Department A met in the lunchroom at eight the next morning for coffee and a briefing. Besides the regulars, several detectives from Bellahøj and City had been brought in to assist them.
Louise found an empty chair and dragged it over to the corner of the table. When everyone had settled in, Hans Suhr, the head of Homicide, stood up at the end of the table. “Do I need to say we have visitors?” He gestured toward the two long tables in the middle of the lunchroom.
“Visitors we’re happy to see, I might add.” He smiled. “We have more than enough to do. Right now, there’s not much to go on with the murders of Karoline Wissinge and the journalist, Frank Sørensen. We’ve established that both victims were killed where they were found. Sørensen was lying in the courtyard behind the Royal Hotel, in the shed where the hotel employees park their bicycles. Karoline Wissinge was strangled and shoved behind a bench in Østre Anlæg.”
He paced a bit in front of the wall with the large whiteboard. “It’s not often we’re in a situation like this, working on two major cases at the same time.”
Louise stared straight ahead. That was exactly what she’d been thinking, but how did he plan to deal with it?
“Lars Jørgensen is on the team working on the Wissinge murder now. Willumsen and his team will continue with Frank Sørensen.”
Suhr straightened up with his back to the wall. “I might as well make it clear, there will be no days off until we wrap these cases up. They’re top priority, and I’ll make sure your shifts are canceled indefinitely.”
Louise brightened. She hated taking duty shifts at Station City. Once a month she had an evening shift, every seven weeks a weekend shift, and she swore like a sailor when her time came.
“Here we’ll be running two team shifts a day, at least with the murder of the journalist. We’re getting a lot of heat from the media, and we need something to give them.”
Suhr raised his voice at the end, making it clear that otherwise there would be hell to pay. He was about to sit down, when he remembered something. “We’ll be holding briefings internally for the two teams. Separate briefings. I’ll be running them, as much as possible,” he added.
“Good,” Toft said. “It’s too much to be involved in both homicides. We have enough to take care of with the case we’re on, right?”
The chief nodded. “We’ll meet here for morning coffee and a general briefing, but mostly it will be very short updates.”
Louise checked her watch. Eight thirty. She really should plan the day out before calling the hospital. When she got back to her office, she recognized Lars Jørgensen’s coat draped over the chair on the other side of the two desks.
I can’t handle this, she thought. She closed her eyes and hoped that Suhr decided to call Søren in so she wouldn’t be saddled with a new partner. Though she knew that was selfish of her.
She’d just sat down when Jørgensen walked in. “Hi, Lars, I figured it must be your coat.” She tried to sound cordial.
“Hi, Rick. Yeah, now it’s you and me who have to figure all this out.” He smiled and walked over to the other side of the two desks pushed against each other.
“Make yourself at home,” she said. “I’m doing several interviews today, so I’ll be in and out of the office. What’s your day look like?”
“I have to talk to Heilmann. I haven’t been briefed on the case yet, so I don’t know how far along you are.”
“I’ve been with the parents. But I need to get hold of her colleagues at the hospital.”
Louise called the neurosurgery department. Heilmann knocked on the door and walked over to Jørgensen.
“May I speak to Anna Wallentin,” Louise said, after introducing herself to the nurse who picked up the phone. She tapped her pen on the desk while waiting on the head nurse.
“We’re making rounds right now, could you call in an hour? We’ll be done by then.”
“I want to speak with Anna Wallentin, now. Please tell her to call Homicide within the next ten minutes.”
Louise hoped that sounded dramatic enough.
“Of course,” the nurse said, clearly nervous.
Louise hung up and glanced at Heilmann and Jørgensen. She was a bit embarrassed about how much she still enjoyed saying Homicide. Just to hear the respect in people’s voices.
“I’ve explained to Lars what you two will be doing,” Heilmann said.
“I don’t need any help. I can do the interviews myself.” Louise heard the rejection in her words.
“You two will be partners until Velin returns.” Heilmann started for the door. “And from what I hear, he won’t be back for another two and a half months.”
Before Heilmann slammed the door, Louise’s phone rang. “Department A, Louise Rick.”
It was Anna Wallentin. Louise asked her about Karoline’s colleagues, if there were any of them in particular she hung out with. Louise took down names and numbers as they spoke. Three girls, one guy. Karoline had been in neurosurgery for only two months, and most of them knew her primarily from short coffee breaks.
When she hung up, she looked over at Jørgensen. “There are only four of them; that shouldn’t be too much to take care of.”
“I have the feeling you’re annoyed at getting a new partner. I get it, 100 percent. I like Velin, too; we’re both on the police handball team.”
Louise felt herself blushing.
“If it was up to me, I’d still be in Narcotics and Licensing, but that’s not how it works. I’m here at Homicide for six months before I can go back, says my rotation schedule. And since your partner is taking comp time off, they’ve stuck me here. We might as well make the best of it.”
He leaned back and studied her.
“You’re right. You take anything in your coffee?”
“Sugar, two teaspoons, no milk.”
He followed her with his eyes as she walked to the door.
When she came back, Suhr and Willumsen were in the office, talking to Jørgensen about the murder of the journalist. Louise set two cups on the desk. No one looked up. Stay out of it, she told herself. She grabbed her phone and walked out again.
“Camilla Lind.”
Louise could hear she’d called at the wrong time. “Hi, should I call back later?”
“No, it’s okay. I can’t find this damn street, Spurvevej. I’ve been driving all over goddamn Svogerslev the last twenty minutes.”
“Maybe you should stop and ask directions?”
“I did, but then I got cussed out. Someone called me a nosy fucking reporter who ought to keep out of people’s business.”
“You are a nosy fucking reporter,” Louise said, laughing now. “You don’t usually let that sort of thing bother you. “
She felt her mood lifting. Camilla often went off on tirades, while Louise tended to keep her problems to herself.
“It doesn’t bother me, but it’s weird down here; it’s like Frank Sørensen is this local hero suddenly, and now everyone thinks they have to protect his legacy.”
“Surely not all of Svogerslev?” Louise said, teasing her again.
“It sure as hell feels like it. Drosselvej! What’s with all these goddamn streets named for birds, bird after bird after…It must be right around here somewhere.”
“Just wanted to hear how things are going. I thought you were doing that interview yesterday.”
“The police, that’s you, took up the family’s entire day. The interview didn’t happen. I waited until nine o’clock last night, when they finally told Høyer it was postponed until today. And they also told him, in no uncertain terms, that we needed to respect your work and stop elbowing in. What the hell kind of crap is that? We’re just doing our job.”
This was right up Camilla’s alley, Louise could hear. She was more than ready to do battle. No one was going to stop her from getting that interview with the weeping widow.
“Shit, here it is, Spurvevej. Talk to you later.”
Camilla hung up before Louise could say that she’d called to see if it was okay to whine about being given a new partner.
At twelve o’clock, the investigation team sat around Heilmann’s conference table. Suhr had called the meeting, but he couldn’t attend himself; he had to appear on the noon news in connection with the murder of the journalist.
That morning he’d observed the autopsy of Karoline Wissinge. As expected, it had been determined that she died from the wounds on her throat. They also confirmed that she hadn’t been raped, but they did discover she was pregnant.
“About eight weeks,” Heilmann said, before anyone could ask. “I’m assuming you’d have said something if her boyfriend had mentioned it yesterday?”
Louise nodded, startled by the news. “Of course. Neither one of them, Martin Dahl nor her parents, said anything about her expecting. I don’t think they knew.”
“Okay, so let’s see if they bring it up, otherwise we will.”
Several witnesses had confirmed that Karoline left Baren with a man fitting the description of Lasse Møller. They decided to bring him in for questioning again.
“You need to come down hard on him,” Heilmann said, turning to Toft.
“All right, but this is nothing new. He says himself they left together. He didn’t know her before, and they split up at Silver Square. He stopped by St. Hans Square on the way home and went to bed about two thirty. But we can get him to repeat all that, if that’s what you mean.”
Toft wasn’t being sarcastic. He followed the orders he was given.
“Are there witnesses who can confirm this?”
“He was seen at Pussy Galore; the only question is, when. Møller claims he used his debit card in the bar, but when I went through the receipts with the manager, there wasn’t one with his name on it. And he didn’t have a copy.”
“How’s it going with your interviews?” Heilmann asked, looking at Louise and Jørgensen.
Louise turned to her new partner, but he nodded at her. She said they’d spoken with two of Karoline’s colleagues who had known her since nursing school. “I didn’t get the impression they’re part of Karoline’s social life. They only saw her at work, so I don’t know how much we can rely on what they say about her. But she had another boyfriend before she met Dahl, a male nursing student.”
“We’re talking to him and another one later today. They’re coming in at three,” Jørgensen added.
Louise barely listened as the others spoke about their plans for the day. Two detectives were going to knock on more doors around Silver Square to find witnesses.
“We’re working hard on Lasse Møller’s circle of friends, looking into his past,” Michael Stig said, nodding at the detective beside him who apparently was helping.
“Since you’re digging into backgrounds, there’s someone you might be able to find,” Louise said. She leaned over the table. “Karoline’s boyfriend, Martin Dahl, has an old childhood friend from Frederikshavn who’s doing some dealing, and occasionally he forgets to pay for his product.”
Stig raised an eyebrow. “And what makes you think this childhood friend has something to do with the murder?” He tilted his head and stared at her.
“Dahl loaned him a chunk of money once. The friend paid him back, but I think we should have a look; there could be more to the story.” She paused a moment. “Not because it’s necessarily relevant to the murder, but it’s good to stay on top of things.”
“Okay, interesting,” Stig said. “Was Karoline involved in that sort of thing, too?”
“Not at all. She blew up at Martin when he loaned his friend the money.”
“It’s definitely something we need to know, if their friends are involved in that type of crime,” Heilmann said. She glanced at Stig. “Take care of that. All right, shall we get on with it?”
She glanced at everyone in the room before gathering her papers and leaving the office.
“Incredible the energy that woman has,” Toft said, with respect in his voice. “You’d never think she’s taking care of a sick husband at home.”
“What? Her husband’s sick?” Louise said. She’d met Victor Lau several times. He was a good-looking man, about sixty, sporty and tanned most of the year, as many die-hard sailors are.
“They found a tumor in his brain six months ago, and they operated around Christmas. That’s why Heilmann was gone then.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Okay, I think. It’s been a couple weeks since I asked about him, but she said he’s recovered from the operation, and they were very optimistic.”
Louise nodded thoughtfully. Should she say something to her boss, or act as if nothing was wrong? “I can’t understand why I haven’t heard about this.”
“It’s not so strange,” Toft said. “No one talks about it around the department. I don’t think many people know, and she doesn’t want our sympathy.” He gathered his papers and walked out.
But he knew, Louise thought.
“I’ll try the last two again,” Louise said when she and Jørgensen were finally back at their desks. “If we can’t get hold of them, we’ll have to go over to the hospital.”
Neither Signe Jensen nor Jesper Mørk answered, so Louise skimmed the reports on the two who were questioned that morning before filing them.
Louise had already prepared the three folders Monday morning. The red would be sent to the defense lawyer, the blue containing the originals was for the judge, and the police prosecutor would get the green one. The folders were new and thin, but before the investigation was over, they would most likely be overflowing with paper, their edges torn and creased. Actually, it was a bit chilling but also exciting to her when she slipped the first files into the folders.
Usually she wrote a report before people being questioned left, so they could read and sign it immediately. But she didn’t always get the reports copied and filed at the same time. Usually they ended up in a pile on her desk.
Jørgensen had just walked out when Jesper Mørk called.
“Department A, Louise Rick.”
“I got your message,” he said, after an exchange of hellos. He sounded tired, and Louise guessed he’d had a night shift and had just woken up.
“Thanks for calling. I’d like to speak to you about the murder of Karoline Wissinge. I understand you’ve known her for some time.”
She sensed him stiffening, heard him light a cigarette. “I have to get to work,” he said, less tired now.
“That’s fine, we’ll meet you there.”
After a long pause, he said, “My shift starts at three.”
“We’ll be there a few minutes past three. We also need to talk to Signe Jensen.”
“How long will it take?”
“That depends on how much you have to tell us.”
“What is it you want to know?”
He sounded surprised. Why couldn’t people just accept that when the police talk to them, they simply want to know what they know? “Just tell us a bit about Karoline, and if you know something that might help us in connection with what happened Saturday, I would be very grateful if you’d share it with me.”
“See you then.” He hung up.
Jørgensen was back. “Which one was that?”
“Jesper Mørk. He’ll be at work at three; I told him we’ll be there a little after.”
“Then we’ll be able to talk to her other colleagues in the department, too. Should we try to call Signe Jensen again, so she knows we’re coming?”
Louise nodded. Her cell phone rang. Camilla sounded ecstatic.
“I’ll call,” Jørgensen mouthed, reaching for the paper with Jensen’s phone number.
“She was fantastic,” Camilla gushed. “You’d love her. She’s the kind of person everyone wants to be friends with.”
“Who?” Louise’s voice radiated indifference, which she hoped Camilla would hear.
“Helle Sørensen, Frank’s widow.”
Louise had completely forgotten about the interview.
“She’s younger than us—that I hadn’t imagined. Am I interrupting something?”
“I’m on my way out.”
That wasn’t enough to stop Camilla. “Unfortunately, the boy wasn’t there. The photographer was pissed about that. He wanted a shot of a weeping widow and little Liam.”
“I see,” Louise said, mostly to show she was still listening.
“But Helle’s story is incredible, you don’t need to see her crying with her kid on her lap.”
That a story wasn’t good enough without a photo of a sobbing mother and child sickened Louise. The story was the same, with or without photos.
“And she made it clear, no photos of Liam in the paper. It was hard enough to get her to talk.”
“She could have just said no,” Louise said.
“Yeah, but she felt she had an obligation to Frank. Apparently, it’s something they talked about once.”
That was too much for Louise. She couldn’t imagine exposing herself to a national paper in a situation like this, a family member in a murder case. “Sick,” she managed to get in.
“Frank did a lot of these kinds of stories himself over the years, and he always said if anything ever happened in his home tragic enough to catch the media’s attention, he’d damn well speak out, too. He felt he had to, otherwise he couldn’t look himself in the mirror.”
“Because he’d asked others to tell their stories?” Louise was still acting as if she were a part of the conversation.
“Yeah, and now Helle feels she owes Frank to do the same. She says it’s what he would have wanted. I’m not so damn sure I could do it.”
“No, and that’s why you ought to consider covering something else. Lifestyle, or fashion. Where you don’t have to push people into doing things you wouldn’t want to do.”
Louise knew Camilla was impervious to any objections when she was in this mood, but she tried anyway. Double standards was a phrase that popped up in her head when their conversations reached this point. “Anything else you wanted to talk about?”
“No, just wanted to share my good news. Talk to you later.”
“Did you get hold of Signe Jensen?”
Jørgensen shook his head. “I left a message. We’ll have to track her down at the hospital.”
Louise stood up and walked to the door. “I’ll see if there’s a car available.”
“Already done.” He fished the key out of his pocket. “If we leave now, we can fill the head nurse in before they show up.”
Louise grabbed her jacket and noticed the newspaper on Jørgensen’s desk. “Is it okay if I take that along?”
He tossed it over to her, and she stuck it under her arm. They headed down the hall.
She and Velin usually took turns driving, but it made sense somehow for Jørgensen to drive, since he’d picked up the key.
In the car, she opened the newspaper. Journalist Brutally Murdered dominated the front page, along with a photo of Frank Sørensen. The murder of Karoline Wissinge was also mentioned. If she’d been raped, too, the photo on the front page would probably have been bigger, Louise thought. She looked further inside the paper and found Camilla’s half-page article.
“Maybe we should take a look at any unsolved rape cases,” she said. “The ones where the victims have choke marks like what Flemming found on Karoline.” She looked over at Jørgensen; she knew it was a shot in the dark.
A moment later, he nodded. “That might be a good idea.” He glanced at her. “When we get back, maybe we can check up on cases about internet dates that led to reports of rape.”
Department A also handled rape cases. Murder, violent crime, and vice. Or as they usually put it: blood, spit, and semen. Many rape accusations came from women who met a man on the internet. Several gruesome cases had shown up in the past few years. The investigations were extremely difficult; it was a different type of rape than what happened on the street. Often during interrogations, it came out that the sex was consensual—to begin with. The trouble occurred when there was disagreement about when it should stop. Maybe that was the kind of guy who had assaulted Karoline. A guy who wanted to do more than just follow her lead.
Louise remembered a woman who had dated a guy, Kim Jensen, for a month. They’d met on the internet and went out five times before she invited him home. She lived in Rødovre; he came from Hørsholm. In Louise’s mind’s eye she saw the thin woman, late twenties, a single mother with a young daughter. She’d been so badly abused that the doctors at the National Hospital’s Center for Victims of Sexual Assault were deeply shaken when they called the police. When they went to pick the guy up, it turned out that Kim Jensen had disappeared into thin air. His online profile had been deleted. The phone number he’d given her no longer existed, and most likely his name wasn’t Kim Jensen. In addition to the violent assault, the woman was filled with shame about having been with a man she hadn’t really known. The humiliation was almost as bad as the pain.
Louise shook the memory off. She was glad that Jørgensen was going along with her suggestion, even though it probably wouldn’t help. One point for him.
“How’s it going?” Terkel Høyer stood in the doorway.
Camilla smiled. “Fine. I’m sending it to you now.”
“What about the photos?”
“Christian surely must be about done. He’s over on the computer working on them. I’ve seen the portraits he took; they look good.”
“Send me the article; I’ll read it while he’s finishing.”
He ducked out again, and Camilla read what she had written one last time before sending it. Sometimes the words just flowed out, and later she’d be surprised they came from her. Usually it was some of her best writing. The passages difficult to write were often a bit awkward.
She glanced out the window. Earlier, the rain that began the day before had intensified; it had looked as if it could last all day, but now it was clearing up. The King’s Garden was dreary and showed no signs of spring. She decided to run up to the cafeteria. She’d skipped lunch, but she had time to catch a bite before writing the captions.
“Looks great,” Høyer said when she returned. “Sounds exactly right. You’re a star; you sketch them perfectly. She’s a dear woman, isn’t she?”
Camilla nodded. “Very. It’s like I’ve known her forever.”
A door slammed outside, and footsteps marched down the hall. The photo editor burst into the room in a rage. “What the hell is this? We can’t get a goddamn photo of the kid?”
At first Camilla didn’t know what he was talking about.
“You have no goddamn right to interfere with the photographer.” Høyer and Camilla were both astonished; the man looked like he wanted to strangle her.
Camilla was numb. “What are you talking about?”
“What’s going on?” Høyer said.
Holck had been the photo editor of the paper longer than anyone could remember. He was brilliant at his job, but his temper was legendary. And it exploded when someone barged in on his territory. “Little Miss Lind here went along with not getting a photo of the widow and the kid together. Unbelievable. But we’re printing that shot. Thank God for archives; it’ll be an old photo, but we’ll just have to live with that.”
Camilla gasped. “No, you won’t,” she yelled. She flew up out of her office chair, which smacked against the wall. “Helle said no to a photo of the boy, and I promised her we wouldn’t use one.”
Holck sneered at her. “When the hell did you become managing editor? You’re not authorized to promise shit. Your job is to scribble some words down, and we’d all appreciate it if you kept to that and let the rest of us do our jobs.”
Saliva shot out of his mouth as he turned and marched back to his office.
“Explain,” said the managing editor.
“Helle asked us to keep Liam out of the article. That’s why he wasn’t home when I came. And she doesn’t want us to use another photo of him. We have to respect that, damn it.”
Høyer eyed her for a long moment. “Stories are always better when you can see who they’re about. You know that. Can’t you explain that to her?”
Tears came to Camilla’s eyes. What were they doing? Here she’d handed them a top-notch interview, and now it sounded as if it wasn’t worth shit without a photo of the mother and son. For a moment, she thought about letting herself explode, but she backed off. “What can I say. I don’t know what it is you want. She’s completely against us using that photo.”
“Did you pressure her?”
She couldn’t believe this. He wouldn’t have had the heart to do it, either. He knew her much better than Camilla, who after all had only met Helle once. “She said no.”
After a few moments, she said, “Terkel. Helle is absolutely devastated. She totally doesn’t want her son involved, or to see a front-page photo of him torn up about his father. She only agreed to the interview because she felt it was what Frank would want.”
“And that’s why it shouldn’t be so hard to explain we need a photo of her and her son together.”
“How can you say that? We can’t twist her arm about this.”
“We’re going to have to figure out something.” He walked out of the office.
This couldn’t be happening! What about the plain old good, solid story? What the hell were they thinking? She’d done what no one else had been able to do; none of the other papers had even gotten a foot in the door, and now it wasn’t good enough because the goddamn photographers thought they needed a photo of someone sobbing. The story was the important thing.
Suddenly, Høyer appeared in the doorway. “We’re checking the archives. I’m pretty sure we have a photo of Helle and Frank and Liam together. They were at some reception last year we covered, with a lot of celebrities, remember?”
She didn’t.
“Otherwise you’re going back to Helle to convince her,” he continued.
She thought about that for a moment. “I won’t do it.” She stared straight ahead.
He stared at her. “Yes, you will. It’s your job!”
While she collected herself, Holck appeared around the corner and stood in the doorway. Without so much as a glance at Camilla, he told Høyer all they had was a photo of Frank standing with baby Liam in his arms. “We need a newer photo.”
Høyer agreed. “Check stock photos, otherwise we’ll have to do it.”
“I’ll send Christian out to find Helle’s parents. You know where they live?”
“I think they live in Viby or Borup, but we can find that out.”
Camilla stood up and confronted them. “You can forget about that.” She turned to her boss. “I want to talk to you in private.”
She walked over and slammed the door on Holck, who barely managed to step back and not get hit. “You’re not doing this. I’m pulling my interview if you don’t believe it’s good enough without that photo.”
“Camilla, don’t make a scene about this. It doesn’t reflect well on you.” He sounded cold.
“You can’t treat Helle this way. We have to keep our word.”
“I didn’t promise her anything, and my word goes here at this paper. Whatever deals you’ve made, that’s your problem. You know how things work here. If we can get that photo, we will. We don’t give up until we’ve tried everything. That’s how you usually do it.”
Camilla had to swallow that. She’d hunted down lots of school photos of kids when the parents or family wouldn’t give her one. Danish School Photo worked all over the country, and often they could come up with a photo when classmates or friends wouldn’t part with one.
“I promised. She trusted me, and that’s why the interview is so good. She’d never have talked to me if I hadn’t promised to not push her on that photo.”
“I care a lot about Helle and Liam,” Høyer said. “But that doesn’t stop me from doing my job. Let’s see if we can find one, otherwise you’ll have to go back to her.”
“I won’t do that. And just try to print my interview if you use a file photo.”
“Oh, come on, Camilla.”
She was close to tears, so she stood up, grabbed her bag, and stalked out the door. Out in the hallway she ran into Holck; she nearly punched him in the gut, but she held back at the last second.
When she reached the street, she decided to find a café and drink a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream. She started down St. Regnesgade and noticed Søren Holm coming her way. She panicked and looked around for a place to hide; she didn’t want to talk to a colleague right now. But he was lost in thought, plus he looked like hell. It occurred to her he might need a warm cup of something, too.
He was startled when she grabbed his arm and said, “Hi, how’s it going?”
“I’m burned out, haven’t been home since yesterday. You headed back to the paper?”
She shook her head and explained that she was going somewhere for a cup of hot chocolate because she was royally pissed off.
He thought about that. “I’ll go with you.”
They sat in a corner, and even before their hot chocolate arrived, Camilla had told him about the photo situation.
He laid his hand over hers. “It’s a real shitty situation, but there’s not much you can do. The photo editor has the say on photos, and that’s that.”
She didn’t feel like talking about it, but she leaned forward when the waiter came and handed her the cup. The small bowl of whipped cream raised her spirits. Strangely enough, extra calories often cured her bad moods. “So tell me, how are you? I see from the paper you’ve been busy.”
“Yeah, we’re trying to cover every angle. Everything they said about Frank at the press briefing has to be followed up. I don’t know what the hell’s going on. I’ve been out all night, trying to find somebody who knows something, but I didn’t have much luck. I think it’s a hit. No one saw anything, no one heard anything, and that’s a little strange.”
Camilla nodded. She didn’t know much about that crowd.
“The drug case is coming up day after tomorrow. Frank worked on it a long time, and I got this feeling he dug something up that isn’t supposed to come out during the trial. I don’t know that, though. Just a guess. I’m meeting one of my sources this evening. Maybe he’ll have something for me.”
“You need to get something written for tomorrow?”
He shook his head. “They’re going with your interview. I’m off the hook until the end of the week. But the police might have something new, so we need to keep in touch with them.”
Camilla let that hang in the air. She had a really good idea of who would be in charge of doing that.