The Keeper of Lost Causes (22 page)

Assad showed Carl both the local rags and the national papers, and all of them had picked up on the newsworthiness of the story. The photographs were heart-rending. The car in the tree and the torn-up road; the new mother on her way in the ambulance with a sobbing boy at her side; Merete Lynggaard lying on a stretcher in the middle of the road with an oxygen mask over her face; and Uffe, who was sitting on the thin layer of snow with frightened eyes, firmly gripping the hand of his unconscious sister.

“Here,” said Assad, taking two pages from the
Gossip
tabloid out of the case file, which he’d taken from Carl’s desk. “Lis found out that some of these pictures were also used in the newspapers when Merete Lynggaard was elected to the Folketing,” Assad added.

All in all, the photographer who just happened to be in the Tibirke Woods on that particular afternoon had certainly got his money’s worth out of the few hundredths of a second it took to snap those pictures. He was also the one who had photographed the funeral of Merete’s parents — this time in color. Sharp, well-composed press shots of a teenage Merete Lynggaard holding her stunned brother by the hand as the urns were interred in Vestre Cemetery. There were no photographs from the other funeral. It took place in the utmost privacy.

“What the hell is going on down here?” a voice broke in. “Is it your fault that it stinks like Christmas Eve upstairs in our office?”

Sigurd Harms, one of the police sergeants from the second floor, was standing in the doorway. He stared with astonishment at the orgy of colors hanging from the lights.

“Here, Sigurd Fart-Nose,” said Carl, handing him one of the spicy, buttery rolls. “Just wait until Easter. That’s when we burn incense too.”

A message was delivered from upstairs saying that the homicide chief wanted to see Carl in his office before lunch. Jacobsen wore a gloomy and preoccupied expression as he looked up from reading the documents in front of him and invited Carl to have a seat.

Carl was about to apologize for Assad and explain that all that deepfrying wouldn’t happen again in the basement; he had the situation under control. But he never got that far before a pair of new detectives came in and sat down against the wall.

Carl gave them a crooked smile. He didn’t think they were there to arrest him because of a few samosas, or whatever those spicy, doughy things were called.

When Lars Bjørn and Deputy Police Superintendent Terje Ploug, who’d taken over the nail-gun case, entered the room, the homicide chief flipped the case file closed and turned to Carl. “I want you to know that I’ve called you in because two more murders were discovered this morning. The bodies of two young men were found in a car-repair shop outside Sorø.”

Sorø, thought Carl. What the devil did that have to do with them?

“They were both found with ninety-millimeter nails from a Paslode nail gun in their skulls. I’m sure that reminds you of something, right?”

Carl turned his head to look out of the window, staring at a flock of birds flying over the buildings across the road. He could feel his boss’s eyes fixed on him, but that wasn’t going to do him much good. What had happened in Sorø yesterday didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the case out in Amager. Even on TV shows they used nail guns as weapons these days.

“Will you take it from here, Terje?” he heard Marcus Jacobsen say, as if from far off.

“Sure. We’re convinced that it’s the same perpetrators who killed Georg Madsen in the barracks out in Amager.”

Carl turned to face him. “And why is that?”

“Because Georg Madsen was the uncle of one of the victims in Sorø.”

Carl turned back to watch the birds again.

“We’ve got a description of one of the individuals who apparently was at the scene when the murders were committed. Police Detective Stoltz and his team in Sorø want you to drive down there today to compare your description with theirs.”

“I didn’t see shit. I was unconscious.”

Terje Ploug gave Carl a look that he didn’t care for. He of all people must have studied the report in detail, so why was he playing dumb? Hadn’t Carl insisted that he was unconscious from the moment he was shot in the temple until they put the IV drip in his arm in the hospital? Didn’t they believe him? What possible reason could they have for wanting to speak with him?

“In the report it says that you saw a red-checked shirt before the shots were fired.”

The shirt. Was that all this was about? “So they want me to identify a shirt?” he replied. “Because if that’s what they need, I think they should just e-mail me a photo of it.”

“They’ve got their own reasons, Carl,” Marcus interjected. “It’s in everyone’s interest that you drive down to Sorø. Not least your own.”

“I don’t really feel like it.” He glanced at his watch. “Besides, it’s already getting late.”

“You don’t really feel like it? Tell me, Carl, when is it that you have an appointment to see the crisis counselor?”

Carl pursed his lips. Did Marcus really have to announce that to the whole department?

“Tomorrow.”

“Then I think you should drive to Sorø today, and you’ll have your reaction to the experience fresh in your mind when you see Mona Ibsen tomorrow.” He flashed Carl a phony smile and picked a file off the top of the tallest stack on his desk. “Oh, and by the way, here are copies of the documents we received from Immigration regarding Hafez el-Assad. You can take them with you.”

Assad ended up doing the driving. He’d brought along some of the spicy rolls and triangles in a lunch box and shoveled them in his mouth as they shot along the E20. Sitting there behind the wheel, he was a happy and contented man, as evidenced by his smiling face. He moved his head from side to side in time to whatever music was playing on the radio.

“I got your papers from the Immigration Service, Assad, but I haven’t read them yet,” Carl said. “Why don’t you tell me what they say?”

For a second his driver gave him an alert look as they roared past a procession of trucks. “My birth date, where I come from, and then what I did there. Is that what you mean, Carl?”

“Why were you granted permanent residency, Assad? Does it say that too?”

He nodded. “Carl, I would be killed if I went back. That is how it is. The government in Syria was not really very happy with me, you understand.”

“Why not?”

“We did not just think the same. And that is enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“Syria is a big country. People just disappear.”

“OK, so you’re sure that you’ll be killed if you go back?”

“That is how it is, Carl.”

“Were you working for the Americans?”

Assad turned his head sharply to look at Carl. “Why do you say that?”

Carl looked away. “No reason, Assad. Just asking.”

The last time Carl visited the old Sorø police station on Storgade, it was part of District 16, under the Ringsted police force. Now it belonged to southern Jutland and Lolland-Falster’s police district, but the bricks were still red, the mugs behind the counter were the same, and the workload hadn’t got any lighter. What benefits were achieved by moving people from one box into another was a question worthy of
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Carl was expecting one of the detectives at the station to ask him for yet another description of a checked shirt. But they weren’t that amateurish. A welcome party, four men strong, was waiting for him in an office the size of Assad’s, looking as if each of them had lost a family member in connection with the violent events of the night before.

“Jørgensen,” announced one of them, holding out his hand. It was ice cold. A few hours earlier this same Jørgensen had undoubtedly been staring into the eyes of a couple of men who’d had their lives blown away with a pneumatic nail gun. And in that case, he probably hadn’t slept a wink all night.

“Do you want to see the crime scene?” asked one of the officers.

“Is that necessary?”

“It’s not completely identical to the scene in Amager. They were killed in a car-repair shop. One in the garage and one in the office. The nails were fired at close range, since they went all the way in. We had to look closely even to see them.”

One of the other officers handed a couple of A4-size photos to Carl. They were right. The heads of the nails were just barely visible in the skull. There wasn’t even any significant bleeding.

“As you can see, they were both working. There was dirt on their hands and they were wearing boiler suits.”

“Was anything missing?”

“Zilch!”

Carl hadn’t heard that expression in a while.

“What were they working on? Wasn’t it late at night? Were they moonlighting, or what?”

The detectives exchanged glances. This was clearly a question they were still working on.

“There were footprints from hundreds of shoes. Looks like they never cleaned the place,” Jørgensen added. This wasn’t going to be an easy case for him. “We want you to have a close look at this, Carl,” he went on as he picked up a corner of a cloth that was covering the table. “And don’t say anything until you’re sure.”

He took off the cloth to reveal four shirts with big red checks, lying side by side like lumberjacks taking a nap on the forest floor.

“Do any of these look like the one you saw at the crime scene in Amager?”

It was the strangest lineup Carl had ever taken part in. Which of these shirts did it? That was the question. It was almost a joke. Shirts had never been his specialty. He wouldn’t even be able to recognize his own.

“I realize it’s difficult after such a long time, Carl,” said Jørgensen wearily. “But it would be a big help if you could try.”

“Why the hell do you think the perp would be wearing the same shirt months later? Even you lot must change your gear once in a while out here in the sticks.”

Jørgensen ignored the remark. “We just want to try everything.”

“And how can you be sure that the witness who saw the alleged killer from a distance and, to cap it all, at night, would be able to remember how a red-checked shirt looked with such accuracy that you could use it as a lead in the investigation? These shirts look like four peas in a pod, damn it! OK, they’re not identical, but there must be thousands of other shirts that look just like them.”

“The guy who saw the shirt works in a clothing shop. We believe him. He was very precise when he drew a picture of it.”

“Did he also draw a picture of the man inside it? Wouldn’t that have been better?”

“As a matter of fact, he did. Not a bad drawing, but not great either. It’s not as easy to draw a person as it is to draw a shirt.”

Carl looked at the sketch they now placed on top of the shirts. An ordinary-looking guy. If he didn’t know better, the man could be a photocopier salesman in Slagelse. Round glasses, clean-shaven, innocent-looking eyes, with a boyish set to his mouth.

“I don’t recognize him. How tall did the witness say he was?”

“At least six feet, maybe more.”

Then the detective took the drawing away and pointed at the shirts. Carl studied each of them. Offhand, they all looked pretty much the same.

Then he closed his eyes and tried to picture the shirt in his mind.

“What happened then?” asked Assad on the way back to Copenhagen.

“Nothing. They all looked the same to me. I can’t really remember that damn shirt anymore.”

“So maybe then you got a picture of them to take home?” Carl didn’t answer. He was far away in his thoughts. At the moment he was seeing Anker lying dead on the floor next to him, and Hardy gasping on top of him. Why the fuck hadn’t he shot those men? All he’d had to do was turn around when he heard them on their way into the barracks, and then none of this would have happened. Anker would be sitting next to him behind the wheel of the car instead of this strange being named Assad. And Hardy! Hardy wouldn’t be chained to a bed for the rest of his life, for fuck’s sake.

“Could they not just send you the pictures right away first, Carl?”

He looked at his driver. Sometimes those eyes of his had such a devilishly innocent expression under the inch-thick eyebrows.

“Yes, Assad. Of course they could have.”

He checked out the signs posted above the motorway. Only a couple of kilometers to Tåstrup.

“Turn off here,” he said.

“Why?” asked Assad as the car crossed the solid lines and took the exit ramp on two wheels.

“Because I want to take a look at the place where Daniel Hale died.”

“Who?”

“The guy who was interested in Merete Lynggaard.”

“How do you know about that, Carl?”

“Bak told me. Hale was killed in a car crash. I have the police report with me.”

Assad gave a low whistle, as if car wrecks were a cause of death reserved only for people who were very, very unlucky.

Carl glanced at the speedometer. Maybe Assad should let up a little on the speed, before they ended up in the statistics as well.

Even though it was five years since Daniel Hale lost his life on the Kappelev highway, it wasn’t hard to see traces left by the accident. His car had crashed into a building, which afterward had undergone rudimentary repairs; most of the soot had been washed off, but as far as Carl could tell, the majority of the insurance money must have gone to other uses.

He looked down the long expanse of open road. What bad luck for the man to drive right into that ugly building. Only thirty feet to either side and his car would have sailed into the fields.

“Very unlucky. What do you say, Carl?”

“Damned unlucky.”

Assad kicked at the tree stump still standing in front of the scarred wall. “He drove into the tree, and the tree snapped like a stick, and then he rammed into the wall and the car started to burn, right?”