The Chestnut Man

by Søren Sveistrup

  ‘You’ve got your wellies, in case you’re going to the park. And remember Grandad’s picking you up, but you’ve got to cross the road yourself. You look left, right, then –’

  ‘Then left again, and I’ve got to remember to put my jacket on, so they can see the reflective bits.’

  ‘Stand still so I can tie your shoelaces.’

  They’ve reached the front of the school, standing underneath the roof of the bike shed, and Thulin bends down as Le tries to stand still with her boots in the puddles.

  ‘When are we moving in with Sebastian?’

  ‘I haven’t said we’re moving in with Sebastian.’

  ‘Why isn’t he there in the morning when he’s there in the evening?’

  ‘Grown-ups are busy in the morning, and Sebastian has to rush off to work.’

  ‘Ramazan’s had a little brother and now he’s got fifteen pictures on the family tree, and I’ve only got three.’

  Thulin glances curtly up at her daughter and curses the sweet little posters of the family trees, which the teacher decorated with autumn leaves and displayed on the classroom wall so that parents and children can stop and examine them. On the other hand she’s always grateful when Le automatically counts Grandad as part of the family, even though technically speaking he isn’t her grandfather.

  ‘It’s not about that. And you have five pictures on the family tree, if you count the budgie and the hamster.’

  ‘The others don’t have animals on their trees.’

  ‘No, the other children aren’t that lucky.’

  Le doesn’t answer, and Thulin stands up.

  ‘I know there’s not a lot of us, but we’re doing all right, and that’s the important thing. Okay?’

  ‘Can I get another budgie, then?’

  Thulin gazes at her, wondering how this conversation started and whether her daughter might be sharper than she thinks.

  ‘We’ll discuss that another time. Just wait a bit.’

  Her mobile has begun to ring again, and she knows she has to answer it this time.

  ‘I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘No rush,’ says the voice on the other end of the line, and she recognizes it as one of Nylander’s secretaries. ‘Nylander can’t make your meeting this morning, so it’ll be Tuesday next week instead. But I’m supposed to tell you he wants you to take the new guy with you today, so he’ll be good for something while he’s here.’

  ‘Mum, I’m going in with Ramazan!’

  Thulin watches her daughter scamper over to the boy called Ramazan. She falls in quite naturally with the rest of the Syrian family, a woman and a man, the man with a newborn in his arms, and two other children. To Thulin they look like they’ve just stepped out of a women’s magazine article about a model family.

  ‘But that’s the second time Nylander’s cancelled, and it’ll only take five minutes. Where is he right now?’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s on his way to the budget meeting. And he’d like to know what your chat is going to be about?’

  For a moment Thulin considers telling her that it’s going to be about how her nine months at the Major Crimes Division, known as the murder squad, have been about as exciting as a visit to the police museum. That the assignments are tedious, the standards of technology at the department barely more impressive than a Commodore 64, and that she’s desperately looking forward to moving on.

  ‘Nothing major. Thanks.’

  She hangs up and waves at her daughter, who is running into the school. She can feel the rain beginning to seep through her coat, and as she heads towards the road she realizes she can’t wait until Tuesday for the meeting. She dodges through the traffic, but as she reaches the car and opens the door, she gets the sudden sensation that she’s being watched. On the other side of the crossing, through the endless rows of cars and trucks, she glimpses the outline of a figure – but by the time the queue has passed the figure is gone. Shaking off the feeling, Thulin gets into her car.

  5

  The spacious corridors of the police station echo with the steps of the two men as they pass a pack of detectives going in the opposite direction. Nylander, head of Major Crimes Division, loathes conversations like this one, but he knows it will probably be the only chance he’ll get all day, so he swallows his pride and keeps pace with the deputy commissioner as one dull sentence follows another.

  ‘Nylander, we need to tighten our belts. It’s the same with all our departments.’

  ‘I was given to think I’d have more officers –’

  ‘It’s a question of timing. Right now the Ministry of Justice is prioritizing departments other than yours. They’ve got ambitions for NC3 to become the best cyber-crime unit in Europe, so they’re cutting back on resources elsewhere.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean my department should suffer. We’ve needed twice the manpower these last –’

  ‘I’ve not given up, but you have just had some of the pressure taken off, you know.’

  ‘I haven’t had any pressure taken off. A single investigator who’ll be here a few days because Europol have chucked him out on his arse doesn’t really count.’

  ‘He’ll probably hang around a bit longer, depending on the situation. But the ministry could actually have cut the number of staff, you know, so right now it’s about making the best of a bad job. All right?’

  The deputy commissioner pauses, turning towards Nylander to emphasize his words, and Nylander is about to answer that no, it bloody well isn’t all right. He needs more manpower like he was promised, but instead he’s been passed over in favour of the twats at NC3, to use the fancy-pants abbreviation for the National Cyber Crime Centre. On top of that it’s a monumental bureaucratic slap in the face that he has to make do with some washed-up detective who’s fallen out of favour at the Hague.

  ‘Do you have a moment?’ Thulin has appeared in the background, and the deputy commissioner uses the interruption to slip through the meeting-room door and shut it behind him. Nylander stares briefly after him before starting to head back the way he came.

  ‘Not now, and nor do you. Check with the duty officer about the report that’s come in from Husum. I want you to take that Europol chap and get cracking.’

  ‘But it’s about –’

  ‘I don’t have time for this conversation right now. I’m not blind to your abilities, but you’re the youngest detective ever to set foot in this department, so I don’t want you setting your sights on becoming team leader or whatever it is you’re itching to meet about.’

  ‘I don’t want to be team leader. I need a recommendation for NC3.’

  Nylander judders to a halt.

  ‘NC3. The department for cyber crime –’

  ‘Yeah, I know what department it is. Why?’

  ‘Because I think the assignments at NC3 are interesting.’

  ‘As opposed to?’

  ‘As opposed to nothing. I’d just like to –’

  ‘You’ve basically only just started. NC3 doesn’t take people who apply on the off chance, so there’s no point trying.’

  ‘They’ve specifically asked me to apply.’

  Nylander tries to conceal his surprise, but he knows instantly she’s telling the truth. He looks at the slight woman standing before him. How old is she? Twenty-nine, thirty, thereabouts? An odd little thing, not much to look at. He clearly remembers underestimating her – before he knew better. In his staff assessment he recently split his detectives into an A and a B team, and Thulin, despite her age, was one of the first names he put on to the A team alongside seasoned investigators like Jansen and Ricks, whom the department was supposed to consolidate around. And Nylander did actually consider her for team leader. He isn’t over-fond of female investigators, and her general air of aloofness rubs him the wrong way, but she’s highly intelligent and has breezed through her cases at a pace that made more experienced detectives look like they were standing still. Thulin probably thinks the level of technology at the departme
nt is out of the Stone Age, and it’s because he shares her opinion that he knows how much he needs tech geeks like her. The department has to keep up with the times. Hence why he’s used a few of their conversations to remind her that she’s still wet behind the ears: he’s trying to make sure she doesn’t do a runner.

  ‘Who asked you?’

  ‘The boss, what’s-his-name. Isak Wenger.’

  Nylander feels his face darken.

  ‘I’ve been happy here, but I’d like to send off my application by the end of the week at the latest.’

  ‘I’ll think it over.’

  ‘Can we say Friday?’

  Nylander has already stalked off. For a moment he senses her eyes on the back of his neck, and knows she’ll be after him on Friday to get that recommendation. So it’s come to this. His department has become a seedbed for the elite, for the ministry’s new darling, NC3. When he goes into the budget meeting in a few minutes’ time, that priority will be brought home to him once again in the form of figures and hard caps. Christmas will mark three years since Nylander accepted the top job in Homicide, but now things have come to a grinding halt, and if something doesn’t change, the promotion won’t be the career opportunity he once imagined.

  6

  The windscreen wipers chuck the streaming water aside. When the traffic light changes to green the police car swings out of the queue – away from the bus-side adverts for private hospitals offering new breasts, Botox and liposuction – and sets off for the suburbs. The radio is on. The hosts, chatting and playing the latest pop songs about sex, arse and lust, are briefly interrupted by the news, and the newsreader announces that today is the first Tuesday in October: the opening of parliament. The top story, unsurprisingly, is about Rosa Hartung, Minister for Social Affairs, returning to her post after the tragic episode involving her daughter nearly one year earlier, which everybody across the nation followed with bated breath. But before the newsreader can finish, the stranger beside Thulin turns down the sound.

  ‘Do you have a pair of scissors or anything?’

  ‘No, I don’t have any scissors.’

  For a moment Thulin lets her eyes flit from the traffic and towards the man sitting beside her, who is struggling to open the packaging on a new mobile phone. He was standing smoking a cigarette not far from the car when she arrived at the garage opposite the station. Tall, upright, yet somehow a little down at heel. Unkempt, rain-soaked hair, worn and sopping Nike shoes, thin, baggy trousers, and a short black quilted jacket that also looked like it had taken a ducking. The man isn’t dressed for the weather. He must have come straight from the Hague, thinks Thulin. The small, battered holdall at his side lends weight to that impression. Thulin knows he arrived at the station less than forty-eight hours ago, because she overheard colleagues gossiping about him as she fetched her morning coffee from the canteen. A ‘liaison officer’ stationed at Europol’s headquarters in the Hague, he’d been suddenly relieved of duty and ordered to Copenhagen as penance for some blunder or other. It prompted a few derisive remarks from her colleagues. The relationship between the Danish police and Europol had been strained ever since the Danes refused to relinquish one of their opt-outs from the EU in a referendum some years before.

  When Thulin bumped into him in the parking garage he was lost in thought, and when she introduced herself he simply shook her hand and said, ‘Hess.’ Not especially chatty. Normally neither is she, but the conversation with Nylander went as planned. She feels certain her days at the department are coming to an end, so it can’t hurt to show a bit of friendliness towards an embattled colleague. After they got into the car she rattled through everything she knows about the assignment, but the man simply nodded with a minimum of interest. She puts him somewhere between thirty-seven and forty-one, and his shabby street-urchin look reminds her of an actor, but she can’t think whom. He wears a ring on his finger, possibly a wedding band, but her instinct tells her the man is long divorced – or at least in the process thereof. Meeting him felt like kicking a ball against a concrete wall, but it hasn’t spoiled her good mood, and her interest in trans-national police cooperation is genuine.

  ‘So how long are you home?’

  ‘Probably just a few days. They’re figuring it out.’

  ‘Do you like being at Europol?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s fine. Weather’s better.’

  ‘Am I right in saying their cyber-crime unit has begun recruiting hackers they themselves have tracked down?’

  ‘No idea, not my department. You mind if I slip off for a minute after we’re done at the scene?’

  ‘Slip off?’

  ‘Just for an hour. I need to pick up the keys to my apartment.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘But you’re usually based at the Hague?’

  ‘Yeah, or wherever they need me.’

  ‘Where might that be?’

  ‘It varies. Marseille, Geneva, Amsterdam, Lisbon …’

  The man is concentrating on his mobile phone packaging again, but Thulin guesses he could have kept listing cities for a while. There’s something cosmopolitan about him. A kind of traveller without baggage, although the sheen of the big city and distant skies has long since rubbed off. If it was ever there.

  ‘How long have you been gone?’

  ‘Nearly five years. I’m just going to borrow that.’

  Hess snatches a ballpoint pen from the cup holder between the seats and begins to lever open the packaging.

  ‘Five years?’

  Thulin is surprised. Most liaison officers she’s heard of are contracted for two years at a stretch. Some extend it to four, but she’s never heard of a liaison officer being away for five.

  ‘The time goes quickly.’

  ‘So it was because of the police reform.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘That you left. I heard lots of people left the department because they weren’t happy with –’

  ‘No, that wasn’t why.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘Because I just did.’

  She looks at him. He glances fleetingly back, and for the first time she notices his eyes. The left is green, the right blue. He didn’t say it in an unfriendly way, but it’s a line in the sand, and he doesn’t comment further. Thulin indicates, turning off into a residential area. If he wants to play the macho agent with a mysterious past, so be it. There are enough guys like that at the station to form their own football team.

  The house is a white, modernist home with its own garage. It’s situated in the middle of a family neighbourhood in Husum, among privet hedges and trim rows of letter boxes facing the road. This is where middle-income earners move once they’ve made the nuclear family a reality, and if their means stretch that far. A safe neighbourhood, where sleeping policemen ensure nobody exceeds the 30-mile-per-hour speed limit. Trampolines in the gardens and traces of chalk on the wet asphalt. A few schoolchildren wearing helmets and reflective jackets go cycling past in the rain as Thulin pulls up next to the patrol cars and Forensics vehicles. A few scattered residents stand murmuring under umbrellas a little way behind a barrier.

  ‘I’ve just got to answer this.’ Less than two minutes ago Hess stuffed a SIM card into his mobile and sent a text, and it’s already buzzing.

  ‘That’s fine, take your time.’

  Thulin gets out into the rain while Hess remains sitting in the car and begins a conversation in French. As she jogs down the little garden path over its traditional concrete paving stones, it occurs to her that she might have found another reason to look forward to leaving the department.

  7

  The voices of the two morning TV hosts echo through the large, fashionable villa in Outer Østerbro as they prepare for another conversation over coffee on the studio’s comfy corner sofa.

  ‘So today parliament opens, and we’re kicking off a new year. It’s always a very special day, but this time it’s especially special for a certain politician, an
d by that I mean Minister for Social Affairs Rosa Hartung, who lost her twelve-year-old daughter on 18 October last year. Rosa Hartung has been on leave since her daughter was –’

  Steen Hartung reaches out and switches off the flatscreen, which hangs on the wall beside the fridge. He picks up his architectural drawings and writing implements from the wooden floor in the spacious French-inspired country kitchen where he’s just dropped them.

  ‘Come on, get ready. We’re setting off as soon as your mother’s left.’

  His son is still sitting at the large table, scribbling in his maths book, surrounded by the leftovers from breakfast. Every Tuesday morning Gustav is scheduled to meet in school an hour later than usual, and every Tuesday Steen has to tell him it’s the wrong time to be doing homework.

  ‘But why can’t I go on my bike?’

  ‘It’s Tuesday, you’ve got tennis after school, so I’m picking you up. Have you packed your clothes?’

  ‘I have it.’

  The petite Filipina au-pair comes into the room and puts down a sports bag, and Steen watches her gratefully as she starts clearing up.

  ‘Thanks, Alice. Come on, Gustav.’

  ‘All the other kids cycle.’

  Through the window Steen sees the big black car roll up the driveway and park in the puddles outside.

  ‘Dad, just for today?’

  ‘No, we’ll do the usual. The car’s here. Where’s your mum?’

  8

  Steen is on his way up the stairs to the first floor when he calls out to her. The hundred-year-old patrician villa is nearly four hundred square metres, and he knows every single nook and cranny, having renovated it himself. At the time they bought it and moved in, it was important to have plenty of space, but now it’s too big. Much too big. He looks for her in the bedroom and the bathroom before realizing the door opposite him is ajar. Hesitating a moment, he pushes it open and peers into the room that was once his daughter’s.