Only One Life

by Sara Blaedel

  “She was doing her homework,” he added.

  “But you said good night to her?”

  Again there was a pause before he explained that usually his wife was the one who took care of that sort of thing.

  “I was in the living room.”

  “We know that you were reported for domestic violence previously against your wife and daughter. Will you tell us what happened?” Louise asked.

  The father winced and looked down at the table.

  “Have there been problems between you and your daughter since then?” she continued.

  He still didn’t respond and they let him sit in silence. “It was a misunderstanding,” he finally said. “Nothing bad. I lost my temper.”

  “What set off your anger?” Louise asked quietly.

  “It was my son, and Samra stuck her nose into it.”

  “How?”

  “It’s not her place to make a fuss about the way I raise my son,” he said simply.

  “What did your son do?” Mik wanted to know.

  “He lied to me. But I had misunderstood and made a mistake. I apologized, and my wife came home again. You can see that everything got sorted out.”

  Mik coughed briefly before meeting the father’s eyes and asking: “Did you kill your daughter?”

  Ibrahim al-Abd’s face shut down completely and he started crying as he vigorously shook his head and looked back into Mik’s eyes without shame.

  Louise and Mik quickly looked at each other and agreed that that would have to be enough for now. They asked him to give them his son’s cell phone number so they could get in touch with him.

  “Can we get permission to see her?” the father asked, turning around in the doorway on his way out, tears still running down his cheeks.

  They both nodded and said they would call him about a time when he and his wife could drive over to the Pathology Lab in Copenhagen and see their daughter one last time.

  He nodded his thanks and zipped his jacket all the way up to his throat before turning around and heading down the corridor past the offices where everyone was hard at work on the investigation into his daughter’s murder.

  Louise stood watching him leave until he disappeared out the door.

  8

  LOUISE AND MIK SAT IN THEIR OFFICE TOGETHER WITH STORM AND told him how it had gone, and Louise called Samra’s teacher and principal and asked them to notify the students before the news got out.

  “We need to find out how that family works,” the lead investigator said. “If her father or another member of the family did it, we need to close in on them before they start covering their tracks with uncles and alibis.”

  Storm stood up and strolled down the corridor, summoning everyone to the command center.

  Louise felt strangely relieved that Storm had just said straight out what everyone undoubtedly suspected. Yet another “honor” killing, or liquidation of women, as some had begun calling it, because they could not accept that there was anything “honorable” about such an act.

  Louise had brought the picture of Samra with her. She tossed it out onto the conference table so it could make the rounds.

  “This is how she looked in June, so about three months ago.”

  At that moment, the door opened and a young man came in with two white boxes he was balancing in one hand. Storm had ordered fancy open-faced sandwiches from the local butcher’s shop.

  “Here are your sandwiches,” the man said. Following him was a girl with plates, silverware, and napkins.

  Bengtsen got up and returned a moment later with a blue lunch box that he set in front of himself.

  “Aren’t you having any?” Skipper asked, nodding at Bengtsen.

  “No, I prefer to eat what I bring from home.”

  “We’re definitely going to have to meet this Else soon,” Skipper said.

  Bengtsen ignored him and started opening his lunch box, and Louise hurried to reach for a Veterinarian’s Midnight Snack—an open-faced sandwich of buttered rye bread topped with liver-wurst, corned beef, aspic, and red onion—before anyone had a chance to call dibs.

  “Did the father say anything?” Søren asked, getting everyone’s attention again now that they had food on their plates.

  “He said he got home around seven Tuesday night,” Mik said, wiping his mouth, “and his daughter was home then. They had a visit from the uncle from Benløse, but Samra was in her room, and he has not seen her since.”

  “Ibrahim al-Abd also has a sailboat moored down at the marina,” Louise added, looking at Storm.

  He set his knife and fork down, and a deep wrinkle appeared over his brow as he sat and let that information seep in.

  “So far we’ve got only the one crime scene. We should look into getting the girl’s room and the rest of the apartment searched in a hurry, and we can do it under the pretext that there may be important information about her disappearance. Then we should bring the mother and brother in immediately, and of course we’ve also got to get the sailboat searched, as well as the dinghies anchored out in the cove.” He paused briefly. “In addition, we need to ID her closest friends, so we’ll be able to get their take on the relationships in the family.”

  The boss looked around and asked who else they should get hold of.

  “The father’s brother in Benløse,” Mik quickly said.

  Storm nodded and repeated that everyone related to the al-Abd family needed to be brought in as soon as possible.

  “And you two need to help with all the interviews,” he told Bengtsen and Velin, adding that they were also responsible for obtaining a printout of the girl’s cell phone records.

  Søren said that Samra’s cell phone had not yet been found, but he had already requested a court order for the phone company to turn over all of the information pertaining to her phone number so they could get a list of all calls, times, and cell towers.

  Storm nodded in satisfaction.

  “Shouldn’t we call in an interpreter?” Louise asked. “Based on Mr. al-Abd’s statement, his family speaks and understands Danish, but aren’t we obliged to make sure that everything is being understood correctly?”

  “We’d better,” Storm conceded and then looked at Bengtsen. “Who do you usually use for cases like this?”

  Bengtsen said that there was a woman they had been extremely satisfied with in the past who worked as an interpreter at Holbæk Hospital.

  “Couldn’t it present a problem if we use someone local?” Louise interjected. “Interpreters can be more loyal to the interrogatee than to the police. If we want to be sure that the interpreting is correct, we should use double interpretation and bring one of the department’s own interpreters in.”

  She spoke from experience. The first crucial interrogations in the Nørrebro case had gone horribly wrong because the interpreter turned out to be from the same area in Pakistan as the suspect. That meant he did not dare convey the uncomfortable questions the police were actually asking, and instead he made things up.

  “Rick is right,” Søren said. “We don’t have any way to control for that, and Holbæk is a small town.”

  “We’ve got a good guy, Fahid, so let’s see if he’s free so he can assist her,” Storm said and asked Søren to get hold of him. Then he turned to Skipper and Dean, who were following up on the technical investigation. “We’ve been looking into the family’s cars.”

  Louise briefly updated the others on the old BMW that Samra’s brother was apparently in the process of buying, and on the father’s red Peugeot.

  “I understand you’ve already got something around the crime scene that might be of interest?” Storm continued, asking them to report.

  Dean explained that they had secured several tire prints, but one in particular was interesting. Close to the bluff, the forensic techs had found a print of a tire manufactured by Bridgestone with the brand name Europa II 195/50 R15 82V.

  “So it’s a fifteen-inch tire, and that’s a little unusual,” Skipper added. �
��Most of us drive on sixteen-inch tires. Bridgestone explained to us that this tire is unique in its design and size, and it was for sale in Denmark for only a short period of time. A car dealer here in Holbæk, Hans Just, sells Bridgestones, and he said that on March 10, 2006, he sold a red Peugeot 306 to an Ibrahim al-Abd who lives on Dysseparken and that vehicle had just had four completely new tires put on, brand Europa II 195/50 R15 82V.”

  “That car needs to go into forensics,” Storm said. “They’ll secure the tires and put on some equivalent ones before he gets the car back, and then of course we can go over the interior in detail. We also want them to investigate the BMW, and I want that to happen today.”

  Dean and Skipper looked like they agreed and got ready to return to work.

  Louise got up as well, and on her way out of the command center she tossed her paper plate and plastic silverware into the trash. She liked this phase of an investigation, when the tasks were assigned and everyone was scrambling to get going on them.

  9

  WHEN LOUISE GOT BACK TO THE OFFICE, SHE FIRST CALLED Samra’s teacher to get the names of the school friends Samra had been closest to. She also called Dicta Møller and left a message on her cell phone.

  It only took a minute before Dicta called back. Louise could hardly hear what she was saying and asked her to speak louder.

  “Are you in the middle of class?” she asked.

  Dicta explained that she had stayed home from school. She was sick.

  “I’d like to talk more with you if you think you are ready for that,” Louise said, sensing that the girl was about to cry.

  “Hmm,” Dicta said. Then came a sniffle and the girl inhaled deeply.

  “I just heard,” Dicta cried, releasing the emotions she had been trying to hold back. “The school called, but of course I knew immediately.”

  Louise offered to drive to Dicta’s house so she wouldn’t have to come down to the police station. It would be helpful to get Dicta’s views as quickly as possible on how Samra’s family worked.

  She told Mik across the desk that she wanted to drive out and have a quick talk with Samra’s friend, and they agreed that Mik would continue questioning the family members. Then Louise could join back in once she returned.

  She hurried down to the parking lot to the car, tucking the slip of paper with Dicta’s address in her mouth as she pulled on her jacket and opened the car door. She felt privileged to have been assigned her own vehicle. Back at the Copenhagen PD, a number of cars were allocated to each investigative team, but that didn’t mean there was always one free when she needed one.

  She had no idea where Holbæk’s Østby neighborhood was in relation to the police station, but she keyed the address into the car’s GPS and praised the technology and the satellite that were both now set to guide her to the Møller family. Normally she considered it a point of honor to have some feel for a place, but the only thing she knew in Holbæk was the downtown area. She didn’t have a very good handle on anything outside that. But when she saw the route, it dawned on her that instead of a car she should have asked them to issue her a bike. Even though the address was on the edge of town, it wasn’t very far, and it would have done her good to bike out there.

  She started driving and soon found herself in a showy neighborhood of newly constructed family homes not far from Beach Mill Meadow Park and the sound. The houses were close together, and Louise drove down the street slowly, curiously checking out the houses. All were built in individual styles with impressive driveways, and several houses had sunporches facing the street or were in a functionalist style with sleek surfaces and lines, while others were done in an older style with arches and balconies. Although the residents had clearly gone to some trouble to turn their houses into something unique and special, there were three things they pretty much all had: Poul Henningsen designer lighting, either outdoor sconces on exterior walls or conspicuous table lamps in windows facing the street; Swedish-style white wooden benches; and large lion statues carved from white stone gracing the driveways.

  Louise inhaled all of the details. There were kids’ bikes in most of the driveways, and she didn’t doubt that this was a neighborhood for privileged children. Yet you couldn’t feel much life on a Thursday morning like this, probably reflecting the fact that both parents had to work to afford to live here.

  If she hadn’t already known that Dicta attended one of the city’s normal public schools, she would have guessed that parents living here would sooner send their children to the hundred-year-old Stenhus School in Holbæk, one of Denmark’s largest university preps, or to any of the city’s other private schools. But apparently the Møller family had not chosen to make that sort of thing a priority.

  The Møllers’ house had a white plaster exterior with a large balcony that went all the way around the top floor. Louise guessed that the view was impressive: the sound, the marina, open fields, forest, and the city. Parked in the driveway was a large new SUV. Louise was a little puzzled. As far as she had managed to figure out, both parents worked in Holbæk; the father had a chiropractic clinic on the main street, and the mother worked part-time as a medical secretary. Yet they had opted to equip themselves with a Jeep Grand Cherokee with yellow license plates, normally reserved for business cars that were eligible for lower fees. It irked Louise when people who didn’t have a really good reason chose to drive big, heavy cars like that.

  As she approached the front door, she heard fierce barking. There was a wall to the right of the house with a white gate in the middle. She had the feeling there might be a nice pack of medium-size dogs just on the other side, and she got a glimpse of the shadow of a German shepherd and an Old English sheepdog before she quickly took the three steps up to front door and rang the bell.

  Ding-dong. The sound echoed and only agitated the dogs more. Now there was barking from inside the house too. Louise began to regret not asking Dicta to come down to the police station after all. Not that Louise had anything against dogs, but all the noise and frenzy was annoying as she tried to gather her thoughts and prepare her questions.

  Dicta was wearing a gray tracksuit, she had no makeup on, and her long blonde hair was gathered into a loose ponytail. Her ditziness and flightiness of the other day were now entirely gone. Louise was standing opposite a young girl who was either trying to be a grown-up or striving to give an impression of maturity. Pale and deeply upset, Dicta invited Louise inside, into something Louise would have described as a laundry room—or scullery, as people still called them where she was from. A woman was busy grooming a large, black poodle there.

  The woman wiped the dog hair on her hands onto an apron that was mostly covered by a picture of a dog jumping through a car tire. Underneath were the words STOCKHOLM 2006.

  “Hi, I’m Anne Møller,” she said, offering her hand to Louise. “Dicta’s mother.”

  The latter comment was superfluous. Not only did the two of them resemble each other uncannily, but the woman also looked at Dicta with the concern on her face that only a mother could have for her child. “I came home as soon as Dicta got the call from school,” she explained. “She called me at the medical practice where I work.” She let the dog go and pulled her shoulder-length blonde hair behind her ears as she explained that she did competition-level agility trial training and trained other people’s dogs for them. Those were the dogs running around out in the yard right now.

  That explained all the barking, and probably the SUV, Louise thought.

  The poodle was interested in her and began to sniff.

  “Charlie, down,” Dicta’s mother commanded. The dog hesitated only for a moment before going under the dining table and lying down.

  Anne Møller asked Louise to follow her into the kitchen, where she pointed at the large oval Piet Hein table that filled the room.

  “Do you drink coffee? I just put a pot on. My husband is on his way home. He just has to pass off his patients to the two chiropractors who work for him at the clinic.”
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  Anne’s speech seemed a bit frantic and her cheeks were flushed. During pauses, her eyes would dart over to see how her daughter was doing.

  Louise had taken a seat opposite Dicta and had the sense that the girl was tuning out her mother’s stream of words. Dicta sat with her eyes trained on the table and was obviously somewhere else entirely.

  “Do you take milk? I’ll just warm some up!”

  Louise looked up at Anne and said cold milk was fine, but Dicta’s mother ignored her and placed a carafe of milk in the microwave.

  After clicking the door shut and punching in the heating time, she appeared to calm down. She came over and stood behind Dicta, laying her hands on her shoulders. She had taken off her apron and was dressed classically in a lightweight cardigan over a white blouse and beige linen trousers. Her face looked fresh and youthful with nice, smooth skin.

  “It doesn’t make any sense at all. Samra was just here a couple of days ago,” Anne said.

  She started stroking her daughter’s arms and then walked over and took out a bowl and filled it with chocolate cookies. She did the whole thing reflexively, because there was something safe and reassuring about setting out cups and cookies on the table.

  Louise looked intently at Dicta, saying she wanted to chat with her a little about Samra’s friends and her relationship with her family.

  Dicta slowly raised her eyes toward Louise, as though it were a long trip back to reality, and Louise gave her plenty of time once she finally began to speak. Mechanically, the girl took a cookie from the bowl and broke it into small pieces so the crumbs fell on the table as she rattled off the names of three other girls from school she knew Samra spent a fair amount of time with.

  “I only know one of them really well,” Dicta said. “She’s my friend too; the other two I don’t know that well.”

  Louise wrote down the names and signaled that the mother was welcome to come over and sit with them. She’d been hovering in the background since they started talking. Now she brought her cup over and sat down.