He tried to appear more serious than he was. “Isn’t it our duty to keep up with the news and preserve the freedom of the press?” he asked.
“The woman you murdered . . . why did you do it? Did you know her? I can’t imagine you’ve had any connection to Bolman’s Independent School.”
He dried his eyes. “She just walked past when it came over me.”
“Came over you? Does that happen often, Mogens? Because if you’ve killed anyone else, now is the time to get it off your chest.”
He shook his head without batting an eye.
Carl looked down over the screen. They had quite a bit of information on the man, so there was little doubt what he might come up with next.
Assad entered, placing a slim case file in front of him. He didn’t look happy.
“That’s four more shelves that’ve collapsed out in the hallway, Carl. We need to get more shelf space; they get too heavy otherwise.”
Carl nodded. All this damn paperwork. They could burn the lot for all he cared.
He opened the case file. They hadn’t received much down here in the basement concerning the Stephanie Gundersen case. So it was presumably still in the spotlight up with homicide.
He turned to the last page, read the last few lines, and nodded to himself.
“You forgot the coffee, Assad,” he said, still looking at the file.
Assad nodded. “For him?”
Carl winked. “So make it extra extra good. He needs it.”
He turned toward the man while Assad disappeared out into the hallway.
“I can see you’ve been down here at headquarters before to make a confession in other cases, Mogens.”
He nodded guiltily.
“And each time you’ve had such a flimsy knowledge of the nature of the case that you’ve been sent home, encouraged to seek psychological help and never come back again.”
“Yes, that’s true. But this time it is me who did it. You can trust me on that.”
“And you couldn’t just go up to homicide and tell them because they’d send you straight home with the same advice as before, am I right?”
He seemed thrilled that someone understood. “Yes, that’s exactly what they’d do.”
“Have you been to see a psychologist in the meantime, Mogens?”
“Yes, many times. And I’ve been admitted to the psychiatric ward at Dronninglund and the lot.”
“The lot?”
“Yes, medication and so on.” He looked almost proud.
“Right. Well, I can tell you that you’re getting the same answer from me as you got upstairs in homicide. You’re a sick man, Mogens, and if you come down here again with these false confessions, we’ll have to detain you. I’m sure another stay in psychiatric would help you, but it’s up to you.”
Mogens frowned. Crazy thoughts rushed through his mind—that much was clear.
Lies seasoned with real remorse and a pinch of the facts he could have sneakily obtained were now mixed with desperation. But why? Carl had never understood people like Mogens.
“Don’t say another word, Mogens. If you thought we wouldn’t know about all this down here in the basement, you were mistaken. And I also know that everything you’ve told us about the attack on this poor woman is downright wrong. The direction of the blow to the head, the angle the blow came from, how she fell after the attack, how many blows there were. You had nothing to do with this murder, and now it’s time you went back home to N?stved, okay?!”
“Hi, here’s that little Mexican coffee in a fancy cup à la Se?or Assad,” trolled Assad as he placed it in front of the man. “Sugar?” he asked.
Mogens nodded in silence, resembling a man robbed of his release just as he was about to orgasm.
“It’s a good drink to send you off on your way, but you need to down it in one,” Assad said smilingly. “It will be so good for you.”
A hint of suspicion came over the man’s face.
“If you don’t do it, we’ll arrest you for making a false statement, Mogens, so drink,” Carl said harshly.
They both leaned in toward him, watching his reluctant grip on the cup as he brought it up toward his mouth.
“In one gulp!” Assad threatened.
His Adam’s apple went up and down a couple of times as the coffee went down. It was just a question of time. Poor man.
—
“How much chili did you actually put in that cup, Assad?” asked Carl when they had cleaned up the remaining vomit from the table.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Not that much, but it was a fresh Carolina Reaper.”
“And that’s strong?”
“Yes, Carl. You saw him.”
“Can it kill him?”
“Unlikely.”
Carl smiled. Mogens Iversen would definitely not be bothering Department Q with that sort of nonsense again.
“Should I write the man’s ‘confession’ in the report, Carl?”
He shook his head as he flicked through the paperwork. “I can see that it was one of Marcus Jacobsen’s cases. It was too bad for him that he never managed to solve the case.”
Assad nodded. “Did they ever find out what weapon was used to kill the woman?”
“Not as far as I can see. With some kind of blunt object, it says. We’ve heard that before.”
Carl closed the case file. When the time came for homicide to archive the case, it would be their job to get to the bottom of it.
They would deal with that when the time came.
5
Monday, May 2nd, 2016
Anne-Line Svendsen wasn’t exactly one of the happiest people you could meet, and there were plenty of reasons for this. As far as looks went, she’d been well enough endowed. A good head, an attractive enough appearance, and a body that in its day had turned men’s heads. But she’d never learned to make the best of what she had, and as time went by, she’d also begun to doubt the usefulness of her physical attributes.