Aakirkeby is a market town on Bornholm whose central Jernbanegade brings together the investigation’s local setting and the damaged history of the Habersaat family. Its unkempt houses and fading civic character contrast with its seasonal reputations as Flower Town and Christmas Town; nearby, a deceased teacher’s estate supplies a possible lead to the Beretta Christian Habersaat used.

Setting and built environment

When Carl Mørck and Assad arrive on Jernbanegade on Wednesday, April 30, 2014, they pause before a whitewashed, ramshackle house, described as very likely one of the street’s most neglected. The setting is not an isolated ruin but part of a centrally located street whose modest brick houses and small plots recall the period, roughly a century earlier, when workers could acquire homes of their own. The contrast between that history of aspiration and the house’s present disrepair gives the street a visible sense of decline.

Aakirkeby’s seasonal identities sharpen the contrast. The town is known as Flower Town in summer and Christmas Town in winter, yet the worn street offers neither a floral abundance nor a festive atmosphere. The description makes Jernbanegade’s neglect stand out against the town’s brighter public image, grounding the Habersaat family’s story in an ordinary, visibly deteriorating neighborhood rather than a dramatic or remote landscape.

The Habersaat family’s local history

Jernbanegade is associated with the family home that originally belonged to June Habersaat’s parents. June lived there with her son, Bjarke Habersaat, and her sister, Karin Kofoed spent a period in the house as well, before the situation became too much for her. The street therefore holds the memory of a family household that once included several generations and relatives, before its relationships fractured.

A former friend recalls that June lived a few hundred meters from the place where Christian Habersaat had lived since the events surrounding his separation from her and the Alberte case. Their friendship faded after June left him. Although the account does not place Christian’s home at the family house itself, it situates both former spouses within the same small-town geography and makes their separation part of Aakirkeby’s local history. June later worked selling tickets and ice cream at Brændegårdshaven Amusement Park, but she had become difficult for her former friend to approach after the marital rupture and the case.

The investigation in town

The inquiry into Christian Habersaat’s death brings Carl to June’s door. Before the door is fully opened, she detects the police badge in his pocket; when Assad tries to push inside, she tells him he has no business there. The brief threshold encounter makes the house a point of resistance as well as a place connected to the family’s past: the investigators arrive seeking information, but June is unwilling to admit them or discuss the situation.

Aakirkeby also enters the investigation through a separate, nearby estate. A Beretta had disappeared from the estate of Jakob Swiatek, a teacher who died at a folk high school in 2009. His death was attributed by the autopsy to natural causes resulting from a weak heart. Former students and teachers said he had been deeply interested in small arms and had shown students a pistol that could match the one Christian used. The possible connection gives the town’s surroundings a practical investigative significance, although the available account does not establish that the missing weapon and Christian’s pistol were the same.

Local witnesses and the case’s afterlife

A local acquaintance directs the investigators toward people who might know more about the Habersaat family. She suggests that Karin, now living in Rønne, could tell them about June and the years in the Jernbanegade house, and recommends Uncle Sam at number 21 because he had probably maintained the closest contact with Christian in his later years. Aakirkeby’s streets and houses thus function as a network of remembered relationships: a former family home, a nearby residence, and a local address linked to Christian’s later life.

The town also supplies an explanation for a man seen leaving the hall shortly after Christian’s suicide. A witness identifies him as Hans, a local man who ran errands for townspeople and came to gatherings when free drinks and snacks were available, while warning that he was unlikely to provide useful information. This small detail places the investigation among ordinary local routines and imperfect witnesses. Aakirkeby is not merely a backdrop to the Alberte case; its houses, former friendships, and neighborhood knowledge help determine what the investigators can learn, while its visible neglect echoes the long deterioration of the Habersaat family’s life there.