Thus came twenty years of service at police HQ to an end. There was no big fuss. One day they were here, the next they were gone. It all went a little too smoothly.
Carl for one wasn’t expecting fanfares when his turn came. It suited him fine.
–
With a heavy heart Carl issued a couple of directives to Rose and Assad before slumping down at his desk to wrap up the Anweiler case with the obligatory report.
Their conclusion was that the fire was an accident and that the worst that could happen to Sverre Anweiler was a minor fine for having neglected to properly dispose of inflammable materials before handing on the boat to the new owner.
It was a sad and not particularly exciting or prestigious case for Bjørn to present to the press, but a good one for Marcus Jacobsen to bow out on. Last case solved, thank you and good night. There were no doubt other investigations during his long career that had been far from successfully concluded, which he would look back on without satisfaction. Like any other investigator in the homicide division he would just have to live with it.
An unconcluded murder case would keep gnawing away until death itself intervened.
Carl printed out his report and wrote CONCLUDED across the front page in block letters.
He stared at the word and began involuntarily to think of Mona again. Would it ever stop?
–
Carl and Assad stood in front of the array of cases covering the notice boards on their basement’s corridor wall. Though some had been cleared away during the last few months, more had unfortunately taken their place. In the latter period, under Marcus Jacobsen, Department A’s success rate had touched ninety percent, but in the rest of the country the picture was rather less flattering, a fact amply illustrated by the seeming disorder at which they now stared. Moreover, the past ten years had left its mark in other ways equally tragic. Inexplicable disappearances and deaths, most likely genuine suicides, also added to the clutter of documents on the boards, crisscrossed by Assad’s system of red and blue strings.
The blue strings joined cases that may have been related, however tenuously. The red strings joined those that seemed more obviously connected.
A colorful spiderweb of death and disaster. And then all the cases that were hanging there on their own.
“Plenty to get started on, Assad,” said Carl.
“My words exactly, Carl. Like minds think greatly.”
“It’s the opposite, Assad. Great minds think alike, OK? But, yeah, I reckon we’re thinking the same thing: Can we really be bothered with yet another dubious case? A missing person from ages ago?”
“But still, Carl. I think Rose deserves it. She has just cleared up a case on her own.”
“Yeah, but that one never even made it up on the wall here, remember?”
“Nevertheless, then, I think we should put this one up, Carl.” He smiled wearily but roguishly, just like the Assad of old. A bit more peppermint-tea soup, a touch more bone-penetrating Middle Eastern caterwauling on the CD player, a few more twinkles in his eye and daily doses of linguistic befuddlement, and the man would be back in business.
“You reckon so, do you?” Carl gave a deep sigh. This wasn’t a day where his defenses were fully functioning, Mona being at the end of his every train of thought. “In that case, you can give her the news yourself, OK?” The overpowering manner in which Rose sometimes responded to such gestures made him heedful. She wasn’t necessarily the one he needed a close encounter with just now.
He tumbled onto his chair and tried to pull himself together. A couple of deep hits on his first ciggie of the day.
Why couldn’t he stop thinking about Mona? Goddamn it!
In no time at all his cigarette became ash, and uneasiness seemed to take a firmer hold with every drag. And then, out of nowhere, Rose was standing in front of him, coughing and wafting away the smoke with the missing persons notice in hand.
“Thanks, Carl,” was all she said, pointing at her little poster. No exuberant gush of elation that would knock him off his feet. Just a simple “thanks.” Coming from Rose, it spoke volumes.
She ignored his pained expression and sat down on one of the horrendous chairs she had once managed to sneak into his office.
“I’ve been looking into what might have happened to our missing person here, but that won’t surprise you, I’m sure.” She jabbed a finger at the photo of the red-haired William Stark. “The phone number on the notice is no longer in operation, of course, but I’ve found a new one, so we can get in touch with the girl who put it out.”
“OK. What is it exactly that’s got you so turned on about this case?” he asked.
“Assad, come in here a minute, will you?” she hollered.
A moment later he shuffled in, hungry for something new to sink his teeth into, ready for action with his hand-chased metal tray and three tiny cups of steaming, sticky goo. “I think this calls for some Turkish delight,” he announced, with a nod toward the colored blobs of sugar on the tray as if they were the contents of the Holy Grail.
“Assad’s done a background check, and I’ve been researching the situation as it stands now,” Rose explained, as if this were just a matter of course.
Carl shook his head. The two of them together were like a herd of stampeding gnu on the plains of Africa. Heads down and full steam ahead, and if he wasn’t going to join in, he’d better get out of the way.
Assad deposited his saccharine shock on the table and sat down next to Rose, notepad at the ready.
“A clever guy, this William Stark. Top of his year at law school. Very strange, in fact, that he then did not rise higher in the hierarchy before he disappeared.” Assad laid some papers in front of him. “Forty-two years old and fifteen years as a ministerial civil servant. Before that, a legal clerk and consultant for a number of lobby groups. Unmarried, but has been living six years with a Malene Kristoffersen and her daughter, Tilde. Malene is forty-seven now, Tilde is sixteen, and they live out in Valby.”
“What about Stark’s personal finances?”
Assad nodded. “Twenty years of careful saving up. Mortgage paid off and more than eight million kroner in securities. Mostly inherited from his mother, who died just before he went missing. He was an only child, and there were no other close family members.”
“Eight million? Wow!” Carl whistled. If he had that kind of money he’d buy two tickets to Cuba and force Mona into coming with him. A month under the palm trees and a bit of rumba to loosen the loins and ruffle the sheets, and she was bound to soften up.
He shook the thought out of his head. “OK, have we got any statements from people who knew him? Anything that might give us a hint as to why he disappeared?”
Rose took over. “No, nothing. His colleagues at work describe him as the quiet type, but at ease with himself. The report says that nothing at work or on the domestic front gave cause to suspect he was depressed or anything like that.”
Lucky bastard.
“But again, Rose, why are you so interested in this case? Other than feeling sorry for the young girl, which I completely understand. What else is there?”
“The circumstances, Carl. I can understand going to Africa and disappearing there. Of course it could have been against his will, with all the dangers there must be in a place like that, but intentionally vanishing in a region with no rule of law could be a possibility, too. It could have been a lust for adventure, or he might have just been sick and tired of the daily routine back home. Sick and tired of his work and his colleagues. Fed up with the cold and dark of winter and the political climate in Denmark. Or maybe he needed more sex. Maybe he had a preference for young, dark-skinned girls. He wouldn’t be the first, would he?” She paused to give weight to what followed. “Or young, dark-skinned boys, for that matter. He might have had secrets. We all have them, you know.”