Simonsen sat down on the bench next to her. The woman looked up for a second, then carried on reading. Simonsen searched his inside pocket for his ID, discovering to his annoyance that he must have left it behind. He introduced himself cautiously and explained:
‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten my badge.’
The woman folded her magazine and tossed it on to the rack under the pram, slid off her glasses and meticulously put them away in a case she took from her bag, before expelling a deep sigh and answering him.
‘I’ve seen you on TV. This is about Tobias, I suppose?’
‘Partly, yes.’
‘Tobias Juul was the most despicable person I’ve ever met. It took me years to get over him. It still made me sad, though, when I saw he was dead. It’s odd, having hated him so much.’
‘When did you know him?’
‘It’s a long time ago now, more than ten years. I was seventeen when I moved in with him, and I’m twenty-nine now, so what’s that… twelve years? Will my husband have to know about… back then? I’d rather he didn’t.’
‘I can give you a guarantee of discretion, nothing to worry about. You lived together, you and Tobias?’
‘For two years, yes. Unofficially, though. I was still registered as living with my parents. How did you find me anyway?’
‘I guessed. Your father attacked a postman on the fifth of March 1996.’
‘Yes, Jørgen Nielsen, that poor man. It was terrible, and all my fault. He died six months ago, by the way. I still think about him sometimes.’
Simonsen informed her briefly of the circumstances and then held back, allowing her to tell the story in her own words. Her tale was in many respects the same as Maja Nørgaard’s, apart from the fact that Jørgen Kramer Nielsen hadn’t rejected her. She had visited him regularly for two years, always on the last Sunday of every other month, taking home four thousand kroner each time, until her father happened to get wind of what was going on.
‘How did he find out?’ Simonsen asked.
‘A neighbour. An old gossip with eyes on stalks. She’s dead, too, now.’
‘And all you had to do was spend time with him, with no clothes on?’
‘That was all there was to it. I could do what I wanted while I was there, and I soon got used to being naked. Tobias had me doing all sorts of things elsewhere, but this was nothing. It was a bit cold at times, but that was the only uncomfortable thing about it.’
‘Didn’t he ever make a pass at you?’
‘Never. And he wasn’t ever dirty, either, though obviously it must have been sexual for him in some way.’
‘Did you ever ask why? I mean, you must have got to know each other in some way.’
‘We did, yes. He bought me presents, for my birthday and Christmas. He was sweet. But no, I never asked him what he got out of my being there. He did show me the loft, though, one of the last times I was there. I sort of worked it out then. I think I was a kind of surrogate for the girl up there, even if he never told me about her. The loft was his big secret and I had to promise never to tell anyone about it. I never did either, until now. But you’ll know all about that, won’t you?
Simonsen called the priest as soon as he left the playground, then ordered a taxi.
Forty-five minutes later he was at the house where Jørgen Kramer Nielsen had lived. The priest led him up the stairs and into the first-floor flat while he explained:
‘It took us a while to find the trapdoor after your call. The man who lives here now gave me a hand, but he had to get off to work before you came. We were beginning to think there was no access, but then eventually we found it. Jørgen fitted it to look like an ordinary ceiling tile in the bathroom. I was the first to go up, and as soon as I saw what he’d done, I thought I’d better come back down again and wait until you got here.’
Entering the loft was an overwhelming experience. Konrad Simonsen had never seen anything like it and he felt oddly alien as he stepped cautiously into the room. After a couple of steps he halted, wondering quite ridiculously if he should remove his shoes, seeing himself as what he was: a timorous intruder, a voyeur, forcing his way into a dead man’s soul.
The room was clad with mirrors. Small, rectangular bevelled mirrors, each no more than a handspan, meticulously covering all the surfaces: the long, sloping side walls of the roof, the two end walls and the floor. Below the ridge beam, the harsh illumination of fluorescent lighting was an endless reflection, avidly reproducing the figure of anyone who ventured inside. There were no windows or furniture.
But most captivating were the photographs. He counted them, as if in some way to hold his own. There were eighteen in total, all poster-sized enlargements, all exactly dimensioned, in width and height, so as to cover the same number of mirrors to the millimetre. The subject was the same, and yet each picture was unique. A lifelong variation over the same enthralling theme: shimmering mountain peaks beneath a cold, ice-blue sky, bathed in the brightest, eternally sparkling sunlight. And then the girl. Everywhere the girl. This was her room. Her pretty face was on every poster, merged to perfection with the sky, from where, as if according to mood, she could play hide-and-seek with her beholder. Now she was visibly smiling; now, by the slightest movement of his head, vanishing into the clouds, only to peep out again in one of her countless reflections.
Stepping closer he could see that each poster was made up of several photographs, but the transitions between them were so seamless he had to focus in order to see the joins, even at a distance of mere centimetres. Here, too, was the secret behind the girl’s compelling gaze, that seen from other angles seemed to alternate so irresistibly with the cold rays of the sun: dozens of tiny holes pierced the paper, allowing the mirror behind to lend her eyes the quality of diamond dust sparkling in her pupils.
Konrad Simonsen closed his own and for a moment felt himself returned to a time long since past. Then he emerged once again into the present and spoke aloud.
‘And who might you be? I wonder.’
CHAPTER 2
The discovery of the photographs in the loft was naturally of interest to Konrad Simonsen in his role as head of investigation on a case he too had gradually begun to think of as the postman case. But at the same time, the images of the girl had a positive personal effect on Simonsen in as much as she ousted another, that since his operation had tormented him more than he had been willing to acknowledge.
His daughter Anna Mia and the Countess had been with him as he stared at the screen and watched while the surgeon, whose name was Shears, widened Simonsen’s obstructed coronary arteries. It was a film he did not wish to see repeated: an invasive body poking about inside his heart, steered by two foreign hands, the ultimate surrender of control. He sincerely hoped his next heart attack would be swift and without warning: bang, and then dead. It was a scenario much preferable to the intravascular meddlings of Dr Shears.
Some days later, the same physician again took Simonsen’s life in his well-manicured hands, albeit verbally, taking his time to turn over every stone of his misfortune, eagerly supplemented by cues from the Countess and Anna Mia. Most of it was lost on Simonsen, but the long, foreboding words stuck: damage to the rear wall, balloon catheter, collapse of the coronary arteries, restricted blood circulation, chronic obstructive lung disease, diabetes diagnosis, drug dosage, period of convalescence. He had hoped for some remote Latin terminology, that unfortunately was unforthcoming. Anna Mia wrote down the list of horrors, while the Countess discussed them with the doctor, nodding earnestly when he spoke, then bombarding him with new questions. Simonsen himself said nothing. He sat in a stupid wheelchair, in a dressing gown. Who could be rational in a dressing gown? Besides, he needed time for it all to sink in. If he even had more time.