The Running Girl

by Sara Blaedel

  Louise sat a bit and observed her, then she started the car again and drove the last stretch to the door with the intercom.

  A uniformed prison officer took Britt by the elbow and escorted her in. Louise waited in the car until the door closed.

  40

  Louise hammered the steering wheel with both hands in frustration, as she again stopped and waited to drive out onto Vigerslev Allé.

  She thought about Camilla, who was bombarding her with messages in which she kept insisting that it was a mistake to arrest Britt and wanted Louise to find evidence that pointed in another direction. After a while, Louise got so irritated that she didn’t want to read the texts that kept coming.

  Britt would have to take her punishment, if she was guilty of arson and homicide. Louise knew perfectly well what the thirst for vengeance could do to entirely sensible and ordinary people.

  It was awoken by the strongest feelings on the whole spectrum—love, hate, jealousy—and it could drive a well-functioning person completely over the edge. That’s why it didn’t really help her to hear Camilla go on and on about how it wasn’t something Britt had in her.

  She beeped angrily at a white car that was blocking her way, then squeezed over into the turning lane and swung past Enghave Station. Right now, she was dead tired of Britt Fasting-Thomsen and how she wouldn’t give a fig, all the same to her what the police dished up for evidence.

  Louise drove on, following the stream of cars and trying to shake off thoughts of Britt. She sighed and thought of Sejr. While she’d had Britt in interrogation, he’d started looking into whether there were international transfers that could document a connection between Hartmann and the bikers. He’d promised to let her know if he found something, but so far, she hadn’t heard from him.

  They weren’t the least bit closer, even though Sejr had slogged on. After the arrest, her own focus had blurred, but now there was a little calm again. They’d have to see about digging through all the information on HartmannImport/Export in order to find all the connections that were relevant regarding the shooting victim’s business.

  A group of kindergarteners with backpacks bouncing on their backs passed over the crosswalk on their way to Enghave Park.

  Vengeance could also be unleashed by cheating, money, and anger, she thought as she watched the children gather around two benches and unload their backpacks in a big pile. She hoped she could find Tønnes out at the club, and that he was in the mood to talk.

  Even though it clearly wasn’t on Willumsen’s list of priorities, she was still interested in hearing how he’d explain the fact that several of the members knew Nick Hartmann and had gone down to the warehouse at the harbor when, the last time they’d spoken, he’d insisted on something different.

  * * *

  The afternoon traffic was stuck in long caravans across Nørrebro, but cleared up when she zigzagged down the smaller streets for the last stretch.

  Louise parked a long way from the gate and the two security cameras because she didn’t think it would be very fruitful to adorn their main entrance with a patrol car. She looked directly into the camera over the gate as she introduced herself and asked to speak with Tønnes.

  After a moment, she was allowed to come into the courtyard. To the right of the house there was a big heavy oak tree. Inside the gate, the courtyard was covered with asphalt and empty, except for four shiny motorcycles with newly polished chrome, parked beside each other in a ruler-straight line along the right side of the building. There were also a couple of big cars in the courtyard—a Porsche Cayenne with white plates and an Audi Q7.

  She saw recognition in his dark eyes and extended her hand when he appeared in the door.

  “I’d like to trouble you with a couple more questions,” she led off with politely.

  He wore a wide silver ring on the middle finger of his right hand, and a tattoo crept out under his watchband. His hair was blond and short, and he had on a black long-sleeved T-shirt unbuttoned at the neck under his leather vest.

  He didn’t comment about her coming alone, but she noticed that he registered it and didn’t know what he made of it.

  “Last time we talked about Nick Hartmann, who was shot down in his home a month ago,” she began. “As you may remember, we were interested in knowing which of the members in the club here he knew.”

  The biker spokesman nodded.

  “And as you may remember,” he said, “no one knows anything about him.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” Louise corrected. “We’ve just confirmed that the deceased had connections with several of the members, and that they’ve frequented the warehouse he rented down on Svanemølle Harbor.”

  He looked at her expressionlessly. Behind him a broad-shouldered guy came to the door.

  “What have we here?” he asked and put his hand on Tønnes’s shoulder to signal that he was ready to toss Louise out, if he’d like him to.

  Tønnes shook his head and waved him away without turning around, but there were no signs of hospitality—he still didn’t let her come into the clubhouse.

  “I’ve asked around, but no one knows anything about him,” he said.

  “Give it up, will you!” exclaimed Louise, irritated with him. “We know damn well he knew several people here, and that they came down to the harbor.”

  She held back for a moment and thought it over before appealing to his sense of brotherly understanding, if such a thing existed behind all those muscles and tattoos.

  “Nick Hartmann left behind a wife and a practically newborn daughter. On Thursday, his warehouse was burned down, and two young guys died in the flames.”

  The reaction came in a twitch along his mouth, and the biker spokesman shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  “I’ve heard about the fire, and the two who died in the flames,” he answered without seeming particularly moved. “What happened to the warehouse?”

  He was taller than her. Rather a lot, in fact. Louise came up to his shoulders and had to look up.

  “Some of the building burned down. He was keeping some import furniture there. In fact, there was a whole lot in there. Two containers with furniture manufactured in China, ready to be sold. But all that’s in the police’s care now.”

  He wanted to say something, but Louise beat him to it.

  “But if you don’t think you know him, then there’s not much more to talk about. Might just be you had something to do with the warehouse, since folks from here went down there.”

  He followed her with his eyes as she prepared to leave.

  “I don’t know where you got it from that he has connections here. But I’d like to repeat that no one knows anything about him—and besides that, we have no interest in his warehouse.”

  His language was a strange contrast to his outer appearance, and it obviously cost him nothing to lie straight to her face.

  “We got a guy from the Fraud Department to go through all of Hartmann’s monetary transactions and telephone conversations, from landline to cell phone,” Louise said and took a step back toward him after she’d come out on the sidewalk. “He’s also going through all e-mail correspondences and other Internet contacts. We’ve seized Hartmann’s computers, and everything on them has been dumped. That’ll get looked through.”

  It didn’t seem to faze him.

  “If there’s been, at any point in time, a connection between some members of the club here and Nick Hartmann, we’ll find it. It would just go a little quicker if you helped.”

  She could see the muscles playing under his jersey as he folded his arms over his chest and leaned his upper body back a little, so he could look down on her even more.

  But he said nothing.

  “But you’re not prepared to do that, I sense.”

  She turned and walked over to the gate, knowing his eyes were on her back.

  41

  Don’t say anything to them. At the most: ‘No comment.’”

  Camilla fell back
in the hotel bed. Ulrik had caught her when she and Markus had come back from breakfast down at Starbucks. Muffins and coffee.

  The boy sat over at the desk with her computer. There was free Internet, and she’d let him play a little and check his Facebook profile, where the messages nearly overflowed with greetings from home.

  “They were waiting outside when I came home,” said Ulrik. “So, I had to just keep driving.”

  “So where are you now?” asked Camilla, and it suddenly hit her that it had been a while since she’d felt the weight of her own worries. It was as though all that had given way for what had happened to Britt and Ulrik.

  “I’m staying in a hotel in the city.”

  “Smart,” she answered. “It’ll be at least a few days before they stop holding your house under complete siege. If you can, stay at the hotel until they think you’re not coming back.”

  She shook her head at herself. Who was she to be giving advice about that sort of thing! If she’d been home and didn’t know the family, it could easily be her laying siege to the house out on Strandvænget.

  “Couldn’t you get hold of John Bro?” she asked, changing subjects.

  “I decided to let my own lawyer take the case. He knows our family, and I think that’s a big advantage in our situation.”

  “John Bro is better!”

  “Britt’s being charged with one of the most serious crimes. Nikolaj Lassen will be more loyal than someone who doesn’t know us.”

  “Possibly,” Camilla conceded and sighed. “How’s she doing?”

  There was silence on the other end for a moment, then he cleared his throat.

  “It’s hard to say,” he said. “I don’t really feel like I can get through to her.”

  “What do we do? What does she say about it? Can she handle sitting in jail?”

  “Does she have a choice?” Ulrik asked drily. Then he took a deep breath. “The biggest problem is that she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t try to defend herself or talk her way out of it. And that might be exactly what speaks the loudest for her.”

  A moment passed before Camilla caught what he was saying.

  “Ulrik, hell! You know your wife—you know damned well Britt didn’t kill anybody. What’s happening to you?”

  But at the same time, she saw the journalists waiting in their cars for him. She saw newspaper headlines and felt the pressure as if it were tightening up in her own chest.

  “Are you able to travel away for a few days, turn your back on everything, and relax a little?”

  “That won’t make it go away, now, will it?”

  “You think it was her?” Camilla said and realized that Markus was looking at her.

  “I’m not saying it’s her. I’m just not blind to the possibility that it could be. And if that’s the case, then it’s hard to feel sympathy for her.”

  42

  Mik’s car was parked in front of Louise’s front door when she arrived home. As she stood and rooted through her bag for her keys, she suddenly heard Jonas calling from farther down the street. She turned and was surprised to see him jogging down the sidewalk with the deaf Labrador retriever on a leash.

  “Hey!” she shouted, and a moment later Mik came around the corner.

  “He’s letting me borrow Dina,” Jonas shouted happily. “Mik says I can have her as much as I want because no one else will have her since she can’t hear.”

  Louise felt her smile stiffen, and she stepped a little away from the door when the puppy got ready to jump up.

  “We can’t have a dog in there. It’s a shame to have it live in an apartment.”

  “It’s OK to have a dog. I called and asked Melvin.”

  Mik had caught up to them.

  “It looks like you two are getting along together nicely,” he said with a smile and ordered the yellow puppy to lie down, but it ignored him and kept dancing around them.

  “She’s almost housebroken,” Jonas said and squatted down. He threw his arms around its light-colored head with the brown eyes and nuzzled its fur with his cheek.

  Louise could have knocked Mik to the asphalt right there. She was so mad that it was absolutely impossible for her to speak straight.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” she hissed and looked at him.

  She noticed how Jonas stiffened and stood up straight again. Louise tossed her keys over to him and said he should go up to the apartment while she finished talking to Mik.

  But the boy didn’t move, just stood completely still and got that vulnerable and unhappy look on his face, which she didn’t know what to do about.

  “I’m the one who said I always wanted a dog,” he said quickly, defending Mik. He came a little closer and looked up at her. “I couldn’t have one at home because my dad was allergic.”

  “We can’t have a dog, either, Jonas.”

  He remained standing and held Dina by the leash.

  “But I can’t go on living here with you, right?” he said. “And when I can’t stay here anymore, then I can take Dina with me. So I won’t be all alone.”

  Louise walked over and unlocked the front door, sending him and the dog inside. With the same hand, she waved up the stairs and pushed him away.

  When the door closed behind them, she turned to Mik.

  “Have you gone completely insane? You know damn well I can’t have a dog that needs to be fed and walked and the whole nine yards. I’d get reported for cruelty to animals!”

  “Well, you’re not the one I loaned her to, either. It’s Jonas, and I’ll just come pick her up if he needs a break.”

  “You have no damned right to decide that. He lives with me.”

  Mik studied her a bit. Gone was the warmth and happiness that usually played in his eyes. He took a deep breath.

  “Now, you seldom let an opportunity go by for telling us all that Jonas is only living with you until you find a more permanent solution. How do you think a message like that makes him feel after what he’s gone through? Do you think it makes him feel secure and wanted?”

  “He’s the one who wanted to live here, and this is what I had to offer.”

  Mik inched forward, close to her face.

  “You are so goddamned egocentric. One would damned well think you were a man. You take what you want, and leave the rest of the shit behind. No responsibility, no emotional attachment. No consideration. Just you!”

  She’d never heard him swear so much at one time—and that fact, more than anything else, is what penetrated the fog that was beginning to settle around her brain.

  “If you don’t let Jonas be with that dog as much as he wants to, when it makes him so happy, then I’m going up there and telling him he’s welcome to come and live on the farm with me, and he can live there for as long as he wants, until he wants to move from home himself.”

  She was about to say something, but his stream of words didn’t give her any room.

  “And as for you, I don’t want to see you anymore. Period. We end here. You make me feel like your ‘friend-with-benefits,’ someone you haul out when you’re hankering, but otherwise you don’t give a thought about. I don’t want to be part of that, and I don’t think you’ll find anyone who will for the long run. Definitely not, if they’re like me and want to spend all their time with you. And do you know what that means? That means you’ll end up dying lonely—and the sad part is that it’s gotten to where I don’t even feel sorry for you.”

  The fog in Louise’s head thickened.

  She watched him walk over to his car and unlock it.

  He stood for a moment beside the sidewalk and observed her.

  “Call, if you decide that Jonas and Dina should live in Holbæk.”

  He got in his car and drove off without looking at her.

  * * *

  It was a long way up to the fourth floor. She could hear them in the stairwell. Could also hear that Melvin had come out to the stairs.

  “Sure is a nice dog,” said the elderly man when Lo
uise reached them. He’d crouched down, and Dina stood with her front legs on his thighs and sniffed around at his face. He smiled and scratched her behind the ears.

  The fog remained thick inside Louise’s head.

  Jonas had sat down on the stairs. He was pale, and his hair covered his eyes like a thick curtain he hid behind. He avoided looking at her, but had a little smile on his lips as he reached out and stroked the puppy’s coat.

  Damn it! Louise thought and mostly wanted to turn around and drive back to Headquarters and help Sejr, who sat with all the stuff they’d dumped from Hartmann’s hard drive. But she knew good and well that there was no escape route.

  “It’s just, with puppies—they can’t stay at home alone. They need to be taken out, and have company,” she said a bit clumsily.

  Jonas looked down at the floor. He had to understand that he couldn’t ask the dog to take care of itself for six or seven hours a day when it was so little.

  “Right, but that’s where I come into the picture,” Melvin said cheerfully, obviously not catching the tense mood between Louise and the boy. “I could take her for a walk over in Frederiksberg Gardens. We can have a good time together until you two come home.”

  Louise felt her cheeks tug back when she tried to smile. She squeezed past Jonas on the stairs and kept walking up.

  The anger made her blood pump, and it throbbed in her temples. She had just sat down in the kitchen to clear her head when her cell phone rang in her jacket. She didn’t want to get it, thought it was Mik calling to apologize. Her first reaction to his harsh words was more anger than hurt. Still, they stayed on her mind and worked there.

  Her cell phone rang again, and Louise saw that she might as well get it over with because Mik had a way of calling and calling until she picked up. But when she took the phone out of her pocket, she didn’t recognize the number in the display, nor the voice that cried in her ear.

  “Damn it, speak calmly. How else am I supposed to understand what you’re saying?”

  Right now, Louise had no use for a girl who was completely out of it.