“I’ll run through this quickly,” said Rose. “Sverre has to be getting on. He’s off to Århus in ten minutes, got a ferry to catch.”
Carl sat down, shifting a guitar case against the wall and pulling Assad down next to him. Here was the man Interpol had been yearning to find for more than a year. From the heap of a vehicle in which they now sat there were only a hundred meters to the headquarters of the Danish National Police, and next door to it Copenhagen’s police HQ with Lars Bjørn and his rapid response unit. What made him think he was going to be allowed to drive off to Århus, just like that?
“I actually figured Anweiler was probably in Malmö, so I was going to take the train over there this morning. But then I checked Daggers and Swords’s tour schedule and found out they played up in Hørsholm last night,” Rose explained, sounding rather pleased with herself. “So I called the promoters and asked them if they knew where the band was now. And wouldn’t you know it, they were still having breakfast at Hotel Zleep in Ballerup. They’d had a bit of a late night, apparently, so they were running late.”
“I thought she was a groupie when she called,” the Swede added, in something that apparently was supposed to resemble Danish.
“I did sound a bit eager, didn’t I?” Rose sniggered.
Carl responded with a frown. When they were done here they would have to have a word with her about the inappropriateness of calling up murder suspects wanted by Interpol and making appointments to meet. There was only one procedure in a situation like this, and that was to go out and arrest the bloke.
“Rose filled me in on the situation, and to be honest I was appalled. I didn’t even know about it,” the human leftover went on. “Tragic thing to happen, but I can assure you I had absolutely nothing to do with it.”
Quite articulate for a Swede.
“I wouldn’t expect you to say anything different,” replied Carl.
“I know, but I’ve been off traveling all this time, so I had no idea. I haven’t been in Sydhavnen since I sold the houseboat, but I was actually thinking of stopping by the new owner to see if everything was all right once I got the time.”
“I can confirm we’ve seen evidence to suggest you’ve been away, but how do we know for sure?” asked Carl.
“Well, I’ve got all kinds of stuff I brought back with me. Receipts, photos and all sorts of things. It’s all in the apartment in Malmö. All you had to do was ask.”
Carl nodded. “OK, if what you’re saying here is really true, then it makes you a little less of a suspect. So far so good. But perhaps you can tell me what might have been on that houseboat that could have caused such a huge explosion? A bit hard to account for, isn’t it?”
Anweiler turned something in his hand. It looked like some tubes from an old radio, or maybe something that belonged to one of the amplifiers in the back of the van. It was the morning after the night before, and the Swede’s dull eyes were underscored by heavy shadows. There was something melancholic about the expression on his face and the hard-boiled accessories he’d decorated himself with, the pierced ears, the tattoos crawling up his neck, his shaved head.
“I don’t think it is, actually,” he replied matter-of-factly.
A peculiar feeling of relief and clarification spread through the van and its clutter of studded black leather and polished boots.
“I did the boat up ready for her. Varnished the floors a few times, treated all the woodwork. There was a bit of leftover varnish and teak oil down below in the old engine room. I told her I still needed a day to put everything in order, but she said she’d be sure to do it herself and remember to air the place out, too. It suited me fine.”
“So what you’re saying is that she forgot and all that stuff ignited itself? But if that was really what happened, the fire investigation would have reached the same conclusion. Plus they’d have found remnants of the containers at the bottom of the harbor.”
“No, because the varnish and wood oil were in plastic buckets.” He looked distressed about it. “It was probably a combination of that and something else. I should have thought about it when I was showing her around the boat. She did seem a bit preoccupied. Just kept saying yeah to everything I was explaining, without looking like any of it was really sinking in.”
“What about the gas stove?”
“No,” he said, with a sad look. “I was thinking more about the generator.”
“Down in the engine room, was it?”
Anweiler nodded slowly.
“Tell you what, Anweiler, why don’t you and I pop over the road and explain to my boss what you’ve just told us?”
He gave a shrug, reminding them he’d already said he was in a hurry and had to catch a ferry.
But Carl knew better. The unwillingness to cooperate that he saw was an ex-con’s implicit mistrust, the ingrained doubt that he would be listened to with an open mind.
They hadn’t been born yesterday.
–
It was a heavy trudge to the third floor, and the Chivas Regal in Carl’s hand felt anything but sufficient.
Farewell reception, read a note on the door of the cafeteria. They might just as well have written Department A’s demise or Dangerous criminals’ victory celebration.
Nothing would ever be the same as it had been under Marcus Jacobsen. Why the flaming hell did he have to go and retire now? Couldn’t he at least have waited until Carl threw in the towel, too?
Ms. Sørensen, the formidable Department A secretary, had risen to the occasion and baked cakes of such leaden substance that only those truly ravaged by hunger would dare set their teeth into them. Lis had inserted little Danish flags into the icing. And underneath all the disposable tumblers with hardly anything to fill them up with-it was during working hours, after all-someone had gone to the trouble of using his best handwriting to decorate the tablecloth with the sorely inappropriate words: “Enjoy your retirement, boss. Thanks and farewell. Long live Department A.”
The commissioner’s speech was brief and avoided all the pitfalls her long and often acrimonious association with the homicide chief might otherwise have caused her to stumble into. For that reason, too, it was surprisingly devoid of content. Lars Bjørn, on the other hand, spoke almost exclusively of what he was planning to carry over from Marcus’s leadership, and, more to the point, what he wasn’t.
When he had finished, only Gordon went up and shook the idiot by the hand. In return, Bjørn beamed at him and slapped him on the back, an unexpectedly accommodating gesture.
They put their heads together and exchanged some words. The rookie and the homicide chief to-be. What on earth did they have to talk about in such confidence? Wasn’t Gordon just an annoying law student who’d been given the chance to get a whiff of what life was like at the sharp end of the legal system?
Or was he simply Bjørn’s man?
If he was, then maybe he was more than just a horny idiot with a penchant for loopy women with kohl around their eyes.
“I’m watching you, you lanky bugger,” he said under his breath, turning to send his boss of many years a comforting smile. If Marcus Jacobsen were to change his mind now, Carl hoped he would kick Bjørn’s ass back to Afghanistan, from where it had just returned.
“You deserved a better send-off than the speeches you got there, Marcus. I’m really sorry,” Carl proffered, self-consciously handing him the whisky bottle in its crappy cardboard box. “No one could ever wish for a better or more competent boss than you’ve been,” he said in a clear, resounding voice, so not a single person present, including the commissioner and Lars Bjørn, could be in any doubt.
For a moment Marcus Jacobsen stared blankly at Carl, then, mustering a smile, he put the gift down on the table and gave Carl an exceedingly warm embrace.
No doubt it would be the only one all day.