The Forgotten Girls

by Sara Blaedel

  “Why did you bring her in?” Louise asked quietly. She could tell that Eik had walked out into the hallway.

  “Because I had to arrest her and threaten to charge her with withholding information of significant importance to the investigation.”

  “Eik, damn it!” Louise exclaimed. “You’re running the risk of a liability suit.”

  She sighed and smiled apologetically to Edith Rosen.

  “I’ll just wrap things up here and then I’ll head back,” she told Eik.

  36

  LOUISE WAITED IMPATIENTLY in the traffic jam on the freeway by Hørsholm. She cursed rush-hour traffic, and the way back from Horneby suddenly seemed very long. She also felt guilty about Edith Rosen. She had thanked her for their conversation and apologized for raking up the past, but she had left her with wounds that were unlikely to ever heal.

  Considering what she had learned, she was inclined to agree with the former neighbor that it seemed unlikely that Bodil would choose to live with her brother of her own free will. Louise could think of only one thing that could tie the two siblings together: Bodil feeling enough guilt at not having looked after her younger brother well enough when walking him home from preschool.

  Louise noted that Melvin had called a couple of times while she had been sitting in the flowered kitchen. She might as well take advantage of the traffic standstill to tackle the conversation that she had put off a bit too long.

  “The sales contract is all ready to go,” said her downstairs neighbor, sounding so pleased that the objections caught in Louise’s throat.

  “You bought it?” she said instead.

  “No, we bought a community garden lot,” he corrected her, explaining that she just needed to sign the papers as well. “I’ve got it all right here. I promised Jonas that we’ll go take a look at the ‘mansion’ tonight. He just got back from Roskilde.”

  Louise took a deep breath. She hadn’t even had a chance to see the garden yet. But it was her own fault that she had not backed out in time.

  “There’s new wiring and a new bathroom,” Melvin said, adding that they would probably need to paint the kitchen and living room. “But that’s up to you.”

  His enthusiasm made her smile.

  “And the garden is amazing,” he continued dreamily. “There are berries and potatoes and herbs…”

  “I hope there’s a bit of grass, too?” Louise interjected, suddenly worried that there might not be any room for her sunbed.

  “Plenty of grass,” he reassured her. “And it’s positioned perfectly so there’s sun all day and even in the evening.”

  “I can’t wait to see it,” Louise said, catching his excitement, and thought: Why shouldn’t she have a community garden? She pulled into the passing lane once traffic finally started moving again and told him that she would sign it as soon as she got home.

  “Just go ahead and bring Jonas out there. I’ll probably be home kind of late today.”

  WHEN LOUISE WALKED into the Rathole, Lillian Johansen was sitting on a chair, pressed up against the wall. It was quite obvious that she hadn’t the slightest desire to speak with the police. Eik sat by his desk, his hands folded in front of him.

  They had clearly been waiting for her, so Louise quickly pulled off her sweater and said hello to the woman who had been so unsympathetic the first time she called Eliselund.

  “Lillian worked down there the last year that the twins lived there, and she just told me that she looked after them while they were admitted to the sick ward for pneumonia in February.”

  Eik turned his attention to the sullen woman in the guest chair.

  “Could you please repeat what happened the last evening?”

  He had turned the blinds to let in only a thin stripe of daylight. In front of Lillian was an untouched coffee cup and a glass of water.

  The heavyset woman folded her arms across her chest with obvious animosity.

  “There was nothing that you could have done differently,” Eik helped out. “You were only a student at the time.”

  She still didn’t say anything; just sat there quietly, staring straight ahead.

  They waited for a while for her to start talking, until Eik ran out of patience.

  “Before you got here,” he began, “Lillian told me that she found it odd that the girls had been admitted to the section of the sick ward that was isolated in the basement. Because neither of them seemed particularly affected by pneumonia. They had neither symptoms nor a temperature and when she pointed this out to Bodil Parkov, she was told to leave the basement and take over the restroom task in the men’s wing instead, making sure that the worst-off patients got to use the restroom.”

  Louise reached for an empty cup and poured herself some coffee. “Do you want some?” she asked, offering it to Lillian.

  The woman shook her head and looked down at the table.

  “The night that the twins died, the sick ward in the basement was locked up. Nobody aside from Parkov and the consultant doctor had access, which meant that they took the night shift themselves. The next morning, the flag was flying at half-mast and nobody saw the twins again. They didn’t see them leave the place, either.”

  “Eik,” Louise cut in. “Why don’t we let Lillian tell us what happened now?”

  He fell silent and shot her an annoyed look. Then he nodded to Lillian, signaling for her to go on, but still nothing happened and so they waited once again. Eik made an approach to break the silence several times but Louise shut him up with a stern look.

  They sat like that for nine minutes, in complete silence. Louise picked at her frayed cuticles, occasionally shooting a quick glance at Lillian until she noticed that tears had started rolling down the woman’s plump cheeks. She looked quickly at Eik, who was leaning back; his hands folded behind his head. He looked like he might have dozed off.

  “At first I didn’t know what went on when they locked up the section down there,” Lillian began flatly. “And I couldn’t tell you how long the others had known about it. In any event, they stayed away when the door was barred.”

  Louise leaned in and Eik reached for his notepad. Maybe he hadn’t been asleep after all, she thought.

  “One evening I had gone down there to find the case file for a patient who was being transferred to the University Hospital of Copenhagen the next day,” she said.

  “While the twins were admitted?” Louise asked, afraid to interrupt.

  “No,” Lillian answered, wringing her hands. “This was long before that.”

  For a moment it looked like she might stall again but then suddenly she continued, her words almost like a burst of anger as she looked up.

  “They were walking down the hall with him,” she said. “Parkov and the doctor held him between them as they came out of the bathroom. He was naked and they led him to the rearmost sickroom, which we called the epidemic room.”

  She seemed ill at ease as she looked away, working herself up to continue.

  “In all my time, that room was never in use. It was always empty, reserved for emergency situations. I was so shocked because I had never seen him before even though I was on the permanent day shift in the men’s section.”

  “Who was it?” Eik asked, placing a match between his teeth.

  “Well, I didn’t know this at the time but later I was told that it was Parkov’s brother. She let him live down there, and the consultant doctor treated him. At first it was all very hush-hush and nobody dared say anything but then we got used to it. We never saw him; he had his meals brought down there and didn’t mingle with the other residents, but we heard the sounds.”

  She closed her eyes and her face contracted. It looked as if it was all coming back to her, and she started rocking from side to side in torment.

  “They let him in with the girls who were ill. The ones who were admitted to the sick ward,” she whispered and took a heavy breath. “If you had an evening shift in the hospital wing, you could sometimes hear the sounds. But we neve
r said anything. We didn’t dare—not even the more senior staff. So it remained an unspoken thing.”

  She straightened herself up.

  “And it should stay that way,” she said.

  “Why?” Eik exclaimed. The angry line across his forehead made it clear that he disagreed.

  Lillian Johansen turned toward him. “Because we were all to blame. Bodil Parkov was a tough leader but we knew what went on and should have stepped in. This made us party to the crimes that took place. And you shouldn’t start exposing someone after so many years.”

  “You all turned a blind eye,” Eik declared, indignantly spitting out his match. “Maybe because you knew that the mentally handicapped girls wouldn’t tell. Or was it because they had no next of kin to file a complaint?”

  “Stop,” Louise cut him off sternly and thought about sending him out of the room.

  “It’s been over thirty years,” Lillian said, defending herself. “Things were different back then, and the consultant doctor objected to the charges that were raised against Parkov. He denied that the assaults happened. And then in the end her brother was removed.”

  “When was that?” Louise asked.

  “It was just before the thing with the twins. Maybe a week or two earlier.”

  “So you mean to say that Bodil Parkov’s brother was staying at Eliselund all the time until she quit and subsequently left the place?”

  Lillian nodded.

  “And on the day that she quit, the girls disappeared?” Eik took over, already standing up.

  Lillian Johansen sat motionless, her eyes following him as he put on his leather jacket and grabbed his car keys. “Maybe we should have pursued it after the doctor killed himself but he was the one responsible for the sick ward, so the case was allowed to die with him.”

  “And nobody cared to know what had become of Lise and Mette?” Louise concluded.

  Then she picked up her sweater to follow Eik out the door.

  “The forgotten girls were left to their own devices from the beginning anyway so what were we supposed to do?” Lillian mumbled.

  Louise spun around in the doorway, only barely stopping herself from yelling at her.

  “That’s where you’re mistaken,” she said angrily. “Those two girls were not forgotten from the beginning. Their father was urged to forget them. He was told to stay away, and that was apparently the case with many of the children and adults who had no contact with their families. They were left to their own devices because they were different and were stowed away in a place where the only concern was how to make it easy to look after them. But you were the ones who were supposed to take an interest in them. Because they didn’t have anyone else…”

  The words and the anger bubbled up inside, and she struggled to keep from exploding. Instead she turned her back on Lillian and left the office.

  37

  THIS TIME LOUISE didn’t notice the old sawmill or the other houses because Eik was driving so fast down Bukkeskov Road that rocks sprayed from underneath the car. She had her eyes fixed on the tall chestnut trees around the gamekeeper’s house.

  Louise had called Mik from the car to briefly update him on their interview with Lillian Johansen and share the information that they had dug up on Jørgen Parkov and the family’s background.

  “He lived here back when the first series of rapes happened as well,” she pointed out.

  But she had been unable to answer one of Mik’s questions:

  “What about the intervening twenty years?” he had asked. “Doesn’t it seem unlikely that he would take that long a break and then pick back up where he left off?”

  When they pulled up in front of the gamekeeper’s house, the gate in the fence as well as the front door were both wide open.

  “Something is not right,” Louise said to Eik when she noticed Jørgen’s rake in the middle of the courtyard.

  She tore off her headset and hurried toward the house while calling Bodil’s name. The place was eerily quiet. The only sound was from a bird, which flushed from the thatched roof. Her heart was beating fast as she placed her hand on her gun and slowly stepped into the hallway. There was no one in the living room and not a sound to be heard from the rest of the house. She nodded to Eik, signaling for him to proceed to the living room while she headed for the kitchen.

  Empty. Two used dishes were left on the table along with an empty milk glass. There were crumbs on the table still, and the butter had not been put away.

  Louise continued slowly toward the door to the room behind the kitchen; then she quietly pressed down the handle and opened it.

  THE ROOM WAS shaded by a large tree in the yard and a cool, faintly perfumed scent hit her nostrils as she stepped into Bodil’s bedroom.

  Bodil was sitting in a rocking chair between the two windows facing the garden. She was holding a heavy piece of knitting, a pair of large headphones covering her ears while she rocked mechanically back and forward.

  Louise registered her tense breathing and loosened her grip on her pistol while she watched the older woman’s focused work with the knitting needles. She called her name a couple of times before walking over to position herself in front of the rocking chair.

  Bodil gave a little start. She looked up and as she removed her headphones, Louise could hear the classical music that had filled her ears. She didn’t speak. She only stared up at Louise with sad eyes while her hands stopped and then dropped limply into her lap.

  Louise squatted down in front of her.

  “Where’s Jørgen?” she asked.

  The woman pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  “Bodil,” Louise said, this time a little more sharply. “I need to speak with him and it would probably be best if you were there, too.”

  Bodil’s chin quivered and her lips trembled.

  “He’s not home,” she said almost inaudibly.

  Louise placed a hand on the armrest of the rocking chair and stopped its movement.

  “Where is he?”

  “In the woods. I told him he had to bring back the lady.”

  “Which lady?” Louise asked, standing back up.

  “The one he brought home.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The one from the woods that everyone is looking for,” Bodil answered without meeting Louise’s eye.

  “The runner?” Louise asked. “Has he been keeping her here?”

  “Yes. Down in his room.”

  LOUISE SPRINTED OUT of the bedroom, through the kitchen, and into the living room. She registered Bodil following her to the small hallway leading out to the back of the house, where a solid oak door separated Jørgen’s section from the rest of the house. Louise contemplated the heavy bolt at the top of the door. The bolt was unlocked, and the door was open now.

  The front room was Jørgen’s bedroom. It was larger than Bodil’s, and one wall was lined with long shelves on which small cars were neatly displayed. Not just Matchbox cars but real collector’s items.

  Louise quickly continued toward the small room in the back but stopped abruptly when the stench hit her. Both windows were open yet the smell was nauseating and acrid. The only object in the dark chamber was a bed, and on it was a crumpled sheet soiled with urine and feces. For a second she felt completely paralyzed as she let the impression sink in; then she walked to the bed and picked up a rope from the floor. It was tied to the headboard.

  “Has he been keeping her tied to the bed?” she asked without turning around.

  “Jørgen was always good at knots,” Bodil answered. She walked over to the mattress and started folding up the sheet. “That smell will probably be hard to get out, don’t you think?”

  Louise bent down and looked under the bed. There were more ropes and rope snippets but nothing else.

  “Jesus,” she whispered, straightening herself up. Through the open windows, she heard Eik’s swift footsteps moving across the gravel of the courtyard; a second later he was by the door.

&nb
sp; “You’ve got to come over here really quick. There’s something you need to see,” Eik said, his voice sounding grim.

  38

  LOUISE SPRINTED AFTER Eik toward the barn, which was attached to the main house at an angle. The black double barn door was open, and from the courtyard she could see the bars in front of a horse pen.

  Eik grabbed her and put a finger to his lips. He held on to her arm as they stepped inside the barn. It was dark in there and the air felt cool. The only source of light came from two crescent-shaped barn windows facing the courtyard.

  “She’s in there,” he whispered.

  They walked together to the two horse pens located side by side. Both doors were decorated with hand-painted signs that said LISEMETTE.

  Louise looked inside the one that Eik pointed to and gasped.

  She estimated that the pen was about six by ten feet. The woman lay on a bed pushed up against the partition wall to the other pen.

  They stood there quietly and watched her. She lay motionless, her eyes closed, and next to her on the pillow was a doll with blond hair. The only part of her that was visible was her severely battered face, which was swollen and bloodstained. Next to the simple bed was a small nightstand with a rose in a tall water glass. Against the brick wall on the opposite side was an old grandfather clock and a low table with an embroidered table mat. Two flower plaques hung on the wall along with a heavy painting in a gilded frame. Louise figured that the decor probably came from the old merchant’s villa in Rungsted.

  Louise grabbed the lock on the door to the horse pen and carefully slid it open. She slowly opened the door and waited to see if the woman would react. She didn’t stir.

  Louise didn’t say anything as she tiptoed toward the bed and looked down at the woman’s closed eyes and the large wounds on her forehead. Eik stayed in the barn corridor.

  “Don’t wake her,” Bodil said behind them. She was standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips.

  “What’s been going on in here?” Eik asked, turning to look at her.