by Lotte Hammer
‘Tell me what else you can supply?’
‘Everything, if you can afford it. Everything except white Western girls. Or underage, we don’t bother with those. Otherwise you have a free choice: yellow, brown, black, everything in between, as well as white from practically all the new East European republics. But if you want to buy for personal consumption, you don’t need us; it’s only if they need a “roll in the hay” first to be brought into line. Otherwise you can just shop on the internet.’
‘I’m aware of that, but it’s so easy to be conned. And where do you go to complain?’
He looked genuinely upset by the thought. Benedikte Lerche-Larsen got up, as did he.
‘Why not white and Western?’
‘Because the UK, Germany and the USA tend to get seriously pissed off if you abduct their citizens, and neither my mother nor anybody else I know wants the FBI coming after them. Besides, girls from those countries don’t usually think it’s a great treat to work in a Danish brothel, so they’re likely to run away and find the nearest police station the moment they spy a chance.’
The man could see that, and appreciated it was the way things had to be. It didn’t matter anyway, there were plenty of other girls to choose from. She confirmed that was indeed the case, and thought that she would leave now; he was starting to bore her. Yet she stopped in the doorway when he said:
‘We might marry after all, we are in love.’
Benedikte Lerche-Larsen thought he was an idiot and said with a smile:
‘It’s so beautiful when that happens.’
‘But there’s another thing. I don’t like those rumours about that girl in the lake. Was she one of yours?’
Benedikte spent another ten minutes convincing him that those rumours had absolutely nothing to do with her mother. Nothing at all!
CHAPTER 46
After Benedikte Lerche-Larsen had undergone her second and final punishment, she drove to Ishøj to see Henrik Krag. He had made coffee and they were sitting with it on the table in front of them.
‘So, how did it go?’ he asked. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you had to do?’
‘All I had to do was take part in an audition. It was nothing special.’
‘What kind of audition? Did you get through to the next round?’
She replied as casually as she could:
‘It was just some sex stuff. It was OK. Now I can say I’ve tried that as well, even though it was actually pretty dull.’
Henrik Krag felt uncomfortably as if someone had punched his stomach and struggled to steady his voice:
‘You auditioned for a porn movie? Is that what you’re telling me?’
Benedikte Lerche-Larsen evaded his gaze, and shrugged.
‘Wondering if I made it to the next round?’
She laughed in an affected manner, like an amateur actress, then suddenly sneered:
‘It doesn’t matter. What’s the big deal? And besides, it wasn’t really me.’
She hesitated over her words as she continued:
‘. . . it was as if I weren’t there. Not really . . . well, it’s hard to explain. But it made it bearable at the time. Also now that it’s over. Waking up with a hangover next to a man you should never have slept with, where it takes weeks to get over your sense of self-loathing, is much worse. I’ll take an audition any time, much more straightforward.’
Henrik Krag asked in a monotone:
‘But what happened?’
His stomach dreaded the answer, but not knowing was even worse.
‘Well, what do you think happened? Do you want details? It’s not important, it doesn’t bother me. Tomorrow it’ll be forgotten . . . over and gone. I’ve done my bit, and now it’s your turn.’
She touched her ear quickly as if she had a headache. One eye narrowed as she pressed the palm of her hand hard against the ear, and repeated to herself:
‘It doesn’t bother me all. Not at all! Not at all!’
Then she started to slap her temples, Small, hard blows, silent-movie gestures.
He grabbed her wrist and locked her arm.
‘What are you doing, you idiot? Let go of me!’
He held her until they both calmed down. A few tears trickled down her cheeks, and yet her voice was steady when she spoke again.
‘I’ll get through it. It’s just a bit crap right now.’
He let go of her arm, and sat down on the coffee table facing her. She immediately snatched up his hand and clutched it in her lap as though she were drowning. He tried to be helpful.
‘Don’t you have a girlfriend you can call?’
She didn’t reply immediately, and he could feel her shivering from time to time, as though she were cold. At length she said ironically, but without the usual sting in her voice:
‘And what would I tell my girlfriend? That she can visit youngwannabes.sex.com.filthy and there she can look for horny little Louise, or whatever those bastards were going to market me as? It’s bound to get a lot of likes among my friends. At least there’s a chance no one will know it’s me. They let me wear a half-mask. Always helps with your anonymity.’
‘So no one will recognise you?’
She shook her head half-heartedly. He thought it might help a bit . . . make it a little easier to know that she was anonymous.
‘I don’t know, perhaps not. I want to go home and shower. I don’t know why I came here . . . it’s not like you can do anything, but . . . I didn’t have anyone else.’
‘I’m glad you came.’
She ignored him and repeated it again, as if she were talking to herself:
‘I want to go home and shower.’
Yet she stayed where she was, and eventually she said quietly:
‘Please don’t despise me. I know you don’t like what I did, and it isn’t easy for you either, but I also did it for your sake. For our sakes.’
That set her shaking again. She squeezed his hand harder.
‘I wish we had talked about it first. Then it never would have come to this. It would have been better to go to the cops and put our cards on the table,’ he said.
‘I can’t bear the thought of you going to prison for twelve years. And what about me? My life would be ruined. My father would definitely throw me out. If he has to choose between me and his business, I don’t stand a chance.’
‘Why would he want to do that?’
‘Because he would be put in an impossible position. As would my mother, but she’s too thick to understand it. All our clients would run away screaming if the press linked him to the murder. Same with the poker players, not to mention Bjarne Fabricius, he would hate it, and I would be out in the cold immediately. And I would be more than lucky if that was all that happened to me.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying there’s big money and cynical people in this game. Surely you know that better than anyone? And if you and I become a sufficiently big liability – for instance, if we were the prime suspects in a murder investigation with direct links to my father’s business – we would be the ones to take the hit. That’s how it is, those are the terms. I didn’t think I would have to explain that to you of all people.’
‘No, I can see that now. I’ve never thought about it like that before.’
‘The bottom line is, all we have is each other.’
It was a bottom line that Henrik Krag liked. Her doomsday scenario didn’t upset him. Problems that might arise in the future weren’t worth wasting energy on before they actually happened.
They played the order from their blackmailer, which Benedikte Lerche-Larsen had recorded on her mobile. She turned the volume to maximum, and the hated, synthetic voice filled the room. The first message was of little interest as it only told her to be ready with pen and paper in ten minutes. The second message related to her audition.
‘You will take part in a porn movie, and you cannot tell Henrik. You will ring 70 80 10 01, the number for Danish spelled D a n i s h, emotional sp
elled E m o t i o n a l, Pictures spelled P i c t u r e s. Your audition must be uploaded to their homepage no later than Friday, you have one week.’
‘Forget it, I won’t do it.’
‘Your choice. Have fun in Vestre Prison.’
‘Why are you doing this, you pervert?’
There was no reply, the call was terminated. Henrik Krag said:
‘Ida spells out words she doesn’t recognise.’
‘Yes, I had already guessed that.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘Danish Emotional Pictures, it’s the company I . . . visited. I had to pay them to upload the film tonight. Two thousand kroner and they didn’t even pay me my fee. I hate their guts, but compared to Ida, it’s nothing. I’m going to kill him, if I ever find out who he is.’
It hadn’t crossed Henrik’s mind until now that Friday was today, but he decided not to ask why she had put it off to the last minute.
They tried their best to derive some information about their blackmailer from the recording, however tenuous, but as usual they got nowhere. Even their speculations were slow in coming. The earlier mood lingered for them both, and left little room for cold reasoning. Henrik Krag’s jealousy was eating away at him, but now another feeling was intruding, new and forbidden, mixing with his jealousy in a cocktail that went against common sense.
As soon as she had gone, he sat down in front of his laptop: youngwannabes was easy to remember, but impossible to spell, and it was going to take him a lot of attempts.
CHAPTER 47
Konrad Simonsen had called a meeting to review the investigation. In addition to Simonsen himself, the participants consisted of just the Countess and Arne Pedersen, and the agenda was limited to a single item, because the investigation currently had only one lead to follow up, and if that proved useless, the case would have to be shelved.
The three officers were sitting around the conference table in Konrad Simonsen’s office. He recounted yesterday’s conversation with the Russian Ambassador. In the 1970s, Bepa Rozhdestvenskaya had taken part in the world chess championship for women. Twice she had reached the semi-final, where she was beaten by Nona Gaprindashvili, who later became the world champion, and her 1981 book on Queen’s Indian Defence was even today . . .
Arne Pedersen yawned. He played chess himself, and was considerably more skilled than his boss, but he didn’t share his fascination with the game. The Countess interrupted her husband:
‘OK, we get it, Simon. And then what?’
‘Well, Bepa convinced me that she was telling the truth. First she pointed out that a couple of the calls were made when she was taking part in meetings abroad, some in Moscow, some in Malmö. The latter, incidentally, is on public record. While she is abroad her Danish mobile is kept in her safe, though that particular bit of information is difficult for us to verify. And, yes, she made that observation herself when she saw the look on my face. But then she thought of something better. The whole Embassy, herself included, switched to a different mobile phone provider in December 2008. Purely to save money – they got a better offer. I have a copy of the Embassy’s contract with the new provider, and if that information is correct, which I don’t doubt for a minute that it is, then half the calls between Frode Otto and her can’t possibly have taken place.’
‘So the telephone records relating to that number have been falsified,’ Arne Pedersen summarised.
Konrad Simonsen confirmed it. Yes, they must have been.
‘If someone deliberately manipulated the data, they might have picked the number of the chess genius on purpose. Because she’s impossible to check, I mean. After all, we very nearly didn’t get the truth from her, and if we hadn’t, we would have been left running around frustrated, imagining all sorts of international conspiracy theories.’
The Countess brought him down to earth with a curt, ‘Quite!’ Then she began:
‘I’ll call NewTalkInTown and ask for an explanation.’
Traditionally she dealt with telephone records, and she had said it as a matter of course, but when she saw Konrad Simonsen’s sceptical expression, she added:
‘Or?’
‘Call them and explain the problem. Then tell them you’ll pay them a visit. I’m inclined to agree with Arne, this reeks of someone deliberately sending us on a wild goose chase. Are you happy to go there without one of us for back-up?’
‘Yes, I prefer to do that, though I’ll probably take a couple of uniforms.’
This was one of the Countess’s little tricks when she visited companies that specialised in information or knowhow; she would often bring along a patrol car and a couple of uniformed officers whose only purpose was to be seen standing outside the company’s main entrance. She claimed it helped her be taken more seriously than if she turned up alone and that the arrangement reduced the waiting time to approximately zero. No one in the Homicide Department disagreed with her, but no one had copied her method, which they thought bordered on harassment and ill suited the sophistication they normally associated with her.
Konrad Simonsen remarked:
‘This number change is all we have. I hope you find something so we can make progress.’
This wasn’t like him. The statement was superfluous; she was perfectly aware of the current status of the investigation so his words could only be interpreted as pressure, the boss’s order to try harder. Her reaction was arch. She replied with a smile:
‘You could always go there yourself, if you prefer.’
Konrad Simonsen retracted his comment immediately: all three of them knew that she was undoubtedly best suited to this kind of work. Arne Pedersen, who sensed the shift in mood, asked tentatively:
‘The spruce branches and the belt buckle didn’t produce anything?’
Konrad Simonsen picked up the cue gratefully and spent a couple of minutes on his reply, although no and no would have sufficed.
‘And what about the officer on vehicle inspection in Lynge?’ the Countess asked.
‘Won’t be here until tomorrow, our first meeting was cancelled due to illness. But we shouldn’t hold our breath.’
All that remained was Frode Otto and his mysterious confession as well as his refusal to talk about the burning down of the old hunting lodge and the construction of the new one. It had been passed on to Arne Pedersen, who had interviewed the estate bailiff three times. The Countess asked about the outcome, though she had already concluded that she would have been told something, had there been something to hear. Arne Pedersen said in a weary voice:
‘I’m not getting anywhere with him.’
Konrad Simonsen heaved a sigh and asked them to leave. He had an unpleasant meeting in half an hour and wanted them out of the way in plenty of time. Besides, there was nothing more to talk about.
Pauline Berg refused to take a seat on the chair that Konrad Simonsen had shown her, replying, no, thank you, she was perfectly fine standing. He had already told himself not to get angry, and for once had taken on board some of the advice he had been given during the leadership courses he was forced to take part in from time to time. It was important to preserve everyone’s dignity, it was important to make clear statements, it was important for the employee to have a chance to explain themselves, everything was terribly important . . . but no one had taught him what to do if the employee in question wanted to stand while he was sitting down. Could you force people to sit down? Konrad Simonsen could.
‘Sit down when I tell you to sit, damnit!’
Cowed, Pauline Berg sat straight down, whereupon Konrad Simonsen got up and positioned himself by the window to cool down. He opened it to get a bit of fresh air. It opened inwards, a feature originally decided by the architect of Copenhagen Police Headquarters so that the strict order and symmetry of the facade would not be broken when viewed from the street.
‘What am I going to do with you, Pauline? You don’t give a damn about my orders, unless they suit you, and I can’t sack or transfer you.’
&nbs
p; It was the truth, and they both knew it. Pauline Berg’s continued employment was guaranteed by the National Police Commissioner himself no less; he believed that the force, or the Homicide Department rather, bore its share of responsibility for the state she was in. That view wasn’t without a kernel of truth. Besides, dismissing her would most likely generate negative press coverage; a fact which Konrad Simonsen was convinced was the real reason for the National Police Commissioner’s humane attitude.
But whatever it was down to, the bottom line was that Pauline Berg was on an unusually long leash to do as she pleased. Which she took full advantage of. Most recently by trying to interview a forester from Halsnæs in the ‘Juli-non-case’, which Konrad Simonsen couldn’t make her drop, and which regularly made him and the entire Homicide Department a laughing stock.
He told her this, as he had done before, and as usual she showed understanding for his point of view, as she irritatingly referred to it, but he also had to understand hers: she had made up her mind that the Juli investigation made sense. Maybe not to others, but definitely to her. And not many things in the world in which she was living did. In fact, her life was dreadful, dreadful and trivial at the same time, but she didn’t expect him to understand. How could he, when he wasn’t her? But the Juli case did make sense. Especially now, when it was brought into the open, and not ignored, condemned to a silent death, as she herself was being.
Konrad Simonsen thought that by this stage the warning had gone even worse than he had feared. If only she had screamed or shouted, or sulked as she usually did, but this . . . Seriously, what could he do? Storm out of his own office? Tell her to get lost, convince her she was wrong, help her with her non-case? He realised he had no idea how to finish the conversation.
‘I have another meeting, but we’ll discuss this some other time.’
‘No, you don’t, and yes, we will.’
She was still calm, self-assured and unwavering. He wondered if she was on medication.
CHAPTER 48