From the corner of his eye, Carl glimpsed Assad’s hand shoot into the air in an averting gesture. It meant: Careful, or she’ll go off in a huff again. Carl counted to ten under his breath.
Stupid bloody woman! Had she really not done what she’d been asked? Is this what it was going to be like again?
“I do beg your pardon, Rose,” he said, gathering all his cool. “In future, we shall endeavor to make our needs more abundantly clear. Now, would you be so kind as to find the information we need right away? It’s rather important, you see, so in a hurry would indeed be just the ticket.”
He nodded faintly in the direction of Assad, who responded with a thumbs-up.
Rose tossed her head, seemingly at a loss for what to say.
So this was how she had to be tackled.
“By the way, you’ve got an appointment with the psychologist in three minutes, in case it had slipped your mind,” she said, glancing at her watch. “I’d get my skates on if I were you.”
“What for?”
She handed him a slip of paper with an address on it. “If you run, you might just make it. Mona Ibsen said to tell you she was proud you’re going through with it.”
That did it. There was no shying away now.
Anker Heegaards Gade was only two streets from Police HQ, but still far enough away for Carl to feel like someone had stuffed a vacuum pump into his gob with the sole intention of collapsing his lungs. If this was Mona’s idea of doing him a favor, he might have to have a word with her.
“Glad you could make it,” said Kris the psychologist. “Was it hard to find?”
What was he supposed to say? It was two streets away. Aliens Division. He must have been there a thousand times.
But what was this shrink doing there?
“Only joking, Carl. I’m in no doubt there’s little you wouldn’t be capable of finding. And now you’re probably wondering what I’m doing here, in this building. Actually, a lot of work here in the Aliens Division requires the services of a psychologist. But you realize that, obviously.”
The bloke was giving him the creeps. What was he, a mind reader?
“I’ve got half an hour, max,” said Carl. “We’ve got a job on.”
He didn’t even need to lie about it.
“I see.” Kris made a note in his records. “Next time, I’d like you to make sure you can be here for the full session, OK?”
He produced a folder bulging with documents that must have taken two hours at least to get photocopied.
“Do you know what this is? Have you been informed?”
Carl shook his head, but he could probably hazard a guess.
“You’ve an inkling, at least. I can see that. These are your records. Basic data and all documents pertaining to the incident in which you and your colleagues were shot in that allotment house in Amager. I ought at this point to tell you that I am also in possession of certain information which I am unfortunately not at liberty to divulge in full.”
“You what?”
“Reports from both Hardy Henningsen and Anker Høyer, with whom you were working on the case in question. Reports that seem to indicate that your knowledge of the case was rather more extensive than theirs.”
“Not to my mind, it wasn’t. Why would they say that? We were together on that job from day one.”
“This is one of the things we might shed a bit more light on during the course of our sessions. My feeling is there’s something that’s got you in a jam here, something you’ve either suppressed completely or don’t want to let out into the open.”
Carl shook his head. What the fuck was this? Was he being accused of something?
“I can assure you there’s no jam, as you put it,” he said, his cheeks fiery with annoyance. “It was a normal case like any other. Apart from the fact that we got shot. What are you getting at?”
“Do you know why you continue to react so strongly to the shooting, such a long time after the event, Carl?”
“Yes, I do. And you’d fucking react the same way, too, if you’d been a millimeter from getting blasted to pieces while two of your best mates weren’t quite so lucky.”
“So you consider Hardy and Anker to have been your friends, is that right?”
“Mates, yeah. Good colleagues.”
“There’s a difference.”
“Maybe. I don’t know if you have a quadriplegic living in your front room, but I have. Doesn’t that qualify me as his friend?”
“You misunderstand me. I’m in no doubt that you’re a very decent guy in many ways. You’ve probably felt rather guilty about Hardy Henningsen, so I quite understand you’d want to make a special effort in his case. But are you sure your working relationship was as good as you make it out to be?”
“Yes, I am.” This Kris bloke was irritating as fuck.
“Anker Høyer’s autopsy revealed traces of cocaine in his blood. Were you aware of that?”
Carl sank back in what purported to be an armchair. No, he most certainly was not aware of it at all.
“Do you use cocaine, Carl?”
Somehow, the man’s clear blue eyes, previously candidly assessing, were beginning to seem hostile. He had flirted brazenly with him in Mona’s presence. That gay twinkle, lips pursed and smiling at the same time. And now here he was giving Carl the third degree.
“Cocaine? No, I don’t. I hate all that shit.”
Kris the psychologist raised his hands in a mock defensive gesture. “OK, let’s take this somewhere else. Did you have anything to do with Hardy’s wife before she and Hardy married?”
“Are we going to talk about her again?” He glared at the guy, who just sat there impassive as a statue.
“I knew her,” he said after a moment. “She was a friend of a girlfriend of mine. That’s how she and Hardy met.”
“And there was no sexual relationship of any kind?”
Carl snorted. The man had his nose in everywhere. But how all this was supposed to get rid of the pain in his chest, he had no idea.
“You hesitate. Was there?”
“What kind of counseling is this, anyway? When do you get the thumbscrews out? The answer to your question is no. Petting, that’s all.”
“Petting? What would that cover?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Kris. You may be gay, but surely you can at least imagine mutual bodily exploration of a heterosexual nature?”
“So you got-”
“Listen, I’m not giving details, OK? We snogged and had a good grope, but there was no shagging. Satisfied?”
Kris noted it down.
Then his blue eyes returned to Carl. “To get back to the case. Let’s call it the nail-gun case, shall we? Hardy Henningsen’s reports suggest that you may have been in contact with those who were later responsible for the shooting. Is that right?”
“No, it fucking well isn’t! He must have got the wrong idea.”
“OK.” He sent Carl the kind of look intended to encourage confidentiality. “The thing is, Carl, if you go to bed with an itchy arse, your fingers are likely to stink when you get up in the morning.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Not him as well?
“Are you cured, then?” Rose asked when he got back to their corridor. He smiled, perhaps rather too ingratiatingly.
“Very funny, Rose. Next time I’m there, I’ll put you down for a course in etiquette.”
“Like that, is it?” She was digging her heels in already. “I hope you’re not expecting me to be friendly and PC all at once.”
Friendly? Jesus Christ!
“What have you got on those two women, Rose?”
She gave names, addresses, and ages. Middle-aged, both of them. No known associations with criminal elements. Regular citizens.
“I haven’t got around to Intensive Care yet. I’ll get on to them in a minute.”
“Who owned the vehicle they crashed? I think I forgot to ask.”