Part 24 (1/2)
”Is Camilla out there?” Jrgen asked, looking at her inquiringly.
”I don't know,” Louise replied with a shrug. She hoped she wasn't.
He walked over slowly and stood in front of her. ”I'll do it because you promised you would help me. And because I've decided that I would really like to get to know you.”
She shuddered. Whoa, does he really not get that's not an option anymore? she wondered. It struck her with even more clarity that he did not consider his a.s.saults crimes. He was not picturing the charges the police would file against him later that night. He is completely f.u.c.ked up, and then some. He's a textbook sociopath! ran through her mind.
”Why did you come see Susanne today?” Louise asked as Jrgen began pus.h.i.+ng her toward the door.
”She wrote in the paper that I'd killed someone. That's not true. She knows me and knows I'm not like that.”
Louise sank. There was no way she could look him in the eye.
”You know, not all girls find it normal to be bound and gagged. It could easily seem frightening if that wasn't something you'd agreed on beforehand....”
She stopped talking because his face seemed to shut down.
They were at the door.
”Wait a minute,” she said as calmly as she could. ”I'll call them and tell them we're coming out.”
He watched her while she dialed and relayed a brief message to Suhr. Fear had taken hold of him, and there was nothing ferocious left in his eyes-just nervousness. His eyes wandered. He gripped her arm, ready to push her out in front of him when they opened the door.
”When you open the door, we'll walk slowly down the path through the front yard,” she said urgently, worried that he might not understand what would happen if he moved too quickly.
He pushed the handle and opened the door. Suhr was standing at the end of the path, staring at them but not doing anything.
They took their first steps very slowly, like an animal cautiously moving into unfamiliar territory. Jrgen pushed her ahead of himself like a s.h.i.+eld; once they'd made it a couple of steps beyond the front door, he suddenly stopped, taking in the whole scene. There were sharpshooters on several rooftops, aiming at him. Officers in tactical gear formed a ring all the way around the perimeter of the building. To Louise, the crowd of people loomed as an inscrutable mob, but it seemed as though he was memorizing the details.
With a violent shove, he pushed her farther ahead. The motion was so brutal that Louise had the sense that he had planned to dart back into the house and stand his ground, but had decided that he probably wouldn't be able to pull her back with him. She saw Suhr subtly shake his head with his eyes locked on something behind her, either urging Jrgen not to do anything stupid so they could get this over with, or maybe it was a signal to a marksman who was probably up on the roof behind her.
Suhr started walking toward them. Behind him, the officers who would make the arrest were ready. Louise made eye contact with Lars and recognized a couple of the people who she knew were part of the negotiating team. They had withdrawn to the side and were standing in the neighbor's front yard, watching everything play out without their help.
Louise stopped and let Jrgen walk past her. He didn't condescend to look at her as he slowly walked toward Suhr, but as he pa.s.sed her he said, very softly, ”I trust you.”
She watched him as the tactical teams and officers in bulletproof vests swooped in to handcuff, search, and arrest him. She watched them walk over to the parked cars, where four men climbed in to sit with him in the back of a dark blue van. Louise vaguely registered Suhr walking over and standing next to her, and heard him ask if she was okay.
She shook her head and discovered that her legs were shaking underneath her. She noticed how the strength started seeping out of her body. She wasn't okay at all, she thought.
The crime-scene investigators prepared to enter the apartment. It hit her that she didn't know what had happened to Susanne, but that would have to wait.
It took a little while before she noticed the photographers' flashbulbs aimed at her as well as Jrgen. Frightened, she turned around so her back was to them.
Lars came over, put his arm around her, and pulled her away. ”Come on,” he said, supporting her as they started walking over to the car. She saw Nymand, Roskilde's chief of police, approaching with his hand outstretched and a big smile. She looked the other way and picked up her pace.
Her partner opened the door and helped her in. Her muscles weren't obeying, her legs were trembling, and her hands were restless.
”Do you think he was planning to rape her again? He had tied her hands,” Lars said as they drove back down Kbenhavnsvej toward the highway. ”Or did he come to kill her? Also, the uniforms they sent out confirmed that he had not gone to see Karin Hvenegaard.”
Louise shook her head, trying to pull herself together. Mostly she just wanted not to think about it for a little while, but she could certainly understand that he was interested. He had been standing right outside, after all.
”He didn't come to kill her,” she said. Talking about it made her feel like she'd overcome something. ”He came to convince her that he hadn't killed Christina Lerche. To tell her that Christina had still been alive when he left her.”
Lars nodded and proceeded to say what Louise herself had already thought. ”Jrgen knew Susanne could identify him and that eyewitness testimony would be important at trial.”
Louise explained Jrgen's reaction to Susanne's diary that the paper had published. ”He felt like she was being unfair to him, blaming him for something he didn't do.”
Lars glanced over at her quickly before picking up speed and moving into the pa.s.sing lane on the highway. ”What was he thinking?” he said. ”Who goes on dates with a little kit full of paraphernalia for raping women?”
”I'm guessing that he would readily admit he has sadomaso-chistic tendencies and that he thinks that's just fine.... Which, I mean, I suppose it is, legally,” Louise hurried to add, ”if your partner is into that, too.”
Lars moved back into the middle lane, lowered his speed a little, and listened.
”That just wasn't the case here,” Louise continued. ”I'm sure they probably agreed to have s.e.x, but I don't think they talked about what kind of s.e.x and when they would stop. At least Susanne didn't mention anything like that. Quite to the contrary, she had a very strong response when I asked her if she was into that kind of thing-if it turned her on to be tied up, beat up, and raped. I just can't believe that was something they'd discussed in advance, nor that the answer would have ever been yes.”
Lars sat shaking his head as Louise spoke, and then said, ”Hey, do you remember that case from a few years ago? The one where the upstairs neighbor arranged to have the woman who lived downstairs from him raped?”
Louise shook her head, not remembering the case Lars was referring to.
”The guy went online, claiming to be his downstairs neighbor, and he got in touch with a young guy he invited over to act out a rape fantasy. He pretended to be his downstairs neighbor, and he wrote that she would leave the door to the apartment unlocked for him when she went to bed. So he could just let himself in. And that he should keep going, even if she screamed, so it would be as realistic as possible.”
Louise was beginning to remember the case. She definitely remembered reading about it, and for the first time feeling, in dead earnest, that she wanted to see the b.a.l.l.s cut off a guy. What that upstairs neighbor had done was so beyond the pale, but his punishment had seemed negligible.
”He had the keys because he'd once watered her plants while she was away on vacation. So he just stopped by a hardware store and had copies made,” Louise added. ”And the whole thing scared the s.h.i.+t out of that young guy.”
”Yeah, he wasn't all that bright, was he,” said Lars. ”And the upstairs neighbor was convicted.”
”Sick f.u.c.k,” Louise said.
Reminiscing about old cases perked her up a little bit. Even though it had been a relatively brief case, she remembered it because the perp had thought the whole thing up with such malice.
Lars said, ”This guy today, Jrgen, he's pretty f.u.c.ked up, too. What was he like?”
”Basically calm and quiet,” Louise replied. ”It seemed like he didn't actually get it that he had committed a bunch of s.e.xual a.s.saults. He just feels misunderstood.” Louise thought about it for a bit before continuing. ”I'm having a little trouble figuring out how calculating he was. It really didn't seem like he was trying to hide. And that also fits with how it seemed more coincidental than planned that the subway security cameras didn't get a good shot of him. On the other hand, he was extremely meticulous about covering his tracks when he e-mailed the women, and he was careful not to leave fingerprints in their apartments.”
”It seems illogical,” Lars said, puzzled.
”Yeah,” Louise nodded in agreement. Then a wave of guilt washed over her. ”I just promised him one thing after another,” she said. ”Everything you can think of.”
Lars didn't even glance over at her, just nodded and said, ”Of course you did.”
”We're all prost.i.tutes before the Lord,” she whispered to herself, tilting her seat back and leaning her body back into a position that helped her tensed muscles relax. ”I would have promised him anything to get him to walk out of there.”
”That's part of the job, and you did great,” he said, giving her knee a squeeze. Then he admitted that Suhr had been tenser than usual while she'd been inside.
”But of course he was exceptionally pleased when Susanne came out,” Lars hurried to add when he heard Louise sigh. ”And I'm guessing there won't be a dry eye left when the papers print the pictures of him leading her away from the scene as her savior.” Lars laughed a little before becoming serious again. ”I've never seen him so quiet and desperate. He looked like he was holding his breath the whole time you were in there.”