The policeman glanced uncertainly at him when it became clear that no answer was coming, and he retreated almost imperceptibly before he tried again: “What is it you’re burning out there?”
“A stranger turned up and gave me twenty thousand so he could dig a hole on my property. He wanted to set fire to his minivan. I dug the hole and made sure there was a good oxygen supply. Drove out the fuel, sacks of coal, wood and kerosene, before I went on holiday. When I came back, I tended to the fire twice a day. That was the deal.”
He said his piece loud and clear without trying to conceal that he had prepared it ahead of time.
The policeman took another step back and stared at him with skepticism. The word minivan had triggered something and he was thinking hard—apparently in vain—while he scratched the back of the head as if he wanted to scratch it out. Finally he said, “What is it you’ve gotten yourself involved in, Stig ?ge? Is this the minivan they’re looking for in Bagsv?rd?”
“A stranger turned up.…” The piece was delivered exactly as before.
“You’re coming down to the station with me.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Nah, no, I was thinking you could come of your own accord.”
“Absolutely not.”
The policeman scratched himself so hard that one would have thought he had fleas. “Can you repeat that part about the bonfire?”
Just as before, he recited the piece word-for-word, and the officer got into his car while Stig ?ge Thorsen waited patiently. Through the window he saw that the man was talking. A certain amount of time went by, then the car window was lowered.
“Stig ?ge, I’m placing you under arrest. It is Saturday, the twenty-eighth of October, and the time is two fifty-three P.M. Please be so kind as to get in.” He scratched his head again, then added, “Up here next to the driver’s side.”
Stig ?ge Thorsen obeyed, without saying a word.
CHAPTER 39
The Countess was awakened at quarter past five Saturday morning, when the night receptionist called and announced unceremoniously that the police were at the front desk with mail for her. The time of day was most clearly a little act of revenge from all the people that she had whipped into working overtime the day before, which she couldn’t really hold against them. She therefore did not complain when she staggered downstairs and received the envelope from the motorcycle officer. Otherwise she might have questioned the fact that the packet was addressed to her while Berg was allowed to sleep.
The report was exhaustive and extremely detailed, almost sixty pages about the Ditlevsen brothers’ lives, so there was some work in separating the wheat from the chaff. A bath rid her of sleepiness and two packets of peanuts stilled the worst of her hunger. She sat down to read.
A couple of hours later, in the car, her head start was massive. Berg sat beside her, in the passenger seat, and skimmed the material.
“Good work, don’t you think? Are you almost done?” the Countess teased her.
“Done? Are you out of your mind? It’s impossible to absorb all this in fifteen minutes.”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s so hard. Just concentrate on the essentials and forget the rest.”
Berg nodded and leafed defeatedly through the papers.
The Countess came to her aid: “Should I go over it with you? Then you can follow along at the same time.”
“Can you remember it?”
“Of course not, only the main points.”
“How can you? I just don’t understand.”
“I had peace and quiet to concentrate before you came down to breakfast. You’ll pick it up along the way.”
“You mean, if I supplement my magazine reading with a trip to the library now and then.”
The Countess shrugged, somewhat uncertain of where the conversation was headed. Her colleague’s confession was not part of the plan. Nonetheless, she kept her three hours of work to herself and hurried on.
“It wouldn’t hurt you, but all right, let’s get started. Frank Ditlevsen was born in 1952 in the village of Ullerl?se in Odsherred and his younger brother three years later. They had no other siblings. The mother left the family in the summer of 1956. She emigrated to start a new life in Leeds, in England, where she had a childhood friend. Perhaps she was fleeing from the father. It’s not clear.”