The Hanging Girl

22

Tuesday, May 6th, 2014

“Welcome to the meeting, my honored guests. Your drinks are served,” said Assad, pouring some sort of blend that smelled less of coffee or mint, and more like the hair of a goat, or worse.

Carl returned Gordon’s worried expression, which Assad noticed with a smile.

“It isn’t actually one of my recipes; it’s Rose’s,” he assured them, as Gordon stuck his nose in the cup and seemingly came off all right.

Encouraged by that, Carl took a sip, which led to less than happy memories of his and Vigga’s trips to May 1st meetings and their ethnic cafés flashing painfully before him.

“Mu tea,” said Rose unashamedly, placing her notebook on Assad’s Bollywood-esque tray table. Only the crakow shoes were missing.

Carl pushed the cup discreetly away from him. “Right. Since we’ve got a so-called situation room, I assume the idea is that we’ll meet here occasionally and brief each other. Shall we get started right away?”

He stood for a moment considering the order.

“It’ll be a week tomorrow since Christian Habersaat took his own life,” he began. “And while we’ve made some progress in relation to his investigation, it’s rather small, to be honest, but let’s cling to it.”

He nodded to Assad when he noticed that even he found it difficult to swallow Rose’s brew. It was about time he got a taste of his own medicine.

“Most importantly, we now know precisely when Alberte met the man with the VW for the first time. If it was him she met, but it probably was. In relation to that, I’ll shortly be calling the former rector couple from the folk high school, who’ll hopefully confirm the date of the school trip to Østerlars Round Church. We expect it was November 11th, 1997, due to the imperfect dating on Alberte’s postcard to her brother, but we’re not sure.

“I’ll also ask the couple to tell me what’s become of Alberte’s drawings. Not because I think it’s relevant that we see them but because they never came to the parents, so it’ll satisfy compassion and curiosity.” He tried to emphasize his empathetic qualities, but it apparently didn’t make any further impression. “Right, then! Let’s see what comes of that. And finally, I’ll have a word with Lars Bjørn.”

“You don’t think I’m the one who should contact Bjørn? Isn’t it just a bit crazy and idiotic?” Gordon protested cautiously.

Carl shook his head. There was no way he’d let Gordon do that. It was one thing that Bjørn had thrust the man on them, but he shouldn’t be his spy and snitch, too.

“Fine,” he said hesitantly. “But then maybe you’d like me to call the automobile club that organized the classic car festival?”

“No, I’ll take care of that, too, Gordon. I’ve got a bigger task in mind for you. I want you to trace the current addresses and telephone numbers of all the students who attended the folk high school in the fall semester of 1997.”

There was a gasp. In a moment of desperation the guy clung to the sight of the teacup, evidently to have something or other to fortify himself, but he gave up that thought quickly. Apparently, he’d also had enough.

“But, Carl, there were fifty students!”

“Yes, and . . . ?”

“And among them four from Estonia, two from Latvia, four from Lithuania, and two Russians,” he said, his face looking more put out than it normally did.

“There, you see. Look how well informed you are. You are the right person for the job.”

The poor guy looked as though he might cry. “Not to mention that many of them have probably changed names.”

“Well then, stop talking about it, Gordon,” said Rose angrily. But then, he hadn’t wanted to drink her tea either.

“Right, then,” said Carl. “Of all the students, we’ve already spoken with Kristoffer and Inge Dalby, and for obvious reasons we don’t need to talk to Alberte, so you’re already down to forty-seven.”

Was that a quiet hallelujah from the man?

“How’s it going with the technicians?” asked Assad.

“Laursen’s on it. He’ll get further with them than me. But you, Assad, keep hunting those shelves to see if you can find a photo of that board the boy found by the Camel Heads.”

“Hunt?”

“Hunt, search, look, same thing. Just an expression, Assad.”

He nodded, and Carl turned to Rose.

“And you’re already in full swing calling the Bornholm societies that work with mystical phenomena?”

She confirmed.

“We need to assume that people behind these sorts of ventures have day jobs to have something to live off, so you might need to work nights. Use the next few days on it, Rose. Then we’ll see if anyone remembers something about the hippie commune at Ølene, and who might be able to provide information about the man with the VW Kombi.”

Strangely enough, she seemed satisfied with the job. She certainly offered the mu tea around a second time.

* * *

“Hello, Carl Mørck. You called the club chairman but you’ll have to make do with me because our chairman is travelling.” The man introduced himself as Hans Agger, deputy chairman of Bornholm Classic Car Enthusiasts’ Club. “You see, I am the right person to talk to anyway, because I’m in charge of the club archives. And that’s a job I’ve done since I stopped as chairman.”

Carl thanked him. “Have you received the photo I mailed to the chairman?”

“Yes, the chairman’s wife forwarded it. And what I can tell you about it is that a policeman by the name of Christian Habersaat asked me the same thing a few years ago. But unfortunately we don’t know who took the photo. So I’ll tell you what I told him, that where the man was parked was an area reserved for participants in the race, and a VW Kombi from the seventies didn’t belong in that category, now, did it?” He laughed so heartily that Carl had to move the receiver away from his ear.

“Which meant?” he asked.

“Well, we had to quietly and politely ask the man to park somewhere else, but the situation was such that he couldn’t because the engine wasn’t doing too good, to put it mildly.”

Carl pulled himself to the edge of the table. “Okay, you can actually remember that. Can you remember the man, too?”

He laughed again. “No, not really. But I can remember that Sture Nielsen sorted out the little problem for him, just something with the distributor. It almost always is.”

“Sture?”

“Yes, Sture Kure, funny name, isn’t it? He was our handyman. A wonderful mechanic up from Olsker, but he died shortly after, unfortunately. Maybe that’s why I remember it.”

Damn it, could no one manage to stay alive until you needed them! Carl sighed. “And Habersaat never managed to speak with him before he died, I suppose?”

“Not that I know of.”

He put the receiver down with an annoying feeling that didn’t get any better after the call to the rector couple.

Yes, they remembered the trip to Østerlars well, because after Mr. Mørck and his assistant’s visit, their curiosity had been awakened and as a result they’d read everything there was about that fall in Karina’s diaries, explained the rector. The trip was on November 7th and they’d visited several round churches. But other than that, Karina hadn’t written anything of interest. Trips like those to sights on Bornholm had taken place as part of almost every course, so the novelty value had faded as the years had gone by.

Afterward, Carl reflected on what had been said. Alberte met the man on November 7th and not the 11th; the two number ones on the postcard must be from the month, which meant that she’d only known him for less than two weeks when she was killed. But what could she have done to that man that led him, if there was any substance to Habersaat’s theory, to choose such a fatal ending to their relationship?

And who was she, then? This girl who suddenly began to challenge her surroundings with her female presence? The girl who sang like an angel and drew almost as well?

He hit his forehead. The drawings! He’d forgotten them.

The second time he called the rector couple was altogether more successful.

Yes, confirmed the former rector. He was certain that Alberte’s drawings were lying around somewhere up at the school. As he remembered, there should’ve been an exhibition of student work the day before Alberte disappeared, but then they had a visit from the Rhythmic Folk High School, and that had been excellent, but as a result the exhibition was put to the side and never came to anything.

“I think the drawings must still be lying in a folder somewhere down in the school basement, but you’d need to talk to the school secretary about that.”

“I’m nipping up to Bjørn, Assad,” informed Carl five minutes later.

“I have another job for you. You were so taken with the school secretary on Bornholm, so give her a call and ask her to look for some drawings from what should have been a student exhibition on November 19th, 1997. We want to see Alberte’s, and we’ll pay for the postage and return them when we’re finished with them; say that. Are you with me?”

“Er, yes, maybe. But what does ‘taken with’ mean?”

* * *

Up in the Department of Violent Crime, the atmosphere was no longer like in the good old days when Marcus Jacobsen had been at the helm. Chief of Homicide Lars Bjørn really did try to create some form of cozy atmosphere with a pair of explosively abstract paintings by Annette Merrild and a few coffee cups with colored dots on them, but it didn’t change the fact that, deep down, Carl thought that the head of the department was a boor and a man who could show affection only if you were in his immediate family.

“Who the hell is that?” whispered Carl to his favorite secretary, Lis, in reference to an unknown face behind the desk.

“That’s Bjørn’s niece. She’s temping for Mrs. Sørensen while she’s away.”

“Is the battle-axe away?” Strangely enough, he hadn’t noticed. “And why is she away?”

“Oh, you know. Menopause. She has hot flashes and she’s a little hysterical at the moment. We’ve agreed to call it influenza.”

Carl was shocked. Had Mrs. Sørensen been fertile right up until now? It certainly wasn’t an obvious thought.

She pointed over toward Bjørn’s door, from where a few new faces emerged.

They whispered a little as they walked past him. As if he gave a damn.

He pushed open the door to Bjørn’s office without knocking first.

“Do we have an appointment, Carl Mørck? I don’t recall that,” said Bjørn when Carl slammed the photo of the man with the VW on the table in front of him.

Carl ignored both question and tone. “Here, we have a photo of a man who very likely killed a young girl on Bornholm. I’d like your permission to put out a missing person’s report on TV2’s Station 2.”

At this, the chief of homicide bared his annoyingly white teeth somewhere between a smile and a laugh. “Thanks, keep trying, Carl,” he said. “I’ve already heard enough. We wouldn’t be talking about the case from 1997 that Bornholm Police dismissed fifteen years ago by any chance, would we? Because if we are, then there’s neither a murder case nor any suspicion about anything special. So, thank you for your time, Carl, and I’ll see you at the general briefing.”

Okay, so that snitch Gordon had managed to get here before him.

“I get the message, Bjørn. Gordon’s obviously been here whining about his workload. If that’s the case, you’re more than welcome to take him back again. Just say the word.”

“Gordon has done nothing of the sort, Mørck. But you must understand that in my position as chief of homicide, I speak regularly with my colleagues on Bornholm. If you’ve otherwise forgotten, they are still closely connected with the department here.”

Sarcasm. Great.

“Thanks for the information. But let me tell you, since you have such a great need to keep informed about everything, that we’ve found new leads in the case, which your good friends on Bornholm haven’t found, and that no matter what you say, I intend to follow up on until we have someone sitting safely behind bars for either murder or manslaughter and hit-and-run.”

“That same old tone again, Mørck. I’ve got one thing to say in response to that: You won’t engage the whole of Denmark in guessing who this man might be. The man in that wretched photo has never been charged, and besides, he could be anyone at all. We’d receive tons of useless calls, hundreds of man hours would be wasted, and, to be honest, Mr. Mørck, we have more serious things to concern ourselves with up here on the second floor.”

“Fine, at least we know where we stand. You just divert all the calls down to the less serious Department Q in the basement, Mr. Chief of Homicide. We wouldn’t want to disturb Sleeping Beauty’s beauty sleep up here.”

“Good day, Carl.” He waved him toward the door. “You can forget any idea about a missing person’s report on the TV. Maybe you don’t recall a fairly recent case where some of the tabloids hung a person out as guilty in a murder case, and shortly after came to eat their words. Compensation responsibility, do you know that expression?”

Carl slammed the door, making everyone in the reception area look up.

“Goddamnit, Carl,” sounded the voice behind the door. At least that provided a bit of amusement.

“Yeah, you’ve never exactly been in Bjørn’s good books, have you, Carl?” said Lis just loud enough so everyone in the vicinity stopped.

“But on a different note, Carl. Are you and Mona Ibsen back together again?”

Carl frowned. Why on earth did she mention that?

“I’m just wondering because she’s been asking after you today. She stuck her head in for five minutes before she dashed over to a preliminary hearing.”

“She’s back, then?”

“Yes, the reassignment was only until April. Then she took her holiday over on the west coast, and now she’s back again.”

“She was only asking so she was warned if I should come barging in,” he suggested.

But it was definitely strange. Including the sinking feeling in his stomach that crept over him.

* * *

“I haven’t found any photo of the wooden board, Carl, and I think I’ve been through most of the shelves.”

Assad looked done in. One of his bushy eyebrows appeared to have given in and covered half his eye. “I know that I need to check once again but I don’t think I’ll find it, Carl.”

“Are you okay, Assad? You look a bit bleary-eyed.”

“Just didn’t sleep too well last night. I had a call from an uncle, and there are big problems.”

“In Syria?”

He looked blankly into space. “He’s in Lebanon now, but . . .”

“Is there anything I can do, Assad?”

“No, Carl, there’s nothing we can do. Not you, anyway.”

Carl nodded. “If you need a few days off, we’ll work something out,” he said.

“That’s the last thing I need, thanks all the same. I think we just need to move on and into that situation room. Rose has news for us.”

It was the usual. Just as direct and present as Assad could be on his best days, he could be just as distant and unreachable in moments like this. Carl had no idea what was going on with him. If he mentioned the situation in Syria, Assad sidestepped the issue. And yet it was as if all the serious events down there didn’t really affect him. Actually, he never discussed Syria or other events in the Middle East. Sometimes a random word could open a wound and other times it was like water off a duck’s back.

Carl gave him a pat on the shoulder. “You know you can always come to me with anything, right?”

Rose stood waiting by the whiteboard, and Gordon was about to sit down when they came in. Funnily enough, it meant that they were suddenly exactly the same height.

“Relax” was the first thing Rose said when she saw Gordon’s expectant face. He’d probably hoped that there’d been a breakthrough and that the mind-numbingly boring job of making contact with all the old folk high school students would be rendered superfluous.

“You can’t get to Rome in a few hours, now, can you?” she concluded mistakenly, as she pulled some of Habersaat’s brochures with hearts, crystals, and radiant suns down from the wall.

“So far, I’ve only managed to get in touch with the people behind these three alternative offers, and all of them work full-time with their different treatments, which they’ve done for nineteen, twenty-five, and thirty-two years, respectively. But it was only Beate Vismut from Heart of the Mind, who mainly works with the symbiosis of body and nature, who could remember the young guy with the VW Kombi. She told me that she didn’t have anything to add to what Christian Habersaat had already pumped out of her.” Rose smiled. “And yet I still managed to squeeze something new out of her.”

“Good, Rose. Is it the guy’s name? A description? His background?” tried Carl.

“No, she didn’t remember the name, he possibly never mentioned it to her, and we never got to the rest. Beate Vismut doesn’t like to know anything about her clients’ past or data, which she explained by telling me that she was born blind and therefore works on a totally different level to the seeing.”

“Is our best witness blind?” He shook his head. It was all too much.

“Yes and she only wants to feel her clients, as she puts it. But she did manage to give me an idea about what the man stood for.”

“Stood for?”

“Yes. Beate encourages her clients, or students, as she prefers to call them, to rid themselves of anything that can remove them from nature, and that’s quite a radical demand, let me tell you. Personally, for example, she won’t have her home heated, because she doesn’t like winter and summer blending together. Neither will she have nonorganic building materials, so she lives in a house built from straw bales, which she did long before it became fashionable.”

“She has a telephone.”

“Yes, and other things that can help her as a blind person. She’s still dependent on the world around her. But here it comes.”

The self-satisfaction radiated from Rose’s pale face. “The guy agreed with her about many things. He was also extremely preoccupied with nature as something sacred and healing, but they had discussions about the extent of self-sacrifice, she remembered. For example, he didn’t think that he could do without his VW Kombi because . . .” She smiled and took a long pause. “Because he had a great need to be free to travel to places where, through the ages, people had worshipped the sun, elements, and supernatural phenomena. And he couldn’t do that without a form of transport.”

“Okay, so now we know that it’s him with the VW Kom—”

“And . . . ,” she interrupted, “because of that he’d spent the past few years travelling a lot around Europe with a few of his followers, among other places to Gotland, Ireland, and Bornholm. He sought out sacred places there, of which there are many on the island, and he’d been very interested in the rock carvings on Bornholm from the Bronze Age, traces of ships in Troldeskoven, the monoliths at Hjortebakken, and the cult sites at Rispebjerg and Knarhøj . . .”

Knarhøj? Where had Carl heard that name before?

“Yes, and not least . . . the Knights Templar myths from Østerlars Church. What do you say to that?”

“Great. So we’ve connected the VW, the man, and Alberte to each other,” said Assad.

“Yes, probably,” agreed Carl. “Good work, Rose, but what now? We’re no closer to knowing the man’s identity. We don’t know where he came from, or where he went afterward. All we know is he’s a man on the move, so now he could be anywhere, if he’s even alive. He might be on Malta or in Jerusalem—they had Knights Templar there. Maybe he’s sitting humming weird sounds at Stonehenge, in Nepal, or in the Inca city of Machu Picchu. We don’t know. Maybe he’s moved on from all this nonsense and is right now assistant chief in the Department of the Interior with ten years of service and a pension ahead of him.”

“Beate Vismut said that he was a real crystal, so I don’t think you should be worried about the Department of the Interior idea.”

“A real crystal, what on earth does she mean by that?”

“That he’d seen the true light and mirrored himself in it, and had probably never been able to live without it since.”

“God almighty, it gets more and more weird. And what does that mean?”

“If you ask her, she assumes that he’s still active in the game, and probably more than ever.”