The Girl in the Ice aka A Price for Everything

CHAPTER 14

The day after their excursion to South Zealand Arne Pedersen was on the move again, this time to the opposite end of Zealand. Konrad Simonsen had sent him to Hundested, where he was going to meet a man who might possibly be able to help explain the gap in Andreas Falkenborg’s studies. Well in advance of the meeting they’d arranged, Pedersen turned up at the restaurant where he sat enjoying the view of Hundested Harbour, a charming spot that merged busy late-summer tourism with the local fishing industry and ferry service to Rørvig on the other side of the fjord. The day promised to be almost as hot as yesterday. Above him the sky was filled with slow-moving fleecy clouds, and the coffee he had just been served was strong and good, so all in all life seemed quite pleasant, although he was extremely tired.

The man he was going to meet arrived late and apologised half-heartedly, saying it had been difficult to find the detective in the mass of tourists, although Pedersen had seen him steer his clogs directly from his car over to this table. Simonsen had not said much about this witness, other than that he was a former police commissioner in the town and concisely described him as colourful, whatever that might mean. The ex-police commissioner was a big man in his early sixties and quickly proved jovial and winning in his manner. Pedersen took an immediate liking to him. He was also apparently popular with the locals, as many of them greeted him as they passed the table. The man’s name was Hans Svendsen, and he began, “What has Simon told you about this meeting?”

“Not much, I’m afraid, he’s pretty busy. We all are.”

“Simon is always busy, he was born busy, don’t give in to that.”

Pedersen protested that the boss’s workload was considerable at the moment. His own too for that matter. Or more correctly it felt that way because he had not really slept much the past few nights. The thought made him yawn. Then he said, “You met a man named Andreas Falkenborg in 1977, and we are strongly interested in what he was doing that year. I haven’t been told much more than that, apart from the fact that you were a police commissioner in this town.”

“Yes, though I started out as a common or garden constable. You usually do.”

Hans Svendsen had an engaging laugh, and Pedersen laughed with him.

“I should begin by saying that I know something about the murder they called the Stevns case, but this story goes back much farther. Were you around under old Planck, when he investigated Stevns?” asked Svendsen.

Pedersen shook his head.

“Well, during that case I was contacted by a woman who lives here in town. She told me that when she was young she was involved in an episode that in many ways resembled what happened down at Stevns. What was that poor girl’s name now… I’ve forgotten?”

“Her name was Catherine Thomsen.”

“Amazing it slipped my mind, but it wasn’t my case. In any event, this local woman contacted me one day. I actually knew her rather well from old times, so we sat and had a nice chat in my office. That was in 1997.”

“Were you police commissioner then?”

“Tell me, do you have a thing about police commissioners? No, I wasn’t. Then I had an office at city hall, but that’s by the by. The woman’s name was Rikke Barbara Hvidt, and she told about an assault she had been subjected to all the way back in 1977. It happened in Kikhavn, a small historic town a couple of kilometres along the coast. I could easily remember the case myself from back then, I was involved in it a little on the sidelines, but she had apparently forgotten that. Fortunately she got away from her attacker.”

“How was she assaulted?”

“One evening, when she was alone in her parents’ house-yes, she was living at home at that time-a man broke in and forced her to go with him down to the shore after stuffing a rag in her mouth and tying her hands behind her. Or that’s what she said afterwards.”

“You make it sound like you didn’t believe her.”

“There were many others who didn’t. As far as I recall, I was one of the moderate doubters, but possibly that’s a later rationalisation. But I’m talking about in 1977, because twenty years later, in 1997, I believed every word she said.”

“Why did you doubt her originally? Was there some reason for that?”

“It concerned her parents. Neither of them was what you’d call an upstanding citizen. It’s no exaggeration to say they were hard-core criminals. Their home was almost a distribution centre for smuggled or stolen goods, mostly cigarettes, jewellery and hi-fi systems, but also hash and other drugs. Rikke had had a child at a young age too, and… Well, not everyone was tolerant about that sort of thing back then.”

He waved his hand to apologise for the viewpoint and continued speaking.

“The majority thought that the attack was a way of putting pressure on her parents. A score being settled between criminals, something law-abiding citizens didn’t need to get mixed up in. A few even believed that the whole thing was a lie Rikke made up to get attention.”

“How old was she when she was attacked?”

“Mid-twenties, I think.”

“Was she a criminal too?”

“No, not in the least. But tainted by association in the eyes of some people because she had stayed living in that robbers’ den. But she had a child, and financially it was probably easier for her to stay put. The old crook her dad was actually good to his kids, I have to give him that.”

“And so she got away? That is, when she was attacked.”

“I think she saw her chance to run and took it, but she was completely convinced that the man who attacked her wanted to kill her. He had dug a grave for her, and he behaved crazily. That is, over and above the insanity of just breaking in and dragging her down to the shore.”

“And she didn’t know him?”

“Well, that’s what makes the whole thing even more peculiar. It’s one of the reasons many people didn’t really believe her story. She maintained that he had a mask on.”

“A mask?”

“Yes, that’s what she said. And today I firmly believe her, because since then she has built up a lot of credibility. She became a book dealer and member of the church council-an ordinary, respectable citizen-but she has always stuck firmly to her story from back then. She described it as a kind of ghost mask with black cloth down the sides of the head, a bit like an Egyptian headdress. But you can ask about that later.

“First let’s finish talking about 1977. There was an epilogue. A couple of weeks after the assault-by then Rikke had collected herself-a strange man began sneaking around after her. It was a small town even then, and people kept an eye on each other, so rumours about it quickly spread, and the man was real enough. Soon he could barely step outside his door without someone keeping an eye on what he was doing. Nevertheless he continued to live at the inn for over six months, wherever he got the money for that. A few times he avoided surveillance, and on several occasions was spotted out in Kikhavn, either in the countryside or on the shore. Rikke was convinced that he was the one who had attacked her, but she could not give a facial description because of the mask he’d worn so we had no way to intervene. But the same rules did not apply to her father, and at one point the Peeping Tom got a beating that sent him to the Emergency Room.”

“Did that put him off?”

“Not in the least. Within a short time he was sneaking around again. Not that he was doing anything illegal, but no one thought it was particularly funny. And besides, we feared that next time her father would really let him have it and then we would have an assault case to deal with.

“I saw what it was like for her myself, close up. One day Rikke decided to get her hair cut short, and the guy who was pestering her just couldn’t handle that. He ran completely amok in the salon and made a scene, begging and pleading and crying. Naturally the salon owner called us, and I was the one who was sent out.”

“So you overpowered him?”

“I didn’t have to use force exactly. He was more like an out of control child, but I dragged him away and along to the station. He reacted hysterically, howling and calling Rikke terrible things. It was obvious that he was out of his mind, so we locked him up overnight and served him an injunction against approaching the salon or Rikke again, but then we had to let him go.”

“Was he questioned about the attack on the shore?”

“Not so far as I recall.”

“And all of this was about Rikke Barbara Hvidt having her hair cut short?”

“Yes, and all right, she did have beautiful hair, but it was none of his business whether she kept it long or not.”

“Do you think she had her hair cut on purpose?”

Hans Svendsen furrowed his brow and shook his head good-naturedly.

“What kind of question is that? People always get their hair cut on purpose.”

“Yes, obviously. I mean, did she get her hair cut because she had been attacked by him? Was there any connection?”

“Not to my knowledge, but you’ll have to ask her about that yourself.”

“I will. What about afterwards, when you released him?”

“Yes, it was strange, because the same day he checked out of his room and went home, or more exactly left Hundested-where he went, I don’t know.”

“So he was no longer interested in the girl, once she was short-haired?”

“It seemed that way.”

Arne Pedersen summarised.

“Rikke Barbara Hvidt pointed out much later, more exactly in 1997, that in her opinion there were similarities between the attack she herself had been subjected to on the shore at Kikkehavn and the murder of Catherine Thomsen in Stevns?”

“Correct, apart from the fact that it’s called Kikhavn. Yes, the Stevns case was played up in the newspapers in the same way as today, and what she read about Catherine Thomsen’s fate made her remember what she had gone through herself. I contacted Planck, but a couple of days later Catherine’s father was arrested and charged, and I never heard anything from the inquiry team. But someone must have made a note because otherwise you would not have contacted me today.”

Pedersen was surprised.

“I thought it was you who contacted Simon.”

“No, it was one of your students who got in touch with me originally. Apparently they found a cross-reference. Tell me, don’t you talk to each other in Copenhagen? Or perhaps that’s out of style in the capital?”

The man had a point, thought Pedersen.

“As a rule we do, but I must have misunderstood something in this case. So didn’t it surprise you that the woman was never questioned?”

“No, because by that time everyone thought the perpetrator was the Stevns girl’s father, mainly because his fingerprints were on the plastic bag. It seemed pretty obvious. How do you explain that, by the way? The fingerprints, I mean.”

“We think that the perpetrator tricked Catherine’s father into carrying something around with a protective plastic bag around it during a move. A fragile vase, for example. Or maybe one of those busts on plinths that people sometimes have. But that’s still just speculation. Tell me, do you have anything against looking at a couple of pictures and telling me whether you think they resemble Rikke Barbara Hvidt, as she looked in 1977?”

“Not in the least, but I wonder if she herself has a picture from back then, so you can just compare your photographs with that. It will probably be easier because there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then.”

“I would really like your assessment to start with, if-”

Pedersen was interrupted by a hollow, howling sound that resounded twice over the harbour. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked tensely out over the basin, where the ferry from Rørvig was about to make close contact with a pleasure boat. Hans Svendsen got up.

“Look at those idiots, what are they thinking? A ferry like that can’t just change course in an instant. So much for getting out of the way, mate… no, it looks like he’ll manage it. Sometimes people are just too stupid. He has children on board too.”

He sat down heavily.

“Out with the pictures then, I’ll take a look.”

Pedersen placed the photographs on the table before him. Maryann Nygaard, Catherine Thomsen and Annie Lindberg Hansson, three smiling, pretty women with a remarkable resemblance to one another. Hans Svendsen took a quick glance at them and said, “Yes, they look very like Rikke did back then.”

“You remember her so clearly?”

“Rikke has a grandchild. The girl is not quite the age of these women yet, but she resembles them very strongly.”

“And the granddaughter looks like her grandmother did at that age?”

“That’s what people say, and also what I recall. She’s a very pretty girl anyway. They often take walks together, Rikke and she, so you will probably meet her later.”

Pedersen took the opportunity to show him a picture of Andreas Falkenborg also. Without saying anything. This time too Hans Svendsen answered without reservation, although after taking a slightly longer time to consider it.

“Yes, that’s the culprit. Even after all these years, I have no doubt that’s the man I removed from the hair salon. Is that the type he goes after? That is, pretty young women with black, wavy hair?”

“We assume so, but his taste is a bit more rarefied than that and the victims have to meet it in every respect. In addition there is reason to believe he does not go after his victims, as you put it. He does not actively seek them out. They have to come to him. But when that happens, he strikes. At least that’s how we see the cases at the moment, but there are still a lot of unknowns.”

Hans Svendsen nodded seriously.

“I assume that this time you have the right man in your sights.”

“We do. The problem will be proving it. But tell me one thing: how much of what we have talked about now did you explain to Konrad Simonsen on the phone?”

Pedersen raised his hand to forestall any objection from Svendsen. “And I’m well aware that I ought to know that myself, but I really don’t.”

“Okay, okay, no offence taken. I can easily imagine that you have an awful lot on your plate, but the answer is, almost nothing. We talked together for about one minute, and the rest he left to this meeting.”

“I don’t think he’s aware of how significant our meeting Rikke Barbara Hvidt could be. I intend to call him at once and get him up here to take part. I think he should prioritise that over everything else.”

To Pedersen’s surprise Hans Svendsen did not seem too keen on the idea. He scratched his beard thoughtfully and said, “I don’t really know… maybe that’s not so smart.”

“Why? What harm can it do??”

“Because two strangers may be one too many. Rikke is a very nervous sort. About two years ago she was the victim of a horrible accident, in which her daughter was killed and she herself became blind. A car drove right through the front window of her bookshop when she and her daughter were setting out a new display. The driver was drunk and unable even to brake before he ran into them. He was killed too. Since that day she has been very nervous and withdrawn, even with people who know her well. I don’t know how she will react if two strangers suddenly turn up to question her. It’s possible she won’t manage to talk with you.”

“I understand.”

“Why don’t I see if I can get hold of her granddaughter? It will depend on how she is doing, of course. You know, some days are better than others.”

Svendsen got up and disappeared into the restaurant. It was twenty minutes before he reappeared.

“It’s okay to try, but you should be prepared for the questioning to take time. It will be best if only one of you asks questions. The granddaughter is taking a walk with her at the harbour in an hour, and Simon is en route.”

“You called him?”

“I thought I might just as well, since I was on the phone anyway. Do you play billiards?”

“You mean that game with long sticks and balls on a table?”

“Exactly. It sounds like I’ve found myself a good mark. Let’s go in and see if it’s available.”

“Okay, post and play, you can set up.”

“Now you’re sounding more like a shark than a mark, but let’s see what you’re good for.”