kurt's unfortunately wrong, since the investigation is too difficult to hope for a quick solution. Have a nice trip and let me know if anything pops from the papers you seized."

  "I'll call you tomorrow late, so let me find you. Are you staying here much longer?"

  "I was thinking until tomorrow, but now I'm not sure. I suspect there's going to be a new problem, a big one. A boy has been missing from home since last night. If he doesn't come back soon, we will have to start his search, and if the press puts their hands on this news they will give us the torment."

  "Do you think this has something to do with Knudsen case?"

  "The boy is of legal age, although very recently. At that age, you do almost everything that goes through your head. He could have run away with a girlfriend for a couple of days, or have gone to Copenhagen to some friend of whom we know nothing. His father says he's not a roughneck boy, and he would never do it, so we'll see what happens tonight."

  "I heard that Hansen is here, try to keep her away from the case as much as possible and from this latest news. She is capable of painting this little village as a den of monsters, just to increase the audience."

  "You don't need to remind me. Earlier I had to do a short interview with her, and she tried to make me look like a fool all the time. However, in the end she also provided me with some interesting hints, so it was not all wasted time. We'll manage, as usual. Make a good trip," Petersen repeated to him, shaking his hand, then he saw him get into the van that left right after.

  The inspector came back to the office and decided to call the Mertens immediately. He had thought of doing it only the following day to clarify a couple of points, but with all that was waiting for them it was better to proceed in the immediacy.

  The fact that the woman had given the indication of a black pick-up in the neighborhood right at the time of the murder, a vehicle that no one else seemed to have seen, was a serious fact. He didn't understand whether she had done so with the goal of somehow deflecting the investigation in progress, or just for a kind of sick protagonism.

  "Holst, give me the number of the Mertens," he said, sitting at Toft's desk.

  Mr. Mertens answered the third ring, his voice fogged, as if he had run.

  "I'm Inspector Petersen," he told the man.

  He remained silent for a moment, then said, "Good evening, Inspector. Do you still need us?"

  "We did some background checks, and nobody seems to have seen the black pick-up your wife told us about."

  "I thought so, since I hadn't noticed that car either. I immediately figured that Else had gotten confused with some other day, or maybe she just imagined it because of the stress. I'm really sorry," the man was saying when he was interrupted by a scream.

  "What's going on?" asked Lars, alarmed.

  "This is not a good time for us. My wife is having a nervous breakdown, I told you she was shocked to see all that blood. I had to call a psychiatrist friend from Copenhagen, he's been treating her for several years and now he's trying to calm her down."

  "Then I'll let you go to your wife, but I'll send some of my men to check how you're doing by evening," the inspector said, hanging up.

  "Is there any problem?" asked Holst.

  "Else Mertens was screaming. Her husband said she was having a nervous breakdown, so let's hope it's not a serious thing."

  " She' not right in the head, but she's not mean."

  "We'll see if you're right. About your sergeant, do you know where he keeps his office keys? I need to get in there to check the alleged drug dealing report your colleague told me about as soon as possible. That case could have something to do with my investigation."

  "I think he always carries them with him to make sure no one comes in when he's not there. I've already explained that the sergeant is very jealous of his place," said the cop in a neutral tone of voice.

  "Then we'll have to force the door. As I think you know, the office is not privately owned, and the files remain available to senior officials."

  "Do I kick the door down or would you rather do it by yourself?" asked Holst while getting out of his chair.

  "Since we're going to have to put it back, I'd rather not take it down completely," Petersen replied with an half smile.

  The door was made of solid wood, strangely very strong for being positioned inside. Perhaps Lassen had wanted it just like that, in order to discourage anyone who wanted to enter the room without his permission, thought the inspector checking the thickness closely. The only advantage was that since there was no glass insert there would probably be no damage at the very first solicitation.

  Petersen tried to test the solidi
ty of the handle, then looked at the fixtures, and finally said, "Call a locksmith now, it's urgent. I want this door open by the end of the day."

  "It's gonna cost a lot."

  "It doesn't matter, as long as you find someone to do the job fast. When you're done, call Karin Rasmussen and tell her that her dog has been found. The forensic team took the body to Copenhagen for examination, but in a few days she should be able to retrieve it."

  Jens was still on the phone when his colleague Toft, Poulsen, and Janssen came back. Ole sat down next to him, while Janssen went with the inspector and the woman on the far side of the room, starting to speak up immediately.

  "Are you really sure?" Petersen asked him, speaking in half a voice, so as not to be heard by the others, after Søren had described him in detail how Jonas Krogh's interview had gone.

  "From the way he behaved and from what he told us, Krogh has without any doubt strong extreme right-wing sympathies. He is a racist, and in my opinion he also hates all women. As I told you, we didn't get a chance to listen to his sons, as I preferred to come away. I hope I didn't make a mistake."

  "Don't be kidding. You did the right thing, getting away immediately. In that situation, I would behave in the same way, first of all comes safety," said Lars.

  "What are you going to do about Toft?"

  "Nothing at the moment, so as not to discover our cards too soon. We must take advantage of the surprise factor, but we need to keep a constant eye on him. I'll also have to talk to superintendent Nielsen again to get some more officers from Copenhagen here, in order to cover our backs. We don't have to be outnumbered with that scum for a moment."

  "Do you think the boy is just a supporter or that he has an active role?" asked Janssen.

  "When Hansen came here for the interview, she told me some pretty incredible news, but now with what you've been telling me I'm led to believe that it's true. She said she saw a Nazi tattoo on the inside of Toft's left wrist the other day."

  "So there may be a bunch of extremists right here in the village," said Poulsen.

  "It's also my opinion. We already have in that list Krogh with his three sons, along with Officer Toft. Also, I wouldn't rule out Holst being involved, as they've been working together for years, and maybe Sergeant Lassen himself."

  "Even if it were, how would they fit in with the pastor's death?" asked Janssen.

  "I'll explain it to you right away, but let's make sure we don't make ourselves heard. Inspector Fischer of the forensic team has just left. Before going back with his men to the central police station in Copenhagen, he confirmed to me our suspicions. Someone broke into Knudsen's house and searched everywhere, even if he missed something that somehow connects the pastor to these racists."

  "Anything compromising?" asked Poulsen.

  "I'd say absolutely yes. It is a picture from the early 1940s depicting two young Nazi supporters dressed in black with a swastika on their arms. We suspect one of them was Knudsen as a boy," whispered the inspector.

  Janssen remained without words, totally astonished, then he said, "So he was one of them."

  "Almost certainly. After the war, Knudsen returned to normal life, but perhaps it was for the remorse of what he had committed during those years that after some time he took his vows. Let's remember that he hadn't been back to Copenhagen since he became a pastor. My suspicion is that when he returned last week for the proclamation of the queen he ran into someone from his past in the square by accident."

  "It would explain why he went away for more than an hour and Hanne's son, Achim Møller, told us that just before the pastor seemed to have seen a ghost. But is it really believable that someone wanted to have him pay for something after thirty years? And also, why would he keep that photo?" asked Poulsen.

  "Perhaps for him it had a particular meaning, maybe a warning. In any case old debts, or supposed ones, are often the worst. I hope that Nielsen will be able to find something about Knudsen in our pre-war archives, even if I still miss the link that could possibly exist between such an old story and the new rise of extremists here in Torslunde," replied the inspector.

  "If the pastor found out about them, probably he threatened to report them, and it's why they might have decided to silence him," said Søren.

  "It's an interesting suggestion, even though they actually had little to lose, not having committed any criminal act until now, as far as we know," replied Petersen, then he turned inside the room and said to Holst, "Did you call the blacksmith?"

  "He'll be here in half an hour," answered the cop.

  "What does he have to do?" asked Janssen.

  "Open Sergeant Lassen's office door. I want to check his files. Yesterday, immediately after the discovery of the pastor's body, he was not reachable by his men for a few hours because of a stakeout that he allegedly made to a resident of the village involved in a possible drug deal. I need to check the data, then I'll call Olaf Karlsen to see if we need to start searching for his son."

  Officer Toft who had been the first to talk about the drug story remained absolutely silent, but he exchanged a worried glance with his colleague.

  "What do we do now?" asked Poulsen.

  "First, you need to go back to the Mertens and make sure the wife is okay. I called earlier about the pickup, and I heard her screaming during the call. Her husband justified himself saying that she was having a nervous breakdown. He also added that the psychiatrist who had been treating her for a long time was with them, but it is always better to check that this is true. That woman is weird and could even have killed the pastor during a moment of madness because of something irrelevant that he had just told her. Then her husband could have attacked Skov to silence the only witness of the fact. It would be an almost perfect crime, with the killers passing themselves off as eyewitnesses and thus getting away with it," concluded the inspector.

  "All right, we'll go right now," said Lene, putting on her scarf and coat.

  "Be careful. The husband looks like an old man very easygoing, but he's a former career soldier. Never lower your guard for any reason," Petersen told Søren who nodded before opening the door.

  Janssen knew exactly what the inspector was talking about, since he had experienced it in person. As a young man in his early twenties, he had entered the special army units which were the elite of the armed forces, before leaving with honor and then applying to join the police. Usually, former soldiers recognized each other immediately. They had a superior capacity to resist the efforts than simple civilians, and they also knew how to quickly neutralize an enemy.

  "So our witness was a soldier. Did he tell you that?" he asked Poulsen as soon as they were in the car alone.

  "He would never do that. Michael Mertens is a very reserved man, and he doesn't keep anything in the house related to the army, but he didn't deny it, when I asked him. He said he was a colonel at the military base in Copenhagen."

  "Then he's a big shot, the kind to treat with extreme care. What about his wife, instead. Do you think she could have killed the pastor?"

  "Like Petersen said, she's creepy. She seems to be living in her own world, and I don't think she considers others very much, but I'm not sure she's crazy enough to be able to hurt anyone."

  "How are you doing with him?"

  "Who are you referring to?"

  "To Petersen. As far as I know, this is the first time you've worked together," Janssen said, while he kept watching the road ahead. He didn't want to show that he was jealous.

  "I still have a lot to learn, but I think he's a great senior partner. I'm sure he'll solve the case sooner than he thinks."

  "Where do I stop?"

  "Pull over wherever you want, that's the house. We can get there easily on foot," said Lene, pointing to the cottage.

  A light was on outside the front door of the house and illuminated the porch, so they saw that Mr. Mertens was greeting a man wrapped in a coat with a fur collar.

  The old colonel was surprised at Lene's new visit. She was
with an officer he had never seen before, and when they were within walking distance of him, he said to his guest, "The police are back to see us."

  "Inspector Petersen sent us to make sure your wife is all right. Can we see her?" said Poulsen.

  "At the moment it's not possible. She' been sleeping upstairs for almost an hour. She was very agitated and Dr. Völler was forced to give her a strong sleeping pill, otherwise she would not calm down," Mertens replied, introducing the psychiatrist.

  "Unfortunately, she had a little breakdown, but it was predictable with what happened" said the specialist, then he waved goodbye and quickly headed towards his car.

  "Has the doctor been treating her for a long time?" asked Janssen.

  "For many years. I've known Dieter personally for a long time, and I can honestly say that I trust him blindly. He successfully treated some of my men who suffered from post-traumatic stress caused by difficult missions. When Else started to feel bad, I immediately realized that I had to do something, and I did not hesitate for a moment to ask him for help."

  "What exactly does your wife suffer from?"

  "She has little anxiety crises, it's common to a lot of people. She is usually a very calm person, and it seems that nothing can scratch her, but then there are times when she can't make it anymore. She starts crying all of a sudden, or she starts screaming for nothing."

  "Could she become dangerous for others?"

  "No, that's absolutely impossible," Mertens said in an outraged voice, striking Janssen with his eyes, then he added, "Now I have to go back to her," and without waiting for an answer, he closed the door of his house.

  "Mertens didn't kick us out just because we were already in the open," said Lene smiling.

  "He certainly has something to hide," Søren replied seriously, and they began to head towards the car.

  "Can I ask your opinion about something that I'm not comfortable with?" said Lene after taking a few steps.

  "What is it?"

  "This morning we let Officer Holst check with the neighbors if anyone had seen a black pick-up. Would you mind if we went back and asked again?"