He knocked a fag from its packet, lit it and stared at the cloud of smoke that enveloped the sheet of paper. Then he wrote:

Tasks:

Similar murders abroad at the same time? Sweden? Germany?

Who from the old investigation unit is still active today?

Bjarne Thøgersen/Vridløselille State Prison.

Accident with the boarding-school pupil at Bellahøj Swimming Centre. Coincidence?

Who from the boarding-school gang can we speak with?

Lawyer Bent Krum!

Torsten Florin, Ditlev Pram and Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen: any current cases? Did anyone working for them report them? Psychological profiles?

Find out about Kimmie, alias Kirsten-Marie Lassen: any next of kin we can speak with?

Circumstances of Kristian Wolf’s death!

He tapped the paper repeatedly with his pencil, before jotting down:

Hardy.

Get Rose the hell out of here.

Thoroughly shag Mona Ibsen.

He glanced at the last line a few times and felt like a naughty, pubescent boy scratching girls’ names into the surface of his desk. If only she knew how heavy his balls got whenever he fantasized about her backside and bouncing breasts. He took a couple of deep breaths, plucked an eraser from his drawer and began removing the last two lines.

‘Carl Mørck, am I disturbing you?’ said a voice at the door, which made his blood boil and turn to ice at the same time. His spinal cord sent five commands through his infrastructure: get rid of the eraser, cover the last line, put away the cigarette, drop the stupid facial expression, close your mouth!

‘Am I disturbing you?’ she said, as his bulging eyes tried to look directly into hers.

They were still brown. Mona Ibsen was back, and he was scared to death.

‘What did Mona want?’ Rose asked with a silly smile. As if it were any of her concern.

She stood in the doorway, steadily chewing on her custard-filled pastry as Carl attempted to return to reality.

‘What was it she wanted, Carl?’ asked Assad, his mouth full. Never before had Carl seen so little custard coating so much stubble.

‘I’ll tell you later.’ He turned towards Rose, hoping she wouldn’t notice his glowing cheeks, which his hammering heart had bombarded with blood. ‘Have you made yourself comfortable in your new digs?’

‘Oh my! You care? Thank you. I suppose if a person hates sunlight and colours on the wall and having friendly people around, then you’ve found the most perfect place for me.’ She elbowed Assad. ‘I’m only joking, Assad. You’re OK.’

Oh joy. This was going to be such a lovely partnership.

Carl rose and laboriously scribbled the list of suspects and tasks on the whiteboard.

Then he turned towards their newly installed wonder of a secretary. If she thought she already had enough on her plate, she had another thought coming. He’d make her work so hard that a job as cardboard-box presser at the margarine factory would seem like paradise.

‘The case we’re working on is a little tricky because of who might be involved,’ he said, glancing at the pastry she was nibbling with her front teeth, like a squirrel. ‘Assad will brief you in a moment. Then I’d like you to put the papers in these plastic bags in chronological order and match them with the papers here on the desk. Then make a copy of the whole shebang for you and Assad – except for the folder here. That’ll have to wait until later.’ He pushed Johan Jacobsen and Martha Jørgensen’s grey folder to one side. ‘And when you’re done with that, find out everything you can about this item here.’ He pointed to the line on the whiteboard concerning the diving-board accident at the swimming centre. ‘We’re a little busy, so go ahead and make it snappy. You’ll find the date of the accident on the summary page that’s on top in the red plastic bag. The summer of 1987, before the Rørvig murders. Sometime in June.’

Maybe he’d expected her to grunt a bit. Just a tart little remark that would win her a couple more tasks, but she was surprisingly dispassionate. Unmoved, she merely glanced nonchalantly at the hand that held the remainder of her pastry, then shoved it sideways into a mouth that seemed as though it could swallow anything.

He turned to Assad. ‘How would you like to take a break from the basement for a few days?’

‘Does it have something to do with Hardy?’

‘No. I want you to find Kimmie. We need to begin forming our own picture of this gang. I’ll start on the others.’

Assad appeared to be trying to imagine the bigger picture. Himself, hunting for a bag lady on the streets of Copenhagen, while Carl sat, nice and cosy, indoors with the wealthy folks, tossing down coffee and cognac. That was how Carl saw it, at any rate.

‘I don’t understand, Carl,’ he said. ‘Are we continuing with this investigation? Were we not just told to stay away from it?’

Carl furrowed his brows. Maybe Assad should have kept his trap shut. Who knew if Rose was loyal? Why was she down here anyway? He sure as hell hadn’t asked for her.

‘Well, yes, now that Assad has mentioned it, the police chief has given us a red light on the case. Do you have a problem with that?’ he asked Rose.

She shrugged. ‘It’s OK with me. But it means you’re the one who buys pastries next time,’ she said, lifting the plastic bags.

After Assad had received his instructions, he slunk off. Twice a day he was to phone Carl’s mobile to report his findings regarding Kimmie. He had been given a to-do list that among other things included checking the Civil Registration System, talking to cops on the beat at City Station, Social Services at City Hall, staff at the Red Cross shelter on Hillerødgade and a number of other locations. Quite the assignment for a man who was still wet behind the ears, especially when all they knew so far about Kimmie’s whereabouts came from Valdemar Florin. According to him, she walked the streets of downtown Copenhagen with a suitcase, and had done so for years. Even if you could trust what the man said, this wasn’t terribly specific. It was probably rather doubtful she was even alive, considering the gang’s reputation.

Carl opened the pale green folder and wrote down Kirsten-Marie Lassen’s Civil Registration Number. Then he went into the corridor where Rose was already running reams of paper through the copier in unusually irritating and energetic fashion.

‘We need some tables out here so I can sort the sheets,’ she said, without looking up.

‘Is that so? Do you have a certain make in mind?’ he said, smiling crookedly as he handed her the Civil Registration Number. ‘I need all her personal data. Last place of residence, any hospitalizations, welfare payments, education, parents’ residence if they’re still alive. Hold off on the copying for a bit. I need this quickly. And all of it, thanks.’

She rose to her full, stiletto-heel height. Her direct gaze at his larynx didn’t feel pleasant. ‘You’ll have the order list for the tables in ten minutes,’ she said drily. ‘I’d go with the Malling-Beck catalogue. They have height-adjustable ones priced between five and six thousand apiece.’

He swept items into his grocery cart half consciously, with visions of Mona Ibsen swirling in his head. She hadn’t worn her wedding ring, which was the first thing he’d noticed. That and how dry his throat got when she looked at him. Another sign that it was getting to be a long time since he’d last been with a woman.

Bloody hell.

He glanced round, trying to orient himself since the Kvickly supermarket’s enormous expansion, just like everyone else who was wandering about, searching for toilet paper where there were now cosmetics. This kind of thing could make a person crazy.

At the end of the pedestrian shopping street, the razing of the old dry-goods shop was nearly complete. Allerød was no longer a quaint little town with small, independently owned shops, and Carl almost didn’t give a toss any more. If he couldn’t have Mona Ibsen, then for all he cared they could level the church, too, and build yet another supermarket.