by Lotte Hammer
‘But it’s quite something that Big Bertha is running the case herself,’ Konrad Simonsen said to the Deputy Commissioner: ‘Usually, she only takes on difficult and complicated cases. I think it’s because you and she work so well together.’
‘Do you really think so?’
The Deputy Commissioner beamed and blushed like a young girl, the soft shade of pink in her cheeks matching that of her blouse.
‘I’m sure of it. Oh, by the way, I may end up needing a little more money than we agreed for this investigation. I haven’t been able to make all that many savings once I had to factor in the international perspective.’
‘No, of course not, I’m sure we can work something out, don’t you worry about that. Tell me, did she say something about working with me?’
‘That was my impression, and I wasn’t the only one, definitely not.’
CHAPTER 38
From the Kolleløse Manor accounts as well as those of Store Heddinge Holiday Homes LLP, a company based in Køge and specialising in the transport and construction of smaller log cabins, they learned that the hunting lodge in Hanehoved Forest had been delivered, erected and paid for in Christmas 2007.
However, there was evidence to suggest that the invoice had been predated, and that the actual time of construction was the week of 20 March 2008. During that time Frode Otto had had seven telephone conversations with the company, and weather-wise it would also fit neatly with Klavs Arnold’s tyre-track theory. If he was correct, then his theory was interesting because 20 March was within the time window estimated by the forensic pathologist for the African woman’s death.
Konrad Simonsen and Klavs Arnold drove to Køge to interview the managing director and sole proprietor of Store Heddinge Holiday Homes. Here they hit a wall.
Predating an invoice wasn’t a major crime; it happened often if the customer wanted the invoice included in last year’s budget. Konrad Simonsen expressed his understanding of this, but to no avail. The managing director insisted he hadn’t predated anything at all, and he had better things to do than talk to them. At this point, the two officers had barely sat down. Nevertheless, Klavs Arnold carried on the conciliatory line:
‘Listen. We’re not from the Revenue, and we don’t care about a bit of cash changing hands on the side.’
The managing director was in his late twenties, articulate and utterly unmoved.
‘No one gets bribed here, friend. Anything else?’
‘Come on, please. We’re investigating a murder.’
‘And I’m running a business, or at least I was until you barged in.’
Konrad Simonsen tried the stick rather than the carrot: Customs and Exercise, the Revenue, a labour inspection or health and safety issues on the premises, and he wondered out loud if the managing director’s 4x4, which was listed as a business vehicle, had ever been seen in Køge Marina? What could it possibly be doing there? Oh dear, oh dear, that could be expensive.
The managing director was unperturbed.
‘You don’t like the authorities?’ Konrad Simonsen asked. ‘Is that why you won’t help us?’
It was clear from the expression on the man’s face that he had hit the nail on the head. Nevertheless, all he said was: ‘I’ve answered your questions, do you have any more?’
They did.
‘Who built the hunting lodge?’
‘It’s hard to say after all this time. We’ve no records, and if you’re going to interview my staff, I would appreciate it happening outside working hours.’
‘Fortunately that’s my decision, and I don’t care what you would appreciate. But another thing: last March you spoke six times on the phone to a man named Frode Otto. He’s the estate bailiff at Kolleløse Manor. What did you talk about?’
Konrad Simonsen placed a piece of paper with Frode Otto’s telephone records in front of the managing director, who instantly pushed it back.
‘No idea, I speak to twenty people every day. Are we done?’
Klavs Arnold asked his boss:
‘Please let me beat him up?’
The managing director, however, refused to be intimidated or provoked.
‘Get out, and the next time, if there is a next time, which I hope there won’t be, then call in advance, so I have time to contact my lawyer.’
The breakthrough came just under a week later in Northern Ireland, of all places, more precisely on the road between Derryvara and Monea Castle in County Fermagh. The Næstved Retired People’s Association were on their annual trip abroad, and this year their destination was Northern Ireland, where they set off on a hiking trip. While they enjoyed the landscape, they chatted to each other about this and that. For example, a seventy-one-year-old woman told her friend about her grandson, who had been threatened with the sack at his job with Store Heddinge Holiday Homes if he ever told the police anything about a particular job he had carried out for a member of the aristocracy. The police, imagine, he’s not even allowed to talk to the police, it’s outrageous. Her friend agreed, it was outrageous. Outrageous enough to be repeated in a slightly embellished version when she spoke on the phone to her daughter later that night. Her daughter in turn added a little extra and passed on the story to her son when he casually asked how Granny was getting on. Her son was a bricklayer and currently working alongside a young man on a major roof renovation of a property in Mitchellsgade in Copenhagen. The young man’s name was Oliver Malinowski. The bricklayer shouted from his scaffolding:
‘Oi, Oliver, isn’t your father-in-law a top cop?’
Oliver Malinowski was standing on the roof of the property, busy replacing the zinc bottom of a gutter pipe.
‘Calling him my father-in-law is pushing it, but yes. Why?’
‘Three guys down in Køge have been threatened with beatings and the sack if they talk to him. But they know who killed that nignog girl from Nordsjælland. Only they’re too scared to say anything because some bigwig is involved. And it’s definitely true, I heard it from someone who knows them well.’
Oliver Malinowski wasn’t a stupid man. He was perfectly aware that the story might not be one hundred per cent true, but the word Køge rang a bell. Through his girlfriend, Konrad Simonsen’s daughter Anna Mia, he had heard the other side of the story. Some moron of a managing director was obstructing the investigation the Homicide Department was currently working on, or something like that, he had been tired and missed a few details.
But perhaps his girlfriend’s father would appreciate the information the bricklayer had just given him. From where he was standing, he could look down at Police Headquarters, and he thought it might be fun to nip over there during his lunch break to see if Konrad Simonsen was in. His information might be important, and he would get to see the building from the inside, something he had wanted to do for a while. The outcome was that the duty officer called Konrad Simonsen’s office just under an hour later and giggled as he told the Homicide chief that there’s a Russian downstairs claiming to be living with your daughter. Konrad Simonsen had his guest brought up to his office where Oliver Malinowski who, despite his foreign-sounding surname, was Danish born and bred, repeated the story he had just heard. Arne Pedersen was told to investigate, while Konrad Simonsen invited the young man to lunch in the canteen. He liked him and, more importantly, Anna Mia did. The Countess, who knew about these things, even claimed that his daughter had become happier since moving in with her boyfriend.
Arne Pedersen cursed under his breath. He had better things to do than chase rumours, he thought. Yet he did as he was told and via telephone call after telephone call, he followed Oliver Malinowski’s story back to its starting point, which, completely against his expectations, turned out to be worthwhile. A temp working in the reception at Store Heddinge Holiday Homes insisted that a few weeks earlier he had overheard the company’s director in strong terms forbid three employees ever to mention the construction of the hunting lodge in Hanehoved Forest to a living soul, including the police.
Ar
ne Pedersen got the name of the three employees and then had a flash of inspiration. He asked to be transferred to their shop steward, and the two men had a nice long chat, which resulted in him being called less than thirty minutes later from Stockholm by an agitated union secretary from the Swedish Transport Workers’ Union. Arne Pedersen struggled to understand what the man was saying and had to ask him to slow down. That helped. The union secretary wanted to know if it was true that a big-headed Danish director of some tinpot business calling itself Store Heddinge Holiday Homes was obstructing the investigation into the Helsinki ferry rape. Arne Pedersen confirmed it shamelessly, while grinning from ear to ear. Over three-quarters of the cabins Store Heddinge Holiday Homes sold in Denmark were bought in Sweden and transported directly to customers there. Of course it might now become difficult to find someone to transport them.
Konrad Simonsen politely ushered the managing director to a chair on his arrival, and offered him a cup of coffee. He felt no need to gloat, he just wanted the truth. The managing director poured coffee for himself and mumbled half-heartedly that he regretted his previous unhelpful attitude and was now ready to co-operate. The hunting lodge in Hanehoved Forest had indeed been put up in March 2008, rather than December the previous year. The work had been carried out on Sunday, 23 March, and the day before the customer, a man called Frode Otto, had picked up six staddle stones and a template for their location. The managing director himself had taken part in the construction of the lodge, as had the customer, along with two of the company’s employees. Konrad Simonsen showed him a photograph of Frode Otto; the managing director confirmed that he was the customer.
‘Do you normally help put up log cabins yourself?’
‘It happens, but not often. In this case, it was because it was the weekend, and I couldn’t get an extra man at such short notice, and also because I was offered fifty thousand kroner in cash to keep quiet once the lodge was finished.’ He spoke with a sigh, but without remorse. ‘Does your offer not to call the Revenue still stand?’
‘Yes, I would think so, but let’s wait and see. Tell me how the arrangement came about.’
It was straightforward: Frode Otto had called him, made him an offer and he had accepted. At that time he had financial problems, so the extra money came in very handy.
‘If you spend more than you earn, you run into trouble, no matter how much money you make. Do you want the details? It’s nothing illegal, apart from a bit of cash in hand here and there.’
‘What happened to the old hunting lodge, did you take it away?’
‘No, I think it had been torched.’
‘Tell me more, this is extremely important to me.’
‘I could smell smoke, I’m sure of it. But I saw no remains; I guess they had been chucked into the forest.’
He was mistaken about that, the theory had been eliminated after the police’s meticulous search of the area, but he had no way of knowing that, of course.
‘I presume it’s possible to disassemble the lodge, so our people can examine the ground, and then put it back up again when we’re done?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you’d be willing to do this at your own expense?’
‘Absolutely, I’d be more than happy to help. But you need to know that Otto threatened me and my family if I ever spoke about the case. The bastard even knew the name of my wife, it was terrifying.’
This information didn’t surprise Konrad Simonsen; he had already surmised something to that effect.
‘That bastard won’t be bothering anyone for the next ten years, so you don’t need to be scared.’
The police only had to dig down a spade’s length before the charred remains of the old hunting lodge appeared. The job was then handed over to forensic technicians and it took them four days. Konrad Simonsen went there every day, where he would watch their activities impatiently for half an hour. He felt they were progressing far too slowly but he watched from a suitable distance and didn’t interfere. Nevertheless, on the second day he received some interesting information. A female forensic technician explained.
‘The lodge was torched in two stages. First with petrol as the accelerant, the second time with paraffin. Any wood that survived the first fire was sawn into smaller pieces with a chainsaw, before being burned again.’
The third day also offered up a surprise. When Konrad Simonsen arrived for his daily visit, he bumped into Bertha Steenholt. Puzzled, he asked her:
‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Taking an interest, no law against that, is there?’
‘Would you please give me a proper reply? After all, you’re interfering in my investigation.’
The Public Prosecutor watched the forensic technicians for a while before answering:
‘The hysteria about the “nignog” name really got my goat. If anyone refers to an African girl in politically incorrect terms, the country goes crazy and the media bubbles over with outrage, but hardly anyone cares that countless African women are trafficked here every year to work as sex slaves. It makes me sick. That was my reaction when the case originally blew up in the media and my disgust returned when your wife contacted me.’
‘You think the victim was a prostitute?’
‘Yes, don’t you? Who else can you kill without them being reported missing? Surely that thought has crossed your mind – but you should go over there, they’ve found something for you.’
All of the metal had been separated out: the wood-burning stove and other large objects were lying on a plastic sheet on the grass, smaller pieces had been laid out on a long table as they were found. So far they had all been nails, screws, fittings and equally uninteresting objects from the old lodge. But this was the exception.
Konrad Simonsen held up the jeans button to the light, and a pleasant sensation of clarity washed over him, a moment of insight and meaning; he could describe it in no other terms. It had been hers, he was sure of it. LEVI STRAUSS & CO., it read, and he said quietly into the air:
‘You wore jeans and this is where you were killed.’
Shortly afterwards a technician came over and placed a belt buckle on the table. She told him in no uncertain terms to keep his fingers off it.
CHAPTER 39
The air over Læderstræde in the centre of Copenhagen was a mix of noise and spring warmth, which couldn’t quite get a foothold.
Benedikte Lerche-Larsen had sat outdoors at one of the many cafés for thirty much-needed minutes of peace and quiet. She sipped her espresso and shivered. Perhaps she should go inside, it was a little too chilly out here, she thought, but left it at that, reluctant to do anything other than stay where she was and just empty her head of worries for half an hour. On the pedestrian street in front of her people rushed past in different directions, on constant collision courses and swearing at anyone who stopped or moved diagonally. A van drove slowly through the pedestrians, who slammed angry hands on its bonnet if it got too close. One called out, ‘It’s a bloody pedestrian street, you halfwit,’ but the driver didn’t react, just sat staring wearily into the distance as he patiently inched forward. Benedikte Lerche-Larsen looked around. Not many people were sitting outside, most tables were vacant. Scrawny pigeons with nodding heads wandered in between them on an eternal hunt for a few dropped crumbs. She kicked lazily out at one that was being a little too intrusive.
As if spirited out of the clear spring air, a young man sat down at her table. He had an open, cheerful face and attractive eyes, and when he spoke, it was with exactly that touch of insecurity she liked. He had spotted her from across the street and thought she looked lovely. Was it OK if he bought her a cup of coffee? She told him to get lost and smiled at his back, when he slunk off with his tail between his legs. The episode had brightened her mood.
The problem was she was too busy, she was simply unable to juggle everything. There were the poker statistics, which she was always behind with; her mother would regularly trouble her for help with the hook
ers; there was her studies, which had been pretty much a joke in the last fortnight; and on top of everything, as if that wasn’t enough, there were her daily shifts in the soup kitchen, and Henrik Krag, whom she couldn’t make a low priority either.
She took out her mobile, called Bjarne Fabricius and got through to him immediately. That was rare. While she sipped her coffee, she delivered her weekly report on what was going on in her father’s business, short and matter-of-fact, as her recipient liked it. Nothing sensational had happened, it was pure routine: the hookers made money, the poker players laundered most of it. The absence of anything newsworthy, however, didn’t seem to bother Bjarne Fabricius. He listened, interjected a question every now and then, and thanked her when she had finished. Then he praised her briefly for her handling of the weekend trip, as he called it, to Frederikssund with Frode Otto. It was the second time he had done so, but it made her just as happy as the first, as she knew that he only very rarely showed his approval.
When she had finished the conversation, she called her mother, knowing full well that she was about to become highly unpopular, but she was lucky and got her mother’s voicemail. Benedikte left a short message regretfully cancelling her participation this afternoon; something had come up at the university that couldn’t be put off. She had promised her mother and three of her Nigerian prostitutes to go shopping with them in Lyngby Storcenter. Karina Larsen placed great emphasis on her employees’ clothes, and her otherwise miserly side, when it came to anyone but herself, was suspended during these shopping trips. When you pay five thousand kroner for a night with a hooker, you’re entitled to expect a certain standard. Besides, she loved these power shopping trips, as did the African women and her daughter, or so she thought. It was welcome respite from work whether your work involved sitting up or lying down, a day out with the girls. That was how Karina Larsen viewed it.