Why hadn’t René seen it coming?
“There are two possibilities here, Teis. Either you’re telling the truth and the shares are on their way to me. Or else you’re not, and those suitcases your little wife took with her have some very interesting contents. If the latter happens to be the case, I’d advise you to deliver the certificates to me immediately, otherwise I shall be going to the police with everything I know.”
Snap didn’t exactly look unnerved by the threat, but he was. René knew the guy too well.
He turned on his heel, glancing at his watch as he strode away. Ten past ten.
The day was still young.
29
“Are you feeling better now, Carl?” asked Assad, leaning in the doorway.
“A bit,” he replied weakly.
“Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?”
Carl recoiled as a matter of reflex. “Er, no thanks.” He shook his head as vigorously as he could. “I don’t think I’ll ever be that well again, but maybe Rose could do with one.”
Rose thrust out both hands with a look of disgust that clearly signaled she’d rather swallow a bottle of cod-liver oil.
“Listen here, you two,” she said, raising her eyebrows. The class was back in session. “I’ve heard back about those Maersk containers in Kaliningrad, the ones we identified on Anweiler’s postcard. It’s legit. The postmark matches up with the date the containers were unloaded onto the quayside. And the technicians say the photo hasn’t been manipulated, so the man’s as innocent as I reckoned he was all along. Case closed.”
Something morphed in Assad’s physiognomy. Sure, his face was still lopsided, but all of a sudden it looked different, like he was holding his breath as he sucked his lower lip into the corner of his mouth. Was he standing there enjoying his own private joke?
“Hey, Assad, what are you chortling about? Did you dig up any goodies on Zola and his lot in Kregme?”
“I’m afraid not, Carl. He owns an import/export company registered in Luxembourg, where they pay their taxes. All aboveboard, as far as I can see. Taxable income declared at two point one million Danish kroner for 2010.”
“OK, How many’s he got on his payroll? Not that many, surely?”
Assad gave a shrug. “They’re criminals, if you ask me. I am not finished with them yet.”
“What’re you laughing about, then?” Rose wanted to know.
“Oh, that was just-how do you say?-the joke of the day. You would like it in particular, Rose. I just heard that Sverre Anweiler has been arrested in Flensburg with fifty kilos of hash in his tour bus, so now he’s behind bars again. Fifty kilos of giggle weed, isn’t that funny? He’ll go down for ten years at least. Maybe he should have stayed in Kaliningrad, ha-ha-ha.”
Carl frowned and looked at Rose. It maybe wasn’t exactly the punch line she would have preferred.
“All right, but then I can’t be arsed to add an appendix to your report,” she said with a sigh. “Anyway, I’ve put a bulletin out on Marco Jameson,” she went on, changing the subject in a huff. “Could have done with a more up-to-date photo than the one they gave you in Kregme, Carl. He’s only seven years old in it, but then again I don’t suppose anyone’s ever bothered to take his picture since, not with his kind of background.”
She tossed the photo down in front of him. She was right. It was probably more of a hindrance than a help.
“OK, Rose, you’re right. Maybe you should take advantage of your new door-to-door experience and do some rounds where he’s been spotted. I suggest you start off with the area around the library on Dag Hammarskjölds Allé. Perhaps the shopping streets, too. Classensgade, Nordre Frihavnsgade, Trianglen, and what have you. Ask the shop owners if they’ve seen him. We’ve got a name and a photo now, even if the shot isn’t good. Just take your time, it’s often the way to get results.”
For a moment she remained seated, as if collecting herself to unleash a hail of protest. But then her face relaxed and became almost beatific.
“OK. You’re lucky I love the rain, Carl. Oh, by the way,” she added, “I have a bit of info for you. A funny little thing happened while you were out. I’ve been told to send you up to Lars Bjørn, Carl. Gordon’s complained about you.”
–
“Two ugly flies in one swat,” he murmured as he watched Ms. Sørensen leave Bjørn’s office and close the door behind her. The mummy had emerged from the crypt. Let the horror movie commence. He nodded to her as she approached, summoning his most ingratiating smile and not unexpectedly receiving only the most disdainful of looks in return.
So much for that famous personal development course of hers.
“Bit of a racket they’re kicking up in there, isn’t it?” he said, jerking a thumb toward Bjørn’s door without expecting a reply from the old bag’s colorless lips.
She tilted one eyebrow and lowered the other. Classic attitude.
“Yes, the changing of the guard here certainly doesn’t make me look less forward to retirement day,” she answered.
It was undeniably an astonishing statement. Had he and the she-wolf of Department A really got to the point where there was something they agreed on?
“If that apprentice in there had kept wearing his old school tie, then we could at least have called him well dressed. But we can’t even say that about him, can we?”
That apprentice? Was it Lars Bjørn she meant?
She rolled her eyes with an expression of scorn that normally only teenage girls could master. The only difference was, it managed to make her look even more miserable than usual.
“You’ve heard about Marcus Jacobsen, I take it?” she asked.
He nodded, albeit tentatively. “Assad and I saw him at the Rigshospital the day before yesterday. Is he ill, do you know?”
“No, thank goodness.” Then she fell silent, perhaps thinking the better of her rather emotional outburst. “No, it’s not that. It’s Martha, his wife,” she continued after a moment, her voice lowered. “She’s undergoing radiotherapy. No doubt he was there to support her.”
Was Marcus’s wife called Martha? Mar and Mar. It sounded like a pair of tightrope artists, or comedians in a silent movie.
“I’m sorry to hear it. Is it serious?” he asked.
She nodded.
Carl pictured Marcus’s wife. Petite and attractive, a bundle of energy. The sort of person you’d have thought could cope with anything.
“Do you know her?” Carl asked.
“No, I don’t, but I know Marcus, and I’m missing him like hell at the moment.” And with that she strode off, her folders pressed tight against her already flat chest.
Carl’s jaw hit his Adam’s apple. Ms. Sørensen had just sworn! And Ms. Sørensen had expressed feelings for a living creature that wasn’t a cat. These were revelations of biblical dimensions.
And then the door of Bjørn’s domain opened and out stepped Gordon’s lanky frame, limbs dangling like reeds in a stiff breeze.
“What the hell did you say to him, you gormless idiot?”
Gordon merely smiled. Apparently it was a kind of instinctive reaction of his, applicable in any circumstance.
Carl shoved past him and sat down heavily opposite Bjørn.
“Yes,” he began, dictating the pace before Bjørn had a chance to. “I admit shouting at the idiot. Not so strange considering he and Rose were engaged in the horizontal tango on my turf. And yes, I gladly admit that I can’t stand the sight of the lanky jerk, on top of which I won’t have him running around in my basement anymore.”
Annoyingly enough, his bombast seemed not to faze the acting head of Department A in the slightest, in which case he reckoned he might just as well fire off the rest of his gripe. The man facing him was by definition the type who sat around waiting for the next insult anyway.
“And another thing, Lars. I won’t have you poking your nose around in Department Q. It’s functioning fantastically the way it is, and seeing as the creation of the department, paradoxically enough, was one of your rare inspired moments, maybe you could force yourself into acknowledging that better men than you are now in charge. So all in all, I have to say no thanks to your changes, Mr. Chief Superintendent. And by the way, have a nice day.”