He pushed himself into a standing position, drew a finger across Bjørn’s desk, nodded approvingly as he noted the missing layer of dust that had characterized the happy days with Marcus, and headed for the door.
The reaction came as he grabbed the door handle. It was calm and painfully precise.
“Gordon’s on his way down to Department Q. From now on he’ll be my liaison, reporting back to me on a daily basis and keeping me posted on your activities and whatever progress you’re expecting to make on the respective cases. He is to be informed about all your expenditures, and last of all I want him to assist you in interviewing this René E. Eriksen character. Do I make myself clear?”
At that moment Carl’s torpor returned with a vengeance. His body seemed to be sucking up everything negative out of the room and storing it somewhere hard to reach. Even his legs had received a dose. They felt heavy as lead.
He took a deep breath as he tried to think of a smart comeback, a scathing remark. He racked his brains for something to say that would remain uncontested and for once make an impression. But all he came up with was emptiness and bad karma, so he decided to keep his mouth shut.
He was simply feeling too rotten at the moment.
Christ, did he miss Marcus!
–
“First of all, Assad, I want you to see if you can find some kind of connection between Zola and William Stark. We know both Zola and William Stark traveled a lot, so maybe there’s a link there. Did Stark have business dealings with him at any point? Was anything found in Stark’s house that might indicate some kind contact between them? Receipts, for instance? Perhaps Stark had some kind of bond with Kregme. You know what to look for. I’ll get a unit out to do a thorough investigation of the grave site, OK? And while you’re at it, follow up on those accusations Zola made about Marco being the culprit. Find out where the lad went to school and if they ever had problems with him there. And whether he’s ever been involved in violent episodes or other kinds of criminal activity in or around Kregme.”
“May I then take the car, Carl? Kregme is quite a long way.”
“The car? I wasn’t thinking of anyone driving up there again, Assad. A few phone calls to the local cops and schools ought to do it.”
Assad nodded. “You fell for it, Carl. You are just like the camel who discovered it was to be married off to a dromedary…”
He slapped his thigh and cracked up laughing.
Carl was at a loss.
–
He was miles away as he went up the stairs of the rotunda.
The way things stood, the DNA analysis of the hair and the forensics report from the shallow grave would at most indicate whether it was Stark’s body that had been lying there. More tangible evidence-like incriminating notes, laundry labels with dates on them, cigarette ends covered in DNA material, footprints, and things like that-were mostly the stuff of dodgy crime novels. And if providence had perchance left such evidence lying around at the scene, time and the elements would have made a mess of it by now. So what good was a crime scene investigation?
Besides, all his instincts told him that Stark’s body had indeed been in that hole. And if it had, then where did they go from here?
They had to find the boy. That was the first priority. A bulletin had been issued, admittedly with an inadequate description and a poor photo, but still. A boy wandering the streets on his own at all hours wasn’t exactly a common sight. Flocks of immigrant kids were another matter, but Carl felt sure that a lad who sat about reading in libraries, a lad who turned up at a police station of his own accord to report a crime on behalf of a friend he didn’t have, and who’d done a bunk from a house where a man like Zola made the rules, was a lad who had learned to trust only himself.
I wouldn’t have minded discussing that profile with Mona, he thought sadly, imagining he heard her dusky voice calling out to him from somewhere on the third floor.
He paused with a frown. All of a sudden it felt like his heart had missed a couple of beats. It wasn’t exactly painful, but it made him dizzy and caused him to clutch at the wall to steady himself.
For Christ’s sake, don’t let anyone see me like this, he prayed. Why did it have to be here, the busiest place in the building? he wondered, sliding down the wall until his backside hit the stairs.
Keep calm, concentrate on your breathing, he told himself as thoughts of Mona swirled about in his mind like a nightmare where nothing would stop and nothing would start either.
What had happened with her of late anyway? From one day to the next she’d moved her practice into shared premises, which meant he had to make do with a secretary. Was being with clients more important than his needing to talk to her for a brief moment? And what had the secretary meant when she suggested Mona’s client wasn’t really a client? If he wasn’t a client, what the hell was he? Was she cheating on him during working hours? Was it just like with Gordon and Rose, where her desk was her new altar of passion? Did it turn her on more than when he…?
Carl drew his hand across his sweaty brow and detected a growing odor of death and decay. It was all coming to a head. Hardy, paralyzed in his bed in the front room. Hardy, crying. Gunshots echoing through a shack out in Amager.
“Dammit,” he said out loud, trying to pull himself upright.
He had been trembling all over just before the meeting with Mona where he’d intended to propose to her. But why hadn’t he trembled all over afterward? Was there something wrong with him, or had he just come to some kind of realization in the meantime?
His chest was really hurting now. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. Was the pain moving to his upper left arm? No, thank God, so he probably wasn’t having a heart attack.
“Pull yourself together, you idiot,” he admonished himself. “You don’t have heart attacks, dammit.” But the feeling of uncertainty wouldn’t go away.
Was Mona right? Had they just been sex partners? In practice perhaps, statistically even, too, but that’s not how it felt to him. If that was how it was for her, why didn’t she feel like having sex at least, instead of nothing? What made her say they perhaps hadn’t really chosen each other at all, when it wasn’t true? Hadn’t he waited for her all those months when she’d been away in Africa with Médecins Sans Frontières? Why the hell hadn’t he taken that ring out of his pocket when he’d had the chance?
He breathed in deeply and managed to get halfway to his feet, dizzy, his hands resting on his knees. Now the coat of mail encasing his chest seemed to be easing. The pain felt almost pleasant, like a swollen thumb you couldn’t stop fidgeting with. Gentle pain that was simply telling him he was alive and should now be able to stand up and carry on.
And then all thoughts of physiology came to a halt.
Suddenly he saw everything as it really was.
These feelings he was having emanated from his body, not his mind, where they belonged. That was the issue.
It was like he’d become insensitive, callous. Hardy’s struggle had turned into just another routine at home. Marcus Jacobsen’s sudden departure hadn’t caused any real reaction in him. Why hadn’t he been thrown into a rage? Or despair? Why hadn’t he flipped out when Mona destroyed everything they had together in the blink of an eye? Destroyed the moment of a lifetime when he was going to propose to her and offer her all the things he thought everyone strove to attain. And why was he unable to put his foot down about Rose shagging in her office? What had happened to his focus and determination when he was conducting his interrogations? Had he stopped giving a shit about everything, or was there something inside him he couldn’t control?