The blaze had been fierce. Not only was the house completely razed, with only the outer walls remaining upright, the same was true of the barn and everything else within a range of thirty to forty meters from the house. The trees reached toward the darkening sky like charred totem poles, and the neighbor’s winter cereals in the adjoining field were scorched.
No wonder fire services had been called in from Lejre, Roskilde, Skibby, and Frederikssund. It could have turned into a disaster.
They walked around the house a couple of times, and the wreck of the van jutting out of the living room prompted Assad to say it all reminded him of the Middle East.
Carl had never seen the like.
“We’re not going to find anything here, Assad. He’s covered his tracks. Let’s go over to the neighbors’ and hear what they have to say about this Mads Christian Fog.”
His mobile rang. It was Rose.
“Do you want to hear what I’ve got?” she asked.
He didn’t get a chance to answer.
“Ballerup, Tårnby, Glostrup, Gladsaxe, Nordvest, Rødovre, Hillerød, Valby, Axeltorv, and the DGI leisure center in central Copenhagen, Bryggen in Amager, Stenløse Shopping Center, Holbæk, Tåstrup, Frederikssund, Roskilde, Helsingør, and Allerød, where you live. Bowling centers located in the area you said to check. I’ve sent faxes out to all of them, and in a minute I’ll start calling them on the phone. I’ll get back to you later. Oh, and don’t worry, I won’t be taking no for an answer.”
Poor bastards.
The neighbors on the farm a few hundred meters away from what remained of the cottage invited them in. They were in the middle of dinner. An indulgence of potatoes and pork with all the trimmings, mostly their own produce, Carl assumed. Big, hearty people, with big, hearty smiles. Clearly, they had made a nice life for themselves.
“Mads Christian? To be honest, I’ve not seen the old bugger for years. He did have some woman on the go in Sweden, so I reckon that’s where he’ll be,” said the man of the house. He looked like he’d been born wearing a lumberjack shirt.
“We do see that van of his sometimes, that blue thing,” the wife interjected. “And the Mercedes. He earned his money in Greenland, so he can afford it. Tax-free, I imagine.” She smiled.
Tax-free was something she obviously knew all about.
Carl leaned across the solid wooden table, planting both elbows on its surface. If he and Assad didn’t find somewhere to eat soon, they would be driven by the irresistible aroma of roast pork to confiscate it in the name of the law.
“Old bugger, you say. Are we talking about the same man?” he asked, almost drooling. “Mads Christian Fog, yeah? According to our information he’d be forty-five at the most.”
The man and his wife laughed.
“Maybe that’d be a nephew or something,” said the man. “But you people can get all that sorted in a jiffy at the computer, can’t you?” He nodded at his own insight. “Maybe he lends the place out to someone. We’ve wondered a few times, haven’t we, Mette?”
The wife nodded. “It was the van coming, you see, and then the Mercedes leaving shortly after. Then there’d be no sign of life for a long time, until the Mercedes would turn up again and the van would drive away.” She shook her head. “Mads Christian’s too old for that sort of carry-on. I say that every time.”
“The man we’re thinking of looks like this,” said Assad, producing the drawing from his pocket.
The couple stared at the likeness without a hint of recognition.
“That isn’t Mads Christian. He must be knocking on for eighty now,” she said. “And looks like something fished out of a slurry tank. This man’s well groomed. Noble-looking, almost.”
“OK. What about the fire, then? Did you see it?” Carl went on.
They smiled. It was an odd reaction.
“They could see it as far away as Orø or Nykøbing Sjælland, I shouldn’t wonder,” said the man.
“I see. Did you notice anyone drive up to or away from the cottage that evening?”
They shook their heads. “I’m afraid not,” said the man with a smile. “We’d gone to bed. We country folk get up early in the mornings, you know. Not like you lot in Copenhagen, sleeping in until six o’clock.”
“We need to stop off at a petrol station,” said Carl once they were back at the car. “I’m starving, aren’t you?”
Assad shrugged. “I’ve got my nibbles.”
He thrust a hand into his pocket and produced a couple of garish packets of something clearly Middle Eastern. From the decoration on the paper, it seemed they contained mainly dates and figs. “Would you like one?” he asked.
Carl sighed with satisfaction as he got into the car and began munching. Fucking all right, they were, Assad’s nibbles.
“What do you think happened to the man who lived there?” Assad gestured toward the scene of the blaze. “Nothing good, if you ask me.”
Carl nodded and swallowed. “That place needs sifting through with a fine-toothed comb,” he replied. “If the SOCOs do their job properly, I reckon they’ll find what’s left of an octogenarian, assuming he hadn’t already shuffled off the coil.”
Assad put his feet up on the dashboard. “My feelings exactly,” he said, albeit looking slightly perplexed. “What now, Carl?” he went on.
“Don’t know, really. We need to get hold of Klaes Thomasen and ask him if he’s managed to have a word with the sailing clubs and that forest officer at Nordskoven. Then maybe we could call Karsten Jønsson and get him to check if any Mercedes fitting the description got caught in any of the speed traps around here. Like Rachel and Isabel were.”
Assad nodded. “Perhaps they will find the Mercedes from the license plate number. Perhaps we will be lucky, even if Isabel Jønsson wasn’t certain.”
Carl started the car. He doubted things would be that easy.
And then his mobile chimed. Couldn’t it have rung thirty seconds earlier, he thought to himself with a sigh, thrusting the gearshift into neutral.
It was Rose, and she was excited.
“I called all the bowling centers, and no one knows the man in the drawing.”
“Shit,” said Carl.
“What is the matter?” Assad wanted to know, returning his feet to the floor.
“But that’s not all, Carl,” Rose went on. “Like we reckoned, there was no one answering to any of the names we’ve got, apart from Lars Sørensen. There were a couple of Lars Sørensens.”
“It figures.”
“But then I spoke to this bloke in Roskilde. Very keen to help, he was. He was new to bowling, but he handed me on to one of the other players who happened to be there having a drink. They’ve got a game on tonight, apparently. Anyway, he reckoned there were several players he knew who looked like the man in the drawing. But there was one thing in particular he noticed.”
“And what was that, Rose?” Why did she always have to drag things out?
“Mads Christian Fog, Lars Sørensen, Mikkel Laust, Freddy Brink, and Birger Sloth. He almost fell about laughing when I told him the names.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, he didn’t know anyone with the exact names. But on the team he’s playing with tonight, they’ve got a Lars, a Mikkel, and a Birger. He was the Lars. And what’s more, there’d been a Freddy, too, a few years ago, who used to bowl with them at another center, but he got too old. No Mads Christian, mind, but still a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
Carl put the uneaten half of something figgy on the dashboard. He was all ears now. It was by no means unusual for a perpetrator to be inspired by the names of those around him. Names in reverse order. A “K” becoming a “C.” First and last names mixed together. The psychologists could most likely account for the underlying mechanism, but Carl called it lack of imagination.