“Okay, stop!” Karen Aagaard said. “Would one of you please rewind to the beginning? Remind me again what happened to the lawyer. I’m a bit rusty when it comes to crime reporting.” She blew away some milk foam and sipped her coffee.

“A lawyer at Orleff and Plessner returns home to his house in Taarbæk after playing tennis with some friends one spring evening,” Heloise said. “He has a late-night snack and goes to bed. At some point between midnight and three AM, Anna Kiel gains access to his home—allegedly. She has brought with her a brand-new Codexx filleting knife. It’s a medium-length kitchen knife used by many professional chefs, and you can buy it in most high-end kitchen shops. She attacks Mossing while he’s in bed sleeping, cuts his throat, and leaves the murder weapon in the house. Cameras outside his house capture her leaving the scene, and no one has seen her since.”

“Had the lawyer represented her or any of her family members in a trial that had gone wrong? Was this about revenge?” Aagaard asked.

“No. According to family members and friends of the victim and the killer, there was nothing to link them. They appear not to have known one another,” Heloise said.

“Incidentally, Christoffer Mossing—the guy who was killed—was the son of Johannes Mossing. The real estate tycoon,” Bøttger explained.

The Mossing family was the very definition of old money. Only four generations ago, the family fortune had been of Downton Abbey proportions, and although the family’s current net worth was less impressive, it was still of such size that Heloise had whistled when she’d seen the numbers.

From Morten Munk’s research she had learned that Christoffer Mossing’s enterprising father’s personal property included a house valued in double-digit millions in swanky Vedbæk, a listed country house with a stud farm on South Funen, and a huge château south of Bordeaux complete with moat and vineyard.

“On the one hand, we have this super wealthy family. On the other, we have Anna Kiel, who grew up under much more modest circumstances,” Heloise explained. “Her mother owns a pub called the Lantern, and we know nothing about her father.”

“What do the police think?” Aagaard said.

“They seem to have no idea why she killed him. A lot has been written about her mental state and how she might have acted in a moment of sheer madness. The police think she picked a random victim and killed him.”

“And nothing was found in the lawyer’s house or at his place of work to suggest that Anna Kiel might have been in touch with him before the murder? Letters she sent him, anything like that?”

A wave of unease rolled over Heloise.