“What’s ‘obviously’ supposed to mean?”
“Well, his trips to Thailand, you know? Isn’t that what this is about?”
This had all the hallmarks of a diversionary maneuver. “What trips? I’m not from the Drug Squad, if that’s what you think.”
Now the man looked like he was at a total loss. Was he play-acting?
“Drugs? No, that wasn’t what I was thinking,” he said. “Listen, I don’t want to land him in it. It’s probably just me getting the wrong idea, that’s all.”
“Maybe you ought to elaborate on these suspicions of yours? Unless you prefer to be taken in for questioning at Police HQ?”
The man cocked his head. “No, thanks, anything but. What I mean is, Svend let it slip once that these trips of his to Thailand were all about organizing local women to accompany infants to Germany. Babies selected for adoption by approved childless couples. He takes care of all the paperwork and reckons he’s doing people a favor. The thing is, I don’t think he’s that bothered about where the kids are coming from, if you understand what I’m getting at?” He shook his head. “He’s a great tenpin bowler, so I’ve no qualms about being on the team with him, but since I found out what he was up to with those children I’ve not been over to his place once.”
Carl looked across at the man in the blue blazer. Could it be a smokescreen to cover up for something else? Stick to the truth but not too closely was the code of most criminals. Maybe he didn’t go to Thailand at all. Maybe he was the kidnapper and needed an alibi for his bowling mates while carrying out his despicable trade.
“Does anyone on the team sing particularly well, or badly?”
The man cracked up laughing. “I’m afraid we don’t sing that much.”
“What about yourself?”
“Oh, I’m a good singer. I was a verger once, at the church in Fløng. In the choir, too. Do you want to hear me?”
“No, thanks. What about Svend, is he a singer?”
He shook his head. “No idea. Is that why you’re here?”
Carl forced a crooked smile. “Does any one of you have a visible scar?”
The man gave a shrug. Carl couldn’t eliminate him yet. He sensed it. Definitely not.
“Have you got any ID on you? Something with your civil registration number on it?”
The man said nothing but reached into a pocket and produced a thin wallet of the kind meant only for credit cards and the like. Lars Bjørn at Police HQ had one, too. Maybe it was a status symbol of some sort. What would he know?
Carl wrote down the man’s details, noting his age. Forty-four years old, which fitted their assumptions.
“What was the number of your new company again?”
“It’s 773 PB 55. Why?”
If Carl himself had made up such a ridiculous name on the spur of the moment, he would have forgotten it again two minutes later. So the man was probably telling the truth.
Carl shrugged.
“One more thing. What were you doing between three and four o’clock this afternoon?”
The man pondered.
“Let me see. Between three and four. Getting my hair cut at a place on Allehelgensgade. I’ve got an important meeting tomorrow, so I need to look presentable.”
The man smoothed a hand over his temple to demonstrate. It certainly looked like it had just been cut. But they would have to check as soon as they were done here.
“Mr. Henriksen, I’d like you to take a seat at the white table over there in the corner, if you don’t mind. I may need to speak to you again.”
The man nodded and said he would be only too pleased to help.
Nearly everyone said that when the police came around.
Carl signaled to Assad to send over the man in the blue blazer. There was no time to waste.
Svend looked like anything but a man on a disability pension. His shoulders amply filled his jacket without him having to resort to eighties-style shoulder pads. His features were pronounced, the muscles of his jaw clenching visibly as he chewed on his gum. A broad-faced man with thick eyebrows that almost came together above the nose. Hair worn short in a buzz cut. A stooping kind of gait. This was a man who most certainly possessed more resources than might immediately be apparent.
He smelled pleasantly of nothing in particular. His gaze was somewhat vague, with dark rings under his eyes that made them look closer together than they actually were.
Definitely a profile worthy of further investigation.
He gave René Henriksen a nod as he sat down.
In a way, it was all very cordial.
46
He wasn’t very old the first time he realized he could control his emotions to the extent that they could not be observed.
His life at home in the pastor’s residence accelerated the process. Living not in the light of God but in His shadow, emotions would often be misinterpreted. Joy was perceived as shallowness, vexation as antipathy and defiance. And each time he was misunderstood, he would be punished. For that reason, he kept his feelings to himself. It was the safest way.
It had since proved useful to him, when injustice dragged him down or disappointment struck.
So no one knew what was inside him.
And today, this was what saved him.
The sudden appearance of these two policemen had been a bombshell. But he had absorbed the shock and shown nothing.
He recognized them the moment they walked in. The two men he had seen talking to Isabel’s brother outside the lifts at the Rigshospital that afternoon as he had made his escape. An odd pair like them would always stick out a mile.
The question was whether they had recognized him.
He thought not. If they had, their questioning would have been more incisive. The detective he had spoken to would have looked at him in a completely different way.
He considered his options. There were two escape routes, if things came to a head. Round the back into the maintenance room, through the rear door, and then up the fire escape past that stupid chair with no legs that someone had placed there to make it clear there was no exit. Or he could take the direct route past the other policeman, the assistant. The toilets were over between the reception and the exit, so going that way would not initially arouse suspicion.
But the dark one would see him as soon as he went past the door to the gents. He would have to leave his car behind. As always, he had parked at a distance, in the parking structure over by the RO’s Torv shopping center. But if he went for the car, he wouldn’t have time to get out. They would cut him off and he would be trapped.
No, the second option wasn’t on. Leaving the car meant he would have to run for it. And while he knew the town well enough to be familiar with the shortcuts, he had no way of knowing if he was fast enough.
His best bet would be to divert their attention in some way. If he was to get away and remain in control of the situation, which was absolutely imperative, he would have to employ more radical means.
One thing was certain: he needed to put some distance between himself and these two policemen, who had been able to trace him this far. How the hell they had done so, he had no idea.
He was undoubtedly under suspicion. Why else would they be asking about the Mercedes, his singing, the name of the company he had invented? He was lucky he had remembered the number.
He had produced a false driver’s license, in the name he had been using for years in the club. Seemingly, they had accepted it at face value, so he wasn’t completely exposed yet.
The problem was, they quite literally had him cornered. Things he had just lied about could be easily checked, and soon he would run out of identities and bolt-holes in which to hide out. But his most immediate concern was that for the moment he was boxed in, with no way out without being seen.
He glanced across at Pope, who sat opposite the detective, chewing frenziedly on his gum and looking sheepish.