The Girl in the Ice aka A Price for Everything

CHAPTER 12

While the Countess was enjoying her white wine at Islands Brygge, her immediate associates in Homicide were en route in two cars to South Zealand. Konrad Simonsen and Poul Troulsen took the lead, with the older man at the wheel. Following right behind them were Arne Pedersen and Pauline Berg. Troulsen squinted out and looked distrustfully at the summer weather, which already by late morning was hot and sunny, then glanced at his boss in the passenger seat, reading a memorandum.

“I don’t understand how you can stand it, Simon. The sweat is running off me even though I only have a T-shirt on, and you’re sitting there in a jacket as if the heat doesn’t bother you in the least. Have you heard the weather forecast?”

Simonsen looked up briefly and observed his colleague, not without envy. Despite his age there was not much surplus fat on Troulsen’s well-trained body, and the muscles of his upper arms bulged nicely out of the sleeves of his T-shirt. A faded pin-up girl, from the days when Nyhavn was raunchy, preened on his forearm. Simonsen’s own temperature regulation varied more than it should. Sometimes he sweated when there was no reason to; other times, like now, he almost didn’t sweat at all. Both situations were a consequence of his diabetes. He said teasingly, “Yes, it’s going to be hot.”

Troulsen dropped the subject with a sigh and said instead, “Yesterday the wife and I babysat the grandchildren and I didn’t have a minute to spare, so unfortunately I don’t really have a good grasp of what we’re doing right now. I was wondering if you would care to give me a run-through.”

Simonsen consented; the alternative was that they change roles so that he drove while Troulsen read, and he had no desire for that. Besides, he could hardly reproach the man for having a personal life. Normally he was well prepared, and rarely complained about his hours.

“Where should I start?”

“Preferably from the beginning.”

“Okay. Annie Lindberg Hansson, age twenty-four from Jungshoved on Præstø, disappeared on the fifth of October, 1990. She worked at an office in Vordingborg, from where she took the bus in the evening towards Præstø and got off at her usual stop four kilometres from home. Her bicycle was waiting for her on the hard shoulder. Since then no one has seen her. The reason that she is interesting to us now is her appearance. Have you seen her picture?”

“Yes, I got that far. She resembles Maryann Nygaard and Catherine Thomsen.”

“She does, yes. Same black hair, same brown eyes, body build and pretty face with fine features and high cheekbones.”

“And Andreas Falkenborg lived in the area at the time she disappeared?”

“In August 1990 he bought a summer house in Tjørnehoved, which is less than five kilometres from Annie Lindberg Hansson’s home, and you must allow for the fact that this is a sparsely populated area, so five kilometres is not that much, if you see what I mean. Besides, the area is not a typical place at all for a summer house.”

“How did she disappear?”

“Basically as I told you. There’s not much more to say. She got off the bus at eight o’clock in the evening, and since then she’s been missing.”

“What about her bicycle?”

“Never found, but if you stop interrogating me, I’ll tell you about the circumstances at my own pace. I do believe I’m capable of covering all the essentials.”

“Sorry, it’s in my genes, as you know. And then the heat-it’s almost unbearable.”

Simonsen’s sympathy was lukewarm, he had his own concerns. A couple of sores on his ankles were itching like hell, small, bright red blotches that would not heal, and made him feel ridiculous, almost embarrassed. In contrast the morning’s usual round of sweating had not materialised, probably due to the nutritious breakfast the Countess had served him. All in all moving to Søllerød had worked out beyond his expectations. He had most of the second storey in the big house to himself. The Countess helped him unpack, showed him around, insisted on taking care of the practicalities, and not least-the awkward episodes he had feared in advance would arise between them had quickly faded into quiet cosiness, yes, even laughter. He enjoyed it, not least being fussed over a little. It had been a long time since he’d really laughed, and it had also been a long time since he’d slept so well. Not until now in the car did regret for his past mistakes around the murder of Catherine Thomsen gnaw its way in again and with that the longing for a cigarette. He leaned over to scratch his sores, thought better of it, and concentrated on updating Poul Troulsen.

“Annie Lindberg Hansson lived with her father, who is a bit of a social case, reading between the lines, but we’ll soon find that out. Their house is isolated, out by Jungshoved Church, a place where there’s not much besides sheep, water, and then the church and Lindberg Hansson’s little homestead. This meant that Annie had to bike alone most of the way home from where she got off the bus, and you can hardly imagine a more perfect route on which to assault a young girl: dark, deserted, and a bicycle light you can see from far off.”

“I’m liking this case less and less.”

“We don’t get paid to enjoy ourselves. Well, where was I? Yes, that evening the father reported his daughter missing and again the next morning. A search was put out for her, but the police efforts were pretty half-hearted, and I think I’m being kind saying that.”

“Why? Didn’t they believe him?”

“Keep quiet now, damn it, you’re being a pain! So, everyone expected that the daughter would soon show up again, presumably in Copenhagen. She and her father had had some heated discussions before she disappeared, because she wanted to move to the city and get ahead-or perhaps more precisely get started-with her life. He on the other hand thought that she had a duty to remain living there and more or less take care of him, since his wife had died a year before. For a long time therefore the authorities assumed that she had settled the disagreement in her own way by abandoning him, and that she would later make herself known again when she was established and her father had grown used to the idea. Even though the father regularly visited the police in both Næstved and in Præstø, for a long time he was more or less ignored and the case was correspondingly downplayed.”

“That really makes me angry, but probably only because I know what I do. By far the majority of young people who disappear turn up again at some stage or another.”

“Yes, and that’s a good thing, but Annie Lindberg Hansson never showed up. Still no one really believed there’d been a crime, but were more inclined to think she had cut the bonds to her childhood home and was maybe living in the city or else abroad somewhere.”

“Then we can only hope that’s what she’s doing.”

“Do you believe that yourself?”

“No, unfortunately not. Not since I’ve seen her and know that Andreas Falkenborg was in the area. God knows whether he bought that summer house in Tjørnehoved before or after he met her.”

“That’s one of the things we’ll try to find out today, but if I had to guess, I’d say after. That would fall neatly in line with the other murders, where he is obviously prepared to reorganise his entire existence to position himself for his misdeeds. He displays a strange combination of extremely goal-oriented activity once he has met his victims, while he does nothing actively to find-how shall I put it?-appropriate candidates. We’ll have to bring in a psychologist to analyse this.”

Poul Troulsen thought a while then said tentatively, “If women don’t have exactly the right appearance and the right age, he’s harmless. If on the other hand they are black-haired, slender and pretty in a very specific way, then he kills them?”

“It undeniably looks that way, but as I said, we’ll have to call in a psychologist.”

“It will make me very happy to turn him over to the correctional system.”

“You’ll have to get past a judge and presumably a jury first. And it will probably be Nykøbing Zealand secure prison, when we get to that point.”

“He’s cost us two resignations from the force over the Thomsen affair-and don’t misunderstand me, I know full well that the murders, whether there are two or three of them, are much, much worse-but I can’t help being angry with him about that too. As far as I’m concerned I wasn’t doing too well either when I realised the truth, and I was only peripherally involved in the Stevns case. Even so I couldn’t attend your review on Monday.”

“I was very close to being the third to resign, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I knew, and this was just my clumsy way of asking how you’re doing now?”

“If he has killed someone after Catherine Thomsen, then I don’t know… I almost don’t dare think about it, but otherwise I guess it is what it is.”

Troulsen looked at his boss with disapproval. The reply did not invite further discussion, so he concentrated on his driving. Simonsen immersed himself in his papers again.

An hour later they were nearly at their destination. Poul Troulsen honked briefly at Arne Pedersen and Pauline Berg, as he turned left and drove toward Jungshoved while his colleagues’ car continued on the highway. A gentle rural landscape unfolded before them with a view over Bøgestrømmen, the crooked stream between Zealand and Møn. Five minutes later they stopped in front of a small homestead close to Jungshoved Church, all the way out on the promontory.

At the top of the driveway the two men stopped and looked around. The house consisted of two low, white-plastered wings, which created a contrast to the black-tarred concrete tiles of the roof. The small garden was overgrown, with a couple of beautiful old fruit trees and a weed-infested terrace stretching from the farmhouse out to the lawn, while a high beech hedge behind hid the view to the church. Simonsen recalled the boys’ books of his childhood, where Svend Poulsen Gønge’s guerillas had numerous encounters with the Swedes at this very Jungshoved, without his really knowing whether this was fiction or Danish history. Troulsen commented soberly, “It was probably sold off by the church at one time.”

At the house they were met by a man in his sixties, who opened his door without a word and waved his arm to invite them in. His appearance was neglected; his face looked older than it should, his eyes shiny, almost runny, and his clothing in a state that a secondhand shop could not even give away. The room they were led into was low-ceilinged and dark despite the radiant sunshine, and it took a little time before the eyes of the two officers grew accustomed to the dim light. The furniture was sparse and worn, but not casually arranged and had originally been expensive.

The man gestured to them to sit on a couch with a sturdy, low oak table before them while he sat down in an armchair opposite. He had made tea for them and poured without asking. They thanked him and drank. Simonsen thought that the tea tasted surprisingly good. At one end of the table were two photographs, which evidently had been placed there for the occasion. The first showed a picture of a healthy little troll in a snowsuit, sitting on a swing being pushed by her father while she showed off for the camera like a prima donna. The second showed a lanky, thirteen-year-old girl in a white skirt, balancing awkwardly in high-heeled shoes in front of a church that was not the neighbouring building. The frames were gilded and hideous. The man followed the direction of Simonsen’s gaze, and said, “Every morning when I wake up I think about her, and every night I cry myself to sleep. I miss her indescribably. She was the only real blessing in my life. Yes, I have brought her out because I think she has a right to be here.”

“It’s appropriate.”

“Yes, very appropriate. It’s my home, after all, and I decide which pictures will be displayed in it.”

Simonsen said quietly, “We have come to find out what happened to your daughter.”

The man took out a dingy handkerchief and dabbed his eyes.

“You believe that she was killed like the two girls in the papers, right?”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because she resembled them, obviously. I have eyes in my head.”

“Yes, we are afraid that she was killed, although we don’t know anything specific at the present time.”

“I’ve known all along that she was dead, but I hope she didn’t end up like them.”

“We don’t either, and you mustn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers.”

A small ray of hope was ignited in the man, they could hear it in his voice.

“So it’s not really true. I mean, all those horrible things about adhesive tape and plastic bags over their heads?”

Both detectives cursed the tabloids for wallowing in macabre details on page after page, but unfortunately depicting the murders quite correctly. Annie Lindberg Hansson’s father was now paying the price for the previous day’s sales figures. He and others like him.

“Well, sadly, those things are not wrong, but bear in mind that we know nothing about what happened to your daughter.”

The words bounced off him disregarded. The man crumpled a little.

“What do you want from me?”

“First and foremost, to tell us about the day your daughter didn’t come home.”

He did that, painfully and weighed down with grief, so his two listeners almost felt embarrassed to admit that he had not told them anything they did not already know. When he was done, Troulsen asked as carefully as he could, “You and your daughter argued a bit in the months before she disappeared.”

“Yes, I was the one who was unreasonable. I simply could not cope with her leaving me. It was selfish, I can see that now, but not then.”

“Did she plan to move to Copenhagen?”

“Yes, she really wanted an education, and I also believe she wanted to be with others her own age. There wasn’t much of that out here.”

“She was a pretty girl, what about boyfriends or that sort of thing?”

“Not many, I think, but that was not something she shared with me.”

“Because you were jealous?”

“I’m sure I would have been.”

“Did she want to move to Copenhagen together with a boyfriend?”

“I don’t believe so. No, she wasn’t planning that.”

“Did she have any connections with Copenhagen?”

“She had an aunt there.”

“Whom she visited?”

“Occasionally, not that often.”

“Where did the aunt live?”

“Well, in Copenhagen. That’s what we’re talking about.”

“I was thinking more about where in Copenhagen. Do you have her address?”

“Platanvej, I can’t remember the number, but I can find it if it’s important.”

Troulsen looked at Simonsen, who shook his head. He let the thread fall.

“You say that she wanted to get an education. What kind of education?”

“Cosmetologist, but she was going to earn money first to pay for school, so she was applying for jobs there.”

“What kind of jobs?”

“Anything at all. She went for two interviews, but didn’t get either of them. I hoped every time that they wouldn’t hire her. It’s unbearable to think about today.”

“Do you know the companies where she got an interview?”

“One was at Irma’s headquarters. The other I can’t remember… it was a smaller place, exactly where I’ve forgotten. But I’ve saved her papers, and I think it’s there. Is it significant?”

“Maybe. In any event we would be pleased if you’d look.”

He got up without further encouragement and left the room. Soon after that they could hear him in the attic. He had left the handkerchief lying on the chair. Simonsen looked at the grandfather clock against the wall and the garden beyond. It had stopped, in the same way as the man himself had. Yes, the whole place appeared to have frozen in time after that evening in October eighteen years ago when Annie Lindberg Hansson did not come home. Troulsen looked at the pictures and sweated.

After a while the man came back with a letter, which he silently set in front of them. It was an invitation to an employment interview dated Friday, 14 April, 1990. The letter was brief and consisted only of two lines and Andreas Falkenborg’s signature in neat handwriting. Konrad Simonsen folded it up and placed it in his inside pocket without worrying about possible fingerprints; there was no doubt about the sender.

“We would like to examine this letter more closely, if that’s all right with you?”

The man clenched his fists and hissed, “Is he the one who killed her?”

“We don’t know.”

“But you think so. I can see it on your face. You think it’s him.”

Simonsen made an effort with his explanation.

“When you’re talking about something as final as killing another person, it’s not enough to think so. There has to be more than that, much more.”