by David Hewson
Ashamed when that broke her, made Pernille come to him, place her gentle arms around his shoulders.
She held him, damp face against his bristled cheek. Together they stood, together they clung to one another in close silence. Together they walked into the white room of brilliant tiles and medical cabinets, of taps and sinks and shining concave silver tables, of surgical implements, all the tools that codified death.
The cops led the way, the woman with the staring eyes, the surly, big-eared man. Walking towards a clean white sheet then stopping, half-looking at them in expectation, waiting. From the corner came a man in a surgeon’s suit, blue mob cap, blue bib, blue gloves. There’d been doctors like this when Nanna was born. Theis Birk Larsen saw this picture clear in his head. The same colours, the same harsh chemical smells.
Without a word, without a glance, the man was beside them, lifting the white cotton.
Pernille edged forward, eyes widening.
All the while the woman cop watched, every gesture, every breath and move.
Birk Larsen removed his black hat, embarrassed that he still wore it. Looked at the bloodless, bruised face on the table, the dirty stained hair, the lifeless grey eyes.
Images filled his memory. Pictures, sounds, a touch, a word. A baby’s cry, a much-rued argument. A hot afternoon by the beach. A freezing morning in winter, out on a sledge. Nanna tiny in the red Christiania trike Vagn fixed and painted, stencilling the logo Birk Larsen on the side.
Nanna older, climbing into it when she was sixteen, seventeen, laughing at how small it seemed.
Distant moments never to be recovered, unspoken promises never to be made. All the small pieces that once seemed so humdrum now shrieked…
See! You never noticed. And now I’m gone.
Now I’m gone.
Pernille turned, walked back to the anteroom, the gait of an old woman, broken and in pain.
‘Is this Nanna?’ the woman asked.
He glared at her. A stupid question and she didn’t seem a stupid woman.
No, Birk Larsen wanted to say. It was.
Instead he nodded, nothing more.
Four of them face to face across a plastic table.
Plain facts.
Birk Larsen, his wife and their two young sons left for the seaside on Friday, returned Sunday evening. Nanna was supposed to be staying with friends.
‘What sort of mood was she in?’ Lund asked.
‘Happy,’ Birk Larsen said. ‘She dressed up.’
‘As what?’
‘A witch.’
The mother sat there, mouth open, lost somewhere. Then she stared at Lund and asked, ‘What happened?’
Lund didn’t answer. Nor Meyer.
‘Will someone talk to me! What happened?’
In the cold empty room her shrill voice bounced off the bare white walls.
Meyer lit a cigarette.
‘The car was driven into the water,’ he said.
‘Was she interested in politics?’ Lund asked.
Birk Larsen shook his head.
‘Did she talk to anyone who was?’
‘No.’
‘At the Rådhus maybe?’ Meyer wondered.
He scowled at the lack of an answer, got up and walked to the back of the room, making a call.
‘Boyfriends…?’
‘Not lately.’
‘How did she die?’ Pernille asked.
‘We don’t know yet.’
‘Did she suffer?’
Lund hesitated and said, ‘We’re not sure what happened. We’re trying to understand. So you haven’t talked to her since Friday? No calls? No contact? Nothing out of the ordinary?’
Narrow eyes, a bitter scowl, a note of sarcasm as he snarled, ‘The ordinary?’
‘Things you’d expect. It could be anything unusual. A little thing.’
‘I got cross with her,’ Pernille said. ‘Is that ordinary? She was being too noisy. I shouted at her for running around with her brothers.’
She watched Lund.
‘I was doing the accounts. I was busy…’
Birk Larsen wound his big arm round her.
‘She just wanted to play with them. Just…’
More tears, Pernille shook beneath his grip.
‘Just what?’
‘Just wanted to play.’
‘I’ll have someone take you home now,’ Lund said. ‘We need to seal off Nanna’s room. It’s important no one goes in there.’
Lund and Meyer walked them to the door where the uniformed men with the car were waiting.
‘If you think of anything…’ Lund said and handed Birk Larsen a card.
The stocky father looked at it.
‘How much do you know?’
‘It’s too early to say.’
‘But you’ll find him?’
‘We’ll do everything we can.’
Birk Larsen didn’t move. There was a grim, hard set on his face when he asked again, more slowly, ‘But you will find him?’
‘Yes,’ Meyer snapped. ‘We will.’
The father stared hard at him then left for the car.
Lund watched them go.
‘They just lost their daughter. And you’re yelling at them?’
‘I didn’t yell.’
‘It sounded like—’
‘This is yelling!’ Meyer bawled.
His voice was so loud the pathologist put his head round the corner.
Then, more quietly, Meyer said, ‘I didn’t yell.’
His bleak and watchful eyes caught her.
‘He hates us, Lund. You saw that.’
‘We’re police. Lots of people hate us.’
‘Picked his moment, didn’t he?’
Half past two in the morning. Hartmann was there when they got to the Rådhus. Rie Skovgaard, the slick attractive woman they’d seen at the school, sat on his left. Hartmann’s awkward fidgety middle-aged campaign manager, Morten Weber, was on the other side.
‘Thanks for coming in,’ Lund said.
‘We didn’t,’ Hartmann answered. ‘We just stayed. There’s an election coming. We work late. Did you find the girl?’
‘Yes.’ Meyer stared at the politician in the blue shirt, blue trousers. ‘She was in your rental car.’
Lund wrote out the number, placed it on the table.
‘Who was the last person to drive it?’
Hartmann sat rigid in his leather seat.
‘Our car?’
Meyer pushed the note closer to him.
‘That’s what we said. Can we have a little action now?’
‘I’ll check,’ Morten Weber said. ‘It’ll take a while.’
‘Why?’ Meyer wanted to know.
‘We’ve lots of cars,’ Weber said. ‘Thirty drivers. It’s the middle of the night. We still have people working. Let me make some calls.’
He left the table and went off into a corner with his phone.
‘What do they do, these cars?’ Lund asked.
‘Deliver campaign material,’ Skovgaard said. ‘Put up posters. That kind of thing.’
‘When did you send a car to the school in Frederiksholm?’
‘Probably Friday I guess…’
Meyer snapped, put his hands palm down on the table, leaned over and said, ‘Guessing isn’t much good. The girl’s dead. We need to know—’
‘We’ve nothing to hide,’ Hartmann broke in. ‘We want to help. It’s past two in the morning. We can’t pull answers out of a hat.’
‘Was Nanna Birk Larsen connected to your political work?’
‘No,’ said Skovgaard straight away. ‘She’s not on any of our lists.’
‘That was quick,’ Meyer said.
‘I thought you wanted quick.’
Weber returned.
‘The campaign secretary’s in Oslo right now.’
‘Screw Oslo!’ Meyer cried. ‘This is a murder case. Get some answers.’
Weber sat down, raised an eyebrow at him, looked at Lund.
Checking the hierarchy, Lund thought. Smart man.
‘So I asked the security desk. The keys were collected by Rikke Nielsen on Friday.’
‘Who’s she?’ Lund asked.
‘Rikke’s in charge of our team of volunteers.’ Weber shrugged. ‘Anyone can volunteer. We use temps when there aren’t enough.’
He glanced at Meyer who was now pacing the room, hands in pockets, like a cockerel pushing for a fight.
‘You’ve phoned her?’ Meyer demanded.
‘Her phone’s off. She’s probably organizing the posters.’
Meyer nodded sarcastically.
‘Probably?’
‘Yes. Like I said. Thirty drivers to coordinate. It’s a lot of work.’
‘Stop!’ Meyer was back at the table again. ‘There’s a dead girl and you’re sitting here as if it’s beneath you.’
‘Meyer,’ Lund said.
‘I want answers,’ he barked.
‘Meyer!’
Loud enough. He stopped.
‘Call headquarters,’ she ordered. ‘Give Buchard an update. Tell him we’re going to interview the volunteers.’
He didn’t move.
‘It’s past Buchard’s bedtime…’
She locked eyes with him.
‘Just do it.’
He went off to the window.
‘Do you have any idea where this woman is now?’ Lund asked.
Weber looked at a piece of paper. He highlighted something with a green marker.
‘My best bet.’
Skovgaard took it, checked the names, then handed it on.
‘The press,’ she said. ‘There’s no need for them to know.’
Lund shook her head, puzzled.
‘A young girl’s been murdered. We can’t keep this secret.’
‘No,’ Hartmann said. ‘If it was our car we need to issue a statement. It’s important no one can accuse us of hiding anything.’
‘I don’t want you making details public,’ Lund insisted. ‘You talk to no one but me.’
Skovgaard stood up, arms waving.
‘There’s an election going on. We can’t afford to wait.’
Lund turned to Hartmann.
‘The information we just gave you was confidential. If you choose to make it public and jeopardize a murder inquiry that’s your choice. You can live with the consequences. And there will be consequences, Hartmann. That I promise.’
Weber coughed. Skovgaard went quiet. Meyer looked pleased.
‘Rie,’ Hartmann said. ‘I think we can wait a while. Provided…’
The briefest, pleading smile.
‘Provided what?’ Meyer asked.
‘Provided you tell us when you decide to go public. So we can work together. Make sure everything’s right.’
He folded his arms. The shirt was the blue of the campaign poster above his head. Everything here was coordinated. Planned.
Lund took out her personal card, crossed out her name, wrote Meyer’s there instead.
‘Tomorrow morning ring Jan Meyer on this number,’ she said. ‘He’ll update you.’
‘You’re not on the case?’ Hartmann asked.
‘No,’ Lund said. ‘He is.’
Weber left with the cops. Skovgaard stayed with him, still smarting.
‘What the hell is this, Troels?’
‘Search me.’
‘If we agree to hide things the press could crucify us. They love the words cover-up. It gives them a hard-on.’
‘We’re not covering up. We’re doing what the police asked us.’
‘They won’t care.’
Hartmann put on his jacket, thinking, looked at her.
‘She didn’t leave us much choice. They’d crucify us for screwing up a murder inquiry too. Lund knew that. It’s nothing to do with us. Forget about it.’
Sharp eyes wide open, mouth agape.
‘A girl’s found dead in one of our cars? It’s nothing to do with us?’
‘Nothing. If you want something to worry about, take a look round this place.’
He pointed to the main office beyond the door. Eight, ten full-time staff working there during the day.
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning are we secure? The computers? Emails? Our reports?’
A caustic look.
‘You’re not getting paranoid about Bremer, are you?’
‘How did he come up with that trick about the school funding? How did he know about the twenty per cent?’
Hartmann thought about the conversation with Bremer, what the mayor said about his late father.
‘That cunning old bastard’s up to something.’
She came to him with his coat, helped him on with it, zipped it up against the cold night.
‘Such as?’
Hartmann told her a little about why Therese Kruse came to see him. About the reporter asking questions. He left out the personal details.
‘Some of that had to come from in here. Had to.’
She wasn’t happy.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I’m telling you now.’
He walked into the big office. Desks and computers. Filing cabinets, voicemail. All the private details of the campaign lived inside this room, deep in the heart of the Rådhus, locked securely every night.
‘Go home,’ she said. ‘I’ll take a look around.’
Hartmann came over, took her shoulders, kissed her tenderly.
‘I could help.’
‘Go home,’ she repeated. ‘You’ve got to cut the deal with Kirsten Eller first thing. I want you wide awake for that.’
He looked out of the window into the square.
‘They said she was nineteen. Just a kid.’
‘It’s not our fault, is it?’
Troels Hartmann stared at the blue hotel sign and the yellow lights in the square.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It isn’t.’
‘Why did you say we’d find him?’ Lund asked.
They were in her unmarked car, Meyer at the wheel.
‘You won’t pull a trick like that on me again,’ he said. ‘In front of those clowns. Of all the people…’
His anger was so open and puerile it was almost amusing.
‘I won’t need to. I’ll be gone. Why did you say that? To the father.’
‘Because we will.’ A pause. ‘I will.’
‘You don’t make promises,’ she threw at him. ‘Read the book. Page one.’
‘I’ve got my own book.’
‘So I noticed.’
Meyer turned on the radio. A deafening, all-night rock station. Lund leaned forward, switched it off.
She checked the address.
‘Turn here.’
A statue of a figure on horseback, sword raised. A grand illuminated building. A multi-storey parking garage. The place Hartmann’s campaign team assembled before going out to plaster the city with his posters, leaflets, badges, hats and Tshirts.
The cars were on the second level. Identical black Fords, just like the one they’d pulled from the canal. Lund and Meyer walked round, looking at the same photo of Troels Hartmann plastered to the windows. One back door was open. Three hours earlier, in a vehicle identical to this, she’d seen the scarred half-naked corpse of Nanna Birk Larsen frozen in death in a torn, stained slip. Here there were boxes and boxes of leaflets, and the same photo of Hartmann. That uncertain boyish smile, some pain behind his open, honest eyes.
A blonde woman walked round from the back, looked at her uncertainly. Lund showed her ID, asked, ‘Rikke Nielsen?’
She seemed exhausted. Nervous too when Meyer came from the other side of the car, folded his arms, sat in the open boot and watched her.
‘I need the name of a driver from the weekend,’ Lund said.
‘Why?’
‘The number plate is…’ Lund fumbled for her notebook.
‘XU 24 919,’ Meyer said unprompted. He got up, came close to the Nielsen woman. ‘Black Ford like this one. We
’d like to know who drove it last.’
Then he smiled, in a way he probably thought pleasant.
There were men carrying placards of Hartmann’s beaming face to cars down the line.
‘This is quite an organization you’ve got. You must keep a logbook.’
‘Of course.’
‘Can we see it? Please.’
She nodded, walked off. Meyer winked at Lund. The Nielsen woman came back. ‘That was XU…?’
‘XU 24 919.’
Lund left him, watched the men with the placards and posters. It was cold in the parking garage. But not so cold.
One of the volunteers was a lanky figure in a worn and dirty anorak. He had the hood pulled up around his face. Put the posters in the back of the car. Turned. Grey sweatshirt. Face in shadow. Trying to hide.
Meyer’s strained nice-guy act was wearing thin.
‘I’m staying very calm here,’ she heard him say behind her. ‘So you stay calm too. I don’t want to hear any more “ifs” or “buts” or “let me ask Mr Weber”. Just give me the name of the damned driver.’
He was getting loud. The men stuffing the cars with Hartmann posters could hear. They were glancing at Rikke Nielsen. But not the one in the hood.
Lund turned to tell Meyer to cut the volume. When she looked again the figure in the grey sweatshirt and anorak wasn’t there.
A black Ford in the line burst into life, roared out of the parking spot, back door open, scattering the smiling face of Troels Hartmann everywhere.
‘Meyer!’
The driver had to get past her to reach the ramp.
Lund walked into the centre of the lane, stood there, stared through the oncoming windscreen.
Man in his late thirties, forties maybe. Stubbled, angry face, afraid, determined.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Meyer screamed and flew at her, caught her shoulder with one hand, dragged Lund out of the way.
Still accelerating the Ford raced past them, no more than a metre away.
Lund watched it, barely conscious she was in Meyer’s arms and he was peering at her, breathless. Furious probably. She had that effect sometimes. The car turned the corner, headed up towards the roof. Meyer let go, set off for the ramp, arms pumping, handgun out, yelling. Lund went the other way, racing for the stairs, taking the concrete steps three at a time, up, up.
One floor, two. Three and there were no more. The roof was black and gleaming in the night rain. Ahead lay the grand baroque dome of the Marble Church softly lit against the city skyline. The car was parked by the far wall, headlamps blazing.
