The Hanging Girl (7 page)

“Did she seem in love?”

She gave out a couple of grunts, the question obviously amusing her. “In love? No, more that she seemed satisfied. Orgasms, you know. And that was something she wasn’t getting at home, if you ask me. Those she worked with were certainly not in any doubt that she was up to something with all the long, long lunch breaks she suddenly took. Her car was also seen parked outside her sister’s house in Aakirkeby when her sister wasn’t at home. One person I know, who lives on the street, says that she met a man outside the front door there and that it definitely wasn’t Habersaat. He looked too young.” Bolette Elleboe laughed quietly for a moment, but then toned her face down and changed character. “She never helped her husband get back on course at home, if you ask me. So they were both to blame for it all. Alberte case or not, I’m sure she’d have left him anyway.”

“It was really a blow to hear about Bjarke,” said the chairwoman. She hadn’t moved on.

“No, it wasn’t good news. But the girl killed in the hit-and-run, Alberte, what about her?” asked Assad. “Do you know something about her, too, something not in our papers, do you think?”

They both shrugged their shoulders.

“Well, we can’t know what it says in your papers, but we know something. It is a small island after all, and word gets about when something like that happens.”

“So, what . . . ?” Assad gave his coffee cup yet another spadeful of sugar. Was there really room for more?

“She was apparently a sweet girl, who’d probably been given a little too much freedom. Nothing out of the ordinary, but sometimes things could get a bit steamy up there at the folk high school when no one was keeping an eye on the youngsters; that’s the way they are,” said Bolette. “The girl had a couple of different guys within a short time at any rate, or so people say.”

“People?” resounded Assad’s voice from within his cup.

“My nephew, he’s the groundskeeper at the school, said that she flirted with a couple of guys, as girls in the first throws of love are prone to do. Walks hand in hand down in Ekkodalen valley behind the school and that sort of thing.”

“I think that sounds rather innocent. Is there anything about that in the report, Assad?” asked Carl.

Assad nodded. “Yeah, a little. One of the boys was a student at the school. It was just a bit of fun, but she was also seeing someone else outside the school for a little longer.”

Carl turned to the women. “Someone you know about?”

They shook their heads.

“What does the report say about him, Assad?”

“Nothing other than that they tried to clear up his identity without any luck. A few of the girls from the folk high school spoke about the guy not being from the school, but that because of him Alberte would sit and stare into thin air for hours on end as if she couldn’t care less about anything else.”

“Did Habersaat’s investigation come any closer to identifying the man, do you know?”

Now both women and Assad shook their heads.

“Hmm, that’ll have to rest for a while. As I understand it, Habersaat is obsessed with a hopeless case that wasn’t even his. The wife leaves
him, taking the son with her, and the people here in the town offer him no support. A hit-and-run driver and the death of a young woman change everything for him, which is a little hard for me to understand as a policeman. We’ve tried to speak with June Habersaat, who isn’t very keen to talk about the whole situation and also rather uncompromising concerning her husband. It seems like you know her pretty well, Bolette. Are you in contact with her?”

“Heavens, no. We were good friends once when she lived a few hundred meters down the road, where Habersaat has lived since all this happened. But when she left him it sort of phased out. Of course, I’ve met her at her work selling tickets, ice cream, and whatnot up in Brændegårdshaven Amusement Park, but otherwise I haven’t spoken to her in years. She became strange after all that with her husband and the Alberte case. But perhaps her sister, Karin, can tell you more. She lived for a while with June and the son in the house on Jernbanegade in Aakirkeby. It was originally their parents’ but it obviously all got too much for the sister. Karin lives in Rønne now, I think. Try visiting Uncle Sam down at number 21 as well. He was probably the one who had most contact with Habersaat in the later years.”

Carl looked over at Assad, who was frantically taking down notes. Notes that they could hopefully lock away in the archive. “Just one more thing,” he said. “In the film that was made here yesterday we have one person registered who disappeared from the hall just after Habersaat committed suicide. Do you know who he was?”

“Oh, that’s Hans,” answered Bolette. “He’s just a local simpleton who runs errands for people in the town. He comes up here whenever there are free drinks and snacks. You won’t get anything sensible out of him.”

“Where can we find him, do you know?”

“At this time of day? Try the bench behind the smokehouse. Just across the road and to the right of Strandstien road. There’s a flat grey building with a couple of smoke ovens at the end. The bench is in the garden at the back. He’ll probably be sitting there, whittling or drinking beer, he normally is.”

*   *   *

They caught sight of Rose some way out on the horizon as they swung down Strandstien road. She was standing on the edge of some flat cliffs that only just stood above the water, and appeared strangely lost, as if the world had suddenly become too much for her.

They stood for a moment watching her. It wasn’t the strong and quarrelsome Rose they were used to.

“How long has it been since Rose’s dad died?” asked Assad.

“It’ll be a good few years now. But obviously not something she’s finished with.”

“Shall we send her back to Copenhagen?”

“Why? I assume we’ll all be sailing back tonight. We can deal with those we need to talk with on the telephone from home. Just the sister and maybe some of those at the school.”

“Tonight? You don’t think we should carry on here on the island, then?”

“What for, Assad? The technicians have searched Habersaat’s house, so from that angle I don’t expect anything groundbreaking, and there hasn’t been anything concrete to cling to yesterday or today. Not to mention that Habersaat made this case his life’s mission, despite which he was still unable to solve it. How should
we
be able to do it in a couple of days, more or less? We’re talking about something that happened almost twenty years ago, Assad.”

“Hey, there’s the man they were talking about.” Assad pointed toward a scrunched-up figure with a collection of beers on a white garden bench behind the smokehouse chimneys. There wasn’t much you could hide from each other in such a small community.

“Howdy,” Assad said jauntily as he sauntered through the garden gate. “So, you’re sitting here, Hans. Just like Bolette said you would be.”

Good try, Assad, but the man didn’t deign to acknowledge him with a single glance.

“You’re sitting here relaxing, I suppose. It’s a nice view.”

Still no reaction.

“Okay, you don’t want to talk to me, but then you brought it on yourself. It suits me fine.” He nodded to Carl as he turned on a hose and rinsed his hands. Carl looked at his watch. It was prayer time.

“Just go after Rose; this’ll only take ten minutes.” Assad smiled.

Carl shook his head. “I think she needs to be left to herself just now. I’ll toddle on down the road and think things through while you do that. But, seriously, Assad—do you think this is a good place to pray? Everyone can see you. Do you even know if there’s anyone home in the house there?”

“If they haven’t seen a Muslim pray before, then it’s maybe about time, Carl. The grass is soft and the man here doesn’t want to talk with me. How hard can it be?”

“Okay, suit yourself, Assad. Want me to get your rug?”

“Thanks, but I’ll use my jacket. That’ll have to be good enough in the open air,” he said, taking his socks off.

*   *   *

Carl hadn’t even managed twenty meters down the road before Assad stood in the qiyam position, reciting. It looked very harmonious and natural against the blue sky. Carl would unfortunately probably never come that close to God.

He turned his head toward the figure on the cliffs standing motionless like a sphinx with clouds dancing over it. Why is she just standing there? he wondered. What’s going through her head? Is it grief or are there so many secrets that there’s hardly room for them? Or is it the case with Alberte and Habersaat?

Carl stopped with an odd feeling in his body. A few days ago he’d been on home turf and had no knowledge of Habersaat or Alberte. To put it bluntly, he didn’t give a damn about towns like Svaneke and Listed and Rønne, and now suddenly here he was feeling so strangely alone and abandoned. Here of all places, on the extreme edge of Denmark, he was struck by the realization that people couldn’t run from themselves, regardless of where they were. The feeling that you always carried the past
with you, and that it was only yourself that could be held responsible for who you were.

He shook his head. How miserable it felt. Had he really thought that he’d ever be able to forget himself and what had made him who he was?

Wasn’t this the way it was for most people? The time they lived in was an open invitation to a cocktail of self-denial and self-glorification. And if you didn’t like the situation you were stuck in, there was always the option of running away from yourself: running away from opinions, from your marriage, from your country, from old values, from trends that had otherwise meant so much yesterday. The problem was just that out there, among all the new, you found nothing of what you were looking for deep down inside, because tomorrow it would all be meaningless again. It had become an eternal and fruitless hunt for your own shadow, and that was pitiful.

Bloody pitiful. Was he really no different?

Damn, you’re such an idiot, thought Carl, inhaling the smell of half-rotten seaweed and salt as the thoughts were still whirring about. Why did he feel like this and why couldn’t he have a serious relationship with anyone? Hadn’t Lisbeth been both sweet and understanding with him after the breakup with Mona? She’d actually been a really wonderful woman, hadn’t she? But had he been good enough to her? Strictly speaking he’d let her down and turned his back on her the very moment he met her. A fact she could have cast up and reproached him for, but she hadn’t. So who had let whom down?

And what now? In the meantime there had been others like Lisbeth. But was there even enough room in his life for a real relationship? Was there anyone who could keep hold of someone like him?

He thought that at least he had Morten and Hardy. But still that seed of doubt. And then there was Jesper and maybe even Assad and the girl out there on the cliffs.

But would they still be there in the morning? Was he worth keeping hold of?

Carl looked out over the pulse of the waves for a moment before he made the decision, pulled his cell out, and scrolled over the numbers.

Mona’s number was still there. Almost three years without her and she was still just a little touch away.

A moment of hesitation as his index finger rested on the screen, and then he pressed.

It only took ten seconds before her voice said his name. So his number was still on her cell. Was that a good sign?

“Are you there? Hello, Carl, say something,” she said so naturally that it almost paralyzed him. “Come on, I can see that it’s you who’s calling. Did you dial a wrong number?”

His answer came quietly. “No no, I didn’t. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Okay.”

“Yes, you probably think it a bit strange but I’m standing over in Listed by Svaneke just now, looking out to sea, and just wish that you were here with me.”

“Svaneke! Funny, because just now I’m at the opposite end of Denmark, in Esbjerg actually, so for that reason alone it would be a bit difficult.”

For that reason alone, thought Carl. Not exactly welcoming.

“Obviously. I just wanted to say it. Maybe we can meet up when I get home.”

“You could try and drop me a line, right? Well, take care, Carl. Don’t fall in the Baltic. I hear it’s really cold.”

That was that, and it didn’t feel particularly good.

When he came back, Assad was sitting on the bench chatting with the man.

“He’s crazy, this one,” said the man, chuckling in the voice of a child. “Lying on the floor with his arse in the air talking gobbledygook.”

Assad laughed. “This guy thought that I was trying to bum a beer. Now he knows that that’s not something someone like me would do.”

“No, he doesn’t drink. Not even on May 1st. Are you heading to the demonstration in Rønne? I’ve been once before but now I vote for the Danish Party, just like someone I know. It is Denmark we live in, after all. So does he, the one who doesn’t drink, right?” he said, laughing.

“Hans has told me that he knows everyone in town. He didn’t like what Habersaat did to himself yesterday, so he ran. But nonetheless he didn’t like him.”

“Yes, Habersaat! He’d lost his marbles! I’m twice as intelligent as he was. At least.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Carl.

“So beautiful, his wife. Yes, she really was. I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful. And still he let her get away, the stupid idiot. Yes, I saw her round and about in town with some of the fishermen, and also once up on Knarhøj with someone else. Habersaat was an idiot. Everyone was kissing her.”

He stretched his neck. “Hey! That woman you’re waiting for is coming over. Watch out, here she comes.”

He necked back a huge gulp from his beer and pointed over to Rose, who nodded back. Ruddy cheeked and with windswept hair, and obviously about to interrupt them in what they were doing.

“Just a second, Rose. Assad is on to something here,” Carl said, turning back to the man on the bench.

“Hello, Hans, I’m Assad’s friend. I’m actually a nice guy but I’m also inquisitive. These fishermen you say she kissed, do you know some of them? I’d like to chat with them.”

“There aren’t any fishermen left in town. Not them at any rate.”