The Midnight Witness

by Sara Blaedel

  “And today of all days! This is not what her parents need now.”

  She folded the paper and threw it onto the sofa next to them. She cursed herself for telling Camilla too much. Never again! She’d have to completely stop talking to her about cases.

  She picked at her scrambled eggs, but then she stuck a fork in a slice of melon instead.

  Michael Stig drove with Suhr beside him in the front seat, Louise in the back. The Danish flag hung at half-mast as they approached the church. The red and white colors stood out against the blue spring sky. It was chilly, but the sun was shining.

  Stig parked at the curb, and they walked up the gravel path together. They’d arrived at the last minute as planned, so they wouldn’t attract too much attention. The parents had gone inside, but a few young people were still standing around. Friends, Louise guessed. As they approached, she noticed Camilla beside the church porch, along with a photographer and a few other journalists.

  Camilla saw her and smiled, but Louise stared stiffly down at the path in front of her. She walked between Stig and Suhr, ignoring everyone as they reached the back pew and sat down. The church was nearly filled up.

  “Let’s keep our eyes open,” Suhr said. He suggested that Stig sit farther in front, to watch for anyone reacting strangely and conspicuously.

  “You just want the lovely Rick all to yourself,” Stig half whispered. He walked farther down and found an empty chair off to the side.

  Louise could have murdered him, but fortunately Suhr simply ignored the remark.

  “Right before they carry the coffin out, step outside and watch everyone passing by,” he whispered to her. The organ began, drowning out all other sounds. Louise nodded.

  During the service, she thought about how to react if Camilla walked over and spoke to her outside. She tried to concentrate, to not let the mood in the church affect her, but it was hard to ignore people in front of her blowing their noses, weeping quietly.

  She took in fragments of the pastor’s remarks. When he said that Karoline had been called home to God, she shut him out; she couldn’t hold back her tears if she listened. And it felt wrong for her to take part in their sorrow. She hadn’t known Karoline, and it wouldn’t be right to cry over her.

  Just before the family and close friends rose to follow the coffin out, Louise edged past the others sitting on the pew, tiptoed to the heavy door, and opened it just enough to quickly squeeze outside.

  The photographers stood ready. That week the murder of Karoline Wissinge hadn’t been the biggest story in most of the media, but Louise guessed that linking it to the death of her little brother had whetted their interest. Now it was front-page material. Camilla stood in the background against a tall hedge along the gravel path leading to the church’s graveyard. Without looking around, Louise found a spot right behind the photographers and turned to face the church. She knew someone might take her for a member of the press. She hoped not. Church bells began ringing, and a moment later the coffin and pallbearers appeared.

  Hans and Lise Wissinge held the front of the coffin; the mother’s face was puffy from crying, while he remained expressionless. Martin Dahl was right behind them, but she didn’t recognize the other pallbearers.

  The grandparents supported each other as they followed the coffin. The rest of the mourners followed in a thin stream. Louise sensed the bleak, overwhelming mood emerging from the church.

  No one spoke; the only sound was the crunch of gravel as the coffin was borne to the hearse. When it had been pushed inside, people gathered around and began singing a Kim Larsen song, “Soon.” It gave her goose bumps. Again, she was moved by all the crying and sobbing.

  She stood farther back now, alert to anyone who stuck out or in some way didn’t belong. She walked over to a man leaning against the church wall. A few others weren’t singing, but Suhr stood beside them. An elderly man sat on a bench off to the side, following what was going on. She signaled to Stig that she would talk to the man later. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Camilla approaching, but before she reached her, Louise said, “I’m working, I don’t have time to talk to you. And I don’t want to talk to you.” But Camilla had already retreated so far that she didn’t catch the last sentence.

  After the song was over, people spread out in small groups. Karoline’s mother came up to her. “Thank you for coming.”

  Instead of saying she was just doing her job, Louise smiled.

  “Would all of you like to come with us for coffee?”

  Would it be rude for them to say no? “I’m sorry, but we’ll be on the streets around the park this evening.”

  Lise nodded. “Of course. Please, please find him.”

  She took Louise’s elbow and leaned close to her. “The worst is knowing he’s out there, that he might live his life without being caught. It’s driving me crazy. I feel like I’m falling apart inside. And now the papers are talking about Mikkel, too.”

  Louise turned to face her. “I understand, and I promise you we’ll do absolutely everything we can.”

  Lise nodded. “I know.”

  She walked back to her family. The mourners stood around chatting. Then Karoline’s father raised his voice, cleared his throat a few times, and said everyone was invited to their home for coffee.

  A half hour later, they were headed back to Police Headquarters.

  “Did either of you get anything?” Suhr asked. But before they could answer, he said, “I found one man we need to talk to, and two others had trouble remembering how they knew Karoline.”

  It was Louise’s turn. “The man over by the church wall said he taught Karoline in grammar school. I have his name and address. The old man on the bench had no idea whose funeral it was.”

  Essentially, they’d got nothing. And Louise was afraid it would be the same that evening.

  The mood was sober, very un-weekend-like, on the second floor at Homicide. Most offices were occupied. Jørgensen nodded at her when she walked over and sat down.

  A stack of messages lay on her desk, and she looked up at her partner.

  “Camilla Lind called seven times this morning.”

  She took the messages, crumpled them up, and threw them in the wastebasket. She already had deleted four messages on her phone before shutting it off.

  She sat for a while, thinking of Camilla. Of course, they would talk this out. Just not right now. The door opened and Willumsen stuck his head in. “Want some lunch? There’s food in the lunchroom in fifteen minutes.” He stood in the doorway.

  Louise didn’t react, but Jørgensen said okay, they’d be there.

  The lunchroom was buzzing when they came in. Louise was nearly bowled over by the euphoric mood.

  A few moments later she realized she hadn’t kept up on the department’s other cases. Someone had been arrested for the murder of Frank Sørensen. She sat down beside a member of Willumsen’s team and filled her plate. “Congratulations. What happened?”

  He filled her in on the arrest. One of the big shots. A preliminary hearing had been held that morning, and he had been remanded into custody for a week. “We’re not a hundred percent sure he killed Frank himself, but he was seen at the hotel Saturday evening.”

  Louise listened intently, forgetting to eat. “Who is it?” She could almost guess the answer.

  “Klaus West.”

  She nodded. “What do you have?”

  He sighed and let his silverware rest on his plate. “Not very damn much. Narcotics thinks they can connect him to the three rooms raided in the Royal Hotel on Saturday, and they’re working to make him part of the ongoing case.”

  “But surely there’s more, otherwise you won’t be able to hold him.”

  “Right now, we’re holding him on probable cause.”

  “It’s not enough that someone says they saw him,” she said, astonished that he couldn’t see this himself.

  “A strong witness put him at the crime scene, very strong. Apparently, Frank Sørensen publicly su
ggested that Klaus West is behind all the big drug transactions, and Birte Jensen from Narcotics and Licensing is certain West flew into a rage.”

  “Still, that’s thin, isn’t it?”

  “We’re hoping the murder weapon shows up, of course. We’re searching for where West hangs his hat. Narcotics has raided several of his properties, but he wasn’t living in any of them.”

  Louise nodded; she’d heard that. She told him she’d seen West in town Thursday night. He laughed, which embarrassed her.

  “So, you’re the looker!”

  She felt herself blushing. What was going on? How did he…? She stared down at her plate. “More likely it was my friend.”

  He kept laughing. “The report says you both were most likely bought and paid for.” He tried to control himself. Very funny, she thought.

  “Well, you can just rewrite that report because we weren’t!” She hoped Camilla hadn’t made too big a spectacle of herself while Louise had been gone. “So, is he saying anything?”

  “Nothing, zero. His attorney is John Bro, and as usual he’s advised his client to not say a word.”

  “Too bad. You’ve got a rough road ahead of you.” Louise pushed her plate away and sighed.

  Camilla tried again, but Louise still didn’t answer. She’d finished the article about the funeral and was thinking about leaving before something else came up.

  She thought about her job. She’d lain awake most of the night, thinking about whether she was cut out to be a crime reporter. Two very unpleasant episodes with her boss in one week—not okay, she decided. She mulled over everything that had happened. The Finn’s visit was still on her mind, too.

  Friday afternoon the photo editor had marched into Camilla’s office brandishing several sheets of paper. He demanded to know why she hadn’t said that Karoline’s younger brother had been killed in a traffic accident.

  Before she could defend herself, Holck pounded his fist on her desk and yelled that he wouldn’t stand for this, that he’d first learned about it because a competitor had wanted to buy a photo from their archives.

  He slapped the sheets of paper on the desk: prints of articles Camilla had written about the accident. He stared at her in rage. “What the hell are you thinking?”

  She thought about taking him on, but instead she sighed and pursed her lips. “Obviously I wasn’t. Thinking.”

  Høyer had joined them. He knew what was going on.

  “It didn’t occur to me there was a connection.” She looked back and forth between them. She fought off her tears; she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. To hell with them.

  “God damn it, Lind, Wissinge isn’t exactly a common name.”

  “No,” she agreed, but then she looked up in defiance. “This is not what these parents need right now.”

  She knew what was coming.

  “And maybe someone asked you to form an opinion on that?” He turned to Høyer. “I didn’t know we had a new boss here!”

  He walked out the door without even glancing at Camilla, but she heard him say it was incredible what this girl was sticking her nose in.

  Høyer closed the door and sat down. “We have to have that story. It needs to be on the front page tomorrow, the day of her funeral.”

  “It’s not right to do this. At the very least we should let the parents know the story’s coming.”

  Høyer insisted that the article be based on the earlier articles she’d written about the accident, and she should refer to the fact they had covered the tragedy back then. “We’re not going to disturb the parents the day before they bury their daughter, when the story’s already in the archives.”

  Camilla was experienced enough to know he didn’t want to risk the parents opposing the story. She felt like leaving, but the look on the managing editor’s face told her that wouldn’t be smart. “Can’t you put someone else on it? I have my foot in the door for an interview with the parents; I can’t just ambush them with this story.”

  He shook his head. “I want you to write it. You do this type of thing the right way. We want our readers to be moved; they have to feel the loss, the sorrow. Our thoughts will be with them; we’ll share their pain when she’s buried. It’s right up your alley.”

  She almost felt sick; she’d never imagined that what she felt was her strength would work against her. “I don’t want to write this article.”

  He stood up and walked to the door. “You have to.”

  She wasn’t sure she could hold back the tears.

  “I’m expecting it in an hour,” he said, and walked out.

  She stared at the door. Asshole! She considered making another scene and putting her job on the line. But instead she decided to take her time, think about looking for another job. It would mean more in the long run.

  She began reading the articles about the accident.

  She knew the moment she saw Louise in front of the church. She should have called and prepared her for it, but then she’d gone out with the sportswriters, and then the Finn had shown up. Saturday morning she’d tried to get hold of her friend, but Louise hadn’t answered at Police Headquarters, and her cell phone was off. It was too late anyway.

  At eight p.m., between thirty and forty police officers were gathered in the lunchroom. Suhr had made a sketch of the area they would cover.

  “I want four of you in Baren and four in Pussy Galore. We need to find the people who were there last Saturday night. And we need to stop the people walking through or otherwise in the area during the hours when Karoline Wissinge left Baren and later was killed. They’re the ones we really need to talk to; they might have seen something. The most important time is after midnight. Everyone will be checking in regularly. We have three men in the bus handling communications. Two of them will be keeping track of what happens on the streets; the other will take care of the officers in the park.”

  He scratched his forehead. “Obviously, I don’t count on there being many people in the park after midnight, but it’s open all night, and who knows? Maybe there are people who get up to give the dog a late walk.” He shrugged.

  Louise was part of the team Suhr placed on Stockholmsgade, which ran all the way along the park. The other teams covered the stretch from Silver Square to where Karoline lived. Everyone in the adjoining side streets would also be stopped.

  They left Police Headquarters in one of the green police buses and parked on Stockholmsgade. That would be their base, where they could duck in for a break and a cup of coffee.

  Louise made sure she had both her notepads. She was glad she’d brought along gloves and a stocking cap; it would get cold standing around most of the night.

  “Okay then, looks like we’re about ready,” Jørgensen said. He was assigned to stand with Louise where Stockholmsgade ended at Silver Square. She noticed several windows open in the buildings along the street. The arrival of so many police had attracted attention, and people would no doubt come down to ask what was going on.

  Their orders were to stop everyone and ask if they’d been in the same place at the same time one week ago. If so, the officers were to ask the person if they’d noticed anything. If they hadn’t been close to the park, they were free to go.

  Louise expected that many of the people she’d be talking to that night had already been interviewed by officers knocking on doors. Most people who’d be walking by most likely lived in an apartment on the street. But others might be there on weekends, and they might have something of interest to tell. Weekend boyfriends or girlfriends, children of divorced parents. People returning from being away during the week.

  She straightened up when their first pedestrian approached.

  Louise yawned and crawled in under her comforter. It was ten to eight, and the first thing she’d done when she got home was turn her phone off.

  Her feet were sore from walking in small circles. She’d guessed that she had spoken with around twenty people, though she hadn’t looked through her notepad and counted. Only fi
ve of them were people living in the neighborhood, and they already had been interviewed. The others she’d stopped weren’t in the area regularly. None of them had been there last Saturday. Louise’s enthusiasm had slowly waned as the cold crept in under her heavy police coat.

  It had been quiet on Stockholmsgade in comparison to Silver Square, where cars and bicycles streamed through all night. The concentration of blood alcohol increased as the night wore on. Suhr believed they’d talked to about two hundred people.

  Just before her thoughts blurred and sleep took over, she allowed herself to take Sunday off, completely. If she wanted to lie in bed all day, she would.

  15

  When Louise walked into her office Monday morning, she had a message from Camilla, asking her to call. She ignored it and turned on her computer.

  Suhr had spent Sunday going through the results of the canvass Saturday night. It had yielded far less than he had hoped.

  Louise hadn’t been in touch with Camilla since Friday afternoon, when she’d told her friend to toss out the mountain of flowers delivered to her. If asked, she would have sworn all weekend that it would be a long time before she felt like talking to Camilla again. But it was no use. Anyway, she wanted to hear what Camilla had to say about Klaus West being arrested. She punched in her friend’s number.

  “I’m glad you called,” Camilla said. “So much has happened, and I want to explain why I wrote the article about Karoline’s brother.”

  She started to apologize, but then she broke off and asked if they could meet.

  Louise hesitated a moment before answering. “I’m still mad about that article; it was a rotten thing to do. It just means I need to keep my mouth shut. And, of course, that’s what I should be doing anyway, but once in a while I need to talk. And I thought I could trust you.”

  Camilla didn’t answer immediately; apparently, she was waiting for Louise to get it all out. But Louise was finished.