Then, in the Gossip photograph seventeen years later, she had a totally different look.

It was from January 1996, the same year as she disappeared. It was taken somewhere along the ‘death route’ of downtown Copenhagen bars. Probably outside the Electric Corner, but it could also be Café Sommersko or maybe even Café Victor. This was a Kimmie in good spirits. Tight jeans, feather boa around her neck and pissed to the gills. Showing a lot of cleavage in spite of the snow on the pavement. Her face was frozen in a rapturous roar, surrounded by high-society types, among them Kristian Wolf and Ditlev Pram, all wearing enormous overcoats. The caption was gracious: ‘The jet set pulls out the stops. Twelfth Night party gets its own queen. Has Kristian Wolf, 29, Denmark’s most eligible bachelor, finally found a life companion?’

‘They were awfully nice at Gossip,’ Rose added. ‘Maybe they’ll find more clippings for us.’

He gave a quick nod. If she believed those vultures at Gossip were nice, then she was incredibly naive. ‘You’ll have the desks in the corridor assembled in the next few days, OK, Rose? Whatever you find for me regarding this case, you’ll put out there and I’ll bring it in here myself when I need it. You understand?’

Judging by her facial expression, she didn’t.

‘What happened up in Jacobsen’s office, boss?’ came Assad’s voice at the door.

‘What happened? Well, I’m suspended. But they want me to stay down here. So if you two want to talk to me about anything involving this case, write it on a note and put it on the table just outside the door. You can’t talk to me about it, because they’ll just send me home. And, Assad, help Rose get those ridiculous tables assembled.’ He pointed into the corridor. ‘And keep your ears open: if I want to say anything to you about the case or give you orders, I’ll write it down on one of these.’ He motioned to his sheets of ledger paper. ‘I’m only allowed to administrate when I’m here, just so you know.’

‘Crappy arrangement,’ Assad said. A more grandiose way to express it would be hard to find.

‘And on top of it all, I’ve got to go to therapy. So perhaps I’m not going to be in the office the whole time. Let’s see which idiots they stick me with this time.’

‘Yes, let’s see,’ a voice in the corridor said unexpectedly.

He had misgivings as he turned towards the door.

Of course it was Mona Ibsen. Always on the scene when the bullfrog croaked. Just as he was standing there with his trousers as far down as they could go.

‘We’ll be going through a longer course of treatment this time, Carl,’ she said, squeezing her way past Assad.

She held out her hand to him. It was warm and hard to let go of.

Smooth, and without a wedding ring.

20

As they’d agreed, she found Tine’s note behind the car-rental company’s drab sign on Skelbækgade. It was right on top of the black panel’s bottom screw, and moisture had already made the letters bleed together.

It had been difficult for the unschooled girl to find enough room to fit all the big, block letters on the little slip of paper, but Kimmie was used to deciphering people’s scribbles.

HI. THE POLICE CAME BY MY PLACE YESTERDAY – CARL MØRKE HE WAS CALLED – ALSO ANUTHER DOWN ON THE STREET WHO’S LOOKIN FOR YOU – THE ONE FROM THE CENTRAL STATION. DON’T KNOW WHO HE IS – BE CAREFULL – SEE YOU ON THE BENCH. T. K.

She read the note several times, halting each time she reached the letter ‘K’, like a freight train at a railroad crossing barrier. The letter was frozen on to her retina. Etched into it. Where did the ‘K’ come from?

The policeman’s name was Carl. Carl with a ‘C’. That was a better letter. Better than ‘K’, even though it sounded the same. Him, she wasn’t afraid of.

She leaned against the wine-red Nissan that had been parked under the sign for ages. Tine’s words injected her with an overwhelming weariness. Like there were devils whirling around inside, sucking the life out of her.

I won’t leave my house, she thought. They’re not gonna get me.

But how could she know it wouldn’t happen anyway? Apparently Tine had spoken with people who were looking for her. People were asking Tine things. Things that only Tine knew about Kimmie. Lots of different things. So she was no longer just Rat-Tine, a danger to herself. She was now also a danger to Kimmie.

She mustn’t speak to anyone, she thought. When I give her the thousand kroner I’ll have to tell her so she understands it.

Turning round instinctively, she caught sight of the pale blue nylon vest of the bloke distributing free newspapers.

Did someone put him up to keeping an eye on me? she wondered. Was it possible? They knew where Tine lived now. Presumably they also knew she and Tine were in contact. Who’s to say that Tine hadn’t been followed all the way to the rent-a-car sign when she placed the note? What would have stopped the people who followed Tine from reading the note?

She tried to gain control of her thoughts. Wouldn’t they have removed it? Of course they would have. And yet: would they?

She glanced again at the newspaper guy. Why wouldn’t the dark-skinned man trying to make a living from his thankless job delivering piles of newspapers to busy, pampered people welcome the opportunity to make a few extra pennies? After all, he would just have to watch her go down Ingerslevsgade and along the railway tracks. If he moved a little closer to the stairwell down to Dybbølsbro Station, it would be easy. There wasn’t a better lookout spot. Standing that high up, the man would be able to see exactly where she was going and where she ended up. At most it was only five hundred yards down to her iron gate and the little house. At most.

She chewed her upper lip, cinching her wool coat tighter.

Then she went over to him. ‘Here,’ she said, handing him fifteen thousand-krone notes. ‘You can go home now, right?’

Only early sound movies showed black men with wide eyes so large and white as this man’s now. As if the bony hand giving him money were no less than the materialization of a dream. The deposit on a flat of his own. Or a small shop. His ticket home. To a life among other black men under the burning sun.

‘Today’s Wednesday. How about calling your employer and telling him you won’t be coming back till next month? Do you catch my drift?’

Fog was settling over the city and Enghave Park, enshrouding her like an alcoholic haze. Her surroundings were disappearing in a white cloak. The tall windows of Kongens Brewery went first, then the blocks before it, the gazebo at one end of the park, and finally the fountain. Damp air with the scent of autumn.

‘Those men must die,’ said the voices in her head.

That morning she’d opened one of the hollow spaces in the wall and removed the hand grenades. She had studied the devilish devices and seen everything so clearly. They would die individually. One at a time, so fear and remorse would have time to devastate each of those remaining.

She laughed to herself, shoving her ice-cold hands deep in her coat pockets. They were already afraid of her, that had been proven. And now the bastards would do anything to find her. And they were getting closer. Cost what it may. Being the cowards they were.

Then she stopped laughing. She hadn’t thought through the last part.

They were cowards. That was a fact. And cowardly people didn’t wait. They ran for their lives while there was still time.

‘I’ll have to take them all at once,’ she said aloud. ‘I’ll have to find a way, otherwise they’ll disappear.’ She knew she could, but the voices inside her demanded something else. They were stubborn, they were. It was enough to make a person crazy.