The Stolen Angel

by Sara Blaedel

She shook her head at him. “I didn’t think we had the resources to be offering ourselves out to other people’s cases,” she rejoined matter-of-factly. “I’ll make sure Camilla gets in touch, but only if I can pop over to Rønholt in return.”

  Willumsen jumped back to his feet with a satisfied nod.

  “You do that, then. Tell your friend I’ll be available after lunch.”

  * * *

  “Walther Sachs-Smith did not kill his wife. I’ve never heard such rubbish,” Camilla burst out angrily. She was seated in Willumsen’s office with a cup of canteen coffee. “I’ve just spent all morning in a broom cupboard at Roskilde Police Station being questioned by a bunch of pinheads staring themselves blind.”

  She tossed her head shrewishly and glared at Willumsen.

  Louise remained silent in the background. Camilla and Willumsen had enjoyed some quite spectacular clashes over the years, but oddly enough for the moment it seemed they were both on the same side.

  “You may be right,” Willumsen conceded. “But there’s a reason why Nymand reopened the case, and that reason came from you.”

  Camilla folded her hands deliberately on the table in front of her, making no attempt to conceal how carefully she was weighing her words, before nodding and acknowledging that his assumption was correct.

  “There was a reason, of course. And a very good one at that. It concerns the Angel of Death,” she replied, pausing to consider Willumsen’s reaction.

  Louise’s superior raised an eyebrow and asked Camilla to clarify. “I’m afraid I’m not quite with you there,” he admitted.

  Camilla shook her head. “Clearly not. Nymand wasn’t, either. Every time I mentioned the Angel of Death he cut me off and wanted to know about my relationship to Frederik Sachs-Smith instead. Nymand’s convinced Frederik must have put me onto something.”

  “Did he?” Willumsen rejoined.

  Camilla stopped herself and threw up her hands. “I can’t go into any detail as to how I received my knowledge. As a journalist I’m bound to protect my sources, as you well know,” she said, staring directly at Willumsen across the table. He nodded, though Louise noted the crease that had suddenly appeared in his brow.

  “The day Inger Sachs-Smith was killed, the Angel of Death disappeared from her husband’s office. It had been hanging there on the wall for twenty-five years and in all that time it had been a well-kept family secret,” Camilla explained, leaning slightly forward toward Willumsen as she spoke. “We’re talking about a very old Byzantine treasure that ought not to be in the family’s possession at all, though the finer points of that discussion aren’t entirely relevant for now. The fact is, however, that this icon would be a highly prized target for some very wealthy collectors.”

  “What did Nymand have to say about this?” Willumsen inquired with interest.

  “He’d never heard of it, and who could blame him? I gave him a copy of this.”

  She produced a plastic folder from her bag and tossed it down in front of him.

  Willumsen picked it up and spread the documents it contained out on the table. The sheet at the bottom was a list.

  “The figures are in Danish kroner,” Camilla said, watching him as he read:

  Jackson Pollock canvas: 833 mill. kr.

  Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust”: 630 mill. kr.

  The Wittelsbach Diamond: 140 mill. kr.

  Blue and white jar, Guan Yuan dynasty: 130 mill. kr.

  The Jenkins Venus (late 1st, mid 2nd century): 68 mill. kr.

  Hind in bronze (10th century), Umayyad dynasty, Córdoba, Spain: 31 mill. kr.

  Mamluk enameled glass jug, Egypt or Syria: 28.3 mill. kr.

  “Famous artifacts change hands for the most exorbitant sums,” she said, studying Willumsen as she paused.

  “These are items sold at auction by Sotheby’s and Christie’s,” she then went on. “All of them registered artifacts that can be bought and sold freely on the open market. Similar antiquities and art treasures without certificate of registration are in a different price class altogether on the illegal market.”

  Willumsen studied the figures in silence. When he was finished he looked up at Camilla but said nothing.

  “What I’m trying to say here is that these things can be very valuable indeed. As such, I think the police should be interested in finding out who removed the icon from Walther Sachs-Smith’s office the same day his wife died.”

  Willumsen nodded pensively. “That could have been Sachs-Smith himself,” he pointed out. “Anyway, I don’t see how this would alter Nymand’s perception of things. If we ignore the possibility of Sachs-Smith having taken his own life after his wife’s death and instead proceed from the assumption he killed her and then went into hiding, the most obvious thing would be for him to have secured his most valuable assets first, wouldn’t it?”

  Camilla shook her head and closed her eyes for a second before looking up at him again.

  “What Walther Sachs-Smith had hanging on his wall wasn’t the real icon. He wasn’t that stupid. It was a copy,” she said, explaining how Sachs-Smith had commissioned the reproduction many years previously. “But the fact remains it disappeared on the same day his wife was killed.”

  Willumsen smiled thinly. “If it wasn’t that valuable, then there’s not much of a motive, is there?” he ventured, gathering the documents together.

  Camilla gave him a look of exasperation. Louise watched as the entire gamut of her friend’s emotional register passed across her face. For a moment she looked like she was about to cry, but then she slapped her hands down hard on the table in front of her.

  “Just believe me, will you?” she burst out, her coffee cup dancing momentarily in its saucer. “He didn’t do it!”

  Her outburst made Willumsen jump.

  “You’re looking in the wrong direction. This is all about the icon!”

  The next instant she was leaning into Willumsen’s face.

  “How much do you know about Carl Emil and Rebekka ousting their father from the board of his company when they negotiated the takeover at Termo-Lux?”

  Willumsen shrugged, conceding he knew little more than what had been in the papers the previous autumn.

  “The two of them are completely without scruples,” Camilla went on. “They’re more than capable of going all the way, make no mistake. They’ve just shown the entire country they hold nothing sacred. Walther and his father built that company from scratch, and yet that pair had no moral issues whatsoever with kicking him out and cheating him out of a fortune in the process.”

  “I don’t know the finer circumstances, but as I recall it he was bought out,” Willumsen put forward hesitantly.

  Camilla cut him off. “Wrong. This was the meanest, vilest takeover you could imagine, and I for one am amazed they got away with it. My guess is their parents were reluctant to air the family’s dirty laundry in public. By rights it should have been a matter for the fraud squad,” she added.

  “Where does the icon fit into that?” Willumsen looked like he’d lost the thread.

  “It all hangs together,” Camilla exclaimed. “It shows how little they give a damn. Those two would sell their own grandmother if they could make a buck and get away with it.”

  “And kill their own mother?” Willumsen queried, aghast. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Insulin,” Camilla stated more calmly. “Don’t you think it’s rather a coincidence the son’s got a whole medicine cabinet full of the stuff at home?”

  The police superintendent said nothing.

  “It’s certainly more likely than their father having done it,” she said after a moment.

  Willumsen got to his feet and stepped over to the window that faced out onto Otto Mønsteds Gade. He stood with his hands buried in his pockets and seemed to be miles away as he rocked on his feet. Then he turned back to Camilla and fixed her in a stern gaze.

  “Where is he?” he asked. “You met him, didn’t you?”

 
; When no answer was forthcoming he looked across at Louise.

  “Do you know anything about this?”

  One, two, three, four…Louise tried to count to ten, concentrating as hard as she could while staring back at him and shaking her head. When she’d learned that the Mid and West Zealand Police suspected Walther Sachs-Smith of murdering his wife, she had tried talking Camilla into telling them about their encounter in Hawaii.

  Willumsen went over to where Camilla was seated and placed a paternal hand on her shoulder.

  “I want you to be fully aware here that you may be in breach of the law concerning the withholding of evidence in a murder inquiry. That’s an offense that may be penalized with a term of imprisonment.”

  He gave her shoulder a squeeze before going back to the other side of the table and sitting down again.

  “So where did you meet him?”

  Camilla shook her head. Louise had prepared her for the fact that holding back such important information could lead to charges, but she had stood firm and seemed now to be continuing her stance regardless.

  “You can stop that right now,” she said, unrattled by the reprimand. “I came here because you asked me to, even though you’ve got nothing whatsoever to do with the case.”

  She sat motionless for a moment before changing tack.

  “But you’re right,” she said. “I did meet him. Walther Sachs-Smith is alive and well, and do you want to know why he’s keeping a low profile?” she asked, spitting sarcasm.

  Louise pulled her chair closer to the table, astonished that Camilla was now suddenly deciding to come clean about Walther Sachs-Smith. Moreover, she was quite aware that their meeting with the superintendent had now switched from an informal chat at Willumsen’s behest to an interview that would be going straight into the case file in Roskilde.

  The line that had formerly creased Willumsen’s brow was now gone and he leaned forward in anticipation. “That would indeed be rather interesting,” he said with a nod. “Do tell.”

  “He’s keeping a low profile until, with my help, he finds out who gained entry into his home the day his wife died.”

  “And I take it you’re not going to tell me where this meeting took place?” Willumsen suggested.

  Camilla shook her head and smiled at him for the first time.

  “Correct,” she replied. “But maybe now you can understand why I’m so exasperated about Nymand being so blinkered that the only suspect he can think of is Walther.”

  “But you haven’t told him what you just told me,” Willumsen came back at her. “I think perhaps you should.”

  Camilla picked her bag up off the floor, gathering the documents off the table and putting them back in the folder.

  “Yes, I suppose I’d better,” she nodded, rising to her feet. “But you’re going to have to back me up. Otherwise he’s going to carry on along the same track.”

  Willumsen did not reply, but he stood and opened the door for her.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said as she stepped out into the corridor.

  * * *

  “Rather a handful, isn’t she?” he said with annoyance after closing the door behind her. “I’m sorely tempted to charge her, just to make her really understand how serious a matter this is.”

  Louise stepped over to the door. She paused and studied him as he picked up the phone, listening while he asked to be put through to Nymand a moment later.

  “You owe me,” was the first thing he said, ignoring Louise’s presence completely. “She spilled. Walther Sachs-Smith is alive and she’s met him. I don’t know if he’s paying her or what kind of a deal they’ve struck, but it seems he’s got her running his errands for him. She claims he’s been forced to keep his head down, but if I were you I’d get someone over to his son’s place in Santa Barbara, and that vacation home of his in Hawaii. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the old man was shacked up there.”

  Louise marched back to her office and slammed the door shut. She was seething now. Nymand had gotten Willumsen to angle in on Camilla because he’d been unable to get anywhere with her himself, and Willumsen had tricked Louise into helping him out.

  “The lousy bastard,” she spat, switching off her computer and calling Rønholt in Search to make an appointment.

  “He’s in conference all day tomorrow over at the National Police. How about Wednesday first thing? I’ll make sure there’s some nice fresh pastries for you,” Hanne suggested. “How does that sound?”

  “Fine, thanks,” Louise decided.

  She wasn’t thinking of asking Willumsen’s permission.

  16

  6:52 p.m. Emerges. Walks down street, waits. Carl Emil jotted the words on his pad.

  He had been keeping the dancing school under surveillance for almost two hours, and on the few occasions someone had walked past the car he had hidden his face from view behind some documents that lay on his lap for the purpose.

  His head was spinning and he felt exhausted after another round of questioning in Roskilde. For several hours the woman detective had come at him about the insulin. How much did he keep at home? How often was it dispensed to him? She had bombarded him, and when he told her, she asked him again.

  He had tried to explain that people with diabetes always had to keep a stock of medicine in reserve. He kept some in the car, for instance, and at the office. But the killing had occurred six months ago and he simply did not keep track sufficiently to be able to prove it if there was some he had not taken himself.

  He rubbed his eyes and sensed the onslaught of a splitting headache.

  Nevertheless, he remained seated, fully concentrated with his eyes fixed on the door of the building. He had also been inundated with reporters phoning and wanting to know what he and his brother and sister had to say about the police suspecting their father of murdering his wife.

  “No comment,” he had told them from the outset. But after his interview at the police station he had stopped answering his phone altogether. He had even left his cell phone at home on purpose.

  The news was everywhere. Splashed all over the newspapers, the lead story on TV and radio. Carl Emil had switched on the news channel before leaving, only to switch it off again just as quickly when helicopter coverage flashed onto the screen, the camera circling over his parents’ property. Down on the ground, viewers could indulge in the sight of a couple of photographers who had somehow managed to intrude all the way up to the house, and the estate manager doing his best to keep inquisitive members of the public at bay. He had also noted a single police car parked on the gravel, so apparently they were still there.

  Now he was here outside the dancing school. As luck would have it, a big Volvo had pulled away from the curb just as he had arrived, allowing him to secure a parking spot from where he had a clear view of the school’s imposing entrance as well as the path leading around to the parking lot at the building’s rear.

  He had picked up his niece there on a number of occasions after her lesson, but otherwise it tended to be his sister’s Filipina au pair Marybeth who brought and fetched. She had dropped Isabella off today, and she would soon be back to collect her again.

  Carl Emil studied his niece as she stood waiting. It was dark now, and his eyes followed her as she went and stood under the light of a streetlamp. He knew Isabella was scared of the dark. Her au pair would never make her wait in back, where the parking lot was so dimly lit.

  Some five minutes later Marybeth came zipping up in Rebekka’s Mini Cooper. She turned into the lot around the back and shortly afterward came scurrying into view holding a cell phone to her ear. She waved to Isabella while still talking, beckoning her toward her.

  Isabella had a small sports bag slung over her shoulder and she seemed genuinely happy, dancing a few steps as she skipped along the pavement. She looked like she was bursting with things to tell, but the au pair was far too occupied by her phone call and didn’t have time to listen.

  Marybeth wasn’t exactly the most
punctual of the au pairs Rebekka had had in her employment, Carl Emil noted with satisfaction.

  As she and the girl began to walk back to the car, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the way his niece’s dark hair bounced against her down jacket’s shiny exterior. For a moment he had been afraid she would recognize his car, even though he was parked on the other side of the street, but she had not looked in his direction and now she disappeared into the darkness and out of his field of vision.

  * * *

  He had been following his niece all afternoon, having made the decision on Sunday evening.

  After his meeting with Wedersøe on Saturday he had driven out to the estate to search for the Angel of Death. He could see the police had been there the day before, but fortunately at that point the media had yet to get wind of the suspicions against his father. That thought at least was a relief as he sat and stared toward the parking lot entrance. Nevertheless, his search had been fruitless. He had looked everywhere inside the main house and had also gone through the attic, the two large wings, and the outbuildings without any sign of the icon. And to be honest with himself he had no idea where else to look.

  The problem with his parents’ property was that there was no junk piled up anywhere. The estate manager made sure of it. There wasn’t a blade of grass out of place, on Walther Sachs-Smith’s express instructions. Carl Emil had even been through the barn where the farm machinery was housed, though with just as little success.

  He started the car and the climate control kicked in immediately, blasting out its air and causing the pages of his notepad to flutter. He turned it down, glancing up in expectation of the headlights appearing from the parking lot.

  He drummed his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel while his thoughts wandered to his sister. He had driven over to her on Sunday afternoon to tell her about the wreath he had received. To begin with she refused even to listen to him, but when he mentioned the silk sash with the gold lettering she grudgingly acknowledged it could seem like a death threat.

  REST IN PEACE.