The Girl in the Ice aka A Price for Everything

CHAPTER 15

“What was the dyke angle, Simon?”

The door to Konrad Simonsen’s office stood open and Pauline Berg marched straight in. She could see that her boss and the Countess were on their way out. She had no idea where to. Shortly before this she had been informed that the scheduled psychological review of Falkenborg had been cancelled. Why she did not know. She felt irritated and left out. Hence her question, spoken without any introduction and in an aggressive tone. Which to her own surprise she did not regret.

Simonsen observed her curiously. He had never seen Pauline this way before. She was standing with her arms folded, actually blocking the doorway. He had to hold back a smile. The last thing he wanted was to puncture her self-confidence, and especially not her persistence. The expression “dyke angle” he remembered well; he had simply forgotten ever using it himself. As far as he remembered, it was Kasper Planck, his old boss, who had come up with the phrase. Simonsen answered Pauline while with exaggerated obviousness he glanced at his watch.

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about. Shouldn’t you be leaving?”

The last was addressed to the Countess, who had sat down. She smiled a little too sweetly.

“No, I’ll wait another five minutes. This I really want to hear.”

Pauline Berg pointed accusingly at her boss and challenged him straight out.

“You know the Stevns case like the back of your hand, and in your handwriting in the margin of one of the interview reports on Carl Henning Thomsen it says: Use the dyke angle. Also in your review on Monday you talked about a dawning lesbian relationship. But now I’ve trawled through the case twice, and I cannot find any other reference to Catherine Thomsen having a girlfriend. It’s a mystery to me how you even know she was a lesbian. It doesn’t say that anywhere. Or dawning lesbian, whatever that means.”

Pauline could hear for herself that this had come out in a jumble, but Simonsen said soothingly, “Maybe you should sit down and start from the beginning.”

So she did that. Andreas Falkenborg’s name and picture had been presented to all the witnesses in the Stevns case. It had been a big job that was finished in record time. But the result was negative. Not a single person among the many involved in the case had identified him positively. During the process Pauline had discovered that Catherine Thomsen’s alleged lover was so to speak missing from the case. Her name appeared nowhere, which irked Pauline as the girlfriend had to be an important witness. The more she read the case notes, the more she wondered. The girlfriend was a complete blank apart from that fleeting reference in Simonsen’s disrespectful margin note. And it didn’t make sense. Catherine Thomsen could not be a lesbian, dawning or otherwise, without the presence of a girlfriend somewhere or other.

Simonsen listened to Pauline’s objections without interrupting. When she was finished, he explained what had happened.

“We got the information very late in the process. Two to three weeks before Carl Henning Thomsen committed suicide. Who the girlfriend was we never managed to find out, but that she existed is certain. Probably we should have made more of an effort to trace and interview her. But by then, as you know, we were convinced that we had the right murderer.”

“How did you find out about her?”

“Have you ever heard of a church called Lilies of the Field?”

“No.”

“We received a letter from a minister there. Catherine Thomsen had sought her out in complete confidence, torn between her religion and her sexuality. Lilies of the Field specialises in counselling people undergoing crises of faith. I recall that we went through our photo material from Catherine Thomsen’s burial, this time with a focus on younger female participants, and there was actually one woman we never managed to identify. We prepared a report-”

“There is no such report.”

Pauline Berg had dared to interrupt her boss.

“Shut your mouth, Pauline, and listen. We prepared a report, but when Carl Henning Thomsen died, and the case was closed, I believe my predecessor moved it over into the Petersen file because the minister had breached her promise of secrecy. Which she felt very bad about, even though Catherine Thomsen was dead.”

“The Petersen file?”

He looked encouragingly at the Countess, who however shook her head slightly. There wasn’t time.

“I’ll tell you about it if you call me in fifteen minutes. I have to go now, but I think you should continue to follow the track you’re on,” Simonsen told Pauline.