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

God.
    ‘Focus on your visitors from Norway instead, Carl. Everyone up there has heard about what you did in the Merete Lynggaard case, and they want to know how you structure and prioritize your assignments. I think they have a bunch of old cases they’d like to put a lid on. Concentrate on cleaning up your office and instructing them on solid Danish police work. If you do that, they’ll have something to take with them when they go to the minister’s later in the day.’
    Carl let his head slump. Would his visitors be going to a coffee klatsch afterwards with the country’s blow-hard justice minister and gossiping about his department? That was certainly not encouraging.
    ‘I need to know who is tossing cases on my desk, Marcus. Then we’ll see what happens.’
    ‘Fine, Carl. You make your own decisions. But if you take up the Rørvig case, we’ll stay completely out of it. We don’t have even one man-hour to squander.’
    ‘Just relax,’ Carl said, rising to his feet.
    Marcus leaned towards the intercom. ‘Lis, come here a moment, will you? I can’t find my calendar.’
    Carl’s eyes roamed to the floor. There lay the homicide chief’s calendar. More than likely it had fallen off the desk.
    With the tip of his toe he gave it a nudge so that it disappeared under the desk’s drawer unit. Maybe his meeting with the Norwegians would vanish the same way.
    He glanced at Lis affectionately as she eased past him. He preferred the pre-metamorphosis version of her, but hey, Lis was Lis.
    From over by her desk, Rose Knudsen and her dimples, deep as the Mariana Trench, seemed to be saying,
I’m looking forward to joining you
down in Department Q.
    He didn’t return the show of dimples, but then again, he didn’t have any.
    Down in the basement Assad was ready, afternoon prayers completed. He wore an oversized windbreaker and held a small leather briefcase under his arm.
    ‘The mother of the murdered siblings lives with an old
friend in Roskilde,’ he said, adding that they could get there in less than half an hour if they stepped on the gas. ‘But they’ve also called from Hornbæk, Carl. It wasn’t such good news.’
    Carl pictured Hardy. Eighty-one inches of lame flesh, face turned towards the Sound, watching the pleasure boatmen sailing for the final time that season.
    ‘What’s happened?’ he asked. He felt awful. It had now been more than a month since he’d last visited his old colleague.
    ‘They say he cries so very often,’ Assad replied. ‘Even though they give him a lot of pills and all, he still cries.’
    It was a completely ordinary detached house at the end of Fasanvej. The names Jens-Arnold and Yvette Larsen were etched on to the brass plate, and below that a small cardboard sign in block letters: MARTHA JØRGENSEN .
    A woman fragile as fairy dust and quite a few years beyond the age of retirement greeted them at the door. She was the kind of attractive old woman who brought a slight smile to Carl’s lips.
    ‘Yes, Martha lives with me. She has since my husband died. She’s not feeling so well today, I should say,’ she whispered in the corridor. ‘The doctor says it’s progressing rapidly now.’
    They heard her friend coughing before they stepped into the conservatory. She sat staring at them with deep-set eyes. There was a variety of pill bottles in front of her. ‘Who are you?’ she asked, flicking ash from her cigarillo with a trembling hand.
    Assad made himself comfortable in a chair covered
with faded wool blankets and wilted leaves from the potted plants on the windowsill. Without hesitation, he reached out and took Martha Jørgensen’s hand. ‘Let me tell you, Martha. The way you are feeling right now, I have also seen my mother go through that. And it was not much fun.’
    Carl’s mother would have withdrawn her hand, but not Martha Jørgensen.
How did Assad know to do that?
Carl thought, as he considered what role he would play in this production.
    ‘We have time for a