by Sara Blaedel
Jensen smiled at her. “You’re freezing. Come on, let’s hop in the car. I brought along coffee. And I can fill you in briefly.”
On the way to the car, Camilla noticed Jensen had changed into dark pants, with a short, black down coat and black gloves. Classy, Camilla thought. A female police leader could look good even when out on an operation. It wasn’t at all like Louise’s heavy police coat and clunky boots.
“Have you followed up on anything since John Bro came in to see you?”
Jensen started the car and switched on the heater, then she turned and grabbed a basket with a thermos and cups.
Camilla shook her head, but then she realized Jensen might not have seen that in the dark. “No, and I won’t as long as we get something out of this tonight.”
Jensen poured her a cup of coffee, carefully handed it to her, and set the thermos down. “Of course. We’re open to other theories, too; it has to be looked into.”
They sat quietly and stared at the wall in front of them. The car clock showed 10:27 p.m.
Camilla had the feeling she was being observed. She held on to the plastic cup, even though it burned her fingers. Steam rose up and warmed her face. Her nose ran; she was still cold. Briefly she thought about bringing her notepad out and doing a short interview with Jensen. There might not be time later. “Will we join the others before they go up to the apartment?”
Jensen shook her head. “Drink your coffee. When you’ve warmed up, we’ll go into the courtyard and get ready. Two officers will take the front stairs to the apartment, another will stand out in front, and the last one will join us and we’ll go up the back steps and through the kitchen.”
Camilla nodded. She blew on the hot coffee and drank it greedily. Adrenaline began flowing; the welcome buzz calmed her down. It was going to be exciting! And there was no sense thinking about the dressing-down Høyer would give her. She smiled at the thought of the photo editor yelling and screaming about not bringing along a photographer. But she was sure her boss would back her up this time and agree the story was fantastic even without photos. The thought of the front-page headlines quieted her nerves.
Jørgensen was speaking softly on the phone when Louise returned to the office to shut down her computer and grab her coat and bag. He looked serious. “Jesus Christ, they’ve got to stop…,” she overheard, though she tried hard to appear not to be listening.
He hung up, and she glanced over at him. His face was pale, his eyes unfocused.
“What’s going on?”
“Trouble over in Narcotics.”
“What’s that got to do with you?”
“Apparently it’s something that goes back to when I was there.”
She frowned.
“That defense attorney, John Bro, requested they go through all the records of seized narcotics within the past year. Two registered numbers are missing.”
Before Louise could ask, he said, “Two bags. When seized drugs come into the station, they’re weighed and examined to determine what they are. Heroin, cocaine, amphetamines. Then they’re bagged up and labeled.”
He glanced at Louise to make sure she was following. She nodded.
“Then someone writes a report, and the bag is numbered before it’s taken down and stored with the rest of the drugs.”
“So, what’s missing?”
“Two bags, three kilos of heroin.”
He let that hang in the air for a moment. “One point two million kroner!”
Louise took a deep breath. “Didn’t you just sit here and explain how that could never happen?”
He nodded slowly.
“Let me guess. The heroin has a faint tinge of green.”
He pushed his chair back against the wall and sat with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. “The chief wants everyone in the department questioned. The superintendent of the service department and his people have also been called in.”
“Relax, aren’t the head of Narcotics and the superintendent the only ones with the key and code?”
He nodded again. “And that’s the damn problem.”
“What does Jensen say?”
He shrugged. “No one can find her.” He stood up and walked out.
She was calm when she shut the car door behind her, though she had to lean against the fender a moment because the cold made her dizzy.
They walked down the dark street. Camilla was careful not to step into a puddle on the sidewalk. The big arched entrance to the courtyard wasn’t lit, and they had to take a few moments to get their bearings.
“This way, over here.” Jensen walked on, Camilla fumbling along behind her. She glimpsed the wall along the long, narrow paved courtyard and the iron railing cordoning off the basement stairs. The dark silhouette looked like a shed.
“Are you here?”
“Yes.” Camilla breathed deeply and concentrated. “Which floor does Anders Hede live on?”
She couldn’t hear Jensen’s answer, so she repeated the question a bit louder. The policewoman pulled on her arm, knocking her off balance. “Keep it down!” she whispered.
Camilla whispered back, “Will they tell us when they go in?”
Jensen had pulled her over to the wall, close to the shed, which was probably used either for bicycles or trash cans. From the faint sour odor, Camilla guessed trash cans.
“They’ll let me know.”
Camilla couldn’t see her face, yet she sensed her vividly. Why was it difficult to keep her eyes open? She gave in and leaned against the wall to rest a moment until the action started.
Would it be okay to sit down? Something told her more than fifteen minutes had passed since they left the car. “You think something’s wrong, since they haven’t come yet?”
“No. They’re not coming; that’s never been the plan.”
The voice came from somewhere over her head, though Camilla couldn’t say where. She didn’t recognize it, either. It was cold and impersonal, like an echo bouncing off the walls of the surrounding buildings. She struggled to get up, but her legs wouldn’t obey.
This was how it had happened. After being drugged, they’d been stabbed. Faces danced across her line of vision, smiling and waving at her. She tried in vain to smile and wave back. “They found out you’re the one who took the heroin.”
Camilla said this to herself and felt a shadow looming over her.
“No one will ever know. Too bad, isn’t it?”
Everything feminine about the voice had disappeared, leaving only the raw words behind. Camilla felt warm breath. She managed to focus on the blurry face in front of her.
“I’m in charge. I decide who has to pay and who gets off the hook. When someone tries to stop me, obviously I have to act. If Frank hadn’t suspected more people were involved in the green heroin, I wouldn’t have had to do anything about it.”
Camilla heard scorn in the voice, though she was nearly unconscious.
“You reporters are so goddamn smart. But not smart enough when someone sticks a good story in front of your nose.”
Nausea overwhelmed Camilla. She leaned to the side and threw up. Rocked back and forth as if she were seasick and rolling with the waves. The world seemed to be drifting in fog.
“Søren Holm was so high-and-mighty when he confronted me on Vestergade. All his ridiculous accusations, bragging about finding the apartment that we couldn’t. Ha!”
The laughter rang hollow in Camilla’s ears.
“The witnesses said Holm and I were absorbed in each other. That was when I stuck the needle in him. Even though he suspected me, he drank the cup of coffee I offered him. Just like Frank Sørensen. Idiots!”
Camilla gave up trying to follow along.
24
Louise was packing up when her cell phone rang. Camilla’s home number. Thoughts flew through her head before she answered, the worst being that the lawyer had contacted her again.
“Hi.”
The voice startled her. “This is Christina. I’m sor
ry to bother you, but I’m here at home with Markus and I can’t get hold of Camilla.”
Louise sat down, confused now. And worried; she heard crying in the background, and Christina sounded panicky. “Has something happened?”
“Markus is sick. He’s burning up with fever; I took his temperature and it’s over 102.”
“Where’s Camilla?”
“At work. She called this afternoon and asked if I could stay with Markus until she got home.”
The crying in the background faded out. What the hell was Camilla doing? Her son was sick! “She’s not at the paper?”
“No, I called her office but no one answered, and she doesn’t have her cell phone; it’s here on her bed.”
“Did you try calling the paper directly, reception?”
“I only have the one number.”
“I’ll try to find her,” Louise said, “and if I can’t, I’ll come over. Call emergency for an on-call doctor.”
She punched the number for the newspaper and asked the receptionist if any of the crime staff were in.
“Everyone’s gone for the day.”
“I’d like to speak to Terkel Høyer.”
“He’ll be in again tomorrow. I can’t give you his private number.”
“I’m calling from the Copenhagen Police, Homicide Division. It’s vital that I get hold of him.”
She was about to hang up and call the phone carrier directly, when to her surprise the woman said, “Of course.”
Louise wrote down the number and called it. She heard the voice of a girl who sounded much too young to be up so late. “Hello.”
“Hello, my name is Louise Rick, may I speak to your father?”
“Mmmm…Daaaddy!” The girl laid the phone down with a thunk.
Høyer didn’t sound surprised she was calling him at home. “Camilla called at four and said she wasn’t coming back in. Something about a meeting at day care. I didn’t ask her to work this evening, either.”
Louise rocked back and forth on her toes. She thanked him and hung up.
Jørgensen came back in. She sat down, aware she was overreacting. She loosened her hair tie and lowered her head between her legs, shook her hair out until it fell like a curtain to the floor. Blood ran to her head.
The phone rang, and she banged her head on her desk when she straightened up. She swore as she rushed to pick up. “Department A, Louise Rick.”
“Camilla Lind is lying in the courtyard behind Nygårdsvej 6.”
Before Louise could hear background noise or any indication of where the call came from, the man hung up. He’d spoken quietly but clearly.
She jumped to her feet. “Camilla’s been murdered!” She felt nauseous, frightened, cold; Jørgensen followed her as she ran down the hall and barged into Suhr’s office. She tried to speak, but suddenly she was out of breath, as if she’d been punched. She doubled over and let out a half-choked sound. Someone lifted her up by her armpits and sat her down in a chair. She lashed out; they didn’t have time to sit around, they had to go, but she couldn’t speak. Again, it felt as if she were being punched.
“We have to go, Nygårdsvej 6, Camilla’s lying in the courtyard,” she finally managed to say. The pain in her gut spread throughout her body, and she breathed silently and deeply, again and again as she looked up at Suhr with Jørgensen kneeling beside the chair, his hand on her arm.
Suhr picked up his office phone. “Send an ambulance to Nygårdsvej 6; there’s a woman on the ground in the courtyard.”
“Let’s get out there,” Louise said, her panic attack over. “Who’s got a car?”
“I have the keys to a patrol car,” Jørgensen said, briefly explaining that Stig had talked him into delivering it back to the garage—for once something good had come from Stig’s laziness.
They ran down the hallway, Suhr at the rear. Louise remembered Markus and Christina, but the on-call doctor surely was there by now, and he and the babysitter would have to handle the situation.
Jørgensen switched on the siren and flashing blue lights. He seemed calm enough as he pulled out from the curb and roared down the street, but from the back seat, Louise saw the veins standing out on his temple.
Suhr turned and looked at her. “Who called?”
“I don’t know. A man. All he said was that Camilla Lind was lying in the courtyard of Nygårdsvej 6.”
“Then it must be someone who knows her?”
Louise shrugged. Her thoughts were jumbled. In her mind’s eyes she saw Holm lying in the autopsy room. Cold steel, glaring white light. She swallowed, tasted salt water in her saliva. She held back her nausea. “I feel like I know that voice.”
The police radio sent out short messages, but she wasn’t listening. “Shouldn’t we be thinking about backup?”
Jørgensen glanced over at Suhr, who growled shortly before grabbing the microphone and asking for two patrol cars.
The ambulance’s blue flashing lights reflected faintly out onto the street. It had backed into the courtyard and was blocking the entrance; Louise, Suhr, and Jørgensen had to squeeze their way past. A spotlight illuminated a portion of the narrow courtyard.
Louise shook off the arm that had been supporting her since they left the car. She broke into a run but stopped short of the corner where three people stood leaning over a wheeled stretcher. She could barely make out the motionless figure lying there.
“Wait over here.” The ambulance driver grabbed her arm. Louise tried to break free, but he tightened his grip and led her away. Suhr came over and stood beside them.
“Let’s go!” one of the three shouted as he pushed the stretcher over to the ambulance.
Suhr followed along beside the stretcher. “What’s happening, what’s her condition?”
“Is she dead?” Louise yelled, annoyed that her boss didn’t ask the question directly.
Jørgensen joined them and put his arm around Louise. This time she didn’t shake him off.
“One of them is, the other’s unconscious; we’re taking her to the National Hospital.”
Louise tried to catch Suhr’s eye to see if he understood what the ambulance doctor meant.
“Come on, let’s go!” The doctor hopped in and sat beside the stretcher. Another siren announced a second ambulance, which backed in after the intensive care unit ambulance carefully drove out and switched on its siren and lights. More people showed up.
“Louise!” Suhr’s voice pierced through her fog. “Jørgensen will drive you to the hospital.” He looked at her seriously. “We have to be there if Lind regains consciousness. Hopefully she’ll be able to tell us what happened.”
If she regains consciousness!
Louise nodded. Jørgensen took her arm and they walked out. She spied Flemming Larsen standing at the entrance, speaking to a tech. Flemming took a step toward her to say something, but she turned and hurried away. She didn’t want to hear the pathologist say anything that could connect him with Camilla.
25
They parked outside the trauma center and ran in, hesitating only a moment as the glass doors slid open.
“We’re with Camilla Lind; she’s just been brought in from Nygårdsvej,” Jørgensen said to the white-coated woman approaching them.
“Have a seat over there.” She pointed at two chairs in the hall beside the revolving door. “We need to contact her next of kin.”
“I’m her next of kin.” Louise stood up before realizing what she’d said. The family, they needed to call Camilla’s family. Her knees gave way, and she had to sit back down.
“Do you have her parents’ number?” Jørgensen asked.
“I can find her mother’s.”
Louise sat for a moment, staring straight ahead at a spot on the wall. She had to pull herself together, for Chrissake! Her voice thundered inside her head and spread throughout her body. She cursed her emotional reaction, threw her weakness aside, imagined a tremor passing through her as her strength returned. “What the hell happened? I’m s
orry, I still don’t understand what’s going on, how bad is she?” She turned to her partner.
“I don’t know,” he said.
It was a relief to hear he was also in the dark about Camilla. She walked over to the woman behind the glass windows. “How is she?”
The woman looked up. “I’m sorry, all I know is that she was unconscious when they brought her in. As soon as the doctor comes out, we’ll talk to him.”
Louise wrote down the number and address of Camilla’s mother. “But she lives in Jutland.”
The woman nodded.
Louise called Christina to find out how Markus was and to tell her that neither she nor Camilla would be coming home. The on-call doctor had told Christina to keep an eye on Markus and give him something to drink. His temperature had fallen somewhat, and now he was on the sofa, sleeping under a quilt.
They waited. More patients came in, but they were sent to the waiting room. Louise and Jørgensen were alone in the hall. She closed her eyes for a moment, or maybe longer, she wasn’t sure. She opened them at the sound of footsteps. A man wearing a coat approached them; not a doctor, she thought, and she closed her eyes again.
He stopped in front of them. “Are you Louise Rick?”
Jørgensen started to stand up, but Louise stopped him. She recognized the man, even though she’d only seen him at a distance. The Finn.
“Yes.”
That voice…“You’re the one who called!”
His face was blank. “I’d like to talk to you.”
Louise stood up and nodded. “I’ll find us a place.”
She went back over to the woman, while Jørgensen stayed with the Finn. They could use the lounge. Louise stood by the revolving door and waved them over. Jørgensen hesitated a moment before joining them, and the Finn didn’t object.
They were offered coffee, and it was brought to them at the long table in the lounge.
The Finn looked Louise right between the eyes. “I killed her.”
Her mouth dropped open; short bursts of emotions rammed into her one after another. “Killed her? Camilla?”
He frowned. “No. Birte Jensen.”