6

“THERE IS A LOT OF ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD,” Mik Rasmussen explained as they parked next to some townhouses at the end of a large block of apartments. The town-houses were made of yellow stone, and there were two apartments in each.

Samra and her family lived in the topmost unit. From down in the parking lot, Louise could make out a faint light in the one room facing the front of the building. Not much light, probably from just a single lamp in the room, she guessed, walking closer. The downstairs neighbors were clearly at home. That unit had lights on everywhere, and she could see a person through the window.

They walked up the stairs together and rang the bell. As they waited, Louise jotted down the name on the door: Ibrahim al-Abd. There was no woman’s name. After a few minutes and several rings they gave up and went down again.

“Let’s just go and talk to the downstairs neighbor,” Louise suggested, walking over and ringing the bell before her partner could object.

The door opened, almost before her finger had released the button.

No one said anything, but they were observed with curiosity by a woman with a crutch under one arm.

Louise introduced herself and asked if the woman knew if the upstairs neighbor had been home over the course of the evening.

The woman at the door took a small step back when she learned they were with the police, but at the same time a spark of curiosity gleamed in her eyes.

“Is anything wrong?” she asked.

Louise shook her head and said that she assumed not, but they had a question for the family upstairs.

“Have you seen their daughter at all today?” Mik asked over Louise’s shoulder.

The neighbor thought about it and shook her head.

“I don’t think I’ve seen any of them today at all. But you can just check if their car is parked in the lot. Maybe they all took the car somewhere together.”

Louise stepped aside so Mik could move in closer.

“What kind of car is it?” he asked.

“It’s a run-down red one.”

“What make?”

Louise was already sure this woman was clueless about makes and models, so they would have to take whatever she said with a grain of salt.

“A Honda,” the neighbor said, after a long pause.

Louise took a notepad from her pocket and wrote, “Red car, older-model Japanese. Check vehicle registration.”

“How many kids do they have upstairs?” she asked before they left.

“Four. Two older ones, and two little ones,” the woman said, explaining that the children were Aida, a girl who was four, and Jamal, a boy of about two. Louise and Mik said thank you and apologized for disturbing her. The neighbor stayed in the doorway watching them until they got back to their car.

Right as they were about to exit the lot, Louise yelled, “Stop!” There was a red car parked there matching the description. She jumped out and went over to an older-model red Peugeot 306. She wrote down the vehicle registration number and walked back over to her partner.

“Should we just try to go upstairs again and see if they’ll open the door?” she suggested, but she could tell that he really wanted to get going and thought they had already done enough.

“You can wait,” she said. “But it does look like their car is here.”

Mik stayed in the car with the engine running while Louise quickly ran back upstairs and pressed the bell. She stepped away and looked in through the window next to the front door. She could see the kitchen, and it was completely dark. There was a bedroom on the other side. Louise leaned over the railing and peered in. That was the window with the light on, but the room was empty and the door to the hallway closed. It was a girl’s room, she noted.

After pressing the doorbell a second time, she went back down again and went over to the other side of the building, but everything upstairs was off and dark, Louise noted. So she returned to the car.

The drive back to the police station took ten minutes, and they agreed that Mik would check the car’s registration in the motor-vehicle registry when they arrived to find out whether the Peugeot was registered at that address. Again Louise had a feeling he was eager to get the job done so he could go home.

“Not much new information. No one was home,” she reported to the others sitting in the command center. “But what we do know about this girl fits the description we have. Samra al-Abd is from Jordan. She has long hair, and her clothes also match the description pretty well.”

“We need to find someone who can come to the Pathology Lab and identify her,” Skipper said, filling his mug with coffee.

“With her parents’ permission we could take Dicta in to do that,” Søren suggested. “We have to be sure it’s someone who knows the deceased well.”

“She’s too young,” Bengtsen interrupted. “We should use Dicta only as our very last option. It’s too hard for such a young girl to be confronted with a corpse, even if it turns out not to be her friend.”

It surprised Louise to hear him make that objection.

“What about her homeroom teacher?” she suggested. “She would know her student well enough that we can trust what she says.”

Storm nodded and asked her to get in touch with the teacher so they could get the identification done that night.

“The press has started pushing for more details. But I’ll take care of them,” he continued.

That sounded good to everyone, because it wouldn’t be much help if everyone was taking calls and they didn’t have a chance to coordinate the information before it leaked out.

Louise got up and left the meeting to call Dicta and get the name and number for their ninth-grade homeroom teacher. Mik stayed in the office to check the red car in the motor-vehicle registry and had an answer ready when she came back.

“It’s good enough: it belongs to Ibrahim al-Abd,” he said, pronouncing the name slowly and trying to put the stress on the right syllables. “The address also matches,” he added. “And there was a cell phone number registered for the same name, but the phone seems to be off.”

“We should be prepared for things to go late tonight,” Louise said. She told him about the impending identification before dialing Dicta’s number and waiting for the girl to answer. Mik and Louise had family living in the area around Holbæk, so the task had fallen to them. To her surprise he nodded absentmindedly and stood up, pulling on his jacket.

“Well, then I’ve got to run a quick errand.”

Then he left the office without another word.

“Jette Petersen,” Dicta said when Louise had gotten her on the line and asked for her teacher’s name. In the same breath Dicta asked if it was Samra who had been killed.

The anxiety in this question was palpable to Louise even over the phone.

“We don’t know yet. But we are certainly taking your concern seriously,” she said to dampen the girl’s fears. Then she asked if there were any friends Samra might be staying with. “Does she have a boyfriend?” she asked more specifically.

“No,” Dicta said quickly. “She’s not allowed to have a boyfriend or anything like that, and she doesn’t usually get permission to go out that much. Sometimes she bends the rules, but that’s mostly when she’s supposed to be coming over to my house and her father won’t let her.”

Louise wrote this down. If it proved relevant, Louise wanted to hear more about how Samra managed to sneak out and be with her friends, but she would not probe into that right now. As they were talking, Dicta found their homeroom teacher’s phone number, and she gave Louise both her home number and her cell.

“Thank you so much, and I apologize again for bothering you,” Louise said before hanging up. Louise could hear Dicta’s voice choking up as they said good-bye and knew perfectly well that calling her had only added to the girl’s worry.

She dialed Jette Petersen’s home number, glancing at her watch. It was nearly half past nine, a bit late to be calling people; but the way things were, they couldn’t wait until the next day.

“This is Helge,” a man’s voice said.

Louise introduced herself and asked to speak to his wife. She didn’t think it was necessary to fill him in on the reason for her call.

There was a moment’s silence, then the homeroom teacher got on the line. “Yes?” she said, a little coldly.

Louise introduced herself again and apologized for the late call.

“I’m calling because I’d like to talk to you about one of your students.”

“Has something happened?” Jette asked anxiously.

Louise heard a chair being dragged over the floor. Based on her voice, Louise guessed the woman was middle-aged, but it was hard to say—she could also be younger and just a little tired.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Louise answered. “And I need your help.”

“Who are you talking about?” the teacher asked quickly, and Louise could tell she was holding her breath, waiting for the answer. Likely not because hearing one name would be any less bad than hearing another, but because the teacher was nervous about what was coming.

“This is about Samra al-Abd,” Louise said.

“What’s happened?”

Anxiety seized the teacher’s voice, making it shriller.

Louise told her that the police had received a visit from Dicta Møller, who linked Samra with the girl who had been found dead early that morning.

“Oh, I heard about that. But it didn’t occur to me it might be one of my kids!”

“It’s certainly far from sure,” Louise hastened to say. “But there are some similarities, which means we have to look into whether it could be Samra or not. How long have you had Samra in your class?”

“Ever since she moved to Denmark four years ago. She started fifth grade just after the summer break.”

“We haven’t been able to get hold of Samra or her family, and despite the late hour that’s why I wanted to ask if there was any way you could accompany me to the Pathology Lab in Copenhagen tonight and tell us if the deceased girl is your student.”

“Of course.” Her voice grew slightly hoarse, and she was breathing deeply. “I can be ready in ten minutes.”

“That’s very good news. We’ll come pick you up,” Louise said, silently cursing that her partner had just taken off. They could have the girl identified before midnight if they got going now.

She went out and found Storm, telling him she was ready to drive to Copenhagen with Samra’s teacher.

“If you leave now, I’ll get Bengtsen and Velin to see if they can track down any family members who might know where the parents are.”

Skipper and Dean were sitting with Ruth, reviewing the technical evidence that had come in during the day so it could be entered into the database. They had turned up some tire tracks, which might be of interest, and the technical investigation would continue the next day.

“Well, I’ll be on my way,” Louise said, but at that moment she saw her partner walking toward her again, ready to go. She couldn’t help thinking it was some kind of retribution that he’d ended up having to make this late trip into Copenhagen even though he was obviously itching to get home.