The Killing tk-1

by David Hewson

  ‘What I do in public and what I do in private are two different things.’

  ‘Not to me. Let’s talk about this back at headquarters.’

  ‘No. We talk about it here. So I do all this and I never think of covering my tracks. Why?’

  ‘You did. You took the surveillance tape from reception.’

  ‘I don’t know a damned thing about that.’

  ‘She went to your flat. The emails. Maybe…’

  He came close, was getting mad.

  ‘Maybe, maybe, maybe. I didn’t do it. Can’t you even consider that a possibility?’

  ‘I’d be happy to. If you told me where you were that weekend.’

  He was so close she could smell his cologne and the wine on his breath. Eyes blazing, Hartmann glared at her. Lund didn’t move.

  There was a rap at the door. A familiar voice crying, ‘Police!’

  ‘That’s all you have to do,’ Lund said.

  ‘Troels Hartmann!’ someone yelled.

  Meyer’s voice.

  ‘This is the police. Open the door.’

  Outside, Meyer and Svendsen were getting impatient. They could see the lights. They knew from Skovgaard he’d be here, got the arrest cleared by Brix after a fight.

  ‘Dammit,’ Meyer said. ‘I’ll take a look round the back. Call up for help. We’ll break down the door if he doesn’t come out in a minute.’

  Sounds of footsteps. A light came on above them.

  The door opened. Lund walked out, pulling her bag around her shoulder. She walked past him, down the steps, Hartmann following, stern-faced and silent.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  Meyer stood beneath the outside light, mouth open, staring, as did Svendsen.

  Lund clapped her hands.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she repeated.

  The reporter came with a cameraman. They set up their equipment amidst the dust and chaos of the garage. Theis Birk Larsen stayed upstairs.

  Pernille had written what she wanted to say on a single sheet of paper.

  ‘That’s fine,’ he said when he read it.

  ‘Will it do any good?’

  ‘Sure it will. When we’re done here we’ll go up to the flat—’

  ‘We’re not going to the flat.’

  The reporter looked ready for an argument. It was his job. Getting the story he wanted. She should have known that.

  ‘We want to do the best we can, Pernille.’

  ‘We’re not going to the flat.’

  A floodlight came on. It made the place look even grubbier.

  ‘Very well.’ He didn’t look pleased. ‘What about your husband?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘It looks better if you speak as a couple.’

  ‘I decide how we do this. Not you. Not Theis.’

  No answer.

  ‘Take it or leave it,’ she added.

  Pernille waited.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Just you.’

  Upstairs Theis Birk Larsen was finishing the boys’ supper. Ice cream from the supermarket, on their special plates, beneath the Murano chandelier.

  Nanna’s face still stared at them from the table.

  ‘Isn’t Mum having pudding?’ Anton asked.

  ‘She has to talk to somebody.’

  ‘We’re going to the woods tomorrow,’ Emil said.

  ‘No, we’re not,’ Anton butted in.

  ‘Yes, we are.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  The boys glared at each other.

  ‘Why aren’t you going to the woods?’ Birk Larsen asked.

  Anton toyed with his ice cream.

  ‘Mum doesn’t feel well.’

  ‘Of course you’re going to the woods. Mum thinks so too.’

  Pernille came in from the stairs.

  ‘They’re offering a reward,’ she said. ‘The TV people. There was a neighbourhood collection too.’

  Birk Larsen gave the boys more ice cream.

  ‘Anton and Emil want to go to the woods tomorrow.’

  ‘I know. I said I’d go with them.’

  He couldn’t stop looking at the photos pasted into the tabletop all those years ago. Nanna… what, sixteen? The boys as toddlers. A piece of their life, trapped in time.

  It was a table. If she had her way it would stay with them for ever.

  ‘When we went to counselling,’ Birk Larsen said, ‘they told us to think about what we have.’

  She scowled at him.

  ‘I know what I’m doing, thank you.’

  His face was hard, his mood was black.

  ‘So why aren’t you here with us? Instead of talking to that guy downstairs?’

  A long silence. Pernille smiled at Anton and Emil.

  ‘Come on boys. Time for bed.’

  They hadn’t finished their ice cream but they didn’t argue.

  Birk Larsen threw his spoon on the plate as he watched her usher them out of the room.

  Dirty cutlery and dishes. Bills and appointments. Burdens and cares.

  All these things swept around him constantly, like a ceaseless tide of trouble.

  He walked to the fridge, got a bottle of beer, sat in a chair and began to drink.

  In the interview room at headquarters the lawyer looked as if nothing in the world had changed.

  ‘My client admits his alibi was fabricated,’ she said confidently. ‘He wasn’t with Rie Skovgaard.’

  Hartmann sat next to her as she spoke. Lund and Meyer opposite. Lennart Brix listening at the end of the table.

  ‘Any particular reason he lied to us?’ Meyer wanted to know.

  ‘Everyone has a right to privacy. Especially a politician during an election.’

  ‘Irrelevant,’ Meyer said. ‘What were you doing that Friday, Hartmann?’

  He stayed silent. The lawyer answered instead.

  ‘As we’ve emphasized throughout, my client maintains his innocence. He never knew or had any dealings with Nanna Birk Larsen. He went elsewhere because he needed some peace. He asked Skovgaard to cover for him.’

  ‘Not good enough—’

  ‘He takes full responsibility for his fabricated alibi. It was necessary because he was in the public eye.’

  Meyer was getting mad.

  ‘Let me get this straight. You claim you were drinking yourself stupid all weekend because of your dead wife?’

  ‘My client—’

  ‘I’m not finished. Where were you, Hartmann?’

  ‘My client doesn’t want to comment. His private life is his own.’

  ‘You’ll go on TV and tell us how we’re supposed to run this city. But you won’t tell us one small thing to help out a murder inquiry?’

  ‘Hartmann,’ Lennart Brix broke in. ‘Forty-eight hours ago you told me you had an alibi. Now you don’t. If you won’t make a statement there’s only one thing I can do.’

  He waited. Hartmann didn’t say a word.

  ‘Press charges and arrest you.’

  ‘There are no grounds for that,’ the lawyer cried. ‘You don’t have any evidence whatsoever to suggest Hartmann was involved with this girl. He’s tried to cooperate as much as he feels able.’

  Her voice got louder. She looked at Lund.

  ‘At every turn he’s been harassed by your officers while they stumble about their business. Harassed at home, where his house was searched without a warrant. In secret. Under the pretext of a personal conversation.’

  She turned to Brix.

  ‘Don’t threaten us. Illegal entry. Illegal search. I could throw you all to the wolves now if I felt like it. Find the man who used Hartmann’s email. The car, the flat…’

  Meyer ran a finger along his notes.

  ‘Olav Christensen has an alibi. A real one. We checked. If Hartmann would care to tell us the truth about his whereabouts we’ll check his too.’

  ‘Christensen’s involved in this,’ Hartmann said, breaking his silence. ‘If you look at him…’

  ‘Why won’t you tell us wh
ere you were?’ Lund asked, gazing at him across the table. The same way she had in the house when they were alone together, drinking wine, picking at the pizza.

  Hartmann looked away.

  ‘Christensen’s in the clear,’ Meyer insisted again. ‘The administration backs it up.’

  ‘Of course they back it up!’ Hartmann bawled. ‘They all belong to Bremer. They’re the ones Olav must…’

  He stopped, seemed to think of something.

  ‘Must what?’ Lund asked.

  ‘I’ve got nothing more to say. If that’s all I’d like to leave now.’

  ‘No,’ Brix said. ‘You had your chance. You should have taken it.’

  The three of them went to Lund’s office. Brix wanted to draw up charges and put them in front of a prosecutor straight away.

  Lund sat on the edge of her desk trying to think.

  ‘The prosecutor’s going to want blood, saliva and semen for that. We don’t have it. I think we should wait. Let’s see if we can find more. There’s nothing to be gained from arresting him. It’s not as if he’s going to flee.’

  ‘We can shove him in Vestre jail,’ Brix said. ‘That should get him talking.’

  ‘No. This is wrong,’ Lund insisted. ‘When I talked to him he thought the girl had been killed in the flat.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘She wasn’t. She was chased through the woods, two days later. She drowned in the car. Whoever did it must have heard her screaming. He tied her up. Put her in the boot.’

  ‘That’s just Hartmann being clever,’ Meyer said.

  ‘We need to think of the press,’ Lund added.

  Meyer picked up the phone and asked for the prosecutor.

  ‘We can’t make another mistake, Brix. Think of the teacher. You heard what the lawyer said. If we get this wrong she’ll tear us apart.’

  She paused, made sure this went in.

  ‘It won’t be just Buchard packing his bags.’

  Back in the interview room.

  ‘We’re getting search warrants for your house,’ Meyer said. ‘If there’s anything there we’ll find it. We want access to your office and car. Your phone records. Your bank accounts. Your email.’

  He grinned.

  ‘You can’t go back home. Maybe you should try sleeping on the street. Get closer to the voters, huh?’

  ‘Very funny,’ Hartmann muttered.

  ‘There’s a cellar and a summer house in the garden,’ Meyer went on. ‘I want the keys to those or we’ll break down the doors. And I want your passport.’

  ‘I take it from all this Troels is free to go,’ the lawyer said.

  ‘He can walk, can’t he?’

  Hartmann reached into his jacket, threw a key ring on the table.

  ‘You’ll have my passport in half an hour.’

  Lund looked at the keys.

  ‘It must be very important.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Whatever it is that warrants all…’ She picked up the keys and shook them. ‘All this.’

  ‘It’s my life. Not yours. Not anyone else’s. Mine.’

  Then he left with the lawyer and Brix.

  Lund pulled out the file for the party flat.

  ‘I’m going back to Store Kongensgade. Do you have the caretaker’s number?’

  She was alone with Meyer for the first time that evening.

  ‘What the hell happened at Hartmann’s place?’ he asked. ‘Jesus, Lund. What did you think you were doing?’

  She started going through the files, looking for the number herself.

  ‘All you talk about is Hartmann. How screwed-up he is. Then after five minutes you let him off the hook.’

  Lund found the number.

  ‘What the hell are you up to? What aren’t you telling me?’

  She put the file in her bag and left.

  ‘The press know you were questioned again,’ Weber said.

  ‘Holck and the alliance?’ Hartmann asked.

  ‘They’re discussing it,’ Skovgaard told him.

  Hartmann took off his coat.

  ‘Bremer wants to know if we should cancel the debate tomorrow. What do you want me to say?’

  ‘We’re not cancelling anything.’

  He still wore the shirt with the wine stain.

  ‘Rie?’

  She didn’t meet his eyes.

  ‘Do I have a clean shirt? Can anyone get me a clean shirt?’

  She didn’t move.

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t keep quiet, Troels. They got my phone records somehow. I couldn’t…’

  He tried to read her face. Sorrow? Embarrassment? Anger that he’d asked her to cover in the first place?

  ‘You don’t have to apologize. It’s my fault. I’ll make sure they understand. This is my problem, not yours.’

  Weber got a shirt from somewhere. Hartmann walked into his office to change. Skovgaard followed.

  ‘Besides,’ she said. ‘It won’t matter. Now the police know where you were they’ll shut up. Maybe we should have—’

  ‘They won’t shut up. I didn’t tell them. They’re going to search the house.’

  Weber came in to listen.

  ‘They’ll be all over me,’ Hartmann added. ‘All over this place too. We’ve got to check out Olav again. They don’t want to.’

  ‘I got as far as I could,’ Weber said.

  ‘What if Olav didn’t use the flat himself? Maybe he lent the key to someone?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who do you think? Who benefits? Who wins from all of this?’

  Weber stared at him, astonished.

  ‘Bremer? Poul Bremer’s an old man. Him and a nineteen-year-old girl. I can’t—’

  ‘Bremer, Olav. Olav, Bremer.’ Skovgaard looked furious. ‘You’re a murder suspect, Troels. And all you talk about is those two.’

  ‘See who benefits—’

  ‘You have to tell the police!’ she cried.

  ‘I don’t owe those bastards a thing.’

  ‘What does it matter that you went on a drinking binge? This is an election. We need to put this crap behind us.’

  He was dragging on the clean shirt. There was a knock on the door.

  Two men there, dark suits.

  ‘Police,’ the first said. ‘We need you out of this office.’

  Four more came behind carrying metal cases, two of them in blue overalls.

  ‘All yours,’ Hartmann said.

  He went next door into the main office. Skovgaard followed.

  ‘You told me you went drinking on your own. The date. Your wife—’

  ‘Yes! That’s right.’

  ‘So why not tell them where you were!’

  He closed his eyes, exasperated.

  ‘Because it’s none of their damned business.’

  She put a hand to his chest to stop him leaving.

  ‘It’s mine, Troels. Where were you?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got this under control.’

  Downstairs in the elegant arched basement that was the canteen Jens Holck was eating on his own. Reading the paper. Watching the TV news.

  Hartmann found him.

  ‘How’s the food, Jens?’

  ‘The usual.’

  Hartmann pulled up a chair, sat opposite him, smiled, watching Holck’s eyes, his face, his movements.

  ‘So what’s a man to think?’ he asked. ‘Did Troels Hartmann do it or not? They’re saying now he doesn’t even have an alibi. What’s next?’

  Holck cut into his meat.

  ‘Good question. What is next?’

  ‘What’s next is finding the bastard who’s responsible.’

  Holck kept eating.

  ‘Jens. Don’t walk away now. When they clear me you’ll regret it.’

  He didn’t look impressed.

  ‘Will I, Troels? Does it matter? You promised this was the end of it. Now… it looks as if it’ll never stop.’

  ‘It’s a misunderstanding.’

  Holck
shook his head.

  ‘Jens. Trust me. Have I ever let you down?’

  The news came on. Hartmann heard the girl’s name. Everyone in the canteen stopped what they were doing, turned to the TV, saw Pernille Birk Larsen’s interview. Blue checked shirt, notes in her hand, pale, taut face staring at the camera. Not frightened. Determined.

  She began to read.

  ‘I hope that someone saw something. Someone must know something. We need help. We need to hear. It’s as if the police… I don’t know what they’re doing. Maybe they’re not taking it seriously.’

  The reporter asked, ‘How do you feel about Troels Hartmann being a suspect?’

  Eyes wide open, staring into the camera.

  ‘I don’t know about that. But if someone saw something I hope they’ll come forward. Anything might be relevant. Please…’

  ‘I won’t distance the party from you yet,’ Jens Holck said.

  Hartmann nodded gratefully.

  ‘But I can’t be seen with you any more. I’m sorry, Troels.’

  Holck picked up his tray and headed for the stairs.

  Back in Store Kongensgade Lund waited in the living room of the Liberal Party flat. She looked at the broken glass again. The shattered table.

  An argument? An accident? The smallest of fights?

  Thought about the bedroom again.

  Finally the caretaker arrived. He managed several buildings in the area and lived close by.

  ‘You’ve seen Hartmann here before?’ Lund asked.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘With women?’

  He grimaced.

  ‘I’m a caretaker. You see lots of things.’

  ‘Do you remember seeing this woman?’

  She showed him the photo of Nanna.

  He was looking round at the damage. Calculating.

  ‘I’ve seen some ladies ringing the bell. I’ve seen him come in with them.’

  ‘But not her?’ she asked, showing him the photo again.

  ‘No. I think she must have had her own key. She used to let herself into the flat and wait for him.’

  Lund wanted this clear.

  ‘She was with Hartmann?’

  ‘That’s what I said. A couple of months ago. I was changing a washer next door. I saw her outside. I heard him talking.’

  ‘You didn’t see him?’

  ‘Who else could it have been?’

  She put the photo back in her bag.

  ‘When do I hear?’ the caretaker asked.

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘I saw it on the news. There’s a reward. Fifty thousand kroner. When do I hear?’