“Dammit.”
The meeting was adjourned and set for the following morning, at which time the producer promised to return with a new assistant. He was endowed with a truly professional spirit, and unless he was an excellent actor he had not prompted his assistant into these subversive activities. He had no idea whom she had been reporting to online. The feeling among the investigative team was depressed. It was not so much that the assistant had caused any real damage. It was of course unpleasant that their conversations were now circulating on the Internet but they could deal with that. What was so shattering was the firsthand demonstration that a part of the general public was simply working against the police. In case any of them had been harboring any doubts in this regard, they were finally set straight.
Simonsen tried to breathe some fire into his team: “The damage is negligible. The situation is constantly changing and if the media get a little more background information it isn’t the whole world. In any case we have to keep working and forget this.”
Unexpectedly, it was Malte Borup who spoke up.
“I don’t think it’s for the media, more likely to one of the many anticop pages that are constantly popping up on the Web. Some of the sites are pretty big.”
The others stared at him in astonishment. Pauline Berg asked for them all, “Anticop pages? What do you mean?”
“You mean you aren’t following this at all?” slipped out of him. He regretted it as soon as he’d said it, and apologized, slightly pink: “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Of course you follow. With everything else that is…”
Simonsen came to his aid: “No, Malte, I’m afraid that we aren’t following at all but perhaps we should. Can’t you give us a quick synopsis?”
“All right. There are sites like Pillory.dk and SeksSyvSytten.com and then of course the one who put an ad in the paper about being … abused as a child. He is far and away the biggest. That one is WeHateThem.dk.”
He stopped. Oral reports were not his strong suit.
Berg helped him along: “What do they do, Malte? Can you tell me about that?”
“Well, you can join them as a supporter, and what they want is that it should be punishable to be … that is, to be … mean to children.”
He blushed and stopped. Berg had an urge to grab his hand. After a brief pause he started up again of his own accord.
“That is, really punishable, like in the USA, where you really can’t get away with it.”
Now it was the Countess’s turn.
“What else do they do, Malte?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t know.”
Pedersen appeared in the doorway. He was holding a stack of papers and radiated urgency. “What they’re doing is making sure that defenseless people are assaulted or driven to their deaths. Twenty-three incidents, over the entire country. From Gedser to Skagen, and not as a figure of speech—completely literally.”
He threw the papers down on the table and the others bent over to read them. Afterward, no one said anything except Borup.
“I can bomb their pages off the Internet if I—”
Berg laid her hand over his mouth and he blushed more than ever. Simonsen’s cell phone rang.
He answered brusquely and listened. When he hung up, everyone was hoping it was not another piece of bad news. For once, their hopes were realized.
“Troulsen has found the woman in red and it sounds promising. They are both on their way here.”
CHAPTER 51
The owner of the temp agency turned out to be a friendly woman. Poul Troulsen knew her age already, she was in her late twenties. But he was wrong in the rest of his expectations of her. His image of a polished, self-confident career woman was shattered by someone both jovial and plump who did not spend unnecessary resources on her appearance or the interiors of her establishment. She led him into a conference room that looked more like a homeless shelter, and without asking him she handed him a plastic cup of lukewarm coffee. He took it and thanked her politely. It tasted terrible.
“As you know, this is about Helene Clausen’s high-school years. I have heard that you were one of the girls who was most engaged in what was going on in class.”
“You could say that. I was a terrible bitch actually. At the class reunion there are still some girls who hate me but I can understand why. I was not particularly pleasant but you’re right when you say that I was well informed.”