Life and Limb (7 page)

R
ight-wing extremist violence. Stadium unrest. Bottles hurled through the window of a socialist café. Riots at a Muslim wedding in Aarhus.

Dicte reeled off the list to herself as she walked down Mejlgade looking for the right house number. She had been online and read up on extremist groups. Kaiser was right: it wouldn't hurt to make enquiries and find out just how bad it was, especially in Aarhus, even though it was hard to imagine anyone being swayed by that kind of ideology. Seriously, how many people walked around the city raising their arms in a Nazi salute and smashing anyone with dark skin and black hair to a pulp with baseball bats? Was the problem really that big?

She found the right stairwell and had to cross a courtyard and climb up a dusty, squeaky flight of stairs where tattered old film posters hung from flaking walls that dripped with damp. The last few steps up to the third floor were like mounting a ladder to a chicken coop. There was a stench of urine and rotting rubbish, and the light in the stairwell wasn't working. She pressed the doorbell but couldn't hear it ring. So she knocked on the glass in the door. The pane was grimy with dirt and grease, and held together with packing tape over the cracks. While she waited she thought about the killings. Kosovo and Aarhus. Both had been at stadiums and the second one was possibly connected to a man wearing Doc Martens. Would extremist right-wing groups really commit such brutal murders? And across borders?

Dicte heard footsteps in the hallway and could feel herself being scrutinised as the sound of an angry male voice reached her:

‘Who is it?'

She cleared her throat.

‘Dicte Svendsen. I'm a reporter. I called yesterday.'

The security chains were removed after what seemed, to her, an eternity. Finally the door opened a crack and she was inspected by a man wearing a brown leather waistcoat over a potbelly. His shirt was voluminous and hung outside his trousers; once upon a time it had obviously been white. Frederik B. Winkler looked like a man who had spent most of his life indoors. He was pale and red eyed and he squinted at the naked light bulb hanging from the hall ceiling and revealing patterned '70s wallpaper. A grey-striped cat appeared behind him. It rubbed itself first against him then against Dicte.

‘You can't be too careful,' the man said finally. ‘Come in.'

He quickly slammed the door shut behind her and she felt a tinge of unease as all the security chains were put back in place.

‘Ah, well,' he sighed on his way into the depths of the flat, Dicte and the cat following behind in single file. ‘If they really want to kill me, they'll probably succeed eventually. Do you want some coffee?'

‘Please.'

The living room was like a student bedsit from another era. Brown velvet furniture, a tile-topped table, a foot stool in brandy-coloured leather and rustic pine furniture – a circular table and six chairs – fought for space under the sloping walls. An ancient standard lamp and a couple of green metal ceiling lights, suspended low above the coffee table, did their best to illuminate the room but failed to reach the corners.

‘So, who is planning to kill you?'

Dicte said it casually, as if it were a natural opening gambit. Privately she wondered if the man was paranoid or if he was really under threat. She had looked him up on the internet. He was a loner with unconventional methods. He had made it his life's mission to map the activities of extreme right-wing groups and his work had resulted in books and articles and, according to rumour, drawers stuffed to the brim with tapes and photos taken during the six months he had gone undercover and infiltrated a group, like the famous investigative reporter Günter Walraff. That was several years ago now and not particularly newsworthy, but she had heard that Frederik Winkler still kept his eyes peeled, although he was now using different methods.

‘Oh, various people.'

Winkler entered with a mug of coffee and placed it on the table in front of the only armchair. She sat down. It was only now that she noticed that the walls were covered with shelves from floor to ceiling. On the shelves were hundreds of ringbinders, spine after spine. She had seen photos of his office online and it was just like this: ringbinders and videotapes shelved as far as the eye could see.

‘Not everyone values being held to account for posterity.'

He sat down heavily on the sofa beneath a copy of the famous old poster with a drawing of a pig and the legend:
Danish pigs are healthy – they're bursting with penicillin.
She could imagine him eating his dinner by the coffee table, with the TV on and the poster as his only witness.

‘But to go so far as to kill you?'

He shrugged.

‘It wouldn't be the first time. And what else would you call an incendiary bomb through the glass of my front door, if not attempted murder?'

Winkler's voice had acquired a sharp edge. If he had come across as a frightened fuddy-duddy before, that impression had vanished now.

‘So, what do you want to know?'

Dicte took a sip of her coffee, which turned out to be instant.

‘Right, let me be frank with you: I know nothing about extreme right-wing groups in this town. I'm looking for background information. I could trawl the net, but what I need is up-to-date stuff which hasn't yet reached the public.'

‘You mean secrets,' he stated. ‘Or stories nobody believes?'

He was used to being met with scepticism. She leaned forward.

‘Let's call it your expertise. I need a source with insight into the subject. If you're concerned about repercussions, you can be my anonymous source. Perhaps you could introduce me to other people?'

‘And endanger my own life?'

He shook his head. It didn't seem like a no – more a reaction to her naivety. He took a deep breath, blew on his coffee and scrutinised her once again.

‘This isn't a game, you know. If you want to pry into what such groups get up to, you need to appreciate that it's not without risk. I want you to understand that.'

‘I understand.'

He nodded

‘You're the one who covered the killing of that girl at the stadium. And now you want to know if football hooligans or other extremist groups could be responsible for it?'

Dicte put her mug on the table, choosing not to reply. Winkler continued without prompting.

‘One thing is for certain: Aarhus is fast becoming a bastion of the right. They've managed to build a network here in the wake of the left-wing collapse. Copenhagen still has autonomous radical groups, so there is fertile soil there for the left. Aarhus had some extreme left-wing political activists in the nineties, but today the right has free rein here and they more or less regard the battle with the old archenemy as won.'

‘I thought immigrants were the archenemy?'

He shook his head.

‘The left is the greatest threat to the people we're talking about. A united left can prevent Nazi ideology from taking root. Besides, they're a visible enemy, and that creates a sense of solidarity.'

Dicte took that statement with a pinch of salt.

‘What about the football hooligans? White Pride?'

The cat had taken off and landed in the lap of Winkler without so much as a by-your-leave. Winkler ran his hand along its back and all the way to the tip of its tail.

‘White Pride has restructured. They are no longer as visible as they once were and some of their members have joined the Danish Front, which today is firmly located in the centre of the Danish right wing. Many of their activities are arranged and coordinated from Aarhus.'

The cat purred loudly. For a moment it was the only noise in the room.

‘The hard core of White Pride has aged, but they're still in the wings when they stir up violence at the stadiums. The problem is that they have managed to recruit new thugs known as Casuals.'

‘Casuals?'

The cat took off and landed a little clumsily on Dicte's thigh. She felt its claws dig in through the fabric of her trousers. It was still purring.

‘Casuals are young men; they wear designer labels and go in for organised violence. They support a variety of football clubs and arrange their confrontations by text message.'

‘And they're a threat?'

Dicte could hear the scepticism in her own voice. Young men in designer clothes beating each other up – it was a long way from murdering young women and gouging out their eyes.

‘They're all a potential threat.'

Again his tone was sharp and she heard the warning loud and clear.

‘They're sensitive to peer pressure and as a group they will do things they would never do on their own. Under the right circumstances, I believe they can all kill. But some have a greater propensity than others, of course.'

The cat's purring transmitted itself to Dicte. It was as if the tiny vibrations found their way to her fingertips.

‘Have you any idea who they are? I'm thinking of names, photos, video or audio recordings.'

He studied her as if weighing up the pros and cons. Perhaps he was running a huge risk by even seeing her, she thought. Or he was exaggerating. It was hard to tell.

‘The groups film each other whenever they can. At left-wing demos the right wing always appears with their discreet cameras, and vice versa. If nothing else, both groups are very well documented inside their own circles and inside their opponent's.'

‘And how about you?' Dicte asked. ‘Are you still documenting them?'

It was a polite way of asking if he, too, turned up in disguise at demos, furtively taking shots with a concealed camera.

He rose with effort from the brown velvet sofa.

‘Come with me.'

She followed him back down the hall. When he opened the door to his office she recognised the room from the photos she'd seen, but it was much smaller and more claustrophobic than she'd expected. Every surface was covered with folders, books or tapes. There was also a computer which, unlike everything else, looked brand new.

Winkler sat down on his office chair and turned on the computer. Soon afterwards he started clicking on photos. One series showed men in winter clothing with their hoods up watching a demonstration. In the next photo the central figure, a man in a light nylon jacket, had pulled out a videocamera and started filming. Another was holding a digital camera. Later photos showed the three men leaving the demonstration, still with their hoods up. The final photo showed them entering a house.

‘The man holding the video camera is Martin Brøgger. He's dangerous because he's quick on the uptake and equally quick on the trigger when things get dirty. He's the brains behind the attacks on anti-racist demos. But he also leads from the front when there's fighting to be done.'

Dicte tried to get a proper look at the man but even though Winkler zoomed in, it was very difficult to see anything other than a tall, well-built man with a square jaw.

‘And this one here.'

Winkler focused on one of the other men – the one holding the small camera.

‘The police would very much like to talk to him, although for very different reasons. It turns out he beat up his girlfriend so badly last week that she died.'

‘How do you know all this?'

She didn't intend to sound sceptical, but Winkler sent her an irritated look.

‘I don't, in theory. Forget it.'

‘What's his name?'

‘Jan Møller.'

‘Lots of people with that name.'

‘But not many whose father is the managing director of the city's biggest canned-food factory.'

‘That Møller? Erling Møller from Jakta?'

Winkler nodded and zoomed in on number three. The man was powerful and stocky although not particularly tall. There must have been a trick of the light, because Dicte could have sworn he had a couple of cold lamps under the hood, not eyes. He was wearing Doc Martens.

‘Arne Bay, also known as Arne the Celt because he has a Celtic cross tattooed across the whole of his back.'

Winkler turned away from the computer and swivelled round towards her.

‘The Celtic cross is the symbol of White Pride. It was once used by the Ku Klux Klan and the Danes who volunteered for the SS. It's banned in Sweden and in some parts of Germany.'

Again Dicte stared at the computer. They looked like three ordinary men filming in a public place. Yet she felt a cold wind blowing down her neck.

‘Tell me about Arne Bay.'

Winkler returned to the screen and resumed clicking.

‘Arne Bay is a fully paid-up racist and extremely violent. Some people would call him a psychopath. I disagree and I guess I should know. He has been involved in a fair amount of violent crime and he has also served a custodial sentence for rape.'

Photos appeared on the screen. They looked like family photos. Father and son, with huge grins, fighting for a football on a pitch. A lanky boy in goal. Dicte stared. There was something familiar about the man.

In a toneless voice Winkler said, ‘Arne Bay is my son.'

‘Y
ou have a suspect, I hope?'

Detective Chief Superintendent Hartvigsen bit into his crusty roll, spraying crumbs everywhere but onto his plate.

Wagner shrugged, knowing that he looked more nonchalant than he felt.

‘At the moment the father is our only lead.'

‘Her own father?'

Hartvigsen almost choked on his roll and spat out the words so loudly that everyone heard.

‘The lawyer?'

‘He's not the killer,' Wagner hastened to add, but the damage had already been done and a bit of masticated cheese had landed dangerously close to his open herring sandwich.

‘But he told us he's representing that socialist who was attacked in the café in Mejlgade.'

Hartvigsen looked puzzled.

‘Where right-wing extremists threw bottles through the windows and went on to smash up the whole place,' Wagner explained.

‘Ah, right.' Hartvigsen munched pensively. ‘I wonder if the two sides weren't equally to blame?' he mumbled. ‘And equally barmy,' he added in a lower tone.

‘It's possible. The trial is scheduled for September. But someone might have reason to want to eliminate Ulrik Storck before it starts.'

It wasn't until then that Hartvigsen saw the connection. And Wagner had to admit that the basis for his suspicion was thin; however, the connection was there and could not be ignored.

‘By killing his daughter, removing her eyes and deboning her? Danish Neo-Nazis? Is that their style?'

‘Is it anyone's?' Wagner asked, pushing away his plate. He had lost his appetite.

‘To me it sounds like organised crime. Russian Mafia. Chinese Triads. What do I know?'

‘In Aarhus? Against a twenty-two-year-old trainee accountant, a paragon of virtue who has never been in trouble with the law?'

‘What about her work? Do you think there could be anything there?'

Wagner finished his low-alcohol beer and wiped his mouth with his napkin. He looked at his watch.

‘We've got a meeting with her boss in fifteen minutes, so we'll know more afterwards. But I think it's highly unlikely. She was just a trainee.'

‘Wrong time, wrong place,' Hartvigsen said, narrowing his eyes so that he resembled an overweight chicken.

Wagner got up and piled his plate, glass and cutlery on the tray.

‘My money's on the father. It can't be a coincidence.'

Hartvigsen sighed and gestured for Wagner to sit down again. He leaned towards Wagner and suddenly he no longer resembled a chicken or a hearty, ruddy-faced part-time farmer – he was more like a harassed police officer whose bosses were breathing down his neck. Wagner knew what was coming even before the words were spoken.

‘We could do with some positive PR. Given all those cases.'

In Hartvigsen's eyes Wagner read that he was referring to several incidents in which the police had drawn weapons and fired. Several times with fatal consequences and most recently on a mentally ill – but, more importantly, unarmed – young man. It didn't look good.

Wagner didn't know what to say, so he contented himself with nodding and thanking his lucky stars that he didn't have Hartvigsen's job. Playing politics wasn't his thing at all. He didn't want to worry about how the police came across in the public eye. He enjoyed solving cases and catching criminals and he was happy to leave everything else to others.

Wagner got up again. He took his tray and walked away, privately promising himself that Mette Mortensen's killer would get his just deserts in due course. Out there, someone who had taken her life before violating her body in unimaginable ways was free. Gormsen, the forensic examiner, was convinced that the atrocities had happened after her death, which would obviously have spared the victim unspeakable pain. But apart from that cold comfort, nothing had changed. In fact, violating a dead body was worse somehow. Death should be inviolate; that was Wagner's opinion. A dead person is due respect, and the body should always be treated with reverence.

He had experienced death at first hand as a child, when his maternal grandparents had died in quick succession. Both had passed away at home and on both occasions the family had gathered around the deathbed in respectful, loving silence. His mother and aunt had subsequently washed the dead bodies themselves.

That was how death should be, in his eyes. And of course there was Nina, his wife, who had died from cancer a year before he'd met Ida Marie. It had not been pretty; death never was in his experience. But it had been serene because of who Nina was. She had died in hospital. He knew it had been for his sake. Because he couldn't cope with nursing her at home. Even so, saying goodbye to her had been quiet and calm and peaceful. And unbearable, he later discovered, when the void swallowed him up after her funeral.

Death should be peaceful; like the end of the second movement of a Beethoven piano sonata. He mused on this as he walked down the corridor looking for Ivar K, who was supposed to be accompanying him to Hammershøj Accountants. How paradoxical that he had ended up in a job where neither the dead nor their relatives nor their colleagues and bosses were allowed to rest in peace. There was no room for Beethoven here; Richard Wagner would be more appropriate.

The accountancy firm in Åboulevarden had twenty employees and a view of the city and port from panoramic windows on the seventh floor.

Ivar K had carried out a background search on chartered accountant Carsten Kamm, who owned the firm, but had found nothing unusual except his surname, which – as Eriksen had pointed out – he happened to share with a Danish Nazi who now lived in Germany, and whom thus far had proved impossible to extradite in order to be prosecuted for the murder of a Danish journalist during the Occupation of World War II.

They had checked out any potential family connections, but the name had proved to be mere coincidence and, furthermore, Kamm had one more ‘m' in his surname than the old Nazi. Privately, Wagner felt some sympathy for Kamm. He, too, had suffered on account of his surname. Most people associated the name Wagner with music, although a few knew of the German composer's flirtation with Nazism or, rather, Nazism's flirtation with him and his music. There was no evidence to suggest that he was related to Richard Wagner, the composer, but it didn't stop people wanting to draw parallels.

Despite the initial sympathy, Wagner found it hard to warm to Kamm, who was tall and bald in that intimidating, well-groomed manner favoured by doormen and bodyguards and which Wagner had never liked. His scalp had a glowing bronze hue and told of repeated visits to a solarium, and he looked fit and trim. For a man whose mistress had just been murdered and mutilated he was remarkably calm – almost disturbingly so, Wagner thought.

‘We can go in here.'

Kamm was wearing a grey suit cut in what appeared to be a narrow, modern style. The first impression was that it was conservative, but Wagner noticed that his tie was black leather and his shoes were, in fact, boots made from something resembling snakeskin. Associations started pouring in, and before they had time to seat themselves around a table in the meeting room Wagner had made up his mind that Kamm himself was not unlike a snake, with his swift, slithering movements and a gaze which took in Wagner and Ivar K yet did not fasten onto anything or anyone.

Kamm had sat down at the end of the table as if he had appointed himself chair of the meeting. He checked his watch.

‘I have a meeting in fifteen minutes. I hope we can make this quick.'

His voice was snappy and his manner showed that he was unaccustomed to being contradicted.

Ivar K rocked back on the expensive designer chair, making it creak.

‘We'll take as long as we have to.'

Kamm cleared his throat.

‘Of course. And what happened is a tragedy. But people here have work to do.'

Wagner almost felt sorry for the man when he saw the ripple of a smile form on Ivar K's lips. The bad boy of the class took his time. He studied his nails which, unlike Kamm's, could have done with a good scrub. Ivar K had recently realised a boyhood dream and bought a motorbike, which he tinkered with in his garage at home.

‘Funny you should mention that,' Ivar K said in a tone likely to explode. ‘We're here to work, too.'

‘Naturally, but …'

Kamm was evidently no great psychologist, so he didn't notice that he was sitting opposite a ticking bomb. Wagner considered placing his hand on Ivar K's arm, which was indeed twitching, as if Ivar K was struggling to prevent it from dragging Kamm across the table by his leather tie.

‘Listen to me,' Ivar K said through clenched teeth. ‘Your mistress is in cold storage at the Institute of Forensic Medicine with her eyes gouged out. Don't you think you could spare a little time to answer a few harmless questions? Such as where you were last Sunday? You didn't go to the match by any chance, did you?'

His voice was chilling. Wagner saw the fear in Kamm's eyes and coughed.

‘Now, now, everybody calm down,' he said. ‘We're investigating a murder and we need all the help we can get. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about Mette?'

Kamm's mouth tightened.

‘I'm wondering if I should call my lawyer,' he said quietly.

‘I'm sure that won't be necessary,' Wagner said while Ivar K picked at his cuticles and popped something into his mouth. ‘We're assuming you haven't done anything wrong.'

For a while Kamm sat with his eyes closed, as if he could barely tolerate the sight of the detectives. This was probably the truth, Wagner thought. He was loath to admit it, but every now and again Ivar K's temper paid off: it made people more cooperative.

‘What can I say? Mette was a lovely, clever girl. It was obvious right from the start that she had a head for figures.'

‘And not just figures,' Ivar K cut in, back in business. ‘When did she become your mistress?'

‘My mistress!'

The words were spoken with a snort. ‘Who says she was? That's an outright lie!'

Ivar K let out a soft whistle.

‘I don't know how much you know about murder investigations,' he began. ‘However, they involve some DNA testing. We simply borrow the victim's clothing from the laundry basket at home and send it off for further examination for hair and dust and other foreign particles. And semen, obviously,' he said, casually, inspecting his nails again. ‘It's known as forensic evidence and if it stands up in court, it can lead to a conviction.'

Kamm looked as if he was planning to beat a hasty retreat.

‘I'm not saying I never had sex with her. But I wouldn't use the term “mistress”, given the few times we were together.'

‘How many times was that?' said Ivar K.

‘I wasn't counting.'

‘So more than twice?'

‘Probably,' came the reluctant answer.

‘Three.'

Kamm didn't stir.

‘Four times?'

The man cleared his throat.

‘Where are you going with this? I was at a family gathering all day Sunday, with my wife's parents in Stilling.'

‘We'll probably have to speak to your wife,' Ivar K said.

‘For God's sake. Can't you use a little discretion?'

It nearly always worked. For the first time Kamm looked genuinely nervous. It wasn't, however, a killer's fear of being exposed – it was that of a husband dreading his wife's fury, Wagner thought.

‘Okay. Listen,' Kamm began.

Wagner pricked up his ears and Ivar K suddenly paid attention. Kamm placed both palms on the table face up and looked at the other men before continuing.

‘Yes, we had an affair. It was wrong and I should never have started it and I have regretted it ever since. Mette fell in love with me. She was terribly disappointed when I broke it off.'

‘Was she blackmailing you?' Ivar K asked.

‘No, no, no, not at all. She wasn't like that. She kept her distance, and she carried on doing her job.'

‘What was Mette working on?' said Wagner.

Kamm closed his eyes again.

‘She didn't have her own clients, obviously,' he said, now staring up at the ceiling. ‘She was only a trainee. But she helped a couple of her colleagues audit a firm of solicitors and a sports shop, I think it was.'

‘We'll want to speak to those colleagues. Anything else?' Wagner said. ‘You and she didn't work together?'

‘How about overtime?' Ivar K suggested with a grin. Wagner shot him a warning glance. It was possible to go too far.

Kamm shook his head, tore himself away from studying the ceiling and focused on them.

Could he be a dangerous killer? Wagner tried to read his mind while Ivar K rounded off with a couple of routine questions. No one could be eliminated yet and Kamm's alibi would have to be checked, but Kamm came across as nothing more than an arrogant creep who had taken advantage of his position to seduce a young woman and make her fall in love with him. Wagner had some sympathy for Mette. Bosses had power and women were attracted to that, although he hoped it wasn't the reason Ida Marie had originally fallen for him when he was leading the investigation into her son's kidnapping.

In addition to authority, some women might have found Kamm's macho appearance – with muscles bulging under his suit – a turn-on. It was blatantly obvious, though, that Kamm had never been in love with Mette.

Wagner stood up. So young, so dead and so in love with a man who didn't deserve her affection.

‘Thank you for your time. Perhaps you could show us where Mette worked?'

Kamm flung out his hands apologetically.

‘I'm afraid not. All she had was a desk, and we've cleared that already as we're short of space.'

‘Cleared it!'

Ivar K spat out the words. Wagner couldn't blame him.

‘A colleague has been brutally murdered and the first thing you do is clear her desk?'