He was a compact little man in shabby clothes. Thick coat, large pockets. It was wrapped around his body like a snakeskin, suggesting a derelict. But that wasn’t quite right. Even there, Kimmie knew better. Men wearing the uniform of the outcast – men who’d given up – didn’t look at other people. They had their sights set on the rubbish bins. On the ground in front of them. On corners where they might find an empty bottle. Maybe even on a random shop window or the offer of the week at Sunset Fast Food. They never scrutinized people’s faces and behaviour like this man was doing from under his bushy eyebrows. Besides, he was dark-skinned, like a Turk or Iranian. Who had ever seen a Turk or Iranian fall so far that he walked Copenhagen’s streets as a homeless person?

She watched him until he passed the man leaning against the wall, expecting they would acknowledge one another somehow, but they didn’t.

So she sat there, peering over the top of her magazine, imploring the voices in her head to keep out of it. And that’s how she was sitting when the little man returned to where he started. Not even on his way back did the two men acknowledge each other.

It was at this point that she rose quietly, pushed the chair carefully under her table and followed the squat, dark man at a distance.

He walked slowly. Now and then he would exit the hall and peer down Istedsgade, but he never walked so far that she couldn’t see him from the stairwell near the train station’s construction site.

There was no doubt that he was searching for someone, someone who could be her. So she stayed back in the shadows, behind corners and signs.

When he was standing near the train station post office for the tenth time, glancing around, he suddenly turned and stared straight at her. This was something she hadn’t prepared herself for, so she turned on her high heels and made her way towards the taxi queue. She would hail one and get away fast; he wasn’t going to keep her from doing that.

The other thing she hadn’t expected was that Rat-Tine would be standing right behind her.

‘Hi, Kimmie!’ she called shrilly, her eyes lustreless. ‘I thought it was you, love. You look smashing today. What’s the occasion?’

She thrust her arms towards Kimmie, as if to make sure she was real, but Kimmie dodged her, leaving Tine with arms raised in the air.

Behind her Kimmie heard the man’s running footfalls.

16

The telephone had rung three times during the night, but each time Carl lifted the receiver the line was dead.

At the breakfast table he asked Jesper and Morten whether they’d noticed anything unusual in the house, but only got sleepy glances in response.

‘Maybe you forgot to close windows or doors yesterday?’ he tried. There had to be some way into their sleep-leaden think tanks.

Jesper shrugged. To get anything from him at this time of the day, you first had to pull the winning number in Utopia’s grand lottery. Morten, at least, grunted a sort of answer.

Afterwards Carl walked round the house without spotting anything abnormal. The front-door lock had no scratches. The windows were as they should be. The break-in had been committed by a person or people who knew what they were doing.

After a ten-minute investigation, he got in his police car that was parked between the grey concrete buildings and noticed how it stank of petrol.

‘Bloody hell!’ he shouted. In a split second he ripped open the Peugeot’s door and lunged sideways on to the ground, rolling several times before taking shelter behind a van, expecting Magnolievangen to be illuminated by a blast powerful enough to blow in windows.

‘What’s wrong, Carl?’ he heard a calm voice say. He turned towards his barbecuing mate, Kenn, who in spite of the morning chill wore a thin T-shirt and seemed nice and warm.

‘Stand still, Kenn,’ he commanded, staring down towards Rønneholtparken. Apart from Kenn’s animated eyebrows, nothing was moving anywhere. Maybe a remote control would activate the explosion the next time he approached the vehicle. Perhaps the spark from the ignition would be enough to set it off.

‘Someone has tampered with my car,’ he said, finally turning his attention from the rooftops and the hundreds of windows in the buildings.

For a moment he considered calling the crime-scene techs, but decided against it. Whoever was trying to frighten him didn’t leave fingerprints or other similar clues. He might as well accept that fact and take the train.

Hunter or hunted? Right now it was all relative.

He hadn’t even removed his coat before Rose was standing at his office door with arched brows and charcoal-grey lashes.

‘The police mechanics are out in Allerød and report that nothing special is wrong with your car. A loose petrol line, how interesting can that be?’

She closed her eyes resignedly and in slow motion, which Carl ignored. Better to assert his authority right away.

‘You’ve given me a lot of assignments, Carl. Are we going to talk about them, or should we wait until the petrol fumes have evaporated from your belfry?’

He lit a cigarette and settled in his chair. ‘Fire away,’ he said, hoping the mechanics had enough wits about them to bring his car to headquarters.

‘Let’s start with the accident at Bellahøj Swimming Centre. There’s not much to say about it. The guy was nineteen and his name was Kåre Bruno.’ She stared him down, dimples at full strength. ‘Bruno! Seriously!’ She repressed something, maybe a giggle. ‘He was a good swimmer, very athletic across the board, actually. His parents lived in Istanbul, but his grandparents lived in Emdrup, close to the Bellahøj open-air swimming pool. That’s where he usually stayed during his free weekends.’ She riffled through her papers. ‘The report states it was an accident, and that Kåre Bruno himself was responsible. Not paying attention on a ten-metre diving board isn’t particularly smart, you know.’ She stuck her pen in her hair where it could hardly stay very long.

‘It had rained that morning, so the guy probably slipped on the wet surface while showing off for someone, I’d guess. But he was there by himself, and no one saw exactly what happened. Not until he was lying on the tiles underneath with his head rotated 180 degrees.’

Carl looked at Rose with a question on his lips, but she cut him off. ‘And yes, Kåre went to the same boarding school as Kirsten-Marie Lassen and the others from the gang. He was in the sixth form when the others were in the fifth. I’ve not spoken with anyone from the school yet, but I can do that later.’ She stopped as suddenly as a bullet hitting a block of concrete. He would need to get used to her style.

‘OK. We’ll review it all in a bit. What about Kimmie?’

‘You really believe she’s very important in this gang,’ she said. ‘Why is that?’

Should I count to ten? he thought.

‘How many girls were in the gang, in total?’ he asked instead. ‘And how many of them have since disappeared? Only one, am I right? And she’s probably also a girl whom one could assume wants to change her current status. So that’s why I’m especially interested in her. If Kimmie is still alive, she might be the key to a whole lot of information. Don’t you think we ought to consider the possibility?’

‘Who says she wants to change her current status? Many homeless people can’t be forced to live in a house again, if that’s what you think.’

If her mouth always ran on like this, it would drive him up the wall.

‘I’ll ask you again, Rose. What have you found out about Kimmie?’

‘Do you know what, Carl? Before we come to that, I’d like to say that you need to buy a chair so Assad and I can sit down in here when we’re giving you our reports. Your back starts aching when you have to loll around in the doorway, even when we’re discussing the tiniest details.’