She got up from her chair, went around the desk and wrapped her arms around his head.
“Yes, Simon, it’s understood.”
They allowed themselves a few seconds without words. Then she noticed that he was pressing a hard, angular object into her hand. She let him go and looked down with surprise. It was a small, carved figure of bone.
“A tupilak, a really fine one.”
“It keeps evil spirits away.”
“Yes, everyone knows that.”
“I got it in Greenland from Trond Egede. It may sound crazy, but will you please carry it with you in your pocket?”
She kissed him on the forehead, happy about the present but also feeling a twinge of irritation. Again and again he protested that he was not superstitious. But when push came to shove… She pushed the thought aside. What choice did she have? Then she kissed him again, this time more fervently, without caring whether anyone came into his office.
Troulsen barged into the room. He was shooing an officer ahead of him whom he placed in the middle of the floor, as if he were a mannequin, after which he sharply commanded, “Tell them, and make it brief.”
Asger Graa told them everything. Simonsen and the Countess listened in disbelief, and afterwards for a minute or so none of them said anything, not even when Graa started begging their forgiveness.
“I’m sorry about this, I am truly sorry about this, and I realise that it means my chances for-”
Troulsen interrupted him callously.
“Be quiet.”
And then to Simonsen: “Do you have anything for him to do?”
Simonsen curtly shook his head. The Countess said to the contrite officer, “Go away.”
Asger Graa shuffled out with bowed head. Before he had closed the door, Troulsen started itemising the information he had from Pauline Berg’s home.
“The sequence of events is now established, but unfortunately there is not much to help us track them down.”
Simonsen agreed. It was what he had expected and feared. He said, “The Countess has a few things to see to that are urgent. Start with your conclusions. Do we think that Pauline and Jeanette Hvidt are alive?”
“Yes, most likely.”
Simonsen turned to the Countess. It was unnecessary, however. She was on her way out. Then he asked Troulsen, “Well, what happened?”
“Falkenborg’s fingerprints were found all over the house. He had basically been in every room, probably while Pauline was out though we don’t know where. Maybe in town to shop or something.”
“When was this?”
“Yesterday morning or afternoon. A technician found his fingerprints on a carton of milk in her refrigerator, the date stamp confirms it. We’re in the process of investigating where and when she used her debit card.”
“A carton of milk? Why?”
“We don’t know. It looks like he went around rooting in everything.”
“What else?”
“He has manipulated her computer. It’s now being investigated, but the nerds aren’t done. Her TV is destroyed, apparently he short-circuited it.”
“Okay.”
“In the evening, about eleven o’clock, he chased her and locked her in a room. She managed to bring her pistol along but no ammunition.”
“That sounds strange.”
“That’s our theory at the moment, but maybe it will change in the hours ahead. I concentrated more on where she could have been taken than on what happened in the house.”
“Naturally, go on.”
“At some point she broke out of the room where she was locked in. He had put screws in the window frame outside, so she couldn’t open the window, but she smashed it.”
“Not too many details, Poul.”
“Sorry. Well, after she climbed out of the window, she made a kind of weapon out of a big shard of glass by folding some material around one end. We found it in her car, but unfortunately it wasn’t used. He was waiting for her in the back seat and pressed a rag soaked in chloroform against her face. The car has been taken for technical investigation.”
“What did he do with her then?”
“Carried her through the forest that is right by her house, and over to his car which was parked on the other side. The dogs could easily follow the whole way. Then we lose the trail.”
“Was it the commercial vehicle?”
“We found tyre tracks, they are also being examined, but an initial assessment from the technicians confirms that. You’ll be getting some complaints from them about me, I assume.”
Simonsen’s hand gesture clearly showed how much he cared about that kind of thing at the moment. He said, “What about the cat?”
“It was killed alongside her car, neck broken, then wrapped in plastic from Pauline’s kitchen. Just the head that is. Maybe that was to scare her.”
“While she watched?”
“We don’t think so, but it’s unclear. Maybe it was lying somewhere so she got a shock when she saw it.”
“Her car keys?”
“In the ignition.”
“And the extra keys?”
“Damn it, that was a mistake. I didn’t look for them.”
“Presumably that means nothing. Do we know positively that she was alive when she was carried through the forest?”
“No, but there’s a high probability of it.”
“Explain why.”
“Because we found a roll of duct tape-that’s his favourite tool-dropped by the side of her car.”
“You don’t tie up a corpse, and you don’t sedate a woman to kill her immediately afterwards, when you could just as well do it right away. Is that what the arguments are?”
“Yes, and I don’t think that’s wishful thinking.”
“Hardly. Do you have anything else?”
“I found a receipt for a pair of brown contact lenses corresponding to what the idiot from before told us about Pauline’s eye colour.”
“It doesn’t sound very interesting.”
“Yes, it is, because I couldn’t find the lenses.”
“You mean, she had them in?”
“No, the whole case was gone. It wasn’t in the waste basket either. I think Falkenborg took them. I’m terribly sorry to say that but it’s what I think.”
Simonsen said heavily, “She’s going to have them on when he kills her?”
“Yes, that’s the way it is. That’s what he’s going to do, Simon-kill both of them.”
CHAPTER 47
The anaesthetic had given her a headache, a condition that was seriously worsened by the infernal din that blasted at regular intervals and threatened to burst her eardrums. She could not see, and only gradually was she aware of her own situation. She noticed a rag in her mouth and a strip of tape around her neck holding the rag in place and pinching her cheeks when she moved her head, which was hard to avoid, every time another wave of noise hit her. Her face was covered with cloth that felt like the synthetic silk lining of a coat, but the covering was carelessly executed, because if she lowered her head and looked down she could see light below her and a small section of concrete floor. White, dry dust penetrated through the opening, several times causing coughing fits that threatened to choke her, because the rag in her mouth prevented normal breathing. The particles came in cascades in tempo with the noise, and she quickly learned to hold her breath when it was at its worst. The powerful stimuli from absent vision, maddening noise and intolerable white dust meant that she only belatedly showed an interest in her body. She was sitting on a chair whose legs did not move a millimetre when she tried to wriggle it. Her wrists were also linked to the armrests with cuffs on each side.
This torture lasted a long time, but gradually she could also distinguish other sounds: a tool that rattled when the noise stopped, occasionally the characteristic swish of a broom, and then the scraping of a shovel, besides footsteps on a hard floor. There were also occasional outbursts from a person who was working hard, and once a brief, angry sentence, the meaning of which she was unable to catch. Later the infernal noise was replaced with more digging sounds, but by that point she was well aware of what was going on. Andreas Falkenborg was preparing her final resting place, which apparently was to be below a concrete floor. Strangely enough she did not feel overwhelmingly afraid. Not even when she suddenly noticed that he had put her contact lenses in while she was anaesthetised.