Gordon wiped his eyes and looked more alert. “I can tell that there’s something about Rose you’re not telling me, Carl. What is it?”
“Deep down you already know, don’t you, Gordon? It’s becoming increasingly clear that Rose might have killed her dad. Whether it was deliberate or not, directly or indirectly, I don’t know. But she can’t be entirely innocent.”
“What do you intend to do about it?”
“Do about it? Discover the truth and help her move on. Isn’t that what we need to do? Give her the opportunity to have a better life.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Yes.”
“And Assad?”
“He agrees.”
A faint smile spread across Gordon’s gloomy face. “We have to find her, Carl.”
“So you don’t think she’s dead either?”
“No.” His lips were quivering. “I can’t bring myself to think that.”
Carl nodded. “Do you think there’s anyone among the other one hundred and forty-six men who can remember her?”
He sighed. “I wondered the same thing when I had spoken with the four guys who stood out the most. But I had no idea where to begin, so I just began from the top and got ahold of nearly everyone. One a minute, I think. I just said: ‘I’m calling from the police crime division. It’s come to our attention that a missing person, Rose Knudsen, might be staying with you. Is that correct?”
“They could’ve been lying to you.”
“Hell no. None of them seemed clever enough to hide anything from me. Perhaps that’s what hurts the most. Apart from the three first men, they all sounded like their brain was attached to their dick. They were total idiots, Carl. They couldn’t lie to me.”
“Okay.” Carl was speechless. He hadn’t experienced confidence like this since he had looked at his sixteen-year-old reflection in the mirror and discovered that he had grown sideburns.
“Were there any Swedish men among her contacts?”
“Not one. And no one with an obviously Swedish-sounding name for that matter.”
“What about more normal e-mails? Hotel bookings, contact with her sisters, her mom, or Rigmor Zimmermann, for example?”
“Nothing that led anywhere. The few e-mails she had written to Rigmor Zimmermann are insignificant. A recipe that Rose wanted or vice versa, whether Rose knew something about this or that, whether she would keep a key for Rigmor. In fact, there was a lot about keys. Apparently Rigmor Zimmermann was hopeless when it came to her keys. And about the latest movies in the cinema, about the residents’ association in Sandalsparken, whether she was coming to the annual general meeting, and if so whether they should go together. Nothing that leads anywhere. Not even Zimmermann’s complaining about her daughter and granddaughter and the problems they caused her.”
Carl patted his shoulder. The man was consumed with jealousy and sorrow. But it was also in some way the second time within a very short period that he had had to wave good-bye to the one he loved.
—
Carl had just walked through the door in R?nneholtparken when Morten rushed up to him.
“I’ve been trying to call you all night, Carl. Have you even charged your cell phone?”
Carl took it out of his pocket. It was completely dead.
“Would you mind charging it? It’s really annoying that we can’t get ahold of you. Hardy’s been really ill this evening, just so you know.”
Oh no. What now? Carl breathed deeply. He could hardly face more bad news.
“He was complaining about terrible pains in his left arm and the left side of his chest. He said it felt like electric shocks. I had to call Mika since I couldn’t get ahold of you. I was scared he would have a heart attack, so what was I supposed to do?” He demonstratively snatched the phone from Carl’s hand and plugged it in to charge in the hallway.
“What are you two doing so late?” Carl joked as he entered the sitting room. It was obvious that Mika had done anything he could to create a calm atmosphere. Apart from the fact that there wasn’t flocked wallpaper on the walls, it might as well have been a Pakistani restaurant on Bayswater Road in London. Incense sticks, candles, and so-called world music with sitars and panpipes galore.
“What’s wrong, Mika?” he asked the white-clad athlete, nervously looking at Hardy’s sleeping face poking out from under the quilt.
“Hardy almost had a panic attack this evening, which is very understandable,” he said. “I’m convinced he really did feel pain this time rather than just phantom pain. And I’ve seen him move his shoulders as if to ease the pressure from the mattress. And look at this.”
Carl looked in silence as Mika lifted up the quilt a little. Small movements like a twitching eye were visible on Hardy’s left shoulder.
“What do you think is happening here, Mika?” he asked, concerned.
“What’s happening is that tomorrow I’m going to contact two brilliant neurologists that I met during a course I took. Hardy is probably regaining feeling in some secondary, minor muscle groups. Just like you, I don’t understand it because in principle it shouldn’t be possible given his diagnosis. I had to give him a large dose of painkillers to calm him down. He’s been sleeping soundly for about an hour now.”
It was almost too much for Carl.
“Do you think . . . ?”
“I don’t think anything, Carl. I just know that it’s extremely intense and exhausting for Hardy to suddenly be in contact with parts of his body that have been dead to him for nine years.”
“I turned on your phone, and now it’s ringing, Carl,” said Morten from the kitchen.
Ringing at this time? What the hell did he care?
“The display says Lars Bj?rn,” continued Morten.
Carl looked at his friend lying in the bed. It wasn’t easy seeing him there with his face contorted with pain even in his sleep.
“Yes,” he said as he put the phone to his ear.
“Where are you now, Carl?” asked Lars Bj?rn curtly.
“At home. Where else would I be at this time?”
“I caught Assad at HQ. He’s with me now.”
“Okay. Perhaps he’s already told you about our breakthroughs today? That’s a shame. I would have liked to—”
“What breakthroughs? We’re at the junction between Bernstorffsvej and Hellerupvej looking at a certain Denise Zimmermann who everyone has been looking for. She’s sprawled across the hood of a black Golf and is very dead indeed. Do you think I could persuade you to get yourself out here, pronto?”
—
There was a mass of flashing blue lights at the intersection, and according to the police constable who helped him duck under the police cordon, they had been there for several hours.
“What’s happened here?” he asked when he saw the group of people gathered by the car wrecks and the technicians everywhere. The group of people consisted of Terje Ploug, Lars Bj?rn, Bente Hansen, and Assad standing close by. You’d be hard-pressed to find more competent colleagues grouped together.