“I don’t believe it, Andreas. And I don’t think you would hit me, the way you’re shaking, and anyway it wouldn’t help you one bit. You and I are still going to Ullerl?se.”
He turned the key and started the engine. The Climber stared at him for a long time in confoundment, then he pointed the gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. It clicked. He tried again, with the same result. Then he slid down, as powerless as a tuft of cloud, into his seat, his gaze empty. Simonsen could tell by the smell that he had peed his pants. He turned off the engine and stepped out. He placed his hands on the roof of the car, rested his hands in them, and stayed like that for a long time. Then he straightened up and shouted at the top of his lungs, “It should have been you, Per, you devil, not this pathetic wreck.”
He stared measuringly down the road, then back where they had come from, and said straight out into the air, “But I’m not like you, Per. You would have liked it, if I had been. A nice little bonus on top of the victory. But you won’t get it, not on any terms.”
Then he walked around the car, freed the Climber from his chains, pulled him up, and helped him mop of the worst of the urine with the help of some paper towels. Then it was time to head home.
*
They were greeted at the HS in Copenhagen by an agitated Pauline Berg. He had interrupted her at the inn and commandeered her back to work, where she had to make sure that an interrogation room was made available. In addition, she would be the one conducting the interrogation. She had done what he had asked her, but she had also spoken several times with the Countess and Arne Pedersen.
“They want you to call them at once. Both of them are … worried about these developments, and they don’t understand why you have turned up alone with…” She searched in vain for the right words and pointed to the Climber, who was self-consciously huddled behind Simonsen, as weak and pliable as child in Sunday school.
“Andreas Linke, his name is Andreas Linke, and there’s nothing strange about the fact that I took off with him alone. He is completely harmless. As it happens he is also nice and cooperative.”
The Climber nodded softly as if he wanted to confirm the statement. Berg stared at him, frowning, while Simonsen went on.
“Now let’s go in and have a chat with Andreas, so it will have to wait. We can sort it out later. Are you ready?”
That she was not. Clear over the fact that she could not do anything other than obey, she excused herself and went to the bathroom, where—like a schoolgirl in trouble—she called the Countess. When she entered the interrogation chamber a little while later, her boss had already dispatched the initial steps and she heard him tell the tape recorder that she had arrived. Andreas Linke sat on his chair with the legs pulled up under him and his arms wound around his body. As submissive as a beaten dog, he followed each movement and each word that came from Simonsen. His face was unnaturally pale, and when he gave an answer he sounded like a son who wanted to say whatever it took to placate a strict father. Simonsen’s communications were simple and direct.
“It’s not enough to shake your head. You have to tell the tape that you don’t want a lawyer.”
“I don’t. I want nothing to do with any lawyer.”
Then came a long strong of questions that had to do with the Climber’s life and a systematic investigation of his relationship to the others in his self-help group. Then finally Simonsen arrived at the murders.
“Did you kill five people in the gymnasium at the Langeb?k School in Bagsv?rd?”
“Yes, I did. I was the one who killed them.”
“Tell me how.”
“They were hanged. I hanged them.” He smiled apologetically.
“Who helped you do this?”
“The others, the ones from the group were also in on it.”
“What are they called?”
“Do you mean their names?”
“Yes, Andreas, tell me their names, both first and last names. I want you to repeat their names if they were involved in the murders.”
He counted on his fingers. “There was Per Clausen and Stig ?ge Thorsen. And Erik—Erik M?rk, that is. And then me.”
“No one else?”
“No, no one else.”
Simonsen frowned slightly.
“Oh, sorry. Yes, there was Helle J?rgensen—Smidt J?rgensen, I mean. I forgot about her. You have to excuse me, but she’s dead anyway. And Per Clausen. Per is also dead.” He giggled and added, “Helle did not try to die, it just happened.
Berg finally pulled herself together. They had the confession, that was enough. She pushed back her chair noisily and stood up. “I don’t want to be party to this anymore.”
But Simonsen also stood up, and his voice was hard and commanding: “Sit down, young lady, and do your work.”
She sat down again, flushed, while he stopped and rewound the tape. It gave him some trouble and a couple of minutes went by before they could continue.
“There’s one thing that is important to me, Andreas, something that only you and we know and that I would very much like for you to tell me.”