Bogman (28 page)

Afrim trembled more violently.
 

“Stealing golf balls is a crime,” said Tobias. “But not as serious a crime as murder. Where were you on Tuesday night.”

“At the factory,” cried Afrim. “I work at the factory.”

“We can check that,” said Tobias. “If you are telling the truth, you have nothing to fear.”

“You ask my supervisor,” said Afrim. “He tell you I good worker. I always on time.”

“Why are there bones in your kitchen sink, Afrim?”

“I found them in the lake with the golf balls,” said Afrim.

“Which lake?” asked Tobias. As the words left his mouth the answer came into his head.
 

Afrim spoke it. “The lake at Skovlynd,” he said.

Friday: Week Three

43.
 

The draining of the lake on the ninth hole at Skovlynd Golf Course began just after sunrise. The manager, who lived in an apartment above the clubhouse, was wakened by Tobias and Eddy at five o’clock, minutes before the arrival of the crime investigation squad. He stood on the terrace in front of the eighteenth green from where he could see the lake on the ninth and the police vehicles driving over the fairway. He was horrified.

“You’re going to drain the lake? We have a competition tomorrow,” he said. “You can’t close the course.”

“You have human remains in your lake,” said Tobias.
 

The manager was shocked into silence.
 

“Were you here when they created the lake?” asked Tobias.

The manager nodded. “It was the last thing they did,” he said. “It was just after I joined the company. I joined in August 1998. The lake was filled in September or October. I could tell you exactly by looking through the invoices.”

“That would be helpful,” said Tobias. “Were the protests still going on?”

“They were at it right up to opening day,” said the manager. “Then they sort of faded away. Battle lost, I suppose.”

“When did you last drain the lake?”

“July last year. We try to pick a dry spell in the summer, when the water level is low.” His looked and sounded unhappy. “I have to speak to my boss.” He moved away and spoke quietly into his mobile phone.
 

Katrine arrived at the Thomsen’s house a few minutes before eight o’clock. She wanted to get there before Astrid Thomsen heard news reports about bones being found in the lake at Skovlynd. Before the inevitable speculation that they might be the bones of her missing daughter.
 

She recognized Katrine immediately. Her face brightened. “You’re going to tell me where the emails were sent from. I know it. Have you found Emily? Come in.” She held the door open. They went into the wide hallway.
 

“Is your husband at home?” asked Katrine. “It might be a good idea to get him.”

Astrid’s Thomson’s face went white. “It’s bad news, isn’t it? You’ve come to tell me something bad. That’s why you want Marcus here. Tell me. Is she alive? That’s all I want to know. Is Emily alive?”

Katrine was silent. She put out her hand tentatively.

Astrid Thomsen uttered a high-pitched scream, like a rabbit caught in a trap. Katrine caught her as she crumpled.
 

Marcus Thomsen came bounding down the stairs. “What’s happened? What have you said to her?”
 

He took Astrid from Katrine and helped her into a chair. He stroked her hair with one hand and keyed a number into his phone with the other. “I’m calling a doctor.”
 

“We’ve found remains in the lake at Skovlynd golf course,” said Katrine. “We think they could be the remains of your stepdaughter, Emily Rasmussen.”

Astrid moaned again. Marcus continued to stroke her hair.
 

“Are you sure? I will be extremely angry if you’ve come here and upset my wife over a case of mistaken identity. Emily has been sending emails. We’re sure she’s alive somewhere.”

“We found a ring with the remains. We know it’s a ring Emily’s boyfriend, Lennart Praetorius, gave to her.”

“She could have given the ring to someone else,” said Marcus.

Astrid lifted her head. “Yes,” she breathed. “That’s possible.”

“The only way to be certain is to take a DNA sample from you for comparison,” said Katrine.
 

“How long will it take to get a result,” asked Marcus.

“Two or three days,” said Katrine. “Maybe less. I can take a sample now. It takes only a few seconds. I just need to brush a cotton bud on the inside of your cheek.”

“Do it,” said Astrid. “But I still think Emily is alive. And I will go on thinking that until you prove to me that she’s dead.”
 

The doorbell rang. Marcus Thomsen went to admit the doctor while Katrine took a buccal sample from Astrid, who was sitting up but was still deathly pale.

While the doctor busied herself with Astrid, Marcus Thomsen walked with Katrine to the car.

“I don’t want to believe the worst,” he said, “But if this is Emily, do you have any idea what happened? Did she drown?”

Katrine hesitated. “There’s a crack in the skull,” she said.
 
“The pathologist thinks it was caused by a blunt instrument. Whoever it is was killed by a person or persons unknown.”

“Emily mixed with some unsavoury types,” said Marcus. “Anarchists. Anti-this and anti-that. Have you any suspects?”

“Did Emily ever mention someone called Aksel Schmidt?”

Marcus shook his head. “When my wife is strong enough, I’ll ask her if she’s heard of him. I’ll get in touch.” He shook hands with Katrine. “Good luck, Inspector.”

44.

Kurt Malling arrived at Skovlynd just before nine o’clock. The noise of his car door slamming reverberated around the concrete sides and bottom of the lake, now empty of water. Tobias, crouching near a crack in the concrete and clad, like the Forensic team, in blue protective clothing, knew it was Malling before he looked up and saw him standing behind the tape which encircled the lake and the white Forensic tent.
 

Malling had his hand up, as though to call a halt. His mouth opened to speak but closed again as one of the forensic team walked past him carrying a clear plastic bag full of bones. Malling’s hand dropped. He looked shaken.
 

Tobias acknowledged his presence with a nod and focused again on what Karl Lund was saying.
 

“There was an earth tremor last year. In the early hours of the morning. It would have been enough to crack the concrete basin. Especially if there was already a weakness.”

Tobias remembered someone telling him protesters had drilled into the concrete lining of the lake. Who had mentioned it? Nicholas Hove? Norbert?

“My guess is the body was buried in a shallow grave before the concrete was poured,” said Karl. “With just enough soil to conceal it. When this crack occurred, the bones floated up. When did they last drain the lake?”

“July last year, the manager said.”
 

Karl nodded. “That figures. The tremor was in August. The epicentre was south east of Anholt, on the seabed. The seismologists measured it at 4.4 on the Richter scale. That’s pretty strong by Danish standards. And enough to turn a hairline crack into a fissure half a metre wide. We widened it to get at all the remains, but the whole thing will have to be replaced anyway.”

Tobias instinctively glanced up to where Malling was standing, ashen faced.
 

He used the iron rungs in the side of the basin to climb out on to the fairway. He went into the tent where the bones had been assembled on a trestle table. Harry Norsk had a paper-white skull in his hands.
 

“Hi, Tobias. If you include the bones from the bins and the finger bones you found in the sink, I have accounted for all of the skeleton.” Harry weighed the skull gently in one hand. “This is female. It’s lighter. The forehead is vertical. The vault is flattened. I understand you already know who it is?”

Tobias nodded. “Emily Rasmussen. We’re almost certain. We found a ring with the finger bones. We know it was given to her by our Bogman, Lennart Praetorius.”
 

Harry’s finger traced a line on the skull. “There’s a split in the cranium. Probably caused by a blunt instrument. And the mandible is fractured. Possibly with the same blunt instrument, although a fist could have done it. I’ve seen boxers with this kind of jaw fracture. Males, not female.”
 

“Is there anything else you can tell me now?”

“There’s one strange thing,” said Harry. “Look at this stuff in the skull, behind the jaw.” He turned the skull upside down so that Tobias could see gossamer filaments, like a spider’s web, behind the teeth. “I’ll get an opinion from Brix, but I think this is the same stuff we found with Bogman. Polyethylene Terephthalate. Did you notice the Linden tree by the lake? Linden trees like alkaline soil. Remember what Brix told us? Alkaline soil preserves bones and rots flesh and natural fibres. You’re looking at polyester fibres which didn’t decompose. But why are these fibres in her jaw?”
 

“Maybe she was wearing a scarf, or a cap,” said Tobias. His brain was already scanning his memory for the photographs of Emily in the newspaper, the pictures of her on videotape. All the images which came to mind were of Emily with blonde hair streaming behind her in the wind, or plastered to her face by the rain.
 

The Politi team had taken over an office in the clubhouse. Malling, with some grace, sent in a pot of coffee. When Katrine arrived, Tobias and Eddy took a coffee break. Karl joined them.

“I found this.” He tipped a gold locket and chain from a clear plastic bag on to the table. “The seal on the locket was tight. The photographs are hardly damaged.” He opened the locker so the others could see the round photographs of a man and woman. The woman was clearly Astrid Thomsen.
 

“The man must be her father,” said Katrine.

“There can be no doubt now that it’s Emily,” said Tobias. “But we’ll wait for the DNA confirmation before formally notifying the Thomsens.”

They sat in silence for a moment.
 

“Ok,” said Tobias. “Let’s go over what we know, and more importantly, what we don’t know.”
 

“Who sent the emails?” asked Eddy.

“Emily’s killer,” said Tobias. “To prevent her being reported missing. To cover up the fact that he’d killed her.” He adjusted his coffee spoon so that it was aligned with his pen and notepad.
 

“He didn’t bother to do that for Bogman, assuming it’s the same killer,” said Eddy. “And we can’t be sure of that either.”

“He didn’t bother because there wasn’t anybody to report Bogman missing,” said Katrine. “Except Emily. And she was already dead.”

“All that time we wasted, thinking she was alive,” said Katrine. “I imagined her leading some kind of nomadic life in the tundra. I thought we’d find her eventually.”

“We did,” said Eddy drily.

They were silent again.
 

“We won’t know which of them died first until we know the age of the bones in the lake. Even then, it won’t be exact.” Tobias gazed at the notepad on which he had written two questions: who wrote the emails? where is the ambulance? He felt weary.

 
“What about the ambulance? Where is the ambulance?” he said.

“Maybe he disposed of it in a lake somewhere, like Emily,” said Eddy. “Is there another lake on the golf course?”

Tobias shook his head.

“Are we assuming it’s a male killer?” asked Katrine.

“Blunt instrument in both cases. Not a female weapon. And there are no women in the frame,” said Tobias.

“There isn’t anybody in the frame,” said Eddy. “All we can be sure of is that Emily Rasmussen is dead. We don’t need DNA to tell us.”

“That reminds me,” said Karl. “I have the result on those panties. Nada. Nothing. Only Girlie’s saliva, blood, vomit, urine.”

Tobias was suddenly alert. Voices, words, were darting around his brain. Harry’s voice. “Why are these fibres in her jaw?” Pernille’s voice on the phone. Where was that? In the car. What was she saying? He had been fiddling with the sat-nav, only half-listening. Something about panties.

“Pernille Madsen is investigating an assault in Aalborg. She said something about panties.” Tobias shut his eyes to concentrate. “Panties and DNA. I’ll give her a call.” He was wide-awake again. “OK. Either Emily sent some of the emails and the killer sent the rest. Or the killer sent all the emails. Either way, he needed access to Emily’s address book, or he was with her when she wrote emails to her mother. And he dumped the ambulance.”

 
“And created the Facebook page,” said Eddy. “That was probably set up at some Internet café as well.”

“I’ve gone through all the cafes and hotspots the emails were sent from,” said Katrine. “I looked to see what was happening near them around the same time. There were demonstrations at the Shell refinery in Fredericia. I can check if Aksel Schmidt was among those arrested. In Norway and Sweden there were protests about oil-drilling near Pitea and Hurtigruten,” said Katrine. “One of Malling’s companies, as it happens. No arrests, so no names. There was a protest about a ship in Hamburg carrying nuclear waste. No arrests. And there was an anti-bullfighting demonstration in Arles, Provence. I haven’t got list of arrests yet. I started with the most recent email. It was sent three weeks ago, April fourteenth, from Hurtshals. There’s a protest camp in the forest near there.”

“Hurtsals is not that far from Aalborg,” said Eddy.
 

“I know,” said Tobias. “And Asksel Schmidt has been to the camp.”

They all paused for a moment to take in this information.

“Let’s bring him in,” said Tobias.
 

45.

The warrant to search the squat was on Tobias’s desk, along with the long-awaited file on Emily Rasmussen’s complaint against her stepfather. Tobias picked up the folder and put it down again. It was probably redundant. He hesitated. He never liked to leave a stone unturned. He picked it up again and took it with him. He would read it later, if he had a moment to spare.