Only One Life: A Novel Part 9

"Maybe you should head out there while the others are working on the bedroom just so you can get an overview of the apartment. We have a warrant, so there's no problem with your having permission to be there," Storm said.

Velin nodded again and Louise could tell that he must have already been by the place and presumably had a very good idea of what he would need to be able to set up the audio surveillance there.

"The phone is easy, and you'll know best how to capture the conversations that take place in the various rooms." Storm avoided going into detail. The custom was that only the officers who set up the equipment would know where the devices were located. "Check the place out and get everything ready so we can start the surveillance tomorrow."

"We should have it up and running today," Bengtsen cut in. "It would be crazy to wait until tomorrow."

There was a second of silence. He was right.

"Well, then we need to get the family out of the house again," Storm said, without showing any sign of irritation at having been rebuked by the local officer.

"We're not ready for our next questioning session yet. We need a little more time to prepare," said Ruth, who was responsible for gathering all the details about the family's background and past.

"Then we'll do something else," Bengtsen suggested. "We'll invite them to come in for an update on where things stand in the case. Then we can also set up a time for them to go see the girl's body. It'll be totally informational, no questioning, just an update of what our plans are, what the school has told the other students, and the fact that they're having a moment of silence for Samra tomorrow at noon. We also owe it to them to prepare them a little for what's going to come now that the press is starting to get interested in the case and in them in particular."

The others nodded. They hadn't had a chance to discuss that yet. Of course the family should be provided the same courtesies others would be in that situation, even if suspicions were starting to point in their direction.

"We mustn't treat them as if they've been charged," Mik Rasmussen added. "They're just suspects."

Louise could tell by looking at Soren that he was starting to get irritated. No one had been treating Samra's family as if they'd been charged; but even though he and Bengtsen were looking as hard as they could for witnesses who might have seen Samra and they were receiving a.s.sistance in those endless interview sessions from local officers from the Holbaek Police, it hadn't led to anything, and that meant that for the time being the suspicion was still focused on the family. So he seemed to think treating them with kid gloves was a little bit of overkill.

Louise looked out the window as she listened. Suddenly she remembered how it had occasionally driven her crazy that Soren's patience was as fragile as crystal. He wanted action and progress the whole time. It would do him good to get out and mess around with his eavesdropping equipment, she thought.

"Right. We'll just invite them in for some coffee and pastries and I'll have a chat with them," Storm said as he sent everyone out the door.

It was after five and there was no guarantee the family would even be home, but everyone agreed that this was the right approach.

Storm waved for Mik and Louise to remain behind as they were starting to follow Soren down the hall.

"We also need to pay the uncle a visit and find out what happened when he saw the family Tuesday night," he said. "And at the same time, find out why Samra's parents visited him in Benlose the following day, when they'd just seen him."

"I'll get hold of him, then Louise and I can drive down there this evening," Mik said, pulling his car keys out of his jacket pocket. "The uncle has a shop, so he won't be home until after he closes at seven."

They took the back stairs down to Mik's car to drive out and invite the al-Abd family in for a chat. In the yard, Bengtsen and Velin were checking to see if they had all the necessary equipment for the audio surveillance and they agreed that Louise would send them a text message once they knew the family was safely lured out of the house.

Half an hour later, Louise and Mik came back with Samra's parents, and Storm ushered them into a meeting room next to the police chief's office. Back in their own office, Mik familiarized himself with what Ruth had printed out about the uncle and his family. There wasn't much, just a little about the business he owned, his wife and kid's social security numbers, information about their immigration and residency permits. Louise offered to bring her partner a soda if he needed a pick-me-up.

"Good thinking," he said, tearing himself away from the papers for a second while he explained that she would find whatever she needed in the cafeteria.

Her tour of the Holbaek Police Station had not included the cafeteria, so she stood in the doorway, a little lost.

"Fourth floor," Mik said.

She walked out to the secretary's office and took the stairs up. The pa.s.sport and DMV offices were on the first floor, and administration, the police's legal department, and the cafeteria were on the fourth.

There was a small group of officers around one of the tables when she walked in. She said h.e.l.lo and felt their eyes following her as she walked over to the vending machine. Something told her it wasn't because she was a woman but because she was an outsider. Even from a distance she could tell there were only Pepsi and Faxe Kondi. Irritated, she wondered why she couldn't just get a Coca-Cola, but with the men's eyes on her back she couldn't get herself to spin around in disgust and walk back out empty-handed. She decided to just get something for Mik and give up on the one for herself.

On the way back, she met Ruth, who was headed for the hotel with her bag over her shoulder to take a nap before dinner. She smiled at the Pepsi in Louise's hand and said there was a bunch of soda and bottled water down in the command room.

"The investigation would grind to a halt if the boys were forced to drink that stuff," she said, and apologized for not having mentioned this to Louise sooner. "There's also a cupboard full of crackers and things for the days when we're forced to skip breakfast or work drags out late into the evening."

Louise thanked her for the information and returned to the office to give her partner the Pepsi. They agreed that they wouldn't let the uncle know they were planning to visit him that evening. He shouldn't have any time to prepare.

When Mik stood up and said that he had to go home before they set out again, Louise decided to follow Ruth's example so she would be fresh for their visit to Benlose. She grabbed her bag and headed for the hotel, speculating with a little annoyance as to whether her partner had some kind of busybody wife since he was always having to check in at home and then come back.

12.

LOUISE GLANCED AT HER WATCH AS SHE ENTERED THE HOTEL AND confirmed that she could just squeeze in half an hour of relaxation before they were supposed to meet for dinner. On her way to her room, she stopped by the restaurant to pick up a cup of tea. She had her back to the tables, waiting for the waiter to return from the kitchen, when she heard a familiar voice say, "There's tea in the pot over here ... and warm milk, if that's any enticement." She spun around in astonishment.

Camilla was sitting at a table way over in the corner. Louise had walked right by her without noticing her.

"What the h.e.l.l!" Louise exclaimed. "When did you arrive?" She stepped over and gave her good friend a hug.

"I got here this morning, and I'm only staying until tomorrow for right now."

"You're writing about the case?" I don't even know why I'm bothering to ask, Louise thought, as soon as the question was out of her mouth. Of course word had already gotten out. Obviously Morgenavisen was going to run the story.

Camilla poured tea into a second cup and set it on the table. Then she proceeded to scold Louise.

"Now, obviously it's not like I'm ent.i.tled to know everything, but you darn well could have told me that you'd been a.s.signed to the Mobile Task Force. That's exciting news!"

Louise took a seat and filled the rest of her cup with warm milk.

"It's going to be a challenge," Louise admitted, instead of starting in on the excuses. "Do you know Storm?"

Camilla nodded and said they'd known each other since he'd been put in charge when the Mobile Task Force was resurrected in 2002, after having been dismantled a couple years earlier and merged with the Forensics Department.

"Storm's a great guy," Camilla said. "And, after all, Holbaek is practically like coming home again."

"Well, it's a ways from Roskilde to Holbaek," Louise pointed out. She and Camilla had known each other ever since they went to Roskilde High School together.

"We used to get drunk and make out with boys here in town," Camilla pointed out to Louise, but then she apparently forgot all about reminiscing and instead drew Louise's attention to the notepad lying on the table in front of her. "I have to get to work now," she said, explaining that she had a meeting with Storm later that evening, and that until then she was planning to poke around a little.

Louise realized right away what that meant. Camilla was going to do her best to find someone who had known Samra.

"The girl's mother ran off to a women's shelter several times. A woman doesn't just go do something like that unless she has a real reason," Camilla said, obviously sure that part of her story lay there.

"She went to the shelter only one time," Louise corrected, realizing too late that in doing so she had just confirmed what Camilla was probably only guessing at.

"Was Samra rebellious?" Camilla asked.

Louise shook her head to indicate that Camilla wasn't going to get anything else out of her.

"Either she didn't want to get married or she had a Danish boyfriend ...," Camilla plowed on, undaunted.

Louise shook her head slightly at Camilla and got up to leave. "The others will be down here in a bit. We're meeting for dinner in fifteen minutes. I'm just going to pop up to my room beforehand," she said, excusing herself and thanking Camilla for the tea.

Camilla walked Louise out to the lobby, where she wrapped a crocheted shawl around her shoulders and pulled her shoulder strap over her head so her bag rested securely on her back.

Louise gave her a hug as they parted and hurried up to her room to wash her hands and splash a little water on her face before joining the others for dinner. Running into Camilla had reinvigorated her, and she didn't feel the least bit tired anymore.

When Louise stood up from the table after dinner, she suddenly regretted not having pa.s.sed on the dessert. She had just started a brisk stroll back to the police station when she spotted Mik, who had pulled over to the curb, waiting for her. She turned to head toward him, but at the same time noticed a figure leaning against a streetlight a ways behind the car. When she got closer, she recognized Dicta Moller, even though the girl was wrapped in a large scarf that was covering the lower part of her face and wore a cap pulled down to her eyes. Louise motioned to Mik that she was just going to run over and talk to the girl.

"Hi," she called out before she got too close so as not to frighten Dicta. "Are you doing better?"

The young girl shook her head and asked Louise if she had time to talk. She had been to the station to ask for Louise and had been told she would be back around seven.

Louise thought it over quickly. Then she strode over to the car and explained that Dicta was there to talk to her.

"I'll just head down there alone," Mik said without hesitation and agreed that it was important they find out what the girl had to say.

"Do you want to come inside, or would you rather go to a cafe?" Louise asked, realizing Dicta might tell her more now than she had with her parents present.

The young girl thought about it for a moment, as if she were contemplating where it would be least embarra.s.sing to be seen-at the police station or at a cafe, where people could see that she was talking to a police officer. Finally she chose a cafe that was located at the end of Ahlgade. Once they got there, Louise realized there wasn't much risk of running into anyone else Dicta's age. Yellowed lace curtains were drawn over the large windows, so the late evening sun had no effect on the dark atmosphere in the cafe, and the wall sconces cast a greenish sheen over the room, leaving the customers in a shadowy darkness. They ordered soft drinks and chose a table in the back.

"How did your trip out to Honsehalsen go?" Louise asked. "I a.s.sume they didn't let you go all the way out."

Dicta shook her head and said that Michael had gotten one of the policemen out there to lay her bouquet down by the cliff.

"When you're a photographer, you know most of the people in town," Dicta said and smiled a little.

"How did it go with the pictures? Did they turn out well?" Louise asked, pouring soda into her gla.s.s even though she wasn't sure it was entirely clean.

Dicta shrugged.

"I haven't seen them. I didn't want to. He just drove me home again afterward."

The answer fell short, not leaving Louise with any easy way to keep the conversation going, so she waited for the girl to start telling her why she had been standing outside the police station waiting for her.

"I came to tell you that I'm not sure something I said was true," Dicta finally began. "I don't know if it's true that Samra was afraid of her father, and I'm afraid I might have told you something incorrect."

Dicta said this very tersely, and it was as if the self-confident air she had had during her visit to the police station had disappeared. Louise found herself sitting across from a hesitant little girl, who had been scrutinizing every single word she'd said and had immediately developed a tummy ache.

"She liked her parents," Dicta continued. "But she just wasn't ever allowed to do anything and it's been like that since her mother found a picture of one of the boys from our cla.s.s. It was in Samra's wallet, hidden in a bunch of other stuff."

After a long pause, during which they sat there facing each other in silence, Dicta started to explain how Samra had falsified her school schedule after summer vacation when they started ninth grade.

"She always had to be home right after her last cla.s.s. But on Monday and Tuesday, when we got out earlier, she wrote extra cla.s.ses on her schedule to give herself some time to hang out with the rest of us. We promised not to say anything because she said something terrible would happen if her father found out about it."

"So what did you guys usually do?" Louise asked.

"We either hung out at school or went to my place. Every once in a while she'd come down to Michael's photography studio or to a cafe where she knew she wouldn't run into anyone. There was this one time when we ran into her dad down on Ahlgade at a time when he thought she was still in school. He was furious even though she told him one of the teachers had been sick and we'd had a free period. He wouldn't even listen to her and he ordered her to go straight home."

Louise listened without interrupting.

"Her brother's allowed to hang out with his friends in town. I didn't get why her parents treated the two of them so differently," Dicta said, sounding offended on her friend's behalf.

"He's older, and he's a boy," Louise said, knowing that a Danish teenage girl was not going to find that answer sufficient.

"Yeah, but he got into fights and all that kind of stuff," Dicta replied indignantly. "I just didn't think it was fair." She took off her scarf and hat and her blonde hair hung down almost to the edge of the table.

Louise just nodded.

"Samra didn't think so either," Dicta continued. "That's why every once in a while she would run away."

Louise couldn't blame her. But she did think there was something wrong with parents moving an eleven-year-old to a country with such a dramatically different culture and putting her in school there without making it possible for her to fit in and be like the other kids. It was only natural for a girl like that to try to fit into her new life. Danish kids who moved from one part of the country to another would try to do exactly the same, but they would have a much easier time adjusting. In this case, there was this ominous demand that girls had to adapt, but only to a certain extent, otherwise all h.e.l.l would break loose.

"Did it seem like her parents were pressuring her to maintain their traditional culture?" Louise asked, interested.

It took a little while before Dicta responded, but eventually she shook her head. "Not pressuring, no. She felt like her parents' att.i.tude toward tradition was normal, you know? But sometimes it irritated her."

"Had you noticed anything about Samra? Had anything happened lately that had affected her?" Louise asked.

"Just that she had been a little quiet lately, but she didn't say anything, so I don't know if there was anything wrong."

"Which boy from cla.s.s did she have a picture of?" Louise wanted to know, flagging down the waitress at the same time so she could pay.

Dicta hesitated a little, as if she had revealed something that was going to make her tummy hurt later.

"His name is Mads, but that's over. He's dating Emilie now."

"Has she dated anyone else?" Louise asked as they were on their way out.

An older man with a pint of porter and an aquavit in front of him watched their motions with interest.

"No, they weren't dating," Dicta interrupted loudly to emphasize that Louise had misunderstood. "She just liked him. I don't even think he knew about it."

"Okay," Louise said, holding the door. "Was there anyone else she had a crush on or was maybe interested in? I mean, I suppose it's practically unavoidable at your age."

When that went unanswered, Louise asked instead if Dicta had a boyfriend.

The girl quickly shook her head. "I'm making my modeling work a priority," she said, explaining that she and Michael Mogensen had devoted a lot of time to taking those pictures, and that they were going to help her reach the next level in her career.

Louise was again surprised by the way the girl expressed herself and her very grown-up att.i.tude toward her modeling. Not that it surprised Louise to see a girl that age going after her dreams in such a purposeful way, and after all, Dicta was a pretty girl.

It was almost nine o'clock when Louise returned to the police station. Mik wasn't back yet. She considered waiting for him, but she was tired; and since his cell went straight to voicemail she figured he'd turned it off, either because he was still with Samra's uncle or because he was already back at his own home. She powered down her computer and started walking back to the hotel.