Smoke Screen

by Jorn Lier Horst

  ‘The video analysis has tracked him to here,’ he said.

  Kovic recognised the man, the one dressed head-to-toe in dark clothing. The bomber.

  Stenberg showed the image to the hotel manager.

  ‘Have you seen this man?’ he asked. ‘Have there been any guests recently who have been dressed like this?’

  Rønning shook his head.

  ‘I can’t say for sure…’

  Stenberg showed the image to the housekeeper who had worked with Amy Linh.

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  Elena Vilensky shook her head.

  ‘Do you have him under surveillance?’ Kovic asked. ‘Do you know if he’s currently in the hotel?’

  ‘They’re going through the rest of the footage as we speak,’ Stenberg replied. ‘But they haven’t seen him leave. Both the tram and the bus occasionally stop right outside the entrance however, which blocks our view, so it’s impossible to be a hundred percent certain. There may be explosives in the building, though.’

  The hotel manager had been standing, bewildered, as he listened.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ he asked.

  ‘We need a master key,’ Stenberg answered and turned back to Kovic. ‘We have people at every exit and on every floor,’ he explained. ‘We’re evacuating everyone, all the guests and staff, and we’ll be going through every room.’

  ‘Start on the sixth floor,’ Kovic said, filling him in on what Elena and the hotel manager had told her.

  In the lobby, chaos ensued. The guests who had only just arrived were protesting against the fact they were being sent back out, while others were demanding to be allowed back up to their rooms to collect their bags and other items before leaving. The protests and objections were futile. As they were all ushered out, the names of the staff and guests were registered, and they were shown a photo of the bomber. A dog handler from the bomb squad was waiting outside with a springer spaniel, letting it sniff everyone as they passed.

  Stenberg was handed a document with a record of all the guests who had stayed at the hotel over the past twenty-four hours, and commanded four armed officers to accompany him upstairs. Kovic followed them towards the stairwell and the sixth floor.

  The corridor was empty. None of the rooms looked like they had a Do Not Disturb sign hanging on the door.

  The specially trained officers began in room 601. Stenberg knocked, leaving it ten seconds before unlocking the door with the master key. Two men entered the room, their weapons held up in front of them.

  Kovic hung back, but could see that the room was empty.

  ‘Bring the explosives detection dog up,’ Stenberg said into the police radio. ‘Sixth floor.’

  They left the door open and moved on to the next room. Also unoccupied.

  A man in a blue shirt opened the door to room 603. He took a step back when he saw the police officers. Stenberg ordered him out into the corridor. The man did as he was told. He gave his name and other personal details as two of the officers searched his room. One came out with a red puffer jacket, as if to demonstrate that this was not the man they were looking for.

  ‘We have detected a potential threat in the building,’ Stenberg explained. ‘The hotel is being evacuated. Take only the things that you absolutely need and leave.’

  The guest asked no questions. He put on his shoes, grabbed his jacket and a satchel, and moved towards the stairs.

  There were no guests in the next room, although it was clearly being used.

  The sniffer dog arrived and was taken in to search room 601. Stenberg and his team worked their way through the corridor.

  ‘Someone must have noticed or said something about a guest who’s been here for at least five days,’ Kovic said. ‘Who’s been staying since before New Year’s Eve too. There can’t be many of them.’

  ‘There’s nothing mentioned here,’ Stenberg said, waving the guest list.

  The empty rooms were searched through swiftly, by both the team and the dog.

  They now reached the large suites at the end of the corridor. Stenberg stood outside room 620 and checked the guest list.

  ‘The guest has checked out, but it hasn’t been cleaned,’ he said, knocking anyway. He waited a moment, used the master key and opened the door. Kovic peered in as the men entered the room. The curtains were drawn, and the room was shrouded in half-darkness. The bed was in disarray and one of the cushions from the sofa lay on the floor.

  ‘Clear,’ one of the two officers reported.

  They left the room and moved on to the next one. Kovic stayed where she was. It was obvious that someone had been staying in that room for an extended period of time, and that it hadn’t been cleaned every day. Empty takeaway boxes were scattered across the desk, along with about eight to ten empty bottles that had once contained some sort of soft drink. Two tied-up plastic bags had been left on the floor next to the overflowing rubbish bin. One of them had the Kiwi supermarket logo.

  Kovic walked into the room. It smelled like stale food. She pulled the curtains aside to let some light in and stepped in a sticky patch on the floor. There was something else beside it. Kovic bent down and picked it up. A piece of wire, about a centimetre long.

  She walked back out to the corridor and called to Stenberg.

  ‘Who was staying in this room?’ she asked.

  Stenberg checked his list.

  ‘Jens-Christian Kvist,’ he read. ‘Why?’

  ‘I think he might be the man we’re looking for,’ Kovic answered.

  She checked the spelling and logged on to the internal police system to access the national population register.

  ‘No results,’ she said. ‘Could be a fake name.’

  Stenberg called out to the dog handler and pointed to the open door of room 620.

  The springer spaniel was let in, working its way around, searching as eagerly as it had done in the first room. Swerving around the room, nose down to the floor, sniffing up chair legs and along the edge of the bed.

  And then it lay down flat in front of the two rubbish bags.

  ‘Detection,’ the dog handler reported.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Kovic asked. ‘Is there a bomb?’

  ‘There have been explosives in there at some point in any case,’ the dog handler answered.

  Stenberg beckoned to them, indicating that they had to leave the room.

  ‘We’re locking it down and calling the rest of the bomb squad in,’ he said.

  Kovic took a few steps back down the corridor, and felt something click, as if all the pieces were falling into place.

  Amy Linh had come too close to the bomber.

  67

  ‘Ruth-Kristine,’ Emma stammered. ‘What are you doing here? … Why…?’

  Ruth-Kristine made a beckoning gesture with the pistol before she turned to Jette Djurholm.

  ‘You had to try it? You had to try to warn her?’

  Djurholm did not answer.

  ‘Go in,’ Ruth-Kristine told her brusquely, dragging Jette by the arm and shoving her back into the house. ‘You too. Get in,’ she continued, nodding back to Emma, who looked around quickly in the hope that someone outside had noticed what was going on. But there were no neighbours to be seen.

  Emma stepped into the warm hallway.

  ‘Give me your phone.’

  Emma cursed inwardly, but obeyed.

  Ruth-Kristine held the door to the living room open for her, staring Emma down as she did so. The years had clearly taken a toll. Deep wrinkles burrowed into her forehead. She didn’t have any eyebrows left, but it looked as if she had drawn some on. She had a slight overbite. The skin on her cheeks was ravaged by sores. The marks of a difficult life, Emma thought.

  Ruth-Kristine scratched at her face feverishly and asked, ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I…’

  Emma wanted to answer, but couldn’t find the words. Ruth-Kristine pushed her into the room too. Her sister, Britt Smeplass, was sitting inside. />
  ‘Who knows you’re here?’ Ruth-Kristine asked.

  ‘No one,’ Emma said. ‘No, actually, one person. Alexander Blix, the investigator. I sent him a text before I left.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Ruth-Kristine retorted aggressively.

  ‘Give me my phone, I can show you.’

  Ruth-Kristine looked as if she were considering it, but ended up stuffing the phone into her trouser pocket.

  ‘What’s going on here, then?’ Emma asked, trying to gain control of her trembling voice.

  Britt Smeplass refused to meet Emma’s eye. Djurholm walked over to the sofa and sat down, keeping her distance from Ruth-Kristine’s sister.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Ruth-Kristine repeated, making a motion with her head towards the sofa, a sign that Emma should sit down too.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ Emma said. ‘To try and find out what happened to your daughter. The police in Norway have arrested Sophus Ahlander, and they’re looking for…’

  Ruth-Kristine paced back and forth across the room – over to the kitchen door, turning on her heel and walking back. Deep in thought.

  ‘Sit down,’ she commanded again.

  Emma did as she was told. Her feet brushed against a grey cat resting under the table. It didn’t seem too bothered.

  ‘You’re only making things harder for us,’ Britt said.

  Emma turned to face her. Britt had wild, wiry hair that reached her shoulders. Her lips were dry and flaky. A gold necklace lay on top of her grey cotton jumper. She leant forwards jerkily, only to sit back just as suddenly.

  ‘How could you have possibly thought this would end well?’ Britt carried on, looking at her sister.

  ‘It won’t,’ Ruth-Kristine said. ‘It was never meant to end well either.’

  Emma had no idea what the sisters were talking about.

  ‘Why did you bring her into this too?’ Britt asked, nodding to Emma. ‘She hasn’t done anything.’

  ‘Jette tried to warn her,’ Ruth-Kristine said, her eyes boring into the Danish woman. ‘And anyway, she’s come all the way here, from Norway, on a Saturday, and she turns up at this house, this early in the morning, asking about Patricia, asking about me. I’m not taking any chances. Not now.’

  She took a step closer to the coffee table in the middle of the room. Staring intently at Jette Djurholm.

  ‘Have you heard anything yet?’

  Djurholm glanced quickly at her phone in the centre of the table. Shook her head.

  ‘Send another. Say it’s urgent.’

  Djurholm pulled the phone towards her and unlocked the screen with her thumb. Under Ruth-Kristine’s supervision, she typed out a brief message before putting the phone back down on the table between them.

  It only took a few seconds before it vibrated. Djurholm leant forwards and looked at the display, before sagging back into the sofa.

  ‘Two minutes,’ she said, looking up at Ruth-Kristine, who nodded and lifted her shoulders up to her ears, as if to draw as much air into her lungs as possible.

  She began walking restlessly back and forth across the room again. Emma tried to work out what they were waiting for, what was about to happen. She asked, but none of the other women answered. The atmosphere in the room was electric – a charged silence that engulfed them.

  A few sounds reached them from outside. A bicycle being propped up against the front wall of the house. Light steps making their way over the path. A hand on the door handle. Someone entering. A door, closing behind them. Emma looked at Ruth-Kristine, whose face had drained of colour. It looked like she was struggling to breathe.

  ‘Hello?’

  The voice came from the hallway.

  The voice of a young girl.

  68

  ‘What are you saying?’

  Blix moved the phone from one hand to the other, sitting up straight as he did so.

  ‘It is not Patricia,’ Ann-Mari Sara repeated.

  ‘But…’

  ‘I don’t know who it is yet, but we’re working as fast as we can to identify the child.’

  ‘But, is it…?’

  ‘It’s a girl.’

  ‘Have you checked the missing-persons database?’

  ‘First thing I did,’ she said, a little disgruntled. ‘We have no other children from around that time who match our findings.’

  ‘So … is the girl the same age? Or rather, has she been there for the same amount of time that Patricia has been missing?’

  ‘It’s difficult to determine that accurately,’ Ann-Mari Sara said. ‘But she has been there for a long time, we know that.’

  Blix scratched his head.

  ‘We’re checking with the neighbouring countries, too,’ Sara continued. ‘To see whether they have any missing girls who could be a match. We should hear back in the next few hours.’

  Blix nodded to himself as his thoughts raced off in several directions. He thanked her for the update, hung up and told Lone Cramer the news.

  She sent a quick look his way. ‘How is that possible?’ she asked. ‘Could someone have made a mistake, somewhere? Maybe there’s something wrong with the DNA analysis?’

  Blix shook his head. He had no explanation to give her, and was simply relieved that he hadn’t said anything about the find to Christer Storm Isaksen. But his mind wandered to the photo Isaksen had received. His conviction that it was Patricia.

  Maybe he was right.

  They drove past a sign that informed them it was twenty-seven kilometres to Horsens. His phone rang again. Kovic this time.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked.

  ‘PST’s video analysis team have tracked down the bomber,’ she explained. ‘He’s been staying at Hotel Gyldenløve in Majorstua, where Amy Linh worked. The murder victim from the Botanical Garden. The explosives detection dog sensed traces of explosives in his room.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Blix asked.

  ‘His name is Jens-Christian Kvist,’ Kovic said. ‘We initially thought it could have been a fake name, but he doesn’t live in Norway, he lives in—’

  ‘What did you say his name was?’ Blix exclaimed, seizing the papers he had been given by Lone Cramer.

  Kovic repeated the name.

  Blix stared blankly at the document in his hands for a few moments, before blinking a few times and eventually replying.

  ‘I’ve questioned him before. In the Patricia case, a long time ago. He’s married to Jette Djurholm.’

  ‘We’ve circulated him as wanted,’ Kovic continued.

  ‘So we don’t know where he is?’

  ‘All we know is that his car crossed the Øresund Bridge a few hours ago. He’s on his way home to Denmark.’

  69

  ‘What’s so urgent then? Why…?’

  The girl entered the living room and stopped in the doorway. She had a touch of eye shadow on and some light-pink lipstick, with just a trace of glitter. She was wearing ripped black jeans and a hoodie with FILA written across the front.

  She cast a quick, uncertain glance at Jette, who stood up as if to embrace her but then seemed to change her mind and sank down onto the sofa again.

  ‘Caroline, these are…’ Jette hesitated. ‘A few friends of mine,’ she finished, her eyes on Ruth-Kristine, whose forehead was drenched in sweat.

  Ruth-Kristine took a sudden, short breath. A small gasp, accompanied by the realisation that she still had a gun in her hand. She looked around, searching for a suitable place to put it down, but it was too late – the girl had seen the gun, and her eyes widened.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ruth-Kristine said. ‘It’s not … I didn’t mean to…’

  She couldn’t find the words to finish her sentences.

  ‘I’m not dangerous. I won’t hurt you.’

  Caroline looked from one woman to another. Ruth-Kristine’s words had done nothing to reduce the shock etched into her face.

  ‘Mum, what’s happening?’

  Jette didn’t answer, just closed her eyes. E
mma thought that it looked as if she was going to snap at any moment. Ruth-Kristine took a step closer to Caroline, holding the gun behind her back and tucking it into the waistband of her trousers. She stared at the girl, wide-eyed. She walked around her, behind her, taking her in. Ruth-Kristine raised a hand to her, gently, as if to touch her, but withdrew it. Caroline watched her.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ she asked, now turning to look at her mother on the sofa. ‘Is he not back yet?’

  Jette shook her head. ‘I don’t know when he’ll be back, my love.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Ruth-Kristine cut in sharply. ‘Do not call her your love.’

  The muscles of her face tightened and she squeezed her eyes shut, as if Jette’s words had caused her physical pain. Britt got up from the sofa and approached Caroline, a strained smile on her face, holding her open palms up in front of her.

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ she said. ‘We … just want to talk to you. Right?’

  She looked at her sister, but Ruth-Kristine didn’t say anything. She only had eyes for Caroline. Emma tried to read Ruth-Kristine’s expression. She looked as if she were about to start crying.

  ‘Who are you?’ Caroline asked. ‘Are you from Norway?’

  ‘Yes, we are,’ Britt answered with a warm smile. ‘We arrived last night.’

  ‘You stayed here, overnight?’

  Ruth-Kristine blinked a few times, like she had suddenly come to. She reached the sofa in two brisk steps.

  ‘Did you not think to tell her?’ she snarled, talking through clenched teeth.

  Jette didn’t look up. She sat, nervously rubbing her hands together.

  ‘Tell me what?’ Caroline asked.

  Jette still didn’t say anything. She had started to tremble. Tears erupted from both eyes simultaneously.

  ‘We were waiting for you,’ Ruth-Kristine said finally, turning to face Caroline. ‘That’s why we’re here.’

  ‘Me?’

  Ruth-Kristine nodded. ‘God,’ she uttered, breathing in a sudden hiccup. ‘You’re…’

  She covered her mouth with her hand. Caroline took her phone out, a move that made Ruth-Kristine tense up.