Saturday, December 19, 2020
The three consecutive calls had made Assad’s head spin. Marwa had told him off for working too much and because everything at home was falling apart. And if he did not live up to his responsibility as the head of the family and make himself more present, she was afraid that Ronia would soon run away and Nella would wither away due to their isolation.
Assad promised that he would step it up, but then the telephone rang for the second time. It was Mona, who could not understand why Carl had not returned any of her calls. Assad had to tell her that the nail gun case had returned to haunt them and that Carl was currently in his house in Allerød because the police were searching it. But he stressed that Carl had appeared calm, so it was probably just a storm in a coffee cup.
Unfortunately, what he said was negated by the third call. It was Carl calling to briefly tell him that a suitcase had been found in his attic containing one and a half kilos of cocaine and more than two hundred thousand euros. He was not being placed under immediate arrest because forensics had to analyze the contents of the suitcase first. And it was that information that made him panic momentarily—because if they did unexpectedly find anything that pointed to him, he would not be able to explain how it had happened.
Assad had no idea how to react.
“And, Assad, you should assume that I’m going to be suspended for the time being and have to hand in my badge and service weapon.”
“But then you won’t be able to get into the office.”
“No, but I’ve got an idea that you can run by the others, because we can’t afford to slow down. My suggestion is that we work with one unit at Teglholmen and one at my house. So if you three agree, I want you to pack the most essential material and meet me at my home as soon as you can, Assad.”
Rose took the news hardest. “What the hell are they playing at? You don’t keep something up in your attic for almost fifteen years if you have even the slightest idea about what shit is inside, do you? You either get rid of it—and there are all sorts of ways to do that, like handing it in to the police—or sell the goods and start channeling the money to secret accounts around the world. So why hasn’t Carl done either? Obviously because he has nothing to do with the whole thing. And that’s final!”
“But how do you know he wasn’t planning to do that when he retires? If you’re sitting on dirty money, especially that amount of it, you have to wait for years after the crime before you can enjoy it,” said Gordon gingerly.
“What did you say, you idiot? Are you seriously sitting there on your skinny ass, insinuating that Carl is a criminal?”
“No, but I—”
“I don’t want to hear another word out of you, Gordon. Don’t you know Carl?” She turned to Assad. “And what do you have to say, Assad? You look like shit!”
Assad raised his head. “I certainly don’t feel very good, if that’s what you mean. But I’m pretty sure I know Carl. He told me he would call Hardy and discuss matters with him. Maybe they’ll be able to piece together what happened back then.”
Assad glanced up at the words Carl had written on the window. They could so far only tick off the question of the significance of the dates. Which of the other points would enable them to crack the case? Where should they direct their attention? If only he knew.
He took out his folder and put the last of the papers in it. “I’ll drive over to Carl now, all right? We’ll have to set up a long-term Zoom group. Can you deal with that, Gordon?”
The guy nodded, still red-faced after Rose’s outburst.
“Don’t look so despondent, Assad. I’m not worried that the police will find anything compromising on me, so why should you be?”
Assad shrugged and looked around Mona and Carl’s living room. Were they really going to have to work together covertly in Carl’s home with Lucia’s toys on the floor and Mona pacing back and forth like a caged animal?
Of course Mona was worried, and so was he. If only Carl knew how worried. Why would he want to continue if Carl was forced out of Department Q? If that happened, it would be easier for him to just find another job. He would get to see much more of his family, and they would not have to deal with the endless questions from PET, which they would expect him to answer at some point.
He tried to push it to the back of his mind because someone was going to be killed imminently—and it was a dead certainty if they did not manage to make some headway. Everything else would just have to wait.
“We’ve looked at the list you wrote on the office window, Carl. Rose and Gordon are working on several of the points, but I think you and I should focus on the salt. What do you think?”
Carl nodded.
“Your question was why they left it at the crime scene. We need to know why someone would do that,” Gordon continued.
“I’ve actually been thinking about where we got to before Marcus, Terje Ploug, and Sniffer Dog interrupted us. I think it was something or other you said that stuck with me.”
“What did I say?” asked Assad.
“Well, Rose had just outlined a motive based on how the killer has seemingly only targeted people with extremely poor morals. People who cheat and commit fraud, people who show no consideration for anything or anyone.”
“That’s right, and then you mentioned that he acted like some sort of moral guardian. You called him a crusader.”
“Exactly. But it was you who put that word in my mind. You said that it all seemed almost religious.”
“That’s right. Don’t you think that an idea based solely on murdering immoral people—and without exception on the birthdays of extreme bastards—seems religious?”
“Sodom and Gomorrah, Assad. That’s the story that came to me when I was driving home from Allerød. The world stinks just now, and it can’t all be blamed on corona. No, these days people only think about themselves. Just like Anker Høyer when he asked to put his shit in my attic. Selfishness overshadows everything good in the world, don’t you see it?”
Assad looked puzzled. “Sodom and Gomorrah? Is that something religious?”
Carl smiled. Obviously not a story an Iraqi Muslim would be too familiar with, but then neither would many Danish Christians.
“It’s a sad but engaging story from the Old Testament, Assad. It’s about two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, where the inhabitants acted like pigs and went about whoring and raping at will. I don’t know the whole story, but there was a man called Lot who enjoyed God’s favor, and God sent down a couple of angels of vengeance to warn him that the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah would be destroyed in a fiery storm and that he should take his wife and two daughters and get out of there before it happened. So Lot asked his wife to give the angels salt, as was the custom with guests, but his wife wouldn’t give them her own salt, so she borrowed it from their neighbor instead. When they fled from the town, the angels warned them under no circumstances to look back. But Lot’s wife did not obey. She turned around and stared back at the wrath of God only to be instantly turned into a pillar of salt.” Carl nodded to himself. “Yeah, it’s a story about how the wrath of God can be connected with salt.”
“Now I remember it, Carl. The Koran also mentions Sodom and Gomorrah. I’d just forgotten it. But it’s about God’s punishment against those who sin and show no regard for common decency. Do you think that’s the key to the killer’s motive? Because if it is, then he is some sort of religious fanatic.”
Carl nodded and looked at his friend with affection. It was the first time in ages that Assad had been at Carl’s home, and even longer since the two of them had been so close during an investigation.
“I hope it’s okay that I was listening in?” Mona had come into the living room without them noticing and was standing with her arms folded. It was obvious that she was dying to say something.
“Assad, I’m sure you know that Carl has kept me updated on the case, so I feel quite confident that I can follow your reasoning. I’m thinking that a truly and genuinely religious person lives with a number of implicit boundaries in relation to what they can and can’t do. Fanatics clearly make up their own rules, I get that, but they are still governed by everything their religion is founded on. And that’s what makes me doubt whether your killer is sufficiently familiar with what you can and can’t do as a servant of God. Contrary to religious fanatics, who almost always refer directly to a specific religion or sect in relation to a violent act, there is no explanation for why this killer views themselves as a servant of God. If you ask me, it isn’t a religion but a particular event in the killer’s life that set this insane project in motion.”
“But what could that be, Mona? That’s what we need to know. What sort of person would go down the path of becoming a crazy mass murderer?”
She looked at Carl with a withered smile and tired, heavy eyes. She had not forgotten for a second about the precarious situation she and her family now found themselves in. That much was clear.
She pointed a clenched hand toward them and raised one finger.
“Hypothetically, I think the killer holds a grudge about an old case. And this grudge has only been strengthened by this whole crusade, as you call it, Carl.”
Then came another finger.
“And this event that hit the killer so hard dates from so many years ago that you can with some certainty assume that it’s from before 1988, which was the year of the first murder you’re working on.”
And another finger.
“We know that the killer has shown great determination with these murders and so is probably equally as determined in all other aspects of life. I’m thinking that this would require certain significant financial resources, because some of the killings call for an insane amount of preparation and time.”
She pointed another finger.
“And we’re looking at an extremely patient person who doesn’t just go about killing at random. By only killing every second year, they are demonstrating how cautious they are. In my opinion, the killer must be very cunning and extremely well organized.”
And now came the last finger.
“When you look at the complexity of the murders, I feel very certain that your killer is also a team player. You’re dealing with a leader with disciples around them.”
Assad nodded. “An intelligent, patient team player who is probably rich and had once been subjected to something serious that offended their morals. So do you think that he feels a sense of injustice?”
Mona nodded. “Absolutely. And I think that he believes his actions are just. The symbolism certainly points in that direction. The salt is some sort of sign of being God’s vengeful angel, and all that strange business with the birthdays of world tyrants is just another way to confirm that these killings are committed in the name of God.”
“Do you really think the murderer believes that?” asked Carl. “I mean, chopping the hands off Oleg Dudek, drowning Pia Laugesen in her own pool, injecting potassium chloride into men like Franco Svendsen and Birger von Brandstrup, who were also almost starved to death. It’s completely psychopathic, Mona.”
“Exactly. But a true psychopath very rarely feels the need to justify their actions.”
The phone rang, and Carl’s daughter came running in with it in her outstretched hand. Assad almost could not remember the time when Nella or Ronia had been Lucia’s age. Had they really once been such innocent little creatures?
Carl frowned when he took the call, and two minutes of almost complete silence in the room felt like an eternity. Then he hung up and looked at Assad.
“I can’t remember every detail, Assad. But Gordon and Rose have just about managed to fill all the gaps on the whiteboard. Of the eight cases we hadn’t identified yet, there are only two left. The other six all concern people who could be said to have made themselves known in society for all the wrong reasons, and it won’t come as any surprise to you that they all met atypical ends on the birthdays of tyrants: Lenin, Gaddafi, Mussolini, Ferdinand Marcos, to name just a few. Maybe you remember the Bobo Madsen case? It wasn’t so long ago, 2014 to be exact.”
Assad looked at Mona, who seemed to be racking her brain. It was not exactly a name one would forget.
“He died in a horseback riding accident on November 25, 2014, on the birthday of the Chilean dictator and mass murderer Augusto Pinochet.”
“Oh,” said Mona, suddenly remembering. “Bobo Madsen was the one who supplied payday loans with sky-high interest, right?”
Carl gave her a thumbs-up. “Yes, and it was totally aboveboard. He was a professional loan shark specializing in payday loans. The loans were normally for very small amounts and targeted at regular people with enticing adverts that definitely didn’t send any warning signals, but that’s the way it is with payday loans. A loan of ten thousand kroner could easily increase to two hundred thousand kroner if the person didn’t keep up their repayments, which could be hard due to the exorbitant interest rates that Bobo Madsen charged.”
“Okay, yeah, I also remember the debate about payday loans when his body was found,” said Assad. “But it didn’t change anything, did it?”
Carl snorted. “As long as there are people willing to offer loans, there’ll be people who are too shortsighted to consider the consequences. And no, the law wasn’t changed.”
Mona looked confused.
“But he died in a horseback riding accident, didn’t he?”
“Yes, you’re not wrong there. He quite literally lost his head when he galloped into an overhead electrical cable that had fallen down into the trees.”
“Oh yeah, now I remember,” she said. “People made macabre jokes about the accident, didn’t they? I think it was to do with his adverts saying that people shouldn’t lose their head if they needed money because they could just borrow it from Bobo Finance.”
Carl and Assad looked at each other.
So an advert could also turn out to be fatal in a very literal way.