She unfolded the letter, trying not to touch it unnecessarily, and placed it on the table in front of her. She had probably destroyed any potential evidence already, but she still treated it with care. If the letter was genuine, she was breaking the law by keeping it to herself. But she didn’t want to tell the police about it.

Not yet.

Heloise’s job was to find and investigate stories. She knew she would never see the letter again if she reported it. The police would bench her for sure; that was what usually happened. It was very rare for there to be a genuine quid pro quo. But as far as she could see from the media coverage, there had been no developments in the case recently, and the letter could be the first new lead in a long time.

She would have to report it.

She looked through her notes to find the name of the police officer mentioned in the articles as heading the investigation.

She wrote Detective Sergeant Erik Schäfer, Violent Crimes Unit, Copenhagen Police in her notebook and underlined it twice.

Then she asked for the check.

CHAPTER

6

UNLESS HELOISE WAS traveling or had an early-morning meeting, she never set her alarm clock. On weekdays, the Marble Church bells would toll at eight, and they were loud enough to rouse her from a slumber that had been superficial and restless for as long as she could remember.

Today she swung her legs out of the bed on the first stroke, even though she had been up half the night plowing through Munk’s research and could easily have used a few more hours of sleep.

She checked her cell phone on her bedside table and saw that Martin had tried calling her at four AM. He had sent her three text messages as well, all saying, Call me!

There was also a text message from Gerda with a heart. Heloise sent her an emoji kiss and walked barefoot through the living room to the bathroom. She stepped around the many documents and notes she had spread out on the wooden floor last night in order to construct a timeline.

After a quick shower, she sat down at the oak table in the living room in her bathrobe and ate a big bowl of porridge with raisins and cinnamon and drank a cup of coffee.

She was reading her summary of the events when her entry phone buzzed. From the sound, she could tell that every other entry phone in the building was also being called.

On the video display from street level, she could see the top third of a balding head.

“Yes?” she spoke into the intercom.

“Newspapers,” said a man with a thick, Arabic accent.

Heloise pressed the buzzer to let him into the stairwell. Soon she heard him scramble up the stairs and the letter boxes on the floors below clatter one after the other.