Three Dog Night (36 page)

He was about to sound the horn to attract her attention when a black saloon car overtook him, slid in front of her and blocked her path. A man jumped out from the back and grabbed her as you would grab a difficult child and make it sit in a pushchair. A few seconds later the car pulled away before the door had even been shut.

With the engine roaring, Peter screeched after the black saloon, squinting to read the number plate. They joined a small suburban road and the car in front of him skidded round the sharp bend, spraying slush and snow from under the wheels. Peter gunned the accelerator. He was gaining and only a few metres behind the saloon. Both cars screamed down several quiet streets before the fleeing saloon took another turn, this time to the left, across a junction, just missing an oncoming juggernaut. It was pure reflex that made Peter hit the brakes and avoid a collision. The truck driver honked his horn angrily, swerved to the side and stopped in the middle of the junction. Peter heard the black saloon racing down the road.

‘NOOOO!'

Someone was yelling, a powerful roar from a man in great pain. The truck driver got out and came over to him. Pedestrians stopped and sent him strange looks. One passer-by shook her head.

The man who was yelling was Peter.

M
ARK WATCHED
A
NNA
Bagger walk through the office at Grenå Police Station and head for the interactive whiteboard and the computer. Nine detectives were observing her attentively. His brain was pounding.

Someone had shot Ramses Bilal on Gjerrild Cliff during New Year's Eve. That same night Nina Bjerre had disappeared from a party and two days later the body of Tora Juel Andersen was discovered in the harbour. A few days after that Kir found Gry Johansen strangled, and faceless, in a hotel room. Gry had told him about the three girls from out of town. From the CCTV evidence it looked as if those same three girls had robbed small shops in Grenå to get food and – according to Gry – booze and drugs. How was it all connected, if it even was? Who were the three girls? Why did Ramses and Tora have to die? What was the motive? The girls had talked about treasure in a boat on the seabed. What was the treasure – money? Drugs? Or was it simply a fantasy?

His headache spread to the rest of his body, which ached like a battered punchball, but right now pain was good. It meant he was alive.

He watched as Anna Bagger stooped over her laptop and tapped away on the keyboard. They weren't coming up with enough results; her grim expression told him as much. What else was needed – luck, or skill? Something was clearly lacking in the investigation.

‘OK …'

She straightened up and clicked the remote control. The whiteboard became a screen.

‘Swatch, Tora's boyfriend. His real name is Mohammed Reza. He's twenty-five years old and a second-generation immigrant from Lebanon.'

The detectives turned their attention to the two photographs, one in profile and one full face: dark eyes, black crew-cut with a circular pattern shaved into the scalp; longish nose, long eyelashes and a mouth balancing on a knife edge between sensuality and brutality.

One of the female detectives, Pia Thorsen, whistled softly. Another wolf-whistled.

‘Christ, he's hot,' said Pia, who was single, chubby and wore what Mark regarded as unflattering, large smocks to hide what little shape she had. But he liked her. She was straightforward and didn't play games and was one of the few who had looked him straight in the eye after Gry's murder. Pia continued: ‘You can't blame her risking life and limb to be with him.'

He was probably the only officer to notice Anna Bagger stiffen. He flashed Pia a friendly smile, then came the lash of Anna's sharp tongue.

‘Mohammed Reza is a violent psychopath. He's currently in prison for gang-related violence and has been there since October. I don't think being his girlfriend is a picnic.'

Mark felt sorry for Pia, who bowed her head and focused on her notes.

‘However, his sentence means,' Anna Bagger continued, ‘that he can't have killed Tora. He was banged up when she died and still is.'

Mark stared at the photo. Anna carried on talking and clicking to show more images. Next came a young, Danish-looking man, as broad as an ox, with a bald head and rolls of fat on his neck. He had a long, strawberry-blond beard tapering to a tatty point and wore a small skull cap on his head.

‘Ibrahim Frandsen. Muslim. Danish convert. Friend of Swatch since school. Not a gang member, but on the sidelines.'

Anna nodded and handed over to Martin Nielsen, whom Mark had met for the first time on the cliff when the body of Ramses Bilal had been found. Mark regarded him as a solid, somewhat traditional detective. He was starting to gain an insight into Anna Bagger's team. Some he didn't like, others were OK. It was a set-up he could live with. He'd never been the type to get on with everyone.

‘Ibrahim has vanished without a trace,' Martin Nielsen said. ‘But we've spoken to his family, who are Danish and haven't converted to Islam. His sister, Paulina, is a trainee with Matas at Bruuns Galleri in Århus. She knew Tora well and had met her a couple of times. She says – and this is the interesting bit – that Tora wanted to end the relationship with Swatch. She'd asked various people, including Paulina, for help, but Paulina couldn't promise to help because her brother would be angry with her. Tora was too scared to go home to her parents because Swatch had threatened to find her and kill her. He'd also threatened to take it out on her family.'

Martin Nielsen scanned the assembled officers.

‘The question is: Did Tora die because of her relationship with Swatch?' he said. ‘Life as a biker chick is fraught with danger.'

Anna Bagger took up the gauntlet: ‘He would have needed someone to kill her while he was in prison.'

Her gaze landed on Mark.

‘Could Swatch have made Ibrahim do it?'

‘Or someone else,' Mark said. ‘He wouldn't have had to do it himself. Gangs are highly sensitive if a bitch – pardon the expression – acts up.'

‘Has anyone ever managed to break away?' asked one of the detectives whose name Mark couldn't remember.

‘That's a good question,' Mark said. ‘We've had several cases in Copenhagen where girls came to us asking for protection.'

‘And did they get it?'

Mark shook his head.

‘We can't give everyone new identities and new flats.'

He looked around the circle.

‘It's not just about jealousy and a macho mentality. The girls are often in possession of information which the gang doesn't want leaking out – to the police or their rivals.'

Anna Bagger nodded.

‘We need to look into that.'

Mark didn't say anything, but he wondered how she would go about it. Biker gangs seldom willingly permitted close scrutiny. The immigrant gangs were completely inaccessible. She wouldn't get a word out of anyone.

Martin Nielsen said: ‘According to Paulina, Tora had met another girl in the same situation. She hinted to Paulina that the two of them would help each other get out.'

Anna Bagger reacted immediately.

‘Do we know anything about the identity of the other girl?'

‘No,' said Nielsen. ‘She's likely to be one of the two girls Tora was running around with here in Grenå. I understand they were picked up on CCTV?'

Anna looked at Mark, passing the ball to him. Mark pressed some keys on his computer and showed them the reason he'd been asked to attend the meeting: freeze-frames off the surveillance camera. The three girls could be seen clearly.

‘We need to have them identified,' Anna Bagger said. ‘We've already issued photos to the media. I suggest that you, Martin, take the photos and show them around at the fitness centre where Tora was a member, to Ibrahim's sister and anyone else who might have been in contact with Tora.'

Afterwards he needed fresh air and something to do, so he took the car and drove to the property in Fredensgade. It was late in the afternoon now and night had begun to fall over Grenå. The building with the four flats was squeezed between two taller and wider buildings, and by comparison it was badly maintained, with peeling window frames and graffiti-covered brickwork in urgent need of repointing. The snow had been cleared in front of the other houses in the street, but no one had done anything to shift the snow and ice away from number 27, and he slipped on the icy pavement and nearly fell. This did nothing to improve his mood.

He opened the front door wondering why he had avoided interviewing Christian Røjel. Reluctantly, he had to admit it was because of Kir. There was something in the tone of her voice when she spoke about her family, like a doctor desperately hoping she can heal a sick patient. He understood that they were what kept her in Grenå – a kind of doomed love between a rebellious daughter and traditional parents, where both parties constantly misunderstood each other. He and Kir had more in common than she might have thought.

He walked up the creaking staircase, which was narrow and dark like a rubbish chute. The light didn't work. The steps were made of dark wood, and remnants of varnish suggested they had once been clean and well maintained. Now they were filthy and worn. The raw wood was covered in grime.

Asger Toft, the caretaker, was out, and no one else reacted when he knocked on the doors of the other tenants. He stood for a moment on the top landing weighing his options. Even in the dark stairwell he could clearly see a hatch in the ceiling. He stretched out his hand but couldn't reach it. He went all the way back downstairs. On the ground floor detritus was piled up under the stairs. There were pots of dried paint, old suitcases and a few boxes of books. He opened the suitcases, but they were empty. He dragged them upstairs, stacked them one on top of the other and clambered up. His weight compressed them somewhat, but even so he could still reach the ceiling hatch with his fingertips. He pushed it aside. Then he felt around the edge until he came across something hard.

He dragged the object closer and over the opening. It was a narrow ladder. He pulled it down and saw that it could be attached to two hooks on the wooden opening. However, it didn't reach all the way down to the floor and he had to jump on to it as if mounting a temperamental horse. The ladder swung back and forth, but it held firm. He just managed to squeeze himself through the hole. Once up, he sat on the edge and took out his mobile to use as a torch. It produced just enough light for him to see an attic room which was inhabited, or had been recently. He discovered two mattresses with filthy, crumpled bed linen on either side of the hatch. In one corner was a bucket with a lid. From that direction came the unmistakable stench of an unflushed toilet. There was more rubbish lying around: pizza boxes, burger packaging, foam cups with lids and straws, cigarette packets and a few magazines. He picked one up. The language wasn't Danish; it was something Eastern European. He was practically forced on to all fours to move around. Someone had lived here in desperate conditions, with no toilet, no water, no room to stand up, and on top of that it was freezing cold. Now he could see electric cables pulled up from below, but there was no heater, nor was there a light bulb in the ceiling or anywhere else.

He sat down on one of the mattresses and had to brace himself before searching through the filthy bed linen. He groped with his hand, not really sure what he was looking for. Then two things happened at once: he heard someone on the stairs and his hand closed around a small object hidden in the folds of the sheet. He clutched the object in his hand and speculated briefly whether to pull up the ladder and close the hatch, but before he had time to do anything, he heard a voice he recognised: ‘Mark? Is that you?'

He felt like a boy caught apple scrumping. He grunted a reply, but Kir had already climbed the ladder and poked her head through the hole.

‘You found it,' she stated.

‘It wasn't difficult. Who lives here?'

She pulled herself up and sat on the edge. She looked concerned and her crinkly smile was long gone.

‘Dad's Poles. They do all the real work on the farm.'

Her voice was laden with sarcasm.

‘Such as?'

She shifted first one buttock then the other to find a more comfortable position further back in the attic.

‘I think they insulated the main building just before Christmas. They were here last year as well to help with the harvest.'

‘So your father grows crops as well?'

She nodded.

‘There's quite a lot of land attached to the farm and he has to do something with it. We've always had seasonal workers.'

‘Why don't they stay at the farm?'

She pulled up her legs and rested her chin on her knees.

‘They did for several years. But one day the union came by and started asking questions and Dad found it best to keep them at arm's length.'

‘That's when he bought this place?'

She shrugged and sent him an apologetic look.

‘I didn't know.'

‘I know you didn't. But I'm going to have to talk to your father.'

Kir sat for a while staring into the darkness. He could see the anxiety in her gaze and the nagging doubt.

‘Let me have a word with him first,' she said, looking him in the eye. ‘He's as tough as old boots. You're not going to get anything from him he doesn't want to tell you.'

She noticed his hand was clenched.

‘What have you found?'

He opened his hand. In it was a silver fleur-de-lis with a stud and a butterfly clip at the back.

‘An earring,' Kir declared, looking around the attic as though expecting to find the owner. ‘Someone has had female company.'

P
ETER PAID FOR
the mobile phone, asked for 500 kroner cashback and hurried out of the shop in City Vest. After his failed pursuit of Felix's abductors, he had driven aimlessly around Brabrand and ended up at City Vest Shopping Centre in Gjellerup. After paying he went into Føtex and bought several cartons of Camel and again asked for 500 kroner cashback. He withdrew another 2,000 kroner at a cashpoint outside the bank.