“What about the slime?” Yrsa asked.
“Most likely from common mussels or fjord shrimps. That’ll have to stay unresolved for the time being.”
Assad nodded in the passenger seat next to him and flicked to the first page of Krak’s map of Nordsjælland. After a moment, he placed his finger near the middle of the page. “OK, I see them here now. Roskilde Fjord and the Isefjord. Aha! I had no idea they joined together at Hundested.”
“Oh, my God, don’t tell me you’re going to have to trawl around them both? What a job you’ll have!”
“Right on both counts, Yrsa.” Carl glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Fortunately, we’ve got the help of a sailor with local knowledge. Lives in Stenløse, like you. You probably remember him from that double murder in Rørvig, Assad. Thomasen. The bloke who knew the father of the two who got murdered.”
“Yes, indeed. His first name started with a ‘K’, and he had a fat belly.”
“Exactly. His name’s Klaes. Klaes Thomasen from the police station at Nykøbing. He’s got a boat moored at Frederikssund and knows the fjords like the back of his hand. He’s going to take us out. I reckon we’ve got a couple of hours before it gets dark.”
“You mean we are going to sail on the water?” Assad asked in a quiet voice.
“We’re going to have to if we want to find a boathouse projecting into the fjord.”
“I am not so happy about this, Carl.”
Carl chose to ignore him. “Besides being the stamping ground of the fjord trout, there’s another indication that we ought to be looking for the boathouse in the vicinity of the mouths of the fjords. I’m loath to admit it, but Pasgård has done a very good job. After letting the marine biologists take their samples, he sent the paper on which the message was written to Forensics so that they could have a look at the shadowy areas Laursen picked out. It turns out to be printer’s ink. Or at least the remnants of such.”
“I thought they’d done all that in Scotland,” said Yrsa.
“Their efforts were focused on the written characters rather than the paper itself. But when Forensics ran their tests this morning, it turned out there were remains of printer’s ink all over it.”
“Was it just ink, or did it say anything?” she asked.
Carl smiled to himself. Once, when he was a boy, he and one of the other lads had lain flat out on their stomachs at the fairground in Brønderslev staring at a footprint. Slightly obliterated by rain but still clearly distinct from the rest. They could make out the imprint of letters that seemed to have been scratched into the sole, but only after some time had elapsed did they realize that they were back to front. PEDRO, they read. And before long, they had put together a story that the shoe probably belonged to some machinist from Pedershaab Maskinfabrik who was afraid someone would nick his only pair of safety shoes. So after that, whenever the two lads stuffed away their own shoes in the lockers of the open-air baths at the other end of town, they always had this poor Pedro in mind.
It had been the beginning of Carl’s interest in detective work, and now here he was, somehow back at the start again.
“Turns out the writing was back to front. There must have been a newspaper pressed against the paper for some time, and the lettering rubbed off.”
“Get out!” Yrsa leaned as far forward as her crossed legs would allow. “What did it say, then?”
“Well, if the lettering hadn’t been the size it was, we’d most likely never have known, but as far as I understand it they’ve figured out it says Frederikssund Avis. One of those free local papers that comes out once a week.”
At this point, he had imagined Assad whooping with delight, but there was no reaction.
“Don’t you see? This means we can narrow down the geography considerably, as long as we assume that the piece of paper the message was written on came from within the newspaper’s circulation area. Otherwise, we’d have been looking at Nordsjælland’s entire coastline. Have you any idea how many kilometers that would be?”
“No,” came the curt reply from the backseat.
He hadn’t, either, for that matter.
And then his mobile chimed. He glanced at the display and immediately felt a warm glow inside.
“Mona,” he said in a completely different tone than before. “How nice of you to call.”
He sensed Assad shift uneasily in his seat. Maybe he was no longer quite so confident that his boss was an also-ran in matters romantic.
Carl angled the conversation toward inviting her over that same evening, but that wasn’t why she was calling. It was purely professional this time, she said with a laugh that made Carl’s pulse race. Right now she had a colleague with her, and he would rather like to speak to Carl about his traumas.
Carl frowned. He would, would he? What did his traumas have to do with her male colleagues? His traumas were for her, and her alone. In fact, he’d been saving them up.
“I’m doing fine, Mona, so that won’t be necessary,” he said, picturing the gleam in her eyes.
She laughed again. “I’m sure you’re fine after last night, Carl. It sounds like it, anyway. But before that you weren’t doing too well, remember? And I can’t always be there for you around the clock.”
He swallowed, almost trembling at the thought. He was just about to ask her why not, but decided it would keep until later.
“OK, you win.” He very nearly added “darling” but caught sight of Yrsa’s gleefully attentive eyes in the rearview mirror and thought better of it.
“Tell your colleague he can come and see me tomorrow. We’ve got a lot on the go, though, so I can’t give him much time, OK?”
He had forgotten to invite her over. Shit!
It would have to wait until tomorrow. Hopefully, she would still be interested.
He snapped his mobile shut and forced a smile in the direction of Assad. He had felt like Don Juan when he’d looked at himself in the mirror that morning. The feeling seemed to have gone now.
“Hey-aay, Mona! Tell you, Mona, what I’m gonna do. Get-a my house a-next door to you. Ooh, ooh, Mona!” Yrsa broke into song on the backseat.
Assad gave a start. If he thought he had heard her sing before, he certainly had now. Her voice was in a league of its own.
“I don’t think I am familiar with this song,” Assad said. He turned his head toward the backseat and nodded appreciatively. And then fell silent again.
Carl shook his head. Damn! Now Yrsa knew about Mona, which meant that soon everyone else would know, too. Maybe he shouldn’t have answered the call.
“Just think,” said Yrsa.
Carl glanced at her in the mirror. “Think what?” he replied, ready to launch a counterstrike.
“Frederikssund. Just think, he might have murdered Poul Holt here, near Frederikssund.” Yrsa stared out ahead.
So the Carl and Mona thing had already been dismissed from her thoughts. And yes, he knew what she meant. Frederikssund wasn’t far from where she was living now.
Depravity didn’t discriminate between one town and another.
“So now you’ll try to find a boathouse at the top of one of the fjords,” she went on. “That’s a scary thought, if it’s right. But how come you’re so sure it won’t be further south? Don’t people there read the local rag as well?”
“True. The paper could have been taken away from the Frederikssund area for whatever reason. But we have to start somewhere, and this seems to be the best bet, logically speaking. Am I right, Assad?”
His assistant in the passenger seat said nothing. Most likely he was already feeling seasick.
“This’ll be fine,” said Yrsa and pointed out at the pavement. “Just drop me off here.”
Carl glanced at the GPS. A little farther along Byvej and then Ejnar Thygesens Vej, and they would be at Sandalparken, where she lived. Why did she want out here?