The Fire Pit

by Chris Ould

  I lowered the phone. “Listen,” I said, hoping to make it conciliatory. “I’m not trying to be difficult, but like I said, if this girl isn’t Inge-Lise Hoffmann there’s no point in wasting your time. But if she is I’ll tell you what I know, okay?”

  He rubbed his nose, as if his instinct was pressing him to walk away now, before this went any further. But I could also tell that the photo had got him, which was what I’d hoped it would do.

  “Are you sure your picture was taken in 1976?” he asked then, as if it would be a confirmation of something.

  “No, it could have been earlier,” I said. “But it definitely wasn’t later than that.”

  “Okay.” Friis looked at his watch. “Are you staying in Aarhus?”

  “No, I just came for the day. I was going to head back to Copenhagen after seeing you.”

  That didn’t seem to be what he’d hoped for, but he made up his mind. “I have a case meeting in a few minutes,” he said. “So I won’t be able to look for anything until afterwards. It may take some time, but if you want to wait…”

  I nodded. “How about I go for a walk and you call me when you get free?” I suggested.

  That seemed to satisfy him. “Okay, tell me your number.”

  I gave him my business card instead and a couple of minutes later I was back on the street with Friis’s promise that he’d call me within an hour or two.

  22

  AT RITUVÍK HENTZE PARKED IN FRONT OF THE NEW HOUSE Mikkjal Tausen was renting. There was a heavy rain now, so Hentze put on his waterproof jacket as he got out of the car but only held it closed as he made his way up the paved path to the side door. The sound of the doorbell was shortly followed by the quick thud of feet on stairs as Tausen came down to open the door.

  Because Hentze had called ahead Mikkjal Tausen was expecting him, and his greeting was therefore welcoming and without question. “Hey, come in,” he said, holding the door wide. “You can leave your boots and coat there. Would you like coffee?”

  “That would be good, thanks,” Hentze said.

  He left his damp coat and boots by the door and then followed Tausen up the bare wooden stairs to the second floor and into a long, open-plan living room stretching across the entire width of the house. It had a hard wooden floor and a splendid view over the bay. At one end of the room there was a smart, glass-topped desk holding a computer; at the other there was a large leather sofa and matching armchairs.

  Tausen went into the kitchen at the back to make coffee and Hentze went over to the large windows. The rain did nothing to detract from the panorama of sea, mist-sky and grey-green land. Idly, he tried to estimate what this view might cost on a weekly basis. It wouldn’t be cheap, he was sure.

  Hentze turned away from the window when Tausen reappeared carrying a cafetière and glass cups on a tray, which he placed on the low oak table in front of the sofa.

  “In Arizona it can be really beautiful, too,” Tausen said, gesturing at the window. “But there’s never much change from one day to the next. Here? Give it an hour and you’re looking at a different landscape. I’m still getting used to it again. Please, have a seat.”

  Hentze took an armchair opposite Tausen. “How long do you think you’ll stay?” he asked conversationally.

  Tausen shrugged. “At the moment I’m trying to decide whether I want to make the move back here a semi-permanent one,” he said, pouring coffee and offering the first cup to Hentze. “In terms of business, I can do almost everything I need to from here, but it’s a long way to go when I do need to be in the States.”

  “So you’re not completely retired?”

  Tausen shook his head. “I don’t want to be. But the great advantage of being in my position is that you can work on your own terms. I do enough to keep up my interests, but not so much that I can’t enjoy life.” He sat back on the sofa, as if to illustrate the point. “So, what can I tell you?” he asked.

  “Well, it’s as I said on the phone, I just wanted to go into a little more detail about Boas,” Hentze said. “You’ll understand that because of the woman’s body we found at Múli we’ve had to take a closer look at the circumstances around Boas’s death than we might otherwise do for a suicide.”

  “Yeh, I can understand that,” Tausen said. “Do you know who it was yet? The body, I mean?”

  “Yes, she was a Norwegian woman called Astrid Dam,” Hentze said, watching for any trace of recognition in Tausen’s expression. There was none.

  “And you think she was murdered?”

  “We strongly suspect it,” Hentze said. “Although I’d be grateful if you didn’t spread that around. She’d been living at the Colony commune and simply disappeared in 1974.” He reached for his phone and swiped the screen to bring up the missing persons photograph of Astrid, then held it out. “I don’t suppose you ever saw her?”

  Tausen studied the photo for a few seconds. “No, I don’t think so: I mean, not that I remember after this long. I only ever went to the Colony once; I think I told you the other day. At the time I was working in Denmark – from 1972 to ’76. I was doing research in the chemical industry so I only came back here a couple of times every year to visit my parents.”

  “I see,” Hentze said. “Well, it was a long shot, but still…” He put the phone aside. “Maybe I can ask you something more up to date, though. At the funeral you said you’d seen Boas a few times before his death, is that right?”

  “Yeh, a few times,” Tausen said. “Once he knew I was here he sort of latched on to me. He’d call me on the phone and ramble on, saying he didn’t feel well, how his life was shit, things like that. In the beginning I tried to cheer him up but to be honest, he got to be a bit of a pain. I don’t want to sound unsympathetic, but you know how drunks are. It didn’t matter what time of the day or night it was, if it came into his head that he wanted to talk to someone…” He shrugged helplessly. “And there wasn’t really anything I could do. I mean, he’d been told he only had a few months to live and when you know that there isn’t much of a bright side to life, is there?”

  “No, I suppose not,” Hentze said, giving it sombre consideration. “So when was the last time you saw or spoke to him, do you remember?”

  “Yeh, sure,” Tausen said. “I spoke to him the day he died. He called me around five or six in the afternoon but he wasn’t making much sense: stuff about his pain medication not working and being punished. That was the phrase he used: ‘I’m being punished,’ he said.”

  “Punished for what?”

  Tausen shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, he was rambling. He was obviously drunk and I was waiting for a call from the States: the time difference makes it easier to get in touch in the evening. Also, Sigi was coming over – you remember her, from the funeral? – and we were going to have dinner, so perhaps I wasn’t as sympathetic as I should have been. I feel bad about that now, but I had no reason to think… He didn’t give me any hint that he might have been thinking of killing himself. If he had, well, obviously I’d have done something.”

  “Did he say where he was calling from?” Hentze asked. “I’m trying to work out when he went out to Múli before he died.”

  “No, I don’t think he said,” Tausen said. “I just assumed he was at home. I’m pretty sure he didn’t say he was at Múli or I’d remember.”

  “Yeh, I can see that,” Hentze said and the subject appeared to prompt a thought. “Just as a matter of interest, had you had much contact with Boas before you came back to the Faroes – while you were in America?”

  “No.” The answer came quickly, but almost immediately Mikkjal Tausen retracted it. “Well, not directly,” he said. “A couple of months ago someone rang the company office and asked to speak to me. I wasn’t there so they left a message to say they were calling on behalf of a relative and asked if I’d call back. At the time I was busy, and because the only relatives I have here now are all distant ones – no one I’d seen since I’d left – I didn’t see how it could be i
mportant, so I didn’t do anything. But then there was another call and another message, maybe a week later. They said they were calling for Boas – I guess because he didn’t speak English – and asked again if I’d call back because Boas was ill.”

  “So you came all this way because of that?” Hentze asked, allowing a slight trace of scepticism.

  “Well, no,” Tausen admitted. “I mean, I suppose it would make me seem like a better person if I said that was the reason, but it wasn’t like Boas and I had kept in touch. No, the truth is, I’d been thinking about making a return visit for a while, and I guess when I got the messages it firmed up the idea. So in the end I booked flights and I came. I thought I’d spend a week or so looking around, visit Boas, go down memory lane and that would be it. But when I got here… Well, I met Sigi for one thing but another was— Well, I don’t really know how to describe it. Have you ever lived away?”

  “No, not for long,” Hentze said. “A few years in Denmark.”

  “Well, maybe you felt the same thing. For me, as soon as I got off the plane it was just coming home. After nearly forty years away, and in a place like Arizona, I’d forgotten – I mean, really forgotten – what it was like here.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to sound like one of those New Age people, but I just had the strongest feeling that I’d come back to my roots: that I belonged here, you know? It was like—” He looked for a simile but couldn’t seem to find one. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s just my time of life,” he added with a trace of self-deprecating amusement.

  “No, I understand.” Hentze nodded. It hadn’t passed his notice that Tausen had a tendency to turn his answers into personalised insights into his life. Perhaps it was the result of spending so long amongst Americans, who never seemed to mind telling strangers the most intimate details of their lives, Hentze thought. Or perhaps not.

  “Just as a matter of interest, did you ever give Boas any money?” he asked.

  “Money? No. Why?”

  “Oh, just curiosity. I wondered whether that might have been a reason for him getting in touch with you after so long. As far as I can tell he wasn’t so well off, and if he knew you were successful…”

  “No, the subject never came up,” Tausen said. “Although, to be honest, I had thought that it might, especially when I saw the state he was in. And if it had, well, I’d have done my best to help him of course. If he’d needed some private treatment for his cancer… But that was obviously not the case and, as I say, he never asked. I think he really just wanted to know there was someone there, you know? That he wasn’t entirely alone.”

  “Yes I see,” Hentze said. He finished his coffee and put the cup back on the table. “Well, I think that’s everything I needed to ask,” he said then. “Thanks for your time. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem,” Tausen said.

  Hentze stood up and Tausen did the same, accompanying him down to the side door where Hentze retrieved his coat and boots. “I suppose you’ll be even more connected to home once Boas’s affairs are sorted out,” he said conversationally as he put his arms in the coat sleeves. “Perhaps that will help you decide whether to stay now.”

  Tausen frowned. “Sorry, I don’t follow.”

  Feigning a slight misapprehension, Hentze said, “Oh. I was just thinking about his property: the house and the land at Múli. I assume that you and Selma Lützen will inherit them.”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it,” Tausen said, but for the first time Hentze heard a slightly false, slightly forced note in the man’s voice. “But to tell you the truth I’m not sure I’d really want either place,” he said.

  “No? Well, I can understand that, I suppose.” Hentze nodded, but left the reason for his understanding unspoken. “Well, thanks for the coffee. It was nice to see you again.”

  23

  AARHUS WAS A BUSTLING PLACE, ON A PAR WITH WHAT I’D seen of Copenhagen. The main shopping streets were mostly pedestrianised, populated by brand shops and places where the goods were expensive and highly designed. The simpler it could be made the greater the price tag, so it seemed, but I guess someone had to spend a lot of time removing any fripperies.

  I got as far as Åboulevarden and the elevated bridge crossing the river. It should have been pretty but it was cast into gloomy shadow by the tall buildings alongside it. By then I’d had enough of wandering and disengaged window-gazing, so I left the main street and found a quiet café where I parked myself under its canopy with a coffee, cigarette and Tove’s translation of the police report into Lýdia’s death downloaded on to my phone.

  I’d already guessed most of what the papers would say. It stood to reason that if there had been anything out of the ordinary or suspicious the conclusion of suicide wouldn’t have been drawn, so I had little expectation that anything odd would stand out, and nor did it. This was a run-of-the-mill task for the politiassistent – a sergeant named Bidstrup who’d been called in to assess things and make his report.

  That said, though, he wasn’t slipshod; his descriptions were detailed and thorough when that was required, but he also confined himself to the most salient points, as if he knew from experience which questions he needed to address. For no reason other than that, I pictured him as being middle-aged and possibly with other reports to fill out after this one.

  His account started with a list of bald timings. At 18:07 on 13 November 1976 the emergency services received an anonymous report of a seriously injured woman in the bathroom of apartment 3, Nordrområdet 37 in Christiania. At 18:18 the ambulance crew arrived and got no response at the door of the flat, so they let themselves in through the unsecured door and in the bathroom they discovered the naked body of a woman in a bath of water.

  According to the ambulance men’s statements, Bidstrup recorded, the victim – later identified as Lýdia Tove Reyná, aged twenty-three – had cuts to both wrists and showed no signs of life. As a result, they didn’t attempt resuscitation or disturb the scene any further but withdrew and called the police. However, when they checked the rest of the apartment, they discovered a boy of approximately five years – later identified as the victim’s son, Jan Reyná Ravnsfjall – in a subdued state in one of the bedrooms. A police constable called Søndergaard arrived at the apartment at 18:32 and Bidstrup himself arrived at 19:03.

  For a couple of paragraphs Bidstrup gave a physical description of the flat in general and the bathroom in particular. He noted there was no blood outside the bathtub itself; that a razor blade was recovered from the water when it was drained, and that there was no evidence of disturbance, forced entry (other than by the ambulance men) or of a suicide note. He noted, too, that when found in the bedroom, Jan Reyná Ravnsfjall was dressed only in underwear and a tee shirt and, although unharmed, could not answer questions. The boy said nothing in the time before a social worker arrived to take him away, nor during a subsequent interview at the Rønne Allé care home.

  It was an odd feeling, to read what had been written about me with dispassion and distance; about something that had obviously taken place but of which I had absolutely no recall. It was a little like the time Fríða had shown me a photograph of myself before I left the Faroes. It was me, I knew that, but I saw nothing at all familiar in that boy’s face.

  Now, though, in the context of Lýdia’s death and the discovery of her body, I felt as if I’d taken a step even further out of myself, but I didn’t let myself analyse that yet. Instead I read on to the end of the report, through a paragraph that outlined interviews with other residents of the building, and noted that Lýdia Reyná had only lived there for approximately two weeks with her son and an unidentified girl aged about sixteen who could not now be found.

  This last point clearly made Bidstrup anticipate that it might raise a question because he noted that many of the residents in the building were transitory. Only two reported ever meeting or talking to Lýdia Reyná and that she had seemed to want privacy and kept herself to herself. None could provide any mor
e information on the girl in the flat other than a broad general physical description.

  At the end of the report there was a separate section under the heading Investigating Officer’s Conclusion. It was dated two days after Lýdia’s death and in it Bidstrup wrote:

  There is no evidence that this was a suspicious death. The post-mortem report finds that the wounds on the victim’s wrists are consistent with a suicide. This is supported by the position of the body and other physical evidence from the apartment as it was found. Therefore, it is my opinion that Lýdia Tove Reyná was probably found deceased by the unidentified girl who shared the apartment, and that it was this girl who telephoned the emergency services. In my opinion the fact that the girl has not made herself known is not suspicious given the other circumstances and the known nature of Christiania and its residents.

  Summary conclusion: Suicide. No further action required.

  The report was signed off by a couple of higher-ranking officers on different dates. The last – a politikommissær – summarised it even more succinctly in a box by his name: Agreed. Closed. It was the last word.

  There was no doubt about it, it was an uplifting read and after I’d finished it I turned off the screen. I ought to make notes, but not yet. Instead I smoked a cigarette I didn’t really want, watching the street but not seeing a thing until my phone rang.

  “I’m sorry for the delay,” Thomas Friis said. “Are you still near the station?”

  * * *

  I waited in the reception area again, but not for long this time. When Thomas Friis arrived he was carrying a slim cardboard folder under his arm. We went to the same room we’d used before and he placed the folder squarely on the table with my business card neatly on top.

  “The Major Crime Team you work in, what is it that you deal with the most?” he asked.

  “Homicide and serious sexual offences usually,” I said.

  “Okay, that’s what I thought.”