When Irene opened the door I saw a different girl than the one I remembered. This one was shy and timid. She looked at us with surprise. Normally I would have called first, but since this was a delicate matter I wanted to look her in the eyes when I asked her if she would give the interview for the article. I wanted her to see who I was and that I didn’t mean to cause her any harm. I just wanted the people to know the truth. That’s what I told her and she just stared at me in disbelief and shook her head.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She was about to close the door when I stopped her.
“Listen, Irene, I know this must be hard for you. But the guy is dead. Murdered. And a lot of people think the world of him. That he was a big-shot business man. And of course it is a tragedy that he was killed, but I want to tell the world what kind of man he really was.”
“I’m sorry, but …”
“You can be anonymous, if you want. No one has to know that it was you.”
She looked at me with mistrust.
“There is a lot you don’t know about these kinds of people. They will know and come after me. Someone will.”
“Please. Just let me hear your side of the story. Or Didrik Rosenfeldt will take it to the grave and you will never have your name cleared. Don’t you want that?”
Irene was silent for a long time and I could sense she was debating within herself. Her mind was a battlefield right now, and I just hoped the right side would win.
After a few more seconds she stepped back into the house and opened the door and let us in. I smiled at Sune who smiled back.
Irene offered us coffee and we accepted. Sune was really polite and gave her a lot of nice compliments on the house and the décor. It wasn’t something I would have thought he knew anything about but sometimes people just surprise you. And it was helpful. Getting to talk about something that interested her, she relaxed and got comfortable. Sune took some discreet pictures of her for the article, from the back and looking out the window. And by the time we got to the interview she seemed ready to talk. We all sat down.
“Tell me how it happened. How did you get to know Didrik Rosenfeldt?”
She sighed, preparing herself for the emotions and memories about to flush out of her like a big ocean wave.
“I had known Didrik and his friends from the boarding school for a long time. In the summertime when their school was closed, they always came down to Karrebaeksminde to stay at Didrik’s house on the water or go sailing in his parents’ boat. The parents were never there anyway and he and his friends were free to do what they wanted. And so they did.”
“So they came in your parents’ store at the port?”
“Yes, every time they went out on the boat, which was most days during the summer. They had to get supplies. Mostly cold beers and chips and stuff. So they came to my father’s store and there I met them. Didrik always talked so nice to me, being a real gentleman. He knew how to talk to women. But he had his appearance against him, you know, he was a little chubby and ugly. So no one ever wanted to be with him. But I thought he was nice and had money and that attracted me.”
“But the other boys had a lot of girls, I bet.”
“Oh, yes. The boys always had girls with them out on the boat. And I always stared at them, jealous as I was. I remember that I really wanted to be one of the girls going with them out on the ocean, drinking, partying, and having a good time. I wanted to be one of the chosen ones. But I didn’t come from a rich background as they did. I didn’t go to boarding school, so I thought they would never take me.”
“But they did?”
”Yes. One day. I was always flirting with Didrik because I knew he was the one making the decisions of who would go and who would not. Girls never really wanted to be his girlfriend. They would always choose one of the other boys. And that bothered him. So I chose him to be my ticket to have fun on the water. And one day, when they came into the shop to buy their beers, he asked me politely if I wanted to go with them and eat dinner on the boat and watch the sunset. I would be the only girl aboard. But that was meant as a compliment to me, he said. Because if they brought any other girl she would be jealous of my beauty. I was thrilled. The one and only. I was to be treated like a queen and I could choose to kiss whoever I wanted of the rich boys.”
Irene sighed deeply.
“I was so young and stupid.”
“So what happened?”
“I got on the boat and the guys were so nice to me, like real gentlemen. I remember wearing a white summer dress and the wind was warm, unlike a normal Danish summer breeze. I was hot and we all cooled down with cold beers all afternoon. Admitted, I got a little dizzy from the beer and the heat. By dinnertime I was a little drunk, but not so much that I didn’t know what I was doing. So I turned up the music and started dancing. The boys ate steaks and fish fillets they had brought from a restaurant on the port. We had champagne and real Russian caviar and I felt like I was in heaven, and then I just started dancing. The boys watched me and I closed my eyes for a second, enjoying the moment. When I opened my eyes I saw an expression on Didrik’s face I had never seen before in any man. In any human being. He was like an animal getting ready to eat its prey. His nostrils were distended, and he breathed heavily. His eyes were filled with lust. And he was not the only one looking at me like that. All six boys were staring at me with that same look. The sun had begun to set, and the hunting was about to begin.”
Irene shook her head and had tears in her eyes. I reached out and held her hand for awhile. I waited for her to be ready to speak again. I really didn’t want to pressure her. After a few minutes she was ready again. I took a deep breath sensing that what was about to come would be very unpleasant. And I was right.
“They closed in on me. They got up and walked slowly towards me, smiling. I asked them if they wanted to dance, and they laughed. ‘It’s time to dance, all right,’ one said and grabbed my wrist in an iron fist. It hurt. ‘We will do the leading,’ he whispered in my ear. I was scared and tried to pull away, but he held me and I suddenly felt a hand under my dress. Someone ripped off my panties and I started crying, pleading with them to let me go. Then they threw me to the deck of the yacht and took off my dress. They held my arms and legs. They were laughing and singing.”
“What did they sing?”
She started humming. “That song from the horror movies popular back in the eighties. The one with the guy who had knives on his hands,” she said.
“Freddy Krueger?” I remembered the movies. There were a lot of them as far as I knew. I wasn’t allowed to watch them until I was older and by then they weren’t that interesting anymore. But I remembered my sister talking about them and teasing me, telling me just before bedtime that Freddy Krueger would come in my dreams with his long claws and kill me.
“Exactly. They had a thing for that. They kept singing. ‘One, two, he is coming’ … And then he came.”
“Who did?”
“Freddy.”
“How is that?”
She shook her head and looked down. “One of them must have dressed up exactly like him. He was there in front of me. The same clothes, the red and black striped shirt, that brown hat and the glove, with the claws on the fingers. The person even wore a Freddy Krueger mask, so he looked exactly like him. I started to scream, and they said we were out in the ocean so no one would ever hear me. It was like they wanted to hear me scream. They encouraged me to do it. So I did. That was all I could do—cry and scream. They told me they would stab me with the claws, that they would rip my body open. And then they cut me with them. ”
She lifted up her shirt. Long stripes of scars all over her chest were a constant reminder to her of that night of horror. She could never escape it.
“And then they raped me. All night. One at a time. They just kept going until I was numb.”
Irene was quiet for a long period of time. I just stared at her and didn’t know what to say. I’d never hea
rd a story like this before. For a moment I thought about my daughter and wanted to lock her up until she was thirty. I tried to put myself in her parent’s place but it was too unbearable.
“I must have passed out at some point,” Irene continued, “because when I woke up I was lying in an old fishing boat at the port. I was bleeding everywhere. Some fishermen found me and called for an ambulance. I was at the hospital for four months.”
I sighed and looked at her. She didn’t indulge in self pity.
“I understand that you were pregnant?” I asked.
“Yes. The doctors discovered I was pregnant and removed it while I was still at the hospital. I haven’t been able to have children since.”
I nodded and thought again about my daughter. How fragile life was and how easy someone could just rip it apart.
”Then what did you do?”
“The police came to the hospital and took a report. I told them who had done it and what happened. They immediately arrested the six boys, including Didrik Rosenfeldt. But only a few hours later they were all freed. My parents told me they had dropped the charges against them. They had gotten a visit from a couple of the parents and received a big check for three million dollars. I was told never to talk about it again. My dad closed the store and we all moved away from Karrebaeksminde.”
“That must have been difficult for you. That your parents dropped the charges without asking you?”
All of a sudden, I thought about my sister. Had they paid off my parents too? Was that why they refused to report the rape attempt to the police? I didn’t like the thought.
Irene shook her head. “It was tough, yes, but I understood why. We would never stand a chance against the rich families in court. They would have the biggest, most expensive lawyers money could buy, and they would have won. Money can get you out of anything. They would find a way and we would be left with nothing but the shame. At least we got enough money that my parents never had to work again.”
I nodded but felt everything inside me scream. What about the fact of trying to stop these guys from doing the same to someone else? Didn’t that count for anything? Was money really that important? But of course I kept it to myself. I knew that to a lot of people in this world money meant everything.
Irene looked at me after wiping away a tear in her eye. “That’s it. That’s the story,” she said.
I nodded again.
“I never saw them again, and hopefully never will.”
I smiled and thought that while she had to live with the scars for the rest of her life, the boys from the boarding school continued their lives as if nothing had happened. That was the power of money. I was disgusted and more than ever I wanted to print the story in my paper. I wanted to disgrace Didrik Rosenfeldt’s name and I didn’t care what his son would say.
Irene interrupted my thoughts. “By the way, I actually have a picture from that evening, “she said while she stood up and left the room. She returned after a little while with an old photograph in her hand. She handed it to me.
“Didrik took it just before we got on the boat. The camera had a timer on it, so we could all get in the picture.”
I took the picture. It showed six boys in white and blue Lacoste polo shirts. They all smile with their arms around each other. And in the middle of them stood Irene in her white summer dress. Smiling with her bright white teeth. Off to have the time of her life. At least that’s what she thought at the time.
“How did you get this?”
“Didrik sent it to me while I was still in the hospital.”
What nerve that prick had.
“Can you please tell me their names, and can I borrow this?” I asked.
“Keep it.”
CHAPTER 11
WE GOT back at the newspaper about lunchtime and I sent Sune to a nearby café to get some sandwiches. I opened my computer and started typing when I sensed something was going on with Sara. She was so quiet, sitting there with her headphones on, just staring with an empty look in her eyes. I stood up and walked to her desk. She lifted a finger and put it over her lips to ask me to be quiet. She was definitely onto something. I waited a few seconds until she took off the headphones. She looked at me with excitement in her brown eyes.
“There has been one more,” she said.
“Another murder?”
“Yes. The police are freaking out. They have never seen anything like this before, they keep saying.”
I sat down on the corner of her desk. “I’ll be damned …”
“You can say that again. Looks like we’ve got ourselves a real serial killer.”
I nodded speculatively. “Any names, yet?”
“Victim's name is Henrik Holch. Son-in-law of the creators and owners of DECCO shoes. He was the CEO of the company.”
I got up in a hurry and rushed over to my desk. In my bag I found the picture Irene had given me. I looked at the back where she had written the names of the six who raped her that night on the boat.
Henrik Holch was the last guy on the right. A slim blond boy with lots of pimples and a bright smile. And a bright future to go with it, I thought. I felt dizzy. I had actually found a connection between the two murders. So I picked up the phone and called Michael Oestergaard. He was busy, he said. But he would love to talk to me another time, just not right now.
“I have a connection between the two murders,” I said.
He got quiet in the other end. “How do you even know there has been another murder? We haven’t told the press yet. I just got here myself.”
“Doesn’t matter. The two murders are linked. They used to go to the same school. Herlufsholm boarding school. And they used to hang out together all summer. Down on Didrik Rosenfeldt’s parents’ boat. They were both accused of raping a girl in 1985 on that boat.”
Michael was very quiet in the other end, and then he spoke with a little harshness in his voice. “Let us do the investigating, okay? I don’t know where you get all that from, but we don’t think the murders are related. They are too different in modus operandi, in the way the victims are killed. There doesn’t seem to be any link between them according to our investigation. You are a reporter, so write that in your paper. Goodbye.” He hung up.
I put the phone back in the cradle, stunned at his sudden change of attitude. Why didn’t he want to see a connection between the murders?
Sune entered the editorial room with sandwiches. I explained everything to him while we ate.
“Maybe he’s afraid you will write there’s a serial killer on the loose, and that would create a lot of panic in the little town of Karrebaeksminde.” Sune spoke with his mouth full and made me smile.
“You might be right. It would cause a lot of disturbance and anxiety among the locals.”
“And keep the tourists away.”
I nodded. He was right. Spring was on its way and with that came a lot of tourists and all the rich people living up north came to live in their summer residences. People came in their boats and ate fish on rye bread at the port, drinking beer and schnapps That was a big deal for the small town. A lot of businesses survived only because of them. It would be a disaster if they stayed away.
But inside of me the thoughts buzzed around. Who was killing the boys from the picture? Could it be Irene Hansen finally getting her revenge?
I wrote my article about Didrik Rosenfeldt, another one about the other murder of a high-profile businessman and a small story about who he was. I didn’t mention the connection between the two killings I had discovered since I didn’t want to scare the people and I certainly didn’t want to make detective Michael Oestergaard mad at me. I needed a good contact at the police. That was worth a lot.
Sara had left me a note on my desk that Giovanni Marco had called three times while I was with Irene Hansen. I decided not to call him back. He probably just wanted to know when the article about him would be in the paper and frankly, with all that was going on, I didn’t know when there would be room for it in the
paper. I just told Sara if he called again to tell him we needed a picture of him and to make an appointment with Sune to go take it.
After that I went home early and spent the rest of the day with my beautiful daughter and my beloved old father. That was a very popular decision at home. We really enjoyed each other's company, playing games, talking, eating, and laughing. Julie said she had a great day at school, and that melted my worried heart. She had gotten a new friend in her class. His name was Tobias. While she told me everything about her new friend, I thanked God for my daughter. No matter how angry I was with her dad, he had given me her, and for that I was eternally grateful to him.
CHAPTER 12
JULIE HAD nightmares that night and she climbed in to my bed. I hugged her and lay close to her until she fell asleep again, but didn’t get much sleep myself after that. My mind wandered.
I lay still in the bed looking at the ceiling just as I used to do as a kid. It hadn’t changed. I knew every crack, every line in that ceiling and they were all still there. I smiled to myself, feeling happy about some things staying the same. And then I thought about the murder cases. I was excited about having found the connection. But how did I move on from here. Should I just let it go and let the police do the work, like detective Michael Oestergaard wanted me to? But how could I? I felt strangely attached to the case, and I knew something important. What if I could stop the killer from striking again? What if I could follow the investigation so closely I would be the only journalist to break the story about the first serial killer in Denmark? The thought excited me.
And I knew exactly how I was going to do it.
After dropping Julie off at her school the next morning I drove to the nearest furniture store before I drove to the newspaper. I bought a desk and a chair and brought it all with me in the car. Then I bought a laptop in another store and called Sune and asked him to meet me in front of the newspaper. When I arrived, he stood outside and was waving at me. I asked him to help me get it all up the stairs.