by David Hewson
‘Not this time. But you choose.’
His voice grew louder. The others looked at him the way they used to do. In meek obedience.
‘All of you,’ Bremer said, ‘must choose. Do it wisely this time.’
From the corridor Lund watched as Svendsen dealt with Hartmann in the detention room.
Standard procedure. Happened every day. But not to a man in a fine business suit, a politician of Hartmann’s stature.
Svendsen counted out his belongings. Seven hundred kroner and some change. Twenty euros. Two credit cards and a phone.
‘Now remove your jacket and put it on the chair.’
A uniformed officer wrote down a tally of the items.
‘Your tie,’ Svendsen said.
They watched.
‘Shoes on the table.’
Hartmann did it.
‘Now lift your arms. I need to search you.’
The uniformed officer got up and twisted the venetian blinds. Lund saw no more.
Back to the office, Brix in a chair, looking at the paperwork.
‘So we can prove Hartmann was behind the payments to the civil servant?’ he asked.
‘It’s a bit complicated,’ Meyer said. ‘But from what the Bressau guy came up with it looks that way.’
‘Has he said anything?’
‘Not a word.’
Brix looked at Lund.
‘We should focus on the hit-and-run driver,’ she said. ‘We know that couldn’t be Hartmann.’
‘I want you on the Nanna case. That’s Hartmann. Not the civil servant.’
Lund picked up the paper from Bremer’s press man.
‘I talked to people in Hartmann’s department. No one’s even heard of this arrangement. Yet Bressau can pull it out of the files in five minutes flat.’
‘So he kept it quiet,’ Meyer said.
‘Hartmann tried to fire Olav! He gave us his name!’
Brix didn’t budge.
‘If he’s innocent why won’t he say so?’
‘I don’t know! But this doesn’t add up.’
‘Then we bring in the prosecutor,’ Brix said. ‘Maybe that’ll loosen his tongue. One way or another that stuck-up bastard’s going to talk.’
She played with Meyer’s toy car, listened to the little siren.
‘Are we here to find Nanna Birk Larsen’s murderer? Or to make some kind of political point for the man who runs City Hall?’
Brix smiled. She hadn’t seen that much before.
‘Just this once I’ll forget you said that, Lund. Perhaps, when it comes to Hartmann, you lack your customary objectivity.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
Brix turned to Meyer for support. Meyer stared at the desk.
‘Thanks,’ Lund threw at him. ‘Great teamwork.’
Then she picked up her bag, walked out of the office, slamming the door behind her.
Brix watched her go.
‘You can do it yourself, Meyer. Get on with it.’ The smile again. ‘Good work.’
‘Maybe we should listen to her, chief.’
‘Why?’
‘When Lund gets an idea…’
Brix waited.
‘There’s usually something in it. Haven’t you noticed?’
Lennart Brix looked at him with sorrowful eyes.
‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘You were doing so well too.’
‘What?’
‘Two steps forward. One step back. Don’t stumble again. You can’t afford it.’
On her way out Lund stopped to chase the night team.
‘Call any accident repair shops. Tell them to look for a white estate. Damage to the front and left wing. Let me know.’
Morten Weber was waiting in the corridor.
‘You’ve got to listen to me, Lund. This is out of control.’
‘Talk to Jan Meyer. He’s on duty. I’m not.’
‘Hartmann didn’t kill that girl. It’s absurd.’
‘So he should tell us where he was. It’s not hard.’
Weber was struggling with something. This interested her.
‘It is hard.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s a proud man. He needs his dignity. Pathetic I know but there you are. It doesn’t make him a murderer.’
She waited.
‘Troels isn’t as strong or as confident as he seems. You know that, Lund. You can read people.’
‘This isn’t about reading people.’
‘He’s a fool sometimes. I don’t know why I put up with it.’
‘You should tell this to the judge. I don’t think it’ll work. It doesn’t for me.’
She walked towards the exit. Weber followed.
‘Let me talk to him,’ he pleaded.
‘You must be joking.’
‘Jesus, Lund. He’s about to be excluded from the election! It’s the only thing that matters to him.’
She stopped.
‘Is this a joke to you people? A young girl dead. Raped. Murdered. And every time we ask you what’s going on you lie and duck and dodge our questions?’
To his credit Weber looked embarrassed.
‘Well?’ she added. ‘Is it a joke? A kid? Battered then dumped in a car to drown? Do you want to see the photos, Morten?’
She took his arm.
‘Come on. Let’s look at them and laugh.’
Lund was getting angry. It didn’t happen often. She liked the release.
‘We’ve got ones of the autopsy too if you’d like—’
‘Stop this, Lund. It’s beneath you.’
Bright eyes staring, hand on his jacket.
‘Beneath me? Nothing’s beneath me. Not if I can find out who killed Nanna Birk Larsen. If you know where Hartmann was tell me. Or else get out of here. Stop wasting my time.’
Weber did nothing for a moment, then shook his head.
‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’
‘Sleep well,’ she said and showed him to the door.
Lund picked up Mark from a party, drove him back to Vibeke’s listening to the radio. Hartmann had been arrested on suspicion of Nanna’s murder. He was going to be reported to the Electoral Commission and stripped of his right to stand for election.
‘Does it have to be so loud?’ Mark asked.
She turned it off.
‘Was the party fun?’
The Birk Larsen case felt hardwired inside her head.
A long, long pause then he said, with a pained drawl, ‘It was OK.’
‘I know you haven’t been at school all week.’
She looked at him for an answer, got none.
‘I know it’s difficult to go back after you’ve said goodbye. I’m sorry. But you can’t skip school. Mark?’
He was gazing out of the window, watching the rainy night pass by.
‘I won’t accept it. Do you understand?’
He thought for a while.
‘Is it OK if I go and stay at Dad’s for a couple of days?’
She stared at the black wet road ahead.
‘When did you talk to Carsten about this?’
‘Is it OK?’
‘No. It’s not OK. When did you talk to him?’
‘What does it matter? I spend all my time with Grandma anyway. Not with you.’
‘You know what your father’s like. He promises something and then… he forgets.’
He sighed and stared at the dashboard.
‘You know how upset you get when that happens. I won’t have it. They only just moved here. They’ve got things to do.’
‘He said it was OK.’
‘When did he talk to you about this? When?’
‘I’m not one of your suspects, Mum.’
‘Where were you all week anyway? What did you do?’
His face was back at the window.
‘Everything’s fine at Dad’s house. They’ve got a room for me.’
‘It’s still not going to happen.’
He thrust his feet deep into the fo
otwell, locked his arms together. Torn between child and teenager.
‘I know it’s been difficult, Mark. But don’t worry. I’ll deal with it. Nothing’s changed. We’re still the same.’
‘It’s not the same. You damn well know it.’
‘Mark—’
‘I don’t want to talk about this.’
‘Mark—’
‘It’s my life!’ he yelled. ‘You don’t own me.’
Eight
Saturday, 15th November
Nine in the morning, outside Vibeke’s flat. Mark with his things. Skis and hockey gear. Sports bags and a small suitcase.
Hands in pockets, looking older. Lund couldn’t stop herself coming close to him, carefully running up his zip, straightening the collar of his jacket.
‘It’s all right, Mum.’
‘No it’s not. It’s cold.’
Winter coming on. A bite in the wind. Another year passing. Mark growing older, growing further away from her.
He didn’t shrink from her touch. She was grateful for that.
Eyes locked on the distance, impatient to go.
‘Dad’s coming.’
Shiny red Saab. Sports wheels. Darkened windows. Men’s toys.
Mark looked at it and smiled.
‘See you,’ he said, then picked up his things, threw them on the back seat, climbed into the front.
Carsten wound down the window. He looked good. Dark business coat, different glasses. Hair too long for the police, but the police he’d left long behind. Along with her. Carsten was ambitious in a way she never quite understood. It was about money and position. Not achievement, not how Lund measured it.
The man she once married, once slept with and loved, smiled at her briefly, a touch of regret, of shame even in his placid, managerial face.
And once you hit me, Lund recalled. Just once. And no, I never asked for it.
The shiny red Saab rolled across the cobbles.
Lund waved and smiled at both of them. Stopped the moment they were round the corner.
‘Hello?’
Meyer was behind her, his car a few feet away. She never noticed.
‘Is he moving out?’
‘Just for a few days,’ she said a little sharply.
‘First the Swede. Then junior. I hope your mother stays put.’
She stared at him. Cruelty wasn’t part of Meyer’s odd personality. He was both simple and complex at the same time. In a way she liked that.
‘Any news about the car?’
‘No.’
‘We need to check the Rådhus garage again.’
‘Maybe. Brix came up with something. I don’t know where.’
She said nothing.
‘He’s the chief, Lund. You’ve got to stop fighting him. He’s not taking orders.’
‘Brix doesn’t need to take orders. He knows what they want.’
The leather biker’s jacket again. It was getting scruffy.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It’s how it works. You don’t think Poul Bremer calls Brix and tells him what to do. He doesn’t have to. Brix knows.’
She knew too.
‘Fix Hartmann. Any way he can.’
She’d thought this through, tallied the idea with every small occurrence in headquarters that had puzzled her.
‘It’s called power. And all of us…’ Theis and Pernille Birk Larsen too. ‘We don’t really count.’
‘Brix found some information on a property Hartmann owns. He’s got a cottage he didn’t tell us about.’
A sheet of paper came out of his jacket pocket. Lund looked at it. Pointed at the stamp of the City Hall property register department at the top.
‘I wonder how we came to have that.’
‘We have to look. Brix is there already. Do you want to come?’
The cottage was ten kilometres from the city near Dragør, not far from Kemal’s more modest allotment. Six cars, two unmarked, stood around the drive. Red tape marked the garden boundary. A single-storey wooden bungalow, modest and run-down, almost engulfed by a ragged wood of conifers.
Svendsen was leading the team. Lund and Meyer walked in, listening to him.
‘Hartmann inherited the place from his wife. Looks like they started to spend money on it then gave up when she died.’
The kitchen was a mess. Dirty plates over a modern stove. The only light came from the open door and some floodlights the forensic team had assembled.
Lund looked at the windows. Every one was blocked. By sheets. By a duvet. By tablecloths.
‘The weekend Nanna disappeared two neighbours saw a black car in the driveway. This is where he was.’
In the living room two officers in white suits were tramping round marking items of interest, taking photos.
‘The description fits the campaign car Nanna was found in.’
The windows here had mattresses piled up against the glass.
‘Did anyone see him?’ Meyer asked.
‘No. But we’ve got fresh prints. They’re his. And there’s this.’
He picked up an evidence bag from the table. The evening newspaper from Friday, October the thirty-first.
‘It was taped over the broken window.’
Lund looked at the shattered glass at the top of one of the long frames by the sunny side of the bungalow. There was blood on some of the shards that lay scattered round the polished wooden floorboards.
Brix marched in.
‘Hartmann needed somewhere isolated,’ he said. ‘He got it. He didn’t have a key with him so he broke the window to get in.’
Lund took a cushion off the sofa, sniffed it. The place had a lingering, residual smell. It was stronger on the soft cotton of the cushion.
‘Then he covered the windows so no one could see what he was up to,’ Brix added.
Svendsen pointed back to the kitchen.
‘The utility room has a cement floor. That’s where he kept her tied up. There’s blood there.’
She walked through to the next room. A double bed. Crumpled sheets. Blood there too but not much of it.
‘What did you find here?’ she asked.
Svendsen glanced at Brix.
‘We’re still looking, Lund.’
Brix checked his watch.
‘I’m going back. When you get some hard evidence let me know. I’ll put it in front of the judge.’
He walked up to Lund, caught her eye as she scanned the room.
‘Can I count on you?’
‘Always,’ she said.
Then he left with Svendsen, the two of them talking in low, inaudible voices.
Meyer stayed, studying the room much as she had, following her lead.
There was a purple towel wrapped up tightly and stuffed beneath the bottom of the bathroom door.
Lund nodded at an air vent in the wall. A balled-up newspaper had been shoved into the grille.
‘Forensics didn’t mention gas,’ he said. ‘This place stinks of it. If Nanna was here there’d be traces.’
Lund shook her head.
‘Would you leave your car out in the drive where anyone could see it?’
‘This isn’t right,’ Meyer said. ‘I don’t give a shit what Brix thinks. We’ll check out the hit-and-run driver.’
She walked outside, took a deep breath. The woods reminded her of the Pentecost Forest not so far away.
‘What do we tell Brix?’ he asked.
‘He’s busy talking to the judge. Let’s not disturb him.’
Pernille Birk Larsen sat in the kitchen, fawn raincoat on, mind wandering, letting the phone ring.
It was Lotte who finally answered it.
‘The undertaker needs to talk to you, Pernille.’
She couldn’t take her eyes off the things around her. The table, the photos, the things on the wall. And through the door Nanna’s room, now back as it was. Empty yet preserved, like a shrine.
‘Tell him I’m on my way,’ she said, and went to the door.
Downstairs the men were working as always. Vagn Skærbæk supervising carts and slings, crates and boxes.
He followed her to the car.
‘Have you heard from Theis?’
‘No.’
‘So you don’t know what the hell…?’
His voice died under the force of her gaze.
‘There’s an office job from Brøndby to Enigheden. Is it being dealt with?’
‘I sent Franz and Rudi there.’
He held the door as she climbed into the car.
‘Maybe you should call him, Pernille.’
She placed her hands on the wheel, didn’t look at him.
‘I’m grateful you’re taking care of the business, Vagn. Stay out of this.’
That plaintive, pale face at the window. The silver chain. The too-young, eager worried look.
‘Yeah. Well. I’ll try to get hold of him. If the two of you…’
A car pulled in behind her. Pernille Birk Larsen’s head fell against the wheel.
It was Lund.
‘I was told your sister was here.’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I want to ask her some questions.’
She made for the garage and the apartment.
‘How sure are you it’s Hartmann?’
Lund didn’t answer.
‘The reward helped, didn’t it?’
There was a note of desperation, of guilt in Pernille Birk Larsen’s voice.
Lund looked at her and said, ‘I can’t talk about the case. Sorry.’
Then she walked inside.
Lotte Holst was doing the washing. She looked as mutinous and unhelpful as her sister.
‘I’ve told you everything. What else is there to say?’
‘You’re the only one who knew about this affair. I still don’t understand—’
‘It was Hartmann, wasn’t it?’ Lotte asked as she ran through the boys’ clothes, stuffing them into the machine.
‘What happened over the summer?’
The sister kept sorting the washing in silence.
‘I read the emails on the nightclub’s dating site,’ Lund said, taking the printouts from her bag.
‘I don’t work there any more.’
‘The emails are odd. He still wants to see her but her answers become more and more infrequent. Did she tell you it was over?’
Lotte hesitated.
‘No. But she was going cold on him. I could see that. Maybe there was someone else. I don’t know.’
She threw in some powder, closed the door, turned on the machine.
