“Give me the main points before I leave. You’ve included Erik M?rk in the vigilante group, I see.”
The Countess smiled at his choice of words. It was reasonably inclusive. Then she grabbed one of Helle Smidt J?rgensen’s pocket calendars and looked at a couple of the pages that Poul Troulsen had flagged with yellow Post-its.
“May sixth 2005, at Per’s, eight P.M. October eleventh, 2005, at Per’s, 7 thirty P.M. November second, 2005, at Erik’s eight P.M., and so on and so on. There are sixty-three such notations, about one a week apart from the vacation periods. The first is from February third, 2005, and the last is September twenty-sixth of this year, and since the summer the meetings increased in frequency. She only ever records the first name and it changes. At Per’s, at Erik’s, and at Stig’s. If the meeting takes place at her home she only writes in a star, which happened nine times. There are of course many other evenings with arrangements and first names but nothing else of this regularity. Then there is the matter of Jeremy Floyd. His name is recorded twenty-two times, just eighteen months before the meeting notations begin—that is, from the spring of 2003 until the first part of 2004. She always writes him in as ‘PF.’ It fits perfectly. I’ve made a list.”
“Last names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mails?”
“Nothing, unfortunately. Poul has been through all the calendars four times and I’ve been through them twice. Here and there a page has been torn out. It could be covering her tracks.”
“What about the one we’re calling Climber? No meetings at his place? Or references?”
“No, nothing, which could either mean that he didn’t have a place of his own or that he lived too far away. Stig ?ge Thorsen in Kregme has only hosted three times, possibly because of the distance. But there are two notations of particular interest. The weekend of September eighth through tenth of this year: digging at Stig’s, cooking, and December tenth, 2005, Christmas dinner (Erik paying) reserve table for five seven P.M. at Hj?rnekroen, N?rrebrogade 23. I thought that the fifth participant might have been the doctor so I called and spoke with Emilie Mosberg Floyd. It was a little embarrassing. He would apparently never have participated in a private event with his clients, which was something I was hoping and assuming she would say, but he had also been dead for several months at that point.”
Simonsen waved his right hand as if he had singed his fingers. Then he checked his watch and the Countess speeded up.
“Erik M?rk is the one who took out the ad about being sexually abused as a child and his company runs WeHateThem.dk, which they do with supreme professionalism. Almost a quarter of a million visitors to this point and the portal is constantly being updated, though the tone is very aggressive. You shouldn’t be embarrassed, they should be embarrassed. You shouldn’t hide, they should hide. You shouldn’t be afraid, they should be afraid, and so on and so on. Among other things they have uncovered the advertisement for the victims’ sex vacation to Chiang Mai in Thailand that we found in Thor Gran’s secret bag and it is probably worth checking carefully into where they got it. My guess is that Erik M?rk had it beforehand and has made it himself.”
“Exciting. Anything else?”
“M?rk has restructured his whole company into a hate group with a mission to incite the public against pedophiles.”
“We’ve known that for a while.”
“Yes, it’s nothing new. What is new is that Poul and I can link him to the crime, and one of the most important ways is this, take a look. This is a list of customers of child pornography that we found on Frank Ditlevsen’s hard drive. The three other ones are lists that M?rk’s company has allegedly sent to particularly active members who support his mission. Supporters who appear to know exactly what to do with pedophiles in their area when they receive names and addresses. This is the main reason for the violence. But take note of the spelling errors.”
Simonsen scrutinized the list while the Countess explained, “Bjarne Anton Adersen instead of Andersen. Hans Orne Nielsen instead of Hans Arne Nielsen. Pale Henriksen instead of Palle Henriksen. These are the same lists, Simon, and what’s even better is that it is hard to explain away in a court of law.”
“You’re right. It seems convincing.”
“You should also know that WeHateThem.dk is doing all it can to publicize Stig ?ge Thorsen’s online appearance tomorrow evening. It wouldn’t surprise me if it became a national event.”