“Find Birgit Zimmermann’s daughter, Gordon. What was her name again?”
“She was baptized Dorrit Zimmermann but goes by the name Denise Zimmermann.”
“Look for both of them.”
Carl felt sorry for Gordon as he watched him walk out the door. As long as the situation with Rose remained as it was, things probably wouldn’t go his way.
“What’s up with Gordon, Carl?” asked Assad a few seconds later. “He looks like cold death.”
Carl shook his head. “Death warmed over, Assad. The phrase is ‘death warmed over.’”
Curly looked puzzled. “Are you sure? Warmed over? That doesn’t make any sense. Wouldn’t you be cold if you were dead?”
Carl sighed. “Gordon’s feeling a bit down, Assad. This Rose business has really hit him.”
“Me too.”
“Yes, it’s affected us all, Assad. After all, we do miss her.” Something of an understatement. In fact, Carl felt her absence very strongly.
The only thing Carl didn’t miss was Rose’s aversion to cigarettes. He took one from the pack before turning to Assad again. “How’s it going with finding Rose’s old school friend, Assad? Any luck?”
“That’s why I’m here. I’ve found her.”
He threw some color printouts on the desk of a smiling, voluptuous, elfin woman with luscious locks, dressed entirely in purple. “Kinua von Kunstwerk” was written above the photo in big letters, together with a paragraph about her latest exhibition.
“She’s a painter, Carl.”
“With a very creative pseudonym, I’ll say.”
“I believe she’s very famous in Germany, but I’m not sure why.” He backed up his opinion by pointing at a photo from her latest exhibition. It certainly packed a punch.
“Shit,” Carl said immediately.
“She lives in Flensburg, Carl. Shall I drive down there?”
“No, we’ll drive together,” he said slightly absentmindedly, caught up with what was happening on the TV screen. The news crawl under the live coverage was more breaking than usual.
“Have you been informed about this, Assad?” he asked.
“I had no idea.”
“Hey, have you seen that?” Gordon said from the doorway, where he was pointing at the TV screen. “They’ve been reporting it for about an hour now. And Lis says it’s complete chaos upstairs.”
He stood restlessly in the doorway like some sort of salsa dancer. “They’re having a briefing about it as we speak. What do you think?” He looked at them pleadingly. “Shouldn’t we get up there?”
“You know what? I think you should go if you’re so keen, Gordon. But remember that they aren’t our cases.”
He looked disappointed. Clearly he didn’t agree.
Carl smiled. Gordon had really come on in leaps and bounds lately. Not only had he started to display fearlessness; he also had ambition.
“I think we should go up there,” he continued.
Carl laughed and stood up. “All right, then, come on. We only live once,” he said.
—
At least twenty disapproving faces turned toward them as they burst into the homicide briefing.
“Sorry, folks, but we just saw it on TV,” said Carl. “Just pretend we’re not here.”
Pasgård snorted. “That’ll be damn difficult,” he said. Some of the investigators around him nodded in agreement.
Lars Bjørn raised his hand. “Your attention, everyone! With respect for our friends from the cellar . . . ,” he said, pausing for effect and causing several of those present to shake their heads, “. . . I will sum up briefly.”
He looked directly at Carl. “We’ve found the red Peugeot that in all likelihood was used in the attacks on Michelle Hansen on May 20th and Senta Berger on May 22nd. It was one of our men from the now disbanded unit that used to look for stolen cars for insurance companies who found it with the window smashed on the driver’s side and the ignition forced. It was parked around the corner from Rantzausgade on Griffenfeldsgade with an old parking meter ticket on the dashboard and a dozen parking tickets under the wipers. So we can easily establish when it was parked there. The technicians have found traces of blood and hair on the hood, but it appears to have been cleaned for traces on the inside. We will have to wait to hear more on that front.”
“Parked for a whole week in central Copenhagen without being spotted. Wow! All credit to our people patrolling the streets,” grunted Carl.
“If you could spare us your sarcastic outbursts, you’re welcome to stay,” said Lars Bjørn.
He turned toward the flat-screen on the wall and clicked to the next image.
“Two and a half hours ago at approximately twenty minutes to one, the aforementioned Michelle Hansen was killed by a hit-and-run driver on Stationsvej in Stenløse. The image shows the scene of the incident. According to two schoolchildren who came walking down from the station, the vehicle was a black Honda Civic, which immediately after the incident turned right across Stationspladsen and disappeared. The description of both vehicle and driver are very vague, of course, due to the children’s age—the oldest is only ten—and the shock caused by witnessing the hit-and-run. But the children described the driver of the vehicle as being ‘not very tall,’ to quote them directly.”
He turned toward his team. “The situation, ladies and gentlemen, is that if we connect the earlier hit-and-runs with this latest one, we are dealing with premeditated murders. The question remains whether he intends to commit more murders. If the answer is yes, then it’s a matter of life and death that we stop the killer. Understood?”
Assad looked at Carl and shrugged. Apparently it would take more than a serial killer on the loose to faze him.
“The last twenty-four hours have been more than eventful, and I am sorry to say that we will therefore need to pull people off the investigation into Rigmor Zimmermann’s murder, and that includes you and Gert, Pasgård.”
“Poor Rigmor,” whispered Carl, just loudly enough that Pasgård sent him daggers.
“After the latest hit-and-run involving Michelle Hansen, we conclude that the murder was committed with intent, but that the circumstances surrounding the murder point in different directions. Among other things, Michelle Hansen’s handbag was found to contain twenty thousand kroner in used notes, and we know from her bank account what a bad state her finances were in. Further, Michelle Hansen is identical to the woman who was standing outside Victoria nightclub last night chatting with her ex-boyfriend, the bouncer Patrick Pettersson, while there was a robbery in the manager’s office. So it is plausible to assume that she might have had a connection to the robbery. Any questions?”
“Is this Patrick Pettersson still in custody?” asked Terje Ploug.
Carl nodded. If Ploug was the one assigned to lead the investigation, then all he could say was, poor Patrick. Ploug knew his job. Yes, he had bad breath, but if you kept a few feet back from him, you couldn’t wish for a better or more competent partner.
“No, Pettersson was temporarily released at eleven thirty-two, first and foremost because his explanation of his movements yesterday was confirmed by the security cameras. But of course we aren’t just letting him off the hook and have confiscated his passport as a precaution. A search warrant for his apartment is on its way. He remains a suspect on many fronts, but as of yet, we have nothing on him.”
“So, in theory, Pettersson could be the driver of the vehicle that hit Michelle Hansen?” continued Ploug.
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Do we know if they had been in contact with each other immediately before the attack?” asked Bente Hansen, who on top of being amiable and in possession of a good sense of humor, carried out her investigative work impeccably.
“No. Michelle Hansen’s cell phone was crushed along with the bones in her hand. It’s with
forensics, but the SIM card is a write-off, so we need to get on the telephone company to check her calls. I’m sure I don’t need to say that the body was found in a terrible state. According to the children, she was almost pulled under the car.”
“And Patrick Pettersson’s cell phone?”
“Yes, he was cooperative and let us check his history. Michelle Hansen sent him a text saying she would come over to his apartment but doesn’t say when. However, they could have been in contact via other means, and he may have known where she was staying. That is, if it was him.”
“It was him,” grunted Pasgård. He was obviously keen on a quick result.
“Furthermore, we have a strong hunch that Birna Sigurdardottir—the woman who was taken to Copenhagen University Hospital last night at zero thirty-two hours with a life-threatening gun wound to the chest from a shooting that took place in the alleyway directly beside the nightclub—has a direct connection to the robbery.”
“What exactly is that hunch based on?” asked Ploug.
“On her criminal record. Her presence at the nightclub. Her aggressive personality, which has resulted in several cases of extreme violence. She had a knife in her hand when she was found, which could indicate that she was involved in a standoff with one of the robbers. Of course, we know the caliber of the weapon that was used, which was the same nine-millimeter caliber as the Luger that was used to threaten the manager of the nightclub. And finally, we can determine that she was shot ten meters down the alleyway from where she was found. The drag marks from the wall to the edge of the sidewalk are clear, so we can assume that someone wanted to save her. We presume that the perpetrator or perpetrators were probably women, just like we know the perpetrators of the robbery were women, and that they may have had a close connection with the woman who was shot.”
“Wasn’t that the stupidest thing to do? To leave her for dead somewhere where other people could find her? Wouldn’t they be worried that Birna could rat on the perpetrator or perpetrators?” asked Bente Hansen.
“You would think so. But the girls who are suspects—and who make up the rank and file of Sigurdardottir’s girl gang known as the Black Ladies—are not the brightest sparks, so to speak.”
Several of them laughed, but not Bente Hansen. “Is there anything to indicate a direct link between Patrick Pettersson and this gang?”
“No. And in that connection, it should be noted that Pettersson has a clean record.”
“And what about Michelle Hansen?”
“No, we haven’t been able to prove any link between her and the gang.”
“Do we know if Birna Sigurdardottir will pull through?”
Lars Bjørn shrugged. “It doesn’t look that way, but we hope so, of course.”
Carl nodded. That would be the easiest way to solve the case.
—
“If the girl doesn’t survive, they’re going to have their work cut out up there,” said Assad on his way down the circular staircase.
“Yes, but it’ll give us a bit of breathing room.” Carl smiled cheekily as he thought about Pasgård, who now had to put the Zimmermann case to one side until they had a breakthrough in the hit-and-run case.
The smile was quickly wiped from his face when he saw who was waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs: Olaf Borg-Pedersen from Station 3 with two of his colleagues. One of them shoved a camera in Carl’s face while the other was holding a light cannon that made his eyes water.
“Turn that shit off,” he managed to say before he realized that Borg-Pedersen was holding a microphone two centimeters from his mouth.
“We’ve heard that there’s been a couple of breakthroughs in the hit-and-run case today,” he said. “What do you make of the getaway car that was found on Griffenfeldsgade and the murder of Michelle Hansen in Stenløse?”
“That it’s not my case,” he grumbled. How the hell had they obtained that information? Was it Bjørn?
“The police are working with the theory that the same hit-and-run driver killed both Senta Berger and Michelle Hansen deliberately. Is it also your theory that we’re dealing with a serial killer, or are you more prone to thinking that it is an internal gang war? Can these murders be linked to last night’s robbery and shooting?”
“Ask homicide,” he said. Was the man an idiot?
Borg-Pedersen turned toward the camera. “A lot of information in this case is being kept under wraps. Several departments refuse to comment. But the public is left wondering whether they can feel safe when it’s no longer possible to walk the streets without fearing for their lives. There are thousands of vehicles on the road every day. Will the next car be a weapon, and will you be the victim? These are the questions we are trying to answer. And now back to the studio.”
What the hell was he doing scaring people like that? Was he working for the news now?
Borg-Pedersen turned toward Carl. “We’re going to be shadowing you for the next three days, so tell me what your plans are,” he managed to say before Carl turned on his heel and stormed into his office with Assad and Gordon in his wake.
“We’re not taking them with us to Flensburg, are we, Carl?” asked Assad.
“Over my dead body! Everything concerning Rose is to be kept between us.”
“But what will you say to the TV crew? They’re outside waiting in the corridor,” asked Gordon.
“Come with me,” he said, dragging him out to the TV crew with a smile on his face.
“You’ll be pleased to know that our very best assistant down here, Gordon Taylor, will take you with him on an important round of the Borgergade neighborhood.”
Gordon spun toward Carl. “Buut, I—”
“Gordon Taylor’s last round took a couple of hours, but you should probably set aside the whole day tomorrow.”
Gordon’s shoulders dropped.
“You’ll have to make sure that everyone Gordon speaks with gives their consent to being filmed. But you know all the rules in that area, right?”
Borg-Pedersen frowned. “And where will the rest of you be, if I might ask?”
Carl beamed. “Ask away; that’s why we’re here. We’ll be sitting on our backsides most of the day reviewing boring paperwork. Not very TV-friendly.”
Borg-Pedersen didn’t look happy. “Listen, Carl Mørck. We earn a living from making TV that’s entertaining. Your boss in homicide directed us to you lot because you can provide us with the best material. So we need to work together on this, okay?”
“Agreed. I promise you that we’ll do whatever we can to keep you happy, Borg-Pedersen. We understand what you need.”
The man seemed to notice Gordon shaking his head, but the mood was reasonably good when they left.
“What am I supposed to do with them?” asked Gordon nervously.
“Do the round one more time, Gordon. Visit all the kiosks, restaurants, and people again. Only this time bring photos of Denise and Birgit Zimmermann. Show them to people and ask if they know anything about the women’s movements or finances. Whether the mother and daughter went out together. You’ll come up with something to ask. Are you with me?”
“I’ve just been in contact with a foreman at the steel plant,” said Gordon. “He’s agreed to give you a tour up there with Leo Andresen this Monday. They’ll be waiting for you outside the main gate at ten o’clock. Is that okay?”
Carl nodded. “Did he know Rose?”
“Yes, he clearly remembers both her and the dad. But he didn’t say much about the accident. Only that Rose witnessed it and that she saw her dad die. He referred to the incident as strange and very terrible, so it isn’t a surprise that she became hysterical afterward. The way he remembers it, she was laughing and screaming at the same time. As if she was possessed. He didn’t know anything but said he would ask around among the former employees.”
“Okay, Gordon, thanks.” He
turned to Assad. “My office tomorrow at six sharp. What do you say?”
“Of course. The early worm escapes the bird, as they say!”
“Er, no, Assad. It’s the early bird catches the worm!”
He looked at Carl doubtfully. “Not where I come from, let me tell you.”
“Just a second, Carl,” interrupted Gordon. “Vigga called. She said that if you don’t visit your ex-mother-in-law today, you’ll be in for it. She said the old woman isn’t well and that she’s been asking after you.”
Carl huffed.
There went his hopes of a quiet drive home.
—
In front of the nursing home, a group of demented old fogeys were being unloaded from a minibus, all walking off in different directions as soon as their feet touched the ground. The staff were really being kept on their toes.
Only one of the old people stood waiting patiently, her head shaking as she watched the scene. It was Karla.
Carl breathed a sigh of relief. His ex-mother-in-law was obviously having one of her good days. As usual, Vigga had exaggerated to get him out there.
“Hello, Karla,” he said. “You’ve obviously been out for the day. Where’ve you been?”
She turned slowly toward him, inspecting him for a moment and throwing her hand out theatrically at her unruly fellow passengers.
“Didn’t I warn them? Look how these children are running around. Don’t say I didn’t tell them how dangerous the traffic is here in Rio de Janeiro.”
Whoa, I overestimated her a bit, he thought as he carefully took her by the arm and led her toward the entrance.
“Careful,” she said. “Don’t hurt my arm.”
He smiled knowingly at one of the carers who had managed to round up a couple of the other passengers.
“What’s happened? She thinks she’s in Rio de Janeiro.”
The carer smiled back looking tired. “When Mrs. Alsing has been out on a trip, she’s always confused about where she is when we get back. And you’ll have to shout if you want her to hear you.”
Carl realized that his ex-mother-in-law wasn’t quite right in the head as they walked to her room. She regaled him with a picturesque account of the heavy rain, fallen trees on mountain roads, and the driver who had shot himself in the head as the bus had swerved off the road and into the abyss.
The Scarred Woman Page 27