Free The Hanging Girl by Jussi Adler-Olsen Page A

more of the tough sort.”
    Carl pushed his bottom lip forward, nodding. A possibility, certainly, whatever use it might be. As far as he was concerned, Bjarke Habersaat’s sexual preferences could involve sex with identical Andalusian twins over sixty-five, if it did it for him. Nothing could interest him less, so long as the rolls lying there invitingly in front of him were still warm.
    Assad turned to Rose. “Who zipped your mouth up? You normally have an opinion about everything under the sun. Whatever’s wrong, just spit it out, Rose. I can feel it. If it wasn’t the suicide on the DVD that shook you up, then what? Something did.”
    She turned her head toward them slowly with the same suffering and open look as June Habersaat the night before. But Rose didn’t cry. On the contrary, she looked strangely dry-eyed and composed. It was a look that expressed that this was something she wanted to be left alone with but wasn’t being given the chance to.
    “I don’t want to talk about it even if I do tell you, okay? I couldn’t handle watching it because Habersaat was the spitting image of my dad.” Then she pushed her chair away and left them.
    Carl sat for a while staring down at the table.
    “I don’t think you should dig deeper there, Assad.”
    “Okay. Was there something special about her dad?”
    “Nothing other than that he was ground to a pulp up at the workplace in Frederiksværk where Rose also worked. That’s all.”
    *   *   *
    The community hall was expectedly accessible and welcoming, situated in the middle of the main street of Listed, cutting the town in two halves with the fishermen’s cottages out toward the sea and the newer additions in toward the land.
    Listed Community Hall
written short and sweet on the yellow façade. That sort of summed it up.
    As announced in an unattractive and misplaced glass-fronted notice board, the elderly residents of Listed were offered line dancing, Nordic walking, and
pétanque
, while the children were offered the chance of a bonfire and baking bread over the fire, softball, and carving Halloween pumpkins. There was also a short account from the civic association about the present problems and hopes of the town. Should there be a residency criterion for the homeowners of the town? Should the bench by Mor Markers Gænge road be replaced? Was there enough money to build a pontoon bridge by the bathing area?
    Exclusively local questions, nothing at all about a May 1st meeting here or anywhere else on their way across the island other than Metal Bornholm having erected a bouncy castle on something that, God help us, they’d called Chicken Mother, somewhere or other in Almindingen forest.
    Here in the community hall on this remote little spot in the summer paradise people gathered for events big and small, and it was here that less than twenty-four hours ago one of the better citizens had faced the fatal consequences of his poor judgments in life.
    Carl recognized the women who greeted them from Habersaat’s film.
    “Bolette Elleboe,” one of them introduced herself in an almost understandable Bornholm dialect. “I’m the substitute accountant and live just at the back, so I’m the keyholder.” She seemed self-assured but not comfortable with the situation. The other woman introduced herself as Maren, chair of the civic association, her sad eyes revealing that she could do without this just now.
    “Did you know Habersaat privately?” he asked as they greeted Rose and Assad.
    “Yes, very well,” answered Bolette Elleboe. “Maybe too well for our own good.”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    She shrugged her shoulders, leading them into the meeting hall, a light room with certificates and paintings in glorious disarray on the white walls, and from where at one end of the room, through a pair of panoramic windows, there was a view out to her back garden. They sat here at a laminate table, the coffee ready and waiting.
    “We probably should’ve