Signe Jensen had never met Karoline’s boyfriend and knew none of her girlfriends, but she had only good things to say about Karoline. She cried throughout the interview.
They sat in a small meeting room for personnel. On the table stood a thermos, a stack of the hospital’s small white coffee cups, a sugar bowl, and a creamer.
Every time she asked a new question, Louise said, “I’m sorry, but I have to ask you…” Finally, she realized how annoying that sounded, but focusing on the interview was hard, because the girl was sobbing so intensely. Louise was only trying to soften the blow of Karoline’s murder.
Louise stared at the large whiteboard hanging at the back of the room. Two patient names were written under each room number, with the days of the week in a column on the left side. Marie Larsen had physical therapy on Wednesdays and Fridays. Louise’s thoughts wandered as she read the many names and schedules. Signe was still crying. Louise took a deep breath and was about to try again when Jørgensen spoke up.
“Okay, listen. We’ll be finished here in just a bit. You’d be doing us a big favor if you could pull yourself together and be an adult for the next five minutes.”
The girl straightened up and looked in surprise at Jørgensen. As if she’d only now noticed him. “Of course, I’m sorry.” She waited for him to continue.
A hint of irritation rose up in Louise, but she put it aside. She smiled at Lars before finishing up the interview, which didn’t give them anything new.
“Sometimes a few sharp words from an outsider helps,” Jørgensen said after the nurse left the room.
Louise nodded. “Maybe I should have raised my voice.”
“Not at all, then she’d have clammed up on you. You’re great at getting people to talk.”
Louise looked at him, a bit disoriented now. “She didn’t talk, she cried.”
“In the last half hour, she told you everything worth knowing about her feelings…yeah, about her entire life.”
Louise smiled. “You’re right. But I was trying to get her to tell us something about Karoline’s life and feelings.”
“If she’d known something about Karoline, she would’ve told you. Now you can say in good conscience that Signe Jensen doesn’t know anything useful to us.”
“Thanks. I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Louise had expected Jesper Mørk, the murdered nurse’s male colleague, to be the same age as the rest of their nursing school class. But when he entered the office in his white coat, she guessed him to be around thirty.
“Thirty-two,” he said when she asked.
His voice was a bit hoarse, and his dull brown hair had been tucked behind his ears.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Louise pointed at the cups on the table and pushed the thermos over to him.
Nine years is a big difference at that age, she thought. Karoline had been eighteen when she was with Mørk, so he must have been twenty-seven. She hadn’t imagined this ex-boyfriend could have a wife and children.
“When did you and Karoline become a couple?”
Louise checked his eyes for any lingering feelings, but all she saw was a vague mournfulness. No pain, no emotional reaction.
“We were together less than a year. It started right before she turned eighteen.”
Louise wrote in her notebook as he spoke. “How did it begin…I mean, there’s quite a gap in your ages?”
His laugh was brief and dry. “Yeah, nine years is a lot, especially for girls that age. When you’re on the other side of thirty, no one thinks about a man being nine years older than his wife.”
“Exactly.” She resigned herself to him not volunteering much. Anything would have to be dragged out of him. She leaned back in her chair. “So tell me about it.”
“She fell in love, that’s about it. We were in the same group at nursing school. I trained to be a metalworker, but after my apprenticeship I knew it wasn’t for me, so I moved on.”
“Big change in professions,” Louise said, hoping he would stick with her.
“Personal development, is how I’d put it.”
Louise nodded. She noticed he had trouble concentrating. She leaned toward him and immediately was annoyed at herself; some interviews felt wrong from the very start and were hard to get on track. She spoke sharply. “Would you please tell me how you got together?”
He squirmed in his chair. “She hit on me. I had a girlfriend I was living with.”
He paused, inspected his hands. “I guess I was flattered about being seduced.” He looked up at her in defiance.
“You didn’t fall in love with her?”
“Yeah, but not until later. At first, I was in love with the affair, the game, the flirting.”
“With screwing someone on the side?” The words flew out of Louise’s mouth; she didn’t mean to give him a hard time, but a crude remark would hopefully shake him out of this conceited romantic crap he was feeding her.
Sometimes you just have to yell pussy at people to get a reaction. Camilla had taught her that once, and there was some truth to it.
“Okay, yeah, maybe.”
“So explain to me. Were you having an affair while you were still living with your girlfriend, or did you drop your girlfriend and start up with Karoline?”
He thought about that for a while. “A little time went by before we became a couple.” He reached for his cup and took a sip of coffee.
That didn’t fit with Louise’s picture of Karoline. A girl from a nice family with a white console table and tasteful furnishings wasn’t the type to lose her head and go after someone already taken. But apparently, she’d been wrong. “So, you had an affair, and it ended up with you two together, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“The relationship lasted…” She looked at her notebook.
He helped her out. “Eleven and a half months.”
“Okay.” She had that written down already, but she made a note that he knew exactly how long they’d been together. “How did it end?”
He slumped and stared at his hands again. Finally, he said, “She met someone else.”
Louise sighed heavily. Luckily, Jørgensen wasn’t sitting there watching all this, though he’d have gotten a lot out of it, and he surely wouldn’t have been complimenting her on how well she was doing.
“You must be talking about Martin Dahl,” she said, looking away.
“I don’t remember his name.”
She straightened up and stared at him in surprise. “Are you saying she had a boyfriend after you and before she met the man she moved in with?”
He shrugged.
Louise leaned forward. “Why do you have a problem talking about this?”
“I don’t have a problem with it. There’s just nothing more to tell.”
“Did you kill Karoline Wissinge?”
The question knifed through the air between them. And the reaction came just as she suspected it would—immediately.
“Oh, for God’s sake—no, of course I didn’t.”
He looked like an overgrown puppy and talked like Louise’s aunt and her friends searching for things to fuel their outrage. The same aggrieved tone.
“We’ll get back to that later. Right now, I want to hear exactly how this relationship that lasted eleven and a half months started and ended. Would you be so kind as to tell me? I’m all ears.”
He looked pale now, she was happy to see.
“The girl I was living with saw us together at a café, so there was no reason to deny it when she accused me. I was going to tell her, but just hadn’t got around to it.”
Louise jotted everything down without looking at him.
“We were planning on living together…”
“Go on.”
“Suddenly I just wasn’t interesting anymore. She terminated me. Dumped me.”
Louise cut him off before he really got going. “That was when she met the other guy?”
He nodded slowly, several times.
“Thanks.” Louise stood up. “We might need to speak with you again, but right now this is all we’ll need from you.”
He stared at the table while she spoke. She began packing up, and he came to life again. He stood expectantly, as if he wasn’t aware they were finished.
Louise walked by him and opened the door. “Bye,” she said, without shaking his hand. She looked around for the head nurse, Anna Wallentin, who was nowhere in sight. She started down the hall to the large bank of elevators.
Lars Jørgensen was standing by the car when she came out.
“Strange guy,” she said as she approached him.
“How’s that?”
“I don’t know if there was something he didn’t want to tell me, but I had to wrestle every word out of him.”
“Was he lying?”
“Mmm, I don’t think so. He kept going on about how they became a couple, but it really was all about him having another girlfriend when they met, and then Karoline dumped him, she met someone else, who almost has to be Martin Dahl.”
“But were they still friends?” They stopped at a red light, and Jørgensen eyed her.
“Yeah, the four girls and Mørk usually ate lunch together. I think Karoline kept to her friends from nursing school. She hadn’t been at the hospital that long, though. I guess it makes sense.”
“Maybe he still had the hots for her?”
“It didn’t seem like that to me. He’s probably just a little strange.”
The office was cold when they got back. The window stood open, and Louise smelled cigarette smoke. Someone had used the room for an interview while they were gone, she guessed. She left the window open and packed her things. She had to take the bus because Peter had driven her in that morning. It annoyed her now; it would have been nice to bike home.
She walked up to Central Station and waited for bus 15. Suddenly she regretted saying she’d come home for dinner. They wouldn’t have much time; Peter played badminton at seven. She could call and hear how far along he was with dinner. Maybe they should meet somewhere to eat.
The phone rang; she was so startled that she almost dropped it.
“It’s me, sorry to bother you again,” Camilla said. She sounded nothing like the euphoric woman from earlier that day.
“It’s okay. What’s wrong?”
“I think I’m going to have to quit.”
“What do you mean? What happened?”
Louise saw the bus coming, but she stepped back. She had to hear this.
“They’re crazy here. I won’t be a part of it.”
Camilla summed up what had happened, why she was prepared to put her job on the line. “It’s a matter of credibility.”
Louise had to agree with her. But was it necessary to resign? That sounded extreme.
“There’s only so much I’ll take. I don’t understand Terkel; he’s sick in the head.”
“Calm down. Getting yourself all worked up won’t help.”
Dumb thing to say, Louise thought. But she couldn’t take it back.
“There’s absolutely every reason to get worked up,” Camilla snapped.
And in a way, she was right. Louise would hate to be in her shoes. In her experience, though, it was smartest to keep a cool head, otherwise people might call you hysterical. Your words carried less weight when you screamed them out. She’d tried to explain that to Camilla many times.
After a moment, she said, “Are you really prepared to quit if they print the photo?”
“That’s what I’m not sure about.” Camilla seemed to mull that over a moment. “Like hell I’m not! I’m sure. I can always freelance.”
“Okay then, it’s settled. If you really feel that way, it’ll be easier to stand up for what you believe is right.”
The bus approached. Camilla’s conviction was back, it sounded like. Louise crossed her fingers for a happy ending.
Camilla took a deep breath and walked back down the hall. She might as well get it over with. Høyer’s door was closed. She knocked on the door resolutely and walked in.
“What have you decided?” she said, before he could open his mouth.
He looked at her in annoyance.
“Did you find a photo?”
“Yes, we have one, so you don’t need to go back to Helle.”
She sat down across from him. “Do you really think you could have made me do that?”
He eyed her for a moment. “No, I wasn’t counting on it. But you really need to get rid of these hang-ups of yours.”
“I don’t have any goddamn hang-ups, I just treat people decently. Funny, but I thought you did the same.”
She reminded herself to sound calm; her voice had jumped an octave at the end. She breathed deeply into her diaphragm, checked her watch, and said, “The time is five fifty-eight p.m. I resign.”
He glared at her. “I won’t let you.” He straightened up in his chair. “I’m a little busy right now, can we do this later? You have a message to call Detective Superintendent Willumsen at Homicide.”
He waved her over to the door and turned back to his computer screen.
“I mean it,” she said. But all he did was point to the door.
What the hell was going on? She went back to her office and read the message. Let him call that old grouch Willumsen. He was the last thing she needed right now.
Before she could sit down, her phone rang. “Camilla Lind.”
“Is this the star reporter from Morgenavisen?” a deep voice said.
She frowned.
“Willumsen here.” Now she was totally confused. The detective wasn’t in the habit of calling her.
“Hello, Willumsen. I just saw the message to call you.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t; that’s why I’m calling you.”
Camilla was bewildered.
“We’re reconstructing the movements of Frank Sørensen on Saturday night, and I thought you might help us by asking your readers if anyone saw him, if I tell you where we think he was.”
“I think Søren Holm is covering the story,” she said, without sounding too discouraging. There was no reason to go into this, now that she had resigned.
He ignored her. “Your boss just said you’re the one. Got something to write with?”
She sighed and found a notepad in the pile on her desk, then she searched her drawer for a pen. “Okay.”
“We know he was here at Police Headquarters late Saturday evening, and we assume he biked to the Royal Hotel. But we don’t know if he stopped anywhere on the way.”
Camilla was puzzled. “What was he doing there so late Saturday?”
“I’ll get to that. The hotel employees didn’t see him, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. We’d love to talk to anyone who recognizes Frank Sørensen from a photo, who saw him biking between Police Headquarters and the hotel around ten Saturday night.”
Camilla wrote that down.
“Did you get that? To begin with, it would be a great help to get this going.”
“What was he doing at Police Headquarters?” she asked again.
Pause. “He spoke with Birte Jensen. That’s between you and me. But give her a call and talk to her.”
“Who’s Birte Jensen?” Camilla felt like a greenhorn.
“Birte is the head of Narcotics and Licensing; she’s running the investigation Sørensen was covering. The drug case.”
“Okay. But will she talk to me?” Camilla hoped she didn’t sound too surprised. You could hardly pry a word out of the heads of Department A and NL, that much she knew.
“She said she’ll contact you. She’ll decide what to tell you. It’s no secret there’s probably a connection between the drug case and Frank Sørensen’s death. But call her. She’s okay.” He hung up.
Camilla was still holding the phone when Høyer knocked and came in. “Are you resigning, right now?” he asked, with a straight face.
“No, I am not resigning right now,” she snapped. She thought about what Willumsen had told her.
Høyer was sitting across from her now, and she turned to him. “Yes, I am. I’m not going to stand for this. It can’t be right that a story isn’t good enough just because you don’t squeeze every last drop out of someone. This is her life we’re talking about, their lives.”
“We’re dropping the photo. I’ve spoken with Holck. He’s not happy at all; the only reason he went along with it is because the photos we have aren’t good.”
Camilla sighed. That was a weak argument, bad photos. What about doing the right thing? Where was that in all this? “So, what will you do?”
“We’ll use the photos Christian took; they’re good.”
“What did Holck say?”
“You’re a bitch who should get a warning because you’re a conniving little weasel.” He winked at her.
She grimaced. “Very funny.”
“It might be a good idea for you two to sit down and have a chat.”
“Dream on. Or else he’ll have to come to me. He’s not the one out there in the real world. It’s easy for him, sitting on his fat ass, ordering people around in here. He doesn’t have to deal with everything.” Camilla was just warming up.
“He’s been there, been out there, but you’re right. It all looks easier from inside here.”
She suspected the mother-and-son photo had been dropped only because it had reached the point where Høyer himself would have to twist Helle’s arm. Then suddenly it wasn’t so important after all. She snorted.
“Did you get anything out of Willumsen?”
“He wants us to print what Frank was doing late Saturday evening. They’re hoping someone saw him.”
She still felt she’d been pushed around, and she decided not to mention that Willumsen had encouraged her to speak with the person leading the drug investigation. There was no reason to get anyone excited; it might be nothing more than an off-the-record chat. And given what had just happened, Høyer might say to hell with it and pressure her to write about something she’d promised to hold back. No way she’d do that. She’d talk to Birte Jensen first and then decide what to give him.
And was it okay for her not to tell Holm about this? After all, it was his beat. She decided that could also wait until she knew what came out of the conversation. “How big an article are we talking about?”
Suddenly she was tired. Christina was home with Markus; they were going to make crepes. The young girl had been a helper at Markus’s day care center his first year there, until she started at the university.
Back then Camilla hadn’t realized how lucky she was to nab Christina, but in the past two years she’d almost become part of the family. Or at least a lifeline, as Camilla put it. At first Christina had discreetly asked if it was okay to take Markus to the Naval Museum to see the submarine, or to the fire station. Camilla had been absolutely thrilled. She’d never taken her son to the Naval Museum—in fact, she hadn’t even known it existed.
“Write a half screen.”
“Have you heard from Søren?” she asked.
“He’s resting in his office. He’s meeting a few people later. The type you can only find when the rest of us are asleep, it seems. I’m counting on him to find something we can work with. But you’re the one in charge of the entertainment in tomorrow’s paper.” He smiled at her.
She raised her eyebrows. Entertainment! But really, when it came down to it, that’s how people looked at it. She flipped the page on her notepad and settled into her chair. She might as well get started. They’d need some computer graphics to show the route Frank had taken, but Layout on the fourth floor would take care of that.
Louise stuffed the last bite in her mouth. Peter was in the bedroom, pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweater. He never wore a suit when he was off work, and that was fine with Louise. They had stopped hauling clothes back and forth between their apartments long ago. He had three shelves in the large wardrobe, and his shirts hung at one end.
“I’m riding with Henning; we have the court between seven and eight,” he yelled to her.
“I’m going to take a walk in Østre Anlæg while you’re gone.”
“Is there anything more to look for? Didn’t the forensics people check everything?”
“I just want to have a look around.” Louise didn’t feel like explaining that sometimes she could think things out better at the crime scene, after all the hectic activity was over.
“You’re off work, hon. No one is forcing you to go out there. Why don’t you just stay home and relax until I get back?”
Louise sighed. He’ll never learn! “No one’s forcing me. I might come up with something useful there, that’s all. Sometimes things make better sense when you’re right there.”
“And you’re the only one who can do that?”
She didn’t answer that. They’d gone there so many times.
“See you when you get back,” she said.
“I have to stop by the apartment and pick up some papers to go through for tomorrow. If you take the car, you could pick me up on the way back.” He lifted his keys out of his coat pocket.
“Okay, I’ll call you at eight thirty and see if you’re ready.”
She went out in the hall with him and kissed him goodbye. Stood in the doorway, watched him walk down the stairs. Smiled at him.
She wondered if life would be more boring when they finally decided to move in together. Or if it might be more exciting. But something was holding her back. Occasionally, she wondered if it was the expectations and pressures in their lives that kept her from starting a real family.
That’s silly, she thought. She went back inside for her coat.
* * *
She parked the car in front of Krebs School. She’d brought along an umbrella, just in case. It had stopped raining, but the sky still looked threatening.
She walked to the gate and down the park’s gravel path. From a distance, in the twilight, she could just make out the bushes where Karoline had been hidden. Thick bushes under the trees, all leafless, forming a small cave-like space where she’d lain. The red and white police barrier tape stood out sharply against the naked branches. She felt a tiny stab in her chest when she saw the flames flickering—tea lights protected from the rain by small lanterns had been set out.
She stopped and studied the scene. Breathed in deeply, concentrated on etching the surroundings and all the details in her brain. The curve of the path, tall trees, low bushes. The bench where Karoline might have been sitting before she was strangled.
Louise stood on the path and closed her eyes while trying to empty her head of thoughts. The young woman had lost her life here. Something had startled her, and she opened her eyes wide—was someone watching her? Louise had no psychic abilities and no intention of gaining a reputation for having them. She was just trying to sense a mood.
For the hundredth time she wondered if the same person came several times a day and changed the candles, or was it several people, independent of each other, making sure the small flames were burning?
Many people had left behind plastic-covered photos of Karoline. Old schoolmates and friends, she guessed. Several rows of flowers had been dropped off. Letters also covered in plastic lay beside some of the bouquets.
Remembered. Missed. Loved. The same words had been written, over and over. Louise’s throat tightened, but she focused on keeping her emotions in check.
She noticed a white card.
Thy will be done had been written with a felt tip, the block letters blurry. It stood out from the other messages.
It couldn’t have been there very long, otherwise the letters would have been blurred completely out.
She kneeled to see if the card was attached to a bouquet; it wasn’t. She reached in her pocket for a pair of thin plastic gloves, the type used at crime scenes, but of course she didn’t have any now that she needed them.
Carefully she picked up the card by its corner, naïvely hoping something on the other side would reveal where it came from. It was blank.
She fished her book-style planner out of her bag and laid the card between two pages. Then she grabbed her phone and called the National Center of Forensic Services on Slotsherrensvej. There was no reason to wait until tomorrow; she could just as well drive out there with it.
“This is Louise Rick from Department A. Is Niels Frandsen or someone working on the Karoline Wissinge murder there?”
Usually the head of Forensic Services was working during the most intense period of an investigation. The techs were undoubtedly busy with evidence from the park and the hotel where Frank Sørensen had been killed.
“Hi, Rick, you’re working late, too?”
Louise liked his warm baritone voice. She visualized Frandsen, a man in his late fifties, with an ever-present pipe hanging from the corner of his mouth. It was seldom lit, but that didn’t seem to bother him. The first time she met him, she thought he was the easygoing type, very easygoing. Like someone who would rather be home with the wife and grandchildren, drinking coffee while he packed his pipe. But she’d quickly realized he had another side. He was sharp as a knife and worked like a horse, and he was more patient and thorough than anyone she’d met.
“Hi, I figured you’d be around.”
She glanced at her watch: eight fifteen. She would have to pick Peter up soon. “I’m in Østre Anlæg, and there’s an interesting card someone laid where Karoline Wissinge was found. I’m coming by with it.”
“All right then. It must be really interesting to get you to come all the way out here.”
“Probably it’s just some idiot with a bizarre sense of humor, but it’s different from the others.”
She read the short message to him, and they agreed it should be checked for fingerprints, plus the writing should be looked at, too.
She called Peter and explained she was going to be delayed, that she was driving out to Forensics but would pick him up on the way back.
He didn’t have much to say. He sounded annoyed that she was still working. The mood of the conversation turned gloomy. She suggested that she drive home and pick up some clothes after delivering the card, and then she’d come over to his apartment.
He broke her off. “It would be way too late.” Either he would go to bed early or watch a good film. She gave up. When he was in this mood, there was nothing she could do.
“Okay. What about your car?”
They decided she could keep it; he had a meeting in town the next day and wouldn’t need it.
“Okay then, have a good night’s sleep. Are we still meeting up with Camilla and Markus tomorrow?”
“Of course, yes.”
She couldn’t read the tone in his voice.
“You use milk?” Frandsen yelled from the reception area, on his way with their coffee.
“Please, if you have any.”
The hallway was quiet, but Louise knew people were working behind many of the closed doors. She’d parked behind the gray building and had walked past four of the forensic technicians’ blue vans, which were ready to pull out past the low, red buildings housing the small special departments.
So much went on here. Clothes were inspected for blood and semen before being sent to the Department of Forensic Medicine, where the Forensic Genetics department did DNA profiling; the IFIS database with 250,000 fingerprints was searched for matches; castings of footprints were compared; and all the small fibers and hair picked up at crime scenes were studied meticulously. She was fascinated by the evidence Forensics examined, so much so that once she’d even thought about applying to become part of the technician team.
They sat down at the rectangular conference table. “All right, let’s take a look at what you have.”
Louise brought out her planner and dumped the card on the table. It landed back side up. Frandsen grabbed a pair of tweezers, standard equipment for the department. After turning the card over, he studied the short sentence.
“An idiot, was that what you said?”
She nodded.
“Surely you don’t place a card at the crime scene if you killed the girl?” He frowned. “It would be idiotic, yes, to draw attention to yourself.”
“You never know. You’d never believe killers would be stupid enough to leave semen behind in a female victim!”
“No, you’re right, of course you are. But surely he wouldn’t voluntarily leave evidence.” He shook his head. “I just can’t see that.”
Louise rubbed her forehead. Her thoughts were sluggish as her exhaustion began taking over.
“It’ll be interesting anyway to see if there are fingerprints on the card,” Frandsen said. He lifted it up with the tweezers and held it to the light.
“Did you find any fingerprints on her?” Louise hadn’t seen any of the lab results yet.
He shook his head.
“I’m hoping you find something,” she said. “But this might turn out to be completely innocent. Someone might have thought this was a good time and place to profess their faith.” She stood up and put on her coat. “We’ll see, anyway.”
He followed her down and gave her a fatherly pat on the shoulder when she thanked him for the coffee. They agreed to talk the next day.
It was close to ten thirty when Louise headed for Frederiksberg. She was fine with Peter not being there. She’d have a glass of the red wine left over from dinner, then go to bed.