Berg stood up as if she had been given an order.
Pedersen asked, “Why are you so angry with her?”
“I don’t really know. Maybe because I don’t think for a moment that she was planning to turn to us if we hadn’t found her. Maybe because I’m dead tired of this halfhearted cooperation from the public. In the best case. If it were up to me, we would simply replace people with a newer and better model, as the poet so excellently suggested to the powers that be. I haven’t had such a tough time in my job since I stood guard at the American embassy during the Vietnam demonstrations in 1967. And a couple of hours ago I took it out on a greasy little bureaucrat at the Gentofte city hall, which irritates me and will probably give us an unnecessary and silly complaint.”
Pedersen fell into a similarly despondent mood and started thinking about his own troubles. “I know what you’re saying. On Friday one of my boys was bullied by his classmates because of my job, and now we have to go to a meeting at the school because he gave one of his tormentors a bloody nose. Normally I try to teach my kids to handle things without violence but this time I made an exception and told him I was proud of him. I wish the pride went both ways. Unfortunately that’s not the case right now, even though he doesn’t say anything directly.”
He could have added that he was also thoroughly tired of having to deliver tasty morsels from the investigation to the Dagbladet, just because a retired old crank had a feeling. But he said nothing about any of that.
“Why don’t you ask to be switched to…”
Berg’s comment was kindly meant. She was having problems, too. But their faces brought her to silence.
“And leave him all alone with this shit?” Troulsen’s sweeping gesture toward Simonsen was almost reverent.
Pedersen stood up and pushed Berg along in front of him. He excused her inwardly, she was from another generation. Maybe less masochistic, maybe just a little dumber.
On the other side of the glass, the interrogation of Emilie Mosberg Floyd was proceeding well. She was cooperative. Without complaining, she repeated what she had already explained to Troulsen. She took her time in the telling, and tried to convey feelings or mood when asked. From time to time—if she found a question difficult—she thought long and hard. But there was nothing painful about these silences, and both Simonsen and the Countess waited patiently. So they were doing at the moment, even though the pause was unusually long. In return, she gave an extensive report.
“I really don’t think that it’s particularly relevant if he stopped drinking. Per was an alcoholic when I found him, there was no doubt about that. He only barely managed his job and was indifferent to everything. His life went to pieces when he lost Helene and he punished himself by destroying his health and his psyche. But the conversations between him and Jeremy had an effect. As I mentioned, I often picked him up in Bagsv?rd and often drove him back again. Apart from at the beginning of this process, he was never drunk or even half drunk. How he managed in between these times I don’t know. It could be two weeks at a stretch before we would see each other. That’s why I can’t tell you if he stopped drinking, but I can say definitely that he changed. He stopped being indifferent and became present, much more present.”
She searched for the right words.
“And … what shall I say?… very clear. Per could be an exceptionally … electrifying person, almost dominating. No, not almost dominating, very dominating. And very intelligent in his own quiet way. It was as if he managed to be humble and arrogant at the same time. A rare characteristic. For better or for worse, Jeremy was very fascinated by him in the beginning and convinced him to tell his story to the other patients.”
“Or was it the other way around?” the Countess asked.
“I don’t understand.”
She did not have a chance to elaborate, as Simonsen’s next question trumped hers: “Did you and Per Clausen have a sexual relationship?”
Only years of training made it possible for the Countess to conceal her amazement. An amorous connection between this woman and the janitor was the last thing she would have imagined and the age difference alone made it rude to ask. And then there was the difference in lifestyle. To her great astonishment, Emilie Mosberg Floyd did not dismiss the thought out of hand, nor was she self-conscious in the least.
“No, not sexual, not in the traditional sense of the word. We have never been to bed with each other. Per would never have agreed to anything like that.”
“But you had a relationship?”