The Marco Effect

34

The first thing Rose did when she eventually turned up around mid-morning was to slap a parking ticket down on Carl’s desk.

“Ha-ha,” Assad laughed. “How can a person get a parking ticket when they don’t have a car, then? This is something only you could do, Rose.”

She gave a shrug.

“I found it in my bag about an hour ago when I was looking for my bus pass. I’ve no idea how it got there or how long I’ve had it.”

Carl hesitated before speaking. There was no getting around the fact that yesterday’s meltdown had done something to their relationship that was hard to just ignore.

“About yesterday, Rose… I’d like to say thanks.”

Total silence filled the room. It wasn’t that she appeared moved, more like she found that sort of comment wholly out of place at work.

“OK,” she said, and ran her hand through her hair a couple of times. It was disheveled enough already for Carl’s taste. “So you’re feeling better now, are you?”

“Yes, much better, thanks.”

And that was that. Rose was hardly the sentimental type. If she were ever to succumb to heartfelt emotion, it certainly wouldn’t be other people’s.

Carl nodded. Right, then. The intimacy was over, the workday had begun.

“Two things,” she said. “I’ve been round the shops in the streets surrounding Trianglen and showed people the photo of Marco. No luck. A couple of slight reactions, maybe, but nothing for me to go on. That’s all I can say, really. I got some fresh air and a pair of sore feet, though, so thanks a bundle.”

“What’s the parking ticket got to do with it?” Carl asked.

“Nothing. That was the next thing. Have a good look,” she said, pointing her finger at it. “Block letters. See?”

Both Carl and Assad focused on the slip of paper. Sure enough, someone had written in block letters around the edge.

“I’ll be damned,” exclaimed Carl when he read the message: ZOLA IS A THIEF. HIS PEOPLE STASH STOLEN GOODS IN LOCKERS AT BLACK DIAMOND. THEY COME OFTEN AND EMPTY THEM ABOUT 4. THE CLAN MEET UP EVERY DAY AT TIVOLI CASTLE AT 5. MARCO

Assad rolled his eyes. “It would be very nice to have this boy’s fingers when one has to scratch one’s back,” he said. “They can reach everywhere.”

It was true. The boy was like a shadow in the shade.

“Do we still believe Zola’s story about the lad having killed a man?” asked Carl.

Assad lowered his head and peered at him from beneath his bushy eyebrows. What more was there to say?

“I don’t either, really,” said Rose. “But we can’t ignore the fact that a couple of years ago he was at the age just before puberty when the majority of pedophiles are most interested. The boy might have been forced into it, you never know. It might even have been a relationship Zola got him into.”

“I’ll ask again, Rose. Do you think this boy, who’s putting himself at great risk to get in touch with us, could have killed a full-grown man, buried him, dug him up again, and then tried to put the blame on his own extended family?”

Rose shook her head. “Of course not, but one has to consider all the possibilities, right?”

“Why doesn’t he just come and see us? I think you already hinted at a possible answer, Assad. You said it was most likely because he had no firm affiliation with Denmark and didn’t have a national identity card.”

The pair of bushy eyebrows dropped and two dark brown eyes darted a couple of times to the side. Carl didn’t get it.

“It was Rose,” Assad mimed, out of the corner of his mouth.

Carl turned his head. “OK, my prompter here tells me it was you who said it, Rose.”

“Carl,” said Assad. “Look at that writing. Does it look like the writing of someone who is fifteen?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Rose intervened. “It’s as childish as yours, Assad.”

“Indeed, my point exactly! Very childish handwriting, just like mine.”

What kind of a thing was that to be so delighted about?

“So now we know nearly all of it, do we not?” Assad concluded.

Carl wrinkled his nose. “Nearly all of what?”

“Well, he had no identity card, so we believe he never had one at all. Therefore we also believe he is perhaps not a Dane, nor does he look like one. Unlike myself.”

A grunt emanated from deep inside Assad’s abdominal region. “Ha-ha. A nice nut-brown color, and curly black hair, as opposed to me, yes? The writing shows he is not very old, and yet his Danish is almost perfect. How can this be, then? It is because he has been in the country for quite some time, I think. But he is not a Danish citizen, and neither is anybody else in Zola’s household, as far as I’ve been informed. So the boy is here illegally. He and the others from Zola’s clan are not just here now and then to do business. They are here permanently and must therefore be considered to be illegal immigrants. This is why I think the boy will not speak to us.”

Rose nodded. “He’s afraid of us, Carl. And now we’ve got the entire police force looking for him.”

–

They didn’t have to wait long in the cafeteria of the new Royal Library, dubbed the Black Diamond, and Assad had to leave his sandwich half-eaten, his eyes doleful with disappointment.

The guy came ambling in with a shopping bag in his hand, oblivious to the literary merits of the location as he steered directly toward the far bank of lockers by the restrooms. Unlike Marco, there was an unhealthy look about him. He was older and rather more pallid, oddly well-dressed in a black suit and white shirt. Not exactly the kind of getup you’d expect from a person who made his living from street crime.

“Do you mind if we have a look in your bag?” asked Carl, holding out his badge.

It took the guy a fraction of a second to realize his predicament and make a dash for the exit where Assad stood, so his astonishment was indescribable when his escape was suddenly blocked by a flat hand against his chest that sent him backward, straight on his ass.

“Where’s all this from?” Carl inquired a couple of minutes later, turning round in the front seat of the car and emptying the shopping bag’s contents of mobile phones, watches, and wallets into the lap of their thief, who sat in the back with Assad.

The guy shrugged. “Don’t understand,” he said in English.

“OK, Carl, he doesn’t speak Danish, so this might be too difficult,” Assad said. “Let’s drive him out to the marshes and kill him like the two from yesterday. What are you doing tonight, anyway, Carl? Any good parties on so we can then let our hair down?”

Carl gawped at him, but it was nothing compared to the look in the eyes of the man in the backseat.

“Hey, you know what?” Assad added. “I actually think two thousand kroner is OK for offing this idiot. I hear the Anatomical Institute is short of bodies at the moment.”

With an imagination like that, he ought to have been a crime writer.

“I want to talk to lawyer,” came the response in fractured Danish.

Assad smiled. “I suggest you start talking instead. Don’t worry, we’ll get you into a prison without too many skinheads.”

His despair was hard to conceal, and his demeanor had hardly improved by the time the police van turned up half an hour later to take him away.

An hour later they were in luck again.

This time the guy who came in through the revolving doors was rather more exotic looking and seemed in better physical shape. He, too, was clad in a black suit, but his eyes were so alert that they quickly caught Carl and Assad’s attention.

“If he goes over to the lockers, we close in from both sides,” Carl whispered.

–

The guy refused to talk, and if it weren’t for the pair of ladies’ watches in his pocket, they’d have had to let him go.

Now he sat glowering at them in the interview room on the second floor of police HQ.

“We’ve got your mate Samuel sitting next door,” Carl said. “Plus we’ve got officers posted at the Black Diamond so we can nab you one by one. If no one else shows, we’ll pick up the rest of you at Rådhuspladsen later this afternoon.”

The guy shifted slightly in his chair and kept silent. It looked like nothing bothered him: not the sterile environment or the police who were questioning him, or the handcuffs on his wrists. He was the kind of lad who wouldn’t need much more on-the-job training before he was truly a menace to society. The prisons were full of them, but unfortunately there were lots more on the loose than behind bars.

Carl drew Assad aside. “We’ll have to wait and see what the magistrates’ court says in the morning, but I reckon we’ll have a few more in by the end of the day who might be more cooperative.”

“I will stay behind here for a little while, Carl,” said Assad. “Maybe I can soften him up.”

Carl squinted at him. He didn’t doubt Assad’s abilities in that area. Unfortunately.

“Listen, Assad. You know the drill. Easy does it, all right?”

“OK, Carl, but I don’t have a drill.”

“Never mind, Assad. It’s a figure of speech.”

There was a knock on the door. Carl opened it.

It was Gordon, for Chrissake.

“Have you finished yet?” he inquired. “We’ve got another one waiting.”

Did he say “we”?

–

Responsiveness to the opinions of others was not a concept often applied in the office of Lars Bjørn, as Carl had long since noted.

“Even if you consider this Marco to be a key witness in the case of William Stark’s disappearance,” Bjørn said, “you can’t just set the entire manhunt apparatus in motion, Carl. I’ll be docking Department Q’s budget three hundred thousand kroner in man-hours for this if you do. Maybe it’ll teach you to run your dispositions by your superiors in future. So the search for the boy is off, as of now.”

Carl bit his upper lip. “OK, but considering how close we are to tying up the case, I regard that as a totally imbecilic decision. Moreover, if you really want your hands on my budget, maybe you could start by instantly giving Gordon his marching orders. I don’t know if three hundred grand’s enough, but if it isn’t you can take the rest out of the coffee tin.”

Bjørn was completely unfazed and just smiled at him.

“Sorry, Carl. I’m not taking Gordon off your hands. He may have been a bit clumsy interviewing that official over at the foreign office, but he’s been forgiven.”

“Forgiven?”

“Yes. You hadn’t briefed him properly beforehand, he told me.”

Carl felt an extra surge of blood in his arteries, and his cheeks began to glow. “What the fuck are you on about, man? You’re sitting across from an experienced investigator and telling him a skinny infant like Gordon has to be briefed in a case he’s got nothing at all to do with? You do realize we’re close to getting a really good handle on what happened to William Stark, and that it may well turn out to be a murder, or something just as bad? And now Gordon, the fucking idiot, goes off on his own, questioning one of our prime suspects and letting the bloke know we’re onto him and that we’re ready to start digging in his doings until we reach the bottom. For Christ’s sake, Bjørn!”

“You already have.”

“Have what?”

“Reached the bottom. If you can’t manage a trainee on the job, I’d say you’re not as fantastic as you think you are.”

Carl got to his feet. In the old days this office was the place where he could summon energy to go on with his work. Now the only thing he got out of being there was a compelling urge to see how long it would take an acting homicide chief to fall from a third-floor window to the pavement below. The fucking idiot!

He heard Bjørn shout at him to stop as he slammed the door behind him and, seething with anger, strode past Ms. Sørensen, who was applauding languidly behind the counter. He even forgot to flirt with Lis.

–

Not surprisingly he found Gordon drooling in Rose’s doorway.

“My office. Now!” he barked at the lad, underlining the order with a rotating index finger pointing the way.

The cheeky sod had the audacity to ask what he wanted, but Carl let him roast a while, tidying the folders on his desk into a pile in the corner, throwing his feet up, and lighting a cigarette whose smoke he slowly inhaled deep into his lungs.

“From now on you’ve got two options, son,” he said eventually. “Either you pack your bags and fuck off back to Legoland, or else you start making yourself useful. What’ll it be?”

“I’d say I already have made myself-”

Carl pounded his desk. “What’ll it be?”

“The latter, I think.”

“You think?”

“Yes, I do.”

The pose that Mussolini struck when he wanted to impress the crowds-chin thrust up, chest and lower lip thrust out, clenched fist at his side-was the same one Carl used now. “Say you’re sorry!” he commanded.

“Dumbfounded” was about the best word to describe the expression that appeared on Gordon’s face. But he apologized nevertheless.

“Right, now you’ve officially begun your apprenticeship at Department Q. But before we get started, here’s your Cub Scouts’ test. And if you don’t answer properly, I’ll kick you out anyway. I want you to tell me the nature of your relationship with Lars Bjørn.”

Gordon shook his head and shrugged. “It’s nothing. He’s my dad’s best friend, that’s all.”

“I see. That would explain a lot. Public school chums, I shouldn’t wonder. And let me guess, you went to the same school as well, yeah?”

He nodded.

“Right. So Bjørn wants to do your dad a favor and takes you on as his private spy so he can keep tabs on me. He’s a bit of a control freak, in case you didn’t know. Typical of beanpoles and second-raters.”

Here the kid’s defiance bubbled to the surface in spite of himself. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, apparently. Bjørn’s tougher than anyone here.”

Carl thrust his head back. What the hell was that?

“Are we talking about the same man? The teacher’s pet with the perfect creases in his slacks? What could possibly be ‘tough’ about him? Go on, enlighten me.”

“Ask him to roll up his sleeves. You’ve never seen scars like that in your life. Could you withstand a month of constant torture, I wonder? Well, Lars Bjørn could, and I could tell you a lot more besides.”

“I’m all ears.”

Gordon hesitated, but in his youthful arrogance he was unable to resist temptation.

“You won’t know what BCCF stands for, obviously.”

“Can’t say I do,” Carl replied, hands held up in submission. “But let me hazard a guess. Bjørn’s Comical Ca-ca Face, perhaps?”

“You haven’t a clue. What it stands for is Baghdad Central Confinement Facility, or what Saddam Hussein called Abu Ghraib prison.”

“OK, and now you’re going to say Bjørn worked there, right?”

“Worked? No.”

What did he think this was, Trivial Pursuit? “Go on, then,” Carl said, sharpening the tone. “What’s Bjørn got to do with Abu Ghraib?”

“What do you think? Why do you suppose I told you to get him to roll up his sleeves?”

Carl stared at the floor, drumming his fingers on the desk. He didn’t like what he was hearing now. He didn’t like it one bit.

“What else, Gordon?”

He looked up at the lad and saw to his surprise that his face had turned red.

“I can see you’ve already told me more than Bjørn would approve of, am I right?”

He nodded.

“And you’re not even supposed to know that much about him, are you? It’s something you heard the folks talking about at home, isn’t it?”

He nodded again.

“OK, Gordon. I think we’re back on track. I’ve got enough on you now to bounce you out of HQ on your ass. Bjørn’s been protecting you so far, but my guess is he won’t be much longer if I go upstairs and ask him to roll up his sleeves at your request. Am I right?”

“Yes,” he squeaked.

“So from now on, you only tell Bjørn things about Department Q that I want you to tell him. Are you with me?”

“Yes.”

“Right, it’s a deal.”

Carl got up, thrust out his hand and gave Gordon’s a squeeze that made his eyelashes do a river dance.

“Now, get yourself upstairs to Bjørn and tell him you’ve discovered we’re dead close to clearing up a very interesting case, and that this Carl Mørck bloke is simply the most brilliant thing since sliced bread.”

Gordon’s mouth twisted with uncertainty. “Do you really mean it?”

“Yes, I do. Be sure to remember the word, ‘brilliant.’ And after that, you phone René E. Eriksen at the foreign office and ask him to stay behind after work. We want another word with him.”

“Why? We’re seeing him on Monday anyway.”

“Because I get the clear impression the man knows a hell of a lot more than he’s telling us, and that right now he’s probably putting a story together about why those official trips he and Stark made within days of each other couldn’t just as well have been combined into one.”

–

“Do you know if forensics are turning anything up in that grave outside Kregme?” he asked Tomas Laursen.

Laursen wiped his hands in his chef’s apron an extra time for good measure. It was a sad sight to see the man who was once the force’s best forensic technician with remoulade remains all down his front.

“Yes, they’re finding a bit. Hair, skin, clothing fibers. A couple of fingernails.”

“Loads of DNA, then?”

Laursen nodded. “In a couple of days you should know if it matches what they’ve collected from William Stark’s home address.”

“It will. I don’t need their results. Just knowing there was a human corpse in that grave is enough for me. I’m absolutely certain it’s our man.”

Laursen nodded. “Pity the body isn’t there anymore. Any idea where it might be?”

“No, and my feeling is we’re not going to find out either. You don’t bury a body and dig it up again just to put it somewhere else where it can be found. It’s been chopped into bits and chucked into very deep water, if you ask me.”

“You’re probably right. It’s been seen before, anyway.”

He wiped his hands again and began kneading the lump of dough lying in front of him. New success story: fresh-baked bread first thing in the morning had become all the rage at police HQ. The man was doing his utmost for the cafeteria’s survival.

“One more thing, Tomas. I’ve learned a few things about Bjørn’s time in Iraq, and I’ve a feeling you can pitch in with more. Am I right?”

Laursen paused with a frown. “I think you’d better ask him yourself, Carl. It’s none of my business.”

“So you do know something.”

“You can interpret it as you wish.”

“He was put in prison. Do you know what for, and when?”

“I’m not the one to ask about it, Carl.”

“Can’t you just tell me when it was? Was it right before Saddam Hussein was brought down?”

He tipped his head from side to side.

“A bit before, then?”

No reply.

“A year?”

Laursen smacked his clump of dough onto the counter. “Lay off, will you, Carl? It’s not worth our falling out over.”

Carl nodded and left the man in peace, but inside him there was anything but.

Assad was in the process of questioning a man downstairs.

Department Q’s little charmer, Assad, an untrained policeman whose employment at police headquarters seemed more and more to be thanks to the good graces of Lars Bjørn. A man who was now Carl’s acting superior and who had previously been imprisoned in a notorious Iraqi jail under the rule of Saddam.

Carl stopped halfway down the stairs.

For God’s sake, Assad, he thought. Who are you, anyway?

–

He found him standing outside the interview room with a big smile on his face.

“What are you doing here, Assad?” he asked.

“I’m taking a break. They should not have to look at one all the time, should they? They must have the chance to think things over. It helps get them talking, you know? In the end they blurt it out, log, stick, and barrel.”

“Lock, stock, and barrel, Assad. Who have you got in there?”

“Romeo. The one with the burn on his face who then would not say his name.”

“But you got it out of him?”

“Yes, I was a bit persistent.”

Carl tipped his head to the side. “How so?”

“Come inside and I will show you.”

The guy was sitting on his chair. Without handcuffs, with no trace of anger, and without the protective loathing of officialdom one otherwise always encountered. What remained was a nice young man in a suit.

“Say hello to Carl Mørck, Romeo,” Assad instructed.

He lifted his head. “Hello.”

Carl nodded.

“Tell Inspector Mørck what you told me before, Romeo.”

“What part of it?” came the reply, in a heavy accent.

“The part about Zola and Marco.”

“I don’t know why, but Zola wants Marco killed. We’re all looking for him, and not just us. He’s got other people helping him, too. Estonians, Lithuanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Africans. We’re all looking.”

“And why do you tell me this, Romeo?”

The man who looked up at Assad was exhausted. Why wasn’t Assad?

“Because you promised me that then I can stay in Denmark.”

Assad looked at Carl with a gleam of triumph in his eyes. Simple as that, his expression seemed to say.

“You can’t just promise him that, Assad,” said Carl, once they were back outside. “Tomorrow he’s going to be remanded in custody, maybe even put into isolation, if he really knows as much as he was just jabbering on about. And what happens when he’s no longer in isolation? How are you going to protect him and keep your promise then?”

Assad shrugged. It wasn’t his problem, Carl could see. A pretty hard-boiled attitude for his taste.

“I asked him if he knew William Stark, and he did not. Then I asked him if Marco was abused sexually in Zola’s house, which he denied most adamantly. This, at least, they were not subjected to.”

Carl nodded. It was all useful info.

The means justified the ends, as people usually said while washing their hands.