The Scream of the Butterfly Page 3

  The duty officer stopped in the corridor and flicked through the bunch of keys for the right one.

  “Nobody in the other cells got a wink of sleep last night. And now she’s demanding asylum. Can you believe that?”

  The shouting coming from the furthest cell, muffled by the heavy steel door, really did sound like “asylum,” although the voice was slightly distorted by an indeterminable accent.

  “If you ask me, she’s terrified of something.” The shouting inside the cell stopped the moment the duty officer inserted the key into the lock. “But she refuses to say what.”

  Serafine was curled up in the corner of the worn bench, arms wrapped around her knees. Her head rested on the graffiti-scrawled wall with DICK spelled in a hundred different ways. Then she started banging her head against the wall. There was a large blue bruise on her forehead, right below her hairline.

  “I want asylum.”

  He took Serafine up to his office, and ordered coffee and a bread roll. She ignored the cheese and the jam, and buttered the roll.

  Lars waited until she had stopped chewing.

  “If you want asylum, I can help you apply.” He fell silent, waiting for a reaction. She swallowed the last mouthful and said nothing. “But first I need to know exactly what happened yesterday.” He took out the train ticket and placed it on the desk between them. “You arrived at Copenhagen Central Station by train from Hamburg yesterday at . . .” He turned the ticket around and read out loud. “4:08 p.m. You got off the train. Then what happened?”

  Serafine looked straight at him, then raised two fingers to her lips and moved them away again in a soft arc.

  Lars shook his head.

  “You can’t smoke in here. Later, okay?”

  Serafine turned her head and looked out the window. There were traces of last night’s rain on the windowpane, but a few blue patches had started to appear in the grey clouds above.

  Lars leaned back. In his experience, most people wanted to talk. They needed an outlet to offload violent events. Even hardened criminals might feel a huge sense of relief once they started opening up. But the psychopaths and the brainwashed were another story. Gang members, and political and religious fanatics were as cold as ice; you would get nothing from them. But there wasn’t anything to suggest that Serafine was a psychopath or that the killing of the mayor was politically or religiously motivated.

  He clicked his pen in readiness, trying to catch her eye.

  “The area around the railway station is littered with surveillance cameras; we’ll find out what you’ve been up to sooner or later. You might as well tell me now.”

  Serafine looked at him with a faint smile, then shook her head. She turned to stare out of the window once more.

  Lars tried another approach.

  “Where did you meet the mayor? The victim?”

  Serafine scratched the scars on her forearm, keeping her gaze on the window. He put down his pen, got up, and perched on the corner of the desk.

  “Now listen. If you want me to help, you’ll have to —”

  The door opened. The colour drained from Serafine’s face and she shook her head violently.

  “No!”

  “Lars?” A breathless Allan came in, waving a printout of an email. “We’ve had a reply from Interpol.”

  Serafine turned back to look at the rain hitting the windowpane. Lars cursed under his breath.

  “And?”

  “It matches what she’s told us already.” Allan placed the printout on the desk in front of him. “Serafine Haxhi. The Germans have her fingerprints. She and her family applied for asylum in 1999 in Ilmenau. I’ve checked, it’s a town in the former East Germany, down by the Czech border. She and her sister disappeared shortly afterward.” Allan looked up. “Are you getting anywhere with her?”

  “Not a squeak. She wants asylum.”

  Allan leaned against the filing cabinet.

  “I was just talking to the duty officer. Some of the things he told me . . .” He sighed. “What a mess. We won’t get anything from her.”

  Lars hesitated. Allan was right, but there were still procedures.

  “Why waste more resources on her?” Allan drummed his palms on the filing cabinet as he spoke. “Drive her up to the Sandholm Refugee Centre. Let her apply for asylum, if that’s what she wants. Perhaps the centre’s psychologists can get through to her. It’ll be days before she’s sent back to Germany, anyway. And then . . . Well, at least we’ll know where she is, if we need to talk to her again.”

  Lars rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Should he give it one last go? At that moment there was a knock on his door, and Sanne and Lisa entered. His tiny office was starting to feel crowded.

  Lisa tossed today’s edition of Ekstra Bladet on his desk. A grainy colour photograph of Mogens Winther-Sørensen’s body on the checkered kitchen floor filled the front page. The dark stream of coagulated blood disappeared in the top right-hand corner. There was a laconic caption below the picture:

  COPENHAGEN MAYOR IN SEX KILLING

  So it had kicked off. Lars folded the newspaper and pushed it aside.

  “Why don’t we interview Kirsten Winther-Sørensen?” Sanne still had her jacket on. “She and her daughter are back from Hornbæk. And Ulrik wants a quick result.”

  Lars closed his eyes and held his breath.

  5

  THE WOMAN WHO opened the door was dark, Mediterranean-looking. She was big boned, but her movements were feminine.

  Kirsten Winther-Sørensen stepped aside, letting Lars and Sanne enter. The kitchen smelled strongly of bleach and detergent. All traces of blood and the chalk lines drawn by the crime scene technicians had been removed from the cupboards, the table, the tiles, and the walls, but Lars didn’t have to close his eyes to see the victim in a contorted position on the floor, the lower body naked.

  Kirsten Winther-Sørensen ushered them through the room where they had tried interviewing Serafine last night, into a living room with whitewashed floorboards, wooden skirting boards, and impressive stucco decor. They sat down on one of the sofas in front of the large window overlooking Sankt Thomas Plads.

  “My condolences,” Lars began. It was a quaint, archaic expression that created distance rather than intimacy. But it was the right thing to say: an expression of sympathy to someone facing the greatest possible loss, while remaining strictly formal and devoid of emotion.

  It was windy. Outside, the yellow leaves whirled past.

  “Thank you.” Kirsten Winther-Sørensen pulled her legs under her on the sofa, resting her elbow on the armrest. She was wearing a white outfit, presumably from one of her own collections, and looked surprisingly composed.

  “We have to ask you some questions. I’m afraid some of them might be unpleasant.” Sanne was doing the talking.

  Kirsten Winther-Sørensen turned to look outside.

  “Nothing can be more unpleasant than the call I had from my mother-in-law this morning.”

  She was either in shock or utterly indifferent. Lars tried to catch her eye without success. No one said anything for a while. The sound of quiet weeping was coming from somewhere in the apartment. Lars and Sanne exchanged glances.

  “My daughter, Sarah.” Her voice was flat. “She’s finishing high school.”

  Sanne cleared her throat.

  “All three of you were meant to drive up to the cottage together yesterday, but Mogens suddenly had to stay behind at the Town Hall . . .”

  “He said something about an extraordinary budget meeting. I don’t really keep up with politics.”

  A telephone rang in the distance; the muted weeping turned into mumbling. Kirsten Winther-Sørensen half-turned in her seat.

  “Sarah? Who is it?”

  “It’s only Granny.” There was a shift in her daughter’s voice. She
sounded almost . . . happy? Lars took out his notepad and turned his attention back to the interview.

  “So it wasn’t a scheduled meeting? Is that normal?”

  “It has happened before, yes. We had agreed that he would follow later, but —”

  Now Sarah’s voice was coming from the adjacent room; she was walking around with the phone.

  “I . . . I would like that. Tomorrow, did you say?”

  “Sarah?” Kirsten Winther-Sørensen raised her voice. “What are you planning to do tomorrow?”

  Sarah carried on with her conversation and didn’t reply.

  Lars was making notes. “Do you know anyone who might have wanted your husband dead?”

  “No.” Kirsten Winther-Sørensen twirled her wedding ring around and around, frequently glancing at the door to the room next door. “He called around five thirty to say the meeting had just finished. He sounded happy — said he just had a few things to take care of in the city. I had roasted a chicken . . .” She trailed off. Her jaw made a sudden movement, skidding to the side.

  Lars waited, letting her regain her composure, before he continued.

  “You’re aware of the . . . circumstances? How we found your husband?”

  Kirsten Winther-Sørensen straightened herself and looked up slightly.

  “I’ve seen the headlines, yes.”

  Lars closed his notepad. He too had seen them: countless variations on Copenhagen Mayor murdered. Hooker only witness.

  “We will need to speak to your daughter as well.” He stopped speaking and listened. There was a single sniff from further inside the apartment. “But it doesn’t have to be today. You should expect that the media will try to keep this going, so it would be best if you and your daughter . . . could avoid talking to them.”

  Kirsten Winther-Sørensen smoothed back her hair.

  “You need have no fears on that account.”

  6

  LARS POURED HIMSELF another cup of coffee from the French press that Mogens Winther-Sørensen’s secretary had brought into the mayor’s spacious office. The room was adorned with PH lamps, herringbone parquet flooring, tall wooden panelling, and green fabric wallpaper. The Town Hall certainly did what it could to promote Danish architecture, craft, and design.

  So far they had spoken to two city councillors from the Radical Party, along with one Social Democrat and one Conservative. None of them had noticed anything unusual and didn’t seem to think Mogens Winther-Sørensen had been upset or depressed. He had chaired the meeting as he always did and hadn’t brought up any contentious issues. Everything on the home front appeared to be fine. If the four politicians were to be believed, the victim had been a textbook mayor. Maybe that was what was bugging him? Mogens Winther-Sørensen’s colleagues had depicted him as squeaky clean, but surely no one was that boring?

  He abruptly put down the cup. The fine bone china clattered.

  “Did anyone from the Danish People’s Party attend the meeting yesterday?”

  “The Danish People’s Party?” Sanne lowered her notebook. “But the Danish People’s Party and the Radical Party loathe each other.”

  “Exactly.” Lars got up and popped his head outside to talk to the secretary. “Excuse me?”

  Kristian Havholm wore a remarkably well-fitting, dark blue suit that camouflaged the problematic areas on his tall but slightly plump figure.

  “You wanted to talk to me?” His smile was friendly; his handshake firm. He had short, blond hair and wore an oxblood tie. Lars was no expert on politics, but even he couldn’t fail to notice that Kristian Havholm was a man going places.

  Lars asked him to take a seat.

  “As you’ve probably guessed, this is about the murder of the mayor.”

  Kristian Havholm’s expression became suitably sombre.

  “A tragedy. How awful for the family. He had a daughter, I believe?”

  “You attended the budget meeting yesterday?” Sanne had picked up her notepad again. She had her pen ready.

  Kristian Havholm nodded.

  “What did you discuss?”

  “As far as I recall, there were three items on the agenda.” Kristian Havholm adjusted his tie with a flat hand and leaned back. “Delays to the Metro expansion, a temporary increase in the grants to improve the Brønshøj-Husum neighbourhood and . . .” He closed his eyes. “Some roadwork, I can’t quite . . .”

  Sanne checked her notes.

  “In northwest Copenhagen: Tagensvej, from Tuborgvej down to Lygten.”

  “Yes, that’s right: three completely uncontroversial items. Some of us had a few questions, but the mayor was able to answer all of them. Everything was voted through unanimously.”

  “Did anything happen at the meeting that you think might explain why Mogens Winther-Sørensen was murdered?”

  “Nothing in the slightest. It would have been remarkable if that had been the case. There’s nothing in Danish local politics worth killing for.”

  “And no problems otherwise? Political grudges, something on the home front perhaps?” Lars was fishing and he knew it.

  “It’s well known that our two parties rarely see eye to eye on anything, but you could always trust Mogens if you made an agreement with him. As far as the home front is concerned, I wouldn’t know.” Kristian Havholm’s gaze grew distant.

  Lars and Sanne exchanged glances.

  “According to those of your fellow council members we’ve already interviewed, no one could put a finger on Mogens Winther-Sørensen.” Lars leaned forward. “Do you share that opinion?”

  “Ha! They’re all terrified of his mother.” His gaze grew distant again, then suddenly he continued. “I don’t suppose Mogens was worse than anybody else, but as for the finance minister — you don’t want to get on her bad side.”

  7

  GREY CLOUDS DRIFTED across the sky, filtering the harsh, sharp light. Lars got out of the car and waited until Sanne had slammed the door on the passenger side.

  A figure waved as it crossed the parking lot on the way to Rigshospitalet. Lars narrowed his eyes.

  Then he recognized the red glasses and the short bob.

  “Christine.” He waved back. Christine Fogh stuffed her hands into the pockets of her white coat, jogging the last stretch. Sanne had come to a halt a few steps behind him.

  “Hey Lars.” Christine stopped, slightly out of breath. She nodded to Sanne. “What are you doing here?”

  “Post-mortem. We’re . . . Sanne?” He looked over his shoulder. “You go on ahead. I’ll be with you in a sec.”

  Sanne hesitated. Her arm twitched briefly. Then she headed for the back entrance, bowing her head against the wind.

  Lars turned to Christine.

  “How are you?”

  She tucked her hair behind her ear, but the wind blew it out of place.

  “You never called.”

  “No . . . I’ve been a bit busy, you know.” Even he could hear how feeble it sounded.

  Christine folded her arms across her chest.

  “Is it about the mayor?”

  Lars nodded.

  She wavered for a moment, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Then she reached out and trailed her finger down to his forearm.

  “So when can I expect to hear from you?” She didn’t wait for a reply, instead taking a pen from her chest pocket and scribbling down a number.

  “But . . .” Lars took the note and checked the number before stuffing it into his pocket.

  When he looked up again, she was already on her way back to the hospital. She stopped briefly and lowered her voice.

  “I think your colleague is watching us from the window.” Lars turned around, just in time to see Sanne’s back retreat from the first-floor window. When he turned around again, Christine Fogh was between two cars, slipping into the shadow of
the monolithic Rigshospitalet. He followed her sturdy figure with his eyes.

  Sanne was waiting for him by the door to the morgue, fiddling with the handle.

  “What did she want?” Her tone was casual.

  “Oh, she . . .” He pointed to the door. “Shall we?”

  Sanne hesitated, her hand still on the handle. Then she pushed open the door and marched down the corridor toward Frelsén and Bint, who were at the furthest workstation.

  Frelsén plunged the scalpel into the body the moment they stepped inside the narrow cubicle. He made an incision from the breastbone down the stomach toward the pubic bone. Yellow fat oozed out on both sides of the cut; blood collected in the grooves in the steel table. Lars took off his jacket and put it down on a chair. It was hard to believe that the victim still contained so much blood. There had been several litres on the kitchen floor last night.

  “Sanne, Lars.” Frelsén didn’t look up. “Glad you could come.”

  Lars stepped closer. Mogens Winther-Sørensen’s face looked peaceful as he lay on the table. His black stubble stood out against his skin, which had the bluish hue of skimmed milk.

  “No traces of saliva on the victim’s penis or scrotum, and there are no other indications of sexual activity such as vaginal fluid. You didn’t find a condom in the apartment, did you?” Frelsén looked at them over the rim of his glasses. They both shook their heads. “Right,” he continued. “So if this was a transaction, they hadn’t reached the delivery stage yet.” He suppressed a giggle. Sanne shook her head; Lars said nothing. This was classic Frelsén.

  “What about the cut to his throat?” Sanne took out a transparent plastic bag from her purse and held it up. “Our colleagues found this in the courtyard, some distance from the crime scene. The blade is bloodstained.”

  Sanne removed the knife from the bag and placed it on the table alongside the body. It was a Japanese cook’s knife made by Hocho, heavy and with a broad blade, and suitable for cutting vegetables. The serrated edge was caked with a mixture of congealed blood and an indeterminable, stringy white substance.

  Frelsén gave it the once-over.