“Was it the commercial vehicle?”
“We found tyre tracks, they are also being examined, but an initial assessment from the technicians confirms that. You’ll be getting some complaints from them about me, I assume.”
Simonsen’s hand gesture clearly showed how much he cared about that kind of thing at the moment. He said, “What about the cat?”
“It was killed alongside her car, neck broken, then wrapped in plastic from Pauline’s kitchen. Just the head that is. Maybe that was to scare her.”
“While she watched?”
“We don’t think so, but it’s unclear. Maybe it was lying somewhere so she got a shock when she saw it.”
“Her car keys?”
“In the ignition.”
“And the extra keys?”
“Damn it, that was a mistake. I didn’t look for them.”
“Presumably that means nothing. Do we know positively that she was alive when she was carried through the forest?”
“No, but there’s a high probability of it.”
“Explain why.”
“Because we found a roll of duct tape—that’s his favourite tool—dropped by the side of her car.”
“You don’t tie up a corpse, and you don’t sedate a woman to kill her immediately afterwards, when you could just as well do it right away. Is that what the arguments are?”
“Yes, and I don’t think that’s wishful thinking.”
“Hardly. Do you have anything else?”
“I found a receipt for a pair of brown contact lenses corresponding to what the idiot from before told us about Pauline’s eye colour.”
“It doesn’t sound very interesting.”
“Yes, it is, because I couldn’t find the lenses.”
“You mean, she had them in?”
“No, the whole case was gone. It wasn’t in the waste basket either. I think Falkenborg took them. I’m terribly sorry to say that but it’s what I think.”
Simonsen said heavily, “She’s going to have them on when he kills her?”
“Yes, that’s the way it is. That’s what he’s going to do, Simon—kill both of them.”
CHAPTER 47
The anaesthetic had given her a headache, a condition that was seriously worsened by the infernal din that blasted at regular intervals and threatened to burst her eardrums. She could not see, and only gradually was she aware of her own situation. She noticed a rag in her mouth and a strip of tape around her neck holding the rag in place and pinching her cheeks when she moved her head, which was hard to avoid, every time another wave of noise hit her. Her face was covered with cloth that felt like the synthetic silk lining of a coat, but the covering was carelessly executed, because if she lowered her head and looked down she could see light below her and a small section of concrete floor. White, dry dust penetrated through the opening, several times causing coughing fits that threatened to choke her, because the rag in her mouth prevented normal breathing. The particles came in cascades in tempo with the noise, and she quickly learned to hold her breath when it was at its worst. The powerful stimuli from absent vision, maddening noise and intolerable white dust meant that she only belatedly showed an interest in her body. She was sitting on a chair whose legs did not move a millimetre when she tried to wriggle it. Her wrists were also linked to the armrests with cuffs on each side.