The Forgotten Girls (7 page)

“Any luck?” a voice sounded behind them.

Louise could tell that Eik was in a rush to leave so she stopped and turned around to avoid giving the impression that they were running away.

“It was a big help,” she said, thanking the woman and smiling. “Now we’ve got a few things to go on.”

“So was it her?” the gray-haired lady asked, her hand on the light switch to keep the light from going out.

“We think so,” Louise said. “And now we’re going to contact her family.”

She started walking down the hall to signal that they needed to get going.

“Well, good luck,” the woman called out behind them. “I’ll keep the light on until you’ve made it upstairs.”

R
IGHT UNTIL THE
end, Louise had feared running into the cranky hag she had spoken to over the phone, so once they were safely in the car she felt like it had been a bit too easy. As they drove over the hill, thoughts were buzzing in her head; she couldn’t decide in what order to proceed.

“I’ll call Hanne and have her check the twins in the Civil Registration System,” Eik said, breaking the silence. He already had his phone to his ear and the notepad on his lap. “If she was declared dead at age seventeen like it says, it would be in the official register as well.”

Louise nodded, concentrating on the narrow country road while feeling completely convinced that the woman she had seen on the autopsy table was Lise Andersen. It was perfectly plausible that the dead woman was forty-nine years old, she thought, and asked Eik to locate Lise’s parents. Surely they would know if they had buried their two daughters.

“Did we bring the photos of our Jane Doe?” she asked as they were parked at a rest stop outside Ringsted waiting for Hanne to call them back and tell them whether the twins’ parents were still alive and, if so, where they lived.

Eik laboriously pulled two folded-up sheets of paper from his back pocket. “I printed them out before we left. Maybe
you should call the guys at the Center of Forensic Services and the Department of Forensic Medicine and give them her civil registration number,” he suggested. “They should be able to find medical or dental records once they have something to go by. That is, if they still exist.”

He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and was about to roll down the window.

“All the way out,” Louise demanded, and told him that she would make the call. “But I’m not sure if that stuff is saved that long after someone is dead. In 1980 there were no computer archives, of course, so it seems like they should have been in the records we found if they still exist.”

“Were they?” he asked through the open car door.

Louise shrugged. “I actually didn’t notice, and I don’t think we should go back until we know if it’s necessary.”

The opening notes of Pink Floyd’s
The Wall
sounded when Hanne called back.

Louise watched Eik with curiosity as he wrote something down, asking Rønholt’s secretary to repeat the last part.

“Thanks, gorgeous,” he flattered before tossing the cell phone onto the front seat. “They’re both reported as dead in the national register.”

“What about their parents—are they still alive?”

Eik looked at the notes he had taken while talking. “The father is. Viggo Andersen lives in Dåstrup, which according to your good friend Hanne is just outside Viby Sjælland.”

“We’ll go talk to him,” Louise decided, already setting up the GPS.

“Hell no,” he objected. “We’re not going to see a father who lost both of his daughters more than thirty years ago and ask him to confirm that they’re dead.”

His hand darted to the leather string he wore around his
neck and he started tugging at the yellowed shark’s tooth that hung from it.

“Of course we are,” she decided. “And that father did not lose his daughters thirty years ago. One of them is in the basement of the Department of Forensic Medicine right now. We need to speak with him.”

“We don’t know for certain whether our Jane Doe is identical with one of those twins,” he insisted. “We only have our information from one person, who knew her a long time ago, and from guesswork based on a patient record. To me, that’s not enough to make an identification.”

Louise turned toward him irritably.

“But it is to me,” she insisted, feeling convinced that she was right. “She has the same scar on her face, the same fracture on her left arm, and she’s had surgery to treat an umbilical hernia. That can’t all be a coincidence. Of course it’s the same person, and the father needs to identify her. And besides, he might know where she’s been hiding for the past thirty years.”

T
HE PLACE WAS
a yellow-washed, three-winged farm with a thatched roof and a well-kept garden with large rhododendrons in bloom. From the road, Louise had spotted a man walking around the yard with a wheelbarrow and thought from his age that he might be the father. They pulled into the courtyard and parked next to an old-fashioned well pump. Everything was so well maintained that it was obvious that someone with plenty of time looked after the property.

“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to have the wound of his daughters’ deaths reopened,” Eik grumbled, having otherwise stayed quiet for most of the drive. He let Louise lead the way to the yard through a narrow passage between the main building and one of the wings, and she realized that he was simply uneasy about the situation.

“Don’t you think he’d be more upset if he wasn’t informed of
the fact that his daughter is at the Department of Forensic Medicine waiting to be buried?” she whispered over her shoulder.

“I suppose you’re right. Let’s get this over with.”

Just then the elderly man came walking toward them. He had put down his wheelbarrow and placed his rake atop a pile of freshly cut grass.

“Can I help you?” he asked in a welcoming voice.

Louise put out her hand. “My name is Louise Rick and this is my colleague Eik Nordstrøm. We’re from the Search Department with the National Police. Are you Viggo Andersen?”

“Yes.” The man looked at them with curiosity.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions if that’s okay.”

“Ask away,” he said readily.

“Can we step inside?” Eik suggested, tipping his chin toward the house.

“Of course,” Viggo Andersen said and gestured for them to follow. After opening the kitchen door, he held back a German pointer. “He’s harmless but he just gets so excited around strangers.”

“That’s all right,” Eik said and scratched the dog behind the ears. Louise was able to make do with just a quick pat for the pointer, who was wagging his tail and attempting to show his excitement by jumping up.

Eik kept a firm grip on his collar while the older man showed the way through the kitchen and into the living room.

“Did someone go missing?” he asked after putting the dog in the scullery and offering them a seat at the dining table.

“Yes, but a long time ago,” Louise answered, looking around the charming living room.

“Can I offer you anything?”

“No, thank you,” Eik quickly replied. Louise shook her head as well.

“We have a couple of questions about your daughter Lise,” she began once the father was seated opposite them.

Viggo Andersen looked at her in surprise.

“About Lise?” he repeated. A furrowed net of wrinkles slipped across his forehead, and his look turned to puzzlement. “What do you need to know after all these years?”

Louise decided that she might as well cut right to the chase.

“We have reason to believe that your daughter did not die at Eliselund in 1980, and we have some questions and a photograph we’d like to show you.”

She could tell from the look Eik shot in her direction that he was not crazy about the “we.” He clearly wanted her to speak for herself.

“What do you mean she didn’t die?” Viggo Andersen asked, clearly confused.

Louise took a deep breath and asked Eik to show him the picture he had brought.

“Last week a woman was found dead in a forest here on central Zealand. She had a very distinctive scar, which is identical to the one your daughter had on the right side of her face and on her shoulder.”

Viggo Andersen sat motionless and listened.

“There were details discovered during the autopsy that also suggest this might be the same person: a broken bone in her forearm and a surgical scar from an umbilical hernia. Mr. Andersen, we understand this is quite a lot to take in after all these years, but we believe that the woman who was found in the woods is likely your daughter.”

The father turned pale while Louise spoke. He seemed to be in shock as he leaned forward and tried to make sense of it all.

“But… how could this be?” he stammered, shaking his
head. “This can’t be right. You must be mistaken. I was notified back then and the girls’ belongings were sent home to me. Everything fit in just a couple of shoe boxes; that’s all they had.”

Eik smoothed the two sheets of paper on the table and pushed them forward a little.

“The letter said it was pneumonia that claimed their lives,” the father continued and swallowed with difficulty. “So why would you be coming around now telling me this?”

Louise dreaded this part of the job. Though they were going purely on instinct at this point, this man seemed to be truly stunned—completely caught off-guard. But they needed to lay hands on what he knew and could contribute to their investigation. They had to push, no matter how painful it might be. And she had to maintain a professional composure, even if she seemed cold and unfeeling.

“It does seem strange,” Louise conceded. She asked him to look at the photograph. “I know it’s been years and your daughter’s all grown up,” she added before asking if the dead woman in the photograph might be Lise Andersen.

The elderly man accepted the copies and leaned in, his reaction evident on his face. He pressed his lips together to suppress it but then started nodding, a look of puzzlement in his eyes.

“You recognize the scar?” Louise concluded.

“The truth is,” he began a little hesitantly, “that I only saw my daughter once after the terrible accident that disfigured her face. So it’s not so much the scar that I notice. I no longer recall the details, only that it marred her delicate features. But their mother’s beautiful cheekbones, which she passed on to the girls, are something I’ll never forget. The twins may not have been as bright as other kids but they were more beautiful than all of them combined.”

He smiled as if forgetting for a moment the reason why
he had been asked to talk about his deceased daughter. But then it came back to him. The transformation from the tender moment, triggered by the memory, was clear.

He looked at Louise with so much sadness in his eyes that she struggled to meet his gaze.

“There’s no doubt that that’s my little Lisemette; I’m sure of that even after all these years,” he said. “But how? How can this be happening?”

He shook his head in confusion and stroked his chin.

“I didn’t take good enough care of them,” he said almost inaudibly. “I let my girls down.”

“Let’s turn back the clock a little,” Eik suggested. “Your daughters arrived at Eliselund when they were three years old, and you haven’t been in contact with them since?”

The man wrung his hands awkwardly for a moment and then nodded.

“Their mother died when the girls were just five days old,” he started and softly cleared his throat. “She wanted to have a home delivery instead of at the hospital in Køge. But we didn’t know there were two of them.”

His chin quivered, but then he braced himself and went on.

“The doctors said afterward that the problem was that the placenta detached. I’d just gone to get an extra pillow when green amniotic fluid suddenly came gushing out,” he recalled. “The midwife was there the whole time and reassured us until she realized that there were two of them and they wouldn’t turn.”

He fell silent for a moment.

“She was the one who sent for the ambulance. She told us she couldn’t handle a double breech delivery by herself. But it took far too long before we made it to the hospital. They didn’t get enough oxygen before they were delivered,” he told them.

“So their brains were damaged during the delivery?” Louise asked.

He nodded. “Mette got it worse because she was the last one out,” he said and blinked back a tear as he told them that the girls’ mother had died while they were still in the hospital. “So even though the doctors had told me, it took some time before I really realized how seriously the little ones had been damaged at birth.”

“But you were able to bring them home?” Louise asked quietly. She felt horrible about raking up such crushing memories.

“Yes, I brought them home with me after we buried their mother. In the beginning I got all the help I could ask for from the county, and when the girls were fussy I could usually calm them down just by singing to them.”

He got a warm look in his eyes, but a moment later it was extinguished.

“But it was hard for me to make the hours add up,” he admitted and looked down at the table as the difficult time he had put behind him caught up with him. “I had to work.”

He looked up at them as if he felt the need to explain his actions.

“I had to—there was the house and the fields. And I had no help. So I didn’t have much time to spend with the girls. I could see that, too. So the month when my girls turned three, I was summoned to the health visitor’s office,” he said, adding that she had usually come to their house.

He paused.

“And then the girls were put in the home,” Eik said, coming to his assistance.

“That’s how it turned out, yes.” Viggo Andersen pursed his lips as if the words were reluctant to be spoken.

“They advised me to forget about the girls and move on
with my life. The health visitor made it sound so easy; as if that’s just what you did when your kids turned out to be different from the rest. ‘Just forget about them and move on with your life. We’ll take good care of them.’ ”

He pulled a large cloth handkerchief from his pants pocket and blew his nose.

“I didn’t want to turn my back on my girls just because they needed more care than other kids, but she told me about a small home in Roskilde with twenty-two mentally handicapped children and said that only three of them got visitors. The remaining nineteen never saw their parents. So that’s how she convinced me that this was how it was normally done.”

“So you had them placed at Eliselund and broke off contact with them?” Eik asked.

“No, not at first,” he defended himself. “I visited them twice, but they cried so hard when I had to leave that the staff asked me to stay away. They didn’t think the girls gained anything from the visits if they became so distressed when I left. They had a hard time calming them back down and also felt that the girls would only miss me more if I continued to come.”

He sat staring blindly ahead for a moment.

“I still sent presents for Christmas and their birthday, but I never got any response. And around the time of their confirmation, I sent money. I figured that perhaps they could throw them a small party but I don’t know if they did.”

He heaved a sigh and shook his head as if struggling to comprehend how he could have taken the advice of the staff.

“The supervisor encouraged me to start a new family and put the girls and their late mother behind me. He didn’t think it served any purpose to maintain a contact that wasn’t benefiting anyone. A few years later I remarried, which did bring a lot of happiness into my life.”

“So was that the last time you saw your daughters?” Eik asked.

Viggo Andersen shook his head.

“I was contacted right after the accident happened. They told me it was Lise’s sister who’d picked up the pot of boiling water and dropped it on her. Mette couldn’t do much on her own, and her motor skills weren’t great, so I was shocked that they’d even let her near boiling water. I drove down there that same evening but when I got to the sick ward, neither of the girls recognized me anymore.”

He clenched his teeth.

“And after that I never saw them again.”

He looked at them, a weary expression in his eyes. Obviously, what he had just told them took a lot out of him and now that the story was told, his body fell into a slump.

Louise felt awful for the old man, but tried to stay focused. She moved her eyes to a row of family photos hung side by side on the wall. She saw the twins’ father with his arm around a tall, gray-haired woman. Next to them were two couples who looked to be in their thirties. One was maybe a bit younger, she thought, assuming that they were new children and children-in-law.

“By then, I was a long way into my new life,” Viggo Andersen said as he followed Louise’s gaze. “That photo’s from when I turned seventy.”

“But in 1980 you were notified that both of your daughters had passed away?” she said, looking at him.

He nodded.

“Did you go to the funeral?” Eik asked.

“No.” The man shook his head. “That had already been taken care of when I received the boxes with what few
belongings they had. They asked me if I wanted their clothes, too, but I declined.”

“Who notified you of the deaths?” Louise asked, although it might be difficult to recall after so many years.

“The folks down at Eliselund, of course,” he said promptly. “They called from the office one day. My wife was the one who answered the phone, and she walked all the way out to the field to tell me. A few days later they sent something more official, too. But I’m afraid I don’t have those old documents anymore.”

“Please, don’t worry,” Louise said quickly while trying to curb the uneasy feeling prickling under her skin. If one death certificate was forged, the other one could be as well.

“I was told that all the practicalities had already been taken care of by the undertaker who usually dealt with the residents there,” he said. “But it wasn’t my impression that they got their own grave because they never asked me to pay for anything. I guess there was a communal grave that belonged to the place for the ones whose families didn’t bring them home.”

“So you never saw for yourself that your daughters were buried,” Louise pressed him, hating having to ask, and ignoring the piercing look from her partner.

“No,” Viggo Andersen admitted, “I didn’t.”

He asked if he could see the picture of his daughter again. Eik handed it to him and said he was welcome to keep it, although the quality wasn’t the best.

“Thank you,” he said, tenderly stroking the creased paper.

“So then she wasn’t put in the ground at all?” he quietly concluded after a moment, looking at Louise for confirmation.

She shook her head.