Fits well enough, Carl thought. Driving could be a hazardous business in the country. What the fuck else was there to do but tear hell for leather around the landscape?
“What sort of car was it?” Assad asked.
The woman twisted her mouth. “We just saw the rear lights, that’s all, and then they were switched off. We can just see the spot from the front room when we’re watching TV. Me and my husband thought it was most likely some couple getting amorous.”
She rocked her head from side to side. Presumably meaning there was no law against it and that she’d done it plenty of times herself.
“But then all of a sudden they weren’t there anymore,” she went on. “We saw another pair of lights, and then both vehicles were gone. My husband reckoned afterward it might have been the same cars that were in the accident.” She smiled apologetically, as if to excuse him. “He’s always one for drama.”
“You say this was on Monday?” Carl glanced across at the wheel tracks. Whoever had pulled in here had chosen a strategic spot indeed. Good view. Close to the railway. And if anything unexpected should happen, you could be back on the road in seconds. “You mentioned an accident,” he continued. “Where did it occur, exactly?”
“The other side of Lindebjerg. My sister used to live just a couple of hundred meters from the place.” She gave a quick shake of her head. “Moved to Australia she has now, though.”
And then she told them she was going that way herself as it happened, and that she would show them.
The woman drove at fifty kilometers an hour max through the woods, with Carl stuck to her back bumper.
“Should we not turn off the blue light now?” Assad asked a couple of kilometers farther down the road.
Carl rolled his eyes in exasperation. Of course, what was he thinking? Their little convoy must have looked ridiculous, crawling through the woods at a snail’s pace.
“Look.” Assad pointed to a patch of road where the sun was finally drying up the morning dew.
Carl saw it, too. Skid marks on the other side of the road, then ten meters farther along, a second set on their own side.
Assad leaned forward and peered through the windscreen. Probably a car chase was going on inside his head. He looked like he’d be wrenching an imaginary steering wheel any minute and stepping on pedals that weren’t there.
“Over there as well!” he exclaimed, pointing to more marks on the road surface that seemed to show a vehicle had braked violently.
Then the woman in front pulled up and got out.
“This is where it happened,” she said, gesturing toward a tree trunk all but stripped of bark.
They walked around a bit, finding a few remaining shards from shattered headlights and deep gouges in the road surface. Obviously, it had been a very serious accident, though why it had occurred seemed far less clear. They would have to get the details from their colleagues in the traffic department.
“OK, let’s be getting back,” said Carl.
“Would you like me to drive this time, Carl?”
Carl looked at his assistant. All this recent evidence of dangerous driving hardly made the prospect attractive. Definitely not. “We’ll check with the traffic boys first,” he said, and climbed in behind the wheel.
Carl didn’t know the officer who had been in charge of the case and responsible for the on-scene investigations, but he certainly inspired confidence.
“We had the wreck transported to Kongstedsvej so we could carry out a thorough inspection,” the man said over the phone. “We found traces of paint from the other vehicle at various collision points, though as yet we’re not sure of its exact makeup. Dark in color, probably anthracite, but friction at the moment of collision may have affected the exact shade.”
“What about the victims?” Carl asked. “Are they alive?”
He was given a couple of civil registration numbers so he could check for himself.
“So, as far as you can make out, there was a second vehicle involved?”
The officer at the other end laughed. “It’s dead certain there was. We just haven’t gone public with it yet. There are clear indications of a car chase over a stretch of road extending back at least two and a half kilometers before the scene of the accident. High-speed and completely reckless. So if the two ladies involved are still alive, it’ll be a miracle.”
“And there’s no sign of the other driver?”
The traffic officer confirmed this.
“Ask him about the women, Carl,” Assad whispered from the passenger seat.
He did so. Who were they? How did they know each other? That sort of thing.
“Well,” the voice replied. “They’re both from the Viborg area, which I suppose makes it all a bit odd, crashing on a country road in the middle of nowhere in southern Sjælland. We can see they were back and forth over the Storebælt Bridge a few times that day, but that’s not the strangest part.”
Carl sensed that the man had been keeping the best bit until last. Typical traffic department, letting the crime boys know they weren’t the only ones with exciting jobs.
“Oh, and what would that be, then?” he asked.
“The strangest thing is that shortly prior to the accident they rammed the Storebælt toll barrier and then did all they could to avoid being caught up with by police.”
Carl stared again at the road in front of him. This was a turnup. Fucking hell.
“Can you e-mail me the report so I can run through it on the computer here in the car?”
“Now? Let me check with my superior first.”
And then he hung up.
Five minutes later, they were reading through the police report on the two women’s driving. It was anything but the usual. Caught by speed cameras no fewer than four times, twice with each driver, and all on the same day. Toll barrier rammed on the Storebælt Bridge. Dangerous driving on the E20. Pursued by several patrol cars on the same stretch. After which, it seemed they had driven along Route 150 without lights, before ending up crashing on an isolated road leading through woodland.
“Why would they drive from Viborg to Sjælland, back to Fyn, and then over to Sjælland again, and all hell for leather like that? Any ideas, Assad?”
“I don’t know, Carl. Right now, I am looking at this.”
He pointed to the list of speed cameras the two women had been clocked by. Locations as widespread as the E45 south of Vejle, the E20 midway between Odense and Nyborg, and then again on the E20 south of Slagelse.
Assad moved his finger down a line in the report.
Carl saw the location he was indicating. It seemed the women had also run into a speed enforcement trial in some village or other. Carl had never heard of the place. Ferslev, it was called, and they had been clocked doing eighty-five in a fifty zone. When all their violations were added to the fact that they had shared the driving, the two of them had both done more than enough to lose their licenses that day.
Carl plotted Ferslev into the GPS and studied the map. Just outside Skibby. About halfway between Roskilde and Frederikssund.
Assad put his finger on the screen and moved it slowly upward toward Nordskoven. The same place Yrsa thought there might be a boathouse.
A fucking turnup, indeed.
“Call Yrsa,” Carl said, shifting the car into gear. “Tell her to get all the information she can on these two women. Give her their civil registration numbers and make sure she gets a move on. And get her to call us back as soon as she knows which hospital they’ve been admitted to and what condition they’re in. This has got me going, this has.”
He heard the sound of Assad’s voice, but he was immersed in his own thoughts, imagining the two women’s frenzied dash across the country.