The Hanging Girl (13 page)

Friday, May 2nd, 2014

“Let’s check the tree
on Skørrebrovejen, Assad, it should be here near the highway.” He pointed at a cross on the map. It wasn’t far from Aakirkeby.

“Okay, but shouldn’t we take the backside, so we can follow the same route as the guy who drove into her?”

“The back road, Assad, not backside. Yeah, but can
you
work out the route?” He looked down at the map and watched as Assad’s finger moved over it as he described the way. It looked right enough.

“First, we drive out of Vesterbro in Aakirkeby. Then we take Rønnevej, then right at Vestermarievej. From there he could have driven down Kærgårdsvej, but I don’t think he did do that. I think he drove right down to Skørrebrovejen and then right along it at full speed, because it was down there at the end where the old couple lived who heard the car.”

“Yes, but strictly speaking he could’ve come from the north and
then
turned down onto Skørrebrovejen, Assad, but that’s irrelevant if he came from Vestermarievej, like you said.”

“He almost can’t have driven any other way.”

Carl nodded.

When they turned up the road from the south, Carl stepped on it. Looking toward the first bend at the farm, where the old couple lived, there was a good six hundred meters, and farther up to the tree along the fields another one and a half kilometers. It was a godforsaken place that made you want to hit the gas.

The tires screeched as they plowed round the bend. There couldn’t be
any doubt that a noise like that could be heard in the house where the old couple had lived.

“This spot right here is as flat as a pancake, Carl. So if Alberte was waiting with her bike up there at the end of the road, she would’ve been able to see the car very clearly for the last five to six hundred meters.”

“Yes, and what does that tell you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that she’d been waiting for that car and maybe she also recognized it, and that the last thing she would’ve expected was that it would drive directly into her.”

Carl looked at him. Not far off what he thought.

“Do you mind slowing down a bit?” said Assad with an apprehensive eye on the speedometer. Carl nodded, but increased speed to a hundred kilometers an hour. If it was going to have an impact, there needed to be some force behind it.

Just before they reached the cluster of trees farther up, the car swerved. He heard Assad shout something or other in Arabic but Carl had enough to think about. The entire car shook as it grazed the edge of the ditch and swerved from side to side over the verge. He slammed on the brakes. Thirty meters, and the car came to a halt leaving a trail of skid marks as black as coal in its wake.

“I almost swallowed my tongue there, Carl. You better not do that again.”

Carl bit his top lip. There were only two options left.

“There were no visible skid marks after the accident, were there?”

“There was nothing even resembling them found anywhere.”

“Then the vehicle couldn’t have driven as fast on the bend as I did, could it?”

“Thank God for the person driving,” replied his passenger.

“Then it must’ve been murder, right?”

“Looks like it.”

“Yes, because the car only sped up after the bend, it’s the only possibility. And as Alberte stood on this side of the trees—otherwise she would have been thrown in the other direction, away from the tree—
the driver can’t claim not to have seen her. He certainly had enough time.”

“It could’ve been an idiot who wasn’t watching the road, Carl, couldn’t it?”

“Then Alberte would just have moved into the curb and nothing would have happened. No, she didn’t harbor any misgivings about the person approaching her. Something or other led her to think about anything other than danger.”

A rasping sound came from Assad’s stubble.

“Are you thinking that he didn’t drive so fast?”

“Fast, yes. But only in relation to the circumstances and the characteristics of the road. Maybe somewhere between seventy and eighty kilometers an hour, I reckon.”

They both looked up at the trees. It was as if Alberte was hanging up there, nodding down at them.

Carl looked away. Why was he trying to keep his guard up in this case? Why fight it?

He observed Assad’s strange eyes. They seemed sad, and yet his face shone with determination. All three of them from Department Q were in agreement. This case had to be solved.

“Yes, that’s it,” Carl said quietly. “We’re going to have to get that bastard.”

They stepped out of the car and could see why the girl hadn’t initially been seen hanging up there during the investigation, despite the fact that the leaves of the three trees, the tops of which supported each other, would already have fallen at the time.

“What’s that greenery covering the top, Carl?”

“Some sort of parasitic plant, I think. Ivy perhaps.”

Assad nodded, impressed at the comment. Botany definitely wasn’t one of his strong points.

“It almost looks as if the trees have already got leaves on them, Carl.”

They walked around the cluster of trees, looking up. From each of the roots, several strong trunks sprung up, dividing further into numerous
forked branches. Plenty of opportunity for Alberte’s body to be wedged there.

“She hung up there in one of the lower forks, approximately four meters up. She must’ve rotated in the air, seeing as she came to hang with her head facing down, wouldn’t you agree, Assad?”

He nodded and tried to put himself in the situation.

“Habersaat was driving from the direction of the main road when he found her,” he said. “So he was coming from the wrong side, where it was most difficult to see her through all the ivy or whatnot. It was lucky that he saw her at all.”

“Lucky? Well, maybe. Just not for him.”

Assad waved Carl over to him. On the other side of the trees, a dirt track in the field led down to a farm a few hundred meters away. On the opposite side, close to the highway in the direction of the main road, there was a yellow building, the main part of yet another farm. Other than that, there was no sign of civilization nearby.

“It was in there they found the bike, Carl,” he said, pointing across the track toward a tight green carpet of undergrowth below yet another group of trees. Strange that the bike had been flung so far.

“Are we thinking the same thing, Assad?”

“I don’t know but I’m certainly thinking that it must’ve been a strange car that could throw her up in that way.”

“And the bike?”

“I think she’d left it supported on its pop stand and went to meet the car. That the vehicle hit the bike just after it hit the girl, and that it was thrown up in the air just like her, but only more askew.”

“Prop stand, Assad, not pop stand. And yes, I think so, too.”

They stood for a moment, each trying to imagine the scene. The vehicle that had come thundering past the farm a kilometer and a half from here. How the driver had become more and more determined that this was just something they needed to get out of the way. And then the bend farther up and the decrease in speed.

“I think the driver and Alberte make eye contact at the bend,” said
Carl. “She’s put the bike on the prop stand behind her and steps forward. Maybe she waves. She’s happy and smiling, a smile she takes with her to the death. I don’t think she’s scared because she’s happy and expectant. Then, only at the last minute, the vehicle speeds up and rams her, causing her to be hurled from the road and up into the branches. The driver straightens up the vehicle immediately, but clips the bike anyway a bit farther up the road, maybe with the side of the vehicle. That’s why the bike ends up a good bit over to the right.”

Carl looked again up at the road from the direction the vehicle had come in. “It’s very possible that the driver’s foot hasn’t been on the brake at all most of the way, only easing up on the gas after the event. Cruising past the yellow farm on his left at a more normal speed before finally sliding up toward the transverse Almindingensvej and away. Do you agree, Assad?”

“Damn bastard,” he mumbled. So he did agree, then. “What sort of car could hurl her all the way up there when going so slowly?” he continued, looking up.

“I don’t know, Assad. A snowplow could manage, but it wasn’t winter yet, and even if such a big boy had driven past, she would’ve moved out of the way of it. But the vehicle that hit her was definitely specially adapted, you’re right about that.”

“Then why didn’t they find it? They looked all over the island. And even though they only had video surveillance for ferry departures on the first two days after the incident, a vehicle like that would’ve been noticed driving on deck, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, unless what shoveled Alberte up in the tree was something that could be removed and got rid of, Assad.”

“Yes, but what? Are you also thinking about the VW Kombi?”

“Of course I am.”

“There must have been something on the front, resting on that weird fender, because it couldn’t have been up to it on its own.”

“No, it probably couldn’t; we’ll have to ask the technicians.”

Carl looked up again at the treetops, imagining the outline of that young dead girl. He momentarily felt melancholy but also a sense of
reverence, as if standing on holy ground. Had he been Catholic, he’d probably have crossed himself, but he was far from being that, which in its own way felt both empty and sad.

He looked at Assad, who was standing with his back to him. “Tell me, Assad, do Muslims have something they can honor the dead with, a prayer or something?”

Assad slowly turned around to face him.

“It’s done, Carl. It’s already done.”

*   *   *

And while the fields and shady groves were left behind them, Carl imagined the beautiful young Alberte cycling over there on the other side of the road with her hair flowing and expectant face en route to her death.

“Kristoffer Dalby lives over in Vestermarie. So we need to go the same way back and then a bit farther on,” said Assad, moving his cell away from his ear. “That was Detective Jonas Ravnå I was just talking with and he says that Dalby is a schoolteacher now. And then he told me something else, which I’m not sure is so good.”

“Oh, what’s that?”

“They’ve found the bike.”

“Okay, isn’t that good?”

“Yes, but it turns out that they’d kept it for ten years before just throwing it out. On February 25th, 2008, to be exact.”

“Isn’t it irrelevant that they did that? They’ve found it again.”

“Yes, but it was more than likely a coincidence. One of the locals, back in 2008, knew that it was Alberte’s bike lying in the pile of junk. He recognized it from the newspaper and that’s why he took it.”

“I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”

“He took it because it was special and had a special history to it. So he welded it into a scrap sculpture, which he called . . .” He looked down at his paper. ”. . . Fateopia.”

“God almighty! And where is this so-called artwork now?”

“We were lucky there because he’s just had it in an exhibition in Verona, but now it’s back home again.”

“And where is
home
?”

“In Lyngby. Strange, right? You race through there every day when you drive home from the station.”

*   *   *

They found the way down to the smallholding where Kristoffer Dalby lived, northwest of the small cluster of houses known as Vestermarie. The plot where the house was situated was probably the smallest for miles around, but still there were swings, slides, and sandpits enough for an entire army.

“Do you think we’ve taken a wrong turn?” asked Assad.

Carl looked at the GPS and shook his head. He pointed out of the window at the postbox on the side of the road.
Kristoffer and Inge Dalby
and a small sticker underneath adding
Mathias and Camilla.

They rang the doorbell, noticing at least fifty cigarette butts in a small bucket by the side of the doorstep. Someone’s kept under the thumb here, thought Carl, as they heard movement from behind the door.

“We’ll cut straight to the chase, Assad,” he managed to say before a man opened up.

There was no doubt that it was Kristoffer Dalby standing there, supposed master of the house, despite a bit more meat on his bones, wispy beard with grey touches to it, and worn-out shoes. Probably not someone Alberte would fall for if she’d been alive today.

His good-natured expression collapsed when they told him why they were there, and all Carl’s warning lights flashed. He observed from Assad’s expression that he’d also noticed it.

A typical reaction from those with more to hide than was good for them.

“You’ve been expecting us?” said Carl.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I can see that it’s shocked you that we’ve come here on this business, so we assume it’s something you’ve been dreading. Is it something you’ve been thinking about for almost twenty years, Kristoffer?”

All his features suddenly shrunk. Pinched lips and squinting eyes, cheeks sucked in. A very peculiar reaction.

“Come inside,” he said unwelcomingly.

He pointed to a chair in a sea of wooden toys on a play mat decorated with roads, crossroads, and houses. It was a real hotchpotch in every possible color, and over on the windowsill lay the trumpet he’d once tried to charm the crowds with.

It was covered in dust now.

“Do you have a lot of children?” asked Assad.

He tried to smile but without success. “We have two, but they’ve left home for now. My wife’s a child minder,” he answered.

“Oh, right! Yes, well, we don’t want to waste anyone’s time, so we’ll get straight to the point, Kristoffer,” said Assad. “Why aren’t you called Studsgaard anymore? Did you think that something as simple as a change of name would make it difficult for us to find you? Then you shouldn’t have found a house so close to the school, should you?”

It was a bit of a gamble, but why waste time?

Carl looked around. Two older teenagers in a photo frame on top of a monstrosity of an analog TV. Masses of VHS cartoons on the shelf. Strange to think that you could still find them.