Next of Kin (24 page)

‘Suspects?'

Wagner looked out across his team who had gathered in the briefing room.

‘There's still Jens Jespersen,' Ivar K maintained. ‘We've only got his word that the money he transferred to Husum was a fee for sexual services to Johanne Jespersen.'

Wagner was secretly impressed by Ivar K's muted vocabulary. It was unlike him to employ sanitised terms such as ‘sexual services', and it also surprised him that no other snide Ivar K-style comments were added, like ‘shag-a-granny' or ‘rent-a-bull'. Perhaps Jens Jespersen's sexuality had frightened him to the extent that certain terms had been wiped from his hard drive.

‘The money could be for services rendered to him personally. And if Husum then decided he wanted out, Jespersen might have lost his rag,' Ivar K insisted.

Wagner had to agree with him. Johanne Jespersen's nephew might still have a motive for killing Kjeld Arne Husum. And Johanne Jespersen might still have died as a result of being raped, although her body had been found too late to determine any measurable signs of assault. All in all, there were still too many unanswered questions and he didn't like it. They ought to have been much further down the road with the investigation, and their frustration hung in clumps in the air as old internal rivalries surfaced.

‘But how likely is that?'

The team sat with full coffee flasks within easy reach and note pads and stacks of files; some neater than others.

‘Jespersen doesn't strike me as someone who could play the role of executioner.'

Ivar K sent him a defiant look.

‘Many serial killers are nice, respectable men no one would ever suspect. Surely we can't rule him out just because he doesn't look like Hannibal Lecter.'

‘But he did look respectable,' chipped in Eriksen, who could have passed for an obese version of the aforementioned.

‘And then there's the Tampax packaging,' Hansen added. ‘We know that a woman had access to the house on Samsø. That rules out Jens Jespersen.'

‘Maybe he'd had a secret sex change operation,' Ivar K said in a stage whisper and Wagner recognised his old colleague.

Hansen at once became defensive. ‘I still see Connie Husum as a potential murderer … Murderess.'

Wagner sighed. Gays and women. Was this really the best they could come up with as candidates for the job of executioner?

‘Talking about Connie Husum, she'll be coming up the stairs any minute,' Eriksen announced as he checked his watch.

‘What have we got?' Wagner asked. ‘Did we manage to get hold of her husband?'

Eriksen nodded. ‘He's confirmed her alibi. She took some pills and slept the whole morning. He looked after the kids and sent them to school. Her doctor confirms issuing a second prescription for sleeping pills, but that proves nothing.'

He's right, it doesn't prove anything, Wagner thought. But he still found it impossible to think of Connie Husum as a suspect and again he wondered why. Surely it didn't have anything to do with the fact that, if the truth were told, he was attracted to her? Aided in no small way by a peek down her cleavage and the heavy crystal jewel dangling between her breasts? Not to mention her sensuous voice and the memory of the seductive melody of the saxophone from the back room.

Wagner took a deep breath. Self-knowledge was all very well, and he was only human after all, yet he was still disappointed by his own performance.

As if on cue, there was a knock on the door and a young officer popped his head around the door.

‘There's a lady here who wants to talk to you,' he announced, his cheeks so red that Wagner wondered if Connie Husum was still wearing the famous silk kimono from their first memorable visit.

He gathered up his files, got up and nodded to Jan Hansen, who followed him. Ivar K gave Hansen an envious look as he and Wagner headed for the door.

‘How come he always gets the women?' he sulked.

Connie Husum was already on cigarette number two. Number one had been stubbed out in an ashtray on the table, smoked right down to the filter which was covered in vivid red lipstick marks. She sat draped across the chair as if it were a bar stool in Rick's Café in
Casablanca
and she were an extra in the eponymous film. She wasn't wearing her silk kimono, but a spotted wrap dress pulled tightly across her breasts. There was a cup of coffee in front of her on the table.

As Wagner and Hansen entered, she looked up with a gaze of languid sensuality and a smile crossed her face.

‘We meet again,' she said. Wagner visualised her holding a microphone close to her lips, singing a sardonic song about doomed love.

‘There were a few things we just wanted you to clear up for us,' Hansen explained in a neutral voice as they sat down opposite her.

She raised her eyebrows in response and leaned her head back. The movement made her hair swirl around her neck. Hansen swallowed and went on.

‘It's about the relationship between Kjeld Arne and the daughter you shared, Charlie.'

‘My daughter,' Connie corrected. ‘Kjeld Arne was no father.'

‘But presumably he was her biological father?' asked Wagner.

She nodded and blew out smoke at the same time. A hand followed and dispersed the smoke. ‘As far as I know. Does it matter?'

‘No.'

Hansen stared down at the table. Wagner decided to get straight to the point.

‘Did he sexually abuse his daughter?'

She looked away. At the wall, up at the ceiling, anywhere her eyes were allowed to rest undisturbed. Her eyes became strangely misted. It might have been tears, but Wagner refused to believe that.

‘Let me put it this way,' she said after a pause. ‘It was an abuse that Kjeld Arne even existed in Charlie's life.'

Wagner cleared his throat. ‘Why do you hate him so much?'

Her surprise was only visible for a brief moment and he realised that she hadn't been expecting this question. A sudden flicker of vulnerability became apparent, but the covers were soon back as she lowered her eyes and took another drag of her cigarette.

‘Perhaps because I never found the courage to do what some other poor bastard was finally forced to do.' Her eyes narrowed as if the light hurt them. ‘Kjeld Arne abused everyone, one way or another. But yes … Charlie was one of his victims and I was another. Age was no obstacle.'

‘Did you know that he sold sexual services to an elderly woman in the block where he lived, a Johanne Jespersen?'

She shook her head, but didn't look in the least bit surprised. ‘No. Must have been after my time.'

‘So Charlie was sexually abused?' Hansen put the question to her and loaded it with all his revulsion and contempt.

She shrugged. ‘There are worse things than physical abuse.'

‘Can you be more precise?' Wagner asked.

‘He was a good-looking man, Kjeld Arne, when I first met him. Full of life. Everything about him exuded testosterone: the way he moved, spoke, the way he …' She came to a halt. Her eyes focused on her nails, which were red and long and probably fake.

‘Sex,' Hansen came to her rescue. ‘That was what it was about?'

‘For him, yes.'

‘And what about you? And Charlie?' Wagner said. ‘If he was abusing her, why didn't you report it?'

Again her eyes scanned the room. They were dark and doleful when they finally met his. ‘I don't know if these four walls have ever experienced this,' she said. ‘I don't even know if it's a factor that would have any significance in a place like this. But there is something so intangible, something that floats unhindered in the air and lives and survives on nothing, or in spite of it.'

She produced a sad smile. ‘Unfortunately this wasn't something Kjeld Arne had a particular talent for.'

The room was quiet for a while. Wagner's hand wanted to place itself on hers on the table, but he restrained it.

‘You loved him,' he said. ‘In spite of what he did to your daughter.'

She flared up. A hard shadow flitted across her face and settled somewhere between her make-up and her bare skin. ‘I got Charlie out of there as soon as I found out,' she said. ‘I obviously wasn't prepared to live with a man who molested his own daughter.'

‘But you continue to love him,' Wagner insisted. ‘You still love him.'

She shook her head, but her eyes told a different story.

‘Enough to kill him?' asked Hansen, who, like all policemen, knew that love and hate were two sides of the same coin. ‘Enough to stage a spectacular act of revenge by executing him?'

A solitary tear rolled down her cheek. She stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray. ‘If I was going to kill anyone, it would have been myself.'

‘Why?' Hansen asked.

‘Because I had been blind. Because I didn't find out until it was …'

‘Too late?' Hansen said.

She took a fresh cigarette from the packet on the table. Hansen quickly grabbed her lighter and lit up for her; she sucked in through the filter then released a cloud of smoke.

‘Charlie,' she said, searching for the words. Then she shook her head. ‘I suppose you could say she is ahead of her peers in areas where she shouldn't be.'

The cigarette was held between the tips of two fingers while she massaged her temple with her thumb and stared out into space.

Irreparable damage, Wagner thought, and wondered, not for the first time, why it was so often those closest to you who got hurt. He nodded to Hansen. They both knew. They had a suspect. They might not think she was guilty, but she had a clear motive.

Later, Wagner was sitting in his office when there was a knock on the door. Kurt Strøm, the PET officer, entered.

‘Busy?' he asked, taking an uninvited seat, his face wrapped in the appropriate folds of professional gravity.

Wagner shrugged. He had, in fact, been thinking about Connie Husum and whether they had enough evidence to arrest and charge her. Right now crime scene investigators were taking prints off her coffee cup to try to match them to the one found on the Tampax paper. With any luck they would have a result soon and if there was a match, at least he had something tangible to work with. He told this to Strøm, who seemed uninterested in a suspect who had no terrorist links or who hadn't been caught red-handed with instructions on how to make a suicide bomb.

‘Any other news?' he asked Strøm, who leaned forward and rested an elbow on his desk.

‘Does the name Mustapha Pinar mean anything to you?'

Wagner nodded. ‘He was a suspect in the case of the murdered woman at the port the summer before last. A religious extremist, it would appear. He skipped the country before we could question him. Why do you ask?'

Strøm gave him a quizzical look as if to imply that Wagner was deliberately withholding something from him. ‘Where did he go?'

‘We have good reason to think he went to Iraq. As a jihadist, as they're known. Have you found him? Because if you have, we'd very much like to ask him some questions.'

He ought to have guessed that Mustapha Pinar was part of something bigger. The crime squad couldn't just pull him in for questioning in connection with an unrelated case. Yet he still felt annoyed when Strøm said:

‘There has been some contact between him and the other four terrorist detainees from Glostrup. We need to do a bit more digging around, but it's only a question of time before we bring him in.'

‘What kind of contact?'

‘On the internet,' Strøm said. ‘Emails.'

Wagner thought of Aziz and Rose. Mustapha had been Aziz's closest childhood friend and now they were sworn enemies. He was certain that there was no connection, but he was obliged to tell Strøm who listened with interest.

‘And Rose is Dicte Svendsen's daughter, you said?'

Wagner nodded and told him about the attack.

‘She pops up everywhere, this Svendsen woman,' Strøm muttered to himself. ‘Sometimes I wonder whose side she is really on.'

Wagner looked straight at him. ‘She's a journalist. She's on her own side.'

Strøm sighed and got up. ‘That's precisely what worries me.'

Wagner detected the slightly contemptuous tone and was overcome by an urge to defend her, but who was he actually trying to convince?

He put Dicte to one side instead and said, ‘All of Mustapha's family are well known to us. They live in Gellerup. Jan Hansen knows them from his days on the beat, so perhaps you ought to have a word with him and get some background information.'

Strøm nodded. Wagner was pleased. At least he had given Strøm something to go on.

‘Well, good luck then,' he said, watching Strøm's back as he disappeared out of his office. Further down the corridor, Strøm held up a hand and turned around.

‘We'd better have another meeting with Dicte Svendsen and brief her,' he said. ‘Since we now have a link between a possible terrorist plot and the person who received the film. Would you arrange it?'

Wagner closed his eyes for a moment. He couldn't escape her, her intense eyes, her search for the truth at all costs. Strøm was right. She was everywhere.

‘I'll try to get her to come here today,' he said, watching Strøm leave the office for a second time.

He considered the two worlds. He lived in his own little crime world. He looked for killers and had finally found someone with a motive. Simple. No global politics here, even though the execution in Britain troubled him. Though Connie Husum might have been in contact with a fellow victim over there. Perhaps it was no more than two people on a personal crusade and not, as Strøm was fantasising, an extremist political conspiracy against society. Because that was Strøm's world. Those were the lenses he was wearing.

Wagner got up and went down to the canteen. He wondered whose lenses were in focus.

‘Mustapha Pinar. Isn't that a bit of a long shot? I've never met him, nor seen a picture of him, for that matter.'

Dicte looked from Strøm to Wagner, who evaded her eyes. Kurt Strøm looked fed up with her. His entire posture and facial expression, from the way he had his arms crossed to the impatient swinging of his foot, signalled antipathy. They had been summoned to a meeting in Wagner's office. Hartvigsen should also have been there, but he had gone to another meeting in Copenhagen.

‘We're only trying to keep you up to date,' Strøm said. ‘You're at the hub of this whole case and you should know how things are going if he contacts you again. Either directly or through others.'

‘Why would Mustapha contact me? As I said, we've never met.'

Strøm shrugged. ‘You've been contacted by others from those circles before. I assume you haven't forgotten. To my knowledge there's also a link to him via your daughter and her boyfriend.'

‘Rose has nothing to do with any of this.' She sighed and chewed at a nail. They saw bloody terrorists everywhere. A little doubt crept in and she was annoyed because she let it happen. ‘That's completely different.'

‘How do you know?' Strøm asked. ‘How can you be sure that Pinar isn't our black penguin with the sabre in his hand? It might fit in with his sympathies for Al Qaeda and his trip to Iraq. He might also have a connection, albeit peripheral, with you via Rose and Aziz.'

Again she looked at Wagner and thought she caught a faint signal. Perhaps he wasn't taking it seriously, but only because he didn't have to. Cloak and dagger stuff wasn't his thing. He was busy with a murder case, and he was more than happy to leave suspicions of terrorism to others.

Her brain struggled to make all the pieces fit. ‘That must mean you've found a link between the execution and the terrorism suspects in Glostrup,' she concluded. ‘If you have, that is quite different. Otherwise it's just pie in the sky.'

Strøm didn't seem to care for her description of PET's work. He lowered his brows and formed several chunky furrows over the bridge of his nose. ‘So you haven't had any contact with Pinar?'

‘No.'

‘What about others in his circle? Any other immigrants?'

She shook her head.

‘Not even after the attack on your daughter?'

‘Especially not then.'

Strøm scrutinised her closely as though wanting to peel away her outer shell, break in and take what they both knew she was holding back.

‘What else do you do?' he asked in an innocent tone, as his eyes scanned his dark trousers and a hand brushed off invisible fluff. ‘Apart from wreaking havoc in the country with scare-mongering articles?' he added.

She didn't have the energy to defend Kaiser's editorial decisions on top of everything else, but it was happening everywhere. Even her Iranian hairdresser had taken her to task, though with a kind smile and a cup of mint tea.

‘We have no choice,' she said. ‘We took a back seat as agreed. But after the execution in England we couldn't stand by and watch. You know that very well. Aside from that, may I refer you to my editor?'

She said that thinking they might not have had her under surveillance after all. Anyone else, yes. But a journalist? Defending their actions would be tricky if anything came out.

‘Thank you. I've had the pleasure already,' Strøm mumbled and stood up.

‘I can imagine.'

‘You didn't answer my question.'

She knew she was playing with fire when she answered his question with another question, and sensed Wagner's suppressed sigh.

‘What about the films? Have you had them analysed? Is there anything new on that front?' She turned to Wagner. ‘And what about the murder weapon? You must have an expert opinion by now? Where's it from? Which country? How old is it?'

Wagner didn't reply. Strøm sent her a grave look and shook his head in wonder.

‘I hope you know what you're doing, Dicte Svendsen. You have refused protection. But you should know that we view your position with considerable concern. It's far more serious than you imagine.'

Was there an underlying threat? Or was he really concerned for her?

‘Sounds as though you know something I don't,' she said. He left with a nod to both of them, but said over his shoulder:

‘I certainly hope I do. Otherwise I should start looking for a new job.'

The room felt strangely empty after Strøm's exit, and it was a while before either of them spoke. She looked at Wagner, who was observing the street below, his aquiline nose in profile.

‘The sabre is apparently a relic of the Crimean war,' he said, holding his gaze out the window. ‘Our expert in Copenhagen thinks it's Turkish.' He turned to face her. ‘You don't make it easy for yourself.'

She could hear all his latent questions and had to steel herself not to empty the whole bag of information over him and beg for help. But he was a policeman and she was a journalist, and there was no guarantee he wouldn't feel obliged to leak it to Strøm, who would then scour her past and perhaps force things out of her that were best sealed under a very heavy lid.

She met his eyes and thought she could detect care and concern in them. It was so tempting to believe that he could be an ally. However, she said, ‘How's the investigation going otherwise?'

Now he was the one who felt an urge to talk. He loosened his tie and relaxed his resigned pose, leaning his head back and fixing his gaze on a few books at the top of the shelving.
Nordisk Kriminalreportage
.

‘Off the record?'

She nodded. It was better than nothing.

‘We've just had one theory blown out of the water. Two sets of fingerprints that didn't match.'

He sounded weary all of a sudden. She looked at his face and noticed his age for the first time. He was in his mid-fifties but there were days like today when he looked ten years older. Days that taxed your energy, and days when violent death and extremist actions won over calm, considered and methodical work. She thought of Ida Marie, who was thirteen years younger, and hoped she was patient.

‘No suspects then?'

Wagner rolled his shoulders. The time for confidences was over. Instead he rummaged around in the papers on his desk and held out a sheet with a photograph attached.

‘This might be of some use to you. His wife says he's been missing since yesterday. An article would be handy.'

She stared at the picture of a slight man. A prime example of ‘Average build' and ‘Average appearance'. Not a single characteristic—not hair nor nor eye colour—caused him to stand out.

‘Who is he?'

‘His name's Anders Nikolajsen. Address in Lystrup. He was sentenced to nine months and released a week ago.

‘What was he in for?'

Wagner's eyes flicked back to
Nordisk Kriminalreportage
again, as if he was finding the answer on the bookshelf.

‘Molesting his daughter. Eight years old at the time.'