“It doesn’t have to be an anthropologist. There is a great deal of information here and no maggots, so perhaps a skilled facial surgeon. That could be interesting, putting together a team and getting them to use each other’s knowledge. Perhaps a funeral director; a mortuary makeup artist from the States.”
He reached a conclusion but continued his train of thought, now turned to the others.
“Back here we just pop them in coffins and advise the survivors not to open the lid. They aren’t to be looked at here.”
The chief of Criminal Forensics had been listening intently and was fired up about the idea. “I have just the photographer,” he said. “She’s a pure genius with her camera and in developing the pictures.”
Elvang received this positively: “Yes, yes, good idea. I’d like to have her on the team as well.”
The decision had been made. Simonsen’s nighttime Internet research that lay behind his question had born fruit and he felt a measure of pride, although he could not know if the results had been the same had he been ignorant. He delicately inquired about a possible time frame and received—as expected—a rather gruff reply from the professor about how that could not be determined here and now. For the first time this Tuesday, Simonsen was finally in a good mood. Podium or not.
His good mood lasted less than ten minutes. When the meeting was over but before he had left the building, his cell phone rang. The Countess’s message was brief and to the point, in direct contrast to his exclamation, which echoed in the institute’s corridors.
“That is a lie; that is a damned lie.”
But it wasn’t.
CHAPTER 14
The Climber sized up the tree that stood in the square in Allerslev, a small provincial town outside Odense. It was a European beech; he estimated that it was about one hundred years old. The trunk was at least one meter in diameter and the canopy stretched out far above his head like an enormous red-violet bell; a couple of branches had been pruned here and there but on the whole it had been allowed to grow as it liked. It was not really in proportion to the square—it was simply too tall—but it had probably been there before most of the shops that lined the square were built. He let his gaze travel around and concluded with some satisfaction that there were no residential buildings nearby, which was key, because however carefully he tried to proceed, some noise was inevitable.
Coolly and soberly, he then surveyed the nearest hot-dog stand. The construction quality was low and the materials were cheap. Chips of concrete had crumbled onto the floor, the sliding door and the window to the right were Plexiglas, and white-painted plywood covered the counter under the window as well as the three outer walls. The lumber was simple pieces of pine hardly thicker than five-by-ten centimeters and the insulation was nothing to write home about—a single layer of rock wool held in place with faux tiles in hard Masonite. The roof was flat and sloped to a plastic gutter behind the building. One-half consisted of charcoal-colored roofing tiles, most likely fastened directly onto inexpensive veneer, and the other half—where the customers stood—was covered with translucent corrugated panels littered with leaves and insects and in rather desperate need of cleaning.
From the bench where he sat he could see the hands of the staff as they worked and from time to time also a face, reflected in a stainless-steel panel. White-yellow like a bulging abscess, bloodless, with dull eyes, as repulsive as a cadaver. Unfortunately, he would have to kill him first or else his chances of survival would be too great. There was also the matter of the tree—he had known that as soon as he saw it, even though it would make the work more difficult. Perhaps an unnecessary complication, but the symbolic value it would carry for the chosen was magnificent, and would certainly provide a couple of days of nervous stomach for the many regulars of the hot-dog stand. And a beech was so fitting … so wonderfully fitting.
He again turned to the tree with an expert’s gaze and felled it in his thoughts. The hot-dog vendor had a side job delivering newspapers and started his days at an ungodly hour. It gave him a golden opportunity—he could work on the tree all night. If he set the chainsaw on low so that the blade ran as slowly as possible, the noise would be reduced to an acceptable minimum. The slow speed would mean his work would take longer but he had time. First a Humboldt fore cut. The blade on his chainsaw was shorter than the diameter of the tree, so he would have to work from both sides. Then the felling cut, parallel to the fore cut, sawn with an alternately pulling and pushing motion. A pair of sturdy plastic wedges were placed so that the blade would not get stuck, and then finally the heart cut, which he would do only at the very end. Twenty seconds more at a regular speed and then the tree would fall.
He glanced up one last time into the branches and then at the hot-dog stand, then he smiled and said a single word into the air: “Bam.”
CHAPTER 15