Blue Blood (Louise Rick)

by Sara Blaedel

  Markus was sleeping, so she persuaded Peter to join her for a moonlit stroll through the woods. It was extremely dark out, except for the bright moonlight that filtered down through the trees and lit up the paths so they could find their way. It was still too early in the year for warm summer evenings, and before they made it back to the house the cold had crept through her clothes so she sped up a little when she saw the light from the windows.

  ‘Don’t you think we should buy a holiday home?’ Peter suggested as they turned into the yard.

  She stopped, surprised. They had talked about a lot of things for their future, but this one was new. She tried picturing herself as the owner of a second home, but she wasn’t wild about the image that came up.

  ‘I don’t really think I’m cut out for that,’ she said, but she couldn’t tell whether he was seriously considering the idea or whether it was just a whim, so she hastened to add that they might consider getting onto the national forest agency waiting list and hope to be picked for one of the old gamekeepers’ cottages. That would be a little more her style: more land and not so stereotypical.

  The gravel on the path through the yard crunched under their feet as they walked hand in hand. Peter was looking up at the stars, seemingly not listening to what she said. So much for that idea, she thought, squeezing his hand.

  Up in their room, Louise dutifully checked her mobile phone when it fell to the floor as she searched for her pyjamas.

  The screen said EIGHT MISSED CALLS. The phone had been in her bag with the ringer off since Friday night when she had done her packing, and she had forgot to switch it back on. She sat on the edge of her bed and pulled up the missed-calls list. One call from Camilla; the rest were from police headquarters. Fuck, she thought, dialling up to retrieve her voice messages, a sense of anxiety spreading through every cell in her body.

  Heilmann had left the first message about quarter to five that afternoon. After that there were two more messages from Heilmann’s mobile, and the rest were from Lars. In Heilmann’s last message at eight-thirty, she asked Louise to call the next morning. No hint about what was going on, just that short message.

  Heilmann’s irritation was clear in her voice. There was noise in the background, but not enough to tell where she was calling from. Louise looked at the clock; it was almost one in the morning. They had sat in the living room with her parents and had a couple of gin and tonics after their nighttime stroll. Fuck, she thought again, feeling Peter’s eyes burning into her back. She was still sitting there with her phone in her lap.

  ‘That was Heilmann,’ she said without turning around. ‘She’s been trying to get hold of me since this afternoon.’

  ‘You’re off. They can’t expect that you sit around waiting for them to call all the time. You know that,’ Peter said, defending her. ‘If you’re off duty, you’re off duty!’

  ‘Yeah, but they ought to be able to reach me if something happens.’

  They did not call her this way very often, but it did happen. And any time she wasn’t one of the first ones to come running back into work, she felt instantly guilty – even though it was perfectly legitimate for her not to have been home.

  ‘They’ll manage,’ Peter said, yawning. ‘I’m sure she would’ve called twice as many times if she hadn’t managed to get someone else.’

  Louise tossed the phone back in her bag and climbed into bed. The feeling of relaxation was gone. They both knew that she would get up early and be ready to leave as soon as she had spoken with Heilmann. She took a deep breath before she snuggled up to Peter and started to gently nibble his ear. He lay as stiff as a board as she tried to get the warmth from her body to spread to him. Her tongue had slid down and started tickling his neck before he gave in and pulled her close to him so their bodies melted together. It had been a long time since they’d made love. She hadn’t thought about it before, but quickly calculated that it must have been almost a month since the last time. That’s too long, she told herself as she let the pleasure carry her away.

  14

  There was a tense silence in the car. Markus was sitting in the back seat with a comic book, munching on a snack. Peter was driving. Louise was staring out the passenger-side window. Given the situation, there wasn’t enough tenderness left over from the previous night to defuse the strained atmosphere between them.

  Louise had got hold of Heilmann at eight that morning. She briefly told Louise to be at the pathology lab in time for an autopsy that would start at ten.

  ‘A rape,’ Heilmann said. ‘The victim was found gagged and bound with cable ties.’

  Louise had quickly packed their bags. She waited until the bags were stuffed into the car and they were ready to leave before waking Markus. They had agreed that they would drop her off at the lab first and then Markus would go with Peter to their place. It was too early to take him back to Camilla’s.

  On the way out to the car, Louise’s father told her that Roskilde had a new police chief. ‘Now that Nymand is out of there, maybe you should think about whether that might be a nice place to work.’

  Louise gave her father a stiff smile, replying that it would take more than Nymand’s departure for her to consider transferring from the homicide division in Copenhagen to the criminal investigations division in Roskilde.

  He tried to smooth things over by saying that he just thought she wouldn’t be under so much pressure if she worked somewhere other than police headquarters.

  She explained that the opposite might well also be true, and then she took a deep breath before continuing: ‘Now, quit feeling sorry for me. I love my job.’ She couldn’t stop the defensive tone that made her voice rise.

  As they drove away, she turned to Peter and said: ‘And this is just part of what living with me means.’ And then she thought there was really no way in hell it should be coming as a surprise to him.

  The mood was definitely wrecked, and it irritated her because she was also angry that their Sunday had been ruined. It wasn’t like she had planned for it, but then it wasn’t like this was anything new.

  *

  ‘The body will be up soon. They’re just weighing her, down in the basement,’ Flemming Larsen said as he let Louise in the main entrance to the lab. Louise took a seat in the lobby. The lab was closed on Sunday, and she guessed that he had tried to postpone the autopsy until Monday but Lieutenant Suhr had insisted on having it done ASAP. That was a recurring theme. Whenever they got a body after hours, it took a lot of doing to get the pathologists to perform the autopsy right away. Their argument was that they could see better in the daylight. Suhr would maintain that he had an investigation to get started on. Then they would grumble back and forth until Suhr would finally pound his fist on the table and snarl, ‘If you have trouble making out the details, why don’t you turn on some more fucking lights.’

  And then he would get his way.

  ‘She wasn’t brought in until about nine o’clock last night,’ Flemming said. ‘They had a huge contingent of CSIs over at the crime scene, so for once everyone agreed that we wouldn’t do the autopsy until today. They just needed a couple of people available to come in here and assist.’

  Louise nodded. The pathologists couldn’t start until forensics sent a couple of people to watch the autopsy. And of course she knew that all available resources would initially be allocated to securing the crime scene. Otherwise, she still didn’t know anything, beyond the fact that a woman had been found dead in an apartment.

  ‘Was it her own apartment? Where was it?’ she asked.

  Heilmann had been very snappish when they spoke that morning. ‘You’ll have to wait until the briefing,’ she had said when Louise started asking her questions.

  Now, Louise turned her barrage of questions toward Flemming instead. He shrugged and said, ‘I think it was her own place, out in Frederiksberg.’

  When he said Frederiksberg, it suddenly occurred to Louise that she hadn’t called Camilla back yet.

  ‘What was her
name?’ she asked.

  ‘I haven’t got that far. She’s still being called “Emergency, Frederiksberg”.’

  Louise thought that even if it did turn out that Camilla’s date had been with a guy she’d met online, she wasn’t the type of woman their perp would dare attack. There was nothing timid or insecure about her friend Camilla. Quite the opposite. And they were talking about a person who put a great deal of effort into selecting and grooming his victims. He would have long ago determined that Camilla didn’t meet his criteria. Louise looked at her watch.

  ‘Are you guys going to be sticking to the schedule?’ she asked.

  It was a quarter to ten and she hadn’t heard the elevator doors, so she assumed the victim’s body was still down in the basement.

  ‘We may have to push it back a little. Suhr told us to wait for him, and he hadn’t left the victim’s apartment when I spoke to him a little while ago,’ Flemming replied. ‘He may be coming with the pathologists.’

  Louise and Flemming sat down across from each other in silence, waiting by the front entrance to let everyone in when they arrived.

  ‘So, aside from this, did you have a good weekend?’ Flemming asked.

  Louise shrugged her shoulders. The nice part of the weekend had vanished the instant she listened to Heilmann’s phone message.

  ‘We were down at my folks’ place in the country. Why?’

  ‘I was on duty yesterday, too, so I was doomed to spend my weekend in here no matter what.’

  Louise had often wondered what Flemming Larsen was like when he was at home on his own time. She knew he lived alone after a divorce two years earlier, but she didn’t know if there was anyone new in his life. Flemming and Louise had a great professional relationship, but they never saw each other outside of work. The only time she had seen him away from the office was at an event the year before when a group from work had gone bowling and had some beers. He had two sons who were about five and seven.

  ‘Who found her?’ she asked, changing the conversation back to the professional.

  Flemming shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know. There weren’t any witnesses on site when I arrived. I think Suhr mentioned a female friend. There were a few indications that this time there will be quite a few clues to go by. The victim fought like crazy. Things were knocked over, and he left prints in several places.’

  That was the most encouraging news Louise had heard all day.

  ‘It looked like the situation sort of got out of hand for him, so he was less careful this time,’ Flemming said.

  Just then, they heard the buzzer from the other side of the glass sliding doors. Flemming stood up to let people in.

  Louise sat for a moment before following him. She heard Suhr’s voice and was glad he was there. For the more spectacular cases, Suhr tended to come and observe the autopsies in person, along with one of the people from his office. In addition to this, two people from the forensics unit would attend, one photographing the body during the procedure and the other asking questions and taking notes.

  ‘We need every single shred of information,’ Suhr’s voice thundered as he entered. ‘Now we’ll catch him.’

  The others were eagerly debating whether the tissue someone had already noticed under the fingernails on the victim’s right hand would provide enough DNA.

  Louise joined everyone, saying hello to the lead forensic investigator, who set down her large bag and held out her hand to Louise. She had transferred to Copenhagen the year before from the forensics unit at Ålborg in northern Jutland. She was petite and slender; the first time Louise had met her, she’d mistakenly thought the woman was a trainee. She had to quickly reassess the woman’s delicate appearance, however, because it turned out Åse had a lot of experience and was only slightly younger than Louise.

  Just then, the elevator started making a noise. The body was on its way up from the basement for the autopsy.

  Louise nodded to Suhr and Klein, the no-nonsense forensic investigator on duty. She didn’t recall ever having seen Klein without his lightweight blue windbreaker on. In the summer he would push up his sleeves, where they would sit, wrapping his arms like sausages, right above his elbows. In the winter he would wear several layers of sweaters underneath, but even when it was bitterly cold he wouldn’t wear anything over that windbreaker.

  Louise and Flemming chatted on their way up the stairs to the second floor, where the autopsy rooms were located, just beyond the changing room with its lockers containing sterile scrubs and gowns. It was quiet as everyone walked through the open door into the changing room.

  Louise adjusted her trouser legs inside the scrubs, gathering her long, thick hair and twisting the unruly curls before pulling a hairnet over it all. She had already stuffed her feet into a pair of blue plastic shoe covers, and finally she tied the mask on so it sat securely over her face.

  As they started the autopsy procedure, she sat down toward the back on a lab stool with her notepad on her knee. The body lay under a white sheet on the autopsy table in the middle of the room.

  Flemming removed the white sheet. The first thing Louise spotted was the long blonde hair that hung down like a curtain. The sight was like a fist to the gut. Camilla’s apartment flashed before her eyes, sealed off with red and white crime-scene tape. She jumped off her stool and brusquely shoved Åse aside. Åse was just getting her camera ready so she could start photographing the body before they removed anything. The tape was still covering the victim’s mouth, and her arms and legs were tied together with heavy-duty plastic strips. Åse said, ‘Hey, watch it!’ after Louise’s shove.

  Both Flemming and Suhr knew Camilla Lind. Obviously they would have responded if the image that Louise suddenly pictured in her sick imagination had turned out to be true; but by the time she realised it wasn’t Camilla, it was too late for her to stop herself from rushing over.

  ‘Sorry,’ Louise mumbled.

  She put a hand on Åse’s shoulder before quickly withdrawing, scolding herself for letting her thoughts run rampant. She had managed to see the face with the closed eyes and the thick piece of tape over the mouth. The deceased didn’t look like Camilla at all.

  Her notepad had fallen to the floor when she leaped up.

  ‘Her name is Christina Lerche,’ Suhr stated, looking at Louise.

  Louise felt like she had been found out. She tried to get a grip on herself as she bent down to pick up her notepad.

  Back on her lab stool with the pad on her lap, she followed along as Flemming took the forceps and cut through the cable ties.

  ‘Easy! There may be evidence in the closures,’ Klein said. He held out a bag the coroner could drop the ties into.

  ‘Now I’ll remove the tape,’ Flemming announced, leaning over the victim’s face. Very cautiously he loosened one side. He could never have done it so quietly or slowly on a living person. With his white-gloved fingers, the coroner checked inside the victim’s mouth. When he was done, the vomit ran out, forming a little puddle on the shiny surface of the stainless steel table.

  He turned toward them and observed, ‘The gag isn’t sitting flat.’

  At the scene, he had determined that the victim had vomit in both nostrils and concluded, ‘Suffocation by vomit.’

  ‘The gag must have slipped far enough back into her mouth that it triggered her gag reflex.’ He bent over the body again. ‘The duct tape formed a complete seal, so she suffocated.’

  Louise concentrated on taking notes while simultaneously reaching a conclusion in her own head: the perpetrator hadn’t suffocated his victim. He certainly caused her death, but was it premeditated murder?

  Before Flemming proceeded, it was Åse’s turn again. She photographed the body’s back and right and left sides, this time without the cable ties or gag.

  Klein cut the victim’s nails and took a sample of her hair while Flemming dabbed her nipples with a cotton swab to secure evidence. Louise studied the woman’s neck and chest. Those were areas where rapists often ki
ssed their victims. Flemming placed the long swabs back into the carton and closed it carefully. When he was finished, he asked the lab technicians to come and open the body.

  Louise followed the others out into the hallway to wait. Their steps echoed faintly as they walked past the open tiled autopsy rooms: high ceilings, stainless steel tables, sinks, hand-held showerheads with extra long hoses for rinsing bodies and body parts. The whole place was clinical and cold, and ultimately completely utilitarian when you were in the middle of it.

  She leaned against the wall and eavesdropped on Suhr, who was chatting with the forensics people. In the background, a saw started. Normally other tools and running water would have drowned the noise out. But today the insistent drone echoed through all the empty autopsy rooms before reaching the ‘murder room’, as they called the last one because it was twice the size of the others and thus had enough room for everyone who had to observe a forensic autopsy.

  Louise was used to being there while the pathologists did their work, but something about that lonely sound from the saw, cutting through the silence, made her turn and face the other way. On weekdays when people were walking around working, the cold, clinical feeling was usually humanised a little. But the Sunday-morning quiet made the sound of the saw too persistent to block out of her mind the way she would have liked.

  Flemming called everyone back in by announcing, ‘We’re ready.’

  The two lab technicians came out of the room, removing their armour-like iron gloves. They hung them up side by side in the changing room. Louise backed up a little to give them room to get by, accidentally bumping into the row of white rubber boots the pathologists wore when they were working. She nodded to them as they left, and Suhr came over to her.

  ‘I’m heading back to headquarters now; you’ll have to give the report on Flemming’s exam,’ he said.