At least Ida Marie had refrained from remarking that a man like Anders Nikolajsen didn’t deserve to be found. Or that he should be left to face the music and that she hoped he would rot in his jail.
She might very well have thought this, but he doubted it. After all, she was a human being who knew the difference between right and wrong. She was also the woman he loved and surely his judgement couldn’t be that flawed.
For a moment Wagner rested his forehead against the window in the briefing room and stared out over the city: a few seconds of peace while they sat like sailors in a trapped submarine as the oxygen ran out. That was how it felt when the clock was against you. The sensation of slow suffocation could only be kept at bay with results, and there had been far too few of those.
In order to cope you had to surface every now and then, to snatch some oxygen in the form of coffee or food, or like him: to indulge in a little time travel to a milder climate, to the fragrance of Ida Marie’s skin and perfume, away from the claustrophobic atmosphere in the police station and six increasingly frustrated officers and their bickering.
‘What’s been happening at Martin’s nursery? Any news about your suspect?’
He had only been able to find the courage and the energy to ask because she had been lying close to him in bed that very morning. It had been weighing heavily on him for days.
There had been a pause before she replied: ‘To be honest, I think it was a false alarm. I think you were right. We were jumping to conclusions.’
She’d been aware the case was haunting him, but she was hardly offering him her admission as a gift. It definitely wasn’t the right moment to accept it with an ‘I told you so’.
‘You can never be too careful with things like that,’ he assured her. ‘I’m glad you had an opportunity to discuss it. But what was it that made you change your mind?’
She lay for a while staring at the ceiling. ‘There were too many things that didn’t add up,’ she said then. ‘We based most of our suspicions on what Anton said, but then his mother admitted that he had a lively imagination and he was prone to manipulating the truth in other areas as well.’
‘So he was just making it up?’
‘It looks like it.’
‘Apart from keeping your eyes open and being aware, that’s all you can do,’ he whispered into the base of her neck. They lay like that for a long time.
‘Wagner!’
The sound of his boss’s voice shattered his daydream. He turned away from the window and stared at Hartvigsen, who looked like he was bearing news.
‘Anything new?’ Wagner asked.
‘From London,’ Hartvigsen said. ‘They’ve found the decapitated body and they’ve arrested a woman. A Pakistani woman.’
The team gathered round swiftly. The information was delivered in exact phrases and faster than Wagner had come to expect from Hartvigsen.
‘Her name is Yasmin Kahn. This is her story: despite violent protests she was forced to marry a cousin at the age of seventeen. They lived together for a year until she eloped with a British man—the secret childhood sweetheart she’d known since school apparently—and with whom she had two children.’
They sat around the table while Hartvigsen remained standing, as if giving a speech at a birthday party on the family farm.
‘Of course her family refused to accept her choice. The threat of an honour killing hung over their heads, and she and her boyfriend went into hiding.’ He paused dramatically.
Wagner couldn’t help but ask, ‘And what happened then?’
Hartvigsen jutted out his chin with self-assurance. Wagner didn’t begrudge him his moment as he revealed his next nugget:
‘She lost her boyfriend and their two children in the tsunami in Thailand. They haven’t been able to get a word out of her about any Danish woman, but her hatred of Islam is obvious, according to my contact at Scotland Yard.’
Then Hartvigsen looked at them and added, ‘The beheaded man is her cousin and husband.’
The new information hung in the air for a moment before falling and causing outbursts and mutterings all around the table.
‘They must have met in Thailand,’ Ivar K said, articulating what everyone was thinking. ‘The two women must have formed a pact.’
‘Okay.’ Wagner took charge and Hartvigsen left them to get on with their job.
‘Kirsten Husum. What do we know about her?’
Ivar K and Hansen competed to present the information to the team: ‘Her body has never been identified. Only the bodies of her husband and their child were found. Her husband’s name was Yussuf Abbas—he was Palestinian and, much to his family’s disappointment, wasn’t very interested in any form of religion. He was a carpenter by trade and did very well for himself. The child was a little boy of eighteen months. Kirsten Husum used to work as a care assistant for Social Services in Aabyhøj. They also lived in Aabyhøj, in one of the housing association flats in Silkeborgvej.’
‘I presume that the flat was re-let long ago and that the family’s possessions have been divided up between the heirs,’ Wagner said.
‘It’s certainly gone,’ Hansen announced. ‘I’ve spoken to the housing association. There’s a Turkish family living in the flat now.’
‘So where has she been living?’ Eriksen asked. ‘If she really did survive the tsunami, how did she manage to re-enter Denmark in the first place without anyone finding out? Does she have a passport? Is she using her own name? Or is she using forged documents?’
‘I imagine she’s been getting by just like any other illegal immigrant,’ Ivar K said. ‘You can buy forged ID papers if you know the right people.’
Wagner tapped his pen against the table and shook his head. ‘We need more information about her. When did she last go to work? Who were her colleagues, her circle of friends? Was she isolated from her own family or did she still see them? Do her mother or brother know anything?’
He sent them off in all directions. ‘Where might she be living? At a girlfriend’s house, a summer cottage, whatever? And where is she holding the hostage prisoner? That’s our priority. What does she know? Where does she normally go?’
Some of the men started to phone around while others left to visit the family. Wagner picked up his jacket and took the lift up to Crime Scene Investigation where he was invited along to the IT department after a quick word with Haunstrup. An IT technician was examining the film of Anders Nikolajsen.
‘Have you found anything?’ He knew that he shouldn’t put pressure on him and look over his shoulder, but the temptation was too much. He quickly briefed the technician about the new information.
‘A care assistant,’ said his colleague, whose name was Kim Thorsen. ‘My mum’s a care assistant.’
Wagner wasn’t entirely sure what the point of this remark was, but responded all the same. ‘Is that right?’
The man nodded at his computer screen. ‘We’ve isolated the sound. It’s dripping water.’
‘Rain?’
Thorsen shook his head. ‘Not strong enough for rain. There are only occasional, but very persistent drips.’
‘A dripping tap?’
Another shake of the head. ‘Sounds more like a drainage sump.’
Wagner had no idea what a drainage sump was, so he waited for an explanation.
‘It’s a kind of grate that ensures rainwater drains away,’ Thorsen explained.
‘And where would you need that?’
Thorsen shrugged. ‘Anywhere rainwater might cause a big problem. Such as flooding.’
‘A cellar?’ Wagner suggested.
Sceptical, Thorsen tilted his head. ‘There’s also condensation on the walls and no natural light, so it wouldn’t be your standard cellar.’
‘But it could be somewhere underground?’ Wagner asked, thinking of the oft-reported caves in the mountains in Pakistan and grainy videos of Osama Bin Laden with a machine gun and an ammunition belt hung over his shoulders. But this wasn’t terrorism. It wasn’t Al Qaeda. Or was it? A new twist on terrorist tactics? Who knew what went on in those circles? PET certainly didn’t, and neither did the CIA.
Thorsen nodded vaguely, but his mind seemed to be far away, possibly visiting a distant galaxy.
‘Somewhere underground,’ he repeated.