The Girl in the Ice aka A Price for Everything

CHAPTER 26

The director of social services in Gribskov Municipality, Helle Oldermand Hagensen, was a powerful person who demanded a lot from her fellow human beings when she could get away with it, which-given her exalted position-was often the case. Such as this evening, when the Countess was following a winding gravel path through Tisvilde Hegn, which ended at last in a deserted parking lot. There were only two cars here, an older model Renault and the director’s black Audi, which the Countess recognised from the day before. No director of social services was in sight; it was obviously up to the Countess to find her own way to the museum. She got out of the car and cast an assessing glance up at the sky, then made sure her umbrella was in her bag; it looked like rain. She checked her watch and saw that she had a good ten minutes for her walk, which ought to be plenty.

The path from the parking lot meandered up through an irregular moraine landscape, where only small clumps of crooked pine trees occasionally interrupted the view over Kattegat, grey and rain-drenched below her, with more dark clouds quickly approaching. A few drops landed on her head and she picked up her pace for the last stretch of the path.

The museum proved to be a thatched building three storeys high, reminiscent of an outsize coastal villa and poorly suited to its setting. The director was waiting under the roof overhang along with a younger man. She was a tall, almost stately woman in her early forties, expensively dressed but with an uncertain style, which the Countess with her expert eye quickly noted. From a distance the woman was quite good-looking, with regular features and thick, reddish-brown hair that billowed down over her shoulders, but close up her face was marred by her badly pitted skin, where it seemed like cosmetic laser treatment had gone wrong.

The Countess nodded affably while trying to convince herself that this time they would hit it off. Anyone could have a bad day, and nothing good ever came of nursing yesterday’s grudges. But Helle Oldermand Hagensen chased these positive thoughts far out into Kattegat with her very first sentence, when she said, “So there you are. You arrived just in time. You have an hour, starting now.”

The Countess controlled herself.

“Thanks for your kindness.”

She received a gracious nod, which was hard to interpret, whereas the director’s little snap of the fingers and about turn towards the main door was indication enough. The employee took out a set of keys and let them in. With the Countess bringing up the rear, the young man led them down a stairway and into a basement room, whose walls were covered more or less floor to ceiling with cabinets, shelves and all kinds of cases of various sizes and shapes. The illumination was poor, as the room’s only window was partly blocked by stacked trunks in serious need of cleaning. Alongside all this a narrow workspace had been squeezed in, with a desk, office chair, and a computer that had been obsolete since the nineties. Helle Oldermand Hagensen threw open her arms like a ring master and said, “Well, be my guest. You have fifty-five minutes, and of course must not remove any of the museum’s artifacts. I truly hope you know what you’re looking for because otherwise you are wasting my time.”

“I know that, and thanks for agreeing to help.”

“Did you bring a camera?”

“Yes. I’m searching for a picture I would really like a copy of, when I find it.”

“That’s out of the question. Give me your camera now, please.”

The Countess had controlled herself for a long time, far beyond what she would normally put up with in terms of obstructive behaviour from a witness in a murder case. The reason for that was simple: the clue she was pursuing had its basis in a telephone call with a clairvoyant and as time went by the message she’d received then seemed more and more as if it had been meant for her, and her alone. Furthermore, her parallel investigation was controversial in itself. All in all, she preferred to keep a low profile, but enough was enough.

She walked slowly up to the director, only stopping when she was just a bit too close, after which she looked her straight in the eyes and said, “Now you have a choice. You can stop your pompous meddling and leave right now. I’ll come and get you when I’m finished, whether that takes ten minutes or the whole evening. The other possibility is that you let out just one more negative word, in which case I’m putting handcuffs on you and locking you to a water pipe until I’ve done my work. Be kind enough to tell me which you prefer, before I choose for you.”

Helle Oldermand Hagensen’s face turned dark with anger and for a moment the Countess feared she might be having a stroke. She sucked in air, which saved her, however. The Countess wagged her finger again.

“Bear in mind now, a single derogatory comment and you’re out.”

The director turned on her heel and left the room with a red face. The Countess glanced at the young employee and discovered he was grinning from ear to ear. She asked, “Is she always so accommodating?”

“Yikes! You should see her when she really gets going. My wife works at one of the municipal nursing homes… well, obviously it’s in the social services area, and there they really suffer. She just had twelve people fired in Home Health Care at the same time as she is recruiting to build up her own organisation at city hall. She and the two other assholes who are her assis-tants… those three truly understand how to tighten others’ belts nice and snug. On the other hand, she is not particularly competent. I think basically that’s the main reason for her behaviour. But almost the worst thing of all is how she toadies upward. That’s simply unbearable to watch.”

“Well, there are people like that in every walk of life. But we’d better get to work, although-”

The Countess looked around, disheartened.

“-this doesn’t look easy. I hope you have a cataloguing system or I might just as well give up sooner rather than later.”

“Cataloguing system? There’s no such thing down here, but I have something I believe you’ll think is better.”

He fished a USB flash drive out of his pocket and gave it to her.

“What is it?”

“Thirty-eight pictures from the Søndre Strømfjord base, all taken in the first fourteen days of July 1983.The picture you are looking for is number four.”

The Countess was overwhelmed.

“You must be joking? How about that!”

“Yes, but I hope you’ll keep it quiet otherwise she’ll fire me and probably my wife too, if she has a chance.”

“I won’t say a word. So you’ve spoken with the previous museum director?”

“Yes, he told me what you wanted, and where it was.”

“And picture number four-I haven’t told anyone about that.”

“No, but two freelance journalists have been calling around a lot of the people who were on the base in that time, and they’re looking for him so I assumed you were too.”

He removed a photocopy from his wallet and unfolded it. A young, crew-cut man smiled out at them. The Countess asked, “Where did you get this picture from?”

“The journalists visited me at home two days ago. They gave me this, but didn’t say who it is.”

“Did you help them?”

“No, I didn’t much like them, and I also don’t think that murder is entertainment. Poor girl, imagine being killed that way.”

“Well, I can hardly disagree with you about that. May I have that piece of paper?”

“Please, I have no use for it. But who is that really?”

“A man from the Foreign Ministry who has done nothing illegal. Do you know the names of the journalists?”

“No, but one of them left a card. I can call you about it when I get home.”

“Please do. Did they say specifically why they were interested in the man in the picture?”

“No, just like you’re not either.”

A paranoid thought suddenly struck the Countess.

“The former museum director, why was he discharged?”

“Hmm, that’s a very long story, and there are many truths in that matter, but it has nothing to do with these pictures, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“Okay. I didn’t really think it had.”

“Basically it was bad luck for all of us. There was no one like him for telling tall tales from Greenland; all kinds of delightful stories, some of them even true. Now the whole thing has been made the responsibility of the Agency for Cultural Heritage and various museum politicians, but the majority of visitors here are regular people, and they would rather hear the tall tales.”

“Do you know any of them?”

“Lots, but I’m no good at telling them. Not as good as my former boss anyway.”

“But you practise?”

The man blushed.

“Yes, a little. For my own amusement.”

The Countess glanced at the window, where the rain had started to drum against the glass. It was no weather to go out in. So she looked at her watch and said, “Why don’t you tell me a story?”