The Hanging: A Thriller (44 page)

This was a little too lofty for Simonsen’s taste, not to say incomprehensible.

“Can’t you be a little more down-to-earth?”

“It was because the hot-dog vendor absolutely had to have five tons of copper beech in the head after all life had been beaten out of him. Our good man Andreas had to raise himself back up by the tree where he had been taken down. And his big brother had to dangle in the middle and witness the executions of his traveling companions.”

“Andreas Linke, you know the name. Have you been in the church records?”

Planck patted his coat pocket. “Brugs-Katrine gave me a photocopy but I’m assuming that all your electronic brains also have spit out the name. Where does he live now? You’re bringing him in, aren’t you?”

Simonsen hesitated. They started to walk back to the village. Then he said, “There are certain problems. In the citizen’s registry he is down as having emigrated about half a year ago, and if I put out a search for him I risk having the public work against me. I think I’ll keep him to myself for a couple of days and see if your idea with the
Dagbladet
bears any fruit. If it does, I may be able to pick him up quietly.”

Planck stopped and looked suspiciously at his former employee. “Be careful, Simon. We’ve both seen this before and it’s thin ice you’re stepping on. He isn’t yours and your explanations sound a bit thin.”

“Only a couple of days.”

Planck shook his head. “It’s always only a couple of days.”

“I
will
get him. He’s not going to get away with killing six people and the others won’t either.”

“No, they won’t.”

“If I can’t get a confession with some information that only he and we know, I risk ending up empty-handed. The prosecutor almost laughed in my face when I talked about eventual charges filed against Stig Åge Thorsen, and Erik Mørk is nowhere near an arrest.”

“Yes, it’s not easy living in a constitutional state, but we should be able to pin those two and it is just a question of time and you know that very well.”

“Climber also has to be put away. He can’t be allowed to go free.”

“Of course he can’t, that’s not what I’m saying. This is not about him. This is about you.”

Simonsen filled his mouth with Piratos. They walked for a little while, then Planck said, “If I was your boss I would take you off this case and send you home.”

He received no answer, just a shake of the head.

“You’re not like them, Simon.”

“No, of course not. Why do you say that?”

“Oh, stop with this nonsense. Do you really think that you can repair fourteen years of neglect of Anna Mia by behaving like Popeye?”

“How the hell do you know why I’m behaving like this?”

“You have always been an open book, even if you try to convince yourself otherwise. But that’s of no consequence. The important thing is that you realize that you aren’t like them. It’s that simple. Think it over.”

Simonsen stopped and spit his half-dissolved piece of licorice into the forest. Then he looked back at his old boss and shook his head. What did he know about being a father, childless as he was?

Planck changed the subject: “How did your interview go?”

“Above our expectations. Anni Staal swallowed the whole thing and Anita Dahlgren has already been out to get the article from me that she will take to Erik Mørk’s business tonight. In the middle of their so-called online program with Stig Åge Thorsen. Wait and see, this is going to stir things up in the duck pond.”

“Keep an eye on her. Remember that they are killers.”

“She is diligently guarded until she’s back at the
Dagbladet,
and then when she is ready, she and Malte Borup will go on a state-sponsored vacation. I have three officers looking after them. Pauline Berg is one of the three, but that’s mainly to get her out of the way. There’s no point in her putting her career on the line. It’s enough that the rest of us are.”

Planck nodded, satisfied, and asked, “Do you think it’s a coincidence that Andreas ‘the Climber’ Linke—or whatever we’re calling him—has devoted his adult life to felling trees?”

“Is that what he does?”

“Yes, he attended a forestry school in Germany. Brugs-Katrine’s son met him once in Odense, where he said so.”

“I’m no psychologist.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Didn’t I approve your request to attend a course in criminality and the psyche? You should have learnt a thing or two in there, or was that money also wasted?”

Planck laughed excessively at his own joke and refused help in crossing the ditch that separated the woods from the path down to the village.

Simonsen did not smile.

CHAPTER 69

Stig Åge Thorsen was at Erik Mørk’s business location in Rødovre, south of Copenhagen, and he was getting more and more irritated. As arranged, he arrived almost three hours before the online broadcast was set to begin, but after a tedious tour among countless unfamiliar people whose names he very quickly stopped keeping track of, he was parked in a conference room, where the bombardment of information gave way to a period of long, passive waiting. The room was decorated with a trendy minimalism. His irritation grew.

An additional amount of time passed before his friend finally turned up. He had a plate with six sandwiches and looked stressed.

“Sorry, Stig Åge, I apologize for the wait, but something came up.”

Thorsen mumbled something incomprehensible and managed a thin, polite smile. Mørk sat down and helped himself to a sandwich. He did not look calm or collected.

“Maybe you just need to relax a little, Erik.”

Mørk loosened his tie and tried to follow this advice.

“You’re right, things are pretty hectic. I’ve never worked this hard. But have you been following the media these past couple of days?”

“If you mean her, that high-school girl—I thought she was utterly convincing; she almost made me cry.”

“She was helpful, no doubt about it, but I was actually thinking more about you. Everyone is looking forward to your interview. Five local TV channels are going to broadcast it live from their Web sites—if you can call that live—but with commentary from the studio, if you follow. That’s one of the things we’ve been working hard on the past couple of days.”

“What will happen after the interview?”

“After the interview?” Erik Mørk sounded surprised. “Well, there’s a demonstration outside the Christiansborg parliamentary building tomorrow and in selected places in the provinces. In the middle of your program we’ll put up a screen in the reader’s face along with our demands, our slogan as well as times and locations. That’s the whole point, of course. We’re making use of your media attention to kick start our mobilization of the public and securing maximal dissemination, which is what we want. So tomorrow we’ll follow up with a full-page ad in all the big daily papers. Incidentally, with the high-school girl to catch people’s eye. I’ll show you a copy of the proofs in a bit and it’s really come out well, if I do say so myself.”

“Hold on, hold on, slow down for a minute. Our demands—”

But Mørk was hard to stop. Too little sleep and too much adrenaline had left its imprint of mania.

“We have been conducting massive election campaigns directed against close to one hundred members of parliament, so the parties are boiling, and my last political report says that there is now open discussion of a pedophile deal. Pressure from voters, Thor Gran’s beastliness, the violence, and not least this high school girl who blew through from cottage to castle, has laid the groundwork. By the way, do you know what
half a USA
is?”

“No idea, but I know that you go over there—”

“Sentences half as severe as the USA, which back home means a quantum leap forward. And our support on the Net has been completely fantastic. It takes less than—”

Stig Åge Thorsen slapped his hand onto the table. “Stop it, Erik. And listen up for a change.”

Mørk stopped. And listened.

“First up, what do you mean by ‘our demands’? As far as I’m concerned, we unanimously established our demands a couple of months ago. Don’t tell me you’ve changed them.”

“No, I’ve just systematized them a bit.”

“Go on.”

“They fall into three areas. Judicial, where we demand severer sentences and a stop to parental protections. Preventative, where we want more money set aside for county resources and training for all teachers and educators. And finally, if the damage is done, we want subsidized psychological assistance.”

Thorsen accepted this. It was in large strokes what they had agreed on.

“Slogan, what slogan?”

“
Stop the violence, tighten the law.
It is the only slogan until tomorrow and there won’t be a speech or any other activity. In fact, the idea is for people to stay there—in dignified silence—until the politicians produce a bill.”

“Good, now you suddenly sound normal again, that’s nice. All that’s left is for you to brief me on the interview, nice and slow.”

“We’ve brought in a media consultant. She will read the questions to you and you answer verbally and she’ll write to those who are online. That will be faster than if you type yourself. Those people who get through with questions will usually be allowed to ask one or two follow-up questions so that a small dialogue develops but you and she will decide how many and for how long. Everything works more or less as it would in a radio program. Apart from a certain filter.”

“That sounds simple enough.”

“It is simple, and you will of course decide yourself which questions to answer, but the consultant will help you as best she can and she’ll warn you if she thinks you’re getting off track.”

“Excellent.”

“I’ll be the only other person in the room but I won’t get involved. It’ll only be you and her who are directly involved and I’m there mainly as a kind of backup. Is there anything you’re wondering about?”

“No, that was very thorough.”

Erik Mørk smiled. “Should I go and get the proof for our ad?”

“Yes, please.”

He stood up and left. And Stig Åge Thorsen was left alone again.

*   *   *

A couple of hours later it was time and the online interview started well. Stig Åge Thorsen was nervous at the first questions but after a while he and the media consultant established a good collaboration. From time to time, Mørk informed them how many people were following the event. His voice was triumphant: they had around 280,000 hits.

The media consultant read from her screen: “A follow-up: do you approve of the fact that he killed five people? Suggestion: do you approve of the fact that he killed five pedophiles?”

Stig Åge Thorsen nodded. “Yes, I do.”

“My suggestion: I approve of his struggle against pedophilia.”

“That’s good.”

The consultant quickly typed the answer. Then the door to the room opened with a bang and all three turned. A handful of employees filtered into the room. A woman who appeared to be in charge approached Mørk and did nothing to hide the seriousness of the situation.

“Erik, you have to come with us right away. We have a big problem.”

Mørk went with her, convinced that it was the police that had come to arrest him. He was led into this office, where a young woman was waiting. The woman in charge introduced them.

“This is Anita Dahlgren. She is a student intern at the
Dagbladet.
Read this.”

A packet was thrust into his hands, the logo of the newspaper on the top of each page. He started to read. Already after the first two paragraphs he started to sweat and had to sit down. After he was finished, he had the presence of mind to gaze down at the text for a little longer as he tried to gather his thoughts. When he looked up and met the accusing gazes of those present, he was not completely unprepared. He took the lead and turned to the girl.

“Where did you get this? And why have you come here with them?”

Anita Dahlgren explained her sympathy for his cause. She also told him how Anni Staal had scored an unexpected interview with Detective Inspector Konrad Simonsen.

“But since you are telling us this in advance, you don’t believe this, do you?”

“I came here to give you a piece of my mind. When I heard about the interview I didn’t know what it revealed. Anni Staal has kept that to herself. But then I thought, that if I … made sure that you could see it in advance, that might be able to help you and when I got the chance I copied it. But now that I’ve read it … well, it made me angry and I still am. On my way out here I thought all kinds of things that made me want to cry, but I didn’t. That is, when I saw the place … I don’t know, it was hard to cry but I wish I could have.”

The woman broke in, “It was nice of you to come and I understand your anger. I’m angry too.”

Mørk decided to believe the girl. She was a naïve little thing, but credible nonetheless.

“When is it coming out?”

“No idea. Tomorrow or over the weekend, I think, but I certainly hope that there’s some explanation for this or I’m not sure I support you any longer.”

The woman spoke again. She gave Mørk a hard look. “I hope so too. I don’t know what kind of wagon you’ve been hitched to but I’ll be getting off if this is true.”

He ignored her and focused on the girl. “Do you have a phone number for Anni Staal?”

The answer came hesitantly, although Anita Dahlgren was jubilant inside: “I don’t really know … of course I have it, it’s just that if you tell her that I—”

“Of course I won’t,” he interrupted. “I wouldn’t under any circumstances, but the police have concocted a bunch of lies and it’s in both her and my interest to correct it.”

The skepticism of his co-worker was only minimally altered. He continued, as persuasively as he could: “This is bullshit, nothing more or less.”

“Why would the police lie? That makes no sense.”

It was the woman.

“It makes a lot of sense. They want the public’s help to solve the crime and as soon as this web of lies is publicized they’re sure to get some information.”

He pointed at her. “You can draw your own conclusions. I know that you have been a fantastic help but if you can’t support me completely it’s better for you to go home. I need you more than ever, just not halfhearted.”