The Hanging Girl

16

Friday, May 2nd, 2014

“Let’s check the tree on Skørrebrovejen, Assad, it should be here near the highway.” He pointed at a cross on the map. It wasn’t far from Aakirkeby.

“Okay, but shouldn’t we take the backside, so we can follow the same route as the guy who drove into her?”

“The back road, Assad, not backside. Yeah, but can you work out the route?” He looked down at the map and watched as Assad’s finger moved over it as he described the way. It looked right enough.

“First, we drive out of Vesterbro in Aakirkeby. Then we take Rønnevej, then right at Vestermarievej. From there he could have driven down Kærgårdsvej, but I don’t think he did do that. I think he drove right down to Skørrebrovejen and then right along it at full speed, because it was down there at the end where the old couple lived who heard the car.”

“Yes, but strictly speaking he could’ve come from the north and then turned down onto Skørrebrovejen, Assad, but that’s irrelevant if he came from Vestermarievej, like you said.”

“He almost can’t have driven any other way.”

Carl nodded.

When they turned up the road from the south, Carl stepped on it. Looking toward the first bend at the farm, where the old couple lived, there was a good six hundred meters, and farther up to the tree along the fields another one and a half kilometers. It was a godforsaken place that made you want to hit the gas.

The tires screeched as they plowed round the bend. There couldn’t be any doubt that a noise like that could be heard in the house where the old couple had lived.

“This spot right here is as flat as a pancake, Carl. So if Alberte was waiting with her bike up there at the end of the road, she would’ve been able to see the car very clearly for the last five to six hundred meters.”

“Yes, and what does that tell you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that she’d been waiting for that car and maybe she also recognized it, and that the last thing she would’ve expected was that it would drive directly into her.”

Carl looked at him. Not far off what he thought.

“Do you mind slowing down a bit?” said Assad with an apprehensive eye on the speedometer. Carl nodded, but increased speed to a hundred kilometers an hour. If it was going to have an impact, there needed to be some force behind it.

Just before they reached the cluster of trees farther up, the car swerved. He heard Assad shout something or other in Arabic but Carl had enough to think about. The entire car shook as it grazed the edge of the ditch and swerved from side to side over the verge. He slammed on the brakes. Thirty meters, and the car came to a halt leaving a trail of skid marks as black as coal in its wake.

“I almost swallowed my tongue there, Carl. You better not do that again.”

Carl bit his top lip. There were only two options left.

“There were no visible skid marks after the accident, were there?”

“There was nothing even resembling them found anywhere.”

“Then the vehicle couldn’t have driven as fast on the bend as I did, could it?”

“Thank God for the person driving,” replied his passenger.

“Then it must’ve been murder, right?”

“Looks like it.”

“Yes, because the car only sped up after the bend, it’s the only possibility. And as Alberte stood on this side of the trees—otherwise she would have been thrown in the other direction, away from the tree—the driver can’t claim not to have seen her. He certainly had enough time.”

“It could’ve been an idiot who wasn’t watching the road, Carl, couldn’t it?”

“Then Alberte would just have moved into the curb and nothing would have happened. No, she didn’t harbor any misgivings about the person approaching her. Something or other led her to think about anything other than danger.”

A rasping sound came from Assad’s stubble.

“Are you thinking that he didn’t drive so fast?”

“Fast, yes. But only in relation to the circumstances and the characteristics of the road. Maybe somewhere between seventy and eighty kilometers an hour, I reckon.”

They both looked up at the trees. It was as if Alberte was hanging up there, nodding down at them.

Carl looked away. Why was he trying to keep his guard up in this case? Why fight it?

He observed Assad’s strange eyes. They seemed sad, and yet his face shone with determination. All three of them from Department Q were in agreement. This case had to be solved.

“Yes, that’s it,” Carl said quietly. “We’re going to have to get that bastard.”

They stepped out of the car and could see why the girl hadn’t initially been seen hanging up there during the investigation, despite the fact that the leaves of the three trees, the tops of which supported each other, would already have fallen at the time.

“What’s that greenery covering the top, Carl?”

“Some sort of parasitic plant, I think. Ivy perhaps.”

Assad nodded, impressed at the comment. Botany definitely wasn’t one of his strong points.

“It almost looks as if the trees have already got leaves on them, Carl.”

They walked around the cluster of trees, looking up. From each of the roots, several strong trunks sprung up, dividing further into numerous forked branches. Plenty of opportunity for Alberte’s body to be wedged there.

“She hung up there in one of the lower forks, approximately four meters up. She must’ve rotated in the air, seeing as she came to hang with her head facing down, wouldn’t you agree, Assad?”

He nodded and tried to put himself in the situation.

“Habersaat was driving from the direction of the main road when he found her,” he said. “So he was coming from the wrong side, where it was most difficult to see her through all the ivy or whatnot. It was lucky that he saw her at all.”

“Lucky? Well, maybe. Just not for him.”

Assad waved Carl over to him. On the other side of the trees, a dirt track in the field led down to a farm a few hundred meters away. On the opposite side, close to the highway in the direction of the main road, there was a yellow building, the main part of yet another farm. Other than that, there was no sign of civilization nearby.

“It was in there they found the bike, Carl,” he said, pointing across the track toward a tight green carpet of undergrowth below yet another group of trees. Strange that the bike had been flung so far.

“Are we thinking the same thing, Assad?”

“I don’t know but I’m certainly thinking that it must’ve been a strange car that could throw her up in that way.”

“And the bike?”

“I think she’d left it supported on its pop stand and went to meet the car. That the vehicle hit the bike just after it hit the girl, and that it was thrown up in the air just like her, but only more askew.”

“Prop stand, Assad, not pop stand. And yes, I think so, too.”

They stood for a moment, each trying to imagine the scene. The vehicle that had come thundering past the farm a kilometer and a half from here. How the driver had become more and more determined that this was just something they needed to get out of the way. And then the bend farther up and the decrease in speed.

“I think the driver and Alberte make eye contact at the bend,” said Carl. “She’s put the bike on the prop stand behind her and steps forward. Maybe she waves. She’s happy and smiling, a smile she takes with her to the death. I don’t think she’s scared because she’s happy and expectant. Then, only at the last minute, the vehicle speeds up and rams her, causing her to be hurled from the road and up into the branches. The driver straightens up the vehicle immediately, but clips the bike anyway a bit farther up the road, maybe with the side of the vehicle. That’s why the bike ends up a good bit over to the right.”

Carl looked again up at the road from the direction the vehicle had come in. “It’s very possible that the driver’s foot hasn’t been on the brake at all most of the way, only easing up on the gas after the event. Cruising past the yellow farm on his left at a more normal speed before finally sliding up toward the transverse Almindingensvej and away. Do you agree, Assad?”

“Damn bastard,” he mumbled. So he did agree, then. “What sort of car could hurl her all the way up there when going so slowly?” he continued, looking up.

“I don’t know, Assad. A snowplow could manage, but it wasn’t winter yet, and even if such a big boy had driven past, she would’ve moved out of the way of it. But the vehicle that hit her was definitely specially adapted, you’re right about that.”

“Then why didn’t they find it? They looked all over the island. And even though they only had video surveillance for ferry departures on the first two days after the incident, a vehicle like that would’ve been noticed driving on deck, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, unless what shoveled Alberte up in the tree was something that could be removed and got rid of, Assad.”

“Yes, but what? Are you also thinking about the VW Kombi?”

“Of course I am.”

“There must have been something on the front, resting on that weird fender, because it couldn’t have been up to it on its own.”

“No, it probably couldn’t; we’ll have to ask the technicians.”

Carl looked up again at the treetops, imagining the outline of that young dead girl. He momentarily felt melancholy but also a sense of reverence, as if standing on holy ground. Had he been Catholic, he’d probably have crossed himself, but he was far from being that, which in its own way felt both empty and sad.

He looked at Assad, who was standing with his back to him. “Tell me, Assad, do Muslims have something they can honor the dead with, a prayer or something?”

Assad slowly turned around to face him.

“It’s done, Carl. It’s already done.”

* * *

And while the fields and shady groves were left behind them, Carl imagined the beautiful young Alberte cycling over there on the other side of the road with her hair flowing and expectant face en route to her death.

“Kristoffer Dalby lives over in Vestermarie. So we need to go the same way back and then a bit farther on,” said Assad, moving his cell away from his ear. “That was Detective Jonas Ravnå I was just talking with and he says that Dalby is a schoolteacher now. And then he told me something else, which I’m not sure is so good.”

“Oh, what’s that?”

“They’ve found the bike.”

“Okay, isn’t that good?”

“Yes, but it turns out that they’d kept it for ten years before just throwing it out. On February 25th, 2008, to be exact.”

“Isn’t it irrelevant that they did that? They’ve found it again.”

“Yes, but it was more than likely a coincidence. One of the locals, back in 2008, knew that it was Alberte’s bike lying in the pile of junk. He recognized it from the newspaper and that’s why he took it.”

“I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”

“He took it because it was special and had a special history to it. So he welded it into a scrap sculpture, which he called . . .” He looked down at his paper. ”. . . Fateopia.”

“God almighty! And where is this so-called artwork now?”

“We were lucky there because he’s just had it in an exhibition in Verona, but now it’s back home again.”

“And where is home?”

“In Lyngby. Strange, right? You race through there every day when you drive home from the station.”

* * *

They found the way down to the smallholding where Kristoffer Dalby lived, northwest of the small cluster of houses known as Vestermarie. The plot where the house was situated was probably the smallest for miles around, but still there were swings, slides, and sandpits enough for an entire army.

“Do you think we’ve taken a wrong turn?” asked Assad.

Carl looked at the GPS and shook his head. He pointed out of the window at the postbox on the side of the road. Kristoffer and Inge Dalby and a small sticker underneath adding Mathias and Camilla.

They rang the doorbell, noticing at least fifty cigarette butts in a small bucket by the side of the doorstep. Someone’s kept under the thumb here, thought Carl, as they heard movement from behind the door.

“We’ll cut straight to the chase, Assad,” he managed to say before a man opened up.

There was no doubt that it was Kristoffer Dalby standing there, supposed master of the house, despite a bit more meat on his bones, wispy beard with grey touches to it, and worn-out shoes. Probably not someone Alberte would fall for if she’d been alive today.

His good-natured expression collapsed when they told him why they were there, and all Carl’s warning lights flashed. He observed from Assad’s expression that he’d also noticed it.

A typical reaction from those with more to hide than was good for them.

“You’ve been expecting us?” said Carl.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I can see that it’s shocked you that we’ve come here on this business, so we assume it’s something you’ve been dreading. Is it something you’ve been thinking about for almost twenty years, Kristoffer?”

All his features suddenly shrunk. Pinched lips and squinting eyes, cheeks sucked in. A very peculiar reaction.

“Come inside,” he said unwelcomingly.

He pointed to a chair in a sea of wooden toys on a play mat decorated with roads, crossroads, and houses. It was a real hotchpotch in every possible color, and over on the windowsill lay the trumpet he’d once tried to charm the crowds with.

It was covered in dust now.

“Do you have a lot of children?” asked Assad.

He tried to smile but without success. “We have two, but they’ve left home for now. My wife’s a child minder,” he answered.

“Oh, right! Yes, well, we don’t want to waste anyone’s time, so we’ll get straight to the point, Kristoffer,” said Assad. “Why aren’t you called Studsgaard anymore? Did you think that something as simple as a change of name would make it difficult for us to find you? Then you shouldn’t have found a house so close to the school, should you?”

It was a bit of a gamble, but why waste time?

Carl looked around. Two older teenagers in a photo frame on top of a monstrosity of an analog TV. Masses of VHS cartoons on the shelf. Strange to think that you could still find them.

“I don’t know what you mean. I changed names because my wife didn’t want to be called Studsgaard, so I took hers.”

“Listen here, Kristoffer. We know that you once had a thing with Alberte, so you won’t deny it now, will you?” said Carl.

He looked across the floor with his head at an angle. “No. It’s true that Alberte and I had something together, but it was honestly perfectly innocent and didn’t last for more than a couple of weeks.”

“But you were really in love with her, right, Kristoffer?” asked Assad.

He nodded. “Yes, I suppose I was. Alberte was amazingly sweet and beautiful, so . . .”

“So you killed her when she decided she’d rather be with someone else, right?” Assad threw in.

He looked confused now. “No, not at all.”

“So you weren’t particularly sorry when she didn’t want to be with you anymore?” he pressed.

“Yes, of course I was. But it’s a little complicated, you see.”

“Complicated how?” asked Carl. “Can you tell us why you think that?”

“My wife’ll be home in a minute and we’re going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment, so I’d appreciate it if we could hurry this along.”

“Why, Kristoffer? Haven’t you told your wife everything? Or does she know something that she maybe shouldn’t. Have you confided in her, is that it? Are you scared about her reaction?”

“No, no, we’re just going through a bit of a rough patch where . . . Listen, okay, we have two kids who are away at a residential school just now and, to put it bluntly, they’re not damn well coping too good. So things aren’t so happy on the home front, can you understand that?”

“What’s that got to do with you and Alberte? Why can’t your wife hear it?”

He sighed. “Inge and I had already started dating back in spring 1997, so we’d been together for almost half a year when we went to the folk high school, and then Alberte came on the scene, so that’s why! I don’t want to dig all this up. Not just now anyway.”

“I see. So that means that Alberte bagged Inge’s guy from right under her nose?”

He nodded almost imperceptibly. “It made her feel completely miserable, and still can. I betrayed Inge back then and she’ll never forget it.”

“She didn’t just hate you then, but Alberte, too?” concluded Carl. He turned to Assad. “What does the report say? Has Inge Dalby been questioned in connection with the murder of Alberte?”

“Murder?” Kristoffer Dalby moved forward to the edge of his seat. “It was an accident. It said so everywhere.”

“Yes, but we have a slightly different theory. What about it, then, Assad, has she been questioned?” he repeated.

Assad shook his head. “There wasn’t anyone called Inge Dalby in that group.”

The schoolteacher shook his head. “Nonsense, she was there . . .” He stopped midsentence and nodded briefly. “No, that’s right. She was called Inge Kure back then, but she preferred her mother’s maiden name. There are so many called Kure, Studsgaard, Pihl, and Kofoed over here on the island, but you’ll know all about that. So we agreed that we’d rather have a less common surname when we got married; that’s all.”

Assad took out the folder, laid the yearbook with the group picture on the coffee table in front of him, and went through the names underneath. “Inge Kure, hmm. Yes, there she is. She’s up here behind Alberte.”

Carl leaned closer. A slightly plump girl with dark curly hair. Very plain, not particularly pretty. An absolute contrast to the angel sitting in the front row lighting up the whole scene.

Assad flicked through the pages. “Regardless, we’ll have to talk to your wife,” he said.

Dalby sighed and bit his cheek, offering reassurances that neither of them had anything to do with Alberte’s death. Alberte was just the girl in the group who all the boys were crazy about, and for that reason she annoyed most of the girls. Alberte was popular enough, but all the same her presence disturbed the harmony that exists if everyone has roughly the same chances, romantically speaking. That’s how he expressed it. It seemed rehearsed.

“Were you bitter that Alberte left you?” asked Carl.

“Bitter? No, I probably would’ve been if she’d found another guy at the school, but that’s not how it was.”

“Did Inge just take you back, then?” asked Assad.

He nodded and sighed. Could it be a decision that he’d since come to regret?

“So Alberte found a new guy outside the school? Who was he?” asked Carl.

“I don’t know, really, but Alberte mentioned that it was someone who lived in a commune at Ølene. I wasn’t really told anything else. I don’t think anyone at the school was.” So that was how Habersaat had found the lead about the commune. “He was apparently a bit of a Don Juan,” continued Kristoffer.

“How do you mean? Was he involved with someone else at the school?”

“Er, no. Not as far as I know anyway.”

“So how do you know that he was a bit of a Don Juan?”

“I don’t know. It’s probably just how I pictured him given that he could just run off with Alberte.”

“You never saw him?”

He shook his head.

“You’re sure? Check here!” Assad put the photo of the man getting out of the VW Kombi in front of him. “You didn’t see this guy? Maybe you saw him waiting for Alberte outside the school?”

Kristoffer picked the photo up and fumbled about for a pair of reading glasses in his breast pocket. Carl looked at Assad, who shrugged his shoulders. Yes, he’d seen correctly. Kristoffer Dalby’s reactions just now seemed both logical and understandable. His subdued manner and fear about digging up a past betrayal could explain his reaction when they rang the doorbell.

“The photo is really unclear, but no, I don’t think I’ve seen him before. But I can tell you that I often saw a VW like that parked a little way down on the highway by the folk high school. I never saw it from the front, but the one that used to be there was definitely light blue like this one, and as far as I can remember, it also had dark-tinted side windows.”

Insanely well remembered after so many years. Suspicion began to gnaw away at them again.

They heard rustling out in the corridor and Dalby’s expression changed.

“Who’s visiting?” shouted a woman’s voice from out in the corridor. “I don’t recognize the six-oh-seven out there. Has Ove been fobbed off with another old heap of junk?”

A hefty woman appeared in the doorway. Very difficult to recognize from the group picture on the table.

She frowned and let her eyes move from Kristoffer’s bowed head to the two strange men and down at the coffee table with the case folder and yearbook from the folk high school.

“Is that this old case coming up again?” She looked hostilely at her husband. “What is it now, Kristoffer? Will we never have peace from that bitch?”

Carl introduced both himself and Assad and explained the reason why they were on the case.

“Habersaat, you’re kidding me! The man who blew his brains out; how pathetic can you be? Even when he’s dead he’s irritating,” she snorted. “I was certain that now he was gone, Alberte would be, too.”

“You hated her, didn’t you, Inge?”

“Not like you think. And not like Habersaat thought, either. But ever since Alberte turned up at the school, things were never the same again, and if you should get the strange idea that I was happy about that, then you’re definitely very much mistaken.”

“We’d like to have your version of the story. Is that okay with you?”

She looked away, so it obviously wasn’t.

But she told it anyway.