Louise hammered the steering wheel with both hands in frustration, as she again stopped and waited to drive out onto Vigerslev Allé.
She thought about Camilla, who was bombarding her with messages in which she kept insisting that it was a mistake to arrest Britt and wanted Louise to find evidence that pointed in another direction. After a while, Louise got so irritated that she didn’t want to read the texts that kept coming.
Britt would have to take her punishment, if she was guilty of arson and homicide. Louise knew perfectly well what the thirst for vengeance could do to entirely sensible and ordinary people.
It was awoken by the strongest feelings on the whole spectrum—love, hate, jealousy—and it could drive a well-functioning person completely over the edge. That’s why it didn’t really help her to hear Camilla go on and on about how it wasn’t something Britt had in her.
She beeped angrily at a white car that was blocking her way, then squeezed over into the turning lane and swung past Enghave Station. Right now, she was dead tired of Britt Fasting-Thomsen and how she wouldn’t give a fig, all the same to her what the police dished up for evidence.
Louise drove on, following the stream of cars and trying to shake off thoughts of Britt. She sighed and thought of Sejr. While she’d had Britt in interrogation, he’d started looking into whether there were international transfers that could document a connection between Hartmann and the bikers. He’d promised to let her know if he found something, but so far, she hadn’t heard from him.
They weren’t the least bit closer, even though Sejr had slogged on. After the arrest, her own focus had blurred, but now there was a little calm again. They’d have to see about digging through all the information on HartmannImport/Export in order to find all the connections that were relevant regarding the shooting victim’s business.
A group of kindergarteners with backpacks bouncing on their backs passed over the crosswalk on their way to Enghave Park.
Vengeance could also be unleashed by cheating, money, and anger, she thought as she watched the children gather around two benches and unload their backpacks in a big pile. She hoped she could find Tønnes out at the club, and that he was in the mood to talk.
Even though it clearly wasn’t on Willumsen’s list of priorities, she was still interested in hearing how he’d explain the fact that several of the members knew Nick Hartmann and had gone down to the warehouse at the harbor when, the last time they’d spoken, he’d insisted on something different.
* * *
The afternoon traffic was stuck in long caravans across Nørrebro, but cleared up when she zigzagged down the smaller streets for the last stretch.
Louise parked a long way from the gate and the two security cameras because she didn’t think it would be very fruitful to adorn their main entrance with a patrol car. She looked directly into the camera over the gate as she introduced herself and asked to speak with Tønnes.
After a moment, she was allowed to come into the courtyard. To the right of the house there was a big heavy oak tree. Inside the gate, the courtyard was covered with asphalt and empty, except for four shiny motorcycles with newly polished chrome, parked beside each other in a ruler-straight line along the right side of the building. There were also a couple of big cars in the courtyard—a Porsche Cayenne with white plates and an Audi Q7.
She saw recognition in his dark eyes and extended her hand when he appeared in the door.
“I’d like to trouble you with a couple more questions,” she led off with politely.
He wore a wide silver ring on the middle finger of his right hand, and a tattoo crept out under his watchband. His hair was blond and short, and he had on a black long-sleeved T-shirt unbuttoned at the neck under his leather vest.
He didn’t comment about her coming alone, but she noticed that he registered it and didn’t know what he made of it.
“Last time we talked about Nick Hartmann, who was shot down in his home a month ago,” she began. “As you may remember, we were interested in knowing which of the members in the club here he knew.”
The biker spokesman nodded.
“And as you may remember,” he said, “no one knows anything about him.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Louise corrected. “We’ve just confirmed that the deceased had connections with several of the members, and that they’ve frequented the warehouse he rented down on Svanemølle Harbor.”
He looked at her expressionlessly. Behind him a broad-shouldered guy came to the door.
“What have we here?” he asked and put his hand on Tønnes’s shoulder to signal that he was ready to toss Louise out, if he’d like him to.
Tønnes shook his head and waved him away without turning around, but there were no signs of hospitality—he still didn’t let her come into the clubhouse.
“I’ve asked around, but no one knows anything about him,” he said.
“Give it up, will you!” exclaimed Louise, irritated with him. “We know damn well he knew several people here, and that they came down to the harbor.”
She held back for a moment and thought it over before appealing to his sense of brotherly understanding, if such a thing existed behind all those muscles and tattoos.
“Nick Hartmann left behind a wife and a practically newborn daughter. On Thursday, his warehouse was burned down, and two young guys died in the flames.”
The reaction came in a twitch along his mouth, and the biker spokesman shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“I’ve heard about the fire, and the two who died in the flames,” he answered without seeming particularly moved. “What happened to the warehouse?”
He was taller than her. Rather a lot, in fact. Louise came up to his shoulders and had to look up.
“Some of the building burned down. He was keeping some import furniture there. In fact, there was a whole lot in there. Two containers with furniture manufactured in China, ready to be sold. But all that’s in the police’s care now.”
He wanted to say something, but Louise beat him to it.
“But if you don’t think you know him, then there’s not much more to talk about. Might just be you had something to do with the warehouse, since folks from here went down there.”
He followed her with his eyes as she prepared to leave.
“I don’t know where you got it from that he has connections here. But I’d like to repeat that no one knows anything about him—and besides that, we have no interest in his warehouse.”
His language was a strange contrast to his outer appearance, and it obviously cost him nothing to lie straight to her face.
“We got a guy from the Fraud Department to go through all of Hartmann’s monetary transactions and telephone conversations, from landline to cell phone,” Louise said and took a step back toward him after she’d come out on the sidewalk. “He’s also going through all e-mail correspondences and other Internet contacts. We’ve seized Hartmann’s computers, and everything on them has been dumped. That’ll get looked through.”
It didn’t seem to faze him.
“If there’s been, at any point in time, a connection between some members of the club here and Nick Hartmann, we’ll find it. It would just go a little quicker if you helped.”
She could see the muscles playing under his jersey as he folded his arms over his chest and leaned his upper body back a little, so he could look down on her even more.
But he said nothing.
“But you’re not prepared to do that, I sense.”
She turned and walked over to the gate, knowing his eyes were on her back.