If they’re responsible for Klaus’s death, they’re going to pay for it,” Louise said. She took a sip of the bitter, black morning coffee that Eik had set on the desk in front of her. “Even if it was an accident. They should have called for help instead of covering up, like they’ve done so many times. This has to end, now.”
She’d tossed and turned all night. At one point, she had gone out into the kitchen and made a cup of chamomile tea. More than once she had regretted turning down Eik’s offer to sleep at his place in Sydhavnen. He started every day with a morning swim and a shot of Gammel Dansk.
That would’ve helped calm her down, she thought. But she had politely declined and instead brought home takeaway to eat with Jonas. He’d been sitting in his room wearing his big earphones. He’d lost all track of time and forgotten about dinner, and suddenly he was hungry as a bear, so hungry that after eating Chicken Tikka Masala she had warmed up some soup. Then they made popcorn. And then Melvin was at the door with two cartons of Danish strawberries and half a liter of cream he’d bought on the way home from the allotment.
“I just stopped by to pick up the mail and for some clean clothes,” he told them, as an excuse. Before Louise knew it, he was sitting in the living room drinking coffee and a shot of something he’d gone down to pick up.
Soon she realized that their neighbor in the flat below had missed them. Which warmed her heart. While she and Jonas sat on the sofa, with Melvin sitting across from them and Dina resting her head on his feet, some of her pain faded away. Everything seemed a bit more manageable.
Until an hour later. It had all come back the second she turned her bedside light off. Everything René Gamst had said about Klaus’s final night in the house.
Eik broke into her thoughts. “I hope you’re not getting these two cases mixed up.” He set his cup down. “All this about Klaus is Roskilde’s case, if there even is a case. You and I are still looking for a boy who ran away from home.”
She wasn’t sure, but he sounded a bit jealous. Louise studied him for a moment. She was in love. She’d acknowledged it sometime that night. It was his awkward charm, the personality that behind his scrubby leather jacket was mild, full of warmth and empathy. He was both darkness and light. He’d gotten inside her in a way that made her long for him whenever he wasn’t there.
Klaus was no longer the great love of her life. He was missed, and he was a sorrow she’d never moved on from. And now she knew it was all because of a gang of boys who even as adults had never revealed the truth. It angered her, and she had to do something about that anger before it devoured her. She couldn’t care less if she was mixing things up; her gut ached at the thought that these blood brothers were forcing a fifteen-year-old boy to become part of their sick brotherhood.
“The two cases are connected.” She looked over at Eik. “Can’t you see it? They’re all covering each other’s ass, and if we ever hope to break through we have to gather every possible shred of evidence against them. We also need to take a good look at the cases concerning Gudrun and the janitor, now that René is willing to testify against the others.”
Eik still looked dubious.
“Before I came in, I spoke with Klaus’s parents,” she said, ignoring his skepticism. “Nymand is trying to get authorization to dig up his coffin and have Forensics examine him. There was no autopsy back then because of the suicide note, but if he died of the injuries from the fall, there’s a good chance we can prove he was dead before they hung him up. That would support René’s statement and make him more credible.”
That morning, Nymand had told her he’d interrogated René Gamst the evening before.
“They’re preparing warrants, but before they arrest anyone for the murder of Lisa Maria Nielsen, he wants to have compelling evidence against the entire group, so they don’t end up detaining only one of them. He wants to make a case against all of them.”
Louise agreed 100 percent with Nymand. The case resembled the latest instance of honor killing, in which a family picked someone to carry out the deed—a seventeen-year-old son, whom they reasoned would receive a mild sentence. It had sent a message when the entire family received sentences of various lengths for murder and attempted murder. But the case had required massive preparation. Nymand had set into motion similar preparations, and it involved her and Eik.
Her partner shook his head. He didn’t say anything at first, though it wasn’t difficult for Louise to see what he was thinking.
It finally came out. “You don’t know if the cases are connected. You don’t know if they killed the prostitute, or if the boy ran away because of them!”
“No,” Louise admitted. “I don’t know that, but I have a strong suspicion. And if I’m wrong, it’ll be my ass. I’ll deal with that if it happens.”
“Take my advice.” He rested his elbows on his desk. “Be careful. Don’t be unprofessional just because you’re emotionally involved. I made that mistake back when Sofie disappeared. All I got out of it was that no one took my case seriously.”
Louise didn’t like knowing the name of Eik’s former lover. Up until now, she had only been a vague presence in Louise’s mind.
“I was so focused on what happened to her,” he said, “that I ignored the drowning of the two others in the boat. And when people suggested she might have had something to do with their deaths, I had blinders on; I refused to take it seriously. I just knew that she’d drowned at sea with them that night.”
“But strictly speaking, you can’t be sure that she’s not out there somewhere, right?” Louise ignored a call from Camilla.
Eik shook his head. “I never heard from her, even though she knew my phone number and where I lived.”
He was trying to stay calm, Louise noticed, but his eyes weren’t playing along. She cleared her throat and nodded. “I can see what you’re saying. And I’m grateful that you’re spelling it out for me. But this isn’t just about Klaus. You’re also right that we don’t know what’s happened to the boy. But we know that the same men who had a hand in Klaus’s death, who probably have killed a young prostitute, whose methods we now have a good picture of—these men won’t stop at anything to stay out of prison. And I can’t let that happen. Lisa Maria was a single mother to a three-year-old boy. Thomsen paid her to show up in the forest, and a month later we dig her body up in the same forest. If I can’t bring them to justice for that, I might just as well hand in my badge.”
“That’s Roskilde’s case. Not ours. Weren’t they the ones who investigated the death of your old boyfriend?”
“But there was no investigation! Thomsen and his gang got away with making everyone believe it was a suicide.”
“But it’s still within their jurisdiction.”
“Exactly. That’s why Nymand gets to dig him up. It’s Roskilde’s case, from start to finish. But if we’re going to get these men, I have to help them. The only reason René will play along is because I can put the screws to him. Anyway, Nymand doesn’t know anything about these old cases. Why should he? He wasn’t even at Roskilde back then. Everything has to be considered; the old cases have to be opened again. When I’ve gathered all the evidence I can, it all goes over to his desk.”
Eik considered this for a moment. Then he nodded, first thoughtfully, then more decisively. “I’m with you. Of course we can’t let those assholes get away with murdering a single mother. By the way, have we heard anything about the two others they dug up out there?”
Louise shook her head. “Not yet.”
Her phone began blinking again, and she answered. “Camilla, I’ll call you back in just a bit.” She was about to hang up, when she realized that something was very wrong.
“You have to come.” Her friend was crying. “I’ve already called Roskilde Police, but they told me the boy is your case. Someone’s taken him and declared war on us.”