Page 57 of The Collector
She gets off at 7pm. Go away.
Which leftGabriel nearly an hour to kill. He spent it driving back and forth along the same ten-kilometer stretch of empty road. Eight times he passed the little auto plaza, and eight times he glimpsed Ingrid sitting at the window table of Jørgens Smørrebrød Café with Katje Strøm, identical twin sister of Rikke Strøm, missing since September 2013.
When Gabriel turned into the auto plaza at seven o’clock, the interior lights of the café were extinguished, and the sign in the window declared the establishment to be closed for the evening. The door opened a moment later, and a man of perhaps forty emerged, followed soon after by Ingrid and Katje Strøm. The man set off toward a worn-out hatchback in the car park; Ingrid and Katje Strøm, toward Gabriel’s rented Audi. Ingrid slid into the passenger seat, Katje climbed in back. She lit a cigarette and murmured something in Danish.
“Frankel,” replied Ingrid. “His name is Viktor Frankel.”
29
Helnæs
Their mother was a Greenlander Inuit, their father a commercial fisherman. Not long after the girls were born, he bought a plot of land on the island of Møn and tried his hand at farming. And when the farm failed, he drank. Their mother split when the girls were twelve and went back to Greenland. Their father killed himself a couple of years later in a single-car road accident. The first police to arrive at the scene said his blood reeked of akvavit.
Neither child wanted to join their estranged mother in Greenland, so the state looked after them until they finished their secondary education. Katje stayed down in Møn, but Rikke went up to Copenhagen and found work as a shopgirl and waitress. Eventually, she landed a job at Noma, Copenhagen’s three-star culinary mecca, where she delivered food to the tables of Denmark’s wealthiest citizens. While she was walking home one evening to the dungeon she shared with four other girls, a good-looking man in an expensive car lowered his window and asked Rikke whether he might have a word with her.
“He said his name was Sten. Said he worked for a rich and powerfulman. Said this rich and powerful man was interested in meeting Rikke. Said he could be helpful to Rikke. Maybe get her a better job. You know how these things go, Herr Frankel.”
“Did Sten happen to mention the name of the rich and powerful man who wanted to make your sister’s acquaintance?”
“No. Not that night.”
They were parked on a deserted stretch of beach on the island of Helnæs, not far from the lighthouse. Ingrid and Katje were sitting on the hood of the Audi drinking Carlsberg. Katje was chain-smoking, using the stub of one cigarette to light the next. She was under the impression that Herr Frankel was a freelance German investigative journalist who had long been interested in her sister’s case.
“How did she respond to Sten’s generous offer?”
“She told him to fuck off.”
“Did he?”
“Not for long. A couple of nights later, he was back again.”
This time Rikke agreed to meet with Sten’s rich and powerful employer—in an apartment in fashionable Nørrebro. Soon she was living in Nørrebro herself, rent free and alone. When Katje paid her sister a visit, she was shocked by what she found. The closets and drawers were filled with chic clothing, the refrigerator was stocked with expensive wine, and Rikke’s wallet was stuffed with cash. The watch on her wrist was a Cartier. The diamond on her finger was at least two carats.
“How did she explain the sudden change in her standard of living?”
“A new job.”
“Did she describe it?”
“Personal assistant to a wealthy businessman.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“I said essentially the same thing.”
“How did she react?”
“She told me the truth.”
“Did she identify her patron?”
“Never. She said it was part of their arrangement.”
“Total secrecy?”
Katje nodded and cracked open another Carlsberg. “I told Rikke that she was making a terrible mistake. That she would end up like our mother. That she was little better than a prostitute.” She flicked the stub of her cigarette into the darkness. “And guess what my sister told me?”
“I imagine she told you to fuck off and mind your own business.”
