The Hanging Girl Read Online Free Page B

in one of the imitation leather chairs in the lounge above the dining room. Up here on the first floor, there was a good view out over both the industrial harbor and the back of a Brugsen supermarket. It wasn’t pretty. If only the view had included a couple of freeways, then the overall impression would have been perfect. Probably not the best place to write a travel guide on this otherwise fairy-tale-like island.
    “I’ll be honest with you. I couldn’t stand Habersaat,” began Birkedal. “But to see a colleague shoot himself in the head because he felt insufficient in his work is something that really hurt. I’ve experienced a lot in my police career but I fear this will stay with me. It’s quite horrible.”
    “Definitely,” Assad interrupted. “Excuse me, but I just want to understand correctly. He shot himself in the head with a pistol, you say. It wasn’t his service weapon, was it?”
    Birkedal shook his head. “No, that was done by the book. He left it down in the weapons depot just before handing in his ID badge and keys to the station. We aren’t exactly sure where he got the pistol from, but itwas definitely a 9mm Beretta 92. A real nasty piece of work to be carrying about. But you’ll know it, of course, from the
Lethal Weapon
films with Mel Gibson?”
    Nobody answered.
    “Right, well, it’s a relatively big and solid fella, which I thought was a fake at first when he pulled it out and aimed at the police commissioner and myself. It isn’t a weapon he had permission for, but we know that a similar Beretta disappeared from the estate of a deceased person near Aakirkeby five or six years ago. Whether or not it’s the same weapon, we’ve got no way of checking because the former owner didn’t have any papers.”
    “A deceased estate? In 2009?” asked Rose, smiling with pouting lips. Was John Birkedal really her type?
    “Yes. One of the teachers at the folk high school died midsemester. According to the autopsy, it was death by natural causes as the result of a weak heart but nevertheless, Habersaat was especially interested in the death when the property was checked. The deceased, Jakob Swiatek, according to some former students and teachers, had been tremendously interested in small arms, and on several occasions had shown some of the students a pistol which, according to their descriptions, could be a match with the pistol Habersaat used this morning.”
    “Yeah, you don’t see a semiautomatic like that every day, so I just have one question,” Assad interjected. “Was the Beretta the basic model or was it a 92S, 92SB or 92F, FG, or FS? Because it can’t have been a 92A1 seeing as that series is from 2010.”
    Carl slowly turned toward Assad. What on earth was the guy talking about? Was he also an expert on Berettas now?
    Birkedal shook his head slowly. So he didn’t know damn all about that either. But no doubt he’d dig up an answer before the sun went down over Rønne harbor.
    “Hmm, maybe I should sum up briefly what Habersaat stood for and what he’d been through,” continued Birkedal. “Then later on you can have the keys to his house and take things from there. They’ll be left in reception later tonight. I’ve conferred with the police commissioner andhe’s giving you a relatively free hand. I also think our colleagues are about ready with the house now, so you can get started. We just needed to check the property first. There could’ve been letters or something similar that indicated why he took the drastic action he did. But you know all that. It is you, after all, who have the most experience with this sort of thing.”
    Assad was nodding, holding up his index finger ready to speak, but Carl checked him with a look. Whether it was one pistol or another the idiot had blown his brains out with was totally irrelevant. As far as Carl was concerned, they hadn’t travelled to this godforsaken place specifically to uncover why Habersaat had committed suicide, but more