The Scream of the Butterfly Page 5

  “Each family is allocated a room similar to the one you’ve just seen. We also have a number of accompanied unaccompanied children.”

  Mogens stops.

  “Accompanied unaccompanied?”

  “Yes — funny term, isn’t it?” Søren walks on and Mogens has no choice but to follow him. “Children and teenagers under eighteen who arrive without parents — they might be missing or even dead — but these children aren’t necessarily alone either, hence the term accompanied unaccompanied. Most come with other family members: uncles, aunts, grandparents. Others have been brought here by neighbours or friends of the family.”

  “But that’s terrible. Do you have many of them?”

  “A few. As you know, children are the most vulnerable and always suffer most in a conflict.” They stop at the end of the corridor. “Two of them live in here.” He knocks on the door frame. “Afërdita?”

  The room is similar to the first, only there are no bunk beds here. Two ordinary single beds made from the same red metal pipes are positioned on either side of the window, the brown chipboard covering the bottom half of the walls.

  A young girl is sitting on the bed to the right. She has a pretty, elongated face, framed by dark hair that falls in waves over her shoulders. She is wearing a sleeveless dress and reading a magazine. The girl looks up, startled, but her features soften and she flashes them a shy smile once she recognizes it’s Søren.

  “This is Mogens.” Søren leans against the door frame. “Where’s your brother?”

  “Arbën is out somewhere.” The girl retreats a little on the bed. She can be no more than fourteen or fifteen years old, at most.

  “Are you telling me that she and her brother arrived alone?” Mogens feels almost sick at the thought.

  “They arrived with some family. Their uncles live slightly further down the corridor. Ah, here he is. Hi Arbën.” Søren places his hand on the head of a slender boy. He is wearing sequinned running shoes, and presses himself against the wall. A filthy doll trails along the floor behind him.

  “How old is he?” Mogens looks down at the boy, whose dark eyes are staring up at him without blinking.

  “They say he’s eight. But it’s hard to know for sure.”

  “Does he understand English?” Mogens squats down on his haunches.

  “Some.”

  He turns to the boy. “I have a daughter. Sarah is almost five. Do you want to see her picture?”

  The boy looks gravely at him. Mogens takes out his wallet and finds the small photograph.

  “Here. This is Sarah. Maybe some day you can play with her, eh?”

  The boy takes the photograph, studying it.

  “I can see that no one has explained the rules to you yet.” Søren lowers his voice. “You’ll be dismissed if you see the refugees privately. You’re not allowed to invite them to your home or give them anything, nor borrow or accept anything from them.”

  “But . . .” He looks at the boy. Arbën stands holding the photo of Sarah in both hands, completely mesmerized.

  “It might sound harsh, but it’s actually meant to protect them. They’re in a vulnerable situation: they know no one here and nothing about how our society works. It’s far too easy for them to end up in a relationship with an unhealthy level of dependency. They might think you can help them obtain asylum if they do favours for you. Many of them would do anything.”

  Mogens gets up and reaches for the photograph, but Arbën retreats, clutching the small image in his hands.

  “You’ll have a hard time getting that off him.” Søren laughs. “I don’t think a small picture of your daughter can do any harm, but you must take extra care, Mogens . . . with your family, I mean.”

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25

  10

  LARS HEADED DOWN the red corridor to the Violent Crime Unit and opened the green door. A single letter was waiting for him in his mailbox. He took out the slender, white envelope and checked the sender: Elena Winkler. He closed his eyes. The murder of the mayor had almost made him forget about her, their unfinished divorce, and the dividing-up of their matrimonial assets — but only almost.

  He had almost managed to forget about Ulrik, too.

  Ulrik, with whom Elena now lived; his old friend and boss. The weasel.

  Lars entered his office, tossed the envelope in a drawer, and slammed it shut. It was time for the morning briefing. The others would be here any minute.

  Lisa was the first to arrive. Her short hair stood right up and her compact body bristled with energy. She nodded toward the stack of morning papers on his desk. Every single one had the press conference on the front page with headlines such as MINISTER: 100,000 KRONER REWARD FOR INFORMATION ABOUT MY SON’S MURDER.

  “The usual garbage.” Lars cleared away the pile of papers. “Sit down. There’s nothing we can do about the media.”

  A file folder appeared underneath the newspapers. It contained printouts of the findings from the first batch of calls to the Radical Party’s phone line: the result of Merethe Winther-Sørensen’s reward.

  “We’ll get some of our colleagues to trawl through these. Sanne and Allan should be here in a moment.” He looked at his watch. Ten past.

  The door opened and Sanne entered, followed by Allan, who mopped sweat from his upper lip with a tissue, then placed his briefcase on the floor.

  “Good morning.” Lars sat down. “Who has interviewed the neighbours?”

  “I have. Hang on . . .” Allan rummaged through his bag. “Yes. I got nothing. All the good citizens of Frederiksberg keep to themselves.” He sat down. “I also stopped by the Town Hall yesterday, and spoke to one of the building’s officials. Serafine met Mogens Winther-Sørensen outside the main entrance. She waited for over an hour before the mayor came out.”

  “Did she ask about him inside, at reception?” Sanne asked.

  “They wouldn’t let her in. She looks like . . . well, you know.” Allan shrugged his shoulders.

  “Are you suggesting that they knew each other?”

  “How likely is it that the mayor of Copenhagen would know a random German sex worker?” Allan paused for effect, letting the question sink in. “Not very, is it? Mogens Winther-Sørensen left the Town Hall around five thirty. I’ve put together some surveillance images . . .” He put his briefcase on his lap, opened it, and produced some still photographs. “Here. They spend a few minutes talking outside the Town Hall. Then they walk to the taxi stand by Burger King and get into a cab. You can see the registration number and everything. It only took me five minutes to find the driver.”

  “And?” Lars flicked through the photos.

  “He drove them straight to the victim’s address at Sankt Thomas Plads. They stopped by a pizzeria on the way. According to the driver, they hardly said two words to each other the whole trip.”

  Lars closed his eyes and leaned back. No such luck, of course.

  “But there is one more thing.” Allan had something; they could hear it in his voice. “I spoke to a guy at Nets, the online payments company.” He took a printout from his briefcase and held it up so everyone could see the list of dates, times, and addresses. “Their records show that Kirsten Winther-Sørensen’s debit card was swiped at the Shell gas station at Fredensborgvej 69 in Hillerød . . . ” Allan paused. “At 5:23 p.m. on Monday afternoon.”

  “She was in Hillerød at 5:23 p.m.?” Sanne made a note. “And how long does it take to drive to Frederiksberg from there? Thirty to forty minutes? Frelsén put the time of death at 6:45 p.m.”

  “In more than half of murder cases, the spouse is the perpetrator.” Allan’s upper lip was sweaty again as he looked around.

  “Okay.” Lars nodded. “You and Sanne go talk to Kirsten and her daughter.”

  Sanne got up.

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “I’ve somet
hing I need to check.”

  11

  LARS WENT TO the photocopy room to pick up the sizeable pile of paper he had printed out from Infomedia’s database: every single article published in the last fifteen years in both national and Copenhagen newspapers about Mogens Winther-Sørensen and his mother.

  Back in his office, he dumped the stack on the corner of his desk and shoved the keyboard under the monitor, but his movements were too forceful and he ended up nudging the bottom of the pile so that the top half fell over the edge of the desk and sailed onto the floor, where the papers scattered in an asymmetrical fan.

  Lars swore, knelt down, and started gathering up stray sheets of paper. When he had finished he pulled out his chair and sat down to read, not worrying about chronology or whether the articles concerned the deceased or his mother.

  He found stories describing how Merethe Winther-Sørensen had wept as she vacated the Ministry of the Interior in favour of her successor when the right-wing coalition had succeeded Poul Nyrup Rasmussen’s left-wing coalition government in 2001. He read about Mogens Winther-Sørensen’s fight to get parliament to understand that the capital had different needs than the rest of the country. Lars presumed that the family connection must have been of some use in this respect. And there was a lengthy feature about Merethe Winther-Sørensen and her political role model — her grandfather, the Radical foreign minister Holger Winther-Sørensen, who had served under Viggo Kampmann. Lars shuddered as he recalled the sombre portrait in the hall in the imposing house on Amicisvej.

  Somewhere in the pile he also found a colourful feature in “Free,” the Berlingske Tidende supplement, in which Kirsten Winther-Sørensen, “managing director and head of design for the über-cool Danish clothing brand [Hy:brid],” invited readers into her home on Sankt Thomas Plads in Frederiksberg. The apartment hadn’t changed much in the intervening years, as far he could tell.

  However, he failed to find any articles from the time Mogens Winther-Sørensen became mayor of Copenhagen, which was odd. It had been something of a coup for the Radical Party, since the capital had been a staunch Social Democratic bastion for almost one hundred years. Lars assumed it was an event that would have interested most people, and not just those living in Copenhagen.

  He went to grab himself some coffee. When he came back to his office, he started organizing the printouts. Arranging hundreds of articles and notes in chronological order was a tedious job and it was late afternoon by the time he was finished. One emerging pattern was definitely clear: Mogens and Merethe Winther-Sørensen had appeared fairly regularly in the media throughout the entire fifteen-year period, but there was a big gap from the middle of September 1999 until just after Christmas that same year.

  Lars scribbled down the dates on a pale blue Post-it note before calling Infomedia. A friendly but firm female voice answered.

  “Lars Winkler, Copenhagen Police. I’ve been looking over some articles I found on your website and I just wanted to ensure that you’ve included every article published in the Danish media. There are several items that ought to be here, but . . .”

  The silence at the other end was deafening.

  “Of course.” She sounded almost offended when she finally responded.

  “I’m just saying —” He wasn’t even allowed to finish.

  “We stake our reputation on being accurate and comprehensive. It’s quite simply not possible for our material to be anything other than complete and exhaustive. Goodbye.” The call was terminated. At that moment, Lisa popped her head around the door.

  “Ulrik wants a word with you.”

  12

  “ENTER.” ULRIK WAS sitting behind his desk with his back to the window that overlooked the Tivoli Gardens, the SAS Royal Hotel, and the Axelborg office building. In the white and blue sky, torn clouds were drifting over a restless sea of red and brown leaves. The trees in Tivoli were changing into their winter clothing.

  As usual, Ulrik’s office smelled of dust, linoleum, and stale sweat.

  The chief inspector — Lars’s former friend — was in uniform, a tight knot in his tie. His cap lay on the far corner of the desk.

  Lars closed the door and took a seat.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “It has been more than twenty-four hours since this investigation began.” Ulrik moved his fountain pen slightly to the left.

  Lars listed the main points from the morning briefing. Ulrik nodded.

  “What does Serafine say?”

  “I interviewed her yesterday. She still refuses to say anything, but we’ve heard back from our colleagues in Germany. She applied for asylum in Ilmenau in 1999; Lisa is processing her deportation.”

  “I would like you to try again, before she’s sent back to Germany. We need to solve this case as quickly as possible. The press is all over us, and politically . . .” Ulrik ran a hand over his forehead. It was deathly pale and sweaty.

  “Is it Merethe Winther-Sørensen?” Lars almost felt sorry for him. “She should never have been allowed to attend that press conference.”

  “It would have gone better without her, I admit that.”

  “Since we’re on the subject . . . Mogens Winther-Sørensen’s parents — what’s the deal with them?”

  Ulrik folded his hands in front of him on the desk.

  “Is this relevant, Lars?”

  “Merethe Winther-Sørensen can think of nothing but the election, while her husband does jigsaw puzzles. And their son has just been murdered! I did some research on Infomedia. There are plenty of articles about Mogens Winther-Sørensen and his mother, but there’s one small gap which is completely blank.” Lars pulled out the pale blue Post-it note from his pocket. “Between September seventeenth to just before New Year’s in 1999, not a single Danish newspaper mentions the two politicians. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

  Ulrik didn’t reply, but he continued to listen.

  “I called the Royal Library. They have every single newspaper up to 2009 on microfilm. I can go over later today to view the ones from the latter part of 1999.”

  “Are you suggesting someone is attempting a cover-up?” Ulrik looked weary. “Promise me you’ll be discreet, won’t you? I have enough on my plate as it is.”

  “Uh-huh.” Lars looked over the top of Ulrik’s head. The wind had gotten hold of a newspaper page outside the window. It rose and fell with the air current until it finally disappeared from his field of vision. “There was a letter in my mailbox this morning from Elena.”

  Ulrik twitched.

  “Yes?”

  “It was from some lawyer. He wanted me to sign an agreement to sell the house.” The arches of Central Station were visible behind the trees of Tivoli. The Liberty Memorial was hidden, but Lars knew it was there. Somewhere. “I thought all that had been sorted out ages ago?”

  “I don’t know very much about it, Lars. I try not to interfere in your . . . in it. But, as far as I understand, the sale can’t be completed unless you both sign it.”

  “Okay.” There were more important things than selling houses right now.

  “Listen,” Ulrik hesitated. “Elena has found a holiday cottage in Dronningmølle, a place she’s really quite keen on. You would be doing her — I mean me — a huge favour if you would sign and return that sales agreement as quickly as possible, preferably today. There are other potential buyers, and Elena’s share of the money would cover the down payment.” A bead of sweat trickled down Ulrik’s upper lip and dangled from the corner of his mouth.

  Lars got up. Suddenly he wasn’t sure that he wanted to sell the house after all.

  13

  MERETHE WINTHER-SØRENSEN WAS on the terrace, bent over her flowerpots, when he opened the garden gate. The terrace looked sheltered from the wind, and it caught the sun. Kim turned around, clutching the envelope in his hand. He glanced quickly up and down Amicisvej. Ev
erything was quiet. There were no reporters in sight. The election had been called two weeks ago and the campaign was in full swing. After the murder of the minister’s son, everything had spiralled. And yet here she was, tending to her flowers. Impressive.

  Her private secretary came out with his cell phone pressed to his ear. Kim couldn’t hear what was being said, but the secretary turned around and disappeared back inside the house soon afterward.

  Gravel and soil crunched under the soles of his shoes as he climbed the few steps leading up to the terrace.

  “Are you a keen gardener?” She was standing with her back to him, still bent over the flowerpots, panting and out of breath.

  He stopped at the second step from the top and leaned against the railing.

  “Not really.”

  The minister straightened up, secateurs in hand. Her stripey apron was speckled with soil and patches of old mould.

  “It feels good to get your hands dirty. Politics is mentally exhausting. Would you like some coffee?” An Alfi thermos flask and a pair of Royal Copenhagen china cups had been set out on the garden table. The minister sat down on a stool and pulled one of the flowerpots toward her before starting to prune the new shoots.

  Kim walked across to the table and poured coffee for them both.

  “But one thing I do know about gardening . . .” He raised the cup to his lips and took a sip. The coffee was lukewarm at best. “Is that you usually prune in the spring.”

  The minister put down the secateurs for a moment. Her fingers caressed the plant.

  “These are British pelargoniums — Bushfires, to be more specific. They must be pruned in the autumn or you risk removing the new shoots and they won’t flower. I tend to put them in the greenhouse in the winter. And when it rains . . . They don’t like rain very much. Anyway, that’s not why I asked you to come here.” She picked up the secateurs again and continued to snip away. The tender shoots rained down around her. “Your former colleague, Lars Winkler —”