He received no answer, just a shake of the head.
“You’re not like them, Simon.”
“No, of course not. Why do you say that?”
“Oh, stop with this nonsense. Do you really think that you can repair fourteen years of neglect of Anna Mia by behaving like Popeye?”
“How the hell do you know why I’m behaving like this?”
“You have always been an open book, even if you try to convince yourself otherwise. But that’s of no consequence. The important thing is that you realize that you aren’t like them. It’s that simple. Think it over.”
Simonsen stopped and spit his half-dissolved piece of licorice into the forest. Then he looked back at his old boss and shook his head. What did he know about being a father, childless as he was?
Planck changed the subject: “How did your interview go?”
“Above our expectations. Anni Staal swallowed the whole thing and Anita Dahlgren has already been out to get the article from me that she will take to Erik Mørk’s business tonight. In the middle of their so-called online program with Stig Åge Thorsen. Wait and see, this is going to stir things up in the duck pond.”
“Keep an eye on her. Remember that they are killers.”
“She is diligently guarded until she’s back at the Dagbladet, and then when she is ready, she and Malte Borup will go on a state-sponsored vacation. I have three officers looking after them. Pauline Berg is one of the three, but that’s mainly to get her out of the way. There’s no point in her putting her career on the line. It’s enough that the rest of us are.”
Planck nodded, satisfied, and asked, “Do you think it’s a coincidence that Andreas ‘the Climber’ Linke-or whatever we’re calling him-has devoted his adult life to felling trees?”
“Is that what he does?”
“Yes, he attended a forestry school in Germany. Brugs-Katrine’s son met him once in Odense, where he said so.”
“I’m no psychologist.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Didn’t I approve your request to attend a course in criminality and the psyche? You should have learnt a thing or two in there, or was that money also wasted?”
Planck laughed excessively at his own joke and refused help in crossing the ditch that separated the woods from the path down to the village.
Simonsen did not smile.
Chapter 69
Stig Åge Thorsen was at Erik Mørk’s business location in Rødovre, south of Copenhagen, and he was getting more and more irritated. As arranged, he arrived almost three hours before the online broadcast was set to begin, but after a tedious tour among countless unfamiliar people whose names he very quickly stopped keeping track of, he was parked in a conference room, where the bombardment of information gave way to a period of long, passive waiting. The room was decorated with a trendy minimalism. His irritation grew.
An additional amount of time passed before his friend finally turned up. He had a plate with six sandwiches and looked stressed.
“Sorry, Stig Åge, I apologize for the wait, but something came up.”
Thorsen mumbled something incomprehensible and managed a thin, polite smile. Mørk sat down and helped himself to a sandwich. He did not look calm or collected.
“Maybe you just need to relax a little, Erik.”
Mørk loosened his tie and tried to follow this advice.
“You’re right, things are pretty hectic. I’ve never worked this hard. But have you been following the media these past couple of days?”
“If you mean her, that high-school girl-I thought she was utterly convincing; she almost made me cry.”
“She was helpful, no doubt about it, but I was actually thinking more about you. Everyone is looking forward to your interview. Five local TV channels are going to broadcast it live from their Web sites-if you can call that live-but with commentary from the studio, if you follow. That’s one of the things we’ve been working hard on the past couple of days.”
“What will happen after the interview?”
“After the interview?” Erik Mørk sounded surprised. “Well, there’s a demonstration outside the Christiansborg parliamentary building tomorrow and in selected places in the provinces. In the middle of your program we’ll put up a screen in the reader’s face along with our demands, our slogan as well as times and locations. That’s the whole point, of course. We’re making use of your media attention to kick start our mobilization of the public and securing maximal dissemination, which is what we want. So tomorrow we’ll follow up with a fullpage ad in all the big daily papers. Incidentally, with the high-school girl to catch people’s eye. I’ll show you a copy of the proofs in a bit and it’s really come out well, if I do say so myself.”
“Hold on, hold on, slow down for a minute. Our demands-”
But Mørk was hard to stop. Too little sleep and too much adrenaline had left its imprint of mania.
“We have been conducting massive election campaigns directed against close to one hundred members of parliament, so the parties are boiling, and my last political report says that there is now open discussion of a pedophile deal. Pressure from voters, Thor Gran’s beastliness, the violence, and not least this high school girl who blew through from cottage to castle, has laid the groundwork. By the way, do you know what half a USA is?”
“No idea, but I know that you go over there-”
“Sentences half as severe as the USA, which back home means a quantum leap forward. And our support on the Net has been completely fantastic. It takes less than-”
Stig Åge Thorsen slapped his hand onto the table. “Stop it, Erik. And listen up for a change.”
Mørk stopped. And listened.
“First up, what do you mean by ‘our demands’? As far as I’m concerned, we unanimously established our demands a couple of months ago. Don’t tell me you’ve changed them.”
“No, I’ve just systematized them a bit.”
“Go on.”
“They fall into three areas. Judicial, where we demand severer sentences and a stop to parental protections. Preventative, where we want more money set aside for county resources and training for all teachers and educators. And finally, if the damage is done, we want subsidized psychological assistance.”
Thorsen accepted this. It was in large strokes what they had agreed on.
“Slogan, what slogan?”
“Stop the violence, tighten the law. It is the only slogan until tomorrow and there won’t be a speech or any other activity. In fact, the idea is for people to stay there-in dignified silence-until the politicians produce a bill.”
“Good, now you suddenly sound normal again, that’s nice. All that’s left is for you to brief me on the interview, nice and slow.”
“We’ve brought in a media consultant. She will read the questions to you and you answer verbally and she’ll write to those who are online. That will be faster than if you type yourself. Those people who get through with questions will usually be allowed to ask one or two follow-up questions so that a small dialogue develops but you and she will decide how many and for how long. Everything works more or less as it would in a radio program. Apart from a certain filter.”
“That sounds simple enough.”
“It is simple, and you will of course decide yourself which questions to answer, but the consultant will help you as best she can and she’ll warn you if she thinks you’re getting off track.”
“Excellent.”
“I’ll be the only other person in the room but I won’t get involved. It’ll only be you and her who are directly involved and I’m there mainly as a kind of backup. Is there anything you’re wondering about?”
“No, that was very thorough.”
Erik Mørk smiled. “Should I go and get the proof for our ad?”
“Yes, please.”
He stood up and left. And Stig Åge Thorsen was left alone again.