The Hanging Girl (8 page)

“But you also mentioned that June Habersaat met a guy up at . . . what was it called, was it Knarhøj? Right, do you happen to know his name at least? Because if so, then I’d like to have a word with him.”

A spray of beer shot out of the man’s mouth as he laughed. “You won’t be doing that because I don’t know what his name was. It wasn’t someone here from town. But you can just ask Bjarke, the boy I taught to whittle. He looked ridiculous in his scout getup and shorts that time up on Knarhøj, where he was digging or something with that guy.”

“Ridiculous? How?”

“Well, he was almost an adult.”

“Was he maybe a scout leader or something?”

The guy lit up, as if someone had turned on his brain function. “That was it, yes!”

“Okay, Hans. So what you’re saying is that Bjarke was talking with the guy his mother was meeting?”

“Yes. She came up there one day when her son and the guy were there. Where there’s a maze now. They do call it a maze, don’t they? It says that somewhere. I can read, you know. I bet you didn’t know that.”

*   *   *

They left him with twenty kroner. Enough for the rest of the day, he said. Maybe even more than three beers.

He wasn’t the kind of person who expected the impossible of life.

“Listen, you two,” Rose blurted out on the way up to the car. There were sparks in her eyes and piles of electric cables in her mind. She’d worked out something or other.

“I’ve stood out there thinking over and over: Who was Habersaat really, and why did he do what he did? Why was he so hell-bent when it came to that case?”

“Maybe it was a counterbalance to things not going so well on the home front. You heard the two women and the guy just now. But Habersaat’s professional honor might also have been bruised,” Carl said.

“Maybe. He must have been a good policeman; there can’t be any doubt about that,” she said. “He pursued his goal, but he couldn’t move on, so he shot himself. But do you think he did it because he couldn’t take any more?”

Carl shrugged. “Probably.”

“Tell us what you’re thinking, Rose,” Assad said, smiling.

“Well, I don’t think so—not anymore. I think he shot himself to prove how seriously he took the case. And do you know how seriously I think he took it? Do you, Assad?”

“I think it’s serious enough that he blew his brains out.”

“Very funny, Assad. But Habersaat shot himself because he wanted to
use all his power to ensure we carried on. I’m convinced of it. And he wanted that because he was no longer completely out on a limb.”

“Don’t you mean the opposite?” Carl suggested.

“No. That would be the most logical, but I think he probably knew who’d killed Alberte in the end but just couldn’t prove it.” She shook her head. “Or else he couldn’t find him. Or both. Yes, that’s what I think, and that’s what drove him crazy. I also think that if we look carefully enough in his house we’ll find one answer or another.”

“Just hang on a minute, Rose. I can see you’re very involved now, but wouldn’t it have been much easier and more logical if he’d just put his suspicion down on paper, making it all a lot more obvious for us? If his suicide really was premeditated and calculated, why are we left with nothing to go on? Maybe the answer is that there
isn’t
anything to go on.”

“No, that’s not how I see it. Maybe he
has
written something down but we just haven’t seen it yet. I don’t know. Or maybe he hasn’t.” She shook her head again. She was apparently standing at a crossroads of opportunities and couldn’t make a decision. “Or maybe he didn’t even know himself but realized that the solution was right under his nose without being able to see it. So he had to have help from fresh new eyes.” She nodded knowingly. “Yes, that’s how I think it was.”

She looked at Carl with a spark in her eyes. It was something else, the way her stare could be intense and seductive.

“You know what, Carl? He chose us to take a closer look at it all, and we should be proud of that. I’m sure he knew that we’d have to come over here when he did what he did. He knew that it was the sacrifice that was needed before those around him would reopen the case. I feel totally sure about it.”

Carl nodded, glancing at his curly-haired partner.

Assad’s expression indicated that he thought she’d gone crazy.

It was very difficult to disagree.

September 2013

Wanda Phinn didn’t hand
in her notice; she just left. Threw the cap on the floor, said good-bye to the woman over at the control, and slipped out the door.

It was a total relief, and the wall into Victoria Embankment Gardens slid away without regret, the worries of wasted days disappeared, and the sound of the park faded away. The world lay before her, her whole life and everything it held for her as one of the few chosen ones.

Because Wanda had a plan. Ever since Atu Abanshamash Dumuzi caressed her cheek, calling her his flower, ever since the blood had rushed from her head, leaving her powerless and senseless, since she had come to again and stared enthralled into his mesmerizing eyes and felt his lips on the back of her hand, ever since then she’d known that Atu Abanshamash was the future she’d dreamt of.

Informing Shirley of this realization, she faced an uninvited and endless barrage of ineffective warnings.

“I can see that it all seems enchanting on the screen. Beautiful buildings, interesting rituals, the sea just at your doorstep. But when you arrive over there you’ll find out that it was just flirting, Wanda, and that your journey was wasted,” she warned. “Atu Abanshamash can get all the women he wants. Just think about what he can do and what he looks like.” Her eyes looked like they might pop out of her head. His charisma had left a lasting impression on her, too.

“I know it’s been a while since you had a man, but if you’re feeling
sexually frustrated, then there’s loads of men here in London you can go to bed with, and who won’t hurt you more than you let them.”

Wanda shook her head. Shirley made it all sound so simple.

“I don’t think you understand, Shirley. I want to be Atu Abanshamash’s chosen one. I want to live like he tells us to and have his children. I can feel that this is what I’ve been called to all my life.”

“His chosen one?” Shirley was about to laugh but managed not to when she saw the seriousness in Wanda’s face. “But, Wanda. Didn’t you notice the daggers the woman helping him sent you? You won’t be able to knock her off her perch, I’ll bet you.”

“She was old, Shirley.”

“Thanks for that,” Shirley said, taking offense. “I think she looked to be about my age.”

Wanda looked away. Outside the window of her apartment the world was just another wall, towering above her and blocking out all light and all dreams. And behind that wall lived other people with the same unfulfilled hopes. A wall that grew greyer with every day. In this area, the future was carried by dreams. The boys wanted to be soccer players and rock stars and the girls wanted to be their trophy wives. In this area, people watched reality shows and awful quiz shows, gorging themselves on junk food and moving further and further away from the opportunities that a good education or realistic ambitions could provide. In this area, the statisticians could argue with ease that only the fewest of the few would reach the promised land, refined and enriched by success, wealth, and eternal happiness. As if she hadn’t lived with that knowledge day in and day out.

“Sorry, Shirley,” she said when she noticed her friend frowning. “I didn’t mean it like that. I only meant that I’m still young and haven’t had any children yet, and my body and soul are ready for all that now. And I can assure you that Atu doesn’t sleep with that woman who was helping him. I can feel these things.”

“You’ll be disappointed, Wanda, and it’ll definitely end in tears, and you’ll have used all your savings on this hopeless project. What will you
live off then when you come back? Where will you live? There isn’t room for two people in my room, you know that.”

“I’ll come back and visit you, Shirley, and I’ll stay at a hotel. But I’ll come back as a different woman, you can count on that.”

Shirley pursed her lips. “Who will I hang out with? Who’ll I share all the gossip with when I get home from my mind-numbing job?” She began to cry. “You can’t just leave me sitting alone in this rotten place, can you?”

Wanda didn’t say anything but put her arm on Shirley’s shoulder, pulled her in to herself, and held her tight.

“So the least you can do is write some e-mails about how you’re doing. You will do that, won’t you, Wanda?” She sniffed.

“Of course. I’ll write every single day if I can.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, Shirley, I promise. And I always keep my word.”

*   *   *

She wrote to the Nature Absorption Academy on the island of Öland in Sweden, informing them that she’d now decided on her date of departure and that she’d be very grateful if someone could pick her up at the station in Kalmar on the day in question. She also wrote that she expected to follow more courses at the academy than she had first signed up for and that, if possible, she’d like to stay on afterward and work as a volunteer to help spread Atu Abanshamash Dumuzi’s thoughts and ideals.

Wanda was dead certain that she’d get what she wanted. Atu Abanshamash had shown his desire for her and he could’ve had her that day in London if he hadn’t been busy with the course. That was something they’d both realized. Now she was making up for the bad timing so they could continue where they’d left off.

The time had come.

A few days went by before an e-mail informed her that the courses were oversubscribed. They’d let her know when there were free places again but she shouldn’t expect that to be this year.

Wanda refused to believe it. When Atu Abanshamash saw her, things would be different. As long as she was fully prepared. Then she noticed the sender’s name: Pirjo Abanshamash Dumuzi.

Shirley was right. It would end up as a fight between them, no doubt about that. A bloody scratch-your-eyes-out fight.

In the days and nights that followed, she immersed herself in the alternative energy of the universe, reciting over and over Atu’s utterances about the Nature Absorption Academy. She would be irreproachable in her knowledge and engagement, but that wasn’t hard because everything about Atu Abanshamash Dumuzi seemed so right and logical. In fact, it felt as if through his thoughts Atu embraced all forms of belief and goodness in humanity in one pure and refined set of rules, and it took her by storm. The more she read, the more she tried to understand, the stronger she felt how these guiding principles and decrees for a purer life pulled everything ugly and foolishly mundane out of her.

Finally, she sat up straight and felt the peace of mind growing in her. No cola on the table, no flashing television screen with soap operas in the background, no noise in her head. The last doubt in her project petered away, leaving her determined and peaceful.

When she stood in front of Atu Abanshamash she’d be completely clear. Her sensuality and insight into the teachings of Atu Abanshamash would blow him away, convincing him that in her he’d finally met a woman who was worthy of him in every way.

And the other woman, who thought herself untouchable and was trying to thwart her plans, would just need to go.

Thursday, May 1st, 2014

Villy Kure, the skipper
everyone called Uncle Sam, lived in a yellow half-timbered house with its own smokehouse on Mosedalvej, two houses north of Habersaat’s home. Here along the highway between Sandvig and Snogebæk there was a mishmash of all types of property all in a row elevated a few meters above the level of the road and with the most beautiful view out over the fishing huts, harbor, and sea. Perfectly idyllic, if it wasn’t for the fact that someone from the town’s inner circle had just blown his brains out.

They knocked on the door at the front of the house, and when no one answered they pulled into the driveway, past a smoke oven, and into the yard where a four-wheel drive was parked.

Carl felt the hood. It was ice-cold.

The back door gave no result either, which a cyclist out on the road was able to explain as they traipsed back to the car.

“Uncle Sam is out at sea. He’s the captain of a fishing boat that’s acting as a patrol boat just now. So you shouldn’t expect to see him anytime soon.”

“A patrol boat?”

“Yes. When those damn Russian captains can’t raise their anchors properly, they scrape the seabed and take the cables with them. And now it’s gone wrong again. Last Christmas we were without power from Sweden for a month and a half because of it, but it isn’t quite so bad this time.

“So every time something like this happens, Sam’s sitting out there on
his boat turning away all the boats on course with the cable ship that’s busy repairing the damaged cable.”

“I see. I would’ve liked to talk to him about Habersaat. They were friends, weren’t they?”

“Habersaat, good heavens!” he snorted. “Yeah, maybe they were friends, but Habersaat wasn’t exactly easy to be friends with. He could play cards with Uncle Sam. That was about all they had in common in the last few years.”

“So you don’t think Habersaat could have confided in Sam about the case he was so obsessed with?”

“I’m a hundred percent sure he did the first ten years. But you know what? Even a man like Uncle Sam can get tired, okay? Sam’s a nice guy, but not
that
nice. No, no. They played cards once in a while. That’s all, if you ask me.”

“You don’t think Sam knew just
how
bad things had become with Christian Habersaat?”

“How would he know that? He’s out at sea most of the time and Habersaat wasn’t exactly the sort of man to show his feelings, now, was he? But why don’t you call Uncle Sam? Or maybe you don’t think we Bornholm folk have access to the telephone network?”

He laughed, giving them the number. But the line was busy.

*   *   *

A strange feeling of loss hung over Habersaat’s otherwise totally normal redbrick house. It wasn’t a haunted feeling, more the impression of something that would never awaken. It was like the enchanted castle in
Sleeping Beauty
that had been lying in slumber, like something forlorn and stale, waiting in vain for the redeeming and liberating kiss.

“The life never returned to this house after the family was split up, can you feel it?” Rose said as she put the key in.

The acrid sour smell that hit them confirmed it.

“Eugh, couldn’t the technicians at least have aired the place out?” she continued.

In other cases, smells of this sort were usually due to waste and
rubbish that had never been thrown out. Vegetables rotting in forgotten drawers. The fermenting contents of half-empty tins. Months’ worth of washing up. But Habersaat’s house wasn’t at all like that. Overwhelming, chaotic amounts of paper in every direction dominated the first impression, but if you looked at it through different eyes, everything seemed well organized, meticulously and thoughtfully arranged and laid out. The kitchen was spotless, almost shining, and the living room neatly vacuumed, just as the dusting had also been done to the extent it could with all the hundreds of piles of paper.

“It stinks of nicotine and frustration here,” Assad said from a corner where a meter-high pile of journal papers threatened to collapse.

“More like years of withdrawal and cellulose,” countered Carl.

“Do you really believe that the technicians have been through all this?” asked Assad, his arms outstretched over the landscape of paper heaps.

Carl took a deep breath. “Hardly,” he said.

“Where on earth should we start?” sighed Rose.

“Good question. Now maybe you know the explanation behind why he gave up, and why the police in Rønne were so willing to give us the key and let us take possession of Habersaat’s material. So thanks for that, Rose,” said Carl. “Maybe it would be an idea if Assad and I went home tonight and you stay here. With your talent for systematizing, you could have this lot in alphabetical and chronological order according to subject in . . . well, a month or two, I reckon.”

Carl laughed but she didn’t react.

“There is something or other buried here that could take this case forward. I have a strong feeling about it. I’m certain we can get further than Habersaat if we really want to,” answered Rose a little harshly.

She was probably right, but it would take weeks for a whole workforce of people to plow through all this material, and it went absolutely against his will. With just a preliminary view, it looked as if Habersaat had mapped the entirety of Bornholm in the days after the fatal traffic accident, not to mention the hundreds of leads he’d followed in the years since. Each lead in its pile.

But where was the pile that meant more than all the others?

“We pack it all up and take it back to Police Headquarters,” said Rose.

Carl frowned. “Over my dead body, and anyway we don’t have room. Where the hell do you think this mausoleum of paper should end up?”

“We’ll make a special area in the room where Assad is painting.”

“Then I’m not finishing the painting job,” came the reply from the corner.

“Wow, wait a minute, you two. Wasn’t that room earmarked for Gordon, ready for when he’s finished with his training? What do you suppose our dear boss, Lars Bjørn, will say when his favorite doesn’t get the place in Department Q he’s insisted on?”

“I didn’t think you cared about what Lars Bjørn thought or said, Carl,” Rose replied.

Carl smiled drolly. He damn well didn’t care.
He
was the head of Department Q, not Lars Bjørn, even though he thought he was. And it was funds earmarked for Department Q that he was pinching, so if he had something to complain about, Carl knew whose ear to whisper in. No, Bjørn just had to keep his mouth shut, but that wasn’t what was at the heart of the matter. Carl simply didn’t want more paper and junk in the communal area of the cellar, and that was that.

“Gordon is welcome to sit in with me while the case is running,” Assad said. “I like a bit of life around me.”

Carl was shocked. They really meant it.

“By the way, shouldn’t you be calling Uncle Sam?”

“You can do it, Assad,” Carl grunted. There had to be some sort of quid pro quo. “My cell is about to run out of battery,” he explained.

“You can just use the landline there,” said Curly, pointing to something that looked like it came from the ark, over on the dining table on top of yet another pile of cuttings.

Carl sighed. Who was in charge of Department Q these days? Damn it, they hadn’t even taken the case on yet.

For a second he considered manning up but then gave in for the sake of convenience and began to dial the number.

From the other end came the sound of whistling and a shaken voice.

“Damn creepy calling from Christian’s phone,” shouted Uncle Sam after Carl had stated his business and explained who he was.

There was interference on the line and the sound of a motor in the background, so Carl had to put his finger in his other ear.

“I got a hell of a shock when I saw where the call was coming from. But yes, Christian and I played cards together now and then, actually also the night before he shot himself. But listen, I can’t talk just now because there’s an idiot of an Estonian container ship from MSC wanting to sail through where we’re working, so this old man needs to get out on the open sea and snarl a bit.”

“I’ll be brief. You were together the night before, you said. That’s news to me. Why don’t the police know that?”

“Probably because they haven’t asked. I was over at his to get some training. I had to learn how to use that bloody camera, right?”

“How was Habersaat at that point, was he okay? Could you sense anything?”

“He was a bit tipsy, you know. Linie Aquavit and a couple of porters can moisten the eyes, isn’t that right? To be honest, he was a little sentimental, but then he often was, so I didn’t think anything of it.”

“Sentimental? How?”

“He cried a little. Sat and fumbled with some of Bjarke’s old things. A blue scarf and a wooden figure that the boy had carved.”

“Would you say that he seemed unstable?”

“No, not in the least. He thrashed me at cards, I can tell you. No, he was just a bit down; he often was.”

“Did he often cry in situations like that?”

“It might have happened a few times before, I can’t quite remember. But it wasn’t normal, no. Maybe he was just a bit drunker and maudlin than usual. He asked me if I could remember this and that several times, telling me about things he’d done with the family over the years. It didn’t seem so strange that night. He was really lonely, after all. But, looking back, I can better understand what was going through his head. A very odd evening, it makes me sad to think about it, but there’s no use in that now. Anyway, that Estonian idiot is portside now and he damn well
shouldn’t be. I’ll have to cut you off there because that old hulk needs to move before things go wrong. Call if there is anything, but I probably know damn all unfortunately.”

Carl put the receiver down slowly. He didn’t like this. The case was getting too close and there would be no turning back.

“What did he say?” asked Rose, sitting by the coffee table and flicking through one of the piles.

Carl stood up. The glasses from Habersaat’s last round of schnapps at the coffee table were gone but the scarf and the little wooden figure were still there.

He picked up the figure and looked at it. It depicted a male, awkwardly carved as if by a child, and yet touching and expressive.

“Sam said that Habersaat was very down and cried the night before. That perhaps it wasn’t quite normal for him, now that he thought about it.”

“So Habersaat didn’t act on the spur of the moment. I told you so. He knew he was going to shoot himself. It might even have been planned for some time.”

“Maybe, but then it certainly isn’t my fault, is it?” Carl said, looking around as he put the wooden figure in his pocket. There was no doubt that there was a system to the mess. The piles to the right and over the sideboard were old with yellowed paper, while those lying in a row to the adjacent room were still white. Ring binders were assembled in alphabetical order according to theme, and on the windowsills all manner of videotapes and diverse catalogs were assembled.

He stepped into the adjoining room where Assad was looking at a notice board covered in photos of differing sizes.

“What the heck is that?” he asked.

“Photographs of old vans.”

As if Carl couldn’t see that.

He stepped closer.

“Yes, an old Volkswagen Kombi. They’re all photos of old VW Kombis.”

“Comfy? They don’t look too comfy, Carl.”

“That’s what people called that type of Volkswagen because they could be used for different things—a combination—Assad.”

“Really! But isn’t it strange that they’re all taken from the front?”

“Yes, and so different. I don’t think there are two that are quite the same.”

Assad nodded. “I didn’t know there were so many types. Red, orange, blue, green, white, all sorts of colors.”

“Yes, and lots of different models, too. That one there with the spare tire on the front is really old, and some have windows on the side, some don’t. Have you counted them?”

“Yes, there’s a hundred and thirty-two.”

Of course he had.

“So what’s been Habersaat’s hypothesis?” asked Carl.

“That Alberte was killed by a Kombo.”

“Kombi! Yes, exactly. I think so, too!”

“Most likely one of those with a cross.”

“What cross?”

Assad pointed out four to five photos. And right enough, each had a small cross in the corner.

“Look! The cars in these photos are all light blue.”

“Yes, but the light blue ones were the most common,” Carl said. “In the sixties and seventies you could see them on the road everywhere.”

“But it isn’t
all
the light blue ones he’s marked, Carl. Only those with a mullion in the windshield and without windows in the back.”

“That was still the most usual model, as far as I recall. A totally normal, ordinary van, even though it changed form slightly as time went on.”

“There’s a finger mark on this one,” Assad said. “Look! It’s as if he’s tapped that fender a lot. As if he wanted to say: There you are.”

Carl leaned in for a closer look. So there was. And it was one of the more special versions of that model, with heavy fenders consisting of vertical wings welded to the parallel steel pipes.

“Out of those with crosses, this is the only one with a reinforced fender, Assad. Well spotted.”

“Then look over there, Carl. The same model again.”

He pointed over toward the wall that formed a partition to yet another room.

It was an oversize photocopy stuck to the wall with masking tape in between two paintings that, strangely enough, had the same initials as the seaside painting down in the community hall. The painter was a local, then.

As they stepped closer, it became apparent that the photocopy of the Volkswagen Kombi with the reinforced fender was very grainy and blurred, making it impossible to see the details of the license plate or the face of the man caught by the camera getting out of the driver’s seat. Perhaps the picture had been blown up too much for what was a run-of-the-mill amateur photo. Maybe it just hadn’t been done right.