The young man’s fingers flew over the keys so fast that it sounded like a strip of cardboard in the spokes of a child’s bicycle wheel. The Countess looked up from her reading and watched him surreptitiously as he worked. He was a curly-haired youth with blue eyes and an open face; he had a slender build, with a fashion sense that she could characterize only as unique. His downy upper lip held the beginnings of a mustache, but when he smiled it was difficult to suppress an urge to stroke his curls and want to rescue him from a cruel world that at best offered him only minimal chances for survival. Or so it seemed to her.
Malte Borup looked up as if he felt her gaze, and his hands hovered above the keyboard.
“That good-looking one, is she also a cop?”
“Her name is Pauline, and yes she is. As she told you.”
“That’s true, she did. I was using my eyes more than my ears.”
“You’re not the only one.”
“What about the other one? The one with… well, the other one.”
“She is a psychologist who will be participating in the discussion.”
“What’s she done?”
“Nothing. How is my laptop doing?”
“It’ll be ready soon. I’ve sent a text message to the one with the beard. The strange one… one moment… I’ve got him here.”
Her address book popped up on the screen. The computer worked as a natural extension of his thoughts.
“Poul Troulsen. I’ll have to learn these names. He went to McDonald’s, isn’t that right?”
“A pizzeria. What did you write?”
“I just asked if he wanted to bring a couple of sodas back with him. Was that bad? I’ll pay him back.”
“No, that’s all right, but I don’t think he reads his text messages.”
He glanced at the screen, realized there was no help to be had there, and shrugged.
“We’ll go back to HS tomorrow. There’s a canteen there where you can buy soda.”
“Sweet. Will I meet the boss? That fat guy. I saw him on TV.”
“You’ll meet him today, but don’t call him fat.”
“Not fat. I meant slightly overweight.”
“Don’t call him fat, and don’t call him overweight.”
“Okay.”
“His name is Konrad Simonsen and he’s in the gymnasium with a guest. Maybe we can catch him before he heads back to the city.”
Malte Borup stiffened. Like a frozen computer screen.
“I’d rather not see any corpses. I really don’t want to, unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“And you won’t. The bodies were transported to lab a long time ago.”
“Cool.”
“Yes, I suppose you could say that.”
It turned out that it was a matter of opinion if the dead were completely gone. A woman who turned up in a taxi brought a whole new perspective on the matter.
Simonsen was stubbing out his cigarette in an ugly black streak on the exterior wall of the gymnasium when he saw the car. He was on edge, almost irritable. The night had been too short and his head was about to run over with information that he was expected to handle. Big and small all mixed in together and every time something left his hands something new turned up to take its place. It was always that way in the beginning of a case, especially something of this nature, which was, mildly put, a high-profile case, but knowing this was hardly a consolation. On top of this, he had forgotten to call Anna Mia yesterday although he had gone to great lengths to promise her, and he had forgotten to thank the Countess for the chess book, which he had gone to great lengths to promise himself. But he had not been able to remember either of these, and as if that were not enough, he had, in a fit of terrible dietary planning, decided to subsist on a bowl of yogurt for breakfast, so now he was also famished. He tried on a smile that was far from genuine and walked up to meet his guest.
She was a weathered little woman who blended into the asphalt. They greeted each other formally. Her voice was dry as talc and without inflection as she started to dissect his current desires—and as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“I sense a strong attraction to fish filets.”
He knew she was teasing him. Sometimes she used her special abilities to stir up his rational world, just because. He had been through it before.
“Thoughts don’t make you fat. That’s just how it is.”
Simonsen was a rational man. He did not believe in the Klabautermann, in the power of crystals or of earth power lines, and his window box had to make it through the winter without iron as a precaution against supernatural creatures, so when he nevertheless incorporated the little woman’s talents into his regulated universe it was because she regularly produced precise, correct, and relevant facts that lay miles beyond what simple guesswork could have produced. However, from time to time she was wrong and at other times she had nothing to say. How she came by her information he had long since given up trying to understand.
They usually met in her home in Høje-Taastrup, where she and her husband managed a lucrative but discreet consulting business. Her husband called himself Stephan Stemme and produced strange stories for online advertising. Once in a while Simonsen received an e-mail with an audio clip from him. He usually deleted these. When he consulted with the woman he always brought an object related in some way to the case in which he was seeking assistance. That was crucial. Like a police dog, she had to have some material to work from, but in this forensic investigation he had no physical objects to present to her. The agreement was that she would simply walk around the scene and see if the spirits were willing.
It turned out that the spirits not only were willing, they were lining up to have a chance to speak.
The second after she stepped into the gymnasium she tentatively stretched out her hand and glanced alternately at the ceiling and the floor, as if it were raining. Whatever it was she saw, it contorted her face.
“A man has been castrated by his own son. There are drops of blood on the floor.”
Suddenly she jumped back and was about to fall on top of Simonsen.
“Thank you. Who are they?”
Then it took hold of her. She stared in desperation down the length of the room, her hands pressed to her head, without words, apart from the occasional exclamation, but her gestures and facial expressions reflected an intense and unpleasant scene. The visions went on for quite a while. From time to time she covered her eyes, at other times her ears, and once she put her palms together and pressed her fingertips against her chin as if she was listening or praying. On one occasion she turned away in disgust.
Then all at once it stopped and she was left staring vacantly into space.
Simonsen was tense but remained silent even when one minute followed another and she stood there without sharing what she had seen. The first move had to be hers. Her response turned out to be as disappointing as it was surprising. That it was also a lie, was something he had no power over. The shadow world could not be consulted.
“Unfortunately I’m not getting anything else, and I would like to go home.”