Thursday, December 10, 2020
The government press conference was no more uplifting than usual. And even though the vaccine was on the way, it was already clear that the infection rate in connection with Christmas and New Year’s Eve might quickly turn bad.
The participants at the press conference appeared on the screen like an execution squad with enough ammunition to take down half the country. First, the minister of health and then all the others. Nine hundred and eighteen dead, they said, continuing to explain that the second corona wave was approaching and that restrictions would come into effect starting the following day at four p.m. It was nothing new: lockdown, corona tests, hand disinfecting, face masks, coughing in your sleeve, deprivation, and economic decline.
The whole thing was becoming really tiring and annoying.
“Well,” said Carl. “What do you think? I for one don’t intend to sit back and wait. If we have to take rapid tests all the time, we can just show our ID cards and skip the queue.”
The others were clearly at a loss. Assad was obviously thinking about his family—what would they do if he became ill? Rose, for her part, had no intention of being isolated again in her apartment. She had had enough of that last time. Gordon was evidently sad because he had only just started getting into the dating game—and how the hell were you supposed to date if you could not meet anyone?
“I’m heading out to Pauline Rasmussen to confront her with the emails we found before the entire country goes crazy,” said Carl. “Meanwhile, you lot keep at it. Rose, I want you and Assad to focus on the arms dealer. Gordon, you can continue with the old case files. And you can help each other finish going over Palle Rasmussen’s old emails.”
Was that a sigh he heard?
He had barely left the parking lot before his phone rang. It was Gordon.
“The department has just received a summons from the national police, Carl. We all have to meet in the canteen in twenty minutes.”
“I see. Good luck with that,” said Carl with a cheeky smile. He was not going to let the whims of the national police get in the way of his investigation.
Around a kilometer outside the city, the traffic started to ease. Several cars were pulled over with their radios blaring out regulations and warnings.
The sidewalks were littered with discarded face masks. Not exactly an uplifting sight.
Carl shook his head. Coronavirus? People did not seem to give a damn as long as their own needs were covered. But that was human nature—he had realized that a long time ago.
Carl sighed.
How long would they have to put up with all this shit?
A woman’s bike was lying on the garden path in front of Pauline Rasmussen’s terraced house. The front door was wide open, and from inside the hall came an agitated woman’s voice complaining: “You’ve got to be kidding” and “Not again!”
Carl had an inkling what the problem was.
When Pauline saw Carl standing in the doorway, she put her phone in her pocket and directed her frustration at him.
“All our shows are canceled indefinitely,” she spat. “Canceled, canceled, canceled! Is that all they’ve got to say?”
He used words like “unfortunate” and “insane” and continued without further ado to tell her what they had found among Palle Rasmussen’s belongings. All the color drained from her face. Carl did not care whether it was due to tonight’s show being the last for a long time or the prospect of being presented with her checkered past. When people were as unhinged as Pauline, his questioning was so much more effective. As his shady cousin always said, “Don’t turn up your nose at a blessing in disguise.”
“You were with Palle the day he died, and now we know for sure that he visited you on his way home and that you had the kind of sex that entails submission and physical pain. So, I’m asking you, Pauline, did you go too far? Did you end up killing him? Did he ask you to go home with him and tie him to the steering wheel of the car so he couldn’t turn off his engine?”
She seemed tongue-tied.
“Let me tell you what I think. Palle came home to you that afternoon. Can you confirm that?”
She sighed.
“You tied his hands tightly and gave him a good spanking, didn’t you?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t tie him up. It was never necessary.”
“You could inflict pain on him without tying him up? How would that work? We found lesions close to his rectum. That must have been very painful.”
She turned to face him with a contemptuous look. “Palle could take it. He was a real man.”
“But what I don’t understand is why there were deep indentations on his wrists much like you’d expect from cable ties.”
“That’s got nothing to do with me. I didn’t do it.”
“But you did drive home with him afterward, didn’t you?”
“I believe I’ve answered that already.”
Her eyes grew colder, and Carl could sense that he was losing his advantage.
“But no, I didn’t. When he had satisfied himself, he just wanted to go home. He only thought about himself.”
“And yet you were with him for nine and a half years. I find that hard to believe.”
“Believe what you want. However he got those marks on his wrists, it had nothing to do with me. I’m not proud of my relationship with him, but I can’t change that.”
“Was he depressed that day?”
“He was always a bit low after being humiliated and reaching his climax, but there was nothing unusual about it that day.”
“Why did you try to stop me from getting my hands on Palle’s boxes and computer? If there’s anything that my colleagues and I have missed, I need you to tell me now. It won’t help your case if we have to find out for ourselves.”
“My case?” Now she was as cold as ice. “The only thing I’m worried about at the moment is how the hell I’m going to manage now that the prime minister has pulled the rug from under my feet. Do you think she’s going to pay for all the canceled shows? Or maybe the minister for culture?”
Carl shrugged. It was no concern of his.
“What are we going to find on the computer, Pauline? Are you going to tell us while you have the chance?”
She shook her head. “I think you should leave now.”
Rose was sitting in the very spot where he had left her, in front of some photos and a large stack of case files.
“Where are Assad and Gordon?” he asked.
She sighed. “This time the superintendent has sent quite a few of us home. From now on, everyone—including our department—must keep a distance of at least two meters. It’s completely over the top. Just like back in the spring, we’re not supposed to conduct physical interrogations. We have to do them over the phone.”
Carl’s jaw dropped. “Didn’t they learn the lesson in the spring? You can’t conduct a bloody interrogation over the phone. We’ve learned that the hard way. People lie through their teeth, especially when you can’t see them. They just sit there on the other end of the line laughing at us.”
He turned on the spot and stormed down the corridor. Luckily, Marcus was in his office. He did not look too happy either.
“Is it true that you’ve decided once again that we have to conduct interrogations over the phone?”
“Yes, those are the superintendent’s guidelines.” He looked wearily up at Carl.
“Does that also apply for indictments?” he asked almost just in jest.
Marcus nodded.
“And if I choose not to give a shit, what are they going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. But if you end up with corona as a result, I’m sure you will give a shit.”
“And where do you stand?”
“I’m staying put in my office, so I won’t know much about what you all get up to.”
Carl nodded. That was exactly what he wanted to hear.
“Gordon and Assad have been told to work from home for the time being. And that won’t be of much use to our investigation, Marcus. Don’t you want Maja Petersen’s case to be solved?”
He nodded. “It’ll just have to wait until the corona situation is under control.”
“I hear you, Marcus. Look after yourself until then.”
“Assad, do you have the address for the man who sent those hate emails stating that he would sacrifice Palle Rasmussen if he didn’t leave politics?”
Assad cleared his throat a couple of times. It sounded like he was holding his phone at a distance. Was he catching a cold?
“I’ve already talked to him, Carl,” said Assad before speaking in Arabic to someone in the room. There was someone crying in the background.
“What’s going on, Assad?”
“What’s going on? What’s going on is that it isn’t easy to work in a two-bedroom apartment with all the wailing in the background.”
Carl frowned. “Can’t you work somewhere else?”
Assad shouted something out in Arabic. Apparently, he had not heard the question.
“What did that shit stirrer have to say for himself?”
“That all politicians who read the constitution according to their own interpretation should be stopped with violence. That they deserved to know how much he hated them.”
“Does he know that he can be punished for violent threats?”
“I think he said that he didn’t give two hoots. Such a strange expression.”
Carl smiled. “Two hoots? I imagine he must be an older man.”
“Carl, we won’t get anything out of him. He lives in Nakskov and always has. He has muscular dystrophy and is stuck in a wheelchair.”
“Okay.”
“The cases we’ve found so far are simply too old, Carl. The leads have gone cold. But Rose and I both think that there are more cases than the ones we’ve already found. Lots more. If we find a more recent case involving salt, hopefully there will also be some fresh and clear leads on the perpetrator.”
“I agree. We already have four crime scenes where salt has been ritually placed, so there’s a good chance there’ll be more. But, Assad, without a motive, we don’t know what direction to look in.”
“True, but now we know there have been murders in 1988, 1998, 2000, and 2002. If the interval of two years between murders means anything, I think we should start with the most recent murders first.”
“Er, the most recent? But what are the most recent? The perpetrator may have stopped years back—or be dead, for that matter,” said Carl.
“We only have murders in even years, so what if we start investigating murders and suspicious deaths in, say, 2010?”
“In 2010? Why not later? 2012, 2014, 2016 . . .”
“You said it yourself, Carl. The perpetrator may have started in 1988 or before, so there has to be a reasonable chance that he’s still active in the year we’re investigating. And I think 2010 makes sense.”
“I can hear that you’re already working on it.”
“Yes, I’m logged onto PED Point.”
“You do know that you can’t search for everything in the electronic archive?”
“I know, but if I have to work from home, I have to start somewhere, right?”