In her office, she touched the screen on her computer. An image flashed up. Katrine felt a rush of vomit into her throat. She turned away and put her hand over her mouth. She swallowed bile and made herself look at the screen. Her mouth dried.
“She is wearing a bracelet with the name Girlie,” said the doctor. “She answers to that name, but she won’t tell us anything else. She has no bag, no purse, and no identification. She has only a few words of Danish. She can speak a little English.”
“Did anyone get the number of the van?” asked Eddy.
“Maybe the ambulance driver,” said the doctor. “I don’t know.”
She led Eddy and Katrine to a room where a small figure sat bunched in a high-backed chair, motionless as a doll. She looked less bad in the flesh than in the photographs. A hospital social worker had given her tracksuit trousers, a T-shirt and a thick woollen cardigan which concealed the bruises on her body. She had regained some colour in her cheeks. The swelling around her right eye had subsided, although the eye itself was still puffy and closed.
Eddy positioned himself against the back wall of the room and nudged Katrine forwards.
Katrine crouched and put one hand on the arm of the chair. She said slowly, in English. “My name is Katrine. I am a police officer. Your name is Girlie. Is that correct?”
The doll-like figure’s lips moved. Katrine leaned closer to hear the whispered, “Yes.”
“Who did this to you, Girlie?”
A tear trickled from the unswollen eye. Girlie lifted her hand to wipe it away. She wore a wedding ring.
“Did your husband do this?’
Girlie whispered, “No.”
“Whoever did this is a very bad person. We need to stop him doing this again.”
Girlie closed her good eye. Her mouth tightened.
“If you tell us who did this, we can stop him doing it again to you or anyone else.”
Girlie turned her head away.
Eddy slipped out of the room to speak to the doctor hovering in the corridor.
“She’s frightened of whoever did it,” he said. “Probably her husband. Although she denies it.”
“Almost certainly her husband,” said Doctor Bro. “I’ve seen this kind of thing before, although not as bad as this. They won’t leave their husbands until they get residency. They’re afraid of being deported.”
“She could be an illegal,” said Eddy. “Either way, we need to tell Immigration.”
“What will happen to her?”
“If she’s illegal, she’ll be deported,” said Eddy. “If she tells us who did this, we’ll arrest him. If it’s her husband and she’s been here longer than two years, she might be allowed to stay.”
He went back into the room. He stood over the crumpled figure in the chair.
“It’s an offence to withhold information about a crime,” he said in a stern voice. “Assault is a serious crime. Who did this to you, Girlie?”
Girlie bit her lip and looked away.
“We have to tell Immigration about you,” Eddy said.
He saw her body stiffen.
“It will help you if you talk to us first,” he said in a softer tone.
He thought there was a flicker of response. But Girlie didn’t speak. She closed her eyes.
Eddy and Katrine exchanged glances. Eddy shrugged. Girlie gave a little snore. Her body was limp.
“We could be here all day,” Eddy muttered. “We have to speak to the ambulance driver and I still have that report to finish.” He shepherded Katrine into the corridor. He had his phone out, ready to call Immigration.
They called into Doctor Bro’s office before leaving the Sexual Assault Centre.
“She’s asleep,” said Eddy. “And she’s not any more helpful when she’s awake. An Immigration officer will be here in about twenty minutes to interview her. And we’ll send a uniformed officer to keep an eye on her.”
“You hardly need to,” said Doctor Bro. “She’s not fit to go anywhere at the moment.”
“In that case,” said Eddy. “We’ll leave you in peace.”
They found the ambulance driver enjoying a quick cigarette in the parking bay outside the emergency room.
“It happened so fast,” he said. “The van pulled up. She was pushed out. I was coming on duty. I rushed over to her. I didn’t have time to check the number plate. It was a white van. Not new.”
Eddy said, “Did you see the driver? Was he alone?”
“There was a woman with him,” said the driver. “White van. White driver. Black woman in the passenger seat. Big shoulders. She was the one who did the dumping.”
“You’re sure it was a woman?”
The ambulance driver cupped his hands at chest level and winked. “I’m sure.”
“But she didn’t get out of the van?”
The ambulance driver shook his head. “Just pushed her out.” He sucked on his cigarette. “Maybe she was an illegal. You see a lot of things in this job. We got called out to an emergency last year. There was no one at the address when we got there except a woman with a burst appendix. Everyone else had scarpered. Illegals, every one of them.”
Eddy glanced around the parking bay. No CCTV. Pity. The driver was probably correct. The victim was an illegal, beaten up by her husband or boyfriend and taken to hospital by a friend, also an illegal.
“Immigration will probably want to speak to you,” he said.
“They know where to find me,” said the driver. He extinguished his cigarette with a flick of his thumb and threw the stub into a bin. “Pity they’re not better at finding illegal immigrants.”
Katrine was scrolling through the Missing Persons list when Eddy took a call from Immigration. Katrine heard him groan and slap his desk.
“You can add another missing person to the list,” he said. “Girlie disappeared from the hospital before Immigration could speak to her.”
They tossed for which one of them was going to tell Larsen. Katrine lost.
Larsen was icily angry. “You’re only here a week and you manage to fuck-up. I should send you straight to Traffic Control. I have enough politicians bleating about immigration. I don’t need them to know we let an illegal slip out of our hands.”
“She might not be illegal, Sir.”
“And pigs might fucking fly, Skaarup. She could have helped us find out who got her into the country. Why weren’t you watching her?”
“A constable was on the way, Sir. But she was gone when he got there.”
“Why didn’t you wait for him?”
“She was asleep and the doctor thought she was too injured to go anywhere. She never moved while I was there. I’m amazed she could walk.”
“Blood lazy of you. Bloody careless of you. I don’t need lazy and careless detectives. This is a black mark against you. And Haxen as well. I suppose you tossed for who was going to tell me and you lost? Screw up once more and you’re off my team. That goes for both of you.”
“I’m sorry, Sir.”
Larsen calmed down. “If these people don’t have the wit to see that they’re better off talking to us and getting the abusers locked up, then I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. Now bugger off. And don’t fuck up again.” He waved her away.
Katrine spent five minutes in the washroom dabbing her tears away.
“Why do you want to join the police?” Katrine’s best friend had asked in astonishment when Katrine confided that she wanted be a detective. “It’s not a flattering uniform. Especially with those bulky vests. You have a nice figure, Katrine. But I suppose if you’re a detective you can wear your own clothes.” Linda had tossed her hair back and adjusted her skirt. Linda was now assistant manager of a hotel in Skagen. They were still good friends.
Katrine’s parents were equally puzzled by her choice of career. No member of the family, for as far back as they could remember, had been in the police force or any other job in a uniform. They were all independent-minded dairy farmers.
“At least it’s a good job with a pension,” said her father. “But it’s a pity you have to leave the island.”
Since leaving Bornholm had been Katrine’s primary ambition, she just smiled and promised to come home as often as she could. She was a dutiful daughter. She’d been a diligent student. She was determined to be a good detective. But in her first few weeks in the Investigations Unit, she had felt as though she was always missing the point, was trying too hard, was patronised by Tobias and Eddy. Larsen’s threat rang in her ears. She looked at herself in the mirror. Pull yourself together, Skaarup. She checked her eyes in the mirror. Her face was white but her eyes were only slightly pink. She straightened her shoulders and made her way back to the Investigations room.
Eddy looked up when she came in. “How was it?”
Katrine shrugged. “Not too bad.”
“So he shouted and raged and threatened to fire you if you fucked up again?”
Katrine smiled. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
“Well done,” said Eddy. “You’ve survived your first bollocking.” He stood up and clapped her on the back. “Join the club.”
Katrine felt it had almost been worth it.
Friday: Week One
11.
Tobias carefully arranged the photographs of the skull, bones and mummified foot to make a complete skeleton in the centre panel of the screen. He closed the other two panels. He straightened the photograph at the top. A white skull with a fan of white teeth, and black holes where once there had been eyes and a nose. He stepped back and stared at it.
“Who are you, Bogman?” he questioned silently. “Who killed you? Why?”
The skull grinned back at him.
“‘Encircled by your love.’ Who felt like that about you?”
He had given Karren a silver bracelet for her twenty-first birthday, not long after they were married. He couldn’t afford gold. He’d noticed Agnes wearing it a few times. He supposed Karren had given it to her. Not wanting to wear the memory of a marriage gone sour.
The file on Bruno Holst had arrived on his desk. He squared the buff coloured folder and opened it. Pernille had stuck a post-it note to the opening page. “Nice to be in touch again. Good luck. P”. He tidied the note into the section of a desk drawer in which he filed personal notes and reminders. He read each page in the folder. Bruno Holst and his girlfriend had a three-month old baby girl. What age would she be now? He sat back and closed his eyes, remembering Karren’s angry shouts, four week old Agnes crying in her cot, the bills spread out on the kitchen table, his overwhelming impulse to run out of the flat and take great gulps of air. He was unaware of the background noise in the office, of Katrine’s curious stare at his closed fingers clenched against the edge of the desk. He opened his eyes. He flicked back through the file to the statement by Bruno Holst’s mother, Hannelore Schmidt. The marriage was unhappy, she’d said. But she was sure her son would not have killed himself. She had no idea where he was. She’d given her statement to police in Germany. She had re-married and moved to Berlin some years before Bruno went missing. There was an address and a telephone number. On an impulse, Tobias picked up the telephone and tapped out the number. A woman’s voice answered.
“Schmidt.”
Tobias, in German, asked to speak to Bruno Schmidt.
“Wer spricht?”
Tobias said he was from the flying club and was calling about a model airplane.
Hannelore Schmidt tutted annoyance and said she didn’t know why he had given her number when he knew he was only staying with her for a few days. She dictated Bruno’s mobile phone number and said a brisk goodbye.
Tobias dialled the number she had given him.
“Schmidt.”
“Bruno Schmidt?”
“Ja.”
“Bruno Holst Schmidt?”
Silence.
“It is not a criminal offence to run away from your girlfriend and your child,” said Tobias. “It is, however, a criminal offence to withhold information from the police. I am a police officer investigating a murder committed around 15 years ago. Are you Bruno Holst who went missing from Randers fifteen years ago?”
Silence.
“The body of a man was found in East Jutland on Monday. The body fits your description. I merely want to establish that you are not the victim. That you are alive.”
“I’m alive,” said Bruno Holst.
12.
“So we’re no further on than we were yesterday.” Eddy stared despondently at a yellow crane hovering idly over an empty dock in the harbour.
“On the bright side,” said Katrine, “Bruno Holst’s case is closed and there’s one less person on the missing list.”
“Big deal,” said Eddy.
“At least I’m getting on with stuff. I’m working my way through the petitions to the Planning Department. From the model airplane club and from a hunting club. Checking the names and addresses against missing persons. Apart from Bruno Holst, no match so far.”
“No surprise, and not much use,” said Eddy.
“Not much use being negative either,” said Katrine.
Harry Norsk, Karl Lund and Professor Brix arrived for a three o’clock briefing. They gazed silently at the skeleton, now flanked by photographs of the watch, the bracelet, the buttons, the badge, the gossamer trousers and aerial photographs of the bog.
“We know Bogman was aged between 20 and 28 and was about 1 metre 70 tall,” Tobias began. “He wore a Seiko watch, an expensive silver bracelet and an enamel badge, presumably pinned to his shirt or jacket, with the letters SSN. The jacket had vintage Levi buttons and was most likely made of cotton denim. His clothing was cotton or wool, except for his trousers which contained some polyester. He was probably in bare feet when he was beaten to death. Why wasn’t he wearing shoes?”