A Harmless Lie by Sara Blaedel

Author:Sara Blaedel [Blaedel, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

It hadn’t been easy to get a room; the tourist season was in full swing. First Camilla had called the Melsted Seaside Hotel and tried to talk them into squeezing her in, but all the rooms were reserved. Then she used every ounce of her charm on the receptionist at the Hotel Siemsens, and she’d managed to snatch the last vacant room in all of Svaneke. Which suited her fine, because two of the now-grown men lived in town.

Most of the tables outside the café were taken up by guests drinking coffee or beer. Summer was in the air, in the carefree buzz of conversation, the sunhats, the children running around playing, and there were no customers inside the restaurant. Two men and a woman wearing chef jackets and checkered pants were eating at the table in back. A young waitress walked up to Camilla.

“Hi. The kitchen isn’t open until five, but we’re serving drinks outside.”

Camilla thanked her and said she would like to talk to Finn Kofod. The young woman looked confused and she started to shake her head, but then one of the cooks leaned back and pushed open the kitchen door.

“Skipper!” he yelled.

The young waitress looked over at the others and laughed. “His name is Finn?”

The man’s hair was slicked back, his sunglasses pushed up above his forehead, and he was tanned. He’d already looked Camilla up and down before she could get an impression of him. She walked over and introduced herself, then asked if he had a few minutes to talk.

He glanced over at the others before nodding and placing his hand on the small of her back to lead her away. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Without asking, he grabbed two colas out of a cooler and opened them. The bottle caps clattered on the floor.

“Susan Dahlgaard,” he said, after they’d sat down in a small party room with a view over the town’s pedestrian street.

Camilla looked into his blue eyes. “Do you remember her?”

He nodded. His hair was almost white, and at first glance the contrast with his tan made him look healthy, but close up he looked tired. Haggard, she thought. She asked him how long he’d owned the restaurant.

“Ten years. I worked for my dad until he sold his fishing cutter and retired back in 2008. I bought this place the year after, and I also run two pubs in the summer, in Gudhjem and Allinge.”

No wonder he looked worn out, Camilla thought. “I know the police have already talked to you again. I’ve just come from Rønne. Wiinberg told me where I could find you. I went to the same school as Susan Dahlgaard, a few classes above her.”

He was leaning back now, sizing her up, waiting. Despite his exhaustion, there was something guarded in his look. But her bringing up the old case didn’t seem to bother him.

“Do you remember how you met the girls?” Camilla said.

He nodded and told her that he and the other boys had usually hung out down at the harbor.

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