“As you must know, there was a period when Per drank a great deal. He was an alcoholic, no doubt about it. We never talked about it but after a couple of years when he got more control over his alcohol abuse we did sometimes talk about it, that he was beginning to live a healthier lifestyle.”
“A kind of code?”
“You could call it that, but ‘indirect little comments’ covers it better. Of course it is a silly way to communicate. You can never know if both people mean the same things with the same words, but that’s how it went. And it certainly doesn’t happen very often that we touch on personal matters.”
“So you are not very close to your brother?”
“I don’t think anyone is. I’m no exception.”
“You say that he used to drink. It began when your niece drowned?”
“Yes, it did. It was intense and very self-destructive; I think Per was trying to punish himself.”
“Did he feel guilty about his daughter’s death?”
“Yes, of course, and on top of that he was desperately unhappy.”
“How was their relationship?”
“I don’t know except that he loved her very much. Helene was a delightful child.”
“Tell me about her. What was she like?”
“Fragile. Fragile and gifted. She had inherited her father’s intellect, but not his robustness. She was also quite pretty. Probably took after her mother; that kind of thing doesn’t exist in our side of the family.”
Troulsen asked further questions about the girl. Simonsen had discussed the interview with him by phone the whole way from Nyborg to Odense, and Helene Clausen’s fate was one of the subjects he was expected to clarify. But the girl’s aunt was unable to shed much light; beyond the fact that the girl had had a nervous temperament, nothing of interest was revealed. He focused on the topic of her death.
“Do you know the details of the circumstances that led to her death?”
“Not really. She drowned but you already know that. It was a summer evening in 1994 at a Bellevue Beach with her school friends. More than that I don’t know.”
“You say that he felt guilty about her death. Why is that?”
“It’s hard to explain. Perhaps he felt he hadn’t watched carefully enough over her.”
“Do you think he didn’t?”
This time she waited so long before speaking that he thought she was not going to answer. When she finally said something, the result was not in proportion to the time taken to prepare it.
“I don’t know.”
He tested the waters gingerly: “Do you want to tell me what you think?” Again a pause, as long as before.
“I think that Per came to say goodbye this last week. I think that my brother intends to do away with himself. I believe that Helene was a mental wreck when she returned from Sweden. And I believe that he was involved in the terrible things that happened at the school where he worked.”
Troulsen felt blown away in his chair.
“That was something.”
“Yes, I know, but it won’t help you to ask more questions. I have nothing concrete to give you and what I just said is based on vague feelings and may be completely wrong.”
She was right once more. He probed and probed for almost two hours before he gave up, after which she-despite his halfhearted protests-showed him up to the guest room.
Chapter 21
Konrad Simonsen and Kasper Planck were playing chess. From time to time they discussed the case and at other times one or other’s comments simply hovered unanswered in the air. One of the advantages of a chess game was that there was no need to observe social niceties in conversation. As opponents the two men were well matched, perhaps because their strengths were so different. Planck’s strength lay in tactics and combinations, while Simonsen was best at theory and strategy, and although he was exhausted after an all-too-long day he had-as usual-gotten off to the better start. This evening he would have preferred to skip the chess game, but whenever he was with his former boss it was the latter who called the shots. His vague hints about only discussing the case were summarily ignored and the old man went to get the chess set and the cognac. Tradition was going to be observed, mass murder be damned.
Simonsen focused on his opponent. Planck was a stately old man with a slim, sinewy body and gray-white hair that fanned out in great swirls around his tanned face. His clear green gaze swept the board.
As a boss he had been hard, a leader of the old school. At the same time, he was respected and-in his last years-almost loved. But what had made him into a legend in his own time was neither his leadership abilities nor his success rate at solving cases, for that matter. His status as a living legend stemmed primarily from the fact that he was able to handle the press, which reciprocated by making him into an icon. His revolutionary approach consisted of treating journalists as if they were people. An art that he had not necessarily been able to pass on to his successor.
Planck moved a pawn in the center without further reflection.
“What’s the real reason you have gotten me involved in your mass murder, Simon?”
“You’ve assisted in other cases before since you retired. This is nothing new.”
“Bullshit. You have never asked for my help before at the outset like this. And definitely never officially.”
“Elvang thought it would be a good idea.”
“That’s neither here nor there.”
A more truthful answer would have been that Planck was in possession of exactly those attributes for which Simonsen had the most pressing need in this case that was so different from anything else he had experienced. Time after time his predecessor had demonstrated an almost terrifying intuition in the course of an investigation. He was able to pick up and interpret very simple pieces of information differently and often more precisely than others, and if there was such a thing as a sixth sense, he was without doubt in possession of one. But at the heart of it, this ability was probably due mostly to the fact that the old man’s mind always let one or more parallel possibilities remain open, in contrast to the systematic approach that characterized traditional police work.
They played a couple of moves, then Simonsen said, “When they carried the bodies out of the gymnasium, it was like back in the first couple of months after your retirement, and…”
He paused and the pause grew too long.
Planck commented sarcastically, “Take your time, the night is young.”
“I would like to have had a strong conviction, something edifying, if you understand. For example, the confidence that I will be able to track the perpetrators down no matter what. But I imagine that mostly I just felt alone and it has not gotten better today, to put it mildly.”
“Well.”
Simonsen thought that it had been too long since they had last worked together. Now he remembered again-his former boss had never been particularly warm. Nor was he himself, for that matter. Nonetheless, he had been hoping for some support. He asked with some trepidation, “Did that sound stupid?”
“Yes, extremely so.”
“But for God’s sake, man, who in the world builds a podium in order to execute five people? And at a school of all places.”
Planck nodded slowly. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”
Planck’s use of the plural warmed Simonsen’s heart. That was what he had been angling for. He took a sip of his cognac. That warmed, too. Then he refocused on the game.
In the middle of the match, when their positions were as good as even, Planck casually injected, “Turns out, I made a new female acquaintance today.”
“I see, and who would that be?”
“I think you’ll be more interested in what she is.”
“And what is she?”
“A reporter at the Dagbladet; she was here for three hours this afternoon. You and I might make the front page tomorrow if we’re lucky.”