The Killing 2

by David Hewson

  ‘Don’t bother. It was just a few hours. I did nothing. I’ve got to see my mother anyway. It’s why I came. I’ll get a taxi. Don’t worry about it.’

  He didn’t move.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she said again.

  ‘Svendsen got it out of him. You never liked him much.’

  ‘He didn’t listen. He didn’t do what I told him. Oh, yes. He’s a thug too.’

  Lennart Brix got up, shook her hand, then went and opened the door.

  ‘Thanks anyway,’ he told her.

  Raben met Myg Poulsen in the same visiting room. The sofa bed had changed position. Another prisoner had received a visitor. The place smelled of sweat and quick sex.

  Poulsen was a little man with a miserable pinched face. Recovered from his wounds mostly though he walked with a limp. Back in army camouflage fatigues. He threw his arms round Raben, embraced him, laughed.

  ‘I’m sorry I don’t come more often.’ He didn’t look Raben in the eye when he said that. ‘Lots of work with the veterans’ club. And things . . .’

  His weedy voice trailed off into silence.

  ‘Louise said you could help me get a job.’

  ‘I can try.’ Poulsen pulled a note out of his pocket. ‘I don’t know if it’s any help. They’re looking for a carpenter. The boss was in the regiment. Maybe he’ll bend the rules a little for one of his own.’

  He handed over a name and a phone number.

  ‘Retired sergeant. God, did I have to listen to some war stories to get that. There’ll be some work in a couple of months.’

  ‘Does he know where I am?’

  ‘He knows. He’s helped us before. Get Louise to call and he’ll send the paperwork.’ A pause, as if he was scared to say something. ‘You’re ready now, Jens? You’re better.’

  Raben pocketed the note.

  ‘I’m better.’

  ‘We help each other, right? That’s what it’s about. The club can help you find somewhere to live. I’ll get Louise some details before I go.’

  He was looking askance again, fidgeting the way he did when they were getting ready for a mission.

  ‘Go where?’ Raben asked in his sergeant’s voice, the one that couldn’t be ignored.

  Poulsen wriggled on the seat.

  ‘Back to Afghanistan. I’m with the team that leaves next week. Six months. Looking forward to it. What’s there to do for the likes of me here?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Helmand. Camp Viking to start with. I’m just a squaddie. How should I know? I only asked a couple of days ago. It’s fine. No problem.’

  Raben got up, stood in the way of the door.

  ‘Last time we met you said you were out of all that.’

  ‘I have to go.’

  Poulsen started to walk past him. Raben took hold of his arm. The little man snatched it away, didn’t look so friendly any more.

  ‘What is it, Myg? What did you do? Maybe I can help . . .’

  ‘You’re a nutcase,’ Poulsen snarled. ‘How can you help me?’

  ‘I don’t remember what happened. I know it was bad . . .’

  ‘You know jack shit! Keep it that way.’

  Poulsen’s pale face was going red with fury and fear.

  ‘All that crap’s done with, Raben. Buried. If people come asking questions . . .’

  ‘What questions?’

  ‘Best you didn’t know.’ His shrill voice rose. ‘Guard!’

  ‘Myg . . .’

  ‘Guard! Get me out of here!’

  Raben took hold of him again. The little man wriggled out of his strong grip.

  ‘I can get you a job,’ Poulsen yelled at him. ‘That’s it. But you start opening your mouth and the whole deal’s off. You don’t drag me down with you again. Not going to happen . . .’

  The door was open. The guard was there, swinging his stick. Raben let go, watched Myg Poulsen hurry out of the room.

  He knew something. So did Raben once. The truth was still there. He understood that. It rumbled round the back of his head like an angry dumb monster lost in the dark.

  Her mother’s flat in Østerbro was full of memories, few of them pleasant. Not now. Mark was there, tall and handsome, happier than he’d ever been with her. She’d not been a bad mother. Just failed to be an actively good one. So he’d settled with her ex-husband, got more money spent on him than she could ever have afforded on her present salary. And he’d hate Gedser, with good reason.

  Fourteen candles on the cake. Vibeke, her mother, happy too, with what looked like a new boyfriend in tow. Lots of relatives with names she struggled to remember. They sang Happy Birthday, watched as Mark bent down to blow out the candles on his cake.

  He was kind enough to wear the blue Netto sweatshirt she’d bought him, put it on the moment it was out of the terrible wrapping. A nasty, cheap thing and one size too small.

  The boyfriend was called Bjørn. He was a rotund, balding cheerful figure, mid-sixties she guessed, happily recording every second of the party on a video camera. When the candles were out Vibeke clapped her hands and they all fell silent on command.

  ‘Since you’re here,’ she declared in a ringing, happy tone, ‘Bjørn and I have an announcement.’

  Her mother was blushing. Lund wondered when she’d witnessed this before.

  ‘This darling man has been foolish enough to propose to me,’ Vibeke said, beaming like a schoolgirl. ‘What could I say?’

  ‘Only yes,’ Bjørn answered with a grin.

  ‘So I did. I won’t wear white. There’s going to be no fuss. There. That’s it.’

  She hesitated, then added, ‘On Saturday. This Saturday. You’ll all get invitations. Who said old people couldn’t be impulsive?’

  There was an astonished silence then a ragged burst of applause. Lund found herself giggling, hand over her mouth.

  Mark came over.

  She stroked his chest, laughed at the ridiculously tight sweatshirt.

  ‘I’m sorry. You grow so quickly.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ His voice was deep and calm. She could scarcely believe he was the same troubled kid who’d lived with her here for a while during the Birk Larsen case. ‘It’s nice you’re back. When do you have to leave?’

  ‘In a minute.’

  ‘Gran said you were here for a job interview. You might come and live in Copenhagen again.’

  ‘No. How are things?’

  ‘Fine.’

  There was disappointment on his face. She was back with the twelve-year-old Mark for a moment. Once again she’d failed him.

  He took her by the arms, kissed her once on the cheek, said something sweet and terribly grown-up and understanding.

  Vibeke was crying out fresh orders to eat more cake.

  Lund’s eyes strayed to the floor. There was something there. A scrap of cellophane next to the wrapping paper ripped off the gifts.

  Same size as the unidentified, half-torn piece they’d found in Anne Dragsholm’s house.

  Ruth Hedeby had hated it when Lund told her they all had to look harder. But really that was what the job amounted to. Looking. Never turning away, however hard that might be.

  Lund bent down and retrieved the cellophane from the floor. On the table above was a plastic case by Bjørn’s busy video camera. A new cassette waiting for its turn.

  She put the wrapper in her pocket, walked out into the corridor, got out her phone.

  It took two calls.

  ‘Strange here.’

  ‘It’s Lund. I can’t get hold of Brix.’

  ‘Is this important? I’m busy.’

  He was in the street somewhere. She could hear the traffic.

  ‘It’s about the Dragsholm murder. That piece of cellophane . . .’

  ‘I thought you were done with this.’

  ‘He filmed the whole thing. Unless you think the husband’s capable of that you’ve got the wrong man.’

  Strange didn’t answer.

  ‘I want to visit the house aga
in,’ Lund said. ‘OK?’

  A long, miserable sigh.

  ‘Give me an hour.’

  ‘What’s wrong with now? Strange?’

  ‘An hour,’ he repeated and then the line went dead.

  Behind her the guests were singing again. She had a horrible feeling she was expected to join in.

  The Ryvangen Barracks stood in a triangle of land where the railway lines in Østerbro forked north out of the city. Louise Raben and her son Jonas had lived there with her father, Colonel Torsten Jarnvig, for almost a year since the money ran out for the flat that was meant to be a family home. Raben had never lived in it. He’d been confined to Herstedvester on psychiatric grounds not long after his return. There’d been a violent incident no one fully understood, a court case, an indefinite sentence.

  So she and Jonas moved to Ryvangen, temporarily, or so it was supposed. She still wanted a home of her own. A life outside the close-knit community that was the army. But that wasn’t possible. His release date got put back constantly. She didn’t have enough money to pay for a place herself. So she and Jonas took the one spare room in her father’s quarters. It was modest, but not as rudimentary as the accommodation she’d once shared with her husband in a sergeant’s flat.

  Jarnvig was a solitary man, dedicated to the army. His wife, Louise’s mother, had long since fled, hating military life. Now he was barracks colonel, officer in charge.

  Louise loved her father though she saw too much of him. In his own way he was trying to take Raben’s place, nagging her to find a local school for Jonas, to convert the basement, make two rooms so they had more space. Late that afternoon, seated at the dining table, picking at a sandwich, he was back with the same song.

  ‘You have to enrol early to get the best school. It’s important . . .’

  Jonas was sitting on the spare room floor. He had the latest toy that Christian Søgaard had given him. Søgaard was a major, a handsome, confident, strutting man, her father’s number two. He hung around the house a lot, smiled at Louise, patted the boy on the head. Gave him toy soldiers, with guns and uniforms. Jonas loved them, liked to sit next to Søgaard who laughed as he shouted, ‘Bang, bang.’

  That afternoon Jonas had got into a fight at kindergarten. Another kid had teased him about his father. Søgaard had gone to pick him up, intervened, taken him home.

  Louise knew what Søgaard really wanted. So, she suspected, did her father. Army marriages fell apart in all the usual predictable ways. Absence either sealed or broke them. Raben’s disappearance into the maw of the Danish psychiatric penal system was worse, even, than his six-month postings to Iraq and then Afghanistan. At least with them she knew when he was supposed to come home. Unless it was on a hospital stretcher or in a coffin.

  ‘The school depends on where we’re living, Dad. Jens should be released soon. He can get a job. Myg says there’s work on building sites. Carpentry . . .’

  ‘And you’ll leave us? The infirmary loves you. We need you here.’

  She was a nurse in the barracks hospital. A good job. Lousy pay. But she felt wanted, appreciated, and that mattered.

  Jarnvig picked up his mug of coffee.

  ‘You really think they’ll let him out?’

  ‘Why not? He’s better. There’s no reason to keep him in that place. You’d know if you met him.’

  ‘And if he isn’t? You’ve been waiting two years.’

  ‘I know how long I’ve been waiting. I’ve counted every day.’

  ‘You keep putting things off. It affects you. It affects Jonas . . .’

  She always thought her father a handsome man. Tall, straight-backed, confident, honest and decent. She was fifteen when her mother walked out, took a plane to Spain to find a new life on her own. The pain of her loss was still there, for both of them.

  ‘Jens is Jonas’s father and I love him. If that’s a problem for you I can move out right away.’

  He took a bite of his sandwich then flicked through some papers on the table.

  A knock on the door. Said Bilal. One of the younger officers. The new breed. Danish-born Muslim, son of immigrant parents. Dark-haired, dark-skinned, no friends she knew of. If he smiled she never saw it.

  He stood helmet in hand, full combat fatigues, stiff and upright.

  ‘Major Søgaard said you wanted an update on the loading schedule. ’

  ‘Later,’ Jarnvig said and didn’t look up.

  ‘There’s a lance corporal I need to talk about . . .’

  ‘Later. Thank you.’

  ‘He’s not a happy soldier,’ Louise said when Bilal left.

  ‘So what? Soon he’ll be in Helmand. They do it because they have to. We shouldn’t expect a song and dance.’

  She went back into the spare room and joined Jonas and Christian Søgaard on the floor.

  ‘I want to show Dad my new toy,’ Jonas said. ‘When can we see him?’

  She kissed his soft fair hair.

  ‘Soon.’

  Søgaard’s attention was more on her than Jonas, and in a way she didn’t mind. He was a good-looking, attentive man. For two years she’d lived like a widow or a virgin. It felt fine to have someone around who gave her an admiring glance from time to time.

  ‘How soon?’ Jonas asked.

  ‘Very,’ Louise Raben replied without the least hesitation, returning Christian Søgaard’s smile.

  Carsten Plough loathed change deeply, which meant that he also hated the arrival of a new minister. It was like marrying a stranger. A civil servant never knew what he was letting himself in for.

  ‘Where is he now?’ Plough whined to Buch’s secretary.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He needs to start behaving like a Minister of the Queen.’

  ‘Well Buch’s new to it all.’ The strange email they kept getting had come in again. ‘He’s only been here since this morning.’

  ‘It’s amazing how much damage you can do in one day. He’s lost Birgitte Agger completely. Now Krabbe thinks he can walk all over us.’

  She tried the link again. ‘What in God’s name is this?’

  Plough came and stood behind her.

  ‘An email from the Finance Ministry. It’s their turn to organize this Friday’s drinks. Probably someone’s idea of a joke.’

  She tugged on a strand of blonde hair and chewed on it. ‘I’m sure they sent the invite for the drinks earlier. And that address isn’t in the directory.’

  Footsteps at the door. Buch marched in. Blue sweater, clashing purple shirt, no tie.

  ‘Krabbe’s here already,’ Plough said. ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Out. It was supposed to be seven. I hate it when people are early. Come . . .’

  Seated at the conference table, Erling Krabbe looked triumphant.

  He got up, shook Buch’s hand, almost warmly. Smiled at Plough and Karina.

  ‘I was a bit forward earlier. I’m sorry. Long day. Headache. Forgive me. Now. To business . . .’

  ‘The situation’s very simple,’ Buch interrupted cheerily. ‘Neither now nor in the future will we compromise our constitution’s protection of basic democratic values.’

  The lean politician looked at him, wide-eyed.

  ‘No threat, no scare campaign, from you or from the terrorists, will change that position. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Very,’ Krabbe said with a curt nod. ‘So the government thinks it will be best served without us?’

  ‘Not at all. Though that’s your decision. I would have to explain the basis of our position if you do quit, of course.’

  Buch placed his briefcase on the table and retrieved a set of documents.

  ‘I’m no historian or lawyer. But I have consulted both on your suggestions. As far as I’m aware a Danish government has only once before prohibited a legal association for no other reason than its views. Here . . .’

  He passed Krabbe the papers. Plough shuffled over, looked, groaned. Photographs from the Second World War. Nazi soldiers on the
streets, rifles extended, bayonets raised, fearful crowds watching them.

  ‘It was in 1941. When we outlawed the Communist Party. The Wehrmacht forced our hand on that occasion. I don’t need to tell you where that led. Your grandfather doubtless mentioned it.’

  Krabbe threw the pictures onto the table.

  ‘There’s no comparison.’

  ‘I’ve experts on constitutional law who’ll swear otherwise. You’ll find their statements in there if you’re interested. Feel free to share all this with your colleagues . . .’

  ‘Don’t insult me.’

  Buch’s big right arm cut the air between them.

  ‘Truly, Krabbe, nothing could be further from my mind. The question is very simple. Does the People’s Party wish to be part of a broad agreement and introduce the kind of legislation the security services are asking for? Or do you want to stand alone with an opinion that hasn’t been voiced since the Nazis ran Copenhagen and treated us like slaves and puppets?’

  ‘Minister . . .’ Plough began.

  ‘No.’ Buch smiled at both of them. ‘He can answer for himself.’

  ‘This is pitiful,’ Krabbe said, heading for the door, leaving the documents on the table. ‘You’re out of your depth, Buch. My mistake was failing to realize quite how much.’

  ‘I can’t stay here all night,’ Strange grumbled. ‘Get to the point. Why would he film it?’

  They were back in the Dragsholm house walking round the living room. All the lights on. Grey shadows of trees at the end of the garden. From somewhere the rattle of a train.

  It was seven fifteen. She should have phoned her mother to say she’d be late. But Vibeke looked so happy with Bjørn she probably never noticed.

  ‘You said the bloodstains show the woman was stabbed first then forced into that chair.’ Lund looked at the leather executive seat still turned sideways on the floor, tipped over the way it was found. ‘What if you’re wrong? What if she was in the chair first and stabbed there?’

  Strange frowned.

  ‘You’re losing me. If it was a crime of passion . . .’

  ‘You make the theory fit the facts, not the other way round.’

  He looked chastened. She picked up the file, scanned through the autopsy report, the photos of the cuts all over Anne Dragsholm’s neck and torso.

  ‘There was one deep stab wound to the heart,’ Lund said. ‘They think that was a knife. The other wounds were different. More shallow. Rough-edged.’