The Marco Effect

29

“Are you feeling better now, Carl?” asked Assad, leaning in the doorway.

“A bit,” he replied weakly.

“Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?”

Carl recoiled as a matter of reflex. “Er, no thanks.” He shook his head as vigorously as he could. “I don’t think I’ll ever be that well again, but maybe Rose could do with one.”

Rose thrust out both hands with a look of disgust that clearly signaled she’d rather swallow a bottle of cod-liver oil.

“Listen here, you two,” she said, raising her eyebrows. The class was back in session. “I’ve heard back about those Maersk containers in Kaliningrad, the ones we identified on Anweiler’s postcard. It’s legit. The postmark matches up with the date the containers were unloaded onto the quayside. And the technicians say the photo hasn’t been manipulated, so the man’s as innocent as I reckoned he was all along. Case closed.”

Something morphed in Assad’s physiognomy. Sure, his face was still lopsided, but all of a sudden it looked different, like he was holding his breath as he sucked his lower lip into the corner of his mouth. Was he standing there enjoying his own private joke?

“Hey, Assad, what are you chortling about? Did you dig up any goodies on Zola and his lot in Kregme?”

“I’m afraid not, Carl. He owns an import/export company registered in Luxembourg, where they pay their taxes. All aboveboard, as far as I can see. Taxable income declared at two point one million Danish kroner for 2010.”

“OK, How many’s he got on his payroll? Not that many, surely?”

Assad gave a shrug. “They’re criminals, if you ask me. I am not finished with them yet.”

“What’re you laughing about, then?” Rose wanted to know.

“Oh, that was just-how do you say?-the joke of the day. You would like it in particular, Rose. I just heard that Sverre Anweiler has been arrested in Flensburg with fifty kilos of hash in his tour bus, so now he’s behind bars again. Fifty kilos of giggle weed, isn’t that funny? He’ll go down for ten years at least. Maybe he should have stayed in Kaliningrad, ha-ha-ha.”

Carl frowned and looked at Rose. It maybe wasn’t exactly the punch line she would have preferred.

“All right, but then I can’t be arsed to add an appendix to your report,” she said with a sigh. “Anyway, I’ve put a bulletin out on Marco Jameson,” she went on, changing the subject in a huff. “Could have done with a more up-to-date photo than the one they gave you in Kregme, Carl. He’s only seven years old in it, but then again I don’t suppose anyone’s ever bothered to take his picture since, not with his kind of background.”

She tossed the photo down in front of him. She was right. It was probably more of a hindrance than a help.

“OK, Rose, you’re right. Maybe you should take advantage of your new door-to-door experience and do some rounds where he’s been spotted. I suggest you start off with the area around the library on Dag Hammarskjölds Allé. Perhaps the shopping streets, too. Classensgade, Nordre Frihavnsgade, Trianglen, and what have you. Ask the shop owners if they’ve seen him. We’ve got a name and a photo now, even if the shot isn’t good. Just take your time, it’s often the way to get results.”

For a moment she remained seated, as if collecting herself to unleash a hail of protest. But then her face relaxed and became almost beatific.

“OK. You’re lucky I love the rain, Carl. Oh, by the way,” she added, “I have a bit of info for you. A funny little thing happened while you were out. I’ve been told to send you up to Lars Bjørn, Carl. Gordon’s complained about you.”

–

“Two ugly flies in one swat,” he murmured as he watched Ms. Sørensen leave Bjørn’s office and close the door behind her. The mummy had emerged from the crypt. Let the horror movie commence. He nodded to her as she approached, summoning his most ingratiating smile and not unexpectedly receiving only the most disdainful of looks in return.

So much for that famous personal development course of hers.

“Bit of a racket they’re kicking up in there, isn’t it?” he said, jerking a thumb toward Bjørn’s door without expecting a reply from the old bag’s colorless lips.

She tilted one eyebrow and lowered the other. Classic attitude.

“Yes, the changing of the guard here certainly doesn’t make me look less forward to retirement day,” she answered.

It was undeniably an astonishing statement. Had he and the she-wolf of Department A really got to the point where there was something they agreed on?

“If that apprentice in there had kept wearing his old school tie, then we could at least have called him well dressed. But we can’t even say that about him, can we?”

That apprentice? Was it Lars Bjørn she meant?

She rolled her eyes with an expression of scorn that normally only teenage girls could master. The only difference was, it managed to make her look even more miserable than usual.

“You’ve heard about Marcus Jacobsen, I take it?” she asked.

He nodded, albeit tentatively. “Assad and I saw him at the Rigshospital the day before yesterday. Is he ill, do you know?”

“No, thank goodness.” Then she fell silent, perhaps thinking the better of her rather emotional outburst. “No, it’s not that. It’s Martha, his wife,” she continued after a moment, her voice lowered. “She’s undergoing radiotherapy. No doubt he was there to support her.”

Was Marcus’s wife called Martha? Mar and Mar. It sounded like a pair of tightrope artists, or comedians in a silent movie.

“I’m sorry to hear it. Is it serious?” he asked.

She nodded.

Carl pictured Marcus’s wife. Petite and attractive, a bundle of energy. The sort of person you’d have thought could cope with anything.

“Do you know her?” Carl asked.

“No, I don’t, but I know Marcus, and I’m missing him like hell at the moment.” And with that she strode off, her folders pressed tight against her already flat chest.

Carl’s jaw hit his Adam’s apple. Ms. Sørensen had just sworn! And Ms. Sørensen had expressed feelings for a living creature that wasn’t a cat. These were revelations of biblical dimensions.

And then the door of Bjørn’s domain opened and out stepped Gordon’s lanky frame, limbs dangling like reeds in a stiff breeze.

“What the hell did you say to him, you gormless idiot?”

Gordon merely smiled. Apparently it was a kind of instinctive reaction of his, applicable in any circumstance.

Carl shoved past him and sat down heavily opposite Bjørn.

“Yes,” he began, dictating the pace before Bjørn had a chance to. “I admit shouting at the idiot. Not so strange considering he and Rose were engaged in the horizontal tango on my turf. And yes, I gladly admit that I can’t stand the sight of the lanky jerk, on top of which I won’t have him running around in my basement anymore.”

Annoyingly enough, his bombast seemed not to faze the acting head of Department A in the slightest, in which case he reckoned he might just as well fire off the rest of his gripe. The man facing him was by definition the type who sat around waiting for the next insult anyway.

“And another thing, Lars. I won’t have you poking your nose around in Department Q. It’s functioning fantastically the way it is, and seeing as the creation of the department, paradoxically enough, was one of your rare inspired moments, maybe you could force yourself into acknowledging that better men than you are now in charge. So all in all, I have to say no thanks to your changes, Mr. Chief Superintendent. And by the way, have a nice day.”

He pushed himself into a standing position, drew a finger across Bjørn’s desk, nodded approvingly as he noted the missing layer of dust that had characterized the happy days with Marcus, and headed for the door.

The reaction came as he grabbed the door handle. It was calm and painfully precise.

“Gordon’s on his way down to Department Q. From now on he’ll be my liaison, reporting back to me on a daily basis and keeping me posted on your activities and whatever progress you’re expecting to make on the respective cases. He is to be informed about all your expenditures, and last of all I want him to assist you in interviewing this René E. Eriksen character. Do I make myself clear?”

At that moment Carl’s torpor returned with a vengeance. His body seemed to be sucking up everything negative out of the room and storing it somewhere hard to reach. Even his legs had received a dose. They felt heavy as lead.

He took a deep breath as he tried to think of a smart comeback, a scathing remark. He racked his brains for something to say that would remain uncontested and for once make an impression. But all he came up with was emptiness and bad karma, so he decided to keep his mouth shut.

He was simply feeling too rotten at the moment.

Christ, did he miss Marcus!

–

“First of all, Assad, I want you to see if you can find some kind of connection between Zola and William Stark. We know both Zola and William Stark traveled a lot, so maybe there’s a link there. Did Stark have business dealings with him at any point? Was anything found in Stark’s house that might indicate some kind contact between them? Receipts, for instance? Perhaps Stark had some kind of bond with Kregme. You know what to look for. I’ll get a unit out to do a thorough investigation of the grave site, OK? And while you’re at it, follow up on those accusations Zola made about Marco being the culprit. Find out where the lad went to school and if they ever had problems with him there. And whether he’s ever been involved in violent episodes or other kinds of criminal activity in or around Kregme.”

“May I then take the car, Carl? Kregme is quite a long way.”

“The car? I wasn’t thinking of anyone driving up there again, Assad. A few phone calls to the local cops and schools ought to do it.”

Assad nodded. “You fell for it, Carl. You are just like the camel who discovered it was to be married off to a dromedary…”

He slapped his thigh and cracked up laughing.

Carl was at a loss.

–

He was miles away as he went up the stairs of the rotunda.

The way things stood, the DNA analysis of the hair and the forensics report from the shallow grave would at most indicate whether it was Stark’s body that had been lying there. More tangible evidence-like incriminating notes, laundry labels with dates on them, cigarette ends covered in DNA material, footprints, and things like that-were mostly the stuff of dodgy crime novels. And if providence had perchance left such evidence lying around at the scene, time and the elements would have made a mess of it by now. So what good was a crime scene investigation?

Besides, all his instincts told him that Stark’s body had indeed been in that hole. And if it had, then where did they go from here?

They had to find the boy. That was the first priority. A bulletin had been issued, admittedly with an inadequate description and a poor photo, but still. A boy wandering the streets on his own at all hours wasn’t exactly a common sight. Flocks of immigrant kids were another matter, but Carl felt sure that a lad who sat about reading in libraries, a lad who turned up at a police station of his own accord to report a crime on behalf of a friend he didn’t have, and who’d done a bunk from a house where a man like Zola made the rules, was a lad who had learned to trust only himself.

I wouldn’t have minded discussing that profile with Mona, he thought sadly, imagining he heard her dusky voice calling out to him from somewhere on the third floor.

He paused with a frown. All of a sudden it felt like his heart had missed a couple of beats. It wasn’t exactly painful, but it made him dizzy and caused him to clutch at the wall to steady himself.

For Christ’s sake, don’t let anyone see me like this, he prayed. Why did it have to be here, the busiest place in the building? he wondered, sliding down the wall until his backside hit the stairs.

Keep calm, concentrate on your breathing, he told himself as thoughts of Mona swirled about in his mind like a nightmare where nothing would stop and nothing would start either.

What had happened with her of late anyway? From one day to the next she’d moved her practice into shared premises, which meant he had to make do with a secretary. Was being with clients more important than his needing to talk to her for a brief moment? And what had the secretary meant when she suggested Mona’s client wasn’t really a client? If he wasn’t a client, what the hell was he? Was she cheating on him during working hours? Was it just like with Gordon and Rose, where her desk was her new altar of passion? Did it turn her on more than when he…?

Carl drew his hand across his sweaty brow and detected a growing odor of death and decay. It was all coming to a head. Hardy, paralyzed in his bed in the front room. Hardy, crying. Gunshots echoing through a shack out in Amager.

“Dammit,” he said out loud, trying to pull himself upright.

He had been trembling all over just before the meeting with Mona where he’d intended to propose to her. But why hadn’t he trembled all over afterward? Was there something wrong with him, or had he just come to some kind of realization in the meantime?

His chest was really hurting now. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. Was the pain moving to his upper left arm? No, thank God, so he probably wasn’t having a heart attack.

“Pull yourself together, you idiot,” he admonished himself. “You don’t have heart attacks, dammit.” But the feeling of uncertainty wouldn’t go away.

Was Mona right? Had they just been sex partners? In practice perhaps, statistically even, too, but that’s not how it felt to him. If that was how it was for her, why didn’t she feel like having sex at least, instead of nothing? What made her say they perhaps hadn’t really chosen each other at all, when it wasn’t true? Hadn’t he waited for her all those months when she’d been away in Africa with Médecins Sans Frontières? Why the hell hadn’t he taken that ring out of his pocket when he’d had the chance?

He breathed in deeply and managed to get halfway to his feet, dizzy, his hands resting on his knees. Now the coat of mail encasing his chest seemed to be easing. The pain felt almost pleasant, like a swollen thumb you couldn’t stop fidgeting with. Gentle pain that was simply telling him he was alive and should now be able to stand up and carry on.

And then all thoughts of physiology came to a halt.

Suddenly he saw everything as it really was.

These feelings he was having emanated from his body, not his mind, where they belonged. That was the issue.

It was like he’d become insensitive, callous. Hardy’s struggle had turned into just another routine at home. Marcus Jacobsen’s sudden departure hadn’t caused any real reaction in him. Why hadn’t he been thrown into a rage? Or despair? Why hadn’t he flipped out when Mona destroyed everything they had together in the blink of an eye? Destroyed the moment of a lifetime when he was going to propose to her and offer her all the things he thought everyone strove to attain. And why was he unable to put his foot down about Rose shagging in her office? What had happened to his focus and determination when he was conducting his interrogations? Had he stopped giving a shit about everything, or was there something inside him he couldn’t control?

Or had he simply always been like that?

There was the rub. He didn’t know who he was.

God, he had heard so many people blabber on about this classic existential issue over the years. Herein lay the psychoanalysts’ little gold mine, the office despots’ best ammunition, the self-development courses’ cornerstone: self-doubt.

Carl stretched his muscles and clutched at the small of his back, trying to muster the energy to move his body normally.

He looked upward at the seemingly endless winding stairway and decided to leave Laursen in peace. Why burden himself with another flight? William Stark had been in that shallow grave. All they needed to do was send that hair sample to forensics and let them do the rest. He would put Rose on to it straightaway, because all he was fit for right now was shuffling back downstairs and throwing his legs up on his desk. One anxiety attack a day he could manage OK. Two required coffee and a smoke.

He descended the three steps back down to the second-floor landing and almost crashed into Mona.

Unfortunately his mouth fell open and he stood there gawping like a teenager. Had he really heard her voice just before, as he was on his way up? In that case she might well have seen him sliding pathetically up and down against the staircase wall.

Dammit.

“Hey, Mona,” he said, as indifferently as his hanging jaw would allow. “On your way over to detention?”

“Hello, Carl. You’re looking a bit pasty, are you all right?”

He nodded. “In a bit of a rush, that’s all. Not much sunlight down there in the basement, you know, ha-ha. Just stocked up on some self-tanner, though.”

He was prattling away like an effing idiot.

“No, I’ve just come from there,” she eventually said, in reply to his question. “I had to get the department head to back me up with a couple of prison guards before I could talk to the hoodlum. An incorrigible psychopath if ever there was one. I wasn’t going to have him groping me like last time.”

Carl nodded. As gorgeous as she was looking, it was not unthinkable he’d try it on with her himself.

Then she frowned. A lattice of tiny lines appeared on her face that he hadn’t noticed before. She turned her head toward the light and all of a sudden he saw how loose the skin had become around her throat and how indefinable her features seemed for just a brief second. Not that she looked old, just suddenly aged somehow.

“Are you OK, Mona?” he asked tentatively.

She gave him an odd, fleeting smile and before he knew it she stroked his cheek, apologized for being so busy, and strode off, the clack of her high heels fading in the labyrinth of police HQ.

Carl remained standing, oblivious to colleagues sidestepping him with acerbic comments and ill-concealed glee.

Ignored questions burned inside him, and now they were bubbling to the surface like poison gas.

It was obvious she preferred to avoid him. It was as if she stood more firmly on her own two feet with him at a distance. Was it because his presence made her feel uncomfortable, or was it because she was already uncomfortable with herself and didn’t want to be reminded of it in his company?

Was the problem that she suddenly felt she was getting older and he was holding her back at a stage in her life when she needed to fulfil herself before it was too late? Was that it? Could it be because she just didn’t find him attractive enough? Or was it more concrete, the fact that his divorce from Vigga was now a reality? Had he come too close all of a sudden? Had she sussed he was going to propose to her and wanted to preempt him?

He shook his head. Thinking about it was a risky business.

The future prospects for him and Mona were definitely not bright.

Then his mobile rang.

“The two of you have a meeting with René E. Eriksen in his office in an hour and a half,” said Rose.

“OK. But I don’t think Assad’s got time at the moment, and I’m-”

“No, you’ve got it wrong. I mean you and Gordon. Haven’t you spoken to Lars Bjørn?”

Oh, Christ. Would this day’s woes never end?

“And another thing. Your ex-wife asked me to remind you about your agreement to visit her mother once a week and tell you you’re five weeks behind. If you don’t get up there this afternoon you’ll owe her five grand and she’ll be coming by to collect it tonight. She’s already phoned her mum and told her you were on your way. If you get your skates on, I’m sure you can get over to Bagsværd and back to the ministry in time for the interview. In the meantime I’ll make sure Gordon’s there when you arrive.”

Carl swallowed twice.

“Why are you standing there like a zombie, Carl? You’re as white as a sheet,” came a voice from farther up the stairs. It was Laursen in his white kitchen garb.

But there was no time to explain when his ex-mother-in-law, Karla Margrethe Alsing, was already counting the seconds at the nursing home.

–

“Thank goodness you’re here,” said the care assistant, as he led Carl through the dementia ward. “We’ve had to move her out of her old room and into another because she kept smoking indoors and set fire to her duvet. Everything in that room is black with soot, and I mean everything. You should just see the wallpaper.”

He opened the door of her old room. There certainly wasn’t much worth salvaging.

“She was flirting with the firemen, getting in the way. Wearing nothing but her panties, I should add.”

Carl gave a sigh. He had exactly twenty-five minutes before he had to be getting back. Much too much time.

“I hope you’ve put some more clothes on her in the meantime,” he said, attempting a smile.

The caregiver nodded. Maybe that was why he looked so knackered and withdrew so hastily as soon as the guest was delivered.

“You’re not to smoke indoors, Karla,” the man admonished feebly. “You know you’re not, we’ve told you before. Otherwise the whole place might go up again. You’re only allowed to smoke in the garden, so please put it out now or else we’ll have to take all your cigarettes away from you,” was his parting shot. Probably for the twentieth time that day.

“Hello, love,” she said, as though Carl had only been away five minutes. The way she sat there in her once-so-expensive, now-so-threadbare kimono, she was the queen of the Copenhagen nightlife. Elbow on the armrest, cigarette held casually between extended fingers. Nonchalant, in the way elderly women with an overinflated sense of social importance were fond of performing their smoking ritual. Rather than the cigarette being raised to the mouth, it was the mouth that was brought to the cigarette. She took a long, lazy drag through blood-red lips before slowly turning back in his direction, head shrouded in blue-gray clouds of nicotine-filled smoke.

“Only a short visit today I’m afraid, Karla. I have to head back to town in twenty-five minutes. How are you doing, anyway?” he asked, expecting a tidal wave of complaints about her new surroundings and all the furniture she herself had never considered providing.

“Oh, all right, I suppose,” she replied, through heavy eyelids. “The slot’s just a bit dry, that’s all.”

Carl looked at his watch. Fourteen hundred very long seconds to go.