Free Call Me Princess by Sara Blædel

and sitting in the dark was making them sleepy. However, Susanne had quickly composed herself and said they should continue; but when Louise asked why she thought it was him, it turned out she actually wasn’t sure.
    “He looks like him. The mouth and nose are the same.”
    The technician came in and handed them a piece of paper with the names and details on the three people she had picked out. The first man, Karsten Flintholm, had done time for rape, and that made Louise’s adrenaline surge. His picture would undoubtedly also be in the sexual-offenders file. The two other men hadn’t been previously connected to rape.
    Flintholm was the only one Susanne had immediately responded to as she sat flipping through the blue binder of sexual offenders, but she looked hard at the pictures that came up each time she turned a page. As though she’s memorizing the faces , Louise thought, wondering if Susanne thought maybe she could learn to see the evil in them if she paid enough attention. Louise felt sorry for her and hoped it was some consolation that many of them looked quite average. There were only a couple where you could tell by looking that you probably wouldn’t want to meet them on a dark night.
    Louise called Lars and asked him to check the three names in the criminal-offender registry so they could see whether they were currently in or out of jail.
    In addition to the three specific men, Louise described the general type of face Susanne had pointed out for the suspect. From her comments about a high forehead, eyes not closely set, and the other details that Louise had written down on her pad, the technician pieced together a description in the room next door and handed her a printout.
    She took Susanne downstairs. Her face was hidden in the shadow of her baseball cap again, concealing her dark bruises. Initially Susanne said she would be taking sick leave from work for the rest of the week, but the crime-scene investigators had said that they had finished at her apartment that day, so she could move in again if she felt she was ready, and she was now contemplating going back into the office.
    “Maybe you should stay with your mother until you’ve gotten a little distance from the attack?” Louise suggested before they parted ways. She considered mentioning that Susanne’s mother had contacted the newspaper, to see if Susanne was aware of that.
    “I’d rather go home.”
    “How is your mother taking all this?” Louise asked, curious. “It must have given her quite a fright.”
    “She called a locksmith so I could get the keys changed, and had a peephole and chain installed on my door. She doesn’t know I was out on a date with him.”
    Susanne shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Are you trying to keep that a secret?” Louise asked.
    Susanne carefully touched the wound on her left cheekbone. “It’s no secret. We just don’t talk about stuff like that,” she said after a long pause.
    “You’re not close?” Louise asked.
    “Yeah, I guess you could say that. She has created her own image of what my life is, and it’s not that easy for her to see beyond those preconceived notions.”
    Louise pulled her over to a bench on the landing. They spoke softly so their voices wouldn’t carry through the stairwell.
    “What does she want your life to be like?” Louise prodded.
    “The way things usually are. I’ve lived alone for twelve years. I moved to the apartment downstairs when I was twenty, when I got my job at the bank. We’ve got our rhythm, my mother and I, and she really likes things this way. Everything’s become routine.”
    “A routine you don’t dare—or don’t want—to break out of?”
    “There’s no need to change anything until there’s a reason to,” Susanne replied, evasively.
    “Did you know that your mother got in touch with the press and told them your story?”
    Louise still wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to bring this up, but this was the closest thing