by Sara Blaedel
“I’m busy,” he said. Make it short, in other words.
It had taken Louise a long time to figure out how to speak with Willumsen. Her tone had to be a mixture of jaunty and tough. She couldn’t sound too vague or hesitant, either, and not at all girly-small-talk-ish. Otherwise he wouldn’t give her the time of day.
“I understand you have the Frank Sørensen case,” she said.
“That’s correct.”
“When are you going public with the fact he was murdered?”
“It’s no secret, not really. We informed the family. First, we had to find out it was a homicide, you know,” he added, his voice about as close to jolly as it ever came.
Louise sensed his good mood. Sometimes he was unapproachable, while on days like today he was friendly enough, but you never knew which man would show up. And he could change at the drop of a hat.
“Camilla Lind from Morgenavisen asked about the case, but I didn’t know then it was a homicide. What can I tell her?”
“Not a goddamn thing,” he thundered. “She’s been calling me every five minutes, the duty officer, too. She’s a pain in the ass.”
Louise held her breath and waited. A few moments, after calming down, he said, “Is it that Camilla? The one with the blond-haired kid?”
He’d met Camilla and Markus one day. Louise had taken them over to the police garage so the boy could sit on a police motorcycle. Willumsen had run into them on the way. It had been one of his good days, and he’d stopped to say hello. Louise was nearly shocked when he patted the boy’s head and suggested she take him for a spin in one of the police cars.
“Tell her someone stuck a shiv in the victim’s neck, a long knife that severed his spinal cord. But they were kind enough to more or less put him under before.”
Louise bit the inside of her cheek as she took in what he’d said. Death occurs quickly when the spinal cord is cut, she recalled. “Okay.”
She told him Camilla had worked with Frank Sørensen in Roskilde, which explained her interest in the case.
“That’s fine. We might need to speak with her. Bye.” Willumsen hung up before Louise could thank him.
She needed to start her report, otherwise she wouldn’t have time to get it signed by Karoline’s parents and bring the girl’s boyfriend in for questioning. Yet she picked up the phone and punched in Camilla’s number.
“Morgenavisen, Camilla Lind.”
“Hi,” Louise said.
“Something’s wrong. I’ve had the pleasure of talking to old grouch Willumsen all day; he’s always a bastard on the phone. What’s going on?”
“Frank was killed, that’s what’s wrong. They’re going to announce it at a press briefing this afternoon.”
“I knew it,” Camilla cried. “I could damn well figure out he didn’t just fall, with the barrier tape and all the techs running around.”
“They did think it was accidental death at first, but the autopsy showed a knife wound in his neck that severed his spinal cord. If it’s any consolation, it looks like he’d been anesthetized first.”
“Jesus, that’s gruesome. Who the hell would want to kill him?”
“You can ask the same question about Karoline Wissinge,” Louise said, with an edge of sarcasm.
“How’s that case going? I’m supposed to cover it, but there’s almost nothing about it yet. Did you say you were with her parents all night?”
“Yes.”
“You have any idea who killed her?”
“Not really. Not yet.”
Louise smiled inwardly at Camilla’s optimistic questions while thinking about all the hours of work ahead of her. Suddenly she felt it. All morning she’d been worried it wouldn’t show up.
The rush.
The energy came like a wave, a familiar feeling that usually came on at a crime scene. It was like an injection, adrenaline shooting up her body and into her chest, ending with her scalp prickling. She was ready. It happened every time; she doubted she could handle a case, her anxiety would be simmering just below the surface, when all of a sudden, she’d feel the rush. Peter liked to say it transformed her from Louise to Detective Rick, Homicide, Copenhagen Police.
3
Camilla hesitated before knocking on Terkel Høyer’s door. Usually it was open; the only time he closed it was when he absolutely did not want to be disturbed.
“Come in,” he called out.
Camilla waited at the doorway until he waved her in. She sat down in the chair facing him. “I just spoke with Louise Rick.” She took a deep breath and went on. “Frank Sørensen was murdered.”
“Oh God.” He stiffened. “I had my suspicions.”
He ruffled his long hair until it stood straight up. Camilla watched him struggle to think rationally, hold off his emotions. “We have to find out what happened; we’re going all out on this one. What did you learn?” He eyed her expectantly.
“The way I understand it, he was anesthetized before someone stuck a knife in his neck.” She paused for a moment. “And cut his spinal cord.”
She knew how gruesome that sounded. This was the type of story they discussed at their morning meetings, but now the words felt strange.
“It doesn’t surprise me one bit they’d have to anesthetize him first,” Terkel said.
“They?”
“Yes, or him, or whoever the hell did it. Was Frank aware of what was happening?”
Camilla knew he was trying to form a picture of the events. She could almost feel it, how he wanted her to say that Frank had been unconscious when the killer finished his work.
“I don’t know, really I don’t. There’s a press conference this afternoon. I’ll attend if you want me to.”
“No, I want you to cover the girl in the park. I’ll go in with Søren Holm.”
“Isn’t he more than busy with that drug case?”
“He is. Last night the police raided an apartment in Østerbro and found almost a kilo of heroin. But if I know Søren, he’ll bite my head off if I don’t let him cover this case. He and Frank knew each other for years, they worked on the same kind of stories. That can be an advantage; Søren might know something useful to us.”
He’s sidelining me, Camilla thought.
“There’s plenty of work for everyone,” he said, “because Søren is sticking with the drug case, too. Someone tipped him off about another police raid on Wednesday, and he’s trying to get the green light to go along. Otherwise he’ll show up immediately after.”
Camilla nodded. Holm had been with the paper for seventeen years. She guessed he was in his mid-forties, Frank’s age. He had a nice wife and two teenage daughters; somehow that didn’t fit with him knowing the Copenhagen underworld as well as the most experienced narcotics officer, but he’d always kept his work and private life separate. That’s why he was still married, he claimed.
Among other things, Camilla respected him for that. When he was off work, no one even thought about calling him in. Those who had tried understood why. But when he worked he went all out, even when the hours were long.
She stood at the door, antsy to get going, but her managing editor ignored her eagerness. “Kvist is coming in later. He’ll be doing all the calling; Jakob is gone this week.”
Jakob was the intern responsible for calling around to the country’s major police stations for their activity reports. So, Ole Kvist was filling in for him. That suited Camilla just fine; she hated calling duty officers, going through the daily reports of various police experts, even though she’d found out it was a good way to dig up news.
“Maybe we should gather the troops in the conference room when we get back from Police Headquarters,” he said.
“Fine with me.” Camilla smiled a bit stiffly, then she walked out and closed the door behind her.
What the hell happened! she thought as she marched back to her office, her high heels clattering in the hallway. I’m out of the loop!
She stood in front of her window. Apparently, the story was so important tha
t they had to send Holm in to make sure everything was done properly. Who the hell did he think he was! She sat down and stuck her legs up on her desk. He doesn’t think I can handle it. Thoughts buzzed around in her head like angry bees knocked out of their hive. She realized she was getting all worked up.
“What time is the press briefing?”
Camilla jumped when Høyer slammed the door behind him. “Three o’clock,” she said.
“This is the first time I can remember that a Danish journalist has been killed, at least this way. There could be a connection between the murder and his work; that’s obvious. Maybe some psychopath just randomly chose Frank, of course, but I wouldn’t be one damn bit surprised if it was someone shutting him up.”
“Yeah, and they can’t count on getting away with it; it’s too obvious,” Camilla said. Surely the police see it that way, too, she thought.
“Talk to Holm. He’ll know who might do a thing like this. Maybe Frank mentioned something.” Her boss turned and walked back to his office.
Camilla felt bewildered. Hadn’t she just been told to keep out of this? She shook her head and grabbed her notebook on the way out the door. She walked past the intern’s office and stopped outside the crime staff’s first office. The door was open a crack. Holm was on the phone, but he waved her on in when he spotted her.
“Hi,” she mouthed.
“Hi,” he mouthed back.
Camilla sat on the red two-person sofa and studied the crowded bookshelf on the wall opposite her. A cigarette smoldered in an ashtray on the desk, the blue smoke snaking up toward the ceiling.
“Hi, Camilla. So, what the hell’s next, now that they’re stabbing a person for doing their job!”
His attempt at lightheartedness couldn’t hide his despair. He took a deep drag on his cigarette, the glow at the end longer than what was left of the butt.
“Who do you think is behind it?”
“Damned if I know.” He crushed the cigarette out. “All I can think of is, he stuck his nose too far into somebody’s business, and that somebody is probably involved in the drug case.”
“It’s insane.”
He smiled and nodded. “You’re right, but there’s a lot at stake for these mobsters; they’ll do anything to protect themselves.”
“Isn’t it too risky to start snooping around right now?”
She knew she sounded motherly, and she grimaced in apology.
“Yeah, it’s not a good idea to push things too hard. But if his death is connected with the drug thing, he must have uncovered something. And I fucking want to know what.”
“It doesn’t necessarily have to do with drugs. It could be the bikers, all the articles he wrote back then. Maybe they’ve been waiting for revenge until someone else would be suspected.”
He studied her as he thought about that. Shrugged his shoulders, knocked another cigarette out of his pack. “Maybe!” He stared up at the ceiling. “It can’t be ruled out. But I’ll probably know more sometime this evening.”
“Watch out for yourself.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going out there to track down some murderer, but there are some guys who usually have a good idea what’s going on. I’ll look them up. The police will have to take care of the rest. That’s what they’re paid to do.”
Louise’s office chair sank when she sat down. In her head she ticked off everything she had to do. She’d already printed out the report about last night, and she’d stuck it in a plastic folder. Karoline’s parents would have to read and sign it before it could be scanned and filed away. And she needed to get hold of Martin Dahl. The best would be to speak with him at his and Karoline’s apartment. It was easier to form an impression of people when she was familiar with their homes.
The phone rang five times before the voice mail message kicked in. “You’ve reached Martin and Karoline. We’re out right now, but leave a message and we’ll get back to you. Bye!” The young woman’s voice was chirpy and light.
Louise hung up before the beep. Karoline’s happy voice rang in her ears. Maybe she could drive by on the way to the girl’s parents.
She put on her coat and was on her way down the hallway when she heard her office phone ring. Shit! After hesitating a moment, she ran back. “Department A, Louise Rick.”
“I am so goddamn stoked. I’m going out to talk to Frank Sørensen’s wife,” Camilla said, her voice shrill with excitement.
“And?”
“It’s really incredible. She won’t talk to anyone from her husband’s own paper, but she wants to talk to me.”
Louise realized it would take a while for her friend to calm down. It was a big thing for competing journalists, a big victory; that much Louise knew. It was exactly this type of situation when she doubted Camilla’s noble intentions: Her friend insisted she wasn’t prying. She was giving someone the chance to speak out! What the hell was the difference? She wasn’t one bit better than the others when she saw an opportunity. Louise suspected her friend was intent on becoming the most hard-core of all crime reporters—the woman who could get her foot in the door anywhere.
“You’re making too much of this. Get a life!”
“This is a life, damn it. I’m making a difference when a woman who just lost her husband would rather talk to me than anyone else.” Camilla sounded as if she’d been slapped.
And, of course, in the end, Louise had to agree with her. “You’re right, congratulations. It’ll be great to read what you write about it. I’ve got to run. Talk to you later.”
Strange, she thought. She talked ten times as much to Camilla as to Peter. There was something about a female friend, one you could share your happiness and here-and-now frustrations with. She’d never dream of calling Peter up to tell him she’d snapped at Michael Stig again.
She shook her head at herself. Three thirty, time to hit the road.
Louise ran down the steps and jogged through the courtyard, determined not to be waylaid if she met someone. When she had that look on her face, very few people dared approach her.
She found Svendsen in the garage. “I need a car. I won’t be back until sometime this evening.”
Svendsen reigned over the fleet of police cars. Heilmann had already reserved two unmarked cars for the team, but when Louise went to get the keys for one of them, they were already gone.
Svendsen made sure the cars were filled up and running well—no one at Police Headquarters had to worry about that—but it wasn’t always easy to squeeze a car out of him without a reservation.
Come on, come on, Louise thought. She crossed her fingers in her pockets; she didn’t want to have to argue.
“Here, take this one,” he said, handing her the key to a white Focus.
“Hey, thanks!” She was surprised, and she gave him a big smile as she got into the car.
Before starting the car, she plugged her earbuds into her phone.
She drove past Central Station and up to Palads, the nearby movie theater. She thought about getting a hot dog at Nørreport Station, but she knew parking spaces were hard to come by. Instead she continued down Øster Farimagsgade; she could stop along there for a bite to eat before checking if Karoline’s boyfriend was home on Skovgårdsgade. She parked and crossed the street to a produce market, where she bought four bananas and a large bag of raisins. On the way back to the car she ducked into a kiosk for a Diet Coke.
She adjusted the seat back for more room to eat. After two bananas and a few handfuls of raisins, she wiped her fingers off and pulled her phone out of her pocket. She found Martin and Karoline’s phone number in her bag and called, only to get voice mail again.
The curtains were closed on the ground floor. She rang the doorbell and heard its shrill clang, then pressed the button again and held it in for five seconds. After waiting a few minutes, she gave up.
Karoline’s parents lived farther out in Østerbro. Three cars were parked outside the large house—the media, maybe? Louise checked before pulling in behind the r
ear car. No one was sitting in the cars or standing outside; the cars belonged to family or friends, she decided. There to support the parents.
The door opened before she reached the porch. Karoline’s mother, Lise Wissinge, must have seen her walking up the sidewalk. Louise shook her hand.
“Please come inside. And thank you for your help last night; it was so very kind of you to sacrifice a night’s sleep for us.”
Her red eyes were dull, heavy. She was clenching a white handkerchief.
“You’re very welcome. I’m glad we had the opportunity to talk.”
“My sister is here, also Karoline’s grandparents, but please come inside.”
She led Louise out to the spacious kitchen. Last night they had sat in the living room, and Louise had sensed they were a very conservative, very respectable family, perhaps a bit strict and old-fashioned. But that impression didn’t fit the mood in the cozy kitchen. Karoline’s father, Hans, wore jeans and a dark turtleneck sweater, while Lise, as Louise only now noticed, was dressed very casually. She realized the stiffness and formality the previous night had been a shield protecting them from reality, a buffer to help distance themselves from what had happened. That distance was gone now.
Pots of coffee and a large teapot stood in the middle of the table. Candles were lit all over the room; a peace hung in the air, the type that comes only when the crying is over. A younger version of Lise, her sister no doubt, sat on a bench with the grandparents, looking through a large photo album. Karoline’s father commented when they turned a page. At the end of the table sat Martin, Karoline’s boyfriend. He nodded politely when Louise walked in.
“Hi.”
“Hi, Martin.”
Louise shook his hand. She hadn’t paid much attention to him the night before. He was taller and much more a man than she’d thought.
She fished the report up out of her bag and asked the parents to read it. Then she walked over and sat down beside Martin.
“I was wondering if we could have a talk,” she said. She nodded when Lise offered her a cup of coffee. Martin stiffened. Louise hoped he wouldn’t make a big deal out of this. It would be awkward if she had to force him to come in for questioning; this relatively relaxed atmosphere would vanish the second the parents realized something unpleasant about Karoline’s boyfriend might come out. Something they really didn’t want to know.
