They noticed that the dishes had been done, the bed made, that everything seemed to have been thought through, and, most significantly, that the apartment had been cleaned of all the clues a detective normally looks for.
“She’s really gone to town with cleaning and tidying up, Carl,” said Assad. “There’s no laundry in the laundry basket, and the wastepaper bin and rubbish bin have been emptied.”
“Look here. The room at the back is locked. Want to take a look?”
Assad took out the lockpick and unlocked the door.
“That’s odd,” said Carl when they were standing in the small room, where all the walls were covered with metal shelves full of screws, nails, fittings, and other metal paraphernalia.
“I don’t think this room is part of Anne-Line Svendsen’s tenancy agreement. You saw on the sign down there what the other occupant does,” answered Assad.
“I’m afraid we won’t find anything here, then,” Carl said and asked Assad to lock the door behind them.
“When you look around the apartment, does anything spring to mind as missing or do you think there seems to be too much of anything?” he asked when they were back in her sitting room.
“Many things, actually. Firstly, I can tell that there’s a computer missing because there’s a monitor on the floor down there. And then it’s strange that the only untidy thing in the entire apartment is a DVD that’s been left out as if she wanted it to be the first thing someone noticed. Normally, you’d place it next to the TV or on the coffee table, wouldn’t you? So why did she leave it in the middle of an otherwise tidy desk?”
“I think she’s trying to create an alibi. I also noticed that there’s a key with her Ka registration number on the bulletin board. It’s probably an extra key, but it still makes me wonder whether a key was used in her car last night.”
“There was. We actually talked about it, but Ploug didn’t think it proved that it was the owner of the car driving. He went on about how stupid and careless some people can be, with car keys being stolen from their handbags or hallway tables while they’re sleeping.”
Carl was aware of that, but they still had to ask.
They went through her drawers and cupboards, but apart from some doctors’ notes, they found conspicuously little of a personal nature. It really wasn’t normal.
“I know the search warrant doesn’t include the ground floor and that she doesn’t live there, but shouldn’t we have a look anyway? What do you say?” he asked, looking around for Assad.
Assad was already halfway down the stairs.
They entered the mechanical engineer’s sitting room, which was full to the brim with machine parts. Carl didn’t understand how a grown man could live like that.
“I don’t think he spends much time at home,” said Assad understandably.
They rummaged through the piles and were just about to give up when they found a neatly sorted box of oil filters not unlike the one that was attached to the gun in the Ka.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Carl.
They looked at each other knowingly, and Assad took out his phone.
“I’ll just call her work again. Don’t you think people would be at work by now?” he asked.
Carl nodded and looked around the room. Nothing in the world could convince him that Anne-Line Svendsen had not been experimenting with oil filters in here, searching for the one best suited as a silencer. Imagine that he could still be surprised at how cunning and cynical human beings could be. Was it really going to turn out that this anonymous caseworker was the most cold-blooded murderer he had ever encountered?
He could sense that Assad, who was still holding the phone up to his ear, was trying to direct his attention to something over by the door.
Carl turned from side to side. He couldn’t see what he was supposed to be looking at.
“Thank you,” said Assad to the person on the other end. Then he hung up and turned toward Carl. “Anne-Line Svendsen has just called work to tell them that she won’t be in before this afternoon. She’s undergoing radiation therapy at the University Hospital and has an appointment at one o’clock.”
“Good! We’ve got her. You did say that this is strictly confidential and that they can’t breathe a word to anyone before we give the go-ahead, right?” asked Carl.
“Yes, of course. But strangely enough, Anne-Line Svendsen also told the receptionist that she was currently cycling around Copenhagen looking for her stolen car.”
Carl raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, for a second I also thought we were on the wrong track, but then I discovered that.”
Assad pointed back down toward the shelf a bit left of the door.
Carl bent down. Now he could see it.
There was a dark stain the size of a small coin on the back wall between two shelves full of motor parts. The experts would be able to tell them what had caused the stain, the angle at which it had hit the wall, and definitely also whether it was fresh blood.
“I think Anne-Line Svendsen missed a spot,” Assad said, smiling.
Carl rubbed the back of his neck. “Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed. This really put an end to any possible doubt. So her bicycle trip around Copenhagen and all her talk about looking for her stolen car was just her playing to the crowd, exactly like the DVD on her desk. She was certainly crafty.
Carl was pleased. They were onto the right perpetrator. No doubt about that.
“Well spotted, Assad.” Carl looked at his watch again. “We have exactly three hours before Anne-Line Svendsen’s appointment at the radiation clinic,” he said, then dialed Gordon’s number on his cell and put it on speakerphone.
As expected, the guy sounded sad, but now with a hint of hope.
“They’ve managed to revive Rose, but unfortunately, there are a lot of complications. Just now they’re concentrating on stabilizing her condition. They’re very worried about the number of blood clots, and about her legs and arms having suffered permanent damage.”
He was breathing heavily on the other end, apparently crying. If only Rose knew the affection he felt for her.
“Can you send us a photo of her, Gordon?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“It’s for her own good, so try. Is it possible to communicate with her?”
“Not in the way you’d understand normal communication, no. They have had some communication with her, but they say that she seems to be mentally out of reach. They called in the hospital psychiatrists, who conferred with her therapists in Glostrup. They told them that it was paramount for Rose to work through the traumatic event in her past if she was to avoid falling into an eternal inner darkness.”
“‘Work through the traumatic event,’ you said. Did they say anything about how she should do that?”
“No, not as far as I know,” said Gordon. There was a pause. Maybe because he needed to compose himself or maybe because he was thinking. “But I assume it means anything that might take the pressure off her,” he said.
Assad looked at Carl. “We need to try and keep a lid on what happened at the steel plant. Agreed?”
He nodded. It was almost like “different minds think alike,” as Assad might have put it.