Simonsen concluded:
‘We need to know how tight they were. Were they a group or not? And we need to know before we talk to them, if at all possible.’
‘OK, we’ll slog our guts out, day and night.’
Which was Klavs Arnold’s way of saying he thought Simonsen was asking a lot of them…
They took a ten-minute break to get coffee, go to the bathroom or just stretch their legs. Pauline Berg collared Simonsen in the corridor.
‘I know you’ve just got back, but aren’t you going to do anything about that meeting you promised us with Arthur Elvang? The group are getting a bit impatient. I am, too, for that matter.’
The group! He’d been hoping that no longer existed. He replied almost with animosity:
‘And how many people would there be in this group of yours?’
‘There are five of us.’
‘I see. Well, you can tell the group that you’ll be informed of a date later this week. But the group will not be meeting Elvang. It’ll be you and your friend from Melby Overdrev only – and no one else.’
The Countess took over and led the meeting, though remaining seated in her chair as she outlined what had been uncovered with respect to the summer house.
She and Klavs Arnold had been through Esbjerg and its surrounding areas with a fine-toothed comb in search of where Jørgen Kramer Nielsen had stayed on his annual three-day visit in the summer holidays. Eventually, after days of hard graft without a result, they’d found the place. Kramer Nielsen had lodged at the same hostel, the Nørballe Vandrehjem, every year without fail. The first time was as far back as 1980, though no one at the place had any idea what he’d been doing in the area. True to form, he kept himself to himself. And yet he did always rent a bike, and the Countess thought it likely he visited Lucy Davison’s grave. However, none of the town’s florists seemed to know him. If he took flowers with him, he must have picked them himself. They’d also made efforts to find out if Kramer Nielsen met with any of the others from the Gang of Six on his annual trip. Without wishing to put her head on the block, the Countess felt that he had not. Or most certainly not all at once. She turned to Klavs Arnold.
‘Would you like to say something about the house?’
‘No, you go on. Your accent’s so charming.’
‘Well, in that case I will, but there’s not a lot more to say really.’
Knowing that Kramer Nielsen had rented a bike during his stays at the hostel, they had considered a radius of about fifteen kilometres to be about right. Unfortunately, the area contained hundreds of summer houses, and since the information they had been able to glean from the photos was so sparse, the police had a mammoth task ahead of them if they were to check each one individually. Moreover, the photos showed no visible landmarks of any kind, meaning a cursory check would be insufficient and closer investigation would be required. And as if that wasn’t enough, the last forty-odd years had changed the face of Esbjerg’s summer house areas considerably. All in all, it was going to take a huge effort and an equally huge amount of resources to go from house to house. The Countess went on:
‘We can’t tell from the vegetation on the photos whether the place is on the coast or further inland, so our best bet is to check whether anyone connected with the Gang of Six owned a summer house in the Esbjerg area. That work is being done as I speak. Another avenue is to have Klavs do the rounds of builders, DIY centres, that sort of thing, and get them to have a look at the sections of the house visible on the photos and see if they can tell us anything from a professional perspective.’
Simonsen interrupted with a question:
‘If we find a likely place, can we make a definitive match using those photos?’
Klavs Arnold replied:
‘Definitely.’
‘So the house-to-house can get us a result as long as people are doing their jobs properly?’
‘I’d say so, yes. It’ll take time, though, and you can’t put just anyone on a job like that. Besides, like the Countess says, it’s going to cost a bomb. Aside from that, it’s a possibility. A distinct possibility.’
‘Could you head up that kind of effort?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do it.’
‘I will, as long as you take any flak from on high.’
‘Of course, no problem. As Arne said at the beginning, we may be dealing with a double murder here, and in that case it’s no use penny-pinching. What would the press say if they got word?’
Arne Pedersen spluttered a few half-hearted words about budget and resources.
Pauline Berg silenced him.
‘You’ve got to admit, Simon’s right, Arne. The tabloids would tear Gurli apart. Imagine the headlines.’
Pedersen capitulated and slid back into the role of running the meeting. The screen now showed a grainy blow-up of a man beaming a broad smile at the camera. His age was hard to gauge.
‘They had a visitor. This guy features on two of our photos and as you can see he’s got Down’s syndrome. We reckon he’s somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five. We don’t know if he’s significant for us in any way, whether he was on holiday or local. If he was local he might be able to help us narrow things down with respect to location. There’s also a chance he may have been part of the group, on the trip with the others, but we don’t think that’s likely, partly because of the way he’s dressed. At the moment we’ve got nothing more on him.’
Simonsen cut in:
‘While I remember, let me just say that Kramer Nielsen must have had his hair cut shortly after he got back to Copenhagen, before he got taken on at his dad’s post office. It probably means nothing, but bear that in mind.’
Pedersen followed up.
‘Let me kick something in here as well, before we go on to the last and most interesting of these photos. We’re assuming Jørgen Kramer Nielsen and Hanne Brummersted were the ones who took Lucy Davison’s effects over to Sweden, since both of them missed their final exam. Hanne Brummersted did a resit, Kramer Nielsen didn’t, as we already know. Moreover, she was the only one of the six who’d passed her driving test.’
The Countess had a question:
‘How long do we think they were in Sweden? Lycksele’s quite a way.’
‘At least three days, more likely four, unless she drove at night as well or he took over the wheel despite not having a licence. Hanne Brummersted’s parents had a car, we know that, but we don’t know if she borrowed it. They could have rented one. She was eighteen by then. Anything else?’
There wasn’t.
‘Then let’s move on to our final photo, which we assume was taken with a self-timer. Have a good look at it and see what you make of it.’
Seven teenagers appeared on the screen, standing in a line, outdoors, their arms around each other’s shoulders. All were in various stages of undress. Jørgen Kramer Nielsen was far left, Lucy Davison to the right. The three young men were completely naked apart from sandals or shoes. Hanne Brummersted, too, was naked, standing at an awkward angle, twisted away from the camera, one hand covering her genitals. The two other girls were in their pants. Lucy Davison was naked under her Afghan coat, hamming it up for the picture. The others were looking down at the ground. The weather was as disheartening as the photo itself.
It was the Countess who broke the silence.
‘Well, you don’t need a degree in psychology to see that none of them cared for this. Poor kids, they’re so embarrassed, all apart from Lucy Davison. What’s that the guys have got written across their stomachs?’
‘No revision. It’s red paint, we think. And look at Lucy Davison’s index finger.’
‘I don’t blame them for being so shy. I would be, too,’ said Pauline Berg.