Simonsen was appeased. He turned back to Pia Mikkelsen.
‘What about her things?’
‘At first we talked about dumping them in the sea, but we soon gave up on that idea. Then we remembered she’d written a postcard she hadn’t got round to sending. We found it and it said she was going to head up to Norway to see the midnight sun, and then Helena got the idea of taking her things to Sweden and sending the postcard from there. We had her rucksack and tent with us on the train back to Copenhagen.’
‘Who drove to Sweden?’
‘Hanne and Jørgen.’
Simonsen turned to Hanne Brummersted.
‘Why you two?’
‘Me, because I had a driving licence, and Jørgen to help. He volunteered.’
‘Wouldn’t it have been better to go on your own? He couldn’t help you drive.’
‘I can see that now, but at the time it seemed best if there were two of us.’
‘Whose car did you take? And what about your exam?’
‘I told my older brother I’d got myself pregnant and borrowed money from him for an abortion. We hired a car, and to my parents I said the exam had been put back a week and that I was going to Esbjerg again to revise. Later, I told them I’d got it all mixed up, then took the resit in August.’
‘And they believed you?’
‘No, they thought I was pregnant and had gone off to have an abortion. That was I wanted them to think. Don’t ask me what excuse Jørgen made up, because I don’t know. I did the driving and he slept. We hardly said a word. At some point we sent the postcard and drove on, eventually stopping where it was all forest. We went into the trees and put the tent up. After that we drove home.’
‘There was some money in her wallet.’
‘We put some Swedish notes in there. I can’t remember how much it was, only that we had gloves on all the time so as not to leave any fingerprints. Clingy yellow latex, they felt horrible.’
Simonsen indicated he wanted Jesper Mikkelsen to tell the rest.
‘When the grave was dug we dropped her body down and covered it up again. The remains of the fire and her Afghan coat went in there, too. We stamped the earth down with a wooden post, but it was very sandy, so it wasn’t that big a problem. Finally, we put the stones back round the site and lit a huge fire to get some ash.’
‘And that was it? Into the grave with her and back to the Maths books?’
‘We didn’t want to go back early, so we stayed on. I don’t think anyone did any revision, though.’
‘So the day after wasn’t much fun, was it?’
‘None of the days after has been much fun.’
‘You still haven’t told me about your pledge. The oath, or whatever you called it.’
‘Pledge. We called it our pledge. It was Helena’s idea, We gathered around the campfire…’
Simonsen growled:
‘Lucy Davison’s grave! It wasn’t a campfire.’
‘I’m sorry. We gathered around Lucy’s grave and repeated over and over: Never, ever speak of it. Never, ever speak of it. We carried on for ages.’
There was a long pause. They had reached the end of their journey and all eyes were on Konrad Simonsen. Hanne Brummersted and Pia Mikkelsen had started crying again. Eventually, Helena Brage Hansen broke the silence:
‘What’s going to happen to us now?’
‘You’ll be questioned individually in Copenhagen. After that, the public prosecutor and I will decide what to do with you. Perhaps nothing. Regrettably, that seems the likely outcome. But if you’re referring to here and now, then… well, it’s probably easier to show you.’
He got up and went outside, and when he came back he was holding four shovels in his hands.
It took them the best part of three hours. Simonsen showed no pity. Short breaks were allowed for food, water and rest, so no one was made to suffer physically, but apart from that he tolerated nothing but labour. They accepted the conditions and toiled as instructed. Arne Pedersen and Pauline Berg, who had said nothing for hours, withdrew and watched the scene from a distance. At first, the loose, sandy earth meant that the sides continually gave way, making the hole more of a crater than anything else, but eventually it took shape and narrowed, allowing room for two shovels only at a time. They took turns. Simonsen had hoped for sunshine as they worked. It was how he had imagined it. But the sky darkened and the weather changed once again. In early afternoon, as the light slowly dissolved away into the dismal blanket of cloud, the sand suddenly turned black. He gathered the shovels and handed them a bucket. They continued to dig, though now with their hands. It was Jesper Mikkelsen who found her. He straightened his back without a word, the tip of a white thighbone protruding from the grave at his feet.
Simonsen stopped them:
‘That’s enough. Forensics will take care of the rest. Now all we need to do is to find out which of you killed Jørgen Kramer Nielsen.’
CHAPTER 12
‘None of them!’
The conclusion was plain for all to see, but Arne Pedersen and Pauline Berg left it to Simonsen to utter the words. They could only speak for their own two witnesses, Hanne Brummersted and Helena Brage Hansen in Pauline’s case, the Mikkelsen couple in Arne’s. That couldn’t be true, thought Simonsen, getting up from his chair and frustratedly pacing back and forth as far as the limited space allowed. The Countess studied him with concern. Arne and Pauline, both seated on the sofa, looked away and waited as Simonsen wondered if he’d made a mistake including them in the Esbjerg meeting. Of all his colleagues, Arne was the least well informed on the case, busy as he was with his funding issues, accounts and the like. And as for Pauline, well, she wasn’t exactly easy to work with in the best of circumstances and now all she could come up with was nothing. Two duds, or at the very least one, the one who’d messed up, whoever that might be. Simonsen sat down again with a single, unconstructive thought in his head: What a sodding day.
The Countess ventured a query.
‘What do we do now, Simon?’
‘Run me through it again.’
He prodded a finger at Arne, who spluttered a protest:
‘You mean, repeat myself?’
‘Yes, it’s all in the word again. So once more, from the be-ginning.’
Pauline shook her head.
‘This is stupid. We told you everything already five minutes ago.’
Simonsen growled at her:
‘If you think this investigation’s stupid, you know what you can do.’
He pointed towards the door.
‘Go somewhere else and cause trouble. You’re not my headache anyway until next year and I can easily do without you until then.’
The Countess intervened: ‘All right, Simon, that’ll do.’ Pauline remained seated and sullen as Arne proceeded once more to summarise his observations from two days before in Esbjerg. From the beginning, as per orders.
Pia and Jesper Mikkelsen had been under extreme psychological pressure for long periods during Simonsen’s rounds of questioning. At the same time, neither of them seemed to be concealing a second agenda – Arne didn’t know quite what else to call it – concerning Jørgen Kramer Nielsen, either individually or as a couple. Throughout the day they’d hardly communicated with each other, no surreptitious glances had been exchanged at any point, in fact they’d barely seemed aware of each other’s presence. But most importantly, neither had shown any sign of apprehension at the mention of the postman’s name. Arne gave a couple of concrete examples from his notes before concluding almost apologetically:
‘Unless they’re the world’s best actors, better than any suspect I’ve ever seen, then neither of them killed your postman, Simon. And they didn’t get anyone else to do it for them either.’
Simonsen grimaced like a miser presented with a bill. Arne stuck to his guns: