Only One Life (39 page)

“To escape from the double life she’d been leading, which was making it hard for her to be a ‘normal’ Danish teenager,” Dean added, and Louise nodded.

“I know that a lot of Muslim girls who suddenly choose to go back to their family’s traditional values do it to achieve some peace of mind,” Louise continued. “The struggle is twice as hard, the struggle that the young immigrant girls have to fight, because by becoming ‘normal Danes’ they know they can expect to end up lonely and isolated, cut off from their families and their closest friends. And that network doesn’t just get replaced by a new one. In that sense, it’s a totally different kind of women’s liberation than what Danish women have been through,” Louise concluded, letting her elbows sit on top of the table as she pensively rested her chin in her hands.

“Poor girl,” Ruth said, staring straight ahead.

Mik cleared his throat. “Michael Mogensen has a boat that he keeps out in Hørby Marina by Cape Tuse,” he said. “Michael says he suffocated Samra with a sofa cushion, then carried her out and put her in the trunk of his car and drove out to his boat.”

“His tripod was in the trunk too, and that’s where the marks on the back of her head came from,” Louise added. She was annoyed that she hadn’t realized the photographer had access to a boat back when she’d seen the pictures of Dicta that had been taken on the deck. She honestly just hadn’t given it a thought, because their suspicions had been focused elsewhere.

“We’ll get it checked out,” Storm said. “And obviously the same goes for his car and his studio. And you’d better remove the wiretap in Dysseparken now that they’re being released,” he added with a look at Velin.

“That also means that those tire impressions we found out at Hønsehalsen are completely irrelevant, right?” Skipper asked, and Dean nodded.

“But how does Dicta’s murder fit into this story?” Ruth asked, looking over at Louise.

“It really doesn’t. It doesn’t sound like Dicta knew anything about the relationship between her best friend and the photographer. Apparently Samra hadn’t told anyone. Dicta was presumably not in the best mood when she left Liv’s place after her humiliating rejection by Tue Sunds, and was pretty much primed to take it out on someone. Michael Mogensen thinks it was a little past midnight when he happened to see her crossing the street in front of the train station. He pulled up alongside her and she said that she had missed her train and he offered to drive her home. After she got in, she started mocking him, and he pulled into the parking lot to let her out. But after she got out, she kept belittling him, and eventually he lost it.”

“You can pin down all the details when you talk to him,” Storm interrupted, then he asked Louise and Mik to start preparing to question the photographer, so they would be ready for the preliminary examination.

An hour later, news of his confession was everywhere. The local TV news team was getting ready to do a live interview with Storm when they went on the air around nine o’clock, and the
Dagbladet
journalists had already started gathering in the lobby of the police station, waiting for the press conference Storm had called for immediately after his television appearance. Louise was trying to block out all the commotion so she could concentrate on Michael Mogensen’s questioning, which she and Mik were going to begin as soon as the uniforms were done processing the arrest.

The crime-scene specialists had just arrived in town and had started turning the photographer’s apartment upside down. The car and the sailboat at Cape Tuse would be brought in for thorough examinations, but even after just a cursory look at the tripod they had agreed that that was what had been used to crush Dicta’s skull. Both the weight and the size and location of the rounded screw heads fit the lesions with the three-centimeter spacing.

Louise was sitting in her office behind her closed door, reviewing the notes from the first questioning session they’d had when they visited the photographer. So she didn’t answer the phone until the fourth ring, and she was dismissive and snappish with her greeting.

“I just heard,” Henrik Møller said, without paying any attention to her standoffish tone. “I’m at home and just told my wife. I wasn’t sure if she’d heard the news. I need you to come over right away.” He didn’t give her any time to object before he hung up.

Louise felt like she’d been stuffed into a deep, black hole. The last thing she wanted to spend her remaining energy on now was Dicta’s unhappy, unbalanced mother.

She stood and Mik looked up.

“What was that?”

“Henrik Møller. He just told his wife that Samra’s parents are innocent and that the actual murderer has been caught. He wanted me to come over right away.”

“Do you want me to come too?”

She shook her head. “You don’t need to do that. I think he just wants me there to confirm that the case is really closed. It won’t take long.”

Both of the family’s cars were in the driveway when Louise arrived, but there still weren’t any dogs barking as she walked up to the front door. The dogs’ absence left her body with an empty feeling. The doorbell echoed through the house, and a second later the door opened.

Henrik Møller was pale and nodded briefly when she said hello. She reluctantly followed him into the house, and he continued down the hallway toward Dicta’s room. There was an open mover’s box in front of the door, and a few toys were spread out on the carpet.

Henrik stood there in the hallway and pushed open the door to the room. Big piles of little girls’ toys filled the floor. The bed was unmade, but at the head end Louise spotted the dark hair.

42

A
NNE
Mø
LLER DIDN
’
T EVEN LOOK UP WHEN
L
OUISE WALKED INTO
the room. She was sitting like a statue, watching the little girl who was sleeping in her daughter’s bed. Dicta’s mother was holding a grayish-white teddy bear in her hands, one that looked like it had seen many years of affection and play.

Louise took a deep breath of relief and watched as Dicta’s father nodded at his wife, turned on his heel, and returned to the kitchen without saying anything. Anne appeared to be unresponsive. She hadn’t noticed that anyone had entered the room.

Louise walked back out to the hall and found Mik’s cell phone number.

“I need two ambulances,” she said. “I think Aida is alive, but Anne Møller is in shock or some sort of trance, or whatever the hell you’d call it. I suggest that we call Jakobsen, the crisis psychologist at National Hospital who Unit A uses. I don’t know of anyone else out here who can handle this kind of thing. If he can’t come here, we’ll have to bring her in to him, because she needs help ASAP, and her family-practice doctor doesn’t seem to have seen fit to follow up on her condition.”

Louise went back into the bedroom and said Anne’s name. Silently and without startling Anne, she walked over and sat down next to her on the edge of the bed and tugged slightly on the comforter that was covering Aida’s little body. The girl was breathing peacefully, and, as far as Louise could tell, there were no signs of violence or assault. She was sleeping with her hair spread out over the pillow.

Louise briefly considered whether she ought to pick up the girl and take her somewhere safe. But there was nothing in the room that gave her a reason to feel any danger.

On the other hand, she had no doubt that Anne Møller was beyond reach. Her grief had taken root in her and was firmly in control of her actions. But there was no sign of evil intent in her face. Anne had taken the child because she’d thought they’d taken hers.

The sirens sliced through the peaceful, upscale neighborhood. The two ambulances arrived at the same time, immediately followed by police cars. Henrik came in without saying anything, and Louise took Anne’s hand and said that now Aida had to go home to her mother again.

“My little girl came back,” Anne said, looking at Louise through unfocused eyes.

They heard footsteps in the hallway and an EMT stepped into the room, followed by a colleague. Suddenly the room seemed very small. Anne stood up and bent down over Aida, who had started to stir. The little girl sleepily rubbed her eyes and stretched her small body.

The next movement came as Louise was still sitting on the bed looking at the girl, relieved that she was in good condition. Anne’s hands locked around the girl’s throat in a chokehold that squeezed a deep gurgle out of her mouth and made her eyes shoot open in fear.

The two men were on Dicta’s mother in a heartbeat, but she had a firm grip and put all her weight into her efforts. The girl twitched a couple of times, and a moment later she stopped moving.

At that instant, Louise swung Dicta’s heavy photo album against Anne’s head with all her might. The blow flung the mother off the bed, and Louise scooped up the unconscious girl and was quickly out of the room with her in her arms. She laid Aida on the kitchen floor and stayed by her side while the EMTs started CPR. She kept calling the little girl’s name until Aida finally opened her eyes in confusion and looked around. Her eyes were bloodshot and radiated terror, but her cries were soundless. The pain in her throat held them back.

Louise heard Camilla at the door and made room as Henrik led her in. Louise knew Camilla had been at the police station along with the rest of the journalists, waiting for Storm’s press conference. Maybe Storm had thought she could help, because, with Camilla, the girl felt safe and protected through the shock of waking without her family.

Anne Møller was carried out. Henrik turned away when they walked by with his wife, but the pain in his eyes was so visible that it sliced through Louise.

“Don’t you want to ride with her?” Louise asked, stepping over to him.

He shook his head imperceptibly, but walked slowly out to the ambulance anyway. Louise stood there in the doorway, watching as he climbed in to sit down next to the gurney.

Camilla was sitting with Aida in her lap. She was stroking the little girl’s hair and kept saying that there was nothing else to be afraid of.

Louise walked over and tapped her shoulder.

“Let’s go,” she said, holding the front door open for them.

There were seven or eight cars outside. Several of them contained folks from the press, but Louise ignored them and left it to Camilla to decide how she wanted to tackle the intrusive photographers, one of them from her own paper. They’d figured out that there’d been a massive police response in town and had followed the sirens to the Møller family’s house.

Louise held open the door to the backseat of the police cruiser for Camilla, who was holding Aida in her arms. Once the door was slammed shut, Louise got behind the wheel and headed toward Dysseparken 16B.

The couple had seen them from the window, and Ibrahim and Sada were standing in the doorway when they came up the stairs. With tears in their eyes, they reached for their youngest daughter. In the living room, Hamid sat glued to the large TV screen, as if he still weren’t ready to accept input from the world around him.

Aida clung to Camilla’s neck before she let herself flop down into her mother’s arms.

“We need to take her to the hospital,” Louise said from where she was standing in the background.