8

LOUISE AND MIK SAT IN THEIR OFFICE TOGETHER WITH STORM AND told him how it had gone, and Louise called Samra’s teacher and principal and asked them to notify the students before the news got out.

“We need to find out how that family works,” the lead investigator said. “If her father or another member of the family did it, we need to close in on them before they start covering their tracks with uncles and alibis.”

Storm stood up and strolled down the corridor, summoning everyone to the command center.

Louise felt strangely relieved that Storm had just said straight out what everyone undoubtedly suspected. Yet another “honor” killing, or liquidation of women, as some had begun calling it, because they could not accept that there was anything “honorable” about such an act.

Louise had brought the picture of Samra with her. She tossed it out onto the conference table so it could make the rounds.

“This is how she looked in June, so about three months ago.”

At that moment, the door opened and a young man came in with two white boxes he was balancing in one hand. Storm had ordered fancy open-faced sandwiches from the local butcher’s shop.

“Here are your sandwiches,” the man said. Following him was a girl with plates, silverware, and napkins.

Bengtsen got up and returned a moment later with a blue lunch box that he set in front of himself.

“Aren’t you having any?” Skipper asked, nodding at Bengtsen.

“No, I prefer to eat what I bring from home.”

“We’re definitely going to have to meet this Else soon,” Skipper said.

Bengtsen ignored him and started opening his lunch box, and Louise hurried to reach for a Veterinarian’s Midnight Snack—an open-faced sandwich of buttered rye bread topped with liver-wurst, corned beef, aspic, and red onion—before anyone had a chance to call dibs.

“Did the father say anything?” Søren asked, getting everyone’s attention again now that they had food on their plates.

“He said he got home around seven Tuesday night,” Mik said, wiping his mouth, “and his daughter was home then. They had a visit from the uncle from Benløse, but Samra was in her room, and he has not seen her since.”

“Ibrahim al-Abd also has a sailboat moored down at the marina,” Louise added, looking at Storm.

He set his knife and fork down, and a deep wrinkle appeared over his brow as he sat and let that information seep in.

“So far we’ve got only the one crime scene. We should look into getting the girl’s room and the rest of the apartment searched in a hurry, and we can do it under the pretext that there may be important information about her disappearance. Then we should bring the mother and brother in immediately, and of course we’ve also got to get the sailboat searched, as well as the dinghies anchored out in the cove.” He paused briefly. “In addition, we need to ID her closest friends, so we’ll be able to get their take on the relationships in the family.”

The boss looked around and asked who else they should get hold of.

“The father’s brother in Benløse,” Mik quickly said.

Storm nodded and repeated that everyone related to the al-Abd family needed to be brought in as soon as possible.

“And you two need to help with all the interviews,” he told Bengtsen and Velin, adding that they were also responsible for obtaining a printout of the girl’s cell phone records.

Søren said that Samra’s cell phone had not yet been found, but he had already requested a court order for the phone company to turn over all of the information pertaining to her phone number so they could get a list of all calls, times, and cell towers.

Storm nodded in satisfaction.

“Shouldn’t we call in an interpreter?” Louise asked. “Based on Mr. al-Abd’s statement, his family speaks and understands Danish, but aren’t we obliged to make sure that everything is being understood correctly?”

“We’d better,” Storm conceded and then looked at Bengtsen. “Who do you usually use for cases like this?”

Bengtsen said that there was a woman they had been extremely satisfied with in the past who worked as an interpreter at Holbæk Hospital.

“Couldn’t it present a problem if we use someone local?” Louise interjected. “Interpreters can be more loyal to the interrogatee than to the police. If we want to be sure that the interpreting is correct, we should use double interpretation and bring one of the department’s own interpreters in.”

She spoke from experience. The first crucial interrogations in the Nørrebro case had gone horribly wrong because the interpreter turned out to be from the same area in Pakistan as the suspect. That meant he did not dare convey the uncomfortable questions the police were actually asking, and instead he made things up.

“Rick is right,” Søren said. “We don’t have any way to control for that, and Holbæk is a small town.”

“We’ve got a good guy, Fahid, so let’s see if he’s free so he can assist her,” Storm said and asked Søren to get hold of him. Then he turned to Skipper and Dean, who were following up on the technical investigation. “We’ve been looking into the family’s cars.”

Louise briefly updated the others on the old BMW that Samra’s brother was apparently in the process of buying, and on the father’s red Peugeot.

“I understand you’ve already got something around the crime scene that might be of interest?” Storm continued, asking them to report.

Dean explained that they had secured several tire prints, but one in particular was interesting. Close to the bluff, the forensic techs had found a print of a tire manufactured by Bridgestone with the brand name Europa II 195/50 R15 82V.

“So it’s a fifteen-inch tire, and that’s a little unusual,” Skipper added. “Most of us drive on sixteen-inch tires. Bridgestone explained to us that this tire is unique in its design and size, and it was for sale in Denmark for only a short period of time. A car dealer here in Holbæk, Hans Just, sells Bridgestones, and he said that on March 10, 2006, he sold a red Peugeot 306 to an Ibrahim al-Abd who lives on Dysseparken and that vehicle had just had four completely new tires put on, brand Europa II 195/50 R15 82V.”

“That car needs to go into forensics,” Storm said. “They’ll secure the tires and put on some equivalent ones before he gets the car back, and then of course we can go over the interior in detail. We also want them to investigate the BMW, and I want that to happen today.”

Dean and Skipper looked like they agreed and got ready to return to work.

Louise got up as well, and on her way out of the command center she tossed her paper plate and plastic silverware into the trash. She liked this phase of an investigation, when the tasks were assigned and everyone was scrambling to get going on them.