The Running Girl

by Sara Blaedel

  “Maybe Hartmann worked as a stooge between the brothels and the bikers?”

  Toft seemed to be thinking out loud. He looked over at Louise and added, “They want to shovel money in, but they’re too damned smart to get mixed up with the brothels.”

  “You’re right,” Louise allowed. “That may be exactly how they’re connected. Because then there’d be a reason for him to pop in now and then at their headquarters.”

  Toft nodded and straightened his glasses, which had started to slip.

  “If it turns out he’s connected to the bikers’ activities in prostitution, then at the same time we can rule out the guys from Folehaven,” he concluded. “Pimping is way too complicated for them.”

  Louise agreed with him, and said she’d asked the bank for copies of Nick Hartmann’s bank statements.

  “I’ve also talked with SKAT, and they’re sending his tax returns for the last four years.”

  Toft’s cell phone rang in his shirt pocket. He straightened up and took it. He mumbled more than talked, and afterward he shook his head.

  “Mikkelsen doesn’t know anything about the deceased, has never heard of him, doesn’t recognize him from the photo, but now he’ll show it to his contacts. There are apparently five brothels that are of interest. But as Michael Stig understands it, Mikkelsen’s already named the people behind them. All the ones who are on the bikers’ payroll.”

  Another thing that Louise was nearly sick over, was the net the bikers had spun over the city, and how it was so extensive that it had threads going in every direction.

  “What did Nick Hartmann spend his time doing? Was he some kind of shipping agent?”

  Louise nodded and said he worked in a big shipping company down on Havnegade.

  “What the hell was he doing running around in the bikers’ headquarters?”

  She shrugged her shoulders and suggested they drive out there and ask the members themselves.

  “Let’s just do that,” said Toft. He pulled his sweater over his head and offered to drop Louise off in Frederiksberg afterward.

  * * *

  The fortification was extremely impressive. The fence was so high you couldn’t tell there was a three-story house behind it, and above the gate two security cameras looked out over the entryway and the sidewalk for several yards in both directions. It was like an impregnable fortress, lacking only a drawbridge and moat. It even had a high-tech intercom system on the door, with a little camera lens that was activated as soon as you rang up.

  Toft called in and asked if they could find out if anyone knew Nick Hartmann.

  “No,” the voice said simply.

  “Come on,” said Toft.

  He looked directly into the little camera.

  “Just let us in.”

  “Thanks for stopping by,” the speaker said in a friendly tone.

  You couldn’t call them impolite, Louise thought, but at the same time they were irritating as hell. She took a step forward.

  “If we can’t come in, won’t you be nice enough to come out here, or send someone else we can just talk with? We know that the person we’re interested in has visited you several times, and now we’d like to hear what his association was.”

  Louise had barely finished speaking when a door to the gate opened and a tall, short-haired man in a vest with an insignia on the back stepped forward.

  Tønnes was his name. Louise recognized him from TV, where he had been recently interviewed after another round of rioting that had sent two high-profile bikers behind bars. He served as the bikers’ spokesperson and spin doctor, and if you ignored his rather fierce and provocative appearance, he was as well-spoken as any businessman and certainly seemed as though he’d be perfectly comfortable in a boardroom. But his fashion choices definitely made it clear where he belonged.

  It wasn’t news to the police that the bikers had found someone with an unusually sharp mind to represent them. Because, clearly, they could use someone who was media savvy, especially now with the rising attention focused on the bikers.

  “Don’t know him,” said Tønnes.

  “He’s come here to the house,” Toft shot back.

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  The peak of politeness.

  “He was arrested during a raid a few months back.”

  The biker shrugged his shoulders and shook his head apologetically.

  “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “Now come on,” said Louise. “We know he’s been here, and you don’t let just anyone come and go as they please.”

  He looked at her.

  “What was the name?” he asked.

  “Nick Hartmann.”

  “Not his name. Yours?”

  Toft was about to come to her rescue, but she stopped him.

  “Louise Rick, Homicide Department at Copenhagen’s Police Headquarters.”

  She wouldn’t let herself be provoked, and again asked him to tell her what the deceased’s association to the biker club had been.

  She couldn’t read anything in his face as he once again shook his head. But his gaze was intense as his dark eyes studied her with a hint of curiosity. He was clearly taking stock of what he saw. Then his look turned dismissive again, and he stepped back in the door.

  “Thanks for stopping by,” he said.

  Toft tried to make another effort, but the door was closed in their faces.

  “Damn are they irritating!” Louise exclaimed.

  Still, she found herself laughing and shaking her head as she followed Toft to the car.

  They’d gotten nothing out of it. They’d been completely, categorically shut out in a friendly and utterly un-bikerly manner, and the scary thing was that someplace deep down, past all sense and reason, she felt herself attracted to the brute strength the man had shown.

  They’re sexy, Camilla had said one summer day as two of the bikers came riding down Gammel Kongevej on their Harleys, no helmets on and their bare tattooed arms under their leather vests.

  That same power had hovered like an aura around the man at the door, Louise thought as she sat down in the front seat of her colleague’s Polo.

  14

  Dear L & Jonas

  Packwood is the world’s most hopeless and over-hyped little town. I haven’t seen anything like it.

  When we were out in Mount Rainier, the national park I wrote about—where, naturally, we saw neither hide nor hair of any mountain lions or black bears!—we couldn’t agree on where to stay. I was just tired and wanted to sleep, but Markus convinced me to keep driving. Here it’s just woods and woods and more woods and then a campground. And that’s how it looked too as we got closer to Packwood, a long straight country road—a little bit like out in Osted, the town’s just much smaller.

  They’ve got two hotels. We drove past the first, and when we were coming up on the second, which looked like an overgrown wooden hut, Markus yelled, “Stop!”

  I yelled, “No way in hell can we stay there.” But then the damned kid tells me I’m the one who says you have to take the plunge if you want to experience anything!

  Did I say that???

  Packwood sells itself on charm and comfort. There are shops, restaurants, hotels, and an airport. And that’s not really a lie. The airport turns out to be a meadow with two run-down two-passenger prop planes AND in the same field there are wild elk walking around loose!

  The restaurant was a saloon where they were having taco night, and it was lucky for us because you got two tacos for the equivalent of twelve kroner, and then we sat with a bunch of bikers who could have been extras back when they filmed Easy Rider. Very interesting!

  When we got back after our taco night, we met the hotel owner’s grown-up daughter who, natural as could be, wore a rifle over her shoulder. She explained that it was both for protecting herself against animals in the woods (read: black bears, mountain lions, et al.) and for keeping her family and the hotel’s guests safe.

  What the hell!
is all I can say. Markus got a supersize Snickers bar for insisting that we stay here. This place is exotic in a way you never even knew was interesting.

  And for the first time in a long while, I actually slept for seven hours straight.

  Now it’s morning and we’re sitting in a little cafe…without doubt the most civilized place for miles around—they even have an Internet connection. Markus is working on his second muffin. We’ve tried to get hold of Signe and Britt to hear about how it’s going at the new school, but neither of them calls back. But tell them we said hi. We’ll try calling again when it’s morning where you are.

  Warmest,

  C—and Markus

  Dear Camilla and Markus,

  I’m terribly sorry to have to tell you that Signe died this weekend. She was killed in a car accident the night she had her party. Some troublemakers barged in and trashed the place, and when Britt asked them to leave they attacked her. She’s been in the National Hospital with a rather complicated fracture on one of her cheekbones.

  Signe went for help, and one of the boys ran after her. Whether it was from panic or because he chased her we still don’t know, but she ran into the road right in front of a car. The driver didn’t even have time to swerve. Her funeral is later today.

  I would have called you, but couldn’t find the courage. Jonas has shut himself up inside, and I don’t know what to do for him. Or myself for that matter. I’m really sorry. I know you and Britt spend time together. But anyway, that’s why they haven’t returned your calls.

  It’s so sad and painful, and the entire class is affected; that goes without saying. I ordered a wreath and put your name on it too.

  Warm hugs,

  Louise

  15

  Steam rose from her tea as Camilla sat with her eyes fixed on the computer screen. As soon as she read the first sentence in Louise’s e-mail, she felt her body going tense. She held her breath instinctively and heard her heart beat louder. An odd, empty feeling shut out all other sounds.

  Word by word the catastrophe slid inside her as she sat with her shoulders scrunched up and her heart hammering away in her chest, which felt cold and hard.

  Markus was engrossed with his Game Boy and didn’t notice his mother going quiet.

  Camilla clasped her hands over her mouth and started to cry.

  “Damn it all to hell!”

  Frightened, Markus looked up at her and watched her stand up and turn to the wall in the little café, where three older men in lumberjack shirts sat drinking espresso from tiny, brightly colored cups.

  She pressed her hand to her mouth and bit the loose skin between her thumb and forefinger. The tears ran down as Markus looked on in confusion.

  “What happened?” he whispered.

  The men at the table looked at them, then averted their eyes.

  Camilla struggled to regain control. She felt the ground collapsing beneath her. In a few seconds, she’d have to pass on the news to her son, take his hand, and comfort him. She felt like she was sitting on an enormous block of ice just before it broke away from the iceberg and floated out to sea. It made her shake so much her teeth rattled.

  She swallowed. Stood a moment getting her breathing under control, dried her tears with her fingertips, and turned to him.

  Scared. His eyes were scared, and he stood with his mouth partly open and waited.

  “Did something happen to Dad?” he whispered.

  She shook her head and watched his shoulders relax.

  Then she gently took hold of him. Feeling heavy and miserable, she told him that Signe had been in a terrible accident.

  Markus wanted to know everything. Asked and asked, but Camilla couldn’t answer very much of it. He read Louise’s e-mail until he knew it by heart, but it wasn’t until she let him go onto Facebook, where he found the memorial page his classmates had put up for Signe, that Markus quieted down. Looking pale, he read all the sweet and loving things Signe’s friends had written to her. And then he began to cry.

  He sat quietly with his face in his hands as the tears ran down.

  Camilla packed up her laptop and paid at the counter. They’d already checked out of Hotel Packwood, but as the only guests it wasn’t any problem getting their room back.

  As she opened the hatch to take their bags out again, she felt deep inside herself a powerful gratitude that Markus had been prevented from attending the party he’d wanted so much to go to.

  16

  The cars were parked tightly along the sidewalk and in front of Hellerup Church. The flag hung limp, and the gray cloud shelf pulled the sky downward so it lay heavily over the roof and the pointed steeple.

  Ulrik Fasting-Thomsen stood with the church warden and greeted everyone. His eyes were full of sorrow, but he smiled and shook each person’s hand. Even though Louise and Markus had gotten there early, most of the seats were already taken. In the very front sat Britt with her head bowed, not up to greeting all the people who’d come to say farewell to her daughter. She’d just been released from the National Hospital, and the bandage over the left side of her face was smaller, covering only the incision where the surgeons had put her cheekbone back together. Fragile and disconsolate, she sat on the church pew as a pale reflection of the mother who’d smiled happily and received guests at her daughter’s party.

  With her arm around Jonas, Louise walked up the aisle to the pew behind the family, where there were two empty places, as if the other funeral guests hadn’t had the courage to sit so close to the relatives’ grief. But Louise had long ago put aside her fear of other people’s grief, not least because she knew how lonely and cold that distance could feel to them when the world had caved in. She put her hand lightly on Britt’s shoulder as they sat down behind her.

  Jonas had walked up the aisle with his head lowered, past the parade of flowers that started all the way back in the entryway. He didn’t make eye contact with his classmates, who sat spread around with their parents or with one another, holding on to handkerchiefs. He’d also avoided looking at the white coffin. Until now, when his eyes sought out the dark red roses arranged in a wide bow on the lid of the coffin.

  Louise looked at him anxiously, and pulled back her hand.

  * * *

  At the breakfast table, he hadn’t touched the rolls that Louise had toasted. He hadn’t eaten or drunk anything, and in the end, she couldn’t take it anymore. There was a lump in her throat, and the powerlessness of not knowing what she should do was about to drive her crazy. She pushed her coffee cup away and decided to let it all come out, realizing immediately that that was what she’d been going around waiting for him to do. Give in and let the feelings and thoughts come out. Instead, she was the one who started.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she began. “I want so much to help you, to say the right thing. It’s all so unbearable, and I want to be there for you. I just don’t know how.”

  He looked at her. He seemed surprised and a little frightened.

  “There’s been so much misfortune in the short time we’ve known each other,” she said. “And now we’re going to another funeral.”

  The tears were there before she could get hold of herself. Louise took a deep breath, blinked her tears away, and regained her composure while she tried to find the right words. But they weren’t there, so she just blurted the first thing that came to mind.

  “I don’t know the best way to be there for you. What should I do? You need to help me. Damn it, I’ve never tried to be someone’s foster mother before!”

  His dark eyes were deep, intense, but not standoffish.

  “It’s as if I can’t cry anymore,” he said and looked away. “And it really bothers me. As if Signe weren’t important enough for me to cry about her dying.”

  Louise felt empty inside. Speechless. She understood it: Jonas thought he wasn’t grieving enough over his classmate’s death; he was sorry he couldn’t put as much energy into his grief as he had when his father was shot. He blamed himsel
f for not having any tears left.

  She stood up and walked around the table. Held him close and ran her fingers through his hair.

  “That’s not how grief is measured,” she whispered. “You can’t compare one to another. You would never think of it that way if you hadn’t just experienced a death so recently.”

  She cursed the fact that he’d had to have all these strong feelings so close together. It wasn’t fair. Not fair at all.

  “Are you sure you want to go to the funeral? Is it too soon?”

  She thought of the psychologist.

  “What does Jakobsen say?”

  “I want to go. And he says the same thing as you, that I shouldn’t try to live up to anything, that we all respond in our own way.”

  Louise looked down at him.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Right now, you’re the one I feel sorry as hell for. Remember that,” she said.

  She saw a smile in his eyes.

  “You can yell, scream, cry, or just sit and stare at the wall if that’s what you feel like doing. I just want to hear how you’re doing,” she said.

  Even that was probably asking too much, she thought, considering how reluctant most preteens were to let their parents into their lives, especially the emotional side.

  * * *

  The organ started to play, and the choir led the opening of “In the East the Sun Is Rising.” Soon, the sanctuary filled with song. Louise held out the hymnal so they could both follow along, but being the son of a pastor Jonas knew this hymn down in his bones. He must have heard it sung countless times when his father served as pastor in Stenhøj Church. He sang in a clear and pure voice.

  In front of them, Ulrik sat beside Britt, who sat erect with her hands folded and sang toward the coffin. Louise saw tears running down his cheeks; his jaw was clenched as he listened to others singing.

  Louise knew that Ulrik and Britt had decided not to speak beside their daughter’s coffin. Instead, after the pastor’s talk, one of the country’s finest solo cellists from the Royal Chapel would play.