by Inger Wolf
“You look like hell,” Jan said when he stepped into the building. “Like the victim of some rare blood disease.”
“Or like somebody who just got pounded by a baseball bat,” Tønnies added, in what was for him a veritable explosion of humor.
They howled with laughter; Jan even slapped his thigh.
“Just shut up, okay?” Trokic said.
“It’s hives,” Jan said. “Go to the doctor and he’ll give you a shot in the ass. Cortisone.”
Trokic stared at him. “Hives?”
“Take it easy; you’ll probably survive. It’s something you ate.”
Trokic shrugged and tried not to scratch. “Why do you think it happened here, right here?”
“Maja was lying right below. Almost certainly face down. She fell onto the concrete, that’s why so many bones were broken. From the angles involved, we’re assuming she fell from one of the apartments on this side, so it was just a matter of climbing up here.”
“So, what did you find?”
“Her shoe. The one that was missing when we found her in the park. It was over there where the entrance will be. Who would take one shoe off before jumping, is what I’d like to know.”
“No one,” Jan said.
“Right. And then there’s the fingerprint on the wall beside the window. I’m thinking it must be hers. It’s the only fingerprint, and it’s smudged, like she’d struggled, tried to hold on. Remember how cut up her fingernails were. I think there was a fight. Last but not least, there’s some blood with a few hairs on the wall. Like somebody slammed her head against it.”
Trokic shuddered and nodded. Now they were sure. Maja Nielsen had been killed. “And that’s all?”
Jan stared at him. “Is that all? Is that all? How about showing some humility here, respect for the art of forensics? We’ve just started; we need to sweep everything up. We haven’t even had time to admire the view.”
It was true; the sea looked marvelous from there. Like a panorama over Århus Bay with a flotilla of small boats and marinas and a forest at one end. Someone should be living here, in one of the five major prestigious projects at what had been Denmark’s largest container harbor. The view was overwhelming, certainly one of the best in the entire country. He knew this project, Baysite, had been controversial. The building they were in was only the first stage; in addition to a block of apartment buildings, the plan was to build a section of office buildings and a mall. It should be possible for people to live, work, and shop within a short walking distance, the consortium had declared.
He was about to go when Simon Møller, Maja’s cousin, showed up. Trokic bit his lip and considered what to do, but before he could tell the young policeman he shouldn’t be there, Møller said, “There was some trouble with the workers nearby. A few electricians got into it. I went over there myself. I wanted to see if Maja’s ex-boyfriend, that Nikolajsen guy, was involved. The bastard. It was him all right, but when we got there, they covered for each other. And then I noticed your cars here on the way back.”
Trokic tried not to look too annoyed at the cousin for sticking his nose into the investigation. He felt for the guy. Apparently, Maja had thought of him as someone who would protect her, and it had to be hard knowing he’d let her down.
“Maja probably didn’t commit suicide; it looks like she was pushed.”
That startled the young officer. “Why is that?”
Trokic described what the techs had found.
“But her delusions…”
“Yeah, I know. We’ll try to put all the pieces together.”
Møller was still shaken. “I just came over to tell you about the electricians since you were here. But now I really think we should take a close look at Dennis. The man has a record for assault, and I’ve never liked him. He’s lied to me before; you can’t trust him a single inch.”
He sighed and rubbed his temples. “I know, I know, I shouldn’t be getting involved. Sorry. I also came over because I wanted to see where she died. I heard over the radio.”
“I understand. It doesn’t always help though. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”
And he did. Several years earlier, he’d had a look at where his father had been killed during the first year of the Balkan War, on the Serbian border. He’d hoped it would give him peace of mind, but instead, it had reopened the wound. A father he’d never really gotten to know. Anger toward the Serbs. But he understood what Simon was talking about.
“It haunts me,” the cousin said. “I think about that bank key all the time, why she left it for me, what she might have known. And since we know she was killed now, I wonder…did she maybe lay it out there as some sort of sign, a message?”
“It’s not doing you any good imagining things that might not be true. We have to stick to the facts, and you need to clear your head. Even though I know it’s not easy. By the way, we picked up a man this morning, Kurt Egebjerg, and he confessed to moving her. We’ll have to check him out, see if he’s involved in any other way. It’s a little bit like banging your head against the wall, over and over.”
Møller nodded. Trokic walked over to the window and looked out across the sea. “It’s a fantastic view from up here.”
“The best in town. Being up here makes you feel like a king.”
Trokic gazed at the water. What did this project have to do with the case? His gut told him it wasn’t a coincidence that she was killed here. And he knew exactly who could tell him more.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Saga Invest office was located in a beautiful building in Brabrand. A year ago, Jacques Pascal had testified in an assault case; a lawyer had broken a colleague’s nose at a golf course near Skanderborg, after which he’d smashed the man’s car. The lawyer’s wife had been cheating on him. Pascal was one of the lawyer’s clients, and it pained him to testify. The lawyer was sentenced to five weeks in jail and two years on probation. Pascal found another lawyer.
It was almost noon when Trokic stepped into the sunshiny, cheerful third-floor office and sat in a leather chair at a small conference table in the corner. Pascal poured coffee and loosened his tie, which was so big that it looked like it could sail away with him. He smiled at Trokic; his white, dazzling teeth were unusual for a man fifty-five years old.
“To what do I owe the honor, Lieutenant Detective Trokic? I’m assuming you’re not here for a report on my corns and state of digestion?”
Trokic smiled and shook his head. “I’m fine with skipping that. I need to know all about the harbor project, and I was hoping you could enlighten me.”
“Chocolate?” Pascal nudged a full bowl over to him.
“No, thanks.”
“You don’t look all that healthy, frankly.”
“I’m on my way to the doctor.”
“Does this have something to do with Maja Nielsen?”
“I can’t get into that, but let’s just assume that you’re not far off the mark.”
His host smiled in satisfaction and unwrapped a chocolate. “I noticed you were heading up the case. So, what do you want to know?”
“I’d like to hear a little about Baysite and about access to the buildings on the site but go ahead and tell me everything.”
Pascal leaned back in his chair and webbed his hands over his chest, as if he were a schoolteacher about to recite the order of kings to a particularly dimwitted student. “This is a major project, very extensive. Long story short, several agreements have been worked out with the Århus Harbor Authority about partial transference to the district, and consequently, a number of plans were developed. Gradually, over a number of years, a vision formed, and it’s been divided into various stages.”
He abducted another chocolate from the bowl, freed it from its orange wrapping, and stuffed it in his mouth. “Of course, the district wanted the harbor areas close to the city to be specially designed. Baysite won a fifth round of bidding; it presented an extraordinary project to the district with world-class
architecture designed by Finnish architects. A stunning development of the harbor.”
Trokic nodded as he thought about the many cranes towering over the harbor like gigantic yellow steel giraffes. “I was out there earlier.”
“So, you know what I’m talking about. They’re already busy with various initial steps of the project.”
Trokic tried not to stare at the stream of chocolates entering Pascal’s mouth. “So, what’s going to happen?”
“Yes, that’s the question. Baysite is having problems financing all this, but that’s certainly nothing new nowadays. Just take a look in the business section of any paper; you’ll find articles about bankrupt real estate developers who bit off more than they could chew. Anyway, that passes problems on to potential buyers. It’s a vicious circle.”
“I’m guessing that nobody wants to buy something that might not be built.”
“Precisely. But really, what can I say? We’ve all been gorging ourselves economically, and now it’s time for us to go on a very strict diet.”
“And Kurt Egebjerg—do you know him? He’s the project manager at Baysite, as I understand it.”
“I don’t know him personally, but I believe he’s in charge of the residential portion of the project. It’s his responsibility to keep the construction on schedule, make sure the contractors are doing their jobs, and show up for meetings with the consortium and the district.”
“So, delays in construction are his responsibility?”
“Oh, definitely. Any delays and his ass is in hot water.” Pascal sounded almost gleeful. “Besides that, it seems he’s invested personally in the project, which makes the water he’s in even hotter.”
“Wouldn’t it be completely idiotic to kill somebody at the site? I’d think that would put the whole project in a bad light.”
Pascal shrugged and nudged the half-empty bowl of chocolates away in disgust. “That would hurt his pocketbook in a major way. The point is that everyone who’s thrown money into this will get burned if it collapses. There’s also a good deal of prestige involved; it’s about how the city of Århus will look in the future. It used to be that churches were the tallest structures on the skyline, but now it’s these projects, these financial Godzillas. Seriously, I can’t imagine anybody with money in this project doing anything whatsoever that would cause more trouble. There’s already been enough.”
Trokic checked his notebook; it was filled to the brim. There were so many aspects to this, but at least now he felt he had a slightly better overview. He stood up and held out his hand. “Thank you, I appreciate you taking time to help me.”
He walked down the hall lost in thought. He’d expected to learn something that would lead him further on, but now it seemed even more unlikely that Egebjerg would push Maja Nielsen off the Baysite building, given that he was an investor. And maybe, just maybe, they were back to square one.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Someone had hung new paintings on the wall in the briefing room. Trokic stared in horror. Who in the world had given the green light to buy five large landscapes with sheep? And what had happened to the five abstract watercolors in boring pastels that had taken him eight years to get used to? The other officers filing in also looked stunned. As a consolation prize, somebody had brought in a mound of pastry left over from their silver wedding anniversary party, and everyone was wolfing it down as they struggled to adapt to the new surroundings.
“Good God, what happened to you?” Jasper said when he walked in. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Trokic was already sick of explaining. “Hives. Hypersensitivity reaction. It’ll ease off in a day or so.”
On the way there, he’d been to the doctor and had been given a shot in the rear end, exactly as Jan had predicted. A shot and a lecture about smoking and cholesterol, which would make him stop smoking and eating Croatian sausage for at least the rest of the day, maybe. The doctor had even dared to comment on Trokic’s blood pressure and level of stress. Nowadays, it was no fun at all to go to the doctor. You left there wondering about what was going to hit you next.
“Is it catching? I really hope not, I have to—”
Trokic tried his best to smile. “No. Take it easy; you’re not going to look like this unless somebody beats you up.”
They waited for the room to fill. Finally, Trokic said, “This is now officially a homicide. We know where Maja Nielsen died, and we have a good idea of how it happened.”
Somebody in the room piped up. “And we have a killer.”
“We don’t know that. Up until an hour ago, I wanted to turn Kurt Egebjerg’s life inside out until we knew him better than his mother ever did. But we lack a motive, and it would have been bad for him, very bad in fact, to kill Maja precisely in that location. The project he’s involved in is in trouble already, the last thing they need is bad press. Not to mention sealing off the area and questioning all the contractors’ workers.”
“But did you have the feeling you were talking to a murderer when you questioned him?” Lisa said.
“No. We can’t rule him out as a suspect, but we’re going to have to keep looking.”
Morten Lind looked smug. “We have a connection between the harbor development and Maja. Anne Marie and I talked to the lawyer who is doing her estate. It turns out she got an apartment from her parents a while back. Actually, it was an advance on her inheritance, after they sold their factory. Interestingly enough, it happens to be an apartment in the Baysite development. A three-room apartment, five and a half million crowns.”
“It’s probably not a coincidence that her life ended there, no matter what exactly happened,” Trokic said. “Do we know who came up with the idea of buying an apartment in that specific place?”
“The lawyer said it was Maja,” Anne Marie said. “He met with her just once, but she seemed happy about it, very happy.”
“The parents did mention an apartment they were looking at,” Trokic said. “But they didn’t say it was a done deal.”
“It wasn’t; the papers hadn’t gone through yet. Of course, the formalities have to be taken care of. So, technically, she didn’t own it yet, but she would have, very soon.”
“But what does it mean?” Lisa said. “If she didn’t own it yet, nobody could profit from it. And if Maja was under the influence of some sort of drug, you’d think she knew the killer. Otherwise, why would she have gone along? Martin Isaksen could have handled it better.”
Trokic took it further. “But why the harbor? There are a lot of other places and other easier ways.”
“But Isaksen must have known the place, and he was close to Maja,” Jasper said. “And he knew the area. It was the easiest way. Tall building, nobody around. And it’s almost surely meant to look like a suicide.”
“Wouldn’t it be less risky just to kill her and dump her in a lake?” an officer in the back row asked.
“Okay,” Jasper admitted. “There are some loose ends here. But with this connection to the harbor project, I think we’d all agree it’s just a wee bit fishy that Maja’s boyfriend is a real estate agent.”
“Agreed,” Trokic said. “We need to find out how his possible involvement in the project gives him a motive. There might be more to it than meets the eye.”
“Really,” Jasper said. “On the other hand, it could also mean that Egebjerg got to know her better because of the connection. Maybe he had the hots for her, she stopped him while he was showing her around, something like that. That would explain the struggle Forensics says took place.”
Trokic frowned, but several in the room nodded.
“This Egebjerg guy, we need to squeeze his balls again,” Folle said. “Simple as that.”
“But why was Maja acting so strangely?” Lisa said. “And what about the drug the chemistry department talked about? We don’t have any idea what she was taking, how it was affecting her.”
“Chemistry hasn’t found out yet,” Trokic said. “And we’re not even sure they will. Ma
ybe there was something else going on. If she’d been emotionally unstable, close to some sort of psychosis, maybe she took some pills we don’t know about. It could’ve been an act of desperation; she couldn’t get help fast enough.”
An officer off to one side spoke up. “Yeah, and some people don’t ask a lot of questions about what they take. One girl out where I live died from swallowing some of her sister’s arthritis pills. She had problems with her kidneys, they gave out.”
“Think about all the medicine made in some backyard in Africa, sold over the internet,” Jasper said. “We really don’t have a clue.”
“Lisa, you had something on Anja Mikkelsen?” Trokic said.
“Yes. The situation looks a bit different after what I saw earlier today.”
She told about her meeting at Mikkelsen’s apartment and all the clippings. And the note about Louise and the greenhouse. “There’s a connection between the two; I’m sure of it. They must have known each other. But how?”
Trokic smiled. “That’s for you to find out.”
Back at the office, Trokic checked his email. A message had been sent the previous evening, and now he felt grateful to the faraway man who, with no ulterior motive, was helping him search for his cousin. How Delic had found the female Haag witness who’d known the two Croatian women, God only knew. She was twenty-nine now, and she lived in Hamburg with her husband and three children. Trokic was welcome to call her at a German number included in the email. He stared apprehensively at the numbers. The Bosnian-Muslim woman’s name was Maria. That was a good start. He grabbed his phone and called.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Trokic introduced himself and explained in Croatian how he had found her telephone number.
“I’ve been waiting for your call,” Maria said. “I don’t know if I can help you. It was so many years ago. But, yes, I remember the two Croatian women with us that summer, it was 1995. We were about twenty women, crowded in a hall in a school in Kalinovic. Most of us were from the village of Jelasnica, that’s why I could hear right away they were from Croatia. And, of course, we asked them how they ended up there, so far from home.”
