Anette dropped her bag on the floor and joined the group.
“What’s up, ladies?” she asked.
“Our Viking has returned!” Jeppe broke into a big smile. “We have good news. Julie’s secret boyfriend was with her when she got her tattoo. The tattoo artist is sitting with the police sketcher right now trying to produce a drawing of him.”
“The Mysterious Mr. Mox really exists? Wow.” Anette nodded in approval.
Even if they didn’t get anything from the surveillance cameras, it was something of a breakthrough to have a witness who had seen Julie’s boyfriend and could relay what he looked like. Police sketches generally weren’t very precise tools, but even only sort-of-decent sketches could be processed through the police’s Central Registry of Criminals, which included photos of everyone with a public criminal record, and maybe result in a match.
“And what about the Faeroe Islands? Not that it seems to have anything to do with the case anymore, but now that you’ve had a little vacation at the taxpayers’ expense you could at least share an anecdote or two.” Jeppe punched her playfully on the shoulder.
“Well, you’re certainly in a great mood, Jepsen. Did you get laid or what?” Anette grinned back at him and tried to hide her irritation at not being ahead. She preferred winning. “But actually the Faeroe Islands were more exciting than you might think. According to Hjalti Patursson’s mother, Julie Stender gave birth to her grandchild five years ago.”
In the jaw-dropping silence that followed her words, Anette got up and poured herself a cup of coffee, added sugar, and then leaned on the edge of a table with a smile.
“What did you just say? She had a child?” Jeppe looked like someone who had just been presented with a cubic equation.
She set down the coffee cup and folded her arms over her chest.
“The story of Julie Stender’s abortion is completely made up. Apparently, she managed to hide the pregnancy long enough that her father wasn’t able to force her to have an abortion. Instead, he and Ulla Stender put pressure on Julie to give the baby up for adoption after it was born. And since she was under eighteen and Hjalti was out of the picture, their opinion mattered. Julie ended up agreeing to the adoption and the subsequent lies. Hjalti was informed in a brief letter that she had had an abortion, and everyone else was told that she had been depressed and went to Switzerland to recuperate at her aunt’s.”
“He was never told about the baby?” Saidani looked utterly sad at the thought.
“People certainly must have talked in small-town Sørvad,” Anette continued, “but the gossip didn’t make it to the Faeroe Islands. Hjalti took shelter with his mother and tried to forget. His mother said that he was depressed for several years. Worked as a substitute teacher at a school in Tórshavn for a little while, but mostly he was on disability and spent his days taking long walks in the hills. Until the day a year and a half ago when an anonymous letter dropped through the mail slot. Someone with detailed knowledge revealed that Julie had given birth to their mutual child a few months after Hjalti’s so-called escape up north. The letter contained information that made it absolutely believable.”
“Does the letter still exist?” Jeppe no longer looked cheerful.
“It’s long gone. Hjalti’s mother read it when it came but hasn’t seen it since.”
“Damn! And how did he react, then, to finding out he was a father?”
“He was furious.” Anette shifted her weight from foot to foot. “His mother told me she had never thought her son could get so angry. He started trying to track down the child through every conceivable channel. Even flew to Copenhagen and met with two caseworkers at the Ministry for Children and Social Affairs. But the adoption laws prioritize the child’s rights over the parents’ and Hjalti didn’t have anything on paper at all. He did find out that the baby was a girl, and that she had been adopted by a Danish family and still lived in Denmark. That’s how far he got. They wouldn’t even give him the date of birth. So he started calling the Stender family.
“You mean Julie?”
“Not just her.” Anette ticked them off on her fingers. “He started carpet-bombing Julie, Christian, and even Ulla Stender with messages in which he demanded his right as a father. He wanted Julie to go to the Ministry for Children and Social Affairs with him so they could find out where their daughter was. He wanted the adoption overturned. He was determined.”
“That doesn’t sound like the man we heard about before,” Jeppe said, shaking his head.
“His mother said that he was practically manic. Stayed up at night and searched the Geneva Convention’s archives online, wrote letters to lawyers who specialized in family law. She was worried about him, she said, but not as worried as when he was depressed. Now at least he was doing something.” Anette recalled Signhild Patursson’s pleasant, gentle face, which had beamed when she spoke of her son’s struggle. As if his persistence made her proud.
“It sounds like a battle that was already lost before it began,” Saidani protested. “The daughter must have been four years old by then. Hard to make a case that it would be in her best interest to be taken away from the parents she had been with since birth.”
“Agreed,” Anette concurred with a shrug. “But Hjalti Patursson was obviously convinced that it could be done. Until he fell off the Sumba cliffs and died.”
“Did that happen at around the same time?” Jeppe rubbed his chin, his eyes pinched and focused.
Anette nodded. “According to his mother, it’s completely out of the question that he committed suicide. Says that the local police took one look at the antidepressants in the bathroom cabinet, and then the case was over. She’s convinced that he was pushed.”
“Don’t tell me. Let me guess!” Jeppe said.
She took a long look at her partner’s tired face, sharing his frustration.
“Your guess is correct. Christian Stender.”
CHAPTER 28
Christian Stender had lost weight. In the two days that had elapsed since Jeppe had last seen him, he had visibly dwindled away. His dark blue suit jacket hung off him; he even looked shorter. The white T-shirt with fold marks that he wore under his jacket suggested that he had been forced to buy new clothes now that his stay had been involuntarily extended. His handshake was still firm but with no eye contact. He didn’t want anything to drink. Anette leaned against the wall behind him and gave Jeppe a pointed look from behind Christian’s back.
“How are you doing?” Jeppe asked in his politest voice. “It will be good to get home soon, no?”
The corners of Stender’s mouth rose in a tiny smile and his eyes misted over. When he spoke, his voice sounded remarkably detached.
“I had no idea it would be like this. I mean, you know from the first second that you’ll give your life for your daughter, kill for her, if you have to. Even as she grows up and there are conflicts—she hates you and you fight—the feeling is still intact. Untouched—” His voice broke. “I can’t stand being anywhere.”
Someone walked by in the hallway outside and called cheerfully to someone else. A door slammed.
“The reason we’ve asked you to come in is that there’s new information in the case,” Jeppe said cautiously.
No reaction.
“We know that Julie had a baby and gave it up for adoption around five years ago, a little daughter.”
Christian Stender smiled his faint, tear-moistened smile again but said nothing.
“Why didn’t you tell us that?”
Still no reaction.
“We also know,” Jeppe said, leaning forward, “that the baby’s father, Hjalti Patursson, contacted you when he learned of the baby’s existence, but you prevented him from tracking down the child. Why wouldn’t you let him find his daughter?”
Christian Stender shook his head. Then, to Jeppe’s horror, he started to laugh. A defeatist laughter that ended in tears so heart-rending that Jeppe almost reached over to pat his hand.
“It make
s no difference now, don’t you understand? It’s totally irrelevant what I say or don’t say. Enough! Done! My daughter is dead. What do you want me to say? That I pushed that sack of shit off the cliffs? That he got what he deserved? That it’s my fault Julie is dead? She’s never coming back, damn it! My little girl is dead!”
“We have a great deal of sympathy for your situation, but if you have any type of information at all that could lead to—”
Jeppe felt the floor hitting his bony ass before he had a chance to understand what was happening. The table fell on top of him, and Stender got up and yelled, hoarse and incoherent. Waves of pain shot up from Jeppe’s tailbone into his spine, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. His service revolver was in its holster in the corner cabinet, too far away.
Anette was going for the door to get help, but Jeppe could hear from shouts in the hallway that it was already on its way. Stender had moved to the end wall in the office, which the department had chosen to decorate with a framed Monet reproduction. The glass was smashed and blood splattered over the water lilies as he flung himself headfirst against the picture again and again.
The door flew open and two uniformed officers tumbled in, batons first. How had they gotten here so fast? They must have already been in the department. Stender swung his bloody knuckles aimlessly around, blinded by the blood from his forehead. One of the officers knocked him to the ground, put his knee roughly on his back, and zip-tied his wrists. He lay moaning with his cheek pressed down into the glass shards.
Someone helped Jeppe up. Aside from the shock at being knocked down, he supposed he was okay.
But Stender wasn’t.
The officers steered him out the door and down the hallway, shards of broken glass tinkling as they fell off his clothes. While walking, they informed him of the time and why he was being placed under arrest. The fight had seeped out of Stender. One of his eyes was swollen shut and his feet dragged along the floor. They had almost reached the stairs when the procession stopped and a few words were exchanged. One of the officers called over his shoulder to Jeppe.
“Kørner, he wants to tell you something,” the officer said. “Says it’s important.”
Jeppe walked down the hall, footsteps crunching on the broken glass. His back hurt again and his heart pounded.
“What do you want?” He resisted the urge to head-butt Stender. There was something profoundly miserable about the son of a bitch. “Last chance. You’re being taken into custody and then the lawyers will take over from there.”
Stender raised his battered face, let a bloody glob of saliva run down his chin, unable to wipe it away. He nodded for Jeppe to come closer and whispered right into his ear.
“It was my fault!”
“Your fault? What do you mean?”
“Julie’s death. I could have—”
His knees gave way beneath him and it took all the officers’ strength to get him back up on his feet. Stender shook his head very faintly to signal that he was done and the procession continued out the door, stumbling like regulars going home from the pub.
* * *
FINDING A SUITABLE place to meet with Clausen from NCTC was complicated. Since the conversation had to do with their colleagues, an office wasn’t private enough. For the same reason a telephone call was out of the question and a café with close standing tables or a walk through a park would expose them to curious eyes. Clausen was the one who suggested a walk up the round tower of Rundetaarn, at first mostly as a joke, but at the end of the day, it was as good a place to meet as any.
“Then I can park in the garage at Illum’s shopping mall and buy a little something to take home to the wife afterward. That will definitely make me popular,” Clausen explained, as if that gave reason to the unusual meeting place.
Jeppe agreed and hung up. He didn’t have anyone to bring a little something home to, but even so, his chances of having sex tonight were better than if he were still married. The seventeenth-century Rundetaarn, originally built as an astronomical observatory, was only a twenty-minute walk away, so he could be back at headquarters again before anyone began wondering where he’d been.
He jogged down the stairs and walked along the wrought iron fencing that surrounded Tivoli, his back still aching from the stint with Christian Stender. How seriously should he take his outburst?
Unbelievable how people were bending over backward to claim responsibility for Julie’s death. First Esther de Laurenti, now Stender; it was like putting the cart before the horse. People didn’t usually compete outright to take the blame for a murder. Jeppe shoved his hands into his pockets and walked close to the facades so as to avoid the consumer-crazed hordes in the middle of Copenhagen’s main pedestrian shopping street. The afternoon sun still felt warm and lovely, even though it didn’t reach down past the thick walls and verdigris copper roofs. Jeppe breathed in the sweet scent of fast food grilling and Belgian waffles baking and picked up his pace.
Clausen’s tweed-clad shoulders stuck out in the crowd of tourists in front of the tower. He waved with two tickets.
“There you are! Are you ready to get a little closing-time exercise?”
Clausen immediately started up the tower’s wide helical corridor, obviously eager to act as if this meeting were about a stroll and a little physical activity instead of an unpleasant conversation. Jeppe zigzagged up between clusters of tourists holding hands, eyes on their cell phones. He let Clausen stomp ahead a couple of rotations and then caught up with him.
“Could we maybe slow down? Or are you trying to reach the top by a specific time?”
“Ha, you’re right,” Clausen said, and stopped. “Yeah, sorry. We’re not in a rush. Not with this at any rate.”
Clausen was about to continue up the yellow masonry floor but Jeppe caught him by the sleeve.
“It’s not like I’m looking forward to this conversation, either. But we have to have it, so let’s slow down and get to it.”
Clausen nodded reluctantly and continued, but at a somewhat slower pace. Jeppe exhaled audibly and followed.
“I checked the personnel files. Obviously there’s a limit to how much I can find since I can’t ask anyone. But I did find a little.” Clausen held up a hand and shook it as if to say Jeppe shouldn’t get his hopes up too much. “I need to emphasize that I don’t agree with you on this planted-fingerprint theory of yours. To me, quite frankly, it seems far out to begin—”
“Just tell me what you found, Clausen! Please.”
They reached a window overlooking the park and stopped instinctively in the golden patch of light coming in.
“Is it Bovin? What do you have on him?”
“This might seem important when you look at it in your context, but just hold your horses…” Clausen sighed heavily. “David Bovin, as I said, is a trained landscape architect. He earned that education serving in Afghanistan. ISAF Team Seven. Patrol Base Barakzai in Helmand Province, foot patrol and minesweeper. Bovin worked as a soldier for five years.”
Jeppe’s stomach contracted. Shime-waza. Kristoffer Gravgaard had been murdered using a technique developed by professional soldiers.
“There’s something else… Come, let’s go all the way to the top. It’s farther than I remember.”
They focused on walking for a minute, reached the platform and stepped out into the golden evening light over the rooftops. Walked to the wrought iron fence and made sure no one was standing nearby.
“He takes pictures,” Clausen said, out of breath. “A lot of people do, of course. But apparently he photographs at a serious level. Art. He’s had several exhibits. One at Erik Kingo’s gallery on Bredgade.”
A buzzing started in Jeppe’s ears. He put his hands over his ears, but the buzzing continued.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. Julie’s secret boyfriend was a photographer, Kristoffer’s murderer was a soldier, and David Bovin was both. Kingo was tied to Bovin and possibly implicated. He would have to press Saidani for a background check on
both of them and haul them in for questioning. It couldn’t be put off.
“Don’t move heaven and earth now,” Clausen interrupted his thoughts. “Bovin was at work yesterday, he brought Friday Danishes—we take turns—and he drank a beer with the rest of the gang at the end of the work day. Completely normal, you hear? Proceed gently.”
“You’d better go do your shopping and get home for the weekend. Thanks for the walk.” Jeppe cocked his thumb at the door leading back to the spiral ramp.
“Keep me in the loop, Kørner!” Clausen said, not moving. “I mean it. I want to know what comes of this.”
Jeppe nodded absent-mindedly, put his phone to his ear, and started running down the spiral ramp.
* * *
THE FORECAST FOR sex in the Potato Rows was looking dimmer and dimmer. Jeppe had texted Anna that he couldn’t be there by 9:00 p.m., and she had replied that he could come when he was done with work. If he was ever going to be done. Saturday, August 11, seemed to be the day that would never end.
Larsen had watched the surveillance footage from Nyhavn’s restaurants and because they knew the timing with relative precision, he had quickly found what they were looking for. A smiling Julie Stender with her blond ponytail, arm in arm with a man who was without a doubt David Bovin. On their way from the tattoo parlor, where she had just eternized the symbol of their love on her wrist. Larsen printed screen shots of the couple: she, in love and optimistic; he, calculating and deceitful. It was almost unbearable to look at.
They sent a riot control vehicle with six armed officers to David Bovin’s apartment on Knud Lavards Gade, to Erik Kingo’s garden cabin and his apartment in Christianshavn, but no one was home and neither one answered his phone, either. Falck started digging into every conceivable connection—family, colleagues, neighbors. Anette ordered pizza. This close to a breakthrough in a case, no one goes home. Or on a date.
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