The work proceeded at a snail’s pace. After a long time they finally agreed on the message that would follow the first video. The simple message. Simonsen had finally taken Pedersen’s side: they would focus on the woman with the anesthesia. She had been observed climbing into the minivan when it paused at the outskirts of a rest stop on the freeway between Slagelse and Ringsted. The witness had later retracted his statement but no one put much stock in that. The next sequence was played back four times and a couple of smaller corrections were made, then they tackled the question of what the message should be.
The producer disappeared for a long time and the officers grew nervous that he had become lost in the building corridors. He returned, his face flushed. He had a seasonal beer with him that he’d picked up somewhere and that he unselfconsciously started to drink. The alcohol gave him strength to join in the fray, which turned out to be an advantage. If one could see past the man’s foul smell and pedantic manner, he was a brilliant project leader. Everyone fell in line and agreed that the title should be “The Man with the Video Camera.” This was as far as they could agree and everyone knew it.
Simonsen began, “Aka Frank Ditlevsen’s secret friend? Aka the killer and tree feller from Allerslev? Aka Stig ?ge Thorsen’s stranger? Aka the driver of the minivan and the executioner from Bagsv?rd?”
It was a question. The Countess remained firm in her belief and was quick to answer, “Yes.”
Pedersen again played devil’s advocate: “Maybe, but very much a maybe. This is much too uncertain to put this out there. We risk derailing the whole investigation. Guesses and speculations—that’s simply too thin.” Simonsen nodded thoughtfully while Pedersen continued. “Particularly with respect to Stig ?ge Thorsen’s stranger, who we aren’t sure even exists. It could be one man, it could be five or ten women for that matter. That country bumpkin is not the most reliable witness, to put it mildly, and his motives are unclear in every way. He’ll probably turn out to be another media stunt. We don’t even know if the remains of the minivan are at the bottom of his pit.”
The Countess countered, “The technicians have established a match between the last film clip and the view seen from his land.”
Pedersen replied, “A preliminary match, and even if it were true it would not necessarily mean that the minivan ended up there.”
Simonsen jumped in: “Let us take this from the beginning—that is, Frank Ditlevsen’s secret friend. Pauline, give us a summary.”
Berg would have preferred that he had turned to the Countess. Her secret knowledge that Frank Ditlevsen’s secret friend was one of his so-called old boys stuck in her throat and today she would have a given a great deal for a do-over of yesterday. She sat straighter in her chair. The producer stared lustfully at her breasts and the production assistant tapped away at her keyboard.
“The only thing we have are the accounts of two neighbors, of which only one has any substance. The next-door neighbors have seen a man in his thirties visit the brothers on a few occasions over the past year. They say he has his own key. But the description is incomplete: light-haired, above average height, slender and well proportioned, always arriving on foot or by car with Frank Ditlevsen.”
Simonsen suddenly interrupted: “Give me a summary of the murder of Allan Ditlevsen and focus on the tree felling.”
His voice sounded unusually sharp and Berg looked at him in bewilderment. Neither of the two others said anything but she could tell from their expressions that they were as much at a loss as she was. She followed his order. Anything else would have been inconceivable when her boss was acting like this, but his shifts in mood were strange, almost bizarre. Luckily she knew the facts of the tree felling almost by heart.
“The perpetrator felled the tree in eight blows at around four to four fifty during the night between Wednesday and Thursday of last week, and the tree finally came down at five thirty-eight A.M.. Shortly before this, Allan Ditlevsen was killed by blunt trauma caused with a beech stick. The hot-dog stand was shattered by the tree. The perpetrator gathered up his things and disappeared into the front door of the building at Ved Torvet 18. Here he goes down into the basement and out through the back entrance to Garvergade. Traces of sawdust have been found all along this path but after this point we don’t know where he went. Our best find is a series of four footprints from the stairwell in number 18. As it happens, the building has no residents. It is ready to be demolished.”
The Countess finally got it. She stood up and left, while Berg continued her recap. She even managed an account of the forensic report without a manuscript. The Countess quickly returned with a disoriented Malte Borup in her wake.
Simonsen stopped Berg as abruptly as he had ordered her to start. Then he turned to the producer and said, “Your assistant is very hardworking. Tell me, what is she writing?”
The producer’s surprised, somewhat puffy face removed any suspicion of conspiracy for the moment.
“I’ve been wondering that too. Why are you writing this all down, Marie?”
The movement on the keyboard stopped and Marie instantly reached for the mouse. The Countess gripped her wrist a couple of centimeters away from it; Borup took over her keyboard.
Pedersen was the first to comment on the situation.