SLEIZNER HAD JUST pulled out his lock pick and was about to slide it into the lock of the flat in Valby, just outside Copenhagen, when his phone let him know he had mail.
From: michael.ronning@politi.dk
To: kim.sleizner@politi.dk
Subject: Security update of mobile phone
As you will be aware from previous emails, we are in the process of installing a series of security updates on the mobile phones of certain key members of the Copenhagen Police. Since you are one of the people affected, I have set aside time this Wednesday at 1 p.m. Unless I hear from you, I will count on seeing you in my office at that time. The update will take approximately 120 minutes to complete.
Sincerely,
Mikael Rønning, IT Manager
As you will be aware. He was getting too big for his boots, that IT bloke. I have set aside time. True, he had received a number of emails about that damned security update, and true, he had ignored them like the spam they were. But that didn’t give this loser licence to be insubordinate. Count on seeing you in my office. Who the fuck did he think he was?
He was going to let them install that update, all right. But it was going to happen when it suited him, not some bloody IT minion. Not that he could see that there would ever be time when he could be without his phone for two hours. Besides, he had to back up the contents to his computer, so he could delete all the things that were for his eyes only.
Sleizner shoved the phone back into his pocket and started working the lock pick. It had been at least forty years since he’d last used it. And yet, it felt like only yesterday that he’d emptied his piggy banks and converted every penny he owned into German marks before their road trip.
The plan had been to secretly buy a stiletto. Not because he was planning to use it. He was just going to carry it around in his pocket and pull it out from time to time to make sure it worked. In Karlsruhe, he had finally managed to slip away from his parents and had found a shop that carried the largest selection of knives he’d ever seen. Not just stilettos, but throwing knives and machetes. They’d even had karambits, his favourite knife of all time.
But instead, a lock pick had caught his eye, and once they were back from their holiday, it had felt like walking around with a magic wand in his pocket. Most of his childhood, he’d been able to get through any door he pleased. He’d break into his neighbours’ house, where there were always sweets and sometimes even cash. His girlfriend’s, when he’d had one, to go through her things. Or the teacher’s lounge at night, to copy down the questions that were going to be on the next day’s test.
Then suddenly one day, his neighbour had lain in wait and caught him red-handed, literally rummaging through the box at the back of the closet where they kept their savings.
After a number of hard slaps, he’d been given a choice. They could either go over and tell his father everything the moment he got home from work, or he could unzip his trousers and pull them down right then. It had been an easy decision, though he’d felt dirty for months afterwards.
He hadn’t used a lock pick since. Not until now. But it was like riding a bike. Once you knew how to use it, you apparently never forgot.
The lock clicked and he was able to quietly pull open the door, step into the little flat and shut it again behind him.
The door said Thor Rindflygt, but he could tell from the smell the moment he stepped into the narrow, dark hallway that he was in the right place. This was elephant Chink Qiang Who’s real address. Or Qiang-Wei Hitomu Oisin, as the Population Registry had it, which explained why he’d been so hard to find.
But everything had turned out all right. In fact, most things had gone his way, and even though he still experienced faint rumblings of worry about what Dunja was up to, they were relatively easy to dismiss. He had seized control and was once again a player to be reckoned with after spending too much time on the bench.
As he had suspected, the Chinaman was an overweight little IT slave in the basement of the TDC bunker. His good friend Stig Paulsen had been happy to give him a list of his employees. An hour and a half later, he’d found the unmistakeably ugly mug, whose real address wasn’t Blågårdsgade but rather a flat out in Valby, on Sylviavej 22, fourth floor.
He continued into the small but pleasant kitchen and noted that there must be no bathroom in the flat since there was a shower enclosure next to the sink. Dorm-like and charming if you were twenty and believed in peace on Earth. Pathetic if you were an overweight gook riding around on an electric unicycle.
He’d hoped this might be where Dunja was hiding. That they’d swapped flats temporarily, she and the Chinaman. Then this protracted story would finally get the end it deserved. But there was no trace of her. No piles of clothes on the floor, no dirty dishes or smelly bins. Instead, everything was neat and tidy. Like the many types of tea that were not only perfectly stacked against the wall on one of the kitchen counters, but alphabetized as well.
He couldn’t explain why, but for some reason swapping the Ginger Guru Chai and the Ginger Lemongrass made him feel a bit better. Then he continued further into the flat, which even though the Chinaman no longer lived in it was still crammed full of elephant crap. Like the rug in the hallway or the ceiling light in the living room, which consisted of five elephant trunks that ended in light bulbs.
Plates with burnt incense sticks were scattered about the room, which had to count as another sign Dunja wasn’t the one living here. Granted, he couldn’t be sure, but he would have been surprised to find out incense was her bag.
He’d hit a dead end. No point denying it. He’d decided to give up and leave the flat when, on his way out of the living room, he spotted a neon backpack in an armchair in the furthest corner.
It was one of the most hideous backpacks he’d ever seen, which was why he clearly remembered seeing it once before, in the CCTV footage from the Danske Bank branch in Malmö where Dunja had withdrawn all her money. It had been carried at the time by the skinny Indian man helping her. So he was the one who lived here.
The pieces were finally starting to fall into place and he could feel his good mood returning. The Chinaman was in contact with the Indian, who was in contact with Dunja, which meant he was one step closer to her.
One step closer to ending this.
He went through the contents of the backpack but was forced to conclude that there was no money in it, only a long, narrow box of incense and a folder, which he pulled out and opened. In it were a stack of grainy and in some cases completely blurred pictures, all showing the same flat.
His flat.