20

“WE CAN’T FORCE YOU TO GO. PERSONALLY, I DON’T THINK YOU should do it.” That last part slipped out before Louise had time to change her mind.

“I’m coming,” Susanne said, with a conviction in her voice that indicated that the matter was settled.

She’d spent two days at National Hospital and had had many long conversations with Jakobsen during that time. Louise noticed the change right away. There was something calm and open about her movements. Her face also didn’t bear such clear reminders of the assault anymore, although the area around her left eye and cheekbone was still discolored.

“I’ve wanted to go to that party all along,” she continued after a little pause. “Ever since I heard about it. If he comes, I want to see him again.”

Louise stared at her. She didn’t have a chance to launch into a dismayed tirade, because Susanne put out her hands to calm Louise.

“Not like that,” Susanne reassured. “But he’s in my mind all the time, and it’s bugging me that I can’t picture him. I can’t remember what he looks like. Jakobsen calls it normal, even outstanding, repression,” she said in a tone that revealed that she did not agree that it was helping to protect her. “But I don’t think I can move on until I can picture him and accept that what happened wasn’t my fault.”

Louise thought it was amazing what a crisis psychologist could accomplish, but she wasn’t completely convinced about this new Susanne who was so enthusiastically on display before her. If Jakobsen hadn’t stopped by police headquarters that morning to participate in the discussion about whether or not it made sense to take Susanne to the party, Louise would not have wanted to even consider the option.

Jakobsen had given his permission for them to ask Susanne if she wanted to help as he simultaneously filled them in, confidentially, about Susanne’s hellish adult life of constant suffocation by a mother whose husband had left the second she uttered the p in pregnant.

The mother had raised Susanne to believe that the two of them belonged together, thus forcing Susanne to completely fixate on her mother in the most abominable way, a way that would have relegated many young girls to psych wards with their wrists slashed or that would have sent them spinning into terrible rebellions, probably with consequences for the rest of their lives.

But Susanne did not rebel. She put up with it, adjusted to her mother’s compulsive possessiveness, and gave up her childhood—along with a sizeable chunk of her adult life—before she finally ventured out, trying to escape her biological straitjacket. But then things went so horrendously wrong that there was almost no chance in hell she could cope with it, Jakobsen concluded, stroking his beard with a sad look on his face.

“She’s getting out of that environment now,” he continued. “I stopped by to talk to her mother and find out how aware she is of what she’s doing to her daughter’s life. It’s almost as sad to report that she’s using her daughter to fend off loneliness and to hold up as a trophy to taunt the man who left her. Even though he’ll probably never even realize it. The mother ought to be in treatment, because when you get right down to it, she’s a sick woman.”

Louise could only nod in agreement to that. She’d thought the same thing whenever she had encountered her.

—

“HERE’S WHAT WILL HAPPEN,” LOUISE EXPLAINED AS SHE SAT FACING Susanne in the cafeteria at National Hospital over a cup of coffee. “I’ll come pick you up tomorrow night, and we’ll go out there together.”

Susanne was going to be discharged the next morning. Jakobsen had found her a temporary place to stay at an undisclosed address, which would be ready for her on Monday, but until then she would stay in her own apartment on Lyshøj Allé in Valby.

“When we get to the mixer, we’ll look around and hope, of course, that he’s there. We won’t do anything else. If you see him, let me know, but under no circumstances should you go over and talk to him. If he sees you, we’ll leave. We won’t apprehend him while he’s inside, and maybe he’ll follow you if he sees you leaving the event. We’ll have people ready to apprehend him outside. But remember,” Louise added when she noticed Susanne nodding in concentration, “that this whole thing is a shot in the dark. There’s only a minuscule chance that he’ll be there. He’s just committed two very serious crimes and is probably in hiding.”

—

BEFORE LOUISE LEFT NATIONAL HOSPITAL, SHE CONSIDERED CALLING Flemming Larsen to ask if he wanted a cup of coffee. She hadn’t talked to him since he left her apartment, and now, since she was here anyway.... But maybe it was best if they brought their relationship back to a professional level.

The night before, she had called Camilla to update her on her personal life. At first, her friend had refused to believe Peter had found someone else.

“He’s an idiot!” she’d finally exclaimed in irritation, and then in the same breath suggested that she try to talk him out of it.

“Are you insane?” Louise cut her off. “You’re not going to persuade him to come back. The only way he’s fucking moving back home is if he wants to and decides it’s the only right choice. But I’m not even so sure he’ll try,” she concluded.

“No—I’m sorry. You’re not some consumer product with a money-back guarantee,” Camilla said affectionately. “Anyway, you don’t come crawling back to someone unless you’re prepared to have the door slammed so hard in your face it hurts.”

Louise smiled. She wasn’t sure she was that tough, but she also didn’t picture herself as the kind of woman you leave and then come crawling back to.

She gave up on the idea of a cup of coffee with Flemming and went back to headquarters instead.

—

“I’M PICKING SUSANNE UP AT HER APARTMENT. SHOULD WE COME BACK here first, or just go straight to the mixer?” she asked, standing in the doorway to Heilmann’s office.

“We’ll all meet here. Then we’ll go through what we’ll do if he’s there, and I will make sure everyone understands that we’re not going to do anything inside the event—aside from looking.”

Louise nodded and was about to say good-bye when Heilmann asked her how she was doing. Louise noticed when she showed up for work that morning that her boss had already picked up on the fact that something was wrong. It hadn’t taken Lars long, either, to notice that there’d been a change in his partner’s behavior. He had discreetly raised an eyebrow when she tossed a pack of cigarettes on the desk, assuring him that she wouldn’t smoke in the office they shared. He just nodded and refrained from asking any questions, presumably expecting that Louise would provide the answers when she was ready. Which she did after lunch, when she stopped pretending that she was able to do her job effectively.

The first thing Lars said was “It’s okay with me if you smoke in here.” Then he started trying to lift her spirits with a bunch of encouraging words, which she started tuning out.

All the same, she dutifully trudged outside when she felt like she needed a cigarette.

“I’m fine,” she said evasively when Heilmann asked, not up to giving anyone else the lowdown on her personal life.

She could tell that Heilmann didn’t buy it, but she was tactful enough not to ask anything else.