Part 28 (1/2)

Louise walked over to the trash with the paper towel. As she was about to toss it in, she was struck by the familiar and distinctive rounded marks the blood from her wound had made. This time she didn't need a ruler to know there were exactly three centimeters between them.

For a moment she forgot to breathe. Then she turned around slowly and studied Michael Mogensen, as every piece of the puzzle fell into place.

Mik had not noticed Louise's silence as he poured their coffee.

Louise stood and gathered her thoughts for a moment, then calmly walked over and sat down next to the photographer. For a few minutes she watched as he brought photos up on the screen. Then she asked her question.

Her partner only reacted the second time she asked. Michael Mogensen had his eyes firmly on the screen, but his fingers had stopped moving on the keyboard. He looked at her for a moment, and the look in his eyes convinced her that she was right in her suspicion.

”Why did you kill them?” she repeated, waiting for his response.

Mik came over and stood next to her, but Louise didn't take her eyes off Michael Mogensen, leaving her partner to follow along as best he could. She could see him putting the pieces together as she pa.s.sed him the paper towel with the two red marks that the screws on the plate the camera housing attached to had left on her leg. His face was serious and his voice calm as he closed in on the photographer.

”Did you take Aida as well?” he asked.

Finally Michael Mogensen turned his body toward them, allowing his eyes to remain locked on the screen and the picture of the suburban street where Liv's home was.

He hesitantly shook his head, speaking in such a low voice that they had to lean close to hear him.

”That wasn't me,” he said.

Louise reached out and grabbed him. She forced him to look at her.

”I don't know where she is,” he continued in the same quiet tone. ”I could never do anything to her.”

He looked down, avoiding her angry face.

”Why should I believe that when you've been so hypocritical-leaving flowers for both Samra and Dicta even though you were the one who killed them?”

He mumbled something she didn't understand, and she glanced up at Mik, who shrugged.

”I'm going to ask you again. Were you behind her disappearance?” Mik said in a voice that Louise had trouble recognizing.

”I haven't touched her,” the photographer repeated, this time with more strength in his voice.

The answer came so quickly and clearly that they were forced to believe him. Louise got up and went out into the hallway to call Storm and tell him they'd found their murderer but that he denied having anything to do with Aida's disappearance. She told him that they needed no a.s.sistance. They would handle the arrest themselves and he would hear from her again soon.

When she returned to the studio, she felt rage throbbing within her, but she was determined to keep it under wraps and exerted a great deal of effort to make her voice sound relaxed. There was no reason to fight him now when gaining his trust was key so they could get him to talk.

”Tell us what happened between you and the two girls,” she encouraged.

The photographer sat, his back hunched, nearly collapsed in on himself; but before he had a chance to consider whether or not he was going to say anything, she continued.

”When it comes to Dicta, I'm guessing it was anger that made you kill her. Anger that she'd turned her back on you in favor of a Copenhagen fas.h.i.+on photographer. She hurt your feelings.”

Louise avoided pointing out how small-minded this reaction was, because it wasn't her place to define these things. A forensic psychologist would have the opportunity to do that later.

”She humiliated me,” Mogensen corrected her immediately.

Louise could tell that it wouldn't be hard to get him to talk, so it didn't surprise her when the words suddenly started flooding out of his mouth like loose gravel being tipped out of a truck bed.

”She mocked me and became cruel. She said that I was a second-cla.s.s, provincial photographer who would never make a name for myself any farther away than the village of Vipperod.”

Louise nodded. That was what she'd figured. She would get the details of his explanation later during the official interrogation at the police station. But the answer to the next question wasn't so obvious.

”Why Samra? You hardly knew her, right?”

She tried to establish eye contact with him.

Finally something changed in his face. He turned to look her in the eye and what Louise saw in front of her was a big boy who was slowly falling apart.

”I loved her,” he said, his eyes becoming moist.

There was no trace of guilt in his eyes. Just a deep despair that confused Louise.

”You were her Danish boyfriend?” Mik asked.

Now Louise was the one left out in the cold.

”If that was the case,” she said hesitantly, ”then why did you kill her?”

Again there was a long pause during which Louise tried to put the last pieces of the puzzle together herself.

”She didn't want me,” he finally whispered. ”She said she wanted to go home to Jordan and marry someone from there. Someone Muslim like herself.”

He spoke softly, but there was nothing tentative about his words. He really wanted to make them understand.

”Why did she want that?” Louise asked, bewildered.

His response took her completely by surprise and didn't fit with the image she had formed of Samra.

”Because she wanted someone who was like her and fit in with everything she knew,” he said, as if he didn't quite understand it himself. ”And then she said that Danish families didn't have the same kind of solidarity that families had where she came from. She didn't want to be part of a family where people never really spent any time together even though they lived in the same house. She thought it seemed empty and wrong that I didn't have more to do with my grandmother, since we lived so close together, and that I'm not really in touch with my other family members. In Jordan the whole family sticks together, they all take care of each other there. If one person is sick, the others bring food. It's never lonely, and she missed and longed for the kind of togetherness she was familiar with. That's why she wanted to go home to Jordan and marry a man from there.”

”But she was happy enough to risk a lot to see you in secret, even though she didn't want people to know about your relations.h.i.+p,” Mik prompted.

”Was it because she knew that her parents would object to her picking you instead of a man from her own background?” Louise asked and noticed the adrenaline rus.h.i.+ng through her body again.

Michael started crying and hid his face in his hands as his shoulders shook.

They let him be until he dried his face with both hands and looked up.

”It wasn't like that. She knew that they wouldn't object. She was the one who didn't want it, even though she was free to follow her heart. That's what I couldn't understand. I've never loved another person the way I loved her. She also claimed she loved me. But she still wouldn't consent to being a couple.”

”She was much younger than you. Far too young to know whom she wanted to share her life with,” Louise interjected.

Michael shook his head.