by Lotte Hammer
Simonsen looked at his watch, a sure sign for them to speed things up. “A picture is beginning to form, you might say. How were the maids duped?”
Pauline Berg closed her notebook. She knew that part by heart.
“Into having sex with their boss. Well, that applies to three of them, and possibly more. None of them was specific about it over the phone so we’ll go out and visit them to get the whole story. Maybe Agnete Bahn was also taken in.”
“We’ll have to find that out on Monday,” said Simonsen, disappearing from his office without so much as a goodbye.
CHAPTER 25
Pauline Berg was enjoying her dinner with the psychologist. His surname was Madsen, but for some reason he would not reveal his first name. She got no further with him than E. Madsen, and as the evening progressed was running out of Christian names starting with E. During dessert she thought of two more.
“Ebert or Esben?”
“Why don’t you just enjoy your ice cream while you tell me a little more about yourself?”
“But is that correct?”
“No.”
“Neither of them?”
“Neither of them.”
“Hey, what about Emmerik?”
“Good Lord, you can’t be called that unless you’re a canary.”
“I promise not to laugh.”
“People always say that, and then they laugh anyway.”
“Not me. I won’t laugh, no matter what it is. I swear by all that’s sacred.”
“Forget it, I don’t think you’re particularly religious. What was it you wanted to ask me about?”
Pauline Berg set down her spoon.
“Listen now, you’re really sweet, but I can’t date a man I can only call Madsen. It sounds like something out of a nineteenth-century play. Tell me now, then I’ll tell you what my question is.”
“That’s an unreasonable trade, you’ll have to think of something better.”
“Okay, you get to decide on the first movie we go to see.”
“I didn’t know we were going to see a movie.”
“You know now. I love going to movies. We’ll find an evening next week, or maybe on Sunday, we’ll arrange the details later. Okay now—out with the name.”
“So, my parents were hippies, I was actually born in a collective, and I was named after one of their great role models. Do you know Che Guevara?”
“The guy on the T-shirts?”
“Hah, they should hear that. Yes, exactly, the one on the T-shirts.”
“What about him?”
“He and I have the same first name. Ernesto.”
Pauline Berg stared at him in disbelief.
“Your name is Ernesto? Ernesto Madsen?”
“Yes, unfortunately.”
Tears were forming in her eyes.
“That’s not so bad.”
She almost sounded sincere, then a snort of mirth slipped out and betrayed her. The next moment she was howling with laughter. She reached her hands across the table and held his, as if she wanted to beg forgiveness even as she laughed. Fortunately her mirth was contagious, and he laughed too. Even the couple at the next table started smiling, without knowing why.
“Ernesto Madsen! That’s just God-awful. I really feel sorry for you.”
“Thanks for your honesty, I don’t like Pauline as a name either.”
Not until coffee did she have enough control of herself to ask her original question.
“What I was thinking about in connection with Andreas Falkenborg . . . you may recall that Simon asked whether you thought he would confess, when we questioned him?”
“Of course I remember that, how forgetful do you think I am? And I also remember that I didn’t have a serviceable answer.”
“No, I can see that, but . . . what if one of those questioning him had the same appearance as his victims? I mean, if the one questioning him resembled the women he killed. That is, was the same type, if you know what I mean?”
“Where would you get someone like that?”
Pauline Berg thought that obviously he was better at seeing into people than he was at observing them from the outside. In this situation that was a clear advantage, however.
“Well, this is just theoretical, but can you imagine his reaction?”
Madsen thought for a while and then answered hesitantly, “I think that he would be frightened out of his wits and presumably also confess, if he was in any condition to—basically do anything to get away from the situation. From his viewpoint, this would be a form of torture. But I would absolutely not recommend putting him on the spot like that, not even as a last resort, because if he ever got out again, you don’t need to be particularly imaginative to work out what could happen.”
“But he would confess?”
“I believe so, unless he completely broke down first.”
“Thanks, I just love you.”
“Is there anything else?”
“No, I’m a woman who doesn’t demand too much, Ernesto.”
CHAPTER 26
The director of social services in Gribskov Municipality, Helle Oldermand Hagensen, was a powerful person who demanded a lot from her fellow human beings when she could get away with it, which—given her exalted position—was often the case. Such as this evening, when the Countess was following a winding gravel path through Tisvilde Hegn, which ended at last in a deserted parking lot. There were only two cars here, an older model Renault and the director’s black Audi, which the Countess recognised from the day before. No director of social services was in sight; it was obviously up to the Countess to find her own way to the museum. She got out of the car and cast an assessing glance up at the sky, then made sure her umbrella was in her bag; it looked like rain. She checked her watch and saw that she had a good ten minutes for her walk, which ought to be plenty.
The path from the parking lot meandered up through an irregular moraine landscape, where only small clumps of crooked pine trees occasionally interrupted the view over Kattegat, grey and rain-drenched below her, with more dark clouds quickly approaching. A few drops landed on her head and she picked up her pace for the last stretch of the path.
The museum proved to be a thatched building three storeys high, reminiscent of an outsize coastal villa and poorly suited to its setting. The director was waiting under the roof overhang along with a younger man. She was a tall, almost stately woman in her early forties, expensively dressed but with an uncertain style, which the Countess with her expert eye quickly noted. From a distance the woman was quite good-looking, with regular features and thick, reddish-brown hair that billowed down over her shoulders, but close up her face was marred by her badly pitted skin, where it seemed like cosmetic laser treatment had gone wrong.
The Countess nodded affably while trying to convince herself that this time they would hit it off. Anyone could have a bad day, and nothing good ever came of nursing yesterday’s grudges. But Helle Oldermand Hagensen chased these positive thoughts far out into Kattegat with her very first sentence, when she said, “So there you are. You arrived just in time. You have an hour, starting now.”
The Countess controlled herself.
“Thanks for your kindness.”
She received a gracious nod, which was hard to interpret, whereas the director’s little snap of the fingers and about turn towards the main door was indication enough. The employee took out a set of keys and let them in. With the Countess bringing up the rear, the young man led them down a stairway and into a basement room, whose walls were covered more or less floor to ceiling with cabinets, shelves and all kinds of cases of various sizes and shapes. The illumination was poor, as the room’s only window was partly blocked by stacked trunks in serious need of cleaning. Alongside all this a narrow workspace had been squeezed in, with a desk, office chair, and a computer that had been obsolete since the nineties. Helle Oldermand Hagensen threw open her arms like a ring master and said, “Well, be my guest. You have fifty-five minutes, and of course m
ust not remove any of the museum’s artifacts. I truly hope you know what you’re looking for because otherwise you are wasting my time.”
“I know that, and thanks for agreeing to help.”
“Did you bring a camera?”
“Yes. I’m searching for a picture I would really like a copy of, when I find it.”
“That’s out of the question. Give me your camera now, please.”
The Countess had controlled herself for a long time, far beyond what she would normally put up with in terms of obstructive behaviour from a witness in a murder case. The reason for that was simple: the clue she was pursuing had its basis in a telephone call with a clairvoyant and as time went by the message she’d received then seemed more and more as if it had been meant for her, and her alone. Furthermore, her parallel investigation was controversial in itself. All in all, she preferred to keep a low profile, but enough was enough.
She walked slowly up to the director, only stopping when she was just a bit too close, after which she looked her straight in the eyes and said, “Now you have a choice. You can stop your pompous meddling and leave right now. I’ll come and get you when I’m finished, whether that takes ten minutes or the whole evening. The other possibility is that you let out just one more negative word, in which case I’m putting handcuffs on you and locking you to a water pipe until I’ve done my work. Be kind enough to tell me which you prefer, before I choose for you.”
Helle Oldermand Hagensen’s face turned dark with anger and for a moment the Countess feared she might be having a stroke. She sucked in air, which saved her, however. The Countess wagged her finger again.
“Bear in mind now, a single derogatory comment and you’re out.”
The director turned on her heel and left the room with a red face. The Countess glanced at the young employee and discovered he was grinning from ear to ear. She asked, “Is she always so accommodating?”
“Yikes! You should see her when she really gets going. My wife works at one of the municipal nursing homes . . . well, obviously it’s in the social services area, and there they really suffer. She just had twelve people fired in Home Health Care at the same time as she is recruiting to build up her own organisation at city hall. She and the two other assholes who are her assis-tants . . . those three truly understand how to tighten others’ belts nice and snug. On the other hand, she is not particularly competent. I think basically that’s the main reason for her behaviour. But almost the worst thing of all is how she toadies upward. That’s simply unbearable to watch.”
“Well, there are people like that in every walk of life. But we’d better get to work, although—”
The Countess looked around, disheartened.
“—this doesn’t look easy. I hope you have a cataloguing system or I might just as well give up sooner rather than later.”
“Cataloguing system? There’s no such thing down here, but I have something I believe you’ll think is better.”
He fished a USB flash drive out of his pocket and gave it to her.
“What is it?”
“Thirty-eight pictures from the Søndre Strømfjord base, all taken in the first fourteen days of July 1983.The picture you are looking for is number four.”
The Countess was overwhelmed.
“You must be joking? How about that!”
“Yes, but I hope you’ll keep it quiet otherwise she’ll fire me and probably my wife too, if she has a chance.”
“I won’t say a word. So you’ve spoken with the previous museum director?”
“Yes, he told me what you wanted, and where it was.”
“And picture number four—I haven’t told anyone about that.”
“No, but two freelance journalists have been calling around a lot of the people who were on the base in that time, and they’re looking for him so I assumed you were too.”
He removed a photocopy from his wallet and unfolded it. A young, crew-cut man smiled out at them. The Countess asked, “Where did you get this picture from?”
“The journalists visited me at home two days ago. They gave me this, but didn’t say who it is.”
“Did you help them?”
“No, I didn’t much like them, and I also don’t think that murder is entertainment. Poor girl, imagine being killed that way.”
“Well, I can hardly disagree with you about that. May I have that piece of paper?”
“Please, I have no use for it. But who is that really?”
“A man from the Foreign Ministry who has done nothing illegal. Do you know the names of the journalists?”
“No, but one of them left a card. I can call you about it when I get home.”
“Please do. Did they say specifically why they were interested in the man in the picture?”
“No, just like you’re not either.”
A paranoid thought suddenly struck the Countess.
“The former museum director, why was he discharged?”
“Hmm, that’s a very long story, and there are many truths in that matter, but it has nothing to do with these pictures, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“Okay. I didn’t really think it had.”
“Basically it was bad luck for all of us. There was no one like him for telling tall tales from Greenland; all kinds of delightful stories, some of them even true. Now the whole thing has been made the responsibility of the Agency for Cultural Heritage and various museum politicians, but the majority of visitors here are regular people, and they would rather hear the tall tales.”
“Do you know any of them?”
“Lots, but I’m no good at telling them. Not as good as my former boss anyway.”
“But you practise?”
The man blushed.
“Yes, a little. For my own amusement.”
The Countess glanced at the window, where the rain had started to drum against the glass. It was no weather to go out in. So she looked at her watch and said, “Why don’t you tell me a story?”
CHAPTER 27
The weather changed on Saturday afternoon. The sultry heat that had settled over Copenhagen was released in thunderstorms and rain as the train approached Roskilde. Pauline Berg found the outburst liberating, although it made no difference in the coach where her clothes still clung to her body. She looked out of the window and saw the faraway cathedral with its twin towers lit by sharp flashes of lightning under the leaden sky. Shortly after that the rain hit the train and obscured the view.
For a while she observed the irregular tracks of the water down the window and wondered why some drops remained in place while others pelted across the glass at a furious speed. Then she turned towards her neighbour and fellow passenger. He was a soldier, and in Copenhagen she had just beaten him in the race to get to the window seat first. Since then he had tried to initiate a conversation the whole way, but she had rejected him with monosyllabic answers or else simply ignored him. Now he was one of the first passengers to stand up, obviously eager to get away. She smiled at him, which she had otherwise been careful not to do during the journey, and noticed how he considered sitting down again. It remained just a thought, however. He returned the smile and left.
Roskilde station was the oldest in the country. Opened in 1847, it was constructed to serve Denmark’s first railway between Copenhagen and Roskilde. Pauline Berg had prepared herself on the Internet. On Saturday, 5 April, 1997 just after nine o’clock, Catherine Thomsen arrived on the regional train from Copenhagen. Several other passengers had seen her and could confirm that she was travelling alone. In Roskilde she got off at platform one, closest to the station, which was also confirmed by witnesses. From here she would take a short walk through a tunnel that led under the tracks and up on to platform six, where the train to Næstved by way of Haslev would arrive in seven minutes. No passengers had seen her on the Næstved train, and most likely she never got on. The weather that day had been rainy and windy with temperatures in the mid-forties. So it was unlikely that she left the station a
rea, unless she had an errand to run.
Pauline Berg followed in Catherine Thomsen’s footsteps five times. Slowly and systematically she wandered from one platform, down through the tunnel and up on to the other, as she tried to take in everything around her at the same time. The rain was splashing down, and the butterfly roofs of the platforms provided only partial protection. Her jeans were wet, but she was too preoccupied to notice.
In 1997 Andreas Falkenborg owned a silver-grey Saab 900. He might have parked either in front of or behind the station area. But what could persuade a twenty-two-year-old woman to interrupt her journey and follow a middle-aged man to his car? Seen from Falkenborg’s point of view, this place was almost the worst imaginable if he was going to use violence or threats. There were far too many witnesses around. Pauline sat down in the station cafeteria with a cup of coffee and cemented the conclusion she had reached several days ago: Andreas Falkenborg and Catherine Thomsen already knew each other. But an acquaintanceship did not fully explain the circumstances either. The two platforms and tunnel were a strange setting in which to feign a coincidental meeting and offer a ride. The sequence of events only made sense if they had a prior agreement. If Catherine Thomsen of her own free will had gone to Falkenborg’s car, where he sat waiting for her.
In the train back to Copenhagen Pauline Berg visualised the meeting. She imagined how the young girl, half-soaked and bent over against the wind, had jogged the final metres to Andreas Falkenborg’s Saab. Did he reach out and open the passenger door himself, when he saw her coming? Yes, he probably did. Nice to see you, can you believe this weather, there are tissues in the glove compartment. Her path to the morgue was paved with friendliness. No, constructed of friendliness sounded better. And what was their drive like? Pauline Berg daydreamed further and shivered with joy. She loved her job.
At Copenhagen’s Central Station she called Konrad Simonsen and informed him of her conclusions. Her boss was interested, if far from as enthusiastic as she was. But he agreed she should continue her research. That was enough for her. She had contacted Simonsen over the weekend as if it were the most natural thing in the world, just like Poul Troulsen, the Countess and Arne Pedersen did when they were on to something important. And she would just continue, as he had said. Just continue.