Dead Souls

by Elsebeth Egholm

  ‘Around five yesterday afternoon,’ Mark said.

  Sara Dreyer shook her head sceptically.

  ‘I don’t think she’s been in the water that long. Her skin would have been more like a washerwoman’s.’

  Mark was familiar with the notion. When a body had been submerged in water, the skin would wrinkle and turn white, especially on the palms and soles of the feet.

  ‘So how long would you say?’ Anna asked.

  Sara Dreyer wasn’t someone who liked guesswork.

  ‘I’ll know more after the autopsy.’

  Anna Bagger pulled up the sleeve of her raincoat and looked at her watch.

  ‘It’s almost twenty-four hours since she disappeared. Are you telling me she wasn’t in the water for those twenty-four hours?’

  Sara Dreyer shook her head again.

  ‘I’m sure she wasn’t.’

  ‘Well, for how long, then?’ Mark pressed.

  ‘I can’t tell you with any certainty.’

  ‘How about without any certainty then?’ Anna Bagger said.

  Sara Dreyer sent them a weary look. This was the classic tug-of-war between the police’s need for quick information and the pathologist’s desire to back up every bit of information with science. It was also a conflict between strong personalities and glares. Anna Bagger won. The pathologist suppressed a sigh.

  ‘Then I would estimate twelve hours, max.,’ Dreyer said and snapped her bag shut with a loud click.

  ‘So where the hell has she been in the meantime?’ Mark demanded.

  ‘Now that,’ Dreyer said amicably but firmly, ‘is your problem. Fortunately. But take a look at this.’

  Again, she bent over the body bag which was still unzipped all the way down. It wasn’t a pretty sight. The girl’s face was swollen and her protruding tongue blue. There were clear marks on her throat from some kind of collar.

  Sara Dreyer took Melissa’s left hand and raised her arm. The movement caused the sleeve to fall back and reveal effusions around her wrist in the shape of a wide bracelet.

  ‘It’s the same with the other arm,’ the pathologist said and carefully repeated the procedure to show them the blood, this time on the right arm.

  ‘She was bound or tied,’ Anna Bagger confirmed.

  Sara Dreyer zipped up the body bag and Melissa’s face was gone.

  ‘I’ll start the autopsy at eight o’clock on the dot tomorrow morning, so hopefully we’ll soon know more,’ Sara said.

  The investigators from Aarhus had swarmed in shortly after Melissa’s body had been discovered. They had invaded the convent like an army of ants, it seemed to Mark. Even now, this late in the evening, they were still bombarding nuns and staff and conference participants with millions of questions and he couldn’t help feeling that he had been sidelined.

  The area surrounding the crime scene had been cordoned off with red and white tape. It had started drizzling again, which made it more difficult for the Crime Scene Officers to search for evidence. They walked around in their white coveralls scouring the herb garden and the bank of the moat, aided by powerful lamps supplied by the Emergency Management Agency in Herning, which cast a ghostly glow over the area. Two dog handlers had also been called in. The dogs followed the trail in the grass, just as Peter Boutrup had done earlier. He was good, Mark thought, you had to give him that. Boutrup was an outdoorsman through and through. So far it didn’t appear that the dogs had found anything he hadn’t.

  They watched as the pathologist packed up and followed the ambulance, which slowly drove off with Melissa.

  ‘What do you think, Mark?’

  Anna Bagger’s boyish haircut – a new style, he had noticed – made her look even tougher and more angular than ever. Right now, she also looked focused as her gaze followed the pathologist’s red car. But she still had the same soft mouth, which could blow smoke like a sailor and smile at the same time.

  ‘What happened to that girl?’

  Most people found Anna Bagger to be objective and professional, and he guessed that was true. But Mark knew another side to the murder investigator. In private she could ignite an ice cube with her sensuality. That part of their relationship was over, but she was still, he had to admit, one of the sexiest women he had ever met.

  She handed him a cup of coffee without asking if he wanted any. With a delicate gesture she brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen down in front of one eye.

  Mark tried to assess what she wanted from him: an honest answer, or was it just a ploy to deter him from complaining when the wheels of the investigation started turning without him?

  ‘I think she knew her killer,’ he said. ‘At least well enough to walk down the garden with him, even though Boutrup said the guy grabbed her by the elbow . . . We can only speculate as to what happened next.’

  ‘So the murder took place elsewhere?’

  ‘Yes, probably. But we still have to look for evidence here. Both in the moat and in the area as a whole.’

  ‘He would have had enough time to abduct and kill her and then dump her in the moat afterwards, wouldn’t he?’

  He nodded.

  ‘We’re talking twelve hours, give or take.’

  He wanted to add that it could have been twelve hours of hell, but there was no need. From looking at Anna Bagger he could tell she was thinking the same.

  Then she suddenly flipped the conversation one hundred and eighty degrees:

  ‘We have only Peter Boutrup’s word that the man was there.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Could there be another explanation?’

  Mark stared at his coffee.

  ‘Anything’s possible.’

  ‘He’s hard to read,’ she said.

  She had just interviewed Boutrup herself and let him go. He didn’t need to remind her of that.

  ‘You’re thinking about his past,’ Mark said.

  She nodded. ‘Once a killer . . .’

  ‘Always a killer? Isn’t that a little too simplistic?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said vaguely. ‘But wasn’t there some sort of incident last summer?’

  Mark heaved a sigh. Boutrup wasn’t his favourite person, but a witch hunt would merely derail the investigation.

  ‘You know perfectly well he’s got enemies. And we’re not exactly lining up to protect him.’

  She furrowed her brow.

  ‘I understand he makes a very good job of that himself. I’ve heard rumours about a couple of human torches and burned-out motorbikes. And shootings – the man isn’t legally permitted to own firearms!’

  ‘The others did the shooting,’ Mark said.

  ‘And then there was last winter’s incident.’

  ‘He was acquitted on the grounds of self-defence,’ Mark said, gritting his teeth more than he had intended. With his maverick methods and fanatical desire for freedom, Boutrup represented a source of irritation, but he wasn’t a sadist who murdered young girls. ‘He was set up, as you well know.’

  She tilted her head to one side.

  ‘You’re protecting him.’

  ‘Boutrup is all right. In his own way.’

  She rolled her eyes.

  ‘And what a way that is. Keep your eye on him.’

  ‘He’s not going anywhere,’ Mark countered.

  He meant it. Peter Boutrup had chosen the cliff and his cottage with care. He had made it his home and home was important to him. That much he had sensed about a man who had lived most of his life in institutions. His mother was a well-known journalist in Aarhus, Dicte Svendsen. It had been in the papers. She’d had him when she was a teenager and had presumed that he had been adopted, but he had ended up in a notoriously brutal home for children in Ry. Experiences like that must surely leave their mark on a man.

  ‘So you believe him?’ Anna Bagger asked.

  Mark thought about it again. Boutrup could have been putting on a sideshow: inventing a man who followed Melissa and staging a false hunt for clues, then discovering a shoe
he already knew would be there. In theory, he could have abducted the girl and held her in his house for twelve hours. In theory.

  ‘Inasmuch as you can believe someone you don’t know very well. But keeping an eye on him would do no harm.’

  He knew he had said the latter mostly to humour her. Boutrup was different, and yes, he had been in prison for manslaughter, and of course they had to keep an eye on him. But he had already proved that he had more guts and insight than the combined forces of the East Jutland detectives and Grenå Police. Including himself.

  Anna Bagger scrutinised him as she held out the palm of her hand in the rain. She called out to the Crime Scene Officers.

  ‘Get the boys from Herning to put up the tent! This doesn’t look good.’

  The CSOs changed position and a couple of them walked up to the vans from the Herning agency. Shortly afterwards the tent was hauled down to the bank and erected in no time, while lamps were rigged up under the canvas. It wasn’t a moment too soon. Anna Bagger nodded to Mark.

  ‘Shall we? It’s tipping down now.’

  They walked together over the bridge and crossed the shiny wet cobbles in the convent courtyard. She stumbled once when her wellie slipped and he quickly grabbed her elbow. She instantly pulled her arm away.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  She straightened up.

  ‘It’s good to see you again, Mark. How are you?’

  He always dreaded the question. He was asked it several times a day. People always meant well, but he had no urge to be honest, not even with her.

  ‘Fine. Everything is as it should be.’

  ‘And it’s all gone, it’s in remission?’

  She must have heard, otherwise she wouldn’t have asked.

  ‘In remission, yes. They say the cancer has gone.’

  She observed him carefully from the side.

  ‘Then why aren’t you jumping for joy?’

  She knew him too well. He walked ahead and she followed quickly.

  ‘Oh, but I am,’ he assured her. ‘But finding a young woman dead in a moat is not exactly thigh-slappingly funny, is it?’

  That got the conversation back on track.

  ‘You’re bored,’ she declared, hitting the bullseye. ‘And now you want some action to show you’re one hell of a good detective.’

  ‘You’re going to need help, Anna. This one’s not for beginners.’

  ‘And of course, you would know all about convent life, wouldn’t you? Do you also have experience of celibacy?’

  Her face had become alive and her eyes sparkled with mischief. That was how manipulative she could be. Good cop, bad cop in one and the same person, but he wasn’t falling for it.

  ‘It wasn’t the convent I was thinking about but Djursland. The nose of Jutland, as they call it.’

  ‘You’re saying people out here are different from the people in Aarhus or Esbjerg?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  They sought shelter in an archway, still holding their coffee cups.

  ‘Enlighten me,’ she said. ‘What kind of place is it?’

  ‘This is hillbilly country,’ he said, because he knew the area where he had grown up well. ‘The locals stick together like rice against outsiders. You need an insider to get to the bottom of this case.’

  She laughed, a husky, melodic sound he remembered all too well.

  ‘You make it sound like a Pakistani tribal area.’

  He shook the rain out of his hair and rubbed the sleeve of his jacket, causing little streams of water to trickle down onto the cobblestones.

  ‘To me it just sounds like normal provincial life,’ he said.

  Perhaps she was right. He knew only one province and this was it. But it could make him miss his eight years in Copenhagen so much he was almost reduced to tears.

  ‘Please, let me at least follow the investigation,’ he said. ‘From the sidelines, if you insist.’

  She observed him again, with another cheerful smile which she tried to hide by swallowing the last mouthful of coffee.

  ‘OK.’

  She lowered the cup and squeezed it until the plastic split. ‘You can help me by coming to Aarhus tomorrow to witness the autopsy. I think I’ll need all my men here.’

  ‘Fine.’

  She looked closely into his face as though testing him.

  ‘And then I think we should search Boutrup’s house tonight. You said you know the locals. If there’s even the slightest possibility that the girl was at his house, we need to secure the evidence.’

  She waited for a reaction, but when it failed to come, she continued:

  ‘If you could see to that, I’d be grateful.’

  She had made up her mind. He could protest, but he knew it would make no difference, so he ended up simply nodding.

  ‘I’ll get you a warrant, of course,’ she said and turned her back on him.

  10

  ‘I’VE GOT AN umbrella in my car,’ Peter said, desperate to get away.

  ‘I’m all right.’

  My’s mother peered up at him as she walked by his side through the cemetery. ‘It’s only drizzling.’

  Drizzle. That wasn’t how he would describe it. He thought about the crime scene by the convent and knew that the rain would soon wash away any evidence there was. In all the mess he was at least pleased that he had found the shoe. But even so, Anna Bagger was bound to suspect him. He had sensed her scepticism earlier when she had questioned him about the incident he had witnessed.

  ‘It’s just over there.’

  She continued to walk by his side with the increasingly soggy bouquet in her arms. He led her to My’s grave via a roundabout route.

  ‘Here it is.’

  He felt uncomfortable. It was like being watched by a stranger while sleeping or having a shower. This place was his private sanctuary. This was where he came when he was at odds with the world. Here and on the cliff. But he could hardly tell her that.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said quietly. ‘What a lovely stone. Did you choose it?’

  He had found the stone on the beach below the cliffs. It was probably illegal, but the stone suited My.

  ‘I can fetch something for the flowers if you like,’ was all he said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  He was glad to get away for a few minutes. When he came back, he saw her kneeling by the stone.

  ‘Here you are.’

  He gave her a special cemetery vase, which he had filled with water. She took it and pushed the pointed end into the ground in front of the stone and arranged the flowers in it. She sat for a while before getting up, soaked through now, just like him.

  ‘You probably won’t believe this, but the day I gave her up, I gave away a chunk of my heart. One day I’ll tell you the story,’ she said. ‘And then perhaps you’ll tell me about My.’

  She sounded hesitant. ‘Perhaps you would like to visit me at home in Elev one day and have a cup of coffee?’

  He cursed her to hell and back. He had to plug the hole she was drilling in him, where compassion was seeping like rain into a holed rubber boot.

  ‘Let’s go back to the car,’ he suggested.

  Fortunately she complied.

  ‘Or perhaps I might be allowed to come back one day with the children,’ she said a little later when they sat, dripping wet, in the car. ‘I think they would like to visit the grave.’

  What was she expecting now? An invitation? Surely they could visit My’s grave without involving him. But then there was her wish to have My’s body moved. Fortunately, she hadn’t brought the subject up and perhaps he could thwart her by showing a little more kindness. Perhaps she would finally realise that My was exactly where she was meant to be.

  ‘You can always phone,’ he said into the darkness and the rain that was drumming on the windscreen now. ‘Miriam has my number.’

  Miriam and Christian were sitting in Miriam’s car, sheltering from the rain. The dog was by the front door under the porch. After they had said go
odbye, Peter watched his three guests as they disappeared up the lane on their way home to Aarhus.

  He made himself a cup of coffee, sat down on the sofa and listened to some music. Kaj came over and rested his head in Peter’s lap.

  ‘So, did you make a new friend?’

  The dog looked at him. Two long walks had to be enough for even this most indefatigable of dogs. Especially if the latter was with Miriam, who always strode out in her stilettos. Peter looked at the clock. It was only nine thirty, but the day had been crammed full of events and he felt tireder than he had for a long time.

  ‘Beddy byes for us two boys?’

  He stroked the dog and got up and Kaj followed him upstairs. It was raining so heavily that he couldn’t put his mattress out on the balcony as he usually did. Instead, he opened the wide doors and lay down inside with the dog lying on his fleece and the sound of rain beating on the roof and the woodwork.

  The November sky was covered with clouds and the night was as black as the water in the moat. He closed his eyes and heard two female voices swirling around in his head declaring their love for two dead young women. Girls whose deaths he could have prevented. How he had managed to play a part in both tragedies was beyond him.

  He visualised the rosary with the strange symbol. What had he been thinking? Why hadn’t he gone straight to Mark Bille or Anna Bagger with it and cleared his name?

  He stared into the black night. He would never learn to understand people. When it came to the crunch, he was better with dogs.

  11

  PETER WOKE TO the bells and vibrations of his home-made alarm system and knew that someone was coming. He also knew who. His suspicion was soon confirmed by flashing lights outside the house and headlights sweeping across the windows. The dog growled from its fleece and Peter looked at the clock. It was just after ten o’clock and he had only been asleep for thirty minutes. He disconnected all the alarms. Now no alarm systems in the world would help him.

  Shortly afterwards he heard banging on the door and Kaj woke up fully and barked as though he was getting paid for it. Peter wriggled out of his sleeping bag, threw some clothes on and went downstairs. A glance out of the window revealed two police cars and a van he recognised as the police’s dove-blue CSO van.