The Killing 2

by David Hewson

  The PET chief squirmed on his seat.

  ‘You report to me directly, I believe? Good. Then tomorrow, when you have the time, tell me why we appear to be in the dark.’

  ‘Minister . . .’

  ‘Is there more I need to know?’

  König said nothing.

  ‘Good.’ Buch glanced at the door. ‘I must talk to the Prime Minister. Keep me informed.’

  They walked out in silence, leaving Buch with Plough and Karina Jørgensen.

  ‘Protocol,’ Plough began.

  ‘That’s a word you use a lot,’ Buch said brusquely. ‘I’m not much interested in hearing it now.’

  Karina had brought him a tie. She wanted him to wear it for the meeting with Grue Eriksen.

  ‘Frode Monberg was aware of the Dragsholm case,’ Plough explained. ‘But none of us thought it would develop into such madness.’

  It was a circuitous stroll from the Ministry of Justice round to the old palace where the Prime Minister’s office was based. Enough to get soaked.

  ‘Is it still raining? Do I need an umbrella?’ Buch asked.

  They looked at one another.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Buch asked.

  ‘You don’t need to walk outside any more,’ Karina said, and gently took his arm. ‘Shall we go?’

  She led him into a corridor he’d thought a dead end. Found another junction, opened doors he’d never known about, punched in codes, walked on. Through the winding maze of private passageways that bound the government offices of Denmark on the island of Slotsholmen she led him, crossing buildings, passing the breadth of the Folketinget, until, untouched by the weather or even a hint of a chill draught, Thomas Buch reached the Christiansborg Palace itself and found himself outside the office of the Prime Minister.

  There he was received for the briefest of meetings, one shorter than his walk through the maze itself.

  Domestic terror, Gert Grue Eriksen emphasized, was Buch’s responsibility. Then he looked at his watch, talked of appointments with foreign dignitaries, smiled and waited for him to leave.

  Back in the Politigården Brix briefed the night team: search the area, interview anyone living in the vicinity. Check any CCTV cameras around. Poulsen was a loner who often stayed on his own in the club. No visitors seen or recorded.

  ‘What about PET?’ Strange asked. ‘Can’t they give us a list of suspects? They’ve got to have them.’

  ‘PET will get back to us in due course. Find out about the victims. Their past, their military records. Is there a link between the Dragsholm woman and Myg Poulsen? Let’s try and understand why these two were picked.’

  Lund sat at a computer going through the video of the woman strapped to the chair. The office was open-plan now, not the warren of little cubbyholes she was able to hide in with Meyer. She didn’t like it.

  ‘Check out the veterans’ club,’ Brix went on. ‘They’ll have a database of soldiers. Let’s see if anyone’s been snooping. If they’re looking to attack someone else it makes sense they’ll follow the same path.’

  Lund took her attention away from the computer monitor, watched Brix for a moment. He was different from how she remembered. Not quite as sure of himself. There was always something secretive to the man. But now she wondered if he looked a little vulnerable.

  ‘The dog tags were forged,’ he continued.

  The photo collection was building on the walls. The woman at the stake, in the chair from the video. Fresh pictures of the murdered Poulsen. His death had been even more cruel, more agonizing than hers. This was a showy act of brutality. Someone was being taught a lesson.

  Lund went back to the video, started it again. The woman in the blue gown, face covered in blood, mouth a shriek of fear and agony, reading out the ludicrous statement the man behind the camera – it had to be a man – had given her.

  ‘Sarah Lund is here to assist us,’ Brix announced.

  Her head went up. She wondered why he needed to say this.

  ‘Some of you may know her.’

  They turned and looked. Mostly strangers. She was glad Svendsen wasn’t among them. Lund didn’t regret pulling a gun on him, not for a moment. He’d begged for it.

  ‘I expect you to welcome her,’ Brix concluded.

  ‘Right. Let’s get started.’ Strange walked in front of them. Officer in charge. ‘Any questions?’

  Brix left him to brief the team in detail then came over to Lund’s desk.

  ‘Work alongside Strange. You report directly to me.’

  She kept looking at the video.

  ‘Lund? Did you hear me?’

  ‘The Muslim League. Why’ve we never heard of them?’

  ‘It’s not unusual. They invent a name for the cause. We’ve seen it before.’

  ‘What about the website?’

  ‘Nothing new. PET are looking into it.’

  ‘They only tell us what they want. And then when they feel like it. They think they’re better—’

  ‘Please.’ Brix stood over her. ‘Don’t start.’

  ‘An observation,’ she said with a smile, got up and pulled on her jacket.

  Strange came back. Brix returned to the team.

  ‘We need to talk to people at Poulsen’s barracks in Ryvangen,’ she said. ‘That’s all the family he had from what I can see.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  He was staring at the desk. The nameplate there was his. She’d placed her coffee cup on some papers, left a big stain over a forensic report. He picked it up, frowned. Put the pens she’d moved back into their holder.

  Lund took out her gum, considered sticking it very visibly under the desk, thought again and deposited it in the bin.

  He pointed to the other half of the desk.

  ‘That’s free. This,’ he said, ‘is mine.’

  ‘It’s just a desk, Strange. It’s not like . . . your own little country or something.’

  He leaned down, ran his finger along the middle.

  ‘It is now and that’s the border. Nothing crosses it.’

  Lund retrieved her pens, her coffee cup, laptop, keys and a pack of tissues, half open. Got them over the line. Tidied them as much as she felt able.

  ‘Just a desk,’ she said again.

  There was a red and white Danish flag on a little stick. A hangover from a party perhaps.

  With a grave face Strange picked it up, placed it next to the pen tidy that marked the edge of his zone, folded his arms, stared at her, eyes narrowed.

  Lund saluted, walked round and took her seat.

  Then Brix was back. Something in his hand. An ID card. They’d used her old photo. Lund looked at it: an unsmiling woman with large eyes and long dark hair staring into the camera as if hunting for something that was just out of reach. She hadn’t changed much in two years. Not that she’d checked. She still hated the picture.

  New title: Vicepolitikommissær. Whatever that meant.

  ‘And you need to carry this.’

  Brix handed her a standard-issue police handgun, Glock 9-millimetre compact. The kind Meyer liked so much he always swaggered round with it on his belt, even in the Politigården.

  ‘Strange can show you where the lockers are. The place has changed since you were last here. We’re more . . .’

  Brix was looking straight into her face.

  ‘More what?’ Lund asked.

  ‘More professional,’ he said then went to talk to someone else.

  ‘Are we going?’ Strange asked.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the gun in its black fabric holster. Lund didn’t like weapons. They always seemed an admission of defeat.

  Strange stood there, arms folded again, that same half-comic, half-bossy look on his face.

  ‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ she said, and stuffed the Glock into her bag alongside the tissues and the packets of gum.

  Colonel Torsten Jarnvig sat on the sofa in his private quarters watching the TV news as his daughter ironed and tidied away clothes beh
ind him. The heightened alert was already in place at Ryvangen. The barracks had systems, procedures, a chain of command, from Jarnvig to Søgaard, then to subordinates like Said Bilal.

  The army was a world in miniature separated by ranks and established hierarchies among officers and men. Jarnvig had worked inside these boundaries all his adult life. Without them, he knew, nothing functioned.

  Thomas Buch, the new Minister of Justice, was on TV, an unlikely-looking politician: overweight, with a straggly beard, wayward brown hair, and a puzzled, ponderous manner.

  ‘Both victims have been stationed abroad by the army,’ Buch said to the forest of microphones. ‘It’s possible their murders were in retaliation for our part in the war against terror.’

  The phone rang. An old, familiar voice. General Arild, one of the assistant chiefs of staff from headquarters in Aalborg. A dry, hard man, once Jarnvig’s comrade in the field.

  ‘Are you watching the news?’ Arild asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We’ve guards on all entrances and triple shifts in the grounds.’

  ‘They’re cowards. They won’t dare attack you from the front. Confine men to quarters as much as possible. Try to restrict family movements outside.’

  Jarnvig watched his daughter working patiently at the ironing board. She’d spent much of the day in the barracks infirmary dealing with medical supplies for dispatch to the front in Helmand.

  On the TV the politician was making promises.

  ‘The police and PET are working with the other intelligence agencies as part of the investigation,’ Buch told the cameras. ‘That’s all I can say at present.’

  Louise stopped what she was doing, walked into the room, watched the news next to him.

  ‘It’ll be done,’ Jarnvig told Arild.

  ‘You’ve got eight hundred men going out to Afghanistan next week. That’s what matters most. I want them ready for combat the moment they land.’

  ‘I understand . . .’

  ‘No distractions,’ the general ordered then hung up.

  Thomas Buch was trying to leave the pack of reporters. One of them was getting pushy, shouting at him.

  ‘Why’s this such a surprise, Buch? Shouldn’t the agencies have had warning?’

  The fat man smiled. A politician’s expression.

  ‘We’re looking into all aspects of the matter. Thank you.’

  ‘And the terror package?’

  Buch’s mask slipped. He was lost for words. And so he turned and walked away.

  ‘What’s going on, Dad?’ Louise Raben asked.

  Jarnvig picked up his phone and a set of keys.

  ‘There’s a terrorist alert. Have you heard from the prison?’

  She looked shifty.

  ‘We went there. They wouldn’t let us see Jens. I don’t know why. The probation service turned him down. I don’t think he . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t think he took it well.’ She stood in front of him, didn’t move. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘They think someone’s targeting soldiers. I don’t know any more. It’s best you stay inside the barracks for now. You belong here. Jonas too.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve got to see the lawyer tomorrow. Back at Herstedvester.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To file a complaint. Toft said Jens was fit, recovered. There was no reason he shouldn’t be released. If I do nothing it’s another six months before he can apply again. I don’t know if I can . . .’

  Her hand went to her dark, untidy hair. He remembered when Louise was young and so attractive. The belle of every officers’ ball, glamorous and careful with her appearance. Now her beauty lay hidden under the cares of motherhood, the worry of dealing with an errant husband lost in the prison system, serving an indefinite sentence for a crime no one understood, least of all him.

  ‘If the probation service ruled against Jens it had to be for a reason.’

  ‘Then I want to know it,’ she insisted. ‘Herstedvester said he could go. Why should the prison department in Copenhagen block him? It’s not right.’

  Raben was discharged from the army after coming back from a difficult tour in Afghanistan. A few weeks later he seized a civilian in the street, took him to a deserted wood, beat him unconscious. A threat to society, the court said. Not that Louise could ever see that in him.

  ‘Be patient,’ Jarnvig said. ‘If you have to wait six months we could redecorate the basement, make it liveable. Jonas can have his own bedroom. You can enrol him for the school . . .’

  She had a sharp and rebellious look sometimes. One she’d inherited from her mother. Jarnvig knew it only too well, understood when there was no point in arguing.

  ‘You don’t care whether Jens gets out or not. You never wanted a common soldier for a son-in-law, did you?’

  Jarnvig couldn’t find the words. There was a rap on the door. Major Søgaard, briefly catching his eye then smiling at Louise.

  The tall blond-haired officer stayed there. This was to be private. Jarnvig walked over, listened as Søgaard whispered in his ear.

  ‘Good God . . .’ the colonel whispered. ‘Do they know who did it?’

  Søgaard shook his head, waited for orders, left when none came.

  Torsten Jarnvig looked around his comfortable little house. He served wherever they sent him, had spent time in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan himself. Knew what it was like to lose men. But not here. He never expected the war to come home.

  ‘Dad?’ Louise asked, looking concerned. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Have you seen Myg Poulsen recently?’

  She was back sorting through Jonas’s clothes.

  ‘No. Jens did yesterday. He was going to find him a job.’

  Jarnvig went back to the dining table, took a seat, looked at the dispatch papers there. Eight hundred men headed for Afghanistan on a six-month tour. And now there’d be a military funeral for one of their own before they left.

  ‘Dad?’ she asked again. ‘What’s up?’

  Strapped to the bed in solitary, light on, Raben stared at the ceiling. Then the door opened and Director Toft walked round, tight sweater, tight jeans.

  He stifled what he wanted to say.

  Sorry if I’m keeping you from your boyfriend.

  ‘How are you, Raben?’

  ‘I’m sorry. It was stupid. I don’t know what came over me.’

  He was tied down by his wrists and ankles. Could still get his head up. And plead.

  ‘Can I talk to Louise?’

  ‘She came to visit you. Jonas did too. Obviously . . .’ Toft smiled. ‘. . . that wasn’t going to be possible.’

  Did she enjoy hurting him? Or was this part of the cure? He didn’t know. Didn’t care. Just wanted to be out of this hell. To be home with his wife and son.

  ‘I told her what happened. I made sure the boy didn’t hear.’

  Raben kept his head upright until it hurt. The pain seemed right. Something he was owed.

  ‘Are you ready to go back to your cell?’

  ‘Jonas came?’

  ‘He did. He’s a lovely little boy.’

  ‘I need to talk to Louise.’

  ‘One thing at a time.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  His voice was too loud and he knew it.

  ‘It means you have to earn things. You have to learn there are consequences to your actions.’ She paused. ‘You have to go back on your medication.’

  ‘I don’t want you doping me up.’

  ‘If you don’t do what I ask I can never get you out of here.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me!’

  That long pause again.

  ‘Do you remember what happened in Afghanistan? What you did when you came back? All the wild stories . . . ?’

  They weren’t all wild, he thought. Just things they didn’t want to hear.

  ‘There’s . . . nothing . . . wrong . . . with . . .
me.’

  ‘You took a stranger hostage. Here, in Copenhagen. Almost killed him.’

  That episode was still a blur.

  ‘It was a mistake. I’ve paid for it.’

  ‘Not until I say so.’

  ‘Please . . .’

  ‘The police want to question you about Allan Myg Poulsen. I think they should wait. You’re not fit.’

  He let his head fall back on the hard prison bed. Gave up. That’s what they wanted.

  ‘Why would they want to talk to me about Myg?’

  ‘Our number’s on his mobile phone apparently. He came to visit you this afternoon, didn’t he?’

  ‘So what?’

  She watched him very closely.

  ‘Poulsen was found murdered this evening. I’m sorry.’

  Raben’s mind began to race. The way it did when he got angry. Really angry. The red roar.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked as calmly as he could.

  ‘I’ll tell them to come tomorrow. That’s all I know.’

  ‘What . . . ?’

  ‘Tomorrow. You’re not fit now.’

  She checked her watch, frowned at the time.

  Sorry to keep you, he wanted to say.

  Lund sat in the front of Strange’s unmarked car chewing on a piece of gum. She didn’t miss cigarettes any more. That craving was gone anyway. He drove patiently, carefully, taking a call on his earphone, talking quietly to the other end.

  The Politigården had translated the leaflets they found next to Poulsen’s body. They said, ‘Fight for God’s cause. Kill those who place others next to God.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Lund asked.

  ‘Something from the Koran apparently.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘They’re trying to trace where they were printed.’

  She was going through the papers Brix had given her on Dragsholm’s military background.

  ‘OK,’ Strange said. ‘Since we seem to be colleagues now it’s time for a proper introduction. My name’s Ulrik.’

  He took his hand off the wheel, held it out. Long fingers, delicate almost. As if he played the piano, though that seemed unlikely.

  ‘I’ve worked in the Politigården for just over a year,’ Strange said with the kind of smile he might have saved for a job interview. ‘I got divorced not long before that, which is OK, all friendly. I’ve got two great kids and they’re cool with it. As cool as you can expect anyway.’