She pushed a sheet of paper across the table to inform the silly girl in more detail about what she had just told her. Finally, Jazmine turned to face her.
For a young woman like her who no matter what always tried to look her best, her face was suddenly extremely cold and charmless. Behind the painted facade of eyeliner, foundation, and lipstick, there was more to this pretty doll face than Anneli had noticed before. Defiance that bordered on something aggressively sly. A hint of resolve that exceeded the usual demand for money, and a stubborn rejection of having to work for it.
“Have you heard that Michelle Hansen is going to be okay?” asked the girl, dryly and unexpectedly. Nothing in her expression changed; she just stared hatefully at Anneli, who unwillingly reacted with an almost unnoticeable twitch of her head and thankfully nothing else. But inside, Anneli was all but collected. Chaotic thoughts and defense mechanisms, mixed with tempered caution and a lack of understanding, rushed through her.
How much did this nasty bitch know?
“Michelle Hansen, you say?” she said hesitantly. “What’s happened to Michelle? Do you know her?” she asked, as if she didn’t know. As if Michelle hadn’t been one of the three girls who had spoken behind her back in the waiting room. That wasn’t something you just forgot.
They sized each other up, Anneli looking quizzical while Jazmine resembled a dog ready to bare its teeth.
She’s waiting for you to make a move, Anneli, so be careful! she thought.
“You’re not answering me, Jazmine, and I’m not sure I quite follow. What do you mean by saying Michelle will ‘be okay’? What will be okay?”
Jazmine still didn’t say anything. She just stared at Anneli, as if expecting that the slightest twitch of an eye or a beating pulse on her neck would give her away.
Anneli breathed calmly despite everything inside her screaming to high heaven that this couldn’t be happening. She was cornered and the only thing she could do was impress on herself that no one in the world could prove her crimes. Thank God that as far as she knew no one had seen her in connection with the hit-and-run attacks on Michelle Hansen or Senta Berger.
“Isn’t there something about you and red cars being a good match?” asked the girl coldly.
Anneli smiled as best she could. “Jazmine, are you sure you’re feeling quite all right? Take this piece of paper home and read it carefully.” She pushed the paper another couple of centimeters toward the girl. “And by the way, my car is blue and black. A nice little Ka. Do you know them?”
And while she indicated that Jazmine J?rgensen could leave, she decided that she had used the red car for the last time and that it might be a good idea to keep an eye on this girl’s movements and whom she saw.
But no matter what, this meeting meant that Jazmine immediately moved up a few places on her list.
17
Thursday, May 19th, 2016
“This is where Rigmor Zimmermann was found.”
Tomas Laursen pointed at an outline on the grass that was almost gone.
Carl smiled. Assad had had the brilliant idea to lure the police HQ canteen manager with them to the King’s Garden. Tomas had long since stepped down as a forensic technician, but there was nothing wrong with his eyes.
“Do we know which entrance she took into the park?” asked Assad. “Was it the one down there?”
Carl looked along the wrought-iron railings to Kronprinsessegade down toward the farthest corner of the park. He nodded. Given that the woman had left her daughter’s apartment at the bottom of the Borgergade neighborhood in heavy rain, it was most likely that she had used the entrance from S?lvgade so she could take a shortcut to the exit out to Gothersgade.
“I don’t really get it,” continued Assad. “She lived out in Stenl?se and used to take the S-train. Do we have any idea why she walked toward N?rreport Station rather than the metro at Kongens Nytorv or ?sterport Station? That would’ve made more sense.”
Tomas Laursen leafed through the already rather extensive police report. Amazing that he had managed to get it out from homicide.
Now he shook his head. “No, we don’t know.”
“But what does the daughter say? Maybe she knows,” said Carl.
“We have a copy of what she told the police, which isn’t much. So our colleagues haven’t really touched on that either,” said Laursen.
It’s a fairly elementary question, so why the hell haven’t they asked it? thought Carl.
“Who’s in charge of the investigation?” he then asked.
“Pasg?rd.”
Carl sighed. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more self-glorifying, superficial jerk.
“Yes, I know what you’re thinking.” Tomas nodded. “But he’s also almost as big a whiner as you, Carl. He won’t like it one bit when he hears that you’re investigating his case.”
“Then we’ll just have to keep it a secret,” suggested Assad.
Laursen nodded and knelt down next to the outline to investigate the grass. The park-keeper had followed the police order to the letter, refraining from cutting the grass in a three-meter radius around the scene, which had resulted in that grass growing slightly longer than the grass around it.
“Hmm,” said Laursen, holding up a single withered leaf he had found half a meter from the outline.
Carl noticed that both Assad and Laursen looked puzzled and followed their gaze, slowly scanning the flower beds and the wrought-iron railings down toward S?lvgade. Now he saw it too. It was well observed. The leaf didn’t come from any of the bushes or trees near where she had been found.
“Could the leaf have been here for more than three weeks?” asked Assad.
Laursen shrugged. “Possibly, yes. The crime scene is some distance from the paths, and there hasn’t been any wind to speak of for weeks.” Then he shook his head. “On the other hand, it could’ve been on the bottom of someone’s shoe or left here by a dog at any time since the murder. What type of leaf is it anyway? Do you know, Carl?”
Where the hell should he know that from? He wasn’t a bloody gardener or botanist.
“I’m just going for a walk,” said Assad, which was a bit of an understatement given that he started running, looking like a cross between a French bulldog and someone who had just shit himself, the way he darted along the path toward the S?lvgade entrance.
Carl gawped.
“I can see that the leaf has been flattened. So it might very well have been under a shoe,” said Laursen, with his behind sticking in the air and his nose pressed down to the ground.
Carl was just about to say that they probably wouldn’t get much more out of this crime scene because all the leads, not to mention the body, were long since gone.
“On the other hand, I’ve spotted some very fine furrows on the surface of the leaf. And shoes don’t have narrow furrows like that, and neither do dogs,” continued Laursen, laughing. His sense of humor had always been odd.