Life and Limb (26 page)

‘I
've done what you asked me. Now it's your turn.'

Dicte sounded more confident than she felt. She had prepared herself for the meeting with Peter Boutrup. She had rehearsed what she wanted to say and she reminded herself to stay strong, but something inside wouldn't stop trembling.

‘Fair enough,' he said into the air while the machine extracted his blood for cleansing. ‘But it's only a small gesture. You still haven't decided whether you're going to give me your kidney. Have you?'

Dicte felt she was being forced against the wall by his stare and she fought to get her voice under control.

‘You've planned it well. And you're good at coming across as cynical, but I don't quite buy it.'

He expressed his indifference with a gesture.

‘I don't care whether you buy it or not.'

‘What if I want to give you the kidney but I want the love of a son in return? Or let me put it another way: what if I want to give you more than you've asked for?'

She surprised herself with this offer, but it was out in the open before she had time to think. His eyes sparkled merrily. ‘It's possible to pay too high a price,' he said, sounding anything but merry. ‘Will you or won't you? I need a simple yes or no.'

She shook her head, not by way of rejection but in wonder.

‘How did you become so hard?' she said. ‘Where is Peter Boutrup's humanity?'

‘You mean where is the whiny baby you left to fend for itself? I imagine it died long ago. I certainly wouldn't waste any time looking for it.'

At that moment it was as if something broke. There is nothing to salvage, she thought. It was too late – he was right about that.

‘Yes or no,' he repeated while she pulled herself together as best she could.

‘One thing at a time. First, the hospital needs to find out if I'm a suitable match.'

‘Of course you are. You look healthy enough to me,' he said. ‘But they always give people a get-out clause. They'll make up a medical reason for why you can't donate.'

Ever since the nurse had made the offer, it had dangled at the back of her mind as a possible lifeline. Now it was suddenly taken away from her and she felt naked and vulnerable.

‘You're well informed. How would you know what's discussed during these appointments?'

He laughed.

‘Let me guess. You talk about interior design or share prices.'

He stared at her with incredulity.

‘Do you think I'm a total idiot? Don't forget I'm your son. That should tell you something.'

Did it? She didn't have time to consider it before he continued.

‘I think you'll withdraw at the last moment. I think you're hungry to solve your stadium murder and once you've solved it, I won't see you for dust.'

He scrutinised her. ‘Or am I wrong? Is blood really thicker than water?'

For the first time she detected in him an inkling of doubt. She knew she had to exploit it, even though it meant exposing herself. Her thoughts rolled back in time, back to the hospital where the contractions were dragging her into a sea of pain. She closed her eyes as she sat on the chair next to the son who was born that day. What she remembered more than anything was the loneliness. The great, all-consuming loneliness of someone whose life was over.

She opened her eyes. There were still questions in his.

‘I regret giving away my child,' she said, trying to see him as the baby she had held for only a brief moment. ‘I was sixteen years old and I had been raised a Jehovah's Witness. I had no choice, but I regretted it all the same. It has haunted me all these years.'

He frowned. He didn't like what he heard, but he didn't stop her, so she went on.

‘You may not care, but
I
do,' she said. ‘You're my worst nightmare, but you're also my dream come true. You've laid down the rules for our contact and I'm playing according to them.'

She held a palm outstretched.

‘You can't change the rules halfway through the game. And right now the rules say it's your turn. You don't want a mother or her love and so you won't have them. You want a kidney. Fine.'

She gasped. The anger was worming its way into her, and she welcomed it. Son or no son, he was an acquaintance she could have done without. But if he wanted to barter she would give him a deal all right.

‘Give me a hint. What laws were passed and why do they matter? What kind of trade was your cellmate involved in? I'm guessing it has to do with death, am I right? Dead people? Or the dying? Something to do with organs? Kidneys?'

She spat out the last word. Then she bent down and picked up a piece of paper from her bag.

‘This letter was tied to a brick and thrown through my living-room window.'

She handed it to him.

‘It's a copy.'

He took it and read. Then he shot her a teasing look, which she didn't appreciate.

‘
Let the dead rest in peace
,' he intoned in a funereal voice. ‘Wow. It's practically Shakespeare.'

He laughed again, and his laughter enraged her even further.

‘Give me a name. Something I can check. Or I'll walk right out of that door and you'll never see me again.'

The laughter died.

‘Are you scared of dying?' he said.

‘No.'

‘Why not?'

‘I'm just not,' she said, and at that moment she meant it. What could be worse than being stuck in this mess? What could be more agonising and simultaneously devoid of pain and feelings than meeting your own child – who didn't want to accept or give love, or even human kindness?

‘Then what are you scared of?'

‘Nothing with regard to me,' she said honestly.

‘Ah. Something happening to your loved ones, as they are called. Your daughter? I have a sister, don't I? Rose? Would she would like to meet her brother?'

She shuddered. Of course he would know Rose's name. Even so, it was too near the mark.

‘Give me something,' she said again. ‘Or it ends here.'

He smiled. She was annoyed that she reacted to him and a part of her softened.

‘Tell me about Rose. How old is she? Seventeen? Eighteen? Is she beautiful? Clever? Rebellious?'

Dicte got up.

‘Goodbye.'

‘Touched a nerve, have I, with your Rose?'

She spun around.

‘You stay away from her. Yes, you might be able to get a chunk of me if you play your cards right. But you keep your hands off my daughter.'

He shrugged.

‘Too late. I've already sent her an e-mail.'

‘She won't believe it's you. Not if I say it isn't.'

‘Well, we'll just have to see,' was all he said, then he patted the seat of the chair. ‘Now come over here and calm down. I've got something to tell you.'

She hated herself for obeying him. She hated the fact that she couldn't reach him and wrench even a scrap of humanity from him. She hated the fact that the stadium mystery cried out to be solved, and it was so strong in her that she was ready to walk back into his force field again. She would regret it later. She should have listened to Bo.

She sat down on the chair. He reached out and stroked her hair, almost without touching it, and she trembled.

‘If it had anything to do with kidneys, I probably wouldn't be lying here,' he said gently. ‘I would have used my contacts long ago to get myself a new one, don't you think?'

She decided to test his assertion. To her relief, he withdrew his hand.

‘Perhaps you're broke. Even a black-market kidney costs money. And I can't imagine that finding one and having the operation done is that straightforward.'

‘Precisely,' he said. ‘Living organs are a bugger. You have to get them while the heart is still beating. Very complicated. I would stay clear of that, if I were you. The dead, however …'

He let the sentence hang in the air. Her brained worked overtime.

‘What about the dead donors? What use is a dead body?'

He rolled his eyes.

‘God, you're slow. I can hear you didn't study medicine.'

There were myriad pieces in front of her, but suddenly she could see the outline of the jigsaw picture.

‘Poland. A big private clinic,' she said. ‘Patients dying after minor surgery from virulent infections and HIV/AIDS.'

She looked at him. He had closed his eyes, as if he found her musings unbelievably tedious. She focused her mind on the new laws. Now what was it she had read?

‘The
Human Tissue Act
,' she blurted out just as the thought crashed through. ‘The new
Human Tissue Act
.'

He was sleeping. A light snoring filled the room. He was still holding the copy of the threat. She stood up and coaxed it from his hand. She picked up her handbag.

‘A name,' she said. ‘I need a name.'

He opened one eye.

‘You've had more than enough,' he said and closed it again.

‘E
verything seems normal.'

The doctor started to remove the electrodes from Wagner's chest, arms and legs once the machine had spewed out his heart's rhythm in an uneven red line. Wagner was lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling panels. He had never liked going to the doctor. He had white-coat syndrome, and it was nothing personal, but the more he saw the doctor the more he would start to think that he really was ill.

‘There's a good chance you'll survive,' Nils Rørbeck said cheerfully.

Wagner tore his eyes away from the ceiling. He'd had the same doctor for over twenty years and had never had reason to doubt a diagnosis or complain about poor treatment. On the other hand, he had never been seriously ill before.

‘And my oesophagus?'

Rørbeck nodded while he packed away the equipment.

‘Yes, it could easily be playing up,' he said. ‘I'll give you a prescription for some excellent pills you can take as and when you need them.'

He looked at his patient with the kind of scrutiny only a doctor or wife can muster.

‘Are you stressed? Do you exercise? Do you eat healthily? Do you find it hard to switch off from work when you get home?'

Wagner wondered which version of the truth he should pick. He swung his legs over the edge and sat erect on the couch.

‘Stress can cause reflux in your oesophagus and stomach,' the doctor said, now with his back to Wagner.

‘Ida Marie cooks healthy food,' Wagner said, avoiding the question.

‘You ought to go for long walks sometimes.'

Rørbeck sat down at his desk and found his prescription pad. ‘It's a good form of exercise and helps clear your mind.'

Clear your mind.
Wagner pondered the expression. The only thing that would currently clear his mind was Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and, at a pinch, the preludes and fugues, but he avoided pointing that out because Rørbeck was the jazz fan incarnate, and in particular a Miles Davis enthusiast, and this was a debate they'd had once too often. Wagner could still remember his doctor's disappointment when he'd admitted that Davis always made him nod off.

‘Have you had any symptoms since?' Rørbeck said, signing off the prescription form with the traditional illegible scrawl.

Wagner shook his head. Rørbeck rummaged around his drawer and found a small leaflet.

‘Now if it's the oesophagus playing up you need to avoid certain foods. Including coffee. You've had digestive trouble before, haven't you?'

Wagner was aware that the coffee served in the canteen was pure poison and nodded like a polite schoolboy, although he was desperate to get out of the surgery.

‘So, no coffee from now on. Drink herbal tea instead. Cut down on sugar – it creates acid. And alcohol is also banned.'

Wagner was about to ask if sex was banned too, but took the prescription, nodded, said goodbye to Rørbeck and breathed a sigh of relief once he was back in the street, away from the smell of medicine and white coats. He filled his lungs with the relatively fresh air of Banegårdspladsen and enjoyed the breeze for a moment as it slipped under his shirt collar. His phobia of white coats was something he had never admitted to anyone, not even Ida Marie.

When he reached the police station and was about to slip unnoticed past reception, he caught a fragment of a conversation between a member of the public and the duty officer.

‘Chief Inspector Wagner is in charge of the case. But he's out. I can get you someone else.'

His first instinct was to go straight to the canteen to get a cup of coffee, but the doctor's words and the situation called for something else, so Wagner gestured to his colleague, who put on his public face and erupted in a smile.

‘Ah, there he is. You can speak to him in person after all.'

The man turned around. He was tanned, blond and looked like he had just returned from a Mediterranean beach holiday. He wore a loose-fitting shirt, light-coloured trousers with numerous pockets, and socks and sandals.

‘Hi. My name is Jakob Refstrup. I think I may have some information about the murdered girl at the stadium.'

Wagner shook the man's hand while he rifled through his mental archives for the man's name without success.

‘I was one of the community-support officers at the match.'

Bingo.
The name registered.

‘Australia?'

The man nodded.

‘Amazing country.'

Wagner couldn't care less if the man had been to Timbuktu or Kuala Lumpur.

‘Come this way, please. Have you been following the case?'

They took the lift up.

‘Not at all. I've been in the back of beyond for three weeks – the real outback, where my brother has a sheep farm. Otherwise I would've been in touch sooner.'

Wagner felt the tension in his stomach and all concern for his oesophagus and stomach acid disappear as the adrenaline started coursing through him. He opened the door to his office.

‘Please take a seat. Coffee?'

He poured two cups of stewed coffee from the morning's pot, but refrained from drinking his own.

‘You say you have some information?'

The man took a sip and could not hide his disgust at the taste.

‘If I'd known what had happened, I would have contacted you earlier, of course. But we didn't get back until last night. All the newspapers were in a pile on the kitchen table. My mother-in-law – she house-sat and dog-sat while we were gone – she put the papers in piles … she's like that … very conscientious …'

‘So you were a community-support officer on duty that Sunday,' Wagner said to stop the man going on about his mother-in-law. ‘What happened?'

Refstrup took a moment and looked as if he were rewinding an internal film.

‘I see you're looking for a guy who looks like an English football hooligan – one of those skinheads with boots and everything. Something about him being seen near the dead girl.'

Wagner nodded to encourage him to go on.

‘Thing is, I did see a guy like that. I was in my car about to drive home and I don't think they saw me. The windows were open. It was a nice day.'

‘They?'

Refstrup nodded.

‘The skinhead in the boots. He was having a row with a tall, skinny guy wearing a beanie. I remember thinking the beanie looked out of place. After all, it wasn't cold.'

‘Where was this? Could you hear what the row was about?'

‘It was in the car park where she was found. They were standing next to what appeared to be the tall guy's car. A black van of some sort. It could have been a Toyota HiAce. The row was about money.'

‘Money? In what way?'

‘The guy in the boots was demanding money and threatening to leak information if he didn't get it. That was the word he used –
leak
.'

Wagner stared at the man in front of him.

‘Can you describe the two men in detail? Age? What were they wearing? Did they speak with an accent of some sort?'

‘A Jutland accent,' Refstrup declared. ‘They were definitely local. Not foreign. The man in the boots wasn't very tall, but he was muscular and had an angular face. He looked like a real thug and I think his nose must have been broken a couple of times. It was squashed completely flat.'

‘And the other one?'

Refstrup hooked two fingers around the handle of the mug, but refrained from raising it to his lips.

‘I didn't get a very good look at him. I can't remember his face but like I said: very tall and gangly, almost freakishly tall.'

‘Could you hear what sort of information the first man was going to leak?'

‘Business methods were the words he used. “Your business methods.” It made me think of Mafia films and blackmail. I was in the car and all I wanted to do was to get the hell out of there, but I didn't dare once they started threatening each other.'

He smiled a little sheepishly.

‘To tell you the truth I slithered down in my seat and hoped they wouldn't notice me.'

Wagner leaned forward and studied the man.

‘Are you telling me that it was your impression that some sort of blackmail was going on?'

‘Most definitely,' Refstrup said without hesitation. ‘Something secret, just between the two of them. The guy with the boots wanted money for not leaking information. The other guy got angry and threatened him, saying he would regret it – the guy with the boots, if you know what I mean.'

Wagner knew exactly what he meant. The pieces were starting to fall into place; he could almost hear them click. He rang Jan Hansen's extension and asked him to come in and take the man's statement.

‘Okay. Arne Bay has gone missing. We have a witness to a blackmail situation in which Bay's life was threatened. Can we assume that there is a link between his disappearance and that incident?'

Wagner looked around the circle. People nodded, if with some hesitation.

‘But what do we know about the incident? And the alleged blackmail?' Hansen asked. ‘And if we assume there is a link, we also have to assume that the tall man is involved in the murder of Mette Mortensen. I think we need to be careful not to remove all Bay's involvement.'

Wagner nodded.

‘We've heard witnesses describe a very tall man before,' he said. ‘The first one was the barman at the pub – what was its name again?'

‘Bridgewater,' Petersen reminded him.

‘Bridgewater. Thank you. Let's assume the tall man – whoever he is – goes back to Bay's in the taxi with Mette, as the cabbie told us. Everyone's in high spirits and the drinking continues in Bay's flat.'

‘Could it be Kamm?' said Ivar K. ‘He's tall and thin. And he's been far from open with us.'

Wagner considered the question. He also noted that each officer had a pet theory, not necessarily based on professional or objective police work. Hansen had already been punched by Bay and had an understandable scepticism regarding the football hooligan. Ivar K had attended the interviews with Kamm and developed a similar antipathy.

‘Kamm is a possibility, but not a very likely one. He was with his in-laws in Stilling and later at home with his wife, and that has been confirmed. He wouldn't have been able to sneak out of the house without her knowing.'

They examined the scenario from different angles. A picture was emerging of the tall man and Bay doing some sort of business together. Wagner thought of Dicte Svendsen and the brick that had been thrown through her window:
Let the dead rest in peace
. She was adamant that the catalyst for Mortensen's death and for the two murders in Poland and Kosovo had to do with dead bodies. Bay worked as a hospital porter and had access to sick patients in the hospital. He wondered if that was relevant.

‘Okay. The Thin Man has a bag of Flunipam tablets in his pocket and discreetly spikes Mette and Arne Bay's beers in Bay's flat in Jægergårdsgade,' Hansen said. ‘This may explain why Bay can't remember anything from that night.'

Wagner nodded encouragingly.

‘For reasons we don't know yet – possibly to do with incriminating information – The Thin Man picks on Mette as his victim.'

‘Or perhaps he was ordered to do it,' Ivar K cut in. ‘Isn't it likely that there's a Mr Big? Given the geographical spread of the killings?'

Several people nodded.

‘Anyway, whatever the motive, The Thin Man knocks out Mette and Bay and somehow carries the semi- or completely unconscious girl out of the flat and possibly into a black van.'

‘And then what?' Petersen asked. ‘Where did he remove her thighbones and the rest? And is it the same place where the glass eye was put in her mouth?'

‘The hospital,' Wagner said after a pause. ‘Bay's place of work.'

The others were about to speak when Wagner's mobile rang.

‘Wagner.'

‘Willumsen, North Jutland Police,' came a voice through the ether. ‘I understand you'd like to speak to a Jan Møller, someone with Nazi links.'

‘Yes. Very much so. Have you got him?'

‘You could say that. It appears he has been up here for a while. In a summer house in Løkken.'

‘How did you find him?'

‘It was quite simple, really. He ran out of money and tried robbing the local petrol station, but got beaten up by the owner. It's all on CCTV. Moron didn't even cover his face. I believe you suspect him of killing his girlfriend?'

‘Yes, that too.'

Wagner thought of Dicte Svendsen again. She had reeled off three names, all from the right-wing community. If they were lucky, this might be the break needed to solve the mystery of Bay's disappearance and the murder of Mortensen in one fell swoop. For the first time that day, he smiled.

‘And that, too,' he repeated.