Invisible Murder

LITTLE AFTER SEVEN, they finally hit jackpot in the identification lottery. At that point Søren had had an unsatisfying conversation with Malee Rasmussen, who pretty much repeated the stock phrases he was familiar with from the recording with near surgical precision: “It’s an investment. I didn’t know there was anyone there. I haven’t been there since February.” He hadn’t been able to find any holes in her shell, and finally he had had to admit defeat. Whatever she was afraid of, it made her completely immune to the pressure of more civilized interrogation methods.

Out of sheer desperation he had then spent almost twenty minutes watching a group of brain-dead young Finns subject themselves to various bizarre forms of bodily harm, all while laughing maniacally and yelling at themselves and each other. In English, with a strikingly pronounced Finnish accent. By the time his phone finally rang, he was profoundly grateful for the interruption.

It was his navy blue friend, Birgitte Johnsen.

“I just saw the description you sent out,” she said. “Of the man in the video.”

“Yes,” Søren said. “Do you know him?”

“It could be Tommi Karvinen.”

Søren sat up straight and slapped his pen down on the tabletop with a bang.

“A Finn?”

“Yup. One Nordic import we could certainly have done without. We suspect him of being heavily involved in trafficking, but the girls he’s involved with don’t talk. We haven’t been able to nail him. Aside from an old narcotics conviction from the late 1990s, he just has one suspended conviction for aggravated assault from 2003.”

“Suspended?”

“He beat up a john who had beat up a prostitute. His lawyer argued self-defense on the woman’s behalf, and that won him some leniency.”

“As in ‘how chivalrous of him to defend her?’ ”

“Yes, but the most interesting thing.…”

“Aha?” He could hear in Birgitte’s voice that she was looking forward to telling him the next bit. But did she have to sound like a grandmother holding out a caramel and then pretending she wasn’t going to let him have it?

“The prostitute, who of course was heard as a witness in the case, was Malee Rasmussen.”

Yes!

“Give me everything you’ve got,” he said. “Starting with the address.”

All the sudden his body was alive again. The feeling of defeat he’d been fighting all afternoon was gone. He leapt up and flung open the door to the hallway.

“Gitte!” he yelled. “Gitte, where are you?”

Christian came over to him with a printout in his hand.

“She just went downstairs for a power nap,” he said. “But I have something for you.”

Søren mechanically accepted the pages Christian was handing him.

“What is this?”

“The results from the Opel list.”

“Give me just the highlights. Have we got something?”

“Not really. No IP addresses of particular interest. No one belonging to any known groups. No criminal records, apart from a guy who was apparently into alternative lifestyles at some point back in the ’70s and had a minor drug conviction. Solid pillars of society right down the list with an average age just over sixty, which I suppose isn’t so surprising, considering the age of the car. These are people who bought German quality and kept it. The only thing is.…” Christian paused.

Come on, Christian, not you too. Give me my caramel!

“Yes?”

“It’s nothing too definite. The man is over eighty and retired. He worked for the city, in Buildings and Safety for damn near half a century. Not exactly obvious terrorist material.”

“Christian, what the hell? What about him?”

“He just … well, more specifically, his wife, the house is in her name … they just took out an sizeable loan on the equity. And we can’t see how they spent the money.”

“How much?”

“Six hundred thousand kroner.”

Okay. That wasn’t exactly small potatoes.

“Well. I suppose we know he didn’t spend it on a new car,” Søren said.

“No. It could have been a holiday home or something like that, but if so it’s not here in Denmark.”

“Send Gitte over there when she wakes up.”

“Will do. Where are you headed?”

Søren felt a famished predator’s grin spreading across his face.

“Off to catch me a Finn,” he said.