Hell Fire Page 14

“Well, I wasn’t paying much attention, but he certainly wasn’t a lightweight, let’s put it that way. He was tall and pretty big. And he was wearing black clothes.”

  “But there was something else about him that you remember, which is why you’re here now. Am I right?”

  She smiled. “Yes, you see, July fifth was a really hot day. And while the rest of us were melting, the man was wearing a jacket and gloves.”

  26

  February 2005

  EDDIE NEVER GOT a reply from Tracker Tore. He felt utterly overlooked. He was obviously not important enough, nor was his father, so he would have to do it himself.

  One day, his mother asked him to give Shiba a bit of TLC. To cut her nails and put some cream on her paw pads. He sat on the kitchen floor with the dog between his legs—she didn’t have the energy to protest—and while he was doing this, he thought intensely about his dead father. When he was finished and the dog had lain down again, he went over to the computer because he was sure he could find the answer if he just kept looking. The National Registry, he thought all of a sudden, I can try there. Because his father would be registered and he had some years and dates now. But he soon discovered that the information he was looking for was subject to data protection, and when he tried the Danish National Registry, he got the same answer. He sat and thought for a while. Maybe his father was registered in the church records—a lot of people found their ancestors there—but that idea didn’t lead anywhere. Instead he clicked onto the population census website and felt a glimmer of optimism. It turned out you could search using several different criteria: first name, surname, sex, civil status, profession, date of birth, place of birth, and domicile. He filled out the search fields with his heart in his throat and then pressed go. To his great disappointment, there were no hits. He couldn’t understand it. His father had lived in this world, he was registered and he had worked, and everyone was tracing their ancestry these days. I’ve done something wrong, he thought, but what? He went to get a Cherry Coke from the fridge and wondered whether he could call the National Archives to ask for help. I demand to be heard, he thought. This is important.

  Full of renewed determination, he got the telephone number from directory assistance and picked up the phone and dialed the six numbers. Only to be bitterly disappointed again. Died in 1992? Then the information is subject to data protection for the next sixty years.

  Eddie was on the verge of giving up his important project. But an iron will burned inside him. It filled his body and made his head warm. He turned and studied his mother, who was pottering around in the living room with a duster. Maybe, just maybe, she hasn’t thrown away the letter from Inga in Copenhagen, he thought.

  Later, when they sat down for supper, he helped himself to four meatballs and a big portion of his mother’s homemade peas.

  “I have to talk to you about something important,” he said and looked at her across the table.

  “Not so much salt, Eddie,” she chided. “It’s not good for you.”

  “Something important,” he repeated. “Inga.”

  His mother looked down. He saw her mouth tighten in that all too familiar way.

  “Yes, what about Inga?”

  “I need to know her surname.”

  “I’ve told you, I’ve forgotten it,” she said impatiently. “And I don’t know why you’re so interested in her—she stole your father from you.”

  “But she knows where Dad is buried. I’m sure you could remember if you just tried. Sometimes I think you’re hiding things from me on purpose.”

  Mass pushed her plate aside and looked him in the eye in an attempt to be strict. But she feared it was a lost battle.

  “Maybe I have good reason for that,” she said. “I have to look after you. And there are also some very good reasons why you’re still living at home. You need to be protected.”

  He thought about this for a while. Then suddenly he was filled with rage at all the obstructions and he flared up. He hit the table with his fist, which made all the crockery jump.

  “Her surname!” he shouted. “Now!”

  Mass looked at him in dismay because the outburst had scared her. A kind of reality finally dawned on her: she didn’t have the right to stop him in his efforts.

  “Nilsen,” she said quietly. “Inga Margrethe Nilsen.”

  The air seemed to go out of Eddie, but the information brought color to his cheeks. He leaned forward and asked for the address.

  “I threw away the envelope, I promise. And I shredded the letter and threw it on the fire. I had already lost him.”

  Eddie was eager to continue his research. Inga Margrethe Nilsen in Copenhagen, he was sure he could find her. He shoveled down the rest of his food at great speed. Then he went over and picked up the phone and asked for international directory assistance.

  His heart was hammering as he gave the name.

  “How does she spell Nilsen?” the operator asked.

  Eddie didn’t understand her question. Surely he didn’t need to spell Nilsen.

  “In Denmark, they often write Nilsen with an extra ‘e,’ ” she explained.

  That hadn’t occurred to Eddie. “Look for that one,” he instructed her. “You’re probably right.”

  It only took her a few seconds, and then she told him that there was no Inga Margrethe Nielsen in Copenhagen. Eddie was holding the receiver so hard to his ear that it hurt. Was there no end to the obstructions to his search?

  “She might have moved,” the woman suggested, wanting to be helpful. “I could do a search of the whole of Denmark. It’s such a small country.”

  “Yes,” Eddie replied. “I need to find her. It’s very important.”

  He drummed his fingers on the desk as the seconds dragged out. Where could Inga have gone?

  The woman only found five hits in the whole of Denmark. In Silkeborg, Holstebro, Kolding, Aarhus, and Odense. Eddie wrote the numbers down; now all he had to do was try. One of these five women must have been married to his father, he was sure of it. Before he dialed the first number, he prepared what he was going to say. He wanted to introduce himself in a polite manner and explain why he was calling. But he didn’t get an answer in Silkeborg; he let it ring for what felt like an eternity but had to give up in the end and try the next number, in Holstebro. A child answered the phone there. Eddie had problems understanding his Danish, so spoke as clearly as he could and asked to speak to an adult. “Mom,” he heard and then some footsteps across the floor.

  Finally the mother came to the phone, and Eddie said what he’d prepared. He asked if she had lived in Copenhagen and if she had even been married to Anders Kristoffer Malthe from Norway.

  “No, I haven’t,” she said. “I think you’ve got the wrong number.”

  He put down the phone without saying goodbye and immediately dialed the third number, in Kolding, but he got the same response. As he dialed the number of Inga Nielsen in Aarhus, he looked out of the window; the white light on the bare trees made him uneasy. When he mentioned his father’s name, there was silence at the other end. For some time.

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s right. But he died in ’92.”

  “I know,” Eddie said, his breathing shallow. “I am his son, Eddie Malthe.”

  Another deadly silence. Eddie waited.

  “He talked about you. Is there something you want to know?”

  For a moment, Eddie considered sending praise to God, even though he wasn’t a believer. He turned in triumph to his mother, who was sitting on the sofa. She looked very pensive.

  “Yes,” Eddie said eagerly. “I want to know the exact date that he died. And I want to know where he’s buried.”

  He had paper and pen at the ready.

  “He died on October first, 1992,” she told him. “He’s buried at Vor Frelsers Cemetery in Copenhagen. It’s in Amagerbrogade.”

  Eddie nodded to himself. He recognized the name from the long list he had found on the Internet. Before ending the call, he excha
nged a few words with Inga Margrethe, and any bitterness that he had felt toward her evaporated. She was nice. And his father had often talked about him, but the fact was that Thomasine had been difficult after the split, as she put it.

  “Dad is buried in Amagerbrogade,” he said and turned to face his mother. “And I have a brother. His name is Mads and he’s studying in New York.”

  Eddie started to search again. He immediately found Vor Frelsers Church, but to his surprise he discovered that the address for the church was different from that of the cemetery. The church was on Sankt Annæ Gade in Christianhavn. He called international directory assistance again and asked for the number, because now he had the full address. The operator told him that there were several numbers and asked which one he wanted.

  “Who deals with the graves?” he asked.

  “Presumably the sexton,” she replied. “It says here that his name is Povel Koch.”

  Eddie said goodbye and then dialed the number right away, 004532546883. After four rings, he had the sexton on the line.

  “I want to visit a grave,” Eddie explained. “In Vor Frelsers Cemetery. But I don’t know where it is, and I don’t want to just wander around the graveyard looking for it.”

  “If you have the date of birth and date of death, then I can help you,” Povel Koch told him. “We’ve got an electronic map.”

  Eddie almost wept with joy. He had a brother named Mads in New York and he would find his father’s grave. But he also had to face up to some painful truths. His father had left him and started another family, and all he had was the photograph of his father on his bedroom wall. He had practically no memories and absolutely no love in the years that followed. And Mass had been difficult. There was a lot to think about. Eventually he turned the computer off and sat down on the sofa; he had to order all the thoughts that were tumbling around in his head.

  His mother had nothing to say. She got up and went to the bathroom, filled the bathtub, got undressed, and lowered her body into the warm water. She had always known that she wouldn’t get away with it, and now it was about to happen. Eddie had found the man who had betrayed them. She grabbed the sponge and started to wash her body. She noticed a large bruise on the inside of her thigh. She thought it odd because she couldn’t remember bumping into anything. When she put her thumb on it and pressed gently, there was no pain. Then she saw another one, farther down toward the knee. They were so dark they were almost black. But she quickly forgot them when her thoughts returned to her son.

  27

  August 2005

  THEY WERE STANDING outside Simon’s daycare in Blåkollen.

  The big playground was green and well equipped with climbing frames, swings, and sandboxes, as well as an old boat with a small cabin on top. Someone had painted “Captain Sabeltann” in black letters on the bow. This is where Simon played, Sejer thought. He could picture the little boy on top of the climbing frame, or onboard the old boat, pretending to be a pirate. They went in. Kaja came to meet them and showed them Simon’s coat peg under the snail.

  “What have you told the children?” Sejer asked.

  Kaja was now sitting behind her desk. “Well, we certainly gave it lots of thought, I can tell you. First we called a meeting with the parents, so they could all say what they thought, but there was no agreement. Some thought that the children should be spared, and others thought it was better to tell the truth because children have such lively imaginations.”

  “And you?”

  “I wanted to tell them the truth. Not all the gruesome details, of course, but that they had been killed with a knife. I consulted a child psychologist from the Educational and Psychological Counseling Service over at Haugane School, and she supported me in wanting to tell the truth. So that’s what we did in the end.”

  “But some parents disagreed?”

  “Yes.”

  “So how did it go when you told the children?” Sejer asked.

  “We took them all into the quiet room, where there are mattresses and pillows and no one is allowed to shout. No one shouted that day. It’s never been so quiet in that room.”

  “How did they react?”

  “With silence. The youngest ones put their thumbs in their mouths.”

  “Did they ask any questions at all?”

  “Yes, they wanted to know who had done it and why. We explained that he had probably been angry about something, but the police would find him and put him in jail. And that he would stay there for a long time, perhaps forever.”

  She smiled when she said the last word.

  The office was full of little statues and there were paintings on the wall. Sejer had a salt dough figure on his desk lamp in the office, a small constable in a blue uniform. Over the years, it had gotten drier and more cracked. He didn’t dare to touch it anymore because he guessed it would just crumble.

  “Did you notice anything different about Bonnie’s behavior in the weeks before they were murdered? Did she mention any particular incidents?”

  “No, nothing like that. But it was just heart-rending every morning when Bonnie had to leave. Simon was a nervous little boy and he was always devastated when she disappeared out the door.”

  “He didn’t have much contact with his father,” Skarre remarked. “Do you know why?”

  “Bonnie never talked about things like that. If we broached the subject, she was dismissive. But I believe that children should have a father.”

  Sejer and Skarre didn’t say anything. There was nothing new to be learned at the daycare, but they hadn’t really expected there would be. The visit was on their list as it helped them to get a picture of how Bonnie and Simon had been before they were killed. Just as they were on their way out, Kaja stopped them.

  “There was one thing I noticed—a little thing—so it may well mean nothing,” she said. “But a few days before it happened, I noticed a car outside the gate. It stopped as close as it could. It looked like they were waiting for someone, but no one got out. The car just idled there. It was just after Bonnie had picked Simon up and was about to pull out. For some reason, I stayed at the window and watched the car—because when you work in a daycare, I suppose you’re always a bit more vigilant. There are so many stories about fathers who have lost custody and kidnap their own children. We have to keep an eye out.”

  “When Bonnie drove off, what did the other car do?” Sejer asked.

  “It turned around and followed her.”

  “And you saw the car only once?”

  “No, it came back again the next day. I got the feeling that if they weren’t following Bonnie, whoever it was was looking for someone or watching a house farther down the street.”

  “Did you mention it to Bonnie?”

  “No,” she said, distraught. “Maybe I should have. But Bonnie had so much on her plate already; I didn’t want to make things worse. And I didn’t want to overreact either. But you said you needed to know everything . . .”

  “Can you remember the dates?”

  “No.”

  “OK. But a few days before the murders, you saw this car twice. And both times it turned and followed Bonnie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a car person?”

  “No, not at all. The only thing I can say for certain is that it was red.”

  They prepared a statement about the red car for the press. The hope was that observant people might have seen it in the area. Sejer knew that the switchboard would be inundated with sightings, of course, and that was precisely what he wanted. When they got back to the station, they once again sat for a long time and studied an enlarged photograph of the footprint. The front part of the sole had left a number of small circular prints, as if it had buttons. The heel had the same circles. It was a big foot, about a size fourteen. Who did it belong to? A furious or raving lunatic, a man who had been wronged in some way, a man whose head was full of revenge or delusions. A man who perhaps heard voices, a man who was out of his head on something. A man who
was full of demons and fiends, a man who might not even be able to explain to himself, let alone to anyone else, why he did what he did. A man who drove a red car and had left a footprint on the worn linoleum floor and then fled through the woods.

  28

  March 2005

  BONNIE ALWAYS FELT sad in March.

  She had often wondered why, but in March it was as if she was in no man’s land: it was no longer winter but not yet spring or summer. The weather was unpredictable and the light was gray with rotten snow. Roadsides were dirty, as forgotten garbage from the previous autumn emerged once again. One day it was freezing and there were snowstorms, the next the sun shone generously and all the snow melted again. It was hard to know what Simon should wear; he had to take his winter clothes and rain gear, waterproof boots, and a hat and mittens. There was a spare set of clothes in his bag, and some more on his peg under the snail.

  One morning in late March, she stood outside Erna’s door and rang the bell. Even though Erna was always up and often unlocked the door before Bonnie arrived, she still gave three short rings to announce her arrival, to say it’s me, Bonnie. But that morning, the door was locked. She realized that Erna hadn’t been sitting in the window watching out for her. She stood on the step for a while, baffled and worried. She might have fallen and broken her hip, or worse. Or perhaps one of the children had been to collect her and had forgotten to notify Ragnhild in the office. Bonnie put her ear to the door and listened in case the old woman was lying on the floor, calling out, but there wasn’t a sound to be heard in the house. Maybe she had overslept and was sleeping so heavily that she hadn’t heard the doorbell. Bonnie gave three more short rings and stood there waiting. Then she did what they agreed upon, an agreement she had with practically all her clients. Erna had a spare key, so Bonnie went around to the back of the house and found it under the flowerpot where it was always kept.

  She let herself into the hall. She stood there and listened. Erna was not in the living room nor was she to be seen in the kitchen, although the light was on. Bonnie’s heart started to thump and she called her name—quietly and carefully at first, then louder. She was most scared to go into the bedroom, but when she did it was clear that Erna was already up. Or had she not gone to bed the night before, could that be it? She might have fallen down the steep stairs into the basement, tumbling down onto the cement floor with her fragile bones. No, that didn’t seem right. So she turned to the only other place: the bathroom. The door was ajar. At first all she saw was the white tiles, the ones that Erna insisted she scrub with a toothbrush, so that she could clean the discolored gray grout as well. Erna was lying on the floor beside the bathtub. She was wearing an old lacy yellow top, but her thin body was naked from the waist down. The strip light on the ceiling was flickering and it made Bonnie feel dizzy. Was she about to faint? Erna’s feet were big and swollen. Bonnie noticed a web of blue veins on the inside of Erna’s thigh. She was lying on her stomach with her arms out, and a large gash was visible on her forehead. A small amount of blood had pooled on the white tiles.