The Hanging Girl (26 page)

“How could I? But I harassed her, which was fun because she was too stupid to work it out. It’s true; I couldn’t stand that Copenhagen bitch, but I didn’t kill her. I had the room next to hers and could hear her talking to herself when she put the lights out. It was really pathetic. She was almost like a kid. She lay there touching herself, pretending he was there, but he wasn’t.”

“Harassed her?”

“Yes. Washed her clothes with something where the color would run. Encouraged her not to wrap up when we were outside so she’d catch a cold. Threw salt on her food when she wasn’t looking. She was really very naive.”

“But that didn’t stop them meeting, did it?” said Carl, all the while thinking what a bitch she was.

“I didn’t know how much they saw of each other, to tell you the truth.”

“How did Frank end the relationship with you?”

“We just used to meet at certain places that we agreed on from time to time. Before the folk school we met at the square in Rønne. And at the folk school, before he dumped me, we met over in Ekkodalen valley. You
can get down behind the school; it takes about five minutes. Then one day he just didn’t show up as agreed. I went down there a few times but he never came again.”

“Do you think he also met Alberte down there?”

“Stupid question. Then I would’ve found out, wouldn’t I. I don’t know where they met or how. Only that she stood out on the road a lot.”

“Do you think Frank killed her?” asked Rose.

She shrugged as if she couldn’t care less. “No idea.”

“Was he the sort you think might be capable of it?” asked Rose again.

She shrugged again. “I don’t think so, but maybe. He certainly had a very strong personality.”

“What do you mean?”

“He could almost hypnotize people with a look. He had interesting eyes and interesting ideas. And he was strong and handsome. Charismatic, you might say.”

“And could bend spoons?”

“I never saw that. That was just a rumor.”

“Would you say he had psychopathic tendencies?” asked Carl.

She hesitated for just a second. “Who doesn’t?”

Was that self-awareness, or what?

“Do you have anything that might put us on his trail? Special characteristics, a completely general description, license plates, something he said? Something about what sort of environment he came from or what his dreams were for the future?”

“His dreams? Not other than that he knew with certainty that he’d be something big, something that could change people’s lives for the better.”

“Okay, so he wasn’t someone to hide his light. Change in what way, for example?”

“He believed that he could heal. That he had special energy and abilities, and I believe it. He certainly gave me some orgasms that I’ve hardly gotten over yet.”

Rose smiled at that. She was the only one.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to take you down to the station anyway, Inge.”

That made her start. “Why? I’m telling you everything I know.”

“It’s taking too long, Inge. You’ve got time to think in between, and that gives you time to make things up, which isn’t the point. If you want the chance here and now to avoid a normal hearing, you need to just list everything you can think of in relation to that man. Are you with me? And remember that you’ve said you saw him down at Ølene, so for that reason alone you must’ve seen more that can help us. So let’s get going.”

She seemed a bit shaken, and Carl could understand why.

“I was damn well in love with him, okay! So you don’t notice anything. I’ve thought about it a lot since, but I do remember a bit.”

She lit another cigarette and nodded quickly to her sister-in-law and brother, who came in the door with full plastic bags.

“His name was Frank and he was quite handsome with fine, strong features. He was six-one, six to seven years older than me, bit of a husky voice, but warm all the same. He was tanned but light-skinned under his clothes. His hair was long, down to his collar and almost ash blond, not red like you might have thought. And then he had a little dimple in his chin, which stood out when you saw him in a certain light.” She pointed to her own chin with a smile. There was certainly no dimple
there.

“No visible scar or mark on his body? Hair, tattoos?”

“No, he did talk about wanting to get a couple of tattoos right enough, but he didn’t really know what he should get. It wasn’t nearly as fashionable as it is now.”

Carl nodded. No, people thought better of it those days, which was unfortunate from an investigator’s point of view.

“What about the eyes and eye area?”

“His eyes were blue, eyebrows very dark, front teeth rather wide, and a little white mark on one of them. He called it a sunburn. He was generally very preoccupied with the sun. That’s why he was on the island, he said.”

Carl looked at Assad. Once she started, there was no stopping her. It was just a case of hanging in there.

“He’d found two different sunstones within a week of each other, he said. He was really excited about it. First, one like those used by the
Vikings for sailing. And then afterward, one like those found in the sun cult area on Rispebjerg down by Dueodde.”

“Sun cult! I think you’ll have to explain more about that, Inge.”

“I don’t know so much about it. Just a place on the island where altars had been erected for offering things.”

Rose had already made a start with her iPad, he noticed.

“Do you have any idea what the man lived off?”

“Unemployment benefits, I think. The car certainly wasn’t his. He’d borrowed it from someone he knew. Someone who’d been in the peace movement or something, way back when. And Frank did go about with those peace symbols on badges.”

“What did he wear?”

She smiled. “Not much when we were together.”

Assad’s glaring eyes and raised eyebrows expressed a wholehearted
Touché!

Then her brother moved closer to the banister that separated the upper kitchen area from the living room below.

“Who’re you talking about, Inge? No one I’ve heard of, is it?”

She hit out at him in the air. Apparently there was a sort of inside talk between those two that others couldn’t or shouldn’t follow. Rose saw it, too, noticed Carl.

“He was called Frank, Hans Otto,” said Assad. “Someone you’ve met, maybe?”

He smiled and shook his head. Why wasn’t he surprised? Was Inge Dalby more experienced than you might think? Did the brother have a hand in it with the Frank guy?

“I think I can sense from your brother that there might have been more than just Frank along the way. Am I wrong, Inge?”

She leaned her neck back and sighed. “We’re island folk. If fresh blood comes to the quay, you taste the goods, right? In the old days they did it to mix the DNA up a bit. Think of the Faroe Islands or Iceland. Nowadays, we just do it for the fun and kicks. Yes, of course there were others.”

Rose shook her head. Obviously not a lead worth following. “We were talking about his clothes, Inge,” she said.

“Oh, yes. It was a bit wrong for the time, but actually really cool: bead necklace round his neck, loose-fitting woven shirts, and jeans. Really big boots. Not cowboy boots but some sort of homemade kind with soles that were a bit too wide. They weren’t very good but they looked cool on him. Sometimes he looked like a Cossack.”

They listened to her for a further twenty minutes. Small things that were noted down. Remarks between Frank and her. What they did when they weren’t together in the van. All commonplace things that from a policeman’s point of view weren’t exactly leading anywhere. But the appearance of the man was clearer now.

“We’d ask you to let us know if you’re thinking about going anywhere, Inge.” Carl gave her his card. “You’re not a direct suspect in the case but you could prove to be very important if we run into questions later that we can’t answer immediately. And you might be called to identify him if we find him. And just one more thing. We’d like you to get your husband to find the photo from your trip to Østerlars Church, okay? Because you’re not going back to the island just now, are you? I thought you might have to go out there to be together with your kids.”

Strangely enough, that made her frown in a way that resentment, skepticism, or any other negative responses could be ruled out. She frowned in the way people do just before they’re about to cry.

“Maybe you don’t see your children anymore?” suggested Carl.

“Yes, of course I do. They’re both at a residential school in Slagelse. We’ll be together again this weekend.”

“You seem sad. Have we worried you?”

She shook her head. “Sad? No. I’m just thinking that Frank couldn’t have done what you think. And if you find him, I’d like to meet him again. I really would!”

They were already on their way out the door when Carl turned around and used his final ammunition. If it could work for Columbo, then it could work for him, too.

“Just one more question, Inge. Did Alberte have a cell phone?”

She shook her head. “No, but then not many of the girls did.”

“Did Frank?”

“Not as far as I know. He wasn’t particularly materialistic. More the opposite.”

“Okay. And then there’s the thing with Frank’s name again. When we visited you on Bornholm, you said that Alberte had mentioned another name for Frank, but which you couldn’t remember. Probably something biblical or similar, you said. Short, like Eli or Job. Do you remember saying that?”

“Er, yes, of course.”

“Good.” He looked at Rose. “So what can we conclude from that, Rose?”

“That it’s extremely hard to believe that Inge Dalby wouldn’t know what her boyfriend went around calling himself. And
if
for some strange reason she should only have heard it through Alberte, it seems extremely unlikely that she should have forgotten it. She’d definitely take special notice of something like that, if you ask me.”

Carl turned toward Inge Dalby. She seemed rooted to the spot, as if caught red-handed. “What do you have to say to that, Inge?”

End of March 2014

After Shirley had spoken
to Pirjo, she rolled up the two-tone belt and placed it on the windowsill. It lay there beside her toiletry bag and all the books she’d brought from home. Neither intrusive nor forgotten.

She calmed herself with reassurances that Wanda must be in Jamaica. Right enough, she’d tried to contact people there, but were they the right people, the right telephone numbers, the right questions and answers? When she thought back to her memories with Wanda, there seemed to be fewer and fewer details about who she was—her background and future ambitions—that she could be totally certain of. Wanda had
said
that she wanted to go to Öland, but she’d always been a warm-blooded and spontaneous woman, so how could Shirley know with any certainty that something or other hadn’t happened in the meantime that changed her plans? She couldn’t.

Nevertheless, from time to time she couldn’t resist letting something slip about the Wanda mystery if the opportunity presented itself.

She told in colorful detail about how her best friend had become fascinated, yes, almost seduced, by Atu’s personality and presence, and about how she’d totally unrealistically thought she’d become his chosen one. In the beginning, the other disciples laughed a little at this ambitious story, but after a while, as it became more and more worn, interest decreased and irritation grew.

“Some of us think that you should choose your words more carefully, Shirley,” said one of the men who worked with the carpentry team. “The story with the belt is creating unease and a lot of unsubstantiated
speculation. We’re not happy about it. Maybe you should consider leaving the academy if being here gives you so many negative feelings.”

They weren’t necessarily harsh words, but Shirley was paralyzed by them. Was she making herself a pariah? Did people really think that the place would be better without her?

Shirley didn’t want to be a pariah, she wanted to be popular and liked, and so for that reason Shirley buried the story of Wanda Phinn.

When her course period was successfully completed, it was her intention to apply for permanent admission, and her innermost desire was for this to be granted. As the months had gone by, she imagined with more and more certainty that it was here she should spend the rest of her life. Yes, and it was maybe even here that she’d find a life partner.

Valentina was one of the ones she could talk about her future dreams with, because in that respect they weren’t much different. At a few communal assemblies she’d seen her with a guy who she’d seemingly set her eye on, but that had come to an end, and afterward the two women had begun to chat together. Throughout most of Shirley’s course period, Valentina had worked with the center website and advertising, but at her own request had been moved to internal maintenance, suddenly making her much more visible and present.

They told each other about their unfortunate backgrounds. About how they’d escaped both bullying and harassment and been elevated to a new and better life.

Shirley was astonished when Valentina began telling the story of her miserable time in Spain, because when Shirley looked around among all these well-functioning people, it had never crossed her mind that most of them had had experiences similar to her own before they came here. She’d seriously imagined that she was the only person here that fortune had never smiled down on. And now she’d found a like-minded friend, who was also able to tell her that her story was far from unusual.

“Everyone here has skeletons in their closet they don’t want to be confronted with, Shirley. Remember that, and listen to Atu next time he says he ‘sees you.’ He knows who you are, and he accepts you for who you are.”

It was with that realization that they came to be really close to one another in so many respects. Not since Malena had Valentina had such a good friend here as Shirley, she told her. And Shirley was flattered and moved.

Naturally, it wasn’t forbidden to talk about life outside the center, but for many it just didn’t seem natural. This certainly wasn’t how Valentina and Shirley felt, with many common interests and favorite topics of conversation being the order of the day. “Even though you grow up in Seville, George Clooney can still give you as many steamy dreams as someone who grew up in Birmingham,” as Valentina put it. Just like Shirley, Valentina loved Enrique Iglesias more than his dad, Julia Roberts more than Sharon Stone, beer more than wine, and musicals more than opera.

They rattled off hundreds of things they either hated or loved, and every time they ended up in stitches over how similar they could be in spite of significant cultural differences.

Disciples didn’t normally sit in each other’s rooms. Even so, there were times when these two women sneaked into each other’s room so they could hang out together and have a laugh.

It was on one of these evenings that Valentina noticed the belt on the windowsill and was given the true and unabridged version of what had gone through Shirley’s mind when it turned up.

Valentina listened to the story with great interest. It was obviously the first time she’d heard it.

And when Shirley was finished, shrugging her shoulders over how stupid it had been of her to have such thoughts, Valentina turned her head away and sat staring out of the window without saying a word for a long time.

Shirley thought she’d behaved like an idiot by transgressing an inviolable boundary. That she’d violated the confidence and friendship that Valentina had shown her and that it was now irreparable.

She was just about to say sorry and that it was all just nonsense, and that over time she’d become totally convinced that Wanda Phinn was now living her own peaceful life somewhere else in the world, when
Valentina turned toward her with a look that you didn’t normally see in that place.

“It reminds me of a strange and very unpleasant dream I had the other day,” she said with dark eyes. “But I don’t know if I should tell you about it.”