The House That Jack Built (6 page)

Chapter 12

“W
hat the hell
did you do to him?” The doctor snapped his bag shut. Meriton Bukoshi had submitted to the doctor's treatment without batting an eyelid. “I ought to report this.”

Allan pulled the doctor aside, describing the arrest to him, while Sanne looked around Allan and Toke's shared office. It was a good deal bigger and brighter than the broom closet she had been assigned, but otherwise the layout was the same. Just two of everything: desks, telephones, computers, chairs, and filing cabinets. But what made all the difference were the two large windows facing Niels Brocks Gade, which let in the light from the clear blue summer sky.

Allan walked the doctor to the door, then turned to the suspect.

“Well, Meriton. How about we have a little chat now?”

Meriton gave him a surly look. “
Vetëm shqiptar
.”

“What does that mean?” Sanne asked.

Allan folded his arms. “It sounded a bit like the name of their club, Shqiptarë. Does it mean Albania — or Albanian? No doubt he wants an interpreter.” Allan looked at Meriton inquiringly, who nodded and looked away at the same time.

“There, you see. He understands perfectly well what we're saying. He just doesn't feel like speaking Danish, isn't that right Meriton?” Allan slapped the man on the shoulder.

Sanne flinched. Meriton smiled at her lewdly.

Allan looked at her. “Why don't you find us a translator?”

By rights, she should complain about being treated like a secretary, but she was new here and she certainly didn't feel like being left alone with Meriton Bukoshi.

A little while later, she returned with the translator, Shpend. He was tall and his eyes were constantly watery. His papers said he was in his mid-thirties but the guy looked at least ten years older.

She started coughing as soon as she opened the office door. The air inside was thick with cigarette smoke. Meriton was sitting bolt upright in the chair, hands on his lap. Allan sat on the windowsill. Hadn't the ashtray been empty when she left? They had to be on their second, maybe third, cigarette each. Meriton raised an eyebrow when she hurried through the office to open a window. Allan stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and, using his foot, pushed out a chair for Shpend. Sanne stood by the open window.

“Good.” Allan rubbed his hands and winked at Sanne. “Let's get started.”

Meriton dropped his cigarette in the ashtray, mumbling to himself.

“We'd like to know what Meriton did on the night of May 5.” Allan looked at Sanne, who nodded.

Meriton raised his eyebrows, probably suspecting that someone had talked. They had to make sure they didn't expose the girls. Sanne filled her lungs with a final mouthful of fresh air and sat down on the edge of the table behind the interpreter. Meriton followed her movements while he answered the questions, fixating on her breasts.

Meriton said he had been playing cards in their club, Shqiptarë, until late, maybe 3:30 a.m., except when he had gone to get some food around midnight. Afterwards, he went upstairs to a small room on the ground floor that he and his brother used for sleeping.

“Ask him to write down the names of the people he played cards with that evening.” Sanne placed a pen and paper on the table in front of Meriton.

Allan pulled her over to the other side of the office and whispered, “Why? Their friends would pin aggravated murder on their own mothers if the brothers asked them to.”

“No doubt. But if we can place just one of these alleged card players somewhere else, we have the first gap in his story.”

Sanne returned, nodded at Meriton, and pointed at the paper while Shpend translated. Scowling, the pimp started writing down a list of names.

“Tell him we know that he knows exactly why he's here,” Sanne said. “And then ask him where his brother is.”

The interpreter translated; Meriton shook his head.

“He hasn't seen him since the day before yesterday,” Shpend said.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door and a large, bald man in his fifties barged into the room. A considerable muscle mass was hidden beneath a layer of body fat.

“Hi Kim,” Allan said.

Kim A gave Allan a quick nod, then let his gaze fall on Meriton, who glared back at him. Then Kim A spotted Sanne. He pursed his lips and cleared his throat.

“Sorry,” he said, to Allan. “I was told you were asking for me?”

Allan raised his eyebrows. “Really? Who told you that?”

Kim A pointed backwards, looked at Meriton, then out the window. “I just ran into . . .” He stopped. “It was probably just a mistake. Sorry for interrupting.” Then he was gone.

“Who was that?” Sanne asked.

“Kim A. Former riot squad officer.”

“Isn't he on the case that Lars is handling now?”

“That sounds about right.” Allan snorted. Was that a laugh?

Meriton mumbled something and Shpend pulled out a cigarette, lit it for him. He inhaled, blew out two enormous clouds of smoke, one from each nostril.

Sanne pulled Allan into the corner. “He can't find out that we know they beat Mira. It will just get the other girls into trouble, and they'll probably get a beating too.”

Allan nodded.

“Okay.” Sanne crossed the room, looked Meriton hard in the eye. She tried to ignore the penetrating stench of stale sweat. “So you do admit that you knew Mira?”

Meriton puffed his chest out. “She was a — how do you say — girlfriend?” Shpend translated. “He has not seen her since the night of May 4.”

Meriton took a drag on the cigarette; the ember flared up. He started speaking quickly, gesticulating; Shpend almost couldn't keep up. “Meriton and his brother Ukë had agreed to meet Mira at Burger Palace on Vesterbrogade at 11:30 p.m. But she never turned up. Some of their other girlfriends” — Meriton laughed at this point — “had seen her on Absalonsgade an hour before. They'd had people out looking for her, but the ground might as well have opened up and swallowed her whole. Until he saw her on the front page of today's paper.” Meriton nodded at the open copy of the tabloid
BT
on Toke's desk.

Allan leaned forward in the chair. His stomach spilled out onto his thighs. “Do you know what I think? I think you and your brother discovered that she had a customer or two on the side.”

Meriton looked away, took a drag on the cigarette. “You don't know shit. Danish police don't know shit,” he said in Danish. “You need to find out who killed my friend Mira.” The interpreter stared at him open-mouthed.

Allan started to get up, his face flushed. Sanne had to pull him back down into the chair.

She waved the paper with the list Meriton had made in front of his face. “We're going to check this list thoroughly. You'd better hope that one of your friends wasn't somewhere else that night. In a car accident, ticketed for running a red light, bar fight . . .” Meriton's gaze wandered. Sanne continued, “And when you see your brother, tell him we'd really like to have a word with him. Preferably today and at the very latest, tomorrow. If he doesn't show up, we'll make it our mission to destroy your business. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

Meriton spat out the cigarette butt.

“Danish police,” he said getting up, then stomping toward the door. “You don't know shit.”

A little later Sanne sat in her broom-closet-sized office. There were no windows and the walls were brown. The room smelled of linoleum and old paper. She twisted and turned a dirty envelope in her hand. The stamp was postmarked
22.4 Bratislava, Slovakia
. One side of the envelope looked to have been opened with a knife.

She put the envelope down and sorted through the few, modest belongings Mira had left behind: a fake Dolce & Gabbana purse, cheap lace underwear, a pair of tight H&M jeans, two very short dresses, three tops, a shirt, and a down vest. There were also a couple of books in some Eastern European language. Judging by the covers, they looked to be medical romance novels of some kind. She opened the purse: a lot of cheap, no-name makeup, probably bought in some backstreet shop, and a couple of curled-up banknotes. One kept rolling up every time she smoothed it out. Forensics would most likely find remnants of cocaine on it. Lip balm, condoms. And, in an inside pocket, a small folded-up packet containing white powder. Sanne stuck a finger inside, tasted it. The powder tasted metallic, hard. Speed or cocaine. The purse contained no phone numbers, no papers — in fact, not one of Mira's few possessions indicated anything about her as a person.

Apart from the one folded-up piece of paper and the envelope it was in.

Sanne took the letter out of the envelope. The words were incomprehensible to her, but it was signed by someone named Zoe, and Mira's full name was written on the envelope: “Mira Vanin, P.O. Box 2840, Copenhaigen, Denimark.”

The least she could do was send an enquiry to the Slovakian police through Interpol.

Ten minutes later she was on the phone with Ulrik. She had to get his permission to get the letter translated.

“Sanne,” Ulrik said in that preppy schoolboy Danish. “I can assure you that who Mira was as a person is not important. She was a prostitute who was killed by a customer or by her pimps. We're keeping our focus on her acquaintances in Copenhagen.”

Sanne seethed. The condescending man and the sentimental woman? Not with her.

“On the other hand,” he continued, “all the bleeding hearts and feminists as well as the press are coming down on us for not doing enough for female trafficking victims. Maybe it would be good to get to know Mira a little better, so if they start complaining again, we've covered that angle. You should know though, the letter won't bring us any closer to her killer.”

Chapter 13

16
Skyttegade was
a corner property, constructed in grey brick sometime around the dawn of the twentieth century. The entire ground floor was painted rust red, and the front door was covered in graffiti. But the property was lined with neat rows of plants and white hollyhocks, and the double-paned window appeared to be well maintained.

“It looks like a housing co-op.” Toke tilted his head back to look up at the top floor. Lars followed his gaze. Of course this guy lived all the way up on the fifth floor.

Lisa had finally managed to get hold of the Penthouse doorman's friend. He couldn't remember who the guy was that had been harassing Stine Bang, but he thought he worked in a music store downtown. Lisa went to a couple of record stores, but to no avail. Next she started visiting stores that sold musical instruments. Finally, in 4sound, on the corner of Åbenrå and Landemærket, she got lucky. The store manager identified the man standing behind Stine Bang in the photograph as one of his employees, Mikkel Rasmussen. Mikkel hadn't been to work for a few days, but he lived at 16 Skyttegade in Nørrebro.

Nobody answered the door phone, so Lars buzzed the neighbour.

“Police,” he said when someone finally answered.

“What do you want?” The voice was scratchy, like the man had just woken up.

“We need to have a word with your neighbour, Mikkel Rasmussen.”

“Why don't you try buzzing him then?”

Lars took a deep breath. At least he hadn't hung up.

“Could you please let us in?”

The neighbour hung up. Ten seconds later, Lars heard a buzz. He pushed open the front door. These days, the police could not expect much help in the district. And he knew why. With the district's history of riots and fighting in the streets, Nørrebro held little love for the police.

Mikkel Rasmussen's neighbour opened the door a crack when Lars, Toke, and the two uniformed officers, heavily winded, arrived at the top of the narrow staircase. The neighbour was young and scrawny, with dark, medium-length hair and drooping eyelids above grey cheeks.

“I'll need to see some ID,” he said.

Lars pulled out his badge.

“Thanks. And sorry.” The guy nodded. “There are a lot of strange people around here.”

Lars put the badge in his pocket. “I understand. We'd like to speak with your neighbour. Do you know where he is?”

The guy in the doorway looked surprised. “What did he do?”

“We just want to talk with him.” Lars smiled in what he hoped was a friendly way. “So you don't know where he is?”

Mikkel's neighbour shook his head.

“We're going to carry out a search, and by law we need two witnesses,” Lars said. “Are you able to do that?”

“Well, actually, I'm studying for my exams. But hey, a little procrastination here and there never hurt. You need two people, right?”

Lars nodded. The guy disappeared inside the apartment but left the door ajar. He heard some murmuring from inside the apartment.
A student during exam time
. He shouldn't be so quick to judge.

Mikkel's neighbour came out with a young woman. She had spiky black hair and wore a short black tank dress over cut-off jeans. Tattoos ran all the way down one arm. She stared at Lars and the officers with a look of deep distrust.

The largest of the uniformed officers positioned a crowbar just above the lock between the door and doorframe of Mikkel Rasmussen's apartment, and forced the door open. The pungent smell of dank clothes, sweat, and rotten food filled the hallway.

There wasn't much room in the small apartment. Junk mail spilled across the entranceway. In the middle of the floor, on top of a supermarket flyer, was a half-full bowl of yogurt. A pair of underwear had settled into the thick, grey liquid.

They had to bend a little because of the sloping attic walls. Unwashed clothes were piled in every corner. In the first room there was a mattress on the floor with dirty sheets. A rectangular piece of chipboard rested on top of two plastic beer crates. Rolling papers, a week-old newspaper, coffee cups, a couple of beer bottles, and two ashtrays filled with butts competed for space on top of the improvised table.

“I'm sure Mikkel wouldn't mind if I smoked.” Lars looked at the neighbour and his girlfriend, then lit a King's. He divided Toke and the two officers between the second room, the kitchen, and the washroom, then turned back to the neighbour.

“Were you home the night before last?”

The neighbour looked at his girlfriend, then nodded. “I was studying.”

Lars flicked the ashes from his cigarette. The grey flakes fluttered through the dusty light and down toward the ashtray.

“What are you studying?” Lars asked.

The young man's face lit up. “Philosophy.”

“That sounds a bit dry,”

“Well, yes and no. A couple of the courses are pretty crazy, so it can get quite interesting now and again.”

“Really?” Lars raised his eyebrows. Then he continued, “How well do you know Mikkel?”

“Not that well.” He shrugged. “We say hello and that's about it.”

“The night before last, after 3:00 a.m., did you hear Mikkel come home around that time?”

The young man thought about it. “I must have been studying Merleau-Ponty around then. I'm afraid I was completely engrossed in it.” He looked annoyed. Lars turned to the girlfriend, gave her an inquiring look. She shook her head, pointed at her ears. Only then did he see the white headphones and the wire running into the pocket of her cut-off jeans.

“She always listens to music,” the neighbour explained. “The other night as well. She didn't hear anything.”

“Come in here for a moment.” It was Toke, yelling from the kitchen.

Lars went into the kitchen. Toke was holding a charcoal-grey denim shirt out in front of him with two fingers.

“Hello there,” Toke said. “Doesn't this look like Mikkel's shirt?”

Dark splatters were spread in a speckled pattern across the chest.