The Absent One (23 page)

He stood a moment trying to decide between involuntary retirement and postponement of the confrontation until a better occasion presented itself.

It would be best to just walk on by
, he thought, but his finger had a will of its own and pressed the doorbell in as far as it could go. He’d be damned if anyone was going to stop his investigation. Bent Krum was going to end up in the hot seat. Better sooner than later.

He shook his head and took his finger off the doorbell. He was right where he’d been a thousand times before: once more the curse of his youth had caught up with him. If anyone was going to decide anything, it was going to be him, and only him, damn it.

A gruff, female voice curtly announced that he would have to wait a moment, which he did until he heard footfalls on the stairs and a woman came into view behind the glass door. Fashionably dressed, with a designer shawl around her shoulders and a rustic fur coat just like the one Vigga had ogled in front of Birger Christensen’s on Strøget for at least four-fifths of their life together. As if
it would ever have looked as good on Vigga. If she had bought it, by now it most likely would’ve suffered the sad fate of being cut to shreds so that one of her wild artist lovers could have a little drapery for his outlandish paintings.

The woman opened the door and gave him a blinding white smile, which couldn’t have been obtained without money.

‘I’m terribly sorry, but I’m on my way out the door. My husband isn’t here on Thursdays. Maybe you can set up an appointment another day.’

‘No, I …’ he reached instinctively for the police badge in his pocket and found only bits of lint. He would have said that he was in the midst of an investigation. Something along the lines that her husband only had to answer a few routine questions, and might he not return in an hour or two if that was suitable, and it wouldn’t take long. But he said something else.

‘Is your husband at the golf course, ma’am?’

She looked at him with incomprehension. ‘As far as I know, my husband doesn’t play golf.’

‘OK.’ He inhaled. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you, ma’am, but you and I are both being deceived. Your husband and my wife are having an affair, unfortunately. And now I would like to know where I stand.’ He tried to seem forlorn as he noticed how painfully he’d blindsided the blameless woman.

‘You’ll have to forgive me,’ he said. ‘I’m very sorry.’ Carefully he touched her arm. ‘That was truly wrong of me, I apologize again.’

Then he withdrew to the pavement and joined the flow
of people heading towards Ordrup, a little shocked at how he’d been infected by Assad’s impulsiveness. He’d said it had been ‘wrong’ of him. That was putting it mildly, to put it mildly.

She lived across from the church on Kirkevej. Three carports, two stair turrets, one brick groundskeeper’s cottage, hundreds of yards of newly plastered garden walls and five to six thousand square feet of mansion, with more brass on the doors than on the entire Danish royal yacht. Modest and humble would be a thoroughly miserable description.

He was pleased to see shadows moving around behind the windows on the ground floor. So there was a chance.

The housekeeper looked worn out, but agreed to bring Kassandra Lassen to the door, as far as that was possible.

The expression ‘bring to the door’ would prove to be more apt than he could have predicted.

A loud stream of protest from inside was interrupted with the exclamation, ‘A young man, you say?’

She was the very incarnation of a high-society shrew who’d seen better days and better men. A far cry from the well-polished, slender woman in the
Her Life
article. A lot can change in nearly thirty years, that was for sure. She was wearing a kimono that hung so loosely that her satin underwear became an integral part of her overall presentation. Sweeping gestures with long fingernails gesticulated at him. She had immediately perceived that he was a real hunk of a man – something she had apparently not outgrown.

‘Do come in,’ she greeted. Her boozy breath was day-old
, but of quality origin. Malt whisky, Carl guessed. The air was so thick with it, an expert would probably be able to determine the vintage.

She led him by the arm, or rather, directed the way while clinging to him, until they reached the area of the first floor that, lowering her voice, she called, ‘My Room’.

He was offered a seat in an armchair nestled next to hers, directly facing her heavy eyelids and even heavier breasts. It was a memorable scene.

Here, too, her friendliness – or interest, one could say – lasted only until he explained the purpose of his visit.

‘So you wish to know about Kimmie?’ She laid her hand on her breast, which was meant to indicate that either he left or she’d leave her senses.

Then his country-boy self took over.

‘I’m here because I’ve heard that this establishment is the epitome of good manners,’ he tried. ‘That a person can expect to be treated well here, regardless of the reason for the visit.’ It had no effect.

He picked up the carafe and filled her glass with whisky. Maybe that would thaw her out.

‘Is that chit even alive?’ she asked, devoid of empathy.

‘Yes, she lives on the streets of Copenhagen. I have a picture of her. Do you wish to see it?’

She closed her eyes and looked away, as if he’d shoved dog poop under her nose. Good grief, she obviously could really do without this.

‘Can you tell me what you and your husband at the time thought when you heard what Kimmie and her friends were suspected of back in 1987?’

Once again she lifted her hand to her chest. This time,
apparently, to gather her thoughts. Then her facial expression changed and she avoided his eye. Common sense and whisky were joining forces. ‘Do you know what, my dear, we really weren’t very involved in all that. We travelled a bit, you see.’ Suddenly she turned her head back towards him. It took her a moment to regain her equilibrium. ‘As they say, travel is the elixir of life. And my husband and I made so many wonderful friends. The world is a lovely place, wouldn’t you agree, Mr … ?’

‘Mørck. Carl Mørck.’ He nodded. To find the likes of such a callous being one would have to turn to Grimm’s fairy tales. ‘Yes, you’re absolutely right.’ She didn’t need to know that, apart from a bus trip to the Costa Brava – where Vigga frequented the local artists while Carl lay frying on a beach with a bunch of retirees – he’d never ventured further than around six hundred miles from Copenhagen.

‘Do you think there is any real substance in the suspicion being laid on Kimmie?’

The corners of her mouth drooped. An attempt to appear concerned, he supposed. ‘Do you know what? Kimmie was a wicked girl. She wasn’t averse to hitting people. Yes, even as a little girl. If she didn’t get her way, her arms would flail like drumsticks. Like this.’ She tried to illustrate as the malt juices sloshed everywhere.

What normal child didn’t do that?
Carl thought.
Especially with a mother and father like hers.

‘I see. Was she also like that when she was older?’

‘Ha! She was nasty. Called me the worst names. You can’t imagine.’

Actually he could.

‘And she was loose.’

‘Loose? How so?’

She rubbed the fine, blue veins on the back of her hand. Only now did he see how arthritis had dug itself into her wrist. He glanced again at her nearly empty glass.
Pain relief has many faces
, he thought.

‘After she came home from Switzerland, she dragged just about anybody home with her and … yes, I’ll be blunt … fucked them like an animal with her door open – while I was up and about in the house.’ She shook her head. ‘It wasn’t at all easy being alone, Mr Mørck.’ She looked at him earnestly. ‘By that time Willy, Kimmie’s father, had already packed his bags and left.’ She took a sip from her glass. ‘As if I wanted to hold on to him. That ridiculous …’

Then she turned to him again with a red-wine-stained set of teeth. ‘Are you alone in this life, Mr Mørck?’ Her shoulder twist and obvious invitation were straight out of a lady’s romantic novel.

‘Yes. I am,’ he said, and accepted the challenge. Stared right at her and held her gaze until she slowly arched her brows and took another sip. Her short, blinking eyelashes were all that peered over the rim of the glass. It had been a long time since a man had looked at her that way.

‘Did you know Kimmie had been pregnant?’

She took a deep breath and for a moment seemed far away, but with pensiveness etched across her forehead. As though it were the word ‘pregnant’ more than the memory of a profoundly failed human relationship that caused her pain. As far as Carl was aware, she herself had never managed to give life.

‘Yes,’ she said with a cold glare, ‘I did. The tart. How would that surprise anyone?’

‘What happened then?’

‘She wanted money, of course.’

‘Did she get it?’

‘Not from me!’ She dropped the flirtation and replaced it with profound disgust. ‘But her father gave her ten thousand kroner and asked her to stop contacting him.’

‘And you? Did you hear from her?’

She shook her head. The eyes said it was just as well.

‘Who was the father of the child? Do you know?’

‘Oh, I suppose it was that little nobody who burned down his father’s lumber yard.’

‘Bjarne Thøgersen, you mean? The one who was convicted of the murders?’

‘Probably. I really don’t remember his name any more.’

‘I see!’ He was certain she was lying. Whisky or not, a person didn’t just forget something like that. ‘Kimmie lived here for a while. You say it wasn’t easy for you?’

She gazed at him in disbelief. ‘I hope you don’t think I put up with that meat market for very long. No, during that time I preferred living on the coast.’

‘The coast?’

‘Costa del Sol, you know. Fuengirola. Lovely roof terrace right above the promenade. Delightful place. Do you know Fuengirola, Mr Mørck?’

He nodded. No doubt she went there on account of her arthritis, but otherwise it was where the maladjusted semi-wealthy with skeletons in their closet went. If she
had said Marbella, he would have better understood. She must have been able to afford it.

‘Is there still anything of Kimmie’s left in the house?’ he asked.

At that moment something inside her fell apart. She simply sat there, silently emptying her glass at her own leisurely pace, and when it was empty, so, too, was her head.

‘I think Kassandra needs to rest now,’ said the housekeeper, who’d been hovering in the background.

Carl held up his hand to cut her off. He’d begun to grow suspicious.

‘May I see Kimmie’s room, Mrs Lassen? I understand that it was left exactly as it had been.’

It was a wild shot from the hip. The kind of question an experienced policeman has lying in the box labelled ‘Worth a try’. A question that was always introduced with the phrase: ‘I understand that …’

In a tight spot it was always a good way to begin.

The housekeeper got two minutes to lay the queen of the house in her gilded bed, then Carl started looking around. Kimmie’s childhood home or not, it wasn’t fit for raising children. Not a single corner to play in. There were too many knick-knacks, too many Japanese and Chinese vases. If a person happened to wave his arms, he risked a seven-digit insurance claim. It had a very uncomfortable atmosphere, which Carl was certain hadn’t changed over the years. A children’s prison, that’s how he saw it.

‘Yes,’ the housekeeper said on their way up to the third
floor. ‘Of course Kassandra just lives here; the house actually belongs to the daughter. So everything on this floor is exactly how it was when she lived here.’

So Kassandra Lassen lived in this house at Kimmie’s mercy. If Kimmie rejoined society, Kassandra’s refuge here would probably be a thing of the past. What a switch of fates. The rich woman lived on the streets and the poor woman enjoyed the high life. That was the reason Kassandra Lassen stayed in Fuengirola and not Marbella. It wasn’t of her own free will.

‘It’s a mess, I should warn you,’ the housekeeper said, opening the door. ‘We choose to keep it this way. That way the daughter won’t be able to return and accuse Kassandra of prying, and I think that’s a smart move.’

He nodded from the end of the red-carpeted hallway. Where did one find such blindly loyal servants these days? She didn’t even speak with an accent.

‘Did you know Kimmie?’

‘God, no. Do I look as though I could have been here since 1995?’ She laughed heartily.

But in fact she did.

It was practically a separate flat. He had expected a few rooms, but not this veritable facsimile of a loft apartment in Paris’s Latin Quarter. There was even a French balcony. The small-paned bay windows set into the sloping walls were filthy, but otherwise quite charming. If the housekeeper thought this place was a mess, she would collapse if she saw Jesper’s room.

Dirty clothes were scattered about the floor, but other than that, nothing. Not even a piece of paper on the desk
or anything in front of the television on the coffee table to suggest that a young woman had once lived here.

‘You can have a look around, but I would actually like to see your police badge first, Mr Mørck. That’s standard procedure, is it not?’ asked the housekeeper.

He nodded and fished around in all his pockets. What a meddlesome little busybody. At last he found a tattered business card that had been in his pocket for a hundred years. ‘I’m sorry, but my badge is back at headquarters. My apologies. You see, I’m the head of the department, so I don’t leave the office that often. But here, please, my card. So you can see who I am.’

She read the number and the address and felt the card, as if she were an expert in forgeries. ‘Just a moment,’ she said and lifted the receiver of a Bang & Olufsen telephone on the desk.

She introduced herself as Charlotte Nielsen and asked if anyone knew of a deputy detective superintendent by the name of Carl Mørck. Then she shuffled her feet for a moment as the call was transferred.

She inquired again, and then asked for a description of what this Mørck looked like.