Dead Souls

by Elsebeth Egholm

  ‘So they exhibit death-defying courage then?’

  ‘They don’t fear death. But that doesn’t mean that they’re foolhardy, either. They’re some of the most highly trained soldiers in the world. Elite troops, just like Danish commandos.’

  He paused.

  ‘Whatever you’re mixed up in, let me give you some good advice: be very careful! These guys are no pussy cats.’

  Later, when Bronco had fallen asleep in an armchair and the dog had settled down on the rug by the sofa, the Spanish motto flitted around in his brain. Viva la muerte. He was sure he had seen or heard about it before, but he couldn’t place where. Eventually he fell into a painful sleep and dreamt that a giant of a man was beating him to pulp over and over again.

  27

  ‘I JUST WANT you to know that I’m better at doing this than cooking.’

  Kir grabbed the laptop and flopped down next to Mark. After the failure of her overcooked plaice it was about time she demonstrated her skills in other areas.

  ‘You’re saying that the bones are from the post-war period?’

  ‘We can’t know for certain,’ Mark said. ‘But it’s likely. The latest is that they’re now looking for a DNA match so they can identify the body.’

  She clicked and could feel him edging away from her and craning his neck to see the screen. Neither of them had mentioned their truce.

  ‘I told you about the Koral Strait.’

  She clicked and a naval chart appeared.

  ‘Here. This is where the shipping channel to Kalø Bay is at its narrowest. Just after the war up to forty thousand tons of aerial bombs and other munitions were dumped here. Quite a lot of it came from Tirstrup Airport, which had been built by the Germans using Danish labour.’

  She looked at him and then turned her attention back to the screen.

  ‘Later, in order to transport fuel to Studstrup Power Station, the Danes had to dredge the channel. That was in the 1960s. A German company got the contract, together with the Danish Navy. The Danes subsequently realised they could handle the job themselves so they fired the Germans. And take a look at this.’

  She clicked and a picture appeared. It was one of her favourite photographs. It was in black-and-white and showed a huge column of water in the bay, obviously following an underwater explosion. In the foreground a ferry sailed on as if nothing had happened.

  ‘It was sabotage, 1969. A German diver was pissed off at having been sacked and wanted to get his own back on his company. He detonated a bomb. It left a massive hollow in the sea bed four metres deep and around twenty-five by sixty metres wide.’

  She looked at Mark.

  ‘Now, this might not mean anything, but I found the box of bones right in the middle of the hollow.’

  Mark stared at the photograph.

  ‘So what you’re telling me is that the box hadn’t been there for all those years, but that it was dumped there by someone who knew where the hollow was and knew it would be buried even deeper?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Perhaps. Incidentally, civilians are forbidden from entering that area. But that doesn’t stop people from fishing illegally or diving down to the wrecks which are also in the channel.’

  ‘So the box could have been kept somewhere else for many years.’

  ‘Some years. At least until 1969.’

  He leaned back in the sofa, but she could see that she had fired his imagination.

  ‘So it’s someone who knows the waters around Djursland. The shipping channel. The Koral Strait, or whatever you call it . . .’

  ‘Sounds about right.’

  ‘Someone hid a box of bones, possibly at home in a shed. Suddenly it became necessary to get rid of it. Perhaps someone got suspicious, about a crime that took place many years ago.’

  ‘Perhaps . . .’

  She produced more photos. It was a combination of work and pleasure for her, and she wanted him as her ally.

  ‘Possible motive for killing at the time,’ she said. ‘Tirstrup Airport.’

  ‘My grandfather worked there during the war.’

  ‘Half of Djursland did,’ Kir said. ‘Is he still alive?’

  ‘He’s in a nursing home. He turned ninety-five back in August.’

  She clicked and found more black-and-white photos from the Occupation: men with shovels and diggers, men with horse and carts, men in ditches.

  ‘Danish workers were given the choice between building the airport or collecting unemployment benefit, which they couldn’t live on. A number of Danish construction companies offered to work for the Germans.’

  Mark followed her train of thought.

  ‘I’m guessing their popularity dipped when the war was over.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘The construction companies had had no scruples about raking it in during the war. Collaborators were up to all sorts of fraud and fiddles. So after 1945 there were three to four thousand workers who were not very happy. They turned their anger on Danish traitors.’

  ‘Liquidations,’ he stated. ‘Payback time.’

  She clicked again and more old photos appeared.

  ‘The airport wasn’t for harmless passenger planes. Look here.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  Mark nearly broke his neck trying to see. ‘A plane on top of another plane?’

  She was in her element now. He should see the collection of model war planes and ships she kept in crates in her garage. She had assembled them herself and glued and furnished them with historically accurate stickers: symbols from that period. Not to mention all the World War II books in two layers on her bookcase.

  ‘It’s called a “Vater und Sohn” – a father and son. It was part of a secret German project that went under the codename of Beethoven. It’s a so-called Mistel plane.’

  He looked at her, open-mouthed. Even she could hear the nerdy enthusiasm in her voice.

  ‘A Mistel plane consists of a two-engine bomb-carrying drone with a fighter plane mounted on struts on top. The fighter plane flies to the target on the drone, the cockpit of which is replaced with an elephant bomb, as it was known.’

  ‘Is that its trunk there?’

  Mark pointed to the photograph. The lower plane did indeed have a very long nose.

  ‘That nose forms part of an explosive charge of 3.6 tonnes. The Brits were terrified that the German project would be successful. As a result, they bombed Tirstrup Airport repeatedly. An elephant mine could blow its way through eighteen metres of solid steel, it could destroy practically anything. This is what they were making in Tirstrup.’

  ‘And this is the kind of thing you dive for in the Koral Strait?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And possibly it was one like this that exploded that day in 1969?’

  They sat for a while digesting the food and the topic they had just discussed.

  ‘You said you were going to get a list, of people who had gone missing towards the end of the war and in its aftermath?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Oluf Jensen is going to get it.’

  ‘I wonder how many locals we’re talking about,’ she said. ‘I wonder if it’s even possible to identify the victim.’

  ‘The forensic anthropologists are working hard at it,’ he said. ‘And don’t forget there was a fracture to the femur that had healed, which could prove very helpful to us.’

  Kir clicked and the old photos were gone. Her screensaver was an underwater photograph of a dive near a hole in the ice with blues and greens and whites and a cold sun. Mark continued:

  ‘I think they’re a bit embarrassed about their initial mistake, so they’re trying extra hard to come up with some usable DNA.’

  She packed away the computer.

  ‘I knew you could find DNA in water. But after so many years?’

  ‘They’re not looking for ordinary DNA. It’s known as mitochondria or mtDNA,’ said Mark, who had spoken to the forensic examiner. ‘It’s the kind you find in mummies, for
example. That was how they identified the murdered family of the Russian Tsar when they found their bodies. MtDNA can’t be passed on from men to their children, so you need to get hold of a female descendant. The Tsar’s family shared mtDNA with Lord Mountbatten, because both he and the Tsar’s family had inherited it from Queen Victoria.’

  ‘Do you think our bone-man is related to Queen Victoria?’ Kir asked.

  ‘I doubt it.’

  He got up. It was getting late and they were both tired. For a moment she searched for the attraction between them, and it was as if he was doing the same. But then she remembered the smell of hooker and the truce, and he possibly remembered something completely different, and the professional side won.

  ‘But if we link a name on the list to some mtDNA, we can reckon it’ll be among the mothers in the family that we’ll find it . . . Thanks for dinner. I’d better be off.’

  ‘You should come diving one day,’ she said.

  He smiled.

  ‘Have you ever found one of those elephant mines?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And have you helped to detonate it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Now off you go, cop. It’s time for me to turn in.’

  28

  ALICE BRASK, MELISSA’S mother, lived in a residential area of Randers.

  The houses had obviously been built in the 1960s and the 1970s. Some had been renovated with new glossy black roof tiles and zinc-framed gables. Other owners had apparently used the house’s equity in the first half of the so-called Noughties to build conservatories, orangeries or extensions of various kinds, while the rest of the house was left to rot with loose roof tiles, dubious woodwork and punctured double-glazing.

  At the end of the cul-de-sac was a small, yellow-brick house with a wooden porch and west-facing garden. Not in any way ostentatious, but nicely maintained. Outside, in the carport, was a burgundy Ford Fiesta.

  The weather hadn’t improved much. Rain was falling steadily and the wind was howling, so the rain from the west looked like fluttering curtains. Peter had heard on the car radio about all the problems the autumn gales had caused. Several basements had already flooded; a car had driven into the harbour in Aarhus; a fishing boat was in distress somewhere off the island of Læsø and a major rescue operation was underway.

  He winced as he parked and got out further up from the house. He had woken up in pain to see a note from Bronco saying he had gone to work. There was coffee in the thermos flask. He had forced down a cup of the tar-like substance, as well as two painkillers and a bowl of porridge. Then he had opened the laptop, read Alice Brask’s blog and seen that she was constantly updating it with everything she knew – or believed she knew – about the investigation into Melissa’s death. The story about the scaffolding accident was also there:

  Attempt to eliminate witness? A worker from a local carpentry firm today met with a serious accident . . . The unfortunate is a colleague of the man who told the police what he had seen by the moat on the day that Melissa was killed. Coincidence? You can only guess, but rumour has it that the police are treating the accident as suspicious . . .

  Blah blah blah. Where the hell did she get her information from? And so quickly?

  Peter felt like hurling Manfred’s computer out of the window. Instead, he shut it down after making a note of Alice Brask’s address. It was time for him to have a chat with the grieving mother.

  And now here he was, in the pouring rain. Feeling as if he wanted to enter a house and strangle a woman he had never met, who had just lost her daughter.

  He plunged his hands into his pockets just to keep them under control. Then he heard a door open and a woman dashed out and got into the Fiesta. He glimpsed a dark raincoat and a pair of smart, neon-coloured wellingtons before the door was slammed and the Fiesta reversed out of the carport.

  Disappointment was no more than a fleeting emotion. He automatically got back into his van and followed the burgundy car, keeping a reasonable distance between them without losing sight of Alice as she drove off towards the centre of Randers. He didn’t know the town well, but it couldn’t possibly be as illogically planned as Aarhus, where he always had to keep a wary eye open for one-way streets. Once he nearly lost sight of the Fiesta when it turned off quickly and headed for an area of very short, narrow streets. The traffic was heavy. People had clearly opted to take their cars in the bad weather, and he had to nip in and out as best he could while the rain streamed down the gutters and tyres sprayed it back up onto the windscreen.

  The burgundy car indicated and slipped into a parking space between a van and a Mercedes. He quickly tried to get his bearings but had to park illegally, far too near a corner, to make sure he had a hope of seeing where Alice was going.

  He took the risk, slammed the door shut and followed her at a distance, wishing he had brought something to ward off the rain. Instead, he put up his collar and sploshed through the drenched streets. She was in a hurry. Every now and then she would glance at her watch. He guessed she had arranged to meet someone.

  Then she turned around and looked down the street as if searching for someone and Peter had the clear sensation that she had seen him. He nearly slipped into a doorway but then, fortunately, she continued on her way. And almost before he had time to realise, she stepped inside a café called Klostercaféen.

  He stopped at a discreet distance. Should he go after her? Had she seen him? And what was he actually doing, following a woman just because she had written something in her blog?

  He slowly strolled past the café and felt like an idiot. Cafés were for women who drank lattes and gossiped about boyfriends, husbands and fashion. He would stick out like a sore thumb.

  But there were lots of people inside the large L-shaped room. He saw Alice Brask wrestle off her coat and sit down at a vacant table. Her date was apparently even later than she was.

  Without a moment’s reflection he pushed open the door and entered while she was busy draping her coat over the back of her chair. He headed for the opposite end of the room and thus avoided her gaze. From this relatively secure position he told himself he had a complete overview of the place. And when he found a newspaper on a rack and ordered an espresso, without her turning around, he started to feel very pleased with himself. She had no idea, it was obvious. He could do a star turn in a spy film if someone made him an offer. He poured sugar in his espresso, leaned back and opened the newspaper.

  The bell above the door jingled. Another customer entered. An umbrella was shaken. Hair nudged into place. A woman in high heels sashayed into the café in the direction of Alice Brask’s table. Peter nearly choked on his coffee. Miriam!

  She scanned the room while making a beeline for the journalist at the end of the room. He instinctively hid his face behind the newspaper. She hesitated, noticeably. Then she appeared to make up her mind that the coast was clear, went over and held out her hand to Melissa’s mother.

  29

  POLICE OFFICERS HATED rain. Not only was it unpleasant to move about in drenched clothes and wet conditions, it also washed away evidence. Rain made their work more difficult and could ultimately decide whether or not a case would stand up in court.

  And that was what it was all about. Did they have a suspect? Could they build a case? Was there something tangible to give to the prosecutor?

  This was why the mood was at rock bottom when Anna Bagger’s team met that morning. Mark couldn’t only see it. He could smell it. It hung over the detectives like a damp cloth. Defeat. It hadn’t helped that he had just aired a slightly crazy theory about bombs and post-war scores being settled. Anna Bagger might just as well have patted him on the head as if he were a little boy with a toy car when she dismissed his account about the meeting with Oluf Jensen and Kir’s information with a wave of her hand.

  ‘As long as we have no concrete evidence, I’d like to focus on the Melissa case.’

  One detective after another gave their input and contributed to the depres
sion. They were pursuing nothing but dead ends.

  Melissa’s friends, schoolmates and teachers had been interviewed without anything to show for their efforts. A picture was starting to appear of a reticent girl who spent a lot of time alone and had her own ideas about the ways of the world – ideas more suited to the world of the convent than outside its walls. The only possible leads now seemed to be the girl’s computer and her mobile from the days when she lived a more normal life. Neither of them had so far proved to contain anything of significance, but forensic examinations were still ongoing.

  ‘Mark? Did you find the time to speak to Alice Brask?’ Anna Bagger asked with a weary look.

  ‘She wasn’t at home when I stopped by. I can try again, if you like.’

  ‘After this meeting, possibly?’

  It was an order rather than a request. ‘Your box of bones isn’t going anywhere,’ she added.

  He didn’t agree entirely, but he merely nodded.

  ‘The scaffolding accident,’ Anna said. ‘What do we know about it?’

  ‘The CSOs confirmed that the metal poles had been cut with a hacksaw,’ Martin Nielsen said. ‘But there is no other evidence. Potential fingerprints were washed off by the rain, and no one appears to have seen anything.’

  ‘When was the scaffolding put up?’

  ‘The day before the accident,’ Martin Nielsen said. ‘The sabotage could have been carried out at night.’

  ‘The question is whether it has anything to do with Melissa’s murder,’ Anna Bagger said. ‘Manfred Kaster hasn’t been on our radar in that respect, but Peter Boutrup has. I thought our theory was that the accident was meant for him?’

  There was nodding and affirmative muttering all around.

  ‘You’ve spoken to Peter, Mark. What’s your impression?’

  ‘That he was shocked and angry,’ Mark said. ‘As I would be if my best friend became a cripple because I’d been named as a witness in a murder case.’

  ‘Named?’