The Killing tk-1

by David Hewson

  ‘Months ago. When I first knew about it. I asked for a meeting. Bremer said he was going to take care of it. He’d have a word with Holck.’

  ‘When was all this?’

  ‘May, June. He’s Bremer! The Lord Mayor. If he says he’s in control of something who am I to argue? Don’t look at me like that, Hartmann. I’m here, aren’t I?’

  A sound at the door. Morten Weber bustled in.

  ‘Troels. You’re late for your castration. The press conference is assembling. Bremer wants to meet everyone beforehand.’

  Weber caught the atmosphere.

  ‘Gert?’ he said. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  Jan Meyer was in the office with his wife. The kids. Three girls. Seven and five and two. They’d brought him two new toy police cars. Went vroom vroom with them on the desk top.

  ‘Let’s go out for a Sunday meal,’ his wife said.

  He had the eldest on his knee, arms around her waist.

  ‘I’d really like to go home if that’s OK.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Home.’

  ‘We do have food at home, don’t we?’

  His voice grew big and bold, like a cartoon giant.

  ‘I want big steaks and lots of ice cream. And candy and Coke. And then… more big steaks!’

  ‘We can pick up some pizza…’

  A shape beyond the glass. Lund stern-faced and anxious. She’d stopped at the door.

  ‘Wait here,’ Meyer said. ‘I’ve got to talk to someone. It won’t take a moment.’

  Out in the corridor.

  ‘What’s up, Lund?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She touched her head. He looked at her fingers.

  ‘You’re bleeding. The doctor said you’d need that restitched if they came out.’

  ‘We’ve to go back to the canal. I think there’s more out there.’

  ‘Lund…’

  The kids were waving at him from the office. They were making eating gestures. His wife didn’t look happy.

  ‘I’ll tell you on the way.’

  ‘No. Tell me now.’

  ‘I’m not crazy, Meyer.’

  He didn’t speak.

  ‘There’s more,’ she said. ‘Shall we go?’

  Lund drove, Meyer read her files. The radio news was on. Holck’s death. A police officer held hostage. Brix saying the Nanna Birk Larsen case was closed. A truce rumoured at City Hall as the politicians drew in their horns and tried to ride out the blaze that had suddenly burst into life in their midst.

  He was looking at the photo of the necklace. In Nanna’s hand. Around the throat of Mette Hauge twenty-one years before.

  ‘It’s the same,’ Lund said. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘Looks like. Why does this girl stand out?’

  ‘They found her bike. You can read it at the end of the report.’

  Meyer got the page.

  ‘Frieslandsvej?’

  ‘Runs through the Kalvebod Fælled. By the main canal. Close to the Pentecost Forest. You cross the canal and you’re in the woods. The bike was about seven hundred metres from where we found the car.’

  There was a map of the area provided by the local nature foundation. Meyer pored over it.

  ‘There’s little canals criss-crossing this all the way to the coast. You could dump half of Copenhagen out there and we’d never find them.’

  ‘Holck was studying in America when Mette Hauge went missing.’

  She passed him a photocopy of a bachelor’s degree certificate from the University of California in Santa Cruz.

  ‘He never came back all year. It couldn’t be him.’

  ‘All you’ve got is the necklace.’

  ‘And the bike. I know it’s the same man. It has to be.’

  ‘We’ve already searched the canal.’

  ‘He wouldn’t go back to the same place.’

  Meyer waved the map at her.

  ‘This could take years.’

  They passed Vestamager Station, the last on the metro line. Then the road ran straight, south to the Øresund.

  Low, flat land. Nothing but the outline of dead woodland on the right.

  ‘We just need some help,’ Lund said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  There was a pumping station. Two night-duty officers from headquarters. They followed Lund and Meyer through a door, down some stairs, into a dark interior of clanking machines and pumps. The water company had sent an engineer. He was used to visitors. Liked to tell the history. When the Germans invaded Denmark they were looking for any excuse they could find to ship out the local men and put them to work in Nazi labour camps.

  So the Copenhagen government invented phoney schemes to keep them at home. One was land reclamation. The project had no practical purpose. But it kept hundreds of Danes out of the hands of the Germans for a while.

  ‘And now,’ he said over the sound of the machinery, ‘we keep pumping. Eighty per cent of the ground round here is below sea level. If we didn’t the Øresund would want it back.’

  He had a better map. Meyer looked at it and sighed. The drainage network was even more complex than it first looked, spanning the entire area like a watery nervous system on a haphazard path to the sea.

  ‘Here’s the bridge where we found Nanna,’ she said, pointing to the spot on the map. ‘Where does the canal go?’

  ‘All of the canals take drainage water to the seawater reservoir. That’s why they’re there.’

  Her finger traced back from the point of Nanna’s death to the ditch where Mette Hauge’s bike was left.

  ‘This is impossible, Lund,’ Meyer grumbled. ‘Where the hell do we start?’

  She stared at him, puzzled. It seemed an uncharacteristically oblique question.

  ‘We start by thinking like he did.’ She was showing the company man the map again. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A drain line that flowed onto the old road.’

  ‘What road?’

  ‘The old road,’ he said as if she was supposed to know. ‘We closed it down twenty years or so ago. We didn’t need it. No one went there. Why would they?’

  ‘This is where we look,’ Lund said, tapping her finger on the map. ‘Get divers out to all the canals and ditches that lead off it. We need to drag the lake.’

  ‘Oh no,’ the engineer said, laughing nervously. ‘You can’t do that. We’d have to close down everything if people know you’re looking for a body.’

  ‘Shutting it down’s the best thing to do,’ Lund said. ‘Let’s say forty-eight hours.’

  She looked at the night men.

  ‘Bring more people in.’

  ‘You can’t! There’s a hundred and fifty thousand homes on the system. Hospitals. Old people’s homes.’

  ‘We’ll be as quick as we can.’

  There was a tall figure at the top of the steps. Long coat, long face.

  Brix came clunking down the metal stairs.

  Lund walked straight to him.

  ‘They never found Mette Hauge’s body,’ she said quickly. ‘Her bike was close to where Nanna was left. The black necklace was Mette’s. We’ve got to search the canals. It’s the same man.’

  ‘OK,’ Brix said. ‘Send in the divers.’

  She couldn’t believe how easy this was.

  ‘I’ll get onto the air force for some F-16s,’ he added. ‘Alert NATO. Anything else? Can we get a submarine in here?’

  ‘Listen. Holck wasn’t in the country then.’

  ‘So he didn’t kill Mette Hauge. There’s a surprise. But he did murder Nanna. That’s what matters. I read your boyfriend’s memo. It’s just theory. The case is solved. Holck had an affair with Nanna. His prints were all over the flat.’

  ‘They could be old. Where did Holck take her? We still don’t know. It wasn’t that warehouse he was staying in. There’s nothing there—’

  ‘Just go home, will you? Work things out with your boyfriend. Then catch a plane to Sweden. Please.’

  He started walking
off.

  She was getting mad and wished she wasn’t.

  ‘That’s what you want, is it? For me to shut up. Did Bremer ask for that too? Is that part of the deal?’

  Brix turned and looked at her.

  ‘I’m a patient man, you know. But everything runs out in the end. Didn’t you notice?’

  ‘I’m telling you, Brix.’

  He held out his hand.

  ‘I want your police ID.’

  She tried to argue. He wouldn’t listen. Lund handed it over.

  ‘And the car keys.’

  Meyer had seen something, was walking over.

  ‘You need all the help you can get, Lund,’ Brix said. ‘Thank God you’re off my budget so I don’t have to pay for it.’

  He threw the car keys. Meyer caught them.

  ‘Cancel everything she asked for. She’s someone else’s problem now.’

  Meyer drove her home, trying in his own way to offer some comfort.

  ‘We could have pissed around there for the rest of our lives and never found a thing. Come on.’

  Her head was bleeding again. She dabbed at it with a tissue. In the end left the bloody stump of paper stuck to the back of her scalp.

  ‘And anyway the water guy said they checked the bacteria level daily. The bit you were talking about was near the water supply. They’d have picked up something.’

  ‘It was twenty-one years ago. Forget the canal for now. Why did Nanna go to the flat? She was looking forward to something, remember? Those pictures of her at school. She was happy.’

  ‘She liked Holck. That’s why she was happy.’

  Lund looked at him and blinked.

  ‘OK. Maybe that doesn’t work,’ Meyer confessed. ‘But you never know everything.’

  ‘Why didn’t they go to the flat together?’

  ‘Because he’s a politician. He can’t be seen in public with a nineteen-year-old girl. And maybe—’

  ‘Oh for pity’s sake. Do you think I’m crazy too?’

  ‘Of course I don’t. I’m driving you home, aren’t I?’

  ‘You always make a joke of things when they turn awkward.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re crazy, Lund. OK?’

  ‘You need to check the Mette Hauge file. It was a big case back then. They conducted seventeen hundred interviews. There has to be someone who links into Nanna.’

  Meyer groaned.

  ‘I need to do it?’

  ‘Yes. Brix has my ID. I can’t get into the archives. Do it tonight. Look for recurring names. Locations.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘See if there are any—’

  ‘No!’ Meyer roared.

  Silence.

  ‘This has to stop,’ he said finally. ‘It’s turned into an obsession.’

  She looked out of the window and said, ‘I understand you’ll feel bad if it wasn’t Holck.’

  His hands came off the wheel. Clapped them, then went back to driving.

  ‘In case you didn’t notice, I shot Holck for your sake. Not Nanna’s. She was already dead.’

  Silence.

  ‘Why is it you’re so aware of everything around you? But not yourself?’

  He hesitated.

  ‘Not even your own family.’

  ‘You did the right thing, Meyer.’

  ‘I know I did the right thing. It’s not about that. The case is closed. Done.’

  She wouldn’t look at him.

  ‘You’re the only one who can’t understand that. You need to talk to a psychologist or something.’

  ‘So I am crazy?’

  ‘I didn’t mean it that way.’

  ‘There’s another way?’

  ‘Oh for the love of God…’

  She undid her seat belt, grabbed her coat.

  ‘Stop the car. Let me out here.’

  ‘Don’t be so childish.’

  The folders went into her bag. She put a hand on the door, started to open it even as the car was moving.

  ‘Calm down!’ Meyer yelled.

  ‘Stop this thing and let me out.’

  ‘Do you even know where you are?’

  Lund looked at the street lights. Somewhere near Vesterbro. The wrong side of town for her mother’s place.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know.’

  Hartmann walked into the press conference, Skovgaard by his side.

  ‘Why are we even here?’ she said in a cold, hard whisper. ‘You heard what Stokke said. Bremer could have cleared you from the outset…’

  Another wood-panelled room. Paintings, old and new on the walls. Reporters assembling. Cameramen adjusting their gear. The party leaders in a huddle by the podium.

  Weber was with her for once.

  ‘You can’t ignore the facts,’ he said. ‘This is a travesty.’

  Mai Juhl came and shook his hand.

  ‘It’s good of you to come, Troels. After all you’ve been through.’

  ‘All he’s been put through,’ Weber muttered.

  ‘No problem, Mai,’ Hartmann said. ‘Will you give me a minute?’

  Poul Bremer had just walked in, was reading some documents. He saw Hartmann approaching.

  ‘I’m glad you came. Let’s get on with it.’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  The reporters were taking their seats.

  ‘No, Troels. Not now.’

  ‘You knew Holck transferred that money to Olav Christensen.’

  Bremer thrust his fists into his trouser pockets, looked at him, mouth open, eyes narrow.

  ‘Did I? Says who?’

  Hartmann didn’t answer.

  ‘Ah. Let me guess. One of the civil servants?’ Bremer smiled. ‘Makes sense. They always watch their own backs first.’

  ‘You knew,’ Hartmann told him. ‘Don’t try to wriggle out of it.’

  ‘Of course I didn’t know!’ He patted Hartmann’s shoulder. ‘Troels… you’ve been through a lot. It shows. You really must learn to control that temper of yours.’

  Hartmann didn’t rise to the bait.

  ‘Listen,’ Bremer went on. ‘Holck’s civil servants are squabbling among themselves. They know I’m going to conduct a closed hearing into this mess. They’ll invent any nonsense they can to dodge the blame.’

  The genial smile, the twinkling eyes.

  ‘You’ve been through hell. I can see why you’re suspicious. Holck and maybe some of his people deceived all of us. We need to clean up this mess together. We will. Agreed?’

  No answer.

  ‘Or would you rather believe them than me?’ Poul Bremer asked. Another pat. Another smile. ‘Good. Let’s get started.’

  More reporters through the door. Bremer beaming from the podium. A well-prepared speech about how Holck’s exposure had come as a shock to all. How one city councillor above all others had unfairly borne the brunt of the fallout.

  ‘We’ve all witnessed the unreasonable accusations Troels Hartmann has been subjected to,’ Bremer said, putting a hand on Hartmann’s shoulder. ‘Never for one moment did I believe them. But politicians must respond to events and we did, in good faith but mistakenly. Now, in City Hall, we declare a borg fred, a truce. We bury our differences for the benefit of Copenhagen…’

  Hartmann turned to him and said, his voice caught by the microphone, ‘You’re the head of the finance committee.’

  The old man stopped, glared.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re the head of the finance committee.’

  No smile. No warmth now.

  ‘We’ll talk about this later,’ Bremer said in a low, hard voice.

  Hartmann wouldn’t be silenced.

  ‘How could the committee not know that Holck authorized the money, not me? How’s that possible? You lied to me…’

  Bremer was stuttering, caught between the audience and Hartmann.

  ‘As… as we’ve already agreed—’

  Hartmann took the microphone from him.

  ‘The Liberal group will not be a part of this f
arce,’ he said, watching the reporters start to scribble furiously. ‘If we do what Poul Bremer wishes we’ll never know the full truth of Holck’s actions, and who was party to them.’

  One of the TV political hacks cried out, ‘What do you mean, Hartmann? Say it.’

  ‘I mean that the Lord Mayor knows more about this case than he’s told any of us. And the police.’

  Bremer stared at Hartmann, at the other leaders, furious.

  ‘I’ve no further comments for the moment,’ Hartmann added. ‘As far as the Liberals are concerned this election’s like any other. We fight every seat and we fight to win.’

  He left the podium. The press divided, half to him, half to Bremer demanding answers.

  Back in his office Hartmann told them to speak to all the financial backers who’d dropped out. Brief them on the situation. Find new ones.

  Skovgaard was on the phone. Weber was tugging at his unruly head of hair.

  ‘We’re going to have the media down our throats demanding an explanation, Troels. What am I supposed to say?’

  ‘When I’ve clarified things with Stokke we’ll put out a statement. Fix a meeting with him.’

  ‘Stokke’s a civil servant. He won’t come forward. He’s not going to put his career on the line for us.’

  ‘It’s his duty to tell the truth,’ Hartmann insisted. ‘I’ll meet with him. We’ll work this out. Oh for Christ’s sake, Morten. Don’t look so worried. You wanted out of the truce, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did. But you haven’t learned yet, have you? Throw a stone at Bremer and you get a boulder back. I’ll try…’

  He wandered off into the main room.

  Hartmann was alone with Skovgaard. Hands in pockets. Tongue-tied.

  She’d come off the phone.

  ‘Did I remember to thank you?’ he said. ‘For all the work?’

  ‘It’s what I’m paid for.’

  Hair back. Attractive face tired and lined. But she thrived on pressure. Liked the tension. The race.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a mess, Rie.’

  ‘Me too.’

  She didn’t leave then and she might have.

  The briefest of laughs.

  ‘Still, that was quite a performance. Stealing the limelight from Bremer in front of everyone. I forgot you had that in you.’

  ‘What else could I do? Bremer knew. It was written in his face. He knew and I don’t think he even minded if I saw it.’ A glance outside the window. The Copenhagen night. The blue hotel sign. ‘He really thinks this all belongs to him.’