Free The Considerate Killer by Agnete Friis, Lene Kaaberbøl

would be nice if we could find the assailant.”
    Caroline Westmann was perhaps not exactly happy to see Søren, but she took it well.
    â€œHow is your friend?” she asked.
    â€œMaking progress,” he said. “She’ll probably be able to go home in a few days.”
    â€œShe still doesn’t remember anything about the attack?”
    â€œNo, unfortunately not.”
    â€œAh, well. Can’t be helped, I suppose.”
    â€œIn some cases memory returns with time,” he said. “I’m just not sure we have that time.”
    She waved in the direction of her colleague’s empty chair, and he sat down. The office was so newly renovated that you could still smell the paint, and the bulletin boards had not yet taken on the usual patina of old agendas, memos, newspaper clippings and family photos.
    â€œAny particular reason for this urgency?” she asked.
    â€œI took the liberty of calling a coroner I know.” Søren fished a folder out of the weekend bag that still contained everything he had managed to bring from Copenhagen. “Viborg Hospital was kind enough to forward her records, X-rays, scans, and so on.”
    Caroline Westmann raised one eyebrow.
    â€œAnd?” she said.
    â€œI wanted to determine the intention of the blow —was it just to pacify, or was this, in fact, an attempt to kill. The doctors in Viborg were somewhat cautious about offering an opinion.”
    â€œBut your friend the coroner wasn’t?” There was a clear irony in Westmann’s tone.
    â€œOh, yes, the usual reservations. But . . .”
    â€œBut what?”
    He pushed the folder across the table to her. Written conclusions, he had learned in the course of a long career, simply carried more weight than oral summations.
    â€œThe first blow would have been more than sufficient to make the victim unable to fight back. And the second blow could have killed her. If there had been just slightly more power behind it, if the angle had been a bit different . . .”
    â€œI can guess where you’re going with this,” said Caroline Westmann. “But for now we’re calling it aggravated assault, not attempted murder.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause the victim’s life—according to the doctors—was not in immediate danger.”
    â€œShe has a fractured skull!”
    â€œI can only repeat what Viborg Hospital said. Neither of the blows were struck with what they would describe as ‘deadly force.’”
    She hadn’t opened the folder. Søren fought an urge to do it for her, to force her to read the words—even though most of them were his.
    â€œIf the angle had been different . . .” he began.
    â€œChildren who grab playmates by the neck while fooling around in the school yard can put their lives at risk,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that they intend to kill each other.”
    â€œHe hit her in the head with an iron bar. Twice! Are you suggesting he was just being playful?”
    His tone had become as corrosive as it did on the occasions when had reason to call one of his people out for carelessness of the kind that could put lives in danger. He couldn’t quite help himself, and he saw her react—because he was older, because he was of higher rank.
    â€œNo, okay, poor example,” she said. “But it is really hard to say precisely when something stops being simple violence and becomes deadly force—particularly when the victim does in fact survive. You know the fine points of the law at least as well as I do.”
    â€œAnd it’s a question of resources,” he said.
    â€œYes, frankly, it is—a challenge with which you are also familiar!”
    She looked at him with a hint of defiance, and he reminded himself that he still wanted to keep what access he had to her information. If he made her lose all sympathy for him and for Nina’s case, it would be the easiest