Farewell to Freedom

by Sara Blaedel

  Again Elsa paused to take a drag off her cigarette.

  Camilla thought for a moment before she asked her next question.

  “And when exactly were you there?”

  “From the middle of ’96 until the end of ’99,” Elsa said without stopping to think. “I had just come home when we celebrated the new millennium. But there was something about his wife getting sick, and as far as I can remember they left early.” Camilla could hear that Elsa had started walking.

  “And you’re sure we’re talking about the same pastor?” Camilla asked, even though she knew the question was unnecessary.

  “Yeah, there weren’t any others,” Elsa confirmed. “And then there was his wife’s death. A few years after that and so tragic, to die at such a young age, but I don’t know where you got the idea that they had a child while they were there.”

  Camilla sat holding her phone in her hand long after the call was over. Maybe she wasn’t finding her way back to her old self after all. On the contrary, maybe she was really losing it.

  48

  AT HQ, SUHR HAD SUMMONED WlLLUMSEN’S INVESTIGATIVE TEAM to his office. Mikkelsen was just pulling the blinds to keep the sharp May sun out of their eyes, but he was listening attentively as Louise told them where she’d run into Bosko.

  “He was coming out of the building on Valdemarsgade, the one that Miloš Vituk’s apartment is in,” Louise said, and was able to tell them that without a doubt it had happened on the Wednesday after Kaj Antonsen was murdered because she’d looked up her report from the stakeout and she had it lying on the table in front of her.

  She explained that the Serb had come out the front door while she was standing in the doorway across the street.

  “There was something about his eyes and the way he looked at me that gave me the sense that maybe we knew each other. But we didn’t, and now I’m sure he was just being vigilant. He noticed that I saw him.”

  “Is this something you’re totally sure of, or is there a chance you’re confusing him with someone else?” Willumsen asked her, looking tense.

  Louise smiled at him stiffly and noted how a few hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Because she was completely sure that the man in the picture and the man she’d seen on Valdemarsgade were identical.

  She just said, “I’m sure,” and was struck by the tense silence that had come over the room. She looked at her partner and saw the anxiety in his eyes, the worry that made their blue a shade darker.

  “We made eye contact twice,” she said. “Both when he left the property, and when he returned again a little later.”

  Suhr was sitting behind his desk with his hands folded, his thumbs circling each other, and Toft had taken out his plastic cigarette while his partner, Stig, was tipping his chair back perilously.

  Louise caught Stig’s eye, and the chair’s front legs hit the floor when he tipped back down, as she asked him to help her explain what Igli had told them about Bosko.

  They listened in silence, but Louise noticed with growing concern the looks that Suhr and Willumsen were exchanging as she and Stig talked, because it hit her that right now they were each trying to decide, on their own, whether Bosko was of such a caliber that they were about to hand the case over to the PET, the Security and Intelligence Service, Denmark’s equivalent of the CIA. She noted how Willumsen moved to speak the instant they were done.

  “We’ll get a court order so we can start a wiretap on Miloš Vituk as soon as possible,” he decided, not even looking at Suhr as he spoke.

  Something inside Louise fell into place. Of course he didn’t want to hand over a case that might be of international importance, and she respected him for that.

  “Bring those two Albanians in for questioning again,” Suhr decided, and he glanced at Mikkelsen. “This time, don’t let them leave until they’ve told us exactly what the fuck they know about Bosko. How did they find out what happened in Prague? Who saw Bosko? And where was he seen?”

  Suhr slapped his desk with the palm of his hand, making a loud bang, and looked at them.

  “What about the pregnant women?” Lars asked.

  Willumsen looked at him, as if he’d just farted.

  “To hell with the pregnant women right now. The baby was dead, so it’s not like that case is going anywhere.”

  Louise and Lars looked at each other and Louise subtly shook her head. That hadn’t been his attitude when Willumsen had put them on the case.

  Suhr cleared his throat and waited until he had everyone’s attention.

  “Two things,” he began, hesitating a little.

  Louise could tell that he didn’t completely agree with Willumsen that they should race headlong after the clues the two Albanians had given them.

  “First of all, we only have the two Albanian men’s tip that we should be interested in this Serb, Bosko. Okay, so far they’ve been right, but I’m sure we can agree that this could still be an attempt to clear their own names. Their car was actually seen at the crime scene and at the harbor.”

  “We don’t have squat on those two boys,” Willumsen interrupted, slicing through the air with both hands. “And you know that. Otherwise they’d have been in jail ages ago. Since when can we arrest someone because a stinking drunk thought he saw an identical car? I’m just asking. And besides that, do you understand how many dark blue Audi A4s there are driving around in this country? We’ll burst the prison if we stuff all the car owners in there,” he thundered.

  It was obvious that Willumsen was in top form, so he must obviously believe that they were close to a breakthrough.

  “Second of all,” Suhr continued impassively, “we don’t know anything about why Bosko suddenly showed up in Copenhagen. We don’t know if it’s a coincidence that he came out of the building Miloš Vituk lives in.”

  Michael Stig made a face.

  “And we don’t know why he would be interested in murdering a prostitute,” the homicide chief concluded.

  “I can answer that last one for you,” Mikkelsen said and took a step forward from his spot by the window. “If Bosko has set his sights on Vesterbro, then it’s because he sees money to be made and is getting into the Danish prostitution market. Which would make several pieces start to fit together.”

  He hit himself on the temple to make the point.

  “So far, Arian and Hamdi have been doing pretty good business, and there’s definitely no doubt that they’ve pretty much cornered the trade on the Czech girls. Iveta’s murder out in Kødbyen took out one of their girls, and the murdered girl in Prague was on her way here to work for them. The way I see it, the signs are unmistakable—if you want to clear the playing field and send a signal to the competition about what’s coming.”

  “And Kaj?” Louise asked.

  Mikkelsen shrugged apologetically.

  “Kaj was punished for talking to the press, but it was probably mostly a sign for everyone else that that kind of thing just isn’t done. When you’re dealing with a person who’s taken war tourists into a besieged city and been well remunerated for bringing them close enough that they could kill people just for the fun and excitement of it, well, that shows you clearly that human life doesn’t mean much to him,” Stig interjected, and Louise was inclined to agree with him.

  “Wait!” Louise suddenly blurted out so loudly that everyone turned to look at her. She grabbed her head.

  “God, Miloš Vituk—that bastard—coming here with his sob story about the Albanians extorting him during his noble attempt to buy Pavlína’s freedom from them. I’m sorry, but there isn’t any other fucking thing to say if the Danish police get a reputation among shepherds for being the easiest to fool in Europe.”

  “Shepherds?” Toft repeated, cocking his head and raising his eyebrow.

  “People who traffic in women,” she explained succinctly.

  “He was obviously using that story about Pavlína to push those two Albanians into our searchlights, and to take himself out of them.”

 
; Louise shook her head despondently, irritated that she hadn’t seen it herself. They’d just bought his story and tried to help without checking into him. And when the theory had briefly been mentioned, they’d brushed it aside because Pavlína had been so convincing.

  “Could you just spell this out for those of us who are a little dim?” Toft asked, clearly confused by her excited outburst. But she could tell that Mikkelsen was with her.

  “Miloš Vituk works for Bosko,” Louise said. “And I’m betting he was the one Miloš borrowed money from when he wanted to buy Pavlína’s freedom the first time. Which is how Bosko got his claws into him, and since then he’s been part of Bosko’s network. When Miloš went to borrow money from him, Bosko took advantage of the situation to make his debut in the Danish marketplace. The money he paid to free Pavlína was chump change compared to what he could earn on the women.”

  Louise paused for a second, trying to put all the pieces together.

  “I’m sure that’s right, that it was a coincidence that Pavlína specifically was their way into the Danish market. I believe her story, but he took advantage of her when she asked for help, and by buying her freedom, he simultaneously bought her loyalty and tied her to him.”

  “And then maybe Arian and Hamdi tried to respond by sending young Hana on a little tour of the harbor?” Willumsen suggested, looking like he was starting to understand how it all fit together.

  “But those two guys are surely just a couple of stooges. If Bosko has decided to take over the market, then they were done,” Stig said thoughtfully after a pause. “And of course they knew that. That’s why they ratted him out to us.”

  “But if they didn’t do the two murders, then they could have just come in and told us what they knew. They didn’t have to send Camilla Lind in.…” the homicide chief said hesitantly, as if he still couldn’t get everything to fit together.

  Mikkelsen nodded, and a smile brought out the laugh lines around his eyes.

  “Of course they sent her. They would never dare to blab directly to us. If it turns out that this is how it all fits together, then that’s also why they’re not saying anything when we have them in here. I’d bet that we won’t get them to talk either. No one wants to wind up with their throat slit,” he added, his smile having vanished.

  “Well then I guess we’re going to have to find out if it was Miloš or Bosko holding the knife at the two crime scenes,” Suhr decided after contemplating the case’s unexpected turn.

  “I’d be really surprised if Arian and Hamdi realized who they were up against in the beginning,” Mikkelsen said as everyone started getting up. “They probably thought that Miloš was on his own, but at some point they realized that he has one of the Balkans’ most notorious criminals behind him, and then they started shrinking back into their shells. And that fits quite well with Bosko coming to Denmark again after the episode down on the harbor.”

  Louise nodded and explained what had happened to Igli’s brothers when they started figuring out how Bosko’s business in Sarajevo worked.

  “They were gunned down in front of their families. He obviously doesn’t like it when people get all up in his business.”

  “I want a tail on Miloš Vituk,” Willumsen rumbled, unnecessarily loudly, and then looked at Michael Stig. “The wiretap should be up and running today, and if there are any problems getting a warrant quickly, have that idiot at the preliminary hearing come see me,” he added brusquely.

  He was looking at Mikkelsen now.

  “Find out if Pavlína and Hana are working for them,” he said without waiting for Stig to respond. “We need to find out how many girls they have working for them. There must be a pattern, right? Like with the Albanians?”

  “That’s not how it works if the girls work in a brothel,” Mikkelsen protested, explaining that that was a possibility since they hadn’t seen Pavlína or Hana on the street.

  “But you haven’t been looking for them, have you?” Willumsen corrected him irritably.

  “No,” Mikkelsen admitted.

  “But now you are.”

  Willumsen looked at Louise and Lars.

  “Find those two girls and keep an eye on them.”

  Finally, he looked over at Toft.

  “And you bring in those two Albanians and don’t let them leave until they’ve told us what they know. And take whatever time you need at it.”

  Toft nodded calmly.

  Now Willumsen looked around the room, from one person to the next.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said with hard-won calm. “I’m sorry, but this means we’re going to be working over the weekend. You need to be able to account for every step Miloš Vituk makes. Find out who saw Bosko while he was in town. We’re going to get him this time. That bastard. Who does he think he is, pushing us around?”

  Willumsen’s face was a coppery red as he stood up and adjourned the meeting.

  49

  CAMILLA HAD BEEN TO FØTEX TO STOCK UP HER FRIDGE. THE cupboards had been bare, and she threw out what little was left based on the looks of it. She had the washing machine going in the bathroom, and she’d also pulled herself together enough to change her sheets and air out the apartment a little.

  Now she was back on the sofa, sitting cross-legged with an open-faced sandwich on rye bread in one hand, her thoughts racing, jockeying for attention.

  It had been ten years, she thought. Elsa Lynge might be remembering wrong, but if you spent a long time with a person—who later became a well-known media personality, as was the case with Henrik Holm—then you’d remember the time you had spent with him.

  She had no doubt that you would remember, too, if someone had a baby while you were living in a primitive barracks with them. There was something about crying babies and lost sleep that people just didn’t forget. As long as she was willing to trust Elsa Lynge’s memory. But maybe the timing was just a little off, she thought, brushing off the crumbs that landed on her blouse.

  If she now imagined Alice Holm getting sick because of her blood disease, then maybe she’d been in a hospital for treatment. After that, they might have been moved to a new camp to continue their work, and maybe Elsa didn’t necessarily even know about that.

  She didn’t know, and she probably shouldn’t get mixed up in it since Henrik didn’t seem to want anyone stirring up the past.

  Nonetheless Camilla reached for her phone on the coffee table. She pulled her laptop over and went to www.cpr.dk, Denmark’s Central Office of Civil Registration, to look up the number. Then she waited patiently until a nasal woman’s voice said, “Ministry of Social Affairs,” and put her on hold for the switchboard.

  “Office of Civil Registration, please,” Camilla requested and then waited again. Her call was eventually transferred over to their legal staff.

  Camilla explained that she was a reporter working on a story about a Danish citizen, and in connection with that she wanted to hear a little more about the procedure if a Danish couple has a child abroad. What happened when they came home again? How did the child acquire Danish citizenship and get assigned a personal identification number?

  “We mostly just need a birth certificate that documents that both parents are Danish citizens,” the helpful woman told her and read a list of criteria that had to be met before the child could be issued a personal identification number. “This is all described in the Danish Civil Registration System Act, which you can find on our home page. It’s in Schedule 1 of Act 1134.”

  “And the documents you need from the hospital where the child was born, do you need to have a physical copy, or is it enough for someone to write the information down and send it to you?” Camilla asked.

  “No, we need all the relevant paperwork and copies of the parents’ birth certificates before the child can be registered,” she replied. “But in the case you mention, we would also go in and record that the parents returned to Denmark. You see, the Danish government keeps track whenever a Danish citizen is employed or stationed
abroad, and it is recorded in someone’s file when they’ve left the country—and then of course that needs to be changed if they come back again with a baby.”

  “Okay,” Camilla said and asked if it was possible to find out if the couple in question had had a baby abroad and brought it back to Denmark with them after having been outside the country for a couple years.

  It didn’t surprise her to learn that this was considered confidential personal information—after all, she had been a journalist for some time—but she had also been one long enough to know that you could sometimes get someone to tell you how you could obtain the information even if they wouldn’t actually give it to you.

  “Under Paragraph 42 of the Act, the standard information for regular citizens is accessible to anyone,” the friendly woman said. Camilla had been lucky to wind up talking to her. “If you can identify the person you want information on, either by name and address or name and personal identification number, then you can certainly get the basic details confirmed—although that won’t really get you very far,” she explained, “We wouldn’t be able to tell you if the person had a child or where or when it was born.”

  “I understand,” Camilla hurried to say, but confirmed that someone would be able to see the child’s birth date and the date the couple returned to Denmark if someone had access to the Civil Registration database.

  “Yes, all the information is in there,” said the woman, who Camilla was betting was about her age; the woman had used herself as example, saying that someone could easily tell she had had a son in 1998 as well as in which city. “But that is considered family information, and we can’t give you that.”

  Camilla thanked her profusely for being so helpful and asked, before she hung up, if the police had access to all the information.

  “Yes, they have full authorization,” the woman confirmed and said “you’re welcome” when Camilla thanked her yet again.