The Midnight Witness

by Sara Blaedel

  “Some of her girlfriends. Toft and Stig have already started. I think you should go home and get some sleep, you had a long night.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Tomorrow you can find out which of her colleagues at the hospital we should talk to. A few of them have already contacted us, but talk to the head nurse.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you at the morning briefing.”

  Louise leaned back in the car seat and sighed in relief. She had to return the car to Svendsen, but she gave herself permission to take a taxi home. She pulled out and headed for Police Headquarters.

  She caught a cab just outside Copenhagen’s central post terminal.

  “Hollændervej, Frederiksberg,” she told the driver. Carefully she laid the tray of sushi on the back seat. It had been a strange day. Department A took on a lot of non-homicide cases, so of course they would get two homicides, one right after the other. And the most difficult type of homicides, to boot. Usually murders were committed by someone who knew the victim—a married couple, for instance, or a dispute between friends. They were simpler to deal with. When the killer’s identity is known from the start, it’s just a matter of collecting evidence to support a potential confession. But these murders were apparently committed by unknown outsiders. Two major investigations of this type were a lot to handle at one time.

  Louise caught herself hunching her shoulders. She forced them down where they belonged. A massive pile of work lay ahead, but strangely enough she loved it. She liked the pressure, enjoyed concentrating on a case. And lack of sleep didn’t really bother her, either. Short-term, at least. The worst part was the junk food she’d ended up eating because of the long hours, but lately they’d been better at ordering from places other than McDonald’s.

  As the taxi neared her apartment, she began looking for her billfold. For a moment she panicked; had she left it at the sushi place? But she found it in the outer pocket of her bag. She sighed in relief and paid the driver.

  “So long.” She slammed the door behind her.

  After opening the door of her fifth-floor apartment, Louise froze. Something felt wrong. She stood perfectly still and listened, then she backed out into the hall and set her bag and the tray of sushi down.

  She still couldn’t hear anything. Should she go down and call for a patrol car? Or just walk inside? If this had been some Hollywood film, she would have pulled out her gun. But this was the real world.

  To hell with it, she thought, and stepped inside. “Hello? Anyone here?” Something clattering startled her; the door to the kitchen’s back stairs was open a crack, and she ran over and pulled it open. She heard footsteps below on the stairs, not the rapid-fire tapping of someone running down, but heavy, slow steps. Someone on the way up. It confused her, and she stepped back and pushed the door shut.

  She struggled to control her breathing. The footsteps were closer now—one floor below, it sounded like. And they kept coming. Quickly she grabbed one of the big knives on the magnet above the kitchen counter, then she flung open the door, ready to fight.

  It was Peter. “What the hell are you doing here?” she yelled.

  “Taking the trash out.”

  “But why are you here?”

  She was still pointing the knife at him. He looked a bit sheepish, but then his smile took over. “So, were you going to attack me, or what?”

  “You’re goddamn right I was.” A wave of relief washed through her, and she stopped shaking. She lowered the knife and laughed. “Honey, you nearly scared me to death! When did you get back?”

  He came inside and closed the kitchen door behind him. “I left a few hours after I talked to you. The German buyers were called home, some sort of emergency, so there was no reason for me to stay.”

  She sat down on a chair at her round dining table.

  “I called and left a message on your phone when you didn’t answer at the department. I talked to somebody who thought you’d be getting home late.”

  “You scared the crap out of me.”

  Louise couldn’t shake it off. Peter came over and put his arm around her, and she buried her head in his stomach.

  “I’m really sorry, I didn’t think about you being surprised.”

  He stroked her hair. “Have you eaten?” He walked over to the refrigerator.

  “I brought some sushi home with me, how about you?”

  “I did some shopping. There’s a bottle of wine in the living room, if you’d like.”

  She stood up and decided to take a hot bath before they ate. She fetched the wine and poured two glasses, then she took one with her while Peter handled the food situation.

  This was what Camilla meant when she whined about not having a man to come home to—though she didn’t mean one who scared the daylights out of her. Louise smiled as she stepped into the tub and turned on the hot water full blast. Water exploded out of the showerhead when she raised the knob on the faucet.

  The hot stream felt incredible as it ran off her shoulders and down her back. She lost track of time, then suddenly caught herself thinking how she’d been looking forward to an evening alone. She missed Peter when he wasn’t there, yet she valued her solitude. When he was out on the road, she liked to listen to music or go to bed early and read. Immediately she felt ungrateful and pushed her disappointment aside.

  She’d forgotten her robe in the bedroom, and her towel from that morning still lay on the floor. “Peter,” she called out after turning off the water.

  A few moments later she heard his steps. She had goose bumps, and her nipples stuck out. Hopefully that wouldn’t encourage him; she was too exhausted for that. She covered up with the shower curtain when he came in.

  “Hey, you’re modest all of a sudden,” he said with a grin on his face.

  “Be a hero and bring my robe in from the bedroom and a clean towel from the drawer. Please.”

  When he returned he handed her the towel and held the robe open for her. She stepped into it as quickly as she could and tied it carefully.

  “Plates and silverware are out on the coffee table.” He kissed her on the cheek.

  “Thanks! Was your trip okay, apart from having it interrupted?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “Yeah, it went fine. Something interesting came up. I was contacted by our branch office in Scotland. They want me to help introduce one of their new major products.”

  “That sounds great. What’s it all about?”

  “They didn’t give any details, but they’ll get hold of me when I get back to the office.”

  The wine was just what Louise needed. While they ate, drowsiness began to take over. “Wasn’t it in Scotland that it poured all day on you?”

  Peter nodded thoughtfully. “But it’s beautiful there,” he said, after thinking about it for a moment.

  “Gray on gray, I believe, is how you put it,” Louise reminded him.

  “The nature there is absolutely fantastic. Magnificent landscape.” He made a sweeping gesture with his arm to describe the expanses.

  “Is that the tourist brochures speaking?”

  He shook his head. “Really, it’s beautiful, even when it’s rainy and gray.”

  She smiled at him. “You must have made quite an impression on them, since they contacted you.”

  They stood up and cleared the table. Louise had eaten too much; she felt bloated, heavy. Peter couldn’t walk into the specialty food stores on Gammel Kongevej without bringing home a little bit of everything. And then there was all the sushi she’d bought. She was yawning even before she crawled into bed.

  5

  Department A met in the lunchroom at eight the next morning for coffee and a briefing. Besides the regulars, several detectives from Bellahøj and City had been brought in to assist them.

  Louise found an empty chair and dragged it over to the corner of the table. When everyone had settled in, Hans Suhr, the head of Homicide, stood up at the end of the table. “Do I need to say we have visitors?” He gestured
toward the two long tables in the middle of the lunchroom.

  “Visitors we’re happy to see, I might add.” He smiled. “We have more than enough to do. Right now, there’s not much to go on with the murders of Karoline Wissinge and the journalist, Frank Sørensen. We’ve established that both victims were killed where they were found. Sørensen was lying in the courtyard behind the Royal Hotel, in the shed where the hotel employees park their bicycles. Karoline Wissinge was strangled and shoved behind a bench in Østre Anlæg.”

  He paced a bit in front of the wall with the large whiteboard. “It’s not often we’re in a situation like this, working on two major cases at the same time.”

  Louise stared straight ahead. That was exactly what she’d been thinking, but how did he plan to deal with it?

  “Lars Jørgensen is on the team working on the Wissinge murder now. Willumsen and his team will continue with Frank Sørensen.”

  Suhr straightened up with his back to the wall. “I might as well make it clear, there will be no days off until we wrap these cases up. They’re top priority, and I’ll make sure your shifts are canceled indefinitely.”

  Louise brightened. She hated taking duty shifts at Station City. Once a month she had an evening shift, every seven weeks a weekend shift, and she swore like a sailor when her time came.

  “Here we’ll be running two team shifts a day, at least with the murder of the journalist. We’re getting a lot of heat from the media, and we need something to give them.”

  Suhr raised his voice at the end, making it clear that otherwise there would be hell to pay. He was about to sit down, when he remembered something. “We’ll be holding briefings internally for the two teams. Separate briefings. I’ll be running them, as much as possible,” he added.

  “Good,” Toft said. “It’s too much to be involved in both homicides. We have enough to take care of with the case we’re on, right?”

  The chief nodded. “We’ll meet here for morning coffee and a general briefing, but mostly it will be very short updates.”

  Louise checked her watch. Eight thirty. She really should plan the day out before calling the hospital. When she got back to her office, she recognized Lars Jørgensen’s coat draped over the chair on the other side of the two desks.

  I can’t handle this, she thought. She closed her eyes and hoped that Suhr decided to call Søren in so she wouldn’t be saddled with a new partner. Though she knew that was selfish of her.

  She’d just sat down when Jørgensen walked in. “Hi, Lars, I figured it must be your coat.” She tried to sound cordial.

  “Hi, Rick. Yeah, now it’s you and me who have to figure all this out.” He smiled and walked over to the other side of the two desks pushed against each other.

  “Make yourself at home,” she said. “I’m doing several interviews today, so I’ll be in and out of the office. What’s your day look like?”

  “I have to talk to Heilmann. I haven’t been briefed on the case yet, so I don’t know how far along you are.”

  “I’ve been with the parents. But I need to get hold of her colleagues at the hospital.”

  Louise called the neurosurgery department. Heilmann knocked on the door and walked over to Jørgensen.

  “May I speak to Anna Wallentin,” Louise said, after introducing herself to the nurse who picked up the phone. She tapped her pen on the desk while waiting on the head nurse.

  “We’re making rounds right now, could you call in an hour? We’ll be done by then.”

  “I want to speak with Anna Wallentin, now. Please tell her to call Homicide within the next ten minutes.”

  Louise hoped that sounded dramatic enough.

  “Of course,” the nurse said, clearly nervous.

  Louise hung up and glanced at Heilmann and Jørgensen. She was a bit embarrassed about how much she still enjoyed saying Homicide. Just to hear the respect in people’s voices.

  “I’ve explained to Lars what you two will be doing,” Heilmann said.

  “I don’t need any help. I can do the interviews myself.” Louise heard the rejection in her words.

  “You two will be partners until Velin returns.” Heilmann started for the door. “And from what I hear, he won’t be back for another two and a half months.”

  Before Heilmann slammed the door, Louise’s phone rang. “Department A, Louise Rick.”

  It was Anna Wallentin. Louise asked her about Karoline’s colleagues, if there were any of them in particular she hung out with. Louise took down names and numbers as they spoke. Three girls, one guy. Karoline had been in neurosurgery for only two months, and most of them knew her primarily from short coffee breaks.

  When she hung up, she looked over at Jørgensen. “There are only four of them; that shouldn’t be too much to take care of.”

  “I have the feeling you’re annoyed at getting a new partner. I get it, 100 percent. I like Velin, too; we’re both on the police handball team.”

  Louise felt herself blushing.

  “If it was up to me, I’d still be in Narcotics and Licensing, but that’s not how it works. I’m here at Homicide for six months before I can go back, says my rotation schedule. And since your partner is taking comp time off, they’ve stuck me here. We might as well make the best of it.”

  He leaned back and studied her.

  “You’re right. You take anything in your coffee?”

  “Sugar, two teaspoons, no milk.”

  He followed her with his eyes as she walked to the door.

  When she came back, Suhr and Willumsen were in the office, talking to Jørgensen about the murder of the journalist. Louise set two cups on the desk. No one looked up. Stay out of it, she told herself. She grabbed her phone and walked out again.

  “Camilla Lind.”

  Louise could hear she’d called at the wrong time. “Hi, should I call back later?”

  “No, it’s okay. I can’t find this damn street, Spurvevej. I’ve been driving all over goddamn Svogerslev the last twenty minutes.”

  “Maybe you should stop and ask directions?”

  “I did, but then I got cussed out. Someone called me a nosy fucking reporter who ought to keep out of people’s business.”

  “You are a nosy fucking reporter,” Louise said, laughing now. “You don’t usually let that sort of thing bother you. “

  She felt her mood lifting. Camilla often went off on tirades, while Louise tended to keep her problems to herself.

  “It doesn’t bother me, but it’s weird down here; it’s like Frank Sørensen is this local hero suddenly, and now everyone thinks they have to protect his legacy.”

  “Surely not all of Svogerslev?” Louise said, teasing her again.

  “It sure as hell feels like it. Drosselvej! What’s with all these goddamn streets named for birds, bird after bird after…It must be right around here somewhere.”

  “Just wanted to hear how things are going. I thought you were doing that interview yesterday.”

  “The police, that’s you, took up the family’s entire day. The interview didn’t happen. I waited until nine o’clock last night, when they finally told Høyer it was postponed until today. And they also told him, in no uncertain terms, that we needed to respect your work and stop elbowing in. What the hell kind of crap is that? We’re just doing our job.”

  This was right up Camilla’s alley, Louise could hear. She was more than ready to do battle. No one was going to stop her from getting that interview with the weeping widow.

  “Shit, here it is, Spurvevej. Talk to you later.”

  Camilla hung up before Louise could say that she’d called to see if it was okay to whine about being given a new partner.

  At twelve o’clock, the investigation team sat around Heilmann’s conference table. Suhr had called the meeting, but he couldn’t attend himself; he had to appear on the noon news in connection with the murder of the journalist.

  That morning he’d observed the autopsy of Karoline Wissinge. As expected, it had been determined that
she died from the wounds on her throat. They also confirmed that she hadn’t been raped, but they did discover she was pregnant.

  “About eight weeks,” Heilmann said, before anyone could ask. “I’m assuming you’d have said something if her boyfriend had mentioned it yesterday?”

  Louise nodded, startled by the news. “Of course. Neither one of them, Martin Dahl nor her parents, said anything about her expecting. I don’t think they knew.”

  “Okay, so let’s see if they bring it up, otherwise we will.”

  Several witnesses had confirmed that Karoline left Baren with a man fitting the description of Lasse Møller. They decided to bring him in for questioning again.

  “You need to come down hard on him,” Heilmann said, turning to Toft.

  “All right, but this is nothing new. He says himself they left together. He didn’t know her before, and they split up at Silver Square. He stopped by St. Hans Square on the way home and went to bed about two thirty. But we can get him to repeat all that, if that’s what you mean.”

  Toft wasn’t being sarcastic. He followed the orders he was given.

  “Are there witnesses who can confirm this?”

  “He was seen at Pussy Galore; the only question is, when. Møller claims he used his debit card in the bar, but when I went through the receipts with the manager, there wasn’t one with his name on it. And he didn’t have a copy.”

  “How’s it going with your interviews?” Heilmann asked, looking at Louise and Jørgensen.

  Louise turned to her new partner, but he nodded at her. She said they’d spoken with two of Karoline’s colleagues who had known her since nursing school. “I didn’t get the impression they’re part of Karoline’s social life. They only saw her at work, so I don’t know how much we can rely on what they say about her. But she had another boyfriend before she met Dahl, a male nursing student.”

  “We’re talking to him and another one later today. They’re coming in at three,” Jørgensen added.