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Concern swept across the man’s face.

“Just a sec,” said Carl as they reached the third floor and his mobile chimed. “You just go in, Karsten. Come and get me if you need to.”

He kneeled down by the wall, wedged the mobile against his ear, and placed his notepad on the floor in front of him. “OK, Rose, what have you got for me?”

She stated the address, and then seven names and their respective civil registration numbers. Father, mother, and five children: Josef, eighteen years old, Samuel, sixteen, Miriam, fourteen, Magdalena, twelve, and Sarah, ten. He wrote it all down.

Was there anything more he needed to know?

He shook his head and snapped the phone shut without having answered her properly.

The information was alarming, indeed.

Five children, now orphaned, two of them almost certainly in grave danger. Same pattern as before. The kidnapper had struck a family strongly affiliated to a religious group and with more children than average. The only difference now was there would be little chance of him sparing one of the kidnapped children as was his usual MO. What reason would he have?

Carl felt himself on the brink of a life and death situation. All his instincts were now on alert. Further killings were imminent. He needed to prevent them, and an entire family’s demise. There was no time to waste, but what was he to do? Apart from the dead woman’s children and the medical secretary with whom the killer had spoken, now on her way home with her mobile switched off, the only person who could help was in a room beyond these double doors. Unable to see or speak and in a critical state of shock.

The killer had been here today. A nurse had seen him, but she was still unconscious. It was a truly hopeless situation.

He consulted his notes and dialed the number of the house in Frederiks. At moments like this, his job was unbearable.

“Josef speaking,” said a voice. Carl glanced at his notepad. The eldest child. Thank God for small mercies.

“Hello, Josef. You’re speaking to Detective Inspector Carl Mørck, Department Q of the Copenhagen Police. I’m calling because-”

The receiver was put down gently at the other end.

Carl stood for a moment and considered his error. He shouldn’t have presented himself like that. The police had doubtless been there already and informed the children of their father’s death. Josef and his siblings would be in shock. What was he thinking?

He stared at the floor. How could he get the boy talking ASAP?

Then he called Rose.

“Grab your handbag, Rose,” he said. “Then grab a taxi and get over here to the Rigshospital as fast as you can.”

***

“Very regrettable indeed,” said the consultant. “Until the day before yesterday, we had a police officer posted to the unit around the clock. We’ve had victims in here from the gang war. If he’d been here today, this probably wouldn’t have happened. Unfortunately, one might say, our two gangsters were transferred elsewhere on Monday evening.”

Carl listened attentively. The doctor’s face was kind. No airs and graces there.

“Of course, we fully understand that the police need to establish this intruder’s identity as quickly as possible, and naturally we shall do whatever we can to assist. But I’m afraid the condition of the nurse who was attacked remains such that as a doctor I’m compelled to say that concern for her health must take precedence. There may be a cervical fracture here, and certainly at the moment she’s in a state of shock. So you won’t be able to see her until sometime tomorrow morning at the earliest, I’m afraid. In the meantime, we’ll do all we can to get in touch with the secretary who saw the assailant earlier on. She lives in Ishøj, I believe, so she might well be home in about twenty minutes or so, providing she doesn’t stop off on the way.”

“We’ve already got a man waiting at her address so as not to waste time. But what about Isabel Jønsson?” Carl glanced inquiringly at her brother and received a nod in return. It was OK by him for Carl to do the asking.

“Yes, well. Understandably, she’s very distraught. Respiration and heart rate are both still rather unstable, but our view is that she may benefit from seeing her brother. We’ll be finished examining her in five or ten minutes, so he’ll be able to look in on her then.”

Carl heard a commotion by the entrance doors. Rose’s bag trying to bring the curtains in with it.

“Right, thanks,” Carl said, then gestured for Assad and Rose to follow him outside.

“What do you need me for?” asked Rose once they were gathered in the corridor. All her body language said the last place in the world she wanted to be was standing by some lifts outside an intensive care unit. Maybe she had a problem with hospitals.

“I’ve got a difficult job for you,” said Carl.

“You what?” she replied, ready to dig her heels in.

“I want you to call a young lad and make him understand that he must help us right away or else a couple of his siblings are going to end up dead. That’s what it looks like, anyway. His name’s Josef and he’s eighteen years old. His father died yesterday, and his mother is here in Intensive Care. I’m assuming he’s already been told that by the police in Viborg. What he doesn’t know is that his mother died in that room in there only a short time ago. It would be unethical to give him that message over the phone, but it may be necessary. It’s up to you, Rose. We need him to answer our questions. That’s the bottom line.”

Rose seemed paralyzed, on the verge of protest, her words somehow stuck in the empty space between apprehension and necessity. She could tell by looking at Carl how urgent it was.

“But why me? Why not Assad, or you?”

He explained to her that the boy had hung up on him. “We need a neutral voice. A gentle woman’s voice, like yours.”

Had he referred to Rose’s voice that way at any other time, he would never have been able to keep a straight face. But right now there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to laugh about. It was imperative that she do as instructed.

He told her what he needed to know, then he and Assad retreated to give her space.

It was the first time he had seen Rose nervous. Maybe Yrsa would have been better. Somehow, the toughest ones were always the softies inside.

They watched from a distance as she spoke, raising her hand slightly as though to prevent the boy from putting the phone down on her. More than once she pressed her lips together and turned her eyes to the ceiling, as though trying not to break down and cry. It was an unsettling sight to behold. A life was collapsing at the other end of the phone. What Rose had told the boy meant that his own life and that of his siblings would never be the same again. Carl understood only too well what she had to contend with.

And then she was listening, deep in concentration, drying her eyes at the same time. Breathing deeper now. Putting forward her questions, one by one. Allowing the boy time to answer. Then, after a few minutes, she waved Carl over.

She covered the receiver with her hand. “He won’t talk to you, only to me. He’s very, very upset. But he’ll answer your questions.”

“You’ve done very well, Rose, both of you. Have you asked him the things we agreed on?”

“Yes.”

“Have we got a description and a name?”

“Yes.”

“Anything that might lead us directly to our man?”

She shook her head.

Carl put his hand to his brow. “In that case, I don’t think I’ve anything more to ask him right now. Give him your number and tell him to call if he remembers anything that might be significant.”

She nodded, and Carl withdrew.

“Nothing to go on,” he said, leaning back against the wall with a sigh. “This is serious, Assad.”

“We shall find him,” Assad replied reassuringly. But most likely he was quite as apprehensive as Carl. Afraid they wouldn’t make it in time to save the children.