‘I talked about her constantly. Thought about her night and day. All the clippings about the case, all the reports. I simply had to read about her all the time.’

‘And now you want to get rid of it all? That’s why you got us involved?’ Carl asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And what have you got for us? All this?’ Carl spread his arms out over the stacks of paper.

He nodded. ‘If you read all of it, you’ll know that it was the school gang that did it.’

‘You’ve made a list for us of other assaults. We’ve already seen it. Is that what you mean?’

‘That’s only a partial list. I’ve got the full one here.’ He leaned over the table, lifted a stack of newspaper clippings and pulled out a sheet of paper from underneath.

‘It starts here, before the Rørvig murders. This boy went to the same boarding school, it states in the article.’ He pointed at a page in Politiken from 15 June 1987. The headline read: ‘Tragedy in Bellahøj. Man, 19, Falls to Death from Ten-Metre Diving Board’.

He ran through the cases, many of which Carl recognized from the list that had been delivered to Department Q. Three or four months separated the different incidents. A couple of them had resulted in deaths.

‘It’s possible they’re all accidents then,’ Assad said. ‘What do they have to do with the boarding-school kids? They aren’t necessarily connected with one another at all. Do you have any proof?’

‘No. That’s your job.’

Assad swung his head dismissively. ‘Honestly, there’s absolutely nothing in this. You’ve just become sick in your head because of this case. I feel sorry for you. You should see a psychologist then. Can’t you go to that Mona Ibsen at headquarters instead of sending us on a wild duck chase?’

On their drive back to headquarters, Carl and Assad were quiet, each absorbed in thought. Between their ears, the case was moving full speed ahead.

‘Make us a cup of tea, Assad,’ Carl said down in the basement, pushing the plastic grocery bags containing Johan Jacobsen’s papers into the corner. ‘Go easy on the sugar, OK?’

He put his legs up on the desk, turned on the news programme on Channel 2, unplugged his brain and expected nothing more from the day.

The next five minutes changed that.

He picked up the telephone on the first ring and his eyes rolled towards the ceiling when he heard the homicide chief’s dark voice.

‘I’ve talked to the police chief, Carl. She sees no reason why you should dig deeper into this case.’

At first Carl made a show of protesting, but when Marcus Jacobsen wouldn’t give him additional reasons why, he felt the temperature rising around the nape of his neck.

‘I’ll repeat: why?’

‘That’s just the way it is. You should prioritize your assignments so that you’re concentrating exclusively on cases that haven’t resulted in a conviction. The rest you should file away in the metal cabinets down in the archive.’

‘Aren’t I the one who actually decides what to prioritize?’

‘Not when the police chief says something else.’

So that conversation was over.

‘Nice mint tea with a little sugar,’ Assad said after the conversation ended, handing him a cup. It looked as though the teaspoon could stand upright in the sea of syrup.

Carl accepted the scalding hot and sickeningly sweet beverage, knocking it back in one gulp. Christ, he was getting used to the glop.

‘You shouldn’t sulk, Carl. We’ll let the case rest for a few weeks until this Johan comes back to work. Then we’ll quietly pressure him day after day. He’ll confess everything sooner or later. You’ll see.’

Carl studied Assad’s cheery face. If he didn’t know any better he’d think it was painted on. Just an hour earlier he had been aggressive, insistent and flushed-faced on account of this case.

‘Confesses what, Assad? What the hell are you talking about?’

‘That night Lisbet Jørgensen told him she didn’t want him any more then. She probably said she’d found another guy. So he came back that morning and killed them both. If we dig a little deeper we’ll probably find out there was some sort of shit between Lisbet’s brother and Johan. Maybe he went completely crazy.’

‘Forget it, Assad. The case has been taken from us. Besides, I don’t believe your theory in the slightest. It’s too twisted.’

‘Twisted?’

‘Yes, for God’s sake, and I’m not talking about a pretzel. If Johan had done it, he’d have fallen apart a hundred years ago.’

‘Not if he’s screwed up in the head.’ He tapped the bald patch on his crown.

‘Someone who’s screwed up in the head doesn’t give leads like the Trivial Pursuit cards. He throws the murder weapon right in your face and looks the other way. Anyway, didn’t you hear what I said? We’ve been taken off the case.’

Assad glanced indifferently at the flat-screen TV on the wall, where the news was reporting on an assault on Store Kannikestræde. ‘No, I didn’t hear that. I don’t want to hear that. Who took us off the case, did you say?’

They could smell Rose heading their way before they saw her. She was suddenly standing there, arms full of office supplies and bakery bags patterned with Christmas elves. In every sense of the word, she was early.

‘Knock-knock!’ she said, rapping her forehead twice on the door frame. ‘Here comes the cavalry, tah-dahhhh! Scrumptious pastries for everyone.’

Carl and Assad stared at one another. One with a pained expression on his face, the other with Christmas lights in his eyes.

‘Hi, Rose, and welcome to Department Q. I’ve made everything ready for you, you bet,’ said the little traitor.

As Assad pulled her towards the neighbouring room, she gave Carl a telling glance that said, You can’t get rid of me. But it damned well took two to tango. As if he could be bought for the price of a pastry and a biscuit.

He glanced at the plastic bags in the corner and then pulled a sheet of paper from the drawer.

Then he wrote:

Suspects:

Bjarne Thøgersen?

One or more of the others in the boarding-school gang?

Johan Jacobsen?

Random murder?

Someone connected to the boarding-school gang?

He frowned in frustration at this meagre result. If Marcus had left him in peace, he probably would have simply shredded the paper himself. But Marcus hadn’t. He’d given Carl a direct order to let the case go; therefore he was unable to.

When Carl was a boy, his father had been on to him. He gave Carl explicit orders not to plough the meadow, so Carl ploughed it. He admonished Carl not to join the military, and Carl enlisted. His crafty father had even tried to steer him towards the lasses. This farmer’s daughter and that farmer’s daughter weren’t good enough, he said, so Carl went after them. That was Carl’s way, and always had been. No one was going to make his decisions for him, which actually made him easy to manipulate. He knew this, of course. The question was whether or not the police chief also knew it. It was hard to imagine.

But what the hell was this really about? How did the police chief even know he was involved with the case? Only a handful of people were aware of this.

He imagined the possibilities: Marcus Jacobsen, Lars Bjørn, Assad, the team in Holbæk, Valdemar Florin, the man from the summer cottages, the victims’ mother …

For a moment he stared off into space. Yes, these people knew, and a bunch of others knew, too, if he really thought hard.

At this point anyone else might have applied the brakes. When names like Florin, Dybbøl Jensen and Pram became associated with a murder investigation, you could quickly find yourself on thin ice.

He shook his head. He really couldn’t give a shit about people’s titles and what favours the police chief owed whom. Now that they’d started, no one was going to stop them.

He looked up. New sounds were emanating from Rose’s office across the corridor. That guttural, peculiar laughter of hers – booming outbursts of it – plus Assad at full throttle. If they kept at it, someone might suspect there was a rave going on.