by Lotte Hammer
“Is there anything else you can tell us about Per Clausen’s group? Anything at all, regardless of what you think it means. You must understand that we are very interested in these five people.”
“Yes, I do. There is one other thing. One of the members of the group was called Helle.”
“The nurse?”
It was the Countess who made her second misstep in less than a minute.
“I guess that would be a rational choice, if you don’t believe a woman can be a farmer or a climber, for that matter.”
Simonsen hid a smile. The Countess did not try to cover her mistake.
“I’m sorry. Why don’t you just go on and tell us.”
“She had left a sweater in the basement and I was about to drive Per home. We were sitting in the kitchen when she rang the main doorbell. My oldest son opened the door and he couldn’t have been more than three years old. I remember that he came to me proudly and said, That one’s name is Helle and it forgot its sweater. Per and I smiled a bit at his words even though the meaning was clear. Jeremy may have heard it because he took over and so I never saw her.”
She made one of her long pauses. They waited, but this time in vain as it turned out.
“Unfortunately there isn’t anything else. At least nothing else that I can think of.”
Simonsen shifted the conversation to more practical matters: “Your husband’s archives?”
“I destroyed them after Jeremy died. I burned the files in our fireplace without looking at a single one. There were a couple hundred and it took several evenings. Before I did it I talked with some of his colleagues and they agreed it was the right thing to do.”
“What about the accounts? How did your husband get paid by his patients?”
“Always cash, and always at the time of each appointment. He made a big production about the act of handing over physical bills. He felt it motivated his clients to make more of their sessions.”
“You don’t sound like someone who shares that view.”
“It was his department, his practice, not mine. Personally, I suspect that part of this conviction stems to tax considerations or rather tax-avoidance considerations. At any rate we always had a lot of cash lying around. Sometimes Jeremy bought me expensive jewelry without any regard for the fact that I hate fussy accessories like that, and when he died I found almost six hundred thousand tucked away. Some of this was in our safe, but other packets of bills were spread in all kinds of places all around the house. It isn’t very long since I found an envelope and I don’t hesitate to call it pathological even though he was my husband. But before you get any ideas, I want you to know that I went to the tax authorities myself and after a long investigation they decided that I could keep the money.”
The Countess and Simonsen nodded approvingly, although they didn’t have the slightest intention of reporting her for tax evasion. Then they asked her half a dozen other questions without getting anywhere. The name Stig Åge Thorsen didn’t mean anything to her and a picture of the man also got no response. They did learn that all of Jeremy Floyd’s appointments were handled through the National Hospital, so any telephone records would be difficult to trace.
And that was that. They did not get further in this round. The interrogation had lasted for more than two hours and all three wished it would end. It fell to Konrad Simonsen to make that decision. After digging in vain into the woman’s relationship with her younger sister and having ignored the Countess’s pleading looks, he finally decided that enough was enough. He glanced at his watch, read the time aloud to the tape recorder, and formally concluded the session. The two detectives stood up. Emilie Mosberg Floyd remained seated.
“Have you stopped the tape?” The question was directed at Simonsen, who answered in the affirmative. “I have something that I’d like to tell you but that I don’t want to have recorded.”
They sat back down again.
“First I want to say—as strongly as I can—that I absolutely do not belong to the camp that claims it is a legitimate act to murder pedophiles. It isn’t right either legally, morally, or in any other way, and I feel betrayed by Per even though I still love him. It’s strange and it confuses me and I don’t understand it, but there it is. And this even though I believe he was behind the burglary that took place in our house last March, and who may have planted the idea of Aconcagua with Jeremy. A mountain he was definitely not ready for, as I see in retrospect.”
She struggled with her emotions and said straight out into the air, “Cerebral edema.” Then she explained, “Acute mountain sickness.”
Simonsen injected a soft, “The burglary.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll get there. So we were in Canada with Jeremy’s brother when someone broke in and rifled through his files. The basement window and the filing cabinet had been forced open but there was nothing missing and we didn’t report it, even though it weighed on Jeremy’s mind. He talked about moving the files into his office but didn’t get to it before he died. Per knew that we were going to Canada and as I said, I believe he was the one who was behind it.”
“What do you think he wanted with the information?”
“What do you think yourself? It would have been an excellent place to start if he wanted to find followers—if I can put it that way—and remember that Jeremy had already introduced him to some of them. He wouldn’t arrive as an unknowing stranger when he one day looked them up.”
This time she was the one who stood up first. On the other side of the glass, Troulsen followed her example. He had an urgent need to go to the bathroom. On his way there he pounded his fist angrily against the doorframe. This time, however, his outburst was not directed to the woman but to her late husband. For careless, stupid, idiotic oversight of the storage of confidential materials.
Chapter 55
Like all nurses at the nursing home, Helle Smidt Jørgensen was an expert in counting pills. She had lined up all ten kinds in front of her: seven were taken out of bottles with screw tops, the three others were popped out of foil packets.
She pointed to the last three and explained to her student, “You’re going to hate these. They’ll cause permanent damage to the right thumb.” The student looked down at her thumb as if she wanted to say goodbye to it. Helle Smidt Jørgensen added wearily, “It’ll take a while. But now listen. First you take the tops off the dosing cases that are for fourteen days. Then you order them systematically with the morning pills first, then lunch, then dinner, then the sleep aids. That comes to twenty-two pills per day for Signe Petersen, so as you can see, if she isn’t already sick the pills will do their best to make sure she does.”
While she explained all this she herself started to feel ill. She of all people shouldn’t talk about substance abuse. The room grew fuzzy at the edges and her speech became incoherent.
“… Sleeping aids and psychopharmaceuticals are alarmingly prevalent and have been so for years. It is dangerous to drink at the same time but I can’t get through the day otherwise. Before it was only at night, but now it is also the voices in the hallways—that is if there is any police.”
She focused on the student, who looked like she was far away and didn’t quite understand. They never did. She explained patiently, “The pulse quickens and the hands shake. That is the stress hormone adrenaline that affects the sympathetic nervous system when you are hunted around the clock. All day, every day. Uncle at night and the police by day, you see. A little pick-me-up and an extra Stesolid takes the edge off. Around and around.”
Something was wrong but she didn’t know what. She left her office and walked unsteadily down the corridor and sat down on the back-entrance steps of the nursing home. Here she could get some fresh air and recover. The cool wind felt good on her forehead and a single ray of sun braved the gray weather and shone down on her. She inhaled deeply a couple of times and noticed that the world immediately grew smaller, as if anything other than sitting there were of no importance. An unfamiliar feeling came
over her, a feeling that was faraway and now close-by. She was a child, she was playing ball, and it was important. Karen, Maren, Mette bam, Anni, Anne, Anette bam, Kylle, Pylle, Rylle bam, Bente bam. The rhymes were easy, also the new one: Alekto, Megaira, Tisifone bam, Nemesis bam, but it was hard to aim the balls. Especially overhand. From time to time she dropped one and had to start from the beginning. That was the rule. She did so, determined to get as good as the big girls. A ball fell from her hands and she had to make every effort to find it, so she opened her eyes and looked. There were people around her, people who wished her well.
She explained that they shouldn’t worry and that everything was going to be all right. They understood. Of course they did, it was easy to understand. It was also easy to swim once you had learned how. She could swim without water wings, proudly, alongside her mother. She loved it when they were at the Østerbro pool just the two of them and of course a whole lot of other people that they didn’t know. She ventured away but lost her courage when a big boy of about ten came swimming toward her. It was hard to turn but she managed it. Then she heard the voice ring out across the hall: all the yellow bands out! That was them. They had yellow bands on, a yellow piece of elastic with a key to the locker around her ankle. She made an angry face at her mother, then they kissed and smiled because as they did this they had to struggle to stay afloat. Then they slowly swam to the edge.
Chapter 56
In the Homicide Division at police headquarters in Copenhagen, the mood was bleak.
The minister of justice was speaking on the radio. He was well known for his flamboyant expressions and airy turns of phrase but this Monday he set a new record. Among other things because his interviewer served mainly to offer helpful cues for his monologue. Malte Borup looked around in vain for a translation. When he didn’t get one, he found a pencil and paper and disappeared into his own world of cryptic characters and signs. The interview ended not long after that and the host announced the next program.
Pedersen turned off the radio while Troulsen most eloquently gave voice to the general attitude in the room: “Populist asshole.”
Konrad Simonsen’s cell phone rang; it was Helmer Hammer. Simonsen withdrew to the most remote corner of the room. At the same time, Pedersen felt compelled to make derogatory comments about the minister of justice.
“Sentence by sentence it’s nothing but hot air, but the underlying message is clear enough. Govern by public taste. Tighten the laws to prevent the general public’s justifiable anger. Return to a familiar chain of command so that ordinary people can get their police back. What a bastard, is all I have to say.”
Troulsen added, sneering, “Children who are bought as if they were laundry detergent. We have all seen it and we are horrified. He really knows how to talk, that swine. And not a word about the five murders that followed. Someone needs to get him to shut up.”
The Countess and Pedersen shook their heads helplessly and Berg stared down at the floor.
Simonsen returned and related the details of his conversation with the chief.
“The minister of justice is speaking for himself, and his suggestion that we should return to the usual chain of command is completely without any foundation. If it were to happen, it would have no impact anyway. I have reported to both the police director and the national chief of police as I want to. The idea behind a special group isn’t ours and will be viewed as a political stunt to signal to the public that extraordinary measures are being applied in this case. Mass murders are not an everyday event after all, and thank goodness for that.”
Pedersen asked skeptically, “Did Helmer Hammer really say that?”
“No, it’s my elaboration. He did, however, say that lawmakers have launched into debates regarding the current sentences for child abuse and that these may become more severe. The minister of justice and some of his cronies have put feelers out and this idea has been well received in the other parties. Most shy away from a quick-fix approach. At this time. But this doesn’t really concern us. We are going to continue our work and under no conditions comment on the political dimension. This applies mainly to myself. I was under a de facto muzzle, and now that is doubly the case.”
The Countess shook her head. “I don’t like working for such a fair-weather man.” These were strong words coming from her. She mostly only spoke well of people.
Simonsen stopped and stood in the middle of the group, broad-legged and powerful. “And you don’t. You work for me, and for democracy. If you are unhappy with the composition of our government, you can join a political party.”
He would have liked his words to be more carefully chosen. Touch on something that united them, but he didn’t know what that would be. And for that matter, how much did they even have the right to expect? He was neither a politician nor a minister. He stayed with what was down-to-earth, throwing his arms up in an awkward gesture and saying, “And we shouldn’t forget that it has been quite a productive day. We have definitely gotten new solid information to dive into. Especially with regard to our interrogation of Stig Åge Thorsen tomorrow. I don’t yet know who is going to do it, probably it will be the Countess and me, but I want all of you to be extremely well prepared. In return, Arne and I will finish the television work by ourselves. We spent too long on it last time. I’ll be a little late tomorrow morning by the way, as I have a meeting. I may be able to secure an alternative and more reliable supplier for telecommunications data, which might be a good thing considering how maddeningly slow our official sources are right now. And then finally one last thing …”
He made short pause before he went on.
“As something tells me that our favorable resource situation will not last forever, I would like to invite all present to a fine and thunderingly expensive dinner with the state as the host, while I still can. And it will be a pleasure for me to send a copy of the check to the iron lady at the Dagbladet. Is anyone interested?”
The Countess accepted. Troulsen said no; he had been ignoring a flu with the end result that he was deadly tired and just wanted to go home and rest. Pedersen also had to pass. The following evening, he and Simonsen were to have dinner with Kasper Planck, which could not be mentioned in current company, but to spend two evenings that were not a professional necessity away from his family was simply not possible. A single event was hard enough to defend. Then there was Pauline Berg and Malte Borup, but for once Berg turned out to be quick on the uptake.
“Not us either. Malte has promised to take a look at my home computer. It’s been acting up and I need to have it fixed.”
Borup glanced up briefly from his formulas when he heard his name. As usual he didn’t understand anything. Not even enough to make him blush.
Chapter 57
The girl was sitting on a chair in the middle of the studio and looked like an angel. She was dressed in a simple peasant blouse of light-colored linen. She wore no jewelry except for an amber necklace that gleamed like summer on her white throat. Golden curls floated around her picture-perfect face but her clear eyes shone with life and were entrancing at first gaze. Natural as a dream, clean and pure, perfect, if one remembered to disregard her fashionably worn, tight jeans and sexy black leather boots. As the camera did.
Erik Mørk couldn’t look away, she drew his gaze like a dew-kissed flower.
The director was giving orders. Without looking directly at the girl, he focused on an oversize TV monitor on the back wall, where her upper half appeared. He gave instructions to the cameraman and interviewer: “We’ll run through that part about the abuse again.”
The girl grumbled, “It’s at least the tenth time.”
“It’s only the sixth and you are good, really good, but you can be even better. It only needs to be the beginning. The rest of it is fantastic. Are you ready?”
“Okay, okay, but that will be it.”
Her face changed in an instant from raw to sweet. The director said, “Start from: ‘You were yourself abused as a child.’ �
�
The interviewer echoed this, but with the appropriately emotional tone: “You were yourself abused as a child?”
She looked down and did not answer. Two tears ran down her cheeks but she still did not say anything and her silence screamed into the camera. Then she straightened her head and wiped her face. Her first sentence was hesitant. Searching and unsure.
“Yes, I was abused when I was a child.”
Thereafter her voice grew clearer and steadier and took on a slightly questioning tone.
“Abused—abused is what you call it. It sounds like I was forced to deliver newspapers without getting paid. That is what adults call it.”
She now sounded loud and clear. Accusatory but not hysterical or aggressive.
“I was raped. From when I was nine until I was fourteen I was raped. A lot—it was a good week if I was raped less than three times and it went on month after month, year after year. That is why I have agreed to do this today and it is because the fate of the victims interests me far more than the perpetrators.”
“And you think this will help?”
She overheard the question. It was the third time Mørk had heard the passage but it was as effective and strong as the first. Despair and helplessness passed over her pretty face.
“You should see my brother. He couldn’t manage it, he’s very sick today and they don’t have space for him at the clinic.”
The desire to hold her came over him. Just to hold her close for a moment, to comfort and protect her. He rejected the thought as absurd but unconsciously advanced a couple of steps.
The interviewer let her take a moment without injecting a new question. When she spoke again she was more collected and her voice was lower.