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Authors: Elsebeth Egholm

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Three Dog Night (10 page)

BOOK: Three Dog Night
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He made coffee and sandwiches for dinner and gave Kaj a bowl of biscuits. He had just made up his mind to go to the police in the morning, if they hadn't contacted him, when he heard the sound of a car coming down the lane. Soon there was a knock on the door and Mark Bille Hansen appeared outside with his pained expression and a haircut that would have looked more credible on a man holding an electric guitar. Faded designer jeans, smart biker boots and a short shearling jacket completed the impression of a modern badge-less sheriff. His gaze was pure Wyatt Earp: stern, no-nonsense.

‘Can I come in?'

Peter stepped aside, pleased that he had managed to clear the place up. The dog growled softly and withdrew after sniffing the policeman, who went down on his haunches and held out a hand.

‘Nice dog.'

Mark Bille Hansen straightened up. They were the same height and their eyes met. The word ‘police' flashed in front of Peter's eyes and he felt every shutter come down. Lies he didn't want to tell started to force their way to the surface.

‘Perhaps we could take a seat?'

Mark Bille Hansen pointed to the sofa where Stinger had been snoring. Peter remembered that he had just made coffee. He also remembered that Felix was asleep upstairs. Neighbours who had claimed not to know each other, and now she was lying on his sofa with a bloody nose and a headache. He hoped she would stay where she was.

‘Of course,' he managed to say after a slight hesitation, which the other man picked up on. ‘Would you like some coffee?'

He didn't wait for a reply, just put the coffee pot on the table and fetched two mugs.

‘I think I owe you an explanation. I left a message at the police station today …'

‘I've just come from the station. No one said anything.'

‘Then she must have forgotten. Dark-haired lady. Short hair and glasses. Mid-forties, I reckon.'

It was already going from bad to worse. Mark Bille sent him a sceptical look.

‘You knew Ramses. From prison. Why did you lie?'

Peter sat down, looked at the policeman and tried to assess what he saw. He guessed that Mark Bille Hansen was in his late thirties. There was something local about his accent, but it was mixed with a distinct hint of Copenhagen. He was well dressed in a casual way Peter rarely saw in Djursland, where a shirt from Føtex and a pair of jeans from Bilka constituted dressing up. But there was also something else. He was pale, as if he suffered from anaemia, and his clothes seemed a tad too big. There were visible marks on his hands, by the veins. He was the new man in Grenå Police. Peter had heard that the old Chief had retired. His best guess was that the man sitting opposite him had been through some sort of illness and had been transferred from a stressful police post in Copenhagen to a cushy number in the provinces. He was dealing with a sick man. And this was his way in.

‘Most of the time I was in prison I was ill. I would've died if I hadn't been given a new kidney,' he began.

‘Touching.'

The interest was there, even though Mark Bille Hansen was shaking his head.

‘It's hard to explain,' Peter continued. ‘I was sure I was going to die. I was mad at the whole world. I just wanted to be left alone and I didn't want anyone to feel sorry for me or interfere.'

Mark Bille Hansen scratched his hand. He looked around uncomfortably, as if half-expecting to see a hospital bed in the corner.

‘I was like that until a kidney suddenly became available. I hadn't been expecting it,' Peter said. ‘Perhaps I hadn't deserved it, either. I was in prison. I was the lowest of the low. No one said anything, but I could tell from their faces. That kidney could have gone to a more deserving person.'

Peter eyed Mark Bille Hansen.

‘Who can say who gets to live and who gets to die? Both sides are terrible experiences, I can vouch for that.'

The other man's eyes were now burning with intensity.

‘But that's how you got to know Ramses.'

Peter nodded.

‘From a time I don't have the energy to remember. After the operation and when I finally got out of prison, all I wanted was to be alone. I decided to retreat to this place. The past was the past. So when I found Ramses' body, my first instinct was to deny I knew him. He was everything I didn't want to be confronted with.'

Peter leaned forward.

‘Some people call it living on the margins of life. I think you need to have been there to know what it means.'

Mark Bille Hansen rubbed his hand as if he wanted to erase the marks. It took a while before he cleared his throat and said: ‘Let's say I understand you. Let's say I accept why you ran. But I'm interested in your opinion.'

He drank some coffee and put the mug back on the table.

‘Why do you think Ramses had to die? And why here? Who had any reason to kill him?'

Peter considered his reply. He couldn't get Stinger mixed up in this mess, nor could he talk about the break-in without dragging Felix into it. It was a balancing act, because he had to throw Mark Bille Hansen a bone.

‘I don't know. But Ramses didn't hang around with saints. In those circles you tend to resolve matters in a pretty uncomplicated fashion.'

‘So he'd upset someone?'

‘I presume so. Has the post-mortem been done?'

‘He died from the gunshot wound.'

Peter nodded.

‘I can ask around a bit if you want me to.'

Mark Bille Hansen said archly: ‘I thought you had put the past behind you.'

Peter could have kicked himself.

‘I think it's best if you leave that to us,' Mark Bille Hansen said.

‘So you haven't questioned anyone in prison yet?'

Mark Bille shook his head.

‘We wanted to talk to you first. What kind of man was he?'

No long deliberations for Peter this time.

‘He wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you know what I mean, and he was vain.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘The Ramses I knew was only interested in women and money. I don't think he ever opened a book.'

Mark Bille looked around the living room before his gaze landed on the bookshelf.

‘You like reading?'

He walked up to the bookcase, read the titles and whistled to himself.

‘Where did the interest come from?'

‘I went to school. They teach you to read there.'

He didn't say the school library had saved him. It was none of Mark Bille's business that his childhood had been spent at Titan Care Home, run by sadistic tyrants, and with brothers and sisters for whom he had felt responsible.

The policeman held up two hands in defence.

‘I'm impressed. I never managed to get further than cowboy comics.'

‘Then it must be irritating to meet a carpenter who knows his ABC,' Peter said, his shoulders relaxing.

‘You can say that again,' Mark Bille laughed.

It was only a moment, but enough for Peter to sense that they had made a connection. In a different life they might have been friends.

‘But apart from that, Ramses was a nice enough guy,' he said. ‘And that chain around his neck. It had nothing to do with religion. It was a present from a girlfriend.'

Mark Bille Hansen nodded and got up.

‘Well, at least we don't have to worry about that. Do you know if he had a regular girlfriend when he died?'

‘No idea. Until the dog found him dead, I hadn't seen Ramses for over a year.'

Mark Bille buttoned up his jacket and looked out of the window. It had started to snow in the deepening twilight.

‘The forensic examiner estimates that he died on New Year's Eve some time between six and ten p.m. Where were you in the twenty-four hours leading up to the discovery of the body?'

A policeman had to ask such questions, otherwise he wasn't doing his job properly. Peter suppressed his irritation and gave Mark Bille the name and address of his carpenter friend in Gjerrild who had given the New Year's party.

‘All the guests arrived in time for the Queen's New Year speech and spent the rest of the evening together. I was back here by two, I'm certain about that. Felix Gomez saw me, and she can vouch I didn't leave the house until the next day when I went hunting with my boss. The light's always on in her place and I have the impression she never sleeps.'

‘Hunting? Do you have a gun?'

‘Of course not. I'm not allowed to have a gun licence after my conviction. I only go for the company.'

‘And you never borrow one?'

Mark Bille scrutinised him. Peter was briefly reminded of the moment he had held the rifle in his hand.

‘Manfred does any shooting that needs to be done.'

‘Your boss?'

Peter nodded.

‘And he would be able to corroborate that?'

‘All of it.'

The policeman looked across to Felix's house, where the light was indeed on. He held out his hand to Peter and his handshake was firm and long.

‘I'll drop in to see her. We'll probably meet again.'

Seconds later, Peter saw the policeman ring his neighbour's doorbell. He waited for a couple of minutes, then rang again and pushed down the door handle, which was locked. He walked around the house and looked through the windows. Then he gave up, got into his car and drove off.

18

T
HE BODY BAG
was water- and airproof. It was black, made from rubberised canvas and fitted with two solid canvas handles. It rustled in Kir's hands as Allan Vraa handed it to her.

In the past they had used a different kind of bag, Kir remembered. They were green and she couldn't remember anything good about them. They weren't strong enough and the welts had a tendency to burst if the body was too heavy.

‘At last I'm going to see one,' Niklas said with enforced bravado.

They were sitting on the gunwale of the inflatable in their drysuits with pressured cylinders on their backs, ready to dive. She slapped him with the bag.

‘Boo!'

Niklas's smile was strained.

‘Remember now: she can't hurt you. Explosives, mustard gas and true love are dangerous. But not her. She can't even wriggle her big toe.'

He nodded repeatedly as if trying to convince himself. Kir had faith in him. He was a brilliant diver and a skilled mine-clearing expert. Once he had recovered a couple of bodies, death would become a natural part of his work. The navy divers' Explosive Ordnance Disposal division had a standing contract with the police, and when the police didn't use local Falck divers, who were called in mostly to search lakes and streams, they would deploy the mine clearance divers, who had more advanced equipment and greater expertise. Niklas was sure to get more work recovering dead bodies from the seabed.

‘Ready?'

The red buoy bobbed up and down on the surface of the water. Light snow was falling. Kir bent forward and squeezed air out of her suit. Niklas did the same. They gave the signal, fell backwards and dived. On her way to the bottom she thought about the summer when she had jumped from the rowing boat and forced her body down to a depth of more than one metre for the first time. The water had been completely clear that day, and she remembered what it felt like when she opened her eyes after jumping in, trying to get her bearings and to find Tomas. For a moment she almost panicked because the seabed was bare and the rays of the sun were making the water and the sand sparkle all sorts of colours. But then she saw the body and fought her way down as the pressure built in his ears. Finally she reached him and manoeuvred him upwards, weightless in the water, with only one thought: to resurface before it was too late. She was twelve years old. Tomas was eight. And in those few seconds she knew she had just looked straight into her own future.

Niklas and Kir had to grope their way around and she was glad to have the line to the buoy. They had agreed Niklas would cut the rope to the anchor. Visibility was still zero, not improved by the fact that now there were two of them muddying the water around the body. But together they managed to shift the lifeless body into the bag without mishap and Kir rose to the surface with her as if they were two dancers clinging together in a strange, intimate dance.

Once on the surface, she was helped and the bag was hauled into the inflatable. Allan unzipped it a little so that some of the water could seep out and reduce the weight of the bag. He did it with great care so as not to destroy any potential evidence. DNA could be intact on the body, even after several hours in the water.

‘Can I have a look? There was something about her face,' Kir said when she was sitting on the gunwale again.

At that point Niklas appeared with the line he had tied to the anchor. Allan Vraa raised the anchor slightly and Niklas dived down to put a bag around it to prevent potential evidence from being washed away when they lifted the anchor out of the water. Shortly afterwards it appeared above the surface and they dragged it aboard the inflatable. Followed by Niklas.

‘OK. Did you want to have a look?'

Allan was about to unzip the body bag. Kir shook her head.

‘It's probably nothing. The forensic examiners can deal with it.'

Niklas, however, clearly felt a surge of confidence after a job well done.

‘I'd like to see her. I couldn't see properly down there so it doesn't really count, does it?'

Kir pulled off her hood and wiped her nose with her fingers. She reached out over the gunwale and rinsed her hand, repressing a premonition that had just gripped her.

‘OK. Let's take a look.'

It was starting to get dark, so she switched on her torch as Allan undid the zip. Niklas let out a cry and froze as he stared at the body in the bag. Kir wanted to shine the torch elsewhere, but her hand refused to acknowledge the impulse from her brain. What she saw sent shockwaves through her whole body.

‘Oh, shit,' Allan mumbled. ‘Who's eaten her face?'

BOOK: Three Dog Night
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