Call Me Princess Part 13

"Obviously. I know that," Louise said quickly and a tad defensively.

She also knew plenty of heartwarming stories with happy endings, and she actually did have a soft spot in her heart for single people who preferred writing to a potential boyfriend or girlfriend online as opposed to trawling the picked-over crowd that hangs out at the city's bars weekend after weekend.

Mollified by Louise's comment, Camilla conceded that there were obviously some con artists out there who were really living it up, doing whatever they wanted under ident.i.ties that existed only in their imaginations.

"This one time, I wrote a piece about a girl who met a man who really 'thought outside the box,'" Camilla said. "He convinced her that he was building a big hacienda in Spain. She lent him money several times because he claimed the banks in Spain couldn't figure out how to transfer money from his Danish accounts. So she was happy to pay, believing that he was sending her money to the contractors in Spain so the swimming pool would be finished by the time they went down there on vacation."

Camilla sighed, thinking about the woman.

"The relationship ended as soon as she realized that he didn't even own a planter of flowers in front of a hacienda. Her money was gone, and so was he, the minute she closed her wallet."

"Some people are just naive," Peter said to her from over by the kitchen sink.

Louise shook her head slightly. "It's inevitable that misfits and psychopaths will be attracted to a venue like the Internet. The problem is just that it's so f.u.c.king hard to spot them on a screen," she philosophized.

"Well, if you've got such bad judgment, you have to hire a private eye!" Camilla said.

Louise interpreted her friend's comment as a joke.

"No, seriously, some people really do that," Camilla explained when she saw Louise's smile. "There has been a big uptick lately in that kind of work at all the detective agencies."

"Well, maybe just to be safe you should hire a detective to take a little look at Henning," Louise suggested, knowing at the same time that that would spoil the pleasant, joking atmosphere they had managed to recapture.

"It's not him. He's a perfectly ordinary guy, definitely not a serial rapist," Camilla said and then got up and went into the living room to tell Markus they were going. After a brief debate, he came back out with her and started putting on his shoes.

Louise had gotten up and was standing in the entry. Camilla stood in front of her and put her arms on Louise's shoulders, shaking her slightly as Markus went out into the kitchen to say good-bye to Peter.

"Can't you just give it a rest? Sometimes I get the feeling that you don't want me to be happy."

That stung. Camilla might not have meant it that way, but it felt like her friend had just kicked her in the stomach. She pulled herself together and then wrapped her arms around Camilla and pulled her close.

"There's nothing I want more. I'm just saying you should be careful."

"You think I've got c.r.a.ppy judgment," Camilla said, her voice now a whisper.

"That's not what I meant," Louise protested. "I'm sorry. I just don't feel like getting called out to your apartment and finding your arms and legs tied behind you. But I guess enough is enough. Even I can tell that I'm being too much of a busybody."

After they said good-bye, Louise lingered in the doorway, watching them go down the stairs. Her body felt heavy and her mind felt groggy after what Camilla had said. She shut the door and went into the kitchen to help with the last of the cleaning.

Do I really not want her to be happy? she wondered. Of course that wasn't true, but sometimes Camilla plunged into things without thinking them through, and that's what worried her.

She started the dishwasher and headed to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

According to the statistics, Camilla wasn't an obvious rape victim, according to this lunatic's perceived "type." But Christina Lerche hadn't been one, either, which just meant that their initial theory that the suspect targeted quiet, insecure women who dreamed of a man and a stable, secure relationship had already been shot down.

Peter sat down in front of the TV to watch a movie that sounded like it was well under way. Louise went into the bedroom to put on her pajamas. It struck her that she actually did not know what Camilla had written in her profile. Maybe she just said that she'd lived alone with her son for years, and that she longed for someone to share her life with. Maybe the take-charge, independent, urban side of Camilla-a woman who wouldn't dream of putting her precious feet into shoes that cost less than several hundred dollars-was hard to spot through whatever wishes and desires she expressed when looking for a life partner. Louise had no idea, and it really wasn't any of her business, either. Of course she wanted Camilla to be happy, even if it meant dating someone from Sor.

She returned to the living room and flopped down onto the couch with Peter, pulling the afghan over her.

"What movie is this? What have I missed?"

Since he had been watching for only ten minutes himself, Peter's summary was somewhat vague, so she gave up on following the movie and closed her eyes instead.

17.

"YOU CAN USE THIS ROOM HERE. WE'RE JUST PULLING THE TAPES. From what I understood, you want to see both ends of the platform at Kongens Nytorv, as well as the escalators?"

Lars confirmed this.

The security manager in charge of the surveillance archives had been waiting for them when they arrived. He led them down past the Copenhagen Metro's security office, where they monitored the surveillance footage from all stations continuously. A little farther down the hall was the archive itself, with its narrow steel shelves full of surveillance tapes from all the subway stations.

"There are monitors and two players in the next room." He pointed into a room the size of a cigar box. "The footage has also been burned onto DVDs, so you can take what you need to use back to police headquarters if that'd be more comfortable," he offered.

"No, this is fine. We'll watch them here," Louise said. She was impatient to get started and didn't think it would take them long. They had a time window of about two hours, and there was CCTV coverage from two angles, so they could each concentrate on one section of the station. For the moment, they were interested only in the north side of the platform where the trains heading toward Valise station stopped, since Christina Lerche had lived in Frederiksberg, four stops before that.

"Knock yourselves out," said a short, fair-haired man who came in and powered up the machines. "This is some scintillating stuff!"

They thanked him and remained standing until he left.

When they'd left headquarters after the morning briefing, they'd driven past Christina's apartment, and Lars had run upstairs to leaf through the photo alb.u.m he had remembered seeing on the bookshelf in her bedroom. He was holding three pictures when he came back down to the car. Vacation photos of a happy, very much alive woman. Two close-ups of her face, and one showing her full body. They set the pictures on the table between them and started figuring out how the Metro Security machines worked.

"Do you guys want some coffee?" the archivist called in to them while they were still focused intently on the machines' b.u.t.tons.

"Please," Louise said, turning around to smile at him. "Could you just show us how to put the machine on slow and pause?"

She had quickly inspected the basic functions, but knew that she would need to slow down the tape each time pa.s.sengers flocked in and out of the subway cars. The pace was fast and the station was quite crowded with people on their way home from work.

"That b.u.t.ton on the far right slows the replay down, and if you hold it in, the machine will freeze the frame."

He set two plastic mugs on the table, and Louise noticed him lingering over the pictures of Christina they'd brought.

Lars noticed it too. He covered them with his elbow and forearm and said "Thanks for the coffee!" with exaggerated politeness.

"No problem," the archivist said, slowly withdrawing. "Just holler if you need anything."

Louise and Lars got organized and hit PLAY.

"How typical. The time of day we have to review would be rush hour, when the trains are arriving every minute and a half. It's one train after another," Louise said, sounding a little grumpy. Her nose was right up against the screen as she followed the people coming down to the platform with concentration. Every once in a while, she stopped the machine when there were several people so close together that some of them were hidden from the camera lens.

After a good half hour, as she was starting to develop a headache, she jumped a little when Lars finally spotted something.

"There she is!" Lars said, shattering their focused silence.

His finger followed the stream of people on their way down the escalator from the round plaza at Kongens Nytorv.

Louise accidentally knocked over one of their coffees as she spun around to see his screen. She jumped up and grabbed the pictures of Christina.

"G.o.ddammit!"

The archivist came rushing back in to ask if anything was wrong.

"Do you have something I could wipe this up with?" Louise asked, trying to stem the little river of mocha-colored fluid heading for the edge of the table.

It only took him a second to whip out a roll of paper towels. In the meantime, Lars had turned so his back was blocking any view of the screens. He stayed like that until the short man left again.

"Sorry," Louise apologized. "Can I see?"

Lars rewound a little. The camera didn't cover the top of the escalator; but halfway down, a blond woman with a large bag over her shoulder came into view. She was leaning against the handrail, her head turned back over her shoulder. They could see she was talking to the man on the step behind her, but they couldn't really see her face. It didn't make it any easier that as the two stood there, a steady stream of harried commuters hurriedly walked down the escalator steps past them, each one temporarily obstructing the camera's view of them. Louise immediately estimated the man's age as mid-thirties. His dark hair fell down, covering his face, as he leaned forward to hear what the woman was saying.

They did not get a good look at the couple until they reached the landing at the bottom and walked around to continue down on the last section of the escalator.

"That's them!" Lars announced emphatically, freezing the frame.

Louise moved in close to hold up the full-body photograph of Christina Lerche so they could compare. The man was standing with his back to the camera.

"That's her," her partner repeated, advancing the images at half speed.

People started moving again, their movements exaggeratedly slow. Christina stepped forward so the camera caught the right side of her face from an angle.

"Stop," Louise exclaimed. "Stop right there."

She held the photograph with the close-up shot next to the screen.

"That f.u.c.king isn't Christina Lerche!" Louise blurted out, shaking her head. "That woman's smile is completely different. I think Christina's hair was longer, too. That woman's is only shoulder length."

"Maybe she got a haircut," Lars suggested, sounding a little irritated.

"I just saw her yesterday," Louise exclaimed. "True, her hair was hanging off the edge of the autopsy table, but it must have at least reached her shoulders, probably farther."

Lars grumbled, clearly not convinced.

The dark-haired man was tilting his head down and concentrating on where he put his feet.

"Let's look at them on my tape when they get to the platform."

Louise rolled her chair back over to her own screen, ready to see them appear, but they didn't show up. She compared her time stamp with the one showing on Lars's machine. They were almost identical, so the couple should have been there.

"They're gone!"

"Rewind and try again."

"I would've seen them if they were here," she said in a tone that really left no doubt. "They must not have taken the train toward Vanlse station after all. Maybe they went the other direction, toward Amager Strand? We can look and see if he shows up again. He should, if he was just there to see her off," Louise speculated, trying to tamp down her irritation a bit.

"I wrote down the tape number and the time stamp, so I can find them again. Let's just keep looking," Lars said, as if he was giving in only grudgingly. "If we don't find anyone else who resembles her, we can have her friend Marianne look at this couple."

"Good idea," Louise conceded.

Their concentration was shot. Their eyes laboriously followed pa.s.sengers as they climbed on and off trains. After another fifteen minutes, Louise punched the freeze-frame b.u.t.ton on her machine with a hard jab of her thumb.

"There!" she cried out.

A couple was standing on the far end of the platform talking.

"They must have taken the elevator down, not the escalator," Louise said, staring at the young blond woman. Now there was no doubt. It was Christina Lerche, smiling eagerly and nodding at what the man said. She gave him a quick hug before they parted ways, and then she started walking down the platform to get ready to board the train. At the same time, he forced his way into the elevator between a stroller and a bicycle to go back up again.

Louise stopped and rewound a little. She and Lars sat together watching in deep concentration, following the man. His dark, collar-length hair was slightly wavy.

"Six-foot-one," Lars guessed.

"Come on, turn around so we can see you!" Louise urged, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. The man didn't seem to realize he was being filmed, she thought, and yet he kept his face pointed away from the station camera the whole time.

Lars rewound the tape and they watched the scene again.

It'll be hard to make the description any more specific using this, Louise thought. She noted that he was thin. He was too far away to let them see his facial features clearly, but there was something aristocratic-looking about him. He had a bit of a Roman nose, and his lips were full.

Lars was sitting with his face in his hands. It just wasn't enough to go by; they both knew that. A rear view and a blurry silhouette weren't enough to print out and take to the press. Louise wound the tape all the way back, and neither of them said anything. There was no reason to leave the results of their search queued up for that little archivist, who would no doubt be in here trying to figure out what Louise and Lars had been looking for the second they left.

The archivist appeared in the doorway and nodded at the monitor, which was off. He asked, "Are you looking for that woman the papers wrote about today?"

Louise was about to deny it. Then she pictured him playing the tape back until he found Christina Lerche and comparing her with the old photo one of the newspapers had managed to obtain. Louise had no reason to believe he would do this, but she was annoyed that they hadn't gotten more from their search and she felt like blaming someone. So she nodded that he was right, even though she didn't know how much the newspapers had managed to find out.

"Awful story," he mumbled, following them to the stairs, where he disappeared back into the security office.

- "WHY DON'T WE GO TO THAT SINGLES MIXER EVENT ON FRIDAY?" Camilla asked as she and Louise were sitting at Cafe Svejk that evening, waiting for Peter. Louise listened to her friend without taking her eyes off the river of people strolling down Andebakke Path into Frederiksberg Park.

"If he's such an enthusiastic online dater, then there's a chance he'll turn up when they hold the next singles mixer," Camilla explained. "It's a way to meet other people who have profiles on the Web site."

"I don't really think it's all that likely that he'll show up if every newspaper in Denmark is reporting that the police are looking for him."

They were drinking Czech draught beer and had been lucky that an outside table by the little pond had been free when they arrived. Peter thought it was a great idea to go out for a beer, but then he had called when they were on their way out there and told them he would join them later. Markus was sleeping over at a friend's house, so Camilla wasn't in any hurry to get home.

The morning's disappointment was still weighing on Louise. When they got back to police headquarters, Suhr had trouble accepting they hadn't gotten anything useful from the surveillance footage. He'd stopped the press release that they were about to issue and insisted on watching the recordings from the subway station in person. Louise had sat in Heilmann's office, cursing about Suhr second-guessing their ability. She knew the whole thing would end up with the DVDs being brought in, and then he would see with his own eyes that the images weren't useful. He came to her office late in the afternoon and stood in the doorway, admitting it would be hard to use anything from the CCTV footage from the station to hunt for the suspect, and in the same breath he decided to stop the press release because it didn't include a useful picture of the suspect.

Before he left, he asked Heilmann to set aside time after Tuesday's morning briefing so they could discuss how to word the warning. He had decided that they would look for other women who had experienced similar a.s.saults, which was the original plan, but Suhr apparently decided that warning women about meeting face-to-face any dark-haired men who were about thirty and who they had only met online would be casting too broad a net. And, although Louise had been trying to keep her disappointment to herself all day, the setback had taken an even greater toll on Suhr. After volubly bragging to the chief of police in the hallway outside the homicide division's offices, claiming they were already getting close to solving the case, Suhr had later been forced to explain that they might not have gotten as far as they'd first thought.

"We have to get Suhr not to release this," Camilla exclaimed when she heard about the warning the police were about to send out.

Louise stared at her blankly.

"If he waits before he goes public with this warning, then the suspect can attend that mixer thing at no risk," Camilla added.