Farewell to Freedom

by Sara Blaedel

  Camilla broke off part of her cinnamon roll. There wouldn’t be anything to that story until the police made some sort of breakthrough, but it wouldn’t surprise her if Kvist got away with it anyway.

  “It’s right out where all those car dealers live, with a fabulous view over the Silkeborg lakes. They can all afford to have that kind of art,” Kvist reminded them. “So it wouldn’t be that hard for the thieves to figure out someone’s home address, case the joint, and then make their move when the occupants go out for cocktails with their neighbors.”

  Camilla thought about the officers handling the case. Surely that scenario must have occurred to them too.

  “Well, look into it then,” said Terkel, interrupting her thoughts. “Have you got anything else?”

  Kvist shook his head, shoving the other clippings under the story that had been accepted. He glanced over at Camilla, who quickly wiped the crumbs from her mouth.

  “Lind, what have you got?” Høyer asked.

  “I’ve got a homicide. A young woman was found murdered in Vesterbro last night.”

  Høyer raised an eyebrow to show his interest.

  “There’s not much to tell right now. An anonymous tip to the police. They found her down by Skelbækgade somewhere near the entrance to the Hotel and Restaurant Management School.”

  “So it’s a prostitute,” Kvist said, leaning back.

  Camilla ignored him.

  “The woman’s throat was slit, and Suhr has a team on the case,” Camilla continued. “They haven’t IDed her yet. But they’re willing to say—off the record—that they suspect she was from Eastern Europe.”

  “Yeah, well, plenty of them are these days,” Kvist said, cutting her off, suggesting that he go to Silkeborg to talk to some of the victims who had had their expensive artwork stolen. “I’d really like to follow up on this story,” he said.

  Camilla raised her voice trying to hold her boss’s attention. “She was no more than twenty.”

  The editor-in-chief sat in silence for a moment, nodding as he thought. “Go ahead and write it up, Camilla, but keep it to two columns.”

  “It sounds like a really brutal killing,” Camilla continued, frustrated that Høyer didn’t think the story deserved more space. “It could be a big story, especially if we haven’t got anything else.”

  “But we do have something else,” Kvist interrupted from the other side of the table, and it looked like Høyer agreed with him.

  “I’ll call the forensic pathologist who examined the body last night. If it was a professional hit—”

  Camilla was interrupted by her cell phone ringing. She was just about to switch it off to continue her argument and make sure her story didn’t get buried by the art heist; but when she saw it was Markus calling, she pushed her chair back from the table, quietly answered, and told her son to make it quick. At the same time she kept her eyes on Høyer, who was asking Kvist to present his suggestions for the paper.

  “What do you mean, a baby?” Camilla asked, speaking into her cell and asking her son to speak up a bit. “In the church? When you were on your way to Nørreport Station?”

  Camilla could hear the irritation in her own voice. As her son’s words continued to spill out, she took a deep breath and calmly asked him to repeat everything he’d just said, but this time a little slower. Even though she could hear Kvist pushing his art heist, she turned to face the wall so she could concentrate on what her son was saying. Only now did she notice the quaver in his voice and how upset he seemed amid his disjointed sentences. She let him go on until he’d gotten everything out that he needed to say.

  “I’ll be right there,” she said, ending the call.

  The others at the conference table could see the change in Camilla and curiously looked at her as she returned her attention to their editorial meeting.

  “I’ve got to go. My son and his friend found an abandoned baby on the floor of Stenhøj Church.”

  3

  DOWN ON GOTHERSGADE, CAMILLA WAVED HER HAND FOR A TAXI. The first three were occupied and drove right past, so she started jogging along Rosenborg Castle Gardens toward Copenhagen’s Nørreport Station, keeping her eye out for a cab.

  “Stenhøj Allé,” she said when a minivan with its taxi light on veered to the curb to pick her up. The morning traffic had subsided as they headed out toward Frederiksberg, the well-to-do neighborhood of Copenhagen where she lived, but she still thought they were going too slow. She knew she ought to be using this time to put in a call to the Institute of Forensic Medicine and locate the forensic pathologist who had been out to Skelbækgade last night, but she couldn’t concentrate with all the adrenaline coursing through her veins, triggered by Markus’s distress. She pictured his cheerful face, his short, spiky hair that he styled every morning with gel and hairspray. He was quite grown-up for an eleven-year-old, but still enough of a child to call his mother when something upset him.

  She had her wallet in her lap as they reached the white Lutheran church with a red tile roof.

  “You should have told me that you were going to pay with a credit card before we started,” the cab driver said. He flashed her a look of irritation in the rearview mirror as she passed him her card.

  “Look, do you want to get paid or not?” she asked, gathering her handbag from the floor.

  A moment later she was out of the cab, making her way down the side of the church. A police car drove past and turned into the parking lot next to the cemetery. Camilla followed the path to the back of the church and the courtyard in front of the parsonage. The pastor, Henrik Holm, greeted her in the doorway, holding a little bundle in his arms. Markus ran over to Camilla from the kitchen chair where he had been sitting, with his friend Jonas close on his heels, who greeted her with that slightly hoarse voice of his that Markus thought was so cool.

  The pastor tried to hush them as they both started talking at once, telling Camilla that they had been on their way out that morning when they heard a baby crying. But their eager explanation was interrupted by the piercing chime of the doorbell. The boys raced excitedly out of the kitchen and through the rooms to the front door to let the police in.

  “What exactly is going on?” Camilla asked hurriedly once she was alone with the pastor.

  He had sat down, rocking the bundle calmly back and forth.

  “I sent the boys off just before 9:30 and was standing in the doorway watching them cross the courtyard. Suddenly they stopped and stood still for a moment, and then they started running toward the church. I went out to tell them they needed to get going or they’d be late for the field trip. And that’s when they came rushing back, yelling something about a baby crying.”

  Camilla leaned in over the infant in the pastor’s arms. The tiny face was sleeping calmly, the thick, dark hair plastered to its head.

  “Is it a boy or a girl?” she asked.

  “It’s a baby girl,” he replied, turning to look toward the living room as they heard footsteps crossing the parquet floor.

  “Let me put some water on for coffee while you talk to the police,” Camilla suggested, and then she greeted the two officers who came into the kitchen.

  “Hello,” the pastor said in a voice close to a whisper. “She just fell asleep, but otherwise she’s been crying nonstop ever since the boys found her.”

  The officers nodded sympathetically, which signaled to Camilla they must have children of their own and knew first-hand how important it was to avoid waking her.

  “Where did you find her?” one of the officers asked as he turned to look at Jonas and Markus, who suddenly seemed nervous and shy.

  “By the front entrance of the church,” they said, but when they didn’t say anything else, the pastor took over.

  “The boys were on their way to school when they heard her,” he explained and then nodded to Camilla who was gesturing at a kitchen cupboard as she searched for the coffee.

  “She was lying on the stone floor just inside the door, wrapped in this.”
The pastor fingered the dark blue terrycloth towel that was wrapped around the infant’s body.

  The baby girl stirred uneasily as the officer moved the blue towel from her face, but she didn’t wake up.

  “I think she’s exhausted from all the crying,” the pastor said. Then he explained that he’d finally gotten her to calm down when he remembered that, many years ago, he used to soothe Jonas by stroking his face in little circular motions.

  “I think she’s probably hungry. She calmed down when her nursing reflex kicked in, and she was sucking like crazy on my little finger until she fell asleep just now,” he said, moving back a bit so that he could lay the baby on his lap as the officers moved in closer to get a good look at her.

  Camilla went over and stood behind them to have a look too.

  A day old, maybe even less. She looked like a newborn, and she was naked with a long umbilical cord dangling from her body, which was smeared with amniotic fluid and blood.

  “She certainly hasn’t been cleaned up since she was born. It kind of looks like she was born under rough conditions, maybe even without the help of a midwife,” one of the officers concluded as he studied the umbilical cord. “I suspect the cord was ripped in two—it looks frayed, so they didn’t use a knife or scissors to separate her from her mother.”

  The officer looked at the pastor.

  “Could she have been born inside the church?” he asked.

  Pastor Holm shook his head and shrugged. “I couldn’t really say,” he admitted. “There was no sign of anything like that, but I haven’t inspected the rest of the church.”

  Camilla put the coffee pot and cups on the table, hesitating a bit when the officer asked whether she would hold the baby until the ambulance arrived.

  Turning to Pastor Holm, the officer added, “It’ll only be for a few minutes, and we’d like to take you and the boys over to the church so you can show us where you found her.” The pastor wrapped the child back up in the towel before carefully picking her up and placing her in Camilla’s arms.

  As the kitchen door closed behind them, Camilla sat down on the bench against the wall. She didn’t dare pour herself any coffee while she was holding the baby. Instead, she sat motionless, looking down at the little girl. Something hard to put into words swelled inside her. The tiny newborn radiated such enormous vulnerability. Camilla recognized the same connection in the faces of the two policemen.

  With her free hand she pulled her handbag closer and took out her cell phone. She turned on the camera function and managed to take a couple of pictures of the sleeping infant, but when she heard a knock on the door, she tossed the cell back in her bag and called out “Come in.” A moment later the EMTs were in the kitchen asking her if the baby was still asleep.

  “We’ll go get the portable bassinet,” one of them said.

  Camilla nodded and carefully stood up. While she waited for them to come back, she hugged the baby close, noticing how calm her breathing was. She stood still, letting the feeling of calm pervade her body until she heard footsteps crossing the courtyard, and Holm returned with one of the officers.

  Through the window she saw that Markus and Jonas had stopped next to the ambulance, watching with interest as the back door was pulled open and the bassinet brought out.

  They retreated a bit as the EMTs came back inside, and Holm quickly cleared off one end of the kitchen table so they could set the bassinet there. It was the same kind that she’d had when Markus was a newborn, made of see-through plastic; this one was lined with a thick white blanket and a clean towel.

  “We’re going to take her to Frederiksberg Hospital, and they’ll feed her before she’s examined and cleaned up,” said the officer. “They’ll take some blood samples so we can run a DNA test on her, and then they’ll keep her under observation.”

  Out in the courtyard the crime-scene techs had arrived, and the officer explained to the pastor that they would take the blue terrycloth towel to the forensics lab for further testing after they were done with their work inside and around the church.

  The portable bassinet was ready, and Camilla took one last look at the tiny girl before handing her over. The moment she let her go, the baby started crying again. It was loud and heartrending. Her little face contorted, and she waved her tiny fists in the air. The young medic stepped back in alarm and asked Camilla if she wouldn’t mind placing the baby in the bassinet.

  “I’m sure they’ll take good care of her at the hospital,” he added to reassure her.

  Camilla looked at her son and his friend as the paramedics carried the bassinet out to the ambulance. They stood there distressed, clearly upset by the child’s piercing cries, and they watched until the ambulance pulled out into traffic.

  Then they all went back in and sat down at the table. Camilla poured coffee into the mugs while the police asked the pastor and the boys to recount what had happened.

  “None of you heard or saw anyone around the church this morning?” the officer began.

  All three of them shook their heads.

  “What time did you come downstairs to the kitchen?” He looked at the pastor.

  “I got up at six forty-five and was here in the kitchen by seven to make breakfast and pack their lunches,” Holm explained, nodding at the counter. “From the window I can see right across to the church.”

  The officer nodded. He’d already been over to the window and noticed that there was a good view of the church and the entire courtyard.

  “The boys said that the church door was slightly ajar when they heard the baby. Did you see whether it was open when you came down to the kitchen to make breakfast?”

  Camilla kept listening as she took a carton of milk out of the refrigerator and set it on the table. She sent Høyer a quick text message to say that she was going to be a little longer, but that he would definitely be getting a story for the next day’s paper. Then she sat down on the bench next to Markus and put her arm around his shoulder.

  “I really couldn’t say,” Holm admitted. “I didn’t notice.”

  “But you would have noticed if someone had gone inside?”

  “I’m sure I would have, but I wasn’t looking at the church the whole time. I had to get the boys up and fed before they left for their field trip.”

  The officer nodded and shrugged. “Well, I guess we don’t have much to go on if you didn’t notice anyone in the vicinity of the parsonage or the church,” he said.

  “What will you do to find the mother?” Camilla asked when the officer looked like he was about to get up from the table.

  “Mainly we’ll hope she turns up on her own,” he replied, once again picking up his coffee mug. “In most cases like this, the mother usually does show up. And all indications are that the child was meant to be found, since she was left here in the church. Otherwise she might have been left anywhere at all, or even been killed.”

  Camilla pulled Markus close as she felt his body tense.

  “But won’t you do anything to try to locate her?” exclaimed Holm.

  “There’s really not much we can do if she doesn’t want to be found. But of course we’ll go to the media and make an appeal for the mother to contact us. And we’ll interview people here in the neighborhood to find out if anyone saw anything.”

  The officer sounded a bit tired, and he leaned back in his chair. “But if nothing comes of our efforts,” he added, “the child will be put up for adoption. Until adoptive parents can be found for her, I assume that she’ll be placed in an orphanage, presumably Skodsborg.”

  “Isn’t someone going to take care of her?” asked Jonas, who had stood up as the officer was talking.

  “Of course they will. Some very nice ladies will take good care of her until she gets new parents.”

  “But there must be something else you can do. Maybe the towel could give you a lead,” Camilla interjected, removing her arm from Markus’s shoulder as he, too, stood up.

  “We’ll certainly do everything we can. B
ut at least the baby’s alive, and if the mother doesn’t want her, it’s probably best for the girl to be placed with a couple who really wants a child,” said the officer. Then he asked the pastor for a phone number where he could be reached.

  As the officer stood up to leave, he gave his business card to Holm and handed one to Camilla as well. She noted that his name was Rasmus Hem, and she automatically nodded when he said that she was welcome to call him if her son happened to remember anything else. Standard procedure, she thought, sticking the card in her pocket.

  The boys disappeared upstairs to Jonas’s room. Camilla shifted her gaze away from the stairs and nodded to accept the pastor’s offer of another cup of coffee. A huge pall had fallen over the kitchen, and the silence weighed heavily between them.

  “What a mess,” said Pastor Holm, sinking onto a chair by the table and reaching for the sugar.

  Camilla tried to imagine what would drive a mother to abandon a newborn to an uncertain fate, but in all the scenarios she considered, she couldn’t find a credible explanation.

  “Can you think of any pregnant women who have been here?” she asked instead.

  “I’ve been racking my brain like crazy, but the only pregnant woman who comes here on a regular basis is Mette, and she hasn’t delivered yet.”

  He shook his head and glanced at the clock on the wall.

  “I have to go write a column for the paper,” he said, gazing out the window at the church. “But I don’t suppose they’ll need me for the next couple of hours.”

  Camilla shook her head and got up. It was almost 11:30, and she called Markus downstairs to say she was leaving.

  “I’ve got to get back to the paper,” she said, running her fingers through his hair, flattening out a couple of tufts that he immediately re-tousled so it stuck out all over the place.

  She smiled at him and placed her hands on his shoulders as she looked into his eyes, trying to determine whether he was still upset. But she relaxed, realizing that he was impatient for her to leave so he could go back up to Jonas.