Only One Life

by Sara Blaedel

  “Well, then let’s set up a different time to get together,” Camilla said.

  Louise’s best friend worked the crime desk at Morgenavisen, and she was used to Louise’s canceling when she was working on a case. In turn, that usually also meant that Camilla could expect to get some kind of story lead out of her. Their jobs were connected in a way, even though they approached homicide cases from different angles.

  Even so, it surprised Louise a little that Camilla didn’t protest more vigorously, which left Louise feeling guilty. She knew that her friend could really use her support right now, and she wanted to be there for her too. It just couldn’t be right now.

  “I’ll give you a call in a couple of days,” she promised, explaining that she was on her way out the door.

  Then she hung up and changed her voice-mail greeting.

  “This is Louise. I’m not checking my messages, so call me on my cell. Bye.”

  Camilla Lind stepped up her pace so she’d be able to make it to Markus’s independent boarding school on time and then take the subway with him all the way back to the Frederiksberg Community Center so he wouldn’t be late to his break-dancing rehearsal at Hot Stepper again. She had planned to buy a bottle of water and some fruit for him on the way, but she dropped the idea when she looked at her watch at Nørreport Station, bounding instead down the stairs and darting onto the subway in a quick leap.

  She was sorry that her date with Louise had fallen through. Camilla had been looking forward to slumping down onto Louise’s couch and venting all the thoughts and feelings that were filling her. But after talking with Louise, Camilla had called the Copenhagen PD to find out what was up, since Unit A was apparently involved. Camilla sensed that they were giving her the runaround when the duty officer insisted he was unaware of any new case. Annoyed, she quickly packed up her things and shut down her computer to head out the door. On the way, she ran into her editor, Terkel Høyer, who was coming to see her with a missing-person report from the Holbæk PD involving the body of a teenage immigrant girl.

  Camilla quickly realized that her workday wasn’t over yet after all. Both of her colleagues were out: Kvist was taking some extra vacation days he had earned, and their intern, Jacob, was in Australia with his girlfriend for the entire month of September, so everything was riding on Camilla. Her editor just nodded when she announced on her way out that she would be right back after she dropped her son off at home. Her cell phone was already in her hand so she could get hold of her irreplaceable babysitter, Christina, and have her watch Markus after his break-dancing session.

  “Be back as fast as you can,” Terkel called after her.

  With her back to him, she raised one arm in the air in acknowledgment. She knew where he stood: the paper should be in on the story from the get-go. She agreed. The stories of eighteen-year-old Ghazala Kahn, who had been shot by his brother on the square in front of Slagelse Station in September last year, and the even younger Sonay Mohammad, who was slain by his father in February 2002 and thrown into Præstø Harbor, had filled many front pages and garnered a great deal of media attention during their investigations and subsequent trials. So obviously they should run with this story too.

  Markus was waiting for her on the sidewalk in front of his school, wearing his backpacks, and she could tell that he was looking for her. She started running toward him and waving as soon as he spotted her. Hurrying hand in hand, they raced off and made it just before rehearsal began. Markus quickly changed shoes and put on his hoodie and baseball cap while Camilla went to the food court to buy a bottle of water and a banana, then handed them off to him. The door closed, separating her from the loud pounding music and the fifteen tough eight-year-old kids—fourteen boys and one girl—who would spend the next hour practicing the Baby Freeze and various other moves. She sat down on a bench in the lobby for a moment.

  Christina had promised to be at the community center in forty-five minutes so she could take over by the time rehearsal was done. Then she and Markus would go home and have some dinner together. Camilla was already braced for a fairly late night before she could make it back home herself.

  She had just stood up when she saw him—and sat back down again, heavily, as though two powerful hands had given her a rough shove to the chest. She knew instantly that he had been watching her, and her stomach turned as he approached. She couldn’t stand up, and instead sat and looked up at him as he spoke.

  “For the love of God, you’ve got to stop calling me and sending me e-mail,” he said. “You have got to respect my boundaries and stop contacting me.”

  Then he was gone. Out the door and down the sidewalk. Camilla felt as though the whole interaction had played out in slow motion, and yet she had not had time to react or say anything.

  She sat there, frozen. Anger and pain filled her, both fighting to take over. She wanted to run after him and make him understand. Tell him that she needed to stay in touch. That she needed him, and that they had been good together. But she couldn’t stand up; her muscles felt weak and useless. He ignored her phone calls and didn’t respond to her e-mail. He didn’t want her. It was over, and that was unbearable.

  She just sat there and collected herself, her deep stomach pains converging at her diaphragm. Finally, she stood up and started walking back to the subway.

  4

  “THE BODY OF AN UNIDENTIFIED TEENAGE GIRL WAS FOUND this morning in Udby Cove on Cape Tuse north of Holbæk. The girl is approximately fourteen to sixteen years old and appears to be of Arab origin. She has long, black hair and was wearing a beige summer jacket over a dark blue T-shirt with long sleeves, faded Miss Sixty–brand jeans, and white Kawasaki shoes. If you have any information about this girl, please contact Holbæk Police.”

  Louise heard the missing-person report break on the news on the local P3 radio station during the drive back to Holbæk. It was almost five o’clock when she parked behind the police station. Upstairs in the corridor she nodded at Mik Rasmussen, who was talking with a colleague.

  Inside the sun-yellow command center, someone had set up a small fourteen-inch TV that was playing in the background at low volume, and there was coffee in the carafe. Ruth, the administrative assistant, and Storm were talking to Bengtsen about coordinating the first interviews with witnesses who might have known the girl. A communications guy was walking around, almost finished running a few extra outside phone lines, and Ruth was just getting a large database system up and running.

  “Have you taken a look around the Station Hotel?” Ruth asked.

  Louise shook her head and said she would drop her things off when they headed back there for a bite to eat.

  “Have we gotten any leads from the missing-person report?” she asked with interest.

  “A few tips have come in, but not really anything we can use,” Ruth replied.

  “But we have ten men circulating a description of the girl in town, so I don’t think it’ll take long for something to turn up,” Storm added as he stood up. “Let’s head over to the hotel and grab something to eat.”

  Ruth flipped the lid of her laptop shut and pushed aside the stacks of binders, pens, and pads that she had been quick to requisition before the investigation really got going. No one was going to have time to keep filing requisitions for everything they would need once the case was really under way. The mobile command center was almost ready.

  At that moment one of the four telephones in the office started ringing.

  “DNP Unit One Mobile Task Force, Ruth Lange speaking,” she said, pulling back her voluminous hair.

  “Okay, send her in. We’ll come get her.” She hung up and looked at Louise.

  “There’s a young woman here who thinks the victim we found may be a friend of hers. Can you go and talk to her? I just told your partner he could go home for a few minutes before dinner.”

  Louise nodded and poured a cup of coffee from the thermal carafe in the middle of the table before she grabbed a pad of paper and a ballpoint pen in ca
se her computer hadn’t been set up yet. The coffee sloshed over the rim and down the side of the cup, burning her fingers as she walked down the corridor. Swearing, she set the plastic cup down on the desk a little too hard, causing it to slosh more. She quickly wiped her hand on her pants and went out to meet the witness.

  A tall, very pretty, very young blonde teenager was walking in slowly, uncertainty in her eyes.

  Louise approached her with an outstretched hand and a welcoming smile.

  “Hi, I’m Louise. Let’s go in here.” She pointed toward her office, which still seemed unoccupied and cluttered although her partner had already put his things away.

  “Would you like a glass of water?” she asked as they stepped in.

  The girl shook her head and sat down on the edge of the hard wooden chair that Louise had pushed toward the end of her desk.

  The bags containing her laptops were still the way she had left them, but she waited to pull the pad of paper out of one of them, hoping that a little informal chat would get the girl to relax.

  “What’s your name?” Louise began, leaning back slightly in the office chair.

  “Benedicta, Dicta for short.…” The girl cleared her throat and repeated her name a little louder. “Dicta Møller. I’m in ninth grade at Højmark School,” she continued.

  “And you’re worried that girl we found out at Hønsehalsen may be someone you know?”

  It wasn’t that uncommon for girls to worry about their female friends and contact the police if a girl was reported missing in the media.

  “There’s a girl who’s in ninth grade with me but in a different homeroom who wasn’t in school today,” Dicta began.

  Louise didn’t rush her.

  “She and I were going to get together this afternoon, and I haven’t been able to get hold of her. She’s not answering her cell, and no one answers when I call her at home.” Louise nodded and waited again without saying anything. “I’ve been calling all afternoon.”

  “Do you think she might have taken off somewhere with her parents and forgotten about your plans this afternoon? Something unexpected may have come up.”

  Dicta thought for a moment as though the possibility hadn’t occurred to her, but then she shook her head.

  “She wouldn’t have forgotten this. We were going to go through the photos,” she said, now with more strength in her voice. “She was over at my house yesterday after school, and we talked about it then. One of the photos is going to be published this weekend in the paper.”

  Louise asked her to explain what kind of photos she was talking about and what paper she was referring to.

  “I’m a model,” the girl explained. “I model for a few stores, including Boutique Aube, and the paper is supposed to run their big ad on Saturday. The photos were ready, and Samra was supposed to come to the photographer’s and take a look at them. So she wouldn’t have just taken off.”

  Tears started streaming down Dicta’s cheeks, but she continued: “She would never do that. She keeps …”

  Dicta’s emotions overwhelmed her, her words pouring out in a completely incomprehensible mess. Louise held out her hand to stop the flood of words.

  “What does your friend look like?” she asked when the girl had calmed down a little.

  Dicta straightened up and carefully dabbed the tears so they wouldn’t ruin her makeup, as though she had only now discovered that she was crying.

  “She has long, dark hair.”

  Louise sat up and grabbed her notepad.

  “And is your friend ethnically Danish?” she asked, waiting for the next crucial answer.

  “No,” the girl replied hesitantly, as though she were afraid that was the wrong answer. “She’s from Jordan.”

  “Does she have any distinguishing marks that you can think of? Or things she usually wears?”

  Dicta fell silent, picturing her friend in front of her.

  “She usually wears a watch. It’s a Dolce & Gabbana knockoff. I bought it for her in Thailand—and she’s also got a ton of bracelets. You know, bangles, where each individual one is thin, but you can wear a lot of them at the same time.”

  She used her index finger and thumb to indicate a width that Louise estimated at about four inches.

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing that she wears regularly, but she does have jewelry.”

  “What about her clothes?” Louise asked instead.

  “Just the usual. Jeans and T-shirts … a lot of times she’ll wear a top with a little blouse over it, and she has a beige jacket like they mentioned on the news on the radio.”

  Louise glanced down at the girl’s feet and saw a pair of black Kawasakis. She pointed at them.

  “Does she have a pair like those too?” she asked, knowing most of the girl’s friends likely had them. She couldn’t understand how the floppy little sneakers managed to stay in style. They’d been popular when she was the girl’s age, as well.

  Dicta nodded.

  “We bought them together; hers are white.”

  The girl stopped, unable to think of anything else. Louise didn’t pressure her, instead saying, “Okay, I’ve got all this information written down. The last thing I’ll need is just your friend’s full name and address, and also how to get hold of you in case we want to talk with you again.”

  “She usually always responds to text messages on her phone. I’ve also tried texting her, but she doesn’t reply,” Dicta said, instead of giving Louise what she had asked for.

  “What’s her name again?” Louise asked before Dicta started talking.

  “Samra al-Abd. She lives on Dysseparken, apartment 16B,” the girl said. She seemed to consider her words before continuing. “She comes over to my house a lot when her parents let her, but her father can be pretty strict; sometimes she’s afraid of him. And now she’s suddenly missing.…”

  Louise tried to reassure her by repeating that there could be any number of good reasons why her friend had missed school or blown off their plans to get together.

  “There’s no need to assume the worst,” she said. Louise knew that lots of people saw ghosts in broad daylight when it came to persecuted immigrant girls and their fathers. Still, she had to admit that many of the things Dicta had told her might well indicate this was the right girl.

  “Could I get your friend’s phone number?” Louise asked, watching Dicta take her cell phone back out and browse through her contacts. Louise took down the number and also asked for her friend’s home number on Dysseparken.

  The girl pressed the button a few more times and also gave Louise the parents’ phone number.

  Once she had written down both numbers as well as Dicta’s, Louise nodded toward the cell phone and asked if Dicta happened to have a picture of her friend on it.

  A moment later Dicta passed her phone across the table and told Louise she’d taken the picture outside of school the week before.

  Louise quickly leaned forward and took the phone, but the picture was taken from so far away you could see only the long, black hair and a blurry face. There was a certain similarity between Dicta’s friend and the dead girl, but it was impossible to tell for sure if it was her.

  “Unfortunately, this was taken from too far away for me to make her out properly,” Louise said, handing back the phone. “Do you think you have a better one?”

  The girl shook her head and explained that she had had more pictures on her old phone, but she had lost it.

  “I might be able to find one at home,” she offered, saying she would be happy to stop by with it the next day.

  “It’s a deal. Then hopefully we can rule out your friend as the girl we found,” Louise told Dicta, thanking her for coming before walking her back out to the reception area. Then Louise quickly returned to the command center, but it was empty and the lights were off. She surveyed the offices, but Bengtsen was the only person still at his desk.

  “Did everyone else go over to the hotel?” she asked. Bengtsen nodded w
ithout looking up from his copy of Venstrebladet, Holbak’s left-leaning daily newspaper.

  Louise went into her office and found Storm’s cell phone number so she could call and update him on her conversation with the girl.

  “Hurry over here and get some food, then we’ll go over it after we’ve eaten,” he said curtly.

  “If it really is the friend, shouldn’t we get in touch with the parents right away?” Louise objected.

  “Of course, but we also need to eat; it’s going to be a long night,” he said. “Afterward we’ll check out what other tips have come in on the missing-person report, and then we’ll know where we stand before we start talking to people.”

  Louise would have continued protesting, but then she remembered that Storm called the shots. Instead, she went back in to see if Bengtsen wanted to join her.

  He shook his head, but this time his eyes left the paper, and he looked at her.

  “Aren’t you going to eat?” she asked before leaving his office.

  “Yes, but I prefer to eat at home,” he said, briefly explaining that she should just head left when exiting the police station, and then take a right. Then she’d come to the Central Station Square where the train station and the Station Hotel were located.

  “See you later,” Louise said, heading back to retrieve her bags from the car before she set out on foot toward the hotel.

  5

  LAST NIGHT HE CUT DEEP GASHES INTO HIS OWN FACE. He can’t take it anymore; I have to keep an eye on him.

  Camilla teared up as she read the old e-mail in her inbox. She was still deeply upset that Henning had shown up at the community center to tell her to her face that she should stay away. When she got back to her office at Morgenavisen, she immediately checked her e-mail to see if he had sent an explanation, but there wasn’t any word from him. Now she sat there depressed, skimming through his old e-mail instead.

  They used to talk to each other, she and Henning. They both thought their relationship was strong enough to handle what had happened in Roskilde. Camilla couldn’t recall ever being so determined to fight for a relationship. Not even when she and Tobias had started drifting apart when Markus was about one year old.