‘No.’
‘Okay. Never mind.’
The doctor shoots an expressive glance at Thulin, who shrugs as though to excuse Hess’s lack of manners. Hess moves swiftly on.
‘How were they treated?’
Majid puts his hand on the children’s case files without making any move to consult them.
‘Magnus Kjær came here in connection with a longer course of treatment that started approximately one year ago. The Paediatric Department and the associated team function as a sluice, directing patients to the relevant departments, so he was observed and diagnosed with autism by our specialists in Neurology. Sofia Sejer-Lassen, on the other hand, was simply hospitalized with a minor bone break after an accident at home some months ago. She was quickly discharged. A relatively uncomplicated case, although she did need some rehab afterwards, which was carried out mainly at our department of physiotherapy.’
‘So both children were on the paediatric ward,’ Hess persists. ‘Do you know whether they met? Or whether the parents did?’
‘Obviously I can’t be sure, but it’s unlikely they interacted, given their different diagnoses.’
‘Who brought them in?’
‘As I recall, in both cases it was mainly the mothers, but if you want to know for sure you’d better ask them directly.’
‘But I’m asking you.’
‘Yes, and I’ve just answered the question.’
Majid gives a pleasant smile. Hess judges he is of above average intelligence, and wonders whether the man knows perfectly well that Hess can’t ask the mothers.
‘But it was you who had contact with the mothers while they were here?’
It is Thulin who asks this innocent question, and the consultant seems pleased to be addressing himself to her instead.
‘I have contact with many parents, but yes, them included. It’s an important part of the job to make mothers – or fathers – feel like they’re in safe hands. It can be crucial, building up trust and confidence during treatment. It benefits all concerned. Especially the patient.’
The doctor smiles at Thulin and gives a jaunty wink, as though he’s selling her a romantic holiday for two to the Maldives. Thulin smiles back.
‘So it wouldn’t be incorrect to say that you knew the mothers very well.’
‘Very well?’ Majid looks a little baffled, but he is still smiling at Thulin. The words take Hess by surprise too, but Thulin has only just got started.
‘Yes. Did you see them in private? Did you fall in love with them, or did you just go to bed with them?’
Majid keeps smiling, but hesitates. ‘Sorry, come again?’
‘You heard me. Answer the question.’
‘Why are you asking that? What’s this about?’
‘Right now it’s just a question, and it’s important you tell us the truth.’
‘I can do that very quickly. We’re operating about ten per cent above capacity on this ward. That means I have precious few minutes available for each child on my rounds. So I spend that time not on mothers, nor on fathers, nor on police officers, but on the children.’
‘But you just said it was important to have a close relationship with the mothers.’
‘No, that wasn’t what I said, and I don’t appreciate what your questions are implying.’
‘I’m not implying anything. Implying is what you just did when you winked at me and talked about confidence, but my question, without any implications, is whether you went to bed with them.’
Majid smiles incredulously and shakes his head.
‘Then tell us your impression of the mothers.’
‘They were worried about their children, as parents usually are when they come here. But if this is the sort of question you have for me, I have other things to do with my time.’
Hussein Majid makes to stand up, but Hess, who has enjoyed the scuffle, slides a coffee-stained newspaper across to the consultant.
‘You’re not leaving. We’re here for reasons of which you may already be aware. For the time being you’re the only common factor in our investigation.’
The consultant looks at the press photo from the woods and at the headline, which links the two murders, and he seems a little shaken.
‘But I don’t have anything more to tell. I remember Magnus Kjær’s mother best because his treatment was more drawn-out. They tried various diagnoses down in Neurology, and the mother got very frustrated because it wasn’t helping, then suddenly she just stopped bringing him in. That’s all I know.’
‘She stopped coming because you made a pass at her, or –’
‘I didn’t make a pass at her! She phoned up and said she’d been contacted by the local council about the boy, so she wanted to concentrate on that. I thought she’d be back, but she never was.’
‘But Laura Kjær devoted all her time to her son’s treatment, so she must have had an excellent reason for not wanting to see you any more?’
‘It wasn’t me she didn’t want to see – it had nothing to do with me! Like I told you, it was something about a notification from the council.’
‘What kind of notification?’ Hess’s tone is insistent, but at that moment the young nurse pokes her head through the door and looks at the consultant.
‘Sorry to disturb you, but we need an answer for Room Nine – they’re waiting for the patient in the operating theatre.’
‘I’m coming. We’re done here.’
‘I asked you what kind of notification?’
Hussein Majid has risen to his feet and is hastily gathering his things from the table. ‘I don’t know anything. I only heard it from the mother – apparently somebody contacted the council and accused her of not taking proper care of the boy.’
‘What do you mean? Accused her of what?’
‘No idea. She sounded shocked, and a caseworker phoned us a while later to get a statement about the boy, which we gave them. About his treatment, I mean, and how we’d tried to solve his problem. Goodbye now, thank you so much.’
‘And you’re sure you didn’t drop in, try to comfort her a little?’ Thulin tries again as she rises from the chair and blocks his path.
‘Yes, I’m sure! Now excuse me, please.’
Hess, too, gets to his feet. ‘Did Laura Kjær say who’d reported her?’
‘No. As far as I recall, it was anonymous.’
Hussein Majid edges past Thulin with his case files, and as he disappears around the corner, Hess can hear the children singing once more.
51
Social worker Henning Loeb has just finished a late lunch in the nearly empty basement cafeteria at City Hall when he gets the call. The morning has been a trial. He got caught in the rain as he cycled to work, and by the time he finally reached the bike sheds round the back of the building his clothes and shoes were soaking wet. Despite that, his boss – the departmental head of Children’s and Young Adults’ Services – had asked him to attend an emergency meeting with an Afghan family and their lawyer, who were trying to reverse the local authority’s decision to take their child into care.
Henning Loeb knew the case inside out and had himself recommended the child be removed, but yet again he’d been required to waste an hour and a half sitting and listening to them drivelling and bickering. These days most care orders were issued to immigrant families, and in this case it had been necessary to bring an interpreter to the meeting. Which, of course, had dragged the whole thing out. Frankly the whole meeting had been a waste of time. The case was already settled: the immigrant father had repeatedly been violent towards his thirteen-year-old daughter because she had a Danish boyfriend. In a democratic society, however, even thugs like that had rights; they were allowed to be heard, and as the arguments flew back and forth across the table, Henning – still damp and chilly – had watched life pass by outside the windows of City Hall.
Afterwards, although Henning was still clammy all over with rain, he’d had to knuckle down and focus on his own cases, the clock tickin
g at the back of his mind, since by then he was behind on the day’s work. He was only one interview away from a job at the better-organized and more pleasant-smelling Administration for Technology and the Environment on the second floor, which was supposed to take place that afternoon. If he could catch up on the backlog then he’d have time to prepare, and if the interview went well he’d soon be able to jump ship before it sank under the weight of all the violent, incestuous and/or psychotic passengers hopping aboard from the social fringe. It seemed only fair that he be allowed instead to come up with suggestions for urban renewal and improvements to the municipal parks in an office with a decent view of the red-haired intern, an architecture student who wore miniskirts and a brazen smile all year round, rain or shine. She deserved a real man. Wouldn’t necessarily be Henning who did the honours, of course, but the sight of her and the accompanying fantasies – those nobody could take away from him.
Within seconds, Henning regrets having answered the phone call, because he can’t shake the detective bloke off again. He talks in the way Henning hates most: with authority and in the imperative, and he quickly makes it clear to Henning that he needs the information right now. Not in a minute, and definitely not later that afternoon. So Henning has to drop what’s in his hands and scurry back to the computer in his office.
‘I need everything you’ve got on a case about a boy called Magnus Kjær.’
The detective bloke has the boy’s national ID number, and Henning switches on the computer as he explains that he is responsible for literally hundreds of cases, so obviously he can’t remember them all off-hand, should the investigator be in any doubt.
‘Just tell me what it says.’
Henning skims the case notes on the screen, stalling for a moment. It turns out to be one of his own cases, luckily one that can be swiftly and easily summarized.
‘You’re right, that was one of ours. There was a report – an anonymous email, actually – about the boy’s mother, Laura Kjær, who according to the report was unfit to look after her son. We investigated and found the claim to be groundless, so there’s not really much more I can –’
‘I’d like to hear everything about the case. Right now.’
Henning stifles a sigh. That could take a while, so he picks up the pace and gives the detective bloke the shortest version he possibly can as he skims the file.
‘The report came in via email around three months ago to the department’s whistle-blower scheme, which was set up by the Minister for Social Affairs at local authorities across the country so that people could call in or email anonymously with tips about children who were being abused. So we don’t know who sent this particular one in. Basically it said the boy ought to be removed from his mother’s care asap because she was – and I’m quoting here – “a selfish whore”. End quote. There was also some stuff about her only thinking about spreading her legs while shutting her eyes to the kid’s problems, even though she – and I’m quoting again – “ought to know better”. End quote. According to the email, we’d find proof at the house.’
‘What did you find there?’
‘Nothing. We stuck to protocol and went to a lot of trouble to follow up on the claims about neglect, so we spoke to the introverted boy and the shocked parents – the mother plus a stepfather, I think. But there was nothing suspicious, and sadly that sort of spiteful prank isn’t uncommon.’
‘I’d like to see the email. Can you send me a copy?’
It is the question Henning has been waiting for.
‘I can do. Just as soon as you show me a court order. So, if there’s nothing else –’
‘But there was no information on the sender?’
‘No, that’s what “anonymous” means. As I said –’
‘What makes you call it spiteful?’
‘Well, because we found nothing, and because it’s mainly spiteful pranks that people use the whistle-blower scheme for. Just ask Tax and Customs. It’s the politicians who’ve encouraged it. People tattle on each other over nothing at all, even if there’s no justification. They never stop to think that somebody actually has to sit and spend time and resources investigating the shit they write down and send in. Anyway, as I said, if there’s nothing more –’
‘There is. Now that I’ve got you, I’d like you to check whether you’ve also received a report about two other children.’
The detective bloke gives Henning two more ID numbers, this time for two girls, Lina and Sofia Sejer-Lassen. The family is now resident in Klampenborg, but the man knows they lived in Islands Brygge – under the purview of Copenhagen Council – until recently, and that’s the period he wants to ask about. Irritably, Henning consults his computer again, shooting a glance at his watch. He can still make time to prepare if he just speeds things up a bit. The computer finally responds and as Henning scans the case notes he hears the detective repeat the numbers. He’s about to say he remembers the case, because it too was his, but then he catches sight of something on the screen that he hasn’t noticed before. Quickly scrolling through, he flicks back to the Magnus Kjær case to check his hunch – and to check the wording of the anonymous email. Henning Loeb sees something he doesn’t fully grasp, and that makes him wary.
‘No, sorry. Nothing on them. Not as far as I can see, anyway.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘The system doesn’t recognize the ID numbers. Was there anything else? I’m quite busy.’
Henning Loeb is left with a bad taste in his mouth. To be on the safe side, he sends an email to the IT department explaining that the system has gone down, and that he’s been unable to help the police with a particular request. Not that he thinks it will be relevant, but you never know. Henning is only one interview away from climbing up the ladder, up and away from all this bullshit. Far, far away. All the way up on to the second floor with Technology and Environment – maybe, if he plays his cards right, all the way up inside the redhead.
52
Darkness has settled across the residential neighbourhood in Husum. The street lamps have been lit along the small, child-friendly roads with their speed limits and sleeping policemen, and the garden paths glow in the cosy light of busy kitchens, where families are making dinner and chatting about another dull day on the treadmill. As Thulin steps out of the squad car on Cedervænget, she smells the aroma of frying meatballs drifting out of an extractor fan from one of the Kjær family’s neighbours. Only the white, modernist house with its sheet-metal garage and the number seven on the letter box lies in darkness, looking abandoned and forlorn.
Thulin listens to Nylander’s final grouchy remarks over the phone before running after Hess through the rain to the front door.
‘Do you have the key?’
Hess holds out his hand. They’ve reached the entryway with its distinctive yellow and black barrier tape, which seals the front door and marks the crime scene. Thulin fishes the key out of her jacket pocket.
‘You say the council investigated the case after an anonymous tip about Laura Kjær, but they found no reason to believe the accusations held water?’
‘Correct. Move, you’re standing in the light.’
Hess has taken the key out of her hands and is trying to fit it into the lock under the faint light of a street lamp.
‘Then what are we doing here?’
‘I told you. I just want to see the house.’
‘I’ve seen the house. Several times.’
When Thulin spoke to Nylander moments earlier, he was dissatisfied with the day’s results – or the lack thereof – and didn’t understand why they were headed back to Cedervænget. Nor did Thulin. Hans Henrik Hauge’s alibi for the time of Anne Sejer-Lassen’s murder was a setback, but Thulin accepted it; yet now here she is again, staring at the gloomy house where it all began.
Hess told her about the conversation with the caseworker at City Hall, whom he’d called on his way to the carpark after interviewing the doctor. Sitting in the car outside the Rigshospital
, the rain splashing against the windscreen, she’d heard all about the anonymous email accusing Laura Kjær of being such a bad mother that the boy ought to be taken into care. The council had investigated the case and the report had proved groundless. It had been dismissed as a hoax, and Thulin’s interest ended there. It was surprising that Laura Kjær had apparently only told the doctor at the Rigshospital about the report, but on the other hand it was understandable: Laura Kjær’s son suffered from autism, according to the doctors, and the boy’s behaviour – as described by the school, for instance – could easily have led to the misunderstanding that the mother wasn’t capable of looking after him. Which might easily have induced someone to write to the council. Moreover, of course, Laura Kjær couldn’t have known whether the anonymous tipster was one of her friends, either at school or at work, so all in all it wasn’t so strange she’d kept it quiet. Whichever way you looked at it, Laura Kjær seemed to have done everything a mother could possibly do to help her son, and although Thulin didn’t like Hans Henrik Hauge, she had to admit that he seemed to have been a rock. So what were they supposed to do with the information about the tip-off? The caseworker also denied there being a corresponding report for Anne Sejer-Lassen: hence there was no common factor to investigate.
Still, Hess wanted to visit Laura Kjær’s house, and on the way there Thulin regretted not getting the man taken off the case while she had the chance. She wasn’t blind and deaf to Hess’s prediction that the killer had only just begun, and she had instinctively felt the threat as they stood in the woods beside Anne Sejer-Lassen’s body. But they were too dissimilar in their approaches to investigation. Nor was she keen on the idea of playing informant and telling Nylander if Hess strayed in the wrong direction and began poking his nose into the Hartung case. Not even if it was a condition for getting a recommendation to NC3.
‘We’re looking for a double murderer, and you said yourself there might be more on the way, so why are we wasting time rooting around in a house that’s already been gone over with a fine-tooth comb!’
The Chestnut Man Page 15