Fatal Isles Read online

  ‘No, that the two of them were such fucking pricks. I’m probably the only kid in the world who prayed to God every night that her parents would get a divorce. I guess I figured things would get better if they did, but they got worse; they were always fighting and wanted me to act like some kind of go-between. They’re out of their minds, both of them,’ she adds and stubs her cigarette out violently on the saucer of the half-empty tea mug.

  As though realising she just used the wrong tense about her mother, Sigrid suddenly looks confused.

  Karen and Karl both feel a growing sense of unease as this new information sinks in. That Jounas Smeed’s marriage had been stormy and that the fighting had continued after the divorce was something they would have preferred not to know, particularly in connection with the investigation into the murder of his ex-wife. And hearing it straight from his daughter fills them both with a feeling of snooping around something they want nothing to do with. Like sniffing someone’s dirty laundry.

  ‘One last question,’ Karen says. ‘Do you have any idea who might want to hurt your mother? Someone she had an issue with?’

  Sigrid looks at her with an air of resignation.

  ‘Issue? Aside from Dad, you mean? Well, only, like, every person she ever met.’

  ‘Anyone specific come to mind?’

  ‘I’ve no idea what she got up to or who she spent time with. Like I said, we’ve had practically no contact in the past couple of years.’

  She falls silent and her eyes well up.

  ‘OK, Sigrid,’ Karen says. ‘We’re done bothering you for today, but we may need to speak to you again.’

  She pulls a business card out of her jacket pocket.

  ‘This is my number. If you think of anything, give me a call. Or if you just want to talk,’ she adds, without really knowing what she means by that. If she was looking to have a heart to heart, Sigrid Smeed would hardly turn to one of her father’s colleagues. And a copper, to boot.

  She puts the card down on the table and stands up. When Karl closes the front door behind them, Sigrid is still sitting motionless on the sofa.

  She should lock the door, Karen observes.

  20

  They ride the lift back down in silence. As they exit the building, they notice three boys of about thirteen scurrying away from Karen’s car like rats.

  ‘Goddamn kids, why aren’t they in school?’ Karl exclaims furiously, studying the black felt-tip letters on the windscreen: FUCKING CUNTSTABLES.

  ‘The real question is how they spotted us, given as how we’re not even driving a patrol car,’ Karen counters.

  Karl laughs bitterly while he tries to rub off the text with the sleeve of his jacket.

  ‘Come on, those brats can spot a copper a mile away. I’m guessing it’s genetic.’

  ‘Stop that, you’re ruining your jacket. And tone down the prejudice, will you?’

  She opens the door and turns on the windscreen wipers. Karl has slid into the passenger seat; a faint smell of ethanol spreads through the car as they watch the wiper fluid smear the black letters into grey slush across the windscreen.

  ‘That was rough,’ Karl says after minute.

  Karen nods silently.

  ‘Are you sure you want to talk to Jounas by yourself? Maybe it would be easier if we both go?’

  ‘Thanks, you’re nice to offer, but I think it would be best if I went alone again. We didn’t get very far yesterday, he was . . . in shock and not particularly easy to talk to.’

  Karl shoots her a look.

  ‘You mean hammered? Well, I certainly wouldn’t blame him if he took to the bottle. I know I would if someone beat my ex to death. Even if she was a right witch,’ he adds; Karen wonders if he’s referring to his own ex-wife or Susanne Smeed.

  She decides it makes no difference.

  ‘I guess he wasn’t entirely sober,’ she replies drily. ‘Either way, I’m going to have one more go on my own before we up the ante. After all, it depends on what the others dig up, too. Let’s just wait and see where we are at the end of the day.’

  She drops Karl off on Redehusgate, outside the station. A car from the public radio station is parked across the street. Between the open back doors of a van adorned with the logo of Doggerland’s public television broadcaster, DTV, Karen glimpses a photographer she recognises as the constant companion of TV reporter Jon Bergman. He’s leaning a tripod against the van while unloading his camera. The moment Karl opens the passenger door to climb out, Jon Bergman himself appears from behind the DTV van. He immediately spots Karen behind the wheel and sets his course for her.

  ‘Get out of here, right now,’ Karen hisses to Karl. ‘And not one word to the media, you hear me?’

  The moment the car door closes behind Karl, she floors it, heading toward Odinsgate. In the rear-view mirror, she sees Jon Bergman standing forlornly in the middle of the street, looking after her for a few seconds before turning around and hurrying into the station after Karl.

  Viggo Haugen’s decision to hold a press conference hadn’t been open for discussion. But when Karen had briefed him and prosecutor Dineke Vegen about the investigation after the morning meeting, he’d looked concerned.

  ‘So you’re seriously telling me no one saw or heard anything? And you have no idea who did this?’

  ‘That’s correct; so far, we’ve found neither witnesses nor motives, but it’s still early days. It’s not even been twenty-hours since we were called to the scene.’

  ‘And what am I supposed to say at the press conference?’

  The chief of police had spread his hands and looked at Dineke Vegen, as though expecting her to back him up in his criticism. But the prosecutor had ignored him and instead made a note in her papers.

  ‘Well, I guess you’ll have to tell them everything we do know, except for the method and the murder weapon, obviously,’ Karen had replied. ‘Who died, where it happened, that we can’t rule out murder but that we are not at liberty to divulge further details. The usual crap,’ she’d added before being able to stop herself.

  Viggo Haugen had given her an annoyed look, and Karen had quickly attempted to take the sting out of her words.

  ‘But I agree it can be a good idea to talk to the media at an early stage. It could generate valuable information from the public.’

  What do you know, my tongue’s already getting longer and browner? she’d thought to herself, offering a conciliatory smile.

  Maybe it is, if not good, then at least necessary, to hold a press conference now, she thinks, watching Jon Bergman’s back disappear into the station. That the head of the CID is closely connected to the victim is of course already known to every editor in town. They have to inform the media about what steps they’re taking to keep Jounas Smeed safe while the investigation is ongoing. What she said about tips from the public, on the other hand, is a long shot. Previous experience has shown that anyone with truly valuable information usually gets in touch without being urged by the media. The rest, on the other hand, are triggered by appeals for information and will burden both the local phone networks and the country’s police stations. Valuable time will be wasted talking to lonely people and nutters about things that have nothing at all to do with Susanne Smeed’s death.

  *

  Karen turns left onto Odinsgate and then right down Slaktehusgate toward Packartorget Square. About twenty people are scattered on the steps of the National Museum, faces turned toward the sun. It’s really too early for lunch and she’s not particularly hungry, but she realises she should have something to eat before she pushes on toward Thingwalla. Seeing Jounas Smeed is going to be hard enough under the best of circumstances; with low blood sugar, it could prove a disaster.

  She parks in the square outside the market hall and enters through the large doors, quickly passes through smells of freshly ground coffee, spices and bread and continues toward the fishmonger at the back. Here, crates of smoked herring and prawns jostle for space with piles of different kinds
of rough-shelled oysters, troughs full of bright red lobsters, ice beds where anglerfish, cod and mackerel are stacked next to wolfish and haddock. She stops to look at their wide-open eyes and gaping mouths and makes a mental note to buy a nice piece of cod for the weekend. A memory of Susanne Smeed’s empty, dead eyes flashes through her mind; she continues toward the food-to-go section.

  Ten minutes later she takes a seat on the museum steps with a salmon salad and a bottle of mineral water. She shades her eyes with her hand and looks out across the square where eager fruit and vegetable sellers shout to make themselves heard over the classical music streaming out of the speakers. After much agonising, Dunker Town Council has decided to splurge on another year of lunch music at some of the city’s prominent gathering places. The whole thing had started as one of the many events put on for the Capital of Culture year when the city’s political parties had competed to come up with creative suggestions for how to increase the availability of any and all forms of culture. No one had thought there would be strident protests when the speakers were taken down at the end of the year; in the end, the council had rolled over and let the public will triumph. Consequently, for two hours every day, classical music still streams out across Packartorget Square. Any attempt to vary or modernise the repertoire has been rebuffed, however; no one is willing to pay for the right to play music when works over seventy years old are free, in accordance with international copyright laws. There are limits.

  Karen closes her eyes and listens for a few seconds to something she believes may be Mahler. Even though the sun is considerably lower in the sky now than just a few weeks ago, it still warms her cheeks and forehead. But a new crispness has crept in across the island, like a mild but insistent reminder that this is a temporary reprieve; summer is definitely over, and soon, harsh Atlantic winds will blow in across the Dogger Islands.

  She opens her bottle, takes a sip of mineral water and digs into the warm smoked salmon. While she chews, her thoughts meander to the meeting that awaits her. Turning up unannounced at Jounas’s house again is a gamble, but her plan is to disarm him before he has a chance to put his guard up. He won’t like it. At the same time, it can hardly come as a surprise to him that she’s back so soon.

  Given the statistics, he should actually be bloody grateful she hasn’t brought him down to the station yet. In nine cases out of ten when a woman’s murdered, the perpetrator’s either the husband or the ex-husband. The question is how cooperative Jounas will be this time. And how sober.

  21

  As Karl Björken passes through the revolving door to the police station, he hears Jon Bergman’s all-too familiar voice in the compartment behind him.

  ‘Hey, Björken, do you have a minute? Hey, hold on, will you?’

  Without turning around, Karl continues briskly toward the lifts, but the young reporter from DTV’s The World Today catches up before he can even push the button. I should’ve taken the stairs, he thinks and glances over at the reception desk, where the on-duty constable is trying to placate the journalists who are impatiently waiting for their visitors’ passes to be printed. Dark blue circles under the arms of his uniform shirt reveals that the system’s on the blink as usual; the loud opprobrium from the assembled press is peppered with words relating to bureaucracy and police incompetence.

  A security guard from Gardia is blocking the door to the main auditorium, his arms outstretched, doing his best to prevent a criminal reporter from Kvellsposten from walking in without registering.

  Karl glances up at the clock above the reception desk: three minutes to twelve. Viggo Haugen is probably pacing nervously behind the scenes right now, waiting to make his entrance, anxiously wondering why the auditorium is still empty. This is certainly getting off to a stellar start, Karl Björken considers, and turns his back on the debacle. Noon is an idiotic time to hold a press conference, anyway. At least, it is if you don’t intend to offer the gaggle of scandal-sniffing reporters anything to ward off their worst lunchtime hunger pangs.

  But then this press conference isn’t going to offer anything of substance in either a literal or a figurative sense; Viggo Haugen is as tight-fisted as he’s hungry for media attention; Karl thanks his lucky stars he’s not required to participate in the pointless spectacle.

  ‘Is Jounas Smeed’s ex-wife the murder victim? Can you at least confirm that? Come on, we already know it’s her; I just need official confirmation.’

  Jon Bergman asks the question while glancing over at his photographer, who’s crowding the reception desk with the others. Annoyed, Karl pushes the lift button again and looks up at the displays above the doors. One lift seems stuck on the fourth floor while the other is on its way up.

  ‘Has Smeed been suspended? As a family member he has to be considered a suspect, right? Or do you already know who the killer is?’

  Jon Bergman tries to get around Karl to catch his eye. He takes a quick breath and continues.

  ‘Do you know what weapon was used? Smeed must have a firearm, right? Come on, Björken, give me something, will you?’

  Karl listens absently to the deluge of questions. For once, the details haven’t started leaking yet. Out of respect for Jounas, his colleagues seem to have actually kept their mouths shut. With relief, he notes that one of the lifts finally seems to be on its way down.

  ‘Absolutely,’ he says with a grin just as the doors ding and slide open.

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  Jon Bergman looks puzzled.

  ‘Hey, I think they’re about to start in there now.’ Karl nods toward the auditorium where the security guard has stepped aside to let in the horde of impatient journalists and photographers. ‘You’d better hurry or you’ll miss it,’ he says and smiles at the reporter as the lift door slides shut between them.

  While the lift works its way up, Karl pulls out his phone and taps out a text to Karen. He presses send just as he steps out of the lift on the third floor.

  Smeed is going to have visitors very soon.

  Evald Johannisen seems to be staring fixedly at the computer screen, but Karl can tell from his vacant eyes that his thoughts are somewhere else entirely.

  ‘All right, Evald?’ he says and slams his fist into the side of his desk. ‘Daydreaming, are we?’

  Johannisen startles and, for a moment, a look of uncontrolled rage distorts his features. A fraction of a second passes, he has composed himself, smiles widely and leans back casually in his office chair.

  ‘Look who’s here; did she let you off your lead or did you break free?’

  ‘Believe it or not, I’m allowed to run free for a bit. Have you seen Loots? I figured I’d check to see if he’d heard back from the technicians.’

  Evald Johannisen jerks his head toward the kitchen.

  ‘Probably on a coffee break as usual. Where’s the boss lady got to, then?’

  ‘She went over to Smeed’s. Like she said she would this morning.’

  ‘Yes, apparently she prefers to see him . . . shall we say privately? Very thoughtful of her, outstanding managerial potential, if you ask me.’

  Karl Björken studies his colleague and makes a quick assessment. Johannisen is tiresomely disgruntled as usual, but his sarcasm usually has a bit more subtlety to it. The appointment of Karen Eiken Hornby as interim Head of the CID has clearly touched a nerve. Karl has an urge to say something about sour grapes, but decides not to.

  He likes Karen; despite her lack of social polish and one or two tiresome idiosyncrasies, she’s always done a good job. On the other hand, no one wants to get on the wrong side of Johannisen. Even worse than having to put up with listening to him bashing someone else would be knowing he was criticising you behind your back. Besides, this new power structure is highly temporary and caution should always be the guiding principle when it comes to office politics. Upon Smeed’s return, Karen’s going to be pushed down the ladder and Johannisen’s stock will rise again. He settles on simply shooting Johannisen a crooked smile, whic
h he is free to interpret as he pleases.

  ‘What about you?’ he says in an attempt to distract and redirect. ‘Weren’t you and Astrid going out to Susanne Smeed’s workplace today?’

  ‘Yeah, we went, but it didn’t turn up much. The manager talked about how devastated she was about what happened, but the people who were there didn’t seem to have worked very closely with Susanne. I think we’re going to have to have another go.’

  ‘Eiken and I just talked to Jounas’s daughter, not much luck there either,’ Karl offers. ‘It was impossible to get anything useful out of her; she mostly seemed resentful.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, tattoos and nose ring and the rest of the look,’ Johannisen grins, looking like he’s trying to coax something out from between his teeth with his tongue.

  ‘Oh, so you’ve met her? I got the impression she doesn’t have much contact with Jounas.’

  ‘That’s certainly true, but Erlandsen pointed her out to me on the street a few weeks ago and told me that was Smeed’s girl. Poor sod! First all that stuff with his wife and then a daughter who looks like a bloody junkie.’

  ‘All that stuff with the wife, what do you mean?’

  Evald Johannisen has stuck his pinkie deep into his mouth and is now laboriously working on whatever is clearly stuck between his molars.

  ‘Come on, Björken,’ he says, ‘surely half of Doggerland knows Susanne Smeed made Jounas’s life hell for years. And not just his life, if I’ve understood things right; she apparently made a nuisance of herself in all kinds of areas. No, there’s no shortage of enemies or motives there. Are you really that out of the loop, Charlie-boy?’

  With revulsion, Karl Björken watches his colleague wipe his index finger on his trousers; he can feel his irritation intensifying.

  ‘Well,’ he says, shrugging indifferently in an attempt to take the edge off the news value of Johannisen’s statement. ‘I knew she was no Mother Teresa, obviously, but I think you’re going to have to be more specific if you want the village gossip to yield anything useful.’