Username, page 27
67
Roland glanced at Mikkel Jensen, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to him. They had just listened to Niels Nyborg’s scratchy voice on the police radio. Ida Mikkelsen had called and given the name of Gitte’s biological mother. Nanette Pedersen. There was only one address listed for the girl’s mother, Gunda Pedersen, who lived in Vejle. Nyborg assumed the daughter lived there with her mother.
Roland checked the rear-view mirror before overtaking. ‘Bloody summer,’ he grumbled. The rain hit the windshield as they drove up Dronning Margrethes Vej.
Mikkel nodded in agreement. ‘The weather’s forecast for even more rain in the coming weeks,’ he complained.
It wasn’t just the weather Roland had been alluding to. The sun could still come, couldn’t it? He had set out in the first week of August for a much-needed holiday in his home country. For a brief second, he was back on the dirty streets of Naples, where rubbish lay scattered in heaps around the bins, attracting rats by the droves in the heat. Such a shame for the otherwise beautiful city. But even the waste collection was controlled by the Camorra, a name that turned his blood to ice. He visited his family in southern Italy every summer. What was left of it. After his mother’s death three years ago, he had kept up the tradition. And despite him not remembering his father, he couldn’t give up the visits to the graveyard in Naples either. Standing there, by the white headstone with his father’s cast portrait, he felt such intense hatred that he wanted to return and complete his father’s work of fighting the Mafia, but he felt it was useless; a far bigger and more dangerous task than fighting crime in Aarhus, even though that was bad enough at times. Italy has the Mafia, Denmark has the gangs and the new immigrant gangs outmatching the native groups—and were far more bloody and dangerous.
A cyclist fought his way up the hill on Dronning Margrethes Vej, the hood of his raincoat pulled far down over his forehead. Heavy drops dripped from the leaves of Riis Forest. Fortunately, forensics had casts of the footprints and tyres in Gellerup Forest. But how much was ruined? It had rained almost non-stop for the last week. The technical department was busy working overtime to analyse all the traces found. Thank God for forensics in that regard. The net was starting to tighten around the murderer. Roland felt it as a slight tingle in his neck.
The morning briefing had been sluggish, despite the positive turn in the case. Everyone was tired after yesterday’s work, which, after finding the crime scene, had ended late with a review of Allan Mikkelsen’s hunting buddies. Were they the ones they had overlooked? The hunting friends? Would they find Gitte’s killer among that group? Jesper Ingemann had been ruled out as a hunting buddy. It was beginning to look like they would have to settle for jailing him for sexual violations. The police’s specially trained staff were conducting video interviews of other children from the after-school centres where he had worked as a youth leader, so more cases could lead to a heavier sentence. Jesper’s email address hadn’t tallied either. It was proving impossible to find the ‘teddy bear’. They could only wait for the IP address to be tracked. Sometimes Roland feared they were on a wild goose chase—maybe the email address and hunting buddies didn’t play a role at all.
There was so much weighing on him. Louise Poulsen’s parents had blamed him for the investigation into the murder of Gitte taking precedence over finding their little girl, who could still be alive. But that wasn’t true. They were doing what they could to find Louise, but there weren’t many leads to follow. There was only the car. The technical department had found a match between the tyre impression in front of the skip and the one from the playground. They were from the same car. If they could find that car, he was sure both cases could be cleared up in one fell swoop. They hadn’t got the results of the tyre prints from the crime scene yet, but it wouldn’t surprise him if they originated from the same car. He hoped so.
The phone interrupted his thoughts.
‘Hi, Morten! Is there anything new in your case?’ he asked when DI Holsted made himself known on the phone. He was breathing heavily.
‘No, in fact, it’s your case. Cyber tracked the Hotmail. They found an IP address.’
‘Why didn’t they contact me about it directly?’ he said curtly. Mikkel stared at him curiously from the passenger seat, but Roland didn’t take his eyes off the road.
‘Because it concerns my case as well. The email was sent from the old woman’s computer.’
‘From Olga Halgren’s computer!? But there’s no way she was sending emails to little girls! Was she Teddy Bear?’
Roland braked hard at Mikkel’s command of ‘turn here!’ as he pointed to the next traffic light.
‘Maybe our cases do have something to do with each other. We’re still in the process of locating that grandchild. We need to have a talk at some point.’
‘Thanks, Morten.’ He hung up and, with a shake of his head, focused all his attention on the traffic again, turned gently onto Egå Havvej and followed Mikkel’s directions. He had found the address.
‘Egå Angling Shop! There!’ he shouted, pointing to the left. ‘What’s the story with the email address?’ he asked curiously a little while later.
‘I don’t know what the fuck’s going on.’ Roland only cursed when something really bothered him. ‘The email to Gitte Mikkelsen was sent from Olga Halgren’s computer.’
He parked the car in the car park in front of the shop. There were the last of the hunting buddies to talk to. If there was nothing here, they would have to rule out the killer being among the Mikkelsens’ circle of friends.
‘From the old woman’s computer? That’s unbelievable. It’s like something you’d see on TV.’ Mikkel shook his head as he opened the car door.
A little bell over the door to the angling shop chimed as they entered. There was no one behind the counter, and there were no customers. Not the weather for anglers either, Roland told himself, despite not having a clue about fishing.
A tall, thin, pale man emerged from a curtain behind the counter.
‘CID—Criminal Investigation Department,’ Roland informed him, showing his ID.
The man’s small eyes grew slightly larger.
‘So the police go fishing as well?’ The voice was calm with a touch of sarcasm.
‘Yeah, and we may have found ourselves a big catch. Are you Troels Mortensen?’
Mikkel always went straight to the point. Sometimes a little too direct for Roland’s liking. He stood looking at a Vertex distance fishing rod.
‘How much does a rod like this cost?’ he asked politely. He always went for innocent until proven otherwise. Troels edged over to him between boxes of wellies and tents, suddenly eager to serve someone who might be a customer.
‘Two thousand six hundred and ninety-nine kroner,’ he replied without looking at a price list.
Mikkel whistled. ‘That’s nothing to shake a stick at.’
Offended, Troels looked at him. ‘It’s also E-S-P. When only the best is good enough!’
‘What do you fish for with a rod at that price?’ Roland asked curiously. He had a notion a fishing rod cost no more than a few hundred kroner.
‘It’s for carp fishing actually. One of the best rods on the market from British carp guru Terry Hearn,’ said Troels professionally.
‘For a gold carp, at least,’ Mikkel stated dryly.
Roland smiled a little at his comment.
Mikkel stood turning an all-round knife he had pulled out its holster, looking at the sharp blade.
‘Perfect for a murder,’ he said, deep in thought.
Troels began to show signs of nervousness. He withdrew behind the counter. ‘Why are you here, if it’s not to buy something?’ he said, his voice turning hostile.
‘We’re investigating the murder of Gitte Mikkelsen. I’m sure you’ve heard about it?’ Roland put his hands in his pockets and walked towards the counter.
‘Is there somewhere we can talk privately?’ he asked.
He followed the tall thin man into the room behind the curtain and, from the corner of his eye, saw Mikkel sneak out the door to look around the garage and the warehouse. The door’s chimesounded again, but the pale man didn’t seem to hear it at all. He moved a stack of papers and a box of lines lying on a chair, so Roland could sit down. Troels sat down on a worn office chair at a low desk. The little room was almost as cluttered as Roland’s office. In the corner was an old computer with a dusty screen. The keyboard was tucked under stacks of paper that looked like old invoices.
‘Of course I heard about the murder. I know the family,’ Troels said calmly. There was a sad expression in his eyes. He wiped his palms on the thighs of his jeans. For a brief second, Roland doubted the insecure man could be the perp. He had immediately admitted knowing the family of the murdered girl.
‘Do you know her friend Louise Poulsen, too?’
‘I heard about her on TV. But no, I don’t know her.’
‘Where were you on Monday and Wednesday afternoon last week?’
The man thought, with a wrinkle between his almost imperceptible eyebrows. ‘That was a long time ago, but I think I was here in the shop. I nearly always am.’
‘Are there any witnesses? Customers, for example?’ asked Roland.
The pale face sent him an equally pale smile. He gestured towards the curtain out to the shop floor. ‘As you can see, Inspector, it’s not exactly the busiest shop on earth. But what’s all this about? Am I being arrested?’
‘No, no, this is just routine. We’re interviewing the family’s circle of friends. Any employees?’
Troels shook his head.
‘So no alibi,’ Roland stated dryly.
‘Do you suspect me of something?’ There was a slight uncertainty in his voice, Roland noticed.
‘How well did you know Gitte Mikkelsen?’ He calmly maintained contact with the pale eyes, letting him sweat a little.
‘I fish with her father, Allan, so I visit them from time to time. It’s tragic for the family.’
‘When was your last visit?’
‘Hmm, last month, I think. Allan probably remembers better than me,’ he replied cagily.
Roland didn’t respond to the comment. Troels didn’t need to know they had talked to Allan Mikkelsen, if he hadn’t already guessed that.
‘Did you know Gitte was adopted?’ The question made the man look away. He absently moved a box of hooks that looked like small coloured fish in fluorescent colours.
‘No, I had no idea. Was she?’ He looked at Roland again.
‘If you think of anything, give me a call.’ Roland got up and laid his business card on the table. ‘Though I have to ask you to come down to the station to have a blood sample taken for DNA analysis. But you don’t mind that, do you?’
‘Of course not.’ Troels got up, too, and held out a freckled hand in goodbye. Roland took it and felt the weak, greasy handshake.
The curtain was roughly torn aside. Mikkel stuck his head out. There were raindrops.
‘Where’s your car?’
Troels looked at him calmly, without being able to hide his contempt for the young officer.
‘My wife has it.’
68
The TomTom was set to the address on the outskirts of Vejle, where Gunda Pedersen lived. Anne gloated to herself over her contact’s helpfulness with the police radio. It paid to have acquaintances in crime.
She lit a cigarette and listened to a Guns N’ Roses hit on the car radio. The music made her feel both on a high and on the right track. Maybe she should have invited Kamilla along, but the article about Gitte’s biological mother, Nanette Pedersen, didn’t need any supporting photos. Not at first, at least.
In a monotonous computer voice, the GPS announced she should continue straight ahead, and after eight hundred metres, turn right. After the Vejle Bridge. An angler was standing with a line in the water. Ibæk Strandvej was long, offering a beautiful view of Vejle Fjord.
Suddenly the TomTom announced she should turn right, she had arrived at her destination. It was a gravel driveway on a slight slope. The house was a little way up the slope in the woods. An expensive location, it seemed, with a beautiful view of the fjord. It was a red-brick house from the fifties.
Her stomach feeling a little uneasy, Anne rang the doorbell. Roland Benito would be angry if he knew about this. She knew they were in the process of investigating the family’s hunting friends. Maybe they had sent someone to Vejle and she was about to bump into them. She shouldn’t go anywhere before the police, but impressing both Thygesen and Benito had become a sport, even if it didn’t make her popular with the police.
It was hard to put an age on the woman who finally answered the door. Anne sensed she looked older than she was. She had a slender wrinkled face, and matte brown eyes that seemed too dark for her pale complexion. They looked at her questioningly. The hair was short, grey and permed. The white blouse emphasised her pale expression even more. She said nothing, but continued looking at Anne, who asked if she could come in. Gunda Pedersen opened the door, still without saying anything.
Anne entered a living room where time seemed to have stood still since the sixties. It was pure retro— wallpaper, rugs and furniture of the time were looking a little dilapidated and faded, but she could see they had been beautiful and modern once. On a circular white runner, on a small round teak table, stood a teapot, teacup and cream and sugar set from Fanny Garde’s famous Danish seagull collection.
‘Are you expecting guests?’ asked Anne considerately.
Gunda shook her head. ‘No, I was just making tea. Who are you and what do you want?’ She was a very small woman. Despite Anne herself not being so tall, she looked down at her.
‘I’d like to talk to your daughter. Nanette. Is she home?’
Gunda shook her head and went to a teak cabinet with glass doors to get another teacup. Anne took it as an invitation to sit down and she sank into a deep beige velour armchair with fringes standing on the other side of the round table. There was just room for one more cup on the table. From the window, she could look out onto the fjord.
‘This is a lovely place to live,’ said Anne as tea was poured into her cup with a slightly trembling hand. She noticed the gold ring and the fine gold chain around the slender wrist. She wasn’t used to older people and felt insecure. Her memories were of old ladies from Nørrebro who had looked degradingly at her attire and piercings and threatened her with a cane. There was no need for that anymore. She was wearing white capri pants and a denim jacket over a blue-striped blouse bought at H&M. She tried to relax.
‘It’ll do. The only noise is from the train,’ Gunda sighed as she sat down in the chair opposite Anne. ‘What do you want with my daughter?’
Anne didn’t know whether she should tell Gunda everything. Mrs Pedersen was Gitte Mikkelsen’s grandmother, despite not knowing her—Gitte having been given up for adoption as an infant. But hearing her granddaughter had been murdered might still come as a shock. Anne had no training on how to deal with that, so she thought it best to leave it to the police.
‘I’m a journalist,’ she admitted, throwing herself into it. She took a mouthful of the hot tea and burned herself. Gunda didn’t seem to mind journalists. Her neutral facial expression didn’t change.
‘Oh, I forgot the biscuits. I was on my way out to get them when you called,’ she exclaimed, getting up. She walked slowly, leaning against the doorframe on her way out to the kitchen. While she was away, Anne looked at the many pictures on the dresser opposite. Most, she guessed, were of Gunda and her husband. It was a young version of Gunda. Three children smiled and had their arms around each other. Grandchildren, definitely. There were pictures of two other girls. One, who was probably around twenty, had dark curls, the other was much older, and short-haired like Anne.
Gunda returned with a bowl of biscuits and set it in the middle of the table. Anne quickly took her eyes off the pictures.
‘How do you know Nanette?’ Gunda sat down again.
Anne explained she didn’t know the woman’s daughter, but she was writing an article about adoption from ten years before and had discovered Nanette had given up a child for adoption at that time. Anne hoped the cover story would work, though it didn’t sound very convincing. Gunda paled.
‘Where did you get that information from?’ she asked suspiciously.
Anne hesitated. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. My source is anonymous,’ she lied.
Gunda looked out over the fjord and was quiet for a long time. As if she had disappeared into another era. Then she began to speak monotonously, like it was something she did every day during afternoon tea.
‘We lived in Zealand at the time. Nanette was only fourteen. I don’t know if that brute raped her, but she was a licentious child. Maybe we were too old. Nanette was an afterthought. When I became pregnant, I didn’t think I was able to have more children. We agreed her child needed to go. We had big plans for Nanette. Despite her being wild and difficult to control, she was so talented.’ The dull brown eyes began to shine in the light from the window.
‘Who did you give the child to—to adopt?’ Anne dared to ask, even though she knew the answer.
‘A family here in Jutland.’ Gunda suddenly returned to the present and looked directly at her. ‘I don’t remember who they are anymore. I didn’t want to know either. It all happened so fast. But it was the best thing we could do for Nanette.’
‘Why didn’t you choose an abortion?’
Gunda looked at her sternly. ‘Both my husband and I have always been faithful Christian Democrats. Abortion’s a sin. It’s murder!’
Anne shuddered at those words, given Gitte had been murdered. What would it have spared both her and Nanette if an abortion had taken her life ten years earlier?
