Have you checked your holster?” Eik asked, as they turned off Kongevejen at Virum. He wasn’t looking at her, and it was the first thing he’d said since they left.
Louise nodded, sensing the weight under her jacket. She had also ordered more officers be put on standby, in case Sørensen was at his ex-wife’s house. “I sure as hell hope you know I could be in serious shit for bringing you along.” Louise eyed the tall trees and large homes.
“That’s why I love you, honey,” he said mildly. “You’re the type who takes chances.”
“Shut up!” she hissed. But it felt good to ease the tension. All the way there, Louise had waffled between fearing the worst and assuring herself an English schoolgirl couldn’t get to a random address in a suburb like Virum quicker than a speeding patrol car. But she could have given a taxi driver the address, in which case she would have a big enough head start.
“That’s his car, parked right there!” Louise pointed at a Bordeaux-red station wagon. The car her colleagues from North Zealand had seen in Sørensen’s garage had to be Christine’s.
Eik shut down the siren and blue lights as she slowed. Louise reached for the police radio to call for backup.
“Wait,” Eik said. “Just a minute. Give me a chance to see if she’s in there.”
“Like hell I will. Sørensen is inside the house.” She’d already called for more patrol cars.
Their feet crunched gravel as they ran up the driveway. Louise rang the doorbell, with Eik already hurrying down the steps to run around the house. Immediately the door was opened by a blond woman with a page cut and pale cheeks, in a black turtleneck sweater and elegant dark pants—it had to be Vivian Hald Sørensen.
Louise was about to show her badge when the woman grabbed her and held on. She began sobbing. “They’re out back, he has a gun,” she stammered. “He shot the girl.”
They felt a draft when they entered the moist, cold living room; the terrace door was open a crack. Eik stood in the broad doorway between the dining room and day room. Someone had bled on the floor.
“Go in the kitchen and stay there,” he said. Vivian Hald Sørensen sat down on the floor with her arms hugging her knees. She was in shock.
“What happened?” Louise asked. Pistol in hand, she rushed around to turn off the lights in the living room and kitchen.
Sørensen’s ex-wife didn’t even seem surprised they knew about the young girl. She pointed at the tripod that had been tipped over in the living room. “He forced me to record his statement, he wanted it to be like the ones made by that group that kills people. And then suddenly the girl was standing behind him. I don’t know how she got in.”
“Where are they now?” Eik was at the terrace door. An open gym bag containing a box of rifle ammo lay on the floor between the two rooms, but there was no sign of the rifle.
The sobbing woman whispered, “I think she’s been hit, he shot at her. But then he ran off, and she chased him.”
The sound Eik made as he wrenched the terrace door open and ran toward the forest spurred Louise to drop any idea of waiting for backup. She sprinted after him before he’d reached the backyard’s open gate, and they rushed down a small path that led to the forest road.
The January darkness was deepening between the trees, the road was wet and slippery from melting patches of snow. Eik stopped at a fork and looked around. “Stephanie!” he yelled, so loudly that her name echoed among the trees. A gray fog hung in the forest, making it difficult to see clearly.
Louise ran toward a thicket. She noticed black, soggy leaves that had been tramped down, a narrow path leading between bare beech trunks. She heard Eik, still on the forest road, as she fought her way along the path to a large, oval hollow. Fifty meters in diameter at least, she estimated, then she looked around and immediately noticed the black figure curled up at the bottom of the hollow.
“Eik!” Louise screamed, and she kept screaming his name as she ran down the slope.
They reached the figure at the same time, but Louise stepped back when Eik kneeled beside Steph and carefully swept her hair off her face.
She lay on her side, her arms stretched out, her legs pulled up underneath her. Eik could only see the profile of her face, but Louise was struck by the resemblance between father and daughter.
He sat still for a moment, studying the unconscious girl. Then he lay a hand on her forehead and ran a finger down over her cheek, a gesture so gentle and filled with affection that tears welled behind Louise’s eyes.
He felt for a pulse with two fingers against her throat, then he carefully checked the bloody wound over her right temple before slowly turning her and pulling her black leather jacket to the side.
“She’s been hit,” he said. “One side, under her breast.”
“Shit! Stay here and call for an ambulance. Pull her over behind the bushes there, I’ll look for him.”
Louise’s heart pounded; Sørensen had to be close by. Slowly she maneuvered forward while covering Eik and Steph as he carried her behind the bushes. She spotted him after only a few meters. “Call for another ambulance,” she yelled. “He’s over here on the ground!” She heard Eik calling behind her as she began running.
Vivian Hald Sørensen appeared on the forest road. She walked stiffly toward her ex-husband and kneeled beside him; a dispassionate professionalism seemed to have kicked in, pushing her shock aside. “He’s bleeding. He’s been shot in the heart.”
The well-dressed doctor lay motionless on the ground, his eyes closed and his shirt soaked with blood. His rifle lay a meter away.
His ex-wife took his hand and stroked it as she spoke comfortingly to him.
“Stay with him,” Louise said. Through the trees she heard the backup arriving. “We’ve called for another ambulance.”
The woman shook her head and spoke quietly. “You shouldn’t have. He didn’t want to be on this Earth any longer. I’m sure he planned to end his life after making his statement and taking the blame for what he did. It’s his choice. He’s going now, his pulse is weak. Let him find peace.”
Louise ran back to the house and out onto the street, to the officers who had arrived. Soon the forest was filled with flashlights and people, working effectively and with few words to secure the area. The ambulance personnel broke through the thicket and down to the hollow where Steph lay. Eik stood up to give them room.
Louise returned to Vivian. She still held her ex-husband’s hand.
“He’s let go, he’s leaving this world. When you have nothing more to live for, you should be allowed to die.”