The Killing Forest (7 page)

“No,” his wife said. “We're putting two and two together; that's something else entirely.”

“We won't know anything unless one of them starts talking,” Ernst said. “And none of them will. They don't dare.”

Lissy folded her hands in her lap and slumped in her chair. Louise felt she had to say something. That she had reopened old wounds, and what for? For her own sake. She leaned forward.

“If you're talking about Big Thomsen and his crowd, I promise I'll do everything in my power to get René Gamst to talk. And if there's anything we don't know about Klaus's death, I will dig it up.”

She got up and gave both of them a hug.

Five minutes later Louise stood out on Skovvej, trying to remember precisely what she had told Klaus's parents she would do. All she could think of was the trail of death Big Thomsen's gang seemed to leave behind them. A shadowy and vague trail. Her teeth were chattering, even though the June sun still stood high in the sky.

She headed to the station to take the train back to Copenhagen, but the thought of walking down the main street of town exhausted her. Instead she began walking toward the old sports complex.

Why had he never told her about the debt? Louise formed the words on her lips: Klaus owed money to Thomsen. A debt she'd known nothing about, but which hung around even after he'd paid it off.

She stopped and closed her eyes for a moment, imagining the old farmhouse out in Kisserup. The rafters under the ceiling, the doorways that Klaus had to duck his head to get through.

How many had there been in the house that night?

Feeling weak in the knees, she dragged herself over to a boulder at the end of the street and sat down.

The images kept popping up. She knew she should be focusing on the missing boy, because there was nothing she wanted more than to see Jane reunited with her son. The smartest thing by far to do right now was to take the train back to the city. To Eik.

She snatched up her bag and was about to loop it over her shoulder when she realized that all this wasn't about her sorrow and shattered emotions. An anger was building up inside her, so black that she had to do something about it.

She made her decision. She would find Jane's son, but if anyone had been involved in Klaus's death, she would find them, too.

C
amilla turned onto Skovvej and immediately slowed down. Even at this distance, she recognized her friend sitting on a boulder, her long, black hair whipping in the wind.

“It's so good to see you again!” she said when Louise got in the car. “Can you spend the night with us?”

Camilla had been surprised when her friend had called, wanting to know if she could pick her up in Hvalsø. Frederik had gone to Copenhagen—he was bringing dinner back—and she had just sat down to work on an article due the next day.

She had covered a pony show at the Roskilde Riding Club that weekend. Her former editor at
Morgenavisen
, Terkel Høyer, would die laughing if he knew what she was writing about as a freelancer. And when Louise called, she decided that the piece wouldn't suffer one bit if she waited until early the next morning to write it.

She turned the car around in a neatly kept driveway to head back to Roskilde.

“Would you mind driving me to Holbæk?” Louise asked.

“Holbæk! What on earth for?”

“I need to stop by the jail.”

“The jail! Why?” She drove down the main street and under the viaduct. Louise didn't answer.

“An interrogation?” Camilla asked. Still no answer. She was used to this; she had covered crime for
Morgenavisen
while Louise had been in Homicide. Some things they couldn't talk about.

But Louise turned to her and told her about visiting Klaus's parents and what René had said to her at the gamekeeper's.

“Honestly, Louise!” Camilla said. “He might have just been throwing that out at you.”

She was dismayed that her friend had told all that to Klaus's parents without knowing whether it was true or not. It also hurt that Louise had clammed up after the episode at the gamekeeper's, only now telling her what had happened.

“I don't think so,” Louise said, her voice small.

“He might've wanted to hurt you.” Something in her friend's voice made Camilla want to put an arm around her shoulder. She glanced over at her, but Louise kept staring down at her phone.

“Can you even get in to see him at this time of day?” Camilla wondered if the assault had thrown her friend's thinking out of whack.

“Mik gave me the green light to talk to him about a boy who's been missing for a while. He's been hiding in your forest, as a matter of fact.”

“What in the world does he have to do with a missing boy?” Suddenly she realized Louise must be talking about the boy she'd seen. She thought about his wet hair, how he'd run off.

“Nothing,” Louise answered. “But the boy's father is visiting René tomorrow, so if I'm going to find out whether the family has problems, I need to talk to René now.”

“And while you're at it, you'll pressure him to tell you what happened back then,” Camilla said, nodding. This was more like the Louise she knew.

“I'm going to give it a shot,” Louise admitted.

“What about this boy?” Camilla turned off the freeway. “How is this all connected with those men from Hvalsø?”

“It's the butcher's son. You don't seem all that surprised to hear that he's been hiding in your forest. Don't tell me you've seen him.”

Camilla nodded. “But he ran off before I could talk to him. Is he mixed up in something?”

Louise shook her head. “I don't think so, but he might be emotionally unstable. His mother is dying; he's had a difficult time handling that. He's been very unhappy for a long time. Anyway, he ran off. How did he seem to you?”

Camilla tried to recall how the lanky boy looked. “Pretty ragged, I'd say. It was raining and he was obviously cold. I thought something was wrong. I even thought about calling the police in Roskilde, but then I got distracted by what happened with all that blood.”

“Blood?”

“It was so gross. I took off after the boy to ask him why he was running away, then I fell and got covered in blood, head-to-toe. Frederik says it's something to do with the Asatro, the sacrifices to the gods they make out in the forest.”

She glanced over and saw a smile on Louise's lips. “Don't sit there laughing at me. I thought it was an animal they'd shot. It was just so disgusting.”

“When did this happen?”

“A few days ago.”

Camilla remembered her wet jogging clothes, still in the plastic sack. She should probably throw them away.

They drove past the train station. “Where do you want me to let you off?”

“In front of the police station is fine. Mik's coming down to meet me.”

“I can wait for you. I just need to tell Frederik if you'll stay and eat.”

Louise opened the car door. “Thanks, but I have to get back to Copenhagen. I hope I haven't ruined too much of your day.”

“Of course you haven't,” Camilla replied at once.

“Can you give me a description of the boy?” Louise asked, out on the sidewalk now.

Camilla thought for a second. “Light hair, maybe on the brownish side. A bit awkward, I think. Thin. But I didn't see him up close. Straight hair; he needed a haircut. Jeans and a dark T-shirt. I don't know if it was black or dark blue, but something was printed on the front.”

“That sounds like him,” Louise said, nodding. She turned when she heard Mik calling out to them from the doorway. “Thank you so much for the lift, Camilla. Talk to you later. I'll call this weekend.”

“Driving Miss Daisy. Just let me know when you need a chauffeur.” Camilla waved good-bye.

She watched her friend cross the street and walk into the police station. Something in Louise's voice had made her uneasy. A hint of anger. Fear, maybe.

D
o you want me to follow you over to the jail?” Mik asked.

Louise had been hungry in the car, but now her stomach was doing somersaults at the thought of meeting René Gamst. She hadn't seen him since his arrest. “No thanks, I'm fine. Just so they know I'm coming.”

She let him hug her, but she couldn't tell whether it felt nice or not. She felt safe with Mik. Once he had wanted to take care of her, and even though everything else between them had disappeared, that seemed to still be there.

“Why won't you let me grill him about the boy's relationship to his parents?” he asked, his voice serious. “You're so hard on yourself when you don't need to be. You don't have to be the one who goes in there.”

“It's my case,” she said. “I do my own interrogations.”

She looked away; she hadn't needed to say it that way. “Thanks, Mik. It's sweet of you. But I'll be okay.”

“I'll be waiting in my office,” he said. He waved his phone in the air. “Just call.”

“You really don't need to wait.”

She knew that he'd begun dating a nurse named Lone. Jonas had told her; Mik and her foster son were still close. Mik had given him the deaf Labrador, much to Louise's dismay, and he and Jonas talked together at least once a week under the guise of Mik wanting to hear about Dina. But from what Louise could hear, the conversations were just as much about Jonas and how he was doing. And now that Louise accepted the fact that Mik had dropped her because of her indifference, she was enormously grateful for his contact with her boy. Jonas didn't have anybody besides her and Melvin to talk to about homework, music, and girls.

She took Mik's hand and gave it a squeeze before heading for the jail.

Holbæk Jail had twenty-three cells. René Gamst was awaiting his sentence, but no one knew when it would be handed down. Only then would he be transferred to a prison.

Louise felt self-conscious, as if she were a caricature, when she straightened up before walking in to show her ID. It was seven thirty. A TV blared somewhere, but no one was around. She knew she had to steel herself, otherwise she would be far too vulnerable when René entered the interrogation room.

“Sign here first,” the guard said when she began walking past the visitation rooms. Beds, chairs, and condoms.

“Of course,” she said, and turned to sign her name and time of arrival. “Is he in there?” She nodded toward a room at the end of the hall.

“No, I'll get him,” the young guard said. “But it's open; you can go on in.”

He ducked through a doorway at the back of the office, and Louise walked to the interrogation room and closed the door. A table and two chairs. That was it. White light blazed from the long fluorescent in the ceiling; the window was hidden behind venetian blinds.

The lighting reminded her of the barn at the gamekeeper's. She couldn't stop it—suddenly she was back at the assault. She felt the rough hands on her naked body, the pain from broken ribs. And when she pulled the chair out from the table, she heard the heavy breathing that had wheezed like bellows on her neck. That was when René Gamst had entered the barn. At first he was nothing more than a silhouette approaching, but then she recognized him as he stood a few meters behind them, holding a shotgun.

Relief streamed through her when she made eye contact with him, but then he glared at her exposed genitals. She saw the bulge in his pants. He could have stopped it right there, but he'd waited, which had made her humiliation complete.

Louise closed her eyes and composed herself when she heard footsteps in the hallway outside. She blinked rapidly to erase the image of René's eyes on her naked body. She straightened up in her chair and rested her arms on the table, while finding an expression to mask the chaos inside her.

René Gamst was astonished to see her. Then his face relaxed, and he stared at her without a word.

Louise wanted so much to stare back, but she couldn't. She concentrated on her folded hands resting on the table as fear slammed into her gut. The fear of not being able to go through with this; that she would have to leave without talking to him.

Gamst sat down on the other side of the table and crossed his arms on his chest. Neither of them spoke. She looked up at him, noticed his confident, superior attitude. Thoughts about the janitor from SÃ¥by and Gudrun at the convenience store ran through her head. She gave a start when he broke the silence.

“You're welcome.” His voice was hoarse.

Something in his eyes made it clear that he remembered what he'd seen in the barn that night.

“For what?” she asked, without thinking.

“Aren't you here to thank me for shooting that bastard?” He looked down at her breasts. “They said my lawyer didn't need to be here because this wasn't going to be about my case.”

“Excuse me, but do you really expect me to thank you?”

He grinned, obviously enjoying this. He tilted his head. “Sure, don't you think you should?”

“You are one of the biggest fucking assholes I've ever met. You made sure you got a good look at everything before you shot. And you didn't shoot to save me.”

Rage boiled up inside her; suddenly she felt in control. “You shot him because he'd raped your wife. It was revenge.”

He stopped smiling, though he didn't look particularly ruffled. He shrugged and asked her for a cigarette.

Louise shook her head. Had she been interrogating anyone else, she might have had cigarettes and coffee on hand to help get things going. But Gamst wasn't just another prisoner, and she had no interest in getting friendly with him. She simply wanted a few answers.

“What did all of you do to him?” She stared into his brown eyes.

“To who? What the hell are you talking about?”

“What did you do to Klaus? Back then out at our house?”

Gamst's smile returned. First as an arrogant shadow in his expression, then to his lips. “Aren't you on the police force? Aren't you the ones who are supposed to figure these things out?”

Her rage felt like armor; there was no way he could humiliate her now. She would make him talk. “What happened out there?”

“What happened? What happened! Who said anything happened?”

“You did. You're the one who said that Klaus didn't put the noose around his neck.”

“He was a pussy! He was scared of his own shadow.”

She startled him by slapping her palms on the table, leaping to her feet, and leaning over the table. “Goddamn you. Tell me what happened!”

“Why should I?” He seemed like he was trying to appear unaffected by her outburst.

“All right then. If you're not going to say anything, I'll pay a visit to your wife and pump her for every last secret in your miserable, shitty little lives.”

His shoulders tensed up at the mention of Bitten. Now she had his attention. He leaned back in his chair but didn't answer her.

Louise paused a moment before changing directions. “How's the butcher's relationship with his son? How are they getting along?”

“Why the hell are you asking me that?” Finally, he looked a bit flustered.

“Because I want to know. Are they having marital problems?”

“Not that I know of,” he said.

Was he telling the truth? His eyes darted off to the side before he answered. She knew that the rule about linking truth with looking one way and lies with the other was shaky, but he did glance away.

“So. There aren't any problems. Except that the mother is dying, of course,” she added sarcastically.

“Why are you asking me about this?” He couldn't hide his curiosity, even though he tried to sound indifferent, which she also noticed. He clearly didn't know the boy had disappeared.

“You don't know anything about any other problems?”

Quickly he shook his head. He looked confident again.

“Fine. I'll ask Bitten about that, too. I'm sure she'll tell me if the father and son aren't getting along. I might need to use some pressure, but then I can mention her affair with Thomsen. She doesn't like talking about that.”

She walked over and rang for the guard.

“You better fucking leave my wife alone,” she heard from behind.

Louise sensed he was standing up now. She calmly turned around and leaned back against the door.

“And if I don't?” She enjoyed watching Gamst fumble around for words.

“Just leave her alone!”

“Then start talking! Tell me what happened back then.”

He didn't answer.

The door opened behind her. “Tell me what happened,” she said, calm now.

When he still didn't answer her, she turned and walked out.

After the guard closed the door, Louise slammed her fist into the wall. An overwhelming fatigue hit her as she walked away; for a moment she thought she was going to fall. The guard noted the time of the interview's conclusion and she signed out, angry as well as exhausted.

Yet she felt that even though he hadn't talked, she'd won the first round. It hadn't been pretty, but she'd emerged victorious.