by Sara Blaedel
The hall was rather small. Against the wall, a small white dresser was placed under a tall, wood-framed mirror with some finely carved edging. Very feminine, Louise noted, stepping forward and opening the only door that led off.
The living room, too, was neat and prim. The walls were painted white and the room had an airy feel about it, Louise thought, glancing at the dining table with its four wicker chairs. Against the wall at the other end was a comfortable white sofa on which big Indian-inspired cushions with shiny spangles in the middle were arranged, while on the wall itself some generic floral prints hung in frames. The few books on the shelf next to the sofa were ordered according to color. There was a vase in the window with some withered flowers in it.
The room that presumably formed a centerpiece of Jeanette Milling’s life contained not a single indication of anything even remotely masculine. The only thing Louise thought stuck out in all the neatness were some dirty marks from someone’s shoes on the light-colored rag rugs.
The police probably hadn’t bothered to wipe their feet when they came to investigate the place, she thought, returning to the front door and doing so herself once more for good measure.
Jonas lingered in the hall. “Wipe your feet properly,” she instructed him. “And keep your coat on, it’s freezing in here.”
He nodded and went back to the mat.
“You think she’s dead, don’t you?” he said as Louise stepped toward the living room again.
For a moment she considered lying, but she decided not to. “I’m afraid it’s likely, yes.”
“It’s like she just went out to work,” her foster son commented as he followed her into the living room.
He was right. Apart from the dust and the dirty marks on the rugs, anyone might think Jeanette Milling had just gone out. There was a newspaper folded on the coffee table and on the kitchen counter a teapot in its cozy. She might just as easily have been at work like Jonas said.
Louise went over to the coffee table and picked up the newspaper. It was dated July 21, the day Jeanette had gone away. She put it down again and went into the bedroom. The bed was made, covered by a floral-patterned throw with small cushions arranged casually at the head. Jeanette had obviously had plenty of time before leaving. Louise stepped up and opened the wardrobe. Tops and blouses lay in neat piles on the shelves. Dresses, skirts, and cardigans hung from the rack.
“She wasn’t short of things to wear,” Louise mused. Some of the items looked expensive. Wouldn’t she have taken some of them with her if she had disappeared to start a new life somewhere?
Louise opened the little cupboard under the bedside table. On the top shelf was a small, leather-bound jewelry box containing an assortment of rings, earrings, and necklaces. Some of them looked like heirlooms. She put it down on the bed so Grete Milling could look through it, before bending down to see what was on the lower shelf. Behind a tube of hand lotion and a lip salve there was a dildo in its case and an opened packet of condoms, so it seemed Jeanette had not been entirely virginal.
She heard Melvin and Grete come in through the front door and closed the cupboard again.
“I’ve brought a moving box and some IKEA bags with us,” Louise said as Grete emerged into the living room. “I’ll just go and get them.”
They had about an hour before the moving men would be there to pack everything away.
“I’ve left your daughter’s jewelry box on the bed,” she added on her way out.
“I’ll come with you,” said Jonas. “I’ll take Dina for a walk.”
Louise smoothed her hand across his hair. He had grown pale, and she could tell the reality of the situation had gotten to him. The trauma of vacating the rectory was still there. They’d spent almost a week clearing the place out, and every night after they got home Jonas had cried himself to sleep.
She shouldn’t have let him come. He could easily have gone to see Camilla and Markus instead. Louise had suggested just that, but he had declined. She wondered if he and Markus had fallen out with each other, and whether that had been the reason he had gone off that day when they came over, but she didn’t want to ask and he had been as sweet as ever on the way over in the car. She just couldn’t see what his teacher had been talking about.
Her eyes followed him as he went and opened the car door with Dina’s lead in his hand. The yellow Labrador leaped out, wagging not just her tail but her entire hindquarters before straining the lead in the direction of the lawns where she obviously needed to pee.
Louise called out to Jonas to say the dog’s water bowl was in the back of the car. Then she took the moving box out and went back to the flat.
Inside, Grete Milling had already put a few items on the dining table, among them the jewelry box. She had placed a chunky gold ring on top of it, which she indicated to Louise when she came back in.
“That was her father’s wedding ring. She talked about having a goldsmith turn it into a ring she could use herself. Obviously, she never did, so I’d like to have it back.”
Louise nodded.
Grete Milling smiled. “Jeanette had so many plans, but it wasn’t always she found time to carry them through.”
“I think we all know that problem,” Louise replied affably, giving Melvin a hand assembling the box. “What about her clothes?” she added, stepping into the little kitchen where Grete had opened a cupboard and was carefully stacking some Royal Copenhagen china on the counter.
“All to be packed. If she doesn’t come home I’ll give them to the charity shop,” she answered, concentrating on the china.
“She’s been collecting this series ever since it first came out,” she said with a smile. “Blue Fluted Mega. Every Christmas and every birthday she’d get something new to add to it.”
The kitchen was orderly in the way of someone older, Louise thought, turning her attention to the fridge with its reminders and recipes, and a couple of party invitations stuck up with big magnets, a work outing in August and someone’s thirtieth birthday in September, dates long since passed.
Her thoughts wandered as the china mounted up on the counter. What sort of person collected dinner sets? She felt she was a long way off anything quite as grown-up herself, despite her fortieth birthday now looming. She managed perfectly well with the anonymous white plates and dishes she had bought on the cheap when Peter walked out on her and took the Italian set with him.
“I’ve got enough of my own at home, but still.”
Louise nodded. She well understood. The expensive items had probably been gifts from Grete herself.
She went back into the bedroom, where a door led out into the bathroom. A small washing machine took up space in the corner. The shelves by the sink were crammed with all manner of lotions, scents, and hair products. Jeanette Milling had a marked preference for the more exclusive brands. There were several bags of cosmetics, too. Louise wondered if she had even taken anything with her on vacation. She herself had only a single little purse for her makeup. But Jeanette must have packed some toilet articles, since there was no toothbrush or toothpaste on the shelf under the mirror where she might be expected to have kept them. Nor was there any shampoo or soap in the shower cabinet.
Louise heard a rustle and tearing of paper from the kitchen, where Melvin and Grete Milling had obviously started packing the china. She returned to the bedroom and stood for a moment, taking in what she saw.
She looked out the window and noticed that Jonas had let Dina off the lead. He had found a stick he could throw, and the dog kept leaping into the air to catch it before it landed.
There wasn’t much life in the area for a Saturday afternoon, she thought, her gaze passing over the unlit windows and empty gardens. It had started to drizzle, so maybe it was no wonder people were staying indoors.
“Is there anything from the bathroom you’d like to keep?” she asked as she walked back into the living room.
Grete Milling shook her head. “I’ve found a couple of things in the living roo
m here, and then there’s Jeanette’s photo album. I think it’s on the shelf over there.”
She nodded to indicate a tall glass-paneled cabinet behind the dining table.
“At the bottom.”
Louise went over and opened the front. At the bottom was a row of ring binders and a padded photo album. She crouched and pulled out a couple of the binders. The police would already have checked them out, but she flicked quickly through nevertheless.
Birth certificate, insurance papers, receipts for the rent. Exactly the kind of documents everyone kept. The next binder contained various papers from the bank, statements from her account, and an overview of her pension plan. She had some savings, almost two hundred thousand kroner, money deposited regularly over the last six or seven years.
“That’s a tidy little sum your daughter’s got saved up here,” Louise blurted out in surprise and looked up at Jeanette’s mother.
Grete Milling nodded and smiled. “She’s good with her money. Always putting aside every month. She’s been working at the physiotherapy clinic for quite a few years now, so it all mounts up. She was saving for a car to begin with, I think, but she still hasn’t taken her test, so I imagine she was just being sensible,” she said. “It’s always nice to have something for a rainy day.”
Louise nodded and could only agree, though it wasn’t what she practiced herself. She kept a little emergency fund so she wouldn’t have to borrow if the washing machine broke down, but that was it. Nothing at all that could be called savings.
She put the ring binders back and placed the photo album on the table with the other things that were being packed. Melvin helped carry the moving box out to the car. The Blue Fluted Mega was heavy. They took the IKEA bags back in with them.
In the living room Grete Milling was having a last look around. Louise didn’t really know what she had been expecting, perhaps that the elderly woman would sit down and cry, but the way she was going about the place it seemed more like she was bidding her daughter a quiet farewell. There was something very touching about the way she smoothed her hand over the back of one of the wicker chairs, the armrest of the sofa. Silently she walked around the flat saying good-bye, and was quite serene when shortly afterward she came over to Louise and told her it was time to lock up and leave.
Louise stood for a moment and surveyed the room. Not for one second did she believe that Jeanette Milling had planned her disappearance. Nothing of what she had seen here gave her the slightest reason to suspect that the flat’s occupier had not been intending to return.
She locked the door behind her and phoned Hans from the moving company to tell him she had left the key under the flowerpot by the front door.
Then she cast a final look up at the building, before calling for Jonas and Dina so they could all head back to Dragør.
15
I gather you were over in Esbjerg this weekend,” Superintendent Willumsen said, stopping Louise in the corridor after the Monday-morning conference in the lunchroom. “Don’t count on time off in lieu, even if Rønholt did promise you overtime.”
“I’m not counting on anything,” Louise replied curtly, turning into her office and switching her computer on.
“What’s he doing with himself?” Willumsen inquired with a nod toward Lars Jørgensen’s empty chair.
Her work partner hadn’t come in yet. She told Willumsen he had to collect his twins at their mother’s and take them to school.
“He’ll be here by ten at the latest,” she said, fully aware that she was waving a red rag in Willumsen’s face.
“It’s like a rest home for pregnant nuns, this department,” he moaned before turning his attention back to Louise. “We don’t have the resources for you to be running around wasting time on cases that don’t belong to us.”
She let out a sigh. Her boss was notorious for roping people in from HQ’s other departments if he happened to be short, but was always less than inclined to lend anyone out himself.
“What I choose to do in my spare time is my own business. You were on vacation last week, so I couldn’t have asked you anyway,” she said, trying her best to sound ironic.
Willumsen sat down on the low bookcase inside the door. Only then did she realize Lars Jørgensen had managed to get to the bottom of his pile of case folders. The shelf was cleared—he must have even taken the lot down into the archives. Job done. So much for Willumsen’s rest home. Willumsen himself, however, was of course oblivious. He was just chewing her out to be on the safe side.
“Rønholt wants to borrow you for one more day to go through the Milling case. Claims it needs a fresh pair of eyes.”
Louise looked at him in anticipation.
“I told him no. You shouldn’t be wasting your time on it. The girl’s missing, that’s all there is to it. The case is cold. She’ll turn up herself if she wants to,” he proclaimed, resolutely folding his arms in front of his chest.
Louise tipped back in her chair. “That’s where you’re wrong,” she said quietly, trying not to get his back up. “Jeanette Milling didn’t disappear of her own accord. There’s absolutely nothing to indicate she did. My view is she fell victim to a crime.”
Willumsen shook his head. The dark sheen of his hair shimmered in the light, the little knot of his tie drawn tight against his throat. His vacation had done him good, she realized suddenly. He had seemed so tense recently. Pressured and uncomfortable. She guessed things were more serious with his wife than he was letting on. Or maybe he himself wasn’t well. As trying as it was, Louise was perfectly capable of making allowances for his gruff demeanor and blunt words, as long as he didn’t drive the whole department mad with his insufferable moods.
“She didn’t disappear of her own accord,” she repeated. “Anyway, you’ve no need to worry about lending me out, because I’ve already read the case file. I borrowed it when I was over at Rønholt’s on Friday and went through it over the weekend. I don’t suppose he reckons anyone ever works more than they get paid for.”
Willumsen smiled feebly. “So you think something happened to her?” he said, dropping his arms to his sides.
Louise nodded. “A drowning accident maybe, but then you’d think her body would have washed up by now,” she said. “But whatever happened to her, there’s no doubt at all in my mind that she didn’t just decide to walk off.”
“All right, I’ll get in touch with Rønholt myself and tell him what you think. He won’t have to bother me anymore after that,” Willumsen concluded with some satisfaction, barely concealing the fact that he would be chalking the kudos up to his own account for her having read through the report on her own time.
“You do that,” said Louise, studying him with anticipation when he remained seated on top of the bookcase. Clearly he was about to bring something else up.
“I saw in the paper this morning the police down in Roskilde are suspecting old Walther Sachs-Smith of doing his wife in,” he said eventually, screwing his eyes up slightly as he asked if she had heard anything about it.
Louise frowned, instantly annoyed with herself at not having looked at the paper herself before leaving for work. After Jonas and Dina had moved in she never usually got around to reading it until the evenings. Most days it tended simply to join the pile on the kitchen floor. She had more than enough to do with making dinner and Jonas’s packed lunch.
“Seriously? How did they work that out?” she blurted, shaking her head in astonishment.
“It does sound a bit mysterious,” Willumsen conceded. “But if you ask me, so is the fact that Nymand and his people are reopening the case following information given to them by your friend Camilla Lind.”
Louise tried to look nonplussed. She had known perfectly well what had been coming and had decided to stay neutral, promising Camilla not to say a word about her meeting with Walther Sachs-Smith. In return, she had insisted on her girlfriend keeping quiet about Louise having been in the know.
Willumsen studied her. “I gave Nymand a ri
ng, just to get the lowdown on what had happened to make them reopen the case.”
He folded his arms across his chest again and tilted his head slightly to one side.
“And guess what? It seems they’d spoken to Camilla Lind at your insistence. Which then led them to do some new tests on the blood samples they’d taken after the old woman’s death. God knows how she might have talked them into it. It’s a very expensive business once you have the foreign labs involved. But all of a sudden there it was, bingo! The results show Sachs-Smith’s wife most likely didn’t kill herself after all but died from a lethal injection of insulin. Now they reckon the sleeping pills were just to make her drowsy and camouflage a murder.”
Louise couldn’t think what to say.
“What does Camilla Lind actually know, I wonder?” Willumsen mused, leaning forward with his hands propped against his knees.
“Wasn’t there some story about her carrying on with the eldest son when she was over in the States just recently?” he went on, apparently having paid more attention to watercooler gossip than Louise had realized.
“Yes,” she replied. “She did an interview with Frederik Sachs-Smith when she was in Santa Barbara.”
Willumsen nodded. “I thought so.”
“I can’t help you any more than that,” she said, a feeble attempt at bringing the conversation to an end.
He brushed the matter aside with a swipe of his hand in the air. “Not important. I’d like to speak to her myself. Get her to come in to my office sometime today. I’m curious to know what sort of info she sniffed out over there. She knows something about that family, that’s for sure.”
“What, so you can gloat at Nymand’s expense?”
Louise couldn’t help but laugh. Willumsen had always been drawn by the high-profile cases, but she had never before known him to encroach on one that so obviously belonged to another police district.
“Absolutely not,” he snapped. “But we’d be able to offer assistance if we knew something they didn’t.”
