Lene Kaaberbol - Invisible Murder

Søren felt an uncomfortable sinking sensation somewhere in that part of his mind where he was trying to keep all the facts in the case straight. “What do you mean?” he said. “I thought that we’d at least established that much?”

“The MAC address doesn’t match. You’ll have to ask IT about the details,” Bjørn said. “And when we sent one of the tech guys to look at the school’s network, he reported that the security system has more holes than a Swiss cheese. The head of the school’s IT department has apparently been busy with more important things. He teaches Danish and English as well.” That last bit was said with a snide curl at the corner of his mouth, as if nothing could be more laughable than a literature teacher being in charge of the school’s Internet security.

“Christian was able to get onto the school’s wireless network from his own laptop without any trouble,” Mikael added. “The security was so bad that he didn’t even need a username or password, and that means that anyone within a radius of thirty meters of the school could have used the school’s IP address to visit those shady sites.”

“So I high-tailed it out there to pick up the footage from the surveillance cameras that cover the schools’ outdoor areas,” Bjørn said.

Søren listened with a growing sense that everything was falling apart.

“But if Khalid didn’t do it, why wouldn’t he let us look at his computer?” Søren asked.

Bjørn smirked.

“As I said, it’s possible that he has another computer and needed to win himself a little time so he could swap the two machines. But personally I think he was just worried about his little side business. I’ve never seen so many pirated music files in one place before. He could get in real trouble for that, and I guess that would be reason enough.”

Søren curbed his desire to kick something. Bjørn, preferably. Don’t shoot the messenger, he admonished himself. But couldn’t the man control his gloating just a little?

“And what do the surveillance cameras say?”

“We know that our potential buyer went online Saturday, May second, at 8:52 P.M. and was logged on for about forty minutes. We can see only one car that was parked at the school for that entire time frame, and it left the site immediately after. It’s impossible to read the license plate, but luckily it’s an old banger, an Opel Rekord E, probably from the early ’80s, and there aren’t that many of them in the motor vehicle registry. About two hundred or so in the whole country, a hundred and eighteen of which are in the Copenhagen area.”

Okay, thought Søren. At least that was something. A start.

“Check it out. But I also want people out canvassing the area around the school. Find out exactly where he might have been holed up, aside from in the car. What about the neighboring properties? Can you go online from them? Talk to the residents. And find out if they noticed the car or any other cars that spent a long time in the area on the evening in question. The surveillance cameras have blind spots.” Like people, he thought. Admittedly, Khalid had been an obvious suspect with his nervousness and his little display of civil disobedience. But they couldn’t afford to make another mistake like this.

“HC wasn’t happy,” Gitte remarked. “He was pissed off when he found out we’d called him out of his training exercise to question a smart-mouthed teenage bootlegger.”

“HC’s mood is not our biggest problem,” Søren said. “But okay. I suppose I could offer him an apology. I’m assuming we’ve already released Khalid?”

Gitte nodded. “At 11:23 A.M. His uncle threatened to sue us for false arrest, but Khalid talked him down. He doesn’t want to have to discuss his pirated files with the prosecutor.”

Exit Khalid, thought Søren, picturing the cocky, young café shark who had so familiarly offered him a drink and a smoke at their first meeting. Hopefully HC hadn’t managed to shred his self-confidence too much before the word came from IT to stop the interrogation.

“What about the property in Valby? Anything on that front?”

“They just called up from reception,” Gitte said. “A Birgitte Johnsen from the NEC is on her way up to talk to you.”

“The NEC?” Søren looked at her over his reading glasses. The NEC was the Danish National Police Investigation Center. “What the hell do they have to do with this case?”

Gitte shrugged her broad swimmer’s shoulders. “She’s in the sex trafficking and immoral earnings division,” Gitte said.

B IRGITTE JOHNSEN WASunbelievably navy blue, Søren thought. Navy blue skirt, navy blue jacket, navy blue nylons, and navy blue shoes with oversized gold buckles. The blouse under her jacket was white, but otherwise she was an unbroken vision of blueness.

They shook hands, and Søren showed her into the external meeting room that was located right off reception. Unauthorized visitors were not allowed to wander the PET’s corridors, not even unauthorized police employees.

“I understand that you have some information on 35 Gasbetonvej?” Søren said, gesturing with his hand. “Have a seat. Coffee?”

“No thanks,” Birgitte said. “But if there’s a mineral water?”

“Of course.” Søren opened a Ramlösa for her. The writing on the label was, very appropriately, printed in navy blue.

“The property is owned by a Malee Rasmussen. And we know her quite well over in our section. She’s originally from Thailand and is married to a former factory worker named Hans Jørgen Rasmussen, who is on disability allowance. We presume the marriage is just a sham, but we haven’t been able to prove it. She, however, has a conviction for living off immoral earnings and has been part of the local prostitution scene for many years now.”

“Prostitution? But surely … the property in Valby could hardly have been used for that?”

“You’d be amazed if you saw some of the places people are prepared to go to buy sex,” Birgitte said. “But no, regardless of sexual predilection, concrete floors and inspection pits are not particularly well suited to running a brothel. We have no reason to believe that that’s what they’ve been doing out there. It probably is what it looks like: a flophouse for Roma and other Eastern Europeans who come up here during the summer months and pay about eighty to a hundred kroner a night for permission to sleep under conditions that would make the inmates at Vridsløselille State Prison riot.”

“Then that’s a bit of a career change for her, isn’t it? Is the property really hers, do you think, or is she just the front for someone else?”

“I think she has a backer. But the career change, as you call it, isn’t actually that unprecedented. Earnings are way down in the prostitution business due to the financial crisis.”

“Do you know why?”

“Fewer courses, conferences, and fringe benefit trips. Greater need for security. The average John can’t really afford trouble with Mrs. John right now. And while the demand is falling off, the supply is increasing. In the wake of the social hardship that has spread in countries even worse affected by the financial crisis than Denmark, more and more girls flock to the trade. Malee and her backer aren’t the only ones who’ve had to restructure their businesses.”

“Okay. Any guess who this backer is?”

“We’ve asked her, of course. I brought a recording for you to watch. But first I want to show you a previous clip, from when we were investigating the immoral earnings case. That was five years ago now, and she’s in her late thirties in this recording.”

Birgitte slid a DVD into her laptop and rotated the computer so he could see it better. A woman with jet-black hair and spirited dark eyes appeared. Vital. Expressive. There was a self-awareness of her appearance and attire, jewelry, and the heavy but stylish makeup. And her eyes twinkled as the questions hit her.