In late March 2014, Inge Dalby’s interview with Carl Mørck turns a guarded recollection into a detailed account of her affair with Frank Brennan, the man Department Q is trying to identify in connection with Alberte Goldschmid’s death. Inge describes where she encountered Frank, what drew her to him, the distinctive Volkswagen Kombi he drove, and a cluster of physical details that could help locate him. Yet the interview does not end with her account simply accepted: a challenge from Rose makes the question of what Inge knew, and when she knew it, newly urgent.

Resistance and the return to the case

At first, Inge makes clear that she does not want to revisit the period. She says that she has discussed it with Kristoffer Dalby for what feels like an eternity and considers it passé. Carl counters that the police have grounds to believe she withheld evidence when they spoke before. He says he has four or five questions for her and warns that, if she does not answer, she may be taken to the station for questioning. Inge shows no reaction to that warning.

Her reluctance is not the same as a claim that she has nothing to say. After a long silence, she acknowledges that there were many things she could have told Christian Habersaat at the time but did not. She then asks whether the detectives knew Habersaat. On learning that they did not, she describes him as strange and says she disliked him from the start. In her account, Habersaat repeatedly pressed the people around Alberte to point to someone among themselves who might have caused her death; when that did not work the first time, he returned, again and again. Inge’s recollection therefore adds not only information about Frank, but also her view of the earlier investigation and of the pressure Habersaat brought to bear on those he questioned.

The affair and the Volkswagen Kombi

Inge says she met Frank at the beginning of July, the day before a classic-car event. She had been with him in his vehicle, and admits that they had sex there for a time. She says she chose a secluded place at the back of the grass area, but had not expected to be moved on or for the classic cars to arrive so early. Frank dealt with the problem of being parked where he was not allowed; Inge made her escape because she did not want her uncle to catch her with the hippie.

The affair was secret from Kristoffer, whom Inge was also seeing. When Carl asks about the overlap, she says Frank could do things Kristoffer could not and had never learned to do. She later insists that she had been deeply in love with Frank, while also saying that, from Frank’s perspective, their relationship was largely sex. The contrast matters to her account: she presents herself as emotionally attached, not merely as someone who happened to remember a man from the island.

Inge gives the detectives a concrete identifying feature of Frank’s vehicle. She explains that the black, arched line rising from the roof belonged to a large peace sign, whose circle continued partway down the sides. This confirms that her earlier description of the Volkswagen Kombi was based on direct experience rather than a guess. When asked for other details that might help find the man, she begins to set out a fuller portrait, turning a vehicle clue into a broader identification lead.

A remembered face and a sun-focused stranger

Inge says that she first saw Frank at the hippie house at Ølene, where she had gone with a friend out of curiosity. She remembers him walking around shirtless and looking attractive; she and her friend were interested partly because, as she puts it, there was little happening on the island. She says she later met him in Rønne, and that they began seeing one another after that. She kept the relationship from Kristoffer because she expected it to end suddenly and valued having someone from the island to fall back on.

Her physical description is precise. Frank was about six feet one inch tall and six or seven years older than she was. He had strong, fine features, a husky but warm voice, a tan that gave way to light skin beneath his clothes, and long, almost ash-blond hair reaching his collar. A small dimple in his chin showed in certain light. His eyes were blue, his eyebrows very dark, and his front teeth rather wide; one had a small white mark that he called a sunburn. Inge says he had no visible scar or other mark and spoke about wanting tattoos, though he had not decided what he would get.

She also remembers his clothes: a bead necklace, loose woven shirts, jeans, and very large homemade-looking boots with unusually wide soles. They were not well made, she says, but looked cool; at times his appearance reminded her of a Cossack. These details accumulate through the interview rather than arriving as a single prepared description. The detectives listen as Inge recalls the small particulars of their time together, even when she recognizes that some everyday memories may not immediately help them find him.

Frank’s interest in the sun, however, connects those particulars to a possible reason for his presence on Bornholm. Inge says he told her he was on the island because he was preoccupied with the sun. He also claimed to have found two different sunstones within a week: first one like those used by Vikings for navigation, then another like those found in the sun-cult area at Rispebjerg near Dueodde. The recollection gives his enthusiasm a specific setting and objects, linking the man Inge knew to the landscape and religious interests the investigation is examining.

A lead, and a challenge to her account

Carl tells Inge that she is not a direct suspect, but that she could become important if questions arise that the police cannot answer. They may ask her to identify Frank if they find him. He gives her his card, asks her to let them know if she plans to go anywhere, and requests that her husband find a photograph from their trip to Østerlars Church. Carl also refers to the possibility that she may need to return to the island to be with her children. At that, Inge’s expression changes: she frowns in a way Carl reads as a sign that she may be about to cry, and he asks whether she no longer sees her children. The exchange raises a personal concern without establishing the circumstances behind it.

The investigative value of Inge’s account is therefore paired with a remaining doubt. Rose argues that it is extremely difficult to believe Inge would not have known what her boyfriend called himself; even if she had heard the name only through Alberte, Rose says, it seems unlikely she would have forgotten it. Carl turns to Inge and asks what she has to say. She appears rooted to the spot, as if caught red-handed, but the scene supplies no answer that settles the accusation. The interview has sharpened the image of Frank and exposed the affair, while leaving open whether Inge’s earlier silence was merely reluctance to revisit the past or something more consequential.