Three Dog Night (24 page)

She crossed the harbour and headed for town, dressed in camouflage gear and heavy boots. It was twelve hours since she had been in the Bull's Eye with Mark Bille Hansen and suddenly seen him rush out of the door and then disappear inside the hotel with a girl in tow. And there it was, right in front of her. The Strand Hotel. The building looked different, much more modest in daylight than when it was lit up at night. It irked her. Of course she was curious, and her pride was hurt, too. Of course she wondered why he would rather go to a hotel with a hooker than gaze deep into her eyes over a glass of beer. But c'est la vie. Anything was more feminine and sexier than a highly trained mine clearance diver with red hair and murder theories. Even a mini-skirted prostitute with a body like a beanpole could do more to ignite a weary police officer.

The hotel, painted in traditional warm Skagen yellow, stood bathed in the low sunshine. Icicles dripped from the gutter on to the pavement while the snow on the tiled roof held the building in a tight grip. It looked empty and indeed there were few cars in the car park. Winter in the provinces, Kir thought. Many hotels and restaurants simply closed down, and those that stayed open were marking time. There were only a few cars in Kattegatvej as well. They drove slowly on a surface of dirty slush and sleet. Opposite the hotel, she saw one of Red's staff moving chairs and tables about inside the Bull's Eye. She saw him take out a bucket and mop, then she turned around and started walking back.

But she didn't get very far. From the open windows on the first floor of the hotel she heard the sound of a Hoover starting, followed by a scream.

Reacting automatically, she ran around the corner to the entrance and pushed open the door to the lobby. There was no one around, so she darted up the stairs to the first floor. Halfway down the corridor she found an abandoned trolley loaded with clean linen and detergents. Then a girl came running towards her. She was wearing a pale blue uniform and her black hair was pinned up. Her eyes were wide with shock. Another girl, also Asian, and in a pale blue uniform, followed.

‘What's going on?'

Kir took charge. Perhaps it was her camouflage gear that did it. The girl in shock pointed to the door of Room 103. She didn't say a word, just stared at Kir with big eyes.

Kir looked around. There was still no one else around. No receptionist. No one to take control. She pushed open the door. At first glance she saw nothing. The bed was messy, the bed linen crumpled, there was an empty bottle of Coke and a half-full glass on the bedside table. The window was open and it was freezing cold. Even so there was a strange, sweet smell.

The body lay in a corner, a ghost of the body from the harbour. The face was gone. Someone had ripped off the skin. A scarf had been pulled tight around the girl's neck. Her tongue hung out. It was blue. Her short skirt had ridden up around her hips; her panties had been pulled down around her ankles and the body lay exposed as though ready for more humiliation.

‘What's wrong?'

An authoritative voice cut through the shock. But authoritative as it was, and deep, it was still shaking. Kir calmly introduced herself to the man.

‘I'll call the police,' she said, taking out a mobile. ‘Nobody touch anything. Leave the room exactly as it was. What's your name?'

She looked at his badge: Morten Hansen. Reception. ‘Morten. I'll stay here outside the room. No one is to leave the building. The police will want to talk to anyone who's been here in the last twenty-four hours.'

She nodded to him. ‘Could you contact guests who left last night?'

At first he looked dubious, but then he did as he was told. Ten minutes later she heard the sirens and soon after footsteps stomped up the stairs.

‘Tell me it's not true.'

Mark Bille Hansen and another local police officer stared at her. She glared back. Mark Bille's normally dark face was pale. ‘And what are you doing here?'

She met his gaze and saw his anger and panic in one confused expression. She attempted a composed answer: ‘I was just passing.'

The policemen went inside. Kir went to follow them, but bumped into the junior officer's back as he was brought up short.

‘Bloody hell!'

The officer covered his mouth and his body went into convulsions. Mark Bille turned around and looked at his partner.

‘If you're going to throw up, then please do it outside. We don't want any more DNA here than we already have.'

The officer staggered past Kir and out of the door and they heard him double up in the corridor. Mark Bille looked at her.

‘How much do you know?'

Her mind raced to sort through what needed to be said and what should remain unsaid. But it was no use. Everything came out in one single sentence.

‘You were with her.'

Suddenly he looked tired, as though he might decide to lie down on the floor next to the dead woman.

‘I didn't kill her. You do believe me, don't you? Whatever else I've done, I didn't do that, OK?'

She nodded. The other officer returned. Now there was also an acrid smell. Mark knelt down by the body of the dead girl and his eyes took in the mutilated body.

‘Stupid little girl,' he muttered and got up. ‘Stupid, frightened little girl.'

He rummaged in his pocket for his mobile, tapped in a number and asked to speak to Anna Bagger, East Jutland Crime Division. Then he took a jar of pills from his jacket, swallowed two without water and slumped down on a chair.

‘G
RY, YOU SAY
?'

Mark nodded.

‘Let me make sure I've got this right,' Anna Bagger said, training her laser-eyes on him.

She pulled him to one side so that the SOC officers could enter Room 103. A maid was mopping up Jepsen's vomit. Anna's voice struck Mark like an ice pick.

‘You booked and paid for the room? You were with the girl here last night at around ten o'clock?'

‘There's no need to shout it from the rooftops,' he said in a muted voice.

‘Yes or no?'

He nodded.

‘Answer me!'

‘Yes.'

‘And you left the hotel when?'

‘An hour later. More or less. There must be witnesses.'

She took notes. If she had used a pencil it would have snapped long ago, so hard was she pressing against the paper.

‘Is there anything else I need to know?'

She looked at him again. ‘DNA? What can we expect?'

Christ, he could have done without this. The pain was throbbing in his head and his whole body was soaked in sweat. But there was no way out; he had known that from the moment Kir called. He knew it would all come out and at this moment he couldn't even begin to imagine the consequences. He looked at Anna. His world had already collapsed around his ears, like the walls of Jericho, so what did a few more bricks matter?

‘A condom left in the bin in the bathroom. If the maid hasn't already emptied it.'

Her lips became a straight line. She lowered her notepad.

‘And I had a shower.'

‘I presume she was your secret informant?'

‘Anna …'

‘And that the whole exercise was your style of police work, undertaken solely for the purposes of obtaining information?'

The sarcasm was obvious. Kir hadn't exactly been over the moon, either. He'd developed a new ability to piss women off, or perhaps he'd always had it, he reflected.

He sat on a window sill. He would have given a lot for a bed and a darkened locked room right now, and yet he didn't want it. Deep down he didn't want to be alone with himself. Anything but that.

‘Who saw you leave?'

‘The guy in reception. I told them she could stay in the room. I ordered her a Coke.'

She nodded, unconvinced.

‘Let's hope he can be bothered to save your skin.'

At that moment he realised he didn't care. He ran the film of his meeting with Gry on an internal channel and heard his own warning to her again and again. The irony was that he might have brought her to the very place she was meant to die.

‘I don't think she knew very much,' he said. ‘But she was nervous.'

He told Anna about the three girls who had appeared from nowhere and then disappeared.

‘She knew something was wrong. There was something wrong about them appearing from nowhere. And there was something wrong about them disappearing. She was scared.'

‘But she carried on working.'

‘She probably didn't have any choice.'

‘Was she on drugs?'

He shrugged.

‘Did she have a pimp?'

‘Possibly. What do I know?'

‘Yes, what would you know? You only had sex with her.'

She laid on the contempt with a trowel. He would have smiled if he hadn't been in such pain and feeling so tired of it all.

‘Safe sex,' he corrected her, and was relieved that Gry had produced a condom from her pocket and insisted on it.

Anna Bagger stood opposite him, legs apart, as if conducting an interrogation. There was a strength, a professionalism and a vulnerability about her, but he didn't have the energy to deal with it.

‘We'll probably find your DNA elsewhere, in the shower at any rate. You were the last person to see her alive until the contrary can be proven. We're talking a possible suspension and investigation by the public prosecutor.'

Perhaps she really did think he was guilty. Perhaps he would have thought the same if the boot had been on the other foot. He sighed. It was all as messed up as it could be.

‘I'm ill,' he said.

‘Agreed.'

‘I've got cancer.'

He avoided looking at her this time.

‘They took one of my kidneys last year. There's a tumour in the other, and one in my liver. I had a scan this morning. Both tumours have grown in the last three months.'

She took a step backwards. Not forwards, he noted. Disease terrified people. In his experience, most people wanted to distance themselves from it.

‘How long have you known?'

He knew what she was thinking. She would do the maths now and he cursed himself. He should have kept his mouth shut.

He got up.

‘Don't worry. It's not contagious. I just want to leave.'

But she didn't let him go. He could see it churning around behind her eyes. The face, the perfect/imperfect mix of hard and soft features.

‘Did you know back then?'

He nodded.

‘But you were too cowardly to tell me?'

He took no pleasure in her reaction. There was sorrow in the anger. He preferred the latter to the former, but he didn't have a choice, and besides, everything was complicated enough. He preferred to talk about the case.

‘Listen.'

He nodded towards Room 103, where an officer appeared at that moment with a brown paper bag. ‘Forensic evidence' it said in clear red letters. It could be anything: bed linen, pillows, the girl's jacket which had been lying on the floor.

‘It's Tora all over again.'

He could see she was slowly turning her thoughts back to the case.

‘Another case of mistaken identity? Is that what you're saying?'

‘I'm talking about the killing,' he said. ‘What does he want with their faces? Is he a serial killer?'

He slipped off the window sill and sat on the floor in the corner. He placed his elbows on his knees and ran his fingers through his hair. She crouched down on her haunches opposite him. Like an expression of solidarity.

‘Are the faces trophies in his cupboard?' she asked.

‘It could be a copycat killing,' he suggested. ‘The first one was well organised. The second one was hurried.'

‘Perhaps it's just revenge, pure and simple,' she said. ‘Because she spoke to you.'

He pulled at his hair. It dulled the other agonies.

‘I pressed her. She might have died because of a name.'

She put her hand on his shoulder.

‘We have something to go on now,' she said. ‘We discovered Tora's story.'

He pulled his shoulder away.

‘It wasn't in vain, is that what you're saying? As long as you help to solve a murder, then your death isn't pointless?'

She got up.

‘Perhaps you should go home and rest.'

That was the last thing he needed. He looked at his watch. Kir had called him at 3.15 p.m., it was now 5.20 and in the meantime night had fallen. He crossed the road and pushed open the door to the pub where ten customers or so were having a drink after work. Kir was sitting at the bar with a Coke. He walked up to her.

‘Perhaps you shouldn't be alone?'

‘I'm not alone,' she said.

She was a soldier. He forgot that when he saw her, despite the camouflage gear. He sat down on a bar stool and ordered a beer. There was country music playing on the stereo. In a corner sat a couple of muscular men with some obscure club insignia on their backs. There were more couples than he could face. Some of them were kissing; he felt like walking up to them and separating them.

The song was the deathless ‘Achy Breaky Heart'. Mark leaned forward slightly towards Kir.

‘How many country musicians does it take to change a light bulb?'

She looked at him blankly.

‘I hate country music.'

He didn't know why. The situation was completely absurd, but she cheered him up.

‘Three. Two to change the bulb and one to sing about how much he misses the old one.'

The miracle happened. She laughed and he saw the gap between her teeth. Only briefly, of course, then she grew serious again.

‘I didn't see you leave the hotel last night.'

‘Then you probably didn't wait long enough.'

He took a sip of his beer, inwardly cursing his actions that night.

Kir shrugged.

‘She, Anna Bagger, must have believed you. Or you wouldn't be sitting here. Did you check in as Mr and Mrs Smith?'