Farewell to Freedom by Sara Blædel Page A

car parked around the corner.
    They had fifteen minutes until their meeting with MiloÅ¡ Vituk and Pavlína at Bella Center. They’d just finished a lengthy tour with some of their downtown precinct colleagues of the neighborhood’s brothels, guided by Mikkelsen’s meticulous notes. Some of the brothels were not easy to find, and the police were not particularly welcome at many of them, either, but the brothel operators eased up when they realized the police wanted only to see if anyone recognized the still-unidentified dead woman.
    Their Czech interpreter was waiting for them on the corner of Sommerstedgade. She apologized for not having been able to meet them sooner.
    â€œI was in court all day,” she explained. “Then I had to make dinner for my kids at home before I could come back out again.”
    â€œNo problem,” Lars said, unlocking the car.
    Once again Louise sensed that Lars didn’t mind spending his evening at work. Not that she had anyone sitting at home waiting impatiently for her, either. She hadn’t since Peter left her three years ago, precisely because he had gotten tired of sitting around waiting. And to tell the truth, Louise thought it had been very much for the best.

    The rain hammered on the roof and windshield of the car as they drove toward Bella Center. Earlier in the month, they had had a long spell of sunshine and warm weather, lulling Copenhageners into feeling summer had come to stay, but now the weather changed constantly. As they drove over the Sjælland Bridge, a flash of lightning tore across the night sky, and the subsequent clap of thunder was so powerful that it shook the car for a moment. The rain picked up, battering them. Lars slowed down and turned the windshield wipers up as fast as they would go.
    â€œThey’re not going to come in this weather,” Louise said as they crawled along through the dense rain.
    â€œIt’ll stop. It’s just a front coming through,” her partner replied calmly, sounding just like her father had when she whenever she didn’t want to go outside as a kid because it was raining. “Of course they’ll come. After all, they’re the ones who want to be able to move around on the street without having people extort huge sums of money from them.”
    And Lars was right. When they turned off Center Boulevard, the rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. Lars turned off the windshield wipers, and Louise spotted a lone red car in parking lot P7.
    â€œWhere did you tell them we’d meet?” Lars asked.
    â€œI think that’s them,” Louise replied and he drove over and parked next to it.

    Pavlína Branková was short and slender. From a distance she looked more like a high school student than an adult, but as Louise got closer she could tell that the woman must be in her early twenties. Her thick bangs ended in a sharp edge right above her dark eyebrows. Her hair was black and smooth and hung down just past her shoulders.
    Her handshake was limp and her eyes hesitant, but she nodded when she was asked to follow them over to the benches along the side of the parking lot.
    â€œLet’s just begin with your name and date of birth,” Louise told the female interpreter, opening the trunk of the car to see if there was anything in there she could spread out on the bench so they wouldn’t get wet when they sat down. Luckily there were a few wadded up plastic bags.
    Louise sat down across from Pavlína, and the interpreter sat down next to the Czech woman and started talking. At first Pavlína’s answers were curt, but gradually the conversation began to flow more smoothly.
    MiloÅ¡ Vituk jumped in several times, and Louise sensed Pavlína was keeping her eye on him whenever she said anything, so Louise suggested that Lars take MiloÅ¡ back to the car. Maybe the witness would speak more freely if there were only women present. Miloš’s presence