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.
BIRGITTE JOHNSEN WAS unbelievably 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.
“… she said that?” The lilting Thai accent was obvious; her eyes were bright and ready for a fight. She laughed a short, hard laugh and snorted disdainfully. Clicked her tongue when the lead interrogator asked about one of her acquaintances. “She’s full of lies. Lies. And she’s jealous!”
Birgitte stopped the DVD and clicked on another file.
“Now watch this. This recording is from this morning.”
At first Søren thought she had selected the wrong file. It wasn’t the same woman. And yet it was. But Malee Rasmussen’s smile was so strained that her face resembled one of those grotesque grinning Balinese masks that his ex-wife Susse had bought on a trip back in the ’90s. If she was in her late thirties in that first clip, she must be forty-two or forty-three here, but she looked ten years older than that. Her makeup was so very cliché for the prostitution world that it looked like stage makeup, and although her voice was still light and lilting, there was no trace of vitality left in that hardened face.
“What happened to her?” he asked. “She’s … is she sick or something?”
“Not that we know of. But there are rumors that she has a new backer. And that he’s taught her some new tricks. The hard way. As you’ll see, she’s not very forthcoming these days.”
The camera zoomed out a bit, and Malee’s whole body could be seen. Her short, sturdy silhouette was dressed in a mint green dress with flowers around the neckline and matching stiletto heels. Her legs were crossed. Her hands lay motionless in her lap, but she was rapidly whipping her foot back and forth as the questions were repeated interminably. Who was using the repair shop? Who had the keys? Why had she bought it anyway? Where had she gotten the money from?
Malee’s forehead glistened damply under her elaborately arranged black hair. She was still smiling, and at regular intervals, she chose to respond but only to repeat what she had already said.
“I didn’t know there was anyone at the repair shop. It was an investment. I haven’t been there since February. I didn’t know there was anyone there. The repair shop is just real estate. An investment.”