Simonsen interrupted.
“Stop this nonsense, Arne. If it makes you happy, of course I can keep Pauline away from him. Now let’s get you home!”
But Pedersen did not stop. Suddenly it poured out of him. About Pauline, thrashing around when the oxygen in the bag was used up. About her clown-like red lips, stuck to the plastic. And about evil Pharaoh eyes that delighted in witnessing her death struggle.
When it finally dawned on Pedersen that his wish to separate her from Andreas Falkenborg was actually granted, he collapsed like a punctured balloon. Simonsen decided to drive him home himself.
In the car Pedersen fell asleep.
CHAPTER 22
Retired crane operator Olav Petersen killed his wife at the age of eighty-six by striking her repeatedly on the head with a pipe wrench. The murder happened in the winter of 1962 in Vesterbro in Copenhagen and was quickly cleared up. According to the killer, the victim had tormented him for most of his life, and he could not bear the thought of dying before her. At the time of the murder the old man was terminally ill, and he passed away peacefully two weeks later at Copenhagen Municipal Hospital. He was never brought to trial. In many ways Olav Petersen had committed the perfect murder.
The case folder concerning the murder was both comprehensive and thin. In any event, immediately after his death the case was closed. But as the years passed, the file grew, and in time became two. The name of whoever first had the idea of lodging sensitive or controversial documents from other closed cases inside the file dedicated to poor crane operator Petersen, was lost in the mists of oblivion. Only the initiated knew about the procedure: the annotation with a number beside it in a case folder meant that there was further information to be had in “Petersen”.
Pauline Berg felt proud to have the two Petersen case folders on her desk. She had slipped out of the meeting about Andreas Falkenborg’s psychological profile, right after Simonsen and Pedersen left, as she knew from experience that when her boss said ten minutes that was usually a very relative concept. Poul Troulsen got to entertain the psychologist in the meantime, which was a little annoying, but work came before pleasure, especially when the work was as exciting as this. She looked up and found note 57, a plastic sleeve with a numbered, bottle-green label in the lower right-hand corner. It contained a picture of a young woman and a three-page report, dated 23 August, 1998. She did not look at the other papers. That was an unwritten rule that Konrad Simonsen had carefully impressed on her, and which she intended to observe. She read and formed an overview of the contents of the plastic sleeve only.
In the early 1980s Pastor Mie Andreasen established the Christian congregation Lilies of the Field as a branch in Copenhagen of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. The congregation was based on God’s love for all people, including gays and lesbians. This tolerance was in glaring contrast to what Catherine Thomsen had been brought up to believe, namely that homosexuality was a serious sin against God. Nothing less. Twice Catherine had visited Mie Andreasen to seek consolation. The first time was in November 1996, the second time a month later. In July of 1998 Mie Andreasen came home from a long-term stay in Holland. When she heard about Catherine Thomsen’s fate, she contacted the Homicide Division.
The dialogue between the young woman and the minister had in the nature of things been of a religious character and was therefore of no real value to the investigation. But through the conversations Mie Andreasen learned that Catherine Thomsen was in a secret relationship with a woman her age, with whom she was in love, and that the love was reciprocated. Sexually, however, Catherine Thomsen did not dare move beyond the kissing stage. She was afraid of her God.
Without hurrying, Pauline Berg read through the report again to see whether she had taken in everything. Disappointingly enough that was the case. She had expected something more, something sensational even. A little disappointed, she concentrated on the picture. It showed the face of a woman in her early twenties with plump cheeks, layered, short blonde hair, and a small but obvious scar on her forehead above the right eye. There was no text with the portrait, but it was not hard to figure out who it depicted. So Pauline wrote a note to Malte Borup about electronically enhancing the photograph to make the woman ten years older, and emailing her the result. Before the weekend.
CHAPTER 23