her new dark blue linen pants, clean underwear, and an ice blue colored tennis shirt. She exchanged the worn-out tennis shoes for black loafers. Maybe it would have been more elegant if the shoe had had a bit of a heel to go with the nice pants, but if you were one hundred and eighty centimeters tall without shoes, you don’t wear heels. Irene had never even learned to walk in heels. A short pass with lipstick would have to do as a means of freshening up her makeup. On the way down the stairs she twisted her arms into a new trench coat-style jacket. It was blue, the color of her eyes.
A slender young man stood leaning against the reception desk. He had short blond hair. He must have heard her steps on the stairs because he turned in her direction. His light blue eyes passed over her appraisingly. She saw that he was older than she had first thought, at least thirty-five. He smiled pleasantly and walked toward her with his hand extended.
“Irene Huss, I presume?”
“Yeah. I mean . . . yes.”
“Inspector Peter Møller.”
They shook hands and he motioned in the direction of the street.
“The car is outside.”
He walked in front of her and held the door for her. When they passed each other, Irene noticed that he smelled of good aftershave and that she was just a hair taller. He was also dressed in civilian clothes, a short light brown suede jacket and light tan chinos. Peter Møller walked up to a dark wine red colored BMW, the newest and largest model, and opened the door for Irene. When they were sitting in the car, Irene said, “The police certainly have nice cars here.”
“It’s my own,” said Møller.
A short silence followed and Irene decided to leave the topic of cars and move on. “I’m sorry that you had to wait. The ferry took some time. . . .”
She left the sentence unfinished on purpose. Møller turned his face toward hers and smiled charmingly.
“I expect that sort of thing when I’m picking up a lady,” he said.
Knowing that Denmark had had weather as bad as Sweden’s during the spring, Irene concluded that his dark tan resulted from a trip abroad. It could just as easily have been acquired on a tanning bed at home but something about Møller’s manner told her that his tan was genuine. It would have to do as a conversation opener.
“Have you had good weather here in Denmark? You’re so dark.”
He laughed softly. “No. I’ve been to a place with guaranteed sunshine.”
“Wonderful!”
“Yes. But a bit too warm. Have you been to Copenhagen before?”
“Twenty years ago.”
“Then it was about time for you to come back.” Møller smiled.
He quickly became serious and asked, “Do you want to drive out to Hellerup now or later?”
“Hellerup?”
“That’s where the sacks with the body parts of Carmen Østergaard were found.”
“When was that?”
“June 1997. Almost two years ago.”
It was a good thing he added that it had been almost two years ago; the number ninety-seven, uttered in Danish, was completely incomprehensible to Irene’s ears.
“I think we can drive out there later if it’s necessary. It feels more important to see the sign with the dragon.”
“You’ll get to see that in just a second.”
They drove down a wide street that, according to the signs, was Bernstorffsgade. Peter Møller turned into a parking lot behind a boxlike building of gloomy brown brick. He didn’t have to tell Irene that they had parked behind the Police Department. All police department buildings built during the sixties and seventies appeared to have been designed by the same deeply depressed architect.
“Come. We’ll go and look at the sign right away,” said Peter.
They left the parking lot and started walking along a small, quiet street lined with dreary-looking houses. The dirty building fronts, rotten doors, and windowsills with chipped paint gave the whole street an atmosphere of gloomy decay. The dirty gray weather added to the unpleasant impression.
The houses farther down the street were covered with scaffolding and plastic fabric. Under the fabric, the harsh buzzing of a highpressure sprayer could be heard.
“Nice that they are renovating the old buildings,” said Irene.
“They are trying to sanitize the shacks. Get the houses in order and raise the rents so that the rabble can’t afford to stay there. These old houses are in an attractive central location.”
“Something similar has been done at home in Göteborg. Has it been successful here?”
“The poor are driven away, farther out into the suburbs. They