Frost and Ashes (Daniel Trokics Series Book 2) Read online

  "What about Tomislav? I mean since Sinka’s his sister, is he thinking about doing something?"

  "I don't know yet. Do what, though? And he has his job and family to think about. Are you going to tell Lisa?"

  Jacob’s face went blank for a moment, then he emptied his glass and sucked the last of the whipped cream off the long spoon. "No, not right now. I need to think about it."

  "You also need to think about all the time that’s gone by. Nobody’s the same now, Jacob. Maybe you should leave this to the rest of us; don't risk your relationship on something that's so iffy. Sinka has been gone for twelve years. And we don’t have anything on the line; we can look at every angle before we start digging up the past."

  The truth was that he’d been too occupied to think anything through yet, and if Jacob hadn't confronted him directly, he probably would have delayed all this about Sinka until they found Lukas Mørk's murderer. If they found him, Trokic reminded himself.

  "You look beat," Jacob said. "Are you getting any sleep at all?"

  "I'm okay." He didn't mention the story of the cat embellishing his sofa with vomit.

  "This Mørk case has been hard on everybody."

  "What's your take on it?" Trokic asked.

  "I think we should concentrate more on finding where he was burned. That's probably where he was killed, and it has to be somewhere in Mårslet. I don't get why we haven't found it yet; it's crazy. How can you hide something like that? And it's hard for me to see how it's connected with him being picked up."

  Trokic emptied his glass and pulled his coat off the back of the chair. It was time to get back. "I don’t know what more we can do to find it."

  Chapter Forty-Two

  "What's all this?"

  Agersund looked at him from across the desk and nodded at the stack of papers. His hands were folded behind his neck, and for a moment he reminded Trokic of a fascist mathematics teacher he'd had in school. It wasn't necessarily a sign that Agersund was relaxed; more likely he was expecting an explanation from a subordinate. About something that wasn't all that different from equations.

  "Reports." Trokic felt a flicker of annoyance at the indirect style of his boss. The chief of police had probably been after him again, pressuring him for results, and Trokic was next in line in the pecking order. The worst thing about the police leadership, he thought. When the media started modifying the word "police" with the word "incompetent" and criticizing an investigation, the pressure automatically started filtering down. And when reporters with the imagination of a bestseller fiction writer began concocting all kinds of plausible and implausible theories, psychologists were consulted to form barely credible profiles.

  Agersund wrinkled his nose and switched on his gruff voice. "I'm aware of that. Apparently, you're diving into these old cases from nineteen hundred and whenever, and I want to know why. How’s it going to help us?"

  "I think there might be a connection to Lukas's homicide. The death resem–"

  "All right, you don't have to repeat what you've already written in your last report. That case is dead and buried; it's not worth your time. You know the vast majority of murders are committed by family, and there are signs that Lukas Mørk has been abused. So why dig around in all this old crap? Concentrate on the parents; dig up whatever you can on them. I'm sure there's more."

  Trokic gazed out the window. Gray clouds were gathering like oversized clumps of wool. "And what about Annie Wolters? I think there's a connection. I'm sure the fire investigators will call it arson, and she got in the way."

  "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But honestly, forensics hasn't found anything pointing to a suspicious death. Probably some kids firing off a rocket in town, it landed on the shed. And the old lady walked right into the flames."

  "There was a half meter of snow on the roof of the shed; it would have put out any sparks falling. Anyway, we've already checked, there were no fireworks anywhere close. You really don't think there's something fishy about all these fires?"

  "No, not really. Are you aware of how many fires we have in Århus every year?"

  "Okay, but–"

  "Now, what about these parents?"

  "We've got nothing on them. I really don't think they’re involved. The timeline is all wrong."

  "And have you checked this poker player guy and all his pals?"

  "Yes, but it's not easy. People come and go, and all we have is Johnny Nielsen's word that these people have been there. There could have been others."

  Agersund stood up and cracked his knuckles. His crew cut was getting long, sticking out like a graying porcupine. He smiled. His teeth were yellow. "Just no more history class, okay?"

  Trokic gave him his most innocent look. "Of course not."

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Lisa threw her bag into a corner of the hall and headed straight to the kitchen table to open her mail. She needed a shower to wash off the airports, and her small apartment, a mixture of IKEA and flea markets against a backdrop of green walls and wooden floors, still looked like some super nerd's battleground. Old newspapers, empty glasses and bottles on the tables, takeaway boxes in the kitchen, dirty clothes on the sofa, papers everywhere. Was there a gene for sloppiness? Denial of responsibility appealed to her. But all that would have to wait until later. Jacob wasn’t back yet, and from what she could understand from his message, it would be hours before he showed up.

  * * *

  She'd stopped by her office on the way home and copied the files onto her laptop. Fortunately, Jannik Lorentzen from NITEC had found them and sent them to her by courier. It was forbidden to take material like this out of the station, and she felt a stab of guilt. But she was pressed for time, and anyway she didn't want Agersund to hear about her suspicion until she was more confident.

  She cleared away the orange peels and laid the laptop on the coffee table, then she gathered her shoulder-length hair into a ponytail and sat down. There was a container on the computer encrypted with PGP, Pretty Good Privacy, one of the methods NITEC used to keep the agonizing material from prying eyes. The same encryption technique used by legions of pedophiles across the globe to protect the photos on their computers, unfortunately. PGP was effective. Once files were encrypted, they were like small magical packages. Without the secret formula, they couldn't be opened again. Investigators could do absolutely nothing about it.

  She opened the container and looked at the files: eight scanned color photographs that included the grandfather clock and were thought to originate from a single source. The black-haired woman appeared in several of them. The photos were considered to be very serious because they bore witness to a particularly cynical form of abuse, in the realm of bondage and torture. Nowadays, they would be classified by the public prosecutor as class III, which included photos showing coercion, threats, and serious violence. Lisa shuddered as she glanced at the horrifying photos; this reminder of what humans are capable of hit her like a giant wave of ice. She remembered working for NITEC, having to gradually accept not only the fact of the shocking degradation humans could fall into, but how many were capable of it. Acts so gruesome that normal people set up internal barriers against them. Because it was too much, so unimaginably too much that when she talked about it to police colleagues working in other departments, their eyes glazed over and their ears zipped up, leaving her alone with her knowledge. People could not and would not hear about it. The unbearable.

  After a few minutes, though, as she’d done so often in the past, she managed to wall off the horror inside her. Or at least well enough to work through it. The accompanying report concluded that in all probability the old photos had been developed by amateurs. They had been enormously popular, and even now a lot of scanned copies were floating around out there among the pedophiles. Once in a while, they stumbled onto these copies on the internet, where most of the pedophiles' activity consisted of sharing. In a chat room on the Undernet, for example, on one of the many channels that could be access
ed directly on the net or, alternatively, that required only a very simple program. There they could exchange kiddie pictures. But other places existed where photos were sold. Pay sites. Lisa was aware that new photos of this type were very popular and thus profitable to the seller.

  These eight photos had been taken within a narrow time frame. The girl and the specific surroundings didn't appear in later versions. Several of the others at the course Lisa had taken eight years ago had been worried that the girl died from the abuse. But that didn't mean the man who took the photos didn't have others stashed somewhere else.

  It took a long time to "groom" a child, Lisa knew. These weren't just any old naked pictures; they required a systematic breakdown of the limits of a child. And, in a way, this psychological

  process was almost the most horrific part of it all. The abuser achieved power over the child and instilled the attitude that sex between adults and the child was natural.

  She sighed heavily. There she was, down in the mud again with the vilest form of criminality. It was almost as if her past and her excellent memory were persecuting her. The work was incredibly depressing. Out of the five hundred thousand child pornography photographs Interpol possessed, only five hundred of the children had been identified, which meant that a sickening number of these stolen souls lived in a world far beyond what normal people could imagine. A single act of abuse was hideous in itself but living the rest of your life knowing that images documenting the abuse circulated on the net, to arouse God knows how many people, had to be unbearable. Many people justified viewing child pornography by telling themselves it was only a photograph, that they weren't guilty of abusing the children. But behind every photograph was an act of abuse, and their interest in the photos kept the industry going.

  * * *

  Her bleak thoughts broke off when her phone rang. She recognized the number: Jannik Lorentzen. What now? Was he going to try to talk her into coming back to Copenhagen again? They were looking for three or four new people, she’d heard. She answered reluctantly.

  "Did you get the photos?" he said. No hi, how are you. Small talk and pleasantries had never been his style. Or maybe it was just part of the job–there was never time to waste.

  "Yes, and thanks. They're the ones I was talking about. Great work, I appreciate it so much."

  "I'm calling because I thought of something else. We're working on a new case, a big one. Similar to Mjølner."

  His voice deepened a notch, and Lisa shivered. When Jannik's voice changed like that, you knew something was affecting him deeply. "I won't bore you with the details; you know them way too well anyway. But it’s just that when I found this material for you, it hit me how much it resembled some other photos we've come up with recently."

  Lisa stiffened; the palm of her hand was sweaty. "What do you mean?"

  "It's mostly just a hunch. We confiscated a computer from a couple in Odense last week, and we found several thousand photos. They were traded for or bought or just downloaded from sites all over the world, and now we're tracking as many distributors as possible by examining their computers. But there’s one series of photos much worse than the rest; we've named them Eden. Class III, bondage, torture, that type of thing. Sort of like the grandfather clock series. But the quality marks them as being relatively new. Very high resolution, digital. And we're sure they came from inside the country. You know, from the sight of things like outlets, radiators–"

  "Is the couple from Odense talking?"

  "No, so we don't know where the photos come from. Not yet anyway."

  She listened to him light a cigarette and inhale.

  "Who’s in the photos?"

  "A boy and a girl. Not very old, maybe five, six. I spoke with one of our American colleagues yesterday, and he thinks he's seen several photos from the same place, from a while back. If he's right, the abuse has been going on for quite a while. Some of these series…well, you know how it is, pedophiles have to have them in their collections, and this is probably one of them. Right now, it looks like they're being sold through a Russian site, so whoever took the photos is shoveling in the money."

  "But why do you think they’re related to the grandfather clock series?"

  "It's the pictures of the girl in particular, the way she's tied to the chair. The knots look the same. Of course, it could be a copycat."

  "I'd like to see them," Lisa said.

  "I'll get hold of the courier again; you'll have them tomorrow."

  After hanging up, Lisa stared out the window at the lights of the city. It was late, but Trokic was going to have guests. Lisa and her laptop. He had to see these old photos.

  * * *

  She was on her way out the door when Jacob came home. At once, she saw something was wrong. For a moment, her world stood still, as if time had finally caught up to her.

  "I was just about to go over to Trokic. What's wrong? What's happened?"

  For a second, it looked like he was going to clam up on her. Or maybe tell a little white lie. But no. "Trokic says that someone in all likelihood spotted Sinka in Beograd."

  Now it was her heart standing still. How could she compete against the ghost of this woman? He'd told her they'd been in love, but Lisa hadn't felt threatened. It had been a fleeting love, superficial, one that had never gone through daily life, plus its intensity had been magnified by the helplessness war creates. But the pain in Jacob's eyes was real. And no matter what she thought, that was what she had to deal with.

  "And so what?" she yelled. "What are you going to do about it? Fly down there to some sort of…phantom, to find something that existed twelve years ago? What about me, if I may ask? Do you seriously think I won’t mind sitting around here, waiting?"

  "No, I'm not going down there." He avoided her eyes. Usually, when he looked at her, his blue eyes darkened and made her feel warm. But that wasn't happening now.

  "But you want her found?"

  "That's not really so strange, is it?"

  Suddenly, she wanted to hit him. How could he believe she would stand for this? Was she supposed to applaud and say congratulations? "You're a really great pair, Trokic and you. Damn you."

  She stuck her laptop under her arm, strode out of the apartment, and slammed the door behind her.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Trokic looked surprised when Lisa showed up. Almost shocked. Too late, she'd realized he might have a lady visitor, that he'd be mad at her. But when he saw it was her, he opened his door. Pjuske was sitting on the kitchen countertop, and she looked up when Lisa appeared in the doorway.

  The second she'd got in her car, her rage turned into tears. She felt helpless at the thought of Sinka, the female ghost dominating her boyfriend's mind. It took fifteen minutes and a lot of crying before she’d realized Jacob would have to decide once and for all what he wanted. Otherwise, it was over.

  "Do you have a minute? You need to see this." She tapped the laptop she was carrying.

  "Come on in."

  She stepped over a dead mouse on the front step–a gift from the cat, no doubt–and they walked into the gray living room. Lisa sat in the comfortable armchair and stretched her long legs, then in a sudden burst of anger, she realized that in a way Trokic was the cause of Jacob's dilemma. But she pulled herself together. He had every right to want his cousin back. Of course, he wanted that. And to find out the truth. For a few seconds, she considered confiding in him, but then she thought better of it. First and foremost, he was Jacob's friend. And her boss.

  Apparently, he’d been buried in stacks of reports that he’d divided into subjects. Lisa wasn't envious. The amount of paperwork seemed to increase the farther up the ladder you climbed, and she could do without that. As if to illustrate how busy he was, his hair was a complete mess. His crooked, chaotic cowlick led the way, while the rest lay tangled up on his skull.

  She felt a moment of tenderness for him. He dressed well enough, though a bit casually and without much variety. But his hair was out of control.<
br />
  A look of relief spread over his face, probably from having an excuse to take a break from all the reports. "Did it go okay down in Amsterdam?"

  "Yes, it was great. But that's not why I'm here."

  He lit a cigarette and pulled an ashtray over. "No, I didn't think so. What’s on your mind?"

  "This may sound strange, but do you remember the grandfather clock the Mørks' neighbor had? Jonna Riise?"

  "Faintly. It's blue, isn't it?"

  "Yeah, or gray-blue. Anyway, when I was down in Holland, I met one of my old colleagues from IT, and it freed something up in my memory. I remembered seeing the clock somewhere before, so I called my old boss and asked him to send me some material from an old case."

  "Agersund is sick and tired of us digging around in old cases instead of concentrating on what's in front of us." Trokic looked frustrated. "But this is interesting. Jonna Riise is connected in another way too."

  "How is that?"

  Trokic filled her in on his visit with Bent Kornelius and the mysterious circumstances surrounding Eigil Riise's death.

  Lisa leaned forward in the chair. "That sounds very strange. And we don't believe in coincidence, do we?"

  "No."

  "Okay, let's go over this. Jonna Riise's brother committed suicide in the beginning of the 70s, if we can believe the police and other sources. The boy was emotionally disturbed, and his parents were accused. And I find old photos showing abuse, with a grandfather clock identical to the one in Jonna Riise's living room. But the photos were of a girl. I'm wondering if it's possible that the Riises abused these two kids."