Call Me Princess Part 2

4.

"ARE YOU HUNGRY?" LOUISE ASKED. THEY WERE IN THE CAR ON their way to police headquarters, and it had occurred to her that it might have been more than twenty-four hours since Susanne had eaten. She knew that the most they would find in the break room would be a box of crackers, so she didn't mind stopping to pick something up, but Susanne shook her head.

When they got to the office that Louise and her partner Lars Jrgensen shared, Louise asked Susanne to take a seat and went out to check whether anyone else was still there at this late hour, but the place was totally deserted. Lieutenant Suhr's door was locked, and the lights were off in Henny Heilmann's office, although the lead investigator had left Louise a message that she could be reached at home after eight. Louise looked at her watch. It was almost eleven. She would wait and update Heilmann in the morning.

She got two bottles of mineral water from the little kitchenette behind the break room and returned to her office. In the hallway she heard footsteps in the stairwell and waited to see who was coming up before she went back to Susanne. She smiled when Lars walked through the revolving doors.

"Did you find him?" she asked out of curiosity before he'd even made it all the way over to her, since the force had had an hour to locate Jesper Bjergholdt.

"There's no listing for a Bjergholdt on H. C. rstedsvej-or anywhere else in Copenhagen, for that matter."

"f.u.c.k," Louise grumbled. "Are you guys done at Susanne's apartment?" she asked, hoping in vain that maybe something promising had turned up there at the very least.

"The investigators are still out there."

Louise nodded toward the door to their office.

"She's in there," she whispered. "I think it's best if I speak with her alone."

"Of course. I have her computer and cell phone. I'll get a warrant tomorrow so we can copy her hard drive and get a printout of the calls on her cell phone and land line."

Louise nodded and turned to go back into the office with the two bottles of water.

"Could you just ask her if she has a phone number for him?" he called after her. "I'll be sitting at Toft's desk, running some more searches on the name."

"Sure," she said and then walked into the room.

If anyone had asked her a year ago, she would have had a hard time imagining that she would appreciate Lars as much as she now did. She had been full of reservations when he had been a.s.signed as a temporary replacement for her previous partner, Sren Velin, who was taking some time off from the team. But she had forgotten about her aversion to the change with remarkable speed, and since then it had been business as usual when Lars officially replaced Sren after he was transferred "on loan" to an elite national police task force, Unit One, and away from the Copenhagen team.

- "NOW I'D LIKE TO ASK YOU TO TELL ME ABOUT JESPER BJERGHOLDT," Louise said after she set the water and a gla.s.s on the table in front of Susanne. "Did you talk to each other on the phone?"

If we could get a phone number that Lars could use to track him down tonight, that would be undeniable progress, Louise thought.

"No, I never had his number."

Well, that was that. Louise turned on her computer, and her screen flickered a little before it slowly made up its mind to work. "I'm just going to tell my partner that," she said, picking up the phone.

A shadow slid over Susanne's face, and she seemed to deflate a little. It struck Louise that it hadn't even occurred to Susanne that at that very moment there was a whole team of people working on her case, probing into her entire life, shattering what little remained of her privacy.

When Louise hung up, she tried to strike up a conversation before starting the actual questioning. A lot would be riding on whether or not she would be able to establish a trust-based relationship with Susanne.

"First I need to ask if you would like to have a victim services counselor present when you give your statement."

It took a little while before Susanne reacted. "No, I don't want anyone else here," she finally concluded.

"You might be grateful for it some day when the case goes to trial," Louise said, just to make sure that Susanne knew the implications of her decision.

Susanne shook her head again, staring stiffly at one of the piles on Louise's desk. "No, thank you," she repeated.

"Okay," Louise said. She was having a hard time penetrating the apathetic expression on the woman's face. They were past the tears and the sobbing, but there was still pain several layers down, and in brief flashes Louise got the sense that Susanne wasn't withdrawing from the present, from reality, just because of the physical a.s.sault and her battered face. The walls protecting Susanne from the outside world were not only there to protect her from her own battered psyche and hide the violation of the brutal attack; the expression Louise glimpsed every so often in those matte-blue eyes was more of a person who had trusted someone and been brutally betrayed, and she could not understand why.

"So, who is Jesper Bjergholdt?" Louise asked, once she'd given up on getting a regular conversation going.

Susanne kept her eyes trained on the desk, sitting absolutely motionless. She squinted her one open eye dramatically. It made for a grotesque grimace with her swollen face, as her other eye was now completely swollen shut and purplish red.

Louise tried again. "You knew him. You went out to eat. How well did you know him?"

Finally, a response. "We had known each other for over a month." Susanne stared at the wall as she did the calculation. "A month and a half," she corrected herself. She looked at Louise with her one good eye.

But he didn't seem like the type of guy who would... , Louise thought, continuing the next sentence in her head while keeping a straight face when the words came out of Susanne's mouth a second later.

"No, of course not," Louise responded. "Otherwise you would never have invited him home." Louise's voice did not contain even a hint of sarcasm. She leaned over her desk and tried to catch Susanne's eye. "But we agree that he raped you?"

No reaction.

"There aren't many women who, of their own free will, go in for being subjected to what you have just been through. Obviously he wasn't like that when you went out with him." She let her statement hang for a moment before continuing. "And the worst thing is that there was no way anyone could have predicted he could be like that." Louise very intentionally used anyone to make clear that it wasn't just Susanne who hadn't seen it coming.

"No," Susanne admitted softly. "I certainly didn't see that coming. I don't know what I did wrong."

"Did he rape you?" Louise asked again without commenting on Susanne's last comment.

Again, a long pause before Susanne finally nodded.

Louise's patience was starting to fray around the edges, but she kept her voice under control, like a horse being led around a dressage arena. Slow, steady, deliberate. "Could you please try to describe what Jesper Bjergholdt looks like, and then describe for me how you two got to know each other?" She smiled, extremely aware that her tone of voice could also come across as too controlled if she kept this up. "First, tell me how you met," she suggested a little more pointedly.

"He has dark hair, and his eyes are deep...."

They were talking at each other and not really getting anywhere, but it was better than nothing.

Susanne looked at her, her eyes filled with sadness and shame. "I can't remember what he looks like," she continued unhappily. She started to cry. Tears streamed from her good eye. She hid her face in her hands. "It's like it didn't happen, as if it was just my body that was there. I can't picture him."

Louise stood up and went over to her, sat down next to the chair, and put an arm around Susanne's shoulders. "It will help when you stop blaming yourself. It's completely understandable that your mind is repressing what happened. It was a very traumatic experience. But you need to try to help by telling us what you can." She took a deep breath. "When we file a rape report, it is important that we close in on the perpetrator as quickly as possible. And the best way to do that is with your help." She stood up and went to get a box of Kleenex, which she set in front of Susanne, and then continued: "We can't find a Jesper Bjergholdt on H. C. rstedsvej. Have you been to his place there?"

Susanne blew her nose and looked around for a trash can. Louise pushed it over to her with her foot.

"I've never been to his place, but he said that he had an apartment there."

"Ah," Louise said. She was starting to get a sense of where this story was going. "Did you meet him on the Internet?"

It took a little while for Susanne to answer, and the words came out reluctantly and hesitantly. "No... we met each other... downtown... at a cafe"

"At which cafe? When? And how did you end up talking to each other?"

Susanne stared at her. "I can't remember that, but he came over to my table."

Louise eyed her for a long time, then excused herself, stood up, and walked out. As the door closed behind her, she walked over to the only other office with a light on and asked Lars if he wanted a cup of coffee.

He gave her a questioning look.

"I need a break," she said. "I'm just going to go put on a fresh pot of coffee."

She slowly walked out to the kitchenette behind the break room. She opened a bag and measured, then she pressed the little b.u.t.ton on the side of the coffee maker, stood by the wall, and leaned her head back with her eyes closed while the coffee maker started gurgling.

Peace and quiet, she thought, trying to figure out what feelings were creating the roadblock in Susanne's mind. She thought about ways to penetrate the walls the woman had set up to protect herself from what had happened.

Over the years, Louise had struggled to avoid empathizing too much with other people's sorrows and emotions. Being involved in the aftermath of other people's tragedies had formerly affected her terribly, but over time she'd learned to deal with it. Perhaps a little too well, she thought. It could also be a strength, the ability to recognize the feelings people were struggling with. But there was something about Susanne that she couldn't put her finger on.

"What's going on in there?" Lars was standing in the doorway looking at her.

She opened her eyes, still leaning against the wall. "She may need to talk to a psychologist before I proceed. She's really completely blocked."

"So we have to wait until she can get in to see Jakobsen?" Lars asked.

Jakobsen was Unit A's standard crisis psychologist at National Hospital.

Louise shrugged her shoulders. "That might be best."

She pulled three dirty mugs out of the dishwasher and washed them by hand before pouring Lars a cup. Then she poured the rest of the coffee into a thermal carafe and went back to her office.

Susanne was still sitting there, staring at the desk.

Louise put down the carafe and the cups. "I think you need to talk a little more with a psychologist before we can proceed," she said. She knew full well that a visit to Jakobsen would cost them time, but it seemed to be the only solution if they were to get some concrete answers. She poured a cup for herself, held the carafe over the second cup, and gave Susanne a questioning look.

"Thanks," Susanne said with a nod.

"I suppose we could put the rest off until tomorrow, if you'd prefer," Louise suggested after tasting her coffee.

"I don't want to go home," Susanne burst out. "I'd rather talk now."

Finally the words were coming out more or less coherently, without the guarded hesitation. Louise took that as a good sign.

"On the Internet, yes. There's no reason to hide it," Susanne said. "He's the first person I've met that way and gone out with." She was practically radiating shame. The whole story of the cafe and their first meeting had been a lie, one more layer of protection.

What a terrific introduction to the world of online dating, Louise thought. She looked Susanne over, from her short, dark hair that always fell to the one side, to her slightly rough facial features that were battered and swollen. It struck her that Susanne didn't look like the kind of woman who hung out in bars. She was a pretty woman. Louise could see that, even through the bruises. Still, she wondered why Susanne was having such a hard time admitting she had met a man online, because it seemed obvious that that had something to do with it having ended so badly. Instead, it seemed as though Susanne considered it a defeat to meet a potential boyfriend that way, even though Louise thought that online dating had lost much of its previous stigma, of being taboo.

In fact, it had been only a couple of weeks previously that Louise's friend Camilla Lind was telling Louise about her profound respect for people who put their profiles up on the Internet.

"I mean, you have to be really creative just to come up with a profile name that isn't already taken," Camilla had said over the phone, sounding impressed, after the lifestyle editor at the Danish daily Morgenavisen had asked her to write a series of articles about online dating. "The people who are putting themselves out there in that world really aren't the 'fresh off the turnip truck' type."

Camilla had compiled a series of happily-ever-after dating stories that she'd shared with her readers, so perhaps she had inspired some people to give online dating a try. Maybe Susanne was one of them.

"It's a very popular way to meet a potential partner these days," she had written with conviction, and Louise had smiled as she read Camilla's pieces. "You can express your att.i.tudes and opinions up front, laying the foundation for a good relationship. Not like couples who meet each other out on the town after a few too many drinks," Camilla wrote in one article. Later on, she admitted to Louise that she would never personally look for a boyfriend online. She could definitely see the advantages, but she couldn't even dream of writing a little sales blurb about herself. That must be how Susanne had felt, too, Louise thought. Susanne hadn't struck her as someone who'd fallen off a turnip truck, however. More as a timid, inexperienced woman who had ventured out into the big, wide world.

"I think there's something degrading about meeting a man that way," Susanne said, breaking Louise's train of thought. Then she asked for a little more coffee. "And I don't care if people find that out about me now. But Jesper seemed like a decent guy, even though I did think he was too young for me at first."

Louise pulled her notepad over and started taking notes.

"We wrote to each other almost every day," Susanne continued.

"Was this the first time you'd met in person?"

Susanne's good eye seethed at this insult. "No! I wouldn't have invited him back to my apartment if it were. We'd been out twice before-well, just for coffee," she added.

"How old is he?"

"Thirty, but he looks younger."

"So he's two years younger than you. That's not that unusual," Louise said.

"He was looking for someone older than him."

"I see. Had he been out with a lot of people before he met you?"

"No, it was his first try too. So we both agreed that there must have really been something there that made us both fall for each other." She tried to smile a little, but Louise could see that it hurt her.

"Do you know where he works? Or what he does?"

"Something with computers, but I can't remember if he said where."

"That's okay," Louise said. "It may come to you."

"We mostly talked about books, art, and..." she drew it out a little. "... life. He was nice to talk to-or, well, write to, since that's all we did. He knew lots of stuff and had traveled a lot. It was exciting to hear about all that."

I wonder if he isn't the type who pa.s.ses himself off as a pilot even though his only flight experience is as a pa.s.senger on some discount airline, Louise thought. Some people have an uncanny and occasionally creepy ability to paint a picture of the life they want to live.

"Can you try to describe what he looks like?" Louise asked.

"He has dark hair, slightly dark skin."

"Is he a foreigner?"

"No."

Dark hair and slightly dark skin, Louise noted. "Dark in what way?" she fished.

"Just, you know, a little darker. Sort of a bit of an olive tone to his skin."

"Does he have any distinctive features? Like a tattoo, or an obvious, visible scar, or any birthmarks?"

Susanne closed her eyes as she contemplated this. Then she shook her head and said, "I don't think so, but I'm not sure. Maybe a tattoo."

"Which of you made the first contact, in the beginning when you first started writing to each other?"

"Him." Her answer was prompt, without hesitation. "He wrote. He said I sounded like the woman of his dreams."