by Sara Blaedel
Louise was handed the notes with the five names, and saw that there was a circle around Kenneth Thim. So, it wasn’t him lying inside there.
“Could he tell you anything?” she asked, looking at the vice commissioner.
He shook his head.
“He was apparently so drunk there wasn’t much the officers could get out of him. Other than that, just that he was alive.”
He offered to have his folks continue with the calls, but Louise shook her head and said they’d take it from here.
“Are you working together, or going solo?” Suhr asked and looked from her to Michael Stig.
“Alone,” she hurried to say before her colleague could answer.
She wanted to, as quickly as possible, confirm or deny if it was some of the five from the party who lay in there. And if it wasn’t them, then whether they knew of anyone who would have dared to stay in the boathouse after Fasting-Thomsen had asked to have it cleared out.
“Hell no, we’ll work on this together,” her colleague said. “If they’re some kind of biker wannabes, then you shouldn’t stand up to them alone.”
27
The car’s windshield wipers ran intermittently, sweeping the small raindrops aside as they moved through the night stillness of Østerbro. An S-train pulled into Svanemøllen Station, but otherwise there wasn’t much traffic, outside of the lone taxis that drove way too fast down Østerbrogade.
“Two more live here in Østerbro,” Louise read off.
To her great irritation, Suhr had agreed with Michael Stig, so she’d left the Saab at the harbor and sat in her colleague’s station wagon on their way to the first address.
“Then there’s one who lives above his father’s café in New Harbor, and Kenneth Thim lives on Møllegade in Nørrebro, but he’s crossed off the list. That’s Århusgade,” she said and pointed.
She saw a taxi queue and people over in front of Park Café, where the nightclub had just closed. The Thursday night crowd was on their way home or deeper into the city, but Århusgade was sleeping. At any rate, it was dark in almost all the windows, including the communal floor where Peter Nymann had his dorm-style room.
Peter Nymann was the one Jonas had seen running after Signe up to the road. Louise saw his picture in her mind. Thin, long hair tied in a ponytail, and dark eyes that stared hard and dismissive up from the photograph—and then the jagged birthmark on his cheek.
They rang a long time. Louise walked out to the sidewalk and looked up, but the whole strip of windows was dark. While Michael Stig kept ringing the door, she tried calling his cell phone, but that wasn’t answered, either. After several minutes, the tired voice of a young woman came through the intercom speaker. Reluctantly, she was persuaded to let the authorities in, since the alternative was for her to knock on Peter Nymann’s door herself and get him out of bed.
The entrance was gray, and the dingy basement walls were covered in graffiti. There were beer cans and cigarette butts and a single empty plastic bag in the corner on the white-and-black speckled terrazzo floor—even though there were garbage chutes on every floor, like little portholes in the middle of the wall between the two entry doors.
The communal level was up on the third floor. When they got there, the door to the left was open and a young woman in an oversize sweater and bare legs met them. She edged over toward the other door and asked if it was OK if she went back to bed again.
She pointed down the other hall and said that Peter Nymann lived all the way at the end.
“In The Arsenal.”
Michael Stig raised a questioning eyebrow, and the young woman yawned and explained it was just his door, which was plastered with firearms; but still it wasn’t very amusing for the rest of the hall residents to have to look at it every time they needed to go to the bathroom.
They walked past the shared kitchen, which was littered with dishes, then the bathroom with its door ajar, and all the way to the end of the hall to a door that didn’t have much wood grain left to show. Most of it was covered in clippings and posters of sleek firearms and heavy automatic weapons of sizes and calibers that would blow a bear’s head off, even fired from a good distance.
They knocked a long time, and kept knocking, until a tall guy opened the next door over, stuck out his head, and asked for peace and quiet. He could tell them that his neighbor wasn’t in, so they might as well stop their banging and let the students in the hall get their night’s rest.
“Are you sure he’s not here?” asked Louise.
The tall guy nodded convincingly.
“Absolutely. When he’s here his intolerable death metal pounds through the walls, and it’s impossible for the rest of us to think straight. But tonight’s been completely quiet.”
Louise asked if he had any idea where they could get hold of Peter Nymann.
“He’s not exactly someone the rest of us hang out with. So, I have no idea. I’m just happy when he has someplace else to stay.”
Michael Stig had his card ready and stuck it out before he was able to close his door.
“When you see him, would you please ask him to contact me?”
The tall guy nodded and stepped back inside. They heard his lock click, and Louise got out the slip of paper with the next addresses.
“We’ll take Jón Vigdísarson on Strand Boulevard before we drive down to Gammel Kalkbrænderivej,” she decided and got in the car. She’d already tried his cell phone, but it went to voice mail, and when a boy’s voice asked her to leave a message, she hung up.
* * *
He answered on the second ring, and met them on the fourth floor in his T-shirt and a loose pair of gray sweatpants.
Tired, but alive, he stepped aside and let them come into a large kitchen/dining room that stretched all the way to the door, as if the entryway had been deliberately skipped over. Even though there were coat hooks and a bureau, the open kitchen and dining room blended into one large room, with double French doors out to the balcony overlooking the yard.
Over the dining table hung a large brass chandelier with winding frosted-glass flowers, and in the windowsills, there were French altar candles and crystal vases with fresh flowers. On the whole, it was very tasteful and cozy. The walls were hung with Icelandic art and framed black-and-white photos, which you could tell were taken on an island where the stark natural landscape varied from grass-covered hills to lava deserts. Photos of a mother and her son, through the years, from when he was just little to more recently. In a couple of them, the boy was with an older man who might have been his grandfather.
While Michael Stig told him about the fire, Louise looked into the boy’s room, where the duvet hung halfway to the floor as if he’d jumped out of bed when they rang. His mother apparently wasn’t home, or else she slept soundly.
“We’re not supposed to go down there anymore,” he said, clearly uninterested in sharing with the police more information than he found necessary.
He ran his hands through his thick, dark hair, which was rumpled and sticking up, but when no one said anything he continued.
“We got kicked out and had three hours to move our things. The cops had already taken the computer when they came with all their accusations and shit. But there was the fridge and stereo, and Sebastian picked them up in his car. So, we didn’t have anything else down there, just some old crap furniture we’d picked up, and they can move that shit themselves.”
“That’s not so relevant now,” inserted Louise, a little tired of his attitude. Instead she asked whether any of the boys had been back there after moving their things.
He shook his head.
“We don’t have a damned thing down there, and he’ll report us if he sees us.”
“Fasting-Thomsen?”
Jón Vigdísarson looked confused.
“The one who owns the boathouse and warehouse,” she clarified.
“No, that psychopath who keeps his eye on the shit.”
The boy’s eyes were nearly black, but the
y had a glimmer that made them very intense and lively.
“During the fire,” Michael Stig said, taking over again, “two persons died. Two people burned to death in the back of the boathouse, where they’d apparently been lying asleep on two mattresses. If it’s not some of the guys you hang out with, then do you have an idea who else might want to use the place?”
His attitude was dismissive.
“No one else goes there. I have no idea who it could be.”
He pulled a chair out from the dining table and sat down with his arms crossed.
“When I tell you there’re two charred bodies down there, and there’re three of your friends we can’t get hold of, what do you have to say to that?”
Finally, a reaction. The boy slumped over and something vanished from his face, so he suddenly looked more like a seventeen-year-old.
“I don’t know,” he answered a little uncertainly.
Louise shot Michael Stig an angry look.
“You live with your mother, right? Is she home?” she asked and glanced at the living room door and a closed door to the left of it.
He shook his head.
“She’s spending the weekend with her boyfriend,” he said, looking over at Michael Stig as he launched into more questions, less aggressively this time.
“Exactly how many of you stayed down there in the boathouse before you were kicked out?” he asked, sitting down at the table.
“Seven. But Mini is locked up and Thomas is out sailing, so lately we’ve only been five.”
He nodded as if to confirm he’d counted everyone.
“Do you know where the others are tonight?”
Now Louise sat down, too.
“Home, I think. There’s some party out in Vanløse tomorrow, but otherwise, the week’s been kind of dead, and we haven’t seen much of each other after we moved out of the boathouse. We were with Sebbe yesterday. His dad’s got a café down in New Harbor, and he sent us up some food from the kitchen.”
Louise started to feel impatient about moving things along, and stood up as a sign that she was ready to go.
“Next to the boathouse there’s a warehouse. Do you know anything about the man who keeps his things there?” asked Michael Stig, ignoring her signals.
The teenager-look slipped away again, and he shut down. He shook his head, and it was obvious he’d suddenly thought of rule number one: Never tell the police anything. No matter what it is, keep your mouth shut.
“Don’t know who that is.”
“Where’s Peter Nymann, if he’s not at home?” Louise asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Try his cell.”
“We have tried his cell,” she said. “Is there a girlfriend he might be with?”
“Bitches aren’t something he spends much time on. It’s more likely he’s hanging out at a pub or over at the club.”
“The club?”
The kid shut down again, but Louise could tell he must have meant the biker club, which they already knew Nymann had a connection with.
“Can’t you try to get hold of your friends, and if you get through then give us a call so we know they weren’t the ones down in the boathouse?” she said and walked over to the door to get Michael Stig to come with her.
The boy stayed seated while they let themselves out.
28
Gammel Kalkbrænderivej. The Youth Home. It was three thirty when they drove back down Strand Boulevard and turned up Nordre Frihavnsgade.
Every time Louise drove down that street, she thought about the first time she’d had to ring on a stranger’s door and deliver the sad news of a death.
A young guy had been the victim of a senseless attack, and Louise was sent with a male colleague to inform his young live-in girlfriend of the death. It had been hard for Louise to handle the young woman’s grief, and she’d been deeply affected for a long time afterward. So much so that she had to seek help from the department’s crisis counselor. But that had been a long time ago, and many years before her appointment to Homicide.
“That must be the Youth Home across from the nursery school,” she said as Michael Stig turned right. “It’s not exactly the world’s sweetest boys who live there.”
Michael Stig agreed with her. It was a place the Copenhagen Municipality used for problem children, when they didn’t know where else to put them.
“Do we know anything about him?”
“His name’s Thomas Jørgensen, he’s nineteen, and he’s the one who kicked Signe’s mother. The officer from Bellahøj found he’s got a string of violent offenses in the crime files.”
Michael Stig found a spot on the opposite side of the road.
The street door was open, and they walked up to the second floor and pushed open a red-painted door. Outside was written COPENHAGEN MUNICIPAL YOUTH HOME, but “Home” was spray-painted out and replaced with “Jail.”
They came to a large entryway with coats, shoes, and clogs piled up along the walls. There were five doors, each leading to a different room, and a little hallway that continued farther on. It lay in darkness and probably led to more common areas farther into the premises, thought Louise.
Michael Stig turned on the light, and they stood a while. There were numbers on each door, but no names. Finally, he went over and knocked on the first one. A few seconds later, a short migrant boy shoved the door open and came out threateningly.
Michael Stig showed his badge and said they were looking for Thomas Jørgensen.
The kid didn’t answer, but nodded to the next room over and quickly shut his door.
“Yeah,” growled a dark voice after they’d knocked a few times.
They could hear movements in the room, and a little later he opened up.
Thomas Jørgensen was tall and well-built, and his muscles played just underneath the tattoos on his upper arms. The black color ran up over his shoulders and planted a big spider in its web on the one side of his neck.
It was obvious he wanted to deal with them as quickly as possible, and repeated Jón Vigdísarson’s explanation about how they’d been kicked out of the boathouse. He added, however, that the only one who would think of sleeping over there was Peter Nymann, and that was only to get away from the whore-banging psychos he shared a hall with.
Where the others were, or what they’d been up to, he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything about the warehouse that sat next to the boathouse, either.
“I don’t know nothing, and nothing about the guy who goes there,” he said, scratching his stomach under the T-shirt he must have thrown over his head when they knocked.
Nothing, other than that he’d seen him and knew he was the one who’d gotten shot a few weeks back. That much came out when Michael Stig pressed him.
He reached for a pack of cigarettes he had lying on a desk next to the door, broke off the filter, and lit up.
“Listen to what I’m telling you,” he said. “I don’t know shit about any of it, and I don’t give a shit, either.”
He shook his head when Louise pointed out that they’d only come to eliminate him as one of the charred corpses in the burned-out boathouse.
“Or some of your friends,” she added.
It seemed to bounce right off him. He dropped his cigarette in a bottle and yawned loudly.
Thomas Jørgensen was so unsympathetic that Louise considered not even asking him to call if he got in touch with his friends, but she gave him her card anyway, adding that it would save him more visits from the police if he’d go to the trouble of helping them.
The tiredness had gradually gotten to her, and Michael Stig had started yawning. It felt like it had been several days since she said good-bye to Melvin and handed him the empty Quality Street box as he walked down the stairs in his slippers, and just as long since she’d said good night to Jonas.
Nevertheless, it hadn’t been more than three hours since she and Flemming had parted on the sidewalk.
* * *
The next s
top was New Harbor. They drove around King’s New Square and turned down past the Sailor’s Anchor, where a little group was sitting on the ground with a couple cases of beer in front of them, holding their own private party, too drunk to be bothered by the drizzle that still fell, or the temperature that was at most a degree or two above freezing.
They sat with blankets and heavy jackets around them. Not like in the trendy cafés, where Smirnoff-brand blankets were passed around to the outdoor guests if the wind got a bit too chilly. This was more like the blankets that the homeless collect to withstand the cold of autumn when they sleep on the street.
Michael Stig drove slowly over the cobblestone. Unlike Østerbro, people hadn’t completely abandoned this area. There were signs of life outside the pubs and tattoo shops, and many people stumbling around drunk.
Halfway down New Harbor they came to Sebastian Styhne’s father’s café. It was closed, but the lights were still on. Through the window pane they saw a man sitting at one of the tables with paperwork and a bottle of beer in front of him. Louise knocked on the window, showed her badge, and waved him over to open the door.
“To what do I owe the honor, that the authorities should brave the rain and make a night visit?” he asked with the exaggerated politeness people sometimes used when trying to be on friendly terms with the police.
“We’d like to speak with Sebastian Styhne,” said Michael Stig, stifling a yawn.
The man raised an eyebrow, and it was enough to tell Louise that it wasn’t the first time the police had turned up wanting to talk to his son. It hadn’t been more than two weeks since Bellahøj had last gotten hold of him, but the fact that they’d come in the middle of the night probably made the father a little more nervous.
“That’s my son, but he’s not at home. He’s sleeping over at a friend’s in Østerbro.”
“Peter Nymann?” asked Louise.
He nodded to her in surprise.
They declined his invitation to sit down, and he stood there a little noncommittally, as if he sensed something unpleasant was on its way.
