Only One Life: A Novel Part 6

"Tuesday," he said, savoring the memory of the weekday. "I was down at the boat," he continued, explaining that he had a small sailboat moored in Holbaek's marina.

Louise asked him to clarify where it was and wrote a note that she should have someone look into how long it took to sail from Holbaek over to Udby Cove, where the Honsehalsen peninsula jutted out.

"When did you get home?" Mik asked after they had noted all the details about the boat so they could find it later.

"Around seven o'clock."

"Was Samra home when you came back?"

He thought carefully before nodding.

"Did anything particular happen that night?" Louise asked.

He shrugged slightly and said they had had a visit from family.

"Who from?"

Louise was starting to get annoyed that they were having to drag everything out of him. She had hoped that they would be able to get him talking without having to squeeze each word out so they would have his own description and sequence of events to go by.

"My brother," he replied.

"The one from Benlose?"

He nodded.

"You see each other a lot," she noted.

"That's normal in my family."

"Was Samra with you?" Mik asked.

The father shook his head and said that she had spent the whole evening in her room.

"She was doing her homework," he added.

"But you said good night to her?"

Again there was a pause before he explained that usually his wife was the one who took care of that sort of thing.

"I was in the living room."

"We know that you were reported for domestic violence previously against your wife and daughter. Will you tell us what happened?" Louise asked.

The father winced and looked down at the table.

"Have there been problems between you and your daughter since then?" she continued.

He still didn't respond and they let him sit in silence. "It was a misunderstanding," he finally said. "Nothing bad. I lost my temper."

"What set off your anger?" Louise asked quietly.

"It was my son, and Samra stuck her nose into it."

"How?"

"It's not her place to make a fuss about the way I raise my son," he said simply.

"What did your son do?" Mik wanted to know.

"He lied to me. But I had misunderstood and made a mistake. I apologized, and my wife came home again. You can see that everything got sorted out."

Mik coughed briefly before meeting the father's eyes and asking: "Did you kill your daughter?"

Ibrahim al-Abd's face shut down completely and he started crying as he vigorously shook his head and looked back into Mik's eyes without shame.

Louise and Mik quickly looked at each other and agreed that that would have to be enough for now. They asked him to give them his son's cell phone number so they could get in touch with him.

"Can we get permission to see her?" the father asked, turning around in the doorway on his way out, tears still running down his cheeks.

They both nodded and said they would call him about a time when he and his wife could drive over to the Pathology Lab in Copenhagen and see their daughter one last time.

He nodded his thanks and zipped his jacket all the way up to his throat before turning around and heading down the corridor past the offices where everyone was hard at work on the investigation into his daughter's murder.

Louise stood watching him leave until he disappeared out the door.

8.

LOUISE AND MIK SAT IN THEIR OFFICE TOGETHER WITH STORM AND told him how it had gone, and Louise called Samra's teacher and princ.i.p.al and asked them to notify the students before the news got out.

"We need to find out how that family works," the lead investigator said. "If her father or another member of the family did it, we need to close in on them before they start covering their tracks with uncles and alibis."

Storm stood up and strolled down the corridor, summoning everyone to the command center.

Louise felt strangely relieved that Storm had just said straight out what everyone undoubtedly suspected. Yet another "honor" killing, or liquidation of women, as some had begun calling it, because they could not accept that there was anything "honorable" about such an act.

Louise had brought the picture of Samra with her. She tossed it out onto the conference table so it could make the rounds.

"This is how she looked in June, so about three months ago."

At that moment, the door opened and a young man came in with two white boxes he was balancing in one hand. Storm had ordered fancy open-faced sandwiches from the local butcher's shop.

"Here are your sandwiches," the man said. Following him was a girl with plates, silverware, and napkins.

Bengtsen got up and returned a moment later with a blue lunch box that he set in front of himself.

"Aren't you having any?" Skipper asked, nodding at Bengtsen.

"No, I prefer to eat what I bring from home."

"We're definitely going to have to meet this Else soon," Skipper said.

Bengtsen ignored him and started opening his lunch box, and Louise hurried to reach for a Veterinarian's Midnight Snack-an open-faced sandwich of b.u.t.tered rye bread topped with liver-wurst, corned beef, aspic, and red onion-before anyone had a chance to call dibs.

"Did the father say anything?" Soren asked, getting everyone's attention again now that they had food on their plates.

"He said he got home around seven Tuesday night," Mik said, wiping his mouth, "and his daughter was home then. They had a visit from the uncle from Benlose, but Samra was in her room, and he has not seen her since."

"Ibrahim al-Abd also has a sailboat moored down at the marina," Louise added, looking at Storm.

He set his knife and fork down, and a deep wrinkle appeared over his brow as he sat and let that information seep in.

"So far we've got only the one crime scene. We should look into getting the girl's room and the rest of the apartment searched in a hurry, and we can do it under the pretext that there may be important information about her disappearance. Then we should bring the mother and brother in immediately, and of course we've also got to get the sailboat searched, as well as the dinghies anch.o.r.ed out in the cove." He paused briefly. "In addition, we need to ID her closest friends, so we'll be able to get their take on the relationships in the family."

The boss looked around and asked who else they should get hold of.

"The father's brother in Benlose," Mik quickly said.

Storm nodded and repeated that everyone related to the al-Abd family needed to be brought in as soon as possible.

"And you two need to help with all the interviews," he told Bengtsen and Velin, adding that they were also responsible for obtaining a printout of the girl's cell phone records.

Soren said that Samra's cell phone had not yet been found, but he had already requested a court order for the phone company to turn over all of the information pertaining to her phone number so they could get a list of all calls, times, and cell towers.

Storm nodded in satisfaction.

"Shouldn't we call in an interpreter?" Louise asked. "Based on Mr. al-Abd's statement, his family speaks and understands Danish, but aren't we obliged to make sure that everything is being understood correctly?"

"We'd better," Storm conceded and then looked at Bengtsen. "Who do you usually use for cases like this?"

Bengtsen said that there was a woman they had been extremely satisfied with in the past who worked as an interpreter at Holbaek Hospital.

"Couldn't it present a problem if we use someone local?" Louise interjected. "Interpreters can be more loyal to the interrogatee than to the police. If we want to be sure that the interpreting is correct, we should use double interpretation and bring one of the department's own interpreters in."

She spoke from experience. The first crucial interrogations in the Norrebro case had gone horribly wrong because the interpreter turned out to be from the same area in Pakistan as the suspect. That meant he did not dare convey the uncomfortable questions the police were actually asking, and instead he made things up.

"Rick is right," Soren said. "We don't have any way to control for that, and Holbaek is a small town."

"We've got a good guy, Fahid, so let's see if he's free so he can a.s.sist her," Storm said and asked Soren to get hold of him. Then he turned to Skipper and Dean, who were following up on the technical investigation. "We've been looking into the family's cars."

Louise briefly updated the others on the old BMW that Samra's brother was apparently in the process of buying, and on the father's red Peugeot.

"I understand you've already got something around the crime scene that might be of interest?" Storm continued, asking them to report.

Dean explained that they had secured several tire prints, but one in particular was interesting. Close to the bluff, the forensic techs had found a print of a tire manufactured by Bridgestone with the brand name Europa II 195/50 R15 82V.

"So it's a fifteen-inch tire, and that's a little unusual," Skipper added. "Most of us drive on sixteen-inch tires. Bridgestone explained to us that this tire is unique in its design and size, and it was for sale in Denmark for only a short period of time. A car dealer here in Holbaek, Hans Just, sells Bridgestones, and he said that on March 10, 2006, he sold a red Peugeot 306 to an Ibrahim al-Abd who lives on Dysseparken and that vehicle had just had four completely new tires put on, brand Europa II 195/50 R15 82V."

"That car needs to go into forensics," Storm said. "They'll secure the tires and put on some equivalent ones before he gets the car back, and then of course we can go over the interior in detail. We also want them to investigate the BMW, and I want that to happen today."

Dean and Skipper looked like they agreed and got ready to return to work.

Louise got up as well, and on her way out of the command center she tossed her paper plate and plastic silverware into the trash. She liked this phase of an investigation, when the tasks were a.s.signed and everyone was scrambling to get going on them.

9.

WHEN LOUISE GOT BACK TO THE OFFICE, SHE FIRST CALLED Samra's teacher to get the names of the school friends Samra had been closest to. She also called Dicta Moller and left a message on her cell phone.

It only took a minute before Dicta called back. Louise could hardly hear what she was saying and asked her to speak louder.

"Are you in the middle of cla.s.s?" she asked.

Dicta explained that she had stayed home from school. She was sick.

"I'd like to talk more with you if you think you are ready for that," Louise said, sensing that the girl was about to cry.

"Hmm," Dicta said. Then came a sniffle and the girl inhaled deeply.

"I just heard," Dicta cried, releasing the emotions she had been trying to hold back. "The school called, but of course I knew immediately."

Louise offered to drive to Dicta's house so she wouldn't have to come down to the police station. It would be helpful to get Dicta's views as quickly as possible on how Samra's family worked.

She told Mik across the desk that she wanted to drive out and have a quick talk with Samra's friend, and they agreed that Mik would continue questioning the family members. Then Louise could join back in once she returned.

She hurried down to the parking lot to the car, tucking the slip of paper with Dicta's address in her mouth as she pulled on her jacket and opened the car door. She felt privileged to have been a.s.signed her own vehicle. Back at the Copenhagen PD, a number of cars were allocated to each investigative team, but that didn't mean there was always one free when she needed one.

She had no idea where Holbaek's stby neighborhood was in relation to the police station, but she keyed the address into the car's GPS and praised the technology and the satellite that were both now set to guide her to the Moller family. Normally she considered it a point of honor to have some feel for a place, but the only thing she knew in Holbaek was the downtown area. She didn't have a very good handle on anything outside that. But when she saw the route, it dawned on her that instead of a car she should have asked them to issue her a bike. Even though the address was on the edge of town, it wasn't very far, and it would have done her good to bike out there.

She started driving and soon found herself in a showy neighborhood of newly constructed family homes not far from Beach Mill Meadow Park and the sound. The houses were close together, and Louise drove down the street slowly, curiously checking out the houses. All were built in individual styles with impressive driveways, and several houses had sunporches facing the street or were in a functionalist style with sleek surfaces and lines, while others were done in an older style with arches and balconies. Although the residents had clearly gone to some trouble to turn their houses into something unique and special, there were three things they pretty much all had: Poul Henningsen designer lighting, either outdoor sconces on exterior walls or conspicuous table lamps in windows facing the street; Swedish-style white wooden benches; and large lion statues carved from white stone gracing the driveways.

Louise inhaled all of the details. There were kids' bikes in most of the driveways, and she didn't doubt that this was a neighborhood for privileged children. Yet you couldn't feel much life on a Thursday morning like this, probably reflecting the fact that both parents had to work to afford to live here.

If she hadn't already known that Dicta attended one of the city's normal public schools, she would have guessed that parents living here would sooner send their children to the hundred-year-old Stenhus School in Holbaek, one of Denmark's largest university preps, or to any of the city's other private schools. But apparently the Moller family had not chosen to make that sort of thing a priority.