The Chestnut Man

by Søren Sveistrup

  ‘We can’t take chances. If Jessie Kvium is the next intended victim, then the killer’s probably highly familiar with Urbanplan, and we’ve got to be on the scene so we can intervene quickly. If there’s any danger, you need to let us know immediately. And you can always pull out now, if you’d prefer someone else to take over.’

  ‘Why would I pull out now?’

  ‘Because it’s not exactly un-dangerous.’

  Thulin looks into the blue and green eyes, and if she didn’t know better she’d have guessed the man is worried about her.

  ‘It’s fine. I’ve got no problem with that.’

  ‘Is she the one you’re trying to find?’

  Le has left the front room without them noticing, coming into the kitchen for a glass of water. She’s staring at Thulin’s iPad, which is propped against the wall on the kitchen table showing the beginning of yet another news broadcast. This one also with Kristine Hartung as the top story, the newsreader revelling in the past and present of the case.

  ‘You shouldn’t be watching that. It’s not for children.’

  Thulin rises, and in a quick movement she reaches the screen and switches it off. She explained to Le that she needed to work later, and when her daughter petulantly insisted on knowing why, Thulin said it was because they were going to find someone. She didn’t mention it was the killer they were after, so Le assumed it was Kristine Hartung.

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Le, just go back in and play your game.’

  ‘Is the girl dead?’

  The question is put with straightforward innocence, as though she’s asked whether there are still dinosaurs living on Bornholm Island. Yet beneath the curiosity is concern, which makes Thulin promise herself that in future she’ll remember to switch off any news feeds when Le is around.

  ‘I don’t know, Le. I mean …’

  Thulin doesn’t know what to say. There are pitfalls on every side, no matter what her reply.

  ‘Nobody really knows. Maybe she just got lost. Sometimes you can get lost and struggle to find your way back home. But if she is lost, then we’ll find her.’

  It’s Hess who replies. It’s a good answer, and the brightness comes back into her daughter’s eyes.

  ‘I’ve never got lost. Have your children ever got lost?’

  ‘I don’t have any children.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Thulin sees Hess smile at the girl, but this time he says nothing. Then the doorbell rings in the front hall, and the wait is over.

  70

  Urbanplan is a public housing complex in West Amager, just three kilometres from City Hall in central Copenhagen. The blocks had been thrown up in the 1960s to meet the general lack of apartments, but something went wrong, and for several years in the early 2000s the area slipped on to the government’s list of ghettos. The council still hasn’t fixed the problems, and as in the case of Odin, the presence of pale Danish police officers attracts a lot of attention even if they appear in casual civilian clothes. It’s therefore the officers more ethnic in appearance who’ve been assigned the most exposed posts – including in some of the vehicles in the dark carpark to the left of the block where Hess is positioned.

  It’s nearly one by the clock on the oven in the empty ground-floor apartment. It’s vacant, up for sale, so the police decided to use it for the operation. The lights are off, and from the window in the small kitchen Hess can see clear across the pitch-black estate with its virtually bare trees, its play area and benches, to the illuminated entryway that leads up to the stairs and lift in Jessie Kvium’s block. Although the surveillance teams seem to be in the right place, Hess is nervous. There are four access points to Jessie Kvium’s block, one for each point of the compass, and all are in sight of either him or the officers positioned around the building, so they can keep constant watch over the people coming and going. Snipers are posted on the roofs, skilled enough to hit a single krone piece at two hundred yards, and only two minutes away the bus carrying the task force is poised to intervene if they are called over the walkie-talkie. Yet Hess still feels it isn’t enough.

  Thulin’s arrival went without a hitch. Hess recognized the little Toyota Aygo at once as it turned off the road and into the carpark, where it parked in the agreed-upon bay, vacated moments earlier by an unmarked police vehicle.

  Thulin was dressed in Jessie Kvium’s hat, clothes and coat; only her skirt had been swapped for a similar yellow one, and at a distance there was nothing to indicate she wasn’t the woman she was pretending to be. Thulin had taken the doll in its duvet out of the back seat, locked the car with a struggle – supporting herself and the child against the car door – then headed towards the entryway, carrying the girl in the same slightly exasperated way Jessie Kvium would have done. Hess watched her figure disappear into the stairwell, where the light came on. What they hadn’t foreseen was that the lift was being used and took ages to appear, but luckily Thulin simply walked up the stairs to the third floor, even making it look as though the child felt heavier and heavier each time she reached a landing.

  Some other residents passed her in the opposite direction, but apparently without taking any notice. At last she vanished from sight, and Hess held his breath until the light in the apartment with the small balcony was switched on.

  By now three hours have passed, and nothing has happened. Earlier in the evening the estate was busy – people coming home late from work, or mulling over the state of world affairs as shrivelled leaves whirled around their heads – and in the block to the right a small party had begun in the community rooms in the basement. The sound of Indian sitar music drifted among the blocks for several hours, but gradually the party died down, while more and more of the lights in the apartments were put out. It grew late.

  The light at Jessie Kvium’s place is still on, but Hess knows it will soon be switched off: it’s part of Jessie’s routine to go to bed at this time, at least on the rare occasions when she stays home on Friday nights.

  ‘11-7 here. Have I told you the one about the Nun and the Seven Little Officers from Europol, over.’

  ‘No. Come on then, 11-7. We’re listening.’

  It’s Tim Jansen, entertaining his colleagues via walkie-talkie while taking a barely concealed jab at Hess. Hess can’t see him from his post by the kitchen window, but he knows he is sitting in a car not far from the entryway to the west, with one of the younger officers of ethnic-minority origin. Although he doesn’t approve of radio contact being used for jokes, he lets it go. At the team meeting at the station, before Hess had gone to see Thulin, Jansen had already expressed his doubts about the operation, because Hess had been unable to say for sure that Jessie Kvium was definitely in danger. It was clear he suspected Hess of being the one who’d squealed to the press, and that sort of thing didn’t go unpunished. For several days Hess had sensed Jansen’s eyes on the back of his neck whenever he was at the station, but after the media explosion earlier that night several other colleagues were now shooting him dubious looks. It was utterly ridiculous. When the press started scribbling about murder cases it rarely boded well, so Hess was accustomed to keeping journalists at arm’s length. In fact the leak had irritated him – if there was a leak. The killer obviously knew about the fingerprints, and it had occurred to Hess that he would probably be amused to watch the department being turned into a public laughing stock. He reminds himself that they still need to investigate the newspapers’ sources, and reaches tetchily for the walkie-talkie as Jansen launches into yet another joke.

  ‘11-7, suspend radio contact not pertaining to the operation.’

  ‘Or what, 7-3? You’ll call the tabloids?’

  There’s the sound of scattered laughter, until the task-force leader intervenes and orders silence. Hess peers out of the window. The light in Jessie Kvium’s place is out.

  71

  Thulin keeps away from the large, dark windows, but she potters occasionally from room to room in order to let the kille
r know that she – or rather, Jessie Kvium – is home. Assuming the killer is out there watching, of course.

  The little play-act in the carpark had worked. The doll was a good match, and the black artificial hair had mostly been concealed beneath the duvet. The issue with the lift had been a snag, but she’d judged that Jessie Kvium was so naturally impatient that she’d rather clump up the stairs than wait. On the way up she’d passed a young couple, but they barely gave her a glance, and she unlocked the apartment with Jessie’s key then locked it behind her as soon as she stepped into the hall.

  Although Thulin had never been in the apartment before, she was familiar with its layout, and had carried the doll straight into the bedroom, where she laid it on the bed. The room included both her and her daughter’s beds. The windows were curtainless, with a view over yet another concrete block. She knew that Hess was somewhere beyond the dark windows on the ground floor, but she wasn’t sure who might be able to see in from the upper storeys, so she undressed the doll and tucked it up in the sheets as though putting Le to bed at home. It had struck her as paradoxical that she was saying goodnight to a doll in her capacity as an officer instead of tucking in her own daughter, but now wasn’t the time for thoughts like that. Next she had gone into the front room and switched on the flatscreen TV, following Jessie’s routine, before settling in the armchair with her back to the window and scanning the apartment.

  The last person who’d been inside it was Jessie Kvium herself, and she clearly hadn’t bothered to tidy up. The place was a mess. Dozens of empty wine bottles, food-encrusted plates, pizza boxes and dirty dishes. Not many toys. Although she couldn’t be sure Jessie Kvium was actually neglecting her child, it didn’t seem like an appetizing place to grow up. Which reminded Thulin of her own childhood, and since she didn’t feel like thinking about that she focused on the flatscreen.

  The Kristine Hartung case was still the high priority, and everything was being rehashed on the grounds that the case might not have been solved after all. The news said Rosa Hartung had refused to give a statement, and Thulin was feeling sorry for the minister and her family, once more being confronted with a past they so wanted to put behind them, when the avalanche reached another climax:

  ‘Keep watching in a moment, when Steen Hartung – Kristine Hartung’s father – is a guest on the Nightly News.’

  Steen Hartung was a guest on the last news broadcast of the night, and in a lengthy interview he made it clear he believed his daughter might still be alive somewhere. He implored people to come forward to the police if they knew anything, and also made a direct appeal to ‘the person who has taken Kristine’, pleading with them to return her unharmed.

  ‘We miss her … she’s still only a child, and she needs her mum and dad.’

  Thulin understood why he was doing it, but she wasn’t sure how much good it would do the investigation. The Justice Minister and Nylander, also interviewed, had taken up the challenge and distanced themselves sharply from all such speculation. Nylander, in particular, had appeared steely, almost angry with the media, but he also spoke with such relish that it made her suspect he was enjoying the attention. In the middle of it all, Thulin had received a text from Genz, who asked what the hell was going on – the reporters had now started calling him. She replied that it was vital he didn’t give a statement. He’d joked back that he promised not to if she agreed to a fifteen-kilometre run with him next morning, but she hadn’t answered that one.

  The media hullaballoo had finally come to an end around midnight, followed by tedious reruns of various TV shows. The optimism and tension she felt as she drove from Christianshavn has gradually given way to doubt. How sure can they be that Jessie Kvium is the right one? How sure can they be that the killer will try something? When she hears Tim Jansen start killing time with silly jokes via walkie-talkie, she partly understands. The man is an idiot, of course, but if they’ve made a mistake then it leaves them way behind with the investigation. Thulin checks the time on her phone, then rises to switch off the light in the front room as agreed. Before she can sit back down, Hess calls her.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Yep.’

  She can sense him calming down. They chat a little about the situation, and although he doesn’t say so she can tell he’s still on high alert. More than she is, at least.

  ‘You shouldn’t take any notice of Jansen,’ she suddenly hears herself say.

  ‘Thanks. I don’t.’

  ‘He’s been preening about the Hartung case ever since I first started. When you – and now the press, too – started questioning the investigation it was like you shot him in the gut with a sawn-off shotgun.’

  ‘Sounds like you’d fancy doing that yourself.’

  Thulin grins. She’s about to reply when Hess’s voice changes.

  ‘Something’s happening. Switch to the radio.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Do it. Right now.’

  The connection is cut.

  As Thulin sets down her phone, she’s suddenly aware of how alone she is.

  72

  Hess stiffens at the window. He knows he can’t be seen from outside, but still he doesn’t move a muscle. Approximately a hundred yards away, by the entryway at the end of Kvium’s concrete block, he has just seen a young couple with a baby carrier unlock the door to the bike room in the basement and vanish inside. The hydraulic door swings very slowly shut behind them, and Hess notices a movement in the shadow of the adjoining building. For a second he thinks it might be the wind in the trees, but then he sees it again. A figure breaks into a jog and disappears inside, just before the door closes. Hess picks up the walkie-talkie.

  ‘Our guest may have arrived. East-side door, over.’

  ‘We saw it, over.’

  Hess knows what’s at that end, although he’s never been there himself. The entryway leads down to the bike storage room in the basement, and from there underneath the block and up to the stairs and lift, which offers access to the upper floors.

  He leaves the ground-floor apartment and goes into the stairwell, shutting the door behind him. Instead of heading for the main exit and the open space outside, he takes the stairs down to the basement. He leaves the lights off but carries his torch. On reaching the basement level, he knows from his prep work which way he should take. Holding out the torch in front of him, he races down the corridor that leads underneath the area outside and into Kvium’s block. It’s roughly fifty yards, and as he approaches the heavy metal door to Kvium’s complex he hears over the walkie-talkie that the lift is being used by the couple with the baby carrier.

  ‘The unidentified person must be on the stairs, but the light hasn’t been switched on, so we can’t be sure. Over.’

  ‘We’re doing a search from the bottom upwards, and we’re starting now,’ answers Hess.

  ‘But we don’t even know if –’

  ‘We’re starting now. No more chat.’

  Hess switches off the walkie-talkie. Something is wrong. The figure must have arrived on foot over the unlit lawn, and that doesn’t seem thought through. It occurs to Hess that he wouldn’t be surprised if the killer made his entrance by lowering himself from the roof or jumping out of a manhole cover. Anything but a main lobby. He turns the safety off on his gun, and by the time the metal door glides shut behind him he’s already on the first landing.

  73

  Thulin is looking out of the window. It’s been eight or nine minutes since the guest was announced. She can see nothing in the forecourt, and it strikes her how silent it is in the complex. The sound of music has stopped; only the wind can be heard. She’d not objected to staying in the apartment when they had agreed the details of the operation, but now it seems like a dumb idea. She’s never been any good at waiting. Plus there’s no back door to the apartment – nowhere to run, if it came to that. So when she hears a knock on the door in the front hall, she’s relieved. It has to be Hess or one of the others, come to help her.r />
  Peering through the spyhole, however, she finds the corridor dark and unoccupied. No one in sight, only the fire cupboard in the recess opposite the door. For a moment she wonders whether she could have misheard. But there had been a knock. She switches the safety off her weapon and prepares herself. Sliding back the bolt, she twists the latch to the left and steps out into the corridor, gun at the ready.

  A few switches glow faintly, but she doesn’t touch them. The darkness feels like protection. All the apartment doors seem to be shut along the wide linoleum-floored corridor, and as her eyes grow accustomed to the low light she can see all the way to the far wall on the left. She looks the other way, towards the stairs and lift on the right, but that too is empty. There’s no one in the corridor.

  From inside the apartment she hears a crackle over the walkie-talkie. Someone is calling her name impatiently, and she begins to retreat towards the door. But just as she turns her back on the corridor, the figure lunges out of the recess beside the fire cupboard. It had been crouched in a huddle, waiting for exactly that moment, and she feels its weight hurl her through the doorway and on to the ground. Chilly hands coil around her throat, and she hears the voice whisper into her ear.

  ‘Fucking slut. Give me the pictures or I’ll kill you.’

  Before the man can say another word, Thulin has broken his nose with two crisp jabs of her elbow. For a second he sits there in the dark, dazed. He barely knows what’s hit him before Thulin strikes him for a third time, and he collapses on to the floor.

  74

  By the time Hess reaches Kvium’s apartment the door is open, and as he dashes inside with two officers behind him he can hear the man shrieking in pain. He flicks on the light. The apartment is a shambles. On the floor, amid laundry and pizza boxes, a man with a bloodied nose is lying with both arms twisted behind his back. Thulin is sitting on top of him, gripping his wrists between his shoulder blades with one hand while the other is busy frisking him.