by Andrea Mara
I nodded, though the idea of being back in Damtoften made me uneasy.
“I promise she won’t interrogate you about your love life. Or perhaps just a little.” She grinned. “Is there someone?”
“No, though someone from back then is on his way towards Carrickderg . . .”
My stomach twisted as I filled her in on Ray’s upcoming visit, and on the footprints too. She listened without comment, her eyes growing wider as I talked.
“So, in a way, coming here seemed like an escape from all that,” I finished, “but now I’m getting apprehensive – do you think Dina will be at the funeral?”
“Yes.” Asta looked at me, her dark eyes wide beneath her heavy fringe. “You can do this. Ten years have gone by – it’s time to get to know her, isn’t it?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but was cut off by a loud thump from the window above Asta’s head. I jumped, blood rushing to my ears, though I could already see what it was.
“Oh no, poor bird,” Asta said, getting up to look out the window. “It’s dead, I think.”
The blood in my ears began to subside but a sense of malevolence had taken hold. Nothing good would come of this visit.
Dinner at Rikke’s was a quiet affair with just the three of us. Asta’s father would be home in an hour, hungry and tired after travelling from Malmo, Rikke explained, and Asta’s older brother might drop by later. They would all go together to the funeral in the morning.
“It is so good to see you, Marianne,” she said as we began to eat. “You look just the same as before. How are you? And – I’m sorry, I forgot his name – the man friend?”
“Ray? Ray is long gone.” If only, I added, though not out loud.
“Ah, I’m sorry. You have a new man?”
Asta rolled her eyes. “Mor! Having a man isn’t everything!”
Rikke pursed her lips. “Don’t be rude, Asta. I am allowed to ask our guest simple questions.”
I smiled. “It’s okay – I don’t mind. But no, there’s no man, and I’m very happy on my own.” An unexpected image of Jamie flashed into my mind – hands in pockets, kicking stones, grinning at me from under his curls.
Rikke looked at me for a moment, then her face broke into a wide smile.
“I believe you,” she said, nodding with exaggerated emphasis, and poured wine for all of us.
I coughed and took a sip.
“So, will Dina be at the funeral tomorrow?”
“Of course. I think she feels especially proud – maybe proud is not the right word – responsible? Responsible that Fru Hansen discovered God again before she died. She even gave her a Bible.”
Asta kicked me under the table and I shot her a look.
“Mor, did Fru Hansen say anything in the last days about the Bible, or anything she found in it?”
“What do you mean?”
Asta shrugged. “She said something to me about a photo in the Bible, but I don’t know what she meant.”
“No, she did not say something about this. But she was very confused at the end. She thought that I was you. She called me Asta sometimes, and she asked me if I talked to the police. I thought maybe she was going back in her mind – back to when Hanne disappeared.” She glanced at me. “Did you hear anything from the police in all these years?”
I shook my head. “Nothing much, until this week when I told them I was coming over. I contacted Inspector Nielsen after I came home last time and he replied to say there was nothing new – reopening the case didn’t lead to anything. I wrote again but didn’t hear back. Last year I emailed him a photo of the letter Hanne wrote my dad and some of her more unusual sketches in case they had any bearing, but he didn’t acknowledge receipt. I look online all the time – I have Google Alerts set up for Hanne’s name, but it’s rare that anything comes up.”
“And now with Fru Hansen gone, another door is closed,” Asta said. “Did she say anything else, Mor?”
“Oh, many things in the last two days, but I could not follow – the nurse gave her more morphine and told me it might make her confused. She was speaking about lys and mørk – light and dark – and being wrong. She said ‘the wrong path’ many times. Maybe she was worried that she was not religious and turned back to God too late.”
“What exactly did she say about light and dark?” I asked.
“It was hard to tell. She was not making great sense.”
“Lyshåret and mørkhåret,” Asta said quietly. “Light-haired and dark-haired.”
“Yes,” Rikke said, “I did wonder if she was thinking back to Hanne and the men seen back then. But I do not know. Will you speak to the police while you are here, Marianne?”
I nodded. “Yes, Inspector Nielsen is still in charge – I have an appointment. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to see me turning up again . . . ”
“And Dina?” Rikke asked, passing me a dish of red cabbage. “Will you try to speak to her?”
“Yes,” I said, with confidence I didn’t feel. “Even if she pushes me away, I have to try. Life’s too short for grudges.”
CHAPTER 53
I wasn’t sure what to expect at Fru Hansen’s funeral but in the end it wasn’t so different to funeral services at home. The church, smelling of incense, leather, and rain, was crowded, and everyone wore grey or black, though I couldn’t tell if this was standard Danish uniform for the time of year, or specific to funerals. Rikke and Asta sat either side of me, and further along the pew were Asta’s father and brother. On the other side of the aisle, a few rows back, I saw Dina and Erik. Dina looked remarkably similar to how I remembered – she hadn’t aged at all in ten years it seemed. Or maybe she did all her aging in the time following Hanne’s death, and life had eased off on her. She was wearing a light-blue blouse, neat and demure, very like the grey blouse she’d been wearing when we first met. Her haircut hadn’t changed in a decade and even the pearls were still in place. I wondered if there was comfort in her routine, her rituals. Erik looked older and smaller than I remembered, his black suit hanging off bony shoulders and down over unseen wrists. His hands were clasped in front of him and his mouth moved in response to the prayers being said from the altar. Dina held what looked like a prayer book in her hands, but her mouth was tightly closed.
I never intended to approach her at the funeral but, as we walked out of the service into the pouring rain, I spotted her standing alone under a tree. Erik was shuffling his way to the gate – to get their car perhaps. Dina was fumbling with a small black umbrella and didn’t notice me as I walked over. She looked up, ready to smile, then her face changed.
“You.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I swallowed, regretting approaching her already.
“I wanted to see you – to apologise for lying to you back then, and to make peace. You’re my grandmother, and . . . I couldn’t come all this way and not try.”
Her light blue eyes scanned my face.
“I wish you no ill-will, but this is very difficult for Erik and for me. You understand?”
“I do. But maybe we can help each other? What happened to you all – it was awful. The worst. But I didn’t do it. I was the baby left without a mother, and without grandparents too.”
She flinched.
“I just mean I’d like to get to you know you,” I said softly, as the rain poured down around us.
Her eyes ran over my face again – perhaps looking for a resemblance to her daughter, or maybe trying to come to a decision. And I knew that I shouldn’t have to beg, but that with every inch of me I would.
“Maybe we can talk. We will be home tonight at six if you wish to call by?”
The formality of the invitation jarred but I pushed that aside.
“I’d love to.”
She inclined her head. A restrained nod to seal the plan. “I must go.”
And with that she walked away. There was no smile, but I knew we’d come further in two minutes than we had in ten years.
&nbs
p; Asta and her family were going to a nearby hotel for food after the burial, but I had an appointment with Inspector Nielsen, so we went our separate ways.
The police station hadn’t changed, but Inspector Nielsen had – he was completely bald on top, and had developed a beer belly that sat awkwardly on his wiry frame. His greeting indicated he remembered me, though perhaps he’d just refreshed his memory by rereading the file.
He looked at his watch as we sat opposite one another in a small, stuffy office.
“I’m afraid I have only a few minutes, Ms McShane, but there is also not a lot to tell unfortunately.”
“Oh. Across the three cases?” I asked. “Nothing new to confirm they’re definitely related or definitely not?”
“Nothing is for certain.” He paused. “But in the Maja Pedersen case, there is a . . . strong suggestion someone known to the victim may not be excluded after all. There is a reasonable chance it was a domestic dispute, in which case her death is not linked to your mother’s.”
I stared at him, taking it in.
“So if Maja Pedersen was killed by someone she knew, that greatly reduces the likelihood it’s a serial killer, doesn’t it?”
He looked at me, not nodding, but not shaking his head either. It was as close to a confirmation as I was going to get.
I took a deep breath. “Do you believe Hanne was also killed by someone she knew?”
“It is not possible to say anything with certainty, but we know that statistically most murder victims are killed by persons they know.”
“Right.” I paused to choose my words. “And can I ask about the photo that Asta dropped in to you last week – she told me that Fru Hansen wanted you to see it for some reason?”
He scanned my face and I held his gaze, digging my nails into my palm. Did he know?
“She told you of this?”
“Yes, Asta and I have stayed in touch. She gets why I’m keen to know what’s going on with the case.” A mild dig.
“And what did she tell you?”
“That the photo fell out of a Bible that Dina had given to Fru Hansen, and she wanted Asta to bring it here, without telling Dina.” Still I held his gaze. “Do you know who it is?”
A thousand years went by.
“No.”
Out of sight, my hands went slack on my lap.
“What do you think it means?” I asked.
Again, he said nothing at first. He seemed to be considering how much he could say.
“I am sure your friend Asta has already told you the same as she told me: Fru Hansen makes the claim that the man in the photo is this famous dark-haired man she saw near the Karlsens’ house before their daughter disappeared.”
I nodded vigorously, eager for him to know he was on safe ground, not telling me anything I didn’t already know.
“Of course Fru Hansen was elderly and on her dying bed. We do not know if she was correct.”
“Of course. But does it tie in with what you already know – I mean, reports from back then, from Fru Hansen and others? Could he be the dark-haired man?”
A brief nod.
“And what about the blond man?”
“We do not believe there was a blond man.”
“Really?”
“Your friend Fru Hansen came to the station many years ago to tell my colleagues she had seen a blond man with the Karlsens and had concerns. But he was a family friend. There was no connection to the case. And nobody ever said they actually saw a blond man when she disappeared. They just repeated what other people said. And in all these years, we never found someone who saw him. It is like stories on top of stories becoming facts, but incorrect facts. You see?”
I did, sort of.
“I remember Fru Hansen mentioned that the first time I came here,” I said. “She’d gone to the police and also said it to Dina. I think they fell out for a while over it.”
Inspector Nielsen shrugged. Neighbourhood quarrels didn’t concern him.
“I’m afraid that is all I have, Ms McShane. I wish I had more. I have your email address, and I can contact you if something changes.”
I smiled and thanked him as if we both believed this was true, and left the police station wondering which was worse – not knowing why my dad came here, or finding out the truth.
CHAPTER 54
As the digits on my phone clicked over to 18:00, I pressed the bell and stood back to wait, wondering if Dina would have changed her mind. She hadn’t. The door was opened almost immediately, and she pulled it back to invite me in. There was no smile but her eyes held none of the hostility I’d seen earlier. That was something.
Without speaking, she led me through to the kitchen where I took a seat on the same grey couch I’d sat on the first time round. She lowered herself into an armchair opposite, a small coffee table the bridge between us.
“So we start over. Marianne, not Linda.”
“I’m sorry about that. I panicked.”
“I am sorry too. I overreacted. If I am honest, it was not the lie. It was the shock of meeting you after all this time. It brought it all up again. My husband and I had tried to move on and –” She stopped, her voice shaking.
“Oh Dina, I’m so sorry.” Instinctively I leaned forward. “I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve gone through.”
“And you!” she said, and it came out like a gasp of air from someone close to going under water. “You lost your mother. I could not think of that – I thought only of myself. I am sorry.” Her eyes were shiny.
“Thank you. But losing a mother I never knew pales in comparison to losing your only child.”
Briefly, she closed her eyes. “Thank you for understanding, and I hope we can start over. If it is not too late.”
“It’s not too late,” I said softly, putting my hand on the coffee table.
She looked at it but didn’t move. She cleared her throat.
“Erik – he is not so ready I am afraid. He has gone for a walk.”
A sting, but smaller. One step at a time.
“I understand.”
“It has been a terrible time for so many years. We don’t see too many people. Mostly it is just Erik and me.”
I thought back to the man in her kitchen that night ten years earlier – the blond man who helped with the search? The man Fru Hansen turned into something he wasn’t. Or was.
“And Fru Hansen, I guess?”
A pause.
“Yes. Inge’s passing will be felt. We did not see one another so much in the last years, but she was a good woman. She had good meanings. Good intentions.”
My turn to pause. How much could I ask without saying the wrong thing and undoing all of it?
“She was one of the people involved in the search?”
“Yes, many people helped.”
Jesus, I’d never make an actual detective. I had no idea how to get on to the subject of the blond man or my dad.
“What was Hanne like when she came here that last time,” I tried, “when she visited you before she disappeared?”
Dina looked down at her hands, clasped on her neat grey skirt. A plain gold band was the only ring she wore, and her wrists were free of any jewellery. The ever-present pearls hung around her neck, grazing the top of her neatly buttoned blouse, and the bird brooch clung as always to her breast pocket. It was like a uniform, I realised, and wondered if this how she had always looked, or if it stemmed from losing her child.
“She was unwell,” Dina said eventually. “She had pains in the head and stomach, and she was always tired but could not sleep. She was broken,” she sighed, “but we were helping her. If it had not happened,” she looked up at me, both of us clear what “it” meant, “I think she would have recovered.”
“Do you mean she would have come back to us in Ireland? Was it because she was unwell that she came here?” I could hear the scratchy hope in my voice.
“I am sorry, but that I cannot say. Hanne was a trapped bird in Ireland, and coming he
re set her free again.” She leaned forward, and placed her hand on mine. “Perhaps, in time, she would have gone back.” There was no certainty in her words, only the kindness that comes with not telling the truth.
We sat, taking in the enormity of the shared tragedy. I was reluctant to break the spell and the physical contact, but I had one more important question.
“I wanted to ask about this,” I said, using my free hand to pull a printout of the photo from my bag. “I just found out this week that my dad was here in Købæk back then. I had no idea he came over. Can you tell me about that?”
And too late, far too late, I saw her face transform, and I knew I’d undone all of it.
Dina snapped her hand back as though my skin had burnt her. She stood.
“You need to leave now,” she said, her voice cold. The compassion I’d seen moments before was gone, and I couldn’t tell what I was seeing in its place.
“But why? What’s wrong?” I tried, scrambling to my feet, still holding the photo.
“This was a mistake. Do not come back here.” She stood there, her arms folded, her eyes boring into me. Lips tightly closed now. She’d said all she was going to say.
Hurt and confused and fighting tears, I walked out of the room, through her front door, and out into Damtoften’s cold night air.
CHAPTER 55
Back in Asta’s apartment, as we sat cross-legged on the floor eating Thai food straight from cartons, it all came pouring out. I thought I’d be more upset – to have come so far only to have it all fall apart again – but mostly I was numb.
“She is truly the world’s most hypersensitive person,” Asta said. “I mean, that’s a big overreaction, just like the last time, right?”
“Yeah, she does seem to blow hot and cold. One minute she had her hand on mine and we were really talking, the next she was throwing me out of the house.”
“So let me understand this – it was all going good until you showed her the photo of your dad, and then she freaked out?”
