by Sara Blaedel
“No,” Tanya Jensen replied without hesitation. “First there will be a period for the two of them to get to know each other, and the child will remain with the orphanage during that time. Of course we must be convinced that the mother can take care of the little girl now.”
“And what if she can’t?”
“Well, then obviously we couldn’t allow her to take the child home,” she replied after a moment’s contemplation.
Camilla wondered how they evaluated that. The story of a mentally disabled woman who received assistance from the Danish government to be artificially inseminated, only to have the same government authorities turn around and take her child away the minute it was born was still fresh in her mind. Who decided who was suitable, and what was the decision based on?
Camilla took a deep breath and decided not to ask that question.
“Let’s say the mother doesn’t show up,” she said instead. “Then the child will be put up for adoption. When will that happen?”
Camilla had the sense that Tanya Jensen suddenly became a little less forthcoming.
“Hard to say. The biological mother should always have the chance to change her mind. She might be suffering from postpartum depression and she might need a while to come out of that.”
Camilla interrupted her. “Well, surely there must be a limit to how long the little girl has to wait in limbo to see if her mother is going to change her mind?”
“Of course. We’re not talking about limbo, as you call it. There’s always a waiting period for any adoption, even ones that have been planned for the whole pregnancy, and that’s true in this case, too.”
“How long is it?” Camilla wanted to know.
“We figure it will take a couple of months before the child can be placed into her new family,” the social worker explained.
After that, Camilla talked to a psychologist who strongly rejected the notion that a child who had been abandoned by its mother would suffer any permanent sense of loss.
“Of course a newborn is affected when something is missing—eye contact for example,” Camilla wrote and further quoted the psychologist: “This is why it is essential for other people to start caring for an abandoned child quickly. But the most important thing is for the child to establish fundamental, basic trust either in her biological parents or in other people. The vast majority of children—four-fifths—will do well so long as that trust is there early on. The last fifth will have some problems, and a very small number will suffer serious harm. In those cases, a good outcome will depend on finding a family that can create a secure enough environment for the child.”
Camilla’s own writing suddenly struck her as too impersonal. She pictured the little girl in her mind. What about that last fifth? Oh, she wished she knew if the baby would end up in that group; she thought she would end the article with the psychologist’s statement that there is really only one researcher out there who claimed people could recall their own births—so this little girl’s loss should by no means cause irreparable harm.
Earlier she had stopped by the church with the paper’s photographer in tow and watched police using K-9 tracking dogs in the area. But when she called Rasmus Hem about the dogs, he said the police still didn’t have anything to go on.
Once Camilla finished her article and submitted it to her editor, she packed up her bag. She checked with the police to see if there was any news in the search for the mother, and she had also been trying to get in touch with the coroner who’d been out to Kødbyen Sunday night. In sheer irritation at the lack of interest her proposal had aroused at the editorial meeting, she was going to pick the case of the murdered woman back up again and pursue it until she had enough material to run the story past her boss again. Kvist was staying in a hotel out in Silkeborg and had an interview lined up with one of the well-to-do married couples the art theft ring had targeted.
“Doctor Larsen still isn’t in, and to be quite honest, I don’t think he will be in today. He gave a lecture at National Hospital today and then went straight home from there, I believe,” said the receptionist at the pathology lab, where Camilla had given one last try before heading home. “He’ll be off for the rest of the week.”
“Could you give me his cell number so I can contact him?” Camilla tried.
“Unfortunately, I can’t give that to you,” the woman said.
“Well, could I have you call him and leave a message to contact me?” Camilla tried again.
Sometimes that worked. Other times it annoyed people, assuming they had time to waste helping her.
“I can’t promise I can get hold of him, but I’d be happy to leave a message,” the woman agreed, and Camilla thanked her profusely.
8
CAMILLA HAD OFFERED TO PICK UP SOME DINNER AND BRING IT over to the pastor’s residence, but Henrik Holm wouldn’t hear of it. Instead she brought a few bottles of soda along in her bicycle basket.
“The boys are up in Jonas’s room. They have a visitor,” Henrik told her with a grin as she came in and set her basket on the kitchen table.
She looked at him in surprise. He was standing at the stove, stirring a pot that smelled of chicken and spices. She asked who the guest was.
“A good friend of yours, I understood. Markus asked very politely if it would be okay if she came over to talk to Jonas and him.”
The pastor smiled when he saw Camilla’s face stiffen.
“It’s not a journalist,” he reassured her quickly. “And your son seemed very happy to see her.”
She relaxed and went upstairs to confirm it was who she suspected.
Louise was sitting on the thick cushions on the floor with one boy on either side, and when Camilla stuck her head in, Louise was explaining what the police usually did about abandoned babies.
Louise flashed a smile at Camilla and then continued detailing the procedure the police would use to search for the mother in hospitals.
“We go through lists of women who are due to give birth around that time. Using the lists, we contact those women. Some of them have already had their babies and are busy taking care of them, while others are still walking around with their big bellies, looking forward to the birth.”
Markus was holding Louise’s hand as she spoke, and Jonas’s eyes didn’t leave her face.
“And then once in a while, we find a woman who no longer has a big belly and who isn’t busy with a new baby—and those are the mothers we’re interested in, of course,” Louise said. “But there can be lots of reasons why they don’t have the child. Usually it’s because the baby died before the birth or maybe right afterward.”
Both boys’ eyes were wide and they were holding their breath.
Typical Louise, Camilla thought with a little smile. She was not dumbing it down for the kids. She was telling it like it is. And it usually turned out that that was actually what they liked best, even though the reality sometimes shocked them.
She went back down to the kitchen to help with dinner, and before she herself was even aware of it, she was telling the pastor about the previous night.
“I wasn’t prepared for the fact that it had made such a strong impression on Markus,” she admitted, offering to set the table.
“Jonas woke up too, and came into my room. I suppose an experience like that will affect them for a while,” he said, and then added that Louise was welcome to stay for dinner if she wanted. “There’s plenty of food.”
Camilla smiled at him and explained that she and Louise had known each other since high school in Roskilde.
“She works in homicide with the Copenhagen PD, and she’s also Markus’s godmother. Maybe I should have thought of it myself, asking her to come over and have a chat with them. But it’s good that they figure these things out on their own without my help.”
As Camilla set out the plates, she admitted that the event had also affected her more than she would have expected.
“I keep feeling that tiny little body against me.”
The pastor poured wine and lit the candles. Then he gestured to the bench.
“Little kids who are suddenly left without parents always make a big impression,” he said, sitting down across from her while they waited for the rice to finish cooking. “They’re so tremendously vulnerable.”
He explained that many years before, he had worked in a refugee camp in Bosnia.
“I had just become a pastor and really wanted to make a difference somewhere before I found a permanent parish position. My wife and I went and worked at the camp for two years, and it’s never quite left me. Especially the children who’d lost their families in the war.”
Camilla didn’t have any trouble picturing him in a place like that, but this was the first time he’d mentioned his wife.
“My wife died when Jonas was four,” Henrik continued, interrupting her train of thought. “She was born with a rare blood disease, which in the best-case scenario she might have lived with her whole life. But she wasn’t that lucky.”
The timer went off for the rice, and Henrik got up.
Camilla watched him. He seemed as though he’d put the worst of it behind him. She felt safe in his company as she took the pot he passed across the table to her and he called the boys down.
Louise was in the lead when they came downstairs.
“We set a place for you,” Henrik said, gesturing to the table.
Louise smiled at Jonas when he invited her to sit next to him.
“That’s so nice of you,” she said, “but I have to get home. I haven’t gotten much sleep the last couple of nights, so I’m planning to turn in early tonight.”
Both boys stood in the kitchen doorway waving as she left.
“She was super cool,” Jonas said, filled with admiration as he moved over to the table. “She knew all about how the police work and what they do when they find a little baby that’s been abandoned like that. Plus she was really nice,” he added.
Camilla could tell how proud her son was that Louise had made such a good impression on his friend.
“Maybe we should watch the news?” Jonas suggested, looking at his dad. “Maybe there’s some news about the baby.”
Camilla got the sense that Henrik was about to say no, but shrugged his shoulders and then asked her if she minded.
Jonas took that as a yes and turned on the TV that was mounted on the wall. They were showing ads at first, but then the news came on, leading with the abandoned-baby story for the second day in a row. The first image was the blue towel that the police deputy superintendent held up as he explained that the baby had been wrapped in a towel just like it when she was found at Stenhøj Church.
The cameraman had done his or her job well—there was plenty of footage of the pastor’s residence and street while the CSI techs were working at the church the day before.
“As we indicated yesterday, the towel is sold at Føtex, so we have little expectation of identifying the mother that way,” the superintendent said, answering the reporter’s question with a discouraged smile before he changed topics.
Camilla watched her son dish chicken and rice onto his plate, his eyes glued to the screen, hanging on every word as the deputy superintendent explained that they had been assuming the baby was born inside the church itself because they believed it was a relatively short time between the birth and the baby’s discovery. But without technical evidence to support this theory, they couldn’t be sure, so the police were eager to hear from any witnesses who had seen or heard anything around Stenhøj Church in the early morning hours that day.
“Well, they didn’t say anything about that when I talked to them this afternoon!” Camilla exclaimed in irritation.
“Aren’t they going to show a picture of the baby?” Jonas asked, looking at his dad. “So her parents can see how cute she is?”
A second later a large picture filled the screen. Sound asleep, she was lying on a white pillow with all her dark hair surrounding her tiny head like a wreath.
Camilla felt her eyes mist over and hurriedly looked away when the photographer zoomed out a little so the viewers could see that the girl was lying in the arms of a nurse, who was saying that the abandoned baby was doing well but missed her mother.
Camilla was annoyed the police hadn’t said that they were going to run the baby’s picture on the news. Now she was going to have to go back to the paper and make sure that they had a picture from the hospital to print alongside her article in the next day’s paper. And she was also going to have to rework the article to mention the police now thought the baby may not have been born in the church where she was found. If Camilla didn’t get these latest developments in, she would be way behind the other press coverage when the paper hit the streets.
Just then the doorbell rang.
“Oh yeah,” Henrik said, standing up. “I should have anticipated visitors, what with the church on the news and all.”
He went to answer the door, and a second later he came back with a tall young woman with dark hair in a pageboy cut and a lot of mascara. She was pale and seemed a little nervous.
In her late twenties, Camilla guessed, starting to clear the table while the boys got up, thanked the pastor for the meal, put their plates in the sink, and disappeared back upstairs to their computer game.
She heard Henrik ask the woman inside and inquire what he could do for her. Camilla was assuming the visit had to do with Baby Girl, as the press had started calling the abandoned newborn, but the woman had come looking for work, obviously under the impression the pastor was looking for a housekeeper.
“No,” Henrik said in English, “there must be a misunderstanding.” He held out his hands apologetically. “I don’t know who gave you that impression. But I will be happy to let you know if I hear of someone looking for one,” he offered.
The woman quickly shook her head and explained she had been referred to him by a friend of her family.
She pulled out a slip of paper that, sure enough, had Henrik Holm’s name and address printed neatly on it.
The pastor sat down with the slip of paper in his hand. It didn’t say anything else, and the woman didn’t offer the name of the friend who had sent her to him.
“I don’t know who gave you my name, and I’m very sorry not to be able to help. It’s just my son and I living here, and I can manage the housekeeping on my own. But please give me your phone number. If you stop by again next week, I’ll ask around to see if I know anyone who’s looking for help with their housework.”
She shook her head again and looked disappointed as he stood up to show her out. Meanwhile, Camilla called up to Markus to say she had to go back to the office.
“He could just spend the night,” Henrik offered when he returned from the door. “You can just swing by and drop off his backpack before school tomorrow.”
He thanked her for loading and starting the dishwasher and apologized for leaving the cleanup to her.
“Do people often stop by the way that woman did?” Camilla asked, nodding at the front door.
“No, not often,” Henrik said, explaining that the people who did stop by usually needed to talk and didn’t have anyone to talk to. Sometimes someone would spent a night or two if they didn’t have anywhere else to go, such as a husband or wife going through a divorce, or people who were grieving.
Camilla looked at him and felt a flicker of admiration. She had a hard time finding the energy for that sort of thing herself.
“But this is the first time since I’ve been here that someone has come thinking I needed a housekeeper,” he said with a smile.
Markus kissed his mother good-bye and Jonas hollered a hoarse “bye” down the stairs.
“The hoarseness is chronic,” Henrik explained with a smile. “In the beginning we thought he would just get over it, and then when it didn’t go away we assumed it was some kind of asthma, but he doesn’t have any trouble breathing. It turned out to be a condition called multiple laryngeal papillomatosis, which causes little
bumps on his vocal cords,” he explained, adding that you could have them removed with a laser if you didn’t want to wait until puberty, when they would probably disappear on their own.
“I don’t suppose there’s any reason to do it if they’re not bothering him.”
Once Markus had planted yet another kiss on her cheek and she was in the kitchen doorway with her jacket on, she thanked Henrik for letting Markus spend the night.
“If anything at all comes up, just call,” she told Henrik even though her son had assured her that he was totally cool with spending the night, even though he’d just had such a rough time the night before. “Markus says he’s put the whole thing behind him.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” the pastor promised and pointed out that his bedroom was right next to Jonas’s.
Henrik held the door for her and waved as she left.
9
“MILOŠ JUST GOT PAVLÍNA RELEASED,” LARS SAID AS LOUISE stepped into their office Wednesday morning, carrying the basket from the front of her bike.
She stopped abruptly in the doorway, her thoughts somewhere else entirely. She had managed to catch Markus on his cell phone while he and Jonas were on their way to school to ask if they had slept well, and both boys had assured her they were doing fine and that they had put their fears behind them. That had left a smile on her lips, but now she stared at her partner in surprise.
“Did you talk to him?”
Lars shook his head and explained that he’d just been out to the witness’s address and that Miloš had been about to leave.
“He went into Spunk, a bar down on Istedgade, and it didn’t take long before he came out again with a girl on his arm. Then they went back to his apartment.”
Louise watched him for a second from her desk chair before she said anything.
“Why didn’t you say you were going to drive over there? I would’ve come with you.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t planning on it. It just hit me as I was sitting in the car about to head home,” Lars said in his own defense. “If I’d planned on going, of course I would have told you.”