It was not completely true. He had performed the last mutilation long after he had disassembled the scaffolding and carried it out to the van, before he had cleaned the floor.
Mørk accepted the explanation without digging deeper. It was what he had imagined, and in any case, done was done. From a marketing standpoint it was of course incredibly unfortunate-that kind of thing was hard to sell-but there was nothing to do about it now. He therefore simply nodded, and the Climber elaborated.
“I had the most intense desire to flay his crotch before he died.”
“But you didn’t do it?”
“No, strangely enough.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
They didn’t have anything else to talk about. The Climber did not ask about the campaign, and Erik Mørk preferred to remain ignorant of the other details of the murders.
People arrived to the church in a steady stream, either by themselves or in small clusters. Many were young. Some of them dropped off bouquets of flowers, then left again. Some of them placed their bouquets on the church steps and a few lit candles they had brought with them from home. There was still some time to go before the actual ceremony.
Mørk tried to fill the time.
“Four hundred years ago they burned witches in this country,” he said.
The Climber did not reply. Instead, he stared at the tree by the church entrance. He squinted because of the sun. It was a horse chestnut, and a few brown spiky capsules still clung to the upper branches, waiting to fall to earth.
Mørk went on: “They took the farmer’s children in the night and flew them to the witches’ sabbath. After the rack, their confessions corroborated each other’s so there was no question of their guilt. But the minister appealed on their behalf and called for the gallows as opposed to the stake. That almost cost him his frock and his life because the masses went ballistic. And they got the stake. In front of this very church, in the year 1613. I find it uplifting to think about.”
The Climber turned his head and became alert. “You are a strange man, Erik. What about those poor women?”
“Yes, yes, of course, but I’m not thinking of the women. I’m thinking of how everyone came together in a unified front against evil. What common fear and rage can lead to.”
The conversation ran out because the Climber didn’t respond. Soon the church bells started to ring and the guests went into the church. There were many of them.
Mørk commented on it: “I don’t think that any of our five will get as fine a funeral.”
“Six.”
“Six? What do you mean?”
“There are six now. There’s been an addition to the group.”
It took a second for Mørk to understand, but when he finally grasped the meaning he jumped up. He screamed. Without thinking about discretion. A couple of latecomers who were trotting hastily up to the church cast concerned glances in his direction.
“Tell me, have you gone completely mad? You’re completely sick in the head.”
The Climber remained calm. “Take it easy. There’s a perfectly reasonably explanation and I would have tried to find you to tell you personally if we hadn’t met up here. It’s the reason I’m here at all. I came to this funeral on a whim, since I was out in these parts anyway.”
Mørk wasn’t listening. “You can’t just go around killing people,” he said.
The Climber smiled and said softly, “Allan Ditlevsen, you know, the hotdog guy, came down with gallstones the night before our event. Frank-Allan’s older brother-found a replacement. But when the younger brother found out that his sibling was going to hell and not to heaven, the police wanted to… Well, you can figure it out for yourself.”
Mørk regained control over himself and nodded curtly, and the Climber told him about the hot-dog vendor from Allerslev who no longer was. Then he asked, “And Allan Ditlevsen never had any suspicions?”
“I don’t know about that, but it’s well known that he was not the sharpest tool in the shed and he also wasn’t one to stay out of the way of the cops. I called him at the hospital and asked about his health. Talked about summer, cheap drinks, kids, and sent greetings from his brother, who unfortunately couldn’t come to the phone, and that last part was true.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I was afraid that Per would call the whole thing off.”
“Hmmm. At least you’re honest. And what was that business with the tree all about?”
“Believe me, it was the most fitting funeral bouquet he could have had.”
“Can’t you give me a real answer?”
“Yes. It was just my way of battling the forces of evil.”
Chapter 32
The net was pulled tighter around the liars. The three women from the suburbs soon had enough evidence to ensure that justice was going to be served. He had sworn falsely when he took his Hippocratic oath and he deserved no mercy, regardless of what sex he was.
Pauline Berg devoured the end of the medical novel. The youngest member of the homicide unit had snuck away to spend her lunch break in her favorite café on Hovedbanegården. Like the others in the unit, she had a secret hideaway where she sometimes indulged in a half hour’s retreat from death, murder, and the more bestial aspects of human nature. Or so she thought.
The Countess had appeared at her table and cleared her throat at least three times without being noticed. Now she laid a hand over the magazine.
“Hello, world calling Pauline. Are you completely gone?”
Finally Berg looked up and blushed ear to ear, caught in the act like a fat person digging into the pastries. She frantically folded up the magazine and stuffed it into her bag. It sounded as if the Countess had noticed neither her choice of reading material nor her red cheeks.
“You’re going to Middelford, my dear.”
“Alone?”
“No, with me. We have identified two of the men. Mr. Middle no longer exists. He has been replaced by Frank Ditlevsen, fifty-two, a systems analyst from Middelford. Mr. Southwest is very likely the retired manufacturer Jens Allan Karlsen from Trøjborg in Århus. He was sixty-three years old. Arne is taking him on. Jens Allan Karlsen was identified twice over, as it happens. Only five minutes after we received the results of the DNA test, Skejby Hospital-where his heart was checked four times a year-called, just as Elvang had predicted.
“Five minutes too late to be of any use.”
“Well, you can say that. By the way, are you the one who called Allan Ditlevsen ‘Mr. Extra’ on the notice board? If so, you are in for a lecture from Simon about respect.”
“No, that was…” She caught herself midsentence. “That wasn’t me.”
“Good for you.”
The sinner in this case was Arne Pedersen. Berg had seen him write it… and even worse, she had laughed. She quickly switched to a safer topic.
“Is Frank Ditlevsen brother to the hot-dog seller?”
“Yes. Frank is the older brother and the one in the gymnasium; Allan, the little brother, in the hot-dog stand.”
“And he was killed by a tree?”
“Not exactly. The technicians are sure that he was killed with a branch shortly before the tree crashed on his head. But that’s a minor detail. The fact is that someone went to great lengths to fell that tree and the felling itself was done with professional expertise. But it was not done to accomplish the killing itself since he was already dead.”
“Why on earth?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does Simon say?”
“He says that you should finish your coffee already so we can get started. The brothers live-or rather, lived-at the same address in Middelford. Everyone is working like crazy to gather more information and we’ll be kept briefed along the way.”
“Good news. So we finally got our breakthrough.”
“Seems like it, and there’s more. We now have good photographs of Mr. Northwest and Mr. Northeast that will be broadcast in the media tonight unless we manage to identify them beforehand. In a gentler way.”