Free Disgrace by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Detective el-Assad? Is that what you said?’ Carl glanced at the handset. Assistant Detective el-Assad?! That was one hell of a promotion.
    He transferred the call and, a second later, heard the telephone ringing on Assad’s desk.
    ‘Yes?’ Assad replied, in his broom closet.
    Carl raised his eyebrows and shook his head. Assistant Detective el-Assad. How dare he?
    ‘Holbæk Police called to say they searched for the Rørvig murder file all morning.’ Assad stood in Carl’s doorway, scratching the stubble on his dimple. They had been studying files now for two days, and he looked pretty knackered. ‘And do you know what then? They just don’t have it any more. It’s blown away with the wind.’
    Carl sighed. ‘So let us assume someone removed it, OK? I wonder if it was that Arne fellow, the one who gave Martha Jørgensen the grey folder with reports about the murders? Did you ask whether they could remember what colour it was? Did you ask if it was grey?’
    Assad shook his head.
    ‘Oh, well, it’s not important. The man who took it is dead, according to Martha, so we can’t talk to him anyway.’ Carl’s eyes narrowed. ‘And there’s something else I’d like you to answer honestly, Assad: can you please tell mewhen you were promoted to assistant detective? You should be really careful, going around impersonating a police officer. There’s a section of the criminal code that is very strict on this point, actually. Section 131, if you would like to know. You could get six months in prison.’
    At this Assad tilted his head back slightly. ‘Assistant detective?’ he said, holding his breath for a second. He raised both hands to his chest as if to protest his innocence, which was draining from him at that moment. Carl had not seen such indignation since the prime minister’s reaction to press allegations that Danish soldiers had indirectly participated in torture in Afghanistan.
    ‘That would never occur to me,’ Assad said. ‘On the contrary, so. I have said I am assistant assistant detective. People don’t listen properly, Carl.’ He dropped his hands to his side. ‘Is that my fault?’
    Assistant assistant detective! God in heaven! This sort of thing could give a man an ulcer.
    ‘It would probably be more accurate if you called yourself assistant detective vice-superintendent or, even better, assistant police vice-superintendent. But if you must use that title, then it’s OK with me. Just make sure you enunciate it very clearly, do you understand? Now go to the car park and bring the old banger round. We’re going to Rørvig.’
    The summer cottage was in the centre of a cluster of pine trees. Over the years, it had slowly chewed itself into the sand. To judge from the windows, no one had stayed here since the murders. Broad, opaque surfaces showed between decaying beams. A depressing scene.
    They looked up and down the tyre tracks that wound their way among the other cottages in the area. This late in September, of course, there wasn’t a soul for miles.
    Assad shielded his eyes with his hands and tried in vain to peer through the largest of the windows.
    ‘Come on, Assad,’ Carl said. ‘The key is supposed to be hanging back here.’
    He stared up under the eaves at the rear of the cottage. For twenty years the key had been hanging where everyone could see it – on a rusty nail right above the kitchen window, precisely where Martha Jørgensen’s friend Yvette had said it would be. But then again, who would have taken it? Who would wish to enter the house? And the burglars who ravaged these summer cottages every single year during the off-season would have to be blind not to notice there was nothing to find here. Everything about the cottage signalled that one might as well just turn around and leave.
    He reached for the key and unlocked the door. It surprised him how easily the old lock turned and the door yielded.
    He stuck his head inside and recognized the stench of days past: mould,