The Vanished

CHAPTER 6

Restaurant Sult on Vognmagergade in the heart of Copenhagen was a bright and pleasant place with a cheerful atmosphere and plenty of room between the tables. So thought Konrad Simonsen, who had arrived at the appointed time, albeit resigned to the thought that his partner’s shopping spree would hold her up for some while yet. He was right. He had ordered tea and sat down at a table by the window, absently stirring a teaspoon in his cup, though he took neither sugar nor milk. It was his lunch break and he was feeling guilty. First two days off that he hadn’t felt entitled to after his long period of sick leave, and now a break that could easily last an hour and a half if the Countess didn’t get a move on.

His morning had been mixed. On the minus side, it looked like it would be some time before they could get a dog in on a search of Jørgen Kramer Nielsen’s effects. Simonsen still hadn’t found the negatives he was so convinced had to be there somewhere, but the dog had gone down with a cold. Or at least, that’s what its owner had said when Simonsen had spoken to him earlier in the day. Most probably it wasn’t true, revenge for the bollocking he’d given the officer in question the week before. But what could he do about it? Order the animal to the vet on suspicion of shirking? They could get another dog in, of course, but there was a backlog in the booking system. The advantage of the one that had now taken ill was that it wasn’t yet fully trained. As such, it wasn’t a part of any roster and he shouldn’t have to wait. And yet here he was, waiting anyway. Perhaps until a month of Sundays came round. It was frustrating, to say the least. He had put Pauline Berg on to the matter and was hoping she’d be able to talk some sense into the dog handler so he could get his charge back on its paws again as soon as possible.

Klavs Arnold had been a more positive help. Simonsen had got the Jutlander’s sojourn in the capital extended by two days, having spoken to his chief constable over in Esbjerg. Arnold was permitted a day off to traipse about and explore the city on his own. Which was much needed, insofar as the man seemed hardly able to find his way from one corner of Rådhuspladsen to another. Today, Simonsen had introduced him to selected colleagues in Homicide, and this had gone off well. Arnold and Arne Pedersen had taken an instant liking to each other, which pleased Simonsen no end. He had been worried about a clash of testosterone and territorial markings, but they had put his concerns to shame. Pedersen had even taken the time to show Arnold around Police HQ and had not displayed the slightest reticence in deploying a detective constable to go back with him to Esbjerg so that he wouldn’t be on his own trying to find out where Kramer Nielsen had stayed on his annual trip. This was a job made all the more feasible when Arnold at long last was given a photo of the deceased postman to help him in his enquiries. Simonsen had himself taken on the task of picking out a suitable officer, though as yet he had done nothing about it. On the other hand, Pauline Berg’s reaction to the new man from Jutland had been swift: a redneck nonentity was her appraisal. The thought occurred to him that he might send her off to Esbjerg with Arnold, but… well, it probably wasn’t that good an idea, on second thoughts.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and for a brief second thought it was the Countess.

‘Do you think you could stop doing that? It’s rather annoying, to say the least.’

The man from the next table jabbed a finger towards Simonsen’s tea and it took a second for him to realise the man meant the teaspoon he was still stirring in his cup.

He apologised and put the spoon down, then looked at his watch, despite the presence of a large clock on the end wall. At the same moment there was a tap on the window next to him. He turned his head to see the Countess standing outside, burdened like a bag-lady. At the top end of the scale, naturally.

They deposited her parcels on the floor, tucking them out of the way under the table before ordering lunch.

‘I’m thinking of giving our friend from Jutland a job,’ he said. ‘Or rather, I’m thinking of getting Arne to give him a job. What do you reckon?’

‘Sounds all right to me. Is he good?’

‘According to his chief constable, yes. His idea about the first of those landscapes being taken in real life was good.’

‘But wrong?’

‘So it seems, unfortunately. Melsing had already looked at it, don’t ask me how. But there was nothing wrong with the idea, at least.’

‘No, but still a bit flimsy, perhaps, as a reason for taking him on.’

‘I’ve asked for his HR file. I should have it tomorrow. I’ve a feeling he’ll fit in, and that’s just about all it boils down to. There’d be a trial period, of course, so we can see how he gets on.’

The Countess agreed, both about the trial period and the Jutlander seeming to fit in.

After they’d finished their lunch, Simonsen was allowed to see the yield from the Countess’s autumn shop-amok. Not bothering wasn’t an option. One garment after another was produced from its carrier bag, unfolded, commented upon and put back again. It took some time: her credit card must have been glowing. Simonsen made an effort, but after a while found it hard to vary his reactions. There were no more superlatives left in him, and he floundered. If he didn’t immediately extol the virtues of one jumper, he was invited to compare it to a previous one: Do you like it better than the purple one with the stripes? When, truth be told, he’d already forgotten all about the purple one with the stripes. But if she realised that, it would only be produced once again to refresh his memory. Which do you like best? Moreover, They’re both nice didn’t count as a valid reply. Potentially, it was endless, and yet it stopped.

There was only one parcel left and it wasn’t from a clothes shop. The Countess removed something from its carrier and placed it proudly on the table in front of him. It was a camera. More specifically, it was a Nikon F6 single-lens reflex camera, so the packaging informed him. Despite this, he asked:

‘What’s that?’

‘Anna Mia’s birthday present. Don’t you remember we talked about getting her a camera? It’s what she wants.’

It was true, he remembered now. He stared mistrustfully at the box.

‘I was thinking we could give it to her in time for that trip of hers to Bornholm. It’s next week, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I think so. It’s a bit of an expensive birthday present, though.’

Her gesture indicated it didn’t matter. Unsurprisingly, for money was never an issue for the Countess. Most of it she had inherited from her father, who in her own words had accumulated a fortune by means of lawful swindling: buying flats, doing them up on the cheap and selling them on at a profit. On his death she had become wealthy at a relatively advanced age and was still rather at odds with the idea, which meant that every now and then she would throw her money about, though without ever making so much as a dent in her account. Sometimes, however, he felt her extravagance to be over the top. Like now, for instance.

‘If I’m going to give my daughter a birthday present, I want to know how much it cost,’ he said sullenly. ‘And besides that, I’d like to pay half.’

She tossed her head slightly and presented him with the amount:

‘Fourteen thousand kroner, plus four thousand for a long lens that’s coming tomorrow.’

No sooner had she uttered the words than they both knew they had a problem. They sat and stared at each other, considering their next move. Simonsen spoke first, categorically:

‘No way. You can take it back.’

‘Take it back? You mean you don’t want to spend nine thousand kroner on your own daughter?’

He felt derided and retorted harshly:

‘Of course I do. But in our family we don’t give each other things as expensive as that. Besides, it would be humiliating for her mother and stepbrother. What are their five-hundred-kroner presents going to look like next to eighteen thousand?’

‘You could tell them you were compensating for not having given her anything when she was confirmed. And since when did you start caring about what Anna Mia’s mother feels?’

He felt himself blush and snapped at her:

‘I’m perfectly capable of upholding a decent relationship with my ex-wife. I don’t need to be for ever consciously winding her up.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? Go on, what’s that supposed to mean?’ the Countess hissed back.

‘You know perfectly well what it means.’

She gathered her carrier bags together in a huff, her movements angry and abrupt, before striding out of the premises with a straight back and her nose in the air. The box containing the camera was still on the table in front of him.

An hour later Simonsen arrived back at Police HQ with the camera under his arm. He was still in a foul mood, albeit prepared to discuss the matter more calmly with her. He went straight to her office, only to find it empty. In the corridor he ran into Arne Pedersen.

‘Hi, Simon. Good idea of yours, sending the Countess to Esbjerg.’

His jaw dropped. Pedersen noticed the picture on the box under his arm.

‘Wow, a Nikon F6. Mind if I have a look?’

He handed it over.

‘There you go. Give it back to the Countess, it’s hers.’

In his office he found Pauline Berg lounging on the sofa in his annexe reading a report. She looked cheerful.

‘You took your time. Now, listen to this. I’ve set up a time with that dog handler: tomorrow morning at ten out at Express Move’s facility in Hvidovre.’

Simonsen pointed a finger at her.

‘Get out of my office!’

She stared at him, then burst out laughing and said something about how reassuring it was that he could act like a tosser as well. When the door slammed behind her he flopped down on the now vacated sofa with the distinct feeling that everything was falling apart.

The weather had gone cold, the mornings were bitter and in the Countess’s garden the climbing rose by the garage was scattered with meticulously spun cobwebs glistening with tiny droplets of dew in the faint early rays of sun, prompting Simonsen to pause and relish the sight for a few seconds.

The country’s economy, too, had chilled. No one was spending: you knew what you’d got, but not what you were going to get. There was a feeling of impending crisis and the National Police Commissioner invited the whole force to take part in an inspirational conference at the Øksnehallen in Copenhagen, with live video hook-ups to the eleven other police districts in the country for those unlucky enough not to be able to take part in person. Austerity measures, cutbacks, service reductions were to be viewed as a challenge, a springboard for new creative processes to flourish, a unique opportunity to think anew. In the Homicide Department, the week’s discussion topic was finding the best excuse for not coming in.

Konrad Simonsen missed the Countess. They’d had a long talk on the phone the evening before, and both of them had apologised. Nevertheless, she thought it would be healthy for them to spend a few days apart. He declared himself in agreement, but waking up on his own in the morning he found it hard to see any benefit. He took a quick shower and hurried his way through breakfast. Hardly more than an hour after waking he pulled into Express Move’s facility in Hvidovre, still drowsy, yet pleased to be getting started on the day’s work. It would take his mind off her.

In the storage hall he met up with a disgruntled and somewhat taciturn dog handler and his happy charge, a playful labrador that had yet to leave puppyhood fully behind. Four men with bulging biceps, dressed in blue overalls, were in the process of lugging Kramer Nielsen’s furniture out of its storage place. They worked efficiently with few words and were almost done. It crossed Simonsen’s mind that Arne Pedersen would be receiving Express Move’s bill, but decided that wasn’t his problem. Shortly afterwards, Pauline Berg arrived. She patted the dog and turned on the charm with the dog handler, all the while eating yoghurt from a little plastic beaker in her hand. She seemed to be in an excellent mood.

The dog was given a roll of film to sniff at and then put to work. It weaved its way in and out between the various items with its tail wagging, then stopped abruptly at an empty bookcase at which it began to scratch frantically. The dog handler praised and patted it, and uttered his first voluntary words of the day:

‘He’s found something.’

The three officers searched the bookcase. It was teak with a backboard and six movable shelves. They investigated every square centimetre. They tipped the bookcase over and examined the bottom, but nothing was forthcoming. The dog had lain down, its tail occasionally thumping the floor as it watched its owner’s every move. They pulled the shelves out and looked them over carefully, again without result. Simonsen sent the dog a frown. After fifteen minutes they gave up on the bookcase and the dog handler issued a command to the labrador, which promptly sprang into action. It pounced forward and did a little dance with its front paws on one of the shelves that had been put aside on the floor. The dog handler spoke again:

‘He’s found something.’

Simonsen and Pauline Berg examined the shelf again. The dog handler asked them:

‘Can you see anything?’

Simonsen replied drily:

‘Yes, a laminated teak shelf, sixty by thirty centimetres, I’d say. Twelve, maybe fourteen mill thick. Ends grooved to fit the shelf hangers.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yeah. One surface scratched by a dog,’ Pauline rejoined, though the sarcasm seemed to be lost on the man.

‘There’s something about that shelf.’

‘There’s nothing about that shelf.’

‘Try hiding it among the others, but keep your eyes on it.’

He drew the dog away and they both turned round so they couldn’t see. Knowing not to underestimate the intelligence of the animal, Simonsen shuffled the shelves thoroughly. Pauline had given up on the project.

‘No cheating, mind,’ she called out to the dog handler.

‘We won’t.’

Simonsen was ready and the dog received its command. It ran straight to the correct shelf and scratched the other side as well. Simonsen was quick to react:

‘He’s found something.’

He examined the shelf again, only to shake his head. Now he’d given up, too. He handed the shelf to the dog handler, who turned out to know rather more about wooden shelving than Simonsen did.

‘It’s not laminated. There’s two layers of three-millimetre teak veneer on the outside and four-millimetre chipboard in the middle, so you can hollow the chipboard with the teeth of a saw if you’ve got the patience. It’s softer than the veneer, so the saw’ll find its own way. Nice little hiding place once you’ve done it. It’s been seen before.’

He produced his mobile phone from his inside pocket.

‘Are you phoning for a new dog?’ Pauline asked in earnest.

The man said nothing, but shone the phone’s torch into the groove at one end of the shelf.

‘There’s a crack there, I reckon. Maybe he made a plug from another piece of chipboard, to put in and cover the hole. Have you got anything pointed, something that’ll bend? A paper clip or a bit of wire?’

Simonsen had to go off down to the far end of the storage hall where there was a small office behind a glass wall. The place was empty. He took a handful of paper clips from the magnetic holder on the desk. Returning, he handed them to the dog handler, who straightened one out and shaped a little hook from it. The remainder he tossed on to the floor. He gave his mobile phone to Pauline who shone the torch for him as he inserted the makeshift tool into the groove and began to fiddle about with great concentration and immediate result: he removed a thin wafer of chipboard, took the torch from Pauline’s hand and peered into the hiding place.

‘There’s an envelope in there.’

Simonsen beamed.

‘We’ll leave it for the technicians and stop here. But let me say, you and your dog have done a tremendous job, even if I was a bit sceptical at first.’

As they left, the dog received a treat and Simonsen thought his owner deserved one, too. He patted him on the back a couple of times instead.

Konrad Simonsen had to wait four long days before receiving confirmation that a sorely needed breakthrough had finally been made in his investigation. He spent the time tying up a loose end that had been bothering him for quite a while.

The retired postman he had visited at the care home had lied to him. Young kids in 1969 didn’t save up to travel the world. At best, they made themselves a packed lunch and took off. But more importantly, Jørgen Kramer Nielsen didn’t have a passport, a fact that didn’t tie in very well with his supposed wanderlust. That thought had occurred to Simonsen the first time he and Arne Pedersen had gone through Kramer Nielsen’s personal effects, but had quickly slipped from his mind. Much later, one morning while he was taking a shower, he suddenly remembered it. The brain was a peculiar organ. Subsequently, he deployed an officer to check up on the old man, and the pieces had all fallen nicely into place.

Back at the care home he confronted the misleading witness.

‘You lied to me last time I was here. You told me Jørgen Kramer Nielsen saved his money up to go round the world. That wasn’t true.’

The man hid conveniently behind his advanced years.

‘I don’t remember that.’

‘You also told me he was a lively, outgoing lad until his family died in that plane crash. That wasn’t true, either.’

‘It’s ages since you were here. I can hardly remember us talking.’

‘And now you’re lying again. There’s nothing wrong with your memory.’

‘How would you know? Anyone can remember wrong.’

‘Are you fond of the police?’

The old man’s miserable face grimaced more deeply. He didn’t answer the question, but shook his head in annoyance.

‘You applied to join the force often enough in your younger days,’ Simonsen observed.

‘I wasn’t tall enough. It wasn’t fair.’

‘Is that why you led me a dance? Or did you have something against the postmaster? Maybe you didn’t care for his son either?’

‘I don’t care for anyone much.’

That, at least, seemed true enough, Simonsen thought. He pulled two cartons of cigarettes out of his briefcase. He had been trying to think of a way to motivate the old man. Cigarettes were the only thing he could come up with.

‘They say without a pension scheme and money in the bank it can be hard making ends meet once you’re retired. The manager told me this was your brand.’

He put the cartons down on the table.

‘The truth, and nothing but.’

The old man stared greedily at them and abandoned his grudge.

‘Jørgen was strange from the day he started, and I didn’t like his dad one bit either. A big head, always boasting about one thing or another. His son never did any harm, though. Then again, he never did any good. He was just there, that’s all.’

‘The song’s familiar.’

‘Everyone found him odd, even his dad, as long as that lasted. Odd, but harmless.’

‘And all that about him wanting to travel, that wasn’t true, right?’

‘I don’t think he could have got it together. He wasn’t like the rest of them.’

‘Who?’

‘The youngsters they took on in those days. I couldn’t stand the sight of them, me. All that long hair, and filthy dirty, no respect for anything. Oh, they could tear things down, no bother, but that was it. And all familiar we were supposed to be all of a sudden. No more “sir” and “madam”. It was like a clearance sale, everything had to go. A good hiding’s what they should have had.’

‘And you’d have given them one, is that it?’

‘Too bloody right I would, but you couldn’t, could you? Society bent over backwards for them. That filthy pornography getting legalised. No one was there to stand up for morals, not to mention good old-fashioned decency. It came crashing down like a house of cards, all in the name of tolerance. And then their so-called flower power turned into red terrorism, didn’t it? Drug addiction, noise instead of music, women’s libbers letting it all hang out on those stupid island camps of theirs, while the rest of us were grafting to foot the bill…’

Simonsen interrupted.

‘All right, I get the picture. Let’s try and stick to the point, shall we? The postmaster, was he the tolerant type, as you put it?’

‘Not when I started working there, he wasn’t. It was more like inspection in the mornings to see if you’d washed your ears out. But ten years later, the youngsters were walking in and out of his office without even knocking. Oh, he kept up with the times all right.’

‘What about his son? Was he long-haired and filthy dirty, too?’

The old man paused for thought. It was obvious he was doing his best to deserve his cigarettes.

‘Long-haired, no. Jørgen had a crew cut, I remember that. Filthy, most likely. They all were.’

‘Was Jørgen odd as a child, too?’

‘No idea. I never saw him until they took him on.’

‘Is there anything else you can tell me about him?’

The old man thought about it.

‘Do I still get the cigarettes?’

‘They’re yours.’

‘In that case, no, there isn’t. Or maybe just one thing. He always had to have his holiday in June. Certain days, I can’t remember which. Then he’d go off on some boat trip for a week. Don’t ask me where.’

‘Is that what he said? That he was going on a boat trip?’

‘Not in so many words. It was more the way he was tanned when he got back. Under the chin, for instance. It’s the reflection of the sun off the water.’

‘Interesting. Anything else?’

‘No.’

Konrad Simonsen got to his feet

‘Before I go, was it the police or the postmaster that made you lie the first time?’

‘The police are useless. I was only two centimetres short.’

‘Short of what? A free pass to beat up some hippies?’

‘It’d have been my pleasure. Two bloody centimetres!’

‘Nine, actually. And besides, your school marks weren’t good enough, so don’t kid yourself I’m swallowing that boat-trip story. You avoid eye contact when you’re lying. Page one in the big police textbook.’

The man grimaced and Simonsen left.

On his way back, he tried in vain to shake off the old man’s bitterness, but memories that had been tucked away for years suddenly came flooding back. Flower power turned into red terrorism. In a way, the man was right, though other Western countries had been much harder hit by it than Denmark. But the intentions were there, certainly, among the chosen few, the vanguard, the spearhead of the revolution, or whatever they chose to call themselves. The short-haired hippies. That was his terms for those of Rita’s friends for whom flowers, pot and music were no longer enough. What they wanted was a revolution, and riding on the crest of the wave of a society in turmoil, with Chairman Mao’s little red book in their back pocket, increasing numbers of young people became radicalised. Or more exactly: increasing numbers of young people from an academic middle-class background, who studied at the universities of Copenhagen or Aarhus. Democracy was thrown out with the bathwater, and the magnificent dictatorship of the proletariat was just around the corner… only the corner was a long way off, and in the meantime the flowers withered.

The posters on Rita’s wall were taken down and replaced. She lived in a basement room in her mother’s house in well-to-do Gentofte until moving into student halls. Pictures of her rock idols gave way to propaganda posters for guerilla groups around the world. She explained to Simonsen about mobilising against the bourgeoisie and the fascist state, sounding like she was reading aloud from the phone book. Her guitar had been given away, her songs making way for books he didn’t understand and which she read without pleasure.

One day in June he biked up to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art at Humlebæk in Nordsjælland. He bought a poster of Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ there, a symbol of the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. On his way home, he was caught by a shower and the poster in its cardboard tube got wet. It couldn’t be helped, and he could hardly afford a new one. Besides, he’d already got as far as Vedbæk and didn’t fancy going all the way back. A couple of days later he gave the poster to Rita as a birthday present. She was glad and put it up on her door, in the place of honour. And there it remained for a fortnight, wrinkled from the rain and all the more interesting for it. But then one day it was gone, replaced by Leila Khaled, the becoming Palestinian hijacker with her keffiyeh and her AK-47, and loving eyes gazing down upon an infant child in a cradle. Rita explained to him that Cubism was degenerate middle-class art that sneered at the working-class revolution, and moreover that the Louisiana Museum that had printed the poster was owned and run by a capitalist Nazi.

‘So when the revolution comes the museum will be torn down, is that it?’ he’d said snidely. ‘Funny, because the place was teeming with ordinary people.’

She had an answer to that, too: the people had been tricked, deceived by bourgeois ideology and brainwashed by a capitalist press. It was the ultimate last resort, an all-purpose claim to wipe the board every time people failed to fit in with their new theories.

They made love.

He suspected it was compensation for her having thrown his birthday present out. Afterwards, as she lay with her head resting against his chest, he ventured a new take on the matter.

‘There’s something I don’t understand, Rita. Why would a Nazi museum director put on an exhibition of Kandinsky and Klee? They were banned by the Nazis, weren’t they? Amazing how cunning the Nazis are getting these days.’

She told him it was called repressive tolerance. He stroked her hair and cautiously suggested she take more interest in Kandinsky and Klee, and rather less in Marcuse and Habermas. She got out of bed and stood there. What would he know about that? The policeman with his elementary schooling?

Later that month she graduated from the gymnasium school.

Dark thoughts from his past kept niggling away at Simonsen until he parked the car in the garage at Søllerød and realised that he hadn’t even meant to drive home. This had happened to him a couple of times before in his life, but never over such a long distance. He found it frightening. Not least because he’d been completely lost in recollections and was could not recall a single thing about the journey he’d just made. He sat for a while in the car, unable to decide whether to go back or not. He ended up getting changed and going for his run, determined to beat his own record, for which reason he overreached himself and clocked his poorest time for weeks. After that, he had something to eat and then headed in to the Teilum Building at the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, wondering what might be in store for him.

Professor Arthur Elvang had at long last retired from his position in Copenhagen University’s Department of Forensic Medicine and as such was now Emeritus Professor and entitled to come and go as he pleased. The staff informed Konrad Simonsen that the old man hadn’t made much use of the privilege, a fact bemoaned by all, insofar as Elvang was still regarded as one of the best pathologists in the country. His retirement was bad news for Konrad Simonsen, too, since it meant his only way of meeting the man now was to visit him at home. He drove up to Klampenborg, north of the city, feeling somewhat nervous as to how he might be received. He had heard that Arthur Elvang was by no means always the most affable of persons. Indeed, truth be told, he could be positively unpleasant.

He found the professor’s residence without difficulty on a residential street off Klampenborgvej not far from the Dyrehaven, and after sitting in the car for a few minutes to muster the courage went up to the front door and rang the bell. It took a while before someone answered and Arthur Elvang’s emaciated features and skinny frame appeared in front of him. The initial words of politeness Simonsen had prepared remained stuck in his throat as the professor peered at him through the thick lenses of spectacles that Simonsen reckoned must have had a lens power capable of correcting blindness.

‘What do you want?’

Simonsen sighed with relief. He had been afraid the old man would slam the door in his face. Now at least there was contact. He did his best to explain, while Arthur Elvang listened with his head tilted to one side, thin-lipped and sceptical. When he was finished the old man barked out a command:

‘Tell me again!’

Simonsen repeated his words, well aware now of how weak it all sounded. The professor was of the same opinion.

‘What rot! I haven’t heard such poppycock since Sunday school. Come with me!’

Arthur Elvang stepped out of the door and walked around the side of the house. Simonsen followed him. In an outhouse the old man handed him a garden rake and relieved him of the folder he had been holding in his hand. Elvang poked a crooked finger towards the lawn. It was covered in leaves from the chestnut tree over by the fence that divided the garden from the adjacent property.

‘You can shift some leaves for me while I consider the matter. I don’t work for nothing.’

It took Simonsen an hour to get finished. The professor needed only five minutes. They met on the patio.

‘If you’re thirsty there’s water in the tap. Get it yourself, in the kitchen.’

Simonsen declined. He preferred to hear Elvang’s conclusion on Juli Denissen’s autopsy report. And yet he was made to wait. The professor grunted:

‘I hear your new woman’s left you now.’

Blushing slightly, Simonsen refuted this. The Countess was on a job in Esbjerg, there was no more to it than that. He wondered where on earth the man got his information from, but then put the thought from his mind and went straight to the point.

‘So what’s your first conclusion? About the report?’

‘My first conclusion is the same as my final conclusion, which in turn is the only conclusion. I thought you wanted to wait? Said something about bringing two women with you to hear my conclusion. Wasn’t that what you were waffling on about before?’

‘Yes, but I’d like to know your verdict beforehand.’

‘My verdict is that the young woman’s death was caused by cerebral haemorrhage. That’s bleeding in the brain, to you. It’s all there in black and white, man. Any first-year medical student could have told you that.’

Ten minutes later, Konrad Simonsen was strolling on familiar paths in the woodland expanses of the Dyrehaven, thinking about what a first-year student of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture had to tell him in 1972. They had walked there together, though with a void between them. He remembered it vividly, even the date: 2 November.

Rita was wearing her Afghan coat, a full-length sheepskin worn with the smooth side facing out. It was edged with gaudy embroidered borders of red and yellow flowers, a garment that looked like the factory had never got round to finishing it. The coat of the honest, hard-working Afghan peasant… bought for a small fortune in the Janus clothes store on Larsbjørnsstræde in the centre of Copenhagen, but it was the symbolic value that mattered. He loved to see Rita wearing that coat, though it often made him laugh, too. It could only be done up at the front by means of hooks, so if the weather was cold she froze. Most likely in solidarity with the honest, hard-working peasants, but nonetheless impractical in November.

They had biked out to the Dyrehaven at Rita’s suggestion: there was something she wanted to talk to him about, she’d said. He could tell by her tone on the phone that it was serious, and he had tried to prepare himself in the event that she was going to break off their relationship. Maybe it was for the best. The past year had been hard on them: there were so many things that set them apart from each other. Often he loathed and loved her at the same time; likewise the company she kept. He felt clear dissociation from her one minute and sullen envy the next, at least with respect to the people she used to know. He didn’t envy her new political friends at all.

Rita was by that time enrolled in the School of Architecture, where she immersed herself in Marxist economics and Leninist theory. There were no free rides to the revolution, even for the elite. She’d moved into a room at the Grønjordskollegium student halls in Amager, on the seventh floor with a view out across the grasslands of the Amager Fælled and inland towards the city’s towers and steeples. He had helped her decorate and move in. And he had built her shelving system, fitting the elements together until it took up the whole of one wall. It was quick, easy and ugly to look at. But she had lots of books. He’d glanced at some of the titles after putting them in place and found himself wondering who was actually going to be designing Danish housing of the future, since students of architecture apparently weren’t learning the slightest thing about it.

Nineteen seventy-two was a year of momentous world events. He and Rita disagreed about most of them, especially the Munich massacre. During the Olympic Games that summer eleven Israeli athletes were murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group, Black September. The world was in shock, and Simonsen with it. It was a cowardly and horrendous attack. Following a day of mourning the Games continued. But the joy was gone from the contest. He turned off the TV, and for once he didn’t mince his words. Congratulations, Rita. Your friends have won a great victory. Eleven defenceless athletes. I hope you’re proud.

Rita clenched her fists and flew off the handle: she didn’t give a damn about Munich. As long as the comrades banged up in Stammheim Prison were being tortured in isolation while the world looked the other way, she wasn’t going to get herself worked up about a few dead athletes. She stomped off in a rage. The comrades banged up in Stammheim – Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe, murderers all four. As far as Simonsen was concerned they could rot away in their isolation. Later, he got hold of a Fahndungsplakat from a colleague in the border police at Kruså. It wasn’t hard, the posters were all over the place, in every public institution in West Germany. Twenty black-and-white portrait photos of young people, high-contrast. The headline was unequivocal: Terroristen. With a thick black felt-tip he crossed out the faces of those dead or captured. He put the poster up on the door outside her room without her noticing. It remained there for a day and a night. When eventually Rita discovered it she could hardly catch her breath for rage, but he denied all knowledge: Who, him? Of course not. It must have been one of the other students. Maybe there were still one or two who didn’t agree with her opinions. Had she considered the possibility?

Then, on 2 October, she and the radical left she idolised received an emphatic kick in the teeth. Denmark voted to join the Common Market by an overwhelming majority. They were at Simonsen’s place, watching the count on television. He openly gloated, but she didn’t react as he was expecting. The defeat wasn’t that important to her. Six months before, she’d been involved in the People’s Movement against the EC, Folkebevægelsen mod EF, but now she couldn’t seem to care less. And it wasn’t because her side had lost, it was something else, more chilling. That evening he felt for the first time that something wasn’t right. He was afraid.

The oak tree beneath which they had sat was still there. He recognised it among a thousand others. He sat down. Again. And almost felt she was at his side. Perhaps the reason he had loved Rita, in spite of everything, was that she always managed to surprise him. To do things he could never quite predict, or say things when he was least expecting it. She was impossible to pin a label on. Just as he thought he knew her, he didn’t. And that day thirty-five years ago was no exception. She’d leaned her head against his shoulder. It was the first time they had touched in what seemed like an age. He was thinking it was over between them. And then she said quietly:

‘Konrad, I’m pregnant.’

A hundred thoughts passed through his mind in an instant. Marriage, responsibility, money. The prospect was overwhelming. A child. He was going to be a father.

‘I’m not sure if it’s yours. I think so, but… I don’t know.’

He couldn’t remember what he’d said in reply. Or if he’d spoken at all. But her next sentence had stayed with him:

‘I don’t want it. The time isn’t right. Not yet.’

He protested, albeit half-heartedly. But Rita ignored him.

‘Put your arms around me.’

He held her as requested. It was less than a year until Denmark introduced free abortion.

The house in Søllerød was big when he was on his own. He missed the Countess, that was it, there was no point in denying it. Certainly not to himself.

He spent the Saturday on the postman case, mainly to kill time doing something worthwhile. He reread a couple of reports he’d taken home with him and spent most of the afternoon going through Jørgen Kramer Nielsen’s supermarket receipts to see if he could turn anything up besides what Pauline Berg had found. He couldn’t. Then he wrote an e-mail to the priest after considering for a moment whether he should pay him a visit. For no other reason than that he felt like it: the man had made an impression on him, a good impression at that. In the end he couldn’t be bothered and wrote to him instead, asking directly if, in his work, the priest had ever come across the British charity Missing Children, to which Kramer Nielsen had bequeathed so much money. An hour later he received a reply in the form of a link to the organisation’s website, accompanied by a polite Best wishes. He’d visited the site before, so it wasn’t much use. Still, it had been worth a try.

Later in the day something happened that made him happy. The doorbell rang, rather cautiously, he thought. He went to the door and there was Maja Nørgaard with a sheepish smile on her face and a lavish bouquet of flowers in her hand. He hadn’t seen her since the day he’d interviewed her in the bar near Enghave Station over a month ago. She was looking well, her eyes bright and attentive, the way a girl ought to look at that age.

Her thanks were awkwardly delivered: she shook his hand and made a mess of the words that had clearly been practised beforehand. But there was no mistaking her genuine gratitude: she had got a grip on her life now, stuck to soft drinks during the week and would be keeping away from drugs until she was a hundred. Her mother, a therapist and a social worker had all helped her. Konrad Simonsen sat down on his front step. He didn’t want to invite her in, it seemed wrong somehow. On the other hand he didn’t want to turn her away either if she wanted to talk. She sat down next to him and spoke hesitantly, as though searching for some bigger picture:

‘It’s weird. All through school they tell you not to bully and not to leave others out. But it’s only now that I understand how right that is. I could have been nicer to Robert… we all could. He was in love with me, and there was nothing wrong with that. I should have looked beyond the surface instead of thinking about how fat he was. I should have talked to him, told him I actually liked him. I could easily have done that without… without…’

She ground to a halt, eventually adding, ‘I’m sure it would have meant a lot to him.’

Konrad Simonsen replied softly:

‘I’m sure it would, Maja. But what happened wasn’t your fault. That’s important to remember, too.’

She smiled uncertainly. He told her about other people he knew whose lives had gone wrong, without anyone being to blame. She listened gratefully, and he elaborated to make his stories fit the bill a bit better. Eventually, he got to his feet, and Maja did likewise.

‘The therapist says the same as you, that it’s not my fault.’

‘It isn’t, you’ll see.’

He thanked her again for the flowers and she edged away, only then to submit to an urge and spontaneously run back to hug him. They stood there for a moment before she let go and ran back down the garden path to a waiting car, waving as she went. Happy.

On the Sunday, Anna Mia came by unannounced. They’d agreed to have dinner together the next day and Simonsen had promised to take her to a restaurant in town, so her visit came as a surprise, though he was no less pleased on that account. He sat in the kitchen while she ravenously plundered the fridge. Making herself a sandwich, she asked:

‘If you’ve bought my present, can I have it now instead of having to go about the town with it tomorrow?’

This wasn’t good. He’d forgotten all about her birthday after his argument with the Countess. Moreover, she read his look of surprise like lightning.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten my birthday, Dad.’

It was a minefield. There’d been so many birthdays in her life when all she’d wanted was a present from him. It didn’t matter what it was – just something. Tears welled in her eyes and she put the knife down. There was nothing for it but to tell the truth.

She wiped her eyes and pulled herself together. Rather too quickly, he thought.

‘Where is it then, this camera?’ she asked, trying to sound casual. ‘I’d like to see it, at least.’

He had put it in the garden room together with the long lens that had been delivered a couple of days before. Twenty seconds after he told her, the boxes were in front of him on the table. She got the camera out.

‘Wow, this is nice.’

He finished making the sandwich for her while she admired the Nikon. They talked about it. Maybe she could pay half herself, if that was all right, bit by bit over a few months. He wouldn’t hear of it and went off to get scissors, sticky tape and wrapping paper, realising it was all a foregone conclusion.

‘Are you sure you can afford it, Dad?’

Of course he could. He earned a decent salary, but after moving in with the Countess it was as though he was continually comparing his finances to hers, and in that game he was always going to come out the loser. Nonetheless, at the moment he was spending rather less than he earned, partly because the Countess did most of the shopping herself and refused to keep tabs. It was a waste of time, she insisted. But he told none of this to Anna Mia, making do with the bare bones:

‘Yes.’

They wrapped her present together. In Christmas wrapping paper, the only sort he could find.

‘What about your mum, though?’ he asked.

Before, when he’d told her, she could see the problem and had partially agreed with him that the present from him and the Countess would overshadow everything else she was likely to get. But then all of a sudden the solution was right in front of them.

‘I’ll just take the lens with me.’

Of course. How hard did it have to be?

When Simonsen went into work on the Monday morning there was an envelope from the lab waiting for him on his desk. Feeling expectant, he opened it and emptied out the contents in front of him. Photographs, just as he’d hoped: twelve black-and-white prints that looked like holiday snaps. He examined them closely, lingering on one in particular. All showed a group of young people in various everyday situations, as far as he could see, taken in and around the type of wooden house that city dwellers liked to take in the country or by the sea for the summer months. In all twelve he recognised the girl from the posters, and in six of them she was on her own. Besides these prints the envelope contained a smaller packet of negatives, cut out individually so that they could be pressed flat together. He picked one out at random and noted that it was the same image as one of the prints and that the number of negatives matched up.

The most surprising, and immediately informative, item was the front page of a newspaper. It was folded once down the middle. He opened it and smoothed it out carefully, scanning the details: Jyllands-Posten, second section, page one, Sunday 17 February 1974. The smiling image of a girl dominated the article, headlined What Price Rebellion? The caption below the photo gave the girl a name: Lucy Selma Davison left her home in Liverpool in May 1969 and was last seen in Harwich on 14 June the same year. Simonsen spoke the name quietly out loud:

‘Lucy Selma Davison.’

For a minute he sat and stared at the girl’s portrait. She could hardly have been more than fourteen or fifteen when it was taken. Seventeen at most, certainly no older than that. Her face was softly rounded about a delicate, slightly pointed nose that displayed a slight smattering of freckles across its bridge. Her eyes hinted at an impish smile, bashful perhaps, or provocative, he wasn’t sure. Her long, dark-blonde hair was pulled back behind her ears and held in place by two hair slides, one on each side. Her straight fringe reached almost to her eyebrows. She wore no make-up: none was necessary.

Cautiously, as though committing some unlawful deed, he allowed his fingertips to pass across her image as he whispered:

‘You were beautiful, Lucy. Beautiful.’

He folded up the article again and tried to think of what he knew about Liverpool. It was next to nothing. The Titanic was registered in Liverpool, and the Beatles, of course, were from Liverpool. Neither of these things were of any relevance, it seemed. Liverpool, May 1969. What happened in Liverpool in May 1969? It was a blank to him, as good a place to start as any.

All of sudden it suited Simonsen fine that the Countess had put off her return from Jutland until Wednesday. It gave him more leeway with regard to his work, and now suddenly he had lots to be getting on with. He told her about his discovery when they spoke on the phone and they agreed it made it all the more imperative that they were able to map Jørgen Kramer Nielsen’s movements during his annual holiday trip. It was an investigation she and Klavs Arnold were working hard on, though as yet they’d made little headway.

Only after he’d hung up did the thought occur to Simonsen that he’d forgotten to tell her the issue of Anna Mia’s birthday present had now been settled. He shook his head at himself: settled was just a euphemism for the resounding defeat he had suffered. And then it struck him: he’d better cancel his dinner appointment with his daughter that evening. He wouldn’t have time now. He was lucky. She didn’t answer her phone and he could make do with leaving a message. After which he got started on the job at hand.

On Tuesday Pauline Berg appeared in his office mid-morning, looking cheerful and bright. He was glad to see her. It meant he could bring her up to date on the inroads he’d been making into the postman case. Besides, he’d been growing rather fond of her occasionally challenging demeanour and anarchistic behaviour. As long as it didn’t get out of hand.

‘Hi, Pauline. I hope you can spare me some time. There’s a few things we need to talk about, and one thing in particular I need your help with.’

She sat down, eyes scanning his office with suspicion. The bulletin boards were covered with photos, a big pile of dusty suspension files had been dumped on a table and the whiteboard was a scribble of diagrams.

‘The Countess has been trying to get in touch with you. How come you don’t answer your phone?’ Pauline demanded.

‘I’ve been out of range in a basement most of the day, but I’ll tell you about that later. First of all: how good’s your English?’

‘Good. Arne called me as well, he couldn’t get in touch with you either. And neither could your daughter. She tried to call you last night. She thought you were supposed to be having dinner.’

‘I cancelled.’

Pauline gave him a reproachful look and waited for him to go on.

‘OK, it was a bit late by the time I got home, but listen: I want you to phone England later today. My English isn’t good enough for phone calls, too much gets past me. I don’t know where I want you to start just yet, I haven’t had time to think about it. I need to find someone fairly high up you can use as your point of entry. Someone here must have a personal acquaintance over there… maybe one of our superiors. But I’ll sort that out later, like I said.’

‘What am I supposed to find out about?’

‘Anything you can about a seventeen-year-old girl who went missing in 1969. She was from a place called Fairfield in Liverpool, and her name was Lucy.’

‘Is she the girl on your posters?’

‘Yes, and I’ve made further headway there. The girl’s full name was Lucy Davison, and there was some contact with Jørgen Kramer Nielsen before she disappeared.’

‘Is she dead?’

‘I think so, but we’ve no way of knowing for sure yet. That’s why I want you to be a bit careful when you make that call to England. I don’t want her family building up false hopes. Her parents could still be alive now.’

‘So more exactly, you want to know what?’

The most important thing was to make sure Lucy Davison hadn’t turned up again in Liverpool safe and sound, or that her fate hadn’t been happily resolved in some other way. He had been unable to find anything at all about her in the archives, despite having picked his way through metres of shelves with files on missing children and youngsters in 1969 and a couple of years following. He continued:

‘I’ve got twelve photos of her, or rather photos in which she appears. All taken by Jørgen Kramer Nielsen. I’m gradually working towards establishing the time frame. Tomorrow, I’m off to the National Archive to look at exam lists and external examiners’ reports. Would you believe those things are kept for posterity? To be honest, though, I’m not in much doubt as to the dates.’

‘Kramer Nielsen’s holidays every year in June?’

‘Exactly. Ninety-nine per cent certain.’

‘You’ve made a lot of progress, well done.’

‘It’s been hard graft, but if all goes well I should be able to present some pretty solid leads by tomorrow. You’ve seen I’ve called a meeting, I take it? The Countess should be home by then, too, and Arne can make it as well.’

‘What are those boxes over there?’

‘Exam papers. Advanced level school-leaving exams in Danish. Anno nineteen sixty-nine, Class Three Y of Brøndbyøster Gymnasium. Plus end-of-term papers, same year. The first lot I photocopied at the National Archive, the latter set is from the school’s own basement, and the two green boxes are the school magazine, years sixty-seven to -nine. They call it the Dispatch.’

‘And you reckon you’re going to get it all read by tomorrow?’

‘Skimmed. Most of it’s going to be of no use to us, obviously.’

‘Would you excuse me a minute, Simon? There’s something I need to sort out. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.’

Fifteen minutes turned out to be right, only it wasn’t Pauline Berg who came back. Simonsen didn’t notice the Deputy Commissioner until she’d sat down in front of him.

‘Simon. Working late these days, I notice.’

‘Oh, hello. What can I do for you?’

‘It’s more what I can do for you, as a matter for fact. I hear you’ve got a problem with your English. I ran into Pauline Berg, you see, and she mentioned some information from England. Liverpool, to be precise.’

Simonsen pricked up his ears.

‘My English isn’t good enough, I’m afraid, and we need a decent introduction, preferably to someone high up the ladder who can open doors.’

‘In which case, I’d probably be the right person, though my English isn’t much better than yours. But I did attend a conference once in Liverpool, so at least I’ve heard the local accent. I didn’t understand it very well, though. Let’s just hope they’re feeling kind when I give them a call.’

‘Would you? It’d be a great help. Are you sure you’ve got time?’

‘Things have been a bit slow this week in the corridors of power. We’ve got the big convening of the force at the Øksnehallen coming up, but we’re all ready for that. And I won’t hide the fact that I’m rather excited about this case of yours after having played my own little part the other day.’

‘Excellent! Then I’ll draw up a list of questions we’d like some answers to. You’ll have it on your desk by tomorrow morning.’

‘That’s where I beg to differ, Simon. First you tell me all about this young girl you’re so interested in, and then you go home and pack.’

‘Pack? What on earth for… where am I going? I’ve called a meeting tomorrow, it’s important.’

‘Not any more it isn’t. It’s rescheduled for next week. Amazing what they can do downstairs in IT as soon as something urgent comes up, isn’t it?’

‘Urgent? Sorry, I’m not with you.’

He was being dispatched to an Interpol conference or seminar, she wasn’t quite sure which. At any rate, the Deputy Commissioner had just discovered that the Copenhagen Police had been allocated three places and not two, as she had thought. It was important they fly the flag on such occasions, even if they did involve a lot of wasted time. It was fortunate that he was available or she’d have had no idea who to send. Her orders were given in a tone that was friendly, but firm:

‘You fly out tomorrow at twelve-thirty. Make sure you’re at the airport two hours before your flight.’

‘Where am I going?’

‘Nesebar in Bulgaria. It’s on the Black Sea. Very cultural, and they’ve got health spas, too, if you need to wind down after the morning’s talks.’

‘What’s the theme?’

There were many themes, and all of them important. International collaboration, transnational teamwork, virtual-experience exchange groups… all of considerable relevance, not least for Denmark with its official proviso as to police and judicial co-operation in the EU. But he didn’t quite get the connection: what had Interpol to do with the EU? She spelled it out for him: it was all about personal networks, the ABC of international co-operation, and in particular establishing personal contacts within the major EU countries. Her enthusiasm was infectious and he listened with interest.

‘I’ll make sure you receive the programme. The secretaries upstairs are making all the arrangements for you.’

Simonsen glanced at his bulletin boards and the Deputy Commissioner followed his gaze.

‘That’ll have to wait a week, Simon. You know how significant international relations are, and how much importance we in the executive attach to them. Besides, Bulgaria’s new to the EU, which makes it all the more crucial we’re represented. Interpol is our backbone. Isn’t that what you say?’

‘But it’s all a bit sudden… and with my own case… very well, yes, I suppose it can wait a week.’

‘I’m sure Pauline Berg would drive you to the airport tomorrow. You can brief her on the way, then she and the others will prepare for your meeting in a week’s time.’

‘All right, if that’s what you want.’

‘Thank you, Simon, I’m pleased. In the meantime I’ll do my best to get hold of the information you want from England. You scratch my back, and what have you.’

Her ear-to-ear smile raised his spirits.

‘Now, tell me about this girl of yours.’

He started by removing one of the photos from the bulletin board and placing it in front of her. Then he found the newspaper article. The Deputy Commissioner studied the photo.

‘What a pretty girl. Has she got a name?’

He ran through the facts they’d got and then summarised the article for her.

The angle, as hinted at in the headline, was a broadside against youth rebellion and all its negative ramifications, focusing in particular on the many teenagers who left their homes to seek out a new life in the city. Copenhagen’s so-called free state of Christiania was mentioned several times.

‘The main gist is clearly to add to pressure being exerted on the new government to clear Christiania, which to the journalist’s mind is little more than a drug den. They might not be that explicit, but you get the idea, I’m sure.’

‘Oh, I’m with you. Call in the bulldozers, Prime Minister.’

She was right. That was certainly what the paper had been angling for. But for Simonsen it was the human interest story that grabbed his attention. Then, as now, it was the human angle that sold copies, not the statistics about missing youngsters, though it seemed there were many in those years. The poor souls, who paid the price for society’s relentless progress and sank to the bottom, casualties of drugs and prostitution, were of little interest either. But a devastated elderly couple from a decent working-class home in Liverpool, touring around Danish and Swedish towns every summer in search of their missing daughter, was something that tugged at the heartstrings in the small homes of Jutland.

‘Lucy’s parents, you mean?’

‘George and Margaret Davison. They scrimped and saved from their pay packets all year so they could afford the trip every summer to hand out flyers and put up posters appealing for information about their daughter. They were Catholics, or maybe still are Catholics. I don’t yet know if they’re alive.’

‘Things are starting to come together, aren’t they, Simon?’

‘Perhaps. We’ll have to wait and see. At any rate, the Davisons have been forced to accept the fact that their daughter is most likely dead, and now I’m certain all they want is to get her home so she can be buried in consecrated earth.’

‘Those poor people.’

‘Indeed. They wanted to see the back of flower power, free love and macrobiotics as fast as possible, I’m sure. Listen to this.’

He put on his glasses and read from the newspaper:

‘“One Wednesday we found a short farewell note. It was the worst morning of our lives. She was gone. Our little girl, run away.” Tears run down Mr Davison’s cheeks, but he does nothing to wipe them away. He sits, powerless in his grief. Mrs Davison carries on where her husband left off. “What did we do that was wrong? We gave her everything money could buy, everything we could afford. Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly? How could she do this to us?” The question remains in the air. Who can answer them?

‘And so on and so forth… damaging influence of subversive elements… then there’s a bit that isn’t of much interest… hang on a minute, there’s more here.

‘“We know that two days later she went off with a young man from our local car dealer’s. He drove her to Harwich where she was going to sneak on board the ferry to Denmark, and we think that somehow she succeeded.” Mrs Davison nods. “She was a bright and cheerful girl, anyone would have helped her. She was no bother as a child, but then last year she got into bad company.” Then Jyllands-Posten makes of that what it will, as I’m sure you can imagine. And there’s the last bit of factual stuff.’

He ran a finger down the page and quickly found what he was looking for:

‘“We got a postcard from Sweden. The postmark was Orsa, the twenty-second of June nineteen sixty-nine. Then later her tent and rucksack were found near Lycksele, a little town high up in Sweden. But that wasn’t until the beginning of April nineteen seventy. The tent had been put up in a forest.” Once more Mrs Davison picks up from her husband as he breaks down in tears and apologises for losing control. “The Swedish police took the matter very seriously indeed. They started an investigation right away and searched throughout the forest. There were all sorts of people out looking: police, volunteers and soldiers from the Swedish army [Ed. note: the Hemvärnet, or Swedish Reserve], but they didn’t find anything. Later, the police said Lucy hadn’t been in Sweden at all, somebody else had put her tent up and sent the postcard to make it look like she had. The Danish police didn’t want anything to do with it. We’ve tried so many times, as has our priest, too. But all in vain. That’s why we’re hoping it’ll help if Lucy’s picture gets in the papers.”’

Simonsen put the article down.

‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ said the Deputy Commissioner. ‘How can anyone send a postcard and make it look like it’s from her? It can’t be that difficult, surely, to find out if she wrote it herself or not?’

‘No, that struck me, too. It’s one of the questions you’ll need to ask the English police, if they even know anything about the case. I’m thinking it’d be fine if to begin with we don’t inform her family that we may have something new. They’ve suffered enough as it is.’

‘I agree entirely. What about the Swedish police? It sounds like they’ll have a file on her too. Have you been in touch with them?’

‘They’ve promised to send me a copy of the final report as quickly as they can.’

‘Do you want me to lean on them a bit while I’m at it?’

‘No need, they’re usually efficient, even if our colleague over there in the Rikskriminalpolisen did point out to me that we already received the report once, in late seventy-two. Where it got to, and what we did about it at the time, is something I’ve not been able to find out, so the article is probably right: we did nothing.’

‘And you don’t think she ever got to Sweden, do you?’

‘I think Lucy Davison was killed sometime between the fifteenth and the nineteenth of June in a summer house over on the west coast of Jutland, and buried in some out-of-the-way place by Jørgen Kramer Nielsen and five of his mates from class Three Y, Brøndbyøster Gymnasium. What’s more, I think Jørgen Kramer Nielsen paid for that misdeed with his life.’