But at this moment he felt nothing, and it didn’t feel good.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘Tell him I’m out of town.’

The seagull vanished in the dark waves.

‘Say I’ve gone travelling. And see to it that he’s thrown the hell out.’

35

For Carl, Monday started ten minutes after he’d gone to bed.

He had been disoriented all day Sunday. He’d slept like a log for most of the flight home, and it had been almost impossible for the crabby stewardesses to wake him. They’d had to drag him out of the plane, after which airport personnel needed an electric cart to drive him to the medics.

‘How many Frisium did you say you took?’ they asked. But he was already asleep again.

And now, paradoxically, he had woken up the very moment he’d gone to bed.

‘Where have you been today?’ Morten Holland asked, when Carl came tottering into the kitchen like a zombie. A martini appeared on the table quicker than a soul could say no thanks, and the night grew long.

‘You should find yourself a girlfriend,’ Morten purred, as the clock struck four, and Jesper arrived home, offering additional advice about love and women.

Now Carl knew that Frisium was best in small doses. In any case, it wasn’t a good sign when one’s best advisers on matters of the heart were a sixteen-year-old closet punk and an as-yet closeted homosexual. Next it would probably be Jesper’s mother, Vigga, putting in her pennies’ worth. He could just hear it: ‘What’s wrong with you, Carl? If something is wrong with your metabolic system, then you should give rose root a try. It’s good for all kinds of things.’

He ran into Lars Bjørn at the reception desk, and he didn’t look too good, either.

‘It’s those damn rubbish-bin assaults,’ he said.

They nodded to the officer behind the glass and walked together out to the colonnade.

‘You’ve probably noticed the coincidence between the names “Store Kannikestræde” and “Store Søndervoldstræde”,’ Carl said. ‘Are you keeping an eye on the other streets?’

‘Yes, we have continual surveillance on both Store Strandstræde and Store Kirkestræde. Plainclothes female officers are out there, so we’ll see if that tempts the assailant. Which is why we can’t spare any officers to help on your case, but you probably know that.’

Carl nodded. At this moment he hardly cared. If whatever it was that was making him feel this worn out, slow-witted and woolly-headed was anything like jet lag, then he bloody well failed to understand what on earth a ‘fairy-tale holiday’ could be. Nightmare holiday was a far more appropriate term.

Rose greeted him with a smile in the basement corridor, which no doubt he would soon manage to swipe off her face. ‘Well, how was Madrid?’ was the first thing she said. ‘Did you have time for a little flamenco dancing?’

He simply didn’t have the energy to respond.

‘Come on, Carl. What did you see down there?’

He fixed his heavy-lidded eyes on her. ‘What did I see? Apart from the Eiffel Tower and Paris and the inside of my eyelids, I saw absolutely nothing.’

She started to protest. That’s not possible, said her look.

‘I’ll be blunt, Rose. If you ever do anything like that again, you’ll soon be calling yourself an ex-Department Q colleague.’

He slipped past her and headed for his chair. The padded upholstery awaited him. Just four or five hours’ slumber with his legs up on the desk and he’d be good as new. Of that he was certain.

‘What’s going on?’ came Assad’s voice, the instant Carl entered dreamland.

He shrugged. Nothing, other than that he was about to come unglued. Was Assad blind, or what?

‘Rose is upset. Were you mean to her, Carl?’

He was about to get riled again, but then saw the papers Assad had under his arm.

‘What have you got for me?’ he said tiredly.

Assad sat in one of Rose’s metal monstrosities. ‘They haven’t found Kimmie Lassen yet. They’re searching everywhere, so it’s probably a question of time then.’

‘Is there any news from the explosion site? Have they found anything?’

‘No, nothing. As far as I know they’re finished now.’ He pulled out his papers and glanced through them.

‘I got in touch with those folks at Løgstrup Fence,’ he said. ‘They were very, very friendly. They had to go all the way around in their department before they found someone who could tell us something about the key in the fence.’

‘OK,’ Carl said, eyes closed.

‘One of their employees had a locksmith come to Inger Slevs Gade to help a lady from the ministry who had ordered some extra keys then.’

‘Did you get a description of the woman, Assad? It was Kimmie Lassen, I presume?’

‘No, they couldn’t find out which locksmith it was then, so I didn’t get a description. I’ve told the whole story to the people upstairs. Maybe they would like to know who could have had access to the house that exploded.’

‘OK, Assad. Fair enough. So we’ll cut that string.’

‘What string?’

‘Doesn’t matter, Assad. My next assignment for you is to make a case file on each of the other three, Ditlev, Ulrik and Torsten. I want information about all kinds of things. Tax statements, business ventures, residencies, marital status and all the rest. Just build up the files bit by bit.’

‘Who do I start with then? I have some stuff about all of them already.’

‘That’s good, Assad. Do you have anything else we should discuss?’

‘Up in homicide they told me to let you know that Aalbæk’s mobile many times had been in contact with Ditlev Pram’s.’

Of course it had.

‘That’s good, Assad. So there’s a connection between them and this case. That means we have a pretext for visiting them.’

‘Pretext? What kind of text is that?’

Carl opened his eyes and looked into a pair of dark brown question marks. Honestly, every now and then it was a bit much. Maybe a few private sessions in the Danish language could remove a few feet of the language barrier. On the other hand, there was the risk that he’d suddenly start speaking like a bureaucrat.

‘And I’ve found Klavs Jeppesen,’ Assad said, when Carl didn’t react to his question.

‘That’s good, Assad.’ He tried to remember how many times he’d already said ‘that’s good’. He wouldn’t want to overuse the expression. ‘And where is he?’

‘He’s in the hospital.’

Carl straightened in his chair. What now?

‘Well, you know,’ Assad said, making a slashing motion across his wrist.

‘Jesus Christ. Why’d he do that? Is he going to survive?’

‘Yes. I’ve been out there. I went already yesterday.’

‘Well done, Assad. And?’

‘Not much. Just a man without backbones.’

Backbones? There it was again.

‘He’s come close to doing it for many years, he said.’

Carl shook his head. No woman ever had that kind of effect on him. Unfortunately.

‘Did he have more to say?’

‘I don’t think so. The nurses threw me out.’

Carl smiled wearily. By now Assad must have become accustomed to it.

Then his assistant’s facial expression changed. ‘I saw a new man up on the third floor earlier today. An Iraqi, I think. Do you know what he’s doing here?’

Carl nodded. ‘Yes, he’s Bak’s replacement. He’s from Rødovre. I met him out at the high-rise early Sunday morning. Maybe you know him. His name’s Samir. I don’t remember his surname.’

Assad lifted his head a little. His full lips parted slightly and a set of faint wrinkles formed around his eyes, which weren’t caused by smiling. For a moment he seemed far away.

‘OK,’ he said softly, nodding slowly a few times. ‘Replacement for Bak. So that means he’s staying?’

‘Yes, I assume so. Is something wrong?’