Call Me Princess Part 9

Louise was in no doubt about Camilla's ability to shoo men out, but it still sounded risky to her.

Camilla opened the fridge and took out a jar of Glyngre lumpfish caviar. With a teaspoon, she placed dollops onto the puff pastry at regular intervals and then rolled it up like a jelly roll before cutting it into thin slices, which she laid out flat, like danishes, on a baking sheet.

"Should I bring my video games?" Markus shouted from his room.

"Take your Game Boy so you'll have it for the drive," Camilla answered. "Besides," she said to Louise, "he's just coming over for a drink. We're going out to dinner tomorrow night; but if it turns out there's no spark there, then we can skip the dinner." She opened the oven and put the baking sheet in, then she quickly glanced at her watch and asked if Louise and Markus shouldn't be going.

Louise smiled and called out to Markus.

Camilla was getting out her hair dryer when Markus ran into the bathroom to say good-bye to her while Louise stood there holding his bag over her shoulder, waiting until they were done with their good-byes.

"Can I sit in front?" Markus asked when they got down to the car.

Louise gave him a smile and tousled his hair. "We'll have none of that, young man. You know I'm a police officer," she said, making her voice sound very authoritative.

He bowed his head in a theatrical sulk and opened the back door. His whole goal had been getting her to say that she was a police officer. It surprised her a little that he still thought that was a big deal, and she thought she really ought to enjoy her rock-star status for as long as it lasted.

- MARKUS WAS LYING ON LOUISE'S SOFA WATCHING CARTOONS ON TV while she got out their plates and her travel bag. She hadn't been planning on taking much at first, but her mother had called and said that she wanted to take the opportunity of Louise's upcoming visit to get the whole family together, so she'd invited Louise's brother and sister-in-law and their two children. Louise decided, if the whole family was going to be there, that they'd need some extra clothes.

She thought fleetingly about Karsten Flintholm and could still hear him gloating-really taunting-that she was going to have to let him go. It was bugging her because she was usually pretty good at leaving her "work hat" at work and not bringing it home with her. She'd picked up the technique from a training seminar for homicide detectives and investigators. The "imaginary work hat" helped people who tended to dwell on their cases even when they were off work. In the beginning she'd had a hard time getting used to this new technique, but now it had become a ritual for her, one she quite unconsciously relied on at times when brutal crimes might otherwise linger in her thoughts overnight. Thoughts of Susanne Hansson and "Mr. n.o.ble" were soon placed far into the recesses of her mind as she went to the kitchen to get a bag of candy and returned to the living room to watch TV with Markus.

Later, she only just barely heard Peter come home. Markus had been asleep for ages, and she had also fallen asleep. She noticed the mattress yield to his body as he cautiously lay down, taking care not to wake her. She reached over and found his hand, but wasn't able to climb out of the tight embrace sleep held her in.

12.

SHE SAW IT COMING BUT COULDN'T PULL HER ARM BACK IN. HE was too fast as he positioned his weight over her back and then pressed down until she couldn't breathe. She gasped as she heard something snap in her shoulder. The pain was so intense that her muscles quivered.

He gripped her left arm tightly and tugged her back so that she rolled onto her stomach. Pinned underneath his body, she went limp and her muscles relaxed.

"Lie still."

His voice was so close to her ear that a stream of air filled her ear ca.n.a.l.

She noticed that his weight eased up slightly off her back as he leaned over to get a better grasp of the arm under her. She quickly flipped over onto her back, and he lost his balance as she pulled both legs up and kicked him as hard as she could. The impact when she hit him sent a jolt through her body. He reflexively grabbed hold of her ankles. It felt like a knife cutting in deep as he cinched the cable ties.

She instinctively scratched at him before she began hitting out whenever he was close enough. His cheek was bleeding, and she noticed the aggression radiating out of his dark eyes and prepared herself for another blow.

She had vaguely sensed that something was wrong, but had nonetheless ignored the warning signs. He had been attentive and courteous. She had found it strange all along that he didn't want to exchange pictures, but she had taken that as a compliment, since he had written in one of his first e-mails that he could tell she was different from the others. He could tell that from the tone of her e-mails.

A reproachful voice popped up in the back of her mind and mixed with the fear: You were playing with fire. Fight!

She had been enjoying it; she'd flirted. It had been t.i.tillating and exciting to write back and forth, looking forward to their first meeting.

She screamed as he tied her wrists together, and kept on screaming as he pushed her down onto the floor. The fitted sheet had come off on one side. She had seen the transformation happen when at one point she had taken control in the bedroom. It had turned her on that he was so nervous, so hesitant and slow in taking off his clothes. A diamond in the rough, she teased him in her mind, as he stood next to the bed fumbling with his shirt b.u.t.tons.

"Here, let me," she had said affectionately once she had taken off her own clothes. She started undoing his b.u.t.tons, and that's when she noticed him change. Something had settled in between them like a chill in the air she was breathing. He stood motionless as she slowly undressed him.

She had smiled at him as he pushed her onto the bed, not seeing what he was hiding in his hand. She thought it was a condom that he was too embarra.s.sed to let her see. Now she realized it had been the sharp bands that he used around her ankles and wrists.

She struggled further onto the floor until he yanked her back up, intending to push her down onto the mattress. She managed to keep her balance on her tightly bound legs and with tremendous force she swung her arms at him. The blow knocked him down, and she was afraid the rage she had ignited in him would kill her.

The silence following their struggle hung thick in the bedroom as he sat, just in his boxers, straddling her chest and arms and forced something hard into her mouth. He reached over for the roll of duct tape he had set on the bed as she lay there on the floor, and bit off a piece of tape as she writhed beneath him. She felt his s.e.xual arousal distinctly, and noted to her own astonishment that the fight had also left her own groin quivering and tingling. This helped her relax a little, thinking it would be over soon. It was a game that was exciting to both of them. She had just underestimated him; she hadn't thought he'd be into this kind of thing, and they hadn't gone through the rules of the game because she had started undressing him too quickly. So she let him put the tape over her mouth.

She interpreted it as conciliatory when he stared into her eyes intensely, leaning forward into her face, as an expression of their mutual enjoyment. But when he pulled back a little and heavy-handedly forced her knees apart and jammed some hard object up into her, the pain was so intense that everything went black. Her body's pain reflexes tensed her already-contracted muscles so the only reaction was a small jerk that made her arms and legs twitch. She was so stunned by the pain that was tearing her apart that she hadn't given a thought to the fact that she would suffocate if she couldn't breathe through her nose. She frantically turned her head to the side; the pain stopped, and she heard him drop something onto the floor. The d.i.l.d.o she kept in the drawer of her nightstand fleetingly entered her mind; that might be what he had found, but before she finished the thought she felt his hands around her neck. Tears blurred her vision as she looked at him to see when it would stop. He wasn't squeezing, just letting his hands rest there as he settled on top of her with his full weight and plunged deep between her thighs.

She relaxed a little again. Now it was done: he had had his o.r.g.a.s.m. She tried to signal to him with her eyes that it was okay, she had gotten through it, but even before he yanked her over so she was hanging off the edge of the bed she could tell he had no intention of stopping. Rage shot through her with the same intensity as the blow she had laid into the side of his head. She gathered her strength, and when he tried to flip her onto her stomach she kicked out at him again. Furious, he turned his back to her and left the room.

With difficulty she got up onto her legs and looked around for a weapon, but before she made it around the bed she sensed him behind her. It happened so fast that she didn't have a chance to parry the blow. Nausea set in as the next blow thundered into her face, and everything went black before she hit the floor. She lay there behind the bed with her eyes closed and heard him getting dressed as she felt nausea overwhelm her.

She tried to hold it back by taking steady, deep breaths. Her relief at hearing the main door slam shut behind her made her relax a bit, but it was too late to stop the powerful wave of vomit surging through her like a convulsion. Her immobilized body flinched reflexively, and she fought for air. The next minute felt like an hour.

Another wave of vomit came, but she was no longer aware of it. Unconscious, she lay heavily on the floor and didn't notice her throat fill up and her cheeks distend.

13.

"WE'RE GOING FISHING," MARKUS BRAGGED AS HE BOUNDED out of the car into the yard.

Louise's mother came out to welcome them. Peter walked over and gave her a kiss on the forehead.

"Hey, you!" Louise's father called from the farmhouse. She waved at him and gave her mother a hug.

Her parents had traded in their apartment in Copenhagen for an old rundown country house before Louise and her brother started at the local elementary school. Now it was hard to imagine that her parents had ever been city dwellers, and it was perfectly all right with Louise that they had continued to live in the country. Once in a while she would get an intense urge to sit out in the yard under the enormous apple tree and walk through the fields, which were surrounded by woods. On the other hand, she had a hard time imagining that she would ever move to such a rural area, even though the landscape had become a part of her and filled her with an inner peace so p.r.o.nounced that she noticed the change the second she stepped out into the yard. She took a deep breath of the fresh air and started carrying their bags in from the car.

"How're you guys doing?" Her father asked the first question as they sat down around the garden furniture on the patio. Louise smiled and contemplated her parents. Everything was as usual. She sighed contentedly and dragged her chair over into the sun. From out in the yard, she could hear Markus mowing some gra.s.s with the ancient manual lawnmower. It always amazed her that children were so willing to push it back and forth. She herself would do anything to get out of it.

"The kids won't be here until around five thirty," her mother announced, "so you guys can enjoy a little peace and quiet before the tornados arrive."

Thank G.o.d, Louise thought. Her two G.o.dchildren really could wreak havoc on a place. She had teased Mikkel and Trine many times, saying that just because there was a lot of s.p.a.ce available, that didn't mean they should raise their kids to use every last inch of it. She meant that in all seriousness, but either they thought she was joking, or they refused to see the problem. Instead, they always got back at her by asking if she and Peter were going to have any children, and the conversation always ground to a halt right there.

Peter had an easier time finding things to talk to Louise's brother and sister-in-law about. After dinner, he asked with interest how things were going with their house, but by that point Louise had already disappeared into the kitchen to start cleaning up and making coffee. She was so rarely in the mood to listen to her brother and his wife talk about their staid life and big circle of friends, with one social event after another. On the other hand, this never bothered Peter. He took the whole thing in stride, and even remembered whatever they had told him the last time they were together. She smiled at him as he sat there nodding at whatever her sister-in-law was saying. It wasn't until they stood up to say good-bye two hours later that she realized it had actually ended up being quite a pleasant evening.

Markus was sleeping, so she persuaded Peter to join her for a moonlit stroll through the woods. It was extremely dark out, except for the bright moonlight that filtered down through the trees and lit up the paths so they could find their way. It was still too early in the year for warm summer evenings, and before they made it back to the house the cold had crept through her clothes so she sped up a little when she saw the light from the windows.

"Don't you think we should buy a vacation house?" Peter suggested as they turned into the yard.

She stopped, surprised. They had talked about a lot of things for their future, but this one was new. She tried picturing herself as the owner of a vacation house, but she wasn't wild about the image that came up.

"I don't really think I'm cut out for that," she said, but she couldn't tell whether he was seriously considering the idea or whether it was just a whim, so she hastened to add that they might consider getting onto the national forest agency waiting list and hope to be picked for one of the old gamekeepers' cottages. That would be a little more her style: more land and not so stereotypical.

The gravel on the path through the yard crunched under their feet as they walked hand in hand. Peter was looking up at the stars, seemingly not listening to what she said. So much for that idea, she thought, squeezing his hand.

Up in their room, Louise dutifully checked her cell phone when it fell to the floor as she searched for her pajamas.

The screen said eight missed calls. The phone had been in her bag with the ringer off since Friday night when she had done her packing, and she had forgotten to switch it back on. She sat on the edge of her bed and pulled up the missed-calls list. One call from Camilla; the rest were from police headquarters. f.u.c.k, she thought, dialing up to retrieve her voice messages, a sense of anxiety spreading through every cell in her body.

Heilmann had left the first message about quarter to five on Sat.u.r.day afternoon. After that there were two more messages from Heilmann's cell, and the rest were from Lars. In Heilmann's last message at eight thirty, she asked Louise to call the next morning. No hint about what was going on, just that short message.

Heilmann's irritation was clear in her voice. There was noise in the background, but not enough to tell where she was calling from. Louise looked at the clock; it was almost one in the morning. They had sat in the living room with her parents and had a couple of gin-and-tonics after their nighttime stroll. f.u.c.k, she thought again, feeling Peter's eyes burning into her back. She was still sitting there with her cell phone in her lap.

"That was Heilmann," she said without turning around. "She's been trying to get ahold of me since this afternoon."

"You're off. They can't expect that you sit around waiting for them to call all the time. You know that," Peter said, defending her. "If you're off duty, you're off duty!"

"Yeah, but they ought to be able to reach me if something happens."

They did not call her this way very often, but it did happen. And anytime she wasn't one of the first ones to come running back into work, she felt instantly guilty-even though it was perfectly legitimate for her not to have been home.

"They'll manage," Peter said, yawning. "I'm sure she would've called twice as many times if she hadn't managed to get someone else."

Louise tossed the phone back in her bag and climbed into bed. The feeling of relaxation was gone. They both knew that she would get up early and be ready to leave as soon as she had spoken with Heilmann. She took a deep breath before she snuggled up to Peter and started to gently nibble his ear. He lay as stiff as a board as she tried to get the warmth from her body to spread to him. Her tongue had slid down and started tickling his neck before he gave in and pulled her close to him so their bodies melted together. It had been a long time since they'd made love. She hadn't thought about it before, but quickly calculated that it must have been almost a month since the last time. That's too long, she told herself as she let the pleasure carry her away.

14.

THERE WAS A TENSE SILENCE IN THE CAR. MARKUS WAS SITTING in the back seat with a comic book, munching on a snack. Peter was driving. Louise was staring out the pa.s.senger-side window. Given the situation, there wasn't enough tenderness left over from the previous night to defuse the strained atmosphere between them.

Louise had gotten hold of Heilmann at eight that morning. She briefly told Louise to be at the pathology lab in time for an autopsy that would start at ten.

"A rape," Heilmann said. "The victim was found gagged and bound with cable ties."

Louise had quickly packed their bags. She waited until the bags were stuffed into the car and they were ready to leave before waking Markus. They had agreed that they would drop her off at the lab first, and then Peter would take Markus back to their place. It was too early to drop him off at Camilla's.

On the way out to the car, Louise's father told her that Roskilde had a new police chief. "Now that Nymand is out of there, maybe you should think about whether that might be a nice place to work."

Louise gave her father a stiff smile, replying that it would take more than Nymand's departure for her to consider transferring from the homicide division in Copenhagen to the criminal investigations division in Roskilde.

He tried to smooth things over by saying that he just thought she wouldn't be under so much pressure if she worked somewhere other than police headquarters.

She explained that the opposite might well also be true, and then she took a deep breath before continuing: "Now, quit feeling sorry for me. I love my job." She couldn't stop the defensive tone that made her voice rise.

As they drove away, she turned to Peter and said: "And this is just part of what living with me means." And then she thought there was really no way in h.e.l.l it should be coming as a surprise to him.

The mood was definitely wrecked, and it irritated her because she was also angry that their Sunday had been ruined. It wasn't like she had planned for it, but then it wasn't like this was anything new.

- "THE BODY WILL BE UP SOON. THEY'RE JUST WEIGHING HER, DOWN IN the bas.e.m.e.nt," Flemming La.r.s.en said as he let Louise in the main entrance to the lab. Louise took a seat in the lobby. The lab was closed on Sunday, and she guessed that he had tried to postpone the autopsy until Monday but Lieutenant Suhr had insisted on having it done ASAP. That was a recurring theme. Whenever they got a body after hours, it took a lot of doing to get the pathologists to perform the autopsy right away. Their argument was that they could see better in the daylight. Suhr would maintain that he had an investigation to get started on. Then they would grumble back and forth until Suhr would finally pound his fist on the table and snarl, "If you have trouble making out the f.u.c.king details, why don't you turn on some more G.o.dd.a.m.n lights."

And then he would get his way.

"She wasn't brought in until about nine o'clock last night," Flemming said. "They had a huge contingent of CSIs over at the crime scene, so for once everyone agreed that we wouldn't do the autopsy until today. They just needed a couple of people available to come in here and a.s.sist."

Louise nodded. The pathologists couldn't start until forensics sent a couple of people to watch the autopsy. And of course she knew that all available resources would initially be allocated to securing the crime scene. Otherwise, she still didn't know anything, beyond the fact that a woman had been found dead in an apartment.

"Was it her own apartment? Where was it?" she asked.

Heilmann had been very snappish when they spoke that morning. "You'll have to wait until the briefing," she had said when Louise started asking her questions.

Now, Louise turned her barrage of questions toward Flemming instead. He shrugged and said, "I think it was her own place, out in Frederiksberg."

When he said Frederiksberg, it suddenly occurred to Louise that she hadn't called Camilla back yet.

"What was her name?" she asked.

"I haven't gotten that far. She's still being called 'Emergency, Frederiksberg.'"

Louise thought that even if it did turn out that Camilla's date had been with a guy she'd met online, she wasn't the type of woman their perp would dare attack. There was nothing timid or insecure about her friend Camilla. The opposite. And they were talking about a person who put a great deal of effort into selecting and grooming his victims. He would have long ago determined that Camilla didn't meet his criteria. Louise looked at her watch.

"Are you guys going to be sticking to the schedule?" she asked.

It was a quarter to ten and she hadn't heard the elevator doors, so she a.s.sumed the victim's body was still down in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"We may have to push it back a little. Suhr told us to wait for him, and he hadn't left the victim's apartment yet when I spoke to him a little while ago," Flemming replied. "He may be coming with the pathologists."

Louise and Flemming sat down across from each other in silence, waiting by the front entrance to let everyone in when they arrived.

"So, aside from this, did you have a good weekend?" Flemming asked.

Louise shrugged her shoulders. The nice part of the weekend had vanished the instant she listened to Heilmann's phone message.

"We were down at my folks' place in the country. Why?"

"I was on duty yesterday, too, so I was doomed to spend my weekend in here no matter what."

Louise had often wondered what Flemming La.r.s.en was like when he was at home on his own time. She knew he lived alone after a divorce two years earlier, but she didn't know if there was anyone new in his life. Flemming and Louise had a great professional relationship, but they never saw each other outside of work. The only time she had seen him away from the office was at an event the year before when a group from work had gone bowling and had some beers. He had two sons who were about five and seven.

"Who found her?" she asked, changing the conversation back to the professional.