Only One Life

Only One Life by Sara Blædel Page B

Book: Only One Life by Sara Blædel Read Free Book Online
Authors: Sara Blædel
Tags: Suspense
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both interpreters were ready for them. Louise nodded to them and hurried to her own office. Once there, she cautiously knocked before entering and found her partner in the middle of questioning Samra’s older brother. Without interrupting, she took a seat and listened in.
    “Where’d you get the car from?” Mik asked.
    “From a friend, like I said!”
    There was no trace of anger in the young man’s tone, just a stubbornness that told them they shouldn’t count on finding out any more than he’d already told them.
    “But it isn’t your car?” Mik continued.
    Samra’s brother shook his head.
    “Does that mean other people might have used it in the last week?”
    There was no response.
    Mik Rasmussen leaned forward and asked, “Did you use the car Tuesday night?”
    Hamid nodded. “I wasn’t anywhere near Hønsehalsen.”
    His Danish was very good considering he’d only been living in the country for four years, Louise noted, although he did have a tough time pronouncing H ø nsehalsen .
    “I’m not saying you were,” Mik interrupted. “I really just want to know if anyone else might have driven that car out there.”
    Samra’s brother shook his head.
    “Did your sister have a boyfriend?”
    Mik had changed topics so quickly that it seemed as if Hamid needed a moment to reboot before he answered the new question. He shook his head.
    “Who do you hang out with?”
    “People from school.”
    They had determined that he went to trade school, and in addition to a morning job where his father worked, he also had an after-school job at the local Kvickly supermarket. Ruth was already working on getting a list of his classmates in case they needed to talk to them.
    Louise leaned back to listen in on the questioning session. She was surprised that her partner was being so aggressive with his questioning. Louise was more a fan of the cognitive interview method, in which you guided the subject through an explanation in his own words at his own pace. She had always found that more productive. But every now and then it just failed to get anything out of a subject, and then of course you had to be more aggressive.
    “Does it bother you when girls have male friends?” Mik asked, changing topics again.
    “Why the hell would I care about that? Girls can have male friends. What kind of silly preconceptions do you have?”
    “So you feel that way even when your sister is involved?” The tone the question was asked in was filled with a confrontational sarcasm.
    There was a bang as Hamid angrily slapped his hand against the desk instead of responding, and in a way Louise couldn’t blame him for losing his temper if the interview had been going like this from the beginning.
    “Was your sister dating anyone?” Mik asked again, in a more subdued tone.
    The brother shook his head and hid his face in his hands as he shrugged his shoulders.
    Mik set down the pen he had been holding in his hand. “That’s enough for now,” he said and asked Hamid to wait until the interview had been typed out so he could read through it and sign it. Once that was done, Mik said, “It may be that we need to talk to you again.” He followed Samra’s brother to the hallway and held out his hand, but the young man ignored it and just scurried off.
    “I guarantee you that got to him,” Louise exclaimed as Mik stepped back in and closed the door.
    “He spent the first half hour evading everything I asked about, so I did that to get a reaction,” Mik responded, and Louise got the sense that he had taken her comment as criticism. Instead of getting into it, she started focusing on her computer to avoid spoiling the mood just because they approached things differently.
    “All right. I admit that he got to me too,” Mik said after they had each sat staring at their screens for a few minutes. “But I’m having a hard time accepting his attitude toward immigrant girls and their male acquaintances. There must be a fundamental acceptance of

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