Rebekka Franck Series Box Set vol 1-5

by Willow Rose

  "Well. You know how Christian said that he knew who the victim was?"

  "Yes. And?"

  "I really need to know that as well. I can't have him run the story before us. Jens-Ole will kill me. This is my story, this is our exclusive story. It has to stay that way. If the Express has some information that we don't then we need to find it. Maybe find it somewhere else than where they did. Maybe like somewhere we're not supposed to look."

  Sune stopped smiling. "I think that I know where this is going and the answer is no. I can't risk it, Rebekka. If the police catch me hacking into their systems and files I'll be locked up for a long time. I have a record, you know."

  "I know. I'm sorry," I said and walked back to my desk and sat down. "I shouldn't have asked. It was just stupid. We'll let Christian Lonstedt and his self-taught photographs win this round. We'll beat him next time, I'm sure."

  Sune was growling behind his computer screen. I knew how much real photographers loathed these self-taught journalists who thought they could do as good a job as a real photographer could. People like Sune considered themselves artists who just happened to have to work for a newspaper to earn money, but they would never want to be compared to someone like Christian who didn't understand the beauty of photography the way people like Sune did. They didn't know how to use the light and the scene to create something beautiful even from something as dark and ugly as the scene of crime. Sune could do that. He was even brilliant at that.

  Sune snorted and slammed his fist in the desk. "I'll do it," he said.

  I looked at him with a smile.

  "It went well last time, right?" he argued with his own conscience.

  "It sure did. And I'll take all the blame if you're ever arrested again," I said. "I'll tell them that you did it on my order. Since you're afraid of being out of work soon because of the tough times being a photographer, you felt forced to do it. Because of your son, naturally. You need to feed your son, right?"

  "Right," Sune growled. "But you're paying me double for this. I'll overcharge you for today."

  "Sure." I jumped up from my chair and went to Sune's desk. "Here's the thing. I have been thinking. Someone had to have found the body this morning, and then called the police. They sent out a patrol to look into it since it might be just a prank or something else. The two officers first on the scene always leave a report when they get back and since it is past noon now they are definitely done with it. So I figured you could get me access to that report and then keep an eye out for the next one coming later today from the people working out there right now. Then I would like access to the forensics report of Susanne Larsen's death. They have to have that by now in the system. Then we can tell if the two cases are in any way connected."

  CHAPTER 14

  IT DIDN'T TAKE SUNE more than a few minutes to hack his way into the police files. I watched him with excitement as his fingers danced across the keyboard. Sune was so talented at many things but this was really what he did best. Even if it was illegal, this was his element. There was no doubt.

  "Got it," he said and leaned back with his arms behind his head. "It's amazing how bad they are at protecting themselves against attacks from the outside," he said.

  I smiled and walked behind him. I leaned in over him on his chair to better see the screen. Being close to him again brought me back to the night before for a short second and caused something to stir inside of me. It was like we had opened a door we couldn't close again. I stepped back. I couldn't allow myself to act like this. I had to repress it.

  Sune felt it too. He turned his head and looked up at me. I felt drawn to him and remembered how soft his lips had felt against mine. This was bad, I thought. This was really bad.

  "Do you want to sit here while you read?" he asked and got up from his chair like he was in a hurry. He had blushed and his eyes avoided mine.

  "Sure," I nodded.

  "I'll just go out here, for a second," he said and pointed awkwardly at the door to the kitchen. "Get us some more coffee," he stuttered.

  "You forgot the cups!" Sara yelled with a grin.

  Sune returned. "It's okay. I'll take new ones."

  "Bring me one as well," she said.

  "Will do," he said and disappeared behind the door.

  Sara stared at me.

  "What?"

  "Be very careful you two," she said while shaking her head.

  I shook mine to pretend that I had no idea what she was talking about. Then I started scrolling through the police report from this morning. The call had come in at eight forty-seven. A guy named Brian Poulsen told them he worked weekends in the badminton club and had found a dead man in the men's dressing room when he went in to put up clean paper towels. The man was on the floor and there was blood all over the tiles even on the walls. "A bloodbath," he had called it. He had even been able to identify the victim, since it was his boss, the leader of the badminton club, Mr. Anders Hoejmark. The police officer had asked him over the phone to stay where he was while waiting for them and to not touch anything. But Brian Poulsen had not been there once the police had arrived.

  So they would soon be starting a search for him, I thought. That meant they would need the media's help. Our newspaper was the strongest in this area and one that everybody around and in Karrebaeksminde read so they really needed our help to find this guy. That gave me an advantage. I was in a position where I could ask for something in return, such as some information that no one else had. I noted that on my pad.

  I read through the rest of the report. The two officers sent to the sports center had arrived at five to nine and found the body in the shower. There was blood all over the tiles, they wrote. They had stayed clear of the scene and not touched anything. Then they called for backup and stayed at the scene until the forensic team arrived. They had then both consulted the police psychologist for an hour each.

  I looked up from the screen. Why did they have to see a psychologist?

  Sune returned from the kitchen with Sara's coffee and placed it at her desk. She smiled and thanked him. Then he retrieved our cups. He gave me mine in my hand. I drank while staring into thin air.

  "Could you find the forensic report on Susanne Larsen?" I asked.

  He sipped his coffee, then nodded. "Sure. Once I'm in there’s really nothing much to it anymore."

  I got up from his chair and as we passed each other our shoulders touched gently. His scent filled my nostrils and there it was again. That stir inside of me that feeling that I had no idea where to place was back. I glanced at Sara and saw her staring at us. I exhaled deeply and restrained myself. This had to stop. This longing, wanting to touch him, wanting to kiss him again. It had to be stopped before it went too far.

  "Here it is," he said shortly after.

  This time I waited for him to move far away from the chair before I sat in it. I started scrolling slowly. When the pictures came up, my stomach turned. I literally felt like I was about to throw up. I held a hand across my mouth and fought the growing nausea. Sune came up behind me and looked at the screen as well.

  "What the hell is that?" he exclaimed.

  "Susanne Larsen I'm afraid. Or what's left of her at least."

  I stared at the pictures once again. This time it wasn't as bad as the first, now that I was sort of prepared for it. Not that you'd ever be prepared for this kind of thing, this kind of cruelty. The first pictures were taken at the scene of crime. In the shower of what I assumed had to be the hotel room at the inn. Her arms seemed to be handcuffed to the faucet, to the pipe connecting the cold and warm. Her wrists were ripped to blood from trying to pull herself free, the forensics concluded. I shivered while I tried to imagine what must have gone through her mind while desperately fighting to pull her hands out.

  Her body, especially her back was rippled with striped bruises that indicated she had been whipped with something similar to a leather belt, the report said. I swallowed hard as I watched her head closer. It looked like it had been cut open with
a very sharp knife. A scalpel, the report stated. A very thin cut had been made just above the eyes and into the brain where the killer had cut off the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain. The incision had disconnected certain nerves in the brain and then the killer had left the victim to die from bleeding to death in the shower. The cut didn't seem professionally made, the report stated and the way the cut was made indicated - along with marks and bruises on her face and hands that the victim had still been alive and fully awake when the incision was made. She had probably passed out from the pain at some point before the incision was fully completed. If not the victim had to have lost her consciousness by the time the neural pathways were cut.

  I leaned back in Sune's chair. He was behind me reading along with me. None of us were making a sound. I felt sick.

  "What the hell is this?" he asked.

  I exhaled deeply. "It looks like someone performed a lobotomy on Susanne Larsen while she was fully awake."

  Sune turned and walked away for a second. He was twisting and turning, leaning over to catch his breath, gasping for air. "That's so sick, I can't believe it," he stuttered.

  "My guess is the same thing happened to the dear president of the badminton club," I said heavily.

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Cause it stated in the report from this morning that the officers first on the scene had to see the police psychologist afterwards."

  "Wow. Sounds like you could be right," Sune said. His face was so pale, even paler than usual.

  "Plus he was also found in a shower."

  "Reminds me of the movie Psycho," Sune said. "Seems like a pattern for the killer then?"

  "Could very well be," I said. "Like a ritual."

  "What does the report say about the killer? Do they have anything on him? Fingerprints, DNA?"

  I scrolled to the long text underneath the pictures. "The handcuffs and the whipping and bruising and the fact that they had found semen inside of her indicates that she had been engaged maybe in some kind of S&M sex game with a man."

  "Okay. Then they must have a DNA-profile?" Sune asked pensively.

  "They do. But he's not in their system."

  "Then it's no good," Sune exclaimed.

  "Not now, but later. Plus if they find any DNA on the scene where Anders Hoejmark, the president of the badminton club was murdered then they'll at least know that it was the same guy."

  "But Anders Hoejmark was a guy? Is the killer a sort of bi-sexual S&M monster?" Sune asked.

  I shrugged. "Could be. Maybe he likes both. Maybe there's a reason. We have all the details we need and more. At least we can make the article about who it was that was killed this morning at the badminton club. As soon as the forensic report arrives we can also publish the article about the connection between the two killings."

  "If they are," Sune stated.

  "Of course. We also need to make sure that the victim's family has been informed before we run the identity of him. I'll call Johannes Lindstroem in a couple of hours to make sure. We want to be first with the story, but not at any cost. Not if the family isn't informed yet. I don't want them to learn about it in the online paper. That would be terrible."

  I opened another file in the folder of Susanne Larsen and started reading the investigation report.

  "Hmm," I said.

  "What?" Sune came closer.

  "Apparently Susanne Larsen led a sort of double-life."

  "Well we kind of had that feeling already," Sune said. "That she had been having an affair with someone, right?"

  "Yeah. But we never suspected this. I don't know about you, but I for one didn't."

  Sune came up behind me and looked at the screen again. "What do you mean? What didn't we suspect?"

  "According to the police-investigation they found out that she had been chatting with several men over the computer lately and found lovers that she casually met with. She joined a sex-chat on the Internet that is strictly for people into hardcore S&M, you know one of these where you don't give them your real name and then you meet and have sex and never see each other again. That way you can keep it a secret and still have your weird desires satisfied."

  "I get the picture," Sune said.

  "It also says here that this information has to be kept from the press since her husband and children don’t know," I continued.

  "Protecting their own and the kids. Can't blame them, can we?"

  "No, of course not. But it is interesting."

  "How so?" Sune asked.

  "It means that the police are looking for the guy she met up with, the guy she met through this website and they're also looking for this guy, Brian Poulsen."

  Sune looked at me. "So now you want me to try and hack into Brian Poulsen's computer and find out if he is also into hardcore S&M and if he likes to chat with others, and meet up with others, who enjoy the same pleasures as he. And maybe - if we should only be so lucky - if he has been chatting with Susanne Larsen. Is that it?"

  "Well I actually hadn't thought that far yet," I said grinning, "but since you mention it, then that sounds like a great idea. Could you do that? Could you find him?"

  Sune pulled up another chair and pushed me aside so he could reach the computer. "I can certainly give it a try," he said.

  I leaned back and sipped my coffee while watching the magician at work. I enjoyed that we were being a team again. It felt like we were suddenly back to normal. There was one thing I was going to make sure from now on, I decided. I was never going to let anything as stupid as a kiss come between us again. I couldn't afford for it to happen again.

  No matter how badly I wanted it.

  CHAPTER 15

  IT WAS HARDER THAN anticipated to find this Brian Poulsen and get into his computer. First of all because it was a pretty common name and just alone in Karrebaeksminde Sune found three people by that name. But second of all because Brian Poulsen himself - once Sune located who we believed to be the right one, the one that we found through the county's computers where it stated he had been ordered to take the job at the badminton club as a part of what they called an "Activation package" - turned out to be quite the computer nerd himself. He had put up a very difficult protection shield of some sort, that I didn't understand and Sune had a difficult time breaking through it. On top of that we were running out of time, since we were certain that soon the police were going to try and use the same angle as we did and they might just somehow “run into Sune” in cyberspace while he was trying to crack the codes as well. It made Sune sweat heavily and swear while he tried and tried again.

  Meanwhile I started writing my article about this morning's homicide at the badminton club. When I had written the first few lines I picked up the phone and called Johannes Lindstroem. He confirmed that the deceased was Anders Hoejmark, the daily leader, or president of the club and that his family had been informed earlier in the day.

  "How do you know this?" he then asked. "We haven't told a soul yet."

  "Let's just say I have my sources," I answered.

  "So does your friend at the Express apparently. That Frederik guy called me just a minute ago and told me they had already put it on their online paper. Can you believe that? Without having it confirmed by me first or even making sure that the family had been informed. What a nerve they have. Could you have imagined what would have happened if we haven't found the family yet?"

  "That would have been terrible," I said.

  "They said they got it from an anonymous tip," Johannes Lindstroem continued.

  So Christian had been lucky, I thought. Someone had tipped them. Maybe that was why he had been first at the scene. But who would know about the body other than the killer himself? Could Brian Poulsen have called the paper after he had found the body? Maybe to make a few extra bucks? They were known to pay their informers at the Express. Maybe that was why he hadn't stayed behind for the police to come? Either that or he was the killer of course.
r />   "So do you have any suspects yet?" I asked Johannes Lindstroem.

  "We would like to get a hold of Brian Poulsen, the young man who works at the badminton club in the weekends and who called the alarm central this morning and told us about the body. When the police arrived he was nowhere to be found."

  "Do you consider him to be a suspect?"

  "Not yet. But we would like to talk to him. It’s very urgent."

  "I'll make sure to write that," I said and wrote it on my notepad. "Do you have a picture of him somewhere we can print?"

  "We’re getting one ready as we speak. I'll make sure it’s e-mailed to you so it can be in the morning paper. Make sure to state that he is not a suspect but that we want to talk to him as soon as possible."

  "I'll make sure to do that. Then maybe you could give me something in return?" I knew I was stretching my good-will but I really needed something else to put in the article that the Express hadn't already told in their on-line paper.

  Johannes Lindstroem sighed. "Like what?"

  "I just need a comment on a few details. If you don't care to elaborate then just say yes or no."

  "Very well, bring it on."

  "I have a feeling the two killings - Susanne Larsen and Anders Hoejmark - are connected. Is that true?"

  Johannes Lindstroem hesitated before he answered. "Yes. We believe they are. We don't know for sure. We haven't found any DNA at the second scene and no fingerprints at any of them that we can match. But as I said we still believe they are connected."

  "Same modus operandi?"

  "Both of them have been killed by the exact same procedure, yes."

  I sighed with relief. This meant I could put it in my paper now that he had confirmed it and commented on it.

  "Both killed in the shower? Both of them have been lobotomized?" I asked.

  Johannes Lindstroem went quiet for a long time. "Where did you get that information from?" He said very seriously.

  "I talked to someone - a source who shall remain nameless - who told me how Susanne Larsen had died, the rest I guessed," I lied. It sounded plausible.