The Girl in the Ice aka A Price for Everything

CHAPTER 25

Pauline Berg was enjoying her dinner with the psychologist. His surname was Madsen, but for some reason he would not reveal his first name. She got no further with him than E. Madsen, and as the evening progressed was running out of Christian names starting with E. During dessert she thought of two more.

“Ebert or Esben?”

“Why don’t you just enjoy your ice cream while you tell me a little more about yourself?”

“But is that correct?”

“No.”

“Neither of them?”

“Neither of them.”

“Hey, what about Emmerik?”

“Good Lord, you can’t be called that unless you’re a canary.”

“I promise not to laugh.”

“People always say that, and then they laugh anyway.”

“Not me. I won’t laugh, no matter what it is. I swear by all that’s sacred.”

“Forget it, I don’t think you’re particularly religious. What was it you wanted to ask me about?”

Pauline Berg set down her spoon.

“Listen now, you’re really sweet, but I can’t date a man I can only call Madsen. It sounds like something out of a nineteenth-century play. Tell me now, then I’ll tell you what my question is.”

“That’s an unreasonable trade, you’ll have to think of something better.”

“Okay, you get to decide on the first movie we go to see.”

“I didn’t know we were going to see a movie.”

“You know now. I love going to movies. We’ll find an evening next week, or maybe on Sunday, we’ll arrange the details later. Okay now-out with the name.”

“So, my parents were hippies, I was actually born in a collective, and I was named after one of their great role models. Do you know Che Guevara?”

“The guy on the T-shirts?”

“Hah, they should hear that. Yes, exactly, the one on the T-shirts.”

“What about him?”

“He and I have the same first name. Ernesto.”

Pauline Berg stared at him in disbelief.

“Your name is Ernesto? Ernesto Madsen?”

“Yes, unfortunately.”

Tears were forming in her eyes.

“That’s not so bad.”

She almost sounded sincere, then a snort of mirth slipped out and betrayed her. The next moment she was howling with laughter. She reached her hands across the table and held his, as if she wanted to beg forgiveness even as she laughed. Fortunately her mirth was contagious, and he laughed too. Even the couple at the next table started smiling, without knowing why.

“Ernesto Madsen! That’s just God-awful. I really feel sorry for you.”

“Thanks for your honesty, I don’t like Pauline as a name either.”

Not until coffee did she have enough control of herself to ask her original question.

“What I was thinking about in connection with Andreas Falkenborg… you may recall that Simon asked whether you thought he would confess, when we questioned him?”

“Of course I remember that, how forgetful do you think I am? And I also remember that I didn’t have a serviceable answer.”

“No, I can see that, but… what if one of those questioning him had the same appearance as his victims? I mean, if the one questioning him resembled the women he killed. That is, was the same type, if you know what I mean?”

“Where would you get someone like that?”

Pauline Berg thought that obviously he was better at seeing into people than he was at observing them from the outside. In this situation that was a clear advantage, however.

“Well, this is just theoretical, but can you imagine his reaction?”

Madsen thought for a while and then answered hesitantly, “I think that he would be frightened out of his wits and presumably also confess, if he was in any condition to-basically do anything to get away from the situation. From his viewpoint, this would be a form of torture. But I would absolutely not recommend putting him on the spot like that, not even as a last resort, because if he ever got out again, you don’t need to be particularly imaginative to work out what could happen.”

“But he would confess?”

“I believe so, unless he completely broke down first.”

“Thanks, I just love you.”

“Is there anything else?”

“No, I’m a woman who doesn’t demand too much, Ernesto.”