If it was a man who looked capable of putting up a fight, Kimmie removed her mask and stood in front of the gang with her coat and blouse unbuttoned and her gloved hands on her breasts. Who wouldn’t stop, disoriented, in a situation like that?

After a while they learned to tell which types of prey would keep their mouths shut, and which they would have to force into silence.

Tine looked at her friend as if she had saved her life. ‘Is it good stuff, Kimmie?’ She lit a cigarette and dipped her finger in the bag Kimmie held.

‘Great,’ she said after testing it on her tongue. She looked at the bag. ‘Three grammes, right?’

Kimmie nodded.

‘First tell me what the police wanted with me.’

‘Oh, it was just something about your family, Kimmie. Nothing about the other stuff, that’s for sure.’

‘My family? What does that mean?’

‘Something about your father being sick, and that you wouldn’t contact him if you just sort of found out. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Kimmie.’ She tried to squeeze her friend’s arm, but couldn’t manage it.

‘My father?’ The words alone were like being given a shot of poison. ‘Is he even alive? No way. And if he is, he should just die.’ If that wanker with the bag of beers had still been there, she would have kicked him in the ribs. One for her father, and then one for good measure.

‘The copper told me I shouldn’t tell you, but now I have. I’m sorry, Kimmie.’ She stared longingly at the plastic bag in Kimmie’s hand.

‘What did you say the cop’s name was?’

‘I can’t remember right now, Kimmie. Does it really matter? Didn’t I write it down for you in the message?’

‘How do you know he was a cop?’

‘I saw his badge, Kimmie. I asked to see it, you know?’

The voices in Kimmie’s head were whispering, telling her what she should believe. Soon she wouldn’t be able to listen to anyone or anything any more. A policeman sent to find her because her father was ill? Like hell. A police badge, what did that prove? Florin and the others could easily get hold of one.

‘How could you get three grammes for a thousand kroner, Kimmie? Not so pure, maybe? No, of course it’s not. Boy, am I dumb!’ She smiled at Kimmie beseechingly. Eyes partly shut, skeletal, and shaking with withdrawal.

So Kimmie returned the smile and gave her the bottle of chocolate milk, the crisps, the beers, the bag of smack, a bottle of water and the syringe.

The rest she could do on her own.

She waited until twilight had settled in before she ran from the DGI building over to the wrought-iron gate. She knew what had to happen and this really wound her up.

During the next few minutes she emptied the hollow spaces of cash and credit cards, put two of the hand grenades on the bed and one in her bag.

Then she packed her suitcase with the bare necessities, removed the posters on the door and wall and laid them on top. Last of all she pulled the box out from under the bed and opened it.

The little cloth bundle had become brown and almost weightless. She picked up the whisky bottle, brought it to her mouth and drank until it was empty. This time the voices didn’t go away.

‘OK, OK, I’m hurrying,’ she said, setting the bundle carefully on top in her suitcase, covering it with her blanket. She gently stroked the fabric a few times and snapped the lid shut.

She dragged the suitcase all the way out to Ingerslevsgade. Then all she’d have to do was grab it.

When she stood in the doorway, she took a good look round inside the house so that this momentous intermezzo in her life had time to imprint itself.

‘Thanks for putting me up,’ she said, backing out of the door while releasing the safety catch on a hand grenade and throwing it next to the other one on the bed.

When the house exploded, she was a good distance beyond the gate.

If she hadn’t been, flying chunks of concrete would probably have been the last things she felt in this life.

25

The blast was like a muffled thud against the windows in the homicide chief’s office.

He and Carl glanced at each other. This wasn’t just premature New Year’s fireworks.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Marcus said. ‘Just as long as no one got killed.’

A friendly, empathetic person, who in this instance was probably thinking more of his workforce than potential victims.

He faced Carl again. ‘That number you pulled yesterday, don’t try it again, Carl. I understand what you’re saying, but next time you come to me first, otherwise you’ll make me look like a fool, understand?’

Carl nodded. Fair enough. Then he told the homicide chief his suspicions regarding Lars Bjørn. That he in all probability had had a personal motivation for interfering with Carl’s investigation. ‘We’ll have to call him in, right?’

Marcus Jacobsen sighed.

Maybe he knew the party was over, maybe he believed he could manoeuvre around it. Whatever the case, for the first time ever Bjørn wasn’t wearing his customary tie.

The homicide chief got right down to it. ‘I understand that you were our liaison between the ministry and the police chief in this case, Lars. Would you mind explaining how this adds up before we offer our own interpretation?’

Bjørn sat scratching his chin a moment. A military man by training. A classic, unblemished police CV. The right age. Continuing education courses at the University of Copenhagen. Law, of course. Good administrative abilities. An enormous network of contacts and a good deal of experience in fundamental police work as well. And now this glaringly obvious blunder. He had politicized his job, stabbed his colleagues in the back and helped hinder an investigation he in principle had nothing to do with. And for what? For solidarity with a boarding school he’d left ages ago? For old friendships’ sake? What the hell was he supposed to say? One wrong word and he was finished. They all knew it.

‘I wanted to spare us a resource-draining fiasco,’ he said, and instantly regretted it.

‘Unless you can produce a better defence, consider yourself out, you hear me?’ Carl saw how painful it was for the homicide chief. He and Bjørn were an excellent team, however irritating Carl thought the deputy commissioner was.

Bjørn sighed. ‘You’ve no doubt noticed that I have a different tie on.’

They both nodded.

‘Yes, I went to the same boarding school.’

Needless to say, they would have figured it out – and Bjørn could see that.

‘There was some very negative press in connection with a rape case at the school a few years ago, so they didn’t need the Rørvig case being reopened.’

They knew that, too.

‘And Ditlev Pram’s older brother, Herbert, was one of my classmates. He’s on the same school’s board of directors today.’

That bit of information, on the other hand, had regrettably slipped under Carl’s radar.

‘His wife is the sister of one of the department heads in the Justice Ministry. And this department head has been a rather good sparring partner for the police chief during the reform process.’

Isn’t that a nice kettle of fish, Carl thought. It was straight out of one of Morten Korch’s sentimental cinematic dramas. Soon they’d probably all turn out to be illegitimate children of some rural landowner.

‘I was being pressured on both sides. It’s like a brotherhood, all these old boarding-school alums, and I admit I’ve made a mistake here. But I assumed the department head was doing the justice minister’s bidding, and that therefore I wasn’t completely in the wrong. She didn’t want the case drawing any interest, partly because those who were involved – who aren’t exactly nobodies, of course – hadn’t been accused of anything when the crime was committed, and partly because there had already been a conviction with an almost-served sentence. To me it seemed as though they wanted to avoid an evaluation of whether or not procedural mistakes had been made and all kinds of other potential problems. I don’t know why I didn’t check with the minister, but at our lunch yesterday it became clear that she didn’t know anything about the investigation, so unfortunately she never took any measures. I know that now.’