Danish police force

The Danish police force is represented chiefly by the investigators trying to determine how Alberte Goldschmid died and whether the collision that killed her was deliberate. Its work in the case is marked by a contrast: an earlier inquiry left significant questions unresolved, while the later investigation revisited old records and tested competing explanations against physical evidence.

Initial Classification and Investigative Gaps

Carl Mørck questions whether the death can be identified with certainty as traffic-related. He asks what the postmortem injuries established and what investigators found at the collision scene; he also points to the absence of leads, including skid or tire marks, and asks whether rain might account for it. The questions expose the difference between classifying a death as a road accident and establishing how the collision occurred.

Papers handed to the investigators by John Birkedal show that the file had not been updated since 2002 and that the possibility of premeditated murder had never been considered. The narrative offers two possible explanations rather than establishing either as fact: police politics may have discouraged a murder classification because a murder case could not be shelved, or the impact scene may never have been analyzed adequately. In either case, the force’s earlier handling left the central question open.

Reassessment of the Physical Evidence

The later inquiry returns to material associated with Christian Habersaat’s work on the case. A birch splinter had been found along a straight line between Alberte’s recovered bicycle in a thicket and the reported impact point. Habersaat’s notes and drawings also recorded the tree, the road and the bicycle’s position. Carl Mørck asks that the drawings be sent to technicians, along with questions about the wooden board, its possible attachment to a vehicle and whether a board could have remained intact in the collision.

Technical review narrows, but does not by itself settle, the possibilities. The recovered splinter is identified as plywood, while analysis cannot establish that it came from the same board as another birch fragment. The technicians determine that the board found in the water was not the board that sent Alberte into the tree. They also find that the boreholes described by Habersaat could not have secured a board to a VW Kombi Van as proposed, unless hooks had been used; the suggested attachment under the windshield wipers would have been expected to leave traces. These findings test parts of Habersaat’s reconstruction without independently identifying who was responsible.

Contact with Witnesses and Suspects

The investigators approach Atu Abanshamash Dumuzi in the ordinary manner, identifying themselves as Danish police officers who want to discuss an old accident. Their stated inquiry concerns a hit-and-run victim whom they believe Atu knew, or knew under the earlier name Frank Brennan. The exchange links their renewed casework to the unresolved question of the man associated with Alberte, without treating the acquaintance itself as proof of involvement.

When Carl Mørck confronts Lars Bjørn with the photograph of the man beside the VW Kombi, the meeting becomes more pointed. The image serves as a lead for questioning, not as a conclusion. The case thus advances through documents, technical examination and attempts to establish identities and associations, each of which must be considered separately.

Cross-Border Response and the Case’s Resolution

The investigation’s reach extends into Sweden. As Carl Mørck gives Swedish colleagues his account of events, they check his and Assad’s identities by telephone. Officers later tell the investigators that Pirjo has confessed to attacking them and say that they will issue an alert for Atu Abanshamash Dumuzi and his car. The sequence shows police cooperation becoming part of the response as the inquiry moves beyond its original setting.

The account also presents a later explanation of Alberte’s death through Christian Habersaat’s interpretation of a poem he found. He concludes that his son, Bjarke Habersaat, was in love with the same man as his wife and killed Alberte after being displaced by her. Elsewhere, an accusation states that Bjarke died by suicide because he was jealous of Alberte and had killed her. These statements frame the eventual understanding of the case, but the article’s evidence also preserves the distinction between suspicion, interpretation and what the physical examinations can establish. The Danish police force’s role in the story is therefore not simply to uncover a culprit: it is to reopen a case whose original classification and incomplete investigation had left crucial questions unanswered.