The Tenant

by Katrine Engberg

  Jeppe took a slice of pizza and ate it while pacing, reddish grease running down his fingers. In one of his drawers he found a packet of wet wipes and cleaned his hands, to Anette’s great amusement.

  “What’s so funny?” he demanded.

  “You, Jepsen!” she said, stretching in her chair. “You’re funny. Or maybe I’m just tired.”

  Jeppe threw the crumpled wipe at her.

  “Well, when you’re done having fun, give Kingo’s ex-wife, Helen, a call. Falck wrote the number on a slip of paper that’s on the desk somewhere. They’ve been divorced for more than twenty years and have an adult son together. While you call, I’m going to pop in and see how Saidani is doing.”

  That set Anette off in a new fit of laughter. Jeppe left their shared office, shaking his head.

  Saidani was bent over her computer, for some reason in uniform, her curls pulled back tightly. She looked like a little girl. Her jacket hung from the desk chair and her light brown arms stuck out from a short-sleeved blue shirt.

  “What’s with the uniform?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes and pointed upstairs, where their superiors’ offices were located, without explaining any further.

  “Have you found anything on David Bovin yet? Anything at all that could help us find him. Is he married?”

  “Nada. He lives alone at the Vesterbro address.”

  “Children?” Jeppe rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn.

  “No. But he seems to be good with kids. Do you remember the summer party last year? He was the one playing soccer with all the children, including my girls. He’s an active soccer player, plays on the police’s A team, which practices every Sunday in Valby Park. If we don’t find him before then, he’ll have practice tomorrow. He just might show up.”

  “Anything else?” Jeppe asked.

  “Nothing. But I’ll keep searching.”

  He gave her a tired smile and went back to his office, where Anette was sitting with her feet up on the desk.

  “Do you have any licorice?” She looked at him expectantly.

  Jeppe got out a bag from his stash and watched her take possession of it. She stuffed two pieces in her mouth and chewed them noisily and contentedly.

  “I just got off the phone with Kingo’s ex-wife. She doesn’t know where he is, but she didn’t hold back in her description of him: egotistical, male chauvinist, manipulator, bad father. Something tells me they have not had a happy divorce!”

  “Divorce isn’t happy. That’s why it’s divorce.”

  “You might have a point.” Anette stuffed another couple of licorice pieces into her mouth. “She also voiced her opinion on Kingo’s mentoring arrangement, as he likes to call it. Always young men. Helen Kingo wasn’t fond of the arrangement, called it psychological hostage-taking. Said he always finds the soft ones that he can get to do absolutely anything…”

  “Sex?”

  Anette raised her eyebrows.

  “Tell me, is that all you think of these days? He builds an intimate relationship with his assistants, takes them on trips and initiates them into the worlds of writing and art. They quickly end up either worshipping him or being fired. His ex-wife often found the young men to be extremely jealous of her whenever Kingo would bring them home. She called the whole setup sick and said that Kingo primarily maintains it as an ego boost.”

  “David Bovin as Erik Kingo’s protégé?” Jeppe asked, thoughtfully tapping his chin.

  “The ex-wife has not been in regular touch with Kingo since their son grew up, so she doesn’t know his assistants anymore. But if you ask me, there are signs that would seem to suggest it. Even though he would have been significantly older than his predecessors.”

  The office door was flung open by Thomas Larsen, flustered and out of breath.

  “Stender made an official statement,” he gasped, winded from running up the stairs. “He just admitted to both killings. We have a confession.”

  CHAPTER 29

  The wheelchair got stuck in the gravel, and Esther already regretted not insisting that Gregers could walk on his own. The doctors had approved a little evening stroll in the park and confirmed that the fresh air would do him good as long as he didn’t exert himself. Gregers had taken that at face value and thus insisted on the wheelchair. Oh well, she would be fine, as long as they kept to the larger, more established paths. Surely it would be good for her, too, to get out and move around a bit and think about something besides murderers. Even if just for half an hour.

  “Watch it! Gentle! Can’t you push a little more calmly?”

  “I’m trying, Gregers, I am! Who ever thought a skinny old man could be so astonishingly heavy?”

  “Who are you calling old? Just because a person has a brief hospital stay and is reliant on the help of others for five minutes, he has to put up with anything, or what?”

  Esther bit her lip and pushed on. They had reached the playground just behind the hospital and were moving slowly toward the pavilion under the big treetops. Every now and then when the path curved, a pond and fountain were visible ahead of them. A group of young, barefooted men had stretched a line between two trees and were taking turns balancing in the early evening dusk. One of them waved from the line as they passed. Gregers turned his head and coughed scornfully.

  When they reached the pond, Esther parked the wheelchair, put on the brakes, and slumped down on a bench next to Gregers so they could sit among the flowers and look out at the water. Insects hummed around the ice cream wrappers in the garbage cans and a gray heron stood motionless at the edge of the lake, keeping an eye on the water. Esther leaned back, relishing the scents of grass and summer. It was a nice evening.

  “Can I please come home now?” Gregers spoke with his lower lip trembling, his face turned to the swans. “I know I have an operation coming up, but I can’t stand it. I’ve never been in the hospital before in my life. This morning another patient moved into my room, so now we lie there with a silly curtain between us and try not to fart. These are inhuman conditions! I mean, my God, what have I been paying taxes for my whole life?”

  “Things aren’t all that fun back home these days, either,” she replied dryly. “At the moment, I think you’re better off in the hospital. There are fewer dead people there than at our place.”

  That made him laugh a little. To be on the safe side, he turned the laughter into a cough. He wasn’t one to just plunge ahead overly cheerful. Esther took his hand, and they sat in silence for a bit, watching joggers pass by and seagulls circle overhead.

  “My kids haven’t called, have they?”

  “Your kids? What do you mean? You have kids?” Esther was genuinely astonished. She had never heard of any kids.

  “Three!”

  “Three kids?!” Esther turned to look at him in surprise. “Gregers, you sly old fox, you never told me!”

  “I’m still not old.”

  “But… still, three kids? How can it be that I’ve never seen them back home?”

  Gregers swallowed a couple of times.

  “The divorce from Inger, my wife, as you know, didn’t go that well. To put it mildly. The kids picked sides. That’s it.”

  “But it’s been more than twenty years,” she protested. “They must be more than grown up by now, not to say… well, yes, grown up in any case. Why didn’t you resolve your dispute ages ago?”

  “Like I said, they picked sides.” He shrugged. “And then I met someone else, who I was with for a while. She thought the kids were kind of a hassle. That’s just how it is.”

  Esther didn’t know what to say.

  Gregers cleared his throat uncertainly.

  “Now they don’t even call when I’m in the hospital. I’m sure they were notified. They just don’t want to risk getting stuck with me. As if!”

  “You must have grandchildren, maybe great-grandchildren. Do you really not see any of them at all?”

  Gregers shook his head and wiped his eyes on his sleeve, annoyed. Esther
tried to think of something comforting to say but nothing seemed appropriate.

  “I have to say, Gregers. That’s quite a secret to carry around for so many years.”

  He flung his hands in the air and seemed to regret having brought up the subject.

  “So have they found the murderer?” he asked impatiently.

  “No. I guess they have multiple suspects, but they haven’t arrested anyone yet. I’m sure the two of us are under suspicion, too. Or I am.” Esther felt a pang of uneasiness saying it out loud, and that was followed by a grief so all-encompassing that it almost knocked her off the bench.

  “What, am I too old to be a murderer now?” He sounded seriously offended.

  “No, Gregers, you just didn’t write a murder manual like I apparently did. The murder didn’t happen in your building, and it wasn’t your singing teacher who was tossed into the chandelier at the Royal Theatre.”

  Esther slumped forward, giving in to her despair. Gregers patted her awkwardly on the back, three light taps and a calming shh. She let her tears flow freely until she’d cried herself out. When she straightened back up again, Gregers was watching her with concern.

  “Have you been drinking?”

  That question was so unexpected that at first she was momentarily stunned. “Drinking! What the heck do you mean?”

  “Alcohol. Have you drunk any alcohol today? Red wine’s your thing, I know.”

  Esther stood up, undid the wheelchair’s wheel locks with a kick of her foot, and started pushing it back toward the hospital at a furious pace. Lucky for him that she was too scrupulous to abandon him in the middle of the park. Old fool! He protested against the rough ride, but she ignored him and just trampled on.

  “Hello? Push properly! Can’t you slow down a little bit? Tell me, you’re not angry by any chance, are you?” Gregers turned around to look at her, but she stared over his head and kept pushing until her arms were shaking.

  “It’s just because… well, my dear Esther, I hate to be the one to tell you the truth, but you drink too much. I may well be old, but you’re an alcoholic. There, I said it. And you ought to stop, because that garbage isn’t good for you. That’s all I have to say about that.” Gregers folded his hands in his lap and looked straight ahead.

  Esther was furious. This was the thanks she got for being a good neighbor? She had visited him every day and looked after him when no one else could be bothered to do so, and now she had to listen to this! Once she had returned Gregers to the hospital, he was on his own, sink or swim. She had plenty of other things to worry about.

  In his ward, she pushed him into his room, muttered a brief goodbye and marched out to the elevator. Drove down with the rage bubbling in her blood, as an unpleasant surge of adrenalin. It wasn’t until she stood under the chestnut trees by the Lakes that she remembered she wasn’t supposed to walk around alone. She looked around. Right now she couldn’t see any other people. But then, she was in the middle of Copenhagen and it was only a quick walk home from here.

  She pulled out her phone and sent Jeppe Kørner a text as agreed. On my way home now. Will be there in half an hour. Esther. Put the phone back in her pocket and sighed. The officers he had promised to send over to keep an eye on her were a precaution she was looking forward to not needing anymore.

  Darkness was falling rapidly over the water, erasing the distinction between the deep blue of the sky and the black of the roofs. She shivered in her peach-colored silk jacket. Evenings were always so damned cold in Denmark, even in high summer.

  The realization hit her the instant she saw him approaching. The beam of the streetlights hit his head as he passed under them, alternately lit like an omen and lost in darkness. Blink, blink, blink. The lines on Julie’s dead cheek weren’t a star chart but a fingerprint. She recognized him right away.

  A lakefront surrounded by buildings and a voice, her own, that didn’t have the strength to call to them for help.

  * * *

  IT WAS AFTER ten before Jeppe was finally able to knock on the black lacquered door of Anna Harlov’s house. There was every reason not to come, but he was there anyway, so amped up that his exhaustion had evaporated. As he stood at her door waiting, he heard nothing but the sound of his heart trying to jump out of his chest.

  At the station he had managed to squeeze in a quick shower after the questioning of Christian Stender, who categorically refused to make a statement until his lawyer could be present, and since his lawyer lived in Herning, he couldn’t come until early the next morning. All he had wanted to say for now was that he was guilty of both killings—nothing else—and no coercion, threats, or camaraderie had budged that decision.

  As a rule, when a murder case seemed to be cleared up, the mood at the station was elevated with people drinking beer and giving each other high fives. Today everyone had just gone home. Jeppe felt an overwhelming despondency about the whole situation. Why hadn’t David Bovin told them that he had dated the victim? If Stender was covering for someone, Bovin for example, then why? After all, the victim was Stender’s own daughter. Why would he protect her killer? At the same time, the idea that Stender himself had murdered her and Kristoffer was equally absurd.

  The confession sat like a bad taste in the back of Jeppe’s mouth. When he had left headquarters and gotten into his car, he decided to cancel with Anna and just go home. He was too tired, too out of sorts, possibly even out of commission.

  But he just couldn’t go home.

  She opened the door, smiled that smile, and pulled him into her softness, enveloped him with warm skin and the scent of apricots, so he almost forgot to breathe. In the dark front hall, with her tongue on his neck, blood throbbing through his body, he noted dizzily that his fear had been unfounded. A deep bass and a subdued drum were playing somewhere, either in her kitchen or in his head.

  He lifted up her firm, soft body, pressing himself against her, enjoying the heat coming through his jeans and the heavy breathing, which could be hers as well as his own. The case was far away, as was her husband. Coats fell on top of them as they dropped to their knees, he knocked them aside and scraped himself on the sisal rug, pulled up her blouse and grabbed her too roughly when he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra. He mumbled an apology and fumbled for the buttons on his pants, the whole time feeling her mouth somewhere on his body, on his fingers, in his own mouth.

  She moaned, bit him, licked him with her eyes closed. He finally got the buttons in his fly open and laid her down, still wearing his windbreaker. She locked her fingers behind his head and held him tight.

  * * *

  THE GRAY PILLOWCASE felt smooth against Jeppe’s cheek, comforting and with a scent of fresh air and lavender. His clothes lay strewn throughout the entire ground floor and up the stairs, and he was naked under the covers, emptied, tired, and happy.

  Anna was walking around naked, gathering up the clothes. The skin on her belly creased slightly when she bent down; her ass was rounded, jutting almost unnaturally upward. An adult woman’s body, firm and yielding at the same time, so attractive you wanted to bite into it. He started laughing, and she laughed with him, shook out her messy ponytail and let her curls fall onto her shoulders. Jeppe reached his hand out to her, and she tossed the clothes back onto the floor, crawled over the bed and kissed him.

  He held her face in his hands. So damn sweet! He wanted to say so much to her, everything.

  She kissed him again. “You know you can’t sleep here, right? John will be home early in the morning and I have to strip the bed and wash the sheets and so on.”

  Jeppe reluctantly got to his feet and accepted the clothes she handed him. The rejection stung and that annoyed him. He knew the situation. What did he have to offer, anyway, when it came to it? A lonely policeman with lazy sperm, a more-than-full-time job, and zero faith in love. He returned her smile and dressed quickly while she stripped the bed. Gave her a gentle kiss in the doorway and walked the heavy steps out to the wrought iron gate.

 
She asked first.

  “Will we see each other again?”

  Thank God! He looked at the silhouette in the open front door and knew in that instant that he was in love.

  “Yes! Soon, very soon.”

  He pulled the car out onto rain-wet streets, along the Lakes, where city lights shone on the surface and the chestnuts dripped from their dark green leaves. The sight of the old landmark ad, a neon hen laying eggs advertising a grocery chain, made him burst into spontaneous laughter. Was it really still there?

  How did that song go again? Something about lovers walking together under that neon sign, leaving only footprints behind. Jeppe couldn’t remember the words but he still hummed the melody until the windshield fogged up.

  At the foot of Valby Hill, his phone rang. Jeppe pulled over and checked the number. Headquarters.

  “Ah, hi, Kørner. This is Wichmann from HQ.”

  A dark cloud slid onto Jeppe’s otherwise cloud-free sky. HQ was in charge of the protection for Esther de Laurenti.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Well, the thing is, she still hasn’t come home. Our men have been standing there for hours. They’ve rung her bell but no one answers, and the whole building is totally dark. Are you sure she’s on her way home?”

  “I’ll call and check right away. Ask them to stay where they are until you hear from me again!”

  “Got it.”

  Esther’s phone went directly to voice mail, probably turned off. He checked her text again. She had written more than three hours ago that she would be home in half an hour. Jeppe rested his forehead on the steering wheel as the sense of well-being slipped out of him. This was not good.

  In Klosterstræde, bare-legged kids ran from doorway to doorway seeking cover from the rain on their way to the next bar, the next party. In front of No. Twelve, the plainclothes officers stood, trying, not very successfully, to blend in with their surroundings. Jeppe greeted them and glanced up at the dark building. What to do? He didn’t know where Esther de Laurenti had been when she texted and had no one to ask.