by David Hewson
‘We don’t have any weapons.’
‘You mean you haven’t found any.’
‘Yes,’ he said mock patiently. ‘That’s what I mean.’
‘What did Svendsen squeeze out of the husband? Did he say how he killed her?’
‘A knife. He threw it away somewhere.’
She stared at him.
‘Somewhere?’
‘I wasn’t in the interview.’
‘But it wasn’t just a knife, was it? Why didn’t Dragsholm defend herself? Why are there no wounds to her arms?’
Thinking. Looking. Imagining.
The old habits were coming back. She could dream her way into a crime scene sometimes. Almost be there as it happened.
Lund looked at the leather chair. It had strong shiny metal arms and a firm base. The red stain at the edge of the left arm had taken on the sheen of the metal as it dried.
She set it upright, did the same with the footstool. Then grabbed the tall metal studio lamp and placed it in front of both, aimed the lamp straight at the chair back, found a socket, plugged it in, turned it on.
The lamp was very bright. The beam fell straight on the chair back. It looked like a scene from an interrogation room. The kind of set-up a thuggish cop like Svendsen would have loved if he was allowed one.
‘You’re making this up,’ Strange said, sounding a little in awe of her.
‘Correct.’
She pulled back the foot stand, set it by the lamp.
‘He sat here. Shone the light in her eyes. Tortured her first of all to get her talking. When he’d got what he wanted he took out a knife and stabbed her straight through the heart.’
Strange shook his head.
‘She was in the middle of a divorce. Why would someone hold a kind of mock interrogation . . . ?’
‘Nothing mock about it. He came in here with a purpose. This was what he wanted. Intended all along.’
The light caught a set of bookshelves against the back wall, behind the chair.
She went along the rows slowly, methodically. Titles on law. On history. Travel and the military.
‘They checked everything in the room, Lund. They wouldn’t have missed anything.’
‘That’s right. They never do.’
A small statue stood tucked between a set of heavyweight legal volumes. Half their size. Nothing special.
The classical figure of justice, a blindfolded woman holding the scales.
Something odd about it.
The statue was bronze. The blindfold silver, like a chain. It was loose. Separate. She took the thing in her gloved hands, turned it round. Something was hidden away behind the back, chinking against the stand.
Strange came and joined her.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
Hanging on the chain was a piece of shiny metal, hidden behind the statue. It looked like an oblong crudely cut in half. The severed edge was sharp and stained with blood and tissue. A line of crosses were stamped into it. Near the edge a single word, ‘Danmark’.
‘A military ID,’ Strange said. ‘A dog tag.’
‘This is what he used to cut her. It’s broken in half.’
He didn’t answer.
‘Strange . . .’
‘They do that when a soldier dies. When they send his body back from battle. They break the dog tag. It’s kind of a . . .’
‘An army ritual,’ she cut in. ‘Have you got an address for this veterans’ club Dragsholm used to give money to?’
‘We need to call Brix. He’ll want forensic back here.’
She waved the bloodied metal fragment in his face.
‘You mean the people who missed this?’
‘Yes but . . .’
‘I want to see this veterans’ club she gave money to.’
‘Lund! I’ve got things to do . . .’
‘Do them later,’ she said, then placed the dog tag in a plastic evidence bag and put it in her pocket.
Another night in Herstedvester. Raben pacing the corridors, not talking much to anyone, wondering why they wouldn’t allow him a phone call home.
Louise was slipping from him. There seemed precious little he could do.
So he pestered the guard again, asking for a permission slip for an extra call.
‘Tomorrow,’ the man said. ‘The warden can look at it then.’
‘Tomorrow’s too late.’
The guard was hefty, foreign.
‘You’re out of calls, Raben. You shouldn’t have made so many.’
‘It’s important.’
Director Toft was a couple of doors along talking to one of the prisoners. Raben walked up, interrupted, asked her if the warden would see his call request.
The icy, beautiful smile.
‘Raben!’ the warden called down the corridor. ‘Time to get in your cell.’
‘I got a visit from an army buddy,’ he said, not moving. ‘I’m worried about him.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘He’s not well. I think he might harm himself. I need to talk to him. And my wife. She can help.’
‘I’ll tell the warden you say it’s urgent.’
‘It is urgent.’
‘I’ll tell him that.’
Footsteps behind. The burly guard was coming for him.
‘There’s something else we need to talk about, Raben.’
‘Can’t I call first?’
‘No. The Probation Service rejected your application. Usually they take a week or so to consider our recommendation. But . . .’ She shrugged her slender shoulders. ‘They just turned you down flat. I don’t know on what grounds . . .’
He was short of breath, struggling to think.
‘When I do know I’ll tell you. I’m sorry.’
‘What?’ He could hear the guard getting closer. ‘What is this?’
She was walking away. Six months more in this prison and she broke the news in a moment.
‘Toft! I completed the treatment. I did everything you asked—’
‘I don’t know why.’ She barely turned as she pulled out the keys for her flashy sports car. ‘When I do—’
‘I’ve got a young son. A family.’
‘In another six months you can apply again. Keep up with the treatment—’
‘For fuck’s sake, woman, what do I have to do?’
The guard was by his side, fists bunched, smiling, looking for a fight.
‘Step away from the clinical director,’ he ordered.
‘I didn’t touch her.’
The big man took his arm. Raben was fit again now the wounds were healed. Strong and well trained. He turned, pushed the guard hard in the chest, sent him scuttling down the corridor, falling on his backside.
Toft looked as if she was enjoying this. Arms folded, blank pale face focused on his.
‘You need to remain calm,’ she said.
‘I am calm. I just don’t understand.’
Noises behind. The guards had a routine. Never pursue a fight on your own. Some of the men in here were big and trouble. Get backup. Wait for the moment.
‘I’m not a psycho. Not a paedophile or a criminal.’
The guard was back, stick in hand, beating it into his palm.
‘Get away from her, Raben.’
‘I didn’t touch her! I won’t . . .’
‘We can’t help you if you won’t help yourself,’ Toft said calmly.
‘The shit you bastards feed me . . .’
Then came the fury, the same red roar he’d felt in Iraq, in Afghanistan. The bellow of rage and violent fury they wanted, trained and encouraged in him.
He’d picked up a table and barely knew it. Was swinging it in front of him, walking towards the foreign guard.
Dark skin the colour of the Helmand mud. He saw it everywhere when he was out on patrol, not knowing whether they were meeting friend or foe.
One quick dash and he launched the table in front of him, aiming for the man, screaming.
Hands came
from nowhere, knees jabbed, feet kicked, fists flew.
Jens Peter Raben was on the floor getting smothered and beaten by their flailing arms.
Someone took his legs. Another turned his screaming face hard into the tiles.
Toft’s words, spoken in that flat, refined tone he’d come to hate, hovered somewhere above him. He looked up, saw her, blue eyes focused.
‘Medicate him,’ she ordered. ‘Put him in the room.’
Strong arms dragged him screaming, kicked and forced him into the solitary cell, lifted him onto the metal table, wrapped the leather straps round his struggling body as he cursed and spat at them.
A hypodermic stabbed into his shoulder. Memories of another place, a different kind of violence swam into view.
Jens Peter Raben wondered if he’d ever escape this nightmare, find refuge and peace at home with Louise and the little boy who scarcely knew his face.
Wondered what he might turn into – return to – if they never let him out. Thought of Myg Poulsen too, the scared little soldier who’d been with him in Helmand when the walls of their small, shared world began to tumble into dust.
Poulsen never wanted to go back to war. There was only one reason he would. He was too scared to do anything else.
Then the chemical bit, hard and loud and rushing. After that he didn’t fight against the leather straps or think much at all.
Plough remained as furious as his tightly reined civil servant’s temper would allow. Then, ten minutes after Erling Krabbe stormed out of Buch’s office, he was back on the phone, meekly offering his party’s support for the bill with a few minor amendments.
‘And yet,’ Buch said, once the call was finished and he was packing his things for the evening, ‘you don’t look happy, Carsten.’
‘I’m not. In no way can the law of 1941 be compared to the People’s Party suggestions. Next time I would appreciate it if you asked my opinion first before consulting any legal experts.’
‘You’re right. I’m new to this job. Allow me a little latitude, please. Also I’m a politician. I want to get my own way.’
Plough appeared to have summoned all his courage and strength for an argument. Buch’s immediate apology threw him.
‘I understand that, Minister, but in future . . .’
‘First day!’ Buch patted him on the arm. ‘It didn’t go too badly, did it?’
The large man from Jutland had a pleasant smile and knew when to use it.
‘I wasn’t saying that. There are ways of doing things. Ministerial ways . . .’
Karina marched in from the office.
‘You need to look at this. Both of you.’
‘No,’ Buch replied, gathering his things. ‘There’s a reception at the Polish Embassy. Sausages . . .’
‘I’ve cancelled. Please . . .’
She looked close to tears, and she was a strong, confident young woman.
‘PET are on their way,’ she said, walking back to her desk.
The two men followed. She sat down in front of the computer. A video was on the screen, paused. A house in darkness, lights on inside.
‘What is this, Karina?’ Buch asked again.
‘An email we kept getting. It’s coming from an address in the Finance Ministry. A fake. The link wouldn’t open till seven thirty. It’s . . .’
She took a deep breath and hit the play button.
‘See for yourself.’
The screen jerked into life. A light came on. A woman appeared in an upstairs window, towelling her hair as if she’d just come out of the bath. There was the sound of anxious shallow breathing from the camera. The lens followed her through the windows into the kitchen. She drank a glass of water, appeared to look at something then walked away.
‘This is all very well,’ Buch said. ‘But the Polish Embassy . . .’
‘Forget it,’ Karina insisted.
The sound of footsteps, the camera moving closer. The woman chopping vegetables on a board in the kitchen. Her hair’s wet. She’s wearing a blue dressing gown. She hears something, stares through the windows, lets out an unheard cry, drops the knife.
Rapid movement, the sound of glass breaking.
Then forward an unknown amount of time. A close-up. She’s in a chair by a lamp, still in the blue dressing gown. Blood pours from her nose, one eye black and bruised, a cut above the brow. The robe is down close to her breasts, above it cruel slashes streak her skin through the flesh.
She looks torn between fury and defiance, stares into the lens.
‘My God,’ Carsten Plough murmured and pulled up a chair.
Buch moved closer and as he did the lens pulled back. They could see the ropes around her torso. In her left hand a sheet of paper. Her bloodied, frightened face turns to it and, in a broken, tremulous voice she begins to read.
‘I accuse the hypocritical Danish government and the infidel Danish people of crimes against humanity.’
The sheet of paper shakes. Her eyes move to the camera seeking pity, a response, receive nothing.
‘The time has come for Allah’s revenge. The Muslim League will punish the sufferings Denmark has caused . . . in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.’
Wet hair down on her naked shoulders, head shaking, tears starting to streak the snotty gore that runs from her mouth, her nose, she half cries, half whispers, ‘I plead guilty. My blood will be shed. And many will die along with me.’
The camera zooms in. Her face in terror and agony.
‘I haven’t done anything . . . I’ve a little girl . . . For the love of God . . .’
Closer still, closer. Bloodied mouth, bloodied teeth, a scream, a frozen image. Then silence.
On the screen. In the room.
Karina got up, excused herself, strode quickly out of the office.
Thomas Buch sat down heavily beside her desk.
This was the same woman in the photograph he’d seen in Frode Monberg’s file.
Anne Dragsholm. Buch had learned one politician’s trick. He was now good at names. He would not forget this one easily.
The veterans’ club was in Christianshavn, not far from the former military area that had turned into the hippie free state of Christiania. Strange drove, looking grumpy all the way.
‘What’s wrong?’ Lund asked as they passed Slotsholmen, still lit, and then the Knippelsbro bridge.
‘You.’
He was nothing like Meyer. No sense of jocularity around this man. He seemed decent, quiet, responsible. She liked that, up to a point.
‘I’m sorry if the work’s getting in the way of your social life.’
He looked at her, frowned. Maybe there was a note of humour in there somewhere.
‘It was a joke, Strange.’
‘I don’t live and breathe the police. I’ve got things to do. Haven’t you?’
She didn’t answer.
‘I mean,’ he went on, ‘you came back to Copenhagen to see your mother. Not stick your nose in a murder case.’
‘Brix asked me.’
‘To read the files.’
‘Which I did.’
‘And here we are. Out on a call.’
He had an unusual face. Very alert, younger than his years yet mature in its intensity. Good-looking but careworn.
‘You don’t have any authority here, Lund.’
‘Brix asked me . . .’
‘When we get there you stay in the car unless I call for you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
He didn’t like that. Strange checked the traffic, pulled into the side of the road, cut the engine.
‘You stay here until I say otherwise,’ he repeated. ‘Agree to that or you can get out now and find your own way home. Which is where you should be by the way. Not out here in the pissing rain with me.’
He folded his arms, waited.
‘You’ll come and get me?’ she asked.
‘When I’m happy it’s safe.’
‘I’m not a child, Strange! I had your rank once.’
‘Once.’ His acute eyes looked straight into hers. ‘And then what happened?’
He waited. She wasn’t going to rise to that bait. Not with a stranger. Not with anyone.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Strange said quite gently. ‘People talk. What do you expect?’
‘You don’t know the half of it.’
‘Want to tell me?’
The silence again.
‘Good. Because I don’t want to hear.’ He started the car. ‘I’m the cop here. Not you.’
Without waiting for an answer Strange started the car, pulled out, back into the evening traffic.
The rain was coming down in vertical stripes as he drove into the empty car park behind a derelict block next to one of the pedestrian lanes leading into Christiania.
‘I checked the club. It’s got ten, eleven thousand members all over Denmark. The secretary’s called Allan Myg Poulsen. He’s got a room near the office. Number twenty-six.’
‘He’s still a soldier?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Served in Afghanistan?’
Strange didn’t answer.
‘Dragsholm was giving these people money. Every month,’ Lund said. ‘You have to find out why.’
‘I’ll ask.’ Strange turned off the engine, took the keys, opened the driver’s door. ‘Wait here until I get back.’ He turned and looked into her face. ‘Is that understood?’
Lund saluted and pulled the most severe face she could muster.
Watched him get out of the car, walk along the line of doors, find the communal entrance to the building and go in.
Swore and said something caustic and deeply unfair.
He’d get kicked for bringing along a civilian. Maybe. Or perhaps he was just making a point. Jan Meyer always felt challenged around her, which she never fully understood. He was a good cop, bright and imaginative. He learned quickly too. From her mostly.
She watched a light go on in the building ahead.
Strange was different. A lot more sure of himself for one thing. She wanted to hear him talk to someone. Judge how he threw questions at people.
Most of all she wanted to do that herself. There was a smell, a feel, a taste to a murder inquiry. Lost in Gedser, looking for pathetic illegals trying to smuggle their way into Denmark, she’d forgotten what it was like. Now the scent was in her head again and she liked it.
