Farewell to Freedom (14 page)

“Do you want to come up for the weekend?” Mik asked without commenting on her case. “A few of us from the club are going to take the kayaks out along Cape Tuse on Saturday. We're going to bring food and set up camp when we feel like it.”

“I'm going to be working this weekend. Unfortunately,” Louise added as she suddenly realized just how much she wanted to see him, that awkward guy with the crooked front teeth. “But maybe we could take a trip when this case is over?”

He laughed into the phone.

“Don't you think there'll be a new case then?”

“Oh, stop,” she cried, hoping he could hear that she was smiling. “If you start driving now you could actually be here in Frederiksberg within the hour.”

“Deal,” he quickly replied, snatching the invitation. “You put the coffee on and I'll bring the rest. I just have to take the dogs for a quick walk before I leave.”

He hung up. Irish coffee had been a staple of theirs ever since their night together sitting on a bench enjoying the view from his farm. He had just happened to offer her one after they'd finished their beer. Now it was “their” drink, and they had since explored the difference between
whiskey
with an
e
—which is Irish and not quite as smoky—and
whisky
with no
e
—also known as scotch, and totally out of place in an Irish coffee.

She smiled and pulled her legs up onto the sofa. She was far too tired to skip a night's sleep. On the other hand, a good, thorough roll in the hay would surely reinvigorate her and give her more energy than eight hours of deep sleep.

15

C
AMILLA WAS SITTING AT HER COMPUTER WHEN HER BOSS CAME
into the office at 9:30. His blonde hair was still wet from his shower, and she guessed he'd run his standard fifteen kilometers before coming in. Her own head felt heavy, and the light from her screen hurt her eyes. She would have stayed home if she hadn't stormed out of the office so dramatically the day before—and if she hadn't been so eager to serve up Kaj's eyewitness statement for her boss along with his morning coffee.

He stopped in her doorway and watched her collect the pages of her article.

“What's going on with you?” His tone was caring, and he sounded concerned. “You look sick.”

She nodded and was surprised that he didn't start by commenting on their argument. Maybe they were starting to butt heads often enough that he no longer noticed.

“Yeah, I'm going to go home in a bit,” Camilla said with a nod before holding out the printed pages to him. “I've been looking into that murdered Czech girl on Skelbækgade. She was evidently snuffed by her own pimp, and I have something here you should read.”

Høyer stepped into her office and walked over to her desk to take the papers from her.

“The police don't have any witnesses or leads yet,” Camilla continued. “But this is a person who knew the woman. He saw her go through the gate into Kødbyen off of Skelbækgade, and he also saw the guy who followed her in.”

Høyer stood there for a second just looking at her before reaching for the article. He was about to say something, but she cut him off.

“You should consider me out sick today. Which in practical terms means I'm not here and I'm not turning anything in for the paper. But if you want to print this article—and will respect the fact that I want to keep my source one hundred percent confidential—then you can blow this story wide open, because this witness hasn't talked to any other members of the press. And you can also be sure that this isn't just something he made up,” she said, knowing that Kaj hadn't told anyone else.

Høyer sat across from her and skimmed the two pages she'd handed him.

“But you also need to understand that I'm going to contact the police and pass on the information contained in this article,” Camilla said.

Her editor set the pages down and leaned back, resting his arms on the arms of the chair.

“Well, I should say so. How sure are you that this witness is telling the truth?”

“As sure as I am that it's a travesty to put whipped cream on top of authentic
poires Belle-Hélène,”
she replied, enjoying the confusion in Høyer's eyes.

“Well, all right. I'll look at it. Kvist's report from Silkeborg won't be ready to run until tomorrow, anyway.”

Fatigue suddenly washed over Camilla.

“Let me tell you one more thing,” she said, mustering her courage. “Human trafficking is one of the most lucrative crimes out there. And here you sit with a hard-on over some rich people's paintings worth a lousy couple million.”

She stood up.

“I'm going to go home and nurse my cold,” she said. “Call me if you decide to run it.”

Camilla's voice was calm and she managed to keep her irritation under wraps. “But first I'm going to go hand over the witness statement to the police. I'll get them to sit on the new information and keep it from the rest of the press until tomorrow so you can have the scoop if you decide to run it. But I can't ask them to withhold it any longer than that.”

She ran into Holck in the hallway. She was wearing her sunglasses, but pushed them up onto her head as he approached her. He averted his gaze, and before he had quite reached her and would be forced to look her in the eye, he turned and vanished into an empty office. But even that was enough for Camilla. She now knew that seeing him with a prostitute the day before would add a whole new dimension to their already tense relationship—meaning he wouldn't be able to walk all over her anymore.

Camilla biked a printout of her article over to Copenhagen Police Headquarters. She parked outside the building, called Louise, and asked for five minutes. She had to wait for a bit at access control before the guard had time for her, and when she said that she was there to see Detective Louise Rick, he gave her a blank look.

“Where does this person work?” the guard asked.

Camilla explained that Louise worked in Unit A before the re-org, and the guard flipped in confusion through a binder and asked Camilla for an office number, which of course she couldn't remember. Finally Camilla gave up on waiting and called Louise herself, asking her to come down and escort her up.

Her hangover was becoming more and more obtrusive, and Camilla guessed that the only reason she had been able to get up that morning and write her article was that, in all probability, she hadn't actually been sober yet. She had filled herself with black coffee before sitting down at her keyboard to write, and once done, read her piece through several times to be sure it didn't ramble too much. But with the article written and her mission almost complete, she realized she was about lose all steam as her head started to throb.

16

L
OUISE GAVE
C
AMILLA A QUICK HUG
,
AND WHEN THEY GOT UP TO
Louise's office, she grabbed the thermos on the desk and went to the kitchen to fill it up.

“You look a little ragged around the edges,” Louise commented when she returned.

Camilla nodded and smiled.

“Not that you look all that chipper yourself,” Camilla retorted. “But you're right. I had a couple of beers last night. Mmm, or maybe seven … which is actually why I'm here.”

Louise sat down, full of curiosity, and watched as Camilla pulled a few sheets of paper out of her purse.

“I ran into a man who was practically a witness to the murder in Kødbyen. He knew the murdered woman a little and saw her walk onto Skelbækgade right before she received a call on her cell phone. When she was done with the conversation, she went through the gate next to the Hospitality College, and immediately after that, a dark Audi A4 pulled up and a man got out and followed her in.”

Lars Jørgensen had been sitting at his desk talking on his phone when they entered the office. Now he hung up and listened. He knew Camilla well and had worked with her several times on cases she had covered.

“A moment later, the man came back out again and jumped into the car, which sped off.”

Camilla took off her jacket.

“Is this a witness we can talk to?” Lars asked from his desk, which faced Louise's.

Camilla shook her head.

“No. You have to use me for this witness statement.”

Louise had suspected as much when Camilla had started telling the story.

“Before you continue, I just want to see if we can't get the rest of the group in here. I know that Mikkelsen is here today talking with Toft and Stig. We IDed the woman yesterday and they're informing the Czech police so they can locate her family and make sure they're notified,” Louise said. Then she turned to Lars and asked, “Will you find Willumsen and the rest and ask them to come in here?”

Camilla stood up when everyone walked in a few moments later.

Louise introduced her to Mikkelsen. Camilla already knew everyone else.

“What's so important?” Willumsen asked brusquely when he showed up in the doorway and looked around at his investigative team. His eyes came to rest on Camilla and he took another step forward.

“God, are we here because of some reporter?”

Camilla stood up again and only now did Louise notice the hair in her friend's ponytail seemed unwashed and she was barely wearing any makeup, which was quite unusual for Camilla. But you had to know her well to see that she must have hurried out the door faster than she usually did. Not that Louise was one to talk, because she looked the same way after a night with only a couple hours of sleep and countless cups of coffee with whiskey and whipped cream. But it was more normal for her; she didn't always manage to do that conscientious a job with her makeup or tame her wild, dark hair.

“No, it's only a humble journalist here to provide law enforcement with some important information,” Camilla responded, flashing Willumsen her sweetest smile.

Louise leaned back a little with her coffee mug in her hands, ceding control to the others.

Willumsen nodded a couple of times, looking around for a place to sit down. Stig was standing in the doorway with his pen in his hand and only grudgingly did he give his place to Suhr when his superior asked him to make a little room.

Camilla repeated what she had already told Louise and Lars.

“That sounds like the two Albanians,” said Mikkelsen, who had his leather jacket over his shoulder and his glasses up on top of his head. “And Arian drives a new Audi A4.”

“Arian is also the name Pavlína knows him by,” Louise added, saying that before Pavlína had IDed Iveta in the morgue, she told them Iveta had a mother back home she was sending money to. “But she didn't say anything about a child.”

Camilla shrugged and said that she could only pass on what Kaj had told her.

“We must be able to trace the call she received,” Lars suggested and was countered by Suhr, who shook his head.

“She didn't have a cell phone on her when CSI went over the body.”

“Then it must have been removed,” Lars concluded, and no one disagreed.

“Can we use this for anything?” Willumsen wanted to know.

“Of course, damn it,” Mikkelsen exclaimed. “You can't expect to get much more than this.” He turned to Camilla. “But are you sure your source isn't someone we could talk to? He can remain anonymous and we can do the questioning off the books so he won't risk being called in later as a witness.”

Willumsen was about to protest but was interrupted by Toft, who reminded them that the source's statements meshed well with Pavlína's.

“So now there's an extra reason for us to keep a sharp eye on those two Albanians.”

Willumsen stood there for a moment with his arms crossed, nodding thoughtfully, but as he was about to leave the office Camilla stopped him with her hand.

“In exchange for this, you have to promise me you'll hold off telling any other reporters about what my source said until tomorrow, unless I call and tell you otherwise this afternoon,” she said, looking at Willumsen. His skepticism softened more when Suhr sent him a just-say-yes look.

“All right, we'll leave it at that. We really appreciate your going to the trouble to come to us with your information so we don't have to read it in the paper tomorrow,” he said, sounding satisfied, before turning his attention to the others.

“Locate that Audi so we can put a tail on it,” he ordered to no one in particular.

“And install a tracker once it's found.” That was for Toft. “Spend today and tomorrow tracking down any witness statements to support Ms. Lind's anonymous source, and find out who those Albanians are and what they do. Once we have an idea about that, you can go to the railway station and see whether the girls really do meet there daily to settle their accounts with their pimps.”

Then he gave Camilla a nod and left the office while Homicide Chief Suhr took the time to thank her properly.