The place seemed deserted and had a strong smell of urine. There were clothes scattered all over the hallway, and in the sitting room at one end of the hallway they could just make out an upturned chair on the carpet. It didn’t look at all normal.
They stood quietly outside one of the bedrooms for a moment. There wasn’t a sound.
Then Carl walked over to the door into the sitting room, entered with one fluid movement, and pointed the pistol around the room. Nothing here either.
“You take the balcony, Assad. I’ll take the dining room and the bedrooms.”
Carl stood in the back bedroom looking at the unmade bed and a lot of dirty laundry scattered all over the floor. He was just about to open the wardrobes when Assad shouted from the balcony that the bird really had flown. “There’s a rope made of bedsheets dangling from the balcony, Carl.”
Damn it, damn it, and double damn it!
They stood for a moment in the sitting room, looking at each other. Assad’s frustration was visible, and Carl knew how he felt. His eyes and intuition had been right, but Carl had stopped him.
“I’m sorry, Assad. Next time, I’ll have more faith in what you believe you’ve seen.”
Carl looked around the sitting room and the adjacent dining room.
Blouses and shoes and dirty dishes were strewn everywhere. There were obvious signs of a struggle. A couple of chairs had been pushed over, and the tablecloth was lying on the floor.
“I’ll just check the last bedroom.” He immediately noticed a small suitcase on the bed, packed and ready for takeoff.
“Get in here, Assad!” he shouted.
He pointed at the suitcase. “What do you make of this?”
Assad sighed. “That someone was interrupted in their plans. I just hope it wasn’t our fault.”
Carl nodded. “Yes, that would be vexatious.”
“What does vex . . . Hey, look at that, Carl.” He pointed at something under the bed. Carl couldn’t see what it was until Assad picked it up with his fingertips. It was a rolled-up banknote.
“Shall we just agree that this five-hundred-kroner bill came from Victoria nightclub, Carl?” he said as he wafted the note in the air.
“Definitely.”
“Okay, so what do we do now?” he asked.
“We call HQ and let them know that they need to intensify their search for Jazmine J?rgensen. Everything points to us having a killer on the loose.”
Carl took his phone out of his pocket as he walked toward the front door.
If Assad was frustrated, then Carl felt the same ten times over. Not only had they been so close to catching the person they were after, but they also could have prevented the murder of Denise Zimmermann. It was a mystery to him what had happened after the escape from the balcony and what had happened between Denise and Jazmine J?rgensen. He sincerely hoped they would catch Jazmine so they could get to the bottom of it.
“Hang on a minute, Carl. I just need to pee before we go,” said Assad. He stopped in front of the bathroom door, which was slightly ajar. Then he froze.
“Look there,” he said, pointing at a couple of holes in the door.
Carl put his phone back in his pocket.
Then Assad turned on the bathroom light and pushed the door open wide.
The sight that met them was horrific.
54
Tuesday, May 31st, 2016
There were now at least ten vehicles with flashing lights down in the parking area. The atmosphere was intense, and more colleagues kept arriving—some to keep away the curious public, others to go over the crime scene ahead of the technicians.
Assad and Carl looked on helplessly as Rose was carried into the ambulance on a stretcher. The doctor shook his head with a concerned expression. Even though Rose was breathing faintly, there were many indications that this couldn’t possibly end well.
Assad was inconsolable, and there was almost no end to his self-reproach. “If only we’d entered the apartment yesterday,” he said over and over again.
Yes, if only they had.
“Keep us informed!” Carl shouted to the doctor before they took Rose to the hospital.
They nodded to the medical examiner returning from the apartment.
“The cause of death is a gunshot, and the woman has presumably been dead for at least twelve hours. The forensic pathologist can give you a more precise time of death.”
“So in theory it could be Jazmine who shot Denise. But then who shot Jazmine?” asked Assad quietly.
“Well, there’s no hint of gunshot residue on the body. So she definitely didn’t do it herself,” said the doctor with a smirk. “If you ask me, you’ll find the gunshot residue on the outside of the bathroom door.”
Carl agreed.
Then he took Assad’s hands in both of his and looked intensely at him. “Listen to me, Assad. At least we know it can’t have been Jazmine J?rgensen driving around with Denise Zimmermann’s body. On the other hand, we know for sure that the driver was a woman. That’s all we really need to know. Shall we get going?”
Assad had never looked so defeated before. “Yes. But you have to promise me that we’ll drive to the hospital as soon as we can, okay?”
“Of course, Assad. I’ve called Gordon, who was very shaken by all this, but he’s heading out to the University Hospital straightaway to wait for the ambulance. He said we can get him on his cell phone anytime we want.”
—
“I’ve got four jobs for you, Assad,” said Carl on their way to Copenhagen. “Can you make sure that HQ puts someone outside Anne-Line Svendsen’s house? Then get ahold of Lars Bj?rn and give him a detailed update of what’s happened out here and tell him to call off the search for Jazmine J?rgensen. Tell him we’re on our way to Webersgade and it would help if the search warrant was ready and waiting when we get there. Then call Anne-Line Svendsen’s work in Vesterbro and ask if she’s there.”
He nodded. “And then call one of Rose’s sisters, right?”
Carl tried to force a smile. No matter what, you could always count on Assad.
—
There was already a police constable outside Anne-Line Svendsen’s address. It was one of Carl’s old acquaintances from Station 1 who had now been transferred to uniform at HQ. He gave Carl a reserved nod and confirmed that the search warrant was in place before keeping a close eye on Assad as he gained entry to the property with the lockpick.
The nameplate on the main door informed them that Anne-Line Svendsen lived upstairs, and a small company called Ultimate Machines was situated on the ground floor.
There was no lock on the door into her apartment, which led straight into the sitting room on the first floor. And there was no one at home. On entering, they immediately noticed how neat and tidy everything was on the upper floor and her part of the first floor. Carl sniffed, noticing an odd smell that reminded him of a couple of bedrooms where he had once enjoyed the company of a woman. He had never managed to figure out if it was the combination of lavender and hand soap.