The Hanging Girl

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  She looked at her watch. “If you want me to do it, I won’t be coming back today,” she said.

  He was sure he’d get over that.

  * * *

  When they had left, Carl quietly took the phone off the hook and put his feet up on the table. With Rose safely out of the building, it was time for a cigarette.

  He switched on the flat-screen TV, turned to TV2 News, and saw his own face advertise a case that made Lars Bjørn’s face turn the color of some poor ginger sod who’d fallen asleep on a tropical island beach.

  He didn’t think he looked so bad, himself. Maybe he should apply for a job as a TV host.

  He scanned across his notice board with all the possible and impossible leads. Newspaper clippings, various photos, and excerpts from maps of Bornholm, all put up with colored pins.

  Hanging there, it all looked so simple: the photo of the scene of the collision, the community hall in Listed, the location of the folk high school, and a number of other important places and people that were part of the investigation. A small story of a collision, and a man who wanted nothing more than to find the perpetrator.

  The only problem was that when you looked at it like that, trying to create an overview, questions popped up that pointed in every possible and impossible direction. It was one thing that Alberte had cycled out early in the morning to a side road some distance from the school, obviously a place that had some significance to her. But why had she been there at that specific time? It was so tempting to imagine it was a meeting place, that she was meeting the guy she was infatuated with. Why else would she have rushed there at that ungodly hour? But was it all really that obvious?

  How had she known where to go? Had the arrangement been made the day before? Or was it always the same time and place?

  Carl found a compass in his drawer and got up.

  Alberte cycled a lot, and someone had mentioned that she loved the nature over there. Who the hell was that again? He took a deep drag of the cigarette, which usually helped. When it didn’t, he took another one. Wasn’t it the caretaker at the folk high school? He nodded to himself. Yes, it was. He was also the one who’d said that Alberte was usually only gone for half an hour. Actually, that was quite observant of him.

  Carl looked at the photo of the beautiful girl. Beautiful, young, and strong, so all in all it wasn’t unlikely that she could ride at least twenty kilometers an hour on her bike.

  In order to get to her destination and back within half an hour, the distance to the meeting place or the place where they left messages to one another couldn’t have been more than five kilometers, if she also needed time to stay there for a few minutes.

  He took the compass, measured five kilometers according to the scale of the map, placed the leg of the compass in the middle of the folk high school, and drew a circle with a radius of five kilometers around it.

  Yes, the tree was well inside the circle, so it could easily have been the meeting place and where they left messages to one another. Probably a very romantic place—until it went wrong, that is.

  Carl scratched the back of his neck. Nothing but assumptions; the truth could easily lie somewhere else. The question was why she was there. If she was there to meet someone, it must’ve been arranged beforehand, either verbally or in writing. Of course, she might also have visited the tree that morning to see if there was a note from her secret lover. In that case, she’d gone in vain, because the police didn’t find anything. Either that or the note had been taken afterward, although it couldn’t have been taken from her, given that she was hanging in the tree.

  No, that was too many parameters. It didn’t help to force it. He looked at the circle around the school, sighing. What the hell had Alberte been doing out there so early?

  “Hi, big boy,” sounded a voice from the door.

  Carl turned around. It was Tomas Laursen with a cup in each hand.

  “Why’ve you put the receiver on the table? It’s impossible to get hold of you.”

  Carl put the receiver back, and only five seconds later the phone started ringing.

  “That’s why,” he said. “It’s redirected to Gordon and Assad. The poor guy in there’s recording all the calls he doesn’t have time to answer.”

  “Any luck?”

  Carl waved his hand. “A couple of interesting calls, yes. Not bad at all.”

  “Tell Assad he can stop looking for that photo of the plywood board.”

  “Really. Have the technical department found it?”

  “No.” He sat down, and pushed a coffee cup over to Carl. “It’s not boiling hot anymore, but it’s Jamaica Blue Mountain. You’ve never tasted anything like it.”

  It smelled heavenly. Carl took a sip, and then the whites of his eyes showed. Fresh, slightly sweet, not a hint of bitterness. Damn better than Assad’s camel sweat.

  “I know, but don’t get addicted, it’s only a taster. It costs an arm and a leg, and I definitely wouldn’t serve it to the mob up there.” He laughed. “Anyway, let’s get to it. Tech have dug out all the old examinations, and they can confirm the splinter that was found was plywood. But after a bit of a palaver over there, they can say for certain that the board found in the water wasn’t the one that flung Alberte Goldschmid up in the tree. The boreholes Habersaat described couldn’t have been used to attach the board to a vehicle like the Kombi. It wouldn’t make sense, unless there’d been hooks fastened through the holes. But where would they have been attached? That’s their question. If they’d been attached to the furrow with the rubber gasket under the window wipers, then both the windshield and the board would’ve been flung all over the place, and the technicians would’ve found traces of them back then, even if someone had thoroughly cleaned up the crime scene, and nothing suggests it was.

  “Apart from that, the technicians claim that the fender alone wouldn’t be enough to fling the woman up in the tree. It would take a well-adjusted shovel blade to do that, apparently.

  “In other words, they don’t believe that the board found could be the one used, but of course there could be another explanation.”

  “I see. Then we’re back to square one,” said Carl.

  He took a comforting drag on his cigarette, and offered one to Laursen.

  It felt good for once to have a partner in crime.

  41

  Sunday, May 11th, and Monday, May 12th, 2014

  For the first hour she was very unsure about her new situation.

  Despite having been left to her own devices for most of her adult life, Shirley had always been a sociable person. Even when she was alone, there were many ways to avoid feeling lonely. Back home when neither Wanda nor any of her other friends had been available, she’d listened to the radio, watched soaps on TV, talked on the phone, or looked out the window. Here at the center, she’d also had a few friends she could hang out with once in a while. Not an exciting life, but many people had it worse.

  In the purification room, there were absolutely none of the things that would normally keep her occupied. No contact with anyone. No incoming stimuli. Only the small blue bible of the Nature Absorption Academy, a deck of cards, and a hole up to the sky where she could watch the clouds drifting by. That took a bit of getting used to.

  Surrounded by this void, Shirley began thinking her own thoughts—something she wasn’t used to. Not about what she normally did, or pressing issues, but about the abstract and unusual situation of suddenly feeling privileged.

  Little by little, she realized that she’d been appointed. Appointed to be the ambassador to London, and what a big thing that was. According to the very first page of Atu’s manual, already on the tenth day she’d feel liberated from all the usual mundane and unnecessary distractions. On the twentieth day she’d feel purified, and when the entire period came to an end, she’d be reborn as a whole person living in harmony with nature and Atu’s wisdom of l
ife.

  That was actually why she was here in this empty, wood-clad, neutral room, she needed to remind herself. She’d been appointed! Appointed! It was such a beautiful word, something she’d never felt before. Pointed at, yes, she’d experienced that! Pointed at and poked because she was too fat, too stupid, wore the wrong clothes, or maybe even sometimes the right ones.

  Pointed at and appointed—what a gap there was between the two.

  For some time, to her great surprise, Shirley felt that she was almost happy. The feeling continued until her stomach began to rumble and the sun had passed by the glass section in the ceiling long ago.

  Shouldn’t her food have been brought over quite a few hours ago? She would’ve liked to have her watch now. Wasn’t it long past the time when the disciples were summoned to the late afternoon meal and communal meditation? She could feel it both in her soul and her stomach region.

  So where was Pirjo?

  As evening approached, she decided that she must’ve misheard from the outset. Pirjo must’ve meant that Shirley wouldn’t be catered to like the others until the second day. She was meant to fast a bit to kind of kick things off.

  Having realized this, she took the academy bible and slowly read through what Atu intended for a disciple to achieve during this purification period, and especially what rituals you had to struggle through in order to benefit fully from the voluntary isolation.

  Voluntary! That was a word she needed to chew on. Well, she supposed it had been. At least, she hadn’t been forced in here. It had been voluntary.

  Shirley read on, but couldn’t find any procedure parallel to the one she was about to go through in Atu’s instructions. Nothing about fasting, nothing about catering, laundry, and all the practical details.

  At first it puzzled her.

  Then it worried her.

  And when she came to page thirty-five, she was convinced that something was completely wrong.

  * * *

  When the morning sun ricocheted across the glass surface high above her head, she thought about how they’d all be on their way back from the morning ritual by the sea.

  The construction team working on the new timber circle would probably be there in a few minutes. Even though it was several hundred meters from here, they must be able to hear her if she shouted loudly enough.

  She sat on the bunk, nodding her head. The question was how to interpret the circumstances. She had accused Pirjo of nasty things, and now she was here. Was it possible that this was a kind of revenge, or perhaps rather a tribulation, like the one God subjected Moses or Abraham to? Was it a trial of strength, like the forty-year walk in the desert, or Job’s disasters? Were they testing her loyalty and faith in what nature absorption could do for her?

  She frowned. Why they? Wasn’t this more likely to be Pirjo’s doing? Wasn’t it her undisputed decision and act, and hers alone?

  Shirley leaned her head back and stared up toward the drifting clouds, rocking from side to side. The greatest comfort during every tribulation had been the same throughout history: the bargemen’s songs when they worked themselves into the ground along the shores of the river Don, the black slaves’ gospel and blues out in the cotton fields, or the mother’s comforting lullaby to her sick child.

  After Shirley’s mom had quarreled with her dad, she’d always grumbled that singing drives sorrow away, adding that if you did it loudly enough you might drive your husband away, too. That proved to be true.

  Shirley smiled as she remembered what her dad had answered when he was in a decent mood again: “Easy for you to sing, you’re not the one paying the taxes, said the farmer to the lark.”

  And then one day there had been no more singing in their home.

  Shirley was humming and listening for signs of life for about fifteen minutes. Then she concluded that as she couldn’t hear any sounds of hammering or shouting from the timber circle construction work, they probably couldn’t hear her either.

  Perhaps it was too early to raise the alarm anyway? Yes, probably.

  She thought of how her dad had said that hunger could be driven away with laughter and singing, when she’d been grounded in her room without any dinner. After that she sang loudly and uninhibited for about an hour.

  She had drunk liters of water from the sink in the bathroom, trying to ignore the hunger. She’d done everything to avoid thinking wicked thoughts, and she’d read the entire manual several times. Gone through all the rituals, said her mantras, prayed to Horus, repeated the tenets of nature absorption over and over, and tried to sink so deep into meditation that it would make up for sleep.

  After having spent thirty-six hours doing that sort of thing, she began to seriously cry for help.

  When her vocal cords no longer obeyed her, she stopped.

  42

  Monday, May 12th, 2014

  “Now I’ve talked to that Kate Busck woman!”

  Carl blinked a couple of times. Had he nodded off?

  He looked down at himself. One foot in the drawer, the other in the trash can. Yes, he must’ve been dozing.

  “Kate Busck?” He squinted toward Assad, trying to return to reality. Had he just been dreaming about Mona? And who the hell was Kate Busck?

  “Kate is the one who knew the man with the VW, Egil Poulsen. The one from the peace movement,” said Assad without being asked.

  Was he a mind reader or what?

  “I told her how important it is that we find the guy in the photo. I sent her a scan of the photocopy, and she was looking at it on her computer while we were talking.”

  “Good idea. And . . .”

  “She did remember a youngster who helped collect leaflets for the demonstrations. A handsome guy who prattled on and on about peace. And yes, he was apparently called Frank, but they called him the Scot. She didn’t know why because he spoke perfect Danish.” Assad made a long pause, allowing the information to sink in. So there was something about that name.

  “She recognized him in the photo, even though she’d only seen him as a boy, you said. Does that seem very likely?”

  “Well, she said she was positive he could be the person in Habersaat’s photocopy.”

  Carl stretched. “That’s fine, Assad, thanks. Let’s just hope we’ll find something in Egil Poulsen’s widow’s house that can bring us a bit closer,” he said, fumbling with his cigarette pack. “Would you get Gordon in here?”

  He took a few drags on his wake-up cigarette.

  Maybe all these small steps would lead to a breakthrough for them. Maybe the man would suddenly be right in front of them.

  And then what?

  Gordon looked more than tired when he stood in front of Carl’s desk. So tired, in fact, that his incredibly long legs were about to give out from under him. How on earth one small heart could transport blood through that entire system was a mystery. No wonder the brain was in short supply and the legs a bit heavy.

  “Sit down and shoot, Gordon. What do you have for us?”

  He shook his head, sinking into the seat.

  “I don’t really know what to say.” He took out his notes. “I could begin by telling you that I’ve managed to get hold of four or five more students from the folk school, and that they had nothing to add to what we know already. They all referred me to Inge Dalby, who they imagined would know more, given that she had the room just next to Alberte’s.”

  Carl looked up toward the window. Those calls hadn’t resulted in much. Had Gordon been the right man for the job?

  “And the rest of the students? How many are left on your list?”

  He looked miserable. “A bit more than half, I think.”

  “Okay, Gordon, we’ll stop there,” he said abruptly and maybe also a bit too harshly. “So what do you have for us now? The phone’s been ringing almost constantly today.”

  The beanpole took a de
ep breath, trying to express something that was meant to sound like the sigh of all ordeals. “I’ve spoken to . . .” He held up his notepad, and began counting lines with the tip of his pencil.

  “Never mind,” said Carl. “Any luck?”

  Gordon was still talking. He didn’t even hear him. A sign that it was time to stop for the day.

  “All in all, forty-six calls.” He looked around, as if expecting some kind of sympathy in return. Did he think he was the only one in the world who’d worked his socks off for a crumb of information?

  “Anyway, I did manage to get hold of one person who had more to say. I have her number, so you can call her if you want to speak with her.” He handed a note to Carl. Apart from the number, it said Karen Knudsen Ærenspris.

  “She knew the man we’re after,” he added surprisingly.

  “In here, Assad,” yelled Carl.

  “They used to live in a commune together,” explained Gordon when Assad stood in front of the desk. “It was in Hellerup—some kind of late-hippie commune with micro-macro food and shared economy and clothes. They called it Ærenspris, and everyone took that as their surname. As far as I could understand from her, she was the only one who kept the name in the long run. The commune wasn’t particularly successful.”

  “So they disbanded?”

  “Of course, fifteen to sixteen years ago.”

  Carl sighed. He was beginning to miss some bloody cases to do with the here and now. “And when did our man live there?”

  “She wasn’t sure, because it was for such a brief period, but she believed it was 1994 or 1995. That fits in with her saying that he celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday there.”