Farewell to Freedom

by Sara Blaedel

  “That’s a pretty nice car you drive. It doesn’t worry you that you don’t know who’s using it?” Toft asked, receiving only a shrug in response.

  “Your Audi is less than a year old and cost about four hundred thousand kroner,” Louise said, taking over again. “I’m a little curious to know how you can afford such an expensive car since you’re on public assistance.”

  “I borrowed money from my uncle,” he replied without blinking.

  The phone in front of Louise rang, and Mikkelsen said briefly that all six of the girls they had brought in for questioning had all confirmed, to a one, that they made their livings as prostitutes. But they all claimed that they did it of their own free will and that they didn’t give anyone money.

  “One of them was dumb enough to say that she didn’t pay anyone except for the money she gave the police to leave her alone,” Mikkelsen said with a dry laugh.

  There was a long silence after Louise hung up. They had agreed in advance that they would draw the questioning session out until they heard from Mikkelsen and knew whether the girls had said anything they could use. They hadn’t been expecting them to talk, but they wanted to be sure before they changed tack.

  Toft got up and asked if Louise or Arian wanted him to bring them a cup of coffee.

  Louise nodded and looked at Arian. He had very obviously been expecting that he would be allowed to leave once they’d run through their questions. Now for the first time he looked slightly uncertain, but nodded and asked for milk and sugar.

  When Toft returned, setting a little brown wooden tray on the desk, they started again. It was obvious that Arian still felt like he was getting off scot-free and wasn’t prepared for the change in tactics that arrived along with the coffee.

  “We’ve heard that you received rather a lot of money from Miloš Vituk to let him buy one of your girls, one by the name of Pavlína.”

  Louise didn’t phrase it as a question, just as a statement. She ignored him as he began to object and told him instead how Miloš had come to them and told them his story.

  “He was the one who suggested that we start keeping an eye on you and your partner. He also helped by pointing out where you were meeting the girls for them to pay up.”

  The Albanian jumped up out of his chair and leaned over the desk to make her stop, but Toft quickly got him back in his seat again.

  “The police have no doubts that you and Hamdi are earning a great deal of money off several of the Czech girls who work as prostitutes around Skelbækgade. Your car has been seen down there daily, as either you or Hamdi drive around keeping an eye on the girls. But it surprises us that you have not chosen to do it as professionally as Miloš Vituk. He, for example, has made sure that his girls’ paperwork is in order, so we have to let them go again if we stop them. And he also covers his tracks so it’s very hard for us to prove what he’s up to.”

  Louise saw the provocation hit home, but Arian took his time before he said anything. Instead he clenched his teeth together so hard that his jaw muscles jutted out like two rock formations. And when Toft took over and turned the topic to Arian’s knowledge of Bosko and the police’s suspicion that Miloš Vituk was working for the notorious Serb and that Miloš and Bosko were working on pushing Arian and his business out of the market, Arian seemed to shut down completely, his eyes hard.

  Toft was starting to maneuver in his patient fashion, and even though Louise was betting they had a one in a million chance of getting this pimp to talk, she watched with interest as the game played out between the two men. When she felt her cell phone vibrate in her pocket, she quietly walked over to the window to answer the call without disturbing Toft’s rhythm.

  “I’d bet a thousand kroner that Bosko just picked Miloš Vituk up out here on Valdemarsgade,” Michael Stig yelled into her ear to drown out a truck that was driving past him right then.

  “Did you see him?”

  “Just from the side, through the car window. But I’m almost positive. He was driving a big Volvo with Swedish plates. Unfortunately I didn’t get the license number because it didn’t occur to me that it might be him until Miloš hopped into the front seat.”

  Louise bent over and picked up her purse.

  “Hurry up and pack your bag and get out here so you can confirm whether it’s the Serb if they come back.”

  She didn’t bother scolding him for the way he was ordering her around since she was the only one who’d seen Bosko and could say for sure whether or not he was the one Miloš had driven off with.

  “I’m off,” she told Toft, noticing Arian following her with his eyes as she got up. He was on the edge of his chair, and it was obvious that he was dying to know what was going on.

  She gave him a quick nod before disappearing out the door. Then she took the stairs down to Otto Mønstedsgade, where her bike was parked.

  56

  MICHAEL STIG PULLED A PIECE OF CHOCOLATE OUT OF HIS backpack and offered it to her once she’d parked her bike. Even though the sun was shining, it was cool in the doorway, where big graffiti tags overlapped each other, leaving hardly ten centimeters of contiguous, untagged concrete wall between all the faded colors.

  She quickly glanced up at the window on the second floor, where the curtains were closed so there was no way to tell whether there was anyone in the apartment. Stig thought that Pavlína must still be up there—at least he hadn’t seen her leave after she came back from Enghave Square.

  Louise let the chocolate melt in her mouth while Stig told her about how the big Volvo XC90 had pulled over to the curb and then left again immediately.

  “He honked the horn one time, and two seconds later Miloš came out the door. It was very obvious that they must have arranged for him to be ready.”

  “Any sign of calls on Miloš’s phones?”

  Stig shook his head and smiled.

  “No. So that means he has a number we don’t know about.”

  “What about Pavlína?”

  “Nope, her neither—aside from the calls she made to Hana’s number a little after 10:00. But they weren’t answered, so they couldn’t have set up the meeting that way.”

  It didn’t surprise Louise that Miloš was using a cell phone they didn’t know about. There had been surprisingly little activity on his phones, and of course he was using a prepaid cell phone for calls he didn’t want to risk the police being able to trace.

  “Well, then I guess there isn’t anything else for us to do but wait,” she said as she leaned back against the doorway. “What does Willumsen have to say?”

  “He asked Mikkelsen to keep some guys ready in case we need to tail them by car if they show up again. My car is parked down here,” Stig gestured toward a silver station wagon with a tip of his head. “I’ll follow him when he leaves here, but it definitely seems like a good idea to have a few people ready to help out with tailing him so we’re not too obvious.”

  Louise nodded and looked over at her bike. Maybe she should have brought one of the police vehicles, but it was often quicker to get through town by bike, so she hadn’t even thought about it when Stig called.

  “The downtown precinct people are also on standby in case Miloš and Bosko make a move on foot. At some point Pavlína and the other girls will probably go to work, too.”

  “I’m supposed to relieve Lars at Enghave Square around 5:00 or 6:00 tonight,” Louise said, looking at her watch.

  Stig gave a wry laugh.

  “I’m pretty sure your partner is going to have to bail on Saturday night dinner with the wife and twins, because I’m not so sure you’ll be getting out of here in time to relieve him.”

  Sometimes it was really clear that Michael Stig lived alone, and that he had only scorn for anyone who was tied down by family life and its obligations, but sometimes Louise also suspected that he might have a touch of envy or longing. She’d never called him out on it, and she bit her tongue now, too, thinking that given the trouble Lars was having at home these days, Stig really co
uldn’t be more wrong. Lars would probably be just as glad to have to work late.

  “Don’t worry your pretty little head about Lars,” Louise replied snidely and said that her partner was never the kind of person who went home early because he had to stir the sauce or watch a soccer game.

  That last comment was a little dig at Stig, because at least once a month he was so busy with his bowling tournaments that he was forced to trade shifts with someone.

  But then all the comments on dinner obligations made Louise realize she’d better call Camilla, who was surely not going to be happy to be stood up.

  “It’s just not going to work out for us to have dinner tonight,” Louise began the second Camilla answered, and then she kept talking before Camilla had a chance to get a word in. “We believe the Serb we suspect of being behind the murders of Iveta and Kaj is in town. Michael Stig thinks it was Bosko who came and picked Miloš Vituk up an hour ago, so now we’re waiting for them to come back. We’re going to have to have our talk another day.”

  “Bosko,” Camilla repeated softly. And for a second Louise could hear Camilla breathing. Then she hung up on Louise.

  Louise figured Camilla was either pissed off or disappointed, or both. She sighed, but she pulled herself together when she realized that Michael Stig was watching her. She took a breath to defend herself, because he knew perfectly well that Camilla wasn’t working right now, so he didn’t need to worry about scolding her for telling a journalist about Bosko. Camilla was very involved in the case and besides, the homicide chief trusted her, damn it.

  “How’s she doing?” Stig asked in an unexpectedly friendly tone, causing Louise to instantly forget her anger.

  She studied him for a second. His gray-blue eyes, which usually made people keep a certain distance, looked concerned and intense. Louise nodded slowly and realized that even though she’d been working closely with Stig for several years, she still couldn’t quite figure him out. This wasn’t the first time he’d surprised her with one of his infrequent expressions of concern. The last time had been for her after a case that had ended rather dramatically down in Roskilde. Now it made her wonder if he had a hidden nurturing side, which he didn’t reveal unless there was some genuine concern that the person he was talking about might really be losing it.

  “She’s doing better,” Louise said, half expecting the arrogant look to return to Stig’s eyes.

  But Stig just nodded and turned back to survey the street and then look up at the apartment.

  57

  FOR A SECOND, CAMILLA FELT PARALYZED. SHE’D HUNG UP HER phone, but was still holding it in her hands, her thoughts at a standstill. It hadn’t been more than two hours since she and Markus had come home from the pastor’s residence. Henrik seemed to expect Bosko to react quickly. But not that he’d be there already.

  She wanted to call and warn Henrik. Her fingers felt stiff, as she found the number for the pastor’s residence in the phone’s memory, and her anxiety coursed through her body with her blood as the phone rang and rang and eventually started beeping in her ear. She let it ring out one more time before she got up and went to the front hall to find her wallet.

  Markus asked her several times if there was something wrong. He watched her, not understanding that she had no mental capacity left for anything besides the thoughts Henrik Holm’s story occupied in her mind. She hadn’t been able to bring herself tell him that his best friend had to leave and was never coming back.

  Now he was standing in front of her again with a frightened look, watching her as she feverishly rooted around in the outermost pocket of her wallet where she stuffed all her old receipts.

  “Please go to your room,” she said.

  She found the little torn-off scrap of paper on which Henrik had written his cell number, ran into the living room, and grabbed the phone. For a second she felt a wave of panic as the cell phone went straight to voicemail without being answered. She could tell the phone was turned off. She ran back to the entry and snatched her jacket from the hook, checking to see that her car keys were in her pocket.

  “I have to run out,” she yelled to Markus, who was lying on his bed with his face to the wall.

  For a second she stood there, looking at the rejection of his skinny back, before she turned around.

  “I’ll be back soon,” she promised as she turned the lock.

  If the police had stopped her, they would have confiscated her license on the spot, but she carefully avoided looking at the speedometer as she darted down Nordre Fasanvej.

  From the second she got home from the pastor’s residence, part of her had been thinking she should go down to Police Headquarters and tell them what the pastor had confided in her so they could head out there and protect him. At the same time, another part of her forced her to keep her promise and give him the head start he was going to need to get himself and Jonas to safety.

  His car was gone, she noted with a little sigh of relief as she pulled into the parking lot and turned off her engine. There weren’t any other cars parked there, either. The only thing she could see was the sexton’s old bicycle, which was propped against the wall of the church. There wasn’t a person in sight.

  She inhaled all the way down to her diaphragm and let it out again slowly before walking across the courtyard, stopping to listen for a second. No movement, no voices, nothing.

  In the car she’d decided to hightail it out of there if there was the slightest indication that the Serb was there. Then she’d have to call the police and let them take over. But mostly she just wanted to make sure that Henrik and Jonas had managed to get away. Then she would tell Louise why Henrik had fled.

  Now she was feeling rather sure that Henrik had already left, and if this is where Bosko and Miloš Vituk were headed, they must have already come and gone.

  The sun reflected in the kitchen window as she walked up and let the door knocker fall. For a second she stood there waiting, then leaned to the right and peered in the window. The basket of morning rolls was still sitting on the table. Things looked pretty much as they had when she and Markus had left.

  Camilla walked down the stairs and around the building before continuing out into the yard. Over by the patio door she put both hands up against the window and peered into the living room. It was hard to see if he’d packed anything, but she did note that the laptop wasn’t on the desk anymore.

  Again a sense of relief dissolved some of her tension.

  She scanned the road leading to the cemetery for the sexton, to find out if he knew when they’d left. She walked down and around the shed, by where the wheelbarrow and watering can were, and where she’d occasionally seen the sexton enjoying a cheroot when the weather permitted it.

  Finally, she walked up toward the church and hesitated slightly before walking in. But the floor was bare; there weren’t any more newborns there. On the other hand, there was an open box of white candles on the bench next to a yellow plastic watering can.

  She walked over and opened the door from the entryway into the main body of the church, calling to the sexton to avoid startling him in the event that he was in there finishing something up.

  The blood was the first thing she saw. The light from the broad windows in the roof of the church cast reflections down, which caused it to shine on the dark stone floor.

  The door slammed shut behind her as she ran forward without giving even a thought to the fact that maybe she should have been running out instead of in.

  58

  HIS EYES WERE CLOSED. HE WAS LYING ON HIS SIDE WITH HIS TORSO half up on the kneeling pillows in front of the altar, and the blood had dyed his light summer jeans and shirt dark red where it had spread through the material in big splotches. It spread across his chest all the way out over the shoulder and left arm, which was resting on the floor, and there were colored areas on both knees, like two oval patches with frayed edges.

  Camilla instinctively stepped back and sank down into a squat. She inhaled deeply a couple of
times to keep herself from hyperventilating before she got up to put a finger on the sexton’s wrist. If there was any beat at all, the pulse was so weak that her inexperienced fingers couldn’t find it.

  She managed to tell the dispatcher clearly and precisely what she’d found once she got through to 112, but she couldn’t answer the question of whether or not he was still alive.

  “I think he was shot. He’s bleeding from both knees and his chest.”

  As she was talking, she got up and in uncertain steps started backing away over the floor of the church, her eyes trained on the sexton’s powerful body. She should stay with him until the ambulance arrived, she thought, but she didn’t dare. She knew that if Otto Birch was still alive, he might need her, but her fear that Bosko would return trumped that thought. She was almost out the door when she suddenly stopped.

  “Is he still breathing?” the dispatcher’s voice calmly asked.

  “I don’t know,” she answered hoarsely, and cleared her throat before repeating herself a little louder.

  The thought it’s too late to be a coward flashed through her head. The only thing that made her consider trying to run away was the image of Markus, lying in bed at home with his back to her. But that wasn’t enough given that there was a man lying on the floor in front of her, a man who was dying if he hadn’t already.

  “Feel his throat and see if he has a pulse,” the man’s voice urged, and said that the ambulance was on its way.

  Camilla ran back up to the altar and dropped down onto the floor next to the still body.

  “Take two fingers and hold them gently against his throat. Don’t press,” he instructed her.

  “I think there’s a pulse,” Camilla whispered, closing her eyes to concentrate.

  “Find something that you can press against the wound on his torso and hold it there until the ambulance arrives.”