41

“LET’S ISSUE A PRESS RELEASE RIGHT AWAY,” STORM SAID when Louise and Mik returned to the police station with Michael Mogensen. The photographer was received by two officers who were ready to process him so Louise and Mik could join the others in the command room.

“It’s important that we let the media know that this case did not involve an honor killing. Maybe that will make whoever’s behind Aida’s disappearance come to their senses,” Dean said.

“We’ll release Ibrahim and his son immediately and tell them what’s happened,” Storm said, looking over at Ruth. “I wonder if we’ll be fined for their arrests. We’re sure to receive a claim for compensation for wrongful imprisonment that’s going to fucking hurt more than just our public image.”

The administrative assistant raised an eyebrow and nodded thoughtfully before agreeing that he was right.

“But there was no other choice, what with the situation the way it was,” Skipper interrupted.

“All the family members seemed to suspect each other and no one was telling us what they knew, so it’s really not that surprising that we suspected them as well,” Louise said, reaching for a bottle of soda before she started telling everyone about Michael’s arrest.

“Late Tuesday evening, after Ahmad had gone home and once her parents were asleep, Samra sneaked out to see her boyfriend. Out of fear that her parents and brother would discover their relationship, Samra hadn’t allowed any phone calls between them. Instead they arranged their future meetings in person when they were together. Michael Mogensen thinks it was about eleven when she came over. He had lit candles and bought her flowers, because he had been planning to ask her to marry him that night, so it took him completely by surprise when she said she had come to tell him that she had arranged with her parents to send her back home to Jordan.”

“Ouch,” mumbled Bengtsen, passing the cookies around again as Louise continued.

“He gave her the thin gold chain she was wearing around her neck when she was found. But he didn’t understand why she didn’t want him, or why she would rather find a husband in Jordan when the time came.”

“Who says that’s what she wanted?” Skipper asked.

“That’s what Michael Mogensen said,” Mik responded and then let Louise continue.

“Michael thinks it’s because Samra wanted the kind of close extended family life she would have had with someone from her own traditional background. After having read her diary, I don’t think the family relationship was the main reason. I mean, just think about what her uncle did to her. It might have been part of the reason, but I think mostly she was looking for an excuse to call it off.”

“To escape from the double life she’d been leading, which was making it hard for her to be a ‘normal’ Danish teenager,” Dean added, and Louise nodded.

“I know that a lot of Muslim girls who suddenly choose to go back to their family’s traditional values do it to achieve some peace of mind,” Louise continued. “The struggle is twice as hard, the struggle that the young immigrant girls have to fight, because by becoming ‘normal Danes’ they know they can expect to end up lonely and isolated, cut off from their families and their closest friends. And that network doesn’t just get replaced by a new one. In that sense, it’s a totally different kind of women’s liberation than what Danish women have been through,” Louise concluded, letting her elbows sit on top of the table as she pensively rested her chin in her hands.

“Poor girl,” Ruth said, staring straight ahead.

Mik cleared his throat. “Michael Mogensen has a boat that he keeps out in Hørby Marina by Cape Tuse,” he said. “Michael says he suffocated Samra with a sofa cushion, then carried her out and put her in the trunk of his car and drove out to his boat.”

“His tripod was in the trunk too, and that’s where the marks on the back of her head came from,” Louise added. She was annoyed that she hadn’t realized the photographer had access to a boat back when she’d seen the pictures of Dicta that had been taken on the deck. She honestly just hadn’t given it a thought, because their suspicions had been focused elsewhere.

“We’ll get it checked out,” Storm said. “And obviously the same goes for his car and his studio. And you’d better remove the wiretap in Dysseparken now that they’re being released,” he added with a look at Velin.

“That also means that those tire impressions we found out at Hønsehalsen are completely irrelevant, right?” Skipper asked, and Dean nodded.

“But how does Dicta’s murder fit into this story?” Ruth asked, looking over at Louise.

“It really doesn’t. It doesn’t sound like Dicta knew anything about the relationship between her best friend and the photographer. Apparently Samra hadn’t told anyone. Dicta was presumably not in the best mood when she left Liv’s place after her humiliating rejection by Tue Sunds, and was pretty much primed to take it out on someone. Michael Mogensen thinks it was a little past midnight when he happened to see her crossing the street in front of the train station. He pulled up alongside her and she said that she had missed her train and he offered to drive her home. After she got in, she started mocking him, and he pulled into the parking lot to let her out. But after she got out, she kept belittling him, and eventually he lost it.”

“You can pin down all the details when you talk to him,” Storm interrupted, then he asked Louise and Mik to start preparing to question the photographer, so they would be ready for the preliminary examination.

An hour later, news of his confession was everywhere. The local TV news team was getting ready to do a live interview with Storm when they went on the air around nine o’clock, and the Dagbladet journalists had already started gathering in the lobby of the police station, waiting for the press conference Storm had called for immediately after his television appearance. Louise was trying to block out all the commotion so she could concentrate on Michael Mogensen’s questioning, which she and Mik were going to begin as soon as the uniforms were done processing the arrest.

The crime-scene specialists had just arrived in town and had started turning the photographer’s apartment upside down. The car and the sailboat at Cape Tuse would be brought in for thorough examinations, but even after just a cursory look at the tripod they had agreed that that was what had been used to crush Dicta’s skull. Both the weight and the size and location of the rounded screw heads fit the lesions with the three-centimeter spacing.

Louise was sitting in her office behind her closed door, reviewing the notes from the first questioning session they’d had when they visited the photographer. So she didn’t answer the phone until the fourth ring, and she was dismissive and snappish with her greeting.

“I just heard,” Henrik Møller said, without paying any attention to her standoffish tone. “I’m at home and just told my wife. I wasn’t sure if she’d heard the news. I need you to come over right away.” He didn’t give her any time to object before he hung up.

Louise felt like she’d been stuffed into a deep, black hole. The last thing she wanted to spend her remaining energy on now was Dicta’s unhappy, unbalanced mother.

She stood and Mik looked up.

“What was that?”

“Henrik Møller. He just told his wife that Samra’s parents are innocent and that the actual murderer has been caught. He wanted me to come over right away.”

“Do you want me to come too?”

She shook her head. “You don’t need to do that. I think he just wants me there to confirm that the case is really closed. It won’t take long.”

Both of the family’s cars were in the driveway when Louise arrived, but there still weren’t any dogs barking as she walked up to the front door. The dogs’ absence left her body with an empty feeling. The doorbell echoed through the house, and a second later the door opened.

Henrik Møller was pale and nodded briefly when she said hello. She reluctantly followed him into the house, and he continued down the hallway toward Dicta’s room. There was an open mover’s box in front of the door, and a few toys were spread out on the carpet.

Henrik stood there in the hallway and pushed open the door to the room. Big piles of little girls’ toys filled the floor. The bed was unmade, but at the head end Louise spotted the dark hair.