Bogman

by R. I. Olufsen

  “July last year, the manager said.”

  Karl nodded. “That figures. The tremor was in August. The epicentre was south east of Anholt, on the seabed. The seismologists measured it at 4.4 on the Richter scale. That’s pretty strong by Danish standards. And enough to turn a hairline crack into a fissure half a metre wide. We widened it to get at all the remains, but the whole thing will have to be replaced anyway.”

  Tobias instinctively glanced up to where Malling was standing, ashen faced.

  He used the iron rungs in the side of the basin to climb out on to the fairway. He went into the tent where the bones had been assembled on a trestle table. Harry Norsk had a paper-white skull in his hands.

  “Hi, Tobias. If you include the bones from the bins and the finger bones you found in the sink, I have accounted for all of the skeleton.” Harry weighed the skull gently in one hand. “This is female. It’s lighter. The forehead is vertical. The vault is flattened. I understand you already know who it is?”

  Tobias nodded. “Emily Rasmussen. We’re almost certain. We found a ring with the finger bones. We know it was given to her by our Bogman, Lennart Praetorius.”

  Harry’s finger traced a line on the skull. “There’s a split in the cranium. Probably caused by a blunt instrument. And the mandible is fractured. Possibly with the same blunt instrument, although a fist could have done it. I’ve seen boxers with this kind of jaw fracture. Males, not female.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me now?”

  “There’s one strange thing,” said Harry. “Look at this stuff in the skull, behind the jaw.” He turned the skull upside down so that Tobias could see gossamer filaments, like a spider’s web, behind the teeth. “I’ll get an opinion from Brix, but I think this is the same stuff we found with Bogman. Polyethylene Terephthalate. Did you notice the Linden tree by the lake? Linden trees like alkaline soil. Remember what Brix told us? Alkaline soil preserves bones and rots flesh and natural fibres. You’re looking at polyester fibres which didn’t decompose. But why are these fibres in her jaw?”

  “Maybe she was wearing a scarf, or a cap,” said Tobias. His brain was already scanning his memory for the photographs of Emily in the newspaper, the pictures of her on videotape. All the images which came to mind were of Emily with blonde hair streaming behind her in the wind, or plastered to her face by the rain.

  The Politi team had taken over an office in the clubhouse. Malling, with some grace, sent in a pot of coffee. When Katrine arrived, Tobias and Eddy took a coffee break. Karl joined them.

  “I found this.” He tipped a gold locket and chain from a clear plastic bag on to the table. “The seal on the locket was tight. The photographs are hardly damaged.” He opened the locker so the others could see the round photographs of a man and woman. The woman was clearly Astrid Thomsen.

  “The man must be her father,” said Katrine.

  “There can be no doubt now that it’s Emily,” said Tobias. “But we’ll wait for the DNA confirmation before formally notifying the Thomsens.”

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  “Ok,” said Tobias. “Let’s go over what we know, and more importantly, what we don’t know.”

  “Who sent the emails?” asked Eddy.

  “Emily’s killer,” said Tobias. “To prevent her being reported missing. To cover up the fact that he’d killed her.” He adjusted his coffee spoon so that it was aligned with his pen and notepad.

  “He didn’t bother to do that for Bogman, assuming it’s the same killer,” said Eddy. “And we can’t be sure of that either.”

  “He didn’t bother because there wasn’t anybody to report Bogman missing,” said Katrine. “Except Emily. And she was already dead.”

  “All that time we wasted, thinking she was alive,” said Katrine. “I imagined her leading some kind of nomadic life in the tundra. I thought we’d find her eventually.”

  “We did,” said Eddy drily.

  They were silent again.

  “We won’t know which of them died first until we know the age of the bones in the lake. Even then, it won’t be exact.” Tobias gazed at the notepad on which he had written two questions: who wrote the emails? where is the ambulance? He felt weary.

  “What about the ambulance? Where is the ambulance?” he said.

  “Maybe he disposed of it in a lake somewhere, like Emily,” said Eddy. “Is there another lake on the golf course?”

  Tobias shook his head.

  “Are we assuming it’s a male killer?” asked Katrine.

  “Blunt instrument in both cases. Not a female weapon. And there are no women in the frame,” said Tobias.

  “There isn’t anybody in the frame,” said Eddy. “All we can be sure of is that Emily Rasmussen is dead. We don’t need DNA to tell us.”

  “That reminds me,” said Karl. “I have the result on those panties. Nada. Nothing. Only Girlie’s saliva, blood, vomit, urine.”

  Tobias was suddenly alert. Voices, words, were darting around his brain. Harry’s voice. “Why are these fibres in her jaw?” Pernille’s voice on the phone. Where was that? In the car. What was she saying? He had been fiddling with the sat-nav, only half-listening. Something about panties.

  “Pernille Madsen is investigating an assault in Aalborg. She said something about panties.” Tobias shut his eyes to concentrate. “Panties and DNA. I’ll give her a call.” He was wide-awake again. “OK. Either Emily sent some of the emails and the killer sent the rest. Or the killer sent all the emails. Either way, he needed access to Emily’s address book, or he was with her when she wrote emails to her mother. And he dumped the ambulance.”

  “And created the Facebook page,” said Eddy. “That was probably set up at some Internet café as well.”

  “I’ve gone through all the cafes and hotspots the emails were sent from,” said Katrine. “I looked to see what was happening near them around the same time. There were demonstrations at the Shell refinery in Fredericia. I can check if Aksel Schmidt was among those arrested. In Norway and Sweden there were protests about oil-drilling near Pitea and Hurtigruten,” said Katrine. “One of Malling’s companies, as it happens. No arrests, so no names. There was a protest about a ship in Hamburg carrying nuclear waste. No arrests. And there was an anti-bullfighting demonstration in Arles, Provence. I haven’t got list of arrests yet. I started with the most recent email. It was sent three weeks ago, April fourteenth, from Hurtshals. There’s a protest camp in the forest near there.”

  “Hurtsals is not that far from Aalborg,” said Eddy.

  “I know,” said Tobias. “And Asksel Schmidt has been to the camp.”

  They all paused for a moment to take in this information.

  “Let’s bring him in,” said Tobias.

  45.

  The warrant to search the squat was on Tobias’s desk, along with the long-awaited file on Emily Rasmussen’s complaint against her stepfather. Tobias picked up the folder and put it down again. It was probably redundant. He hesitated. He never liked to leave a stone unturned. He picked it up again and took it with him. He would read it later, if he had a moment to spare.

  They drove to the squat in two cars. Tobias and Eddy in one car, Katrine in the second car. Tobias parked at the front. Katrine parked at the back. Tobias and Eddy went to the door in the side alley. Tobias knocked on the door. Nobody came. He hammered on the door. Still no response.

  Eddy shouted, “Open up. Police. We have a warrant to search these premises.” He took his gun from his shoulder holster.

  “Stand away from the door,” he shouted. “I’m going to shoot out the lock.”

  A voice from inside cried, “Stop. I’ll open the door.”

  Eddy lowered his gun. The door opened. A girl of about eighteen stood there. She wore blue jeans, a red T-shirt and a red bandana.

  “What do you want? Why are you harassing us?”

  “We’re looking for Aksel Schmidt,” said Tobias.

  “He’s not here,” said the girl. “
I’m the only person here.”

  Eddy pushed past her into the squat.

  “You won’t find anybody,” the girl called out.

  “Where is he if he’s not here?” asked Tobias.

  The girl shrugged.

  “You can tell me down at headquarters, if you prefer,” said Tobias.

  “They’ve gone to North Jutland to stop developers cutting down a forest,” said the girl. “I don’t know where exactly.”

  Eddy came bounding down stairs behind her. “I’ve had a look around. There’s nobody here.”

  Katrine joined them. “Nobody at the back either.”

  “I told you so,” said the girl. “They’re in North Jutland. Saving a forest.”

  Tobias hoped Agnes wasn’t there. Had she said she was going there at the weekend? He couldn’t remember. They’d had a scratchy conversation the last time they’d spoken. With any luck, Agnes had classes on Friday and wouldn’t get to the camp until the evening, or the following day. He supposed she travelled with Magnus on the back of the motorbike. He never liked to think about that.

  “Ok, Eddy. Let’s go,” he said.

  It was midday when they turned off the main road and on to the track running through the forest to the protest camp. The trees were cloaked in a light mist. The ground was damp and cut with deep tire tracks. It looked as though at least a couple of lorries had taken the same route earlier.

  As they got nearer, Tobias heard what sounded like faint cries. He rolled down the window and heard several loud bangs, like firecrackers.

  “Sounds like a bit of riot, Boss,” said Eddy.

  Two police officers in riot gear jumped out on to the track in front of the car.

  “What the fuck,” said Eddy, braking hard.

  “P E T,” shouted one of the officers.

  Tobias waved his ID at him.

  The officer strode up to the car. “We’re raiding the camp. It’s a pre-empt before a climate change demo next week. Get your car out of the way.” He pointed to a sidetrack into the forest.

  “We’ve come to speak to a suspect in a murder case,” said Tobias.

  “We’re arresting them all,” said the officer. “You can take your pick. Keep out of the way in the meantime”

  Eddy turned into the sidetrack and parked. He and Tobias got out and headed through the forest towards the camp. The air was filled with shouts and clanking, clinking, rattling noises and more firecrackers. Then there was the sound of vehicle doors being slammed shut.

  They emerged beside a television crew hurrying towards the noise. Tobias recognized the blonde reporter with the red spectacles. She clearly thought he and Eddy were journalists as well.

  “They phoned us an hour ago when the police arrived,” she said. “I think we’ve missed most of the action.”

  When they reached the clearing, Tobias saw what looked like planks of wood and power tools – was that an angle grinder? – being loaded into a police van. An officer emerged from the wigwam carrying what looked like fluorescent tubes and a tin of paint. Tobias flashed his ID.

  “Peaceful demonstration, my arse,” said the officer. “We found forty riot shields, fifty paint bombs, half a dozen hammers and hundreds of firecrackers in there,” he jerked his head back towards the wigwam.

  The PET officer who’d stopped the car came up to Tobias and Eddy. He pointed to a police wagon where a dozen or so activists sat on benches.

  “If who you’re looking for is in there, you can have them.”

  Tobias and Eddy ran to the arrest vehicle. Tobias felt his stomach tighten. Magnus was sitting, scowling, at the end of a bench. There was no sign of Agnes. Tobias relaxed.

  “Which one of you is Aksel Schmidt?” he asked.

  Silence.

  “I want him,” said Tobias, pointing at Magnus. The PET officer reached into the wagon and hauled out Magnus.

  Tobias led him out of earshot. Eddy followed.

  “Where’s Aksel?”

  Magnus was silent.

  Eddy lifted him off his feet by the collar of his jacket and set him down again.

  “Tell us where he is or I’ll toss you back into the wagon.”

  Tobias said, quietly, “We want to talk to him about a murder. The murder of a young activist.”

  Magnus paled. He was clearly shocked. “Aksel saw the police vans coming. He ran into the forest with Agnes.”

  Tobias could feel his heart thumping. His imagination raced ahead of him. Stop it. Calm down. Think. He pulled out his mobile phone and called Agnes.

  “Dad?” Her voice shook.

  “Where are you? Are you all right?”

  “We were raided.”

  “I know.”

  “You know? How do you know? Were you part of it? Did you know about it in advance?”

  “I knew nothing about it. Where are you?”

  “I’m on the main road near the camp. Walking to Aksel’s motorbike.”

  Tobias began running to the car, talking as he ran.

  “Stay where you are, Agnes. Wait till I get to you.”

  He could hear Agnes speaking to Aksel, hear the note of puzzlement in her voice.

  “Don’t go with Aksel,” he shouted into the phone.

  Eddy caught up with him as he got to the car. He started the engine. Eddy jumped into the passenger seat. They turned on to the main road and saw Agnes and Aksel, hand in hand, close to the trees, heading for a motorbike parked on the verge. Tobias had his gun in his lap.

  Eddy braked beside the motorbike. Tobias jumped out, gun in hand. Aksel halted. He pulled Agnes around in front of him and held her close with one arm.

  “Move away from him, Agnes,” said Tobias.

  Aksel tightened his grip on her. “Don’t move. They’re over the top. It’s just a demo. They can’t even arrest us. We’re just having a walk in the forest, admiring the trees they want to destroy.”

  “Move away, Agnes,” said Tobias quietly. Did Aksel have a gun?

  Aksel put his other arm around Agnes and clasped her shoulders. No gun. Relief flooded through Tobias. Eddy came up beside him.

  “Put your guns away and we’ll talk,” said Aksel. He was still holding Agnes. She was pale and rigid.

  Tobias lowered his gun. Aksel suddenly shoved Agnes, hard, so she almost fell. Tobias instinctively reached out for her. Aksel turned and ran into the forest.

  Tobias shouted, “Get into the car, Agnes.”

  He followed Eddy in pursuit of Aksel, running, weaving, almost slipping on wet ground, through the trees.

  Aksel turned to shout at them, “You’re making a mistake.” He tripped, fell, cried out, “Fuck.”

  When they reached him, guns at the ready again, he was lying on his back holding up a badge. Grinning.

  “I’m with PET,” he said. “You nearly blew my cover.”

  Eddy grabbed the badge. Checked it. Gave it to Tobias.

  Aksel groaned and got to his feet.

  Tobias gave him back the badge. “What were you doing with Agnes?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  “She’s my daughter,” said Tobias.

  “I know,” said Aksel. “I’m with PET, remember?”

  Eddy put his hand on Tobias’s arm. A signal to take it easy.

  “Don’t worry. I wasn’t fucking her. We were on guard duty. Agnes spotted a police vehicle. Aalborg. Fucking amateurs. She shouted a warning but our vehicles were already three quarters way up the track. All we could do was run for it. You should be grateful she hasn’t been arrested.”

  He looked so self-satisfied, Tobias wanted to punch him, put him on the ground again.

  “We’re taking you in for questioning. About Emily Rasmussen.”

  Aksel looked surprised. “Emily Rasmussen? That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”

  “Are you carrying a firearm?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Aksel.

  He looked bored while Eddy patted him down.

  �
�No gun, Boss.”

  “OK,” said Tobias. “Take him in.”

  Eddy and Aksel travelled back to Aarhus with PET.

  Tobias walked back to the road. Agnes was standing beside the car, white-faced, anxious. He thought she was probably still in shock. He held her for a moment before gently pushing her into the car.

  “What’s happening, Dad? Why are you here? Why were you chasing Aksel?”

  “He’s wanted for questioning,” said Tobias.

  He started the engine. For the first twenty kilometers neither he nor Agnes spoke. When they reached the motorway, she began to say something.

  “I don’t want to discuss your foolishness, Agnes,” said Tobias. “You’re an adult. You make your own choices. I trusted you to make sensible choices. Instead you involve yourself with idiots. That bloody wigwam was full of paint bombs, and power drills, and planks and riot shields and wire cages on wheels.”

  “They’re for building a three dimensional map. To put on wheels for the demonstration. To show what global warming is doing. Denmark will disappear when the ice melts, Dad. And we’ll be responsible if we don’t do something to stop it.”

  “And firecrackers?”

  “They won’t harm anyone. They just make a noise.”

  “Tell that to the judge,” said Tobias. He overtook the police wagon. Magnus was in it. Good.

  “I haven’t been arrested,” said Agnes. “They’ll see I’m in the car with you. Now they’ll all think I’m a police spy. I’d rather be arrested.”

  “And get a criminal record? And have that on your CV? Grow up, Agnes.”

  Silence fell again. Tobias felt tired. He’d not had much sleep. He switched on the radio and found P2Klassik. The sound of a symphony orchestra flooded into the car.

  “I thought you only listened to police radio in the car,” said Agnes.

  “Don’t be smart with me, Agnes.”

  They were forty kilometers from Aarhus when she spoke again.

  “What has Aksel done? What’s so important you had to drive all that way?”

  Tobias considered saying he thought Aksel might be a murderer. He was tempted to say Aksel was a member of PET. Instead he said, “I can’t tell you. Not yet. Where do you want to go? To the train station? To your Mum’s house? To the apartment?”