A Conspiracy of Faith (57 page)

“I don’t know, Carl. Right now, I am looking at this.”

He pointed to the list of speed cameras the two women had been clocked by. Locations as widespread as the E45 south of Vejle, the E20 midway between Odense and Nyborg, and then again on the E20 south of Slagelse.

Assad moved his finger down a line in the report.

Carl saw the location he was indicating. It seemed the women had also run into a speed enforcement trial in some village or other. Carl had never heard of the place. Ferslev, it was called, and they had been clocked doing eighty-five in a fifty zone. When all their violations were added to the fact that they had shared the driving, the two of them had both done more than enough to lose their licenses that day.

Carl plotted Ferslev into the GPS and studied the map. Just outside Skibby. About halfway between Roskilde and Frederikssund.

Assad put his finger on the screen and moved it slowly upward toward Nordskoven. The same place Yrsa thought there might be a boathouse.

A fucking turnup, indeed.

“Call Yrsa,” Carl said, shifting the car into gear. “Tell her to get all the information she can on these two women. Give her their civil registration numbers and make sure she gets a move on. And get her to call us back as soon as she knows which hospital they’ve been admitted to and what condition they’re in. This has got me going, this has.”

He heard the sound of Assad’s voice, but he was immersed in his own thoughts, imagining the two women’s frenzied dash across the country.

Probably just a pair of junkies, his common sense tried to whisper in his ear. Junkies, or at least drug couriers. Something like that, and stoned out of their minds most likely. He nodded to himself. That would be it. Why else would they have been driving like that? And who said there had to be another vehicle involved? It could just as easily have been some terrified innocent, torpedoed by mindless lunatics with their veins full of junk. Some poor soul, scared shitless, who’d just wanted to get the fuck away and back home.

“OK,” he heard Assad say as he finished his call.

“Did you get hold of her?” he asked. “Did she understand what to do?”

He tried to gauge Assad’s expression.

“Hey, Assad. What did Yrsa say?”

“Yrsa?” Assad looked up. “I don’t know, Carl. The person I spoke to was Rose.”

He was not happy
. Not happy at all.

Almost two days and nights had passed since the accident, and according to the radio one of the injured women was now making progress. The other one was still in critical condition, but the report didn’t specify who was pulling through and who wasn’t.

Whichever way around it was, he couldn’t put off his counterstrike any longer.

The day before, he had gathered information on a new potential family and had then considered driving to Isabel’s house in Viborg to perform a break-in in which her computer would be stolen. But what good would it do if she had already passed on what she knew to her brother?

And then there was the issue of how much Rachel knew. Had Isabel told her everything?

Of course she had.

He had to get rid of the women. He knew that now.

He turned his gaze to the sky. Always this eternal struggle between him and God. Ever since he was a boy.

Why couldn’t He leave him in peace?

He collected his thoughts, switched on the computer, and found the number of the Trauma Center of the Rigshospital. He got through to an imperious secretary who gave him little to go on.

Both women had been moved to Intensive Care, that much she knew.

He sat for a moment staring at his notepad.

Three tiny pieces of information, vital to him, fatal to others. It was as simple as that, no matter who might be watching him from on high.

He Googled the number of the department and found its homepage almost at the top of his search.

It was a tidy site. As clean and clinical as the Rigshospital itself. One click on
Practical Information
, another on
Information for Families.pdf,
and a brochure appeared on his screen containing everything he needed to know.

He scrolled through the document.

There was a shift change between three thirty and four P.M. That was when he would strike. When they were most unawares.

This unbelievably helpful brochure also told him that the presence of relatives and loved ones could be a source of great comfort and support to the patient. So from now on he was a relative. He would buy flowers. Flowers were always a comfort. And he would be sure to wear the right expression, so everyone would know how deeply affected he was.

He read on, and it got better. Relatives and close friends of any patient admitted to the unit were welcome at anytime.

Close friends, and at anytime!

He thought for a moment. It would be best if he pretended to be a close friend. That would be harder to check. A close friend and confidant of Rachel. Someone from her congregation. He would put on a friendly, innocuous mid-Jutland accent to justify him staying so long. Just as long as he needed. After all, he had come a long way.

All this and more he gleaned from the Intensive Care Unit’s presentation. He found out where he could make tea and coffee and learned that doctors were available for consultation during the daytime. There were photos showing the layout of the rooms and how they were equipped and precise information about IV apparatus and monitoring equipment.

He studied the photos of the monitors and knew he had to make sure
he killed quickly and vanished immediately. The very instant a patient expired in a unit like this, every piece of equipment in the room would go haywire. Staff in the observation center would be alerted as soon as it happened. They would be there in no time, initiating the resuscitation attempt within seconds. These people were professionals, as indeed they should be.

So not only did he need to kill quickly, he also had to kill in such a way as to eliminate the possibility of resuscitation and, most important, to raise no suspicion that the cause of death was anything but natural.

He spent half an hour in front of the mirror. Drawing lines on his brow, fixing a new hairpiece, changing the appearance of his eyes.

When he had finished, he considered the results with satisfaction. Here was a man stricken with grief. A man in late middle age, with glasses, graying hair, and pallid skin. A far cry from the real him.

He opened his medicine cabinet, pulled out a drawer, and took out four small, plastic packages. Ordinary syringes of the kind anyone could purchase without prescription in any pharmacy. Ordinary needles like the ones thousands of drug addicts jabbed into their veins every day with society’s full blessing.

It was all he needed.

A syringe filled with air, a needle inserted into a vein. Death would come quickly. And he would be able to move from one room to the next and do away with them both before the alarms went off.

It was a matter of timing.

He was looking for Intensive Care, department 4131. There were directional signs and a lift straight to the door, so it seemed. The department number indicated entrance, floor, and section. At least, that’s what it said in the hospital’s official directory information.

Entrance 4, Floor 13, Section 1. But apparently the lift only went as far as Floor 7.

He looked at his watch. The shift change was approaching, so there was no time to waste.

He slipped past a pair of the walking wounded and found the information desk at the main entrance. The man behind the glass appeared to have come down in the world, but he was both efficient and friendly.

“No, that would be Entrance 41, Floor 3, Section 1. Take the lift from Entrance 3 over there.”

He pointed, then wrote it down in pen on a photocopied location map that he shoved through the hatch for good measure.
Patient admitted to Department…,
it said, followed by the correct combination of numbers.

Perfect directions to the crime scene. Thanks for the help.

He stepped out of the lift on the third floor and followed the signs that took him straight to the unit. Double doors with white curtains led inside. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought it was a funeral parlor.

He smiled. In a way, it was.

If the level of activity inside matched that in the corridor, where not a soul was to be seen and empty shopping carts lined the wall, it would suit him well.

He pulled the cord to open the doors.

The unit seemed at first glance to be bigger than it actually was. He had not anticipated much going on, imagining instead deep concentration and quiet industry. But it wasn’t like that at all. Not at the moment, anyway.

Perhaps he hadn’t chosen his time quite as well as he had thought.

He passed two small seating areas for visitors and headed straight for reception. A colorful arch that would make anyone stop.

The secretary nodded to say she would be with him in a second.

He glanced around.

Doctors and nurses milled about. Some were in with their patients; others sat at computer screens in small anterooms outside each patient room. Others strode purposefully up and down the corridor.

Maybe it was on account of the shift change, he thought to himself.

“Is this a bad time?” he asked the secretary in a broad Jutland accent.

She glanced at her watch and then looked up at him with a friendly expression. “Perhaps not the best. Who would you be looking for?”

Concern appeared in his face, exactly as he had practiced at home. “I’m a friend of Rachel Krogh,” he said.

She tipped her head inquiringly. “Rachel? We’ve no Rachel here. Do you mean Lisa Krogh?” She looked down at her screen. “Lisa Karin Krogh, it says here.”

What the hell had he been thinking? Rachel was the name she used in her congregation, not her real name. He knew that.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Lisa, of course. We belong to the same congregation, you see. We use biblical names there. Lisa’s is Rachel.”

The secretary’s expression changed, though almost imperceptibly. Didn’t she believe him, or was it merely an aversion to things religious? Was she going to ask for some ID?

“I know Isabel Jønsson too,” he added, before she got ideas. “The three of us are friends. They were brought in together, as far as I gather from your colleagues downstairs at the Trauma Center. Would that be correct?”

She nodded. A rather clenched smile, but a smile nonetheless.

“That’s correct, yes. You’ll find them both in there.” She pointed to a room and told him the number.

The same room. It couldn’t be better.

“You’ll have to wait, though, I’m afraid. Isabel Jønsson’s being transferred to another unit. A doctor and some of the nurses are getting her ready. And she’s got another visitor waiting at the moment, so could I ask you not to go in until he leaves? We prefer if there’s only one lot in at a time.” She indicated the seating area closest to the exit. “He’s sitting along there. Perhaps you know each other.”

Disconcerting information.

He turned quickly to look. True enough, a man was sitting on his own with his arms folded. A man in a police uniform. Isabel’s brother. There could be little doubt: the same high cheekbones, the same-shaped face, the same nose. This wasn’t good at all.

He looked at the secretary with a hopeful expression. “Has Isabel been making progress?”

“As far as I know, yes. We don’t normally move people on to other departments unless they’re improving.”

As far as she knew. She knew perfectly well, of course she did. What she didn’t know was when the move would happen, but apparently it was imminent.

Most inconvenient. And her brother here to boot.

“May I go in to Rachel? Is she awake? Lisa, I mean.”

She shook her head. “I’m afraid Ms. Krogh is still very much unconscious.”

He bent forward slightly. “But Isabel would be conscious?” he asked quietly.

“I’m not actually sure, to be honest. Try asking the nurse over there.” She pointed toward a blond, rather weary-looking woman on her way along the corridor with some medical records under her arm. The secretary turned to a new visitor who had now appeared at the counter. His audience was over.

“Excuse me.” He stopped the nurse in her tracks, his arm aloft.
Mette Frigaard-Rasmussen
, her badge read. “I don’t suppose you could tell me if Isabel Jønsson is conscious? Would it be possible to see her?”

Maybe she wasn’t her patient. Maybe it wasn’t her shift. Maybe it wasn’t her day. Or maybe she was just too exhausted to do anything else but peer at him through the narrow slits of her eyes and reply through equally narrow lips.

“Isabel Jønsson? Erm…” She stared into space for a moment. “Yes, she’s conscious, but heavily sedated. Her jaw’s fractured, so she can’t actually speak. She’s not communicating at all at the moment, but it’ll come.”

She mustered all her strength to raise a smile. He thanked her and let her get on with the rest of what was obviously a demanding day.