She shrugged her padded shoulders and left.
The photograph she set before him a good half an hour later left no remaining doubt as to where Andreas Falkenborg had acquired his taste for a certain female type. Rikke Barbara Hvidt, Maryann Nygaard, Annie Lindberg Hansson and Catherine Thomsen were all a copy of the young Agnete Bahn. She said, “I was twenty-one, this was taken on my birthday.”
“Brilliant, thanks very much.”
“I was pretty, wasn’t I?”
Her voice, previously crisp and businesslike, had taken on an insinuating tone which, combined with a misplaced hand that squeezed his arm, made Simonsen’s flesh crawl.
“Yes, definitely, very pretty.”
The compliment obviously was not enough. She sighed and said, “No matter where I went in those days, I was always the prettiest.”
He could not make himself praise her appearance further, and besides she had managed her Norn-given talents poorly. He turned on the Dictaphone, which he had turned off when she went to the attic, and said dryly, “Well, the years catch up with all of us.”
She released him and returned to her normal tone of voice.
“Shall we continue?”
“Yes, let’s. Can you remember approximately when you were employed by Falkenborg?”
“It was in 1964 and 1965. I started right after school summer holidays, it must have been in August, and I stopped just over a year later, one happy day in October.”
“What were you employed as?”
“Young girl in the house, I think it was called.”
“You say a ‘happy day’, didn’t you like being there?”
“No.”
She made no attempt to expand on this, and Simonsen took the opportunity to outline their agreement again.
“It’s not enough that we’re talking. I also demand a certain degree of willingness to answer on your part, so I’ll ask you again: didn’t you like being there?”
He made a rolling gesture with his hand; she was expected to be more expansive. It helped.
“No, I definitely did not. It was an awful family, festering like the clap from one end to the other. Alf Falkenborg was an asshole, his wife . . . I can’t even remember the old lady’s name . . . ”
“Elisabeth Falkenborg.”
“Yes, that’s right. She was a cowed old hag, constantly on my ass to find something to complain about in my work, and Andreas was an annoying little prick who should have had a good thrashing a few times a week.”
“That sounds a lot to put up with.”
“It was way too much, every word of this is true, and actually there was quite a bit that was worse than that—filthy petit-bourgeois, pissing on everything and everyone, including each other.”
“Could you make your vocabulary a little less flowery?”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Stop swearing so much.”
“Why should I, are you getting queasy?”
Simonsen dropped the idea of explaining how exaggerated use of strong language could weaken a witness statement in certain circles, thus removing the focus from what was important, namely the truth. It was many court sessions ago that he had last believed in watertight compartments between form and content. Maybe Lady Justice was blind but she was not deaf, and at some point a transcript of this woman’s questioning would end up in the hands of Andreas Falkenborg’s defence counsel. Simonsen gave her the short version.
“Yes.”
“I’ll try.”
“Thanks, that would be kind. Tell me, if you were so dissatisfied with the conditions there, why didn’t you give notice? Or simply leave? I mean, what could they have done about that?”
“My mother was employed at Alf Falkenborg’s factory, she might have been fired. That would be like him, the filthy pig . . . yes, excuse me, but he was one. It would have been just like him to take it out on her, if he couldn’t get at me. Actually I have no doubt he would have done that, but it’s not something I can prove.”
“Was that the only reason you stayed?”
“Yes, and then the pay was good. Strangely enough, although—well, obviously they weren’t short of money.”
“There were no other reasons?”
“No.”
Simonsen held her gaze.
“And you’re quite sure of that?”
She hesitated and then asked despairingly, “You’ve spoken with the other maids, right?”
“Yes.”
“I happened to run into someone who had also been employed with the family, my predecessor by the way, and she was subjected to exactly the same treatment as me. The thought had simply not occurred to me. For many years afterwards I dreamed of killing him . . . for example, coaxing him into a solid case of syphilis of the throat. That wouldn’t have been impossible. And then hope, naturally, that he would pass it on to his wife, although that was unlikely. But though I’d have liked my revenge, I didn’t kill him.”
“I know that.”