Frost and Ashes (Daniel Trokics Series Book 2)

by Inger Wolf

  Something had happened this Christmas, however. While in a café in Tkalciceva, he ran into one of the men Trokic’s organization had helped. Like Trokic, the man was in his late 30s. Over a few too many beers, they caught up with each other’s lives and families. Eventually, Ivan asked how the lovely Sinka was doing. Trokic explained that they hadn't seen her in twelve years and didn't know if she was dead or alive. Then Ivan dropped the bomb: "But I saw her in Beograd this summer!"

  Trokic asked if she’d recognized Ivan, but he explained that he'd only caught a glimpse of her getting off the bus he was getting onto. As was his habit, Trokic then asked about her appearance, and Ivan described her as very beautiful, around thirty, slight of build, with a long, delicate nose, narrow-set brown eyes, and long hair. And when she put her hand on the bus railing, he'd noticed she was missing the tip of her little finger.

  Trokic considered him to be reliable, and Ivan certainly believed he'd seen Sinka, but after thinking about it, Trokic had his doubts. So many years had gone by; Trokic wasn't even sure he could recognize her. If, for instance, he saw a woman the right age who was missing the tip of her little finger, wouldn't that identifying mark grow so much in significance that he would see it as being unique? As for the description, in general, it fit a large percentage of ex-Yugoslavian or southern European women.

  Nonetheless, the episode had led him to consider several things. If it really was Sinka, what was she doing in Serbia, of all places? She who had hated Serbians more than Trokic did, if that was possible. Had she lied to them when she told them where she was going? Or had she possibly been kidnapped? Lost her memory? Her body had never been found, not in any of the mass graves dug up, not anywhere, even though she'd been reported missing. Their search for her in Croatia had been thorough and intense, but if she’d been in Beograd, that would certainly explain why they hadn't found her.

  He’d thought long and hard about whether to tell Ivan's story to the family–and to Jacob. And after a few days, he decided to tell his cousin, Tomislav, and leave it to him whether or not to tell Sinka's mother. Tomislav could also decide if anything further should be done about it. But Jacob.

  Trokic was worried how Jacob would react if he told him. Would he jump on the first flight to Beograd because someone saw a mirage? Sinka's disappearance had crushed him twelve years ago, completely, and this new information might open the old wound for no reason. And at a time when his friend finally seemed happy again, now that he had Lisa. She knew the whole story and even had gone to Croatia with Jacob on vacation last summer, to see the once war-torn region with her own eyes. No matter how much Trokic would have loved to see Jacob marry into his family, he couldn't expose him to unnecessary sorrow or the same questions he'd been dealing with. Yet Jacob had sensed something at the briefing. Actually, the day before. He knew Trokic better than anyone did, and one simple, meaningful look lasting an extra beat was enough to tell him that Trokic was hiding something from him.

  * * *

  Trokic loaded a CD, Audioslave's "Revelations," and turned up the volume. Then he turned it up another notch. He opened his fridge and was happy to see the slab of rye bread and a Toscana salami that hadn't passed its use-by date. On weekdays, he usually prepared decent meals with lots of vegetables and fish, but when he was on a demanding case, he forgot all about shopping, which left a yawning hole in the basic kitchen necessities. The next step down after cleaning out the refrigerator was pizza and other kinds of takeout he could hunt down late at night on the way home. A scary step for him, one that fortunately he seldom took. He made two sandwiches and carried them and yesterday's dregs from a bottle of red wine into the living room.

  Another thought hit him. Maybe Sinka didn't want to be found. There could be many reasons for that, too. Trokic had been sure she truly loved Jacob, but war did crazy things to people. She could have been raped or victimized by some other crime that had damaged her emotionally. The entire region was full of people with massive scars on their souls, and Sinka was sensitive to begin with. Trokic had heard the most heartbreaking stories of rape, abuse, humiliations, and the sale and leasing of thousands and thousands of women during the war.

  He sighed and took the last bite of food, then he emptied the bottle of red wine. He was about to flop down on the sofa when his phone rang. He stared at the display. An unfamiliar number. For a second, he thought about not answering it, then the image of Lukas popped up. A small face frozen in terror.

  "Yes?"

  "This is Jytte Mørk, Lukas's mother. Excuse me for calling so late."

  "That's okay, don't worry about it." He straightened up. "What can I do for you?"

  "It's so hard, I can't stand it, all these thoughts…" Her voice broke. "These thoughts flying around in my head. I just need to hear, is there any news?"

  "No, at least no breakthrough. We're following several leads, but there's no reason to get into them, we don’t know yet if they’ll help. But I can assure you, we're doing absolutely everything we can to find Lukas's killer."

  She sighed heavily into the phone as if she'd been holding her breath for hours and had finally let go for a moment. Then she began crying softly. Trokic waited as her pain trickled through the connection, and a half minute later she could speak again.

  "My thoughts keep running in circles. My husband thinks I'm going crazy. I say the same things, over and over, I keep coming back to the same thoughts. In circles. Like at some point I’ll find a different answer. I see myself walking along his route, looking for him, over and over. And around town. And I still end up at the same horrible place."

  Another sigh. "Have you spoken to the aide at the club? Adam, I think is his name. He might have seen something."

  "We've talked to him several times. He's the one who sent Lukas off that day. He doesn't know more than that."

  "Okay, but I saw him too while I was looking for Lukas. He was walking out of Brugsen."

  "Do you know what time that was?"

  "Not precisely. Sometime between four-thirty and five-thirty, maybe."

  Trokic frowned. He pictured the club leader's list. The young aide was definitely one of those named as not having left the club. "And you're sure he's the one you saw?"

  "Yes, I'm sure, absolutely. He's the one with the ponytail."

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Monday, January 8

  Monday didn't look good. Though Trokic felt well rested when he reached the station at nine, after getting a whole six hours of sleep, the sense that he was constantly banging his head against a wall had him in an unusually bad mood.

  Headquarters was swarming with people after a number of incidents that weekend. One of the other departments had confiscated four hundred grams of cocaine at a drug dealer's place, after tailing two young guys who turned around at a discotheque in town when they spotted a few sniffer dogs. And an executive from a large security firm in north Århus had beaten his wife so badly that she lay in a coma at the hospital. Her two sons from previous marriages were threatening to break the husband's neck. Finally, a few policemen had found "one of them idiots who torture themselves" who had "played all these strangulation games with himself and won," as one of the officers put it. Which Trokic immediately recognized as auto-erotic asphyxia–shutting off the oxygen to the brain for sexual pleasure. It involved the risk of losing control of the central nervous system, which led to a number of deaths every year across the globe. He'd once had the dubious honor of investigating the details of two of these deaths. It was especially difficult for families to be confronted by all the sex toys and weird contraptions. The victim often filmed himself during the act, which meant the police had a video as evidence and could show what went wrong. Usually, some security device broke. The last one they'd seen, a single man in his 30s, had even drilled a hole in his ceiling to make room for a complicated system of chains designed to hold him up a few seconds. The system had its faults, as it turned out. Trokic found it extremely difficult to explain to a suburban coupl
e in their 60s how their son had died. To tell them they were wrong, that it wasn't a bizarre killing by some perverted psychopath, that it happened while their own son was trying to satisfy himself sexually. It wasn't something Trokic had enjoyed, at all. Breath play was too dangerous.

  Last but not least, the city had been hit by a new wave of bus robberies. The bus company, Midttrafik, was going crazy. In other words, the police had their hands full.

  Trokic closed his office door and turned on his mini CD player. Soundgarden should keep his colleagues out, he thought. He kept the volume just low enough to not disturb the offices next to him, then he kicked his sneakers off into a corner. One of them bounced into a loose-leaf binder, and case files shot out all over the floor. The binder itself tipped over a wastepaper basket, and trash mingled with the file papers.

  "Damn it." He turned his back on the mess. Adam Sørensen would be showing up in a few minutes, and Trokic hoped he had a good explanation for why he was in the supermarket around the time Lukas had been captured by the surveillance camera.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, he started in on the stacks of papers covering his desk. He found copies of the four arson cases from Mårslet the constable had told him about. Each of them took up only one sheet of paper. More a short note for posterity. Arsons were difficult to investigate, for the obvious reason that fire destroyed technical evidence. Even proving a crime had actually taken place was hard enough. Experts in the behavior of fire were needed to locate where a fire had started, and they certainly weren’t sent out to investigate Thøgersen's playhouse burning down in the middle of a heat wave, or young Rasmus's scooter that suddenly got torched.

  Trokic thought back to Lukas's burns. How did all this fit? He must have gotten them after passing by the bakery. After he may or may not have been picked up on Hørretvej and later dropped off. It made no sense.

  * * *

  He shut off the music and trudged into the interview room. As he was about to start on his first cup of coffee, Adam Sørensen walked in. The aide's shoulders seemed to have shrunk. As if the world had rested its considerable weight on him. His eyes were a bit swollen, too, as if he’d been crying. Trokic pulled out a chair for him.

  "Welcome back. Have a seat."

  After pouring him a cup of coffee, Trokic remembered that the young man couldn't drink it black. He placed a few small cartons of cream beside the cup. Adam hesitated a moment, then sat down and smoothed the wrinkles out of his camouflage pants.

  "I'm assuming you know why we brought you back in?"

  Adam shook his head and shrugged. "Not really."

  "You do know how important it is to tell the truth to the police, right? Otherwise, you end up in our little black book of suspects, and it's not always easy to get out of it."

  Trokic was only half serious, but Adam slumped in his chair. He looked scared. "I guess you want to talk about me going into the supermarket." His voice was barely above a whisper.

  "That's right. You didn't tell me the whole truth about where you'd been the afternoon Lukas disappeared. And now I want you to. I want to hear everything."

  "I was only in there about fifteen minutes. I didn't think it was really necessary for me to mention it."

  "Of course, it's necessary. And I have great confidence in your ability to understand how important it is for us to have that sort of information. So. When did you leave, and when were you back at the club?"

  The young man pushed the cartons of cream around in small circles for a few moments while he was thinking. "I went down to pick up some cigarettes before the meeting. It was after I talked to Lukas's mother on the phone and told her he left. The cigarettes were the main reason, but I was also thinking I might run into him. I'm guessing it was about twenty minutes to five. I had to be back before the meeting started."

  "Did you see Lukas?"

  He shook his head.

  "But why didn't you tell us this before?" Trokic insisted.

  "I was worried it might give you the wrong impression. That maybe you thought I'd done something to him. There's so much focus on men like me who work with kids. It feels like I'm being watched every second. Like I’m probably going to abuse these kids. Sometimes…all I have to do is say I'm an aide in the club, and I can see what people are thinking."

  He sighed. "You have to be really careful not to give people the wrong impression. That's why I didn't mention it."

  "But what impression do you think you made on me when I found out you were lying?"

  Adam smiled sarcastically. "Yeah, I can see that now. It wasn't really very smart."

  Trokic crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. He studied the young man; it was impossible to see if he was still lying, but he’d definitely been at the club when the meeting started. Several of the others had confirmed it. Was he telling the truth about the times he'd given? Was it possible for him to have followed Lukas, killed him, and returned in time for the meeting?

  "What kind of car do you drive?"

  "I don't have a car; I bike to work. But it was just starting to snow, and it was a little bit slick, so I walked down to the supermarket."

  "You didn't see a green or blue car on the way?"

  "I don't remember seeing one."

  "Did you notice anything else?"

  Adam shook his head. "No, all I was thinking about was getting back as quickly as I could. The weather was terrible."

  "Okay, you can go. But don't go too far; we might need to talk to you again. Unfortunately, we can't cross you off our list of suspects."

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lisa kicked off her brown high-heeled boots and pattered over to the window to look out. The Hotel Radisson was in the middle of Amsterdam, with two coffee shops, Rusland and Basjoe, close by. The red-light district was also in spitting distance; with map in hand, she'd drug her suitcase through it from the main station to the hotel. The European seminar was being held in an architectonic curiosity: old buildings formerly housing businesses, a paper factory, and a vicarage, all covered under one roof, a single hotel whose price had to have given Agersund a minor heart attack. The view, though, was of roofs and an overcast sky. She'd been up before the roosters had even thought about crowing, and now she was tired. She went out to fill the bathtub; when the seminar started at ten, she wanted to be wide awake and ready to go.

  * * *

  She studied the vast assortment of tiny plastic bottles of toiletries before opening one and pouring it into the tub. As she lowered herself into the ocean of bubbles, someone began pounding on the door. She ignored them and sank further down into the water. The heat reached her cheeks, which were still cold from the walk to the hotel, and her skin tingled from blood shooting out through her capillaries. If it was room service or a maid, they would have to come back later, because the bath was simply fantastic.

  Time and space melted away, and she entered a fantasy featuring Jacob and his lips moving around the most sensitive areas of her body when the knocking began again. A voice called out. "Lisa? Hello?" Did hotel employees call guests by their first names? Unfortunately, no. She frowned, annoyed at the thought of abandoning Jacob and his blue eyes, sweet smile, and soft tongue in this luxurious bathtub. Quickly, she hopped out and nearly slipped on the marble floor. After wrapping herself in one of the gigantic white towels, she walked out to the door.

  "Yes?" she yelled. She wanted an explanation.

  "It's me, James Smith. From London. We're attending the seminar together."

  Lisa opened the door a crack and smiled cautiously at the man who had taken the liberty to disturb her. James was one of her old acquaintances from her time in Copenhagen, a Scotland Yard man who also tracked down pedophile networks on the internet. On several occasions, he’d been her contact in the British police. He was extremely tall, well over two meters, and beefy, with blond hair. And eternally blushing cheeks that Lisa suspected was the result of alcohol consumption whenever the opportunity arose. His voice poked at something i
n her memory.

  "Sorry. You're not properly dressed. I can come back later."

  "I was in the bathtub, but it's okay. I didn't know you were attending; otherwise, I would have called you. Long time. Three years?"

  "I first saw the list of those attending on the plane," James said, "and I inquired about you at the desk. Would you care for a drink at the bar before we get started? When you finish your bath? I don't know about you, but I need something to shake off the flight."

  "Of course! A half hour?" Though it was a bit early for a drink.

  They agreed to meet in the bar, located in the old vicarage at the center of the hotel. Then she hopped back into the warm bubbles.

  * * *

  "Are you still at Scotland Yard?"

  They sat in heavy brown chairs, Lisa drinking a cappuccino and James with a Jupiler beer. The high-ceilinged bar was lit by large chandeliers and an artificial fireplace, where a "flame" danced around a chunk of firewood.

  "No, I work in the private sector now, which incidentally means I’m paying for the seminar out of my own pocket."

  "Private sector? What, exactly?"

  "It involves personal security. To be more precise, I help protect people from stalkers. Some of my clients are famous, some not."

  "That's quite a career change. But it's interesting." So, Lisa thought. The British police had lost one of their best people in the fight against pedophiles. It happened. "Aren't they harmless, though, for the most part? The stalkers?"

  James nodded. "Most of them are, fortunately. Some of them do become violent, though. Murders have occurred. Which must not happen to any of my clients. That's why I'm keen to gain as much psychological insight as possible. I understand one of the instructors has experience with stalkers, a few cases at least, and I'm hoping to have a nice chat with him at some point."