Nursery Rhymes – Brøn Series Chaper One

"Saga Noren, Malmö County Police."

"Saga? It's Martin."

"Yes. I know."

There was an awkward silence that ensued on the phone line, the crackle in the background, teasing the distance between Malmö and Copenhagen. Damn it, thought Martin, why does she have to be so literal? He cleared his throat.

"I need your assistance," he started, "a Danish journalist has been captured, and we think he is being held in Sweden, he was last seen getting into a Swedish car, a green Volvo. Oh, how's the boyfriend with the flowers?"

Saga pinned her mobile between her ear and shoulder as she pushed a heap of papers away from her desk and reached for her keyboard.

"Do you have a plate number?" she asked, seeming to ignore Martin's last question.

"No."

"A partial plate? Driver description? Stickers on the bumper? Have you caught it on any surveillance cameras?"

Saga shifted feet impatiently as a long silence began. "Martin?" she commanded.

"No." Martin concluded. "They were last seen at the industrial park at København at 8pm. There's a food and drink wholesalers there who saw a man acting strangely and recognised the journalist – called Stefan Frösburg – because he had come to write an article a few weeks earlier about gang wars in the area. When he saw Frösburg being shoved into the car, he called the police but by then it was too late – he had gone, and all the cameras in the area had gone offline. The surveillance company can't understand why, as far as they understand they have a tight system that is hard to hack into."

"What about cameras on Öresundsbron?" (Öresundsbron is the Swedish name for the bridge connecting Malmö in Sweden with Copenhagen in Denmark crossing the Öresund – literally, Sound Bridge. The Sound (or Öresund) is the name given to the water that stretches between the two countries.)

"So far, since 8pm last night, thirty two green Volvos have crossed the bridge. That means in the last eight hours there have been one about every-"

"Quarter of an hour. One car every fifteen minutes that could hold Frösburg. That is if he came over the border. OK. I will get John to check the tapes and search all the cars for owners. And I'll get Anne to look at Frösburg's last few newspaper articles. See who could possibly have motive for this. We will go and talk to the wholesaler owner."

"That's the thing... You can't."

"Why?"

"He's dead. He was found dead this morning when the girl who helps out at weekends arrived and let herself in. We have a team up there now, nothing is out of place, nothing stolen, stock or money. He was found slumped in the chair in the back office, clutching a nursery rhymes book. No gunshot wounds, just a clear company shopping bag. He was suffocated. No prints."

"And the girl?"

"Taken to the hospital because she was suffering from severe shock. She could barely string a sentence together. This is now a homicide investigation. She could not respond to any of the questions asked by uniformed officers."

"When was he found?"

"Half an hour ago. I'm just on my way up now. I thought you might want in on this."

"I'm on my way now."

Saga cut the call and Martin sat still at his desk for a while, staring at the picture he held of Mette and their children. She still would not let him move back in after the whole sorry affair with Jens and August, their marriage had become a pit of anger and hopelessness and they could not be around each other any longer. He had let himself hope after their twins were born it might salve the hole that had started, but he could not stop seeing Jens everywhere he turned, all day and in his sleep. And August. His August. Mette stopped hoping that things might turn around and instead turned to being practical, getting a nanny, and showing Martin the door.

He stood from his desk and tucked his revolver in his belt, grabbed his keys from his pot on his desk, and as he moved his hand he knocked the photo of his son Nikolaj on the floor and the glass cover smashed. He swore softly and began picking up the shards and putting them into the trash can beside his chair.

Saga arrived into the office as he was righting the frame back beside the photo of his wife, and gave him a curt greeting. Martin had tried so very hard to understand Saga, he did not understand why she had such a cold, hard exterior, nor any empathy for human nature. Some days, he loved and respected her immensely. Other days, her standoffish nature and rudeness made him angry and annoyed. She had tried hard with him and Mette through the whole August/Jens ordeal. She had tried hard in her way to help them and even comfort them, but Martin knew, she did not understand social cues, or sarcasm, and took every word as literally as you said it, and seemed overwhelmed and uncomfortable by the concept of grief and overspills of emotion.

Martin and Saga had started to head for the door when Frida, another detective, called them over.

"Have you seen this?" she asked, pointing to the screen. A website called (det var en gång - 'once upon a time' or 'it was once') was up and a live video was being streamed. Frösburg was sitting in the middle of an all white room, his feet shackled and his midriff tied to the chair, and he was reading from a nursery rhymes book.

"Can you get an IP addr-" Martin started, but then stopped when a voice started, in Danish, over the top of Frösburg and his story telling. The sound had been altered using a voice changer, but the message was easy enough to hear.

"Every minute it takes you to come and find this journalist counts. You have four hours to burn the offices of the three main newspapers. Do this and I will let him walk free. Don't, and well, Mr Frösburg may never see the light of day again..."

The video link cut dead, and Saga and Martin stared at one another in a horrific silence before starting to move. This was far from over.