Once again, they sat in Britt’s kitchen. This time without coffee and with dirty dishes in the sink.
“I really don’t know where the gas can came from,” said Britt.
“What does Ulrik say? Does he know anything about it?”
Louise looked at her patiently. There was no resistance to detect, but no help from her, either.
“He’s never seen it before, either. But he says we need to get hold of a lawyer if the police keep thinking that I had something to do with the fire.”
“Let’s just see,” Louise said to calm her. “But it would be an enormous help if you could think of anyone who could confirm that you stayed home all evening. As long as we don’t have any other leads, I can’t cross you off the list, and I need to have your activities accounted for.”
It seemed as though Britt didn’t grasp the seriousness. The whole time there was a distance in her tone of voice, as if Louise’s questions really didn’t have anything to do with her.
Louise had already asked if Britt had spoken with anyone on the telephone. But she hadn’t. Otherwise, that would have been enough to confirm that she’d been in her house. It wasn’t enough to check the cell tower, because she could have left her cell phone sitting at home.
“Did you send or receive any texts?” Louise asked and looked at her.
“I don’t think so, but you’re welcome to look.”
She stood up and got her cell phone, which was lying on the buffet in the living room.
Louise watched her come back. Despondency weighed so heavily on her that she seemed not to care, leading all of Louise’s questions to a dead end.
There were no new messages on her cell phone.
“I didn’t do anything other than lie up in my bed,” she said.
She sat down on the chair and folded her arms across her chest.
“I don’t care to be in touch with anyone. My thoughts were on my daughter, and I had a bunch of images in my head that occupied me. I fell asleep quickly.”
Louise knew everything that Flemming had told her must have set a lot of thoughts in motion. She still felt that the medical examiner had been too detailed. It was much too painful for a mother who’d just lost her daughter.
“Did you watch anything on TV? Can you remember any programs from Thursday?”
Britt leaned over the table a bit and looked at Louise.
“I’ve stopped watching TV,” she said with a serious look in her eyes. “You have to understand, for me the world came to a halt three weeks ago. I don’t keep up with anything.”
Louise struggled to hold back a growing irritation, and instead tried a new approach.
“Should we take a look at your computer? If you, for instance, e-mailed with Camilla or were on Facebook around midnight, then it couldn’t have been you down at the harbor, and we could rule you out of the investigation.”
Britt nodded slowly and stood up.
“You’re welcome to have a look, but I was lying asleep.”
Now she was the one who seemed irritated, as if Louise had a hard time understanding what was being said to her.
Louise left her things in the kitchen and followed Britt out through the living room and up the stairs to the second floor. The steps had carpeting held down by thin brass strips. They came up to a wide landing that was furnished with a cabinet and a several-feet-tall mirror with an ornately carved brass frame. The style was elegant and yet modern. In a nook with natural lighting, there was a large, winged armchair in worn cognac-colored leather, and on the table, there was a stack of old business sections from a variety of newspapers.
They walked down to the room at the end. It was a large bedroom with a white-brick balcony beyond the multi-paneled double doors. Before they made it all the way there, they passed Signe’s room. Her name was on the door, but it was closed and Britt walked right by without looking at it. Inside her own bedroom, she pointed to a glass desk over by the window, with a view of the water.
“Ulrik has his own office down on the opposite end. That’s my computer over there,” she said and nodded to a white Mac. “There’s no password, so you can just go in.”
The room was light, and a pair of large skylights over the bed made Louise look up.
“They’re rain-sensing,” said Britt. She explained that you could lie and fall asleep under the open sky, and if it started to rain the windows would close by themselves. “I usually lie here in bed and look up at the sky.”
Louise walked over and opened the Mac’s e-mail folders. She quickly confirmed that there was only spam coming in and nothing going out over the course of that night.
“Can’t you think of anything? It doesn’t make any difference what, just as long as it shows you were home all evening,” she said desperately.
Britt sat on the edge of the bed with her chin on her chest, as if she were about to fall asleep.
“It’s awfully nice of you,” she said.
She straightened up and leaned back a little, her weight resting on her arms.
“I know you’re trying to help me. But I was here all evening and all night. I have no witnesses for it, and there’s nothing more to be said. I can’t stamp my feet and conjure up someone who doesn’t exist, so I’ll have to take it from here and be forced to get hold of a lawyer, like Ulrik says.”
Louise nodded and closed the Mac.
“That may be a good idea,” she conceded as they walked down the stairs together.
When they said good-bye in the entryway, Louise felt a heaviness inside her. There was a striking indifference behind the fine features of Britt’s face; the blood vessels at her temples were visible. As if she’s tossed in the towel, thought Louise. She felt a little miffed that of the two of them she seemed to be the one more interested in finding an alibi for Britt Fasting-Thomsen, and a plausible explanation for how a gas can ended up in the back of her car.
Willumsen had sent a message that they’d gotten a search warrant, and that Toft was on his way out there with three officers. There wasn’t really much more Louise could do to help Signe’s mom.