‘Or maybe that’s exactly what it is,’ Karl counters calmly. ‘Sheer coincidence, I mean.’
Karen gives him a doubtful look.
‘Or, more to the point,’ he adds, ‘Disa Brinckmann isn’t really connected to the case. Just a name that came up.’
‘A name that came up during the mapping of the victim’s background.’
‘Which is why the same person reaching out to both Susanne and Disa is in all likelihood immaterial. This Anne Crosby probably just knows both of them. All cases are full of coincidences that have no bearing on the case itself.’
‘If that’s true, it’s a bloody strange coincidence. Disa and Susanne didn’t know each other, after all. Susanne had barely been born when Disa left the island.’
‘Fine, but Disa knew her parents. This Anne Crosby is probably linked to the commune in one way or another; knew one of the members or maybe even lived there herself for a while, what do I know? Lots of people must have come and gone. Have you asked Brandon and Janet Connor?’
‘Not yet, but I left a message on their machine. Now I’m considering sending a text to Anne Crosby’s mobile. Asking her to contact me.’
‘Well, why not? Apparently, Disa’s daughter already informed her the police were trying to get in touch with Disa anyway. And I’ll give you that it’s a bit strange Anne Crosby didn’t clear up that little misunderstanding straight away. On the other hand, maybe she had no idea what Mette was talking about; that south-Swedish dialect is bloody incomprehensible.’
‘So you think I should text her? Even though I’ve been ordered to focus on Kvanne?’
Karen puts her thumb on the send button.
‘What are you asking me for? You already made your mind up.’
There’s a beep as the message is sent. Karen turns her phone around to let Karl read the short text saying the Doggerland police are trying to reach Anne Crosby, urging her to contact the Dunker CID immediately on this number. He slowly shakes his head.
‘Smeed’s going to go ballistic when he realises you’re still working on this.’
‘But he won’t find out. Will he?’
‘Not from me, no. I’m perfectly happy to allow you the great pleasure of telling him yourself. If Anne Crosby gets back to you, you’re going to have to, I guess. On the other hand, she’s only going to call if she doesn’t have anything to do with the murder.’
67
Langevik, 1971
‘It’s no use; if we can’t get the breastfeeding to work, she’s not going to make it.’
Disa puts down the bottle with the hateful formula, wipes her forehead with her wrist and puts the baby against her shoulder.
It had become clear to her after the first day that a mix of milk, flour and a dollop of butter wasn’t going to do the trick. Not in this case. And she’d seen the looks they’d given her, seen the flicker of doubt when she told Per to go to the pharmacy in Dunker to purchase formula. Nestlé. The very name was an affront, the exploitation of the third world, the shameless racket. It was a prime symbol of capitalist predation. But he’d gone and he’d purchased. And now they’d sold their souls to the devil and they had nothing to show for it.
*
Three days now. Disa’s eyes and stomach ache with worry and sleep deprivation. Three days and Ingela still won’t get out of bed. Just lies there with her eyes closed, even when she’s awake. And the others are tiptoeing around with their awkwardness, their lack of experience, their utter helplessness.
Rage unexpectedly flares up inside Disa. They’re like children, the lot of them. Stupid children in grown-up bodies. They’ve put all their faith in her, assumed she’s going to take care of everything, solve all their problems. Disa, the calm one, the safe one. The one with the ancient knowledge; the old remedies, the old treatments. Disa, earth mother, midwife. And why would you need a hospital anyway for something as natural as childbirth?
She’d been able to make out two heartbeats by week nineteen. That Tomas couldn’t be the father had been clear to her even earlier. Maybe even before Ingela herself had faced the truth. Disa had seen Ingela and Per, figured out what Tomas pretended not to know. She knows when the children must have been conceived and that Tomas had been nowhere near Langevik.
‘You have to tell him,’ she’d said. ‘Both Tomas and Per have a right to know. And Anne-Marie,’ she’d added, realising this would change everything.
And in the end, Per had told his wife the cruel truth. That he’d been unfaithful. That the children Ingela was expecting were his. That he was going to be a father, while Anne-Marie would likely remain childless. Maybe they’d all known it then, when they heard her heartrending sobs from the first floor, known that this was the beginning of the end. Realised it long before the screaming and yelling turned into icy silence. Or had it only dawned on them in the weeks that followed, when their concern for Anne-Marie had slowly morphed into exasperation?
Maybe that was when the unwelcome insight that the idea of sharing everything was beautiful in theory but hideous in practice had crept up on them. When they all secretly found Anne-Marie’s reaction easier to relate to than Tomas’ indifference. When their admiration for his ability to forgive and forget slowly turned into contempt. Why wasn’t he furious? Could he really forgive Ingela and Per? Was he – the thought was as forbidden as it was impossible to suppress – was he not a real man?
One after the other, they’d abandoned their shared dream. Theo had gone back to Amsterdam just a few weeks after the idyll was shattered. Brandon and Janet had stuck it out a while longer. Endured Anne-Marie’s grief and Per’s remorse-fuelled red-wine orgies. Endured Tomas’ incomprehensible serenity in the face of everything falling apart around him. Endured the sight of Ingela’s growing belly, like a constant reminder nothing was going to get better. This time, the problem wouldn’t go away eventually.
In the end, Brandon had found Janet down by the harbour one freezing February morning, sitting alone on a bollard.
‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ she’d told him. ‘Are you coming with me?’
‘Where to?’ he’d asked.
‘Anywhere.’
And so, they’d given up, too, and left the commune.
But Disa had stayed. Ever dutiful, she was going to stick it out until after the children were finally born; she’d promised them she would. Then, she’d promised herself, she was going to leave this nightmare, too.
*
When labour finally began, hope had returned like some kind of innate reflex. Maybe things will get better once the children are here. When life fills the house once more. Ingela had followed her instructions mechanically: breathe, don’t push yet, wait, wait . . . Now!
And Tomas had sat by her side the whole time. Tomas, not Per. Maybe that was his revenge, after all. The one small show of strength he allowed himself; shutting Per out. He, Tomas, was going to be one to see the children born, even though they weren’t his.
And it had happened surprisingly quickly; the first child was out only a couple of hours after the first contraction. Healthy and strong, the little girl had cried after a gentle rub with a towel. Then Disa had realised something was wrong. Ingela had suddenly run out of strength and slipped into an apathic state. It had been almost an hour before everything was finally over and the other girl was out. Exhausted and limp, half the size of her sister. Disa had heard of such things during her training; that sometimes one twin steals so much of the nutrition in the womb the other is stunted. And sure, she’d read about mothers who were unable to bond with their children, women who instead of the joy of motherhood experienced deep depression. She’d heard and read, but never encountered it.
*
Three days now. Three days of worry. About the child who won’t eat, about Ingela who doesn’t seem to care about either of the children. And for the first time since deciding to become a midwife, Disa Brinckmann wishes she was in a hospital.
‘This won’t do,’ she says again. ‘We need help.�
��
She looks up at the others. Tomas’ eyes are despondent. Per’s are anxiously darting back and forth. And Anne-Marie, who’s holding the other baby girl in her arms. Disa studies her and wonders for a moment if she even realises the child’s not hers. Anne-Marie seemed to revive the moment Ingela slipped into apathy. She has looked after the healthy girl, rocked her, fed her, soothed her and watched over her as though she were her own flesh and blood. Now she looks uncomprehendingly at Disa before turning her attention back to the child, pressing her closer as she watches her little mouth suck on the bottle’s rubber nipple.
‘She does eat. When I feed her,’ she says.
‘Melody does, yes, but Happy’s not putting on nearly enough weight. I can’t be responsible for this anymore, we need to take her to a doctor. Ingela needs help, too. You all know something’s wrong, she doesn’t even have the strength to hold her babies.’
Per stand up so quickly his chair topples backward with a crash.
‘They’re my children,’ he says. ‘You can’t just take them.’
Silence engulfs the kitchen. Endless seconds, anxious breathing, impossible thoughts. Then Disa leans across the table.
‘It’s up to you, Tomas: either I take both Ingela and Happy to the hospital in Dunker, or we’re getting on the ferry back to Sweden tonight.’
Anne-Marie gets up without a word, puts the bottle down on the table and leaves the room with Melody in her arms.
Tomas watches her go and then turns to Disa.
‘Let’s go home,’ he says quietly.
68
Karen exits the Hare and Crow, her face set. She gets into her car and leans her forehead against the steering wheel. She’s been wrong.
So goddamn incredibly wrong.
The past twenty-four hours have been filled with paperwork, phone calls to the prosecutor’s office and constant glances at her phone. Anne Crosby hasn’t got back to her. Nor has Disa Brinckmann.
She has conducted another fruitless interview with Linus Kvanne, who stood by his assertions. Yes, he confesses to all four burglaries. Yes, he tried to set fire to the houses in Thorsvik and Grunder, but he doesn’t get what the big deal is. No one was home; he knew that when he started the fires. Fine, but then the laws need to be changed!
And no, he didn’t kill Susanne Smeed; he’s never in his life even set foot in godforsaken bloody Langevik or whatever it’s called.
*
The last part was only refuted thirty minutes after Karen left the interview room. Sören Larsen had called from the lab at quarter to four that afternoon, apologising vaguely for the amount of work involved in the Moerbeck investigation delaying the results Karen had been waiting for.
She’d listened without comment when he continued.
‘Kvanne’s mobile phone was connected to one of the masts in Langevik for almost eleven hours, from 10.31 p.m. to 9.24 a.m.,’ Larsen had told her, not bothering to hide his glee. ‘That poor sod must have spent all of Oistra in that godforsaken hole. You live in Langevik, what on earth is there for a person to get up to there?’
‘Not much,’ Karen had replied. ‘Not much at all, unfortunately.’
‘Sure, he was here,’ Arild Rasmussen had confirmed when she showed him Linus Kvanne’s mug shot a few hours later at the Hare and Crow.
‘He was sitting in the corner over there, talking on his phone all night. Stayed inside even though it was a warm night and everyone else was outside. Drunk as a skunk, he got, too; I had to personally throw him out around three. No, I mean twelve, obviously . . .’
‘I don’t care how long you stayed open, Arild. But the timings could be important.’
‘All right, he was the last one to leave, just after three. It was quarter past by the time I got up to the flat.’
‘Do you know where he went after that?’
‘No idea. He asked if I had a room, but as you know, I don’t anymore. I assume he slept in his car.’
‘He had a car? Are you saying you saw it?’
Arild Rasmussen has to ponder that for a second.
‘No, I guess I didn’t, but he must have had one. How in heaven’s name would he have got here otherwise?’
*
Yes, that is the question, she thinks now, with her head against the wheel. How had Linus Kvanne made it almost twenty miles from the quarry where the stolen motorcycle had been found, to the Hare and Crow in Langevik? He had very likely had a car when he left Langevik: a Toyota with a quarrelsome starter engine.
I’ve never in my life even set foot in Langevik. The little prick had lied to her face and she’d believed him. Karen groans loudly.
I’m going to have to check every single call he made and talk to everyone who was here that night, she resolves and lifts her head back up. Someone must’ve seen which way he went after the pub closed.
Goddamn Sören, if only he’d let her know a bit sooner. But as she thinks that, she realises there’s no point shifting the blame to someone else. Her own stubbornness and refusal to accept irrefutable facts has led to this situation. Thirty-six precious hours, which she could have spent scrutinising Linus Kvanne instead of sniffing around an old hippie commune from the seventies.
With another heavy sigh, she buckles her seatbelt, turns the key and starts the car.
69
Once more, heavenly smells greet her as she steps through the front door of her old stone house. Sigrid comes trotting down the stairs with a towel wrapped around her hair.
‘God, that feels good,’ she says. ‘I hope I didn’t get dye all over the bathroom. Did you know they sell hair dye in the hardware shop?’
She bends over, lets the towel unfurl and rubs her wet raven hair.
Karen eyes the stained towel wearily.
‘Oh dear,’ Sigrid exclaims. ‘But I can give you one of Mum’s instead; she has like a thousand.’
‘Don’t worry about it. What’s for dinner? It smells amazing.’
‘Coq au vin. Sort of, anyway. I stole a bottle from the pantry. Did you know there’s a farmer up by the road to Grene who sells organically raised chicken?’
Karen lets out an amused snort.
‘Are you talking about Johar Iversen? I don’t think he knows how to spell non-toxic. Even maggots won’t go near his kale.’
Sigrid looks disappointed.
‘Only organic feed and free-range chickens, that’s what he told me. I bought eggs, too.’
‘Sure,’ Karen says, ‘they’re free-range, all right. Old Johar’s chickens run loose across the roads up there. I’ve probably run over at least three myself. Don’t get upset, I’m exaggerating,’ she adds when she notices Sigrid’s horrified expression. ‘I just had a bad day at work.’
‘Is it to do with Mum? I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, but it said in the papers you’ve arrested a suspect.’
Karen hesitates. Sigrid’s staying with her is predicated on careful mutual avoidance of two subjects: her mother. And her father.
‘OK, yes, it’s true. And a lot of things point to it being the right guy, I can tell you that much. But before we’re 100 per cent sure, I’m not going to discuss who he is or why he’s in detention.’
I just hope you don’t know him, she suddenly thinks. Granted, Linus Kvanne is a few years older than Sigrid and they don’t look like they travel in the same circles, but he lives in Gaarda, just a few blocks from Samuel Nesbö’s flat.
*
Sigrid’s version of coq au vin is stripped down, to say the least. Chicken and wine. Instead of bothering with things like bacon, chestnut mushrooms and shallots, she has added a can of haricot beans and thrown in a couple of cloves of garlic near the end for good measure. It tastes surprisingly good once Karen has sprinkled on some salt and pepper. Most importantly, someone else cooked it. I would probably be happy eating hay, so long as someone else served it. She mops up the last of the sauce with a piece of bread.
‘If you put the coffee on, I’ll do the washing up,’ she
says, getting to her feet.
Just then, her phone rings.
Karen wipes her fingers on her jeans, steps out into the hallway and pulls her phone out of her jacket pocket. Without checking the number, she answers in the curt tone of someone expecting a salesman on the other end.
‘Eiken.’
‘This is Brandon Connor. I think we need to talk.’
70
The smell of cumin is as prominent as last time, the kitchen as homey, the table as inviting. Outwardly, both Janet and Brandon look as relaxed as before, but this time, the kitchen is suffused with a palpable tension. Karen notices the couple exchanging nervous glances while they set out the teapot and cups.
She shouldn’t have come here, should have explained on the phone that the police are no longer interested in what happened in their commune half a century ago. This time, she wastes no time on small talk.
‘You have something to tell me?’
Another exchanged look, as though they’re checking in with each other one last time. Then Janet nods for Brandon to start.
‘We weren’t entirely frank with you before,’ he says. ‘But we’ve decided to break our promise and tell you what we know.’
‘Promise, to whom?’
‘To Disa. She’s kept shtum about everything all these years, until Tomas died.’
‘So you did stay in touch with Disa Brinckmann after all.’
Brandon nods.
‘On and off, you might say. But yes, we stayed in touch. She was here only last summer. That’s when she told us everything. Couldn’t bear keeping it to herself any longer, she said.’
Karen waits without speaking while Brandon sips his tea, looking like he’s pondering how to proceed. Then he puts his cup down, takes a deep breath and continues.
‘So this happened after Janet and I left the farm. I’m only telling you what Disa told us. We don’t know anything else.’
Karen nods.
Fatal Isles Page 34
