“William Stark?” Carl suggested.
She looked up and shook her head.
“No, that wasn’t it. I don’t recall the name. The only thing I remember is there were a lot of e’s in it.”
Carl caught Assad’s more-than-alert glance. Then Carl’s mobile thrummed in his pocket.
Great fucking timing.
“Yeah?” he answered with annoyance without first glancing at the display. “Listen, it’s not a good time right now. Call back in half an hour.”
“Hi, Carl. Sorry. It’s Lisbeth. You know, the one you spoke with at the library in Brønshøj.”
“Oops,” he groaned lamely. What was it about a woman’s voice that could knock him sideways?
“This might not be the best time for you at the moment, but the boy’s here again, at the branch on Dag Hammarskjölds Allé.”
24
Marco checked the time on the computer. It was 6:10, so it would be a while before the library closed. But then why did the librarians behind the counter keep looking at him and their watches as if they were closing in five minutes?
Could there be others they were looking at?
He turned his screen slightly so he could see their reflections. Were they conferring now?
It was the one with the short brown hair, the one they called Lisbeth, he was most wary of. It was like she was everywhere. First here, then Brønshøj, and now here again, and no matter where it was, he’d felt her eyes upon him. Maybe this was the last time he’d be able to come here. The looks they kept sending in his direction seemed to tell him so.
He turned his screen back again and typed in another search. There were all too many policemen in Copenhagen by that name, and to make matters worse he’d just discovered it could be spelled with a “C” as well as a “K.” Back to square one. Since he knew neither the officer’s surname nor his rank, he reckoned his best bet was to search Google Images, typing in “Carl” and “police,” which returned photos galore of the Swedish king and a single image of a policeman in uniform by the name of Carl Åge, nothing like the man he had seen. Thousands of irrelevant hits, thousands of irrelevant individuals. He expanded his search, adding “Copenhagen” and “criminal.” This turned up new results, fewer in number, but still far too many.
Then he read about a few current cases in the online tabloids, noting words like “inspector,” “superintendent,” and “investigation,” and after a few minutes of renewed googling the face of the man suddenly appeared on the screen in connection with a case he and his assistant had solved concerning a well-known doctor, Curt Wad, and a number of illegal abortions. Marco smiled with relief. There he was, jacket buttoned wrong with a sour smile on his face as he stared in to the camera, flanked by a rather smaller, dark-skinned man and a black-haired woman who looked like a punk rocker. Somehow Marco felt a kind of kinship with the little dark man. There was something about his eyes, the calm gaze, his curly hair, the hue of his skin.
Carl Mørck, Rose Knudsen, and Hafez el-Assad read the caption, so now he knew his policeman’s full name. A proficient investigator, according to the article, and a specialist in unsolved cases.
Marco sat for a moment and stared into space with a rare feeling inside him. Had he really been this lucky? Wasn’t this Carl Mørck just the kind of man he needed?
He read on, discovering new links that mentioned the policeman. Not everything he found was particularly reassuring. One article described an incident out in Amager where Mørck had been shot under mysterious circumstances, after which he had been on sick leave for some time. And it said his fiery temperament was legendary among colleagues.
Marco knew all about fiery temperaments. One had to be careful around them.
Again, he turned the screen until he saw Lisbeth’s reflection as she stood whispering with the other librarians who still stood facing him. All his instincts were immediately alerted. He looked toward the glass entrance doors, noting that one of the male employees had positioned himself in front of them, his eyes glancing repeatedly in Marco’s direction.
It was annoying and unpleasant and made Marco stand up and move to the next computer. If he couldn’t get away by the entrance, at least he was on the ground floor. Then, if he needed to, it would be easy to climb through the window facing the parking lot round the back.
He picked up a book that had been left on the table and pretended to look something up, cross-checking with pages on the Web.
Maybe he was too jumpy, imagining things. Why should they be interested in him? He’d always behaved himself commendably at the library.
What could it be? Had he forgotten something on the shelf above the electricity meter that they had just discovered?
He shook his head. No, he’d left nothing behind there, he felt sure of it.
He looked out on the parking lot. All seemed quiet beyond the light green of the shrubbery. People coming and going, leaving or collecting their cars in the diagonal spaces, most of them wearing a smile. A mild May evening in Denmark such as this one could be so incredible with its sharp, clear light. It was one of the things he loved best about being here.
Marco turned back to his computer screen and smiled to himself. Now he had something to go on. The policeman’s name was Carl Mørck and he worked on unsolved cases. Regardless of any reservations he might have about going to the police, he realized this was the man he had to approach with what he knew. He only hoped he could avoid having to let on that he was stateless and that his family had brought him up to be a criminal. Marco frowned. It would be difficult. To succeed he would have to find a way of passing on his information without having to meet him in person.
Which meant he needed more information that would bring him closer to the man.
Marco surfed the Web for a while. Apparently Carl Mørck’s doings were a good subject for the press, several of his cases having received considerable attention. The articles included one about a politician who had gone missing, a series of arsons, kidnappings, a killer in Copenhagen’s Søndermarken, the case of a secret brotherhood carrying out unlawful abortions, and much more besides. Department Q, his section was called.
Marco put on the headphones next to the computer and clicked into a couple of short TV clips featuring Mørck, his dark-skinned assistant and the weird female colleague.
Mørck was easy to read, but his assistant Assad was rather more difficult. In fact, the clips gave Marco a quite different impression of the man than he had gained from looking at the images on the net. On the face of it, he seemed kind and good-natured, and yet there was something indefinable about his eyes and gestures that Marco found unsettling. There was a darkness in his gaze that made him seem shifty and a little too much on his guard.
This man had secrets he did not want to share. Beneath his smile he was a sharpened knife, Marco knew. Far too wary for a pickpocket to even come close. As far as possible he would have to avoid this Assad.
After a few more minutes of searching in vain for private information about Carl Mørck, he opened Google Maps and printed out the woodland area where he had hidden from the clan the day he escaped. He collected the printout and drew a cross at the location where he believed Stark’s body had lain. So far so good.
Again the librarian looked at her watch and glanced over to where he was sitting. She didn’t look straight at him, but straight enough.
Why was she so interested in the time? There was still quite a while until closing, and why was the man still over by the entrance? What was he doing there?
The librarian’s face twitched slightly as they all heard a car enter the parking lot, braking hard and pulling into the farthest space. Her expression didn’t change much, but suddenly she appeared relieved.