by Sara Blaedel
He pointed over to the dining table, where a big map of Greenland covered the whole surface.
“The boy has an interest in history. So now we’re starting on the great Danmark Expedition from the beginning of the last century.”
Jonas stood up and walked over to the windowsill, which was piled high with books.
“He’s letting me borrow these,” he said and came back with a real doorstopper.
“Achton Friis,” he said.
Louise had no idea whether he was someone she should remember from her history class at Hvalsø School.
“He’s the one who was picked to write about the journey after Mylius-Erichsen died midway,” explained Jonas.
She smiled at him. The book didn’t look like anything she’d have the courage to tackle, but maybe she should try it. If only to get an idea of what interested him.
“It was a big surprise, that day we ran into each other on the stairwell. It was just after summer vacation,” Melvin Pehrsson said. “I’d often thought of what came of the boy, and wondered whether there was some way I could get to know him. And then suddenly, there he stood holding the door for me.”
Jonas and the old man smiled at each other.
“I am so pleased he wants to come down and see me, and I hope you don’t have anything against it?”
“Oh goodness, no,” exclaimed Louise. “It sounds like you’re enjoying yourselves.”
She started collecting the plates.
“He’s also very welcome down here if you ever need a babysitter, or whatever it’s called these days.”
“Can I sleep here?” Jonas asked eagerly.
Where, thought Louise, is the damned switch to turn off the tears when they swell in your eyes?
She hurried out to the kitchen with the plates.
22
For a day and a half, Louise and Sejr had been buried in figures, calculations, and copies of bank statements when suddenly, from behind his sunglasses, headphones, and hoodie he yelled, “Yessss!”
Louise had gradually gotten used to sitting in the dark and had even drunk a couple of the colas her temporary partner had generously pulled out of the little fridge he’d brought with him. She no longer noticed his headset so much, or the heavy metal beat that spilled out of the massive headphones. Nor even the funky sunglasses with gold lenses or the red hoodie and leather pants that had prompted her to ask if he rode a motorcycle. He didn’t.
“There’s an old money laundering report on him.”
She smiled at him and thought how Sejr Gylling was such a perfect nerd that he’d think of digging way down into the details and sniffing out that kind of case, even though the information was hidden far away and no one had ever pursued it.
That kind of report popped up several times a day from banks across the country. A large amount of cash withdrawn or deposited, or noteworthy transfers, always ran the risk of the bank notifying the secretariat about money laundering.
Sejr already had the telephone to his ear. His headphones were tossed on the desk. Apparently, they could be removed in the middle of an album, if something was important enough.
Nice to know, thought Louise, and leaned back waiting for him to get through.
“Busy,” he mouthed over the desk and drummed impatiently on his keyboard.
Finally, he got through.
He gave the account number and asked them to search several years back.
“It has to do with a transfer of 250,000 kroner into an account in Hong Kong,” he told her when he hung up. “That was two years ago. On top of that, there’s another report from the airport saying that just over a year ago he tried to leave the country with 15,000 euro in cash.”
“Do they get you for something like that?”
Louise thought that monitoring had gradually relaxed.
“You can only take 10,000 euro out of the country, and I’m guessing they caught him in a completely random routine check. She’ll find the money transfer and e-mail it to us. Then I’ll try to track down the recipient.”
Louise thought about it.
“Could it be pirated goods or parallel importing?” she asked. It occurred to her that pirating had been at its height when Nick Hartmann had sent the large sum to China.
Sejr nodded.
“It’s gotten to where it can be anything from Global knives to pirated medicines. There can be a shitload of money in that crap,” he said.
That was true, thought Louise. More and more bizarre cases popped up, and it was far from just exclusive bags and designer jeans that were being pirated and manufactured for peanuts.
In the office next door, Toft and Michael Stig were still digging like moles to find the threads that connected Nick Hartmann with Copenhagen’s criminal underworld. They’d already taken a trip to the bikers’ headquarters, but this time they’d secured a meeting beforehand with the club’s spokesman, Tønnes. Michael Stig had red blotches on his neck when they’d come back.
They’d been offered coffee, and both the president and the spokesman had been friendliness itself. Polite and obliging, they’d love to help. They just couldn’t. They hadn’t denied that Nick Hartmann had been allowed into the club, which was smart since the police had hold of the evidence. They just couldn’t think of who might have invited him, and refused point-blank that they had the least relation to him.
Toft and Michael Stig had also visited Mie Hartmann at home with her mother out behind Damhusengen, but she hadn’t even known her husband had registered an import/export business. So, there hadn’t been anything to get from her, either.
Louise smiled as she told Sejr that Mie had had a really hard time explaining to Toft and Michael Stig how they’d managed, on Nick’s moderate income and her own quite modest one, to afford living in a big duplex in one of the city’s coveted neighborhoods, and besides that drive two expensive cars.
“That’s the kind of thing that makes Michael Stig mad as hell,” said Louise.
But she thought that Mie Hartmann was possibly being honest when she said she didn’t know. There were still a lot of women who didn’t concern themselves with finances, and if her husband had made ends meet then maybe she hadn’t thought twice about it. There was no reason to ask questions as long as you had what you needed.
Sejr had systematically examined every single transaction in the deceased’s account. By far the majority had been made between Nick Hartmann’s own accounts but, as Louise had seen earlier, large sums of cash also figured into it.
Willumsen had cooled down. By the next afternoon, he’d come slinking in to introduce himself to Sejr, who for his part hadn’t been too interested in the lead investigator’s attempts to smooth things over. Several times over the course of the day he’d stuck his head in, but every time Sejr had sat there with his headphones on and his eyes glued to the columns of numbers.
It could easily turn into a dead end if they didn’t find something that showed what kind of import/export Nick Hartmann’s company was operating with Hong Kong, or who he’d done business with, thought Louise. She closed her eyes for a moment. So far, what they’d uncovered was minimal.
“What about business files? Did they find any?” asked Sejr.
She shook her head.
“Nothing. They’ve also been over to his work place on Havnegade, but there were no ring binders with private company papers or accounting.”
Sejr put his headphones back on before she’d even finished talking.
She sighed. Suddenly, she’d had enough of him. The darkened office made her feel so claustrophobic that she stood up with an acute need for light and air.
* * *
She took the stairs in bounds and came out on the Police Headquarters’ circular courtyard, where it was mostly smokers out on their breaks. She stood with her back against one of the broad columns of the rotunda, leaned her head back, and looked up at the sky.
Deep and autumnal blue, it made her think of water and Mik and the untenable thing they had goi
ng with each other. Although she yearned for him now and then, it still wasn’t working. They each wanted something different.
Her next birthday, she’d turn forty. There wasn’t much girlish about her anymore. Not that that bothered her, but maybe it was time to take stock and put some effort into thinking about her future.
Her brother, Mikkel, had recently overhauled his otherwise very staid life when his wife, Trine, had taken both children and moved into an apartment out in Havdrup. That had left him with the house and a stack of bills and made him take a second job as a freight carrier.
“Well, shit. Of course!” Louise suddenly shouted.
With her long legs, she bounded back up the stairs to the darkened office on the second floor.
* * *
Freight and hauling companies around Free Harbor, North Harbor, and South Harbor. Louise had no damned idea where the big container ships docked.
She held the phone to her ear and waited to be transferred to the first company that came up on Krak’s Business Directory when she searched under “Harbor Area.”
“Can you check your freight records and see if you’ve ever received a delivery for HartmannImport/Export?”
She hadn’t noticed when Sejr had taken off his headphones and shoved the hood off his head. But now she saw him sitting and looking at her with his light, intense blue eyes as she patiently waited.
“No, I don’t have another delivery address,” Louise told the woman when she was finally back on the line. “But if you’ve shipped for him, I’d very much like to know where you were asked to ship the freight to.”
When she hung up the phone, Sejr nodded at her in appreciation.
“Smart thinking.”
Louise was about to thank him, but let it go. In fact, it was one of the investigation tactics she handled really well, as opposed to all that stuff with numbers and financial information.
She picked up the phone again. “Hartmann Import/Export,” she said and waited.
He still sat listening in. He offered to help her by calling around to the other companies on her list.
She shook her head and gestured that the woman had found something.
“Lautrupvej,” Louise repeated and wrote it down.
The woman brought up the freight documents so she’d have the exact dates for the shipping the company had done for HartmannImport/Export.
“They’ve carried something for him twice this year,” she told Sejr. “The last time it was two containers that arrived on a freighter from Hong Kong. That was back in the beginning of August.”
Louise pulled Krak’s up on her screen again and searched for Lautrupvej. She zoomed in, then went in even closer until she was in the immediate area.
She still had Sejr’s undivided attention.
“The address is out on South Pier, next to the Svanemølle Power Station,” she said as she stood up.
It was Ulrik Fasting-Thomsen’s warehouse. The one with the boathouse.
23
Dear Louise
Britt’s doing shitty. I just got a text from Susanna—Julie’s mom from the class. She’d made plans with Britt to stop by yesterday. No one came to the door, and she was about to give up, but she spotted her inside in the living room. She only managed to get her attention by going around the garden and banging on the big terrace door. Britt had apparently forgotten all about their plans, and Susanna wrote that she seemed odd and woozy.
I think she’s taking sedatives, but evidently, she’s said no to counseling, even though Ulrik has tried to persuade her. She doesn’t think anyone can help her. It’s completely idiotic.
I’m afraid she’s about to go to pieces. I also gathered from Susanna that Ulrik is trying to be home with her as much as possible, but obviously, he can’t be there the whole time.
Keep an eye on her. If it were me who lost Markus like that, there’s no doubt I’d be a serious danger to myself.
Warmest C
P.S. We drove through an area with those great big redwood trees yesterday. Holy shit was that nuts. Really, really huge, and you feel tiny and utterly insignificant when you stand and look up.
The trunks are reddish and the smell of wood was so strong it stayed in my nose for the rest of the day. We stood there a long time and looked up at their crowns imagining we were birds and could fly up to the highest branches. Think of sitting up there and contemplating the world. Then maybe you could start to be fond of it again!
24
Louise sat with her cell phone in her hand, having just sent a text to Camilla. She reassured her by saying that she’d be heading out to the house on Strandvænget to talk with Ulrik, and at the same time she’d certainly see how things were going with Britt.
“Why didn’t he mention Nick Hartmann when he said he owned the boathouse?”
She looked across the desk at Sejr, who was wearing a red Coca-Cola baseball cap. It smushed his white hair down over his ears.
Sejr pressed his fingertips together and looked at her speculatively.
“It’s possible he didn’t know about it,” he said and dropped his hands.
He offered her a cola and grabbed two from the fridge.
“If Nick Hartmann had registered himself as just HartmannImport/Export, it’s not for certain that he’d have noticed the connection to the murder. And besides, Fasting-Thomsen has had other things to think about lately.”
He passed the half-liter bottle across the desk.
Louise thought he was right, and dialed Willumsen’s extension to tell the lead investigator that they’d tracked down Hartmann’s storage site.
* * *
“Two people to the warehouse,” Willumsen commanded.
He pulled Toft and Michael Stig into Louise’s office.
“You’re driving down to Svanemølle Harbor,” he said and pointed to them.
He was about to point at Sejr, but thought better of it. Instead he nodded in his direction.
“Maybe you could look a little into Ulrik Fasting-Thomsen? See if there’s anything on his businesses? Have we gotten into it at all?”
He looked around at them, but Louise reminded him that until now they’d had no reason to be interested in the investment consultant.
“And strictly speaking, there isn’t necessarily any connection between them, other than he owns a warehouse that the deceased’s company rented space in,” she said. “It was Fasting-Thomsen himself who made us aware that he owns the building down on South Pier, so it’s not exactly something he’s trying to hide from us.”
Then she told them about Signe and the reason why Ulrik had stopped by the department.
“Will you get hold of him and ask him what he knows about his renter?” asked Willumsen.
Louise nodded.
“Then the rest of us will dig into the warehouse and try to find out what kind of a connection there is between the two of them,” he said.
Louise remained standing behind her desk as Willumsen and her two colleagues left the office. She reached for her cell phone and found Ulrik Fasting-Thomsen’s business card in a drawer where she’d tossed it when he left.
When his phone went to voice mail, she left a message explaining that she was interested in talking with him about his warehouse and the man he’d rented some of the space to.
She waved across the desk to get Sejr’s attention.
“I’m heading out to Strandvænget to see if he’s back home,” she said.
He nodded from his sound bubble.
She shook her head at him and smiled. Then she put her empty cola bottle in the box behind him and took her jacket off the peg.
Just then her cell phone started to vibrate on the desk.
“Louise Rick,” she said, adding in the same sentence, “Ulrik, hi!”
Then she realized it wasn’t Ulrik Fasting-Thomsen promptly returning her call.
“Hey there, when did you get home?” she said, surprised to be hearing Flemming Larsen’s voice on the other end.
&n
bsp; It had been a month since she’d last spoken with the medical examiner, even though they’d started going out regularly for coffee or a drink. In the beginning of September, he’d traveled to Thailand with his children. Neither his ex-wife nor the children’s teacher had been thrilled about the trip being planned outside of a school break. But it was the only time he could get away from the Department of Forensic Medicine for three weeks in a row, so they’d finally worked it out.
After it had come to shared custody, he often had a ridiculously hard time making things work out, and his ex would sometimes use it against him. So, it had meant a lot to him that the trip actually went off.
“Coffee?” he asked.
Louise gave it a quick thought.
“Love to, but I’m heading out to Svanemølle.”
“I could drive you, if it doesn’t take too long. I’ll just wait in the car, and then we could have coffee afterward—or, what about Jonas?”
“He’s down with his new best friend, Melvin. He’s our downstairs neighbor, and those two have just started tackling the Danmark Expedition and sit around absorbed in history books. I promised to have food on the table by seven. Then they’ll both come up and eat.”
“Fine. When should I pick you up?”
Louise could hear that he was already sitting in his car.
“How about now?” she said, grabbing her bag off the floor.
She and Flemming Larsen had gotten to know each other over the years, but it was only in the last three or four that they’d seen each other privately. Otherwise they mostly met in the autopsy bay, when they ran into each other on a case. But their friendship had grown after that day when Louise had come home from work and her boyfriend, Peter, sat in her living room drinking up the courage to tell her he was leaving her for a colleague. In the evening, Flemming had shown up with a bottle of Calvados and cigarettes. He knew perfectly well that neither of them smoked, but that night he thought they might like to start.
