Only One Life

by Sara Blaedel

  “The investigation would grind to a halt if the boys were forced to drink that stuff,” she said, and apologized for not having mentioned this to Louise sooner. “There’s also a cupboard full of crackers and things for the days when we’re forced to skip breakfast or work drags out late into the evening.”

  Louise thanked her for the information and returned to the office to give her partner the Pepsi. They agreed that they wouldn’t let the uncle know they were planning to visit him that evening. He shouldn’t have any time to prepare.

  When Mik stood up and said that he had to go home before they set out again, Louise decided to follow Ruth’s example so she would be fresh for their visit to Benløse. She grabbed her bag and headed for the hotel, speculating with a little annoyance as to whether her partner had some kind of busybody wife since he was always having to check in at home and then come back.

  12

  LOUISE GLANCED AT HER WATCH AS SHE ENTERED THE HOTEL AND confirmed that she could just squeeze in half an hour of relaxation before they were supposed to meet for dinner. On her way to her room, she stopped by the restaurant to pick up a cup of tea. She had her back to the tables, waiting for the waiter to return from the kitchen, when she heard a familiar voice say, “There’s tea in the pot over here … and warm milk, if that’s any enticement.” She spun around in astonishment.

  Camilla was sitting at a table way over in the corner. Louise had walked right by her without noticing her.

  “What the hell!” Louise exclaimed. “When did you arrive?” She stepped over and gave her good friend a hug.

  “I got here this morning, and I’m only staying until tomorrow for right now.”

  “You’re writing about the case?” I don’t even know why I’m bothering to ask, Louise thought, as soon as the question was out of her mouth. Of course word had already gotten out. Obviously Morgenavisen was going to run the story.

  Camilla poured tea into a second cup and set it on the table. Then she proceeded to scold Louise.

  “Now, obviously it’s not like I’m entitled to know everything, but you darn well could have told me that you’d been assigned to the Mobile Task Force. That’s exciting news!”

  Louise took a seat and filled the rest of her cup with warm milk.

  “It’s going to be a challenge,” Louise admitted, instead of starting in on the excuses. “Do you know Storm?”

  Camilla nodded and said they’d known each other since he’d been put in charge when the Mobile Task Force was resurrected in 2002, after having been dismantled a couple years earlier and merged with the Forensics Department.

  “Storm’s a great guy,” Camilla said. “And, after all, Holbæk is practically like coming home again.”

  “Well, it’s a ways from Roskilde to Holbæk,” Louise pointed out. She and Camilla had known each other ever since they went to Roskilde High School together.

  “We used to get drunk and make out with boys here in town,” Camilla pointed out to Louise, but then she apparently forgot all about reminiscing and instead drew Louise’s attention to the notepad lying on the table in front of her. “I have to get to work now,” she said, explaining that she had a meeting with Storm later that evening, and that until then she was planning to poke around a little.

  Louise realized right away what that meant. Camilla was going to do her best to find someone who had known Samra.

  “The girl’s mother ran off to a women’s shelter several times. A woman doesn’t just go do something like that unless she has a real reason,” Camilla said, obviously sure that part of her story lay there.

  “She went to the shelter only one time,” Louise corrected, realizing too late that in doing so she had just confirmed what Camilla was probably only guessing at.

  “Was Samra rebellious?” Camilla asked.

  Louise shook her head to indicate that Camilla wasn’t going to get anything else out of her.

  “Either she didn’t want to get married or she had a Danish boyfriend …,” Camilla plowed on, undaunted.

  Louise shook her head slightly at Camilla and got up to leave. “The others will be down here in a bit. We’re meeting for dinner in fifteen minutes. I’m just going to pop up to my room beforehand,” she said, excusing herself and thanking Camilla for the tea.

  Camilla walked Louise out to the lobby, where she wrapped a crocheted shawl around her shoulders and pulled her shoulder strap over her head so her bag rested securely on her back.

  Louise gave her a hug as they parted and hurried up to her room to wash her hands and splash a little water on her face before joining the others for dinner. Running into Camilla had reinvigorated her, and she didn’t feel the least bit tired anymore.

  When Louise stood up from the table after dinner, she suddenly regretted not having passed on the dessert. She had just started a brisk stroll back to the police station when she spotted Mik, who had pulled over to the curb, waiting for her. She turned to head toward him, but at the same time noticed a figure leaning against a streetlight a ways behind the car. When she got closer, she recognized Dicta Møller, even though the girl was wrapped in a large scarf that was covering the lower part of her face and wore a cap pulled down to her eyes. Louise motioned to Mik that she was just going to run over and talk to the girl.

  “Hi,” she called out before she got too close so as not to frighten Dicta. “Are you doing better?”

  The young girl shook her head and asked Louise if she had time to talk. She had been to the station to ask for Louise and had been told she would be back around seven.

  Louise thought it over quickly. Then she strode over to the car and explained that Dicta was there to talk to her.

  “I’ll just head down there alone,” Mik said without hesitation and agreed that it was important they find out what the girl had to say.

  “Do you want to come inside, or would you rather go to a café?” Louise asked, realizing Dicta might tell her more now than she had with her parents present.

  The young girl thought about it for a moment, as if she were contemplating where it would be least embarrassing to be seen—at the police station or at a café, where people could see that she was talking to a police officer. Finally she chose a café that was located at the end of Ahlgade. Once they got there, Louise realized there wasn’t much risk of running into anyone else Dicta’s age. Yellowed lace curtains were drawn over the large windows, so the late evening sun had no effect on the dark atmosphere in the café, and the wall sconces cast a greenish sheen over the room, leaving the customers in a shadowy darkness. They ordered soft drinks and chose a table in the back.

  “How did your trip out to Hønsehalsen go?” Louise asked. “I assume they didn’t let you go all the way out.”

  Dicta shook her head and said that Michael had gotten one of the policemen out there to lay her bouquet down by the cliff.

  “When you’re a photographer, you know most of the people in town,” Dicta said and smiled a little.

  “How did it go with the pictures? Did they turn out well?” Louise asked, pouring soda into her glass even though she wasn’t sure it was entirely clean.

  Dicta shrugged.

  “I haven’t seen them. I didn’t want to. He just drove me home again afterward.”

  The answer fell short, not leaving Louise with any easy way to keep the conversation going, so she waited for the girl to start telling her why she had been standing outside the police station waiting for her.

  “I came to tell you that I’m not sure something I said was true,” Dicta finally began. “I don’t know if it’s true that Samra was afraid of her father, and I’m afraid I might have told you something incorrect.”

  Dicta said this very tersely, and it was as if the self-confident air she had had during her visit to the police station had disappeared. Louise found herself sitting across from a hesitant little girl, who had been scrutinizing every single word she’d said and had immediately developed a tummy ache.

  “She liked her parents,�
� Dicta continued. “But she just wasn’t ever allowed to do anything and it’s been like that since her mother found a picture of one of the boys from our class. It was in Samra’s wallet, hidden in a bunch of other stuff.”

  After a long pause, during which they sat there facing each other in silence, Dicta started to explain how Samra had falsified her school schedule after summer vacation when they started ninth grade.

  “She always had to be home right after her last class. But on Monday and Tuesday, when we got out earlier, she wrote extra classes on her schedule to give herself some time to hang out with the rest of us. We promised not to say anything because she said something terrible would happen if her father found out about it.”

  “So what did you guys usually do?” Louise asked.

  “We either hung out at school or went to my place. Every once in a while she’d come down to Michael’s photography studio or to a café where she knew she wouldn’t run into anyone. There was this one time when we ran into her dad down on Ahlgade at a time when he thought she was still in school. He was furious even though she told him one of the teachers had been sick and we’d had a free period. He wouldn’t even listen to her and he ordered her to go straight home.”

  Louise listened without interrupting.

  “Her brother’s allowed to hang out with his friends in town. I didn’t get why her parents treated the two of them so differently,” Dicta said, sounding offended on her friend’s behalf.

  “He’s older, and he’s a boy,” Louise said, knowing that a Danish teenage girl was not going to find that answer sufficient.

  “Yeah, but he got into fights and all that kind of stuff,” Dicta replied indignantly. “I just didn’t think it was fair.” She took off her scarf and hat and her blonde hair hung down almost to the edge of the table.

  Louise just nodded.

  “Samra didn’t think so either,” Dicta continued. “That’s why every once in a while she would run away.”

  Louise couldn’t blame her. But she did think there was something wrong with parents moving an eleven-year-old to a country with such a dramatically different culture and putting her in school there without making it possible for her to fit in and be like the other kids. It was only natural for a girl like that to try to fit into her new life. Danish kids who moved from one part of the country to another would try to do exactly the same, but they would have a much easier time adjusting. In this case, there was this ominous demand that girls had to adapt, but only to a certain extent, otherwise all hell would break loose.

  “Did it seem like her parents were pressuring her to maintain their traditional culture?” Louise asked, interested.

  It took a little while before Dicta responded, but eventually she shook her head. “Not pressuring, no. She felt like her parents’ attitude toward tradition was normal, you know? But sometimes it irritated her.”

  “Had you noticed anything about Samra? Had anything happened lately that had affected her?” Louise asked.

  “Just that she had been a little quiet lately, but she didn’t say anything, so I don’t know if there was anything wrong.”

  “Which boy from class did she have a picture of?” Louise wanted to know, flagging down the waitress at the same time so she could pay.

  Dicta hesitated a little, as if she had revealed something that was going to make her tummy hurt later.

  “His name is Mads, but that’s over. He’s dating Emilie now.”

  “Has she dated anyone else?” Louise asked as they were on their way out.

  An older man with a pint of porter and an aquavit in front of him watched their motions with interest.

  “No, they weren’t dating,” Dicta interrupted loudly to emphasize that Louise had misunderstood. “She just liked him. I don’t even think he knew about it.”

  “Okay,” Louise said, holding the door. “Was there anyone else she had a crush on or was maybe interested in? I mean, I suppose it’s practically unavoidable at your age.”

  When that went unanswered, Louise asked instead if Dicta had a boyfriend.

  The girl quickly shook her head. “I’m making my modeling work a priority,” she said, explaining that she and Michael Mogensen had devoted a lot of time to taking those pictures, and that they were going to help her reach the next level in her career.

  Louise was again surprised by the way the girl expressed herself and her very grown-up attitude toward her modeling. Not that it surprised Louise to see a girl that age going after her dreams in such a purposeful way, and after all, Dicta was a pretty girl.

  It was almost nine o’clock when Louise returned to the police station. Mik wasn’t back yet. She considered waiting for him, but she was tired; and since his cell went straight to voicemail she figured he’d turned it off, either because he was still with Samra’s uncle or because he was already back at his own home. She powered down her computer and started walking back to the hotel.

  13

  WHEN CAMILLA STEPPED ACROSS THE THRESHOLD OF THE al-Abd family’s apartment in the yellow-brick row house a little after eight-thirty, she noticed how densely packed the place was with furniture. Dressers, shoe racks, a display case, a row of hooks above so that a thick blanketlike layer of clothes hung over the rest. She smiled and introduced herself to a short, thin woman who only came up to Camilla’s shoulders and wore an attractive black scarf over her head.

  “I’m Camilla Lind. I’m with Morgenavisen,” she said, and then hurriedly continued, “I’m so sorry about what happened to your daughter.”

  Even though it was the most glaring cliché to fire off at the woman, Camilla meant it. After she had arrived in town the day before, she had taken a spin through downtown Holbæk to track down some teenagers who had known Samra and were willing to talk about her. The picture of the young immigrant girl that had emerged was basically no more heartrending than if it had been any other young girl who’d been killed in the same way, but it also didn’t help make the situation any more comprehensible. Extremely sweet, helpful, fun, smart … it had been a long list of superlatives. But what had struck Camilla most was how raw the teenagers’ grief was. They had been genuinely floored by a level of pain and turmoil that they didn’t comprehend. They understood that the worst had happened and they were responding to it, but they had in no way been prepared to have the foundations of their lives yanked out from underneath them that way. The safe and innocent world they’d known had disappeared all of a sudden, pushing them several steps closer to the seriousness and sorrows of life.

  “I’d really like to talk to you a little,” Camilla continued.

  Sada al-Abd started retreating back into the apartment, eyes downcast to the floor. Camilla knew she was thirty-seven years old and that she understood and spoke some Danish. She heard a young child’s voice from inside the living room, and a second later a cute little girl with dark curls dancing around her head came to the doorway, casting a slightly shy glance at the female stranger. In the background Camilla spotted a little boy, who was sitting on the floor playing with some blocks.

  The mother said something to her daughter in a language Camilla didn’t understand, and the girl smiled, her mouth full of chalk-white teeth that would have made a great ad for Arla, the dairy company, and disappeared back into the living room to join her little brother.

  “I didn’t want to bother you,” Camilla quickly told the mother. “But I was talking to some of Samra’s friends in town yesterday and they told me such nice things about your daughter. I thought you might like to hear what they said.”

  She waited to see how much of her Danish the mother seemed to understand. The woman’s eyes were still trained on the floor, but she nodded weakly at Camilla’s words. However, as soon as Camilla finished talking, the woman shook her head and softly said, “You have to go.”

  Camilla stood there for a moment, looking at the Jordanian woman. She couldn’t tell if there was fear mixed with the profound grief emanating from her.

  “We could al
so meet somewhere else to talk,” Camilla suggested, making another attempt. “I’m going to have to write about this story, with or without your cooperation. But it would be better if you would talk to me.”

  Again the woman shook her head.

  “I can’t talk to you.” She had a thick accent in Danish, but she was very understandable.

  Camilla sensed motion behind her before she heard a voice say, “What are you doing here? Leave us alone.”

  A man had entered without her having heard him, and when she turned around he was standing right behind her.

  “You must not come here and bother us.…”

  The man’s voice grew louder and Camilla tried to explain that she was not trying to bother anyone, that she just wanted to talk to them about what had happened. But everything she said was drowned out by his yelling.

  Then he turned his rage on Sada. “What did you tell her?” he yelled.

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “I’m calling the police,” he screamed at Camilla. “You need to get out of here NOW!”

  She watched how he punched the buttons on his phone, shifting angrily from one foot to the other in his eagerness to get through. Sada stood still, as if nailed to the spot, her eyes on her own feet, as Ibrahim moved to the living room to talk.

  Camilla moved a step closer to her and said, “I know you reported him for abuse and spent some time at a shelter, but then you came back to him. How could you do that to your daughter?”

  The mother jumped as the import of the words hit her. She looked up and stared Camilla right in the eyes but didn’t say anything.

  The man’s infuriated voice was echoing in the background. He had finally gotten through to a human.

  “I’m staying at the Station Hotel and I hope you’ll decide to talk to me. But I’m going to be writing my articles whether you do or not.”

  Camilla nodded a quick farewell before the husband returned. As she walked down the stairs, she briefly contemplated whether she ought to call the Holbæk Police herself and let them know she was the one who had stopped by to see the family and triggered this enormous outburst of anger. But that might be blowing things out of proportion, she thought.