The Forgotten Girls (9 page)

I’
D LIKE TO
file a missing person report for my other daughter,” Lisemette’s father began as he called back just after lunch. “I’ve spoken with both the son who took over the funeral home that was in charge of all funerals from Eliselund and with his father, who owned the business back in 1980. The father retired that same year. He still has all his old appointment books and he’s willing to swear that he didn’t bury any of my girls. The only person he buried from Eliselund that year before handing over the business to his son was a man who was so overweight that he wouldn’t fit in a standard coffin. That turned into a big mess because they couldn’t agree on who should pay for the custom coffin. Also, he’s absolutely certain that he never buried a pair of twin girls at the same time.”

Louise smiled at Eik.

“I also told him that I didn’t understand how they could
make out death certificates for people who didn’t die,” Viggo Andersen went on.

“What did he have to say to that?” she asked with curiosity and got out a pen.

“He suggested that I check with the parish office to find out if the death was recorded in the parish register.”

“And it wasn’t?” Louise guessed, holding her breath.

Viggo Andersen told her that the woman at the parish office had checked through the register from 1980 twice. “Neither of the girls had been entered. In fact, no one their age was even buried that year,” the father finished, his voice sounding pained. “But now I’ve identified Lise myself so there’s no doubt that she didn’t die back then. I just simply can’t understand how this happened. Why was I told something like that? It’s just incomprehensible… And what became of Mette? We have to find out if she’s alive, too.”

Louise understood his urgency. She knew it had to be completely surreal for him to see his daughter after believing for so many years that she was dead. She had been a little girl the last time they had been together.

“Now we’ll write up an official missing person report for your daughter,” she promised, “and then we’ll continue our search. Thank you so much for all you’ve done.”

“I should be thanking you,” he said and asked Louise to keep him informed.

She brought her scribbled notes down the hall to Rønholt’s office.

“I just got a call from Viggo Andersen. He’s filing a missing person report for the other twin,” she told him from the doorway. The front office was empty, and her boss was watering his plants.

Rønholt put down the pitcher. “Now you’re being stubborn,” he said irritably.

“Neither of the girls was ever buried and their deaths were never recorded in the parish register,” Louise calmly explained. “There’s every reason to believe that Mette’s still alive.”

“Well, Jesus, then go find her!”

“W
E’RE PROCEEDING
,” L
OUISE
said when she returned from Rønholt’s office. She started to unfold a map on the desk. “If we can find out where Lise stayed for the thirty-plus years she was outside the system, then maybe we’ll find Mette.”

“There must be a limit to how far she could have walked through the woods barefoot,” Eik said, leaning in over the map while searching for Avnsø Lake. He smelled of cigarettes and leather, and Louise moved over a little to allow him a better view.

She drew an X on the map where Lise was found. “What do you think?” she asked. “Does two, three miles from where we found her sound realistic?”

Eik nodded. Louise placed her pencil on the map and drew a circle to indicate the radius.

“Are there any houses within that area?” he asked.

Louise considered his question. Actually all the houses she knew of in the forest qualified. The circle encompassed both the forester’s house in one direction and the Snipe House out toward Skjoldnæsholm; then of course there were the houses in Lerbjerg from the Tollhouse to Crane House.

“Yes, there are several,” she said. “I think the most interesting houses are the ones inside the forest. I guess there are five or six of them. Let’s start with those, and then we can move on to the couple of houses on the street where the child care provider lived.”

When Louise returned from the copy room with more
pictures of Lise, Eik stood holding a cup of coffee. He asked if she wanted one for the drive, too. She was about to say no then caught herself. It wouldn’t hurt to be a little more approachable.

“Yes, please,” she said and smiled at him.

T
HEY DROVE INTO
the woods on the same road as last time, but instead of turning off toward Avnsø Lake they continued straight ahead. An old timber-frame house lay almost entirely hidden among the tall trees.

“Does anyone live in there?” Eik exclaimed in surprise as they got out.

A couple of dogs barked and threw themselves at the gate before they reached it.

“There, there…” Louise tried to calm them down without much luck, and she startled when something suddenly jangled right by her ear.

Eik had pulled the string of a large ship’s bell that hung from the fencepost by the gate. “I guess you’re supposed to ring the bell,” he said and pulled it one more time.

“Coming.” They heard a deep voice from a black wooden shed next to the house. A small man in blue overalls appeared with an ax in his hand. “Shut up now!” he yelled at the dogs before walking toward them.

“Hey, Verner.” Louise smiled as he looked at her with surprise.

“Is that you?” he exclaimed. “Last time I saw you, you had braids and were riding bareback on a Norwegian pony.”

He was missing two teeth next to his right-side front tooth, which left a black gap in his mouth when he smiled. Verner Post was the epitome of good nature and had lived in the Snipe House for as long as Louise had been coming to the woods. He
often visited her parents and helped her father fell trees, and he brought up the horse and the braids every time he saw her. She thought there were certain things you just never outgrew.

She led the way through the gate after he opened it. The dogs had lain down in the shade by the house wall and barely bothered to raise their heads as they walked by.

“A woman was found out by Avnsø Lake last week,” Louise started after introducing Eik.

“Yes, terrible story with those little ones.” He told her that one of the children was Lene’s grandchild. “Lene from the doctor’s office—you know her, right?”

Louise nodded. She remembered the medical secretary well, but she didn’t know her daughter or the grandchild.

“That’s actually not the woman we’re here to talk about though.” She got the pictures of Lise Andersen’s face with closed eyes out of her bag. She told him about the accident by the slope but left out the rest of the woman’s story.

“We believe she may have lived out here in the woods or somewhere nearby. The woman looked quite ragged when we found her so she might have been homeless.”

Verner Post had looped his thumbs through the straps of his overalls. “They do come around from time to time.” He let the drifters sleep in the shed when the weather acted up, he continued. “They always know where to find shelter and a bottle of beer. Not too many people around here that are happy to put them up. But I don’t think I’ve seen that one there. The only woman who shows up with that crowd sometimes is the Tiger Princess, but she hasn’t come around since her husband died.”

He squinted a little as he tried to remember.

“I believe he was the one who got hit by a car when he was walking along the main road with his pram.”

The thought that Lise might have taken to the road hadn’t
occurred to Louise. There weren’t many vagabonds left, but of course it was worth following up on.

“She would never have survived a life like that,” Eik cut in, reminding her that Lise had been severely handicapped.

“You’re probably right,” Louise agreed. Although many of those who walked the country roads had drowned most of their brain cells in alcohol, they were nonetheless people who were able to take care of themselves.

“Could she have been staying with someone out here?” Eik suggested in an attempt to get Verner Post thinking along other lines.

The small man stared straight ahead for a moment while thinking. Then he shook his head. “It’s mostly people from the city moving into the houses out here these days. It all seems so idyllic to them,” he said sarcastically and shook his head.

“Are any of the houses empty?” Eik asked.

Louise was relieved to let him do the talking. She felt a little awkward questioning people she knew.

Verner Post frowned a little and rubbed his chin as he pondered the question. “Pasture House,” he suggested. “It’s been empty for a long time, but it’s farther away from here, of course.”

He looked at Louise. “You know, out toward Ny Tolstrup.”

She nodded.

“Actually someone just moved in,” he added. “I think I saw a car parked there last time I passed by. But you should ask Bodil. She lives closer.”

At the mention of the name, Louise and Eik looked at each other. She nodded again and signaled to her partner. It was enough; there was nothing more to talk about.

“Tell my folks hi,” she said. It had been over a month since she had seen her parents. “You’ll probably see them before I do.”

“P
ASTURE
H
OUSE
,” E
IK
said as he tossed his leather jacket into the backseat before getting in the car. “You know the way.”

Louise nodded. One of her friends from school had lived there for a while. “It’s not far from the gamekeeper’s house if you go through the woods,” she explained, and added that talking to Bodil was an excellent idea. “She’s the one who’s married to Jørgen—the guy who waved to us. They’ve lived in the woods a long time and know the area. She worked at Avnstrup Sanatorium, which was a care unit under Saint Hans Hospital before it closed down. When I was a kid, we used to ride our bikes to buy candy at Tutten—the kiosk at Avnstrup—and we were always scared shitless because some of the patients would say weird things when we ran into them.”

She suddenly realized that she was making small talk about things that were none of his business.

“It was originally an old tuberculosis hospital,” she finished, diverting the conversation from her childhood.

“What did you look like back then?” Eik asked curiously. “A skirt and long, dark braids?”

“I wore torn jeans and had a crew cut,” she said, even though it wasn’t true. She had in fact had long braids. Braids, dirty jeans, and cuts or scratches all over, and she spent most of her time on the back of her horse, but that was none of his business.

T
HE LARGE WHITE
gate to the courtyard in front of the gamekeeper’s house was open. Even though the gravel was newly raked, Louise pulled all the way up and parked next to the front door.

She had only just turned off the engine when Bodil appeared in the doorway. She clearly didn’t recognize Louise at first but as soon as she had introduced herself, they were invited in.

“I’m just having lunch,” she said. “Jørgen went to take a nap.” She showed them into the entrance hall.

“This will just take a moment,” Louise said quickly. “We don’t want to interrupt while you’re eating.”

“Pish-posh—there’s coffee in the pot,” Bodil said and shook her head at Louise.

Louise remembered that her parents had attended the brunch party when Bodil turned seventy but she couldn’t recall if that was one or two years ago. They took off their shoes and followed her into the cozy, low-ceilinged living room.

“I’m out here. Do you guys want a cup?”

They followed her through a small hallway and into a large kitchen.

“He’s been so tired all day. I hope he’s not getting sick,” Bodil chattered while pouring their coffee. “Men are always such babies whenever they catch the slightest thing.”

She winked at Eik and put the pot back on the burner.

Louise had taken out the photograph of Lise. She handed it to Bodil across the table and asked if she had noticed the woman walking around the woods.

The elderly woman took the picture and studied it carefully before putting it back down.

“Is she dead?” she asked, looking up.

Louise nodded. “She was found by Avnsø Lake last week.”

Bodil slowly put the picture down and shook her head. “It was terrible what happened to our neighbors over on Stokkebo Road.”

Louise knew that around these parts, people considered anyone who lived within a mile or two a neighbor.

“How did she die?”

“She fell down the slope behind the camping cabin,” she answered.

It was obvious from Bodil’s expression that the killing of the child care provider had, understandably, sent waves of fear through the small community.

Bodil picked the photograph back up and looked at it before handing it back to Louise.

“This one wasn’t a crime,” Eik interjected. “The woman died as the result of an accident and we’re just trying to find out whether she lived in the area since she was found in the woods.”

“You didn’t see anyone driving into the woods last week?” Louise suggested.

Bodil shook her head. “But then of course Jørgen is more the one to pay attention to things like that. Lately he’s been very preoccupied with a white van that’s started coming to the parking lot. But it’s mostly because they don’t greet him even though they come here often.”

She shook her head a little.

“That kind of thing really hurts him,” she elaborated in Eik’s direction.

“What kind of van is it?” he asked with interest.

Bodil shook her head again. “I don’t know, but then I’m not so good at cars,” she admitted. “I’ll just go see if he’s awake so I can ask him.”

She got up and disappeared into the living room. They heard a door open and close. Louise emptied her cup and placed it in the sink. She had put the photograph back in her bag when Bodil returned.

“It’s an old Toyota HiAce with no windows, and the last time he saw it was last Wednesday. He’s marked it off in his
calendar—he does that when there’s something he needs to remember.”

The day before Lise was found
, Louise thought.