“I’m hearing that you don’t expect we’ll get any further with her.”
“It’s hard. The witnesses we’ve managed to trace are not the sort to go talking to the police. What they have to say is extremely limited . . . basically nothing.”
Troulsen commented, “Actually it’s a paradox: one form of criminality shouldn’t overshadow the other, if I may say so. I mean, narcotics circles have just as much interest in getting serial killers behind bars as ordinary law-abiding citizens.”
Simonsen said, “In theory you’re right, but they don’t think that way. Or very rarely in any—”
Pedersen jumped up from his chair.
“Say what you said again, Poul. Right away, it’s important.”
“The thing about the narcotics smugglers?”
“Yes, damn it, what was it you said?”
“That they ought to be just as interested that we catch serial murderers as anyone else, and that it’s a paradox they aren’t.”
“No, not that, the other thing you said.”
Simonsen recited calmly, “Actually it is a paradox: one form of criminality shouldn’t overshadow the other, if I may say so. I mean—”
He got no further.
“Yes, that was what she said! Exactly that.”
“Who said, Arne?”
“The new teacher at the parents’ evening. She said that she always spoke softly to the children, because she did not believe that too much noise should be drowned out with even more noise. Now it also has a logical sense, yes, obviously—what an idiot I’ve been! If we have the transcript of the questioning of Andreas Falkenborg you’ll see it. Yes, and the conversation in the car between Poul and him, that’s the same.”
Both of his listeners gave up trying to make immediate sense of his outburst. Simonsen found the printouts. Pedersen browsed eagerly, almost feverishly, through them after which he read out loud to them.
“This is from the interview. Simon, you are asking him about Annie Lindberg Hansson.
K.S.: She resembled the other women to a T.
A.F.: So it must be me. Yes, I would think that.
K.S.: Where did you bury her?
A.F.: I didn’t.
And this is from the car. Poul, you are also pressuring him in relation to Annie Lindberg Hansson.
P.T.: . . . so it’s Annie now—where did you bury her?”
A.F.: But I haven’t done that.
P.T.: Why drag this out?
A.F.: But it’s the truth, I haven’t done that.
Stop right there, can’t you see it?”
They could. It was Troulsen who answered.
“You mean the pig?”
“It was a gigantic sow that stank for months, while it rotted. That is, rotted outside on the tree. Now you haven’t seen it, of course, but I have, it’s an old poplar, and I would bet that at the same time the pig rotted, Annie Lindberg Hansson was sitting inside the tree. The poplar resembles an upturned, giant-sized shaving brush. The trunk must be a metre-and-a-half wide and no more than four metres up to the thin branches that stretch out in all directions. When I was a kid, there was a poplar like that on waste ground near us, and it was hollow, rotten from above and down inside, but outside the tree seemed healthy enough and put out leaves and branches every year. We kids climbed up and squeezed through the branches so we could lower ourselves down into the hollow trunk with a rope, almost all the way to the ground. I’m damned certain—she’s in there.”
Simonsen held his men back. Both of his subordinates were full of enthusiasm and wanted to go to Pr?st? immediately. It was extremely tempting, but the trip was postponed until the next day, and the chief was unyielding.
“No, I don’t want any more surprises in court. This time it will go precisely by the book. We will arrange the legalities today and get permission to cut down that poplar tree, if we have the slightest suspicion. But in that case it will be the technicians who do the job. You’d better find a good corpse dog for early tomorrow morning!”
Troulsen tried one last time.
“But we could at least go down and look, we can easily do that.”
“Tomorrow, Poul, tomorrow.”
Both men should have known their boss better and realised that it was pointless to pressure him. They tried anyway. At last however they accepted the postponement. Pedersen asked searchingly, “Can’t we take Pauline along? She and I have been there before.”
“Fine by me, but she’s sick, she called last night. Said we shouldn’t count on seeing her until at least the middle of the week. A summer flu, she said.”
“Oh, good Lord—yes, there’s a lot of that in this heat. What about Falkenborg? How much surveillance do you have on him?”