“I’m keen for someone from the district to play on the national team. You could be that person, Lange. Good PR today.” He clapped Tobias on the back before going to join Kurt Malling, who was talking to the golf professional whose image was still on the screen, hitting balls with the regularity of a metronome.
Tobias scanned the room for familiar faces and saw Inge. He made his way to her side. They were joined by Astrid Thomsen. She greeted Tobias in a friendly manner but he detected an underlying nervousness.
“Are you still trying to find Emily?” she asked in a half-whisper. “Have you any news?”
“We are in the process of tracing where the emails are coming from,” said Tobias. He hesitated. “You know that if we find Emily, we can’t make her contact you? Or even tell you where she is without her consent.”
Astrid nodded and bit her lip. “I just want to know that she is well and happy.”
Inge put her arm around Astrid’s shoulder. “I know Tobias is doing everything possible,” she said.
Marcus Thomsen approached. “I hope you’re not upsetting my wife. This is hardly the time or the place.”
“He’s not upsetting me,” said Astrid. “He says he’ll soon be able to tell me where the emails are coming from. But I know he can’t make Emily contact us if she doesn’t want to.”
Marcus nodded. “She’s an adult.” He added, in an aside to Tobias, “Even if she still behaves like a child.”
The Thomsens moved away.
“Norbert and I are going to
Rigoletto
next week,” said Inge. “Thank you again for the tickets.” She smiled. “I thought you hated this kind of corporate thing, Tobias. You’re a keen golfer, I know.” Her smile broadened. “But I suspect that’s not the main reason you’re here.” She glanced across the room at Sofie, now ushering people towards rows of chairs at the far end of the room. “She will keep you on your toes, Tobias. Good luck.”
Music burst from loudspeakers. Two models, a man and a woman, in golfing clothes, pranced along a catwalk. Inge said she hated standing for a long time. She was going to sit down and watch the fashion show. She signalled her intention to Norbert.
Tobias stayed on his feet and backed slowly towards the exit, hoping to sit in the foyer until the fashion show was over.
“Hi Tobias,” said a familiar voice. Tobias turned and saw Christer Alsing.
“Thanks again for your advice about the frogman stealing the balls in our pond,” said Christer. “He hasn’t been spotted since. We’ll know roughly how many he stole when we drain the pond.”
“How often do you do that?”
“Once a year in the summer, when the water level goes down naturally. That’s what most clubs do. I reckon Frogman took about fifty balls every time. He could probably get fifteen kroner each for the top brands, and ten kroner for the others. It was a nice little earner for him. All he had to do was clean off the mud and weed out a few duff ones.”
A light shock ran through Tobias. He saw again in his mind’s eye the frogman flapping across the grass, the net filled with golf balls, the tire tracks, the white van roaring away from the driving range, the bend in the road, the sign: Lake Balls.
Heard again the words of the waste depot supervisor - “people are always dumping stuff in skips. Even golf balls."
“I have to go,” he said. “I’ve just remembered something. It’s important. Sorry.”
“No problem,” said Christer pleasantly. “I’m going to sit down and watch the show.”
Sofie must have sensed something. Tobias saw her turn and stare. She got up from her chair.
“I have to go,” Tobias said when she caught up with him.
“Don’t play games with me, Tobias,” she said. Her eyes were like stones.
“No games. This is urgent.” His mind was already elsewhere. He had the phone to his ear. He had walked to the reception. He needed a car. Eddy was saying, “What’s up, Boss?”
“I have to get to a driving range,” he said. “Pick me up at the Royal Hotel. It’s about the bones.”
42.
They got to the Driving Range at nine o’clock. It was dusk. The shop was brightly lit. Behind it, floodlights from the range lit the night sky. The thwock and thock of golf club on golf ball, was the only sound. White balls flew through the air like shooting stars.
The shop was garishly lit, but empty. Three walls were lined with shelves neatly stacked with golf clothes. A wide door in the fourth wall led to a bank of machines which dispensed practice balls. A man in a yellow baseball cap pulled a lever to restock the machines. The balls made a noise like distant thunder as they rattled down a chute. The man glanced over his shoulder at Tobias and Eddy. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he shouted over the drumming of the balls.
Eddy picked up a couple of golf balls from a half-full barrel beside the counter and juggled with them. The man in the baseball cap came back into the shop. He wore a badge: Jesper Erikksen: Manager.”
“Can I help you?”
“Where do you get your lake balls, Jesper?” asked Tobias.
“You’d like to buy some? They’re good value.”
“I’d like to know where you get them,” said Tobias.
“What does it matter?”
“It matters to us,” said Eddy. “We’re police officers.”
Jesper said, “Is this some kind of joke?”
Tobias produced his ID. “We’re investigating a crime,” said Tobias. “Can you tell us where you got the lake balls?”
“It’s not a crime to sell lake balls,” said Jesper.
“It is if you put on a frogman suit and dive for them on private property,” said Tobias.
“This is some kind of wind-up,” said Jesper. “I don’t go diving for golf balls. Or anything else for that matter.”
“So where do you get your lake balls, Jesper?” asked Eddy.
Jesper looked uncomfortable. “From various suppliers,” he said.
“And where do these,” Tobias paused again, “various suppliers,” another pause, “get their supplies?”
“I don’t know,” said Jesper. “You’ll have to ask them.”
“In which case,” said Tobias, “you’ll give me their names and contact details.”
Jesper shifted uneasily. “I ought to ask him first.”
“Him? That sounds like just one supplier to me,” said Eddy. “Supplying you with stolen goods.”
“I know nothing about any stolen goods,” said Jesper. “I buy in good faith.”
“And you don’t think it’s suspicious to pick up your supplies in a car park at Viby?”
This was a shot in the dark by Tobias but it hit the mark. Jesper flushed, then paled.
“You can tell us his name here, or you can tell us at police headquarters,” said Tobias. “Your choice.”
“His name is Afrim Bushati,” said Jesper. “He’s from Albania. He lives in Gellerupparken.”
“What’s the address?”
Jesper wrote down the address on a piece of paper. He pushed it across the counter to Tobias. “He’ll know that I told you. He won’t like that.”
“He won’t like being behind bars either,” said Eddy. “And if you warn him that we are looking for him, you’ll find yourself behind bars as well.”
They left a subdued Jesper Erikksen and drove to the address in Gellerupparken. On the way, Tobias spoke to Larsen, who was pleased at apparent progress on the bones case but sceptical about the connection between the bones and stolen golf balls.
“I don’t want to look like an idiot, Lange,” he said.
“Neither do I, Sir. But it’s our best lead,” he didn’t say
only
lead, “so far.”
Larsen allowed Tobias three officers from Armed Response. They arrived, with Katrine, in an anti-riot transport vehicle. Arrests could be difficult in Gellerupparken.
The address for Afrim Bushati was on the first floor of an eight-storey block near the underground bin in which the first bones had been found. The entrance was on a walkway. There was no back door, but a balcony gave on to a wide alley at the back. Tobias directed two armed response officers to take one end of the walkway each. The third officer he stationed, with Katrine, at the back of the building, under the balcony. He and Eddy went to the door of the flat. The lights were on. Tobias knocked on the door. Eddy flattened himself against the wall, his Heckler and Koch 9mm pistol in both hands.
A dark haired woman in a pink tracksuit opened the door. Behind her, Tobias glimpsed a short corridor leading to a brightly lit room.
“I’m looking for Afrim,” said Tobias.
“Who is it?” a man called out from inside the flat. Seconds later a short, stocky man in a came to the door. He was drying his hands on a grubby white towel. The woman slipped past him and went back into the room.
“Who’s looking for him?” asked the stocky man.
“Police,” said Tobias, showing his ID.
The man pushed the door against Tobias and ran back into the flat.
He picked up a chair and flung it at Tobias and Eddy in pursuit. He ran on to the balcony and vaulted over the wall. Tobias and Eddy got to it in time to see him scramble to his feet and run no more than ten metres before being brought down by a hefty shoulder tackle by Katrine. The Armed Response Officer, slower because of his protective armour, arrived in time to help her handcuff Afrim.
“She’s fit,” said Eddy admiringly.
They went back into the flat. The woman had drawn herself into the smallest possible space on a sofa, knees drawn up to her chin. Her hands, clasped around her knees, were covered in an assortment of gold and silver rings. Tobias assumed she was Afrim’s wife. She was watchful but silent as Tobias and Eddy glanced around the room.
They went into the narrow kitchen. Six red plastic buckets filled with golf balls sat on the floor. Water had recently drained out of the sink leaving a residue of suds and small bones, like chicken bones.
“Harry says it’s hard to tell the difference between chicken bones and human finger bones,” said Eddy.
“Better get these to him,” said Tobias.
Eddy took a pair of rubber gloves and a plastic bag from his jacket pocket. He put on the gloves and began picking the bones out of the sink.
The woman on the sofa spoke. “Afrim is a good man,” she called out. “He’s done nothing wrong.”
Tobias went to the kitchen doorway.
“So why did he run away?”
“He’s a good man but he’s also a stupid man. He thinks you’ll throw him in jail because he finds and keeps the golf balls people are stupid enough to lose.”
“We’ll throw him in jail because he has human bones in his kitchen sink,” said Tobias. “Because he dumped human bones in the bin fifty metres from here. Because we think he killed someone.”
“Afrim wouldn’t hurt a fly,” said the woman. “He found the bones in a lake when he was diving. I told him he should go to the police but he was worried he’d be deported.”
“So he’s an illegal immigrant,” Tobias said heavily.
“He’s an asylum seeker. He has a shite job making sandwiches in a factory. Eight at night until six in the morning. Earning peanuts. He was a diving instructor in Albania. He hit on the golf ball idea when he saw a golf tournament on television. He didn’t make a lot of money. Just enough to make life a little easier.”
“Why isn’t he at work?”
“Thursday and Saturday are his nights off.”
“When did he arrive in Denmark?”
“About eighteen months ago. I met him shortly after he got here.”
“What’s your name? What’s your relationship to him?”
“Grete Kjaer,” she said. “We live together.”
Tobias turned. Eddy was peering at something in the sink. He lifted out the inset drainer, a small round metal container which allowed water to drain while capturing dregs and particles of food waste. He held it out for Tobias to inspect.
“Take a look at this.”
Captured in the mesh of the drainer was a silver ring.
Tobias called out to Grete Kjaer. “Are you missing any of your rings?”
She spread her hands, examined her fingers.
Eddy had the ring in his hand. He held it close to his eyes. “It’s engraved on the inside.” He squinted. “Together Forever,” he said.
Tobias and Eddy stared at each other.
“Fuck,” said Eddy.
Tobias said nothing. His brain had built a picture of Emily Rasmussen, a mysterious will o’ the wisp, an elusive warrior in the ecological wars of the planet, fighting developers, living with reindeer. He had not envisaged her finger bones in a sink in Gellerupparken. A great weariness settled on him.
“I have all my rings,” said Grete Kjaer. “All present and correct.”
“Take a statement from her, Eddy” said Tobias. “I’m going to speak to Afrim.”
If what Grete Kjaer said was correct and Afrim was an asylum seeker who’d been in Denmark less than two years, he could not have met Emily Rasmussen, unless she’d been living undetected in Aarhus. He could not have killed her, chopped her up and dissolved her flesh in acid. For how else could he have dumped her bones in bins in the city? Unless those bones belonged to someone else.
“Take a statement from her, Eddy,” he said. “I’m going to speak to Afrim.”
The anti-riot van was still parked below the balcony. Afrim sat in the back, handcuffed, behind a metal grille. Katrine was talking to him through the grille. Even in the dim interior light of the vehicle, Tobias could see that Afrim was trembling.
“Why you arrest me? I lose my job. You arrest me, I lose my job.”
“A woman was murdered, here in Gellerupparken, on Tuesday night,” said Katrine. “Where were you on Tuesday night between eight o’clock and nine o’clock?”