by Sara Blaedel
“There are lots of feature films, and you can pretty much figure they’re in the violence genre.”
He closed the site with the downloads, and Louise only listened with half an ear to what he was saying. Her eyes caught on a document in the upper right corner: “Unedited.”
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing.
“It’s an AVI file. The things on the desktop are a little mixed. I haven’t had a good look through it yet, but it seems to be something that was transferred. Probably with a USB drive. Photos and newspaper articles…”
“See if you can open that one,” she asked and pulled her chair closer.
When he clicked, the file opened in Media Player and showed that it was a clip lasting just five minutes.
“Man shot down” was written in green ink on a piece of lined paper. Might be meant as an intro and was filmed by hand.
“September 25” it said in the upper right under Properties.
Louise leaned forward and scooted in so she could be right on top of the screen and follow along.
Play.
The camera must have been on a stand because the picture didn’t follow along when the two people in the film moved. Now and then they disappeared from the screen, but then popped back up again. It was hard to get a good look at anything because it was too dark and the people only appeared as vague silhouettes.
Darkness swallowed up most of the action. But then they were there again, and one of them passed a firearm to the other. Several weapons passed in front of the camera’s lens; the two people walked away holding four firearms up to the camera, so there was no doubt that they were heavily armed. But it was still too dark to see details, just outlines of the mouths and barrels of guns—one of them was a machine gun.
The pair started moving; one of them carried the camera. You could see that it was being raised, and at one point the lens caught some light that gave Louise the impression that they were moving toward a house with lamps lit behind the windows.
She heard noise, something clattered, and the camera went out. Raised again on another stand, farther up. All the way up to the house, with a clear view of the lit-up windows.
There was a humming sound as it zoomed in and sharpened the focus.
In on the sofa lay Nick Hartmann. You could see perfectly that his eyes were on the TV, which was a little to his right.
There was a yell that sounded like “Clear,” and then the first shot.
Behind the window, Hartmann jumped off the sofa. Glass shattered and he ran through the living room out to what Louise knew was the kitchen.
The shots went on and on.
When Hartmann came back, the one carrying the machine gun bounded up to the broken window and carefully positioned the gun barrel in the window frame before firing away.
Louise leaned forward.
The ponytail was perfectly visible, and she recognized the profile from the photos the police had brought to show Jonas.
“How clear can you make these images?” she asked, just as Mie’s dog came into view.
Zato stood in an attack position, but soon fell over on his side, hit by a single shot.
It was in the moment he turned to the dog that Nick Hartmann himself was hit.
You could see that he tried to hide, but didn’t manage to before a burst from the machine gun reached him. He was blown backward, and at the same time there was a shot from the other end of the living room.
Louise’s eyes ached from focusing. The person who shot in through the window farthest to the right, the window that was closest to the kitchen, was taller and seemed more heavily into it. She couldn’t say with certainty that it was Kenneth Thim or Thomas Jørgensen, but she was almost positive it was one of them.
“How clear can these images be if you enhance them?” she asked again.
“I can’t do much with the part that’s taped in the dark, but I’d think we could get very close where it’s lit up by the light in the living room.”
Suddenly, the camera moved, aimed and zoomed in on Nick Hartmann’s bloodied body as a final shot struck him in the chest.
The finale.
All over then. The camera shut off as the feet ran away.
* * *
The others had gone to lunch when Louise came back with a copy of the film, given to her by a National Police officer on the other side of the street. She’d already called Suhr and told him what they’d found on the computer from down at the boathouse.
She went over to the lunchroom for a cup of coffee, but was too full of disgust to be hungry.
VENGEFUL MOTHER DENIES ALL was on the front page of one of the day’s newspapers. There was also a large photo of Britt, taken through the side window of a patrol car. Louise thought she must have been caught as she was being driven back to Vestre after the last interrogation. She took the newspaper with her into the office.
The caption underneath the photo went on about how Britt had set fire to the boathouse with flammable liquid while two young teenage boys lay sleeping inside.
The word choice varied a little, but they either called her “thirsty for vengeance,” “vengeful,” or “arsonist.” Sebastian Styhne’s father, the restaurant owner from New Harbor, had been quite generous in telling the public about his son and his friends, and the picture he painted for them was of a bunch of happy boys who hung out together, drank a little beer, and went into the city like all the other young people.
After the film Louise had seen, there was quite some distance between what the father presented and reality. A bit cynical, she thought and pushed the newspaper aside, feeling profoundly disturbed over the way Nick Hartmann had been executed only a few yards from the room where his wife and their little baby were.
Her cell phone rang. It was Michael Stig. He and Toft were in their office with the police’s prosecuting attorney and were ready to play the film.
Louise poured the rest of her coffee in the sink. In the hallway she met Suhr, who was also joining them, and Willumsen had rolled an extra chair in.
“If the people in the images are clear and identifiable, we’ll get started with the arrests immediately,” said the lieutenant.
* * *
“An ordered killing?” Suhr pondered afterward, walking with her to her office, where Sejr sat behind his screens.
“Presumably,” Louise conceded, and added that the youths were also sick enough to make a little entertainment out of it for their film collection.
“Do people sell that kind of film?” asked the lieutenant and looked across the desk.
Sejr Gylling took his headphones off when he sensed that he was being spoken to, and asked Suhr to repeat himself. Then he shrugged his shoulders.
“People either join a group for trading, or they can be bought and sold. It can go either way. But if you don’t have any of your own films to trade, you’ll have to pay big money for the ones you want to watch.”
“Then we’ll have to have the folks in IT take a look to see what else is on the computer. Hartmann might not be the only one the boys have tossed into the entertainment collective,” the lieutenant said, adding that it would be a nice bonus if they could also track down the people who uploaded death videos onto the Internet.
“Like to know if they filmed my Saab getting blown up,” Louise mumbled drily.
She didn’t disagree with Suhr when he concluded that it was the connection between the bikers, or at least people on their periphery, and Nick Hartmann that had led to the murder. The boys in the boathouse had been involved; several of them had hopes of making it into the biker ranks, and so they’d run errands for them.
“Shouldn’t we get Mie to review the photos of these boys?” she asked. “They might be the ones who were sent to scare the life out of her and empty the valuables from her home.”
Suhr nodded and looked at Sejr.
“Can you go through Nymann and the other boys’ bank statements so we can see if there’s been a large deposit that might be paym
ent for an ordered killing?”
Gylling nodded, but warned the lieutenant that it could be days before he could get access to their bank statements.
Michael Stig and Toft had joined them and stood in the door, but had to move out of the way when Willumsen squeezed through.
“We’re picking up all three boys for questioning, and I’ll be damned if they’re getting out of here before they’ve given an account for the whole shit. They’re going to tell us what they know about Hartmann, and what their connection is to the bikers, and whatever the hell else they’ve spent their time doing,” snarled the lead investigator.
He was clearly torn up over the premeditated and cold-blooded shooting he’d seen, but also over the tastelessness in their cynically filming the whole thing, so they could both amuse themselves and share it afterward.
“And they must not be allowed to talk together when they realize we’re after them,” he continued and looked at Toft and Michael Stig. “Make sure they don’t have a chance to call or write each other.”
They nodded. Discussed quickly in which order to pick them up. A sudden intensity took hold like a vibrating tension—an adrenaline kick waiting to be released. Louise had much more respect for Willumsen when he played the role of someone who looked ahead and delegated, instead of going around all pissed-off and spoiling everyone’s mood.
He looked at Louise.
“Britt Fasting-Thomsen ought to be grateful she wasn’t hurt worse than she was when they attacked her down at the sailing club.”
There went a little of her respect for him again.
“Britt couldn’t have been hurt worse than she was that night,” Louise said and gave him an irritated look.
“Oh yeah, she could have. Now that we know what these boys go around doing,” Willumsen said.
“You still don’t get it,” she said, holding his gaze. “Signe’s mother lost everything when she lost her daughter. She’s checked out. She didn’t even have the energy to set fire to the shitty boathouse and the even shittier boys. She’s been lying at home in a world that’s stood still. And now she’s playing the scapegoat for someone who doesn’t give a damn that she’s taken the fall. So, to be honest with you, I think it’s hard to imagine how she could have been hurt worse.”
She exhaled and reminded herself once again that she ought to pay Britt that off-the-record visit.
“And that’s something you know?” Toft asked and looked at her with interest. Among her colleagues, he was the one who took her intuitions most seriously.
Louise nodded.
“I feel very convinced that she’s innocent. But it’ll be us who’ll have to prove she didn’t do it. Because it’s not something we’ll get her to say.”
Now she looked at Willumsen and elaborated.
“She’s still going through so much hell that it doesn’t matter to her where she wears out her life. It doesn’t matter which side of the wall she finds herself on, because she’s already lost everything.”
The lieutenant stood up from the short bureau, and the lead investigator stuck his hands in the pockets of his gabardine trousers, his striped sweater creeping up and revealing a paunch that stuck a good distance over his belt buckle.
“Let’s go into my office,” Suhr said and asked Louise to join him while the others got ready to pick up Kenneth Thim, Thomas Jørgensen, and Jón Vigdísarson for questioning.
* * *
“I just don’t believe she did it,” Louise repeated once the lieutenant had closed the door behind them.
But at the same time, she admitted that she couldn’t explain how Britt’s car had gotten down to the harbor when she said she hadn’t driven it there. Or where the firewood had come from if not from the woodshed behind the house on Strandvænget.
“I have no idea,” she said and gestured with her arms. “Someone wanted us to think it was her. That worked at first, but now we need to prove that she wasn’t there.”
“The evidence is already quite clear,” the lieutenant said from his chair behind his desk.
He looked at her, waiting for her to come up with something concrete to strengthen her impression.
“And who else might it be? The boys? Would they burn down their meeting place with two of their friends inside in order to pass the blame onto a woman they don’t know?”
He looked doubtfully at her.
“Of course not.”
“Then who?”
She took a deep breath.
“Ulrik!”
Suhr raised an eyebrow.
“Her husband?”
Louise nodded.
“Maybe, but I don’t think anyone counted on there being someone in the boathouse. The boys were tossed out and had moved their things. No one could know that Sebastian Styhne and Peter Nymann lay sleeping in there. Not even Britt.”
He listened, but gave her a skeptical look.
“Do you mean to say it was Ulrik Fasting-Thomsen who set fire to his own buildings and then afterward let his wife sit in prison charged with arson and double homicide?”
“No, that wouldn’t fit,” Louise had to confess. “But one might imagine that he’s the one who kicked in the money for Hartmann’s extra container, the one that came from Hong Kong last time. Sejr’s found a hidden account in a bank on the Isle of Man.”
It seemed like the lieutenant was already informed, because he nodded and asked if they’d looked through transfers and bank statements yet.
“We’re getting them from Interpol later today, but it’s quite clear that he’s knowingly kept money hidden from the tax authorities at SKAT and from his own firm’s accounting,” she said.
“Really? A swindle from one of the country’s most respected investment consultants?” Suhr asked doubtfully.
“It looks that way,” she said, nodding. “He could have kicked the money in. He knew Hartmann and knew what was in the warehouse. Once we started looking closer at the things down there, it may have been very convenient for him if it all went up in flames.”
Hans Suhr leaned back in his chair and studied her. Then he cleared his throat, and she saw that he hadn’t bought it.
“And lose the value of what was in there?” he asked.
“I think he’d damn well rather lose the four million he kicked in than his good name and reputation, which he risked if he was found out,” she said.
She reminded her boss that if the episode down in the boathouse hadn’t happened, then the police would never have interested themselves in Ulrik’s finances.
“Let’s just wait and see what that secret account tells us before we go getting carried away,” Suhr decided. “It may be there’s only pennies in there, and nothing more.”
She nodded, then stood up to leave.
“What do you suddenly have against Ulrik Fasting-Thomsen?” he asked.
She stood a bit thinking it over before answering.
“I have something against how we’re single-mindedly following a track that doesn’t make sense to me. Also, I have reason to believe that Ulrik isn’t so completely loyal as I first thought. When I spoke with him this morning, I confirmed that over a long period he’s had a lover who he’s traveled around with and introduced as his wife. To my eyes, it’s starting to look like he’s led a double life next to the nice and presentable one that we know about.”
Now she had Suhr’s undivided attention. He took off his glasses, folded them, and laid them on his desk between two stacks of paper.
“Where do you have that information from?” he asked and wondered if it was something Britt had told her.
Louise shook her head.
“I’m not even sure that Britt knows anything about it. I haven’t spoken with her yet.”
She told him about Camilla and her visit in Santa Barbara.
“Camilla Lind,” the lieutenant said with a nod. “I thought she was on leave?”
“She is. It was just an interview she wanted to do, and while she was there Sachs-Smith told her he’d
had a visit from Ulrik and a wife who turned out not to be Britt.”
Suhr chewed on that a bit before he surrendered.
“Well then, we’ll have to give him a careful looking over.”
He began to nod.
Louise shrugged her shoulders.
There was a knock on the door and Willumsen came in with red splotches along his neck. He was breathing rapidly.
“Someone’s been after Mie Hartmann again,” he said without apologizing for the interruption.
“Has anything happened to the child?” Louise asked.
He shook his head quickly and looked at Suhr.
“They found her at a friend’s up in North Zealand—however the hell they tracked her down,” he snarled and ran his hand through his black hair. “She’d been out taking a walk in the woods with her little girl in a baby carriage, and when they came back to the house there was a child’s bed out in the yard, with a duvet and the whole shit. Inside it was a photograph of her daughter—the same photograph Mie had in her living room at home. They’d taken it with them when they paid their visit the other day. But they’d added a detail. In this photograph, the daughter has a rope around her neck.”
He put his hands around his neck to illustrate.
“They must have Photoshopped it. I just got it in an e-mail, and it looks a hundred percent real,” he said, shaking his head. “Along with the photo, Mie Hartmann found a note that said she should call a cell number when she was ready to pay what her husband owed. If not, the girl would end up like in the picture.”
Willumsen had started pacing back and forth in the office. He had his eyes on the floor while he talked, and the furrows that appeared across his brow clearly showed his concern.
“Someone means all this seriously,” he said. “Hartmann’s widow is, according to what our colleagues are saying, a basket case and doesn’t want to be alone. Understandably enough,” he added, revealing a side of Willumsen that was softer and more understanding. Because it was there, just buried deep.
“For God’s sake,” Suhr exclaimed and put his glasses back on.