Username, page 20
She left him in peace to look at the computer while she made a new pot of coffee. There was still some left of the morning coffee Danny had brewed for her. When had he actually got up? Why hadn’t she heard it? He should have woken her. She had woken with the feeling of having had a good dream. An intimate dream. At first, she thought it had been a dream, until she saw the imprint of his head on the pillow next to her, the crumpled sheet, and she felt the scent of him and of herself. But he had left and promised to call her as soon as he was home in Klampenborg. It was on the note he had placed under the insulated coffee pot.
She had just finished breakfast and was in the middle of reading Anne’s article when Asbjørn had rung the bell. It was lucky he could come so quickly, and on a Saturday.
When the coffee was ready, she poured it into a mug and went in and set it next to him on the desk. He nodded thankfully and immediately took a large sip.
‘The flashing question mark means the computer can’t find the operating system. Everything’s been deleted from your computer,’ he said. ‘Hopefully you still have all the system and program discs?’
‘Deleted! Can a power outage do that?’ mumbled Kamilla, thinking momentarily about where she had stored those discs. She knew they had to besomewhere; she would never throw out something like that. There were floppy discs and CDs somewhere, even with all the old versions of Photoshop—all the way back to version 1.0.
‘This wasn’t caused by the electricity going out,’ said Asbjørn, taking another gulp of coffee from the mug. ‘The contents were deleted using the uninstall program by someone who knew what they were doing.’
Kamilla staggered a little and sat down on the edge of the desk.
‘That doesn’t make any sense, it’s only me who…’
She remembered the fuses for the two bedrooms hadn’t been loose in the box. Only now did it dawn on her the fuse must have been deliberately loosened by whoever had been inside the house. The power hadn’t gone in the two smaller rooms—one of which was her office, the other her bedroom. She remembered the feeling of someone being in the living room. The soil on the floor she had blamed Tarzan for. She hugged her arms to herself, like she had to stop them from shaking.
‘I’d be happy to install it all for you again if you get me the discs,’ Asbjørn continued as if he hadn’t noticed her panic.
She got up slowly and opened the safe, where she remembered everything of value was hidden. She found the right discs and handed them to him. She didn’t know what else to do. Should that kind of thing be reported to the police?
Asbjørn looked busy, so she went back to the kitchen and sat down. Someone had loosened the fuse so the light had disappeared in half the house, and had gone into her office and deleted everything on her computer. The office couldn’t be seen from the hall, so she hadn’t been able to tell what was going on in there. The door was usually closed, too. Who would do that kind of thing? Who would want to delete the contents of her computer?
Not long after, Asbjørn appeared in the kitchen. She hadn’t heard him sneaking in, in stockinged feet. Beads of sweat were on his forehead and his hands were stuck awkwardly in his trouser pockets.
‘That’s all done,’ he said in his clipped style. ‘I hope you didn’t have anything of value on it. And you remembered to make a backup—most people forget to do that.’ Kamilla gloated that she wasn’t ‘most people’. She backed up the most important files regularly.
‘Only my emails, but they’re not that important,’ she smiled. ‘Could this have been a bug—a system error, I mean?’ she asked in a fresh attempt to eradicate the idea someone else had been inside her house.
‘I doubt it. But like I said, I mainly know PCs. I’m not exactly sure how Macs behave, but I can look into it,’ he said, hitching up his trousers.
‘No, don’t worry about it. Thanks, Asbjørn. You’ll send me an invoice, won’t you?’
He shook his head and explained to her Ivan had already taken care of it. Employee service, he had said.
Asbjørn was barely out the door before the doorbell rang again. Initially, she thought he had forgotten something. But it was Majken, who entered the hall and looked completely beside herself.
‘Good, you’re home, Kamilla. I’ve discovered something terrible,’ she gasped, as though she had run all the way to Mejlbyvej.
‘Come in. What happened?’ She got an extra cup and poured some coffee for Majken when she sat down at the table.
‘I had a break-in last night,’ she said, adding two spoons of sugar to her coffee.
Kamilla hadn’t seen her use sugar before, so wondered whether she had made the coffee too strong. She was about to reply that Danny had told her about the burglary, but for some reason, she didn’t want to tell Majken Danny had been here. That he had spent the night. Feeling like a traitor, she discreetly looked around to see whether he had left any belongings she should have removed.
‘Was anything stolen?’ she asked, trying to seem like she didn’t know anything.
‘I didn’t think so, at first, but then I discovered a file’s gone.’ She drank the coffee, seeming very restless.
‘Which file?’ Kamilla asked, sitting down.
‘Gitte Mikkelsen’s file. I remembered she was a patient of mine last summer, but her medical records have been stolen.’
‘Shouldn’t you go to the police?’ asked Kamilla, wondering whether she should do the same.
Majken gestured with her hand. ‘I can do it on Monday,’ she said.
‘But isn’t it a little strange Gitte Mikkelsen’s file was stolen?’
‘Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I panicked. Maybe other files are missing, too. I haven’t gone through all the medical records yet. Maybe I should do that before talking to the police. Best not to make a mountain out of a molehill, I mean. It might be random.’
‘How come you only remembered Gitte was a patient now?’ Kamilla asked, fearing it sounded accusatory.
‘It was a coincidence really. I remembered seeing Gitte Mikkelsen’s name in my filing cabinet the other day, but the name didn’t register with me at the time.’
‘Don’t you remember her at all?’
‘I have so many patients, especially children. Unfortunately. It was only when I saw the photo in the newspaper that it began to dawn on me why the name was familiar.’
‘Didn’t you see her picture on the TV? They showed it again last night. And a picture of Louise, too,’ said Kamilla, remembering she herself hadn’t seen the picture of Gitte before last night. Ida and Allan Mikkelsen hadn’t wanted to give any of their photos to the newspaper. They had told Anne they thought it pointless to put her on show. But another reporter must have persuaded them.
‘No. And I completely forgot about it last night. What with the break-in and all…’ She paused as she stared down at her coffee cup. ‘And then Danny came by,’ Majken said, her eyes turning sad.
Guilt gave Kamilla a cramp in her stomach.
‘It was a pity you didn’t get to say goodbye to him. He went back to Copenhagen this morning,’ she continued and looked at Kamilla.
‘Klampenborg,’ Kamilla corrected with a little smile.
‘Oh yes, Klampenborg.’ Majken gestured indifferently.
‘Unfortunately, he couldn’t stay tonight.’ She blew on the cup to cool the coffee before drinking with narrowed eyes, as if she had burned herself anyway. ‘Apparently he had to hurry home to his wife. Good riddance. I don’t care!’ she continued, rolling her eyes in indignation. Then she caught sight of Kamilla’s face. ‘What’s up, Kamilla?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I know you. There’s something wrong! What is it?’ Then, slowly it began to dawn on her.
‘You did say goodbye to him! Didn’t you?’
She nodded. Not saying anything was one thing, lying when asked directly was something else entirely.
‘When?’
‘He came by last night.’ Her voice sounded hesitant and a little distant.
‘But, he was with me…’ Majken put the cup down so hard that it clinked against the saucer. ‘So quite late then!’
‘Yes, it was quite late, but I was still up. I’d had a really unpleasant experience…’
‘When did he leave?’ Majken’s voice grated like metal. Hard and as sharp as a blade that cut across Kamilla’s words with a slash.
‘I don’t know. Sometime this morning. I wasn’t up. Majken…?’
She reached for Majken, who pulled back her arm with a quick jerk and got up. The expression in her eyes made Kamilla feel even more like a mean traitor.
‘Don’t be angry with me. It just happened. Danny said there was nothing between the two of you,’ she said in an unhappy voice.
Majken didn’t answer. She got up and left without deigning to glance at her.
52
Jesper Ingemann was sitting in Roland’s office again. It was otherwise rare for Roland to be in the police station on a Saturday. But after Tove Bang had reported her daughter, Amalie, had been subjected to sexual abuse, the situation required it.
The girl had pointed out Jesper without hesitation from the album of mugshots of all the paedophiles East Jutland Police knew about. Roland had to form a small team to deal with some of the overtime, despite it practically being a forbidden word after the EU summit, which had consequences for a long time afterwards regarding time in lieu. That was not to happen again, so overtime was closely monitored, which, on the order of the police commissioner, had to be regularly counterbalanced with time off.
These cases needed to be solved soon. Women felt unsafe walking the streets alone in the evenings after all the rapes. Were they now supposed to be afraid of sending their children out to play and to birthday parties, too? And a new murder on top of it all. The elderly, who felt unsafe already about walking the streets, now didn’t dare to be by themselves in their own homes either. So better to sacrifice a Saturday morning, even if Rikke was coming to collect Marianna, probably with a box of chocolates or a bottle of Italian wine, as was her habit whenever they looked after their granddaughter. She didn’t need to do so. It was enjoyment enough to watch the little girl once in a while, even though he hadn’t been home much this time. He hoped to make it to Gitte Mikkelsen’s funeral and be back in the house in Højbjerg before Rikke arrived.
‘So here we are again,’ he announced unnecessarily to Jesper Ingemann, who didn’t look at all nervous. But they hadn’t told him about the overwhelming evidence they had this time.
He lit a cigarette, despite deciding to give them up several times during the week. Quitting them had become so popular. Smokers were becoming an unpopular group, and politicians were threatening a smoking ban more and more in the debate. The smell of smoke rose in his nostrils. He inhaled greedily. He couldn’t do without cigarettes when working on solving a case. Jesper took one from the packet, too, when he pushed it towards him.
Roland looked at the glow of the cigarette, then at Jesper. After all his years in the police, questioning the guilty and the innocent, he had gradually learned what to look for. He had always sensed Jesper was guilty. But was he guilty of Gitte Mikkelsen’s murder and Louise Poulsen’s abduction, too?
‘I don’t really understand what you want with me,’ Jesper said confidently. ‘I know you’ve spoken to my colleagues and my dentist, verifying what I told you last time. My wife and kids can confirm it all, too. Haven’t you spoken to Sussi?’
Roland got up and walked over to the window, his back to Jesper—a technique he often used. An attitude that could be interpreted by the interrogatee in several ways. Experience had shown him some people began to speak as soon as he wasn’t sitting, staring them in the face. He ignored Jesper’s comment, but knew well why he was saying it. He was an ordinary man with a wife, children, a job. A profile that didn’t match that of a man who murders a little girl, throws her in a skip, then abducts her classmate who might be able to identify him. But Roland knew better. There wasn’t necessarily a profile to fit that. When he sat opposite Kristoffer Kjær, he had no doubt he was facing an unlucky teenager whose brain didn’t function as it should. It was far worse with those where you couldn’t tell. Psychopaths, for example. Their traits could so easily be confused with those of a neurotypical human being. A person who was exceptionally popular, good at making friends, ambitious, confident and self-assured. It could be any ambitious businessman or politician. Even himself, some people would probably think. Was Jesper the type who could identify other people’s weaknesses and exploit them to his own advantage? Cold and calculating?
He remained by the window, letting him sweat. Jesper moved uneasily in the chair behind Roland, and it delighted him. He looked at the cars in the police station car park. When the window was open, he could hear the noise from the Port of Aarhus if the wind was coming from that direction. The stench from the oil mill used to send a nauseating odour into the station, but that had changed after new owners had taken over. And then, for a while, there had been the unbearable noise of the renovations of the police station’s ground floor, including a new main entrance. The old familiar revolving door was no more. Permission hadn’t been granted for the desired copper canopy over the new entrance, to everyone’s great disappointment.
‘You could at least tell me why you’ve brought me in on a Saturday! We were about to visit family.’ Jesper broke the silence that had obviously become too overbearing for him.
Roland turned and looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘Do you spend a lot of time talking to children on the internet?’ he asked loudly and directly.
‘No, not at all.’ The hand with the cigarette shook slightly. He tapped ashes into the ashtray to hide it.
‘So you don’t have a Hotmail account called teddy bear, then?’
Jesper laughed, his mouth crooked. ‘What rubbish! Of course I don’t. That’s childish!’
Roland sat down noisily in the chair opposite him and opened the folder lying on the table. He found a picture of Amalie and laid it in front of Jesper.
‘And you haven’t seen her before either, have you?’ Her name’s Amalie Bang.’
All the colour drained from his face. He shook his head as he stared at the picture of the blonde girl.
‘And you don’t have a horse, do you?’
The question tipped Jesper over the edge. Furious, he got up with a jerk and snorted the words out. ‘What did she say? You don’t believe her, do you? Children have an active imagination. It’s the parents’ fault. Maybe she’s so desperate for a horse that she…’
‘Cycled all the way out to your late mother’s house at True Forest to see it?’ interrupted Roland angrily. ‘Sit down, Ingemann. You’ve always underestimated the work of the police. Do you think we can’t easily check who owns the house you lured the girl to? Do you think we’re stupid?’ The latter he shouted so loudly that Jesper jumped, landing down in the chair again like stone.
‘Your mother died a few months ago and you’re trying to sell the house. Practically everyone can find that information. Obviously you have my condolences for your mother,’ said Roland in a calmer voice. ‘One of my officers is talking to your wife in another interview room here at the station right now, but I’d still like you to tell me, once again, where you were on Monday and Wednesday. I want to hear it minute by minute.’
Jesper shook his head. He had completely clammed up, and Roland began to fear they weren’t going to get anything out of him for the time being. Then came the words he was waiting for:
‘I’m not saying anything until my solicitor gets here.’
*
Once again, the trees were his shelter from being discovered. Through dark sunglasses, he followed the procession slowly, walking after the coffin carried by male members of the family. He couldn’t see who it was clearly. His moist eyes and the sunglasses blurred his vision, and the distance was too great, too, but he dared not go nearer. The pressure in his chest grew. She was lying there, his little doll child, who he loved so much it hurt. But there had been no other way. She had asked for it. Like he had asked for it, too—his father.
Of course his little sister had tattled about the toads. Father had been mad, had shouted and screamed that all the toads were protected and how what he had done to them was a criminal offence. He had slapped him so it stung and left the imprint of five fingers on his cheek for several days afterwards. But he hadn’t cried. Not even when he had stood at his grave, his little sister by the hand, as grandmother had ordered while she held an umbrella over their heads. It had been raining heavily that day and the hole had quickly filled with water. He had stared hatefully at the wooden box and felt nothing as it lowered into the black pit in the ground. He hadn’t even felt the hatred anymore. He had never forgotten the splashing sound as the coffin plonked down. He had rejoiced. It had sounded like when the toads jumped into the algae-green water of the garden pond. In the end, it had all gone up to a higher entity. He had won. It was after the funeral that he had lost the desire to kill the toads. Not because his father had scolded and beaten him; he just didn’t feel like it anymore. It was also after the funeral that it had all started to go wrong, as though his father’s evil spirit had possessed him.
The trees overshadowed the view as the small coffin was lowered into the ground. He stood on his toes to get a better look. The coffin was white and adorned with flowers. He had sent a bouquet himself. He sobbed silently. He’d had no idea she was so loved. There were children in the procession. Her classmates for sure. But one was missing. The thought made him look at his watch, then he took one last look at the graveyard before quickly walking away.
53
Kamilla moved a few tufts of grass around the marble stone and touched the gold letters of her son’s name. She needed some fresh air and to calm her mind after Majken’s visit. She hadn’t imagined Majken would react so violently to Danny spending the night with her. She hadn’t even got to tell her she’d had a break-in, too. There were so many thoughts whirring around that soon she wouldn’t know what was worse. Was it a coincidence they had both had burglaries that night? Did it have anything to do with the murder? The photos maybe. Was it someone trying to cover their tracks, or prevent them from moving on in the case?
She had just finished breakfast and was in the middle of reading Anne’s article when Asbjørn had rung the bell. It was lucky he could come so quickly, and on a Saturday.
When the coffee was ready, she poured it into a mug and went in and set it next to him on the desk. He nodded thankfully and immediately took a large sip.
‘The flashing question mark means the computer can’t find the operating system. Everything’s been deleted from your computer,’ he said. ‘Hopefully you still have all the system and program discs?’
‘Deleted! Can a power outage do that?’ mumbled Kamilla, thinking momentarily about where she had stored those discs. She knew they had to besomewhere; she would never throw out something like that. There were floppy discs and CDs somewhere, even with all the old versions of Photoshop—all the way back to version 1.0.
‘This wasn’t caused by the electricity going out,’ said Asbjørn, taking another gulp of coffee from the mug. ‘The contents were deleted using the uninstall program by someone who knew what they were doing.’
Kamilla staggered a little and sat down on the edge of the desk.
‘That doesn’t make any sense, it’s only me who…’
She remembered the fuses for the two bedrooms hadn’t been loose in the box. Only now did it dawn on her the fuse must have been deliberately loosened by whoever had been inside the house. The power hadn’t gone in the two smaller rooms—one of which was her office, the other her bedroom. She remembered the feeling of someone being in the living room. The soil on the floor she had blamed Tarzan for. She hugged her arms to herself, like she had to stop them from shaking.
‘I’d be happy to install it all for you again if you get me the discs,’ Asbjørn continued as if he hadn’t noticed her panic.
She got up slowly and opened the safe, where she remembered everything of value was hidden. She found the right discs and handed them to him. She didn’t know what else to do. Should that kind of thing be reported to the police?
Asbjørn looked busy, so she went back to the kitchen and sat down. Someone had loosened the fuse so the light had disappeared in half the house, and had gone into her office and deleted everything on her computer. The office couldn’t be seen from the hall, so she hadn’t been able to tell what was going on in there. The door was usually closed, too. Who would do that kind of thing? Who would want to delete the contents of her computer?
Not long after, Asbjørn appeared in the kitchen. She hadn’t heard him sneaking in, in stockinged feet. Beads of sweat were on his forehead and his hands were stuck awkwardly in his trouser pockets.
‘That’s all done,’ he said in his clipped style. ‘I hope you didn’t have anything of value on it. And you remembered to make a backup—most people forget to do that.’ Kamilla gloated that she wasn’t ‘most people’. She backed up the most important files regularly.
‘Only my emails, but they’re not that important,’ she smiled. ‘Could this have been a bug—a system error, I mean?’ she asked in a fresh attempt to eradicate the idea someone else had been inside her house.
‘I doubt it. But like I said, I mainly know PCs. I’m not exactly sure how Macs behave, but I can look into it,’ he said, hitching up his trousers.
‘No, don’t worry about it. Thanks, Asbjørn. You’ll send me an invoice, won’t you?’
He shook his head and explained to her Ivan had already taken care of it. Employee service, he had said.
Asbjørn was barely out the door before the doorbell rang again. Initially, she thought he had forgotten something. But it was Majken, who entered the hall and looked completely beside herself.
‘Good, you’re home, Kamilla. I’ve discovered something terrible,’ she gasped, as though she had run all the way to Mejlbyvej.
‘Come in. What happened?’ She got an extra cup and poured some coffee for Majken when she sat down at the table.
‘I had a break-in last night,’ she said, adding two spoons of sugar to her coffee.
Kamilla hadn’t seen her use sugar before, so wondered whether she had made the coffee too strong. She was about to reply that Danny had told her about the burglary, but for some reason, she didn’t want to tell Majken Danny had been here. That he had spent the night. Feeling like a traitor, she discreetly looked around to see whether he had left any belongings she should have removed.
‘Was anything stolen?’ she asked, trying to seem like she didn’t know anything.
‘I didn’t think so, at first, but then I discovered a file’s gone.’ She drank the coffee, seeming very restless.
‘Which file?’ Kamilla asked, sitting down.
‘Gitte Mikkelsen’s file. I remembered she was a patient of mine last summer, but her medical records have been stolen.’
‘Shouldn’t you go to the police?’ asked Kamilla, wondering whether she should do the same.
Majken gestured with her hand. ‘I can do it on Monday,’ she said.
‘But isn’t it a little strange Gitte Mikkelsen’s file was stolen?’
‘Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I panicked. Maybe other files are missing, too. I haven’t gone through all the medical records yet. Maybe I should do that before talking to the police. Best not to make a mountain out of a molehill, I mean. It might be random.’
‘How come you only remembered Gitte was a patient now?’ Kamilla asked, fearing it sounded accusatory.
‘It was a coincidence really. I remembered seeing Gitte Mikkelsen’s name in my filing cabinet the other day, but the name didn’t register with me at the time.’
‘Don’t you remember her at all?’
‘I have so many patients, especially children. Unfortunately. It was only when I saw the photo in the newspaper that it began to dawn on me why the name was familiar.’
‘Didn’t you see her picture on the TV? They showed it again last night. And a picture of Louise, too,’ said Kamilla, remembering she herself hadn’t seen the picture of Gitte before last night. Ida and Allan Mikkelsen hadn’t wanted to give any of their photos to the newspaper. They had told Anne they thought it pointless to put her on show. But another reporter must have persuaded them.
‘No. And I completely forgot about it last night. What with the break-in and all…’ She paused as she stared down at her coffee cup. ‘And then Danny came by,’ Majken said, her eyes turning sad.
Guilt gave Kamilla a cramp in her stomach.
‘It was a pity you didn’t get to say goodbye to him. He went back to Copenhagen this morning,’ she continued and looked at Kamilla.
‘Klampenborg,’ Kamilla corrected with a little smile.
‘Oh yes, Klampenborg.’ Majken gestured indifferently.
‘Unfortunately, he couldn’t stay tonight.’ She blew on the cup to cool the coffee before drinking with narrowed eyes, as if she had burned herself anyway. ‘Apparently he had to hurry home to his wife. Good riddance. I don’t care!’ she continued, rolling her eyes in indignation. Then she caught sight of Kamilla’s face. ‘What’s up, Kamilla?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I know you. There’s something wrong! What is it?’ Then, slowly it began to dawn on her.
‘You did say goodbye to him! Didn’t you?’
She nodded. Not saying anything was one thing, lying when asked directly was something else entirely.
‘When?’
‘He came by last night.’ Her voice sounded hesitant and a little distant.
‘But, he was with me…’ Majken put the cup down so hard that it clinked against the saucer. ‘So quite late then!’
‘Yes, it was quite late, but I was still up. I’d had a really unpleasant experience…’
‘When did he leave?’ Majken’s voice grated like metal. Hard and as sharp as a blade that cut across Kamilla’s words with a slash.
‘I don’t know. Sometime this morning. I wasn’t up. Majken…?’
She reached for Majken, who pulled back her arm with a quick jerk and got up. The expression in her eyes made Kamilla feel even more like a mean traitor.
‘Don’t be angry with me. It just happened. Danny said there was nothing between the two of you,’ she said in an unhappy voice.
Majken didn’t answer. She got up and left without deigning to glance at her.
52
Jesper Ingemann was sitting in Roland’s office again. It was otherwise rare for Roland to be in the police station on a Saturday. But after Tove Bang had reported her daughter, Amalie, had been subjected to sexual abuse, the situation required it.
The girl had pointed out Jesper without hesitation from the album of mugshots of all the paedophiles East Jutland Police knew about. Roland had to form a small team to deal with some of the overtime, despite it practically being a forbidden word after the EU summit, which had consequences for a long time afterwards regarding time in lieu. That was not to happen again, so overtime was closely monitored, which, on the order of the police commissioner, had to be regularly counterbalanced with time off.
These cases needed to be solved soon. Women felt unsafe walking the streets alone in the evenings after all the rapes. Were they now supposed to be afraid of sending their children out to play and to birthday parties, too? And a new murder on top of it all. The elderly, who felt unsafe already about walking the streets, now didn’t dare to be by themselves in their own homes either. So better to sacrifice a Saturday morning, even if Rikke was coming to collect Marianna, probably with a box of chocolates or a bottle of Italian wine, as was her habit whenever they looked after their granddaughter. She didn’t need to do so. It was enjoyment enough to watch the little girl once in a while, even though he hadn’t been home much this time. He hoped to make it to Gitte Mikkelsen’s funeral and be back in the house in Højbjerg before Rikke arrived.
‘So here we are again,’ he announced unnecessarily to Jesper Ingemann, who didn’t look at all nervous. But they hadn’t told him about the overwhelming evidence they had this time.
He lit a cigarette, despite deciding to give them up several times during the week. Quitting them had become so popular. Smokers were becoming an unpopular group, and politicians were threatening a smoking ban more and more in the debate. The smell of smoke rose in his nostrils. He inhaled greedily. He couldn’t do without cigarettes when working on solving a case. Jesper took one from the packet, too, when he pushed it towards him.
Roland looked at the glow of the cigarette, then at Jesper. After all his years in the police, questioning the guilty and the innocent, he had gradually learned what to look for. He had always sensed Jesper was guilty. But was he guilty of Gitte Mikkelsen’s murder and Louise Poulsen’s abduction, too?
‘I don’t really understand what you want with me,’ Jesper said confidently. ‘I know you’ve spoken to my colleagues and my dentist, verifying what I told you last time. My wife and kids can confirm it all, too. Haven’t you spoken to Sussi?’
Roland got up and walked over to the window, his back to Jesper—a technique he often used. An attitude that could be interpreted by the interrogatee in several ways. Experience had shown him some people began to speak as soon as he wasn’t sitting, staring them in the face. He ignored Jesper’s comment, but knew well why he was saying it. He was an ordinary man with a wife, children, a job. A profile that didn’t match that of a man who murders a little girl, throws her in a skip, then abducts her classmate who might be able to identify him. But Roland knew better. There wasn’t necessarily a profile to fit that. When he sat opposite Kristoffer Kjær, he had no doubt he was facing an unlucky teenager whose brain didn’t function as it should. It was far worse with those where you couldn’t tell. Psychopaths, for example. Their traits could so easily be confused with those of a neurotypical human being. A person who was exceptionally popular, good at making friends, ambitious, confident and self-assured. It could be any ambitious businessman or politician. Even himself, some people would probably think. Was Jesper the type who could identify other people’s weaknesses and exploit them to his own advantage? Cold and calculating?
He remained by the window, letting him sweat. Jesper moved uneasily in the chair behind Roland, and it delighted him. He looked at the cars in the police station car park. When the window was open, he could hear the noise from the Port of Aarhus if the wind was coming from that direction. The stench from the oil mill used to send a nauseating odour into the station, but that had changed after new owners had taken over. And then, for a while, there had been the unbearable noise of the renovations of the police station’s ground floor, including a new main entrance. The old familiar revolving door was no more. Permission hadn’t been granted for the desired copper canopy over the new entrance, to everyone’s great disappointment.
‘You could at least tell me why you’ve brought me in on a Saturday! We were about to visit family.’ Jesper broke the silence that had obviously become too overbearing for him.
Roland turned and looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘Do you spend a lot of time talking to children on the internet?’ he asked loudly and directly.
‘No, not at all.’ The hand with the cigarette shook slightly. He tapped ashes into the ashtray to hide it.
‘So you don’t have a Hotmail account called teddy bear, then?’
Jesper laughed, his mouth crooked. ‘What rubbish! Of course I don’t. That’s childish!’
Roland sat down noisily in the chair opposite him and opened the folder lying on the table. He found a picture of Amalie and laid it in front of Jesper.
‘And you haven’t seen her before either, have you?’ Her name’s Amalie Bang.’
All the colour drained from his face. He shook his head as he stared at the picture of the blonde girl.
‘And you don’t have a horse, do you?’
The question tipped Jesper over the edge. Furious, he got up with a jerk and snorted the words out. ‘What did she say? You don’t believe her, do you? Children have an active imagination. It’s the parents’ fault. Maybe she’s so desperate for a horse that she…’
‘Cycled all the way out to your late mother’s house at True Forest to see it?’ interrupted Roland angrily. ‘Sit down, Ingemann. You’ve always underestimated the work of the police. Do you think we can’t easily check who owns the house you lured the girl to? Do you think we’re stupid?’ The latter he shouted so loudly that Jesper jumped, landing down in the chair again like stone.
‘Your mother died a few months ago and you’re trying to sell the house. Practically everyone can find that information. Obviously you have my condolences for your mother,’ said Roland in a calmer voice. ‘One of my officers is talking to your wife in another interview room here at the station right now, but I’d still like you to tell me, once again, where you were on Monday and Wednesday. I want to hear it minute by minute.’
Jesper shook his head. He had completely clammed up, and Roland began to fear they weren’t going to get anything out of him for the time being. Then came the words he was waiting for:
‘I’m not saying anything until my solicitor gets here.’
*
Once again, the trees were his shelter from being discovered. Through dark sunglasses, he followed the procession slowly, walking after the coffin carried by male members of the family. He couldn’t see who it was clearly. His moist eyes and the sunglasses blurred his vision, and the distance was too great, too, but he dared not go nearer. The pressure in his chest grew. She was lying there, his little doll child, who he loved so much it hurt. But there had been no other way. She had asked for it. Like he had asked for it, too—his father.
Of course his little sister had tattled about the toads. Father had been mad, had shouted and screamed that all the toads were protected and how what he had done to them was a criminal offence. He had slapped him so it stung and left the imprint of five fingers on his cheek for several days afterwards. But he hadn’t cried. Not even when he had stood at his grave, his little sister by the hand, as grandmother had ordered while she held an umbrella over their heads. It had been raining heavily that day and the hole had quickly filled with water. He had stared hatefully at the wooden box and felt nothing as it lowered into the black pit in the ground. He hadn’t even felt the hatred anymore. He had never forgotten the splashing sound as the coffin plonked down. He had rejoiced. It had sounded like when the toads jumped into the algae-green water of the garden pond. In the end, it had all gone up to a higher entity. He had won. It was after the funeral that he had lost the desire to kill the toads. Not because his father had scolded and beaten him; he just didn’t feel like it anymore. It was also after the funeral that it had all started to go wrong, as though his father’s evil spirit had possessed him.
The trees overshadowed the view as the small coffin was lowered into the ground. He stood on his toes to get a better look. The coffin was white and adorned with flowers. He had sent a bouquet himself. He sobbed silently. He’d had no idea she was so loved. There were children in the procession. Her classmates for sure. But one was missing. The thought made him look at his watch, then he took one last look at the graveyard before quickly walking away.
53
Kamilla moved a few tufts of grass around the marble stone and touched the gold letters of her son’s name. She needed some fresh air and to calm her mind after Majken’s visit. She hadn’t imagined Majken would react so violently to Danny spending the night with her. She hadn’t even got to tell her she’d had a break-in, too. There were so many thoughts whirring around that soon she wouldn’t know what was worse. Was it a coincidence they had both had burglaries that night? Did it have anything to do with the murder? The photos maybe. Was it someone trying to cover their tracks, or prevent them from moving on in the case?
