The Dinosaur Feather(127)

“Did they know about the baby?” Vibe whispered.

“No, Vibe, they knew nothing. I would never have done that to you. No one knew anything. Not Henrik, not anyone. I kept everything to myself. But I couldn’t keep the secret for ever, that was obvious . . . but . . .”

“You have a daughter . . .” Vibe whispered. She shook her head in wonder as if her entire world had just been smashed.

“I had a daughter,” Søren said brutally. Vibe blinked.

“On the eighteenth of December Bo, Katrine, and Maja went to Thailand for Christmas. To Phuket. They died in the tsunami. Not Bo, but Maja and Katrine.”

Vibe put her hands in front of her face, her eyes darting from side to side as if she was rereading old documents and everything finally made sense.

“But you didn’t have your breakdown until January,” she said, baffled. “After we had split up. Quite a while after Elvira’s death, and while Knud was still alive—though no one knew how long he would last. And that was after the tsunami, wasn’t it? In early January.”

“We were in Sweden, remember? We had no idea what had happened until we came back and saw the papers. I wanted to tell you about Maja in Sweden, but I couldn’t. You were so relaxed. When we came home and heard what had happened in Asia, I looked for their names and I couldn’t find them. I thought they had survived, that they hadn’t called me because everything was chaos. After all, I was just a sperm donor. All I could do was wait for Katrine to get in touch. On January fifth, in the evening, Bo called. He was crying and screaming. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I calmed him down. In a situation like that you think all sorts of crazy things. I imagined that Katrine had been hurt and was in hospital. Bo was so upset and emotional. Deep down, I couldn’t believe that they were really dead. After all, they weren’t on the dead or missing persons’ registers. But they had died. Bo had identified them.”

“Oh, no.” Vibe was sobbing, the tears ran in two straight lines down her cheeks.

“That was it. I had a breakdown. I took time off. Forgive me, Vibe. I know you blamed yourself for my suffering. I couldn’t talk about it. I suppressed everything about Maja. When Knud died soon afterward, I added my grief for Knud to my grief for Maja. So no one would know.”

Vibe stared silently into space.

“I can understand if you hate me,” he said.

“I don’t hate you, Søren,” she said. She leaned forward as best she could and took his hand.

“It must have been terrible for you,” she said. Søren could feel his toes curl and he looked away.

“So why now?” Vibe wanted to know, as she stroked his hand. “Why tell me now? Is it because I’m pregnant? Has something happened?”

Søren closed his eyes so he wouldn’t cry. Having succeeded, he turned to look at her.

“It’s this case I’m investigating,” he said, softly. “It’s not especially tragic—all things being equal—and it shouldn’t be so harrowing, either. Not for a detective. No children have been hurt, and both the victims . . . well, of course they have friends and families, but even so. No suddenly orphaned children staring at me with lost eyes. Do you know what I mean?”

Vibe nodded.

“And yet it’s the worst case I’ve ever been involved with. It touches every raw nerve. Everybody’s lying to me! Or, most of them are. They’re lying to protect something that isn’t worth protecting. Something they believe must remain hidden at any cost. Just like I did with Maja. The investigation only started five days ago. The papers call us clueless, but that’s a load of rubbish. It took us four weeks to solve the Malene case and we were praised for our swift work. They just write that because I’m not coming across very well.” He looked embarrassed. “And I always used to. I spoke to two reporters the other day. The headlines could have been worse. They should have said Top cop gets personal or something like it.” He swallowed.

“And I’ve fallen for with one of the suspects,” he said. Vibe didn’t reply. When he looked at her, she had turned to one side and didn’t appear to have heard his last confession.

“Are you okay?” Søren asked, scared. He thought about John, who had taken the dog for a walk and Vibe’s massive stomach, which looked as if it might burst at any moment.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not about to go into labor.” She smiled. “But . . .”

“But what?”

“I’ve got something to tell you, too.”