“Thanks.” She moved to give the handkerchief back to Tobias. He shook his head.
“Keep it. I have another.”
“I’m sorry,” said Astrid. “It just brings it all back to me. It was a horrible time. Completely horrible.” She twisted the edge of the handkerchief. “Emily said unspeakable things about my husband. They were all lies. Terrible lies. The police said so.”
“The police?”
“They came to the house and they took away his computer and his laptop.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Emily told the police he had pornography on it.”
Katrine exchanged a puzzled glance with Tobias. “Pornography is not illegal in Denmark,” she said.
“That kind is,” said Astrid. “The kind Emily accused him of having.”
“Can you be more specific, Mrs Thomsen?” said Tobias.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Astrid. “It distresses me even to remember it. Anyway it wasn’t true. The police said so. It was a wicked thing to accuse him of. Wicked. They arrested Marcus and took his laptop.” She beat her fists together. Her shoulders shook. “And there was nothing on it,” she shouted. “No pornography. Just his business stuff.” She grabbed another cigarette and lit it. “I was so angry with Emily.” She jumped to her feet and began pacing the room, alternately puffing and waving her cigarette about. “We had a terrible argument. The police were going to charge her with wasting their time, but Marcus persuaded them not to. He said Emily was disturbed and possessive about me. He was kind and tolerant to her. She was horrible to him. She made those dreadful accusations. And he made excuses for her. And what thanks did he get? Not a word. It was the same when she and her friends were protesting about the golf club. Marcus persuaded the owner not to charge Emily with criminal damage. Even when she drove a mechanical digger into a wall.” Astrid collapsed into an armchair.
Tobias remembered his golf day with Norbert. The day Bogman was found. Hadn’t Norbert said something about green activists and a digger being driven into a wall at Skovlynd? Was that Emily?
“Do you mean the clubhouse at Skovlynd?” he said. “Owned by Kurt Malling?”
Astrid nodded. “Emily and her boyfriend said it was the habitat of some rare otter or something.” She shook her head wearily.
“Where was Emily living?” asked Katrine.
“In our house in Skanderborg. She had her own room and study. But she didn’t like it when Marcus moved in. It was only for a short time. Until this house was built. A year, maybe a bit longer. But she spent more and more time with her boyfriend. They were always travelling and protesting. Here, there and everywhere.” She waved her cigarette dismissively. “Sweden, Estonia, Germany, you name it. He had some kind of mobile home.” Astrid gave a little shudder.
“What was his name?” asked Tobias.
“Lennart. I thought he was quite a nice boy when I first met him, despite his being left-wing and always protesting about something. Marcus thought he was a bad influence on Emily. It turned out he was right. Emily put off going to university. She had this ridiculous idea that she could make a living as a musician.” Astrid jumped up and began to pace the room again, sucking on her cigarette. She swirled around to face Tobias and Katrine. “Why exactly do you want to speak to Emily?”
“We found the remains of a young man at Roligmose,” said Tobias. “We traced a bracelet found with the remains to a jewellery designer in Sweden. She told us the bracelet was ordered and paid for by your daughter.”
Astrid went rigid. “What happened to him? How did he die?”
“We think he was murdered,” said Tobias.
Astrid gasped. “Why was he murdered? Was it about drugs?”
““We are trying to find out,” said Tobias. “We hoped Emily could tell us if he had any enemies. If anyone had a motive for killing him.”
“What was his surname?” asked Katrine.
Astrid put her hands to her temple and shut her eyes in concentration. She opened her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t remember. I don’t know if I ever knew it. I only met him a few times. Emily told me his mother was a drug addict. She was banned from Christiana for selling hard drugs. Imagine. She died when Lennart was young. I don’t think he ever knew his father. I felt sorry for him. But Marcus thought he was after Emily’s money.”
“Emily had money?”
“Her father, my first husband, wrote jingles for advertisements and was very successful. Emily will inherit his money when I’m gone. Maybe she’ll come back to Denmark then,” she added bitterly. “When I’m cold and in my grave.”
“You say ‘come back to Denmark,’” said Katrine. “Do you think she is in another country?”
“I know she is,” said Astrid. “She’s in Sweden. It says so on her Facebook page.”
“When did you find out she had a Facebook page?” asked Katrine.
“Last week.” Astrid brightened. “It made her seems closer somehow. I know that’s absurd. But it gives me hope.”
“How did you find out?”
“A young friend suggested it. I don’t know about that sort of thing. I don’t do much on the computer, except receive and send emails.”
“Have you tried to contact Emily through Facebook?” asked Katrine.
“I asked my friend to help me. She said the way the page was set up meant I couldn’t send Emily a message.”
The door opened and a broad-shouldered, balding man in a well-cut business suit came in. “I saw you had visitors,” he said. “I hope I’m not interrupting something.”
“My husband, Marcus. Back from Stockholm,” said Astrid. She jumped up to greet him. “How was it?”
“Fine, fine.” He kissed his wife on the cheek and shook hands with Tobias and Katrine.
“Our visitors are from the police,” said Astrid. “Chief Inspector Lange and Inspector Skaarup.” She took her husband’s hand. “They’ve been asking about Emily.”
He stiffened. “What has she done?” He patted his wife’s hand. “Don’t get upset. We’ll sort it out whatever it is.” He sighed. “Tell me what she’s done.”
“Nothing,” said Astrid. “She’s done nothing.
“We’d like to speak to her,” said Tobias.
“So would we,” said Marcus. “Do you know where she is?”
“We were hoping Mrs Thomsen could tell us,” said Tobias.
“We’ve had no contact with Emily for a long time,” said Marcus. “Apart from an email once a year. But we don’t give up hope, do we, darling?” He patted Astrid’s hand again. “Why do you want to speak to Emily?”
“We’re believe a body discovered in a bog at Roligmose is that of Emily’s former boyfriend,” said Tobias. “His first name is Lennart. We were hoping Emily could tell us his second name so that we can inform his next of kin.” And find out who murdered him, he added silently to himself.
“That’s terrible,” said Marcus. “I can’t say I liked him. I thought him a bad influence on Emily. But all the same…” He shook his head. “What happened to him?”
“He was murdered,” said Tobias. “Beaten to death.”
Astrid gasped and hid her face in her husband’s shoulder.
“My wife’s upset,” said Marcus. “This is a great shock to her. She’s naturally worried about Emily.”
“Just one or two more questions,” said Katrine quickly. “I understand Emily is on Facebook.”
“I don’t know much about that kind of thing,” said Marcus. “The daughter of a friend said Emily might have a Face page or whatever it’s called.”
Astrid raised her head. “Sofie was a great help.”
“Sofie?” Tobias had spoken before he realised it.
“Sofie Fisker,” said Astrid. “Marcus plays golf with her father.”
Tobias was briefly flummoxed. Katrine voiced the question he was about to ask.
“Was Sofie friendly with Emily?”
“Not really,” said Astrid. “But she knows how much I’d l
ike to find her. She was trying to help. I’m grateful for that.”
“But you discovered you couldn’t contact Emily via Facebook,” said Katrine.
“Sofie said Emily had arranged it so that no one could contact her unless she asked them to.”
“You’re certain it’s Emily’s Facebook page? I assume you recognised the photograph,” said Katrine.
“There’s no photograph,” said Astrid. “But she’s the only Emily Rasmussen in Lapland. It says Sapmi, but I know that’s Lapland. Emily liked Lapland. She told me she liked it. I think she went back there with her boyfriend. I think she’s there now.”
“You think, but you don’t know,” said Tobias.
“I know it in my heart,” said Astrid. “I know it in my bones.”
Marcus Thomsen accompanied Tobias and Katrine to their car. He glanced back at the house. Astrid was at the window, white-faced, puffing on a cigarette.
“My wife is distraught about all this,” said Marcus. “I have to say, given all the grief Emily has caused us, if and when she gets in contact, I’d cheerfully wring her neck.” He held up both hands and smiled. “I don’t mean that seriously of course. But between you and me, she was difficult. She was jealous of me and possessive about her mother. Came and went without telling us. Used the house like a hotel. Astrid would go to make dinner and discover Emily had raided the fridge and the cupboards.”
“Emily made some accusations against you,” said Tobias.
Marcus waved the unspoken accusations away. “I forgave her,” he said. “She suffered from depression after her father died. He died suddenly. It came at a bad time in her life. Frankly, she didn’t like me taking her father’s place and her mother’s attention. I could understand. I did my best, but,” he shrugged, “my best wasn’t good enough.”
“Was Emily ever violent?” asked Katrine.
Marcus thought for a moment. “There was a bit of door banging. Some sulks. Nothing more. I’m sorry we can’t be more help. There’s nothing Astrid and I would like more than to see Emily again.”
“We might be able to trace her through Hotmail and Facebook,” said Katrine.
“I hope you find her,” said Marcus.
“So do we,” said Tobias.
He was silent on the way back to Aarhus. If Agnes went away and never said where she was, his heart would break. How did Astrid Thomsen bear it? When he brought the car to a halt in the car park at headquarters, he took his phone from his jacket and gestured to Katrine to go ahead. He called Agnes. There was no reply. He texted her. “Thinking about you, Pumpkin. Hope all well.” He got out of the car and stood for a moment gazing at a small patch of blue in an otherwise grey sky. What was it his father used to say? Enough blue for a sailor’s trousers? A message flashed up on his phone. “Hi, Dad. All well. X.” His heart lightened. He put the phone back in his pocket and switched his thoughts to Emily Rasmussen and the fastest way to find her.
When he got back to the office, Katrine was searching for Emily on Facebook.
“There are dozens of Emily Rasmussens,” she told him. “But I think this is the right one.”
She swivelled the screen so that Tobias could see a postage-stamp sized, faceless, head and shoulders image, and the name Emily Rasmussen. The only other words on the screen were “Emily lives in Sapmi.”
“The privacy setting is high,” said Katrine. “It’s one way traffic. Emily can find friends and get in touch. But they can’t contact Emily.”
“Get me the file on Emily’s complaint about her stepfather,” said Tobias. “There might be something useful in it. But I’m not holding my breath.”
“I’ve checked the National Register,” Eddy called out to them. “The only address for Emily Rasmussen, date of birth 23rd March 1976, is the Skovlynd address where she was living with her mother and stepfather, before they moved.”
“Ask the best people-tracer in Denmark,” said Tobias. “The taxman.”
Thursday: Week Two
25.
“Two sets of bones in two weeks?” said Larsen. “First Bogman, now this lot. I don’t like it. I don’t like coincidence. I want the same team to work on both cases. Right? So let’s get on with it. What can you tell us, Harry?”
“The bones,” Harry Norsk pointed to a row of photographs displayed on a screen in the Incident Room, “were found in two different places. The arm bones were dumped in an underground bin in Gellerupparken.” He put his forefinger on a red dot on the street map of Aarhus next to the photographs. “The ribs were found in a bin here,” he stabbed a second red dot on the map, “at the harbour.”
“You have no idea where they came from or who put them there, right?” said Larsen. “And they’re definitely human bones.”
“No question,” said Harry Norsk.
“Are they from the same person?” asked the prosecutor, Renata Molsing.
“I think so,” said Harry. “But I’m waiting for Brix’s opinion. He’s sent them for carbon dating.”
“More cost,” said Larsen. “Carbon dating isn’t cheap. Have you any theories on how or when this person died, assuming the bones are from the same person?”
“There’s a crack in one of the ribs and a fracture in the ulna. I can’t say what caused these but they were ante mortem. The breaks weren’t caused by being in the rubbish. They occurred when the person was alive. Brix will be able to tell us more. And we should have the carbon dating results next week.”
“We could be wasting our time as well as our money,” said Larsen. “What crime are we investigating?”
“It’s a crime if the bones have been stolen from a hospital or museum,” said Renata Molsing. “It’s a crime to dig up a grave, unless it’s an official exhumation.”
“I’ve checked with all the hospitals in the city,” said Katrine. “I’m searching for reports of graves being dug up or disturbed. Nothing in the last two weeks. That’s the longest rubbish is left before being collected.”
“Maybe whoever did this has dumped bones before and they weren’t been spotted by the waste collectors,” said Renata.
“Where are we on Bogman?” asked Larsen.
Tobias got to his feet and stood to one side of a screen displaying an enlarged photograph of Emily.
“Emily Rasmussen,” said Tobias, “former girlfriend of Bogman and the key to identifying him. We know his first name is Lennart. A Swedish silversmith made the bracelet found with his remains. It was ordered and paid for by Emily Rasmussen. The bracelet is dated 1997. We know Emily and Lennart were together then in Northern Sweden, in Vasterbotten county, Lapland or Sapmi as we’re supposed to call it. We know they were there in the summers of 1997 and 1998. They took part in a protest against a nuclear waste facility. They played at a concert. They drove a converted ambulance with a rainbow design. In fact they lived in it. We know they came back to Denmark at the end of the summer of 1998 because Emily had an argument with her mother and left home in September 1998.” Tobias paused. “Emily is estranged from her mother. They haven’t spoken in the last fourteen years. They fell out because Emily told the police her stepfather, Marcus Thomsen, had illegal porn on his computer. We don’t know if it was kiddy porn but it’s a fair guess. Emily’s mother wouldn’t talk about it. She says the police took away the computer and found nothing. No charges were brought. She says the police were going to charge Emily with wasting police time but Thomsen asked them not too. I’ve asked for the file.” He glanced at Katrine.
“I sent the request yesterday,” she said. “Registry said it might take a day or two. They’re understaffed.”
“If Emily was jealous enough to accuse her stepfather of being a paedophile and was possessive about her mother,” said Eddy. “How would she have reacted if Lennart went off with someone else?”
“Badly,” said Katrine.
“You think Emily Rasmussen might have something to do with Bogman’s murder?” asked Larsen.
“It’s possible,” said Katrine.
“The silversmith said they were in love,” said Tobias. “Inseparable.”
“They why didn’t she report him missing?” asked Eddy.
“Perhaps they fell out of love,” said Katrine. “Or one of them fell in love with someone else. It happens.”
“Even so, you’d think she’d hear on the grapevine that he’d gone missing,” said Larsen.
“Suppose they’d split up,” said Renata. “He stayed in Denmark. She went back to Sweden. She didn’t know he was missing. She doesn’t know he’s dead.”
“That’s also possible,” said Tobias.
“At the very least, she’s a witness. We need to find her,” said Renata.
“I’ve asked Sweden to put out a general alert,” said Tobias.
“She hasn’t filed a tax return,” said Eddy. “Inland Revenue have her listed at the Skovlynd address. She has a passport issued in 1996. It hasn’t been renewed. She has claimed no benefits, committed no traffic offences.”
“She must have kept in touch with somebody,” said Katrine. “She must have some friends here.”
“Presumably they don’t know Lennart is dead,” said Eddy. “There’s been no report in the newspapers. This all happened fourteen years ago. No instant messaging then. Not so many people had email. It was easier to lose touch with people."
“Emily sends emails once a year from a Hotmail address and she has a page on Facebook,” said Tobias. “Can we trace her that way, Renata?”
“It’s complicated, and costly,” said Renata. “Where’s Facebook based?”
“Seattle,” said Eddy.
Renata groaned. “And Hotmail is also based in the United States. I wish she used a Danish or any European-based site. There’d still be a lot of procedure to go through but it would be easier than trying to get information from a server in the United States. There are different privacy laws, international treaties, protocols. I have to ask the Ministry of Justice to approve an approach to the American authorities. The Ministry will have to issue a warrant. We need to show good cause. The Americans have to agree good cause before they approve a warrant to disclose data. Plus, most of this stuff is held remotely.”
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