— I wouldn't think so. A Colt.45 with a silencer was found in the victim's hand. He shot himself.
— Head-on? Doesn't this seem strange? Why not in the temple or mouth, as professional suicides do?
“Professional suicides, does this happen?” he grinned, but immediately realized that it was inappropriate.
— You understand perfectly what I'm talking about. — Glenda continued with greater seriousness. — Someone could have killed Jornas.
— Jornas? Do you know his name?
— Yes, this is my boyfriend actually.
— Boy? The one you ran away from in London?
— No, this is my new Danish boyfriend. We met after buying that damn house.
— Wow. — he grinned again, but not as much as before. Now it was more like admiration. This is what happens when your child suddenly starts riding a bike on his own, and it doesn’t turn out bad at all. — What do you mean, damned house?
“Well, in it…” Glenda stopped short. You should not tell anyone about your speculations about ghosts, so that no one considers them hallucinations. — we had a fight in it.
— Yes, I understand. I need to go away.
The black jacket with green shoulder straps and inserts fit Larsen perfectly. The real ideal of a man, the girl thought to herself.
Standing there near the fence of a residential building and spirea bushes in the middle of night Copenhagen, Glenda tried to understand what had been happening to her for the last few days.
Perhaps God is punishing her for the bribe, for this million pounds sterling, which should not have been taken from the hands of a secret agent. Or is she so frivolous and eccentric that life has finally shown her its true face. “This is not heaven, baby, this is the jungle. Live or die."
The forensic policeman approached her again.
— I learned something about the victim. Are you ready?
— Yes. Nothing can surprise me anymore.
— Jornas Kronwood, student at the University of Copenhagen at Rigshospitalet. A call boy from the red light district, he began to play a dangerous game with some rich entrepreneur. He paid for his studies, and in return received intimate services.
Glenda was not one of the people intolerant of homosexuality, but nausea involuntarily rose in her throat, and she vomited right onto the lawn. Fortunately, they had long since moved away from the crime scene so that it would not be attributed to evidence.
— But he didn't look gay? I slept with him.
— We do not know the name of the businessman. There is only the testimony of his colleague. The investigator called the number in the victim's phone book and spoke with him. All kinds of notes and gifts from a person whose name is not shown anywhere. It could also be a woman.
— Clear. But you can call the hospital where this guy arranged for Jornas. They should know who is transferring money to their account. — Now Glenda’s cheeks were already pink, she no longer looked like a grief-stricken friend. Iver Larsen looked at her with admiration again. This happens when only men are present at a political evening, and suddenly someone’s wife, who knows absolutely nothing about politics, begins to say smart and very useful things. — Take me with you.
— Do you want to participate in the investigation?
— Yes. They killed my boyfriend. Besides, I definitely don’t want to go home. Please, please, please. — A girl with the figure of a fashion model and long, slightly tangled black hair folded her brushes into a prayer lock, and her eyes looked pitiful, so Iver, after hesitating for a few seconds, finally gave up.
— Okay, you will go with me to the station, give your testimony, and then I will take you to my place. I'll go ahead and collect evidence myself.
“Okay.” Glenda agreed, but not to everything. He doesn't need to know now that she's not going to sleep tonight.
The spacious, bright floor with glass-enclosed offices looked very European. The metropolitan police were luxurious with taxpayers' money, although if you look closely, you could see here and there shabby walls, furniture, burnt-out lamps here and there, and the smell of decay.
"What?" Glenda didn't believe herself. There was a disgusting smell of carrion in my nose.
— God! Do you have a morgue here or something? Are you bringing the corpses here right away? — indignant, she plugged her nose with two fingers and looked questioningly at Iver.
— Um. No. — the criminologist was embarrassed. — No one has ever complained about the smell in the room.
“It can’t be, it stinks like…” Glenda stopped and looked in horror at her hand that was holding her nose. From the terminal phalanges right up to the elbow, the arm was like a dried piece of meat: flayed skin, dried blood spreading from torn vessels, tendons cracked and hanging like strings on an out-of-tune guitar. Pale gray bone was visible here and there.
Glenda fainted.
Chapter 4
— Glenda! Glenda! — a familiar and very pleasant voice called her to come to her senses. She opened her right eye. — Finally. What's happened?
— What happened to whom?
— With you, silly. You collapsed in the middle of the office a minute ago, although you looked pretty healthy.
The girl remembered the last picture before fainting and, opening her eyes wider, instantly examined her hand. The hand is just like a hand, nothing unusual, as well as the smell. Pleasant fresh office smell.
— It's probably from hunger.
— Now Jack will feed you. Hey bro, bring your dry sticks here, the lady is hungry.
“Dry sticks? Bro? This is another Iver, whom I don’t know. It seems that he does not communicate very delicately with his colleagues. But I myself am not a pupil of a boarding house for noble maidens. If my father knew who I talked to after his death in order to get to work at the Guardian, what criminal structures I had to deal with. Once I drank vodka and coffee with a drug lord to prove to him that even this was no more harmful than cocaine, and then I concocted an article about our meeting. Only when I earned three thousand a month did I become addicted to fashionable clothes and stopped looking like a tomboy, otherwise I’m no better than Mr. Larsen.”
Jack, a short, stocky cop in his mid-thirties, brought some pre-cooked fish sticks. Now Glenda really liked the smell, the smell of food, she will finally have dinner.
— So, miss, you are a witness? — Jack began, waiting until Glenda chewed the last bite with gusto.
— Oh, no, God forbid! I arrived late, Jornas was already dead.
— How did you end up there?
“What?” Glenda pretended that she didn’t understand the question. How can she explain why she ran in her dressing gown through Copenhagen at night and ended up right next to a corpse? What will they think if they find out that blackness has been creeping behind her, and that there are ghosts in the house?
— What did you do at the crime scene?
Glenda picked up her mug of tea and took a long sip through pursed lips, obviously stalling for time. What can you think of to say to a fairly straightforward question? Or maybe the truth?
— I didn’t know that Jornas was killed. The night before we had a fight and I was left alone at home. Unable to fight the grief, I went out into the fresh air for a walk. And four blocks later I saw him completely by accident.
Iver and Jack looked at each other. Their faces expressed either disbelief, or understanding that both had a common train of thought, or simply fatigue from the lies of witnesses.
“Glenda,” the taller cop began softly. — If you don’t tell the truth to us, the people who can help you, then other investigators will simply make you a suspect.
“But I’m telling the truth,” the girl begged.