The Hanging

by Lotte Hammer

  Berg picked up this thread, trying to sound optimistic. “With the kind of press coverage we’re getting at the moment, we’re sure to be able to get his picture in the papers.”

  Pedersen said, “That’s right. He doesn’t have a lot of chances if we keep surveillance at the airport and the major stations, because I think we can safely assume he’s not going home again.”

  The Countess raised her palms into the air. “Just a moment. Unfortunately, there’s one more thing.”

  They grew silent and let the bearer of bad news have the word.

  “He left a message for us in the stroller. Or rather, to you, Simon.”

  The envelope was the kind that accompanies bouquets, and on the front it simply read “Konrad.” The card inside was white without additional decoration. Simonsen read aloud, “ ‘The little children who weep, give them light and songs of joy.’ What does that mean?”

  The Countess answered sadly, “I’m not entirely sure but I have a bad feeling about it.”

  “And that is?”

  “The line is from a Grundtvig psalm called ‘Evening Sighs, Night Tears.’”

  Simonsen pressed the note into the table like a weak playing card that had to capitulate to a higher trump and thereby unconsciously mimicking the Countess’s note of alarm even before she came out with it.

  “It is a funeral psalm. I don’t believe we will ever see Per Clausen again.”

  Chapter 19

  Per Clausen burrowed deep into the cushions and smiled sadly up to the ceiling while he let his whole body relax. It had been a delightful day. First there had been some unexpected work to take care of. The reasons behind Konrad Simonsen’s having brought a young woman to his interrogation session the day before instead of a seasoned colleague was not so easy to interpret, and he intended to repay in kind. He had purchased a camera and been successful in capturing his subject without a significant wait. He printed the pictures at a library and sent the papers with instructions to the Climber. The rest of the day he had been able to devote to himself.

  He had been home. He had visited his childhood one last time.

  Much had changed, but for those eyes that could really see, the street was the same as fifty years ago. The asphalt was still smooth and flat, and the coating just a little bit finer than anywhere else in the world, which is why it had always been the preferred gathering place whenever there was going to be a game of marbles or hazing. Kids of all ages came wandering from near and far and in the light summer evenings it had swarmed with life. A horde of children shouting and yelling, winning and losing, smiling and crying, as they quarreled over the rules or formed fleeting alliances. Boys in knickerbockers and long harlequinpatterned stockings, crewcuts with dirty ears and eternally runny noses, the girls in plaid skirts with elastic waistbands that could be pulled down to reveal their pink underpants.

  He crouched down with his left knee against the ground and his right leg sticking out behind him, and ran his fingers along the street in a long, sweeping motion one last time.

  For a while he kept his eye out for a cat; just one little straggly kitten to help him relive the past, but he didn’t see one. Back in his day the apartment buildings had been swarming with cats. In the daytime they sat on garbage cans or lay on steps lapping up the sun as they patiently kept watch for the cat mother, who turned up faithfully three times a week with sweet words and fish scraps. In the night they rent the silence with their mating yowls and territorial fights. When the cat catcher was on the street, all animosity fell away and everyone knew their role. The girls gathered together in small groups and chased the cats away; the boys attacked them with blow straws and slingshots. The little kids ran from apartment to apartment and called for assistance, while others peeled celluloid from handlebars and used their magnifying glasses to light stinking fires under the animal catcher’s car. He usually left with unfinished business. Furious and cursing but without a catch in the back of his vehicle.

  The last window on the second floor of the yellow building was his mother’s. From it, she called goodbye to him when he went to school in the morning and called him up in the evenings when it was time for bed. The glass in the window was cracked and only his mother knew why. He had been sitting in the window at the time. The cornice of the building was cracked with frost and posed a hazard, so a scaffolding was erected and a large, jolly plasterer got to work. He sang beautifully while he worked, sang the sad song of the wild duck as well as any street singer. Housewives rewarded him with coffee—some even with beer—served straight out of the window. He had stood there on the scaffolding, singing and swinging his mortar and trowel, and caught sight of his mother in the window. He had made a cheeky comment about how the prettiest woman in the building deserved some extra mortar. The clump clung to the window and slid down over the glass pane. She had scolded him for his foolishness and secretly thrilled at the traces of it for the rest of her life.

  He stood there for a long time, his mind attuned to the past, his reflection in his mother’s window, before he quietly returned to his starting point.

  Now he was at journey’s end.

  He removed his belt and tightened it around his left arm so that his veins stood out. He took the syringe out of his inner pocket, attached the needle, and filled it from two ampules. There wasn’t much light—he was grateful for that, slid the needle in between the thumb and pointer finger, the student’s comfort. He calmly pressed the plunger, loosened the belt, and closed his eyes.

  He noticed with a tinge of irritation that someone had entered the room and he was a bit surprised that he could see the door from his vantage point under the cushions. Then he heard her voice and forgot everything else. She was wearing the pretty, white ruffled skirt he had bought for her when she was six years old and that he liked so much. She stood before him shining, happy, full of health, and he felt the tears stream down his cheeks; then he spread out his arms and ran over to meet her. She had been away from him for so many years and now he held her in his arms again. His wonderful little girl.

  Chapter 20

  Alma Clausen had been pigeonholed ahead of time by her guest. Widow of a farmer, a woman in her midfifties. Pious and from Tarm—all data that in Poul Troulsen’s view stank of the cowshed, thickened sauces, narrow-mindedness, and plenty of room for intellectual improvement. Reality, however, proved quite different.

  His expectations were initially met, however, in that Alma Clausen was a kindly, unassuming person, short and with a clothing style that he could describe only as drab. Her home was modest and nondescript. Flowery wallpaper, embroidered bell strings, and Amager shelves with porcelain figurines from Salzburg. Liver-pâté-colored mediocrity. Only at an embarrassingly late stage did Troulsen finally realize that the woman was incredibly sharp. This as he slowly and loudly asked her about her life.

  “I thought you had received a report about me. Haven’t you had a chance to read it?”

  Haven’t had a chance was the polite version; haven’t bothered would be more accurate.

  “What leads you to believe that we have a report about you?”

  Her answer came without sarcasm: “Among other things because I spent an hour on the phone last night with the detective from Ringkøbing who was supposed to write it.”

  “I am trying to get these facts straight from you.”

  He could hear himself how unconvincing his explanation sounded. She glanced at his bag, then looked him in the eye and caught him out as if he were a child who had not done his homework.

  “It is straight from me. Now I will get us something to eat. You can have a cup of coffee while you read.”

  And so it went.

  Alma Clausen graduated in 1972 from Copenhagen University with a degree in theoretical physics and was accepted by the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen. In 1977 she defended her doctoral dissertation. That same year she gave up her academic career for a life as farmer’s wife in Ådum. She and her husband eventually celebrated their sil
ver anniversary. When he died, she sold the farm and moved to Tarm. There she read up on the latest research in her discipline and was now an online instructor for the universities of Copenhagen, Berlin, and Stockholm. She had no children.

  She called out to him from the kitchen, almost to the second when he was done reading.

  “Come out and help me with the salad and I’ll tell you about my work.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll be able to follow you.”

  “Nonsense. Everyone understands it to some extent. No one understands it completely. That’s what’s so interesting about physics.”

  She was right, it was genuinely interesting. He sliced away and listened with fascination.

  It was almost four o’clock before he got to the heart of his errand, which was Per Clausen’s personality. By that time he had long ago turned off the tape recorder, which had appeared to irritate her. In turn she made every effort to answer his questions, as if one favor deserved another.

  “How well did you really know your brother?”

  “That’s difficult to say. We don’t see each other so often, and when we do, I’m almost always the one who comes to him, that is, except for last week. We sometimes e-mail and we call from time to time, often in regard to a mathematical problem.”

  “You help him with mathematics?”

  “Unfortunately, no. It’s always the other way around. He helps me. Per is the brains in the family.”

  “And when you communicate, is it only about science?”

  “You could say that. Mathematics, physics, and statistics mainly, but we also discuss other areas such as religion, for example.”

  “Religion? Is your brother religious?”

  “No, quite the opposite. I am, he is not.”

  “What about relationship matters? Do you talk about that?”

  She didn’t answer directly but continued to elaborate.

  “It’s only these past few years that Per has started to show an interest in spirituality, and that should be understood very broadly. Not in Christianity, that is, more precisely in questions of faith, morality, hate, love, compassion, and judgment… those kind of things.”

  “That strikes me as very lofty. No, that’s the wrong word. ‘Theoretical’ is more what I mean.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. Per is always very practical. Would you like an example?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Last Thursday we talked about demonization, about public morality and humanity. Per took as his starting point the large numbers of German refugees that Denmark was forced to accept at the end of the war in 1945—that is to say, mainly people who were fleeing from the advancing red armies in the east. After liberation, the authorities refused to grant these people medical care, and this was not because there was a shortage of medical care, or because there was no need for it, but simply because they were German. This resulted in a number of deaths, especially among children, who could have been saved.”

  She recited, “ ‘If you hammer in the idea of an “us” and a “them” into the national consciousness, then the majority of the population will passively accept anything. Especially in these times when there is no common moral denominator to be found.’ ”

  “That is your brother’s claim?”

  “To the extent that I can remember it, yes, but I think I do. Naturally I disagree with him, I have to.”

  “It sounds a bit fascist to my ears.”

  “Per is no fascist. I don’t believe he has any political orientation whatsoever, and if he has one, he is a confirmed cynic.”

  “We see him as a bit of a provocateur, if that is the right word. What do you say to that?”

  “That it’s true. Per does like to tease people but it is seldom mean-spirited, and if he runs circles around you it’s just to show that he can.”

  “What does he get out of it?”

  “Nothing except a crooked little smile.”

  She smiled to herself.

  “Hm, interesting. Back to the question of relationships—do you talk about them?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then what?”

  “If we do, it’s always with a kind of agreement.”

  “I’m not sure I understand. Can you elaborate a little further?”

  She reflected on this for a while before replying.

  “As you must know, there was a period when Per drank a great deal. He was an alcoholic, no doubt about it. We never talked about it but after a couple of years when he got more control over his alcohol abuse we did sometimes talk about it, that he was beginning to live a healthier lifestyle.”

  “A kind of code?”

  “You could call it that, but ‘indirect little comments’ covers it better. Of course it is a silly way to communicate. You can never know if both people mean the same things with the same words, but that’s how it went. And it certainly doesn’t happen very often that we touch on personal matters.”

  “So you are not very close to your brother?”

  “I don’t think anyone is. I’m no exception.”

  “You say that he used to drink. It began when your niece drowned?”

  “Yes, it did. It was intense and very self-destructive; I think Per was trying to punish himself.”

  “Did he feel guilty about his daughter’s death?”

  “Yes, of course, and on top of that he was desperately unhappy.”

  “How was their relationship?”

  “I don’t know except that he loved her very much. Helene was a delightful child.”

  “Tell me about her. What was she like?”

  “Fragile. Fragile and gifted. She had inherited her father’s intellect, but not his robustness. She was also quite pretty. Probably took after her mother; that kind of thing doesn’t exist in our side of the family.”

  Troulsen asked further questions about the girl. Simonsen had discussed the interview with him by phone the whole way from Nyborg to Odense, and Helene Clausen’s fate was one of the subjects he was expected to clarify. But the girl’s aunt was unable to shed much light; beyond the fact that the girl had had a nervous temperament, nothing of interest was revealed. He focused on the topic of her death.

  “Do you know the details of the circumstances that led to her death?”

  “Not really. She drowned but you already know that. It was a summer evening in 1994 at a Bellevue Beach with her school friends. More than that I don’t know.”

  “You say that he felt guilty about her death. Why is that?”

  “It’s hard to explain. Perhaps he felt he hadn’t watched carefully enough over her.”

  “Do you think he didn’t?”

  This time she waited so long before speaking that he thought she was not going to answer. When she finally said something, the result was not in proportion to the time taken to prepare it.

  “I don’t know.”

  He tested the waters gingerly: “Do you want to tell me what you think?” Again a pause, as long as before.

  “I think that Per came to say goodbye this last week. I think that my brother intends to do away with himself. I believe that Helene was a mental wreck when she returned from Sweden. And I believe that he was involved in the terrible things that happened at the school where he worked.”

  Troulsen felt blown away in his chair.

  “That was something.”

  “Yes, I know, but it won’t help you to ask more questions. I have nothing concrete to give you and what I just said is based on vague feelings and may be completely wrong.”

  She was right once more. He probed and probed for almost two hours before he gave up, after which she—despite his halfhearted protests—showed him up to the guest room.

  Chapter 21

  Konrad Simonsen and Kasper Planck were playing chess. From time to time they discussed the case and at other times one or other’s comments simply hovered unanswered in the air. One of the advantages of a chess game was that there was no need to observe social niceties in con
versation. As opponents the two men were well matched, perhaps because their strengths were so different. Planck’s strength lay in tactics and combinations, while Simonsen was best at theory and strategy, and although he was exhausted after an all-too-long day he had—as usual—gotten off to the better start. This evening he would have preferred to skip the chess game, but whenever he was with his former boss it was the latter who called the shots. His vague hints about only discussing the case were summarily ignored and the old man went to get the chess set and the cognac. Tradition was going to be observed, mass murder be damned.

  Simonsen focused on his opponent. Planck was a stately old man with a slim, sinewy body and gray-white hair that fanned out in great swirls around his tanned face. His clear green gaze swept the board.

  As a boss he had been hard, a leader of the old school. At the same time, he was respected and—in his last years—almost loved. But what had made him into a legend in his own time was neither his leadership abilities nor his success rate at solving cases, for that matter. His status as a living legend stemmed primarily from the fact that he was able to handle the press, which reciprocated by making him into an icon. His revolutionary approach consisted of treating journalists as if they were people. An art that he had not necessarily been able to pass on to his successor.

  Planck moved a pawn in the center without further reflection.

  “What’s the real reason you have gotten me involved in your mass murder, Simon?”

  “You’ve assisted in other cases before since you retired. This is nothing new.”

  “Bullshit. You have never asked for my help before at the outset like this. And definitely never officially.”

  “Elvang thought it would be a good idea.”

  “That’s neither here nor there.”

  A more truthful answer would have been that Planck was in possession of exactly those attributes for which Simonsen had the most pressing need in this case that was so different from anything else he had experienced. Time after time his predecessor had demonstrated an almost terrifying intuition in the course of an investigation. He was able to pick up and interpret very simple pieces of information differently and often more precisely than others, and if there was such a thing as a sixth sense, he was without doubt in possession of one. But at the heart of it, this ability was probably due mostly to the fact that the old man’s mind always let one or more parallel possibilities remain open, in contrast to the systematic approach that characterized traditional police work.