The Hanging: A Thriller (38 page)

Simonsen commented with enthusiasm, “It’s brilliant.”

Arne Pedersen asked half sulkily, “What happened with the television program anyway? Weren’t they going to come today?”

“It’s been postponed for the moment, whatever consequences that may have. There was apparently some other programming that was more important but hold your peace for a moment and we’ll follow this.”

*   *   *

The next half hour was tough for Stig Åge Thorsen. His well-rehearsed defensive postures were of only marginal help and the Countess drove him around the ring with strikes from all angles.

“Your car was in an accident on the eighteenth of November 2003, when someone drove into it parked on Lille Strandvej in Gentofte. What were you doing there?”

He had never been in Gentofte. He pushed back a copy of the accident report. It must be a misunderstanding.

“Who paid for your cruise to Greece? Was it the same stranger?’

He wavered, could not recall, refused to answer, and finally claimed that he had been saving up for the trip for many years.

“In April you turned to Frederiksværk Stålvalseværk and bought a pile of coal that the factory had lying around in the old commercial port. What were you going to do with it?”

It was nice to have on hand. He had ended up using it to burn the minivan, but that had not been planned.

“How was your childhood? Your old teacher from the Kregme School said that you had a difficult childhood. Is that true?”

He had had a normal childhood, a perfectly one-hundred-percent-normal childhood, and the teacher was crazy, a demented old fool.

“You attacked a woman on the beach in Saloniki. What happened there?”

The lawyer jumped in at this point but the accusation had effect. Stig Åge Thorsen looked like a whipped dog.

The Countess went on and on, jumping from subject to subject, poking here, then there, bringing up things that had him on the ropes only to return to them ten minutes later with double the intensity, and soon the farmer started to show small signs of mental fatigue. Tripping over a sentence, a finger rubbing an eye, a twitch at his temple, anger, irritation, and then carelessness. After the dress rehearsal she drove it home.

“Do you know Jeremy Floyd?”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“I can get him in and pick you out of a lineup. Is that what you want?”

Berg stepped in. She had said nothing to this point. Now she carefully opposed the Countess: “But, but he is…”

The Countess waved her away. “I know that he is a psychiatrist, but his professional vows of silence don’t mean anything in a homicide case such as this one. So, Mr. Thorsen, should I arrange a face-to-face meeting?”

Berg insisted, “But, but…”

“Not now,” the Countess snapped. The lawyer was perplexed, and Stig Åge Thorsen took the bite.

“He’s dead, so you can’t arrange anything.”

“Hm, well, I guess that changes things a bit. It surprises me that…”

Simonsen’s smile was wide and self-congratulatory. “He didn’t even realize he was contradicting himself.”

Pedersen answered, “Nor his lawyer. He’s just sitting there like a sphinx. He’s not much help.”

“Don’t be fooled by his posture. He’s good. I know him. But you are right, it seems as if he doesn’t want to do more than he absolutely has to.”

A quarter of an hour later, the Countess decided that the time was right. She leaned forward and placed her arms on the table.

“The twenty thousand kroner that you were given by your stranger—you in turn donated them via the Internet to an Indian help organization called Sanlaap. Why that particular organization?”

Stig Åge Thorsen had apparently been expecting this question.

“I think I had seen it advertised on TV but I am not sure. Maybe it was a coincidence, I don’t know.” He crossed his arms. The subject was finished as far as he was concerned.

But not as far as Berg was concerned. She leaned toward him.

“Sanlaap operates out of Bombay or, to be more specific, the world’s largest bordello neighborhood, Kamthipura. There are two hundred thousand women and children for sale there. Down to seven years of age. The children are kept as sex slaves in dilapidated whorehouses and typically they have to serve fifteen to twenty customers a day. A large number of them come from Kathmandu, in Nepal, where they were kidnapped by various means by slave traders and brought across the border to India, where they are sold for use in bordellos. The first couple of weeks the children are beaten to shreds or outright tortured until they break down and cooperate in their new profession. When they are not being raped, they are hidden away by madams in small, dark places like crawl spaces or lofts so that the police won’t find them. Or else the police will demand to get their share of the profits. Most of the girls are HIV positive. They receive no treatment and develop AIDS. Many also get pregnant and raise their babies under unspeakably horrible conditions.”

She spoke slowly and clearly, directly to Stig Åge Thorsen. He had pushed himself as far away from her as the chair allowed but could not escape her gaze. When she finished, he answered her without taking into account that she had not asked him anything.

“Yes, it is terrible, and the world couldn’t care less.”

The Countess cut him off. Her tone was accusatory and as sharp as a razor.

“You give money to Sanlaap in order to relieve your conscience, don’t you? You were treated by Jeremy Floyd because you can’t keep your fingers away from little children. Isn’t that right?”

The lawyer reacted angrily: “What is this?”

But Stig Åge Thorsen’s reaction was even more violent. His outburst was loud, almost screaming: “No, no, it’s the opposite. I was the one. They hurt me.”

Berg also raised her voice, also infuriated with the Countess. “You completely misunderstand. He doesn’t do children any harm. Haven’t you understood a single thing?” She laid a protective hand on the man’s arm.

The Countess did not attempt to hide her disagreement with her colleague.

“For heaven’s sake, he was in the behavioral-treatment group with the janitor Per Clausen and with the nurse, Helle … Helle … oh, what was her name again?”

She snapped her fingers a couple of times, happening also to turn briefly to Stig Åge Thorsen in her search for the name, and then the miracle occurred.

“Jørgensen, Helle Smidt Jørgensen, but we were the ones who had been…” But he did not get any further. The lawyer had finally realized what was going on and he effectively stopped the session by placing a hand over his client’s mouth.

“This has gone far enough, ladies, more than far enough. I don’t even have words to describe what this is.”

He was furious. He said into the room in a loud, formal voice, “Let it be known that I am holding my hand over my client’s mouth and also strongly advising him to discontinue this interrogation.”

Then he stood and more or less heaved up Stig Åge Thorsen with him while shielding him from the two women. He turned to the mirror and said, “This is psychological terror, Simon. Get in here.”

Simonsen got up heavily to his feet. “I guess I’ll have to go in and pour oil on the water. Did you catch that name, Arne?”

“Nurse Helle Smidt Jørgensen.”

“Find her. It can’t be done quickly enough.”

CHAPTER 60

The Countess caught up with her boss after the interrogation of Stig Åge Thorsen, waiting patiently for fifteen minutes so that he would not slip past her. She pounced on him as soon as he had said goodbye to the lawyer.

“Simon, we have to talk.”

Simonsen turned, somewhat perplexed. Her tone was insistent, not to say sharp. He brushed her off as gently as he could: “I’m sorry, Countess, but it will have to wait. I’m on my way to a briefing with the chiefs and after that…”

She grabbed his hand and drew him into his own office. To his amazement, he followed without protest and obeyed when she commanded, “Sit down.”

She remained standing at his side. He glanced up at her and asked, “What in the world?”

“It’s not about me, it’s about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that as soon as you have ten seconds of respite you are a hundred miles away. Don’t try to talk your way out of this. Just tell me what’s happened.”

It was more her hand on his shoulder than her words that made him give way. He opened his desk drawer and handed her the envelope from the morning. Then he got up and went up to the window with his back to her. After a while he heard her sit down in his chair, then there was silence for an eternity, until her arm was suddenly around him.

She said quietly but clearly, “What have you done about this?”

Simonsen didn’t answer. His words died in his mouth, as he became acutely aware of a sweet-and-sour taste in his mouth. It came without warning and reminded him of the sour hard candy from his childhood, the kind that you could buy from the shop woman on the main street for five øre apiece, or was it two? He couldn’t quite remember the price, only that strong, clear taste of lemon and sugar that filled the entire mouth and lingered long after the candy was gone. Like now.

The taste memory frightened him but the images that followed were worse. For a short moment he saw Anna Mia hanging from the end of a long rope. Her arms and legs twitching uncontrollably in death throes and her eyes on him, pleading in vain. The vision lasted no more than a second, then hatred took over and he nodded in time to the devilish impulses that crowded into his brain in order to be tasted one by one. A smashed knee cap or a couple of broken thumbs or, even better—a sharp kick to the back of the head while his victim lay on his stomach and had to howl into the curb. That’s how it should be. No one was going to threaten his daughter.… He made a fist and hit it against the flat of the other hand. Once, twice, many times in small movements so as not to shake off the Countess’s arm.

She repeated her question and brought him back to reality: “Simon, what have you done about this?”

“Anna Mia is with her mother in Bornholm. Don’t you have any licorice? You usually have those Gojler. Perhaps you could give me some. Or water.”

“How long will she be there?”

“Who?”

“How long will Anna Mia be in Bornholm?”

“Until Friday, I think.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“No.”

“Or with anyone else?”

“Only with you.”

They stood there awhile longer until Simonsen’s phone rang and he reluctantly broke away. The Countess sat down across from him and listened approvingly as he delayed his meeting by fifteen minutes, without apology or excuses.

He pointed to the envelope she was holding and asked, “What would you do?”

She answered casually, as if the question were not of great significance; “Only the regular precautions, Simon.”

“I can do those myself.”

“No, I’ll do it. But there’s nothing to be nervous about. It’s clear the letter was only sent to unnerve you.”

“Yes, isn’t it? I have also received all kinds of threats.”

“Of course. You shouldn’t put any stock in those.”

“I think it’s because I took Pauline with me to his interrogation. That is, Per Clausen’s, you know, in relation to his daughter. So it may be a kind of revenge for that. Well, you know what I mean.”

“Yes, of course I do. But now you should get along to your briefing and stop worrying about this anymore.”

Simonsen nodded and the Countess hurried out of the office with the envelope. When the door closed behind her, he at once felt sleepy.

CHAPTER 61

Anita Dahlgren was no virtuoso in the kitchen so she kept to what was tried and true. An appetizer of shrimp cocktail with garlic bread, for the main course filet mignon accompanied by baked potatoes and parsley butter, served with a pitcher of béarnaise sauce as well as a mixed salad with feta and olives. Dessert was simply vanilla ice cream. Even she could not go wrong with this menu.

Simonsen praised her for at least the fifth time: “This tastes fantastic.”

Pedersen added smilingly, “Yes, well done, Planck.”

Planck ignored this comment and said seriously, “I haven’t just invited you for the pleasant company. I’ve been thinking about an idea that I want us to talk about, but first you should know that I won’t be coming in to HS anymore. I haven’t been doing so well as of late and I don’t have the strength to visit you anymore.”

The atmosphere deflated somewhat. The old man looked around briefly at everyone in the room.

“Don’t look so glum. I never planned to get a hundred years old and don’t you dare start crying. Anita, dry your eyes—I’m not going to pop off tomorrow.”

“Sorry, I’ll stop. I’ve just grown so fond of you.”

“As I have of you, my girl. Let’s clear the table together while these two gifted gentlemen ponder a little riddle. Our friend with the chainsaw—what was it we were calling him, Simon?”

Simonsen did not reply immediately. He was looking at Anita. Planck noticed this.

“Tonight Anita is part of the discussion.”

“Hmm, if you say so. We’re calling him
Climber
.”

“Climber. An excellent name. What is this Climber’s greatest weakness?”

The old man and the young woman stood up and went out to the kitchen together. Anita started to wash the dishes and Planck passed her a new stack from time to time. After a while he said, “Do you also want to guess?”

“No, but I really want to hear the answer.”

“The answer is his image. It’s very banal of course, but also very important.”

She reflected on this and said, “Yes, that’s true. The part about his image. Do you think that they’ll get it?”

“Simon will, Arne won’t. He doesn’t think simply enough. And he expends his mental energy on things that he can’t control. This whole evening he hasn’t talked about anything other than that nurse, so he won’t come up with it.”

“You’re always so sure of yourself.”

“Wait and see.”

Planck was right. They came back into the room with coffee and cups, and while Anita was still passing them around, Pedersen threw in the towel.