Username, page 11
Mikkel Jensen came in with the requested cold Fantas. He opened one with a bottle opener and handed it to the sweating man, who poured it into his glass with a slightly shaking hand. Roland poured his out, too, and felt the tingling sensation of the carbon dioxide as he took the first cold sip. Jensen stood against the wall, as if in a TV crime series, drinking directly from the bottle.
‘Jesper Ingemann,’ Roland said kindly. He had to assume initially that the man was innocent. They didn’t always bring in people who were reported anonymously, but the fact he had been accused in similar cases before meant they had to. Most others of his kind in the city had already been looked into—the ones they knew, at least. And although Jesper had never been convicted in any of the cases, it didn’t mean he was innocent. They’d had to investigate him further before approaching him. Jesper stirred uneasily and drank from the glass in small quick sips. His gaze flickered. Roland continued in the same friendly tone: ‘You’ve been in that chair before. Of course it hasn’t only been about accusations of child molestation,’ he took a short pause, ‘how has it come to murder and kidnapping, Jesper?’ he continued in a penetrating tone.
‘It wasn’t me! I didn’t do anything,’ he said weakly. ‘I haven’t done any of the things I’ve been accused of. I love kids!’ The latter he said almost sobbing.
‘We know you love kids,’ came the accusation from Jensen, triggering a warning look from Roland.
‘Gitte Mikkelsen attended Søvejen After-School Centre, where you work. Naturally we’ve checked. So you knew her?’
Jesper looked down at the table again and turned the glass between his hands, which had stopped shaking. He seemed calmer, as if he had mastered the situation. It had been the same every time they had brought him in, Roland remembered.
‘Yeah, I knew her,’ he admitted. ‘But not very well,’ he hurried to add, looking quickly at Roland. ‘Gitte was very withdrawn and difficult to reach, you know. And she didn’t actually attend the after-school centre for that long.’
‘You have to tell us where you were on Monday and Wednesday.’ Roland stubbornly held his gaze, which no longer flickered.
‘I don’t have a problem with that. I was in the after-school club both days,’ he hesitated, ‘my colleagues can confirm that.’
‘You finished work at some point, didn’t you?’
‘Of course. But both days were long. We always stay until all the little ones have been collected, and in case any of the children need to talk.’
‘So at no time did you leave your workplace? Remember: both the children and your colleagues can attest to your movements.’
Jesper took his eyes off Roland and seemed to be thinking as he watched the last glug of orange Fanta in his glass. It was practically flat.
‘Now that I think about it, I had a dentist appointment on Monday at the end of the day. You can ask my dentist. I went home immediately afterwards. My wife and children can confirm that.’
Again, it seemed Jesper Ingemann was going to walk free. What was he up to? Roland emptied his glass and glanced at Jensen, who shook his head slightly. He had nothing to add. Roland got up.
‘You can go now, Jesper. If we can’t confirm your statement, we’ll bring you in again, but you know that already.’
A small dry smile appeared on Jesper’s narrow mouth. There was a slight triumph in his eyes, and Roland clenched his sweaty toes in his shoes, frustrated they apparently weren’t going to get him this time either.
‘Maybe you should take a look at Gitte’s own family, instead of wasting your time on me,’ he said, walking out the door.
‘What do you mean by that?’ Roland asked coldly.
Jesper stopped and turned condescendingly towards him. ‘It’s my impression the family had huge problems.’
Roland frowned and looked him straight in the eye. He had nice eyes, he had to admit reluctantly. Nice and friendly. Eyes that evoked confidence. Eyes are the mirror of the soul, Irene always said. Was there anything to that, or could a man with those eyes still be a murderer?
‘What huge problems?’
Jesper shrugged indifferently.
‘As youth leaders, we can’t just interfere like that in the lives of families and children, so I can’t answer exactly. But it was my understanding the girl was a bit psychotic.’
28
The apartment was empty and quiet when Amalie came home from school. The kitchen smelled of coffee and toast from the morning. She was soaked from cycling home in the rain, so changed the wet jeans for a pair of red tracksuit bottoms. Her mum and dad were still at work. Her brother was at work, too, in his new apprenticeship at the auto repair shop. It probably wouldn’t be long before he moved out, then she could get his big room. Her twin sisters, Sofie and Line, weren’t home either. They had been so angry and irritable recently. Stress, Mum had said, because they were preparing for their end-of-school exams. Amalie threw her schoolbag in the corner of her own little room and turned on the computer. She was happy she was only in Year 5 and didn’t have to go to work, or deal with exams, or have an apprenticeship that meant she wasn’t home until late in the afternoon. Sometimes Dad didn’t get home until it was late evening. He was working overtime, he said. Whatever that meant.
In the kitchen, she spread a slice of bread with butter and jam and took it over to the computer along with a glass of cold milk. When she was home alone in the afternoon, she could do that without being scolded by Mum.
The horses looked down at her with their brown velvet eyes from the posters on the walls. On the table was a book she was reading about horse riding. It was exciting and she was looking forward to reading on. But first she wanted to see what they were talking about on the chat site. It was best to do that, too, when Mum and Dad weren’t home. Mum would have a conniption if she discovered she was chatting with other kids about sex. Talking about sex was exciting. It was forbidden. She had heard Sofie and Line whispering and giggling about it. Even though they whispered, she still sometimes heard a little. And chatting online with kids her own age about everything else that happened to your body was nice. If they felt the same thing. If they were getting fluff down there, too. One day, when she had crept into Sebastian’s room, despite her knowing he didn’t like it, she had found some magazines. She had looked at one. It was naked men and women doing disgusting things to each other, so she had thrown it away again immediately, as if hot to the touch. But those ladies hadn’t had any hair down there, so was it normal to have it? She didn’t dare ask Mum. She always got so angry. There was no way she could ask Dad about that kind of thing—or Sebastian. Sofie and Line just laughed. She tried to sneak a peek when they changed clothes and took a shower, but they always screamed and slammed the door in her face.
There was nothing she wanted to talk about in the chat forum, so she opened the email program instead. She smiled when she saw there was an email from him. He was so sweet. She could talk to him about everything. Fluff, too. He had even asked her about it. But the best part was that he had what she dreamed of most in the whole world—a horse. Mum and Dad didn’t have to be so adamant about it being impossible to have a horse in an apartment on the second floor; she could see that. But they could move. To the country. Live like Grandma. A few of the kids in her class lived in the country and it sounded so cool. He probably lived in the country, too, and he wanted to teach her how to ride. She would even be allowed to borrow his horse when he wasn’t riding it himself. One day she would go and see it. She looked forward to patting its soft muzzle and sitting up on it. She had only been horse riding once, and it had been the best experience she had ever had. Amalie put the empty glass in the kitchen sink before sitting down in front of the computer again to reply to him.
29
Kamilla was on her way to Brabrand again, not completely wanting to be. Anne’s yellow Lada was already waiting in front of the house, a quite ordinary detached house. Everything was so ordinary. The only uncommon thing was that it was all about the murder of an innocent little girl. Perhaps two girls now.
She took the camera bag from the back seat and walked up to the house with slightly reluctant steps. Still, it probably wouldn’t be as unpleasant as the visit to Gitte’s parents, she reassured herself.
‘Here comes my photographer!’ Anne quickly laid a piece of greasy pastry on the plate and wiped her fingers on the legs of her pre-washed jeans. The recording device on the coffee table was still on. So they weren’t dealing with people quite as press-shy this time. Anne reached for it, turned it off and put it back in her backpack. Kamilla realised the interview was already over. Anne had probably been there a long time.
Cecilie Nordstrøm welcomed Kamilla. She was solid and in her mid-fifties. Her hair was a dull mousey-brown with hints of grey, tied at the nape of her neck with a large hairclip. Her eyes were happy and lively in her round face with hints of red apple cheeks. She held out the plate with the pastry to Kamilla. There was just one piece left, probably left for her. But she didn’t feel like it and said no thank you.
‘A cup of coffee?’
Kamilla shook her head apologetically again. ‘No thanks. I just…’
‘We’d better get those pictures taken,’ Anne saved her.
The teenage girl, who was chomping loudly on a piece of chewing gum, got up eagerly from the couch. She was wearing a short summer blouse cropped at the navel, and a ridiculously wide black belt with metal studs fastened around a pair of jeans; they sat so low on her hips, you could glimpse the top of her buttocks when she turned to walk out the living room. She was one of those young girls who was definitely going to follow fashion, despite not having the typical figure for it. She had a pretty solid build, and a soft muffin top hung over the top of her trousers. Kamilla guessed she was wearing a G-string, too.
‘Do I need to take the bin bag with me?’ The girl chewed with an overly distorted face.
‘We talked about having a photo of Maria throwing a bag into the skip. To give it a slightly more natural and everyday feel. What do you think?’ asked Anne.
Kamilla thought it a bit set up, but it wouldn’t matter what they did. No one would be in any doubt the picture hadn’t been taken at the exact time it had happened. Snapped in the same second the body had been found. She shuddered at the thought.
Cecilie Nordstrøm had started to take the cups off the table. ‘Do I need to come, too? I don’t really think…’
‘No, that’s alright. We just need Maria. Nothing will happen to her. She’s not the type of witness who can reveal the murderer’s identity,’ reassured Anne, throwing the backpack over her shoulder and signalling for Kamilla and Maria to follow her. Mr Nordstrøm, presumably, was in the garden behind the house, rummaging in a flower bed. He looked shyly after them. Apparently not everyone in the family wanted the attention of the press.
Kamilla found the cropped photo of the teenage girl on the LCD screen. ‘You probably shouldn’t smile so much,’ she said. The girl was standing by the skip with a big smile as though for a family photo. She had apparently recovered from the shock of the gruesome discovery. Carefree youth, Kamilla thought. Or it was the exact opposite. Adolescents today were supposed to be so cool, they weren’t allowed to show they were afraid of anything. Maybe films, TV and the internet had hardened them. Nothing shocked them anymore. Except perhaps a strangled girl in a local waste container.
‘No,’ Anne supported her. ‘Look a little more scared, Maria!’ Anne walked over and opened the lid of the skip. The contents from the day of the murder had been seized by the police and the container was reopen for public use.
‘Go back in time, imagine the hand again. Pretend you’re throwing in the rubbish bag the way you did that day,’ instructed Anne.
As the girl stared into the half-empty skip, she suddenly turned pale. Horror appeared in her eyes.
‘Good, good—that’s it!’ Kamilla heard Anne shout excitedly behind her as she pressed the shutter button again and again. She started to feel nauseated.
Afterwards, they drove to the playground Louise would have walked through after leaving her friend Lise’s house. The tyres of the swing set were wet from the rain. A young boy sat on one, eating sweets. A woman was sitting on a nearby bench with three girls, whose eyes watched them intently while they licked ice cream. The woman offered her own ice cream cone to a child in a stroller in front of her and let him taste, so half the child’s face was smeared in ice cream and chocolate. There was no one else at the playground. Murder and kidnapping made people keep their children indoors.
Anne wiped the rainwater off the other tyre of the swing set with her sleeve and sat down next to the boy.
‘Would you like a push?’ she asked. He scowled at her without answering and continued to eat his sweets. He fished a wine gum out a bag of Tom’s TV Mix, one of the big family bags.
‘Do you come here often?’
No answer.
‘What’s your name?’ Anne tried again.
‘Bjarne. I’m not allowed to talk to strangers,’ the boy said sharply and dismissively.
‘No, I can understand that after what’s happened. Did you know Gitte and Louise?’
Kamilla leaned up against the post of the climbing frame and thought Anne herself looked like a boy, sitting there on the swing next to Bjarne, who now quickly looked up at her. His eyes rested for a moment on her camera bag, hanging by its strap over one shoulder.
‘I’m a photographer,’ she explained to reassure him. His eyes shone with suspicion and scepticism. How do parents’ warnings affect a child’s understanding of a safe life? she thought uneasily. With panicked anxiety over every stranger?
‘We work for a newspaper and we’re helping the police find Louise,’ Anne half-lied, regaining the boy’s attention. ‘Did you see Louise the day she disappeared?’
The boy shook his head, jumped down heavily from the swing and scurried clumsily towards the block of flats next to the playground. Kamilla caught the dangling car tyre he had left behind and sat down.
‘I don’t think it’s going to be easy to get children to talk these days,’ she smiled.
‘Maybe not. But how the hell are they being kidnapped and murdered when they’re so shy?’ Anne kicked the ground under the swing, looked up at the cloudy sky and on over towards the block opposite.
‘We could go around the flats; someone bloody well must have seen or heard something.’
‘The police were here today, too.’ The voice came from the woman on the bench. She had lifted the baby from the buggy onto her lap and was in the process of wiping the sticky cream off his chin with a paper napkin. They got up and walked over to the bench.
‘Go and play on the swings, girls. The boy’s gone now,’ the woman said to the three girls, who immediately ran in that direction. Two of them threw themselves into their respective car tyres, while the largest girl pushed them from behind. Their summer dresses blew up in the wind, revealing the children’s brown legs that stretched out in front and bent back again to give more speed.
‘Was there anyone who was able to tell the police anything?’ Anne sat down on the bench next to the woman and made eyes at the child, who immediately began to laugh, showing a tooth emerging from his lower gums.
‘You’re from the press, right?’
Anne nodded. ‘Yeah, we’re working on an article about Louise’s disappearance.’
The woman looked at Kamilla and her shoulder bag.
‘I’m a photographer,’ she explained again, sitting down as well. She held out a finger to the child, and a warm feeling slid through her as the sticky baby fingers squeezed it. The image of Rasmus at that age was crystal clear to her. ‘How old is he?’ she asked.
‘Christian here—he’s barely a year old.’ The boy writhed affectionately on her lap, enjoying the attention.
‘We call him Prince Christian. Children are lovely,’ said the woman, showing her motherly feelings as she lovingly shook the child and made him gargle with laughter.
‘I love taking care of them. I’m a childminder, but I wanted to be a journalist once,’ she said, looking sadly at Anne.
‘Then why didn’t you become one?’
The woman nodded her head in the direction of the girls at the swings. ‘Two of them are my own.’
Kamilla and Anne both nodded in understanding. The story of so many women. Children came, and all other plans went out the window, then suddenly it was too late. Kamilla was glad she had trained as a photographer before she’d had Rasmus.
‘Do you come here often with the children?’ asked Anne.
‘Every day. They need to get out, get some fresh air and move around, even if the weather’s been miserable this summer. And given what else happened.’
‘Do you know Louise?’
The woman shook her head and her eyes grew serious. ‘No, nor the other girl. The one who was murdered.’ She cast a quick glance at her own girls.
‘I always keep an eye on them. They’re never allowed to be alone out here,’ she said, starting to gather up the girls’ jackets, which they had left on the bench.
‘I’d better get home. The children will be collected in a little while. I was just looking after them a little longer today. Being a childminder isn’t a nine-to-five job,’ she smiled wearily.
‘Did you talk to the police?’ asked Anne.
‘No, I didn’t see anything. But my neighbour told me someone in the flats behind here saw a large dark car drive away from here at full speed that day. She thinks it was a woman behind the wheel.’
The girls came running back and interrupted them, breathless from play and talking over each other.
30
‘Can’t you for once get a tea towel and help me with the dishes, Dennis?’
Vivi Hansen shouted from the kitchen but got no answer. At times, it annoyed her that he just sat there in his room, in front of that computer. A twenty-year-old kid should have hobbies, play football and what have you. She saw them on TV—young men who had become something within some sport or other, or who had started their own IT business and were now multimillionaires. Given the computer interested him so much, why hadn’t he gone down that route? No, he was unemployed because no job had been good enough for him after he got out of secondary school. He would prefer not to exert himself too much. Getting him to continue in secondary school had been such a struggle. His grades hadn’t been too good either; there had been too many pranks and drunken binges with his friends.
