Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Carl was actually fairly pleased with the situation. The latest lockdown would ensure that they had peace to get on with work. The different teams in homicide would have to isolate themselves from one another. Mona was at home with the little one, all the Christmas shenanigans had stopped, and, best of all, as long as things remained like this, PET would postpone their planned visit to Assad’s home indefinitely. In the current climate, no one had any interest in sticking their noses into other people’s private affairs unless there was a very urgent reason.
Carl opened the window and had a cigarette. If there was anything he really believed in, it was that nicotine would give all those bloody strains of corona a run for their money.
Rose and Gordon were currently going over the cases on the whiteboard where they had a date for the murder, and Assad was going through Tytte Laugesen’s scrapbooks. All in all, he was feeling optimistic.
Carl, for his part, was focusing on the case of the two embalmed bodies. There were more than enough questions to answer on that score. For example, who uses disposable two-hundred-milliliter syringes with long needles? According to his internet search, it could be people who work in agriculture, research labs, or health care. So it was an insurmountable task to find the supplier when there were so many options. The manufacturer could not help them either because there were no distinctive characteristics about the syringes such as production numbers or barcodes.
Carl had no doubt that the latest victims belonged with the others on the whiteboard, because the common denominator was salt. But these cases still stood out from the others because they did not know the exact dates the men were killed, given that they had most likely been kidnapped and might have been killed and buried much later.
There was a video surveillance recording showing that Birger von Brandstrup had been picked up by a white Škoda Superb and not been seen since. It could be forgiven if some people at the time had written off his disappearance as staged. That kind of thing was not unheard-of. He could have hidden away a small fortune and lived like a king in Thailand or some other faraway country.
But they knew better now.
In Franco Svendsen’s case, the theory had been that he had died by suicide. On November 4, 2016, after an ordinary busy workday, he had walked down to the beach as he often did to take a refreshing swim in the ice-cold water. But when he did not return at dinnertime, his family grew worried and discovered all his clothes neatly folded down on the beach. Contrary to his usual habits, he had gone in the water naked, which baffled his family, because he was rather modest. All these circumstances gave rise to a genuine concern that he had drowned. His last medical checkup testified to a man in excellent health who had been declared fit and as strong as an ox. Due to the lack of any further evidence, the police went with the theory that he had either died by suicide or suffered an attack of a cramp in the cold water. And that concluded the investigation. But the family believed that it must have been an accident, as they never found a motive for suicide. He had simply been engulfed by the waves in the strong offshore wind. And that was what everyone believed right up until the day when he was dug out of the ground in Skævinge.
Two bodies, each in their grave. But what had they done to deserve their fate, and why were the murders so anonymous in comparison with the others on the whiteboard?
Was it a new strategy? Was the murderer trying to play it safe now? He had still left salt in connection with the victims as a sort of calling card, which pointed to the perpetrator’s pride. Symbolic actions like this were often the only leads in cases involving serial killers. He knew that from abroad and recognized the pattern from their own cases. The murders had been committed every two years, each on a slightly later date. And on top of that came the salt. They had lots of leads that could trip up the murderer, and yet they were still completely in the dark.
There were sweat stains under Gordon’s arms when he burst into Carl’s office. His white skin was flushed with excitement. Rose and Assad followed right behind him, looking just as elated.
Gordon did not even sit down before he began rambling.
“The repair shop owner, Wilder, was killed on Nicolae Ceaușescu’s birthday. Oleg Dudek, as Marwa has already pointed out, died on Saddam Hussein’s birthday. Pia Laugesen died on Slobodan Milošević’s, and Palle Rasmussen on Pol Pot’s. And now we can add that the arms dealer, Carl-Henrik Skov Jespersen, was killed on Idi Amin’s birthday.”
Carl was blown away for once. “Well, that can’t be coincidental,” he said.
“Ha! Five of the worst dictators in world history on the same whiteboard. That’s definitely no coincidence, Carl. We’re way past that discussion.”
Assad grinned. “Now we’re not only looking for cases in even years such as 1990, 1992, 1994, and 1996, which are the years between the cases we already know. Now we also need to research when the worst vermin in human history were born.”
“And if it doesn’t lead anywhere, which you might still think, Carl, at least we’ll have had fun with a little world history,” said Rose. If there was a school dedicated solely to refining sarcasm and barefaced cheek, Rose must have graduated top of her class.