The Hanging Girl

Book 6: A Department Q Novel

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Genres: International Crime & Mystery; Police Procedurals

Synopsis

New York Times and internationally bestselling author Jussi Adler-Olsen delivers the latest book in his exhilarating Department Q series, featuring Detective Carl Mørck and his enigmatic assistants, Assad and Rose.

In the middle of his usual hard-won morning nap in the basement of police headquarters, Carl Mørck, head of Department Q, receives a call from a colleague working on the Danish island of Bornholm. Carl is dismissive when he realizes that a new case is being foisted on him, but a few hours later, he receives some shocking news that leaves his headstrong assistant Rose more furious than usual. Carl has no choice but to lead Department Q into the tragic cold case of a vivacious seventeen-year-old girl who vanished from school, only to be found dead hanging high up in a tree. The investigation will take them from the remote island of Bornholm to a strange sun-worshipping cult, where Carl, Assad, Rose, and newcomer Gordon attempt to stop a string of new murders and a skilled manipulator who refuses to let anything-or anyone-get in the way.

Release date: September 8, 2015

Publisher: Dutton

Print pages: 432

Sample

ALSO BY JUSSI ADLER-OLSEN

The Alphabet House

DEPARTMENT Q SERIES:

The Keeper of Lost Causes

The Absent One

A Conspiracy of Faith

The Purity of Vengeance

The Marco Effect

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street

New York, New York 10014

Copyright © 2014 by Jussi Adler-Olsen and JP/Politikens Hus A/S

Translation copyright 2015 by William Frost

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

DUTTON—EST. 1852 (Stylized) and DUTTON are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

has been applied for.

ISBN [978-0-698-19433-5]

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Dedicated to Vibsen and Elisabeth, two strong women

PROLOGUE

November 20th, 1997

She saw grey hues everywhere. Flickering shadows and gentle darkness covered her like a blanket and kept her warm.

In a dream, she had left her body, hovering in the air like a bird. No, even better, like a butterfly. Like a multicolored fluttering piece of art, put in the world only to spread happiness and wonder. Like a hovering being high up between heaven and earth whose magic dust could awaken the world to endless love and happiness.

She smiled at the thought. It was so beautiful and pure.

Now the ceaseless darkness above her fought with dim glints like distant stars. It felt good, almost like a pulse conducting the sound of wind and rustling leaves.

She couldn’t move at all but she didn’t want to anyway or she’d wake from the dream, and reality would suddenly kick in, and then the pain would come and who would want that?

Now a myriad of images appeared from life-giving times. Small glimpses of her and her brother hopping out over the sand dunes, parents shouting that they should stop. Stop!

Why was it always stop? Wasn’t it there in the dunes that she’d felt free for the first time?

She smiled as beautiful beams of light slid under her like streams of mareel. Not that she had ever seen the milky sea effect before, but it must be like that. Mareel or liquid gold in deep valleys.

Where was it she’d come to?

Wasn’t it a thought of freedom? Yes, that must be it because she’d never felt as free as she did just now. A butterfly that was simply its own master. Light and inquisitive with beautiful people around who didn’t tell her off. Creative hands in all directions, pushing her forward and only wishing the best for her. Songs that lifted her and which had never been sung before.

She sighed momentarily and smiled. Allowed her thoughts to take her everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Then she remembered school and the bike, the icy cold morning and not least her chattering teeth.

And just in that moment, when reality rushed in, and her heart finally gave up, she also remembered the crack when the car hit her, the sound of bones breaking, the branches of the tree that caught her, the meeting that . . .

1

Tuesday, April 29th, 2014

“Hey, Carl. Wake up. The telephone is ringing again.”

Carl looked up sleepily at Assad, who was camouflaged like a yellow carnival. When he’d started in the morning, the overalls had been white and his curly hair black, so if there was even a splash of paint on the walls, it would be a miracle.

“You interrupted me right in the middle of a complicated train of thought,” said Carl, reluctantly taking his legs off the table.

“Okay! Sorry!” The wrinkles of a smile appeared under the jungle of Assad’s nine o’clock stubble. What the heck was it his happy round eyes expressed? A hint of irony, perhaps?

“Yeah, I know it was a late one for you yesterday, Carl,” continued Assad. “But Rose goes nuts when you let the telephone ring all the time. So could you please just get it next time?”

Carl turned toward a glaring light from the basement window. A little cigarette smoke should put an end to that problem, he thought, reaching out for the pack and slamming his feet back up on the table as the telephone started ringing again.

Assad pointed at it insistently and slid out the door. It was turning into a hell of a situation with those two loudmouths jabbering at him incessantly.

“Carl,” he said, yawning, with the receiver resting on the table.

“Hello!” came from below.

He took the receiver up to his mouth with his arm languid. “Who am I talking with?”

“Is that Carl Mørck?” said a voice in the lilting dialect of Bornholm.

Definitely not one of the dialects that did it for Carl. It was like bad Swedish with some grammatical errors, and no use anywhere except on the small island in the Baltic.

“Yes, I’m Carl Mørck. Isn’t that what I just said?”

The sound of a sigh came from the other end. It almost sounded like relief.

“This is Christian Habersaat. We met each other a lifetime ago but you probably don’t remember me.”

Habersaat? Carl thought. From Bornholm?

Carl hesitated. “Yeah, I . . .”

“I served at the police station in Nexø when you and a superior were over here some years ago to escort a prisoner to Copenhagen.”

Carl racked his brain. He remembered the prison escort well enough, but Habersaat?

“Oh, right,” he said, reaching over for the cigarettes.

“Yes, sorry for disturbing you but maybe you’ve got time to hear me out? I’ve read that you’ve just solved the complicated case in the circus at Bellahøj. My compliments, although it must feel frustrating when the culprit commits suicide before the trial.”

Carl shrugged. Rose had been frustrated about it but Carl couldn’t give a damn. It was just one less asshole in the world to worry about.

“Okay, but you aren’t calling because of that case, are you?” He lit the cigarette and tilted his neck back. It was only one thirty. Far too early to have used up his daily ration of cigarettes, which meant he should probably increase it.

“Yes and no. I’m calling about that case and everything else that you’ve so impressively solved in the last couple of years. As I said, I serve with the Bornholm Police and am currently sitting in Rønne, but I’m retiring tomorrow, thank God.” He tried to laugh. It sounded forced. “Times have changed, so it’s not very exciting to be me anymore. No doubt we all feel the same, but only ten years ago I was the guy who knew everything about what was happening on most of the central and east coast districts of the island. Yeah, you could say that’s why I’m calling.”

Carl let his head fall. If this guy wanted to convince them to take on a case, he needed to nip this in the bud immediately. He certainly didn’t want to get involved with anything connected to an island where the specialty was smoked herring and which was closer to Poland, Sweden, and Germany than to Denmark.

“Are you calling because you want us to look into something for you? Because if that’s the case, then I’m afraid I’ll need to direct you to our colleagues on one of the floors above us. We’ve got far too much to do down here in Department Q.”

It went quiet on the other end of the line. Then the caller hung up.

Carl stared in bewilderment at the receiver before slamming it down. If the guy was so touchy, then he damn well didn’t deserve any better.

Shaking his head, he’d hardly managed to close his eyes before the stupid thing rang again.

Carl took a deep breath. Some people really needed it hammered home for them.

“Yes!” he shouted into the receiver. Maybe that would scare the idiot into hanging up again.

“Er, Carl? Is that you?” It wasn’t the voice he’d expected to hear. He frowned. “Mom, is that you?” he asked tentatively.

“I get really frightened when you holler like that! Do you have a sore throat, sweetie?”

Carl sighed. It had been more than thirty years since he’d left home. Since then he’d dealt with violent criminals, pimps, arsonists, murderers, and rows of bodies in all manner of degrees of decomposition. He’d been shot at. His jaw had been broken as had his wrist, and he’d lost his private life and all the respectable ambitions inherent to anyone from Northern Jutland. It had been thirty years since he flew the nest and finally told himself that he was in charge of his own life. Parents were people you could choose to deal with or ignore as you pleased. So how the hell was it possible that she could make him feel like a baby with just a single sentence?

Carl rubbed his eye and sat up a little in his chair. This was going to be a long, long day.

“No, Mom, I’m okay. We’ve got workmen in, so you can’t hear yourself think.”

“Right, well, I’m calling you with some very sad news.”

Carl pressed his lips together and tried to gauge her tone. Did she sound sad? Was she about to tell him in a second that his dad was dead? After he hadn’t been home to visit them in more than a year?

“Is Dad dead?” he asked.

“Goodness gracious me! Certainly not. He’s sitting here beside me drinking a coffee. He’s just been out to the stable to dock the piglets. No, it’s your cousin Ronny.”

At that, Carl took his legs down from the table.

“Ronny? Dead? How?”

“He collapsed suddenly out in Thailand while having a massage. Isn’t it terrible news on such a beautiful spring day?”

In Thailand, she said, and during a massage. Well, what else could you expect?

Carl searched for an appropriate answer. It wasn’t really something that came naturally to him.

“Terrible, yes,” he managed to say while trying to repress a horrible image of the presumably very comfortable end of his cousin’s bulk.

“Sammy is flying out in the morning to collect him and his things. Best to get everything home before it’s spread to the four winds,” she said. “Sammy is always so practical.”

Carl nodded. There would probably be a thorough appraisal when Ronny’s brother stepped in. The crap in one pile and anything of any worth in the suitcase.

He imagined Ronny’s faithful wife. A stalwart little Thai woman, in fact, who deserved better. But by the time Ronny’s brother had searched through the drawers, there wouldn’t be much left for her other than the boxers with Chinese dragons. That was the way of the world.

“Ronny was married, Mom. I don’t think Sammy can count on just coming and taking what he wants without so much as asking.”

She laughed. “Oh, you know Sammy. It’ll be fine. And he’s going to stay out there for ten to twelve days. You might as well get a bit of color in your cheeks when you’re travelling so far anyway, he says. And he isn’t wrong there. He’s a smart man, Cousin Sammy.”

Carl nodded. The only significant difference between Ronny and his little brother, Sammy, was a single vowel and three consonants. Nobody living north of the Limfjord could miss that they were related because they were like peas in a pod. If there was a film producer in need of a bragging, self-obsessed, absolutely untrustworthy show-off in a garish shirt, at least Sammy was still available.

“They’ve set the date of the funeral for Saturday, May 10th, here in Brønderslev. It’ll be wonderful to see you up here again, son,” continued his mom. While the predictable update of the day-to-day life of a country family from Vendsyssel was rattled off, with particular stress on pig farming mixed with his dad’s dodgy hip, the usual censure of politicians in Parliament and some other similarly depressing talk, Carl was thinking about the unpleasant tone of Ronny’s last e-mail to him.

That e-mail had undoubtedly been meant as a threat, something that had unsettled and frustrated Carl more than he cared to admit. After a while he came to the conclusion that Ronny intended to blackmail him with the nonsense. Wasn’t his cousin exactly the type who would do that? And wasn’t he always short of cash?

Carl didn’t like it. Would he now have to deal with that ridiculous claim again? It was utter drivel. But when you lived in the land of Hans Christian Andersen you knew only too well how quickly a little feather could turn into five hens. And five hens of this sort, in his position of trust and with a boss like Lars Bjørn, was really something he could do without.

Damn it, what had Ronny been up to? On numerous occasions the idiot had blurted out that he’d murdered his dad, which was bad enough in itself. But worse was that he’d dragged Carl into the dirt by publicly declaring that Carl had been an accomplice to murdering Ronny’s dad during a fishing trip, and in the ominous last e-mail had informed Carl that he’d put it in writing as a book and would be attempting to get it published.

Carl hadn’t heard anything since then, but it was a terrible situation that needed to be laid to rest now that the man was dead.

Carl fumbled again for the cigarettes. Without doubt he should go to the funeral. It would be the place to find out if Sammy had been successful in getting Ronny’s wife to surrender some of the inheritance. Similar inheritance cases out east had ended violently, and of course one could hope that might happen again. But Ronny’s wife, little what’s-her-face, seemed to be made from another and better mold. She’d probably keep anything of financial value that belonged to her and give up the rest. And that might include Ronny’s alleged attempt at a literary career.

No, it wouldn’t surprise him at all if Sammy succeeded in getting the notes home with him. And if so, then he’d better get his hands on them first before they made the family rounds.

“Did you know that Ronny was really rich in the end, Carl?” chirped his mother somewhere in the background.

Carl raised his eyebrows. “Really, was he now? We’ll have to assume he was dealing in drugs, then. And you’re sure he didn’t end up with his head in a noose behind the thick prison walls of the Thai justice system?”

She laughed. “Oh, Carl. You’ve always been such a funny child.”

*   *   *

Twenty minutes after the conversation with the Bornholm policeman, Rose stood in the doorway waving away Carl’s tobacco smoke with obvious disgust.

“Have you just spoken with a Sergeant Habersaat, Carl?”

He shrugged. It wasn’t exactly the conversation he was thinking about most just now. God only knew what Ronny had written about him.

“Take a look at this.” She threw a piece of paper on the table in front of him.

“I got this e-mail two minutes ago. You might just want to call the man?”

There were two sentences on the printout that brought the mood in the office down even further for the rest of the day.

Department Q was my final hope. I can’t take any more.

C. Habersaat

Carl looked at Rose, who stood shaking her head like a harpy who’d given up on her marriage. He didn’t like the attitude at all but it was best that way with Rose. Better to receive a couple of slaps around the face in silence than two minutes of complaining and hassle. That’s how it worked between them, and Rose was good enough when it came down to it. Even if you did sometimes have to go very far down to get to it.

“Well, whattaya know! But seeing as it was you who got the e-mail, Rose, you deal with the mess. Then afterward you can tell me what you managed to get out of it.”

She screwed up her nose, causing her war paint to crack. “Like I didn’t know you’d say that. That’s why I called him right away, of course, but I got an answering machine.”

“Hmmm. Well then, I assume that you left a message saying you’d call back, right?”

As she confirmed that she’d done just that, a black cloud formed over her head, and stayed there.

She’d apparently called five times, but the man just didn’t answer.

2

Wednesday, April 30th, 2014

Staff retirement receptions were normally held at the police station in Rønne. But that was precisely what Habersaat had not wanted. Since the new police reform had come into force, his good close contact with the local citizens, and what happened over on the east coast of the island, had been transformed to a constant transport back and forth from east to west, and suddenly endless decision-making processes sneaked in from the moment a criminal act occurred until something serious was done about it. Time was wasted, leads were lost, criminals got away.

“It’s a golden age for crooks,” he always said, as if someone cared to listen.

Habersaat hated the direction society was moving in, both generally and more locally. And colleagues who supported the system, and didn’t even know him and the extent of his forty years of loyal service, shouldn’t be at his retirement reception like bleating sheep, acting like they were honoring him.

As a result, he decided to hold the main reception in the local setting of Listed Community Hall, just six hundred meters from his house.

With what he had planned for the occasion, it would be more decent in every way.

He stood in front of the mirror a moment, inspecting his parade uniform, noticing the folds that had formed in the material as a result of not being used for so many years. And while he meticulously and clumsily ironed the trousers on an ironing board that had never been put up before, he let his eyes wander around the room that had once been the family’s warm and lively living room.

Almost twenty years had gone by since then, and now the past stalked about like a purposeless stray animal among heaps of rubbish and junk that no one wanted.

Habersaat shook his head. When he looked back, he didn’t understand himself. Why had he allowed all the colored ring binders to take over the shelves instead of the good books? Why was it swimming with photocopies and clippings on every available surface? Why had he put all his life into work rather than those people who once cared about him?

And yet he understood.

He bowed his head, trying to give free rein to the emotions that momentarily came over him, but the tears didn’t come. Maybe because he was all cried out a long time ago. Yes, of course he knew why things had gone the way they had. It was the way it had to be.

He took a deep breath, straightened out his uniform on the dining table, picked up a worn photo frame, and caressed the picture in it as he’d done hundreds of times before. If only he could have the wasted days back. If only he could just change his nature and decisions and one last time feel the closeness of his wife and boy.

He sighed. Here in this room, he’d made love with his beautiful wife on the sofa. Here on the rug, he’d crawled about with his son when he was very small. Here the arguments had begun, and here his gloom had established itself and multiplied.

It was in this living room that his wife finally spat in his face and once and for all left him alone in life with the knowledge that a trivial case had ripped the happiness out from under his feet.

Back when it all started, it had knocked him for six and left him in an almost permanent state of dejection, yet he just hadn’t been able to let the case go. That was the way it was, unfortunately, and with good reason.

He stood up, tapped one of the piles of notes and clippings, emptied his ashtray, and took out the trash with the week’s ration of empty, rattling cans. Finally, he gave his inside pockets a last check in case he’d forgotten something and looked to see that his parade uniform was just as it should be.

Then he shut the door.

*   *   *

Despite everything, Habersaat had probably expected that more people would’ve turned up for the reception. If nothing else, then at least those he’d helped out during hard times over the years, but maybe also those for whom he’d smoothed out injustices and put a stop to unfairness. At any rate, he’d expected to see a few of the old retired colleagues from the uniformed police in Nexø and maybe some of the citizens he’d provided authority for over the years in the small community. But when he saw that it was only the chair and substitute accountant of the civic association, the police commissioner and his immediate subordinate, together with the police union representative, who had dutifully turned up, over and above the five to six people he had invited personally, he dropped his long speech and let things come as they came.

“Thanks for coming out on this wonderful sunny morning,” he said, nodding to his old near neighbor Sam that he could start filming now. He poured white wine into the empty plastic glasses and emptied peanuts and potato chips onto foil trays. There was certainly no one else offering to help.

He took a step forward and invited everyone to take a glass. And while they assembled around in front of him, he discreetly put a hand in his pocket and took the safety off his pistol.

“Cheers, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, nodding to each person individually. “Fine faces for judgment day,” he continued smilingly. “Thanks for turning up under the circumstances. You all know what I’ve been through, that I was once like most men, especially policemen. I’m sure that those of you who haven’t gone to seed can still remember me as a quiet and calm guy who could talk around a psyched-up fisherman with a broken beer bottle in his fist and a little too much adrenaline coursing round his veins. Isn’t that right?”

Sam gave a thumbs-up in front of the camera but only one other person nodded. Even so, with downcast eyes, there was an expression of agreement here and there.

“Of course, I’m sorry that after all this time I’m remembered as the man who burned the wick at both ends on a hopeless case, which finally tore apart my family, friendships, and happiness. I’d like to apologize for that, as I’d like to apologize for the years of bitterness from my side. I should’ve stopped when I could. Sorry once again for that.”

He turned toward his superiors, his smile fading and his hand now clutching the pistol in his pocket. “Colleagues, to you I want to say that because you’re so new in office you can’t be personally blamed for my problems. You carry out your work without fault in the way the foolish politicians tell you to. But many of your older colleagues, and those who came before you, let down not only me with their insufficient backing, but also a young woman through their indifference and thoughtlessness. For this betrayal I want to reciprocate with my contempt for the system that you’ve come to protect. A system that isn’t capable of carrying out the police work we’re employed to do. Nowadays, it’s all about the statistics and not whether you really get to the bottom of things. So I say to you: I’ll be damned if I ever got used to that!”

A few quiet protests came from the police union representative, as he was required to make, and another reproached him for what he judged as an unsuitable tone for such an occasion.

Habersaat nodded. They were right. It was unsuitable, just like most of what he’d boxed their ears with over the years. But now it had to end. He needed to put a stop to it all and make an example that would never be forgotten among his colleagues. And as unwilling as he was, the time had come.

He yanked the pistol out of his pocket so violently that those closest to him disappeared from his field of vision.

For a brief moment, he noticed the fear and horror that spread over his superiors, as he pointed the pistol at them.

And then he let it happen.

3

It had been a typical night, so Carl made a start on the paperwork by putting his legs up on the table to catch up on some sleep. After clearing up the cases from the last few months, the time since had been a diffuse hotchpotch of conflicting emotions. It had been a real winter of discontent on a personal level, just as his almost three-year-long and growing resistance to bowing to Lars Bjørn’s boorish authority on the work front hadn’t been anything to smile about either. And then there was the business with Ronny and the uncertainty about his damn writing. To be exact, it was affecting both his sleep and his waking day. There were going to have to be some serious changes or he was going to go to ground.

He took a random folder from the pile, dropped it in his lap, and grabbed a pen. After some practice with different positions, he knew how to avoid dropping things when he took a nap. Still, the pen fell on the floor anyway when Rose woke him with her cutting tone.

He looked drowsily at the clock and realized that, despite everything, he’d managed to sleep for the best part of an hour.

With a certain satisfaction he stretched, ignoring Rose’s harsh look.

“I’ve just been in contact with the police in Rønne,” she said, “and you certainly won’t be glad to hear why.”

“I see.” He moved the folder from his lap to the table and picked up the pen.

“An hour ago Police Sergeant Christian Habersaat turned up to his farewell reception at the community hall in Listed. And fifty minutes ago he released the safety on his pistol and shot himself in the head in front of ten shocked witnesses.”

She nodded tellingly as Carl’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah, well, that’s what I’d call really bad. Wouldn’t you say, Carl?” she said sharply. “I’ll know more when the police commissioner in Rønne gets back to the station. Turns out he witnessed the whole thing. But until then, I’ll book tickets for the next flight.”

“Okay, it’s really all very unfortunate. But what are you talking about? Next flight? Are you flying somewhere, Rose?” Carl attempted to look confused, but he knew where all this was leading. It had better be a damn joke.

“Look, I’m sorry to hear about Haber-what’s-his-name, but if you think I’m getting on a flying sardine can to Bornholm just because of that, you’ve got another thing coming. And besides . . .”

“If you’re too scared to fly, Carl,” Rose butted in, “you’d better get a move on and book tickets for the ferry from Ystad to Rønne leaving at twelve thirty, while I talk with the police commissioner. It’s your fault that we need to respond, after all, so you’d better do it yourself. Isn’t that what you’re always saying to me? I’ll go and tell Assad that he can stop splashing around with paint in the other room and get himself ready.”

Carl rubbed his eyes.

Was he really awake?

*   *   *

Neither the drive from the police station to Ystad through the southern spring landscape of Skåne nor the hour-and-a-half boat trip to Bornholm could subdue Rose’s indignation.

Carl had been looking at his face in the rearview mirror. If he didn’t watch out, he’d soon look like his granddad, with vacant eyes and lifeless skin.

He adjusted the mirror only to replace the view with a clear look at Rose’s angry face. “Why didn’t you talk with him, Carl?” came the constant refrain from the back in the worst imaginable tone of reproach. If there had been a taxi driver’s compartment window between them, he’d have slammed it shut.

And now, in the restaur