In the arrivals hall at Kastrup, Simonsen was met by the Countess. It had been almost a fortnight since they’d last seen each other, and their reunion was warm indeed. She gave him a big kiss for the little figurine he’d brought home for her, and another for the bunch of flowers that had greeted her when she got back from Esbjerg. Simonsen sent a kind and grateful thought to Maja Nørgaard and willingly took the credit for her gift.
‘Arne, Pauline and Klavs are all ready back at HS if you want to have a meeting today,’ said the Countess. ‘But tomorrow’s fine if you’re tired after the journey.’
He wasn’t tired at all. In fact, he hadn’t felt so relaxed in years. At least, that’s how it seemed. She smiled.
‘Right, let’s get going then. There’ve been quite a few developments in that case of yours while you’ve been away.’
Simonsen sat, tanned and full of expectation, flanked by the Countess and Pauline Berg, as Arne Pedersen conducted the meeting in his own office. At the rear of the room, Malte Borup ran Pedersen’s computer.
Pedersen himself appeared nervous, and Simonsen was surprised by the fact. Arne had run countless meetings like this and had steered any number of briefings during ongoing investigations. Moreover, with the exception of Klavs Arnold, all five of his audience were long-time colleagues, and Arnold himself was affable enough. Perhaps Pauline Berg was playing up again. He hadn’t had the chance to ask the Countess about her on their way in to Police HQ.
‘First, let me say welcome back, Simon. I hope you had a pleasant and fruitful time down there.’
Simonsen replied briefly: the trip had been beneficial indeed. At the same time, he noted that Pedersen had difficulty looking him in the eye. Simonsen’s puzzlement mounted as Pedersen spent far too long assuring him that he categorically was not in the process of taking over the investigation into Jørgen Kramer Nielsen’s killing. Certainly not, on the contrary! All they’d done while Simonsen had been away was to collate the information he’d already gathered with some new findings that had come up in the meantime. He felt compelled to stress the fact, which he then did, several times, waffling his way through the same rubbish almost from the beginning again. Fortunately, Klavs Arnold interrupted. The man from Jutland turned to Simonsen and explained:
‘It’s still your investigation, but we need to stoke it up a bit. The way things are, we’re looking at a double murder inquiry, so the expectation is that you’ll involve the rest of us and seek other resources at your disposal, too. That’s from upstairs to Arne, and quite reasonable, too, if you ask me.’
Arne Pedersen confirmed this was indeed the case, albeit rather more diplomatically. He looked at Simonsen and after a slight pause received the answer everyone was hoping for.
‘That’s fine by me, as long as I’m still in charge. I’m not having you vetoing me, Arne. And if you want to be in on the investigation, I’m your boss and not the other way round.’
It was quickly agreed, and Pedersen’s nerves evaporated just as swiftly.
‘We’ve borrowed Klavs Arnold for a while. There’s the Esbjerg link, and he’s the expert there. Moreover, as you can see, I’ve had some new equipment installed. A smartboard, to be exact, computer screen and whiteboard all in one. Like the one in the big conference room, only not quite as advanced. Malte’s running it for us today, I’ve not had time to familiarise myself with it yet.’
A collective snigger went up as Malte clicked a photo of himself on to the screen the instant Pedersen mentioned his name. The mood became more serious when it was replaced by one of Lucy Davison.
Lucy Selma Davison was born on 20 April 1952 in Liverpool. Her father George was now retired from his job as a fitter, her mother Margaret had worked as a waitress. There were two other children, Lucy’s younger brother and sister. The girl had left home on 28 May 1969, leaving a brief, uninformative note. Following the recent approach from Copenhagen, Merseyside Police had resumed enquiries into her disappearance, albeit discreetly and without the knowledge of her kin. Lucy Davison had not returned home in the intervening period, and police believed there was nothing else to suggest that anyone in the UK had heard from her in the forty years or so that had passed since her disappearance.
Arne Pedersen went on:
‘We know nothing about why she might have wanted to run away, but a reasonable guess would be that she was gripped by the general urge of young people at the time to liberate themselves from the constraints of traditional norms and values. She lived in the suburbs and came from a Catholic home, and I’m sure a city that produced the Beatles had more to offer.’
All they knew for certain was that Lucy Davison had been in Harwich on 14 June 1969. Most probably she arrived in Esbjerg on 16 or 17 June. According to her postcard, she was heading to northern Norway to see the midnight sun. In Esbjerg she made contact with six pupils from class Three Y of the Brøndbyøster Gymnasium who had got together in a summer house to revise for the last subject of their final exams, oral maths, scheduled for Friday 20 June.
Arne Pedersen took a gulp of water and the Countess interjected for Simonsen’s benefit:
‘We call them the Gang of Six.’
He nodded, though he didn’t care for the name, finding it vaguely accusatory and therefore liable to lead them towards the wrong conclusions. Pedersen continued:
‘Our theory is that Lucy Davison died in that summer house and that our Gang of Six concealed the body. Two of them then drove to Lycksele in Sweden, which is in the Västerbotten region, about a thousand kilometres from Malmö as the crow flies. Some way outside the town they put up her tent in the forest. Before they got to Lycksele, however, about halfway there, they stopped off in Orsa and sent her postcard. There are three things in particular that we still haven’t a clue about. How did she die? What happened to her body? And where is this summer house? Any questions?’
He looked at Konrad Simonsen, who had a couple, at least.
‘Are her parents still alive?’
‘Yes.’
‘I assume we know the identities of all the members of this Gang of Six?’
‘We do. I’ll get to that in just a minute.’
‘What about the other pupils in Three Y? Do we know where they are today?’
‘We haven’t looked into that. What do you want them for?’
To everyone’s astonishment, Klavs Arnold interrupted:
‘He’s right, you know. We’ve only got one shot at those bastards.’
‘I’m not with you,’ said Pauline Berg.
The Countess butted in:
‘If we don’t get a really good idea about this Gang of Six, what they were like in their school days, then we won’t have a chance when it comes to assessing their stories once we interview them as adults. Now I see why I spent hours going through their useless essays as well as the school magazine from nineteen sixty-seven to sixty-nine while you were relaxing in mud baths by the Black Sea, Simon. You might have told me.’
He begged to differ.
‘How did I know you were reading their essays? I’m not a mind reader. Did you come up with anything?’
Within a second everyone was talking at once and Arne Pedersen sat there like an idiot, not knowing whether he should involve himself in the debate, wait until it was over or ask for quiet. Malte Borup solved the issue on his behalf. A silent-movie speech caption appeared on the screen: Shut up and listen to Arne. It was ambulance siren, however, that cut most effectively through the babble. Everyone fell silent at once, and Pauline Berg put her hands to her ears.
Pedersen sent Malte a look of gratitude before he carried on as though nothing had happened: