Buried (Department Q #5)

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

chess tournaments

There you go, it’s chess moves, but there’s no chess piece that starts with C so is it in Danish?

Come on, come on, he urged himself. If he didn’t work it out now, he would have to give up.

Google it, what’s the bet it’s a classic move by a master or something similar

After that, he tried the names of various grandmasters of chess:

So it didn’t pass him by & I even get a Ding ding Ding for this

No solution. A needle in a haystack.

Pfft, well I’m keeping my Ding ding Ding as it was still a good guess

What had been most important to them? The most important of all? Most likely the daughter’s illness and their efforts to make her well.

Could it be something to do with the DNA chain in relation to Crohn’s disease?

And then it happened. He was in,

Bloody hell! Here’s me & every other reader too, guessing at the oddest things we can think of & it was just that easy!

whether Stark had been cognizant of the Baka project fraud.

Should of known it’d be basic for the passcode when guessing at odd things for what they were up to, was just plain bog standard fraud

So Lady Luck, it seemed, was still smiling upon him.

Not for long, so i wouldn’t worry about applying sunscreen

like this were often divided into two, with a dwelling on each floor, so Copenhagen’s exorbitant property taxes could be spread between incomes.

Heh, I used to think my council rates were expensive, but then the Body Corp rates started climbing & are now MORE expensive, it’s $72 week for my Body Corp & only $50 for rates and $351 for my mortgage making it $473 that’s without my power, water, internet mobile phone, which would add $17 + $17 + $20 + $5 respectively, making it $532 but then add my St. John’s ambulance alarm of $17 & it’s $549 & oh yeah food, as for spare $$ heh, I’m lucky if I can afford to eat as I only get $690 a week & left over from the bills is $141 & food here in planet earths basement is EXPENSIVE that $141 is pitiful

He would never leave anyone in the lurch like that, least of all us.’

I know he was a thief too, but at least he had a cause for doing it, & he wasn’t hurting anyone, the same can’t be said for the others, not even remotely, which is why I can’t have much sympathy for the next to go, he’s been told Marco is being hunted down & he’s of the “better him than me” attitude, so no, no sympathy

They came slowly and deliberately, like small, measured punches. ‘Are you telling me that William is suspected of being a paedophile? Is that what you’re saying, you little shit? Is it? Answer me! I want to hear the word from your own filthy mouth, do you hear me?’ The way Assad tipped his head and turned the other cheek was almost biblical.

I hate how we all go for the easiest & lowest of blows when we’re angry. We can say such revolting words that would normally never pass our lips. I’m no better than anyone else & sadly for white people we do often revert to making it race, we say racial slurs we’d never usually utter, then calm down & realize what we’ve said & wish like hell we could take it back.

‘Tilde once gave him a scratch card for his birthday

You can’t buy those here until you’re at a certain age, they consider it gambling & that it can have an effect on kids who do that sort of thing too early. Me I’ve never been into gambling, I know it’s a fools game, so to speak, & usually I never or had never enough money to ho around throwing it away, I’d rather buy something with it. According to my Mum that’s still throwing it away too, but I beg to differ!

riddle inside an enigma.

If you’re going to say a famous quote, a really well known one, you should say the full thing which is what Winston Churchill said about Russia… A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma Although quite possibly this is a lost in translation issue

Hereford Beefstouw restaurant.

I have a thing where I love to look up restaurants & read the menu’s, I do like to look up other stuff too, but for some reason this just interests me, seeing what foods like around the world. Unfortunately I have to say this place is nowhere near my kind of taste, I don’t eat a lot of red meat, or meat in general. I’m not vegetarian or anything, I’m just not fussed on meat, given the option of beef or chicken I’d nearly always pick chicken, unless it’s ribs or a nice slow cooked something or other.

There was a strong likelihood that William Stark’s body was no longer where he had found it and that Zola’s people had removed all traces of the crime.

No, they’d never be able to fix the soil well enough from that ‘burial’ site, there’d be lots of forensic bits & pieces they could find & use to prove a body had been in there, along with DNA to back it up

Lisbeth suggested, leaning her ripe breasts lightly against his shoulder as she began to type with

Oh I really do hope this is just lost in translation, as that just comes across as wrong in oh so many different ways…

Not that he had the slightest objection to the heavenly feeling of her soft breasts once more against his shoulder.

He could feel the pressure of her body against his back as she leaned across to type…. That ^ would be 100x better than the heavenly feeling of her soft breasts once more against his shoulder. As that ^ sounds like soft bloody porn! I’m not a translator & I have no idea what the original text is supposed to portray to us readers, but I’m hoping that, porn, it’s not.

Cold shivers ran down his spine. Had these people not come to steal? Had they come to kill them?

Not one iota of sympathy, well except for the wife, it’s not her fault

fifty-eight

Where I used to work at the hospital everyone in the dept was given a number as an easy way to sign off on work that you did, rather than having to write out a name as it was easier & also so who did what was only known by management etc & guess what my number was? Yup #58, & part of my mobile phone is #1585 You’d be surmised often it crops up in my life, but I wouldn’t, my life has SO many coincidences it’s not even remotely funny

Maybe that was precisely why.

I’d agree, she wants more than a one nighter, & mentally he’s not in a place right now where he can do that, with anyone

Who could tell from a sock who had worn it last?

Forensic experts & the police maybe?! Duh!

he and Rose were engaged in a seven-letter activity on my turf.

Bonking? As it’s all I can think of off the top of my head… ;)

He took a deep breath as he tried to think of a smart comeback, a scathing remark. He racked his brains for something to say that would remain uncontested and for once make an impression. But all he came up with was emptiness and bad karma, so he decided to keep his mouth shut.

I could of helped you out there, like “Fine, keep your little spy down there, 7 wording my staff & doing little else, so he’ll have nothing to report on as he thinks the way to do his job is to get inside my staffs knickers!” “You just wait, this will come back to bite you as you couldn’t handle a real crime if it hit you in the face, & it shows, it SHOWS!” “So we will keep doing the actual work & making you look good, as you couldn’t achieve that if we left it up to you, & just remember, Dept Q is the money spinner & don’t you bloody forget it Lars!” How’s that?

The people in the train carriage stared at him without comment. No one tried to console him, even though tears ran from his eyes, but no one abused him, either.

You know as much as I like the books & the author, this game of cat & mouse is getting a little old & and little silly. He could have gone to Carl, he could have gone to Rose or even just the girl Tilde, If he trusts them kinda, he should have just bit the bullet & gone to someone & told them everything, he could have just written a better note even!

He picked out a woman and stood so close to her as they neared the top that it annoyed her. As well it might, because if they spotted him and got too close, he would shove her into them.

Yeah, our poor protagonist is acting in exemplary fashion, it’s hard to feel sorry for him when he does or thinks about doing, stuff like this rather than just going to the police.

Inside the amusement park, he glanced around to get his bearings, then opted for the steps that led past a carousel ride with animals in all shapes and sizes. He had seen one just like it in Italy, but had never been on it. In fact, he had never seen a place like this, he thought, as he criss-crossed the system of pathways amid children on the roller coaster and the pirate ship, and the shrieks of delight when parents arrived with ice-cream.

They’re fun, kinda, but I lived on the Gold Coast for over a decade, & when you live somewhere you never really do the tourist stuff. I think I only went to sea world twice, Dreamland & Wet & Wild only once each. They’re pretty tame & the typical Easter Show here in NZ has more & better rides, although that’s only once a year, obviously.

As though the camel were stretching its neck towards another goal altogether.

Oh dear Carl, I think you’ve been hanging out with Assad in the basement smoking hookah’s & drinking funny teas for perhaps just a tad too long…

‘Anyway, I’ve left my scarf in his office,’ Gordon added. ‘I’ll catch up with you later.’

Uh oh what’s he going to do? Downplay Carls suspicions? Apologize on his behalf? Think by doing that he’ll see/hear something to ‘beat’ Carl with?

How come they knew so much? About Fon’s disappearance.

That shouldn’t have a question mark until the end How come they knew so much? About Fon’s disappearance. < Wrong How come they knew so much about Fon’s disappearance? < Right

If so, we’d like to see it on Monday together with the other things we talked about.’

OMG he actually has a brain, those were good questions that need good answers & are also likely to put Eriksen on the back foot… Who’d of thought it, he has a brain & maybe he’s not as bad as we thought….? That last parts still open for discussion, as he still may be but… Oooh… maybe they’ll kill him, thinking it’s only him that’s thinking this way? Then it will come out & everyone will find, along with his body, that he’s not so bad, well, wasn’t so bad, after all… I’m gobsmacked, someone dead leg ME to get me back to earth!

He extended a hand to Eriksen and was about to turn and leave when suddenly he raised a finger in the air. ‘Oops, I’d better not forget it this time,’ he said, and stooped down to pick a grey scarf off the floor before finally saying goodbye.

Gas he hit a bug/listening device on it?? Enquiring minds want to know…

‘And this time, you dickhead, you keep your fucking mouth shut!’ Carl bellowed, as the man vanished.

WTH?? You don’t treat people like this, no matter what, it’s wrong to embarrass them in front of colleagues for one, belittle them & just in general this is disgusting, AND the guy had a valid point, maybe he could of run it by Carl first, but Carls so anti him that he’d probably of not even listened long enough to hear him out.

that the man had too complete an overview

Would read better as that the man had too complete of an overview Rather than that the man had too complete an overview Lost in translation?

so swiftly that she could hardly have registered what was happening.

I think us readers feel the same way, I mean I can’t speak for everyone, but damn!

exactly as if he were signing his own suicide note.

In a way he is…

Snap jabbed a finger towards the dresser. ‘They’ve been right next to you the whole time, you son of a bitch.’ Boy drew the dresser’s floral curtain aside and exposed a drawer. He pulled it open, and there lay the share certificates, neatly bound together with a piece of wool.

Ok, now that’s dumb, this guts supposed to be an elite bad guy, & yet he thoroughly searched the entire house & missed that?! Doesn’t read right.

‘About yesterday, Rose … I’d like to say thanks.’ Total silence filled the room. It wasn’t that she appeared moved, more like she found that sort of comment wholly out of place at work.

Some people who have a hard exterior, can have that as protection rather than actually being tough. It’s hard for people to hurt you, if you never let them in, & I’m betting now after her slip with Gordon, she’s feeling a little tender…

Carl stopped halfway down the stairs. For God’s sake, Assad, he thought. Who are you, anyway?

Took him long enough

‘OK, we’ve got him,’ came the sound of Eivind’s voice above him. ‘Come straight away, and hurry.’

No, I don’t like this, the character’s wouldn’t of acted in this way, & it’s made them go from being very likable to revolting & distasteful

building across the street, where the man lived who had allowed his flat to be used as an escape route. He was just an old customer, the girls explained, who would do anything to help them out. ‘Next time, extra loving treatment for you, Benny,’ one of the girls promised. So that was probably why. He certainly looked satisfied with the deal.

Not all escorts are bad, the idea of one with a heart of gold isn’t just a myth…

‘Do you know the Hereford Beefstouw next to Tivoli Gardens?’ Marco asked. ‘Sure, I’m a taxi driver, aren’t I? Ask me something I don’t know and you can have your two hundred back.’

Pfft, taxi drivers, well most of them, both here & in Aussie, they can barely speak English & have no idea where they’re going & just use GPS to get from point A to point B. 90% of taxi drivers here are immigrants & to me it’s wrong, this isn’t, & I’m not, entirely anti immigration etc, but when you have ratios where there are more immigrants than actual citizens, something is wrong, especially when you then have those same citizens unable to get work.

Grandiloquent

New word for me, I know grandiose, but not grandiloquent, doesn’t seem to be much between the 2 though & they’re semi interchangeable

foam-rubber wipes of the kind used in hospitals.

I worked in a hospital for a long time & I have no idea what these are…

picked up one of the wipes and wrapped it around his hand, from which two of his fingers hung by tendons. He could do no more about it until he was far away from there.

That would be near impossible for him to tolerate, the pain I mean, he’d be in agony

Oh Lord, you poor man, he thought. No need for you to suffer what’s to come.

So that’s awful, but killing a child’s all just something that has to happen & “oh well…” ??

Then and there he decided that moments where tobacco smoke floated lazily over his head in the dry air and mingled with the scent of the tropics would soon be a central feature of his new life.

Then and there he decided that moments where tobacco smoke floated lazily over his head in the dry air and mingled with the scent of the tropics would soon be a central feature of his new life. That ^ is a weirdly worded sentence. I guess it makes sense, but in one hell of a roundabout way

Another half-hour to wait and he would drive into Rådhuspladsen and harvest the spoils of the day.

Well that will just be perfect as I think there’ll be a welcoming committee for you

‘The same as you, probably, that now they’ve all bumped each other off, and the case is drawing to a close. I reckon Laursen will agree, once he sees the technicians’ reports and the DNA analyses.’

& they’re saying that immediately after someone told them another person lived at this address & he’s not the corpse, well yes he is, but they don’t know that, so where do they think this guy is & why are they just ignoring it now, as it doesn’t tie in with their scenario…

‘It’s a chess move,’ she said with a frown. ‘A4 to C4 to C6 to F6 and 7.

Ding ding Ding But didn’t he look that up or try it & nothing worked? I’m sure he did.

Was he now to blame for more misfortune befalling this little family?

No & he needs to stop thinking that it’s all his fault, William is the reason the families now in trouble