Dark September
Page 1
Dark September
Inger Wolf
People’s Press
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Dark September is translated from Danish after Sort Sensommer by Mark Kline markwkline@gmail.com.
Copyright © Inger Wolf, 2017
Copyright this edition © People’sPress, Copenhagen 2017
Cover: Juan Padron,
https://juanjjpadron.wixsite.com/juanpadron
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN-13: 978-87-7180-901-5
People'sPress
Vester Farimagsgade 41, 1606 København V
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Afterword
About the Author
Books by the Author
Under The Black Sky - excerpt
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Grab your copy today!
Chapter One
Sunday, September 21
The white poisonous plant lay fanned out over the woman's exposed breast. In the dawning light, dew still sparkled on the thin red-speckled stalks nodding in the light breeze. A nearby brown Irish setter raised his snout from a pile of dead leaves and sniffed at the various forest scents, one of which was unfamiliar. He checked it out cautiously. The naked woman lay in the clearing that formed a natural boundary between the tall beeches and a small dense cluster of evergreens. She faced the sky with arms and legs spread out on a bed of fallen leaves, ferns, mushrooms, and impatiens that had finished blooming. She might have been daydreaming. The setter sniffed along the woman's stomach, then it froze when its owner called in the distance. First questioningly, then insistently. The dog looked at the trail and back at the woman, then it began to bark.
The clearing in front of Lieutenant Detective Daniel Trokic was covered with a chilly dew. For one of the first times that fall, filmy clouds of breath hung in the morning air. He'd driven his Peugeot past the red barrier that normally separated the quiet forest from the noise of traffic and civilization. Rammstein's muted metallic rhythms seeped out through his open windows into the mist. No one gave him dirty looks about the music when he stepped under the barrier tape and greeted them. Maybe they hadn't heard it, or maybe it seemed fitting. Trokic sensed this place had been in harmony until now. Like some strange omen, he had dreamt about the forest and a blanket of ash-gray rabbits, a troubling, recurring dream that had been interrupted by a call from the dispatcher. The forensic pathologist, Torben Bach, wore plastic gloves and shoe covers, as did the two techs who had photographed and measured the area.
"Who is she?" Trokic asked.
"We don't know," one of the techs said. "No ID on her."
The young woman beside Trokic lay on her back, her blonde hair unfurled around her face. Her eyes, one brown and one blue, were blank and bloodless as if they were covered with a fine milky-white net. They stared at a point in the silent forest. Her mouth was frozen into the shape of a final breath. He wished he could cover her with a blanket.
What stuck out most about the woman, though, was the handful of whitish flowers arranged on her breast. Not enough for a bouquet. Artful yet grotesque. A bride? Was that what she was supposed to look like?
Bach nodded at Trokic. Carefully, he lifted the hair from the woman's throat and pushed aside a stray toad to show him the fatal wound. The deep cut started at her left ear and continued down to her sternum, exposing bone and musculature underneath her clear skin. Dried reddish-black blood was caked in her hair and on her body. Also, part of her upper arm was torn up, an open, lacerated wound, with several gaping bite marks on her left breast and under her ribs. Trokic guessed some small forest animal had been disturbed during its meal.
"Who found her?" Trokic said.
Bach's gray eyes had clouded over from the sight in front of him. "Leif Korning, he walks dogs around here. They took him to the station."
Trokic glanced around the dense forest surrounding them. According to the map, a trail, Løkpåts Vej, was nearby. They were six kilometers from the center of town, in an old-growth section of gnarled trees. It was pitch-dark at night out here, and far from the nearest house, the old forest manager residence fifteen minutes' walk to the northwest. Evergreens and cobweb-filled brambles stood to his right. The broad trail and the beech forest lay behind him, with a small heart-shaped green pond surrounded by a meadow not far off.
His temples ached. He'd been up late last night watching a Zrinko Ogresta film, with a bottle of red wine for company; it wasn't even eight-thirty yet, and he was still feeling the effects.
While the pathologist took the temperature of the dead woman's ear, the youngest tech walked over. He was wearing big boots, and his longish hair had been tucked under his hood. "She would've been hidden better over in the bushes."
"Or in the lake," Trokic said. "A damn psycho," he added, mumbling now.
Trokic was grateful for his warm, blue thermal coat. It was old and out of fashion, but at least he wasn't
cold. "What's that plant on top of her, do you know?"
"It looks like ground elder," the tech said. "It's all over around my house, the only way to get rid of the shit is chemical warfare."
The pathologist shook his head and wiped his nose. "It's not blooming anymore. Nothing's blooming anymore."
"How long has she been dead?" Trokic said.
"My guess is since early yesterday evening."
"That sounds about right. There must be a lot of joggers and mountain bikers out here in the daytime; they would've seen her if it had happened earlier. There's probably not many around after dark."
"And even if they were, they wouldn't have noticed her this far from the trail," the tech said. "It gets dark earlier in here too, all the shadows falling, all that. It's tough finding your way around in here, early evening."
"We found traces of something that looks like semen," Bach said, pointing to her stomach. It was barely visible. He and Trokic looked at each other. "Maybe the rapist from the Botanical Gardens has new hunting grounds?"
Trokic frowned. "It's not impossible."
"Must have been tiring though, hiding in here, waiting to ambush someone."
"Yeah, but somebody was screwed up enough to do it," Trokic mumbled. "Any other signs of sexual assault? Besides the fact that she's naked?"
"No. Apart from the bite marks, it doesn't look like she's been touched. But let's see when we get her in."
Trokic took another look at the woman. She had no make-up on, no jewelry; only her toenails had nail polish, pink. Uneven. She'd been pretty.
They heard the crunch of gravel and dirt from the trail, and a moment later a man appeared, a bit out of breath. Obviously, he'd been in a hurry, from the sight of striped pajamas sticking out from underneath his blue sweater.
"What the hell?" he said. "How'd you drive in here? I couldn't find that damn parking area you talked about; I've been walking around at least fifteen minutes."
He swiped angrily at his sweaty temples with a handkerchief. Trokic walked down the striped barrier tape to greet his boss.
"Do we have an ID?" Captain Agersund said, nodding at the woman.
Trokic shook his head. "Did you bring coffee?"
"I just got out of bed," Agersund explained. One of the men behind them groaned. "Has anyone been reported missing the past few days?"
"Only a woman from the north part of town, according to the duty officer. And she returned this morning; otherwise, no one who fits the description."
"She doesn't look good. What are those flowers?" Agersund squinted and studied them for a moment. "Hard to see from here, it could be chervil or fool’s parsley…"
"I'm sure the techs have taken plenty of photos," Trokic said.
"What about the weapon?"
"Nothing yet."
Trokic had requested two police dogs. A good nose or two was invaluable in this rolling forest terrain, and in all likelihood, they were looking for a sharp knife and bloody clothing. Agersund turned to the pathologist. "What else do you have?"
Bach repeated what Trokic had earlier heard him speak into the Dictaphone. The woman was in her twenties. Cause of death most likely her cut throat. Her leg muscles bulged under pale skin; she seemed to be in good physical shape. And a delicate web of silver lines on her stomach could mean she'd been pregnant at some time.
"Was she killed here?"
Bach nodded. "It's almost certain she's only been moved a few meters. Livor mortis is evident on her back, and there's a partial trail of blood through the underbrush."
A tech joined them. "Right over there, see?" He pointed to an old beech close to the trail. "I think that's where she was killed. There's more blood there than anywhere else, and the leaves are scattered around. And some of the mushrooms have been stepped on. Someone dragged her over here by the hair or arms, you can see faint signs of it. I think her clothes were taken off where she's lying; otherwise, there would have been a lot more blood on her body."
"So, the sexual act happened after death?" Agersund asked.
"It's just my opinion."
A crease appeared on Agersund's forehead. "I'd believe anything, the way she looks."
He turned to Trokic. "Where's the media? They all sleeping in late, or what?"
"They probably can't find their way out here, either."
Agersund shook his head. "Here we go again. We're undermanned. It's bad enough to start with, those shitheads taking about a fourth of us for their summit meeting. All right…let's get an idea of where we're at here. I want you to head up the investigation; I'm assigning Lisa and Jasper to you."
Trokic stared at his boss. "Lisa Kornelius?"
"Yeah. So?" He stared back at Trokic.
“It's just…” Trokic looked down at the ground. "I heard she's in Copenhagen this weekend."
"What?!" Agersund frowned at the people around him working as he picked at something lodged between his front teeth. "Call her then, fill her in. When are you finished?" he asked the techs.
They both shook their heads. It was going to take several more hours.
Trokic studied the woman's elegant face, her pale forehead. What had she been thinking?
Chapter Two
Trokic followed one of the trails leading away from the clearing. As so often before, he was taken in by the mystery of a crime scene. The intensity of events. And why there? Often, it wasn't a coincidence.
It had been more like southern Europe that summer, the heat, the odors. Evenings so quiet that he could hear the frogs and crickets from the porch of his small house in town. But autumn was gaining the upper hand. On his right, acorns were thick under an oak tree, and the dying grass beside the trail smelled strong and sweet. There was something else, though. Even in daylight, the forest was murkier than he would have expected. He strode up the trail, checking both sides every step of the way. A strolling couple appeared ahead of him. He spoke to them for a moment then let them pass. Tourists from a nearby hotel.
He walked around a bend and noticed a young woman approaching. A playful golden retriever ran circles around her. "Europa!" she called out when the dog galloped towards him. The woman caught up to it and fastened a leash to its collar.
"She's still young, still learning," she said. Abruptly, she stood up. "You're from the police?"
"Yes."
Trokic still imagined himself to be an average thirty-eight-year-old man who people thought of as an accountant or office worker or whatever. It surprised him whenever someone pegged him as a policeman, maybe because he didn't identify all that well with the rest of the police force. Suddenly, he was aware of the look of his warm thermal coat. He showed her his badge.
"Tro-kick?"
"Tro-kitch," he said.
"I walked by where you sealed off earlier," she explained. "Did something serious happen?"
Her blonde hair was pulled back in a thin ponytail. She didn't seem to be wearing any makeup, yet it was hard to avoid her dark blue eyes. "Yes."
He wondered how many women would be walking around in the forest, once the news about the sexual assault and murder came out. He noticed a few pale spots on the woman's slightly reddened throat in the cool air. "Do you walk your dog a lot here?"
"Once a day, when I have time."
"What about yesterday?"
"I was here in the morning."
"Okay. You don't happen to know anyone else who comes out here, someone who knows the area and might have seen something?"
She hesitated, perhaps considering what to say. "I know a few. A lot of people run out here. In fact, I was in a group from the university who ran together, every Thursday evening, but it didn't last. Most of them are serious about running, though; they still come out here. Just at different times."
"Could you give me the names of all the people you know who run in the forest? We need to speak to as many of them as possible."
"I'm reasonably certain I have a list of everyone in the group. I can find it for you, it's at home."
/> She looked up and frowned at him. Trokic petted the dog, who kept nudging her pink wet snout against his leg. Her tail, hind legs, and chest were covered with long, wavy, well-brushed fur.
"Can you send it to me? Or call?"
She thought for a moment. "I'll be home in an hour. I'll find it then."
The past months had been strange. The media called it the bloodiest summer in memory. Traffic deaths had been at a record level, and there had been an extraordinary amount of violence. And now this. It was as if everything was falling apart, all this black, disgusting hate bubbling up to the surface. And it seemed to be getting worse. They'd been swamped with work.
"Be careful. Stay on the trails and keep your dog close. Believe me, it's important to be cautious."
"Of course."
He thanked her for the information and gave her his card. She wrote down her name, address, and phone number for him. Finally, he walked back to the pond and sealed-off area.