Simonsen bent down to investigate one final box. Apparently it was full of books, rather more in number than a removal man’s back ought to be burdened with according to the health and safety rules, but since the firm had packed the boxes themselves, that would be their own lookout. He lugged the box on to the table, opened it and froze.
‘How stupid we are.’
Arne Pedersen looked up.
‘What?’
‘What’s usually inside a camera?’
They found the Leica again and could see it had taken four pictures.
‘If it’s going to take Forensics a fortnight to get these developed, I’d prefer to go to our friend Photo-Mate with it,’ Simonsen said.
Arne Pedersen promised to see what he could do.
Detective Superintendent Konrad Simonsen made his debut as a cannabis user one Tuesday afternoon on a lawn in Søllerød, and the experiment was hardly an unequivocal success. He had been expecting more from it and was rather disappointed. The Countess’s three hash cakes, whose origins she steadfastly refused to divulge to him, tasted of nothing in particular and failed dismally to kick in. The Countess herself did not wish to take part in the festivities and so he had sat down in the garden to await getting stoned, albeit with a sneaking suspicion that the cakes had never been anywhere near cannabis and were instead the result of wholly lawful and quite unextraordinary activities at the local bakery. He felt this was borne out by the astounding speed with which his partner had produced them.
After a while he began to grumble. He would go to the baker’s, he declared, and ask them why there was no cannabis in their muffins. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes, he would tell them. To their faces, right there in the shop. He imagined the assistant’s reaction and giggled. Or perhaps he might simply say, Muffins! Loudly and with authority. Muffins! Muffins! And allow her to infer the rest. What’s more, he’d caught them selling yesterday’s papers. He would bring one home so the Countess could see for herself. He laughed and laughed again until he was compelled to wipe the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. The other customers would be on his side. Yesterday’s news, the cheek of it! Am I right, or am I right? Hands up!
His convulsions of merriment forced him to lie back, flat out on the grass, and after a bit he settled into a more mellow mood, gazing up at the Countess’s shrubbery, whose plants from such an unfamiliar angle seemed toweringly tall, adorned with a pretty, synthetic sheen of yellow and green cellophane. A bit later the lawn began to ripple pleasantly beneath him and he imagined himself to be in a canoe, lazily drifting downstream on some exotic river. The fuchsias in the background became tangerine trees on the banks, and when he put his tongue out, the gentle breeze that wafted across the waters tasted of the sweetest marmalade.
Nothing more was forthcoming. He had hoped for a girl in the sky with diamonds, had even felt entitled to her, but she never materialised. Instead he fell asleep.
There was a change in the weather, an area of low pressure from the east, and temperatures in Copenhagen became bearable again. The first leaves yellowed on the trees and windcheaters began to appear. In the Homicide Department, Konrad Simonsen finally discovered what it was Jørgen Kramer Nielsen had photographed. The film in the postman’s camera had been developed, and he and Pauline Berg showed the results to Arne Pedersen, who took his time considering the first of the four prints in order to seem interested. It was a nice picture, albeit rather dull. A low sun above a spectacular landscape of rugged rocks, its rays reflected in the leaden waters of a fjord. Daytime, frozen for all eternity. Arne Pedersen glanced at the three others, whose theme was the same, albeit with different subjects. He checked the time at the corner of his computer screen, before trying to find something appropriate to say.
‘I think I saw something like that the other day. In the… aren’t they from…’
‘One of the illustrated nature books Kramer Nielsen had taken out on Norway. They’re still among his effects out in Express Move’s storage facility, gathering dust and a hefty fine.’
‘Pictures of Lofoten?’
‘Couldn’t be more wrong. Lofoten in Pictures.’
‘So he took photos of photos?’
‘Exactly, and very expertly, too.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘For his loft, I think.’
Arne Pedersen’s expression suggested he thought there had to be more of an explanation than that. Pauline Berg, sounding surprisingly friendly, explained:
‘He combined the images with photos of the dead girl and made posters out of them for the loft. He must have some negatives of her somewhere, we just haven’t come across them yet.’
Simonsen looked at Pauline in astonishment.
‘What makes you say she’s dead?’
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Or is it just me?’
Arne Pedersen said nothing. Simonsen, on the other hand, discovered to his surprise that he agreed with her.
CHAPTER 4
The first time they slept together was predictable, and cautiously investigative.
Afterwards, neither of them felt the urge to talk about what words could so easily damage, and besides there was little to add.
The Countess sat up in bed and bundled a pillow behind her back. Spontaneously, she pulled the duvet up over her breasts, then ran her fingers through her hair a few times by way of rearrangement.
It was Sunday and already mid-morning.
Simonsen felt a craving for a cigarette, more so than for a long time. A walk would be a good substitute, or rather a run as he was justified in calling it since he now jogged at least a third of his route. Sleep was a second alternative, if hardly realistic. He wondered if from today he would be sleeping where he now lay, in the Countess’s bed, rather than in his own upstairs. Perhaps she even expected him to. He realised that telling her he actually preferred to sleep in his own would not be easy. It didn’t occur to him that she might feel the same way. He removed his hand, that had been resting on her knee. It was sticky and warm, and he wiped it discreetly on the duvet without her noticing. Then he folded his hands behind his head, looked up into her face and asked:
‘Have you ever been deployed to a demonstration?’
‘A violent one, you mean? I’ve been called out to peaceful ones lots of times.’
‘Yes, a violent one. A big one, the kind that gets out of hand, so eventually you can’t think about anything but your own safety.’
‘No, not really. They used to keep female officers well out of that sort of thing when I was young. Not that anyone ever said as much. Besides, all the big demos were before my time, the ones that really gathered the crowds. You must have seen your share, though?’
She was right.
When he was a young constable back in the late sixties and early seventies, there had been protests all the time. Or that’s how he remembered it, anyway. Demos for better wages and working conditions, equal rights for women. Demos against nuclear power one day, and ballistic missiles or Denmark’s Common Market membership the next. Not to mention the student demos targeting whoever happened to be Minister of Education at the time, regardless of which party he belonged to and what policies he was implementing. Or she, of course – as if it made any difference. Then there were the protests in support of everything under the sun: anti-apartheid in South Africa, the Palestinian cause, the oppressed masses of Central America, Copenhagen’s free town of Christiania, and probably a whole lot more besides that he had since forgotten. It had not been uncommon for a Copenhagen demo to attract upwards of 50,000 people, mainly young. It was a hallmark of the times and the phenomenon was by no means confined to Denmark. Throughout the Western world the picture had been the same, and often a lot worse, with protesters or police officers killed in the fray. The Deutsche Oper in West Berlin in 1967, the May 1968 protests in Paris, Kent State University, Ohio, 1970.