13

On Friday afternoon, Louise sat in her office rereading the interviews taken with the three Folehaven gang members who’d been arrested.

They hadn’t gotten any closer on the Nick Hartmann murder. No one spilled the beans or said anything. She was ready to throw up over these biker assholes and drug pushers, and her bold prediction that at least one of them would take credit for the Amager shooting didn’t come true. Earlier that morning, the lieutenant had released them, because the investigation had found nothing new that would make a judge extend the custody.

Suhr had gotten the investigation group together just before lunch. Willumsen was furious because the lieutenant hadn’t fought to keep the suspects, but Hans Suhr had in his usual manner smiled forbearingly at his lead investigator. A smile that over the years had become a disarming tool that he used when Willumsen got worked up and threatened to go it alone.

The lieutenant’s gray hair was combed back in stylish waves, and the furrows on his cheeks were smoothed out for as long as his smile lasted. When it disappeared, the vertical wrinkles returned and highlighted his cheekbones, his face regained its sharp features, and the tone of his voice bordered on irritation.

“I’ve held them a week, and you haven’t found anything useful. Nothing indicates that these three had anything to do with the murder.”

Willumsen cleared his throat, but Suhr raised his hand to stop him.

“The crime techs are finished with their report. None of the bullets that were found out on Dyvekes Allé matches the firearms our colleagues seized in the raid. We’ve released these three guys, but, without question, they’ll be charged with unlawful possession of weapons. And, we won’t be giving up on finding the weapons that were used in this latest shooting. But as things stand, I had to let them go. And now the folks out in Bellahøj are keeping a close eye on them. You can get on with the investigation.”

And that had been about it. Just, get on with it.

It was all still eating away at Louise when she went for lunch. Way too loudly, she’d scoffed at the police higher-ups for not having the balls to put an end to the shooting sprees. It was only after she stood up that she saw the chief inspector of police, who sat at a table behind her with an open-faced sandwich and a small bowl of salad on his plate.

But he’d only smiled and said he agreed with her. They just needed to get the justice minister on board so there’d be money for more resources. He was pretty cool, she thought. Understood, fortunately, that frustration sometimes took the wind out of his people.

Once back, with her feet on her desk, she tossed the last report aside. She took her mug of tea between her hands and tipped back her chair. She’d untied her long, dark hair, and the curls hung down heavily over her shoulders. As long as Lars Jørgensen was home on sick leave, she didn’t need to worry about looking decent when she sat behind her closed door and copied over reports. Gradually, though, it occurred to her how boring a private office was and how much she looked forward to her partner having enough energy to come back and take up the battle with Willumsen.

Hearing a knock on her office door, Louise quickly fixed her hair and took her feet down off the desk. In stepped Toft with a case file in his hand, his pullover over his shoulder, and his glasses pushed absentmindedly on his forehead so they sat crooked.

“Now I’ve gotten hold of all the relevant sources that, as I see it, would prove or disprove whether Nick Hartmann had any connection to the drug trade tied to the bikers’ inner circle.”

Louise emptied her mug of tea while he talked.

“But I no longer believe that’s how they were connected. None of my contacts knows anything about him, whether he dealt in hash or narcotics. No one has any idea who he is or recognizes him from his picture.”

Nick Hartmann should be fairly easy to remember if you’ve seen him, thought Louise. Around six five, he had Greenlandic ancestry that gave him striking eyes and coal-black hair.

“No one,” repeated Toft, and tossed the file aside as he sat down at Lars Jørgensen’s empty spot. “Now Michael Stig’s taken a trip down to see Mikkelsen to get him to check if the shooting victim had any connection to the bikers’ brothels.”

Mikkelsen from Station City on Halmtorvet was the policeman with indisputably the most insight into Copenhagen’s prostitution scene. He was the one who could get hold of information unavailable to other police members, because he’d had his team in the area for so many years and had won people’s trust. But he was also very careful about who he passed information on to and what their goal was.

Evil tongues accused him of being more on the side of the whores than the police. Still, the higher-ups had made him the lead investigator of a group that had just been formed to combat the sex trade that, until recently, hadn’t been taken seriously enough.

“Maybe Hartmann worked as a stooge between the brothels and the bikers?”

Toft seemed to be thinking out loud. He looked over at Louise and added, “They want to shovel money in, but they’re too damned smart to get mixed up with the brothels.”

“You’re right,” Louise allowed. “That may be exactly how they’re connected. Because then there’d be a reason for him to pop in now and then at their headquarters.”

Toft nodded and straightened his glasses, which had started to slip.

“If it turns out he’s connected to the bikers’ activities in prostitution, then at the same time we can rule out the guys from Folehaven,” he concluded. “Pimping is way too complicated for them.”

Louise agreed with him, and said she’d asked the bank for copies of Nick Hartmann’s bank statements.

“I’ve also talked with SKAT, and they’re sending his tax returns for the last four years.”

Toft’s cell phone rang in his shirt pocket. He straightened up and took it. He mumbled more than talked, and afterward he shook his head.

“Mikkelsen doesn’t know anything about the deceased, has never heard of him, doesn’t recognize him from the photo, but now he’ll show it to his contacts. There are apparently five brothels that are of interest. But as Michael Stig understands it, Mikkelsen’s already named the people behind them. All the ones who are on the bikers’ payroll.”

Another thing that Louise was nearly sick over, was the net the bikers had spun over the city, and how it was so extensive that it had threads going in every direction.

“What did Nick Hartmann spend his time doing? Was he some kind of shipping agent?”

Louise nodded and said he worked in a big shipping company down on Havnegade.

“What the hell was he doing running around in the bikers’ headquarters?”

She shrugged her shoulders and suggested they drive out there and ask the members themselves.

“Let’s just do that,” said Toft. He pulled his sweater over his head and offered to drop Louise off in Frederiksberg afterward.

*  *  *

The fortification was extremely impressive. The fence was so high you couldn’t tell there was a three-story house behind it, and above the gate two security cameras looked out over the entryway and the sidewalk for several yards in both directions. It was like an impregnable fortress, lacking only a drawbridge and moat. It even had a high-tech intercom system on the door, with a little camera lens that was activated as soon as you rang up.

Toft called in and asked if they could find out if anyone knew Nick Hartmann.

“No,” the voice said simply.

“Come on,” said Toft.

He looked directly into the little camera.

“Just let us in.”

“Thanks for stopping by,” the speaker said in a friendly tone.

You couldn’t call them impolite, Louise thought, but at the same time they were irritating as hell. She took a step forward.

“If we can’t come in, won’t you be nice enough to come out here, or send someone else we can just talk with? We know that the person we’re interested in has visited you several times, and now we’d like to hear what his association was.”

Louise had barely finished speaking when a door to the gate opened and a tall, short-haired man in a vest with an insignia on the back stepped forward.

Tønnes was his name. Louise recognized him from TV, where he had been recently interviewed after another round of rioting that had sent two high-profile bikers behind bars. He served as the bikers’ spokesperson and spin doctor, and if you ignored his rather fierce and provocative appearance, he was as well-spoken as any businessman and certainly seemed as though he’d be perfectly comfortable in a boardroom. But his fashion choices definitely made it clear where he belonged.

It wasn’t news to the police that the bikers had found someone with an unusually sharp mind to represent them. Because, clearly, they could use someone who was media savvy, especially now with the rising attention focused on the bikers.

“Don’t know him,” said Tønnes.

“He’s come here to the house,” Toft shot back.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

The peak of politeness.

“He was arrested during a raid a few months back.”

The biker shrugged his shoulders and shook his head apologetically.

“That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“Now come on,” said Louise. “We know he’s been here, and you don’t let just anyone come and go as they please.”

He looked at her.

“What was the name?” he asked.

“Nick Hartmann.”

“Not his name. Yours?”

Toft was about to come to her rescue, but she stopped him.

“Louise Rick, Homicide Department at Copenhagen’s Police Headquarters.”

She wouldn’t let herself be provoked, and again asked him to tell her what the deceased’s association to the biker club had been.

She couldn’t read anything in his face as he once again shook his head. But his gaze was intense as his dark eyes studied her with a hint of curiosity. He was clearly taking stock of what he saw. Then his look turned dismissive again, and he stepped back in the door.

“Thanks for stopping by,” he said.

Toft tried to make another effort, but the door was closed in their faces.

“Damn are they irritating!” Louise exclaimed.

Still, she found herself laughing and shaking her head as she followed Toft to the car.

They’d gotten nothing out of it. They’d been completely, categorically shut out in a friendly and utterly un-bikerly manner, and the scary thing was that someplace deep down, past all sense and reason, she felt herself attracted to the brute strength the man had shown.

They’re sexy, Camilla had said one summer day as two of the bikers came riding down Gammel Kongevej on their Harleys, no helmets on and their bare tattooed arms under their leather vests.

That same power had hovered like an aura around the man at the door, Louise thought as she sat down in the front seat of her colleague’s Polo.