“Did that put him off?”
“Not in the least. Within a short time he was sneaking around again. Not that he was doing anything illegal, but no one thought it was particularly funny. And besides, we feared that next time her father would really let him have it and then we would have an assault case to deal with.
“I saw what it was like for her myself, close up. One day Rikke decided to get her hair cut short, and the guy who was pestering her just couldn’t handle that. He ran completely amok in the salon and made a scene, begging and pleading and crying. Naturally the salon owner called us, and I was the one who was sent out.”
“So you overpowered him?”
“I didn’t have to use force exactly. He was more like an out of control child, but I dragged him away and along to the station. He reacted hysterically, howling and calling Rikke terrible things. It was obvious that he was out of his mind, so we locked him up overnight and served him an injunction against approaching the salon or Rikke again, but then we had to let him go.”
“Was he questioned about the attack on the shore?”
“Not so far as I recall.”
“And all of this was about Rikke Barbara Hvidt having her hair cut short?”
“Yes, and all right, she did have beautiful hair, but it was none of his business whether she kept it long or not.”
“Do you think she had her hair cut on purpose?”
Hans Svendsen furrowed his brow and shook his head good-naturedly.
“What kind of question is that? People always get their hair cut on purpose.”
“Yes, obviously. I mean, did she get her hair cut because she had been attacked by him? Was there any connection?”
“Not to my knowledge, but you’ll have to ask her about that yourself.”
“I will. What about afterwards, when you released him?”
“Yes, it was strange, because the same day he checked out of his room and went home, or more exactly left Hundested—where he went, I don’t know.”
“So he was no longer interested in the girl, once she was short-haired?”
“It seemed that way.”
Arne Pedersen summarised.
“Rikke Barbara Hvidt pointed out much later, more exactly in 1997, that in her opinion there were similarities between the attack she herself had been subjected to on the shore at Kikkehavn and the murder of Catherine Thomsen in Stevns?”
“Correct, apart from the fact that it’s called Kikhavn. Yes, the Stevns case was played up in the newspapers in the same way as today, and what she read about Catherine Thomsen’s fate made her remember what she had gone through herself. I contacted Planck, but a couple of days later Catherine’s father was arrested and charged, and I never heard anything from the inquiry team. But someone must have made a note because otherwise you would not have contacted me today.”
Pedersen was surprised.
“I thought it was you who contacted Simon.”
“No, it was one of your students who got in touch with me originally. Apparently they found a cross-reference. Tell me, don’t you talk to each other in Copenhagen? Or perhaps that’s out of style in the capital?”
The man had a point, thought Pedersen.
“As a rule we do, but I must have misunderstood something in this case. So didn’t it surprise you that the woman was never questioned?”
“No, because by that time everyone thought the perpetrator was the Stevns girl’s father, mainly because his fingerprints were on the plastic bag. It seemed pretty obvious. How do you explain that, by the way? The fingerprints, I mean.”
“We think that the perpetrator tricked Catherine’s father into carrying something around with a protective plastic bag around it during a move. A fragile vase, for example. Or maybe one of those busts on plinths that people sometimes have. But that’s still just speculation. Tell me, do you have anything against looking at a couple of pictures and telling me whether you think they resemble Rikke Barbara Hvidt, as she looked in 1977?”
“Not in the least, but I wonder if she herself has a picture from back then, so you can just compare your photographs with that. It will probably be easier because there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then.”
“I would really like your assessment to start with, if—”
Pedersen was interrupted by a hollow, howling sound that resounded twice over the harbour. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked tensely out over the basin, where the ferry from R?rvig was about to make close contact with a pleasure boat. Hans Svendsen got up.
“Look at those idiots, what are they thinking? A ferry like that can’t just change course in an instant. So much for getting out of the way, mate . . . no, it looks like he’ll manage it. Sometimes people are just too stupid. He has children on board too.”
He sat down heavily.