Alone in the office Simonsen allowed himself five minutes in which as coolly as possible he prioritised his time. When Troulsen and Pedersen had told him of Pauline Berg’s fate, he had briefly lost control of his bladder, and the underside of one trouser leg was wet. After his trance, where he sat like a sphinx behind his desk with only his brain working, he grabbed the phone and called the Countess, who was in Helsing?r. Without beating around the bush he reported the situation and ordered her back to Police Headquarters.
As soon as he hung up, he had his worst sweating attack ever, this time combined with a galloping heart rate. He tried to ignore his body and concentrate on his work. It was not successful. Anxiety was weighing him down. He took off his shirt and with difficulty yanked his undershirt off over his head. It was soaked through, as if it had been in the washing machine. He counted to ten a couple of times slowly, recited the days of the week, then the months of the year, and counted again. Over the course of a few minutes he began to feel more like himself.
At the back of his desk drawer he found a bottle of cognac, took a substantial gulp and put the bottle back in place, after which he lit a cigarette. Not until he had finished that did he feel more or less on top of things again. Then he took out a spare set of clothes he always kept packed and ready, and changed everything he had on.
Shortly after his indisposition Anna Mia called. He faked a bad connection, hung up and ignored her next two calls as he counted himself lucky that at least a thousand kilometres separated her from Andreas Falkenborg. Then he thought about Jeanette Hvidt and Pauline Berg and promised himself not to die before he found them. The irony of this allowed him to ignore his physical discomfort, although for the first time ever it was crystal clear to him that his physical resources were failing—he was not in good shape.
Forty-five minutes later the Countess was back at Police Headquarters. She went directly to Konrad Simonsen’s office. He had just concluded his instructions to a handful of officers who had each been given separate assignments. The Countess noticed that only a few of them greeted her on their way out, and several avoided meeting her eyes, as if she were taboo. Simonsen called after them, “And remember that he should only be shadowed, not arrested. Make sure that order reaches everyone. Everyone has to know: shadowed only!”
The men confirmed this wearily. The Countess thought that this was probably at least the third time they’d had that order repeated to them. When they were alone, she asked, “Anything new?”
“No, nothing. We’re getting a lot of calls about his car. False alarms until now, but it’s only a matter of time, I hope.”
He looked deep into her eyes, like a racing cyclist sizing up a competitor on a mountain leg. She met his gaze without hesitation, well aware that she was being checked over. After what seemed to her like an eternity, he said, “You’re ready, I can see.”
She sensed a touch of reproof in his tone of voice, but decided to ignore it. He said, “Arne is losing his mind, but doesn’t want to hear about being anywhere but here. I pissed in my pants like a child when I got the news, and you . . . you’re just ready.”
The Countess’s voice was distant but informative. “I’ve been here before, Simon. The rest of you haven’t. Many years ago I had a son. I don’t any more. Nothing is worse than that. But I don’t want to talk about it. Not with you, not with anyone, ever. So tell me what I should do now.”
He registered her words, but could not make sense of them. That required time, time he didn’t have. He gave her orders and thought that he should have done so to begin with.
“Arne is, as I mentioned, incapacitated, and I don’t have the energy to deal with him. He’s your responsibility now. Make sure someone keeps an eye on him, if you can’t get him to go home, but keep him away from me. And above all, have his pistol confiscated. I don’t care how, just see that it’s removed. The last thing I need is a loose cannon on deck. He has highest priority, do you hear me?”
“Yes, where is he now?”
“I don’t know, figure that out yourself.”
“How is Ernesto doing? Is he incapacitated too?”
“No, strangely enough. I think he took some pills, but so long as it doesn’t affect his thinking, I couldn’t care less. We can use him now. Do you have the personal item from Jeanette Hvidt that I asked you to bring?”
The Countess produced a silk scarf from her bag. It was in shades of blue mixed with gold thread. Simonsen said, “That looks expensive.”
“Louis Vuitton, about fifteen hundred kroner, if I remember correctly.”
“Couldn’t you have chosen something more everyday?”
The Countess explained quietly, “It was her uncle who chose it for me. She got it as a present for her eighteenth birthday and likes it very much.”
“Okay, excellent. Then you’ll find something correspondingly personal that belongs to Pauline. Try her office first, break open her hiding places if they’re locked. If that doesn’t work, drive to her house. Poul and a lot of others are up there, you can ignore them. Then go to H?je Taastrup, she’s waiting for you. On the way back you’ll pick up some clothes for us both, or else get someone else to do it. We can’t count on going home until this is over.”
“Yes, sir.”