“Why? Didn’t they believe him?”
“Keep quiet now, damn it, you’re being a pain! So, everyone expected that the daughter would soon show up again, presumably in Copenhagen. She and her father had had some heated discussions before she disappeared, because she wanted to move to the city and get ahead-or perhaps more precisely get started-with her life. He on the other hand thought that she had a duty to remain living there and more or less take care of him, since his wife had died a year before. For a long time therefore the authorities assumed that she had settled the disagreement in her own way by abandoning him, and that she would later make herself known again when she was established and her father had grown used to the idea. Even though the father regularly visited the police in both Næstved and in Præstø, for a long time he was more or less ignored and the case was correspondingly downplayed.”
“That really makes me angry, but probably only because I know what I do. By far the majority of young people who disappear turn up again at some stage or another.”
“Yes, and that’s a good thing, but Annie Lindberg Hansson never showed up. Still no one really believed there’d been a crime, but were more inclined to think she had cut the bonds to her childhood home and was maybe living in the city or else abroad somewhere.”
“Then we can only hope that’s what she’s doing.”
“Do you believe that yourself?”
“No, unfortunately not. Not since I’ve seen her and know that Andreas Falkenborg was in the area. God knows whether he bought that summer house in Tjørnehoved before or after he met her.”
“That’s one of the things we’ll try to find out today, but if I had to guess, I’d say after. That would fall neatly in line with the other murders, where he is obviously prepared to reorganise his entire existence to position himself for his misdeeds. He displays a strange combination of extremely goal-oriented activity once he has met his victims, while he does nothing actively to find-how shall I put it?-appropriate candidates. We’ll have to bring in a psychologist to analyse this.”
Poul Troulsen thought a while then said tentatively, “If women don’t have exactly the right appearance and the right age, he’s harmless. If on the other hand they are black-haired, slender and pretty in a very specific way, then he kills them?”
“It undeniably looks that way, but as I said, we’ll have to call in a psychologist.”
“It will make me very happy to turn him over to the correctional system.”
“You’ll have to get past a judge and presumably a jury first. And it will probably be Nykøbing Zealand secure prison, when we get to that point.”
“He’s cost us two resignations from the force over the Thomsen affair-and don’t misunderstand me, I know full well that the murders, whether there are two or three of them, are much, much worse-but I can’t help being angry with him about that too. As far as I’m concerned I wasn’t doing too well either when I realised the truth, and I was only peripherally involved in the Stevns case. Even so I couldn’t attend your review on Monday.”
“I was very close to being the third to resign, you know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, I knew, and this was just my clumsy way of asking how you’re doing now?”
“If he has killed someone after Catherine Thomsen, then I don’t know… I almost don’t dare think about it, but otherwise I guess it is what it is.”
Troulsen looked at his boss with disapproval. The reply did not invite further discussion, so he concentrated on his driving. Simonsen immersed himself in his papers again.
An hour later they were nearly at their destination. Poul Troulsen honked briefly at Arne Pedersen and Pauline Berg, as he turned left and drove toward Jungshoved while his colleagues’ car continued on the highway. A gentle rural landscape unfolded before them with a view over Bøgestrømmen, the crooked stream between Zealand and Møn. Five minutes later they stopped in front of a small homestead close to Jungshoved Church, all the way out on the promontory.
At the top of the driveway the two men stopped and looked around. The house consisted of two low, white-plastered wings, which created a contrast to the black-tarred concrete tiles of the roof. The small garden was overgrown, with a couple of beautiful old fruit trees and a weed-infested terrace stretching from the farmhouse out to the lawn, while a high beech hedge behind hid the view to the church. Simonsen recalled the boys’ books of his childhood, where Svend Poulsen Gønge’s guerillas had numerous encounters with the Swedes at this very Jungshoved, without his really knowing whether this was fiction or Danish history. Troulsen commented soberly, “It was probably sold off by the church at one time.”
At the house they were met by a man in his sixties, who opened his door without a word and waved his arm to invite them in. His appearance was neglected; his face looked older than it should, his eyes shiny, almost runny, and his clothing in a state that a secondhand shop could not even give away. The room they were led into was low-ceilinged and dark despite the radiant sunshine, and it took a little time before the eyes of the two officers grew accustomed to the dim light. The furniture was sparse and worn, but not casually arranged and had originally been expensive.
The man gestured to them to sit on a couch with a sturdy, low oak table before them while he sat down in an armchair opposite. He had made tea for them and poured without asking. They thanked him and drank. Simonsen thought that the tea tasted surprisingly good. At one end of the table were two photographs, which evidently had been placed there for the occasion. The first showed a picture of a healthy little troll in a snowsuit, sitting on a swing being pushed by her father while she showed off for the camera like a prima donna. The second showed a lanky, thirteen-year-old girl in a white skirt, balancing awkwardly in high-heeled shoes in front of a church that was not the neighbouring building. The frames were gilded and hideous. The man followed the direction of Simonsen’s gaze, and said, “Every morning when I wake up I think about her, and every night I cry myself to sleep. I miss her indescribably. She was the only real blessing in my life. Yes, I have brought her out because I think she has a right to be here.”
“It’s appropriate.”
“Yes, very appropriate. It’s my home, after all, and I decide which pictures will be displayed in it.”
Simonsen said quietly, “We have come to find out what happened to your daughter.”
The man took out a dingy handkerchief and dabbed his eyes.
“You believe that she was killed like the two girls in the papers, right?”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because she resembled them, obviously. I have eyes in my head.”
“Yes, we are afraid that she was killed, although we don’t know anything specific at the present time.”
“I’ve known all along that she was dead, but I hope she didn’t end up like them.”
“We don’t either, and you mustn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers.”
A small ray of hope was ignited in the man, they could hear it in his voice.
“So it’s not really true. I mean, all those horrible things about adhesive tape and plastic bags over their heads?”
Both detectives cursed the tabloids for wallowing in macabre details on page after page, but unfortunately depicting the murders quite correctly. Annie Lindberg Hansson’s father was now paying the price for the previous day’s sales figures. He and others like him.
“Well, sadly, those things are not wrong, but bear in mind that we know nothing about what happened to your daughter.”
The words bounced off him disregarded. The man crumpled a little.
“What do you want from me?”
“First and foremost, to tell us about the day your daughter didn’t come home.”