The Hanging: A Thriller (7 page)

“Is there anything else you would like?”

“Yes, a quarter of an hour of peace and quiet.”

And he got it.

CHAPTER 9

Arne Pedersen spun the wheel of fortune that was well balanced and surprisingly functional, probably the pedagogical fruit of six months’ worth of wood shop. He had emptied a container with sugar cubes onto a table, where they filled in as chips. The wheel landed on a sun; he reorganized his sugar cubes and spun again. The metallic clicks filled the teachers’ lounge.

“Could you stop that? It’s getting on my nerves.”

The Countess was troubleshooting an unresponsive computer. Its display was projected onto a screen, and, without understanding any of it, Poul Troulsen followed her efforts with interest. A stack of papers lay on his lap, the thickness of which did not bode well for getting any sleep.

Pedersen did not reply, but soon the wheel clattered on its way to a new meeting with chance. The Countess glanced pleadingly at Pauline Berg, who caught her drift, got up, and shortly returned leading Pedersen by the hand and with a lump of sugar in her mouth. She pressed him down into an armchair by Poul Troulsen’s side, where he sat and grumbled for a while before he got a look at his companion’s notes.

“Are you planning to go through all that?”

Poul Troulsen was rumored to be as conscientious in his presentations as he was in his work. He also appeared alarmingly fresh, even though he was the oldest of them. For once, Pedersen backed up the Countess.

“Arne has a point, Poul. You should speed it up. Everyone wants to go home.”

“Amen, amen, and amen again. I am tired, I don’t want to be here anymore, and I don’t understand why this janitor can’t wait until tomorrow. How the hell does Simon get to be off?”

“I’m here now, Arne. And perhaps you are right, perhaps we should wait, but I am the one who’s in charge of this investigation and assigning duties. You can either accept it, or leave.”

Simonsen had entered through the back door and no one had noticed him until he stood before them. Back at police headquarters there was talk that the chief of the Homicide Division had an uncanny as well as annoying habit of always becoming the point of focus once he entered a room. Often without saying very much. But this time it was too extreme. Pedersen had respect for his boss but he was not afraid of him, and the admonishment was out of proportion. He sat back in his chair with a noise of frustration and an angry gesture. Simonsen came to his senses.

“Okay, okay, sorry. But you aren’t the only one who is tired. We’re going at this hard so that we can get home sooner. Let me start by going over the events of the day.”

He then proceeded to do so, adding that he did not want them to put too much stock into their temporary organization and to flat out ignore the massive interest shown by the press. No one except Pauline Berg really listened, but all appreciated the fact that their chief seemed to have a good grasp of the situation, and the Countess thought to herself that her boss—standing there so strong and mighty—was a born leader. For everyone except himself. Only Berg had a question.

“If we ignore the reporters completely, don’t we risk them becoming … what shall I say … negatively focused? I mean, the coverage hasn’t focused on anything else all day, and even the international stations—”

“There are daily press conferences at headquarters, and it’s not our job to sell newspapers or television fodder,” Simonsen broke in.

There were no dissenting opinions, so that line was drawn. They could move on.

The Countess quickly dispatched with the topic of neighbors as no one had registered anything unusual, whereafter it was Poul Troulsen’s turn. He stood up. The unnecessary gesture caused some of them to roll their eyes, but unfairly as it would turn out, as he took less than ten minutes to give an overview of the day’s meager harvest. Troulsen had managed an impressive bit of research, which had turned out to be tedious, dull, unsuccessful, and at times difficult. Some teachers had acted impulsively and tried to leave, and one had actually escaped out a window, claiming that he had a legal right to his day off whatever was going on. He was now holed up at Gladsaxe police station, where he had been arrested for damaging public property, owing to the dirty boot prints on the windowsill. After that episode, no one left the school before they had given both oral and written accounts of their vacation travels. With the exception of two lovers who had spent the time together in Paris and who tried to conceal this from the police as they had concealed it from their spouses, there was nothing to dig into. No one had a past that indicated a predilection for mass murder. All in all, the school staff were law-abiding and the labors of the day resulted in nothing.

Or almost nothing, except for an incident that Poul Troulsen concluded with.

“The school counselor, Ditte Lubert. She is impossible. I interrogated her twice, if you can even call it that. She is … I can’t describe it exactly. I actually think she is trying to hide something, but I have no idea what, so either someone else should take over or I need permission to hit her. Preferably both.”

If one didn’t know Poul Troulsen one could be fooled by his kindly and trustworthy appearance: an amiable, gray-bearded grandfather. Simonsen, who knew that his kindness had limits, reacted promptly at the suggestion of violence.

“Countess, haven’t you—”

“I’ll talk to Mrs. Lubert tomorrow,” Berg interrupted.

Everyone turned to her with astonishment. Their new colleague was apparently a woman with some self-confidence, perhaps a stroke too much. Simonsen grunted his consent and after a couple of seconds Troulsen realized that he had been relieved of his duty.

“From the bottom of my heart, thank you. You have no idea what you are walking into, but good luck … and for heaven’s sake, don’t ask any leading questions or you won’t hear the end of it.”

Then it was done, and the miracle complete. Troulsen sat down.

Simonsen resumed the proceedings. He had pumped the Countess as well as Arne Pedersen about the janitor. Neither of them had made any objections but he knew they were wondering what he was up to. For others, the work and the presentations could well have waited until the morning, as Pedersen had so correctly observed, but Simonsen had insisted.

“On to Per Clausen. The fact that I didn’t detain him is nagging at me. Perhaps it was a mistake, and although I know all too well that you believe I am attaching too great an importance to him, I think you are wrong. Time will tell. Our main priorities right now are clear: to establish the identities of the victims, how they ended up at the school, and why they were hanged. Nonetheless, Clausen is our best angle for the moment. Arne, Countess: you have done some fine work, and much faster than I believed could be accomplished.”

Pedersen commented, “It is because we don’t have to wait, regardless of whom we ask for what. Overtime at headquarters will increase exponentially if this goes on.”

“Which is not your problem, so forget about it. I see that you have prepared a complete little sideshow. We’re all waiting with bated breath.”

The Countess took over, but surprisingly did not start with Clausen’s life.

“Tomorrow I will get some computer assistance from a new co-worker. That is to say, our student intern. His name is Malte Borup. Be nice to him.”

She parried Simonsen’s evident surprise rather elegantly.

“As you recall, I was given permission to recruit him. Now he has been freed of his other duties so we should all be happy. He is an IT genius and you’ll love him, although he is a little rough around the edges.”

She beamed like a little girl at having gotten her student. It was something she had been working on for a long time.

Simonsen introduced a sour note into her happiness. “If he doesn’t fit in, he’ll be out the door before you can say ‘fatal error.’ Now tell us about Per Clausen.”

“Per Monrad Clausen was born in 1941 in Copenhagen,” the Countess began. “His parents were Anette and Hans Clausen. His father was a carpenter and later a master carpenter, his mother a housewife. In 1947 the family moved from Bispebjerg to Charlottenlund, where Per Clausen grew up, and in 1948 his little sister, Alma Clausen, was born. The family had no other children. Clausen did very well in school and his father was convinced to let him go on in his studies. He passed his university entrance in 1959, the same year that his father was made master carpenter. The family finances were in good order. After his examinations, Clausen worked in his father’s workshop for one year and then matriculated at the Statistical Institute at Copenhagen University in 1960. The following year, in 1961, he was given a scholarship spot at the Valkendorf College in downtown Copenhagen, which is only afforded the most gifted students. Clausen graduated in 1965 with high honors, tending toward the exceptional. He received the university’s gold medal for his thesis on spatial statistics and the distribution of prime numbers.”

While she was speaking, Pedersen supported her presentation with images or bullet points on the computer screen. The Countess took a sip of water, then went on.

“From 1965 to 1969, Clausen worked at Boston University in Massachusetts, but in the fall of 1969 he returned to Denmark, where he was employed by the insurance company Union. He married Klara Persson in 1973. She is Swedish. She became a Danish citizen at the time of her marriage and was able to work as a dental hygienist. The couple settled in Bagsværd at Clausen’s current address and in 1977 they had their only child, Helene Clausen. Clausen’s salary increased steeply and was soon among the top fifteen percent in the nation. In 1987 the marriage collapsed because Klara Clausen fell in love with a childhood sweetheart. The divorce was difficult and characterized by bitterness. Mother and daughter moved to Sweden the same year; Clausen remained in Bagsværd. In 1988 his parents died and Clausen and his sister inherited almost nine hundred thousand kroner each. The following year he become embroiled in a controversy with the tax authorities as he donated half a million dollars to charitable organizations and wanted to be able to deduct the entire donation. In 1992 he was ticketed for speeding on the Hillerød motorway. In January 1993 Helene Clausen moved back in with her father and starteded ninth grade at the Tranehøj secondary school in Gentofte, and half a year later she started the Auregaard grammar school, also in Gentofte. In the summer of 1994, Helene Clausen drowned in a swimming accident at Bellevue Beach in Klampenborg.”

“Where is she buried?” Simonsen interrupted.

The Countess glanced at Pedersen, who shook his head, whereafter she shrugged apologetically.

“At this time Clausen was fifty-three years old, and after the death of his daughter his personal life and his social standing both took a turn for the worse. In 1996 he changed jobs from chief statistician at Union to janitor at the Langebæk School. The job came through some assistance from his boss at Union, who knew the school superintendent in Gladsaxe. Clausen was a problem by this time: he drank copiously, behaved badly, and stopped taking care of his personal hygiene. However, despite misgivings, he managed this job better than expected, even if he ended up taking the occasional sick day and was occasionally indisposed due to alcohol abuse. He is generally well liked, but keeps to himself most of the time and never speaks of his private life. The last few years he appears to have gained a reasonable control over his alcohol consumption. Half a year ago he told the headmaster that he suffered from colon cancer and was given time off to receive sixteen doses of treatment at the Gentofte Hospital. He was often gone for one or two times per day but the hospital has no record of this treatment.”

Simonsen got up and stood for a long time staring at the whiteboard as if he wanted to draw out additional details from the Countess’s keywords. No one said anything; only the soft hum of the computer’s internal fan could be heard. Finally their boss came back to life.

“I thought we were the only ones he was lying to. Where is he now?”

“At the pub. Surprise, surprise,” Troulsen answered.

“Do we have any officers there?”

“Two inside, and two outside. Stop worrying, Simon.”

Simonsen shifted his thoughts from the janitor and said, “One more thing. I’ve talked Kasper Planck into helping us with this thing.”

He looked around. All four of them nodded and no one made any further comment.

*   *   *

The Countess drove Simonsen and Troulsen home. She listened to the latest news update, her boss dozed, and Troulsen talked about pizzas. The two others let him talk.

When the radio news was over, the Countess turned it off and poked Simonsen, who was sitting in the front passenger seat.

“Why have you posted guards? Isn’t that overkill?”

“If you mean the officer in front of the school, he’s there to learn.”

“To learn what? That it’s cold at night in October?”

“To treat people nicely.”

Troulsen elbowed his way between them from the backseat.

“Look, you two, you’ve got to listen to me. If none of us ordered the pizzas and none of the teachers did, then who was it? Someone must have done it. They were all paid for and the bill was over two thousand kroner. You have to agree it’s a bit mysterious.”

The Countess tried to placate him by agreeing that it was strange. She wanted to hear more about the guard.

“Listen, the pizzas were apparently ordered for a party, and we sure wouldn’t have ordered them for a party. The staff doesn’t know about any party either. The school secretary was sure about that.”

Simonsen suddenly became alert and almost shouted, “A party, you say. When was the order placed?”

“Well, at first I assumed it was sometime today but the delivery boy said they were out of pineapple, so three of the pizzas were different than ordered, and that indicates that they were ordered earlier. Otherwise they would have had to choose something other than pineapple when the initial order was placed.”

“Look into it, Poul. You, personally. Find the pizzeria, where it is, when they open.”