* * *
“AND WHAT DOES that reaction tell you?”
Peter Demant looked his first patient of the day right in the eyes with a look he knew was perceived as attentive. He had practiced that look. To tell the truth, it was hard for him to focus on what the girl in front of him was saying. Not that she wasn’t exciting to work with, quite the contrary. She had started therapy with him three months earlier, when her family had gotten sick of waiting for the help available through public-health resources. She had just turned seventeen and was showing signs of a personality disorder, which had not been definitively diagnosed. It is hard to correctly diagnose young people who are generally struggling to get to know themselves and figure out where they fit in the world. What’s normal behavior for a teenager? At what point does it become aberrant?
In this young woman’s case, it was her escalating OCD that had alarmed her family. When she was washing her hands more than fifty times a day her mother had finally contacted the school psychologist. That was three years ago, and the young woman in front of him had only deteriorated since.
To begin with, her mother had come with her to therapy, which had put a real damper on his ability to build trust. Now that she was coming on her own, things were slowly beginning to improve.
“That I’m…” The young woman breathed high up in her chest. “That I’m angry with my mother.”
Mother, it was always the mother who was to blame for people’s imbalances. Sometimes with an absent father to top it off, but always the poor, inadequate mother.
Peter took a sip from his water glass on the little marquetry table next to his armchair and realized that his fingers were trembling. Reflecting on the three categories he used to categorize his mood on any given day, today was yet another three, a bristly, restless day. It was the thought of death that tormented him. He risked losing everything—the clinic, his research, the profitable business-world consulting fees, his status as staff specialist in the psychiatric wards at both Glostrup and Bispebjerg Hospitals.
The prestige, the money, the respect.
“Is it my fault?” the girl asked, eyeing him expectantly.
“I’m sorry, could you please repeat that last thing you said?” Peter smiled. “I was just making a note.”
“Maybe I should really move out? Get my own place? Don’t people say that change is the best medicine?” She shook her head despondently.
“Medicine is the best medicine.” Peter reached for the yellow prescription pad but then hesitated. He couldn’t allow his own inner turmoil to get in the way of the professional empathy his patients required. He had to pull himself together. “Why are you talking about moving? Ask yourself if it is about a desire for change and improvement or if you’re running away.”
She bowed her head with a sniffle.
“You’ve come so far in terms of looking your challenges in the eye and taking charge of your own life,” he said, imbuing his voice with warmth. “You’ve worked so hard and accomplished so much. You have nothing to run away from.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You’re right.”
He got up and walked around the table, squatted down, and warily stroked her cheek. “Are you okay?”
She nodded and wiped her nose on her sleeve. Like a cute little puppy, innocent and adorable. Peter wanted to pick her up onto his lap.
“Our session is just about over for today, but we’ll see each other again in two weeks, right?” He walked her out past the receptionist’s empty desk with his arm around her shoulders.
“Louise will be in late today, so call tomorrow to make your next appointment. Take care of yourself.”
He put his arm around her shoulders and held her for a full half minute. Then he released her, let her out in the hallway, and lingered in the front office, quietly, hardly breathing. The patient’s confidence and body heat had given him a brief moment of peace that already threatened to vanish in a flash. His body returned to feeling like a block of concrete, stiff and heavy. He forced himself to take deep breaths, down into his belly, until he felt the blood flowing and heart beating. No good losing his composure.
He realized that he was biting his cuticles. Spat irritably and went to the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face and dried himself thoroughly. The face in the mirror was round like a child’s and just as uncertain. Sometimes he hated that reflection. He found the light switch without taking his eyes off the mirror and relished being able to turn off himself.
He had half an hour until his next patient, which meant that he could fit in a little work on his presentation. He fetched himself a glass of milk from the kitchenette and returned to his office, opened the door, and stepped inside. The office was dark; he must have bumped the switch on his way out. The scant daylight from the window facing the posh Sankt Annæ Square shone over his desk and landed on the wall, where his butterfly collection was mounted. Here in the dark they looked alive behind the glass; like they might fly away at any moment. The blue morpho’s electric wings, the golden leopard spots of the silver-washed fritillary, the impressive Atlas moth, and especially the bashful little glasswing, frail and ephemeral, almost transparent, but only seemingly. Glasswing larvae store toxins from jessamine plants in their bodies, so they become lethal to their enemies.
The butterfly that draws the least attention to itself is the most dangerous.
* * *
AMAGERBROGADE RUMBLED WITH aggressive midmorning traffic. Jeppe stopped at number 42 and peered up at a modern residential building. The street level of the facade was painted a mustardy yellow and housed one of those jewelry shops that sold jangly nine-karat-gold bangle bracelets. On the street behind him, an irritable van driver honked at a crossing woman with a stroller, who was apparently too slow, and she responded with a string of four-letter words shouted over her child’s head.
Nicola Ambrosio’s girlfriend, Malene Pedersen, had shown Sara Saidani pictures that confirmed that it was indeed his dead body that had been found in the Lille Gefion Fountain. Without going into detail, Sara had warned the girlfriend that Nicola might have been involved in an accident, and promised Jeppe that she would stay until he arrived so they could inform and question her together.
“Kørner! Over here.”
He heard Sara’s voice from the sidewalk behind him. From behind a group of elderly men, who were engrossed in a heated soccer debate in the middle of the sidewalk, Sara emerged next to a tall, black-haired woman in heels. The woman wore a bright mint-green down jacket and had a cigarette hanging on her lower lip and a very small dog on a leash.
“The dog needed to go out,” Sara explained. “I thought we’d have time before you arrived.”
She sounded tired in the way she often did when impatient. The downside to being quicker on the uptake than most people was that you often had to wait for them. That slightly stingy trait in a person who was otherwise as copious as Sara was one of the things Jeppe secretly loved the most.
“This is Malene Pedersen, Nicola’s girlfriend,” Sara said. “And Jeppe Kørner, detective with the Copenhagen Police.”
Malene Pedersen held out her free hand to greet him. It was the left, and the handshake as a result not quite successful. She then tossed what was left of her cigarette onto the bike lane and pulled her keys out from the deep parka pockets.
She was pretty in that neighbor’s daughter way, but with artificially long eyelashes and breasts that defied gravity, practically levitating up near her chin. The embellishments detracted a bit from her natural charm but of course added in another regard, though not in a way Jeppe knew how to fully appreciate.
They walked up to the fifth-floor apartment and sat down on a turquoise-colored velvet sofa. The dog settled down in its owners lap with its itty-bitty tail between its legs.
Jeppe informed her of the death, as gently as he could. With each word, a fresh tear trickled down Malene Pedersen’s cheeks. After a few minutes she gave up wiping them away.
“The autopsy is u
nderway right now, and we need to ask you to come in to officially identify Nicola, not that there’s any doubt it’s him. Does he have other immediate family?”
“His family lives in Italy… Oh, God, his mother.” She fiddled nervously with the hair at the back of her head, where a hairpiece looked to be braided in.
“Where was he supposed to be last night?”
“At work. He left after dinner, the way he always does on Mondays. Nicola works part-time in a day care during the day and drives a taxi at night to earn a little extra money.”
“Was he behaving normally?”
“Absolutely.”
The dog whined and she rubbed its belly without looking.
“We’re treating Nicola’s death as a murder. Do you know of anyone who might have had reason to harm him or get even for something? Someone who was jealous, had money at stake, an old family dispute, anything you can think of.” Jeppe nodded soothingly as he spoke.
“Nicola is a big, strong guy with tats and piercings, but nevertheless he’s the nicest guy you’ll ever meet, the kind of guy who plays with the kids at parties. My nephews love him.” Malene grabbed a tissue and blew her nose. “Was it a fare in his cab who killed him?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Jeppe asked, “Have you ever heard of a Bettina Holte?”
“The body in the fountain?” She suddenly looked confused. “Nicola mentioned that! He knew her, was totally shocked about it. What does she have to do with Nicola’s death?”
“There are some similarities between the two deaths,” Jeppe said cautiously. “For the time being we are investigating them as the work of the same person. How did Nicola know Bettina Holte?”
Malene Pedersen sat with her mouth open, staring into space for a moment and then said, “They used to work together. About two or three years ago, I think.”
“Worked together in what sense?”
She stood up so abruptly that her dog fell onto the sofa with an anxious yelp, then crossed the room to an old leather suitcase in the corner, which she opened and started digging around in. Photographs and letters were piled onto the floor in stacks. After a few minutes she came back to the sofa with a brochure in her hand.
“Nicola used to work as a social worker in a residential care facility. He isn’t certified, but like I said, he is really great with kids. He knew her from that place, the woman in the fountain. It was before we met, so I don’t know much about it, but he showed me the brochure yesterday when we were talking about the murder.”
She handed Jeppe the color brochure, about six-by-eight inches with twenty or so pages, well-worn on the edges and faded. The cover showed a blue stucco half-timbered building surrounded by tall trees under the headline The Butterfly House—Residential Psychiatric Treatment for Children and Teens.
Jeppe quickly flipped through it. Near the end there was a group photo of the staff, arranged like a grinning soccer team on the lawn under a flagpole. Bettina Holte stood far right on the front row, with a closed-lip smile. Nicola Ambrosio towered in the back with broad shoulders and white teeth.
“Can I take this with me?”
Malene Pedersen shrugged.
“Thank you.” Jeppe looked at Sara. “Have you called someone?”
“Malene’s mother is on her way. She lives in Dragør, so she should be here soon.”
“Good.” Jeppe gently patted Malene Pedersen’s hand. “My colleague will stay with you until your mother arrives. You can give her the names of Nicola’s relatives and friends, okay?”
She put her face in her hands and sobbed. Jeppe knew all too well what was in store for her, was familiar with the stages of shock, realization, anger, and depression. He knew that he couldn’t help, and he let himself out of the apartment with a not unfamiliar twang of inadequacy.
On the stairs, his phone rang. The name on the display cheered him up a bit.
“Werner! You just can’t live without me, can you?”
“Nope, Kørner. Obviously I’m the boil on your butt that you just can’t get rid of.”
Jeppe laughed grudgingly.
“What can I do for you, Anette?”
“I just wanted to hear a status report on the second death. Are we talking the same MO?
He could hear the baby whining in the background.
“Status report? What do you need that for? Tell me, do I need to ask Svend to lash you to the armchair so you can relax and enjoy your maternity leave?” Jeppe had reached the front door and let himself out into Amagerbrogade’s engine noise and squeaking brakes.
“Relax? That’s probably the last word I would describe maternity leave with. Fuck, it’s hard!” He could hear her adjusting both phone and baby again. “Come on, Jeppe. Give me something! My life’s pretty bland right now. I could use a bit of diversion.”
Jeppe walked toward Norgesgade and his parked car.
“Well, all right, what do you want to know?”
She didn’t skip a beat. “Are the two killings in some way connected?”
“Ha, Anette, I know you!” Jeppe dodged a group of teenagers with their noses in their cell phones. “If you get involved, you’re not going to be able to quit.”
“Oh, come on! What do you think I’m going to do? Go out investigating with my sleeping baby around in a stroller?”
“You would!” Jeppe stopped, hesitating for a second. “Well… I’ll give you one word. One! If you want more diversion than that, you’re going to have to subscribe to Netflix. Got it?”
“Yes, fine. Well, out with it, already!”
Jeppe glanced down at the brochure in his hand.
“The one word you’re getting from me—and you promise not to use it for anything—is: Butterfly. Butterfly House. There, you see? You tricked me into giving you two words after all. And now I have an autopsy I need to get to. Will you tell Svend and the baby I say hi?”
“Jeppe? Know what I think?”
“No, what do you think?”
“I think you miss me!”
CHAPTER 7
Anette Werner hung up the phone and looked down at her little girl, who had fallen asleep at her breast. The morning nap was one of the more reliable stretches of sleep for the day, if you could talk about a stretch of sleep. The baby mostly slept for an hour or two before lunch, and Anette usually lay down herself to catch up on some of the sleep she had lost overnight. She’d better do that now.
Carefully she pried a tender nipple out of her daughter’s mouth and carried her over to the sofa, which they had blocked in with pillows, and which she for some reason seemed to prefer over her expensive designer crib.
The breathless transition from arms to sofa went smoothly. Anette closed her nursing bra, pulled her top back into place, and sat down at the computer on the dining table between unread newspapers and breast pump parts. She would just do a quick search before she lay down.
The Butterfly House. A Google search revealed it to be a residential home for kids with psychiatric disorders, owned and run by a Rita Wilkins, at an address near the village Gundsømagle. Privately owned then, not run by the national health service, offering board to a handful of mentally ill kids, with a particular focus on schizophrenia and personality disorders. The home’s web page had been taken down, and further searches revealed that the Butterfly House had closed two years ago, but Google’s image archives showed cozy teenage rooms, a firepit, and a rural setting with woods and a pond in the backyard.
Jeppe must be hinting that the victims had a connection to this same program. Bettina Holte was a health-care aide, so without knowing what the new victim’s profession was, it was reasonable to assume that she and the second victim had both worked there.
Not that she cared, of course. Anette closed the computer and lay down on the sofa next to her infant daughter, grabbed a pillow and a blanket, and snuggled into that position on her side, where her chronically tender breasts hurt the least. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, listened to the baby’s quiet breathing, a
nd let the thoughts flicker tiredly through her head.
Bettina Holte had kept Anette company during one of her first, nervous breastfeeding sessions, had spoken to her soothingly and distracted her from the nipple pain. She had talked about the challenge of being a parent and about being present in the moment. Anette had quickly zoned out and stopped paying attention.
She rolled onto her back, took a deep breath, and let her feet fall out to the sides. Lifted her head and looked at the movement in the baby’s eyelids. What did she dream about when she slept? The same things she thought about when she was awake?
Speaking of being awake, Anette really ought to be resting. Damn it if she was going to use her scant sleep time lying there speculating about a case she wasn’t even expected to be working on. You would think Jeppe had infected her with all his talk about intuition and gut feeling. His nonsense about her connection to a sixth sense possibly opening up when she gave birth, cosmic awakening.
Anette sat up. These kinds of thoughts gave her heartburn. Investigative work was 90 percent elbow grease and 10 percent luck. Nothing else.
Irritably she flung the blanket aside and got up from the sofa. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well be working. She reopened the computer and had just jotted down the address of the now closed residential facility on an old envelope when Svend came in from his home office.
“I thought you were going to sleep when Cutykins was napping? Aren’t you exhausted?”
Nicknames were one of Svend’s specialties. One of many qualities she normally loved about her husband, but that had now started to annoy her.
“Can we just call her the baby until we give her a name?” Anette closed the computer with a hard click.
“Hey, can’t I decide what to call my own daughter?” He eyed the computer skeptically. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing,” Anette said, thrusting the envelope into the pocket of her sweatpants and standing up, causing the chair to rattle and skitter across the floor.
The Butterfly House Page 8
