Authors: Sara Blædel
“She was too incoherent for me to get that far. But she nodded when I asked if she wanted to report the assault to the police, so I passed that message on to the two officers who had brought her in.”
Louise put her notepad back in her bag. The doctor didn’t seem to have anything else to tell her. She might as well go in and speak to Susanne herself.
She stood up and waited for Anne-Birgitte to do the same, but the doctor remained seated, staring at the cookie crumbs on the table.
“The patient is very distraught,” Anne-Birgitte said, looking up. “She does not at all seem like a woman who would voluntarily consent to sex play that involved being gagged and having her hands and feet bound—and being beaten up.”
Louise was about to interrupt her, but the doctor kept going.
“She has been physically and mentally abused, and I would urge you to keep that in mind.”
“Of course,” Louise said, irritated. This wasn’t the first time she’d been told off because the police were forced, for professional reasons, to consider both sides whenever a rape was reported. “I’m assuming it’s all right for us to move her to National Hospital?”
“That should be fine,” the doctor replied. “It shouldn’t make her condition any worse. Shall we go in?”
—
L
OUISE FOLLOWED AS THE DOCTOR LED THE WAY, BUT WAITED OUT
in the hall while Anne-Birgitte went into the room to say that she was here. Shortly thereafter, the door was flung open and a woman in her mid-fifties rushed out and grabbed hold of Louise’s arm. Louise quickly figured that this must be the victim’s mother.
“You have to understand—something dreadful has happened,” the woman said.
Louise pulled back slightly, but that just made the woman tighten the grip on her arm.
“I presume your daughter is the one I should be speaking to,” Louise said, removing the mother’s hand before gesturing to the row of chairs along the wall. “Why don’t you wait out here while I go in and see her?”
She guided the mother over to the chairs before the woman was able to inhale enough to protest. Louise gave her a friendly push down onto a chair.
“Once I’ve spoken with Susanne, she and I will drive over to National Hospital. At that time it will be best if you go back home and wait for her there. If you give me your phone number, I’ll give you a call when we’re done with the exams at National Hospital after I’ve taken her statement at police headquarters.”
She pulled her notepad out again and handed a blank page to the mother.
“I’m coming with you,” the mother said, ignoring the piece of paper.
Louise squatted down beside the chair. “I can’t keep you from doing that, but I want to prepare you. You’ll be sitting around waiting for many hours, and there really won’t be anyone who will have time to talk to you. Right now, this is first and foremost about your daughter, and of course you want to be there for her. But if we’re going to have any chance at figuring out who did this to her, we need to have an opportunity to talk to her, and there are a number of exams that have to be done.”
The woman looked as though she were starting to understand.
“Well, then I’ll go home and tidy up her apartment a little,” she said, mostly to herself.
Louise put her hand on the mother’s shoulder and explained: “The police are still in her apartment at the moment, so it will be a little while before you’ll be allowed in. I recommend that you go home. It must have been a big shock for you to come downstairs and find her like that.”
The mother nodded, but Louise could tell that she was about to protest again, so she hurriedly wrapped up the conversation. “I’ll call you later tonight,” Louise said and scurried into the hospital room.
She’d been through this type of conversation many times before, and it hadn’t taken her long to determine whether it was going to be a help or a hindrance to have this particular mother present during Susanne’s medical exams and when her statement was taken: everything about the situation told her that it was hard to see what the benefit could be.
—
T
HE HOSPITAL BED WAS NEAR THE WINDOW, THE CURTAINS FLUTTERING A
little in the light breeze coming into the room. Susanne was lying there staring outside, and she didn’t turn her head until Louise was standing right next to the bed.
“My name is Louise Rick. I’m an assistant detective with the Copenhagen Police Department,” she said to introduce herself, trying to keep her voice calm and soothing. “Could we have a little chat?”
Susanne turned and stared right through her. She had withdrawn into her own world.
Sad,
Louise thought.
Things are much worse for you in there than they are out here.
“You’ve just been through a terrifying experience,” she said, looking down at the woman’s battered face. “I know that you’ve already been examined a little, and I can certainly understand if you would prefer to be left alone right now, but I would really like to take you to National Hospital, where the Center for Victims of Sexual Assault is located. They’re the ones who will do the official exam necessary to report the rape.”
There was no response from the bed, so Louise continued:
“If you’re able to walk on your own, I suggest that we take my car. But I could also get an ambulance to take you, if you’d prefer?”
Finally Susanne responded by letting her eye wander a tad closer to Louise’s face. Louise quickly assessed whether she would do better to take a seat and pretend they had all the time in the world to wait until Susanne felt like she was ready to talk to her, or whether she should pressure the woman and provoke a response.
She decided on a compromise between the two.
“There’s a coroner waiting at the center. He is going to examine you, and then the police will take your statement. And I was actually hoping that we could talk a little bit now, before the exam.”
Susanne interrupted her. Her voice was hoarse, and when the words came out Louise could barely see Susanne’s mouth move. She had sores at the corners of her mouth, and it was obvious that she felt like the duct tape was still there.
“A coroner examines dead people. Why is he going to examine
me
?”
Louise leaned in to hear what Susanne was saying. She pulled her chair over to sit by the bedside.
“Coroners do perform autopsies on dead people, but they also examine the living,” she said, trying to play it down, regretting her choice of terminology, forgetting that most people don’t know the nuances of police lingo. “They are always called in whenever a rape victim is examined at the center.”
The tears were starting to flow down Susanne’s cheeks. Louise reached over to hold her hand, careful to avoid the woman’s IV line. She reassuringly stroked her arm as she spoke.
“We want to make sure that we secure the evidence that the perpetrator doubtlessly left on you....”
Susanne’s silent tears became deep sobs. Her body was like a cavernous well, supplying bucket after bucket of tears.
Louise changed tactics. She would give Susanne the time she needed now. Something was loosening inside the victim, and that was worth waiting for, she thought.
Finally the crying subsided.
“I could ride with you,” Susanne said, drying her eyes, “but I don’t have any clothes.”
She sounded apologetic, as if she was ashamed that she had been naked when she was brought to the hospital.
Louise smiled at her. “We’ll have the nurse find you a bathrobe and a pair of slippers.”
Susanne nodded, and Louise noticed that Susanne’s eyes followed her as she stood up and went out to find someone who could help them out with some clothes.
I
N THE CAR,
L
OUISE CALLED
F
LEMMING
L
ARSEN’S EXTENSION.
H
E WAS
the coroner on duty, and she had already given him a heads-up from the car during her drive out to Hvidovre.
“We’re on our way in now,” she said when he picked up.
“Good. What has she said?”
Louise avoided glancing over at Susanne Hansson, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to her. “Nothing.”
Flemming was silent for a second and then asked, “Do you want to take your statement before or after I examine her?” he asked.
“I’ll wait until you’re done. We’ll head straight up to the division, so we’ll see you there.”
They agreed that Flemming would wait for her to call before coming over to National Hospital from the Telium building in back, where the forensics unit was located.
Susanne sat staring out the window. Before they had left Hvidovre Hospital, the nurse had removed the glucose drip and given her a white bathrobe to wear over her hospital gown. She still looked quite dazed and battered. An aura of vulnerability and humiliation glowed around her, and it broke Louise’s heart a bit. Physically, Susanne would recover in a few weeks, but it would be a long time before that aura faded.
Louise contemplated whether it would help to start their conversation while they were in the car. There wasn’t any reason to pressure her or force her to remember the events of the night until she had made it through her examination.
She needs peace and quiet
, Louise decided, thinking about the standard uncomfortable questions that were part of taking a statement from a rape victim.
Are you sure that this was rape?
That was the last thing she needed to hear right now.
She stopped at a red light and looked again at the slumped-over shape in the passenger seat. She was having a hard time judging how Susanne would respond psychologically to what awaited her during the next few hours. Right now it looked as though everything had been taken from her. The quiet in the car was conspicuous and awkward, but hard to do anything about.
Louise pulled in and parked in front of Stairwell 5, and she called the forensics unit once she had locked the car. They took the elevator up to Gynecology and continued down the corridor until they came to the small section that housed the sexual assault center.
Louise went up to the desk to say they had arrived.
The nurse at reception came out and gave Susanne her hand.
“Do you have any family members with you?” she inquired.
“No,” Louise said, avoiding looking at Susanne.
The nurse clearly understood that Louise had seen to this, and that she and Susanne had come alone because Louise needed to get Susanne’s statement. Despite this practical reason, the nurse did not try to hide her disapproval of Louise’s seemingly callous action.
Louise was irritated at being yet again cast in the “bad cop” role, but she bit her tongue. She still found it inconceivable that people who dealt with these kinds of serious assaults professionally didn’t fully appreciate how important the medical examination and the victim’s statement were. If they were to have any hope of catching the perpetrator, having a mother sitting on the sidelines possibly dissuading her daughter from giving the police a full statement was not going to help.
“The doctor will be by in a bit to take a look at you,” the nurse told Susanne.
She avoided using the term “coroner.” Louise had not been as tactful, but she just didn’t think there was any reason to hide from Susanne exactly who would be performing the examination.
“If you want it, we’ve got a bed where you can lie down until he comes,” the nurse continued, glancing at her watch. “I’m sure he’s probably on his way up now. You could also wait out here, or go on into the examining room.”
That last part was directed at Louise.
At that very moment, Flemming Larsen walked in, wearing a white lab coat that fluttered around his legs. He introduced himself to Susanne and asked her to follow him.
“You wait here,” he told Louise, as the two of them went over into the little office that served as the examining room.
Louise had made up her mind to be present, although she knew that Flemming would not be happy about having so many people there as he performed his portion of the exam. A gynecologist and a nurse would also be present, so the room would be crowded, to say the least.
So she nodded and watched Flemming, who was almost six foot six, gently guide Susanne Hansson in, letting the door slide shut behind them.
If it had been any of the other doctors, she would have put up a fight. Eavesdropping on the examination could be a gold mine. Sometimes the victim would include information that would be much more valuable now than later on when it eventually showed up in some report. But she had a good working relationship with Flemming and knew that she could count on him to give her a proper account of whatever information Susanne provided.
She went into the little conference room and sat down to wait. When the coroner was done, the staff from the sexual assault center would take over and offer Susanne a chance to take a shower and meet with their psychologist before proceeding to police headquarters to give her statement. In the meantime, Flemming would have time to fill Louise in.
—
L
OUISE PULLED OUT HER PHONE.
O
F COURSE, SHE WASN’T QUITE SURE
which sections of the large hospital were exempt from the cell-phone ban, but she decided that phones must certainly be allowed in the conference room.
“Well, so much for grocery shopping,” she said when Peter answered. She had already sent him a text message while she waited for the doctor out at Hvidovre, so he was prepared.
“You were really holding out hope, huh?” he said with an audible grin, adding he could swing by Føtex and pick up what they needed on his way home.
“Thanks,” she said with an exaggerated sigh, and then added that she might be quite late after all. She promised to call when she had an estimate of how long it would take.
“I’ll make some dinner and put it in the fridge for you,” he said, and she sent him a kiss over the phone, hoping that it wouldn’t be drowned out by the weak connection, which was making the connection between them crackle.
Drunk on champagne on New Year’s Eve, Peter had made a solemn resolution to be more understanding and accommodating whenever Louise called to say she couldn’t make it home as planned.