Carl rubbed his face. Imagine if the two men were on their way to meet at Florin’s at this moment. If it were really them, when would he ever have such an opportunity to observe all three together?

And if he did get the chance, what would he be able to get out of it?

It only took a moment before Assad had the information from the motor vehicle office.

‘The lead car is registered as belonging to one Thelma Pram,’ he said.

Bingo.

‘And the rear car belongs to UDJ Stock Analysts.’

Bingo again.

‘So the flock is gathered,’ Carl said, checking his watch. It wasn’t yet eight in the morning. What the devil were they up to?

‘I think we should keep an eye on them, Carl.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, you know. Enter the grounds and see what they’re doing then.’

Carl shook his head. Sometimes he was a tad too creative, this little man.

‘You heard Florin,’ he said, as Assad sat there, nodding with big eyes. ‘We need a warrant, and we won’t get that on the basis of the existing evidence.’

‘No, but can’t we get one if we learn more?’

‘Of course. But we won’t find anything out by sneaking around in there. We don’t have a warrant for that either, Assad. We don’t have the authority.’

‘What if they were the ones who killed Aalbæk to cover the tracks after them?’

‘What tracks? It’s not illegal to hire someone to shadow others.’

‘No, but what if Aalbæk actually found Kimmie and those men are holding her hostage in there right now? It’s a distinct possibility. Isn’t that the kind of word you like to use? Now Aalbæk is dead, so they are the only ones who know if they’ve caught her. She is your most important witness, Carl.’

Carl could see he was building up to something, and then it came.

‘What if they’re about to kill her right now? We’ve got to get in there.’

Carl exhaled heavily. It was simply too many questions.

The man was right, of course; and yet he wasn’t.

They parked the car on Ny Mårumvej near the Duemose whistle-stop and walked from the Gribskov train tracks along the paths that bordered the forest until they reached the firebreak. From where they stood, they could see directly across the marsh and up along part of Torsten Florin’s woods. They were dense and lush. Way off in the distance, up the hill, the entrance gate was just visible, so that was one direction they wouldn’t be heading in. They had seen all the surveillance cameras.

More interesting was the courtyard, where the two enormous four-wheel-drives were parked. From there, their path was clear in all directions.

‘I think there are cameras everywhere in the firebreak, Carl,’ Assad said. ‘If we want to cross it, we have to go this way.’

He pointed at a bog hole where the fence had sunk so far down it was pretty much invisible. It was the only spot where they could make it over the fence without being detected.

Not exactly encouraging.

Afterwards they had to lie on the ground for half an hour with soaking wet, muddy trousers and eyes peeled, before the three men came into view in the courtyard. Behind them walked a couple of lean black men carrying objects that resembled hunting bows or something along those lines. Sounds of conversation carried almost all the way to the hedge where Carl and Assad lay. Toneless voices, partially absorbed by the distance and the slight breeze that swirled coolly around them.

Then the three men disappeared into the main house and the black men continued on towards the small red houses.

Ten minutes later, several more black men appeared and then disappeared into the big hall. A few minutes after that they came out again, bearing a cage that they lifted on to the back of a pickup. Then some climbed into the cab and others on to the flatbed beside the cage, and drove off into the woods.

‘If we’re doing this, it’s got to be now,’ Carl said, pulling a mildly protesting Assad behind him along the hedge and directly towards the small houses. They heard people inside. Chatter in a foreign language. Babies crying and shouts from older children. It was an entire little society.

They sneaked past the first house and noticed a sign on the door with many exotic-sounding names on it.

‘Over there, too,’ Assad whispered, pointing at a door sign on the next house. ‘Do you think actually he’s keeping slaves?’

Probably not, but it certainly seemed to be something like that. It resembled an African village in the middle of the estate. Or shacks lying in the shadow of some giant Southern-state mansion before the American Civil War.

They heard a dog bark not far away.

‘What if he has dogs running loose on the grounds?’ Assad whispered worriedly, as if they had already heard him.

Carl glanced at his partner. Easy now, his face said. If there was anything he’d learned on the ploughed fields of Vendsyssel, it was that unless ten angry fighting dogs were coming at you, the human was in charge. One, well-timed kick usually established the pecking order. If only they didn’t make such a bloody ruckus.

They ran across the open stretch by the courtyard and saw they had a good chance of getting behind the main house that way.

Twenty seconds later they stood with their faces pressed flat against the manor’s windows, behind which there was absolutely nothing going on. What they saw resembled a conventional office with mahogany furnishings. There were rows of hunting trophies on the shelves. Nothing that suggested anything untoward.

They turned around. If there were any irregularities in the vicinity, they would have to find them fast.

‘Did you see there?’ Assad whispered, pointing at a large cylinder that extended from the massive glass hall a good way into the forest. It was at least fifty yards long.

What the hell is it? Carl thought.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s check it out.’

The face Assad made when they walked into the hall ought to have been immortalized. Carl felt something similar. If Nautilus was a shocking sight for animal lovers, then this was ten times worse. Cage after cage after cage containing frightened animals. Bloody, flayed hides in every size hung to dry on the walls. Everything from hamsters to calves. Fierce fighting dogs were barking, probably the ones they’d heard earlier. There were big, lizard-like beasts and hissing minks. House pets and exotic animals in one great menagerie.

But this was anything but Noah’s Ark. It was the opposite. No animal would leave this place alive – that much was instantly obvious.

Carl recognized the cage from Nautilus standing in the middle of the hall, a growling hyena inside. A large ape screamed in the corner, a warthog grunted and sheep baa’d.

‘Do you think Kimmie could be in here then?’ Assad asked, walking a few paces further into the hall.

Carl’s eyes wandered along the cages. Most of them were too small to house a human.

‘What about here?’ Assad said, pointing at a row of deep freezers that were humming in one of the side passageways. He opened the first one.

‘Ugh!’ he exclaimed, with visible shivers of disgust.

Carl stared into the freezer. A stack of flayed animals stared back up at him, empty-eyed.

‘It’s the same in all these.’ Assad opened and closed lid after lid.

‘I would imagine they’re mostly used to feed the animals,’ Carl said, sizing up the hyena. Any kind of flesh would disappear in no time down the throat of a hungry creature like that. A gruesome thought.

It took five minutes for them to confirm that there were no humans in the remaining cages.

‘Look, Carl,’ Assad said, pointing inside the huge pipe they had seen from the outside. ‘It’s a shooting range.’

It was true. If the police had such a thing at headquarters, people would be lining up to use it all day long. With air nozzles and everything, it was state of the art.