Call Me Princess Part 21

Louise couldn't think of anything to say, but was glad that at least he realized it would be better for him to sleep on a mattress at his buddy's place than to even consider sleeping on the couch at her place.

"I just wanted to let you know that," Peter said.

"Thanks," she replied, a little sarcastically. She shrugged. "I guess."

She walked him to the door and stood there, watching him descend the stairs with his overnight bag over his shoulder. Her head was about to explode. She shut the door and stood there, lost in thought.

- WHEN LOUISE LOGGED IN A LITTLE LATER TO CHECK IF THERE WAS anything in her inbox, she found that "Prinzz" had suggested: "We could get coffee at Tivoli tomorrow, if you want."

Of course, she thought. He knows how easy it is to hide in the crowds at the popular old amus.e.m.e.nt park.

Camilla called and said she would drop by for a second and then hung up before Louise could tell her it wasn't a good time. Louise quickly e-mailed "Prinzz" back to ask where and when to meet.

"Cafe Viften, four o'clock," he replied succinctly, and then: "(You know what I look like.)"

"Cool," she wrote with no idea where Cafe Viften was. She sat there drumming her fingers for a bit. She sensed restraint in the tone of his brief message and wanted to keep the dialogue going to rea.s.sure herself that he wasn't thinking of backing out. Instead, she logged out of her mailbox and went to the kitchen to make herself a ham sandwich. She had just sat down to skim today's Urban when Camilla buzzed up from downstairs.

Louise was guessing that Peter had called her and that's why she'd insisted on stopping by.

"Hi, I'm a little busy so I can't stay long," Camilla said when Louise opened the door for her.

Louise smiled, shaking her head. She wasn't the one pressuring her friend to squeeze a visit into her busy schedule.

Camilla sat down at the kitchen table, hunching over a bit.

"What the f.u.c.k is up with Peter?" she asked, eyeing Louise as though she expected an explanation. They briefly discussed the fact that there was pretty much no chance in h.e.l.l Louise was going to take him back, and Louise found it comforting that Camilla was tepid in her support of Peter, as well. Camilla listened to what Louise had to say, and disagreed only halfheartedly when Louise said the trust was broken and it was no use for them to try again.

When they ran out of things to say on that topic, Camilla pulled a handful of pictures out of her purse and spread them out on the kitchen table as she eagerly described Henning's idyllic farmhouse. There were also some pictures of Camilla and Henning holding hands.

Louise noticed again how attractive he was. Not flashy, but tall and dark-haired. Exactly Camilla's taste.

"That looks wonderful," she said, dutifully adding that she looked forward to visiting them out there.

"Couldn't you come out this week or next weekend sometime?"

Louise dragged her feet. She felt guilty that she kept postponing on Camilla, so she tried changing the topic instead. "Do you talk to Susanne often?"

"Every day," Camilla replied. "I'm actually on my way over to see her now."

Louise raised her eyebrows, waiting for her to go on.

"We got such a response to her diary today," Camilla said. "We're drowning in e-mail."

Louise hadn't been following all this.

"Susanna wrote a diary for us about her reaction to the rapist killing his next victim. She calls him a monster and says that in the pit of her stomach, she can picture what Christina Lerche's last minutes must have felt like. It was really very moving."

There was something sarcastic about Camilla's tone that bugged Louise.

"Well, she's right, you know," Louise exclaimed. "It could just as easily have been her. She was lying there hogtied with tape over her mouth for hours, so if anyone knows what Christina Lerche must have felt, it would be Susanne." It irked her that Camilla had been the one urging Susanne to share her story in the first place, so it wasn't right for her to be so f.u.c.king condescending now that she had.

"Of course," Camilla said. "And she described it so well it really made people sit up and pay attention. I'm just so disgusted that that's what it takes these days to make the readers feel something."

Louise stopped feeling so defensive. "Maybe it's time for you to find a different job?" she suggested, as she had done countless times before.

Camilla shook her head, promptly dismissing the idea. "Why would I do that? Now that I finally know what it takes to make a compelling story!" she exclaimed, starting to gather and put away her pictures. "Well, I've got to head out to Roskilde. I've got a whole bag full of e-mail we received for her today. I printed it out. Plus a bouquet of flowers from the editor-in-chief. Hyer is pretty excited about this story, to put it mildly."

Louise could just imagine. She asked Camilla to say hi to Susanne for her and waved good-bye as she disappeared down the stairs.

Louise went back into her apartment and booted up her computer to see if "Prinzz" was feeling any more talkative. But there weren't any new messages, so she turned it off again and decided to keep tomorrow's coffee date to herself. She would involve the rest of the group once she was sure it was really him.

27.

AT NINE O'CLOCK THE NEXT MORNING, LOUISE WAS SITTING IN HER doctor's waiting room, flipping through an issue of Health that she'd pulled out of the stack of old magazines. She had slept fitfully. Her fragmented dreams ended in a bizarre c.o.c.ktail of rapists, coffee, and pregnant bellies. She gave up a little after six and got out of bed to try to take charge of the thoughts spinning around in her head, but she couldn't shake her apprehension. Nervousness made her cross her arms over her chest to touch her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, confirming that they were indeed tender, and dread sat like a knot in her stomach at the thought of her coffee date later that day. Maybe she ought to tell Lars to come with her, she thought. But then, as Suhr had wisely pointed out, it wasn't as though Bjergholdt could do anything to her as long as they were out in public-and, besides, that wasn't actually what she was afraid of, she admitted to herself, tossing Health back onto the pile. Ultimately what really terrified her was that she would screw this up and scare Bjergholdt off and that someone else could do this better. But that wasn't true, she told herself with conviction. If anyone could establish contact with him, it was her.

"Louise Rick," her doctor stood in the doorway, beckoning her.

He had pulled her records up on his screen and was skimming through them quickly as he asked her to have a seat.

"So, what can I do for you?" he asked, smiling at her.

"I'm afraid I'm pregnant," Louise said and stared at him, not really sure what else to say. But then she decided he should take the reins. Her job was to just tell him why she was there.

"Are you late?" he asked.

"No, not yet. I won't be until next week."

He raised his eyebrows. "Then it may be a little early to think you're pregnant," he said, pulling his chair over to her.

"I've been throwing up, walking around feeling sick to my stomach most of the time, and now my b.r.e.a.s.t.s are sore too."

"When do you think you got pregnant?" he asked, clarifying by adding: "When did you and Peter last have s.e.x?"

"A couple weeks ago, but Peter has moved out. We're not together anymore."

The doctor hesitated a bit before saying that nausea didn't normally set in until about five weeks, and that breast tenderness was not an accurate predictor.

If he gave her a paternalistic smile, she was going to punch him, but his face remained neutral, and he continued very professionally, "I don't think you're pregnant. You're still taking your birth-control pills, aren't you?"

She nodded, but before he had a chance to go on, she objected that it could have happened anyway.

He listened to her argument and said that he thought it was more likely that the breakup had upset her more than she wanted to admit.

She was about to protest when he continued: "That type of distress can also cause nausea."

He stood up and walked over to a cupboard behind the desk and took out a small sample packet, which he handed to her.

"These are seasickness pills. They should help with the nausea. Take one whenever you feel sick. But you should be prepared. It may take a little while before you're back to your old self."

She was about to explain to him that she wasn't that crushed over the breakup, that she was actually fine with Peter moving out; but before she had a chance to say anything, he rea.s.sured her, "The body usually has such a visceral response to something like this only right in the beginning."

She shoved the pills into her purse, sure that she wouldn't take them.

"So, you're saying that I can't be pregnant?" she asked, standing up.

He smiled at her and said that it wasn't impossible, but there was no reason to be concerned about it until she was sure her period was late.

She thanked him and hurried out.

- WHEN SHE WAS BACK DOWN IN THE STREET BELOW, SHE FELT A LITTLE better. It was completely, totally, unreasonably, and ridiculously idiotic of her to have gotten so worked up about it, thinking she was pregnant, she thought, feeling something inside her relaxing. She realized how hysterically nervous she'd been. She hadn't been able to a.s.sess the potential consequences, but realized that having an abortion would not have been such an easy choice.

When she got to headquarters, she found a stack of reports on her desk with a note from Sergeant Heilmann asking her to read through them. She spread them out and thought, What the f.u.c.k is this? Again she had the feeling they were going easy on her, but in a way that suited her just fine. The thoughts whirling around in her head were slowly settling down. She realized she was feeling happier than the week before. With her crazy imaginings about her future put to rest, she was left with a little extra energy that was slowly starting to recharge her batteries.

After two o'clock, the minutes dragged. She noticed her rising sense of antic.i.p.ation disrupting her concentration. She realized she hadn't given a thought to what her approach would be once she was sitting across from him. What would she say? How should she act? She looked at the time again and starting packing up. It was no use preparing a strategy in advance. She'd figure it out at the cafe.

- AT TWENTY MINUTES TO FOUR SHE STARTED WALKING TOWARD TIVOLI. Lars wasn't back yet, so she left him a message that she'd be back in an hour. A couple minutes before she was planning to leave, she suddenly regretted not filling him in on her plans, but now she didn't know where he was, and she didn't have time to look for him.

She felt the b.u.t.terflies in her stomach as she entered the park and walked past the small yellow Ferris wheel, following the gravel path around the end of the lake, looking for Cafe Viften. It was supposed to be over by the Golden Tower ride somewhere. She spotted the sign as she came around a turn in the path. The cafe was tucked back behind an ice cream stand.

Her heart beat faster as she approached and saw that the place was packed with baby carriages. People were squeezed in around the tables, drinking coffee and eating cake. Louise stopped, partly hidden behind a thick tree trunk. She didn't see him. They were supposed to meet in five minutes. She surveyed the other diners to see if she could spot a guy on his own who might be "Prinzz." Maybe she'd been e-mailing the wrong guy. But no one seemed to be there alone.

She studied a flyer hanging on a pillar next to the cafe. Live rock music on Friday night with a list of the acts, but Louise wasn't reading them. Behind her sungla.s.ses, she was watching people leaving their tables, making way for new diners to sit down. It was after four o'clock. She still didn't see a guy who looked like he was waiting for someone.

Restlessly she strolled quickly past the cafe and over to the other side of the entrance, so she could see the people approaching from the opposite direction.

There was a dark-haired man coming, but a second later she saw his wife and their young daughter. You don't show up ten minutes late to this type of appointment, she thought in irritation, and turned around to scan the area over by Faergekroen Brew Pub and the playground. Either you're there on time or you're not coming at all. A large group of Swedes had arrived and were now seated at a couple of different tables. They were trying to push their tables together so they could sit as one group.

Louise watched the scene unfold and smiled as an older woman in the group, in her eagerness to help, pa.s.sed a chair to someone over the table, but lost hold of it so it landed right in the middle of a tray of desserts. Their loud voices drew all the diners' attention to the mishap.

When Louise tore her eyes away from the spectacle and moved them back onto the people waiting to be seated, her eyes locked onto something. She recognized the dark hair.

- HIS SILHOUETTE WAS JUST AS DISTINCTIVE AS SHE'D SEEN ON THE footage from the subway's CCTV footage. The high forehead, the aristocratic expression with the Roman nose. He stood scanning the crowd, and when Louise starting walking over to let him know she was there, she noted that he was taller and stockier than she had first estimated. Just then he turned toward her and she stopped in shock and held her breath.

Henning's eyes moved in her direction without noticing her. Evidently he didn't know who he was looking for. Louise quickly pulled back. He walked over to the line by the cash register, still looking around, and she hoped he would get himself a cup of coffee and go sit down, which would win her a little time. She was breathing again, but she couldn't think straight.

She couldn't understand why she hadn't seen it before, but when you looked at his face straight on you didn't notice the distinctive silhouette, and she realized she'd never actually seen Henning from the side.

She was sweating as she fumbled for her cell phone in her bag to call Camilla and ask what the f.u.c.k Henning was doing in Tivoli. At the same time, she knew that it was only a question of time before he discovered that she was alone, too, and approached her. She stepped farther away so she was out of his field of vision but could still keep an eye on him.

She took a deep breath and tried to calm down, acknowledging that now she was really risking making a fool of herself if she made a wrong move. It was also crystal-clear to her that it had been a mistake to come here alone.

She walked back and stood by the entrance to Cafe Viften so there was no doubt that she was waiting for someone, and she wasn't particularly surprised when someone came right up behind her a few minutes later and said "Princess?" Nor when she turned around and found herself staring right up into the face of Camilla's boyfriend.

"Yeah," she said, nodding, wondering if Camilla had shown him pictures as well, in which case he would recognize her as Camilla's friend the homicide detective. Or maybe he just believed she was who she'd said she was.

"It's, uh, I'm not the person you're supposed to meet... ," he began.

His excuse was clumsy, and he was waving his hands around in the air a little. When Louise took a step back in surprise and looked at him, he explained that unfortunately his brother was running late.

She stood there for a moment without responding, feeling neither relieved nor disappointed that he wasn't the one they were looking for, but instead trying to remember what she'd heard Camilla say about the brother. She couldn't remember anything other than that he'd been invited over for dinner one night when she had been there, too.

"Well, it's a little much to send someone else just because you're late," she said with a smile, her mind racing.

"He didn't have enough time to let you know he couldn't make it," Henning said with a shrug.

"Well, then it must have been an emergency," she concluded.

He nodded.

"We were having lunch here in Tivoli with my girlfriend, but then she had to go out to Roskilde for work, and then shortly after that one of my brother's clients was having trouble with a server that was down. So then he had to go over there. So it wasn't any trouble at all for me to come over here and let you know, since I was here already. Besides, I have to wait for my girlfriend to get back anyway."

Louise caught herself listening with her mouth agape as he continued.

"We're planning to see a show at the Gla.s.s Hall Theater tonight, and it doesn't make any sense for me to go all the way home...."

He kept talking, but Louise had long since stopped listening. She was thinking about Susanne. She didn't put much stock in coincidences or accidents, and she had a really awful feeling now.

She thanked him over and over again for having gone out of his way to wait for her, but as she started to walk away, he held out his hand. She stopped inelegantly and said a proper good-bye, the whole time thinking that it was definitely going to be a little awkward when Camilla introduced them to each other.

When she was a little way from the cafe, she called the main ops desk at police headquarters. They picked up right away.

"This is Rick. We need to get hold of Susanne Hansson in Roskilde." She'd already pulled Susanne's phone number and address out of her purse. "I think the suspect we're looking for might be at her place right now."

They didn't waste any more time talking. The officer on duty was already dialing Susanne's number on another line and was ready to notify the Roskilde police if there was anything at all to back up Louise's suspicion.

"I'll call you back," he said tersely as he waited for Susanne to pick up.

Louise jogged toward the exit, trying to make herself calm down. Nevertheless, she picked up her pace. She pushed her way past the people waiting in line to get into the park, darting across Tietgensgade in spite of the red light. Once she was safely across, she called Camilla in the hope that she was still in Roskilde with Susanne.

When Louise asked her what she was doing, Camilla replied, "I just walked into the office." Then she exhaled loudly. "I'm totally stressed out because I had to cut short a lunch date to go see Susanne."

"Why? What happened?" Louise interrupted before her friend had a chance to complain further.

"She was mad because her mother wrote in to the paper, defending herself against Susanne's piece saying she needed to get away. Now the mother is accusing the press of controlling her daughter. I think that's mostly what Susanne is upset about. I mean, she feels like she's finally just starting to have some control over her own life."

"Who were you having lunch with?" Louise tried to sound casually interested without seeming overly curious. She took long strides past the Glyptotek Museum hurrying toward police headquarters.

"Henning and his brother Jrgen. We're going to a show at the Gla.s.s Hall tonight. It was one I didn't think you'd be interested in, otherwise I would have invited you to join us."

"Do they know about any of the stuff with Susanne?" Louise asked urgently.