The Chestnut Man

by Søren Sveistrup

  ‘Not quite. Did you tell Asger Neergaard that evening or didn’t you?’

  ‘Like I said, I’m pretty sure I did. Or maybe I got somebody else to.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Why the hell is this important?’

  ‘So it’s possible you didn’t tell him and he was waiting in the foyer?’

  ‘If this is what our conversation’s going to be about, then I really don’t have the time.’

  ‘What were you doing that evening?’

  Vogel is making for the door, but he stops short and looks at Hess.

  ‘I assume you were supposed to accompany the minister to the Royal Library, but when you cancelled that made time for other things?’

  The hint of a mocking smile crosses Vogel’s face.

  ‘You’re not saying what I think you’re saying?’

  ‘What do you think I’m saying?’

  ‘You’re fishing for what I was up to at a particular moment when a crime was occurring instead of concentrating on the kidnapping of the minister’s son, but I certainly hope that’s not the case.’

  Hess merely eyes him.

  ‘If you really want to know, I went back to my apartment, watched Steen Hartung’s broadcast and prepared for the fallout. I was alone, no witnesses, and with plenty of time to commit a murder and fiddle around with chestnuts all night long. Is that what you want to hear?’

  ‘What about the night of 6 October? Or 12 October around six?’

  ‘I think I’d better tell you that during an official interview with my lawyer present. Until then I’d like to get on with my job. And I think you should get on with yours.’

  Vogel nods goodbye. Hess doesn’t want to let the guy go, but at this moment his phone rings, and Vogel slips through the doorway. The display tells him it’s Nylander. He’s just decided to explain his discovery and his suspicions about Vogel when Nylander forestalls him.

  ‘It’s Nylander. Tell everybody to suspend the investigation at the ministry and Christiansborg.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Genz has traced Skans and Neergaard. I’m headed up there now with the task force.’

  ‘Headed up where?’

  ‘West of Holbæk, somewhere in the forest. Genz managed to open the Lenovo and found an invoice for a Hertz van in the guy’s inbox. He called the company – apparently they rented the van at Vesterport Station this morning and Genz was able to track it. Seems they put tracking units in all their vehicles in case they’re stolen. Let everybody know, then get back to the station and write your report.’

  ‘But what about –’

  Nylander has already hung up. Frustrated, Hess thrusts his phone back into his pocket and hurries over to the door. After notifying a detective of Nylander’s instructions he rushes further down the corridor, and on his way out he catches a glimpse into the minister’s office through the open door: Vogel, with a comforting arm around Rosa Hartung.

  95

  Despite the rain, the trip to north-west Zealand takes only forty minutes with the lights flashing, although it feels like an eternity. Reaching the murky road that runs through the forest, Hess can see the turning he needs. The empty task-force vehicles are parked at the edge of the road near a gravel track, a handful of squad cars beside them, and after showing his badge through the window to two soaking-wet officers, Hess is allowed to continue. The fact that they let him through must mean the operation is over. With what result, however, he can’t tell, and he isn’t keen to waste time asking a couple of officers who couldn’t possibly be fully informed if they are posted out by the main road.

  Hess has driven quickly, and he has to force himself to ease up as he races down the gravel road. He ignored Nylander’s orders to go to the station, and on his way there he decided to check up on Frederik Vogel. Probably he should have done so much earlier.

  Something tells him Asger Neergaard will confirm he was at work late on the evening of 16 October. At any rate, Hess has just spoken to Hartung’s secretary, who claimed Neergaard had called and woken her up that night just past half twelve to ask where the minister had got to, having waited for her in the foyer at the Royal Library. She’d apologized that nobody had kept him in the loop, and if Neergaard genuinely had been in the foyer then other witnesses would probably be able to confirm that. If Benedikte Skans had been on a night shift at the Rigshospital during the same window, then the couple couldn’t possibly have murdered Jessie Kvium and Martin Ricks, which makes Vogel look more interesting. He didn’t seem to have an alibi for either of the allotment garden killings, and Hess is itching to question Asger Neergaard about Vogel’s whereabouts at the time of the other two murders. He might even know something about the relationship between Vogel and Rosa Hartung. Maybe there is actually a motive Hess and Thulin haven’t clocked before. Hess gets the urge to call Thulin again. He’s already tried to get hold of her twice on the drive up from Copenhagen.

  Headlights are approaching in the opposite direction along the narrow gravel road, and he has to jerk aside to let an ambulance pass. Its siren isn’t going, but Hess can’t tell whether that’s good or bad. Behind it follows an unmarked police car, and he catches a fleeting glimpse of Nylander in the back seat, absorbed in a conversation on his phone. He keeps driving, now passing dribs and drabs of task-force officers heading back towards the main road, and in their earnest faces he senses the presence of death. When he reaches the cordon he realizes that the situation isn’t what he’d hoped.

  There are more police a little further away, and an area roughly ten yards by ten is harshly lit by floodlights. In the centre of the area is a van with the Hertz logo on its tailboard. One front door is open, as is the sliding door, and by its left front wheel lies a figure covered in a white sheet. Another one lies about ten metres distant.

  Hess climbs out of the car, heeding neither the rain nor the wind. The only face he recognizes is Jansen’s, and although they aren’t exactly on good terms, it’s Jansen he approaches.

  ‘Where’s the boy?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘The boy’s all right. He seems unharmed, but they’re taking him to be examined as we speak.’

  Hess feels a surge of relief, but now he knows who’s lying on the earth underneath the two white sheets.

  ‘It was the task force who found him and let him out of the van. Everything went fine, so there’s no use for you here, Hess.’

  ‘But what happened?’

  ‘Bugger all. We found them like this.’

  Jansen lifts the sheet from the figure by the front of the van. The young man, whom Hess recognizes as Asger Neergaard, has died with his eyes open, and his torso is a pincushion of stab wounds.

  ‘Our working assumption is that the woman went nuts. We’re about six kilometres from one of our blockades, so they probably drove in here to get out of sight, but she must have realized the jig was up. First she used the military knife on the boyfriend, and then she slit her carotid artery. The bodies were still warm when we arrived, so it happened within the last couple of hours. And no, I’m not rubbing my hands over this – I’d much rather have seen them rot for thirty years for what they did to Ricks.’

  Hess feels the rain dripping down his cheeks. Jansen lets the sheet fall, so that only Neergaard’s lifeless hand is sticking out. For a moment it appears to Hess as though he were reaching towards Benedikte Skans’s shrouded body, which lies in the mud less than thirty feet away.

  96

  ‘But what did they say? They must know something by now?’

  Rosa knows Frederik Vogel doesn’t have the answers, but the questions slip out anyway.

  ‘They’re checking and investigating, but the head of Homicide will contact us as soon –’

  ‘It’s not good enough. Ask them again, Frederik.’

  ‘Rosa –’

  ‘We have a right to know what’s going on!’

  Vogel decides to humour her, although she can
tell he thinks it’s pointless ringing up the station again. Deep down she is grateful for his help, because she knows he will do whatever he can, even if he doesn’t agree with her methods. He’s always been like that, and Rosa can’t wait any longer. It’s 1.37 a.m., fifteen minutes since she, Steen and Vogel brought Gustav home from the Rigshospital. She’s already pestered half to death the two officers on guard outside their home, who are making sure the army of journalists keep their distance, but the officers know nothing. Only the head of the murder squad can give them answers to the questions about Kristine she is burning to ask.

  Rosa began to cry the moment she and Steen entered A&E at the Rigshospital, where Gustav, looking a bit scruffy after his ordeal, had been brought for examination. She’d feared the worst, but he was unharmed, and she was allowed to give him a cuddle. He had few apparent injuries, and now that he is sitting in the kitchen at his usual spot in the corner, eating the wholemeal rolls with liver pâté Steen has just made for him, she can scarcely comprehend that he’s been in mortal danger. Walking up to him, she strokes his hair.

  ‘Do you want anything else to eat? I can make pasta for you, or –’

  ‘No thanks. I’d rather play FIFA.’

  Rosa smiles. The answer is a healthy sign, but there is still so much she doesn’t know.

  ‘Gustav, what happened, exactly? What else did they say?’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘Tell me again.’

  ‘They took me with them and locked me in the van. Then they drove for ages, and then they stopped the van, and then they started fighting, but it was raining loads so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then there was a really long silence, and then the policemen came and opened the door, and that’s all I know.’

  ‘But what were they arguing about? Did they say anything about your sister? Where were they driving?’

  ‘Mum –’

  ‘Gustav, it’s important!’

  ‘Sweetheart, come with me.’

  Steen draws Rosa into the living room so that Gustav can’t hear them, but she refuses to calm down.

  ‘Why haven’t the police found any sign of her where the kidnappers were living? Why haven’t they made them say where she is? Why the hell aren’t we being told anything?!’

  ‘There could be all sorts of reasons. The most important thing is that they’ve got the kidnappers, and I’m sure they’ll find her now. I don’t doubt it for a minute.’

  Rosa wants so much for Steen to be right. She holds him close, until she realizes somebody is watching them. Turning, she sees Vogel in the doorway, and before she can ask, he says there’s no point phoning the station. The head of Homicide has just arrived.

  97

  Although Nylander knows he was inside this hall some nine months earlier, informing the Hartung family that their daughter’s case was finally closed, he can’t remember the room. He feels like the situation is repeating itself, and the fleeting thought crosses his mind that this is what Hell must be like: having to replay the same appalling scenes over and over again. But Nylander also knows this is a necessary visit, and that he will feel much more comfortable once he has stepped back outside. In his head he is already running through the press conference he’s going to hold once he has got back to the station and updated the top brass. Unlike previous meetings over the last two weeks, this one will be tinged with triumph.

  Such an outcome seemed dramatically unlikely only hours earlier, when he arrived in the forest with the task force and found Benedikte Skans and Asger Neergaard lifeless on the ground. He was relieved, of course, to find the minister’s son unharmed in the van, but with the two kidnappers mute he knew he’d never get the explanations and confessions needed to wrap up the case once and for all. Yet just as he was sitting in the back seat of a car, eyeing the ambulance carrying the minister’s son and wondering how the hell he was going to silence the doubters, Thulin called. Ironic, really, that she should be the one to tell him about the discovery in the mini-fridge at the old abattoir, given that Hess seems to have rubbed off on her of late, making her even more exasperating than she usually is. But the news was an almost perfect coda to the day. Immediately he asked her to call Genz and get the evidence secured pronto, and by the time he hung up he was no longer afraid of the doubters at the press conference or at the station.

  ‘Is Gustav okay?’

  Nylander addresses Steen and Rosa Hartung, who have come into the hall, and Steen Hartung nods.

  ‘Yes. He seems to be doing well. He’s eating right now.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. I won’t disturb you for long. I simply came to let you know that as far as we’re concerned the murder cases are now closed, and that we –’

  ‘What have you found out about Kristine?’

  Rosa Hartung interrupts Nylander’s speech, but he is prepared, skipping straight to the bit where he explains, calmly and gravely, that unfortunately there is nothing new to report about their daughter.

  ‘The circumstances around your daughter’s death were cleared up last year, and the current case doesn’t alter that fact. As I’ve been trying to tell you all along, these are two entirely different chains of events, and you will of course be given a full account of the current case once our investigations are complete.’

  Nylander can see frustration overwhelming both parents, as they begin talking over each other, demanding more details.

  ‘But what about the fingerprints?’

  ‘They must mean something, surely?’

  ‘What did the kidnappers say?! Haven’t you interviewed them?’

  ‘I understand your frustration, but you must have faith in our investigation. My people have searched the vehicle where Gustav was found, as well as the kidnappers’ residence and workplaces, but they’ve found no indication that Kristine is still alive. No indication, in fact, that the kidnappers had anything to do with her whatsoever. I’m afraid they had already taken their own lives when we found them. Presumably to avoid being arrested and punished, so they can’t give us any answers. But, as I said, there’s no sign that interrogating them would have given us anything new on your daughter.’

  Nylander can see neither of them wants to let go of the straw they are clutching, and Rosa Hartung’s next outburst is fierce and aggressive.

  ‘But you could be wrong! You don’t know anything for sure! There were those chestnut men with her fingerprints, and if you haven’t found any sign of Kristine then maybe it’s because they’re not the real killers!’

  ‘We know for a fact that they are. With one hundred per cent certainty.’

  Nylander describes the irrefutable proof they found in the old industrial slaughterhouse that evening. He was thinking of the evidence with a tingle of happiness in his belly, but when he finishes speaking he can see in Rosa Hartung’s eyes that he has snuffed out her last hope. She looks at him without seeing him, and suddenly he finds it hard to imagine that this human being will ever heal. It throws him, makes him embarrassed. Out of nowhere he is gripped by the urge to take her hands and tell her everything will be all right. They still have a son. They still have each other. They still have so much to live for. But instead Nylander hears himself mumbling something about how he can’t really explain, sorry, how the chestnut men with Kristine’s fingerprints came into the killers’ possession, but that it doesn’t change the upshot.

  The minister hears nothing. Nylander takes his leave and shuffles backwards through the hall until he feels he can allow himself to turn around. By the time he’s outside the front door and has shut it behind him, there are still twenty minutes to go before his meeting with the top brass, but he gasps for breath and hurries towards his car.

  98

  Hess jogs over the wet tiles in the empty courtyard. He can hear the nightly broadcast on the flatscreen in the guardhouse by the police station entrance – they’re reporting live from Rosa Hartung’s residence in Outer Østerbro. But he ignores it. As he reaches the top of the stairs in the rotunda
and paces down the corridor into the department, he catches a glimpse of beer cans being opened to celebrate the closure of the case. A long day is drawing to an end, but for Hess it isn’t over.

  ‘Where’s Nylander?’

  ‘Nylander’s in a meeting.’

  ‘I need to speak to him. It’s crucial. Right now!’

  The secretary takes pity on him, disappearing through a meeting-room door while Hess waits outside. His shoes are muddy, his clothes sodden with rain. His hands are shaking, and he doesn’t know whether it’s agitation or the chill of the forest where he has spent the last few hours, stubbornly defying the coroner’s entreaties to let him work in peace. It was not in vain.

  ‘I don’t have time right now. The press conference is starting in two ticks.’

  Nylander, emerging, has just bidden goodbye to a few bigwigs. Hess knows from experience that this is the moment every police chief looks forward to: being able to publicly declare the case closed so that the press will disperse. But he needs a word with Nylander before he meets the press, so he follows him down the corridor and explains that the case isn’t solved.

  ‘Hess, it doesn’t surprise me that you’re taking that line.’

  ‘For one thing, there’s nothing to indicate that Benedikte Skans and Asger Neergaard knew the murdered women. There’s nothing on their property that so much as hints they were anywhere near them.’

  ‘Not sure I quite agree with you there.’

  ‘For another thing, they had no motive to kill them. Nor any motive to cut off their hands and feet, for that matter. Their anger was directed against Rosa Hartung, not against women or mothers in general. In theory Skans could have accessed the medical records about the victims’ children through her work at the hospital, but if she and Neergaard really made those reports to the council then why haven’t we found evidence of that?’