The Hanging Girl (6 page)

Now a letter lay in front of Pirjo from the very same woman, stating that she wished to participate in Atu’s next nature absorption course on Öland, which according to the website started in a week.

It was definitely bad news. The only thing that might momentarily console Pirjo was the thought that the French slave girl would, as a result, slip out of Atu’s intimate sphere.

Apart from that, Pirjo knew instinctively that this time it could all go very badly. She’d noticed how the black woman had made an impression on Atu, and it was a very long time since that had happened to such a degree; Pirjo had seen to that.

No, there was no doubt that this woman could have significantly more power over Atu than was good, if she was given the opportunity.

So Pirjo was on guard.

On guard and much more.

Thursday, May 1st, 2014

The breakfast table had
been set for three people by the window overlooking the harbor area. Rose was already sitting with her eyes lost somewhere out over the sea where the eye could never quite reach.

“Good morning,” Assad tried bravely. “Well, you’re looking pale in a bit more of a babylike way today, Rose. So at least we’re making progress, as the camel said to the Arabian camel when it grumbled about being whipped.”

Rose shook her head and pushed the plate away.

“Shall I grab you something from the pharmacy?” Assad suggested.

The same shaking of the head.

“We know it was stupid that you saw that DVD with Habersaat, right, Carl?” Assad grunted.

Carl gave a feeble nod, thinking it would be better if the guy would put a sock in it or at least wait until after the first coffee of the day. Couldn’t he see that she wasn’t feeling any better than when she’d gone to bed?

“It hasn’t got anything to do with the film,” she said. “I didn’t have a problem watching it even though it was sickening.”

“What, then?” asked Assad as he piled crispbread on his plate.

Her eyes disappeared into the distance once again.

“Leave Rose in peace and pass me the butter, Assad.” Carl looked despondently at the already almost empty dish. “Just a little bit of what’s left that you aren’t planning to use yourself.”

He apparently didn’t hear the comment. “Do you know what, Rose? Maybe it would be good if you said what’s going on in that head of yours,” he said crunching, crumbs flying left and right. It was a good thing they didn’t share breakfast every day.

Assad momentarily fixed his eyes on the small group of demonstrators with banners in preparation for the day’s May 1st celebrations in the square in front of the Brugsen supermarket.
Stronger Together,
declared one of the banners.

“Do you also think Bjarke Habersaat was gay?” he said, without moving his eyes.

Carl frowned. “Why are you saying that? Do you have some information on it?”

“Not directly, no. But his landlady was definitely pettable and really not bad-looking, in my opinion.”

“Pettable,” what the hell sort of expression was that? Speak for yourself, he thought.

“What of it?”

“He was only thirty-five, a relatively young man, who she obviously didn’t have any objections to. No doubting she was ripe for the picking.” He looked at Carl like someone who’d stuck his well-formed nose in a hornet’s nest and gotten away with it. Pretty smug.

“I don’t have the slightest damn idea where you’re going with this, Assad.”

“If she and Bjarke had something going on, his room wouldn’t have looked like it did. She’d have fussed over him; you saw yourself how she was. She’d have fussed and flapped, aired his bed, emptied his ashtrays, and whipped his laundry away to have some love and affection in her life!”

“Really, you don’t say? Interesting! But in that case, I don’t see why they couldn’t have had sex in other parts of the house. It doesn’t prove anything, Assad. Your imagination is running wild.”

Assad tilted his head slightly. “Yes, you could say that. You mean, then, that they could’ve had sex among the family photos and lace doilies with ping-pongs?”

“Pom-poms, Assad. Yes, why not? But why is the question even of any importance?”

“I also think he was gay because he only had magazines under his bed with images of men with tight trousers and leather caps on the front cover. That, and all the posters of David Beckham on the wall.”

“Okay, you could’ve said that in the first place. But what about it? Isn’t it totally irrelevant?”

“Yes, it is. But I don’t think his mom liked it and for the same reason didn’t like to visit where he lived. He wasn’t a pretty boy with cookies in a crystal bowl, worshipping his mommy like a goddess or who loved to go shopping with her. He was more of the tough sort.”

Carl pushed his bottom lip forward, nodding. A possibility, certainly, whatever use it might be. As far as he was concerned, Bjarke Habersaat’s sexual preferences could involve sex with identical Andalusian twins over sixty-five, if it did it for him. Nothing could interest him less, so long as the rolls lying there invitingly in front of him were still warm.

Assad turned to Rose. “Who zipped your mouth up? You normally have an opinion about everything under the sun. Whatever’s wrong, just spit it out, Rose. I can feel it. If it wasn’t the suicide on the DVD that shook you up, then what? Something did.”

She turned her head toward them slowly with the same suffering and open look as June Habersaat the night before. But Rose didn’t cry. On the contrary, she looked strangely dry-eyed and composed. It was a look that expressed that this was something she wanted to be left alone with but wasn’t being given the chance to.

“I don’t want to talk about it even if I do tell you, okay? I couldn’t handle watching it because Habersaat was the spitting image of my dad.” Then she pushed her chair away and left them.

Carl sat for a while staring down at the table.

“I don’t think you should dig deeper there, Assad.”

“Okay. Was there something special about her dad?”

“Nothing other than that he was ground to a pulp up at the workplace in Frederiksværk where Rose also worked. That’s all.”

*   *   *

The community hall was expectedly accessible and welcoming, situated in the middle of the main street of Listed, cutting the town in two halves with the fishermen’s cottages out toward the sea and the newer additions in toward the land.

Listed Community Hall
written short and sweet on the yellow façade. That sort of summed it up.

As announced in an unattractive and misplaced glass-fronted notice board, the elderly residents of Listed were offered line dancing, Nordic walking, and
pétanque
, while the children were offered the chance of a bonfire and baking bread over the fire, softball, and carving Halloween pumpkins. There was also a short account from the civic association about the present problems and hopes of the town. Should there be a residency criterion for the homeowners of the town? Should the bench by Mor Markers Gænge road be replaced? Was there enough money to build a pontoon bridge by the bathing area?

Exclusively local questions, nothing at all about a May 1st meeting here or anywhere else on their way across the island other than Metal Bornholm having erected a bouncy castle on something that, God help us, they’d called Chicken Mother, somewhere or other in Almindingen forest.

Here in the community hall on this remote little spot in the summer paradise people gathered for events big and small, and it was here that less than twenty-four hours ago one of the better citizens had faced the fatal consequences of his poor judgments in life.

Carl recognized the women who greeted them from Habersaat’s film.

“Bolette Elleboe,” one of them introduced herself in an almost understandable Bornholm dialect. “I’m the substitute accountant and live just at the back, so I’m the keyholder.” She seemed self-assured but not comfortable with the situation. The other woman introduced herself as Maren, chair of the civic association, her sad eyes revealing that she could do without this just now.

“Did you know Habersaat privately?” he asked as they greeted Rose and Assad.

“Yes, very well,” answered Bolette Elleboe. “Maybe too well for our own good.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She shrugged her shoulders, leading them into the meeting hall, a light room with certificates and paintings in glorious disarray on the white walls, and from where at one end of the room, through a pair of panoramic windows, there was a view out to her back garden. They sat here at a laminate table, the coffee ready and waiting.

“We probably should’ve been aware that this could happen one day,” the chairwoman said quietly. “That it finally happened yesterday is just too gruesome to think about. I’m really still rather shaken by it. Christian probably did it because so few came, I think. It could be a punishment for all of us in the community.”

“Nonsense, Maren,” interjected Bolette Elleboe, turning toward Carl. “That’s typical Maren, such a gentle and impressionable soul. Habersaat did it because he was tired of the man he’d become, and that’s the way it was, if you want my opinion!”

“You don’t seem especially shocked, but why not exactly? It must’ve been a very violent event to witness, wasn’t it?” asked Rose.

“Listen, darling,” said Bolette Elleboe. “I’ve worked as a social worker in the back of beyond in the settlements in Greenland for five years, so it takes more than that to shock me. I don’t doubt that I’ve seen more shotguns used for the wrong reason than most. But of course it affected me. You just have to move on, though, right?”

Rose sat silently for a moment and observed her, stood up, and walked over to the window overlooking the street, turned around to face the small gathering, raised her index finger on her left hand up to her temple, pretended to shoot, and fell a step to the side.

Rose looked at Bolette Elleboe. “Was it here and like that that it happened?”

“Yes, I guess. You can just look at the floor and see the remains of the stain. They won’t get me cleaning it anymore. I’ll be calling a cleaning company.”

“You seem irritated, Bolette. Is it because he did it here?” asked Assad, heaping sugar in his cup along with a few drops of coffee from the thermos.

“Irritated? You know what, it’s just bad karma that he shot himself in this room. He could at least have done it at home or gone down to the cliffs. I don’t think it was very considerate of our little hall that he did it here.”

“Bad karma?” Assad shook his head of curls uncomprehendingly.

“Would you perhaps find it especially cheerful to have to sit in this room at association meetings and eat while still envisioning what happened here in front of you?”

“That can only be the case for you two. There weren’t so many of you after all from the association at the reception, right?” Rose said pointedly.

“No. But there is still a hole in the painting and a wreck of a wall at the back, isn’t there?”

Bolette Elleboe certainly wasn’t thrown off-balance easily.

“Right! But at least we’ll finally get that wall plastered after the huge hole the technicians left when they scraped the bullet out. I’ve actually been agitating for that for years, so that’s something at least. Look how ugly the wall is. It’s made of aerated concrete, how shabby could it be! So thanks for that, Habersaat, you did something useful.”

Cynicism was apparently thriving out here in the wild east.

“Don’t take any notice of Bolette,” the chairwoman almost whispered. “She is just as shaken up by this as I am. We’ve just all got our own way of dealing with it.”

“Try and stand like you did before, Rose,” said Assad as he got up and stood in front of her. “Now I’m a witness and you’re Habersaat. I want to . . .”

But Rose didn’t hear anything. She just stood, staring at the painting that the bullet had hit. Not because it was a piece of art that would go down in history. Just a sun, branches, and birds in flight.

“Yes, he hit the bird flying there, right in the bull’s-eye. Strange, it didn’t fall down.” Bolette laughed. “But at least we’re free from that eyesore.”

“You don’t like the painting either, then?” asked Assad as he approached. “It’s really good, but not as good as the painting of the beach next to it, is it?”

“I think you need to clean the sleep from your eyes, my friend,” she answered. “The man is a fake. He could paint ten of those in a day.”

Rose looked away from the wall. “I’m just going out to get some fresh air.”

Around the bullet hole in the middle of the bird, there were remains of cranial splinters and brains from the man who reminded her of her father, so it was understandable enough.

“That’s a very young woman for this sort of work,” the chairwoman said empathetically.

“I guess.” Carl nodded. “But don’t be fooled by her age or the liquid steel that flows through her veins. But tell me, what do you know about Habersaat? We’ve just arrived from Copenhagen, you understand, so our information about him as a private person is still thin.”

“I think Christian was a good sort,” the chairwoman said. “He just wanted to do so much more than he could, and that impacted the family. He was a uniformed policeman, not in the crime unit, so why did he do all that? That’s what I don’t understand.” She stared ahead thoughtfully. “It has affected Bjarke most of all, the poor boy. I don’t think it’s been easy for him with that mother.”

The two women don’t know he’s dead, thought Carl, sending Assad a warning look to keep quiet so they could keep on the trail. As Carl saw things, they could still manage to catch the evening ferry home. Bjarke’s death was a case for the Bornholm Police and the rest was useless to dig up further anyway. They had done what they could, Rose had been heard, and now she’d quit. All in all, it was going to be the evening ferry home.

“So it’s maybe the mother’s fault that Bjarke has committed suicide,” Assad said anyway.

A second passed and both women sat there with their eyebrows raised halfway up their foreheads.

“God, no,” exclaimed the chairwoman, horrified.

They sat very quietly while Carl updated them. Damn Assad’s outspokenness.

“They weren’t really on speaking terms, as far as I’ve heard. Bjarke
was homosexual and his mother hated it. As if she was a novice under the sheets herself,” said Bolette Elleboe.

“What did I tell you.” Assad’s face lit up.

“You said she wasn’t a novice. But she was single, so there’s no harm in that, is there?” asked Carl.

The two women exchanged glances. Obviously there were widely known and juicy stories circulating about his wife.

“She swarmed around like a little bee while she and Habersaat were together,” came the poisonous response from the chairwoman. Her angelic mask had finally slipped.

“How do you know that? Wasn’t she discreet?”

“Probably,” answered Bolette Elleboe. “You never saw her actually going with anyone, but she was suddenly so sweet-tempered. Then you knew why.”