‘So Jørgen Kramer Nielsen could already have been dead when he hit the stairs?’
‘Perhaps. But note that we’re basing this on our experience, and that’s not wholly scientific. Falling humans can react in all sorts of different ways, and this might be one of the more extreme examples we just haven’t seen before and for that reason are unable to recognise.’
‘In other words, you can’t come to any solid conclusion?’
Both men smiled broadly. Kurt Melsing was the one to answer:
‘Well, we might.’
‘Go on.’
‘Your intern’s helping us. And you, too, you could say.’
‘That needs explaining.’
Kurt Melsing clicked open an app and typed in some words before jabbing a finger towards the glass wall. Simonsen turned his head, and to his surprise saw Malte Borup stand up at the far end of the room and come towards them. Malte Borup was the Homicide Department’s intern. He was supposed to be on holiday at the moment, but apparently had chosen to spend it here.
Malte came in, and Melsing’s man addressed him.
‘If you’d like to open the programme and prepare to demonstrate, I’ll explain what it is you’re working on.’
He turned to Konrad Simonsen and began talking before the young intern had a chance to respond.
‘A couple of months ago we purchased some new software from the FBI. It’s called a Human Object Movement Simulator, a bit of a tongue-twister, but a highly sophisticated and complex tool that can simulate human reactions to various stimuli in an astonishingly precise manner. It’s the result of years of development work involving various branches of science, but first and foremost classical physics and physiology, and that’s exactly what we need in this situation.’
He paused, presumably to breathe in, and Konrad Simonsen took advantage of the lull.
‘But?’
‘Correct, there is a but, and it’s the time factor. The manual that comes with it runs to no less than eleven volumes, and we simply haven’t had the time or resources yet to immerse ourselves in it. I’m off to Washington to receive instruction in October, but that’s not much good to us at the moment in September. But then Malte offered to help, and I must say he’s come a long way in a very short time indeed.’
‘He’s a good lad.’
‘He certainly is. Now let’s see how far he’s got.’
Malte Borup had started up the software. A graphic depicting the staircase of Jørgen Kramer Nielsen’s house appeared on the screen. Borup clicked the mouse and a dummy-like figure materialised at the top of the stairs. Melsing’s man went on:
‘It might not look like much, but the room and the dummy are correctly dimensioned, which has taken a lot of time to set up. The software can now allow the man to fall from any conceivable position, with or without human reactions underway. Moreover, we can simulate different kinds of external resistance the body might encounter before and during the fall. Make him fall forwards down the stairs, Malte.’
Malte Borup was transfixed.
‘Er, I haven’t got through all the manuals yet.’
‘Never mind, all we want is the general impression.’
He clicked again, hesitantly this time. The dummy jumped into the air and smashed its head against the ceiling like a fly on speed.
‘Like I said, I haven’t got through all the manuals yet.’
Melsing wrapped things up:
‘Later, Simon. Come back later, we’ll give you a call.’
Later was a lot sooner than Simonsen had feared. Someone must have been putting in overtime. At any rate, three days later he was back at the Centre of Forensic Services and in his own car, the doctors finally having allowed him to drive again. Besides that, there was another little triumph that for the time being he was keeping to himself: he had run. Twenty metres, thirty perhaps, that same morning, between two cracked flagstones meticulously selected to be his starting and finishing lines, a brief and rather seamless change of pace during his walk. Slow and poorly co-ordinated, and yet unmistakably running. It had felt absolutely marvellous.
It was the forensic technician from the previous meeting who received him. Neither Malte Borup nor Kurt Melsing seemed to be around. Simonsen had been hoping for a clear-cut conclusion, which indeed was forthcoming, though not quite the way he had envisaged.
Melsing’s man laid it out for him.
‘We’ve tried endless variations, but the only thing we can make fit is this.’
He started up the software. The dummy’s point of departure was still the top of the stairs, only this time it wasn’t alone. Another dummy grabbed it from behind, crooking its arm around the first one’s neck and breaking it with a single twist. The effect was amazingly lifelike. The dead figure was then shoved backwards down the stairs, falling limply like a sack of potatoes. On its way down it scraped its hand in a brief slow-motion sequence before landing seven stairs down in the position familiar to Simonsen from Hans Ulrik Gormsen’s photos.
They watched the animation three times before Simonsen rather solemnly asked:
‘Are you absolutely certain about this?’
‘Ninety-nine per cent.’
‘Why not a hundred?’
‘In the version you’ve just seen, the victim receives a pretty hard shove down the stairs. What we don’t understand is why his assailant didn’t just let go if Kramer Nielsen was dead. But it doesn’t matter how we do this, the victim has to be lifeless, has to have had his neck broken first and has to fall backwards for us to get him to land in the position in the photos. As well as, like I said, to be given a good shove after the neck has been broken. Unfortunately, all these things can only come together if…’
He allowed his words to hang in the air, and Konrad Simonsen completed the sentence:
‘… if Jørgen Kramer Nielsen was murdered, outside his own door.’
CHAPTER 3
Jørgen Kramer Nielsen’s death was upgraded to a murder investigation. Konrad Simonsen informed the Deputy Commissioner who was less than over the moon though unable to do anything else but hope for a swift turnaround, even if she did have the sense not to say so out loud. Murder cases weren’t going to be solved any quicker by hurrying the head of investigation, that much had long since become plain to her. And yet Simonsen was tactless enough to suggest the opposite when he demanded from Arne Pedersen that he should allocate the necessary resources.
‘I need at least five detectives for three days, including the Countess or yourself. It’s imperative we establish some kind of insight into the victim’s life as soon as possible. Not necessarily in detail to begin with, just the bare bones. But Pauline and I can’t do that on our own, it’ll take far too long. And afterwards I want at least a couple of men at my disposal, as and when they’re needed.’
Arne Pedersen was sweating and looked flustered. Simonsen went on:
‘She’s got the Legal Affairs Committee breathing down her neck, but maybe I should ask her to call you instead of playing piggy in the middle.’
The reference to the Deputy Commissioner did the trick: Simonsen got what he was asking for.
Their intensified efforts paid off and a fuller picture of the murdered postman began to emerge.
Jørgen Kramer Nielsen had attended his local comprehensive, moving on to upper secondary at the Brøndbyøster Gymnasium, both schools situated in Hvidovre. Following his graduation from the gymnasium in the summer of 1969, he found employment at the post office on Julius Framlev Allé, now called simply Framlev Post Office, where his father was postmaster. In the spring of 1972, both his parents and his younger sister died in a plane crash in Mallorca. They were his only family. Kramer Nielsen inherited the family home, living there until the day he died. His life could only be described as quiet, seemingly solitary, and his workmates at the post office seemed barely to have known him.