The Running Girl

by Sara Blaedel

  “I don’t want to go home,” Markus said suddenly.

  They’d driven for half an hour without finding any place to eat.

  “It’s all wrong to go to school when Signe’s not there. And we said we’d be gone for two months, so it sucks to come home before that.”

  “We need to go home and be there for Signe’s mom, if it will help her,” Camilla said quietly, even though she understood him.

  Britt had been placed under arrest and would be arraigned by the judge the next morning. If the police had as much to put on the table as Louise claimed, then she’d probably be put in prison and await trial for two to four weeks, Camilla guessed. She hoped Ulrik’s lawyer was good.

  Finally, they caught sight of a sign—Ruby’s Diner was coming up in three miles. They’d driven from the hotel a little after 8:00 a.m., and now she felt hungry. At the same time, she also felt a little bit of doubt down in the pit of her stomach, but it was too early to let it grow into something big. Much too early.

  There were three cars in the diner’s parking lot, and Camilla drove all the way up to the entrance with the red-and-white sign.

  “Can I get a vanilla milkshake and a cheeseburger?” Markus asked Camilla while she held the door for him.

  She smiled, knowing he was taking advantage of how out of it she was, with her thoughts everywhere except on him and their agreement not to eat burgers more than twice a week.

  God, she really should do that interview with Frederik Sachs-Smith, she decided as a waitress with a ponytail and few clothes on set their tall glasses on the table along with the shiny shaker containing the rest of the vanilla drink.

  Frederik still hadn’t spoken with any journalists, but he’d agreed to speak with her—also, it meant they could spend three or four days in San Francisco before driving along the coast down Highway 1 to Santa Barbara where, according to Ulrik, he lived in a big house on the water.

  39

  The coffee was Thermos-dull and far from being as hot as when she’d poured it in the kitchen, shortly after Britt Fasting-Thomsen had been taken from her arraignment to a further interrogation.

  The judge had, as expected, ordered her to be held for four weeks.

  Britt was wearing the same clothes as the day before. Her face was free of makeup, but that’s how it had been for the last weeks. Soon after the funeral, Louise had started to notice the change. Signe’s mother wasn’t untidy, she’d just stopped doing anything to herself.

  She nodded mechanically when Louise offered to fill her cup with the lukewarm coffee. Next to her sat the lawyer Nikolaj Lassen. Ulrik had introduced him as the family attorney, and Louise had understood that they knew him well and got together with him privately, too. He was in the range of forty, blond and well-groomed. His suit was shiny and looked expensive.

  It was mostly Nikolaj Lassen who’d done the talking, once they’d come up to the office on the second floor after the arraignment hearing. Britt managed no more than a nod or a shake of her head.

  “I wasn’t down at the harbor, in the evening or at night,” she repeated in a tired voice. She no longer looked at them, kept her eyes on the table, her hands pressed together nervously. She didn’t feel comfortable, that was clear. “And I can’t explain how my car got down there.”

  There was a pause, then Louise switched directions.

  “And you’re sure Ulrik hadn’t seen the gas can, either?”

  The lawyer scooted forward in his seat.

  “It could have been him who bought it and put it in your car, because it’s not wise to drive around without a spare can,” Louise suggested.

  They’d already confirmed that Ulrik knew nothing about the green can, but she wanted to hear Britt’s answer.

  Louise and Toft had been granted the help of two officers from the Homicide Department’s other investigation group, and they’d gone around to various Aldi stores in the Østerbro, Nørrebro, and Frederiksberg neighborhoods. The discount chain didn’t have any stores in Hellerup, where the Fasting-Thomsen family shopped. But no one had recognized the photo of Britt, or remembered if anyone had bought more than one can while it was on sale. It was a product on a good sale, and they’d already sold many of the green cans by the beginning of the week when it appeared in their flyer but, their two colleagues told them, truth was that most of the young people behind the cash registers seemed entirely uninterested in what came down the belt and who handed them a credit card.

  The officers had also gone through all the credit card payments, but neither Britt’s name nor her account number had popped up.

  “I don’t know anything about it,” Britt said faintly and cleared her throat uncertainly.

  She’d taken the judge’s decision about holding her in jail very collectedly, had just bowed her head and stood obediently when an officer came over and took her by the elbow to escort her out.

  Now she looked over at Louise and didn’t try to hide the blank stare in her eyes.

  “I didn’t set fire to that house,” she said faintly. “I don’t know how the can ended up in the back of my car. But I didn’t put it there.”

  Again, Louise got the feeling that Britt didn’t think this really had anything to do with her, and if it weren’t for her insistence on her innocence Louise would worry about her falling apart. But she wasn’t on the verge of a breakdown. In an odd way, she was calm inside despite the serious charges. She didn’t seem afraid or nervous. It was more as if she expected the whole thing to go away again as long as she maintained that she wasn’t the one who’d done it.

  Toft stood up and walked over to the printer for the transcript of the hearing.

  The lawyer reached out his hand and took the three A4-size pages. He wanted to read it over thoroughly before letting his client sign.

  Louise leaned back a little and slumped in her chair. Nikolaj Lassen took his time. Britt sat looking out the window, but she didn’t seem interested in how the autumn sun made rays of light dance over the windowsill. She appeared to have sunk back into herself and into the thoughts that drew fine wrinkles across her nose.

  An abrupt, hard knock came on the door and everyone straightened up quickly as Willumsen stepped into the office and walked over to the desk, where he leaned in toward Britt and her lawyer.

  The whole day he’d been buzzing around between offices and the hallway like a fly in a bottle. Anxious to have her held in prison and irritated over her not giving an inch.

  “I’d be very interested if you could tell me what kind of firewood you have stored in your woodshed in the garden behind your house,” he said and waited on Britt with a look that made her scoot back in her chair and braid her fingers together into a tight fist. A touch of uncertainty flickered across her face and made her eyes seem uneasy.

  “The firewood,” she repeated, bewildered. “I really don’t know about that. That’s not something we do ourselves. We order it and then it gets delivered in a tall crate type of thing. Then, of course, my husband stacks it in the woodshed, but it’s not something he cuts down and chops himself. It’s all finished and ready to use when it comes.”

  She spoke nervously and explanatorily.

  “Do you know what kind of wood you heat with?” asked the lead investigator, still leaning toward her.

  Her lawyer moved a little nervously, and Louise waited to see how long before he stepped in. If he’d been the more cut-throat type, it would already have happened, but she bet Nikolaj Lassen would just see where Willumsen was going before he began to interfere.

  “I’m not familiar with that,” said Britt. “It’s always Ulrik who orders, when we start running low.”

  “Oak, beech, or pine?” Willumsen attempted, but shook his head.

  And now the lawyer leaned forward.

  “Where are you heading?” he asked and pulled back again to create a little distance from Willumsen’s big shadow that spread across the table.

  There was nothing timid about the lawyer, and he didn’t look partic
ularly nervous from his elegant appearance, but he didn’t seem like the aggressive type who tries to pick up points before the game’s opening whistle.

  Willumsen turned toward him and straightened up, stuck his hands in the pockets of his dark blue gabardine trousers, whose creases gave his pants legs a sharp edge. His glasses were pushed up onto his forehead—they were heavy and dark and blurred together with his black hair.

  “I’m heading somewhere where I might get an explanation for the incredible coincidence our crime techs just shared with me.”

  Again, he turned his gaze on Britt and told her that the criminal technicians had just finished their inspection of the house on Strandvænget.

  Louise knew that Michael Stig had been out there, and that the whole house had been searched.

  “The wood you have in your shed is oven-dried beech, cut and split to lengths of ten to twelve inches, and would most likely be delivered in a tall crate containing one face cord. The pieces of firewood that were thrown through the window in the boathouse and lit the gasoline that had been poured in the room were, interestingly enough, the same kind. The exact same kind,” he highlighted. “It wasn’t ash, birch, or mixed hardwood—or any of the other kinds of wood people buy finished and ready for use. Out at the Center for Forensic Services, they’ve concluded it was oven-dried beech, because unlike firewood that’s air-dried, that kind of wood gets a reddish color when treated in an oven.”

  The lawyer didn’t interrupt. Didn’t say a word.

  “It is an absolutely incredible coincidence, isn’t it? Maybe especially considering that none of your neighbors have that same kind of wood in their woodsheds.”

  He turned on his heels and left the office.

  Louise took a deep breath and pushed her cup full of cold coffee off to the side. She looked from Nikolaj Lassen to Britt, waiting for one of them to say something. The lawyer seemed resigned, and he avoided looking over at his client.

  Toft reached for the papers that were ready for Britt’s signature.

  “Should we step out for a moment, so you can have a chance to talk together?” suggested Louise and looked at the lawyer. She suddenly had the feeling that he was ready to leave Britt in the lurch.

  He nodded, and they left them alone.

  Out in the hall Willumsen stood triumphantly, waiting for them like a chess player who’d long foreseen his opponent’s next move. He knew that his news would require a time-out and had waited for Toft and Louise to come out.

  “Are we looking at a confession?” he asked, mostly aimed at Toft. He and Louise were still a little on edge with each other after what he’d said the day before, about moving her little-lady ass.

  “Possibly,” said Toft.

  He pulled his V-neck sweater over his head and fished his nicotine gum out of his shirt pocket. After the no-smoking policy hit Police Headquarters, he started sucking on a plastic cigarette that released a measured dose of nicotine, but later he realized how pathetic it looked to have a plastic thingamabob hanging from the corner of his mouth. A couple of months back he’d given in and traded the plastic cigarette for the more discreet chewing gum. The tobacco-substitute only came into play when he was indoors, though. Otherwise, he was happy with his Prince-brand cigarettes. He just didn’t want to have to go to the courtyard every time he craved nicotine.

  Louise shook her head, but Willumsen ignored her.

  “If Britt wanted to confess, she’d already have done it when I went out to talk with her. Then she would have been spared from sitting in there.”

  She nodded toward the office and could see that Toft was inclined to agree with her.

  “She won’t confess as long as you keep giving her hope that there’s a way out,” Willumsen corrected and looked at the clock.

  The door behind them opened, and Nikolaj Lassen stuck his head out and said they were ready.

  Behind him sat Britt, pale but just as composed as when the judge decided to send her behind bars for four weeks.

  After they’d sat down, the lawyer shook his head.

  “My client doesn’t know anything about the coincidence that seems to have happened. But the firewood on the family’s property is accessible to anyone. It’s not locked up or hidden from the road.”

  “But it’s not visible to outsiders, either, unless they come into the part of the garden that’s behind the house,” Louise pointed out and looked over at Britt.

  “That’s true,” she said and nodded to Louise.

  “I’d like to ask that we stop for today,” the lawyer said, speaking over them. “I need to consider this new information and go through anything else the technicians have found. So, I’d suggest that my client be driven back to Vestre Prison.”

  “Are you escorting her out there, or should we find transportation?” Louise asked and remained standing in the doorway while the lawyer packed his things together.

  “I assume you can see to that,” he said without looking up.

  “Is it all right with you if I drive her alone?” Louise asked Toft when they stood in the hall.

  He nodded and watched the lawyer disappear down the hall.

  * * *

  Louise picked up the keys to the patrol car that Michael Stig had parked down on Otto Mønsteds Gade when he came back from the search at the Fasting-Thomsen home.

  She and Britt didn’t talk together as they walked down the stairs, and the arrestee kept her eyes on the ground when Louise opened the door to the back seat and asked her to sit inside, then locked the police-secure doors and walked around the car.

  Britt had nothing with her besides the clothes she was wearing. No coat, no bag. Only the ice-blue cashmere cardigan, which she pulled a little snugger around herself when a journalist and a press photographer suddenly came running toward the car.

  The arson and homicides had been front page stuff in the weekend papers, in which both the restaurant owner in New Harbor and Nymann’s parents down in Næstved had spoken about their two big teenage boys who’d died in the flames.

  The journalists had also gotten hold of childhood friends and the three others from down at the boathouse. Louise guessed that it was the restaurant owner who volunteered their names. But it hadn’t yet gotten out that a forty-two-year-old woman had been arrested and charged in the case, even though it would only be a matter of time before the media found the connection between Signe’s death and her mother’s arrest. Then the story would explode for real.

  Suhr had already brought it up during the morning meeting in the breakfast room, but there wasn’t much they could do about it, except try to shelter Britt when she was driven to and from interrogations at Police Headquarters.

  While they drove over the Tietgens Bridge and out past DGI-byen, with its bowling alleys and restaurants, and the train yard, Louise decided she’d better warn Ulrik about what would be coming from the press, if he hadn’t already thought of it himself. Maybe it would be best if he moved out of the house for a while, she thought and stopped for a red light at Enghave Station, where they could look across and see Vestre Prison.

  She saw Britt in the rearview mirror and tried to read the blue eyes and flat expression that vacantly followed the daily life that glided past the right-side window.

  They turned off Vigerslev Allé and drove the short stretch up to the prison’s gate, which made her think about The Olsen Gang movies and all the times Egon was picked up outside Vridsløselille State Prison by Benny and Kjeld.

  Her thoughts turned to Jonas. This morning there’d been a text from Mik, who’d written that he’d taken time off so he and the boy could enjoy themselves, now that it was fall break. He hoped it was OK, now that she herself had to work. He’d drive him home to Copenhagen, so he’d be there around supper time; he’d even offered to take care of the food.

  It was not by any means OK, and Louise had already called and made that clear. She couldn’t have him pushing his way into her daily life and trying to be part of it. Still, she’d agreed to have h
im drive to Hvalsø and pick up Jonas so they could be together, because she couldn’t come up with a reason for why it was better for the boy to sit around doing nothing at her parents’ until his train left for Copenhagen at the end of the afternoon.

  What had also played into it was her awareness that she’d go to great lengths to keep Jonas happy and things light, up until the point where she’d have to tell him that the police had arrested and charged Signe’s mother with the murder of two of the kids who’d barged into the party.

  Louise drove the patrol car up to the gate and waited for it to slide to the side. In front of them there was yet another gate, but that wouldn’t open until she’d talked with the guard in the booth and the door behind them had closed with a heavy click. Under complete security they were let into the prison.

  Inside the compound, Louise drove slowly down to the parking lot behind Registration, and when she’d parked and turned off the engine she turned to Britt in the back seat.

  “You don’t need to tell me if you did it or not. You just need to tell me if it’s worthwhile to keep looking. I can’t get you out of the charges the police have made against you. They are serious allegations, some of the most serious that can be made, and you’re not just facing sixteen years behind bars. You’re facing a life sentence in a high-security prison. Deliberate homicide carried out as vengeance is one of the harshest crimes a person can commit. So, forget about telling me whether you’re guilty. Just tell me if I’m wasting my time trying to find out who did it, if it wasn’t you.”

  The look in her eyes changed, became present. Dark and intense as if they’d latched on to Louise’s eyes. Britt leaned forward, so her upper body was between the two front seats, and put her hand on Louise’s arm.

  “You shouldn’t do anything for my sake,” she said in a voice that was deeper than it had been in Police Headquarters.

  She let go of Louise’s arm and gazed out the window. Then her thoughts made her sit back in the seat again, and her look became distant.