The Hanging Girl by Jussi Adler-Olsen Page A

all, and word gets about when something like that happens.”
    “So, what . . . ?” Assad gave his coffee cup yet another spadeful of sugar. Was there really room for more?
    “She was apparently a sweet girl, who’d probably been given a little too much freedom. Nothing out of the ordinary, but sometimes things could get a bit steamy up there at the folk high school when no one was keeping an eye on the youngsters; that’s the way they are,” said Bolette. “The girl had a couple of different guys within a short time at any rate, or so people say.”
    “People?” resounded Assad’s voice from within his cup.
    “My nephew, he’s the groundskeeper at the school, said that she flirted with a couple of guys, as girls in the first throws of love are prone to do. Walks hand in hand down in Ekkodalen valley behind the school and that sort of thing.”
    “I think that sounds rather innocent. Is there anything about that in the report, Assad?” asked Carl.
    Assad nodded. “Yeah, a little. One of the boys was a student at the school. It was just a bit of fun, but she was also seeing someone else outside the school for a little longer.”
    Carl turned to the women. “Someone you know about?”
    They shook their heads.
    “What does the report say about him, Assad?”
    “Nothing other than that they tried to clear up his identity without any luck. A few of the girls from the folk high school spoke about the guy not being from the school, but that because of him Alberte would sit and stare into thin air for hours on end as if she couldn’t care less about anything else.”
    “Did Habersaat’s investigation come any closer to identifying the man, do you know?”
    Now both women and Assad shook their heads.
    “Hmm, that’ll have to rest for a while. As I understand it, Habersaat is obsessed with a hopeless case that wasn’t even his. The wife leaveshim, taking the son with her, and the people here in the town offer him no support. A hit-and-run driver and the death of a young woman change everything for him, which is a little hard for me to understand as a policeman. We’ve tried to speak with June Habersaat, who isn’t very keen to talk about the whole situation and also rather uncompromising concerning her husband. It seems like you know her pretty well, Bolette. Are you in contact with her?”
    “Heavens, no. We were good friends once when she lived a few hundred meters down the road, where Habersaat has lived since all this happened. But when she left him it sort of phased out. Of course, I’ve met her at her work selling tickets, ice cream, and whatnot up in Brændegårdshaven Amusement Park, but otherwise I haven’t spoken to her in years. She became strange after all that with her husband and the Alberte case. But perhaps her sister, Karin, can tell you more. She lived for a while with June and the son in the house on Jernbanegade in Aakirkeby. It was originally their parents’ but it obviously all got too much for the sister. Karin lives in Rønne now, I think. Try visiting Uncle Sam down at number 21 as well. He was probably the one who had most contact with Habersaat in the later years.”
    Carl looked over at Assad, who was frantically taking down notes. Notes that they could hopefully lock away in the archive. “Just one more thing,” he said. “In the film that was made here yesterday we have one person registered who disappeared from the hall just after Habersaat committed suicide. Do you know who he was?”
    “Oh, that’s Hans,” answered Bolette. “He’s just a local simpleton who runs errands for people in the town. He comes up here whenever there are free drinks and snacks. You won’t get anything sensible out of him.”
    “Where can we find him, do you know?”
    “At this time of day? Try the bench behind the smokehouse. Just across the road and to the right of Strandstien road. There’s a flat grey building with a couple of smoke ovens at the end. The bench is in the garden at