The Forgotten Girls Read online

  THE WOMAN WAS sitting in a chair by the window. A white hospital blanket was wrapped around her, and as she glanced upward, she looked like a baby bird in oversize plumage.

  Louise realized immediately that she had never met the woman before. Relieved, she walked over to shake her hand.

  “My name is Louise Rick.” She held the woman’s gaze to see if the name provoked the same response as that from the man at Pasture House.

  “Bitten,” the woman responded faintly, only reacting to the puffs of wind from the window, which made her pull the blanket closer around her.

  Louise walked over to close the window and asked if the woman needed anything. She figured that she might be able to conjure up some coffee or a couple of sodas.

  “No, thank you.” Bitten looked uncertainly at Louise. Her short hair reached just below her ears, her eyebrows were plucked very thin, and a red mark from a hard blow reached from her right cheek and up around her eye.

  About thirty, Louise guessed. She hadn’t asked Mik what he knew about her.

  “I understand that you’re in a great deal of shock and that it’s very uncomfortable to have to talk about what happened. But your husband reported the rape, so I have to ask you some questions. Are you okay with that?”

  The woman nodded, and Louise took a seat.

  “Let’s start by turning back the clock,” she began. “Were you at home all morning?”

  Once again, the woman nodded. Then she seemed to pull herself together and cleared her throat. “I’ve got time off today and tomorrow. I work in the finance department with the city and I’ve earned some compensatory leave.”

  She added the last part as if her days off called for some sort of explanation. “What did you do this morning?” Louise asked in order to slowly bring the conversation to the difficult parts.

  “I just puttered around. It was probably close to eleven when I went outside to sit and have a cup of coffee, and then I went in the hot tub afterward.” She looked at Louise questioningly to see if that was sufficient. “We have an outdoor hot tub,” she added. “After that I went back inside to take a shower.”

  Louise nodded and refrained from saying that she already knew about the hot tub because she had stopped by the house.

  Bitten took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were dark and full of fear as if it all came crashing over her once more.

  “I didn’t even see him,” she whispered. “I didn’t notice him coming in the house.”

  A gleam of insecurity darted across her face as she looked at Louise.

  “I don’t understand how I didn’t hear him. Why didn’t Molly bark?”

  The dog seemed only just now to cross her mind. Then she clenched her fists and covered her mouth as something occurred to her.

  “Let’s stick with the hot tub for a minute,” Louise asked, putting aside the thought of the dead dog in the woods. “Try to remember if maybe you heard or saw anything while you were in there.”

  The woman shook her head. “There was no one by the house at that time. Molly was lying right next to me like she always does when I’m in there. She loves the spray of the water.”

  “Could someone have been watching you without you noticing?”

  Bitten shrugged but then shook her head. “I’m always very aware when I get out. When I’m by myself, I never wear a bathing suit so I make sure to check if anyone’s walking by. But no one was.”

  She fell silent, and Louise could tell that she was replaying her walk from the patio into the house. Then she shook her head again.

  “He wasn’t there then,” she maintained. “I’m positive.”

  She slumped down a little.

  Louise noticed that Bitten’s hands had started shaking even though she was trying to keep them steady. The woman turned her face away and looked out the window, but her silence made Louise suspect she was holding something back.

  Bitten took a deep breath; then she straightened herself up and squeezed her restless hands. “I didn’t notice anything because my mind was elsewhere. I was getting ready,” she said despairingly.

  Her dark eyes seemed to penetrate Louise as if she wanted to make sure she understood.

  “You were expecting company?” Louise deduced.

  Bitten nodded.

  “I left the patio door open when I went into the bathroom to rinse off. Maybe that was when I heard a sound from the living room—I don’t remember.”

  Tears were in her eyes now.

  “I was going into the bedroom to get my robe, and I had just opened the door when he put his hand over my mouth.”

  “Were you naked?” Louise asked.

  Bitten nodded, looking down at the floor as if feeling ashamed that she left her own bathroom without anything on.

  She squeezed her eyes tightly shut while small trembles ran through her body.

  “I thought it was a friend so I was about to turn around and kiss him,” she said disconsolately. “But he just held on to me and used his knee to spread my legs. He was so strong that I couldn’t move at all. I couldn’t…”

  “Fight back?” Louise finished her sentence.

  Bitten nodded and sobbed.

  “He pushed me forward and thrust into me from behind,” she sniffled when she had enough air to speak again. “I didn’t even see him; I only felt him. It all happened so fast.”

  A shiver ran through her body, and she touched her neck.

  “I only saw his pants. He kept them on and just unzipped them,” she whispered and cleared her throat. She stared into the wall as she continued: “I could feel the fabric against my skin, and he snorted like a stallion.”

  “What did his pants look like?” Louise asked. “Were they light or dark?”

  “Dark.”

  “Jeans?”

  She shook her head. “The fabric was soft—and sheeny, I think.”

  “Did you see his shoes?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Try to recall if they were sneakers or regular shoes,” Louise suggested.

  “They were dark-colored, I think. But I’m not sure; maybe I didn’t see them at all.”

  She straightened up.

  “He grabbed my breasts,” she suddenly remembered. “While he pushed me forward and held me down with one hand, he ran his other hand all over my breasts.”

  She cringed and pulled her legs up under herself, curling up in the chair.

  “Did you see his arms while it was happening?” Louise asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I completely forgot. But now it’s as if I can suddenly feel his hands. He was holding on so hard. There was nothing sexual about it. It was pure violence.”

  She closed her eyes and Louise let her take a break.

  “I think he was wearing a button-down shirt,” she mumbled, still with her eyes closed. “I felt the fabric against my face.”

  She was quiet for a second.

  “It was so brutal and it wasn’t at all because he wanted me. He just… wanted,” she whispered and started to cry again.

  Louise left her alone while she tried to picture it: Bitten had been walking around getting ready to see her lover, and that’s where her thoughts had been when the rapist grabbed her from behind.

  “Was he tall?” Louise asked after they had been sitting for a little while.

  She nodded. “Taller than my husband,” she said, adding that he was five foot ten.

  “And the guy you’re seeing when your husband is out,” Louise asked, “how tall is he?”

  Bitten cast her eyes down again and mumbled something inaudible.

  “Sorry, could you repeat that?” Louise said.

  “He’s almost six-three,” she replied.

  “And the guy from today—was he the same height?”

  The woman hid her face behind her hands. “I guess he was,” she acknowledged finally, but explained that the attacker was more sinewy. “His fingers cut into my skin.”
r />   “Can you tell me anything else about him? Did you notice anything else?”

  “It all happened so fast. After he finished, he shoved me into the bedroom so hard that I fell on the floor and before I could turn around, he had closed the door,” she said. “I lay there and listened to him walk through the living room. He didn’t run; he just walked without any rush. His shoes were loud against the floor.”

  She thought for a second.

  “Clogs, I think. It sounded like he was wearing clogs.”

  “Did he leave through the patio door as well?” Louise asked.

  Bitten nodded.

  “Did you see him leave the property?” she wanted to know. “Did you see him in the road?”

  “I wasn’t looking,” the woman admitted quietly, pulling the blanket around her once again. “When I was sure he had gone, I ran into the bathroom and locked the door.”

  Tears were streaming down her face as she bent her head again.

  “He was on me; it was running down my thighs. So I turned on the water and stood there until I couldn’t scrub off any more.”

  “What about your friend? Did he show up?”

  Bitten shrugged almost imperceptibly and shook her head.

  “I don’t know. I hid out there and let the water run so I couldn’t hear anything. Not until René came and knocked on the door. He forgot his phone and had come home to get it.”

  Bitten looked out the window once more.

  “No matter what, things would have ended badly for me today. So maybe it was a blessing in disguise,” she said, mostly to herself, and Louise looked at her questioningly.

  There was a knock at the door and a nurse poked her head in. “Your husband is back,” she said.

  “Just give us another minute,” Louise quickly replied. “I’ll bring him in once we’ve finished. She turned back to Bitten. “What do you mean ‘blessing in disguise’?” she asked.

  Bitten shook her head a little. “It would have probably been even worse if my husband had found out what was going on,” she simply said. “He would never forgive me.”

  “What about the bruise on your cheek?” she asked, pointing to the mark below Bitten’s eye.

  Bitten shot a fearful glance toward the door, and that told Louise who was responsible.

  “He didn’t believe me,” Bitten whispered, unable to look at Louise. “He wanted to know who I was seeing when he wasn’t around.”

  “He knew?”

  At first she shook her head, but then she steeled her nerves. “I suppose he’s had his suspicions,” she admitted. “He rushed around the house, thinking that someone was still there. At first he wouldn’t listen to me at all.”

  She bit her knuckle and looked so ill at ease that Louise felt quite sorry for her.

  “He hit me to make me say who it was. He demanded to know if it’s someone he knows.”

  “Is it?” Louise asked.

  Bitten nodded and looked down. “It was only when I told him that the man had come in through the living room that he walked over to the patio door and spotted the footprints.”

  She looked at Louise and started to explain: “The living room floor gets wet when I come in from the hot tub. I usually always wipe up after myself but today I didn’t have the chance, and so he could see that it was dirty. The man’s shoes dragged dirt all the way across the floor and on the rug in front of the couch.”

  She paused for a second before continuing: “You wouldn’t do that, of course, if you were supposed to hide having been there.”

  “So the perpetrator left footprints in your living room?” Louise cut in, hoping that Bitten’s husband didn’t clean before the forensic officers arrived.

  She nodded. “René could see that and so he started to believe me.”

  “Who’s the man that you’re seeing when your husband isn’t home?”

  Bitten turned her head and looked out the window, her jaw tightening.

  “I need to know his name,” Louise said.

  No reaction. Bitten only pressed her lips together tighter and bent her head.

  Louise waited as they sat in silence for a while. Finally she stood up and walked toward the door.

  “Should I bring in your husband now?” she asked. “Or would you like a minute to yourself?”

  “Go ahead and bring him in,” Bitten mumbled, straightening herself up a little while covering her bare legs with the white hospital blanket.

  Louise gave her one last chance to talk but then opened the door.

  Bitten’s husband was right outside, his hands in his pockets and a grim look on his face. An angry wrinkle drew a straight line across his forehead.

  Louise froze in the doorway. It had been a long time since she last saw René Gamst. He and Klaus had been classmates, and he had been part of their gang, too. He wasn’t one of the worst ones back then. At least not the way Louise remembered him. She had felt a bit sorry for him sometimes, thinking that he practically lived in Big Thomsen’s shadow. He was always around, but he wasn’t someone that you noticed.

  He took a step forward and was about to walk in when he stopped right in front of her. Louise took an insecure step backward.

  At first he didn’t speak; he merely contemplated her with a stony glare. Louise stood in front of him, staring back.

  “If I find this bastard before you do, I’ll kill him,” he said and continued into his wife’s room. He sank to his knees in front of her chair, pulling her close and rocking her from side to side.

  Feeling shaken by the brief but intense encounter, and uncertain whether he recognized her or not, Louise hurried out into the hallway to find the nurse to let her know that the interview was over. Bitten’s husband was with her.

  27

  CAMILLA HAD SLEPT in Jonas’s room. Her head felt heavy from all the wine and she hadn’t even registered when Louise left. It was after ten before she got up to walk Dina. Then she sat in Louise’s kitchen, staring at the wall.

  She regretted the fight and all the trouble that had come from her insisting on doing things her way. She regretted getting so angry with the workers and kicking them out before they had finished, and that her stubbornness had caused her to reject the minister.

  She reached the conclusion that she would have to apologize. Not to the minister—no way—and not to the workers. But to Frederik.

  Rushing from Louise’s house, her thoughts swirling, she got into her car and took off. By the time she signaled off toward Roskilde an hour later, her anger had disappeared and she was shocked that she had gone so far as to call off the whole thing.

  As she approached Boserup and caught a glimpse of the gleaming tile roof of the manor house, she slowed down. Suddenly it all seemed so difficult. She hadn’t called Frederik to let him know she was on her way home, and now she was unsure of how to go about it. They had never had a falling-out before—not to the point of doors slamming.

  Camilla pulled over and turned off the engine while she looked down the driveway lined with old, gnarled trees on both sides. But she couldn’t pull up to the house; her hand would not turn the wheel.

  IT WAS ONLY when she was driving down the long, straight highway past Osted that it occurred to Camilla that she might not get much out of showing up at Eliselund without an appointment. She decided to give it a try anyway, though, and turned up the radio when Beyoncé came on. She felt something unwinding inside as she began to sing along.

  As she continued toward Eliselund, she finally felt like she was on home turf. If she knew anything it was how to kick down doors. She might not know how to act among the upper classes but as a journalist, she knew how to get her story and get people to talk.

  “I was told that my mother worked as the director here before the institution closed,” she lied effortlessly as she sat in the office across from an older lady with gray hair twenty minutes later. She hurried to explain that her parents had divorced when she was very young. “I grew up in Birmingham, England, with my father but he d
ied last year so now I’ve returned to Denmark with my husband and our son.”

  When she had parked the car outside in the courtyard surrounded with the large, white buildings, a handicapped-accessible van had been parked there and two assistants were lifting a big boy inside while the driver folded up his wheelchair and put it in the back.

  Camilla waited in the car until they drove off. There were other people in the van as well; he was the last one they put in. The two assistants waved good-bye, and it wasn’t until the van left the courtyard that one of them walked over to ask if she was there to pick up Sofie.

  “No,” Camilla answered in confusion, but then she had quickly collected herself and asked if they were closing up for the day.

  “Just about,” the woman said. “The last few will be picked up within the next half hour or so and then there’s always a bit of cleanup and things to take care of. But if you’ve come to speak with the enrollment office, that’s not here, you know.”

  “N-no,” Camilla quickly said and then took a gamble: “I’m actually here on a very private errand,” she began. “A few days ago, I spoke with a woman named Agnete Eskildsen. She used to work here, and she was the one who suggested that I drive down here to see if perhaps you could help me find my mother. But maybe you’re busy. Is this a bad time?”

  “Oh, I don’t think we’re that busy,” the woman had said and asked her to come along.

  The other assistant had turned around in the doorway. “So, are we closing up or what?” she asked sullenly.

  “It’s all right, Lillian,” said the gray-haired woman overbearingly. “I can close up today. You go ahead and go home.”

  She put her hand on Camilla’s shoulder as she directed her through the large hall to signal that she was welcome to come inside.

  “Some people are such busybodies,” she mumbled as she led the way to the office and held the door open for her guest. “So you know Agnete?”

  She smiled and lightly nodded.

  “Sure is a small world. She worked here years ago, before I started. We finished our degrees in occupational therapy together. It was her second degree, you know, and even though she’s probably ten or fifteen years older than me, we always got on well.”