Assad nodded grumpily and pointed at his phone. It had been recording all along.
“I stopped by the entrance and looked around. Rigmor wasn’t on the lawn and she couldn’t have reached the opposite end and left the park so quickly. So she must still be there somewhere, I thought. I scanned the park thoroughly. Something I became really good at when I was in the Balkans because the Serbians were so brilliant at hiding. You really had to be wary of bushes, not like Iraq, where it was roads, roadsides, or miscellaneous piles left on pavements or dirt tracks. In the Balkans you risked being killed if you didn’t remember that bushes were dangerous places.”
“So you found Rigmor Zimmermann in the bushes?”
“Yes and no. I exited the park on Kronprinsessegade, standing by the railings so she wouldn’t immediately see me if she appeared from her hiding place. It was about five minutes before I sensed movement in the bushes behind the bicycle stands.”
“She didn’t see you?”
He smiled. “I quickly sneaked back to the entrance and around the ridiculous sign welcoming people to the King’s Garden and reminding them to be considerate toward other visitors so everyone can enjoy themselves. I’ve laughed at that sign before. I thought to myself that I would be very considerate toward my ex-mother-in-law and kill her with one single blow.”
“So it was premeditated murder?”
He nodded. “One hundred and ten percent premeditated, yes. I’ve got no reason to say otherwise.”
Carl looked at Assad. “Are you writing all this down?”
He nodded and held out his phone again.
“And the actual murder? You let her run down toward the restaurant?”
“No, I hit her in front of the bushes. She screamed when she saw me duck under the branches, and then I pulled her out and hit her on the back of the head with the wine bottle. It was as easy as that. One blow and she was stone dead.”
“But you didn’t leave her there?”
“No. I stayed where I was, looking at her before deciding in my drunken state that it would be wrong of me to leave her in that smelly place where drunkards stop to take a piss.”
“You moved the body?”
“Yes.”
“Rather risky, if you ask me.”
He shrugged. “There was no one in the park because of the shitty weather, so I just slung the body over my shoulder and threw her on the grass near the next exit to Kronprinsessegade, so I could make a quick getaway.”
“So you killed her with a bottle of cherry wine?”
“Yes.” He flashed a toothless smile. “It was almost full at the time, but it wasn’t an hour later, so I put it in a trash can on Frederiksborggade. Then I just walked home. I say walked because I had built up so much energy by that time that you wouldn’t believe it. That lasted about twenty minutes, and then I collapsed. That was where they found me.”
“You haven’t drunk since. Why?”
“Because I’m not going to be brought before a judge and come across as mentally unstable. I want to be sober and make my statement in front of a Danish court. I don’t want to go back to the US.”
“Why didn’t you just confess to the police who questioned you at the hospital?” interrupted Assad. It almost sounded like he thought that would have saved him from his imminent death by starvation.
James shrugged. “Because they would have arrested me then and there, and I wanted to find Denise and talk to her first. I owed that to myself and her.”
Carl nodded and looked at Assad. He had already taken quite a few notes, and the voice recorder indicator on his smartphone was still red. This was being served to them on a platter. How often could you say that? He smiled, and not without good reason. They had come to find Denise but ended up solving one or two murders.
Yes, Assad could soon replenish his humps.
“What did you do then?” asked Assad. He wanted all the details.
“I went over to Birgit’s building yesterday. I saw her come out the main door with several empty wine bottles in her hands. She was staggering down the sidewalk and didn’t recognize me because she was so pissed out of her head. I wanted to tell her that I still care for her, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it when I saw her.”
No doubt the feeling is mutual, thought Carl.
“That’s all,” he said. “Now you know everything. I’ll stay here until someone comes to pick me up.”
—
The shawarma wrap almost made Assad’s eyes pop out. Watching him shove this Middle Eastern treat into his mouth was like watching a child eating an ice pop on a hot day. Even if he had won a yacht, he couldn’t have been happier than he was right now.
Carl picked at his kebab. It was probably one of the best you could find in R?dovre, but the fact was that a man from Vendsyssel would always be more at home with a hot dog.
“Do you believe everything James Frank told us?” mumbled his chewing partner.
Carl put down his kebab. “I think he believes it himself, but it’s up to us to make sense of it all now.”
“So do we think he killed Rigmor Zimmermann? Or is it just something he’s made up to avoid being deported?”
“Yes, I do believe he killed her. I’m sure it can be confirmed by traces on her clothes. They still have them in forensics. And perhaps there are also traces from Rigmor on the clothes he was wearing that night. I’d be surprised if there weren’t.”
Assad raised his eyebrows. “So what’s the problem with the story?”
“I don’t know if there is one. But don’t you find it an odd coincidence that Fritzl Zimmermann died the day after Stephanie Gundersen? I’m wondering what happened in the time between those two deaths.”
“And you think Birgit Zimmermann might have an idea?”
Carl looked at his partner, who was ordering another shawarma. It was a good question, and hopefully time would tell once Assad had finished eating. First he would call Marcus, and then they would head out to Stenl?se.
44
Monday, May 30th, 2016
It was just before seven o’clock, and Anneli had been working like crazy for at least an hour cleaning blood from the walls, shelves, machinery, and floor. After that she sat and watched Denise’s body for some time. Lying there among the discarded machine parts with a dumbstruck expression on her face, Denise’s lifeless body gave Anneli a lot of satisfaction. Her intense, stubborn eyes were now completely lackluster, and all the hours she had spent on getting dolled up and showing off were now in vain.
“Where should I dispose of a lovely little thing like you, Denise Zimmermann? Should we leave it up to fate and dump you among the other prostitutes on Vesterbro, or should we play it safe and put you in one of the upper-class parks where nobody goes after eight? How about Bernstorff’s Park, Denise? We could put you down in one of the well-trimmed corners. Then one of the posh little Charlottenlund dogs can find you when it goes for its morning pee.”