Anita stood up and her voice was shrill. “I am not your sweet and you should pay better attention too. Things are not always as they appear. If it turns out that the motive of your poison pen is a little less noble than hanging pedophiles up as a deterrent—well then, this whole thing will blow up in your face. Just wait until your beloved people go looking for another scapegoat. I know at least one who will have to eat crow.”
Anni Staal stiffened but her warning bells were going off and several colleagues were watching. Even in a workplace where the language was direct and salty, her intern’s speech exceeded the acceptable limits. But it was not the insult that bothered the star journalist.
“What do you mean? Try to explain yourself.”
That was not something that Anita wanted to do. “I’m protecting my sources.” She took her bag and left.
Anni Staal kept working, but Anita’s comments proved difficult to shake off and it gnawed at her the rest of the day. For a while it bothered her so much that she seriously thought about contacting her police source even though she knew he would be furious. But it never went further than a thought because that evening he called of his own accord, with a message that felt like a déjà vu from the morning.
“The parking lot by the civic building in Nansensgade in half an hour and make sure you have some cash on you.”
She hardly had time to confirm before he hung up.
When she arrived, Arne Pedersen was dozing in his car. She got in and sat down next to him.
“Good evening, my little songbird. You’re out late. Are your personal finances squeezing you again?”
Her words stung and Pedersen thought that he hated her more than was reasonable.
“Hello, Anni. I wish you wouldn’t call me that. I find it embarrassing.”
She apologized, clear over the fact that she had made a mistake: “That wasn’t my intention, you’ll have to forgive me. But do tell … what do you have for me?”
“It’s going to cost you five thousand and you have to clear it with Simon before you print anything. My boss has started keeping his cards close to his chest. He doesn’t seem to trust anyone, even me, only Kasper Planck. It’s totally paranoid. This case is about to crack him and the mood at HS is at a new low.”
He thought that the description was not completely off. “Five thousand is a lot of money.”
“Maybe, but I’ll tell you what’s worth even more. Five vacation trips to Thailand at twenty-four thousand a pop, plus five times twenty thousand in pocket money, that’s only two hundred fifty thousand. Add to that three cash cards where the original owner was more than willing to share the pin codes when they got going with the chainsaw—another one hundred ten thousand. Furthermore, Frank Ditlevsen’s account in Zurich has been tapped for around two million, so the total sum is about two-point-three million, and these are only preliminary findings. New information is coming in all the time. I have account statements from two of the victims with me going back three weeks so that you can see for yourself. Remember that they died fourteen days ago and look closely at the dates from the last withdrawals, but then give the documents back to me. If you put this in the paper I’ll be nailed quicker than quick.”
Anni Staal looked through the bank statements. Her voice sounded excited when she was done.
“What does this mean?”
“It was a murder-heist.”
“What are you talking about? A heist?”
“Forget everything about a noble revenge and all the commotion, that’s just a blind alley and smoke. The motive was simply greed.”
“But that’s terrible. Are you sure?”
“No, only about eighty percent, but yes, that’s what I’m saying. You can try to have Simon confirm it but I can give you another piece of information for free. He is going to give you an interview. He told me just a little while ago.”
“He’s already been in touch. I’m going to meet him tomorrow morning.”
“Well then, that’s arranged. Do you also know that he’s going to Riga this weekend? The traffickers who were working with the hot-dog vendor are from the Baltic mafia, but he tried to double-cross them. The Latvian police nabbed one of them yesterday and I don’t think it’ll take them long to get him to talk. Their police methods are somewhat more robust than ours.”
Anni Staal frowned. She was far from stupid. “Why keep it secret?”
“Simon is quietly gathering evidence while everyone else thinks the motive is … shall we say, about sexual politics. Not even Helmer Hammer has been informed about this, I know that for sure. I think that Simon wants to give the country a lesson. Nothing less. Let the beast step in its own shit. That’s a direct quote. That’s what he told Kasper Planck the other day, but I didn’t get it when he first said it. I think I do now. And of course he wants to be one-hundred-percent sure before he goes public since our credibility is so low and half of the country believes that we’re concealing information about the victims being pedophiles.”