The Hanging Girl Read Online Free Page A

comfortable witnessing a colleague’s brains being splattered all over the wall.
    Carl nodded. “I spoke briefly with Christian Habersaat yesterday afternoon. All I know is he wanted to initiate and involve me in a case, and that I probably wasn’t receptive enough, so here we are. I’ve got a hunch that it won’t disturb your work if we take a closer look at things. I hope you’ll agree.”
    If a scowl and a downturned mouth meant yes on Bornholm, then that was one thing sorted on the case.
    “Maybe you can tell me what he was referring to in his e-mail to us? He wrote that Department Q was his last hope.”
    The police commissioner shook his head. He probably could but wouldn’t. He had people for that sort of thing.
    He beckoned an officer wearing dress uniform over to him. “This is Police Superintendent John Birkedal. He was born on the island and has known Habersaat since long before I was appointed. John and myself, and our representative from the police union, were the only people from the station who attended Habersaat’s reception.”
    Assad was the first to hold out his hand. “My condolences,” he said.
    Birkedal shook his hand awkwardly, turning toward Carl with a look that seemed familiar.
    “Hiya, Carl, long time no see,” he said as Carl attempted to suppress an instinctive frown.
    The man in front of him was in his early fifties, so almost the same age as Carl, and in spite of the moustache and heavy eyes he seemed like someone he ought to know. But where in the world had he seen him before?
    Birkedal laughed. “Of course you can’t remember me, but I was in the year below you at the police academy out on Amager. We played tennis together and I won three times in a row, I might add. Then you suddenly didn’t want to play anymore.”
    Was that Rose grinning behind him? He hoped not, for her sake.
    “Yeah . . .” Carl tried to smile. “Actually, I wanted to, all right, but wasn’t there something about a dodgy ankle?” he said without the least recollection of the episode. If he’d ever played tennis, then the error had been well and truly buried.
    “Well, that was quite a shock with Christian,” continued the superintendent, thankfully of his own accord. “But he’d been depressed for some years, even though those of us at the station didn’t notice it so much day to day. I don’t think we can criticize his work as a uniformed policeman, can we, Peter?”
    The police commissioner shook his head in the appropriate manner.
    “But at home in Listed, it seems things were different for Habersaat. He was divorced and lived alone, extremely bitter about an old case that he’d turned into his life’s work to solve, despite not working in criminal investigation. It was a very trivial case concerning a hit-and-run driver, some would say, but as the accident cost a young girl her life, it wasn’t quite so trivial after all.”
    “Okay, a hit-and-run driver.” Carl looked out of the window. He knew this sort of case. Either they were solved in a flash or else they were archived. It was going to be a short stay on the island.
    “And the driver of the vehicle was never found, is that correct?” asked Rose as she held out her hand.
    “Correct, yes. If we had, well then, Christian probably would’ve been alive today. But I’m afraid I have to run. I’m sure you can imagine that we have a certain amount of internal formalities to take care of in connection with what happened today, not to mention dealing with the press, who we need to try and send on their way first. Couldn’t I come over to your hotel a little later and answer your questions then?”
    *   *   *
    “You must be the police over from Copenhagen,” assumed the receptionist at Sverres Hotel without further niceties, selecting the keys to those rooms that were without doubt the least appealing she could offer. Rose, as usual, had haggled on the price.
    A little later they found Police Superintendent John Birkedal