“And driven around half an hour looking for a parking place? It’s good for you to walk a little. We can take a taxi back, if this drags on.”
“It won’t drag on. I have other things to get done, you know.”
The reproach was subtle, but it was there. She said, “I’m glad you came along.”
“I’ll be glad to get this over with.”
They went in at the gate to the Botanical Gardens; she held it open for him and closed it behind them. Soon the urban noise faded out to a background hum, and the Countess took Simonsen’s arm as if the calm legitimised intimacy. She said, “It’s pleasant in here, don’t you think? All the lovely plants… it’s almost semi-Mediterranean, and all so well tended.”
“Yes, it’s a nice place.”
Simonsen’s knowledge of field biology was limited to his ability to identify a dandelion with great certainty and a few other plants with a degree of difficulty. He stopped and scratched one ankle, then the other while he was at it.
“Tell me one thing, Simon. Your clairvoyant friend in Høje Taastrup, whom you consult now and then, how often is she actually right, if I may ask?”
“Why are you speculating about that now?”
“Oh, general interest.”
“She gets it right occasionally, mostly she’s not that useful. But don’t ask how she does it, because I’ve given up trying to figure that out.”
“But sometimes she helps?”
“As I said, yes.”
“Can you give me an example?”
“Many years ago I had a case where a lunatic had stretched a thin wire across the street in a small provincial town. The purpose was to stop a handful of local moped drivers once and for all. They used to tear through the town on Saturday night, to the detriment of ordinary people’s sleep. Fortunately the lead driver was leaning down over the steering wheel, so he hit the wire with his forehead. Obviously he fell over and got some nasty scrapes, but the driver behind him was less fortunate. The wire broke, and the recoil tore the boy’s eye out.”
“Nasty.”
“Yes, not good, but the worst thing of all was that if the boys had been driving normally, they would probably have been decapitated, which was the intention. Well, in solving that case I was guided by my clairvoyant woman in Høje Taastrup, as you call her. She gave me a rather unusual name that proved to belong to the owner of a hardware store several hundred kilometres from the town. It was there the guilty party turned out to have bought his wire. He was a seventy-eight-year-old man, by the way, who had become sick and tired of the noise. Enough was enough, as he said. And now it’s your turn, Countess. Why are you suddenly so interested in clairvoyance? Spit it out.”
She told him about her brief but thought-provoking telephone conversation and noticed, when she was done, that she felt relieved. He walked for a bit in silence and then muttered, “Yes, she can be somewhat manic when it hits her. Well, we’re just about here.”
The Palm House towered before them, shining in all its glory in the hazy sunlight. The Countess searched in vain for her oracle, until a familiar voice made them both turn. Behind them, on the small patch of grass in the shadow of a “Water Lily” magnolia, sat Helmer Hammer.
The under secretary had shed jacket and tie, which lay neatly folded behind him, besides removing his shoes and socks. His white feet sticking out from under well-pressed Cerruti trousers gave a strange slant on informality. He smiled winningly as the Countess and Konrad Simonsen sat down opposite him, and then asked with a lively show of interest about their personal lives as well as about the investigation. Soon they were deep into a conversation that all three of them enjoyed.
This was one of Helmer Hammer’s many strong points; he could get people to relax in his company, in part because he acted as if he had all the time in the world just for them. When he was in that mode, courteous and concerned, he did not seem like a man tormented by complex affairs of state, but rather someone who was naturally open and honest, the kind of person you would like to have as a friend. The Countess slid off her shoes too. Helmer Hammer passed around cold water, which he had brought along in his bag, and laughed good-naturedly at Simonsen’s account of the photo search for the maids.
“So you thought that Malte Borup sold information from the police databases for G?”
“It sounded that way for a moment, and that made me furious. But the system was efficient enough: pictures of seven maids in less than half an hour is not bad going.”
“Yes, you should never underestimate informal systems. That’s one of the reasons I like this place so much. I have found many capable students for the ministries here… that is, without all the usual employment rigmarole. When there isn’t a university vacation, there are always a few promising young people here, reading or talking, so you get a proper impression of their potential.”
The Countess asked, “Do you come here often?”
“Not as much as I’d like, not any more unfortunately. But isn’t it lovely?”
Hammer threw out his arms as if he owned the garden, and continued.
“You should try coming here in early June when the magnolias are in full bloom. Then there’s the Palm House, a true architectural gem. It was finished in 1874, one of the first Danish buildings where exposed steel was used for the load-bearing construction, as with the Eiffel Tower. The architects were not even architects but gardeners, and the whole thing was due to beer.”
“Jacobsen the brewer was a patron, I believe?” queried Simonsen.
“He was, yes.”
Helmer Hammer let the rest of his mineral water slop around in small, centrifugal swirls, while he silently observed the movement inside the bottle. Then he continued speaking.
“Well, Assistant Detective of the First Degree Nathalie von Rosen, I’m not the only one who is interested in Danish history.”
The formal address was meant jokingly, but set things on a business footing. Surprisingly enough, it was Simonsen who responded.
“Both of us are interested, and it’s easy to explain why but hard to understand.”
“Okay then. Can I at least try?”
The power relationship between the homicide chief and the under secretary was as unequal as could be, and on top of that the police investigators’ historical research was ill-timed, to put it mildly. None the less Konrad Simonsen crumpled Helmer Hammer like a piece of used sandwich paper: first he described the Countess’s ominous Høje Taastrup telephone call without a trace of apology, then reviewed two specific examples of clairvoyance that had proved to be useful to the police, including the story about the moped drivers, this time narrated in spell-binding fashion. The Countess thoroughly enjoyed his performance, not least his lively descriptions and the way he refused to pour scorn on any of her actions. No one in his right mind would have done anything different if they had been warned in the same way, he implied. Obviously not, that would almost be dereliction of duty. Helmer Hammer was effectively up against the wall, a fact he quickly realised and humbly adapted to.
“I didn’t see that coming. Yes, it is a little hard to discuss this with you when you have mediums in your back pocket. Stick to him like a burr, what a great sentence, and it must be admitted you have done just that, Countess. And to top it off, with great competence. You have my unreserved admiration.”
The Countess nodded without saying anything. She felt more vindicated than ever about conducting her alternative investigation after Konrad Simonsen had described it in such glowing terms. He was right, it was simply something she had to do.
Helmer Hammer continued, still primarily addressing the Countess.
“Perhaps for a moment we could call what you think you’ve found out about Bertil Hampel-Koch’s trip to Greenland in 1983, truth number one. I give it a number because I also have a truth in that connection, which we can suitably call truth number two.