Farewell to Freedom (2 page)

Louise went into the bedroom and pulled a heavy sweater out of her closet. She was tempted to take the bus from Gammel Kongevej, but at the last minute she mustered the energy to ride her bike.

The traffic on the bike path was heavy, full of morning commuters. Even so, she moved over into the passing lane as she crossed H. C. Ørstedsvej and pedaled hard with her bike helmet pulled down low to shield her eyes from the glaring spring sunshine that had suddenly appeared now that the rain clouds had drifted away.

“Just have the downtown precinct keep doing the interviews in the neighborhood, especially in the red-light areas that the johns frequent. It's likelier we'll get something out of a regular john who happened to know the victim than out of any of the hookers. Meanwhile, we'll focus on identifying the victim and processing the forensic evidence. You're probably not planning on allocating too many resources to this case, right?” Detective Superintendent Willumsen asked, shooting Suhr an inquisitive look.

The homicide chief deliberately paused before responding. Louise leaned her chair back against the wall. It had been a year since Suhr appointed Willumsen lead detective for Louise's squad. Willumsen was widely disliked for his arrogance and rudeness; he didn't give a damn about anything or anyone, and made no distinction between superiors and colleagues. All the same, Louise was actually quite fond of him. Willumsen had taught her to just say “yes,” “no,” or “kiss my ass,” to speak bluntly without a lot of screwing around. His other trademark line was, “Is that understood, is that not understood, or do you not give a shit about what I'm telling you?” He was also the one who had signed Louise up a few years back to attend an FBI training course in hostage negotiations.

Suhr took a step back and propped his arm against the wall, as if gathering the strength to reply.

“You have all the resources you need right now—all four of the detectives in your group: Rick and Jørgensen, Toft and Stig. Plus the assistance we're already getting from Mikkelsen and his folks at Halmtorvet precinct.” Suhr let his arm drop again after firing off this remark.

Willumsen lowered his eyes to focus on his right thumbnail. He meticulously cleaned it with the tip of his pencil, considering how to make best use of his team. Finally he tossed the pencil aside and decided that Toft and Stig would keep tabs on the forensic techs and keep everyone up to date on the latest evidence. They would also attend the victim's autopsy.

Then Willumsen's eyes shifted to Louise and her partner.

“I want the two of you to go down to see Mikkelsen and concentrate on the investigation in the neighborhood,” he stated, and with that he wrapped up the meeting.

2

T
HE ALARM CLOCK WENT OFF AT
6:30. I
T HAD RAINED HARD
through the night and into the early morning, so Camilla Lind decided to skip her morning run, which was supposed to be stage one of her new exercise regimen. Instead, she decided to walk over to the Frederiksberg public pool two blocks from her apartment. There, she would force herself to swim at least twenty laps and follow that up with some time in the sauna. Hopefully that would work off the effects of her weekend, which had included a few too many mojitos and far too little sleep. Her son had been at his father's place from Thursday through Sunday, and from there he'd gone straight to the home of a classmate, where he had spent the night. This morning his class was taking a field trip to the Open Air Museum, and they were supposed to meet at Nørreport at ten. But his friend's father was a pastor and worked at home, and he had assured Camilla that he'd be happy to see the boys off for the field trip. So at 10:00 on this Monday morning, she was going to attend the weekly editorial meeting for the
Morgenavisen
crime beat.

With great resolve, Camilla took out her swimsuit and a towel. She didn't go to the pool often, but she was determined to get some exercise today. It was pathetic how many times she had resolved to start exercising more, only to have her best intentions fizzle out, resulting in half-hearted attempts at best. She always felt extremely guilty when ultimately forced to admit she just really didn't want to do it.

The newspaper's crime desk was deserted when she unlocked the door to her office two hours later, her cheeks flushed, ready to tackle the new week. Thirty laps and a good sweat in the sauna had renewed her energy. She had an hour before the meeting started, with no leads on anything worth writing about. She'd been out of the news loop and hadn't read a newspaper or watched any TV because of her date Saturday with Kristian—who didn't mention until Sunday that he'd promised his girlfriend he'd pick her up at the airport when she got back from her girls-only trip to London.

She had just happened to run into Kristian at Magasin, the department store. They had gone to elementary school together, but she didn't recognize him when he stopped her at the bottom of the escalator. It wasn't until he rattled off a bunch of names of other classmates that it dawned on her who he was, and it turned out he lived in Frederiksberg too. So she said yes when he asked her out to Belis Bar on Saturday night, and they ended up at her place after a couple of strong drinks. She had been fine with it the next morning when he said he had to take off.

Camilla turned on her computer and went to put on some coffee. At the same time, she gathered up the pile of morning papers from the floor in front of the door to the crime division's modest conference room. She had time to leaf through them before the meeting started, and she also logged in to the Web site for the Ritzau news agency to see what sort of crime stories they were running from the weekend. A serious stabbing incident in Ålborg and a major car crash on the island of Fyn with three dead. She was jotting these down on her notepad when she heard the door open, and she nodded to the intern, who said hello.

She kept searching, quickly scanning the other papers' news services and checking Radio Denmark and TV2, but there wasn't much. The stories she did find weren't going to end up on the front page. Camilla reached for the phone as she glanced at the clock. It was already quarter past nine, and the editor-in-chief, Terkel Høyer, nodded to her as he walked by. Camilla closed the door to the conference room before putting in some calls to the police departments to find out what they had in their blotters from the weekend.

“Okay, what've we got?” Terkel began once Camilla and her colleague, Ole Kvist, were seated along with Jakob the intern, who offered them the cinnamon rolls that he'd picked up. It was his last week on the job before he returned to the School of Media and Journalism to finish his degree.

Camilla looked down at the one story she hadn't crossed off her notepad yet; neither the stabbing nor the car crash had made the cut. Kvist leafed through the clippings in front of him. He made a habit of stopping by the news desk every Monday morning on his way up to their editorial offices on the second floor. Like most large news organizations, they subscribed to all the smaller newspapers in Denmark, and Kvist quickly tossed any crime stories. He didn't actually evaluate which were worth discussing until it was time for him to pitch his own stories. His stack of clippings always looked so impressive, even though only a couple of them would actually merit any follow-up, because by the time they reached the crime pages of
Morgenavisen
they were considered old news.

“There's a gang of art thieves at work in the Silkeborg area,” Kvist said, reading the lede of the first clipping and glancing sideways at his boss to make sure his interest was piqued before continuing.

“Apparently the thieves go straight for the expensive art on the wall, and this weekend they took a pricey Per Kirkeby painting and two other works by a Norwegian artist in the same price range from some mansion. The police estimate the mansion has several million kroners' worth of art in it. And they've had other cases of similar types of break-ins over the past couple of months.”

The tone of his voice grew more eager as he worked up enthusiasm for the story.

“I don't think that's really anything for us,” Camilla ventured. “That story is already old news.”

“It'd be worth doing if we could help them nail the gang by publicizing the case,” Kvist pointed out, adding a pleading look to his face for their boss's benefit.

“Which newspaper did you get that from?” the editor-in-chief asked, reaching for the clipping.

“It's from central Jutland, so the story probably hasn't run in any of the bigger papers yet,” Kvist replied, proposing that he at least take time to make some calls about it.

Camilla broke off part of her cinnamon roll. There wouldn't be anything to that story until the police made some sort of breakthrough, but it wouldn't surprise her if Kvist got away with it anyway.

“It's right out where all those car dealers live, with a fabulous view over the Silkeborg lakes. They can all afford to have that kind of art,” Kvist reminded them. “So it wouldn't be that hard for the thieves to figure out someone's home address, case the joint, and then make their move when the occupants go out for cocktails with their neighbors.”

Camilla thought about the officers handling the case. Surely that scenario must have occurred to them too.

“Well, look into it then,” said Terkel, interrupting her thoughts. “Have you got anything else?”

Kvist shook his head, shoving the other clippings under the story that had been accepted. He glanced over at Camilla, who quickly wiped the crumbs from her mouth.

“Lind, what have you got?” Høyer asked.

“I've got a homicide. A young woman was found murdered in Vesterbro last night.”

Høyer raised an eyebrow to show his interest.

“There's not much to tell right now. An anonymous tip to the police. They found her down by Skelbækgade somewhere near the entrance to the Hotel and Restaurant Management School.”

“So it's a prostitute,” Kvist said, leaning back.

Camilla ignored him.

“The woman's throat was slit, and Suhr has a team on the case,” Camilla continued. “They haven't IDed her yet. But they're willing to say—off the record—that they suspect she was from Eastern Europe.”

“Yeah, well, plenty of them are these days,” Kvist said, cutting her off, suggesting that he go to Silkeborg to talk to some of the victims who had had their expensive artwork stolen. “I'd really like to follow up on this story,” he said.

Camilla raised her voice trying to hold her boss's attention. “She was no more than twenty.”

The editor-in-chief sat in silence for a moment, nodding as he thought. “Go ahead and write it up, Camilla, but keep it to two columns.”

“It sounds like a really brutal killing,” Camilla continued, frustrated that Høyer didn't think the story deserved more space. “It could be a big story, especially if we haven't got anything else.”

“But we do have something else,” Kvist interrupted from the other side of the table, and it looked like Høyer agreed with him.