Part 18 (1/2)
Lyshj Alle was just off Toftegrd Square. Louise parked in the middle of the narrow street and turned around to look at Susanne.
”Do you feel safe sleeping here alone?” Louise asked, with no clue what she would do if Susanne said no.
Luckily Susanne nodded and, in an even more convincing voice, said she was looking forward to being by herself.
”If you feel unsafe for any reason whatsoever, call the number we gave you. It's the direct line to police headquarters dispatch. They'll send a car over right away.”
Lieutenant Suhr had arranged for dispatch to keep an eye on Susanne's apartment until she moved to her new address after the weekend.
Susanne didn't seem to be listening. She had gotten out of the car and was just standing there fidgeting, waiting for permission to go in. And Louise couldn't blame her. It was four thirty in the morning and she'd just been discharged from the hospital. There was no question that she needed to go to bed and get some rest.
Louise waved at her and put the car in gear, then decided to head home instead of returning the car to the garage. She could drop it back off Sat.u.r.day morning. She was sure the others were back at headquarters, rounding off the day with a debriefing, but they'd just have to make do without her.
23.
”SO WE'LL GO PUBLIC AND LOOK FOR OTHER YOUNG WOMEN HE'S victimized in the past.”
Suhr's voice rumbled through the break room during Monday's morning briefing. Louise felt like she'd lost her grip. She'd woken up Sat.u.r.day morning feeling extremely sick to her stomach, and she had thrown up numerous times over the next few hours. In the end, she swallowed her pride and called Camilla, even though she knew Henning was probably there and that she would be interrupting their Sat.u.r.day plans. But Louise just couldn't bring herself to call her mother.
She hadn't told her parents much about the breakup. They knew there'd been a fight, but they didn't know what to make of Peter moving out of the apartment, and Louise still didn't feel ready to explain it.
Camilla came over Sat.u.r.day afternoon and sat with Louise as she lay on the sofa, pouring out her grief and despair. Louise was astonished at how easily she cried, but stubbornly insisted she wasn't crying about the breakup.
”Are you lonely?” Camilla asked cautiously, getting up to put in the Big Fat Snake CD she had brought over. Camilla firmly believed that their music helped everything.
Louise shook her head firmly and then closed her eyes, carried away by Anders Blichfeldt's amazing voice. When she eventually opened them again, she rea.s.sured Camilla that she had actually been longing for a little solitude.
”I just feel like I've become so fragile inside. Like I might shatter if I get hit by a stone.” That was the best way Louise could explain how little was left of her strength, which she'd always taken for granted.
Camilla was tactful enough not to bring work up while Louise was so upset, but questions about the previous night's singles event were looming behind her comforting words and nurturing tone. Camilla stayed until late afternoon, when she and Henning planned to drive out to his place in Sor and spend Sat.u.r.day night there. Markus was staying with his father.
The tears and the nausea had abated by the time Louise waved good-bye to Camilla from the stairs. Louise accepted that she had to live with her body's way of working through the breakup, but she set Sunday night as her deadline for getting over it. She thankfully still had one more day to wallow in self-pity, she thought to herself, as she watched Camilla get into her car and drive away.
- ”NOW WE'RE CLOSING IN ON HIM, AND WE WON'T BACK DOWN UNTIL we've got him,” Suhr bellowed on, yanking Louise's attention back to the morning briefing.
Her colleagues did not pile the blame on her when she showed up for the briefing as she had feared they would. When she woke up, a few minutes before the alarm went off, she inhaled all the way down to her gut and decided that, from this moment on, her life would continue as it had before-just without Peter. Sadness, loneliness, and a broken heart were feelings she could have; they just couldn't be all. Then she got up and thought she was doing better. She managed to sound almost natural when Michael Stig-the only one who had done so-pa.s.sed her in the hallway and asked her how the h.e.l.l she could let Bjergholdt escape into thin air when it had been her job to keep that from happening.
”He left,” Louise said in a steady tone and walked off to the briefing.
”We'll show the CCTV footage from the subway station if we have to, but we'll start without it,” Suhr said.
”Maybe I should check if Duke's profile is still up,” Louise suggested, interrupting the lieutenant. ”He doesn't know we're on to that name,” she continued.
Suhr grumbled a little as he considered that, but finally nodded and then pointed at Heilmann. ”We're going to meet after this,” he said, nodding at Louise to indicate that she would attend as well.
- LOUISE WAS ALREADY SITTING AT HER COMPUTER SEARCHING WHEN Suhr knocked on the wall next to the open door to her office. Lars had gone to get coffee, so Suhr sat down in his chair.
”So, what are you going to do if you find his profile still up?” Suhr asked. He had mentioned this before, joking that Louise should go out with the perp. Now a deep wrinkle formed above his nose as he awaited her answer.
Louise mulled it over for a moment. What did she plan to do, actually? They couldn't trace him just from his profile information. If they really lucked out, he might have posted a picture, and then they'd at least have something to take to the public. If not....
”E-mail him,” she responded. ”Then maybe we can trace him.”
Lieutenant Suhr sat staring out the open door to the corridor. Louise a.s.sumed he was keeping his eye out for Heilmann, and knew he would feel better if Heilmann agreed that it was a good idea for Louise to contact their man.
”Although I haven't found him so far,” Louise added, to Suhr's relief. ”I need to get hold of Stine Mogensen and ask how she was writing to him, because he isn't listed on any of the online dating sites I've checked.”
Just then they heard rapid footsteps. Heilmann turned the corner without stopping and was suddenly standing in the middle of the office with agitated red splotches on her cheeks.
”He was at Susanne's apartment!”
- HEILMANN HAD ALREADY SENT A PATROL CAR OUT TO SUSANNE'S address, and she asked Louise and Lars to follow it out there.
Susanne had been in her apartment since Louise dropped her off early Sat.u.r.day morning. She hadn't stepped outside all weekend and hadn't had any contact with anyone-not even her mother. Monday morning, she stepped out to buy a few groceries, and when she came home half an hour later, she found an envelope that he'd slipped through her mail slot while she was out.
”He wrote very briefly that he had been thinking about her a lot,” Heilmann said.
”A threat?” Suhr asked.
Heilmann shrugged. ”That's sure how I'd take it,” she said, ”but we've seen how erratically he acts. It's hard to say whether he's dissociative or a sociopath. But we need to get her out of that apartment right away.”
Then Heilmann looked at Louise and said, ”I ran into Lars out in the corridor. He's waiting for you. Make it clear to Susanne that she's not under house arrest or anything. She's free to come and go, both down there and in the city, but she shouldn't go around broadcasting her new address.”
Louise nodded, already on her feet. The apartment Jakobsen had lined up was on the outskirts of Roskilde, about half an hour west of Copenhagen. Heilmann leaned over Louise's desk and wrote the address on a notepad. Suhr asked them to call in when they'd gotten Susanne set up in her temporary residence.
Louise powered down her computer and decided she'd stay out in the field the rest of the day. She had tried breaking the case by scanning through men's profiles several times and was a little irritated that that approach wasn't panning out yet. She kept hitting dead ends and having to start over again with broader and broader search terms. At the same time, another thought had started percolating in the back of her head: maybe they could leverage the fact that Stine Mogensen had been in touch with Jesper Bjergholdt. But now that would have to wait, too, because once again something else had come up that took priority.
- SUSANNE HAD A SUITCASE AND A WEEKEND BAG PACKED AND READY by her front door. She and Heilmann had agreed that Susanne would label the other things she wanted brought to her new place, and the police would have someone would come and move them later in the day, but since the new place was fully furnished she mostly just needed clothes.
Louise felt bad for her. This whole thing might be over by the end of the week, but it might also take months. After the morning briefing, Heilmann explained that the woman Jakobsen had borrowed the apartment from was out of the country, so Susanne could stay there for at least four months if need be. Jakobsen felt that, whether or not Bjergholdt was apprehended, Susanne could use some peace and quiet and the s.p.a.ce to find herself. He advised her to give up her own apartment and find a different permanent place to live where she wouldn't be so close to her mother anymore. That was a significant step in her treatment, which was well under way.
Louise sensed that Jakobsen was concentrating more on the profound impacts and scars that Susanne's mother had inflicted on her daughter than on the superficial wounds and sc.r.a.pes that had come from the rape itself, even though those were also serious on a different level.
”When can I get my computer back?” Susanne asked as they carried her bags down to the car, where Lars took them and put them in the trunk.
”You should probably plan on being without it for a little while. It's been submitted into evidence,” Louise advised.
”Well, is there any way I could borrow another one in the meantime?”
”I don't know,” Louise answered, holding the car door for her.
She couldn't figure Susanne out. She didn't seem particularly bothered by the message Bjergholdt had slipped in her mail slot. Or by having seen him at the party. At least Louise couldn't really see any signs of anything resembling fear. Perhaps that could be ascribed to the freedom Susanne felt at escaping the overbearing clutches of her mother.
”What do you need a computer for right now?” Louise asked once, they were seated in the car.
Susanne was on a long-term leave of absence from work while she underwent counseling with Jakobsen.