Part 17 (1/2)

Suddenly the beer and Irish coffee were churning around in her like a centrifuge. She tasted bitterness as the bile from her stomach shot up into her mouth. But she held it back. She had vomited once before in front of a male colleague, and that was something she was only going to do once in her career. She sank, supporting herself against a lamppost.

The fatigue was suddenly so overwhelming that it made a very real situation seem unreal. While Louise had been reveling in her own pleasure, Dicta's skull was being smashed in. Not that she would have been able to prevent it if she'd been asleep in the hotel, but somehow it still seemed unseemly.

”I'm going to run upstairs and take a quick shower,” she said. ”I'll be down in ten minutes.”

She didn't wait for a response, already on her way up to her room.

What the h.e.l.l was going on here? she thought, feeling for the first time in a long time like she didn't have a handle on squat.

Pretty, sweet, young Dicta, who should have been a star, was now a victim. And the thought that this was how she was finally going to get her picture in the paper was unbearable, Louise thought sadly as she wrapped up her shower with an ice-cold rinse and hurriedly threw on her clothes.

The ambulance was still there. Storm and Skipper had moved over to the parking lot, where they were now standing with Soren Velin and the ambulance paramedic, who had established that Dicta was dead. Her old partner nodded at her somberly as she reached them.

”This is nasty,” Velin said. He pulled her a little ways away from where the body was located, as he explained that a woman had found it when she was bringing some clothes over to the Salvation Army donation bin after getting off the night s.h.i.+ft at the hospital. The area was still illuminated by a couple of big portable spotlights.

Louise could just make out Dicta, lying at the edge of the parking lot. The lot wasn't very full. Quickly surveying the area, Louise counted eleven cars. At the far side, out by the ring road at the end of the lot where Dicta was lying, was a large building that housed Nordtank. And Lindevej ran between the ring road and the parking lot, but that was quite a small street. At the perimeter of the parking lot down by the main street was a small service station. And out by Nygade was the back of the Gyro Hut. Louise spotted Dean, who was helping cordon off the area, and noted that the only person she hadn't seen yet out here was Bengtsen.

Soren Velin said that one side of Dicta's cranium had been crushed. He spoke so softly that Louise had to strain to hear the words. Maybe he was trying to spare her or himself a little of the gruesomeness of what had happened.

”She obviously took a lot of blows to the face and definitely also to the body,” he said, explaining that her clothes were covered in blood. The local police had locked down the scene when they arrived and now everyone was just waiting for the crime-scene technicians and the coroner, who were on their way.

”But it looks ghastly.”

She stared at him, astonished. He didn't usually react like that, and if he was putting it that way, she had no doubt he meant it.

”What did you do with Bengtsen?” she asked after a brief pause.

”He went to the hospital with the woman who found the body. He was the first one here and since she didn't have anyone who could go and stay with her, he did it. He'll stay with her until she calms down.”

Louise stood there for a bit before she started walking over to the body of the girl whose secrets she had been in on. She sank down into a squat when she reached her and sat there for a bit, looking at the dead figure. Just as Soren Velin had said, the right side of her face was crushed, and her long blonde hair was stuck in the thick bloodstain that radiated from her head like a dark shadow. A little farther away on the asphalt lay a yellow hair band tinged red with blood. Louise rested her elbows on her knees and supported her face in her hands. Under her jacket Dicta was wearing a small yellow top. She had gotten dressed up and had been looking good before she left her house to visit Liv. Louise felt a jab of pain in her chest as she stood back up to return to the others.

Camilla had arrived in Holbaek late Sat.u.r.day night. She had decided to drop the whole thing after her run-in with Terkel, but in the end her stubbornness compelled her to head back out there anyway and see if she could get any further on the story. Even if it robbed her of her Sunday, it would be a victory after their spat if she came home with something none of the other journalists had. She had called Louise from the road. Even before Camilla left Copenhagen, she was looking forward to meeting Louise at Bryghuset and chatting for a while over a beer, but Louise's cell phone just kept going to voicemail. Camilla gave up around midnight.

Then early that morning, the sirens from the first responders' vehicles sliced through the walls of her room at the Station Hotel with their high-pitched howl. She had strolled out toward the parking lot to check, but they'd cordoned off the area around the body, and with all the police tape she couldn't get close enough to see anything, so she called the desk officer at the station to find out what had happened. And when he wouldn't tell her anything, she called Storm directly.

She hadn't gotten any more than the name out of him, but that had also been enough to start with, and she had promised to keep it to herself until the girls' parents had been notified. Camilla had known whom he was talking about right away. In the days following Samra's death, she had interviewed Dicta along with a couple of other girls from Samra's cla.s.s. When she finished talking to Storm, she went back to the hotel to dig out her notes from her conversation with the girl, and after that she went down to the restaurant and got the cook to make her a little breakfast. She picked up a copy of Ekstra Bladet that the cook had sitting next to the stove along with a pot of coffee. She tried to get hold of Louise again, but her cell was still going straight to voicemail, so Camilla went back out to the restaurant with her breakfast to wait until there was some news from the police.

She saw the picture in the paper, read the brief text, and then jumped up, dropping everything. It all happened so quickly, her coffee sloshed onto the tablecloth and the bread basket tumbled to the floor.

With the paper tucked under her arm, she ran out onto the street and over to the parking lot. Storm and Skipper were standing there talking, but she ran right past them and continued to where Velin stood to ask him about Louise. Just then she spotted her friend coming over from the other end of the parking lot, where the body was. Her face was blank and her eyes trained on the ground. Camilla ran over to her, holding out the paper.

”You have to see this,” she called from a distance.

Louise looked up and was about to protest, but Camilla ignored her friend's rebuff and pulled her over to a walkway between the walls of two buildings, so they were away from the others. Camilla unfolded Ekstra Bladet, turned to page nine, and pointed to a large color photo of an almost-naked Dicta Moller.

”This is today's paper,” Camilla said, waiting for a reaction.

Dicta's long blonde hair was falling down over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her body was turned slightly with her head tilted a tad, and one hip pushed forward in a diminutive white crocheted bikini, which was tied together by a thin string, not leaving much to the imagination if you were the kind of person who was attracted to young girls.

Louise slowly reached for the newspaper. ”Well, she doesn't look like that anymore,” she said in a subdued tone after having studied the picture.

”How does she look?” Camilla quickly seized the opening her friend had given her.

Louise stood there for a moment, appearing to consider whether she could tell Camilla anything.

”One whole side of her head is caved in after multiple powerful blows,” Louise finally said. ”I would imagine that most of her cranium is crushed, and her face is one big b.l.o.o.d.y pulp.”

Camilla put her arm around Louise and they stood like that for a bit. She knew Louise had had a fair amount of contact with the girl and that she must be working hard now to contain her emotions so they didn't overwhelm her. Camilla gave her shoulder a squeeze, and Louise folded up the paper and gave her a little smile.

”Thanks for showing me that,” she said, preparing to go join Storm and Skipper.

”I know the photographer who took this picture,” Camilla called after Louise. ”He's a disagreeable chap. Sad that she fell into his clutches.”

Louise stopped and came back over. ”Disagreeable in what way?” she asked.

”Not in a way that I think would lead him to crush a girl's skull, but certainly a girl's heart. I always sort of got the sense he was ambitious, and there've been a few stories going around about him that haven't cast him in a good light.” Camilla explained that there had been rumors of violence. ”Although not against the girls, as far as I know,” she hurried to add, before saying that, on the other hand, there had been rumblings about how he couldn't keep his hands off the young girls who came to his studio. ”But that's not to say-well, I don't know how much is gossip and how much is truth. He's never been convicted of anything as far as I know, and of course he's quite active professionally. So it could well be that he just has a bad reputation,” Camilla added, so she couldn't be accused of having contributed to spreading the rumors.

”Interesting,” Louise said. Then she said that she had just been asked to drive out and inform Dicta's parents.

Camilla stood and watched her as she walked away with the newspaper under her arm.

24.

LOUISE STOPPED TWENTY METERS FROM THE MLLER FAMILY'S driveway. She had driven two wheels up onto the sidewalk and was sitting in the cruiser with her phone pressed to her ear. Before she'd left, she had told Storm about Ekstra Bladet and shown him the picture. Now he was calling her on her cell to have her tell Dicta's parents about it.

”Oh, no,” she exclaimed. ”I don't know if I can make myself do that.”

”It's going to be hard to keep it hidden,” Storm quickly retorted.

She conceded that he was right. Obviously they would end up seeing it.

”Maybe you can ask them a little about how much they knew about her free time, while you're discussing it with them,” he suggested.

”We'll see,” Louise replied curtly, still not having the faintest desire to bring it up.

She shut off her phone and drove the last little bit to the driveway. It was only a few minutes before eight in the morning, but there were no cars in the garage and the house looked empty. Louise was suddenly afraid that they could have left early to go to a dog show, because it might be hard to find them then.

The police usually sent two people to inform a family so that one officer wasn't alone if the parents had a violent response to the shock, but in this case Louise had opted to talk to them by herself because they already knew her. However, she had arranged with Storm that he would keep one officer ready to a.s.sist her should that be necessary.

The dogs out back started howling as Louise walked up to the front door and held her finger on the bell for a long, sustained ring. The dog inside came galloping and acting very fearsome. She pushed the b.u.t.ton again and heard the chime of the bell spreading through the house. She did not hear the gate in the wall to the yard opening, so she jumped when Dicta's mother was suddenly standing in front of her with a cheerful morning greeting and a large bowl in her hand.

”I was just out with the dogs. I usually run them early in the morning, and then we do our training later,” she said, holding out the bowl as if that explained why she had it.

Louise nodded and said that she'd come to speak to the woman and her husband.

Anne Moller gave her a questioning look, but there was no trace of worry to be seen in her apparently candid face.