The Hanging Girl

17

In the beginning, everyone liked Alberte. She’d doled out generous hugs, and she was the one who waltzed from house to house larking about, and who could make the girls scream with laughter. To begin with, that is, but then things changed. Her inconsideration for the other girls who had their own dreams about the boys at the school was ruinous. Not because anyone ever suspected her of wanting to hurt someone; she was just thoughtless.

She could say things like Niels is so hot, don’t you think, while one of the girls in the back of the class sighed. It was her guy’s turn.

And Alberte’s eyes could sparkle when she talked about the kisses she’d received. She could talk about the boys’ hot breath and scent without giving a thought to the fact that it might hurt other people.

She was called spoiled and accused of being used to getting whatever she pointed at. But that wasn’t true, or at least Inge knew it wasn’t.

The truth was that Alberte didn’t need to point at something to get it. It came of its own accord.

And that was the cause of Inge’s bitterness. She wasn’t going to deny that. Not because Alberte took her boyfriend from her, but because he offered himself, and that fact stayed with her, eating away at her even now, seventeen years later.

Carl glanced over at Inge’s husband, sitting passively, huddled on the sofa opposite them with his eyes lowered. Obviously, Alberte had had a magical form of sensuality that no one could match, and a dangerous form at that.

“Inge, I asked your husband if he knew the name of a guy that Alberte was seeing up until her death. Are you familiar with that name?”

“I was asked that at least ten times by Christian Habersaat back when he did his rounds at the school. We’d already told the police in Rønne, but Habersaat wanted to hear it again. He always did. I said that Alberte had mentioned it once because she thought it sounded so exotic. But I couldn’t really remember it then, and not at all now.”

“Not at all?”

“No. Nothing other than that there were several names, and that it sounded weird together. The first was shorter than the others. Something biblical about it.”

“Short, how? Like Adam?”

“No, maybe only three letters, but to be quite honest I don’t want to think about it.”

“Lot, Sem, Job, Eli, Koa, Gad, Set, Asa,” fired off Assad.

How the heck could he, a Muslim nonetheless, sit there and recite that litany?

“No, I don’t think it was any of those. As I said, I don’t really want to think about it.”

“And the other names?” insisted Carl.

“No idea. Something crazy, like I said before. Like Simsalabimkruttelutski.” She smiled. She had reason to.

“So you know absolutely nothing more about him? Are you sure?”

“Yes, nothing else other than that he apparently came from Copenhagen. He definitely wasn’t from Bornholm, or Jutland for that matter, as far as I knew. Then there was the VW of course, which Kristoffer and I have spoken about together.”

“This one?” Assad pushed the photo from the parking area over to her.

She looked at it for a moment. “The same color and shape at least. But you can’t really see it clearly.”

“Can you remember any details about it?”

“Details? I did only see it from behind and from a distance up on the road.”

“Maybe some larger dents or scratches, color of the license plate, curtains in the windows? Anything significant?”

She smiled. “The windows were matte, and I think the license plate was one of the old-fashioned types, black with white numbering, and then a sort of black curved line that looked like it came up from the roof, and I think it had white on the tires, a sort of broad streak round the hubcap, but I can’t be sure. It could also be another car I saw up on the road.”

“A curved line, you said?”

“I don’t know if it was dirt or . . .” She turned to her husband. “Can you remember anything about it, Kristoffer?”

He shook his head.

Okay, black license plates. At least they knew that the vehicle was registered before 1976, whatever help that might be.

* * *

“What do you say, Carl? Are the Dalbys off the hook?”

Carl changed gears a couple of times before answering.

“The question for me is who on earth Alberte was, Assad. That’s what I’m thinking about just now. I’ll have an answer to your question when we know a bit more about Alberte. Inge Dalby is definitely a very tough and angry woman, but she seems otherwise down-to-earth, so I don’t suspect her of anything particular just now. And then there’s Kristoffer. He’s a slowpoke, standing and smoking on the doorstep, and he’ll never dare to stand up to his wife. Could he be fiery enough to commit a crime of passion? I don’t really think so.”

“Don’t you think it strange that he could remember that a VW had dark-tinted windows so many years later? And that she remembered that it had white tires, a line on the side, and black license plates? Would you have been able to remember that?”

Carl shrugged. He allowed himself to believe he would.

“Just a minute, aren’t we going in the wrong direction? Aren’t we going to the nursing home in Rønne to visit June’s sister?” asked Assad.

“Yes, but I’m thinking we should find that place called Ølene first. There might be someone who lived there at the time and who can remember the hippies.”

“Don’t you think Habersaat did what he could in that area?”

“Yes, but the question is whether or not he did it well enough. He’s sort of given us several hints that we should concentrate our efforts on the man in the enlarged version of the photo back at his house, right? So I’m trying to picture it all and work out what kind of man we’re dealing with, because I sure as hell can’t just now, Assad.”

* * *

The distance was greater than Carl had reckoned, and the sun was already fading. Even though there was at least an hour and a half until it set, the shadows were long and the colors had been sucked out of the landscape.

“There are a lot of trees here, Carl. Do you have any idea where we’re heading?”

He shook his head. “Call Jonas Ravnå; he’ll know where to find it.”

“It’s almost six. He won’t be on call anymore.”

“Try. You’ve got his cell number, and put the speakerphone on.”

People obviously ate early in these parts, so Ravnå didn’t exactly sound happy about being disturbed. Didn’t they have a GPS—couldn’t they use it?

Despite himself, he took pity on them and explained to Carl that they needed to find the path to Øle brook, which went from Ølenevej just across from the signpost for the national park. You couldn’t miss it. An image of a bird with the less-than-welcoming message Zutritt Verboten written underneath.

Ølenevej meandered up and down, but they found the sign opposite another and somewhat smaller sign pointing toward Øle brook path, a cul-de-sac with what appeared to be an abandoned house with a barn and accompanying lawn.

“Strange place. What do you make of it, Carl?” asked Assad when they’d crawled out of the car.

Carl shook his head. It was hard to imagine a hippie camp in this anemic-looking place.

“Maybe that man there can tell us something.” Carl pointed toward a blot on the path that was toiling closer.

They waited for a minute before a male figure in shorts and a good seventy-five years behind him trudged toward them at what the man himself would no doubt have described as a jog.

He didn’t look like stopping, maybe because he knew it would be difficult to get going again, but decided to stop all the same, arms at his sides and gasping, before he finally composed himself enough to reciprocate their acknowledgment.

“Well done, my man,” said Carl, referring both to the man’s age and sporting efforts.

“Yes, you have to get fit before you hit sixty,” he answered, out of breath and with a thick accent.

Only sixty? Bloody hell. They’d better send him off on his way again immediately.

“Do you live nearby?” asked Carl.

“No, no, I live in Hamburg. I’ve just strayed a bit too far from home. I shouldn’t have turned right so late.”

Assad laughed. So there were two present who understood that sort of humor.

“I assume you know a bit about the history of this area?”

“What do you want to know?”

Carl pointed to the abandoned building and let him in on their story.

“We’ve been asked about that hundreds of times before by that meddlesome policeman from Svaneke,” he answered. “But yes, some young people lived here for about half a year. The former owner didn’t look too closely at how he earned his money.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because there were a load of hippies who didn’t belong here. Gaudy clothes and big hair. And they went about doing a lot of strange things.”

“Like what, for example?”

“Running about waving their arms at the sun. Lighting fires in the evening and running around it, sometimes completely naked and in that mystical way. Not something the rest of us would do,” he said with a twisted smile.

“Mystical?”

“Yes, they painted their bodies with symbols and chanted as if they were Catholics. Some said they were Asa followers, believers in the Norse gods, but those of us here just thought they were crazy like so many other tourists.”

“Interesting. What sort of symbols?”

“No idea. Just some sort of gibberish.” His face lit up. “Almost like Indians.”

“Strange.”

“Yes, they also had a large sign hanging above the main door. The Celestial Sphere, I think it said.”

“But they didn’t proselytize or cause trouble in the area?”

“No, no, they were very nice and peaceful in their own way. Just a bit cuckoo, as they say.”

Carl pointed to Assad’s bag, and the photo of the man with the VW Kombi was produced.

“And this man here? Do you recognize him?” asked Assad.

“Oh yes, the policeman had this photo with him every time as well. I have said that they had an identical van, but that I have no idea who the man is. I didn’t see those sorts of people, now, did I?”

“So you didn’t gasp about jogging in those days, then?”

“God, no. Why do you think I need to do it now?”

They got a few additional details. Yes, the license plates were black, and yes, there was a curved line on the top of each side of the car, but otherwise nothing noticeable in terms of markings, dents, or scratches. And yes, there had been about nine to ten young people on the site, four to five of each sex. Then one day they were just gone. That’s the way it was, and since then the owner had only taken Germans. They brought more coins in to the coffers.

“Could you or others confirm the date of their departure from here? Was it around the time of the search for Alberte Goldschmid?”

“No idea, but in my case, no. I’m away a lot, and was at that time. I’m a biochemist specializing in enzymes, and was in Groningen on a research trip. It was about the manufacture of potato flour, if you must know,” he said, laughing.

Assad’s eyes popped. “Potato flour! Really, that is good. When you have a camel with saddle sore, you . . .”

“Thank you. I don’t think the camels are something for this gentleman right now.” He turned to face the man. “And your former neighbor who rented the house out? Surely he must know exactly when they split from the place?”

“Him! He knew damn all. He lived in a completely different part of the island. As long as he got his rent, he left people to their own devices.”

He told them his name, got himself together, and trudged on with his bellows working overtime.

“I think we need to make a start on familiarizing ourselves with the investigation team’s files and not least Habersaat’s private records. There seem to be many things we could’ve read about instead of knocking about here in the sticks.”

“What’s that about sticks?”

“Forget it. It’s just a saying.”

* * *

The nursing home where June Habersaat’s sister lived, Snorrebakken, was a nightmare of sparkling glass and grey plastered walls. A shiny new building in every conceivable way. Seen from the outside, it would’ve been a perfect location to house an extortionately expensive accountancy firm or a private plastic surgery clinic. Not exactly what you’d imagine to be a municipal setting for the last stop in life.

“Karin Kofoed has become a little slow on the uptake,” informed the nursing assistant, ushering them in. “Unfortunately, the dementia and Alzheimer’s have combined, but if you stick to one subject at a time, she sometimes has her better moments.”

June Habersaat’s sister sat huddled up with dancing arm movements in her armchair. The smile seemed frozen in time, but the hands were lively enough, as if directing a symphony orchestra in a fictional concert.

“I’ll leave you alone awhile; otherwise I’ll take all her attention,” the nursing assistant said with a smile.

They sat opposite her on a narrow sofa and waited until her eyes met them of their own accord.

“Karin, we’d like to talk to you a little about Christian Habersaat and his investigation,” Carl said finally.

She nodded and was gone again. Sat for a moment staring at her outstretched fingers and turned toward them, perhaps a little more present.

“Because . . . Bjarke!” she stated.

Carl and Assad looked at each other. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“Yes, Bjarke isn’t here anymore; that’s right. But it isn’t because of him we want to talk about Christian.”

“Bjarke’s my nephew, he plays football.” She paused. “No, he doesn’t actually. What’s it called?”

“Bjarke and your sister, June, and you used to live together, we’ve been told.” Assad shifted himself to the edge of the sofa so they were closer. “It was back when June and Christian got divorced and she was seeing another man. Back when you lived together many years ago. Do you remember?”

A worried fold cut across her smooth forehead. “June. She’s angry with me.”

“With you, Karin? Wasn’t it with Christian?” Now Carl moved closer, too.

For a moment they lost her again. She looked out of the window, tilted her head up and down a little, as if answering herself in an inner monologue. Her hands shook slightly. Then the wrinkle in her brow disappeared, and her body relaxed. It didn’t seem to lead anywhere.

“Did June complain about Christian’s investigation, Karin, can you remember that?”

There was no doubt that the question had reached her as she turned toward him with expressive eyes. But there was no answer.

“Bjarke’s dead. He’s dead,” she repeated a few times, her hands rotating in front of her again.

Assad and Carl looked at each other. It would be totally coincidental if they got any relevant answer from her, so they might as well shoot from the hip. Carl gave Assad the nod, and with that he pulled out the photo of the man with the VW Kombi.

“Have you heard Christian or June talk about the man in this picture?” asked Carl. It was a gamble.

“The handsome one with long hair,” added Assad.

She looked at them, confused. “Bjarke had long hair. Always long hair,” she said. “Like the man.”

“Yes, the man. Did anyone mention anything about him?” Carl attempted to keep on track.

She seemingly tried to focus on what his finger pointed at, but nothing happened.

“Can you remember his name, Karin? Was it Lot?”

She tilted her head back and laughed openmouthedly. “Lot! His wife was turned to a pillar of salt. Can you remember that?”

Carl looked at Assad. “I think we’ll take a break, what do you think?”

He shook his head in resignation. There didn’t seem to be a suitable camel joke for the occasion.

* * *

“We’ll call June Habersaat and cut right to the chase about the guy in the picture. She can’t do anything other than put the phone down.”

Assad nodded thoughtfully, putting his foot up on the dashboard.

“She will, and that’s a guarantee. Maybe we should drive back instead and confront her with the photo in a surprise attack.”

Carl frowned. Drive back to Aakirkeby? Over his dead body. He dialed June Habersaat’s number and got a voice at the other end that could shatter glass.

“Sorry to trouble you again, June. I don’t mean to bother you. We’ve just come from the nursing home where your sister is. She said to say hello. We’ve spoken a little with her about the old days, you know, and in connection with that we’d like to ask you some questions regarding your knowledge of a young long-haired man that used to drive around the island in a light blue VW Kombi.”

“Who’s led you to believe I knew him?” she snapped. “My sister? She’s demented, haven’t you noticed that, you stupid idiot?”

Carl squinted. This form of directness favored by June Habersaat was just something he’d have to get used to.

“Yes, you couldn’t really help but notice. But perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. It isn’t whether you knew another man back then that interests us, but rather that you have known a man who lived up at Ølene in a sort of hippie commune, with a short name reminiscent of something from the Bible, and he was from Copenhagen, too. Ring any bells?”

“Is that what you’ve questioned Karin about? You can’t just go asking people about me or who I’ve known, you shit. I’ve just lost my son, so you can just damn well stop calling me. Got it?”

Carl opened his eyes wide. She didn’t hold back. “Yes, June, I get it. But isn’t a telephone call preferable to being taken down to the station for questioning? We need information about that man and you’re one of the people who may have heard about him. We have a photo . . .”

“I have no idea what man you’re talking about. It’s just a pile of shit you’ve found in Christian’s papers,” with which she hung up.

“What?” asked Assad.

Carl swallowed. “Nothing. She misunderstood and mixed things up, and I couldn’t get through. She’s got all her defenses up with us.”

Assad looked wearily at him. “Shall we drive out there and stick the photo in her face?”

Carl shook his head. Why should they do that? June had displayed her unwillingness to cooperate. Karin was beyond helping, and Bjarke was somewhat predisposed as far as contributing anything went. They might as well give up on any form of help from the pitiful remnants of Christian Habersaat’s immediate family.

“What, then?”

“You drive to Listed and help Rose,” Carl said, smiling. “I’m afraid I’ll have to stay here in Rønne and read the files tonight.” Then he reached over for Assad’s folder and in a moment of rashness passed him the car keys in return. “In honor of the occasion, I’ll let you drive me to the hotel first.”

It was a gesture Carl regretted only moments later, as he should have realized.

Unbelievable how often and how dangerously someone could overtake other cars on the short drive through Rønne.

* * *

There were several noteworthy things in the papers Superintendent Birkedal had handed over to them. First, that the information in them hadn’t been updated since 2002, and, second, that the theory of a premeditated murder had never even been considered in the investigation. Maybe it was on the grounds of police politics, because if it was murder, the case could never be shelved. Another possibility was that the scene of the impact had never been sufficiently analyzed.

But Carl knew that the reason could really be something as monstrously banal as the pressure exerted by Habersaat stopping everyone in their tracks. Wasn’t it true that he’d pushed people away when he became too officious with his theories?

Carl nodded to himself. Murder wasn’t your normal run-of-the-mill case on an island like Bornholm, and the mobile task force had never been given the case, so who should have sown the seed of doubt about the cause of death in the minds of the less experienced local investigators? Habersaat?

Hardly.

As he was now able to read in the files, the police in Rønne had unified around the hit-and-run theory, but had never managed to pinpoint the vehicle involved and definitely not who the driver might have been. Only Habersaat’s stubbornness and enormous input of time and energy had led the case in a more specific direction, but who was to say he was right?

A few hours went by before Carl heard Assad and Rose letting themselves in the front door of the hotel.

Assad looked dead beat and collapsed on his half of the bed straightaway. Two minutes later he lay there with his mouth wide open, snoring so loudly that anything not nailed down in the room shook.

Rose wasn’t particularly informative about her assessment and packing up of Habersaat’s estate either. Obviously, it would have to wait until they had it all at headquarters because right now, all she wanted to do was sleep.

Lucky woman, thought Carl as he lay again beside the curly combination of a pneumatic drill and a herd of stampeding gnus. Despite being tempted, he resisted the urge to put a pillow over Assad’s gaping mouth and press down.

He looked around in despair until he spotted the minibar.

Probably better than earplugs, he thought, as he opened the fridge door.

Two lagers and at least ten miniature spirits of various sorts later, his eardrums finally cut out.