Part 25 (2/2)

He looked at her in surprise. ”Anne wasn't there?”

Louise shook her head. ”She didn't answer the door, anyway.” Louise felt bad for a second. Maybe she shouldn't have gotten involved.

Henrik closed his eyes.

”I didn't go home last night,” he admitted. He brought his arms down from behind his head and leaned forward, supporting himself on his elbows on his desk. ”I actually haven't been home since we found out you arrested the father and brother. She talks and talks and talks and blames me. I didn't tell her I suspected that Dicta might have been up to something she hadn't told us about.”

He rubbed his temples and let his eyes rest on the top of his desk.

”I can't stand talking about it all the time. It's not going to hurt any less just because you keep putting words to it. At least not for me, anyway,” he said.

Louise watched him in silence and when he looked up at her, their eyes met.

”Suddenly I can't stand her,” he said, still looking Louise in the eye. ”She closes her eyes to the fact that our daughter had a life that she wasn't involved in. Which is ridiculous and naive. The girl was fifteen.”

Louise didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything.

”Since that morning you came and told us what had happened, she's been walking around pretending this doesn't concern her. Sure, of course the pain and grief affect her. But she won't hear a word about Ekstra Bladet, Samra's diary, or the trips to Copenhagen. She doesn't think that has anything to do with our daughter, and I just want to shake her.”

Louise was stunned, not so much because he was so incredibly irritated at his wife. She'd seen that before. It also wasn't new to her that two parents could respond so differently to grief and that the response one of them had could really set the other one on edge. She just hadn't thought it would be a problem for Anne and Henrik.

”The day after you came to our place, we had a visit from a journalist from Morgenavisen, who wanted to write an article about Dicta. We spent several hours talking to her, and that triggered something. Suddenly it became very apparent how differently we had perceived our family life and especially our daughter.”

Louise listened to these private reflections a bit uneasily. The man really should have been telling all this to a psychologist if he wanted to get anything out of it.

”Nor do I personally view it as the end of the world to see my daughter appear in Ekstra Bladet. She was a pretty girl, and we have no reason to be embarra.s.sed. But Anne thinks she must have been forced into that, drugged or something,” he said with an awkward chuckle, and Louise smiled politely at his attempt to be funny.

”What about the funeral?” she asked.

He took a deep breath and said that he'd brought his dark suit with him when he left the house and wasn't planning to go home before the funeral. He explained that he had a small room and a kitchenette here at the clinic and that that was where he was living for the time being.

Louise gave up on talking to him about the police turnout at the funeral and instead asked if his wife might have been out walking her dogs since she probably hadn't gone anywhere without her car.

He looked at her with his zoned-out but friendly gaze and then shook his head.

”She put all the dogs into a kennel run by someone from the dog club. Even Charlie,” he added. ”That's how it is. She's putting life on hold while I'm trying to get it to keep moving. That's why we can't be together right now.”

There still wasn't any answer when Louise went back to the Mollers' large home, but the bathroom window had been opened. After having walked around the house, Louise returned to the front door and left her finger on the bell for a while as she waited.

After ten minutes, something finally happened.

Louise instinctively took a step back when Anne opened the door. Dicta's mother was in a thick red bathrobe and her pageboy hairdo hung wetly down over her ears; her eyes looked small without makeup and bore obvious signs of having cried themselves out of tears. The change was so p.r.o.nounced that it was hard to believe that it had happened in such a short period of time. Louise wasn't sure she would have recognized her on the street.

”Hi, Anne,” she said, stepping forward again.

Dicta's mother looked at her but didn't respond.

”Could I come in?” Louise asked, stepping forward, gripping Anne gently around the shoulders, and leading her into the laundry room. The flowers were still in their cellophane wrappers, the cards still unopened. There were cups, plates, and several empty wine bottles in the kitchen.

”I just went over to see Henrik. He thought you were probably still home even if you didn't answer the door when I was here earlier.”

Louise was talking in an effort to bring some life to the room. She made herself at home and started a pot of coffee and followed Anne into the living room, where she sat down next to her on the sofa.

”How are you doing?” Louise asked. She tried to establish eye contact, but didn't succeed.

Anne made a face. ”What do you think?”

”Yes, well, good point,” Louise consented.

”My husband obviously thinks life goes on,” Anne said tersely, and Louise realized she shouldn't have mentioned that she'd spoken to Henrik first.

”I don't think it does,” Anne said.

”He's not doing that well himself, either,” Louise said.

Finally something that got a response out of Anne. ”Well, then, he's doing a f.u.c.king c.r.a.ppy job at showing it. It's like he has no reaction at all,” she said in a more neutral tone.

Louise decided not to explain that that was also a type of reaction, and in the subsequent silence it seemed as if Anne Moller had slipped back into her own world. Her voice sounded frail when she spoke again.

”I only had one child, and she only had one life. I can't accept that it has all ended this way. And I don't want to hear any talk about moving on. I have no desire to move on. Not ever. It isn't fair. She's not even buried yet. No one can tell me to pull myself together. Why should I?”

”I noticed that your dogs aren't here,” Louise said, to get the woman thinking about something else.

Anne nodded. ”I'm boarding them. They don't understand that I feel violated every time they wag their tails or jump up happily to get me to play. They don't understand that we don't do those things anymore, so it was better to send them away.”

”Maybe it would've been good for you to have some kind of distraction,” Louise suggested.

”I don't want to be distracted. I'm doing everything I can to hold my thoughts together.”

Her voice was starting to sound shrill.

Louise stood up. ”Isn't there anyone you'd like to have here with you?” she asked as she went to get the coffee and poured it into a thermos before setting it with a clean cup in front of Anne in the living room.

Anne Moller absentmindedly shook her head.

”Or someone you could stay with for a few days?” Louise tried again, but Anne just shook her head.

After Louise said good-bye, she stood out on the street for a second looking around at all the fas.h.i.+onable homes. It made her sad that Anne was so alone with her grief.

When she got back to the police station, Storm came rus.h.i.+ng in and pulled her out into the hall.

”You have to hear this,” he said and led her into the room where the National Police interpreter was listening to the wiretap recording from the al-Abd family's landline.

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