“Dammit.”
He didn’t even know himself if he was lamenting the situation or the noise that he had caused. Then he tried with all his mental efforts to turn to something more constructive.
“Are you the one who can help me with the telecommunications information?”
“Yes, that’s me, and I got your message. This morning I was a bit lukewarm, but definitely not anymore, so you’ll get the help you’re looking for.”
“What about the other companies, that is, your competitors. Can you help me there as well?”
“There’s no database in the telecommunications sector that I don’t have access to. Us security people work together and we cooperate, but I’ll need a contact person on your end to get into the citizen registry and the like. We can make further arrangements tomorrow.”
“I’m glad, but I thought of another thing that I’m not even sure can be done.”
“Tell me what it is.”
Simonsen told him. The man didn’t seem surprised.
“What telephone number did you have in mind?”
Simonsen told him and the man took a cell phone out of his pocket. The blue light of the display lit up his face. Simonsen was able to get a good look at him for the first time and thought that he didn’t even know his name yet. The man’s thumbs were working with a teenager’s speed, and when he was done, he nodded a couple of times.
“The police starting to spy on our free press-such times, such times.”
His voice had taken on a somewhat inappropriately humorous tone, and Simonsen understood it well. It was a way to keep the beastliness at bay. Overcome despair and smile the three women back to the kind of hell where they belonged. In the half darkness he gestured theatrically, with relief.
“Yes, we’ve reached a new low.”
Chapter 63
Anni Staal was waiting for Konrad Simonsen.
Only a few minutes earlier, Anita had called and said that her earlier efforts had yielded results.
“The kilometer stone at City Hall Plaza at two o’clock, and Simonsen only has five minutes.”
Anita had hung up before Anni managed to get a word out, so she couldn’t do much other than go to the meeting, and privately she wondered whether she had misunderstood the message before she noticed the chief inspector heading her way. He looked exhausted and wasted no time with unnecessary pleasantries.
“I’m sorry about the location but I have an errand nearby and this is what I was able to think of in a hurry, but let’s skip all that. I hear you want an interview and a long one at that.”
Anni smiled, pleased. This was a promising beginning.
“Yes, I’d like that, and I hope that you will. We are useful to each other.”
“Maybe you are right, even though I admit that it took me a while before I saw the sense in this alliance. And I should clarify that I can’t stand your line of work in general and that I despise your treatment of my investigation in particular.”
She circumvented his disapproval with a short, cloying laugh and said, “But you have concluded that the police have an image problem?”
“That you have played a part in creating.”
“So it will be good to get your angle out there.”
“I guess so, but I have a few conditions and it is a take-it-or-leave-it situation. There will be no negotiating.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“I want a formal, legal document signed by both you and me, your editor in chief, and someone from the executive level, that says that you can’t publish a single line of the interview before I have read through it and given you my written permission. You may also not print any of the information that I will give you whether directly or indirectly, and if you do, it will cost you a five-million-kroner donation to the Red Cross.”
Anni did not have to reflect on his proposition very long before she said, “You don’t have much faith in us.”
“I think that the only thing you have respect for is money, especially money out of your own pocket.”
“You’ll have your document to your home address by courier by the end of the day.”
“That’s great, push it through the mail slot, I’ll be out. Tomorrow at ten at the Dagbladet?”
“What about at your home? That’s more private.”
“You are sick.”
“Not completely. If you want to reach the people you have to invite them to your home. That gives me a better opportunity to present you in a more human way-that is, not just brains but also heart. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”
Anni crossed her fingers. The thought was apparently appalling to him but her arguments had struck a chord. It took a long time before he answered.
“At my home, ten o’clock, no photographers.”
“Wonderful. Ten o’clock at your place, and the photographer will simply take a single picture of the two of us as we are talking and then he’ll leave. I swear on my mother’s grave.”
Simonsen waved his hand in an irritated gesture, which she took as his assent. They parted without warmth.
No one could accuse Anni Staal of resting on her laurels. The solo interview with Konrad Simonsen was an enormous triumph but back at the office she pushed the thought aside and the following hours she concentrated on the next day’s edition, rejecting a proposal for an article from her intern and paying her back for her lack of telephone manners earlier in the day. She smoothed a folded piece of paper on her desk.
“You can throw this away.”
Anita Dahlgren looked up furiously. The rejection did not come as a surprise. “Did you even read it? His forehead was carved up while he was unconscious.”
Anni Staal’s voice was cold and her choice of words more cynical and provocative than she actually felt. She’d had her interview now so there was no reason to thank the girl more.
“I don’t care if they cut his dick off. What you have written is not our line and you know that very well. It’s not what people want to read and, my sweet… it is not getting into print.”
Anita stood up and her voice was shrill. “I am not your sweet and you should pay better attention too. Things are not always as they appear. If it turns out that the motive of your poison pen is a little less noble than hanging pedophiles up as a deterrent-well then, this whole thing will blow up in your face. Just wait until your beloved people go looking for another scapegoat. I know at least one who will have to eat crow.”
Anni Staal stiffened but her warning bells were going off and several colleagues were watching. Even in a workplace where the language was direct and salty, her intern’s speech exceeded the acceptable limits. But it was not the insult that bothered the star journalist.
“What do you mean? Try to explain yourself.”
That was not something that Anita wanted to do. “I’m protecting my sources.” She took her bag and left.
Anni Staal kept working, but Anita’s comments proved difficult to shake off and it gnawed at her the rest of the day. For a while it bothered her so much that she seriously thought about contacting her police source even though she knew he would be furious. But it never went further than a thought because that evening he called of his own accord, with a message that felt like a déjà vu from the morning.
“The parking lot by the civic building in Nansensgade in half an hour and make sure you have some cash on you.”