“Karl’s up there with Skaarup,” said Eddy.
He nodded towards the women hovering beyond the blue and white police tape. “Those three said they heard a scream from somewhere above them, around nine o’clock. They were watching a programme that begins at nine and it had just begun. They were on the seventh floor. They ran out to the balcony. The one without the headscarf called the emergency services. They all rushed down here. They could see that she was dead. They don’t know who she is. They could be saying that because they genuinely don’t know, or because we’re the police. I’ve got their details in case we need to speak to them again.”
People appeared on balconies all over the block. At ground level, a small, silent crowd gathered in the dusk.
“I don’t want to hang around here longer than necessary,” said Eddy, “but you’ll want to take a look at the flat she fell from.”
Tobias hunkered down to look at the body. The back of the T-shirt was torn from the bloodied shoulder to the waist. He could see her skin.
“She landed on her back,” said Harry. “Her left shoulder hit the ground first. She died immediately. Not more than thirty minutes ago. About nine o’clock, I’d say. Rigor mortis hasn’t set in yet.” He turned her over so that Tobias could see her face. It was unmarked, except for black and yellow bruising around her right eye.
“Someone gave her a black eye,” said Harry. “Sometime in the last few weeks, I’d say. She’s wearing a wedding ring.”
“Look at the inside of her wrist,” said Tobias. “I think that’s some kind of name bracelet.” Harry separated the gold chain from a mess of blood and bone. He peered at it. “Girlie,” he said.
“Ah, fuck,” said Eddy. “I don’t believe it. The woman who skipped from the hospital was called Girlie.” He banged his head against an invisible wall.
“Do you recognise her?” asked Tobias.
“I recognise the name,” said Eddy. “Do you remember the illegal we let slip? The one in the hospital? She was called Girlie. Her face was pulp when I saw her. She’d been beaten up and dumped at the emergency room. But I think it’s her.”
“The only way we’re going to know for sure is if the hospital kept her blood samples,” said Harry. “Can I move her now?”
Tobias nodded. “Let’s go and look at this flat, Eddy,” he said. “Are you sure it’s the one she fell from?”
“It’s directly above. The door was closed but not locked when we got there. The place was a bit of a mess. We could see there’d been some kind of struggle.”
They took the lift to the eighth floor. Eddy was grim-faced, silent. Tobias followed him down the walkway.
“There’s an elderly couple on one side and a woman with three children on the other,” said Eddy. “They say they heard nothing. It’s possible. The wrinklies are deaf. Their television was blaring. The woman’s children were yelling and running around.”
A uniformed policeman lifted the barrier tape. Eddy and Tobias went into the flat. They negotiated their way through overturned chairs, plates and cutlery on the floor, remnants of chips, splatterings of what looked like blood, an overturned table, an unmade bed, a sofa. Tobias dipped his finger in a red splash, sniffed it. “Ketchup.”
They stepped through an open glass door to join Karl Lund and Katrine on the balcony.
“Hi, Tobias,” said Karl Lund. “Look what we’ve found.” He held up a plastic bag containing a thin strip of yellow material. “It was caught on the edge of the balcony. She must have gone over backwards.”
“Nobody jumps off a balcony backwards,” said Katrine. “Somebody pushed her.”
“She was wearing a name bracelet. Girlie. I think it’s the same Girlie we saw at the hospital,” said Eddy. “The Girlie I let slip through my fingers.” He thumped the wall. A lump of plaster dislodged and fell.
Katrine put her hand on his arm. “Hey, we both let her slip.”
“It bet it was the same fucker who killed her,” said Eddy. “Sick bastard.”
“Probably her husband,” said Katrine. “We should be able to find him if he’s here legally. Are there prints?”
Karl nodded. “I’ll say. Busy spot. Prints everywhere. We should be finished by tomorrow afternoon,” said Karl. Talk to me then.”
“Call in the other teams for a door to door,” said Tobias.
“I asked about that earlier, just in case,” said Eddy. “They’re here already. Alsing got a DNA match on the smartwater in the Danske bank car. He’s running a stakeout. Hoping to net the whole gang. They won’t move from their positions.”
Tobias thought for a moment. “OK. We’ll do a couple of hours now, and start again tomorrow after Harry’s done the autopsy. I’ll take the smaller block opposite. You and Katrine take this block, alternate floors. Good luck.”
“We’ll need it,” said Eddy.
He wasn’t optimistic about finding out much in a door-to-door enquiry. In Eddy’s experience, witnesses to crime in Gellerupparken were more frightened of the criminals than of the police. He began his enquiries on the seventh floor. No one answered his knock at half the flats and no one in the other half saw, or admitting to having seen, anything. He was about to begin what he was sure would be equally hopeless enquiries on the fifth floor when a woman wearing rimless spectacles and a black headscarf stepped out of the shadows near the stairwell. Eddy almost collided with her.
“There’s a café bar on the south side of the square in Vesterbro,” she said. “Meet me there in twenty minutes.”
The lift doors rumbled open. She stepped inside. The doors closed. Eddy ran down the stairs to the fourth floor and found Katrine with her hand raised, about to ring a doorbell.
“I’m leaving this block to you,” he said. “Someone wants to talk to me. Do as many doors as you can.”
He was gone before Katrine could speak.
He found the café bar easily. A woman was sitting outside with her coat collar turned up. He glanced quickly at her. Youngish, short dark hair, no glasses. He went inside. The room was crammed with young people clutching glasses of beer. Eddy frowned. It wasn’t where he’d expect to find a woman in a headscarf and he couldn’t see her anywhere. He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw the woman who’d been sitting outside.
“You walked past me,” she said. “Let’s go back outside. It’s quieter. Get yourself a beer if you want to.”
Eddy bought himself a beer and followed her. It had grown chilly, as well as dark.
“I’m with PET.” She turned her collar up again. “You can call me Linda. If you want to check me out, speak to your boss. I’ve been watching a retail unit and flat near that block. I didn’t see the woman fall. But I know who she is and who might be able to help you.”
“So tell me, Linda,” said Eddy.
“The flat is a brothel. The Filipina worked there. Four other sex workers use that flat, plus another one five doors down on the right, going away from the stairwell and the lifts. They also use a flat in the block opposite. They’re all illegals except for a big fat Nigerian. The business is managed by a Turk. He’s legal. He’s also one of our informants.”
“So you let him run his brothel in peace.”
Linda shrugged. “We leave him alone. He tells us stuff.”
“Did he kill her?”
Linda shook her head. “He was playing football with a bunch of ragheads. The match started at eight. They were on the pitch at the time.”
Eddy thought he would check for himself. He didn’t trust PET. They always played their own game.
“The dead woman was beaten up once before,” said Linda. “Our informant took her to the hospital.”
“You mean he dumped her at the hospital,” said Eddy. “We’ll need him to identify her.”
“You can’t ask him,” said Linda. “He can’t get involved. Immigration will poke their noses in. It’ll fuck up our operation.”
“Are you covering up for him? Did he beat her up?”
“No and No. A client beat her up.”
“How do you know? Did she tell you?”
“There’s a bunch of leftie law students running an advice centre for women. One of them told me. She doesn’t know I’m PET. She thinks I’m a community worker.”
“What’s her name? Where do I find her?”
“Irene Voss. The centre is in Bazar Vest. I don’t have a number for it.”
“There were two beds in Girlie’s flat.”
“Maybe they had some kind of rota. Maybe they play foursomes.” Linda shrugged. “Who knows?
It’s not her usual place. She normally works in the block opposite.”
“Why did she change?”
“No idea,” said Linda. “Ask the Nigerian. She’s legal.”
“Where will I find her?”
“Maybe in the flat five doors down. Otherwise you could cruise and look for her.” Linda smiled sardonically. “But she’ll be hard to find in the dark.”
“You could ask your Turkish tout.”
“You’re lucky I’m telling you anything. If the Turk thinks we’ve ratted on his set-up, we’ll piss him off. If we lose him at this stage, heads will roll. I’ll make sure it’s your head and not mine.”
“So why are you helping me?”
Linda shrugged. “Call it female solidarity. I don’t like men who beat up women.”
“Thanks.” Eddy gave her his card, and an appraising stare. “You look good without the glasses and the headscarf. Can I get you a drink?”
“I have a partner in Special Forces,” she said. “Can I give you a tip?”
Eddy nodded.
“I’d be a bit more subtle, if I were you.” She smiled, put Eddy’s card in her pocket, got up and walked away.
Wednesday: Week Three
34.
Tobias woke before the alarm on his phone summoned him from sleep. He lay wondering what might have happened with Sofie if he hadn’t been called to the crime scene in Gellerupparken. Would she have invited him to her flat? How long had it been since he’d spent the night with a woman? Hilde had always left his bed and gone home without spending any unnecessary time talking. Before that, he’d spent as few nights as possible in Silkeborg in the fussy home of Anna, the librarian. She, in turn, had disliked his Aarhus flat. “Spartan minimalism” she called it. How had they managed to sustain a relationship for six months? Sex, he supposed. He thought sex would be exhilarating with Sofie. If he ever found the time, and Sofie had the inclination. He picked up the phone. There was a butterfly in his stomach. He hadn’t felt that kind of apprehensive flutter since the early days with Karren. Sex had been good with Karren. It was everything else that was wrong. Sofie’s voice – even in a phone message it had a hint of laughter in it - told him to leave a message.
“Sorry about last night,” he said briskly. “I’d like to see you again.” He paused. “And by the way, she was pushed.”
Eddy wakened with hunger pangs and thought he might make a hash of fried potatoes and eggs, until he discovered he’d no eggs, no coffee and no milk. He settled for a bread roll, with cheese and a dab of strawberry jam, in the police canteen.
He got two mugs of coffee – one for himself and one for Katrine – and carried them to the Investigations Room. Katrine was already at her desk, as usual. She looked as though she’d not only had breakfast but had gone for an early morning run as well. Eddy thought he might start going to the gym again. He set a mug of coffee on Katrine’s desk.
“Thanks, Eddy.” Katrine gave him a brief, distracted smile. Her gaze returned to the computer screen. “There’s a message from Karl. They found a passport. Corazon Girlie Sanchez. Born in Manila. It’s got a biometric chip so we can do a fingerprint ID. Plus Harry can check the blood sample with the hospital. But I’m sure she’s the same Girlie we saw there.”
“I’m still kicking myself,” said Eddy. He settled on the edge of Katrine’s desk.
“Me too.” She took a sip of coffee. “Where did you get to last night?”
“A mystery woman in a headscarf asked to meet me in a bar.” He paused for effect. “It turned out she was working undercover for PET. She told me Girlie’s flat was a brothel. There’s another one five doors down. Did you call there?”
“Nobody answered on that floor,” said Katrine. “Except the old couple and the family we’d already spoken to.”
“There’s a sex worker who’s legal, according to PET. She might talk to us. And there’s a student volunteer in an advice centre who knows about the earlier assault on Girlie. Her name’s Irene Voss.” Eddy glanced out of the window. “It’s going to rain. Where would you rather be on a wet day? In here, staying dry, or out there getting wet? He didn’t wait for an answer. “Finish your coffee and get your raincoat. We’re going to Gellerupparken to find Irene Voss.”
The Women’s Legal Advice Centre was tucked into a corner of the big, hangar-like market called Bazar Vest, beside a stall selling embroidered slippers and kaftans. There was a poster on the closed shutter: an emergency telephone number emblazoned across a shadowy male figure, arm raised threateningly over a cowering, shadowy female. Eddy rapped hard several times on the narrow door beside the shutter. A white-faced girl appeared.
“We’re not open yet,” she said.
“We’re looking for Irene Voss,” said Eddy. He showed his ID.
“I’m Irene Voss. Come in,” she said distractedly. “I was going to phone the police. I need to show you something.” Eddy and Katrine followed her down a short dark corridor into a small, high-ceilinged space crammed with a desk, several chairs, two large filing cabinets and a bicycle.
“Yasmina in the shop next door told me a Filipina fell from one of the blocks last night. I hope I’m wrong, but I think I know who it was.”