‘Detective Sergeant Kim Vendelev,’ the boy said, pulling out a badge from his inside pocket without looking at it. His eyes were still firmly fixed on mine.
I looked at his badge, mainly to avoid his eyes.
‘What’s this about?’
‘Do you know Detective Constable Verner Nielsen?’
I looked at him with what I hoped was surprise. Then I shifted my gaze to Ferdinan.
‘Is he the one who …’
Ferdinan nodded.
I stared at the floor and shook my head, careful not to do it too quickly.
‘It can’t be,’ I said. ‘I saw him here just the other day.’
‘That’s what we want to talk to you about,’ the sergeant said. ‘We understand that you had dinner with Verner Nielsen last Wednesday night.’
I nodded.
‘We’ve also been informed that you asked after him at the reception the following day.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’m going to have to ask you to accompany me to the station,’ Sergeant Vendelev said, nodding towards the entrance.
The sergeant ushered me out to a black Opel and drove me to Vesterbro police station. His colleagues stared as he led me through the open-plan office to an interview room on the second floor. Verner had told me he wasn’t popular with some of his colleagues. Goody-goodies, he called them, police officers who took their job seriously and weren’t on the take. Verner did whatever the hell he liked and made little effort to cover it up. This had sparked several clashes with his colleagues, but he’d just tell them to shut up and mind their own business. They usually played ball, not for Verner’s sake, but rather from misplaced loyalty between police officers. Being a whistleblower was worse than being a bent copper.
The sergeant opened the door to the interview room. He asked me to sit down in one of the two chairs and went to get coffee for us both. In his absence, I studied the room.
In my books I had described interview rooms and interviews several times and my present sparse surroundings matched my descriptions accurately. I believed I had a fair idea of what lay ahead of me. The fact that only one officer had been sent to fetch me and that he hadn’t charged me already must mean they didn’t think I had killed Verner. Not that I had, obviously, but it would be awkward for me if they were to find out I had been to the crime scene.
The sergeant returned with coffee and placed a small black object on the table between us. It was an electronic recording device as far removed from the cassette recorder or reel-to-reel tape as you could imagine. Somehow it contributed to making me even more relaxed. A large recorder with rotating wheels might have made more of an impression. Seeing every one of my words being recorded would have made me nervous.
Sergeant Vendelev pulled out As You Sow from his pocket and tossed it on the table.
‘I hate crime fiction,’ he said, having sat down. ‘It’s so unrealistic and riddled with clichés that I usually end up throwing the book away in a fit of anger.’
I frowned. I wasn’t expecting such an outburst from the boy opposite me. He must have said it to provoke a reaction, I decided; the first lesson in interrogation technique. I shrugged.
‘Each to their own,’ I said. ‘If it’s realism you’re looking for it’s probably not the right genre. Describing a case as it really happens would make for the world’s most boring book. Who wants to read about endless telephone calls, penal code references and entering case files on the computer?’
‘But that’s how crimes are solved,’ the sergeant argued.
‘Except that’s not what the readers want. They want excitement and they want clichés. Of course they want a certain amount of realism, but they still want their expectations met and there’s no point in confusing them.’
‘With facts.’
‘Yes. You and I both know that when a man is shot, he isn’t flung through the air, but countless action movies and crime novels have gunshot victims blown through windows, knocked over balconies or railings. The audience expects it and would react negatively if we didn’t deliver.’
Sergeant Vendelev appeared to ponder what I had said.
‘The public wants to be deceived,’ I summed up.
‘Have you ever been tempted to do it for real?’ he suddenly asked me.
‘Do what?’
‘Commit the perfect murder,’ he replied. ‘I mean … you’ve spent most of your life thinking of ingenious ways to kill people. So … have you ever felt like having a go yourself? Prove you’re smarter than everybody else?’
I shook my head. ‘Never!’
‘Not even when you read about a murder in the newspaper where the killer is caught because he overlooked some silly little detail?’
I felt a prickling on my scalp and had to force myself not to scratch my head. Why had he made references to a newspaper? Was he about to confront me with the Gilleleje murder, reveal that he knew the link between that murder and Verner’s?
‘Perhaps I find it amusing how slipshod people can be once they have finally decided to go through with it, but I have never wanted to have a go myself.’
‘You’ve never put yourself in the killer’s shoes?’
‘Only for logistical reasons. I review the crime scene through the killer’s eyes to make sure everything slots together. Objects need to be in the right places, items of furniture need to be arranged correctly in relation to one another and entrances and exits must fit the plot.’ I paused. ‘I’m an author, not a criminal.’
Sergeant Vendelev nodded.
It’s coming, I thought. Soon he would show me the newspaper with the Gilleleje headline and next to it he would place pictures from the autopsy of Mona Weis, who would stare at me with her blue eyes. He was about to strike.
But he made a placatory gesture.
‘All right, all right, just curious to know how you authors work,’ he said. ‘A lot of police officers don’t understand how you can imagine all those monstrous things in your books without being damaged somehow. How can you sleep at night?’
‘Not a problem,’ I lied.
I knew I looked like someone who hadn’t slept for several weeks and the truth was that I usually slept badly. It wasn’t so much my own murders that kept me awake, more the feelings that had inspired them. Alcohol normally helped, but it also gave me restless dreams where I could remember only dark, menacing shadows.
‘Anyway, murder isn’t what it used to be,’ I said. ‘It’s your age now, the age of forensic science. With DNA, mobile telephones and cameras everywhere there’s not much real detective work left. When I started writing thrillers, the killer could cover his tracks simply by burning the body or removing teeth or fingertips. That wouldn’t get him anywhere today.’
‘You sound disappointed,’ Sergeant Vendelev observed.
I shrugged. ‘I’m just saying the romance has gone.’
‘Romance!’ the sergeant exclaimed. ‘There’s nothing romantic about murder.’
‘No, but neither is there much dramatic tension to be had from a DNA test or the fact that all potential victims carry mobiles.’
‘Is that why you haven’t got one?’ Sergeant Vendelev asked.
The question took me by surprise, partly because the sergeant appeared to have checked and partly because he might be right.
‘Maybe,’ I replied. ‘I hadn’t thought about it, but I’m getting fed up trying to think of reasons why the victims in my book haven’t or why there is no coverage when the killer is chasing them.’
‘Perhaps it might create a different kind of tension?’ the sergeant suggested. ‘Being in contact with someone while it happened?’ He smiled.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said, returning his smile.
Sergeant Vendelev clapped his hands together.
‘Right, we’d better get started.’ He pressed the black object on the table.