Aside from the nauseating air in the room, everything was meticulously neat. This was where she watched TV and read magazines and apparently spent most of her life. Her husband had died, so now she had to manage as best she could. At least she had her son to help her out.
Carl saw Assad’s eyes making a slow survey of the room. There was something devilish in his eyes as they slid over everything, occasionally pausing to zoom in on some detail. He was extremely focused, his arms hanging at his sides and feet planted firmly on the floor.
The woman was reasonably friendly, although she shook hands only with Carl. He made the introductions and told her not to be nervous. They were looking for her elder son, Lars Henrik. They wanted to ask him some questions; nothing special, it was just a routine matter. Could she tell them where they might find him?
She smiled. “Lasse is a seaman,” she said. So she called him Lasse. “He’s not home right now, but he’ll be back ashore in a month. So I’ll let him know. Do you have a business card I can give him?”
“No, unfortunately.” Carl attempted a boyish smile, but the woman wasn’t buying it. “I’ll send you my card when I get back to the office. I’d be happy to.” He tried the smile again. This one was better timed. It was the golden rule: first say something positive, then smile in order to seem sincere. To do it in reverse could mean anything: flattery, flirtation. Anything that was to one’s advantage. The woman knew that much about life, at least.
Carl made as if to leave and grabbed hold of Assad’s sleeve. “All right, Mrs. Jensen, we have a deal. By the way, what shipping line does your son happen to work for?”
She recognized the sequence of statement and smile. “Oh, I wish I could remember. He works on so many different ships.” And then came her smile. Carl had seen yellow teeth before, but never any as yellow as hers.
“He’s a first officer. Isn’t that right?”
“No, he’s a steward. Lasse is a good cook. He’s always been good with food.”
Carl tried to picture the boy with his arm on Dennis Knudsen’s shoulder. The boy they called Atomos because his deceased father had manufactured something for nuclear reactors. When had the son developed his knowledge about cooking? In the home of the foster family who beat him? In Godhavn? When he was a young boy at home with his mother? Carl had also been through a lot in life, but he couldn’t fry an egg. If it weren’t for Morten Holland, he didn’t know what he’d do.
“It’s wonderful when things go well for one’s children. Are you looking forward to seeing your brother again?” Carl asked the disfigured young man who was watching them suspiciously, as if they’d come to steal something.
His gaze shifted to his mother, but her expression didn’t change. So her son wasn’t about to say a word; that much was clear.
“Where is your son’s ship sailing at the moment?”
She looked at Carl, her yellow teeth slowly disappearing behind her parched lips. “Lasse spends a lot of time sailing in the Baltic, but I think he’s in the North Sea right now. Sometimes he goes out on one ship and comes home on another.”
“It must be a big shipping line. Don’t you remember what it’s called? Can you describe the company’s logo?”
“No, I’m sorry. I’m not so good at things like that.”
Again Carl glanced at the young man; it was obvious he knew what they were talking about. He could probably draw a picture of the damned logo if his mother would let him.
“But it is painted on the van that comes here a couple of times every week,” Assad interjected. That was not well timed. Now the guy’s eyes looked uneasy, and the woman drew smoke deep into her lungs. Her face was obscured by a thick cloud when she blew it out again.
“Well, it’s not something we’re really sure about,” Carl managed to add. “One of your neighbors thought he’d seen it, but he could be mistaken.” He tugged at Assad’s arm. “Thank you for talking to us today,” he continued. “Ask your son Lasse to call me when he gets back. Then we can take care of these couple of questions once and for all.”
They headed for the door as the woman rolled after them. “Push me outside, Hans,” she said to her son. “I need some fresh air.”
Carl knew that she didn’t want to let them out of her sight until they’d left the property. If there had been a car in the courtyard or back here, where they stood, he would have thought she was trying to hide the fact that Lars Henrik Jensen was inside one of the buildings. But Carl’s intuition told him otherwise. Her elder son wasn’t here; she just wanted to get rid of them.
“It’s an impressive group of buildings you have here. Was this a factory at one time?”
The woman was right behind them, puffing on another cigarette as her wheelchair lumbered along the path. Her son was pushing it, hands tightly gripped on the handles. He seemed very agitated inside that ruined face of his.
“My husband had a factory that manufactured sophisticated linings for nuclear reactors. We had just moved here from Køge when he died.”
“Yes, I remember reading about it. I’m very sorry.” Carl pointed to the two low buildings in front of them. “Was that where the manufacturing was supposed to be done?”
“Yes, there and in the large hall.” She pointed as she spoke. “The welding shop was there, the pressure testing facility there, and the full assembly was going to take place in the hall. The building I live in was supposed to store the finished containments.”
“Why don’t you live in the house? It seems like a nice one,” Carl said as he noticed a row of grayish-black buckets in front of one of the buildings that didn’t fit with the rest of the landscape. Maybe they’d been left there by the previous owner. In places like this, time often moved at a snail’s pace.
“Oh, I don’t know. There are so many things in that house that are from bygone times. And then there’s the doorsills; I can’t deal with them anymore.” She thumped the armrest of her wheelchair.
Carl noticed that Assad was trying to pull him aside. “Our car is over there, Assad,” he said, nodding in the opposite direction.
“I would just rather go through the hedge there and up to the road,” said Assad, but Carl saw his attention was fixed on the piles of junk that were heaped on top of an abandoned concrete foundation.
“All that rubbish was already here when we arrived,” said the woman apologetically, as if half a container of scrap metal could mar the property’s overall dismal impression.
It was nothing but random garbage. On top of the rubbish heap were more of the grayish-black tubs. There were no labels on them, but they looked as if they might once have contained oil or some sort of foodstuffs in large quantities.
Carl would have stopped Assad if he’d known what his assistant had in mind, but before he could react, Assad had already leaped over some metal rods, jumbled piles of ropes, and plastic tubing.
“I have to apologize for my partner. He’s an incorrigible junk collector. What did you find, Assad?” Carl called out.
But Assad wasn’t interested in playing his role at the moment. He was hunting for something. He kicked at the junk, turning it over until he finally stuck his hand in and with some effort pulled out a thin sheet of metal, which turned out to be a sign that was about twenty inches high and at least twelve feet long. He turned it over. It said: “InterLab A/S.”
Assad looked up at Carl, who nodded in appreciation. It was a hell of a find. InterLab A/S was Daniel Hale’s big laboratory, which had now moved to Slangerup. So there was a direct link between the family and Daniel Hale.
“Your husband’s company wasn’t called InterLab, was it, Mrs. Jensen?” asked Carl, smiling at her tightly pressed lips.
“No. That’s the company that sold us the property and a couple of the buildings.”
“My brother works at Novo. I seem to remember him mentioning that company.” Carl silently sent an apology to his older brother, who at the moment was probably feeding mink up at the mink farm in Frederikshavn. “InterLab. Didn’t they make enzymes, or something like that?”
“It was a testing laboratory.”
“Hale. Wasn’t that his name? Daniel Hale?”
“Yes, the man who sold this place to my husband was named Hale. But not Daniel Hale. He was just a boy back then. The family moved InterLab north, to a different location, and after the old man died, they moved it again. But this is where it started.” She gestured toward the scrap pile. InterLab had certainly made a success of itself if this was how it began.
Carl studied the woman closely as she talked. She seemed to be completely closed off, and yet right now the words were pouring out of her. She didn’t seem agitated; on the contrary. She seemed totally poised, all of her nerve endings tautly woven. She was trying to appear normal, and that was precisely what seemed so abnormal.
“Wasn’t he the man who was killed not far from here?” Assad suddenly asked.
This time Carl could have kicked him in the shin. They would have to have a talk about these sorts of candid remarks when they got back to the office.
He turned to look at the buildings. They exuded more than the story of a ruined family. The gray-on-gray facades also had other nuances. It was as if the buildings were speaking to him. The acid in his stomach churned even worse when he looked at them.
“Was Hale killed? I don’t remember that.” Carl flashed a warning glance at Assad and turned back to the woman.
“I’d really like to see where InterLab started out. It’d be fun to tell my brother about it. He has talked so often about launching his own business. Do you think we could have a look at the other buildings? Unofficially, of course.”
She gave him a much-too-friendly smile, which meant she was feeling just the opposite. She didn’t want him here any longer. He should just pack up and leave.