Fatal Crossing Read online

  ‘And what's your relationship to Andreas Jansson, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘Personal,’ Nora hissed.

  ‘How can we get hold of Mr Jansson?’

  ‘Try the second floor.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘No, I mean it. He's on some sort of anti-terror course on behalf of Danish police.’

  ‘Very well. So tell me how you ended up visiting my old friend James McCormey?’

  Nora told them about the book she had bought in the airport, the similarity between the poses in the pictures and the account of the case against William Hickley, also known as Bill Hix. She told them how she had found his name on the suitcase.

  ‘And not even at that point does it cross your mind to contact the police directly and hand over this incredibly important piece of evidence to an expert?’

  Nora shook her head. ‘Mr Spencer,’ she said wearily. ‘I know you work for the government, but have you ever found yourself in a situation where you had to contact the police through official channels? Say your bike or wallet was nicked?’

  Spencer proffered a measured nod. ‘Once.’

  ‘Right. Then perhaps I can ask you what you think would have happened if I’d called police and said that I had a suitcase full of pictures and absolutely no idea if a crime had been committed? That is, if I had been put through to a real person, rather than just pressing my way through a telephone system that ended up suggesting I report my concern online?’

  ‘Touché,’ said Millhouse, who seemed to regard himself as a commentator on the conversation, as if he were at a Wimbledon semi-final.

  His remark appeared to make Jeff Spencer realise — at long last, in Nora's opinion — that they might be on the same side after all.

  ‘OK. I accept that you found the suitcase as you’ve described. For some reason James trusts you. And I trust James.’

  Spencer leaned back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest and something that resembled a smile on his lips. ‘You found the suitcase and you found the pictures. And somehow you had the presence of mind to contact the police. And not only that, you also tracked down the one person in the police force most likely to listen to you once you mentioned the name Bill Hix,’ Spencer said, holding a rhetorical pause.

  ‘So my question is this: What's your theory about the girls? Who are they, and what happened to them?’

  Nora looked up at the wall with the pictures and the many names, and then down at Spencer again. ‘Well, surely that's obvious, isn’t it? The pictures were found in a suitcase that used to belong to Bill Hix. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the cabinet of horrors and that vile man would immediately conclude that they must be the girls who were never identified or found. Perhaps some of those girls whose tongues are still pickled in a jar at the Institute of Forensic Medicine? Isn’t it just a matter of carrying out some DNA tests?’

  Spencer watched her gravely. ‘Yes, you would think so, wouldn’t you?’

  Nora waited for him to continue.

  Spencer pointed to one of the pictures on the wall behind him. It showed a girl of about seventeen years old wearing cheap jewellery and more mascara and lipstick than her young face could carry off. She was standing against the obligatory white wall, smiling nervously to the photographer with her arms folded under her breast to make her chest measurement a little more impressive. There could be no mistaking the image on her T-shirt. Madonna's iconic features advertised the singer's The Girlie Show Tour. Underneath the picture was a name: Zoë Bellman, Manchester. She looked no more or less unhappy than any of the other girls.

  Nora got up and studied the picture closely.

  After a moment's silence Spencer appeared to adopt a more amicable approach and said: ‘Can you see what's wrong?’

  She was on the verge of seeing it. It was on the tip of her tongue, ready to be uttered. There was something about -

  ‘To be fair, it was Irene who spotted it. Just between us, she's a bit of a Madonna freak. Our problem is as follows: Madonna's Girlie Show Tour took place in 1993. William Hickley was jailed in 1992.’

  Nora sat still while the information sank in.

  ‘Let me make sure I’ve got this right. It means Hix couldn’t have taken the pictures?’

  Spencer shook his head. ‘No, he couldn’t. We’ve identified most of the girls. We know that they’re missing and that they went missing after Bill Hix was apprehended. But it gets even weirder — because on your suitcase we found a tiny, barely detectable thumbprint, which undoubtedly belongs to William Hickley. Do you see the problem?’

  Spencer nodded to Millhouse to indicate that he could take over.

  ‘Bill Hix knows something. He must know who took the pictures,’ Millhouse began by asserting.

  ‘But Hix is a man who lives to lie, deceive and misdirect. All attempts — and let me add that there have been many — to make him reveal anything that could help the investigation, have failed. Therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists — he toys with them. And when he gets bored, he crushes them and all their hopes. We’re stuck.’

  Nora started to get an unpleasant feeling of where this was heading.

  ‘Last week you met with Christian Cross to get permission to visit Bill Hix in prison.’

  It wasn’t a question. Millhouse told Nora they were fully aware of what had been said during the meeting.

  ‘We’ve spoken to Christian Cross and as far as we can gather, for the first time in years, Hix has expressed an interest in meeting someone other than his family,’ Millhouse said, clearing his throat.

  ‘Usually Hix refuses to speak to outsiders. However, it just so happens that Christian Cross owes this office a favour, so he has been kind enough to strongly encourage his client to talk to you, and Mr Hickley has chosen to listen to his esteemed solicitor. So far, so good.’

  Nora had flashbacks to the movie scene where Clarice Starling is sent down a long, dark basement corridor with the criminally insane in cells on either side until she reaches a folding chair in front of Hannibal Lecter, who converses politely with her behind armoured glass while reminiscing about eating a census-taker's liver with a good Chianti and fava beans.

  ‘I’m sorry, did I just walk on to the set of Silence of the Lambs part four?’

  She looked imploringly at Spencer who couldn’t help smiling, although he made a concerted effort not to. ‘Just let the man speak,’ he reassured her.

  Nora folded her arms across her chest and looked hard at Millhouse.

  ‘The meeting will take place in a room that is under surveillance. He’ll be restrained. You’ll have a unique opportunity to interview him. A scoop. All we’re asking in return is that you slip in a few questions on our behalf.’

  ‘I can’t just share my research with the police. It goes against all principles of a free press.’

  ‘No, and we totally appreciate that,’ Spencer interjected. ‘But you could view it as a form of cooperation. A swap. We have information that might benefit your story. You might be able to get information that would help our investigation. Think about it.’

  For a microsecond Nora wished she was still a smoker. What she needed now was to stand with a cigarette in her hand, weighing up the pros and cons, while gazing at the London skyline.

  Spencer pushed her. ‘Listen. We’ve already shared information with you by letting you into this room and telling you about the girls and their names. Before you stepped across the threshold, you didn’t even know if there was a story. If the girls were alive or dead -’

  ‘True, but then again, you wouldn’t have a new lead without my suitcase,’ Nora retorted.

  ‘It's evidence now and because of that we’ve made some progress.’

  ‘But if it's not Hix, then who on earth is it?’ Nora asked with a frown.

  Spencer took a deep breath. ‘That's what we’re hoping Hix might know.’

  Nora shook her head. ‘Why now? I just don’t understand it. I mean, how can
so many young women disappear without anyone noticing, without anyone joining the dots? It doesn’t seem possible.’

  ‘Oh, it does when you think about it,’ Millhouse replied. ‘We’re talking about twelve girls here, plus your two from the ferry, but if we set aside the picture from Denmark, let's say twelve. They come from the UK, but also Germany, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. The ones we’ve been able to identify disappeared over several years. In dribs and drabs. Girls travel abroad and drop off the radar all the time. They meet men. They fall in love and move in with them, and perhaps they forget to phone home. Perhaps they fall through the cracks in the system; they get fired from their au pair jobs for refusing to have sex with daddy. Anything can happen to girls in those situations. Some experiment with drugs, some end up at King's Cross along with the other junkie prostitutes. In which case they’re unlikely to call their family to update them about their career trajectory in the capital. Their faces are like snowflakes in a snowstorm,’ Millhouse said with an unexpected hint of poetry.

  ‘Yes, but surely their families are still looking for them?’

  ‘We’re dealing with seven or eight different embassies here. Perhaps some of them did politely contact the UK police to ask them to keep an eye out in case a missing Malin Bergqvist, who came over to seek her fortune in the West End's theatre land, turns up at a hospital, or for signs of life from a Gertrud Neuberg, who never showed up for her intensive English language course in Hampstead. Perhaps the British police even went to the trouble of actually checking out the reports, made a few enquiries here and there. But the chances of anyone joining the dots were miniscule. None of the girls has ever been found. There's not much to work with and until you found the suitcase, there was no reason to think there even was a case.’

  ‘But surely the girls must have something in common, apart from that?’ Nora insisted.

  ‘Yes. Bill Hix. They have him in common,’ Spencer said.

  Nora shuddered. ‘So what you’re saying is there's a copycat out there. Someone who stole Bill Hix's suitcase?’

  Spencer nodded. ‘A copycat or an accomplice. We don’t know which. But we believe that William Hickley does. And you may be our best chance of getting him to talk about it. We know it's a long shot, but we have to try. If for no other reason than for the sake of these girls and their families. There are still parents looking for their missing daughters and an explanation for what happened to them,’ he said.

  Millhouse opened the file and took out a picture of an elderly couple standing with their suitcases in front of what looked like a departure terminal at Heathrow Airport. The grief was chiselled into every line in their faces.

  ‘This is Hannelore and Helmuth Neuberg from Munich. Every year they use their summer holiday to travel to London to look for their daughter. They have done so ever since she disappeared seventeen years ago. They still believe that their beloved Gertrud is alive, but somehow unable to communicate with them. Or, that's to say — I’m starting to think that Helmuth may have reached the stage where he knows that the most he can hope for is one day to get Gertrud's earthly remains home and buried in the family plot. It's not something he has ever said out loud, but it's my impression when I meet with them every year and I tell them that, no, unfortunately we haven’t been able to find Gertrud since their last visit. We haven’t even been able to give them an explanation as to what happened to her, let alone a body.’

  Millhouse produced another picture from the file. ‘This is Siri Galtung. She has spent fifteen years looking for Inge. Do you want me to go on?’

  Nora shook her head. ‘But how do I handle him? I’ve no experience of talking to murderers, and if countless psychologists have already tried, I struggle to see what I would be able to do that hasn’t already been tried by them?’

  Irene cleared her throat and spoke up. ‘We’ve discussed it. Extensively. Whether you should play the part of his domineering mother and try to make him submit to you and confess. If we should change his medication before the meeting. Or if you should play the obsessive serial killer groupie. But the truth is that he would probably see through it in the three seconds it’ll take you to park your backside on the seat opposite him. Our best bet is that you’re yourself. Plain and simple. He has expressed an interest in meeting a Danish journalist and agreed to an interview. So that's what will happen. If you’re going to get anything from it, you’ll succeed by being authentic. If not, well, at least you tried.’

  Spencer clarified: ‘In other words, don’t do very much you wouldn’t otherwise have done. The only difference is that you now know something you didn’t know before you came here today. And, well, that you share any new information with us.’

  Nora could have sworn that he winked at her.

  ‘OK. But then I also want an interview with you for my final article,’ Nora said.

  ‘I never give interviews. You have to use Millhouse or Irene.’

  ‘Seriously? What a shame. I’m sure that James will be just a little upset when he hears how easily you let the only new lead in the Hix investigation slip through your fingers. Because you never give interviews.’

  ‘OK. You can interview me, but don’t mention my name,’ Spencer said reluctantly.

  ‘So how do I refer to you?’

  ‘As a senior analyst from Scotland Yard's Profile Unit.’

  Nora stuck out her hand. ‘Done. We have a deal.’

  ‘You drive a hard bargain, Miss Sand,’ Spencer said wearily and held out the pastry box to her. ‘How about a doughnut to seal our deal?’

  ‘Hard bargainers don’t eat stuff like that,’ she said with a smile.

  It didn’t occur to her until she was back in the street that it might not be clear who had struck the best deal.

  After all, what kind of moron enters a room with three profiling experts and thinks she can walk away with the psychological advantage?

  She was briefly tempted to text Andreas, seeing as she was at Scotland Yard anyway. Perhaps she could pump him for information about Spencer — for example, if he was a man of his word. It was her gut feeling that he was. In the end, she let her mobile stay in her pocket. She didn’t have the energy for any more drama today.

  At that very moment her iPhone vibrated. It was a text message from Svend Jansson. Call me was all it said. Nora found his number and pressed redial.

  ‘Jansson,’ she heard almost immediately.

  ‘It's Nora.’

  She could tell that he was in a room full of people. ‘Hang on. I’m in the canteen,’ he said. She could hear him move away from the noise of clattering cutlery and chatter. Then she heard a door open and a slightly out of breath Jansson: ‘OK. I’m in my office. I promised to let you know when I got the results of the fingerprints from the picture, remember.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It's a very strange result, and I don’t really know what use you can make of it. Or what use I can make of it. There were five different prints on the picture. Two of them we can eliminate. They are yours and Andreas's. A further complication is that the database we use for comparison only covers people registered in Danish police archives. It means that if the fingerprint is from a foreign source, we don’t have a snowball's chance in hell of finding it. For that we would have to go through Europol or Interpol, and that's a whole new process which requires several applications and authorisations. It can take months, and I can’t imagine that my boss will be willing to bother the big boys at the Lyon headquarters, unless we have something more solid.’

  ‘Yes, OK, Svend. But that doesn’t change anything, does it? We’ve known that from the start.’

  ‘Sure. I just think it's important that you understand the limitations.’

  ‘And now I do,’ Nora said, struggling to suppress her curiosity.

  ‘Good. We couldn’t identify two prints on the picture, but the fifth paid off and alarm bells started ringing.’

  ‘Aha?’

  ‘It belongs to a certain Ol
uf Mikkelsen.’

  ‘The Oluf Mikkelsen?’

  ‘Yes, the Oluf Mikkelsen, former resident at Vestergården and participant of the fatal trip to London.’

  ‘But that makes no sense?’

  ‘Nope. Not right now it doesn’t. But his fingerprints were in our system not only because of a series of break-ins in Ringkøbing he committed while he was in care at Vestergården, but also as a result of a later conviction for assault in Copenhagen. It's him. There can be no doubt.’

  ‘And where is he now?’

  She could hear Svend Jansson chuckle to himself. ‘How did I know you were going to ask me that?’ he said, and Nora could hear him hit a few keys on his keyboard.

  ‘Now here's another strange thing. Oluf Mikkelsen appears to have moved to Greve for a while. We have some information about him on our system. Minor stuff, really. Antisocial behaviour, pickpocketing, insurance fraud. Petty crimes, to be honest. The records go on until the start of 1991, after which all traces of him disappear. He doesn’t claim any benefits, he doesn’t pay tax, he doesn’t see a doctor. He drops off the face of the earth. But no one reports him missing. It's very odd.’

  ‘Do you have his last known address?’

  ‘You know perfectly well I’m not allowed to give that information to civilians,’ Svend Jansson said sternly.

  ‘But I have to have something to go on?’

  ‘I couldn’t even tell you that Oluf Mikkelsen left Greve, or that he was a keen amateur boxer, if it wasn’t because I’m convinced that you can google this information yourself in five seconds.’

  ‘Thank you so much, Svend.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. I’m sure that Annika sends her love. She's overjoyed that you might become a part of the family.’

  Nora blushed right up to the roots of her hair.

  ‘Eh, I’ll call you if I find out anything more about Lulu and Lisbeth,’ she said quickly, and rang off before Jansson had time to ask probing questions.

  17

  She shopped in Whole Foods on her way home where she lingered over a fruit and vegetable section that banished all thoughts of serial killers. The shelves were laden with fat white asparagus, cherries bursting with juice, deep violet blueberries and soft feathery peaches, still smelling of flowers and Italian sunshine.