“Climber. An excellent name. What is this Climber’s greatest weakness?”
The old man and the young woman stood up and went out to the kitchen together. Anita started to wash the dishes and Planck passed her a new stack from time to time. After a while he said, “Do you also want to guess?”
“No, but I really want to hear the answer.”
“The answer is his image. It’s very banal of course, but also very important.”
She reflected on this and said, “Yes, that’s true. The part about his image. Do you think that they’ll get it?”
“Simon will, Arne won’t. He doesn’t think simply enough. And he expends his mental energy on things that he can’t control. This whole evening he hasn’t talked about anything other than that nurse, so he won’t come up with it.”
“You’re always so sure of yourself.”
“Wait and see.”
Planck was right. They came back into the room with coffee and cups, and while Anita was still passing them around, Pedersen threw in the towel.
“I’m coming up with nothing. I want to say his childhood but in part I don’t really know if that’s true and if it is, it hasn’t shown itself as a weakness so far, that is, in relation to what he has done. Then I was thinking that we believe that he knew the Ditlevsen brothers back when they lived in Sj?lland, but that also isn’t a weakness, or is that the connection that you had in mind?”
His contribution was kindly overlooked. Everyone was looking at Simonsen, who was smiling and taking his own sweet time. He wasn’t experiencing his usual sweat attack after dinner and he had already answered Planck’s question, so what more could an overweight, slightly arrogant former homicide chief ask for? He said, cheerfully, “You mean his statement to the media, don’t you?”
“Bingo, Simon, that’s exactly what I mean. And what happens if we threaten him with a couple of solid blows to his public image? Don’t worry about what exactly, just assume that we can. What would happen then?”
Pedersen improved his own image somewhat by reacting quickly: “He would answer back as well as he could; respond to us even, to the extent that is possible.”
Simonsen nodded in agreement. “Someone has at least made some strenuous attempts to hammer unpleasant impressions and images into people’s minds. And very successfully, no less.”
Anita joined in: “So in the interview with the hardliner from the Folketingets Retsudvalg who oh, was busy with the posters of Thor Gran as a background?” She glanced around to get the others’ reactions. They shook their heads, and she explained, “The posters are simply close-ups of Thor Gran from the minivan, you know, where he talks about selecting the numbered delicacies, and underneath it just says, ‘No, you won’t!’ so the message is clear. But if I was going to pick one simple thing in the propaganda circulating in the media, one simple thing that really has grabbed the attention of Danes, then it’s Thor Gran when he’s … selecting the children. The posters were shown for a minute, maybe one and a half, and the interview was probably just an excuse to show it. It’s like the subliminal messaging with the image of the Coke bottle that was edited into movies in the 1950s to increase sales of Coca-Cola in the intermissions; someone manipulates our subconscious and no one wants to step in.”
Simonsen shot down her last story: “It’s called subliminal perception and it is basically a myth. The concept has never been proven and no one has ever manipulated a film in that way. But it’s a good story.”
“As opposed to the Thor Gran poster,” Pedersen added sarcastically. “That’s what you gain from hearing that story.”
Simonsen immediately stiffened. For a second or two he closed his eyes, then he took a bag of licorice from his inside pocket, helped himself, and offered it to the others. No one wanted any.
Pedersen said, “You usually hate this stuff. What happened?”
“Nothing.”
He still didn’t like licorice, but Piratos licorice was an excellent antidote to a sour mouth. What could he say? That the photos of Anna Mia that he had been sent occasionally invaded his mouth? Who would understand it when he didn’t even himself? And what business was it of the others? It had no meaning, he had it under control. That was exactly what he had—control. As soon as he got his fingers on those assholes who had threatened his daughter he would show them that he had it under control. Psychopathic bastards.
Planck managed to get the conversation back on track. “Now listen up and stop wasting time on that nonsense. I have an idea for how to tell an alternative truth but I’ll need help from all three of you. It will also demand a small sacrifice from each. Do you want to hear it?”