Someone knocked on the office door and immediately Charlie was on his feet, growling. Louise jumped; she’d forgotten about the big German shepherd on the folded-up gray dog blanket beside Eik’s chair. She waved and shook her head, warning Rønholt not to come in.
“Can I have a few minutes?” he asked, stepping behind the door.
The dog was still growling, even though Eik grabbed his collar and tried to force him back on his blanket. “Settle down. Down now; it’s okay for them to be here, too,” he said. Louise rolled her eyes and walked out into the hall.
Rønholt put his arm around her shoulder. “It’s nice having you back,” he said. “We’ve missed you. So how are you doing?”
“You’re going to have to explain to him that he can’t bring that dog in here. It’s totally crazy,” she said, niftily avoiding the question, as they walked down to Rønholt’s office. “I’ve tried to tell him, but it goes in one ear and out the other.”
“That’s not going to be so easy,” Rønholt mumbled, staring down at the gray linoleum.
“What do you mean? You’re not going to allow this!”
Rønholt still didn’t look at her. “You have to admit he’s being very decent.”
“The dog?” Louise was incredulous. “You couldn’t even walk into our office! If that dog’s staying, Eik’s going to have to move back to his old office.”
“Not the dog. I’m talking about Eik offering to take care of it while his friend is dealing with his very unfortunate situation.”
Ragner Rønholt closed his office door and gestured to her to drag the chair over to his desk. Louise could see he was finished talking about the dog.
“I’m having second thoughts,” he began, looking a bit apologetic now. “I sent a case from Hvalsø over to you.”
She broke in. “I’ve already talked to Mik.”
“You’re too close to it,” he continued, ignoring her remark. “I was just thinking that coming back to a case would be good for you. You know, right back up on the horse, that sort of thing.”
He was wringing his hands, so hard that Louise thought it must hurt.
“But not in Hvalsø. Of course you shouldn’t be going back down there. Especially if the father of the missing boy is one of the…”
He seemed to search, in vain, for the right words. “You’re too close,” he finally repeated. “I’ve told Olle to take over.”
Louise studied her clenched hands. “You can’t do this,” she said. “I have no problem with working in Hvalsø.”
And she meant that. She hadn’t seen Lars Frandsen in twenty years, and she could hardly imagine what he looked like now. Back then, he had been rangy with thick, light hair, round cheeks, and a broad nose that wiggled when he laughed. A happy boy with a certain status, he was the butcher’s son and lived in a large residential home on Præstegårdsvej, with an indoor pool and access to his parents’ bar in the basement, where there were pinball machines and a billiard table.
Louise knew all of this because he was the guy Klaus hung out with the most back then. They had finished their apprenticeships at the same time, Lars with his father in Hvalsø, Klaus with the butcher over in Tølløse. When they attended butcher school in Roskilde, they took the morning train together, which was how Klaus had become part of Big Thomsen’s gang.
“I just thought it might not be good for you to meet one of them after what happened,” Rønholt added in a nearly fatherly tone. “It’s better that I send one of the others to poke around.”
Louise shook her head. “If anyone’s going to poke around over in Hvalsø, it should be me. It doesn’t bother me one bit to meet the butcher or anyone else there.”
She gave him her stubborn look. “If I was that way, I couldn’t walk around Copenhagen for fear of running into someone from the Eastern European mafia, not to mention the gang members I’ve put behind bars. If I’m scared or have problems confronting people, I should go into private security instead of holding on to this lousy-paying job.”
She paused for a moment, then leaned forward. “I’ll find that boy. Tell Olle the case is mine.”
* * *
She met Olle in the hallway as he walked down from their office, carrying the few case files that Mik had mailed them. “Welcome back!” he said, and spread his arms.
He was about to keep chattering, so she broke in to tell him that Rønholt had changed his mind: She would continue with the case. “But it could very well be that we’ll need your help,” she added, smiling at her tall, balding colleague before walking past him.
Louise was about to open the door to the Rathole when she remembered the dog. “Can I come in?” she called out. She felt like an idiot, standing there waiting for the green light to enter her own office.
A moment later Eik said, “Come on in.”
She hurried inside and sat down at her desk while Eik held the German shepherd’s collar with one hand and pushed three dog biscuits across her desk with the other.
“Try giving him one,” he suggested.
“Come on, Eik! You’re the one who has to deal with this dog. He shouldn’t be here. It’s not right that I can’t work without worrying about a German shepherd biting my ass.”
“Charlie’s not aggressive. He just has to get to know you. Give him a chance.”
Eik went on to say that the photographer who had set up the camera blind in Boserup Forest had called while she was talking to Rønholt. “He’ll call back.”
Reluctantly, Louise grabbed one of the square dog biscuits and held it out. The dog growled from deep in his throat.
“Come on, give it to him!” Eik said. “Or else he’ll think you’re stringing him along!”
“This is bullshit!”
Eik broke out laughing. It flustered her that he looked so great when he laughed; she ignored Charlie’s growling and held out the biscuit, which disappeared in a second. The dog began licking her hand.
“What did I tell you?” Eik said, gesturing for her to give Charlie another one.
The dog rested his big head on her lap. “Here!” She pushed him gently and dropped the biscuit on the floor to get him away, but as soon as he ate it, he was back.
“Oh, look. He loves you,” Eik said. He folded his arms and looked on with obvious contentment as she gave Charlie the last of the goodies. Louise shook her head.
The phone rang. She wiped her dog-slobbered hand on her pants. “That’s perfect,” she answered when the photographer offered to meet them in the forest and show them the camera that had captured the boy. “We can be there in an hour.”
Eik caught her attention. “Is the boy in any of the photos we haven’t seen?”
Louise repeated the question to the photographer, and thanked him when he offered to look through the pictures before meeting them.