‘I am better and I’m bored here. You, of all people, should know that.’
He looked as if he did. She pointed to a cupboard in the corner.
‘Please would you get my clothes?’
He got up and passed her the clothes with a suspicious look.
‘Now what?’
‘Turn around, cop.’
She sat upright in the bed and pulled off the hospital gown. She hated it. Hated the sensation of the fabric against her skin, the smell of institution and detergent.
‘You can’t just . . .’
‘Turn around, I said.’
He did as he was told. She felt much more comfortable when she had her jeans and jumper on. In a matter of seconds she had packed her few possessions.
He glanced at his watch, still with his back to her.
‘I’ve got a meeting shortly, Kir. I can’t just . . .’
‘Where?’
‘At the police station. With Oluf Jensen.’
She finished tying her shoelaces.
‘OK. Please would you drop me at the railway station? I’ve just discharged myself.’
39
BELLA APPEARED TO have recovered after the previous day’s encounter with Gumbo’s bolt cutters, but she looked like someone who feared Peter’s anger even more. Her eyes flitted around the room looking for something to hold on to and her hands were constantly on the move. Her body language exuded defensiveness.
‘You knew Magnus was meeting Melissa. Why didn’t you tell me?’
Bella wrung out the dishcloths and wiped the kitchen table in long, orderly sweeps.
‘I told you it was all connected,’ she muttered. ‘Alice Brask. Melissa. Magnus’s disappearance. I kept nothing from you.’
She kept her eyes on her work.
‘Connected? That’s the biggest understatement in the world. Your son is in contact with a girl. He disappears and the girl turns up dead. Murdered. Have you any idea how that looks?’
Nervously, she nudged some hair away from her face with her wrist.
‘Magnus is no killer.’
‘I’m sure the mother of the Boston Strangler said the same thing.’
She tidied the dishcloth away and wiped her hands on her apron with her forefinger, still bandaged, sticking out. She eyed Peter. And then she went into the living room.
‘Magnus was scared,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘You say Melissa was scared too. That makes two scared teenagers, one of whom is now dead.’
‘What was he scared of?’
She rummaged around in the drawer of an old-fashioned dresser, then took out a note.
‘I should probably have given this to you sooner.’
He took it and read the handwritten message:
‘There’s a debt to be paid. It’s due soon.’
Bella looked at him with resignation.
‘I found it scrunched up in one of his drawers. Obviously, I searched his room when he disappeared.’
Peter held up the note.
‘And this isn’t Gumbo’s handwriting?’
She gave a short laugh.
‘Everyone knows that Gumbo can’t read or write. The man’s as thick as a plank, but handy with a pair of bolt cutters.’
She shook her head.
‘I asked him about it. He went mental. I think that was why he broke my finger . . . I provoked him and said I didn’t think he could use bolt cutters, either.’
‘So Magnus has another enemy, apart from Gumbo?’
She nodded.
‘The same one as Melissa?’
‘Perhaps. I’m not sure.’
‘And you really have no idea who it might be?’
She looked angry now. A vertical furrow appeared between her brows and she narrowed her eyes.
‘Of course I don’t know who it is. I would have told you.’
Would she? It sounded convincing, but he didn’t trust her. She was beautiful and fragile and she appealed to his protective instinct, but she had lied to him, more than once.
‘You have to go to the police.’
Her face hardened in defiance. It was My to a T when she had her mind set on something.
‘I daren’t.’
He understood that well enough. In debt to a brutal debt collector, a son on the run, exposed and alone – any pursuer would quickly get the scent, just like a hunting dog would smell an injured animal.
‘So what do you want?’
She put her hand on his arm. He resisted but was drawn in by her eyes, which were filled with fear.
‘The same as before. For you to find Magnus and bring him back to me.’
He was stupid, he was well aware of that. But somewhere out there a young boy needed his help. It wasn’t Magnus’s fault that he had an impossible liar for a mother. And it wasn’t his fault that someone had killed Melissa and might now be looking for him. That was how it was, Peter thought. Magnus was a victim, just like Melissa had been – but why? What was the link between two people who had only known each other as children? Could it be fear, of a common enemy?
He mulled it over as he left Bella shortly afterwards with a few tips as to where Magnus might have gone. The postcards sent a clear message. The boy was continually on the move. Bella told him he had been a boy scout and that for some time now he had given guitar lessons for cash, so he must have some money.
Survival shelters were a good bet, Peter reckoned. A boy scout would know how to camp out in such places, even in a windy, rainy November. He would know how to survive, just as Peter had known when he’d left prison. Out in the open. That was where he belonged. And he had known it as surely as the sky was high and blue, and that the trees lost their leaves in the autumn and grew new ones in the spring. He knew what it was like to be Magnus, to trust only animals and nature rather than people.
He spent the day searching in and around all the shelters he could find in areas where Bella had told him Magnus had been with his scout troop. He ended up at the Super Best supermarket near the shelter in Mollerup Forest by Vejlby. Here he bought three tubs of potato salad, three packets of sausages, some coleslaw, dog treats and a six-pack of beer. At the till he produced a photo of Magnus, but the girl barely glanced at it before shaking her head.
Afterwards he bought an Othello layer cake at the bakery and showed the photo to the lady behind the counter. She took her time, but also ended up returning it to him.
‘So many people come here, you know,’ she said.
On the way out he saw a noticeboard where people advertised items for sale or pinned up missing cat posters. The idea of adding a missing boy poster seemed absurd. However, he considered the possibility as he drove home to the cliff top and his dog.
40
‘THE GOOD NEWS is that the pathologists have found mitochondrial DNA in one of the vertebrae.’
Oluf Jensen waved the report in front of Mark’s nose. They were in his office again. This time Mark could actually smell the smoke from the pipe which the detective almost certainly kept hidden in his desk drawer.
‘Who knows, we might be able to identify our bone man after all. In theory,’ Jensen said cheerfully.
‘In theory,’ Mark said. ‘But where do we start looking?’
‘Aye, there’s the rub. Where to look?’
A raised index finger – Oluf Jensen must have been a senior teacher in his former life – was held up in the smoky air. Mark thought he was going to suffocate.
‘Do you mind if I open a window?’
Oluf Jensen stared at him, as if Mark had announced he was about to remove his trousers. Then he waved again, now with his whole hand.
‘Please yourself.’
Mark got up, pushed open the window and inhaled a big lungful of fresh city air. He lingered by the window sill.
‘What about the list of missing persons from the post-war showdowns with collaborators? Have you made any progress there?’
The detective nodded, spun around in his chair and launched himself
at his computer with effortless expertise.
‘It’s not complete yet.’
He peered at Mark over the rim of his glasses. ‘And it never will be. But we have some local names to follow up. If I may ask you to be patient . . .’
Mark waited while his colleague opened a file and printed a copy for each of them.
‘Take a look at this.’
Oluf Jensen handed Mark a sheet of A4 paper. There were four names on the list. Each one was followed by a few explanatory lines.
‘Bear in mind that these are people who went missing and remain unaccounted for in the period from January 1945 to January 1946,’ Oluf Jensen explained with a gravity that suggested he intended to test Mark on all the names later. ‘Most were found, remember. Some with a bullet in the brain or another part of their anatomy.’
‘Do we have a list of their names as well?’ Mark asked.
Oluf Jensen returned to his computer.
‘Of course. There are twelve from the Djursland area. But none of them could be our bone man.’
Nonetheless, he printed that list as well and handed it to Mark.
‘The more I think about it, the more I believe it must have been a local murder, irrespective of whether it was motivated by a post-war score to be settled or something purely personal.’
Mark nodded.
‘Agreed.’
He felt slightly less like a student and more like a colleague when he repeated what Kir had told him about the Koral Strait and the elephant mine that had detonated in the 1960s when the channel was being cleared.
‘Interesting,’ Oluf Jensen conceded. ‘If the box has only lain there for twenty years or so, where were the bones being kept in the meantime? Could they have been buried somewhere – in a garden, perhaps – or stored in a basement?’
His eyes sparkled behind his spectacles. Mark could see the ardour of a bloodhound and he felt a momentary kinship between them.
‘And why would someone suddenly get an urge to dispose of them by sailing to an area which technically speaking is prohibited?’
Mark ran his eye down the first list. He didn’t recognise any of the names, even though he was Djursland born and bred.
‘Are they all collaborators or what?’
‘It’s probably not that simple,’ Oluf Jensen said. ‘At least one man was a Resistance fighter who disappeared without trace. I would assume there must have been some tit for tat murders.’
Mark read out loud:
Kurt Falk, contractor, born 1899, reported missing from his home on 27 April 1945. Never been seen since. Kurt Falk supplied concrete components for the construction of Tirstrup Airport as a subcontractor to a larger company, AK Cement A/S.
Allan Holme-Olsen, pipefitter and Resistance fighter. Born 1910. Reported missing on 1 May 1945. Worked on the construction of Tirstrup Airport from 1943 to 1945.
Herbert Kolding, born 1906, a shopkeeper from Grenå. Allegedly abducted from his home by members of the Resistance in March 1945. Rumour had it that Herbert Kolding was an informant. He was never found. No one has been held accountable for his disappearance.
Tage Juel Larsen, a builder from Ebeltoft, born 1902. Is alleged to have supplied building materials and expertise to the Germans. Disappeared from his home in April 1945 and has never been seen since.
Mark looked up with the paper in his hand.
‘I don’t recognise the names, but I’ll try to track down some relatives of these four men. It would be the obvious place to start, given we’re talking about Djursland.’
Oluf Jensen started doodling on his own copy of the list, as was his wont. Soon each name had its own symbol: the contractor – a lorry, the Resistance fighter – a gun, the shopkeeper – a bag of flour and the bricklayer – a trowel.
‘Sounds like you know the place well?’
The question came as dripping mortar was added to the trowel.
Far too well, Mark thought.
‘I’m Grenå born and bred.’
Oluf Jensen finally tore himself away from his artwork and put down his pen.
‘Remember, it has to be the maternal line. You need to get hold of one or more of the people from the female bloodline. Then we’ll take blood samples and see what we get.’
Mark felt a light tingle run through his body. It was his equivalent to the twinkle he’d seen earlier in Oluf Jensen’s eyes. He recognised the first clear phase of the pursuit, when you finally found a toehold that might in the end prove to be strong enough for the uphill struggle that the solving of a murder case always constituted. Sometimes it was up a vertical cliff face with one hand on first one jutting overhang and then another, projections you had never imagined could exist when you started your ascent.
‘Just imagine if we were to find a match,’ he said.
Oluf Jensen nodded.
‘Then we really would have something to go on.’
41
‘DINNER’S READY!’
As Peter had expected, chaos reigned in Manfred and Jutta’s house. No dinner preparations had been made, the place was a mess, Jutta’s unwashed hair stuck to her scalp and her clothes hung off her as if she hadn’t eaten for days. But her eyes gleamed:
‘He moved a foot! He’s going to be all right, Peter. I think he’s going to recover.’
She fell around his neck as if it had been he who had brought the good news. The kids came running in from the paddock, snot running from their noses and mud on their trousers, and they almost knocked him over, and King, the family’s dachshund, eagerly sniffed his trouser leg. Kaj settled down in dignified isolation on the sofa rug and observed the scene.
Peter placed the Super Best shopping bags on the kitchen table and started unpacking.
‘This is going to be a gourmet meal,’ he promised the children.
‘What’s goormay?’
‘It’s when something tastes nice. Where do you keep the ketchup?’
They knew exactly where to find the mustard and the ketchup. Their eyes shone and their voices were happy, and for a brief interlude Peter savoured the family’s warm embrace.
‘Get me a frying pan, will you, kids?’
They rummaged through the contents of the kitchen cupboard, knocking over some pots and pans before they found what they were looking for.
‘Daddy’s coming home again,’ Joachim exclaimed. ‘He can wiggle his toe.’
‘His whole foot,’ his sister corrected him.
‘His whole leg,’ Joachim called out.
‘He can fly!’
‘He certainly can,’ Peter said. ‘I saw it with my own eyes.’
‘Through the air?’
‘Where else, you monkey?’
‘I am not a monkey!’
‘Yes, you are, you squirm like a monkey,’ Peter said and tickled the boy under the ribs as he always did. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
They exploded with laughter. It was as if the seriousness of the last few days had finally become too much for them and had been shattered by their pent-up joy.
Jutta went to have a shower and soon returned in fresh jeans and a soft jumper with her hair fanning out across her back. There was colour in her cheeks again.
‘This is so nice of you, Peter, it really is.’
She had green eyes, he only realised this now. Jutta’s special qualities were not the kind you noticed straightaway. He had known her for years, and to begin with, she had just been a skinny, shy, pale girl who was in Manfred’s shadow. But the new situation had changed her, he thought. She’d had to step into the limelight for a while. She took up more room now than she had ever done and he saw that she was beautiful in a very special way, with her sparkling eyes and dark red hair against her fine skin.
They ate, and they all ate well. Grateful for this moment, Peter pushed his plate away and let the good news sink in. Manfred would make a full recovery. The doctors had said that once he regained sensation in his legs, progress could be very quick indeed. Soon Manfred would be
climbing roof ridges and going hunting. Once more he would be the man in his family, play with his kids and tease them until they fell over laughing. And he would return and love Jutta as she deserved to be loved.
Peter drank his beer and watched the horseplay between her and the kids as if all the worries of the world hadn’t been weighing them down only a short time ago. As if the sword of destiny hadn’t just missed them by a whisker.
It was like looking at a near-perfect photograph. Families were like that. But take away one component and an otherwise perfect picture was suddenly distorted. It could be hard to see what was missing. In this case it was obviously Manfred, it was easy. In others, the problem was more subtle and the surface happiness was like one of those pictures where you had to search to find five mistakes.
Where were the mistakes in Bella’s family? Why had Magnus decided to leave? And why was no one to know that he was meeting Melissa?
He saw the children teasing their mother, saw the way her eyes beamed as she watched their game with the mustard and tomato sauce. There wasn’t a trace of any underlying anxieties in Jutta. His thoughts slipped effortlessly from her to Kir. There was something about both their personalities that made them stand out from so many other people. Honesty was a good guess. Neither Jutta nor Kir appeared to have hidden agendas. That was the difference between them and Bella.
He decided to head home after a couple of hours; they protested, but he could see that they were all exhausted.
‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ Jutta said with a gentle goodbye hug. ‘Soon you’ll be playing chess again, Manfred will win and I’ll cook chilli con carne.’
He waved to them and sounded the horn, and Kaj stuck his head out of the window.
Once home, he took out the photograph of Magnus, made ten copies and inserted the caption:
‘Have you seen Magnus? He has left home and his family misses him terribly . . .’
He added his own mobile number. Bella wasn’t like Jutta or Kir. He didn’t trust her.
42
‘I HOPE YOU’LL be patient with me. I’m not very fast.’
Dead Souls Page 19