“From my backpack.”
“But where did you get the bag from?”
“I don’t know, it was just a bag. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Her father was a removals man, and he moved once for you. A completely impossible move that you arranged purely to ensnare him.”
“I can’t remember, it’s a long time ago.”
“You stole a plastic bag from his garage and packed it around a bust of Mozart, why did you do that?”
“Where did you get that from? You can’t know that.”
“We know a lot about you, make no mistake about it.”
“Yes, and you’re very clever when you can think so clearly.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I can’t remember. Maybe because he was stupid.”
“What had he done to you?”
“Some people maybe say vulgar things about other people to their daughters.”
“Did he say vulgar things?”
“He might very well have. Because you’re afraid when they visit someone for the second time and want someone to join the church.”
“What did he say specifically?”
“I can’t remember.”
“You’re shaking, and you’re lying. Every time we get to something that only you know, and that you therefore can’t retract later, you wriggle out of it.”
“That’s right, but it’s not nice to hear you say it.”
“Now we’ll move Catherine Thomsen over to Maryann Nygaard and Belphégor. What about this one, you know her too, don’t you?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“She lived less than five kilometres from your summer house in Pr?st?.”
“So I almost must have known her.”
“I’m tired of your ‘almost’ and ‘maybe‘ and ‘probably’.”
“Yes, I knew her, her name was Annie.”
“Annie Lindberg Hansson?”
“Yes, that’s what it was.”
“Where should we put her, do you think? With the living or the dead?”
“The dead, Annie is dead.”
“You killed her, like you killed the others?”
“I probably didn’t do that, she was never found.”
“She resembled the other women to a T.”
“So it must be me. Yes, I would think that.”
“Where did you bury her?”
“I didn’t.”
Simonsen struck his hand on the table and raised his voice considerably.
“Then see about finding your tongue. Where did you bury Annie Lindberg Hansson?”
Falkenborg shrank back in fear and answered timidly, “Will you please stop yelling at me?”
“Where did you bury Annie Lindberg Hansson?”
“I didn’t. I don’t want to talk about it, see how I’m shaking?”
“We’ll get to that. And Liz, did she die in the same way?”
“I think in the same way, that was why I bought my deserted farm. To get close to her. That was in 1992, the year Denmark won the European Championship in soccer. That was in Sweden too.”
“What was Liz’s surname?”
“Liz Suenson.”
“How did you meet her the first time?”
“In a lift. It was stuck, it was only me and her and an old man. I couldn’t get out, none of us could get out. It was on Vesterbrogade, right across from the small buildings that are in front of a museum. Copenhagen City Museum, I think it’s called. I was going to the dentist.”
“Where did you kill her?”
“In the forest, somewhere in the forest. We drove a long way.”
“And you buried her there?”
“Yes, in the forest too. There are big forests in Sweden.”
“What’s the name of that forest?”
“I don’t know, I don’t think it has a name.”
“Where is it?”
“In Sweden, I don’t know exactly where.”
Simonsen leaned across the table and snarled angrily, “Do they jerk back and forth when they can’t get any air? Like Agnete Bahn, when she was whoring with your father?”
“You mustn’t talk that way.”
“What happened when you sat there by the window, Andreas? While your mother got a beating because of you, what was it you saw?”
“Her breasts. I looked down in Agnete’s undershirt. There were her bare breasts . . . you could see down to her breasts.”
“When should you be able to do that?”
“When they are dying; you should look down at their breasts when they’re dying.”
“Agnete Bahn kissed you on the other side of the windowpane, to mock you while your mother was screaming.”
“This is not nice.”
“What do you do with their mouths? Tell us that.”
“I don’t kiss them.”
“No, but you do something else, something that only the two of us know. What is it?”
“I don’t want to talk to you any more. This is disgusting.”
“Tell me first, what it is you do.”
“You mustn’t tell it to anyone.”
“I won’t say a thing. Come on, out with it, what do you do?”
“Can I get into a regular prison then?”
“Yes. Say it then.”
“I want to be in one of the regular prisons, I can’t take the hard ones, I don’t deserve that.”