Only One Life

by Sara Blaedel

  “I think they mostly hung out together at school,” Dicta continued after regaining her composure, explaining that it was rare for Samra to get permission to take part in anything that happened after school hours.

  “Her parents were really strict. She was supposed to come straight home and do her homework,” Dicta said. “And she often had to help watch her little sister and brother too.”

  Louise detected a sweet sort of pride when Dicta explained that her friend Samra had been one of the smartest students in their class—but then you’d darn well expect that, Louise thought, if you were forced to pore over your schoolbooks for so many hours every day.

  “You’re some good kids,” her mother interjected, stroking her daughter’s cheek.

  Dicta looked at her as though she didn’t understand where that comment had come from, finding it out of place.

  “She was a good kid,” Dicta stressed, turning her eyes back to Louise.

  “You work hard too,” the mother insisted.

  Dicta ignored her, and Louise hurriedly stepped in.

  “But her parents did give her permission to come over here?” Louise asked.

  “Yes, but definitely not quite as often as Samra would have liked, as far as I understood.”

  Anne was the one who latched on to that question, and Louise listened in interest as Anne explained that she had met Samra’s mother several times.

  “At the medical practice where I work,” she said. “She stops by there relatively often, either by herself or with the two children, and then we always chat about the girls and their school. She knows that Dicta is a stable, sensible girl, and that probably contributes to their feeling comfortable having their daughter at our house. But I never got the impression Samra was allowed to spend much time with anyone else after school either.”

  “She also got permission to sleep over here,” Dicta said, adding that she hadn’t gotten permission to sleep over at Liv’s, another of the girls in their clique.

  They heard a car engine stop and a door slam shut. Anne got up to go out and prepare her husband for the fact that there was a police officer visiting, Louise guessed.

  He was a tall, handsome man, blonde with bright-blue eyes. It wasn’t hard to see where Dicta had gotten her looks from with these parents, Louise thought, standing to shake his hand.

  “I’m Henrik,” he said once Louise had introduced herself and explained why she was there.

  He gave his daughter a kiss on the cheek before going to get a cup from the cabinet and joining them.

  “It’s so terrible, you can hardly bear to think of it,” he said.

  “I can’t think of anything else,” Dicta said.

  He looked with worry at his daughter.

  “Of course you’re thinking of her,” he said, turning to look at Louise. “It’s just so incomprehensible when it’s a girl you know. It’s been all the talk at the clinic the whole morning. People are afraid this will lead to something more.”

  “It might, too, if there’s a killer on the loose in town,” said Anne.

  Henrik looked at his wife, and Louise could tell that he was about to say something reassuring when Dicta suddenly stood up and left the kitchen.

  They sat watching her go.

  “The police still don’t know much?” Henrik asked, looking at Louise. She shook her head.

  “We’ve started interviewing the family and are looking for witnesses who might have seen Samra during the period of time we think she went missing. But it’s a gap that extends over twelve hours. From when she said good night to her mother in her room at eight-thirty until she was found the next morning.”

  Neither of the parents asked Louise whether the police thought the family was behind it. And she was happy about that. She looked over toward Dicta’s room to assess whether enough time had passed for her to go in to talk to her more.

  “She was a good kid,” Dicta’s father said, using the same wording that his wife had used earlier. “Even if her family had a different set of rules for her than the ones her friends lived under, it seemed like she accepted them. There was no anger in her voice and she talked openly about the things that were off-limits to her. I actually had quite a lot of respect for that. We also hear about girls at school who are very disruptive to class unity because they let all their pent-up frustrations spill over onto their classmates.”

  Charlie had come in and was now resting his soft, furry head in Louise’s lap. She scratched behind his ear.

  “Many of these young immigrants are also put into an unreasonable situation—especially those who come here after spending their childhoods in another country,” Anne added, backing up her husband. “They get pressured to step into a life they are never given full access to. That has got to be frustrating. Especially for young people who aren’t that aware yet about the differences between Muslim and Danish ways of life.”

  Louise listened without interrupting. She liked Dicta’s parents, and it wasn’t hard to see why Dicta’s friends liked to spend time at her house. They were very down-to-earth and forthcoming.

  “Nor is it easy to come to this country,” the father continued. “It’s not like we’re trying to meet them halfway. That much is clear here, even though Holbæk is a relatively small town. Lots of immigrants have moved here, and it’s obvious when you visit our schools or walk around in town.”

  “But he doesn’t mean that just in a bad way,” Dicta’s mother hastened to inject.

  “No, of course not,” her husband said quickly, “but the tension has been growing more visible in recent years.”

  He stood up and walked out to find his jacket and pull a pack of cigarettes from the pocket.

  “Do you mind?” he asked before he tapped one out.

  Louise shook her head, hoping in a moment of weakness that he would offer her one. But he didn’t, probably assuming he was the only one with a nicotine addiction.

  “The children of immigrants are placed in public schools, which causes many Danish families to choose private schools for their children—which is pretty much a ridiculous system,” he said, “particularly at the secondary level, from seventh grade up. They may be good at reading and writing, but they have no idea who the prime minister is because they never watch Danish TV or read Danish papers, and it doesn’t help that there aren’t any Danish students in class to pick these things up from. It leaves our public-school classrooms full of only disadvantaged students with limited resources. And that’s not good for anyone.”

  “I assume that’s why you’re sending Dicta to Højmark School, which is public, right?” Louise asked.

  They both nodded.

  “Some Danish kids have to stay in the public-school system if we don’t want the country to crack down the middle,” Anne said, her voice sounding tired, as though she had had to explain her position one too many times. Louise thought of Camilla, who was of the opposite opinion when it came to her son, Markus. He was attending a private school because Camilla felt he had only a limited number of years to attend school and so his experience had to be as close to perfect as possible—and she definitely didn’t want him held back by students without family resources who slowed the pace down for everyone. For a moment Louise was happy she didn’t have kids herself, because she found herself torn between the two points of view.

  She stood up and said she just wanted to go see if Dicta was ready to continue. The poodle’s eyes followed her, as though he were trying to figure out whether she was going to come back or whether he might as well go take a nap.

  She knocked quietly on the door and waited for Dicta to say come in. The room was large and bright with its own French doors opening out onto the yard. Several posters were hanging on the walls, but, considering the girl’s aspirations of becoming a model, Louise was surprised there were no pictures of herself. When Louise asked about that, Dicta pulled a photo album off a shelf and flipped through the last few pages in it. Then she went to the closet and got out a box that was c
rammed so full, its lid would no longer stay in place without a rubber band.

  “My parents don’t know much about this,” she explained as she opened the box and carefully spread the pictures out on the bed.

  “Surely they can’t help but notice when the pictures are printed in the paper,” Louise said. Dicta laid out the last picture.

  “They do know a little bit about it. Just not that I’m working on becoming a professional model, and that we’ve taken so many pictures.”

  Louise looked at Dicta and thought she had a curiously grownup way of relating to this modeling career that she hadn’t even really embarked on yet. They must be the photographer’s words she was using.

  “Who took the pictures?” Louise asked, contemplating one where Dicta was sitting on the deck of a sailboat with her long blonde hair fluttering in the breeze and her feet hanging over the edge. She turned the photo over to see if there was a copyright notice on the back, but there was nothing.

  “His name’s Michael Mogensen, and he’s the best in town,” Dicta said, sitting up straight. “We’ve spent a lot of time taking the pictures that are going into my portfolio. Now I’m just waiting for him to finish them. There’s something about the background he needs to correct in Photoshop; but once that’s all set, the portfolio will be ready to be submitted to the major modeling agencies.”

  Louise smiled at her. Dicta had a youthful joy and exuberance when she talked about her dreams, and at the moment it was just sweet—but it didn’t take a professional’s eyes to see that there was something naïve and rigid in Dicta’s poses, which a more talented photographer would probably have done something about.

  “It sounds exciting,” Louise said.

  She fished out a picture in which Dicta was standing between Samra and a man who was in his mid-twenties.

  “That’s Michael,” explained Dicta. “He is a staff photographer at Venstrebladet.” She sounded a little impressed that he had taken on the responsibility for shepherding her to the top.

  Louise looked at the picture for a long time. Samra had a big smile on her face and her hair hung loose. It had been taken on a summer day down by the water. Louise recognized the bridge out to Holbæk’s public beach, and she thought she could just make out the red-painted main building and little changing cabins in the background.

  “He looks nice,” Louise said, examining the very average-looking guy with blonde hair and thick eyebrows.

  “Did Samra have her photos taken too?” Louise continued, asking out of curiosity.

  Dicta shook her head. “She just came with me a couple of times. Her father would totally flip out if he knew.”

  Dicta stacked up the pictures and put them back into the box before carefully hiding it away again and making sure it was hidden by other boxes and a bag in the bottom of her closet.

  “Was she seeing any boys?” Louise asked once Dicta emerged again.

  It took a while before she answered.

  “What do you mean by seeing?”

  Louise was angling again to find out whether Samra had a boyfriend, or whether there was a boy she had had an especially big crush on.

  “She wasn’t allowed to do that stuff,” Dicta continued.

  “Not being allowed to do something is not necessarily the same as not doing it,” Louise tried to say in a way that would not force Dicta to snitch on her friend for breaking her family’s rules. Dicta herself obviously felt other people didn’t necessarily need to know everything about Samra’s life.

  Louise asked how Dicta perceived Samra’s relationship with her family.

  Dicta shrugged, and when no answer was forthcoming, Louise stepped over and opened the door to leave.

  “Over time, she preferred spending time here more than being at home,” Dicta said finally as Louise stood in the hallway, “but that may also have been because there was always so much noise and so many people at her place,” she continued, following Louise.

  Louise went back out to the kitchen and said good-bye to Dicta’s parents, who were still sitting at the table talking softly, but they got up and came outside with her.

  “Did Samra mention anything about her family recently? Did she give the impression that anything wasn’t as it should be?”

  Louise glanced at the parents to see if they understood where she was headed with this line of thought.

  Dicta’s shoulders sank a little, and, without warning, all the tears she had been holding back suddenly flooded out. Her slender body began to shake as though convulsing from some intense cramp, and then the sobs emerged. Charlie got up uneasily from his place under the table and watched Dicta. The tremors increased, and Dicta’s father took his daughter in his arms and rocked her gently back and forth.

  “Had you noticed anything about Samra that might indicate she was afraid of something the last few times you saw her?” Louise repeated, persisting with her question despite the sobbing because the question might well have been what triggered it.

  Dicta didn’t answer, and her father closed his arms tighter around her. Louise nodded at him and said good-bye to Dicta as she let the mother accompany her the rest of the way out.

  They stood on the front steps as Anne said she thought she had noticed a change in Samra recently. She said Samra had seemed sullen and sad.

  “She used to enjoy helping me out a little with the dogs, also when I was training them in our dog run out in the back yard. But lately she’s been staying up in the bedroom with Dicta. Maybe they just had a lot of homework to do, or a lot of things to talk about.”

  Louise nodded. It was impossible to know, if Dicta didn’t want to say what was going on. Louise thanked Anne for the coffee and asked her to tell her daughter that she could call or stop by the police station at any time if anything else came up.

  She was just stepping off the end of the driveway onto the sidewalk when a blue station wagon drove up and parked at the curb, and she immediately recognized the photographer as he got out of the car and started walking up toward the front door.

  “Hello,” she said, offering a hand. “Detective Louise Rick. I’m with the Holbæk Police Department.”

  The man shook her hand and introduced himself.

  “Michael Mogensen,” he said, seeming a bit hesitant.

  “I know,” Louise said, smiling. “I was just looking at the pictures you’ve been taking of Dicta. Those are some big plans the two of you have been cooking up there.”

  He nodded a little self-consciously.

  “I’d really like to help her. It would be fun for me as well if she got discovered and became famous.”

  “I noticed that you also knew Samra.”

  “Yes, a little,” he said. “I promised Dicta I’d drive her out to Hønsehalsen cemetery so she can lay a bouquet of flowers and light a candle.”

  The door behind Louise opened.

  “I’ll be right there,” Dicta yelled, disappearing back into the house. A moment later she returned, wearing a jacket and ready to go.

  Louise went to her car and smiled at them as the photographer gallantly opened the station wagon’s door for the young woman.

  10

  WHEN LOUISE GOT BACK TO THE POLICE STATION, SHE MET Samra’s father and a woman in the hallway. She guessed it must be the mother, Sada, because she was wearing a headscarf and keeping her eyes stiffly trained on the floor. They were following Søren Velin to the corner office where Bengtsen and both interpreters were ready for them. Louise nodded to them and hurried to her own office. Once there, she cautiously knocked before entering and found her partner in the middle of questioning Samra’s older brother. Without interrupting, she took a seat and listened in.

  “Where’d you get the car from?” Mik asked.

  “From a friend, like I said!”

  There was no trace of anger in the young man’s tone, just a stubbornness that told them they shouldn’t count on finding out any more than he’d already told them.

  “But it isn’t your car?” Mik c
ontinued.

  Samra’s brother shook his head.

  “Does that mean other people might have used it in the last week?”

  There was no response.

  Mik Rasmussen leaned forward and asked, “Did you use the car Tuesday night?”

  Hamid nodded. “I wasn’t anywhere near Hønsehalsen.”

  His Danish was very good considering he’d only been living in the country for four years, Louise noted, although he did have a tough time pronouncing Hønsehalsen.

  “I’m not saying you were,” Mik interrupted. “I really just want to know if anyone else might have driven that car out there.”

  Samra’s brother shook his head.

  “Did your sister have a boyfriend?”

  Mik had changed topics so quickly that it seemed as if Hamid needed a moment to reboot before he answered the new question. He shook his head.

  “Who do you hang out with?”

  “People from school.”

  They had determined that he went to trade school, and in addition to a morning job where his father worked, he also had an after-school job at the local Kvickly supermarket. Ruth was already working on getting a list of his classmates in case they needed to talk to them.

  Louise leaned back to listen in on the questioning session. She was surprised that her partner was being so aggressive with his questioning. Louise was more a fan of the cognitive interview method, in which you guided the subject through an explanation in his own words at his own pace. She had always found that more productive. But every now and then it just failed to get anything out of a subject, and then of course you had to be more aggressive.

  “Does it bother you when girls have male friends?” Mik asked, changing topics again.

  “Why the hell would I care about that? Girls can have male friends. What kind of silly preconceptions do you have?”

  “So you feel that way even when your sister is involved?” The tone the question was asked in was filled with a confrontational sarcasm.

  There was a bang as Hamid angrily slapped his hand against the desk instead of responding, and in a way Louise couldn’t blame him for losing his temper if the interview had been going like this from the beginning.