The Hanging Girl by Jussi Adler-Olsen Page B

the back. He’ll probably be sitting there, whittling or drinking beer, he normally is.”
    *   *   *
    They caught sight of Rose some way out on the horizon as they swung down Strandstien road. She was standing on the edge of some flat cliffs that only just stood above the water, and appeared strangely lost, as if the world had suddenly become too much for her.
    They stood for a moment watching her. It wasn’t the strong and quarrelsome Rose they were used to.
    “How long has it been since Rose’s dad died?” asked Assad.
    “It’ll be a good few years now. But obviously not something she’s finished with.”
    “Shall we send her back to Copenhagen?”
    “Why? I assume we’ll all be sailing back tonight. We can deal with those we need to talk with on the telephone from home. Just the sister and maybe some of those at the school.”
    “Tonight? You don’t think we should carry on here on the island, then?”
    “What for, Assad? The technicians have searched Habersaat’s house, so from that angle I don’t expect anything groundbreaking, and there hasn’t been anything concrete to cling to yesterday or today. Not to mention that Habersaat made this case his life’s mission, despite which he was still unable to solve it. How should
we
be able to do it in a couple of days, more or less? We’re talking about something that happened almost twenty years ago, Assad.”
    “Hey, there’s the man they were talking about.” Assad pointed toward a scrunched-up figure with a collection of beers on a white garden bench behind the smokehouse chimneys. There wasn’t much you could hide from each other in such a small community.
    “Howdy,” Assad said jauntily as he sauntered through the garden gate. “So, you’re sitting here, Hans. Just like Bolette said you would be.”
    Good try, Assad, but the man didn’t deign to acknowledge him with a single glance.
    “You’re sitting here relaxing, I suppose. It’s a nice view.”
    Still no reaction.
    “Okay, you don’t want to talk to me, but then you brought it on yourself. It suits me fine.” He nodded to Carl as he turned on a hose and rinsed his hands. Carl looked at his watch. It was prayer time.
    “Just go after Rose; this’ll only take ten minutes.” Assad smiled.
    Carl shook his head. “I think she needs to be left to herself just now. I’ll toddle on down the road and think things through while you do that. But, seriously, Assad—do you think this is a good place to pray? Everyone can see you. Do you even know if there’s anyone home in the house there?”
    “If they haven’t seen a Muslim pray before, then it’s maybe about time, Carl. The grass is soft and the man here doesn’t want to talk with me. How hard can it be?”
    “Okay, suit yourself, Assad. Want me to get your rug?”
    “Thanks, but I’ll use my jacket. That’ll have to be good enough in the open air,” he said, taking his socks off.
    *   *   *
    Carl hadn’t even managed twenty meters down the road before Assad stood in the qiyam position, reciting. It looked very harmonious and natural against the blue sky. Carl would unfortunately probably never come that close to God.
    He turned his head toward the figure on the cliffs standing motionless like a sphinx with clouds dancing over it. Why is she just standing there? he wondered. What’s going through her head? Is it grief or are there so many secrets that there’s hardly room for them? Or is it the case with Alberte and Habersaat?
    Carl stopped with an odd feeling in his body. A few days ago he’d been on home turf and had no knowledge of Habersaat or Alberte. To put it bluntly, he didn’t give a damn about towns like Svaneke and Listed and Rønne, and now suddenly here he was feeling so strangely alone and abandoned. Here of all places, on the extreme edge of Denmark, he was struck by the realization that people couldn’t run from themselves, regardless of where they were. The feeling that you always carried the