“My husband had a factory that manufactured sophisticated linings for nuclear reactors. We had just moved here from Køge when he died.”
“Yes, I remember reading about it. I’m very sorry.” Carl pointed to the two low buildings in front of them. “Was that where the manufacturing was supposed to be done?”
“Yes, there and in the large hall.” She pointed as she spoke. “The welding shop was there, the pressure testing facility there, and the full assembly was going to take place in the hall. The building I live in was supposed to store the finished containments.”
“Why don’t you live in the house? It seems like a nice one,” Carl said as he noticed a row of grayish-black buckets in front of one of the buildings that didn’t fit with the rest of the landscape. Maybe they’d been left there by the previous owner. In places like this, time often moved at a snail’s pace.
“Oh, I don’t know. There are so many things in that house that are from bygone times. And then there’s the doorsills; I can’t deal with them anymore.” She thumped the armrest of her wheelchair.
Carl noticed that Assad was trying to pull him aside. “Our car is over there, Assad,” he said, nodding in the opposite direction.
“I would just rather go through the hedge there and up to the road,” said Assad, but Carl saw his attention was fixed on the piles of junk that were heaped on top of an abandoned concrete foundation.
“All that rubbish was already here when we arrived,” said the woman apologetically, as if half a container of scrap metal could mar the property’s overall dismal impression.
It was nothing but random garbage. On top of the rubbish heap were more of the grayish-black tubs. There were no labels on them, but they looked as if they might once have contained oil or some sort of foodstuffs in large quantities.
Carl would have stopped Assad if he’d known what his assistant had in mind, but before he could react, Assad had already leaped over some metal rods, jumbled piles of ropes, and plastic tubing.
“I have to apologize for my partner. He’s an incorrigible junk collector. What did you find, Assad?” Carl called out.
But Assad wasn’t interested in playing his role at the moment. He was hunting for something. He kicked at the junk, turning it over until he finally stuck his hand in and with some effort pulled out a thin sheet of metal, which turned out to be a sign that was about twenty inches high and at least twelve feet long. He turned it over. It said: “InterLab A/S.”
Assad looked up at Carl, who nodded in appreciation. It was a hell of a find. InterLab A/S was Daniel Hale’s big laboratory, which had now moved to Slangerup. So there was a direct link between the family and Daniel Hale.
“Your husband’s company wasn’t called InterLab, was it, Mrs. Jensen?” asked Carl, smiling at her tightly pressed lips.
“No. That’s the company that sold us the property and a couple of the buildings.”
“My brother works at Novo. I seem to remember him mentioning that company.” Carl silently sent an apology to his older brother, who at the moment was probably feeding mink up at the mink farm in Frederikshavn. “InterLab. Didn’t they make enzymes, or something like that?”
“It was a testing laboratory.”
“Hale. Wasn’t that his name? Daniel Hale?”
“Yes, the man who sold this place to my husband was named Hale. But not Daniel Hale. He was just a boy back then. The family moved InterLab north, to a different location, and after the old man died, they moved it again. But this is where it started.” She gestured toward the scrap pile. InterLab had certainly made a success of itself if this was how it began.
Carl studied the woman closely as she talked. She seemed to be completely closed off, and yet right now the words were pouring out of her. She didn’t seem agitated; on the contrary. She seemed totally poised, all of her nerve endings tautly woven. She was trying to appear normal, and that was precisely what seemed so abnormal.
“Wasn’t he the man who was killed not far from here?” Assad suddenly asked.
This time Carl could have kicked him in the shin. They would have to have a talk about these sorts of candid remarks when they got back to the office.
He turned to look at the buildings. They exuded more than the story of a ruined family. The gray-on-gray facades also had other nuances. It was as if the buildings were speaking to him. The acid in his stomach churned even worse when he looked at them.
“Was Hale killed? I don’t remember that.” Carl flashed a warning glance at Assad and turned back to the woman.
“I’d really like to see where InterLab started out. It’d be fun to tell my brother about it. He has talked so often about launching his own business. Do you think we could have a look at the other buildings? Unofficially, of course.”
She gave him a much-too-friendly smile, which meant she was feeling just the opposite. She didn’t want him here any longer. He should just pack up and leave.
“Oh, I’d be happy to show you, but my son has locked everything up, so I’m not able to let you in. But when you talk to him, you can ask him to show you around. And bring your brother too.”
Assad didn’t say a word as they drove past the building with the crash marks on the wall where Daniel Hale had lost his life.
“There was something really off about that place,” said Carl. “We need to go back with a search warrant.”
But Assad wasn’t listening. He just sat and stared into space as they reached Ishøj with its looming concrete high-rises. He didn’t even react when Carl’s cell phone rang after he’d switched it back on.
“Yeah,” Carl said, expecting to hear a sharp torrent of words from Vigga. He knew why she was calling. Something had gone wrong again. The reception had been moved to today. That damn reception. He could really do without a handful of soggy chips and a glass of cheap supermarket wine, not to mention that misbegotten soul she’d chosen to join forces with.
“It’s me,” said the voice on the line. “Helle Andersen from Stevns.”
Carl shifted down to a lower gear as he ratcheted up his attention.
“Uffe is here. I’m at Merete’s old house, making a home visit, and a few minutes ago a cab brought him here from Klippinge. The driver had driven for Merete and Uffe before, so he recognized Uffe when he saw him poking around in the ditch on the side of the motorway near the exit to Lellinge. He’s completely exhausted. He’s sitting here in the kitchen, drinking one glass of water after another. What should I do?”
Carl looked at the traffic lights. A breeze of excitement stirred inside him. It was tempting to make a U-turn and floor the accelerator.
“Is he OK?” asked Carl.
She sounded a little worried, displaying less of her country-gal cheerfulness than normal. “I don’t really know. He’s filthy and looks like something that’s been dragged through the gutter. Uffe’s not quite himself.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s sitting here brooding. He keeps looking around the kitchen, as if he doesn’t recognize it.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” In his mind Carl pictured the antique dealers’ copper pans covering the walls from floor to ceiling. The rows of crystal bowls, the pastel-colored wallpaper with the exotic fruit print. Of course Uffe wouldn’t recognize the place.
“I don’t mean the way it’s furnished. I can’t explain it. He seems scared to be here, but he won’t get into the car with me.”
“Where were you planning to take him?”
“To the police station. I’m not going to let him run away again. But he refuses to go with me. Even when the antique dealer asked him nicely.”
“Has he said anything? Made any sort of sound?”
Carl could tell that she was shaking her head. “No, no sounds. But he’s trembling. That’s what my oldest son used to do when he couldn’t have what he wanted. I remember once at the supermarket—”
“Helle, you need to call Egely. Uffe has been missing for five days now. They need to know that he’s OK.” He looked up the number for her. It was the only right thing to do. It would be a bad idea for him to get involved. The tabloids would be rubbing their ink-smeared hands with glee.
Now the small, low buildings began to appear along the old Køge highway. An ice cream stand from the old days. A former electrician’s shop that now housed a couple of buxom girls that the vice squad had had a lot of trouble with.
Carl glanced at Assad and considered whistling to see if there was still life in him. It wasn’t unheard of for people to die in the middle of a sentence, with their eyes wide open.
“Anybody home, Assad?” he asked, not expecting an answer.
Carl reached across him to open the glove compartment and take out a semiflattened packet of Lucky Strikes.
“Carl, would you mind not smoking? It makes the car stink,” said Assad, sounding surprisingly alert.
If a little smoke was going to bother him, he could walk home.
“Stop over there,” Assad went on. Maybe he’d had the same idea.
Carl shut the glove compartment and found a space to pull over near one of the side roads leading down to the beach.
“This is all wrong, Carl.” Assad turned to look at him, his eyes dark. “I have thought about what we saw out there. It was all wrong everywhere.”
Carl nodded slowly. There was no fooling this guy.
“There were four televisions inside the old woman’s house.”
“Really? I only saw one.”
“There were three next to each other, not very big, over by the end of her bed. They were sort of covered up, but I could see the light from them.”
He must have eyes like an eagle paired with an owl, thought Carl. “Three TVs that were on, covered by a blanket? Could you really see it from that distance, Assad? It was almost pitch dark in there.”
“They were there then, all the way down by the edge of the bed, up against the wall. Not very big. Almost like some kind of. .” He was searching for the word. “Some kind of. .”
“Monitors?”
Assad nodded. “And you know what, Carl? I have been realizing more and more in my head. There were three or four monitors. You could see a weak gray or green light through the blanket. What were they there for? Why were they on? And why were they covered up, like we must not see them?”
Carl looked at the road where trucks were rumbling their way toward town. Those were good questions.
“And now one more thing then, Carl.”
Now it was Carl who wasn’t really paying attention. He drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel. If they drove back to police headquarters and went through all the proper procedures, it would be at least two hours before they could be back down there.
Then his cell phone rang again. If it was Vigga, he’d just hang up. Why did she think he was at her disposal night and day?
But it was Lis. “Marcus Jacobsen wants to see you in his office, Carl. Where are you?”
“He’ll have to wait, Lis. I’m on my way to do a search. Is it about the newspaper article?”
“I’m not really sure, but it might be. You know how he is. He gets awfully quiet whenever anybody writes something bad about us.”
“Then tell him that Uffe Lynggaard has been found, and he’s fine. And tell him that we’re working on the case.”
“Which case?”
“The one that will make those damned newspapers write something positive about me and the department for a change.”
Then he swung the car into a U-turn, and considered switching on the flashing blue lights.
“What were you about to say to me before, Assad?”
“About the cigarettes.”
“What do you mean?”
“How long have you smoked the same brand, Carl?”
He frowned. How long had Lucky Strikes existed?
“People do not just change their brands like that, right? And she had ten packs of Prince on the table, Carl. Brand new, unopened packs. And she had such completely yellow fingers. But her son did not.”
“What are you getting at?”
“She smoked Prince with filter tips, and her son didn’t smoke. I am pretty sure.”
“So?”
“Why were there then no filters on the cigarettes that were lying almost on top in the ashtray?”
That’s when Carl turned on the siren and blue lights.
37. The same day
The work took time because
the floor was smooth and she didn’t want the steady jolting of her upper body to arouse the suspicions of the people out there who were monitoring her on their screens.
She’d been sitting on the floor in the middle of the room for most of the night with her back to the cameras, sharpening the long piece of plastic stiffener that she’d twisted until she broke it in half the day before. No matter how ironic it might seem, this stiffener from the hood of her jacket was going to be her ticket out of this world.
She put the two pieces on her lap and ran her fingers over them. One would soon have a point like an awl; the other she’d already shaped into a nail file with a knife-sharp edge. That was probably the one she would use when the time came. She was afraid the pointed piece wouldn’t make a big enough hole in her artery, and if it didn’t happen fast, the blood on the floor would give her away. Not for a moment did she doubt that they’d drop the pressure in the room the second they discovered what she was up to. So her suicide had to be done efficiently and quickly.
She didn’t want to die the other way.
When she heard the voices in the loudspeakers from somewhere out in the hall, she stuck the stiffeners in her jacket pocket and hunched over, as if she had dozed off in that position. When she sat like that, Lasse often yelled at her, and she’d refuse to respond, so it was nothing unusual.
She sat there with her legs crossed, staring at the long shadow cast by her body from the floodlights. Up there on the wall was her true self. A sharply delineated silhouette of a human being sinking into decay. Wisps of hair hanging to her shoulders, a worn-out jacket wrapped around nothing. A remnant from the past that would soon disappear when the light was put out. Today was April 4, 2007. She had forty-one days left to live, but she planned to kill herself five days early, on May 10th. On that day Uffe would turn thirty-four, and she would think about him and send him thoughts of love and tenderness and about how beautiful life could be, as she slit her wrists. His shining face would be the last thing she saw. Uffe, her beloved brother.