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I’ll be back in a while.’
    It was common knowledge that plenty of the members of the Conservative Party were business people who hobnobbed with each other and did whatever the trade organizations asked them to do. But Denmark’s slickest party had always attracted police officers and military personnel as well – only the gods knew why. Right now Carl knew that at least two of the former type were members of parliament, voted in by the Conservatives. One was a real prole who had pushed his way up through the police hierarchy only to find just as swift an exit; but the other was a nice old deputy police commissioner whom Carl knew from his days in Randers over in Jutland. He wasn’t particularly conservative, but the constituency included his home district, and the job was undoubtedly well paid. So Kurt Hansen from Randers became a member of parliament, representing the Conservatives, and a member of the Judicial Committee. He was Carl’s best source for any information of a political nature. Kurt wouldn’t discuss everything, but it was easy to get him started if the issue in question was at all interesting. Carl wasn’t sure whether his would qualify.
    ‘Mr Deputy Commissioner Kurt Hansen, I presume,’ he said as soon as the man answered the phone.
    His words prompted a deep and genial burst of laughter. ‘Well, what do you know? It’s been a long time, Carl. Great to hear your voice. I heard you got shot.’
    ‘It was nothing. I’m OK, Kurt.’
    ‘Didn’t go so well for two of your colleagues, though. Any progress in the case?’
    ‘It’s moving forwards.’
    ‘I’m glad to hear that. Really, I am. Right now we’re working on legislation that will expand the sentencing parameters by fifty per cent for assaults on civil servants while on the job. That ought to help matters. We need to support you guys who are out on the barricades.’
    ‘Sounds good, Kurt. I hear that you’ve also decided to support the homicide division in Copenhagen with a special appropriation.’
    ‘No, I don’t think we’ve done anything like that.’
    ‘Well, maybe not the homicide division, but something else over here at police headquarters. It’s not a secret, is it?’
    ‘Do we have any secrets here when it comes to funding appropriations?’ asked Kurt, laughing heartily, as only a man with a big fat pension could do.
    ‘So what exactly have you decided to fund, if I might ask? Does it come under the National Police?’
    ‘Yes, the department actually comes under the auspices of the Danish Criminal Investigation Centre, but we didn’t want the same people to be investigating the same cases all over again, so it was decided to establish an independent department, administered by the homicide division. It’s going to handle cases deserving “special scrutiny”. But you know all about that.’
    ‘Are you talking about Department Q?’
    ‘Is that what you’re calling it over there? That’s an excellent name for it.’
    ‘How much funding was allocated?’
    ‘Don’t quote me on the exact figure, but it’s somewhere between six and eight million kroner annually for the next ten years.’
    Carl looked around at the pale green walls of his basement office. OK, now he understood why Jacobsen and Bjørn were so intent on exiling him to this no-man’s-land. Between six and eight million, he’d said. Straight into the pockets of the homicide division.
    This was damned well going to cost them.
    The homicide chief gave Carl a second look before taking off his reading glasses. It was the same expression he wore whenever he was studying a crime scene and the clues were indecipherable. ‘You say you want your own car? Need I remind you that the Copenhagen Police Force doesn’t provide vehicles assigned to specific individuals? You’ll have to get in touch with the motor-pool office and request a car whenever you need one. Just like everybody else, Carl. That’s the way it is.’
    ‘I don’t work for the