The Scarred Woman

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

—

  She drove the car to the car wash and remained in the car as the brushes attempted to rip off the plastic from the side window. When the wash was finished, she mopped up the soapy water that had seeped into the car and wiped down all the areas she might have touched.

  She had decided to use the car only one last time. Not only did she have to be careful in choosing her victims to make sure that there was no recognizable pattern; she also had to be careful about her choice of murder weapon.

  Just like last time, she would park the car on Griffenfeldsgade. Whether the car was wanted for being stolen or for being used as a getaway vehicle was one and the same; the only question was whether the police were keeping an eye on it. All she had to do now was put enough coins in the parking meter and come back every day to renew the parking ticket. If the police had not noticed it in the meantime, she could use it again.

  She put the thermos, a few hairs, some cracker crumbs, and a couple of used tissues in a plastic bag and slammed the door. It wouldn’t be long before her next mission, and this time she would make sure her victim turned around.

  Even if she had to use the horn.

  —

  The radiotherapy building outside the main entrance to Copenhagen University Hospital was almost hidden by the chaos of portable buildings and hectic activity. Anneli followed the signs to entrance 39 and then walked down several flights of stairs while thinking about radiation danger and the sixties bunkers built to protect from nuclear attacks. Calm down, Anneli. They want what’s best for you, she said to herself, entering a waiting room of unexpected proportions with information desks, an aquarium, sofas, flat-screen TVs, and sunbeams falling softly down through the skylight and hitting the myriad green plants. Down here on this early Monday morning, all the patients waiting to receive radiation treatment were gathered, and despite the unfortunate reasons for them being here, the atmosphere felt secure and comforting. Everyone was here for the same reason, bound together by fate, each of them with small dots tattooed on their bodies so the nurses and radiographers could locate precisely where they should have their treatment. They were down here to give life a chance, just like Anneli would be here five times a week for the next four to five weeks.

  If it turned out that contrary to expectation neither radiation nor chemo could get rid of the cancer, she would speed up her murder rate. From a rational point of view, she could manage to kill dozens of these women if she put in the effort. And if the police closed in on her, the solution could be to kill several girls a day, because the consequences were clear. Whether she killed one or forty women was all the same in a country where the ultimate sentence was life imprisonment. She had seen how comfortably those murderers who society didn’t dare release lived in psychiatric wards. And if that was the worst that could happen, she could handle it.

  Anneli smiled to herself when they called her in for her radiotherapy, and she was still smiling an hour later when she was sitting on her office chair advising clients.

  After a couple of rare satisfactory meetings, it was finally Jazmine Jørgensen’s turn.

  You’re in for it, thought Anneli with some delight when the wench sat down and turned her head toward the window, probably completely uninterested in the fact that Anneli was the one setting the agenda.

  If only she knew how Anneli felt about that attitude.

  Over the past few years, Jazmine Jørgensen had gotten off the hook with pregnancies, related afflictions, and maternity leave, without fulfilling any of her obligations. Now she had been referred to a psychologist, and if she didn’t accept the offer of more radical prevention, she would be called in to a meeting about what they should do with her.

  However, Anneli didn’t imagine it would come to that. In a few months, Jazmine Jørgensen would be in her grave anyway—pregnant or not.

  Over the next few minutes, Anneli explained the framework for their future collaboration, including job search courses, prevention, and budgeting, and, as expected, Jazmine didn’t look away from the window or the street outside for a moment. Provocative, yes, but it increased Anneli’s feeling of fighting for justice.

  She pushed a sheet of paper across the table to inform the silly girl in more detail about what she had just told her. Finally, Jazmine turned to face her.

  For a young woman like her who no matter what always tried to look her best, her face was suddenly extremely cold and charmless. Behind the painted facade of eyeliner, foundation, and lipstick, there was more to this pretty doll face than Anneli had noticed before. Defiance that bordered on something aggressively sly. A hint of resolve that exceeded the usual demand for money, and a stubborn rejection of having to work for it.

  “Have you heard that Michelle Hansen is going to be okay?” asked the girl, dryly and unexpectedly. Nothing in her expression changed; she just stared hatefully at Anneli, who unwillingly reacted with an almost unnoticeable twitch of her head and thankfully nothing else. But inside, Anneli was all but collected. Chaotic thoughts and defense mechanisms, mixed with tempered caution and a lack of understanding, rushed through her.

  How much did this nasty bitch know?

  “Michelle Hansen, you say?” she said hesitantly. “What’s happened to Michelle? Do you know her?” she asked, as if she didn’t know. As if Michelle hadn’t been one of the three girls who had spoken behind her back in the waiting room. That wasn’t something you just forgot.

  They sized each other up, Anneli looking quizzical while Jazmine resembled a dog ready to bare its teeth.

  She’s waiting for you to make a move, Anneli, so be careful! she thought.

  “You’re not answering me, Jazmine, and I’m not sure I quite follow. What do you mean by saying Michelle will ‘be okay’? What will be okay?”

  Jazmine still didn’t say anything. She just stared at Anneli, as if expecting that the slightest twitch of an eye or a beating pulse on her neck would give her away.

  Anneli breathed calmly despite everything inside her screaming to high heaven that this couldn’t be happening. She was cornered and the only thing she could do was impress on herself that no one in the world could prove her crimes. Thank God that as far as she knew no one had seen her in connection with the hit-and-run attacks on Michelle Hansen or Senta Berger.

  “Isn’t there something about you and red cars being a good match?” asked the girl coldly.

  Anneli smiled as best she could. “Jazmine, are you sure you’re feeling quite all right? Take this piece of paper home and read it carefully.” She pushed the paper another couple of centimeters toward the girl. “And by the way, my car is blue and black. A nice little Ka. Do you know them?”

  And while she indicated that Jazmine Jørgensen could leave, she decided that she had used the red car for the last time and that it might be a good idea to keep an eye on this girl’s movements and whom she saw.

  But no matter what, this meeting meant that Jazmine immediately moved up a few places on her list.

  17

  Thursday, May 19th, 2016

  “This is where Rigmor Zimmermann was found.”

  Tomas Laursen pointed at an outline on the grass that was almost gone.

  Carl smiled. Assad had had the brilliant idea to lure the police HQ canteen manager with them to the King’s Garden. Tomas had long since stepped down as a forensic technician, but there was nothing wrong with his eyes.

  “Do we know which entrance she took into the park?” asked Assad. “Was it the one down there?”

  Carl looked along the wrought-iron railings to Kronprinsessegade down toward the farthest corner of the park. He nodded. Given that the woman had left her daughter’s apartment at the bottom of the Borgergade neighborhood in heavy rain, it was most likely that she had used the entrance from Sølvgade so she could take a shortcut to the exit out to Gothersgade.

  “I don’t really get it,” continued Assad. “She lived out in St
enløse and used to take the S-train. Do we have any idea why she walked toward Nørreport Station rather than the metro at Kongens Nytorv or Østerport Station? That would’ve made more sense.”

  Tomas Laursen leafed through the already rather extensive police report. Amazing that he had managed to get it out from homicide.

  Now he shook his head. “No, we don’t know.”

  “But what does the daughter say? Maybe she knows,” said Carl.

  “We have a copy of what she told the police, which isn’t much. So our colleagues haven’t really touched on that either,” said Laursen.

  It’s a fairly elementary question, so why the hell haven’t they asked it? thought Carl.

  “Who’s in charge of the investigation?” he then asked.

  “Pasgård.”

  Carl sighed. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more self-glorifying, superficial jerk.

  “Yes, I know what you’re thinking.” Tomas nodded. “But he’s also almost as big a whiner as you, Carl. He won’t like it one bit when he hears that you’re investigating his case.”

  “Then we’ll just have to keep it a secret,” suggested Assad.

  Laursen nodded and knelt down next to the outline to investigate the grass. The park-keeper had followed the police order to the letter, refraining from cutting the grass in a three-meter radius around the scene, which had resulted in that grass growing slightly longer than the grass around it.

  “Hmm,” said Laursen, holding up a single withered leaf he had found half a meter from the outline.

  Carl noticed that both Assad and Laursen looked puzzled and followed their gaze, slowly scanning the flower beds and the wrought-iron railings down toward Sølvgade. Now he saw it too. It was well observed. The leaf didn’t come from any of the bushes or trees near where she had been found.

  “Could the leaf have been here for more than three weeks?” asked Assad.

  Laursen shrugged. “Possibly, yes. The crime scene is some distance from the paths, and there hasn’t been any wind to speak of for weeks.” Then he shook his head. “On the other hand, it could’ve been on the bottom of someone’s shoe or left here by a dog at any time since the murder. What type of leaf is it anyway? Do you know, Carl?”

  Where the hell should he know that from? He wasn’t a bloody gardener or botanist.

  “I’m just going for a walk,” said Assad, which was a bit of an understatement given that he started running, looking like a cross between a French bulldog and someone who had just shit himself, the way he darted along the path toward the Sølvgade entrance.

  Carl gawped.

  “I can see that the leaf has been flattened. So it might very well have been under a shoe,” said Laursen, with his behind sticking in the air and his nose pressed down to the ground.

  Carl was just about to say that they probably wouldn’t get much more out of this crime scene because all the leads, not to mention the body, were long since gone.

  “On the other hand, I’ve spotted some very fine furrows on the surface of the leaf. And shoes don’t have narrow furrows like that, and neither do dogs,” continued Laursen, laughing. His sense of humor had always been odd.

  “And?”

  Laursen leafed through the report again and pointed to a photo of the body. “And so it could be from these,” he said, tapping the pants on the body. “Narrow-ribbed corduroy. Very popular with elderly ladies who don’t update their wardrobe from one day to the next,” he said.

  Carl took the leaf and studied it closely. Laursen was right.

  “Perhaps we’ll learn more when our sprinter crosses the line,” he said, pointing at Assad, who was running toward them at full speed like a stampeding gnu.

  He was out of breath but proud. “Here,” he said, thrusting a leaf in their faces. “There are lots of leaves like this down there in the thicket just to the left of the entrance behind the bicycle stands.”

  All at once, Tomas Laursen’s face broke out in a smile. It was a long time since Carl had seen him so thrilled.

  “Bloody brilliant!” cheered the canteen manager. “Now we know where that male urine came from. Yeah, we know quite a lot all of a sudden.”

  Assad nodded. “I also read that she had dog shit on her shoes.”

  “Yes, but there was no gravel in the shit,” said Laursen. “So it’s more likely that she stepped in that outside the garden.”

  Carl didn’t follow at all.

  “So you actually believe that you’ve just described the course of events more or less? That would really be a breakthrough.” Carl was skeptical.

  Laursen laughed. “Hell yes. It almost makes me want to join the force again.”

  “So you think that Rigmor Zimmermann wanted to take a shortcut through the park but had already begun running on the sidewalk outside the park? And what makes you think that?”

  “She was a classy lady, right? Smart handmade shoes from Scarosso, and she’d even been married to a shoe shop owner and must have known quality when she saw it. Exclusive shoes like that cost more than two thousand kroner, let me tell you,” said Laursen.

  “Right up the prime minister’s street,” Assad said with a laugh.

  “And she wouldn’t voluntarily smear those shoes with dog shit, is that what you’re telling me?” asked Carl, smiling at his own powers of deduction. But then again, who the hell would ever purposely step in dog shit?

  Laursen gave him a thumbs-up.

  Assad nodded. “She ran along the sidewalk without looking where she was going. It was also pouring that night, so I agree with Laursen.”

  It was exactly like watching an old film with Sherlock Holmes and Watson showing off.

  “And she didn’t watch her step, resulting in her stepping in dog shit with her smart, expensive shoes. Not because she was in a rush but because she felt threatened. Is that where you two are going with this?”

  Two thumbs-up.

  He followed them down to the thicket and looked at it for a moment. Not a bad hiding place when it came to it.

  “Okay, let’s sum up. Rigmor Zimmermann ran because she felt threatened. Ran into the King’s Garden—”

  “Rosenborg Castle Gardens, Carl,” interjected Assad.

  “It’s the same bloody park, Assad.”

  Assad’s dark eyebrows leapt in the air.

  “And then she ran into Rosenborg Castle Gardens,” he corrected himself to keep the peace while looking at Assad. Apparently that name made Assad feel more comfortable. “And then she hid in this thicket, where the ground is covered with the same leaves as the one we found at the crime scene. It’s probably a place where a lot of people piss.”

  “Yes, the smell gives that away, Carl. You can smell it from a distance, but then it is just at the entrance to the park and handy for those who are bursting,” concluded Laursen.

  “Hmm. You say that the coroner found the urine on the right buttock and thigh of the body, and now you’re concluding that it’s because she was hiding in the bushes.” Carl nodded to himself. “But why didn’t the perpetrator attack her right here? Is it because they didn’t see her and ran past her?”

  Laursen smiled triumphantly. Finally they were on the same wavelength, it seemed.

  “Presumably, yes,” said Laursen. “And then Rigmor Zimmermann sat there for a while until she felt sure the coast was clear and continued down the path. But that’s just a theory. We can’t know for sure.”

  He was right about that.

  “Then you also think that the perpetrator hid down by the restaurant in the meantime and jumped out right at the moment Zimmermann walked past?”

  There were those bloody thumbs in the air again.

  Carl laughed, shaking his head. “Perhaps you two ought to start writing crime novels, given that you build your conclusions and theories on dog shit and withered leaves.”

&
nbsp; “Nevertheless, it’s highly likely, Carl.” Laursen looked at him with subdued complacency, which actually suited him. “In my years as a forensic technician, I learned that mysteries can suddenly be solved on the basis of the wildest theories. Do you know what I mean?”

  Carl nodded. He knew that better than anyone. He just couldn’t help but smile. If there was any truth to this hypothesis, a certain Inspector Pasgård would kick himself.

  “Ahh, there you are!” shouted a male voice across the lawn. “Gordon was right, then. Would you mind going back to the place where the woman was found?”

  There were three men. The cameraman, the sound technician, and the bloody annoying Olaf Borg-Pedersen from Station 3 himself. What the hell were they doing here and why had Gordon told them where they were? He was in for it now.

  When they were standing back at the crime scene, Borg-Pedersen gestured to his sound technician, who produced some sort of equipment from his bag.

  “We’ve brought a can of white spray paint so we can redraw the outline of the position of the body. Do you want the honor, or shall I?”

  Carl frowned. “If you so much as spray a single drop, I’ll damn well empty the entire can in your face. Are you out of your mind? This is a crime scene.”

  Olaf Borg-Pedersen was clearly a man with years of experience in handling obstinate people, so without hesitation he put his hand in his pocket to reveal three Yankie chocolate bars.

  “Low blood sugar?” he said.

  Only Assad accepted the offer. Taking all three of them, in fact.

  —

  There were lots of names on the intercom, and the name Zimmermann appeared twice. Birgit F. Zimmermann on the ground floor was the one they had come to talk to, but there was also a Denise F. Zimmermann on the fifth floor, whom Carl had never heard of.

  “Can you believe it?” he said, pressing the buzzer. “Those TV guys were completely delusional, thinking that they could be present when we are questioning someone.”

  “I guess, but even so, Carl. You should’ve thought twice before kicking that TV producer in the shin. I’m not sure he believed it was an accident,” said Laursen.