Florin sat calmly reading a book. His legs rested on a footstool, there was a fire in the woodstove, and a dram on the marble table. All told it was a very tranquil scene, if one disregarded the many, many book pages spread across the wool carpet.

Carl cleared his throat a couple of times, but the old financier kept his concentration trained on his book, and didn’t turn his attention to them until he’d finished the page, tore it out and tossed it on the floor with the others.

‘That way I know how far I’ve got,’ he said. ‘To whom do I owe the pleasure?’

Assad glanced at Carl, eyebrows quivering. There were some idioms he still could not immediately process.

When Carl showed him his badge, Valdemar Florin’s smile vanished. And when Carl explained that they were from the Copenhagen Police, and why they were there, he asked them to leave.

He was close to seventy-five years old, and still the thin, arrogant weasel that snapped at people. But behind his bright eyes was a latent, easily roused peevishness itching to get out. It just needed a little encouragement, then it had free reign.

‘Yes, we’ve come unannounced, Mr Florin, and if you wish us to go, we will. I have enormous respect for you, so naturally I will do as you request. If it suits you better, I can also return early tomorrow.’

Somewhere behind Florin’s armour a reaction flickered. Carl had just given him what everyone wishes for. To hell with caressing people, flattering them and showering them with gifts. The only thing people really long for is respect. Give your fellow humans respect and they’ll dance, his teacher at police academy had said. Bloody right.

‘I don’t fall for compliments,’ the man said. But he had.

‘May we sit, Mr Florin? Just for five minutes?’

‘What is this about?’

‘Do you believe Bjarne Thøgersen acted alone when he killed the Jørgensen siblings back in 1987? Someone is making a different claim, you should know. Your son is not a suspect, but a few of his companions could be.’

One of Florin’s nostrils flared as if he were about to mutter a curse, but instead he threw the rest of his book on the table.

‘Helen,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Fetch me another whisky.’ He lit an Egyptian cigarette without offering them one.

‘Who? Who claims what?’ he said with a peculiar alertness in his voice.

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you. But it seems pretty evident that Bjarne Thøgersen wasn’t alone.’

‘Oh, that little nobody.’ His tone of voice was scornful, but he didn’t elaborate.

A girl of about twenty entered the room wearing a white pinafore over a black uniform. She poured whisky and water as if it were something she did perpetually. She didn’t acknowledge their presence.

When she slipped around behind him her hand brushed through Florin’s thin hair. She’d been trained well.

‘Quite honestly,’ Florin said, as he sipped, ‘I would like to offer my assistance, but it has been a long time, and I think it’s better to let the case rest.’

Carl disagreed. ‘Did you know your son’s friends, Mr Florin?’

A crooked smile spread over Florin’s face. ‘You are so young, but I can tell you, if you didn’t already know, that I was rather busy back then. So no, I didn’t know them. They were just some youths Torsten had met at boarding school.’

‘Did it surprise you that they were suspects? I mean, they were nice young people, right? They all came from good homes.’

‘I don’t know if it bloody surprised me or not.’ He squinted at Carl over the rim of his glass. They had seen a great deal, those eyes. Including challenges far greater than Carl Mørck.

He set his glass down. ‘But during the investigation back in 1987, a few of them stood out,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, my lawyer and I made certain we were present at Holbæk Police Station when the young men were interrogated. My lawyer acted for all six of them throughout the investigation.’

‘Bent Krum, right?’

Assad had asked the question, but Valdemar Florin gazed straight through him.

Carl nodded to Assad. Bull’s eye. ‘ “Stood out”, you said. Who do you think stood out during the hearing?’

‘Perhaps you should call Bent Krum instead and ask him, since you know him. He still has an excellent memory, I’m told.’

‘Is that so? Who says?’

‘He’s still my son’s lawyer. And Ditlev Pram’s and Ulrik’s.’

‘I thought you said you didn’t know the youths, Mr Florin. But still you name Ditlev Pram and Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen in such a way that one might believe otherwise.’

He nodded curtly. ‘I knew their fathers. That’s how it was.’

‘And Kristian Wolf and Kirsten-Marie Lassen, did you know their fathers, too?’

‘Barely.’

‘And Bjarne Thøgersen’s?’

‘An insignificant man. Didn’t know him.’

‘He owned a lumber yard in northern Zealand,’ Assad interjected.

Carl nodded. He remembered that himself, actually.

‘Listen,’ Valdemar Florin said, staring through the skylights at the crystal-clear sky. ‘Kristian Wolf is dead, OK? Kimmie disappeared and has been missing for years. My son says she wanders around the streets of Copenhagen, toting a suitcase. Bjarne Thøgersen is in jail. What the hell are we discussing?’

‘Kimmie? Kirsten-Marie Lassen, is that who you’re talking about? Is that what she’s called?’

He didn’t respond. Simply took another sip and reached for his book. The audience was over.

When they left the house, they could see Florin through the veranda windows as he slammed his mistreated book on the table and reached for the telephone. He seemed angry. Maybe he was warning his lawyer that they might turn up. Or calling Securitas to find out if they sold a warning system that ensured guests like them were rejected at the gate.

‘He knew all kinds of things, Carl,’ Assad said.

‘Yes, perhaps. With people like him it’s hard to tell. They’ve been taught their entire lives to be careful what they say. Did you know Kimmie was living on the street?’

‘No, it’s not noted anywhere in the files.’

‘We need to find her.’

‘Yes. But we could talk to the others first, couldn’t we?’

‘Yes, maybe.’ Carl gazed across the water. Of course they should talk to all of them. ‘But when a woman like Kimmie Lassen turns her back on her rich family and ends up on the street, there’s a reason. Those kinds of people could have unusually deep wounds that are well worth poking, Assad. So we need to find her.’

When they got to the car by the summer cottage, Assad pondered things for a moment. ‘I don’t understand the part about that Trivial game, Carl.’

Great minds think alike, Carl thought. He said: ‘We’ll make another pass through the cottage, Assad. I was just about to suggest it. In any event, we have to bring the game home to have it examined for fingerprints.’

This time they inspected everything. The outbuildings, the garden behind the house where weeds were a yard high, the storage hut that housed the gas flasks.

By the time they returned to the living room, they had made no progress.

As Assad dropped to his knees again to search for the two wedges missing from the brown pie, Carl scanned the souvenir shelves and all the furniture.

Finally his attention settled on the pies and the Trivial Pursuit board.

It was obvious that one should take another look at the pies lying there on the central hexagon. Tiny flashes of a larger picture. One pie containing exactly the wedges it should, the other with two missing. A pink and a brown.

Then it dawned on him.

‘Here’s another Christmas heart,’ Assad mumbled, pulling it from under a corner of the rug.

But Carl said nothing. He bent over slowly and picked up the cards that lay in front of the card boxes. Two cards with six questions each, each question marked with a colour corresponding to the colours of the wedges.