Barely a week after starting back on the job after his illness, Konrad Simonsen finished up his report to the Deputy Commissioner on the death of Jørgen Kramer Nielsen. The unsurprising conclusion was that the postman’s demise was due to an unfortunate fall rather than any criminal act. Simonsen printed it out and read it through one last time, making a couple of minor corrections before printing it out again and taking it with him to his meeting with Arne Pedersen. Handing it over, he said:
‘It’s your shop for the moment, do you want to send this in?’
Pedersen didn’t.
‘No, thanks. The less I have to do with her, the better. Better you submit it personally.’
He was referring to the Deputy Commissioner. Simonsen frowned, but refrained from passing comment.
Shortly afterwards, the others who were taking part in the meeting arrived: four officers, among them the Countess, all involved in the school shooting. Arne Pedersen kicked off, the subject being Maja Nørgaard, and his briefing was mainly for Simonsen’s benefit.
‘As you know, we’re assuming Hertz’s motive for the killings was simple jealousy. It seems the lad had a crush on Maja Nørgaard, who he’d known ever since they were in kindergarten together. She was the reason he carried on in Year 11 instead of going straight on to upper secondary, which was easily within his capabilities. The lad wasn’t daft. He knew perfectly well he didn’t stand a chance with her, so he made do with admiring her from a distance, if we can call it that. But then when she fell into Tobias Juul’s clutches, as we’re strongly assuming she did, the lad flipped his lid, though it did take him a while to suss it out, piecing information together bit by bit. Then…’
And that was as far as Arne Pedersen got. Pauline Berg burst into the room and interrupted him. In her hand was a mobile phone, which she held out in front of Konrad Simonsen without bothering at all about the disgruntled looks she received from around the table.
‘It’s Jørgen Kramer Nielsen’s.’
Simonsen composed himself.
‘Can’t it wait, Pauline?’
She said nothing, but pressed a couple of keys until the display showed a photo of a young woman, blonde and smiling. She pressed again and a new image appeared. The same girl, standing in a living room, TV and chandelier visible behind her. She was naked, and this time she wasn’t smiling.
‘Maja Nørgaard?’ Simonsen exclaimed in surprise.
‘It was half question, half statement of fact. Pauline Berg confirmed:
‘On Kramer Nielsen’s mobile!’
It wasn’t the first time the Homicide Department had seen apparently unconnected cases intersecting; far from it. It happened once in a while. The phone went round the table and Pauline Berg filled them in.
‘These MMS photos were sent by Tobias Juul on the twenty-third of January this year with the accompanying text, Sunday 10 a.m. Nothing else. But I don’t know where they were taken.’
The Countess, however, did.
‘Tobias Juul’s living room, I recognise the chandelier. But where did Juul and Kramer Nielsen know each other from?’
Arne Pedersen smiled broadly.
‘I don’t know, but what I do know is that Maja Nørgaard is going to be very eager indeed for her mother not to see these photos. All I need is a word with her on my own, without the solicitor or the mother present. How are we going to do that, Countess? You know her habits.’
The Countess was in no doubt.
‘Friday between six and eight p.m. at the bar called the Goose’s Eye. It’s on Balle Allé, just opposite Enghave Station. She and her mates like to warm up there before going off clubbing in the city centre.’
Konrad Simonsen dropped his report discreetly into the wastepaper basket.
‘I’ll deal with her myself,’ he offered.
There were no protests.
The Goose’s Eye was a drinking establishment of the old-fashioned kind. A single room with a bar at one end and a row of flashing fruit machines at the other. The eight tables with accompanying chairs were of heavy, dark wood, and matched the room’s head-height mahogany panelling. There were beer mats on all the tables, the majority sporting burn marks from dropped cigarettes. An antique copper ventilation fan on its last legs rotated on the ceiling, and the music was low, lightweight Danish pop.
The place was half empty, populated mainly by men in their mid-fifties and upwards, apart from three teenage girls who occupied the rear table furthest from the bar, clearly uninterested in mingling with the rest of the clientele.
Konrad Simonsen slid rather inelegantly on to a bar stool and ordered a beer once the bartender had dragged himself momentarily away from the game of dice in which he was immersed with two somewhat worse for wear customers. Simonsen poured the contents of the bottle into his glass and took a cautious sip. If he was going to break with his regimen he certainly wasn’t going to do it here.
Shortly afterwards, there was a lull in the game and Simonsen waved the bartender over. He was a man in his forties with energetic movements and a friendly smile, attentive and sober-looking. Simonsen flashed his ID discreetly, then leaned over the counter.
‘Homicide Department,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I’m not interested in bothering you or your business. Certainly not if you co-operate.’
The bartender didn’t hesitate for a second.
‘I’m co-operating.’
Simonsen nodded towards the girls at the back of the room.
‘Not exactly your usual clientele.’
The bartender explained: the redhead’s uncle had a half share in the place, which meant drinks on the slate, and cheaper at that.
‘I’m going to go over to them in a second. When I do, can you make sure the two girls with their backs to us are shown the door?’ Simonsen asked.
‘Sure, if that’s what you want.’
‘I do, and I want them well out of the way, not hanging around outside.’
The bartender hesitated.
‘I reckon all of them are under age. Your licence could be in jeopardy…’
Simonsen left the words hanging in the air, and the bartender capitulated with a smile.
‘Well, out of the way it is, then.’
Understandably, the girls kicked up a fuss when Simonsen sat down on the spare chair at their table. Ignoring the insults they hurled at him, he studied Maja Nørgaard in silence and was glad she was seated against the wall. If she wanted to get out, she would have to crawl under the table. The rest of the customers watched what was going on, while the bartender kept his word and with a minimum of drama ushered the girl’s two friends out on to the street and into a taxi.
Maja Nørgaard spoke first:
‘Are you police?’
She was quick on the uptake. Simonsen showed her his ID.
‘I’m only going to talk to you if my solicitor’s with me.’
Jørgen Kramer Nielsen’s mobile was ready in his inside pocket, all he had to do was press a single key to activate the display. He did so, pushed the phone across the table and waited. A moment passed before she hissed at him:
‘Have you been slobbering over a picture of me, you old creep? How about getting a life instead?’
‘You can go if you want, Maja. But I don’t think your mum’s going to be very pleased once she gets to know there’s a photograph of you naked doing the rounds, to whet the appetites of old… creeps.’
‘You dare!’
Simonsen kept his cool.
‘I might. And then again, I might not. It’s entirely up to you.’
He could tell she’d already caved in, she just didn’t realise it herself yet. Her hand was shaking as she took a gulp of her Breezer, Smirnoff Red Ice. He gestured to the bartender, who came to the table immediately.
‘We’d like to swap these for a Coke and a mineral water.’
He indicated their glasses, and the bartender removed them. Maja Nørgaard didn’t protest, but said in a feeble voice: