The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen Read Free Book Online

kroner left. If she continued as before, she would never use it up. Her daily needs, including her clothes, were met more or less through her thievery. She didn’t eat much, and thanks to the so-called health-conscious government,
alcohol cost next to nothing. A person could now drink himself to death at half-price. What a terrific society Denmark had become. She snorted, removed the hand grenade from her bag and set it in the third nook with the others. Then she replaced the brick so carefully that it was nearly impossible to see the cracks.
    Her anxiety came without warning this time, which was unusual. Normally, internal images alerted her. Hands poised to strike, sometimes blood and mutilated bodies. Other times she caught fleeting glimpses of carefree moments from long, long ago. Promises whispered that were later broken. This time, however, the voices failed to notify her.
    She began to shake. Cramps in her pelvis squeezed her insides. Like tears, nausea was an unavoidable side effect. Previously she’d tried drowning her emotional distress with alcohol, but it only made her pain worse.
    At moments like these she just had to wait for the hours to pass, until darkness returned.
    When her head was clear, she would get up and go to Dybbølsbro Station. She would take the lift down to Platform 3 and wait at the far end until one of the trains rushed by. She’d stand on the edge, stretch out her arms, and shout: ‘You won’t get away with this, you bastards.’
    After that she would let the voices decide.

8
    Carl had hardly settled in his office before the clear-plastic folder resting squarely on his desk caught his eye.
    What the hell
, he thought, and called for Assad.
    When Assad was at the door, Carl pointed at the folder. ‘Do you know where that came from?’ Assad shook his head. ‘Don’t touch it, OK? There may be fingerprints.’
    They stared at the topmost sheet. ‘Boarding-School Gang Attacks’, read the heading in laser print.
    Underneath was a list of violent crimes with times, places and names of victims. The attacks seemed to have been committed over a long period of time – all the way up to 1992. A young man on a beach near Nyborg. Twin brothers on a football pitch in broad daylight. A husband and wife on the island of Langeland. There were at least twenty recorded attacks. It wasn’t unusual for pupils to be in school until they were twenty back in the eighties, Carl thought, but the later attacks must’ve been carried out
after
they’d graduated.
    ‘We’ve got to find out who’s putting these files here, Assad. Call the crime-scene techs. If someone here at the station is doing this, then matching fingerprints will be an easy matter.’
    ‘They didn’t take
my
fingerprints.’ Assad seemed almost disappointed.
    Carl shook his head. Why hadn’t they done that? Yet
another irregularity in a veritable catalogue of irregularities connected to Assad’s hiring.
    ‘Find us the Rørvig victims’ mother’s address, Assad. She’s moved several times over the last few years, and apparently doesn’t reside at the address listed in Tisvilde’s Civil Registration System. So be a little creative, Assad, OK? Call her old neighbours. The telephone numbers are right there. Perhaps they know something.’ He pointed at a mess of notes he’d just pulled from his pocket. Then he got a notebook and wrote a to-do list.
    He had the distinct sense that a new case was unfolding.
    ‘Honestly, Carl, don’t waste your time on a case that has already led to a conviction.’ Homicide Chief Marcus Jacobsen was shaking his head as he pawed through the notes on his desk. In just eight days there were four new, gruesome cases. In addition to that, there were three requests for leave of absence and two officers had called in sick, one of which was probably out for good. Carl was well aware what the homicide chief was thinking: who could he transfer, and from which case? But that was his problem, thank