“You searched the garbage for the note?”
“Of course. We turned three containers upside down in the back and started right in. The son helped me, while the woman directed, which was a joke. Finally we found it-a small, light-blue Post-it, where the delivery date and the number of pizzas were elegantly written in a strikingly rounded hand. A graphological gift, even if most of it was numbers. Everyone was happy and they gave me a coffee on the house so the whole thing ended on a nice note. Until I accidentally happened to glance above the counter where the various orders in the restaurant were hanging, written in-well, take a guess.”
“A strikingly rounded hand.”
“Bingo! It was just bad luck and the son was as annoyed as I was. He apologized for his mother’s faulty memory but it was too much for his mother and she flew into a state. She poured out the worst vindictives over our sinful heads-a fine mixture of Danish and Italian-and in the middle of this abuse she calls out to us why we don’t just go and ask the man himself. We just sit there gaping until the son pulls himself together and demands an explanation: does she know him or not? But no, she doesn’t know anyone. He and his father are always the ones who get out and meet people, while she has to stand there selling pizzas. She just knows that the man is a janitor at her son’s old school.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Apparently not. She distinguished between knowing someone and knowing who someone is, which you have to admit is not a crazy thing. She claimed that was where her description got hung up, because she thought we meant his personality and not his appearance.”
The Countess nodded thoughtfully.
“God only knows how Per Clausen will explain the order. It’ll be an interesting afternoon. Won’t you call Simon right away? He’s probably done with Forensics by now.”
“Can’t you do it? I have to use the restroom and I also have to deliver these before they get too warm. Where is the new guy?”
Poul Troulsen proudly pulled two sodas out of his briefcase.
“Impressive. I really didn’t think you could manage the whole texting thing.”
“If the truth be told, I got some help.”
“Malte is programming in the next room. He wants to set up a crossreferencing system for our reports. It was his own idea, and don’t bother asking him for any details.”
Malte Borup gratefully received his sodas. While he was digging for his money, Troulsen at first glanced idly at his work, but took a closer look when something caught his eye.
“Tell me, what are you doing exactly?”
“A cross-referencing system. It’ll save you a lot of time. Automatic free text searching for connections. Inductive and asynchronic. I found a great AI-class library online. For starters I’m integrating with hospitals and telecommunications. Am done with the big hospitals with the exception of Herlev. They’re a hard nut to crack but I’ll try again this evening.”
His listener did not look like someone who could appreciate the depth of this information so he added helpfully, “AI means ‘artificial intelligence.’”
Troulsen laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and said calmly, “Maybe you should try to express yourself in sentences as opposed to acronyms. I’m having trouble understanding what you’re saying-tell me, don’t you know that it’s illegal to break into other people’s computer systems?”
Borup didn’t reply.
“Aren’t we the police, for God’s sake?”
Troulsen’s large mass so close-by made him nervous and when the subject changed he felt completely spun around.
“Malte, who is the prime minister of Denmark?”
He thought hard while his fingers scratched at the keyboard. The question could be answered by Google in a split second, but that would probably be cheating.
“Isn’t it someone from Jutland?”
“It’s always someone from Jutland. Give me more.”
He crossed his fingers and took a guess.
“From Århus?”
Troulsen decided to postpone his bathroom visit. The last thing they needed was a first page headline about a police hacker. He returned to the Countess, recounted the situation, and ordered her to give her protégé a lesson in social studies, starting with the laws of the land. Not that the boy seemed to have any objections to any of it, but it appeared that he took the relationship much less seriously than seemed suitable.
“Okay, I’ll have to talk to him. In the meantime you should see how well you remember your geography. Or you can take out a map of Denmark.”
“What do you mean?”
“Simon wants one of us to go to Tarm and talk to the janitor’s sister, and if I remember correctly I was the one who…”
She let the sentence hang in the air unfinished and he capitulated at once.
“I’ll go. Can I take your car?”
The Countess’s phone rang, so she simply nodded. The message was brief but serious, which she confirmed upon hanging up.
“Per Clausen has given us the slip.”
“That can’t be true. It’s a joke.”
“In that case a very bad one.”
Tarm suddenly seemed extremely appealing.
Chapter 16
It was now sixteen days after nurse Helle Smidt Jørgensen had medicated the men in the minivan. Six unpleasant days and two horrible nights with Uncle Bernhard over her. She was particularly tense today, since tabloids and posters screamed of the mass murder and the entire hospital was talking about the news. It was almost impossible to think about anything else, and although her part at the rest stop last Wednesday had been over in ten minutes, images from the episode kept popping up in her mind’s eye like an unwelcome movie. Unfamiliar faces with fearful, pleading eyes and hands that were shaking uncontrollably and the metallic clang of the handcuffs when they hit the back of the railing. The desperation of the men when she stood there in the van with the syringe raised like a torch and the tourniquet slung around her neck like a venomous snake. They roared like bulls and howled like dogs until the Climber came at them with a pocket knife and compelled them to quiet down. Be quiet or you’ll lose an eye, my dear Pelle… how about it, Frank, same for you, Thor, and you as well… was it Peter? She could not remember the names, only the Climber’s witty and frighteningly honest voice.
“It’s hard not being able to talk to anyone. Harder than I thought.”
The old woman on the bathing stool smiled uncomprehendingly and Helle Smidt Jørgensen stroked her gently on the head. The touch brought a fleeting glimpse of presence into the vacant eyes, then she retreated into her own land. “Is it Thursday today? That’s the day my daughter comes by.”
The woman took an evident pleasure in the water spilling over her emaciated, wrinkled body and Jørgensen gently soaped her up. She let the water run for the sake of warmth.
“I was playing cops and robbers, me, an old woman. So I got to try that too.” She glanced at her patient and it occurred to her that “old” was relative.
“Not that I’m as old as all that, of course, but there I was with a hood, a gun, and the whole shebang. A real-life pistol or a revolver-what do I know? Even if it wasn’t loaded. And then a whole bag of handcuffs.”
“My daughter’s coming today. Is it Thursday today?”
The towels were stacked in the warming closet and they were a pleasant temperature. She wrapped them around the old woman and gently rubbed her dry.
“I pointed the pistol at the Climber without saying anything. He begged for mercy while he was locking them all up and it just so happened that no one protested before it was too late. Yes, I’m sure they all believed it was a mugging and that the Climber, being the driver, was also a victim, and the truth only dawned on them when all five of them were handcuffed.”
A tremble shot through the old woman. She must have raised her voice.