The Dinosaur Feather (35 page)

“Johannes and I really liked each other, but we had incompatible views on children. Our breakup was final and clean. Soon after, I met Ulf, I got pregnant, and we stopped being part of the scene.”

“Why?” Søren wanted to know.

“Because we were in love, pregnant, and needed no one else.” Susanne smiled. Søren studied her face. Her expression was open and trusting.

“Just now you described Johannes as ‘gentle,’” Søren said, flicking through his notes even though he hadn’t made any. “Earlier today I spoke to Johannes’s mother and she paints a different picture of her son. She describes him as both ‘ungrateful’ and ‘provocative.’”

Susanne’s eyes darkened.

“Don’t listen to a word she says,” she scoffed. “She destroyed her own daughter, and she tried to destroy Johannes, too.”

Søren looked up in surprise.

“When I spoke to her today, she seemed deeply affected by the loss of her son,” he objected, baiting her.

“I don’t buy that for a moment,” Susanne sneered. “All right, she might worry about what to say to the ladies from the bridge club. It’s fashionable to have successful children in those circles. My son the CEO, my son the lawyer, and so on. I can imagine how inconvenient it must be for her to have to explain why she has no children left. Johannes’s sister killed herself, but you probably know that,” she added, when Søren failed to react. He nodded slowly.

“I thought the tension came mainly from the stepfather, Jørgen . . . ?” Søren continued flicking through his notes.

“Kampe,” Susanne prompted him. “As in Kampe Furniture. Yes, of course, a lot of it came from him, but at some level it suited Janna just fine to have a tyrant for a husband. It meant she never had to take responsibility for anything. And that was precisely how she wanted it. She behaved as the defenseless little wifey who couldn’t help having married a domineering brute who, in my opinion, abused his stepchildren. Not sexually,” she added quickly when Søren’s eyebrows shot up. “Metaphorically. His sister escaped, to some extent, by disappearing into her illness and by becoming just as passive and long-suffering as her mother. Johannes took the brunt of it. He was four years old and his sister was a baby when Jørgen entered their lives. And Jørgen cracked the whip from morning till night. Again, metaphorically speaking,” she repeated. “It was about elitism and winning. The kid should learn to ride thoroughbreds, play golf, sail, dive, stand at attention. He even criticized Johannes’s build; a real man didn’t weigh one hundred and forty pounds, a real man was over six feet tall, real men didn’t have slender, piano-playing fingers. Certainly not in Jørgen’s eyes.” She stopped talking and studied her own hands. They were large and her fingers thick, but the backs of her hands were freckled and soft, and her nails gleamed. Søren looked at the beautiful woman in the far too heavy body.

“I spent my teenage years thinking I should be different.” She glanced shyly at Søren. “My twenties were hard. In those days I truly believed visible ribs equaled happiness. If only I could lose weight, I would find a boyfriend with designer stubble, healthy interests, and a car. If only. When I turned thirty, I hit rock bottom. For nearly two years I languished in a prison of my own making . . .” She smiled at her choice of words and winked at Søren. “But then things changed. I went to therapy, I traveled, and I trained as a therapist myself. I worked as a therapist for nearly five years, then I had had my fill of navel gazing and bought The Apple. I know it might sound absurd, but suddenly I just knew I wanted to do something with apples and furniture. It was fun,” she said, sounding genuinely happy. “Building up the business from scratch. I was thirty-eight, and I was finally having fun. One of my customers, Stella, asked me if I wanted to check out the Red Mask. I knew of their parties, obviously, I had been active on the fetish scene for years, and many of the fetishists belong to both scenes, but until then the goth scene had never really appealed to me. I had joined the fetish scene purely for sex and, quite honestly, I couldn’t see the point of goth culture. But when Stella invited me, I gave it a try. Stella organizes goth and fetish events, and she often pops into the store,” she interposed and continued, “The goth scene changed my life. Here you’re accepted, respected, and valued right away and it continues like that, if you live and let live. Openness and tolerance toward anything outside the norm. I took to it like a fish to water. The third time I attended, I met Johannes. And do you know something?”

Søren shook his head.

“It was like meeting myself. Only as a ten years younger man. To begin with, I wasn’t sure if he was worth the effort. His lack of self-esteem. It reminded me of everything I had worked so hard to leave behind . . .”

Søren was mesmerized by her.

“But then I realized how complex he actually was. Of course, he was affected by the humiliation he had suffered as a child and, in some respects, his self-worth was like a sieve.” She looked pensively into space. “However, the interesting thing about Johannes was that he had decided to break the pattern, so in some areas he was strong and determined. He had made up his mind not to go through life like a whipped dog, even though he had been treated like one most of his childhood. That’s why I fell in love with him. He offered me a challenge outside the bedroom, but at the same time, he could handle that I dominated him sexually. It was a very harmonious relationship.

“We had been together for six months and were blissfully happy,” she continued. “Then I started talking about having children. I was shocked when I realized he didn’t want any, but we remained friends. I have always known I wanted children. We were both very sad, but the split was inevitable.” Susanne fell silent.

“Do you have any idea what was happening within the family at that point?” Henrik asked. Søren and Susanne turned to Henrik in unison, as though they had simultaneously remembered his presence.

“You mean Johannes’s family?”

“Yes.”

“I think we had only been together for around five weeks when Johannes had a falling out with Jørgen and, consequently, Janna. Johannes tried to reach out to his mother several times, but Jørgen always got in the way. It upset him, obviously. He never found the strength to stand up to his stepfather and, as an adult, his survival strategy had been to ignore Jørgen’s shit. We talked about his options. Johannes hoped Jørgen’s death might create an opening. Shortly after the funeral, he visited his mother and learned Jørgen had disinherited him. Johannes didn’t care, but it killed him when Janna insisted he was only there for the money. That night, he closed the door to his childhood home forever. Johannes told me everything when he came home . . .” for a moment she looked hesitantly at Søren. “I never met them myself, but . . .”

“And yet you sound so certain when you describe them,” Henrik objected. Søren shuffled his feet, annoyed at the interruption.

“I trusted Johannes. You could do that. At some level, he was damaged by his childhood,” she grimaced, “but he was a very fine human being. He made a real effort with people, and he would never have invented the scene with his mother. No one could have made up that story, and certainly not Johannes. He was far too . . . introspective.” She looked firmly at Henrik and turned to Søren again.

“I would like to pursue my question,” Henrik insisted. Susanne looked at him as though it was highly inappropriate for him to intervene and Søren couldn’t help enjoying himself.

“What if you were wrong? What if Mr. and Mrs. Kampe were well-meaning, decent people, and Johannes was the one who had gone off the rails?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Susanne stated. “I would know. And so would you.” Again she looked at Søren as though Henrik was of no consequence. “You know when you’re being played. You might choose to ignore certain signals at the time, but deep inside, you know. I believe that.”

She swallowed and continued. “Johannes may have been carrying some heavy baggage, but he had changed himself into a capable and very loving human being. Someone who had dealt with his past, who faced the future with optimism.”

“Was he bisexual?” Henrik asked bluntly. Susanne held Søren’s gaze for a moment longer, then she slowly turned to Henrik.

“No,” she declared.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. We began our relationship with complete sexual openness. No code, no core, no truth. And this applied to our sex life, too. Everything was allowed, nothing was taboo, and no, Johannes wasn’t bisexual.”

“But he wore a freaking dress,” Henrik snapped, pointing furiously to the case file lying on the table in front of him. “I’ve seen several photos of him in a dress.”

“Yes, he did. But wearing a dress doesn’t make you gay. Nor does wearing pants make you straight.” Susanne looked long and hard at Henrik’s ’80s jeans.

“Johannes got off on being dominated, and he was a transvestite. He liked going to the Red Mask wearing a skirt and full makeup. And a slightly more adult outfit at Inkognito.” Søren was aware of Henrik’s growing frustration.

“But transvestites are gay,” he snarled. Søren scratched the back of his head.

“And bikers are thugs and all pedophiles have mustaches,” Susanne Winther remarked calmly. Her gaze lingered on Henrik’s mustache, which was in dire need of a trim. “I don’t think you’ve done your homework,” she said. “Transvestites get a kick out of cross-dressing, wearing clothes traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Transsexuals are men and women who feel they have been born into the wrong body and want to switch to the right gender through a sex change operation. However, transsexuals aren’t homosexual, even though they are sexually attracted to their own sex, because . . . well, it’s obvious. If you’re 90 percent female and love a man, but you happen to have a dick because hospital waiting lists in this country are so frigging long, then that doesn’t make you male. Being a man isn’t just about having a dick, is it?” Again, she looked at Henrik’s jeans.

Søren was aware that the situation was about to ignite.

“We’re digressing,” he piped up. Susanne Winther looked straight at him.

“Johannes wasn’t bisexual,” she declared. “Anyway, why is it even an issue?”

“We have reason to believe Johannes was killed by a man. Certain evidence from the crime scene, which I can’t discuss with you, reveals—”

“That’s quite all right,” Susanne said.

“Er, thanks,” Søren spluttered. A pause followed.

“And to be honest,” he said, driven by a sudden urge to confide. “I started off thinking he was gay. Because of his clothes and his way of life. We’ve seen photos on the home page of the Red Mask. It’s clearly unfortunate that we . . .” Søren cleared his throat. “Well, that we . . . that I didn’t know the precise meaning of the terms. And our assumption . . . er . . . our very slender assumption . . . which . . . okay, here goes: traces of semen were found at the crime scene, and they didn’t come from Johannes.”

Henrik’s jaw dropped.

“And it looks like Johannes was subjected to a violent attack which caused his death.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Henrik shot up and jabbed his finger at Søren. “Are you out of your mind?” Henrik’s hand was an inch away from Søren’s face, and Søren grabbed his wrist.

“Sit down,” Søren said, guiding Henrik back to his chair. “I know what I’m doing.”

“You’re leaking information to a witness, which she might abuse,” Henrik hissed. “I’ve had it up to here with your ego trip, do you hear? You’ve lost your judgment, Søren. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“I trust her!” Søren roared. Henrik and Susanne Winther were both startled. “I trust her, for Christ’s sake! I trust what I see.” Incandescent, he pointed at his own two eyes. “Don’t you get it? We’ve got nothing to go on in this case, because we only see what we saw yesterday, the same old shit. We’ve been blinded.” The pitch of his voice started to drop. “I’ve been blinded. Everyone’s lying and I can’t see a bloody thing. I’m changing tack, don’t you get it? I’m starting where there’s some clarity. And
I
know when someone’s lying.” He fixed his gaze on Henrik’s face and narrowed his eyes slightly. “I promise you, that I—of all people—I know when someone’s lying. And she isn’t. You’re not lying.” This was addressed to Susanne Winther.

“No,” she said.

Henrik didn’t say another word. When they took a break, he stormed out, and when they resumed the interview, he sent Lau Madsen in his place. Not a problem. Søren couldn’t care less if Henrik made a complaint about him. Sometimes you just had to trust people. This also applied to the police. And Søren.

Søren escorted Susanne Winther outside.

“Good-bye,” she said, holding out her hand. It was firm and cold, just like a ripe, washed apple. Her eyes were shining.

“Good-bye,” Søren said. “I’ll call if there’s anything else.”

“Please do.” She turned around. Søren looked at her coat. A reflective disk, shaped like an apple, dangled at the knee-length hem. She waddled across the parking lot.

Susanne had given him a name. Stella Marie Frederiksen. Stella Marie was the woman who had invited Susanne to the Red Mask. Søren had noted her name, and now he was sitting in his office staring at it, distracted by his clash with Henrik. He couldn’t work out what had prompted it. Henrik had a short fuse and had been grouchy, he thought, both yesterday and today—as though he felt guilty about something. About Anna? Or was Søren becoming paranoid? He clutched his head. Henrik was spot on. Søren preferred going it alone, or, as Henrik had put it, ego tripping. He couldn’t think of a more appropriate description of his life.

He looked up Stella Marie Frederiksen’s address and discovered she lived in the Nørrebro area, in Elmegade. He found a landline as well as a cell number. He called her landline.

“Stella here.” The telephone rang only once before she answered it. She sounded out of breath. Søren hung up. Then he got up and walked down the corridor. The door to Henrik’s office was open. Henrik sat behind his desk, hammering away at his keyboard. A red patch had spread from his cheek and all the way down his neck. Søren slipped inside and managed to observe him for a while before he suddenly looked up and glared at Søren.