THE FIRE WAS still burning and crackling in the fireplace, creating a pleasant ambiance. The home’s living room was furnished like a hunting lodge with taxidermized foxes and birds of prey on every horizontal surface. There were big, chunky pieces of leather furniture in shades of terra-cotta atop a herringbone-patterned tile floor. Camilla Lyng sat down heavily on the sofa across from Schäfer.
Her expression was both relieved and troubled.
Lukas sat beside her. He stared up at her face, as if he was afraid she would vanish into thin air if he took his eyes off her.
“I’d really like to speak to your aunt alone for a moment,” Schäfer said, nodding soothingly to him. “Do you think that would be all right?”
The boy pretended not to see Schäfer. He looked at the woman anxiously and grabbed onto her. “Don’t go, Kiki.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I’m right here. Take Jack outside for a bit. He could use some fresh air.”
The black Lab lying in a wicker basket in the corner of the room raised his ears when he heard his name. The dog looked blind, Schäfer thought. His eyes looked like two glass orbs, milky white and marbled.
Lukas reluctantly got up off the sofa without breaking his eye contact with the woman.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m just going to talk to the policeman here, and then I’ll come out and get you when I’m done.”
The boy walked over to the dog. He petted it on the back and it ambled out of the room with him.
Schäfer watched the woman. As soon as Lukas was out of the room, it was as if the air seeped out of her. She sat there, deflated, staring out the window.
“Kiki?” he asked. “Short for Camilla?”
“No, that’s not why.”
“Then why?”
She shook her head. “It’s just something he calls me.”
Schäfer raised his eyebrows to encourage her to elaborate.
She shrugged, looking tired. “I was in New Zealand several years ago for work and I bought Lukas a children’s book when I was there, about the Maori, the indigenous people who live there. There were a bunch of Maori words in the book including whaea kēkē, which means auntie. I explained to Lukas that I was his whaea kēkē, but he couldn’t pronounce that, so he said Kiki instead.” She smiled sadly. “For some reason it stuck.”
Schäfer heard the front door open and saw Lukas through the window. He was standing out on the porch, peeking into the living room at them. Schäfer looked over at Camilla again.
“I know that Lukas was dropped off here on Monday.”
She nodded.
“Why didn’t you contact the police as soon as you realized that he had been reported missing?”
Camilla looked at him for a long time before she responded. “Because I knew that you would just hand him back over to Jens and Fie. And the whole thing would start all over again.”
Schäfer’s brow furrowed. “What whole thing?”
“Jens,” she said. “He beats him. Routinely. Last Monday morning he went a step further. They had an argument on the way to school, and …” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I couldn’t send Lukas back after what happened.”
Schäfer still looked puzzled. “Are you saying it was Jens who dropped Lukas into the moat? That he tried to kill his own son?”
She nodded. “If they hadn’t rescued him … He would be dead, no doubt about it.”
“They?”
“Yes, the men who dropped him off at my place.”
Schäfer noted her choice of words. “How long would you say this has been going on? How long has Lukas’s father been beating him?” He looked out at the boy, who immediately stopped staring and turned his back to the window.
Camilla pulled a tired hand over her face. “It started when Jens began working abroad. You know Doctors Without Borders?”
Schäfer nodded.
“Those trips with that organization completely changed him. It didn’t happen overnight, but he gradually became more and more aggressive. He started taking drugs, prescribed morphine to himself ‘for use in his medical practice.’” She shrugged. “It got really bad when he came home from Syria. He saw something down there … When he came home it was as if his personality was completely changed.” She took a deep breath and thought back. “It started when Lukas began first grade. That was when Jens started hurting him.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“Oh, you’d better believe I reported it!” She looked at him with lightning in her eyes. “Why do you think they cut me out of their lives?”
Schäfer looked puzzled. “You reported it? Are you sure?”
“Of course I reported it!”
“There’s nothing in our records about that. There aren’t any old reports or cases involving the family in our system.”
Camilla shook her head, speechless. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. You guys aren’t on top of anything!”
Schäfer raised his chin and looked down his nose at her, but he didn’t say anything. If her report hadn’t made it into their internal reports, it wouldn’t be the first time some caseworker or social worker had screwed up. Mistakes happened all the time, also within the police. He knew that. Neglected and abused children fell by the wayside. It happened far too often.
“Did anyone else know?” he asked. “If the boy was being beaten, there must have been signs. Someone must have wondered.”
She shook her head. “Jens is a doctor. He always has an explanation, an alibi. He received training from Doctors Without Borders before his foreign deployments. Plus, Lukas has done his best to conceal it. He told me that he told his teachers all his scrapes and bruises came from the fencing and the fights from his role-playing games.”
Schäfer nodded heavily. He had had many cases involving kids who stubbornly defended the parents who abused them, little kids who automatically forgave a father with blood on his knuckles.
Camilla stood up from the sofa and walked over to a bar cart with a glass top and brass frame that was in the corner. She pulled a pointy glass stopper out of a carafe, poured herself a whiskey, and took a sip. Then she sat back down across from Schäfer again.
“You mentioned that Jens received training from Doctors Without Borders,” he said. “Training in what?”
“All of the doctors they send abroad receive crisis management training. They learn what to do if they get kidnapped or if they end up in a dangerous situation down there. Jens told me about it before he left for Sudan. That was his first trip.”
“What did he say?”
“That they taught them how to navigate unexpected situations, how to come up with believable lies in just a few seconds, an alibi, camouflage. An optical illusion. They were supposed to be able to bluff their way out of situations where their lives were at stake, and Jens was good at it. He could fool anyone.”
“And what about Lukas’s mother? What was her role in all this?”
Camilla snorted. “Fie never said anything when Jens hit Lukas. She never did anything. She always just sat there, staring uncomfortably into space to avoid making eye contact with me whenever it happened. And she numbed herself with booze. She’s an alcoholic,” Camilla said and raised her whiskey glass. “The only thing Fie worries about is if there’s still vodka in the bottle.”
Schäfer looked out the window and saw the boy wandering around outside. The black Lab followed him good-naturedly, wagging his tail in delight every time the boy knelt in the snow and put his arms around the dog’s neck.
“But you reported it?”
She nodded. “At one point I had had enough. I reported Jens to Social Services. But they screened the family and concluded that he was a nice, conscientious doctor and that therefore I must have misinterpreted what I’d seen.” Camilla folded her hands together in her lap. “I haven’t seen him or Fie since.”
Schäfer thought about Anne Sofie’s reaction when he had asked about the name on the piece of paper he’d found in the notebook. She’d had an odd look on her face for a second.
“Your sister said they didn’t know anyone named Kiki.”
Camilla’s eyebrows shot up. “She’s lying. She and Jens both know that Lukas calls me that. But I can’t imagine that they were interested in leading you to me.”
“Do you think your sister knows that your brother-in-law dumped Lukas in the water on Monday?”
Camilla shrugged. “Not necessarily. Jens could easily have kept that hidden from Fie. I’d imagine that he runs around at home playing the victim as part of his cover.”
It struck Schäfer that Jens didn’t know that his son was still alive. His astonishment when Schäfer had told him that they had found Thomas Strand’s blood on Lukas’s jacket had been genuine.
Schäfer looked at Camilla. “You’ve been meeting secretly, you and Lukas, during the school day. Is that correct?”
She nodded. “The last year has been especially bad for Lukas. Fie’s drinking has really started to get out of hand. She doesn’t dare talk back to Jens, so she just disappears into the laundry room whenever he’s in a bad mood.”
“The laundry room?”
“Yes. Their building has a communal laundry room down in the basement. She hides her vodka down there. Jens has told her she can’t drink anymore, so they don’t keep any alcohol in their apartment, but Lukas has seen her hide bottles in the laundry room.” Camilla ran her fingers through her hair and looked out the window at the boy. “What happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s going to happen to Lukas? Even if Jens ends up in jail, Lukas doesn’t want to go back to Fie. I know that. It might sound strange, but … even though Jens is the one who hit him, he feels like his mother is the one who let him down the most. He doesn’t want to live with her anymore.”
Schäfer nodded. That didn’t sound the least bit strange to his ears. If he had had an aunt like Camilla Lyng when he was little, he would have preferred to live with her too. But unfortunately that kind of thing wasn’t so straightforward.
“It’s too early to know what will happen with his custody. That’s not my area,” he said. “But unfortunately the truth is that Lukas will most likely be sent back to his mother.”
Camilla closed her eyes. “But Fie is profoundly unfit. She couldn’t protect her own child. And she’s a drunk.”
Schäfer cast a fleeting glance at the whiskey glass in Camilla’s hand and nodded. “Yes, but that’s not necessarily enough for her to lose custody.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’ll consider the bigger picture, and when they do that they’ll probably decide that Lukas is not in imminent danger as long as his father is out of the picture. It’s possible that the authorities will think being placed outside the home for a short time will benefit Lukas, so your sister can get her life in order. But as long as she’s going to work, maintains a relatively orderly home, and promises to stop drinking, then there’s not that much that can be done.” Schäfer’s gaze fell on the Volvo in the driveway. “Where were you and Lukas going when I arrived?”
“We were just getting out of here, away from the pictures in the newspaper,” she said, leaning defeatedly back on the sofa. “I have a friend in Germany, so I thought we could stay with her for a while …”
Schäfer stood up and gestured for Camilla to do the same.
“Now what?” she asked.
“We’re going to Copenhagen, all three of us. Lukas has a long series of interviews and doctor’s exams ahead of him and he’s going to need you more than ever.”
“Buckle your seat belt,” Schäfer said and looked back over his shoulder.
Lukas and his aunt sat in the back seat, both of their faces an ashy gray, but bravely agreeing with what needed to happen.
Schäfer started the engine with one hand and pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket with the other. He could see that Heloise had called eight times. She had also sent him a whole army of texts.
He opened the first and read it.
The barn door is at the medical clinic. Call me!