Next of Kin (11 page)

Her memory returned slowly, as stillness found its way in and the ceiling vaults enclosed her, trapping her in some kind of grandiose glass cheese dome.

Dicte couldn't recall the last time she had sought out a church. She was the person who had rejected all religions; who had been brought up with the fear of Armageddon, the bloodbath said to separate the chosen from the damned, and believing in a Jehovah who lets his children—and only them—into the millennium.

Churches were a nonsense. Faith was merely something used to suppress, to keep people down so that they would never rise too high and presume too much. Religion caused wars and spread death.

And yet this was where she had repaired. Along Kystvejen, where the traffic noise seemed louder than usual, past the entrance to Katedralskolen, where giggling teenagers hung out during break time, to the bustling Bispetorv at the opening to Strøget, the pedestrianised area where the crowds of people set her nerves on edge. She was like a refugee in the cool interior of the cathedral, where whitewashed arches towered above her head and made her feel tiny, where waves of an almost-forgotten past leapt from painting to painting, from pew to pew, and brought it all back to her.

Tentative organ notes soared out into the void while she sat on the edge of a chair, still uncertain if she was even allowed to seek refuge in a place where she didn't belong. She felt like a spy searching for a secret weapon that didn't exist in her own country, but whose blueprint she might be able to steal behind enemy lines: serenity of the soul.

She leaned back and looked up at the red frescos, set in sharp contrast against the white background. Here were rows of dancing demons and women with bare breasts and flowing skirts; here was temptation and sin, horror and death, but also hope, love and forgiveness.

She closed her eyes and visualised another symbol. The tower. Burned into the pores of a pale arm via countless needle pricks putting blue dye into skin cells.

Only fifteen minutes ago she had been sitting with Wagner and had asked to see it. At first she had sensed his reluctance, but something must have persuaded him, probably her insistence, because he hadn't been slow to fetch the forensic dossier of the crime scene with autopsy photos and findings.

She hadn't been allowed to browse; he had found the page of photos where the camera had zoomed in on the tattoo. A single glance was enough to send her back thirty years in time.

Again she heard sounds coming from the gallery and the organ showered cascades of notes over her. The organist was practising: scale after scale, alternating minor with major, launched through the pipes and was sent on a journey through space within the cathedral walls. The notes freed the images.

She was only sixteen years old and he was her teacher when she was in the tenth grade in sleepy central Jutland. Her dreams were of studying and having a profession and taking care of herself, but her parents used religion to argue that the best way for her to spread Jehovah's message was to leave school, take an ordinary job and throw herself into Bible studies.

When the organist started playing ‘Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring' her teenage passion was set to music.

She had never felt such feelings for another human being. He was the most handsome man on earth and his name was Morten. He helped her. He gave her books to read and encouraged her to stay at school. And he invited her to the commune where he lived and into his room where they read poetry together and listened to Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock and where for the first time she experienced the irresistible urge for freedom. Intoxicated by the thought of a new life away from Jehovah and parental demands, she allowed him to do everything they both wanted.

The organist's notes came to an end and silence reigned again. He had abused his position and had taken advantage of her, yet she had never regretted it. Not the love, even though he rejected her afterwards. Not the pregnancy. Nor the split from her family and the community, who shunned her.

The only thing she had ever regretted was that she had given up her child for adoption. This had been the nightmare of her life, exactly like the devil riding the stooped man on the old frescos.

And now there was the tattoo. The tower on the arm of a man she didn't know or at least didn't recognise. The tower that had suddenly become associated with terror and death, and which had sucked her into a tornado where right and wrong had been turned upside down.

The music was playing again. The low notes made the floor and the walls reverberate and shook her to the core. This must be how it felt when your heart sank.

Back at the office Dicte wrote the article about the dead man and urged anyone who recognised the possible murder weapon to come forward. Bo and Helle had gone out to cover the story about the enraged immigrants in Rosenhøj. A firebomb had been thrown through the window of a creche. The town's residents were terrified and young men threatened all-out war against the police. In Paris, other young immigrants were burning cars in the suburbs where, unemployed, they lived with hopelessness and futility in equal parts. Integration had failed in France, the TV reporters said. Where had it not failed, one was tempted to ask.

Before pressing the send button, Dicte read the article through again and sat back with a feeling that it simply wasn't strong enough. There was so much missing—of course the bulk of the story was under wraps and also off limits. With the black tower at the back of her mind, she swallowed all her pride and called her ex-husband at his office in the University of Copenhagen, where he lectured in criminology.

She had time to regret this several times before he picked up the telephone.

‘Torsten Svendsen.'

‘Hi, how are you?'

The pause was barely perceptible. Then his voice oozed towards her, wrapped in the familiar ironic detachment he employed as a defence against all past sins. Including the ones she had never found out about.

‘Fine. How about you? I do hope you're taking precautions and remembering to keep your door locked at night.'

‘Why, do I need to?'

Perhaps he could hear her anxiety, because he instantly adopted a serious tone. ‘I have no idea. Probably not. You don't kill the messenger, do you?'

‘So you've heard?'

He laughed softly. ‘Of course I've heard. Everyone has. Everyone's talking about it. Is that why you're calling? Or has our daughter got pierced ears or a tattoo of her boyfriend's name?'

She had to smile. Torsten found it difficult not to think of Rose as a little girl you could order about.

‘By the way, how is she making out with that Pakistani boyfriend of hers?'

He had pressed a button she had put on stand-by. Now it all came flooding back: Rose's indignant voice and what she said about Muslims, for which there was very particular reason.

‘I think they've started seeing each other again. I'm worried.'

Dicte knew she sounded like someone she had absolutely no desire to be: an over-protective, mildly racist mother. Torsten seized the opportunity with both hands.

‘I see. Perhaps you fear that he'll behead the fruit of our loins and then blow himself up, together with half of Aarhus?'

She didn't appreciate his needling, and ignored it. ‘They've found a body and a severed head. We're running the story tomorrow.' She could practically hear his thought processes screeching to a halt. ‘The victim's name is Kjeld Arne Husum. It's no secret. He's been identified.'

‘That name means nothing to me,' Torsten said.

‘Me, neither. But perhaps it ought to.'

‘What do you mean?'

She started doodling on a scrap of paper. ‘Do you remember Morten? My son's father?'

Torsten attempted a laugh, but it came out strangely strangulated. ‘I don't believe I ever had the pleasure of meeting him. But you have told me about him.'

She continued doodling. Yes, she had told him. Long before they fell in love they were practically each other's therapists on the psychology course at university. Her past had been forced out into the open even though she had fought against it. Later she dropped the course.

‘Morten lived in a commune called The Dark Tower. Named after something in a book, as far as I can remember.'

‘
Lord of the Rings
,' Torsten said. ‘The Dark Tower is Sauron's tower in Mordor, the Land of the Shadows. Also known as Barad-Dûr.'

‘I didn't know you were a Tolkien expert. Now, who was Sauron?'

A pause followed before he replied. ‘I suppose he symbolises evil itself. He created the ring to rule the others. The ring that bestows limitless power, including the power to destroy everything. The super-villain.'

Dicte started shading in her drawing and saw that she had sketched a tall, menacing tower. Freud would be celebrating in heaven.

‘I wonder why they named the commune after that tower,' she asked. ‘Did they really want to symbolise evil?' She'd never been part of the Tolkien wave, not even when the films were released. ‘All members of the commune had, as far as I recall, a tower tattooed on their upper arm,' she said.

Torsten went quiet. ‘Might have been a joke,' he suggested. ‘Thumbing their noses at the people who took the name Kløvedal, based on Rivendell in Tolkien. The book was considered a bit of a bible in those days.'

‘At that time, too.'

‘Are you sure it's the same tower? Did they ever talk about it or its significance?' Torsten asked.

‘No.'

They chewed the matter over for a little while longer before the conversation finished. Afterwards the sound of Torsten's voice lingered in her ear and his last question haunted her. Could it have been a different tower? Another symbol? Was there just a tiny sliver of a chance that this might be the case?

Dicte stared at her doodle, a copy of the tattoo. It would be so easy to dismiss it as a figment of her imagination. But it was no use. She'd seen that tattoo on Morten's upper arm and it was an exact copy of all the others in the commune. She knew she ought to recognise Husum and somewhere, in the remotest recess of her memory, fragments of something she couldn't pin down were floating around. This had to be the connection. The murdered man on Samsø had to be a man she had once known, however briefly.

‘What do we know about him? What sort of man was he? What are his politics? Who are his family, friends, neighbours, work colleagues?'

Wagner pointed. The overhead projector showed the same photo of Kjeld Arne Husum that had been given to the press. It was one that Kristian Hvidt and Jan Hansen had got from the victim's elderly mother living in sheltered housing in Aabyhøj. They had driven out to inform her about her son's death and she had insisted on identifying him at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, supported by her youngest son.

‘Why did he have to die? And why did he have to die like that? What had he ever done to make another human being want to behead him?'

He paused and regarded his team. They'd just had a small break which had generated a lively buzz of conversation. It wasn't that the case didn't occupy their minds, it was just that they were colleagues and needed to air other matters apart from headless corpses. The most topical issue at the time was the politicians' proposals to put up the police retirement age from sixty-three, as it was at present. ‘Zimmer-frame policing' was what Ivar K called it. And then there was Eriksen's cousin, whose wife's father was a painter and decorator and from whom you could get cheap paint if you bought it in bulk. Petersen and Hansen were up for it and Kristian Hvidt was giving it some serious thought because he and his wife had just bought an old house in Hinnerup.

‘Who'll get the ball rolling?'

Jan Hansen cleared his throat and raised his hand. Ivar K was chewing gum and blew a bubble that burst with a pop.

‘He's got a record, of course, one conviction for assault,' Hansen said, undeterred. ‘Since then, nothing. He had very few days off work, and his boss says nice things about him.'

‘Ceres brewery, wasn't it?' Wagner asked.

Hansen nodded.

‘What about work mates? Have you talked to any of them?'

‘Not yet. But we thought about taking a drive down there in a while. I talked to his boss on the phone this morning.'

‘Okay, fine. What else?' Wagner pressed. ‘Had he been married? Are there any children? Any family? Apart from the mother and the younger brother—what was his name?'

‘Poul,' Eriksen replied. ‘There was a sister who died in the 2004 tsunami with her husband and child. Tragic story. Another sister lives in the US, married to a dentist.'

‘An American dentist?'

Eriksen nodded. ‘They live in Texas. Her name is Ina and she's a dentist herself. She and her husband have a practice in Houston. Mother's very proud. Our victim followed his father's footsteps into the brewery.'

‘And Poul?'

‘Electrician. Employed by Søften El.'

Wagner let the information settle. ‘The sister is the only one to go on to further education. Mould-breaker, isn't that what they call it?'

Eriksen, with a sideways glance at Ivar K, said good-naturedly, ‘There are a few of us around.'

Muted laughter. It wasn't clear if this was a reference to Eriksen's own father, who had been a sewage worker in Ringkøbing, or Ivar K's father, who had made a career for himself within the prison service, on the wrong side of the bars. Regnar Kristiansen had been a proficient burglar, everyone knew that.

‘Speak for yourself,' chewed Ivar K, red-faced. ‘What about witnesses? Shall we do Samsø one more time for Prince Knud's sake?'

Young Kristian Hvidt was obviously not old enough to know modern Danish history, or the expression.

‘The late King's brother. Frederik the Ninth. Inbreeding, you know. Bit slow on the uptake. Had sticky-out ears, a long nose and flying dentures,' Ivar K said in a friendly manner and looked intently at Hvidt, who almost matched the description.

Hvidt still looked all at sea, and flattened one ear against his head as though he could attach it there.

‘Forget it,' Ivar K yawned, revealing the chewing gum. ‘What about the Grønnegade case? Somehow or other we have to get the two cases to check out. Witnesses, neighbours and so on?'

Wagner sat down at the table and reached for a bottle of mineral water. ‘We'll have to go back to Grønnegade,' he said. ‘Question everyone again, and we'll have to hear what they say about Husum. Find out what his habits were. Was there any noise—unusual sounds—coming from his flat? Anyone seen coming or going? What about relationships with women? Who spoke to him or saw him last? By the way, do we know?'

Hansen shook his head.

‘But it must have been on Samsø,' he said. ‘The neighbours; before leaving for Copenhagen.' Wagner gestured to Ivar K and Eriksen. ‘You two go to Samsø and make a few enquiries.'

He was secretly hoping the sea would be choppy enough to give Ivar K a cold shower. He sighed. Sometimes his job was like being in charge of a bunch of teenagers on speed.

‘Have Forensics been over Husum's flat?' Hansen asked.

Wagner nodded. ‘This morning. They might still be there. I'll speak to Haunstrup about Samsø too.'

‘He's got an ex-wife in Gedding,' Hansen said. ‘There's also a daughter. She lives with her mother.' He consulted his notebook. ‘Ten years old.'

‘How long were they married?' Wagner asked.

‘Three years. They got divorced two years ago. She moved away with the daughter, and he kept the flat.'

Wagner nodded. ‘She'll have to be checked out. We'll do that.' Looking at Kristian Hvidt, he said, ‘You take Ceres brewery and his work mates.'

Ivar K pushed his chair back, grabbed his jacket and thumped his young colleague in the back, which gave a hollow sound. ‘Perhaps you should take a taxi. There might be a bit of free beer.'

‘What about Dicte Svendsen?' asked Jan Hansen.

Wagner had shown them the second clip. Copies had been made and the original sent to the Technological Institute where PET were looking over their shoulders. So now specialists were studying it with magnifying glasses, trying to elicit its secrets. He had also told the men that Dicte had reacted to the tattoo. Afterwards she had tried to make light of it.

‘What about her?' He didn't quite know why he sounded so defensive.

Hansen stood up, too. He took his coffee cup and carried it on the tray. ‘Is anyone keeping an eye on her?'

The words floated in the air. It sounded like both surveillance and protection. Take your pick.

‘Not as far as I know. I imagine she would refuse,' Wagner said.

‘And that's her choice?' Ivar K asked. ‘Haven't PET got this matter under control?'

Wagner shrugged, in a more nonchalant way than he felt. ‘That's up to them.'

After the meeting he stood alone by the window looking across the town. On the margins of his view he could see the square tower of the town hall, and again he was reminded of the tattoo on Husum's shoulder. He had observed Dicte while she was studying the photo in the file. He had seen how her body literally recoiled and almost dematerialised in front of his eyes; like in the Harry Potter film he had once seen with Alexander when people disappeared from one place and reappeared in another by magic.

There was no doubt that the tattoo had some significance. The question was why she wouldn't say anything. What she was up to.

He turned away and took the lift up to the fourth floor to the Crime Scene Investigation department. He rang, and Haunstrup himself opened the door that was always locked.

‘Have you got anything for me?'

Haunstrup let him in with a nod and slammed the door shut. Wagner followed his red tuft of hair down the corridor to a little office.

‘There were fingerprints on Samsø that were not Kjeld Arne Husum's,' Haunstrup informed him as they walked. ‘We're checking in the Central Bureau, but you know what the odds are of us finding a match.'

‘I hear there are powers in America who want to abolish fingerprints as a form of identification in the court. They think DNA is the only workable option,' Wagner said.

Haunstrup snorted. Contempt for his colleagues in the States was written all over his face. ‘DNA isn't a hundred per cent infallible. Fingerprints are,' he declared while rummaging for something in an envelope folder.

‘They say too many mistakes are made. Up to two thousand a year,' Wagner persisted.

Haunstrup rolled his eyes. ‘Human error. The training over there isn't good enough, and it's too quick. I can assure you that everything in this country runs like clockwork.' He looked up from his folder. ‘If there's any miscarriage of justice resulting from the Centralbureaut For Identification they can close us down. That's fine by me.'

Wagner nodded. He already knew. Staff at the CFI were well trained, and furthermore the ten of them had expert fingerprinting certification from NORDAKT and continually went on Nordic police training courses. In general the level of forensic sciences was very high. It was one of the reasons why he hoped Haunstrup and co had been able to find physical evidence in the form of blood, semen or identifiable fingerprints.

‘Anything else?' he asked, sitting on a chair opposite. ‘Have you been to the flat in Grønnegade?'

Haunstrup consulted his watch. ‘We've got two men down there at this very minute. They should be back soon.'

‘And Samsø? Any more you can do there?'

‘The rain must have washed away any traces of blood outside. We didn't find any in the house. But of course blood seeped down into the chopping block, and it matches the victim's, so there's no doubt about the location of the crime scene.'

Haunstrup frowned as he searched through the folder and finally produced a small transparent bag. He placed it in front of Wagner who stared at the contents. It seemed to be no more than a small triangular piece of paper with a thin cord attached.

‘What is it?'

‘We found it on the floor in the bathroom. We didn't know either. That is, we men didn't know. It was Susan who enlightened us.'

Susan was one of the female forensics officers. ‘And?'

‘Tampax paper.'

‘Tampax?' Wagner mumbled. ‘A tampon?'

Haunstrup nodded. ‘That's the little strip you pull off to open the thingy.'

‘Anything else?'

‘Not a glimmer. Everything had been cleaned or removed. Nothing in the waste bin in the toilet. Someone had even washed it because there were still traces of detergent.'

‘So just this?'

Another nod. ‘It must have been torn off recently because it was just by the sink where you usually stand or walk. And it's absolutely clean. No one has trodden on it. But we have something else.'

Wagner looked at him. Haunstrup was excited as a child giving a Christmas present.

‘What?' asked Wagner, who had already guessed.

‘A fingerprint,' Haunstrup revealed with an imaginary fanfare and roll of the drums. ‘Part of a thumb. Probably of the person who opened and used the tampon.'

‘A woman,' Wagner said. ‘A woman has been in the house.'