Homicide were also hard at work collating information about the Gang of Six. When did they get together? Was there a formal or informal leader? Did they meet up with any regularity? If so, what was the agenda? These were just a few of the many questions that needed answering to provide them with an impression of these young people’s lives since 1969.
Simonsen interviewed their peers from class Three Y of the Brøndbyøster Gymnasium, working outward in an increasing radius from the capital, though without turning up anything that seemed to be of use. It was a long time ago; all he heard were reminiscences of no worth and utterly without relevance to the six in their spotlight. His last interview had been in Ringsted, his next would be in Nykøbing Falster. If he kept on, he’d end up in Detroit and Wellington, which financially was hardly on the cards, double murder or no. Instead, he had to struggle his way through a couple of days on the job with an annoying throat infection and a feeling that the investigation was getting nowhere fast. Eventually, on Monday 27 October, he got in the car and drove to Nykøbing Falster.
The woman who opened the door looked to be around sixty, vocal and angry. No sooner had he introduced himself than he was showered with invective. Swear words were the usual currency here, it seemed.
‘You can stop right now before you get started. Take your stupid badge and shove it! And if you haven’t got a warrant, you can sod off. It’s ten years since he got out, and still you keep coming round bothering him at all hours of the day and night. Clear off!’
Her hands were planted on her hips, forming a defiant obstacle he would do well not to underestimate. A man’s voice called out from inside the house:
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s the police.’
‘Tell them it wasn’t me.’
‘I’ve told him to get lost, but he’s a bit thick, this one. He’s still here.’
The man stepped into the hall. Simonsen recounted events to the Countess when he got back.
‘As I first clapped my eyes on him I thought they were playing tricks on me. But it was him right enough. There he was, the old charmer, charismatic as ever. Pelle Olsen himself. Pelle the Pretender, King of Elmegade.’
‘Oh, I remember. I liked him.’
‘Everyone liked Pelle, even the people he conned. One of the truly great rip-off artists. They said he could charm the money out of any man’s pockets, and the knickers off any woman.’
‘He owes me three hundred kroner, come to think of it.’
‘He must have made an exception in your case.’
Simonsen received a dig in the ribs in return for his jibe.
‘Is he retired now?’
‘Not quite. If you promise not to hit me, I’ll tell you. Right, so he invited me in…’
The mood had quickly turned convivial. Rent-a-gob from the doorstep had morphed into a hospitable hostess with an engaging smile and kindly air. She made lunch while the two men talked about the old days. Simonsen broke all the rules and had a glass of aquavit with his roll-mop herring. Pelle Olsen held forth.
‘I know what you’re going to think, but I’m a certified hypnotist these days. Completely on the level. It cost me three years of hard graft, and that for someone with natural talent. You don’t believe me, do you?’
Simonsen grinned:
‘Of course I do. That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? Everyone always believes you.’
Olsen’s wife came to his aid. Without the slightest hint of aggression, she explained what their business consisted of.
‘We work with smoking cessation problems, phobias – as long as they’re not serious – and a bit of transcendental. The transcendentals want to get in touch with their past lives and we give them a sound file of what they tell us while they’re in the trance. No more nor less than that. Anything remotely smelling of healing we leave well alone. We’re not interested in conning people who are having a bad time of it. You can believe us or not, but that’s the truth.’
This time Simonsen was more convinced.
‘It’s the way you always were, Pelle. That’s why we liked you. It was the fat wallets you emptied, never the workman’s.’
‘It’s a matter of morals, isn’t it? Do you want to hear about the call-girl scam we worked on two high-court judges? Eighty-four or -five I think it was. You never did get wind of it.’
It took a while before Simonsen was able to get round to why he was there. Olsen’s wife was by no means unwilling to help, but like her classmates her recollections were romanticised and imprecise.
‘It was all happening in those days, wasn’t it? I was in the first year of the gymnasium in nineteen sixty-seven, the summer of love, and Sergeant Pepper, the ultimate LP. In 1968, my second year, it was the student riots in Paris, and in 1969 when we graduated it was the man on the moon and Woodstock. The timing couldn’t have been better, brilliant it was, from start to finish. But then, you’d have been there yourself, wouldn’t you?’
‘I was indeed.’
‘You’ve got to admit, it was the best of times.’
‘Maybe. I don’t know really. Personally, I’m a bit ambivalent. When someone like yourself says Paris 1968, I immediately think Prague Spring. On the other hand, when people moan about pot heads and dropouts, I say peace and love and counterculture. The truth is, I’m at odds with myself.’
Pelle Olsen was immediately on hand.
‘Get yourself on the couch, we’ll get you sorted in no time.’
‘I think I’ll give it a miss, if you don’t mind.’
‘I thought you might say that. I’m not going to pretend to be academic, but one thing I do know is that making money was easy back then. I used to traipse along behind the parrot man and his pram on the pedestrianised street, do you remember him?’
‘Sigvaldi. He sold a book of children’s stories, written by children themselves.’
‘That’s the fella. And I sold beaded bracelets I got for next to nothing in a toy shop in Østerbro, calling them Tibetan handicraft from Lhassakya, the highest-situated monastery in the Himalayas. Trickle-down effect, you could say. Sigvaldi sold his books and I sold my bracelets. People were so unsuspecting in those days. It was like everyone was finding their feet in the new age and no one knew yet what was all right and what was rubbish. I even had a guitar and a wig. I’d go round the student hangouts. I sounded like hell, but they’d be chucking money at me.’
He played air guitar and sang along in a voice that sounded like a pair of squealing brakes:
‘Mum and dad were working-cl-a-a-s…’
The Countess smiled as Simonsen related the story, mostly because he found it so amusing himself.
‘Did she remember anything at all, his wife?’
‘Nothing. When it came to concrete facts she was as blank as all the others I’ve spoken to. None of the names of our Gang of Six even rang a bell, and the photos didn’t help either.’
‘Another flop then. I think you might as well give up on that little project, Simon.’
‘Not just yet. I actually drove down there on another matter, but then I thought I might as well take a chance and see if she was in while I was there. As it happens, she was. After that I went on to Rødby.’
‘What for?’
‘I’ll tell you that later. Just listen for a minute. At Rødby police station I borrowed a computer and looked up Pelle’s website, out of interest while I was waiting. Then I got thinking about what he’d said about finding myself, so on the way back I stopped by again.’