by David Hewson
‘Yes, Karina. It’s necessary. That’s why I’m asking.’
The local police chief they met at the ferry was a cheery, rotund man with a beard and the ruddy complexion of a fisherman.
‘Welcome to Skogö.’
He spoke very slowly, as if he expected them to struggle with the language.
‘We’re a small and very quiet island. Nothing much happens here, you know. But if it did—’
‘Where’s Lisbeth Thomsen?’ Lund asked.
‘She lives on the other side. We’re saving you the journey. Someone is picking her up.’
One middle-aged police chief. How many other officers could there be?
‘We think she could be in danger.’
He laughed.
‘No. Skogö’s the safest place on earth. Besides, Lisbeth was a soldier. She can handle herself. You should have met her uncle. The stories about him—’
‘What does she do?’
‘Mainly,’ the Swedish cop said, waving to a woman who greeted him as she wheeled her bike onto the outgoing boat, ‘she keeps herself to herself, like most of us here.’
‘When she’s not busy doing that?’
‘Then she’s working in the forest. With the trees.’ He made a chopping motion with his arms. ‘Cutting them down.’
He thought of something else.
‘And hunting too. Fishing. She’s very capable. She lives out there on her own. Fends for herself. Come!’
He climbed into the back of Strange’s black police car.
‘I will direct you to our police station. You will like it, I think.’
They set off from the harbour. It seemed a pretty, sleepy place.
‘You may get a visit from someone called Raben,’ she said, turning to look at the officer in the back.
‘Oh, we know all about him. Your people in Copenhagen sent us some information. Via our computer.’
‘He’s a very capable man,’ Strange said.
‘As are we,’ the Swedish cop said. ‘As are we.’ He sat back and beamed at Lund as they went past some boats and a few restaurants.
‘So,’ he asked. ‘Do you like fishing?’
‘We’re not here for the fishing,’ Strange said.
The Swede was still smiling.
‘Really? I thought that was why you came.’
Winter woodland. Bare trees, damp earth. Raben was back in his early army days, staying low, listening, looking.
One mile from the harbour he stopped a woman hanging up washing, smiled, mentioned Thomsen’s name. Got a rough location.
The island was small, sparsely populated, linked by narrow, muddy tracks. Everyone knew everybody. There wasn’t such a thing as an address. Just a cabin in the woods.
Down the road, the woman said.
So he smiled again, said thanks, walked far enough down it to lose her then ducked back into the trees.
After a while he heard the sound of a chainsaw. A clearing emerged. A single-storey bungalow, stone-faced with a red roof.
Lisbeth Thomsen was a loner even when she was the only woman in an eight-strong strike team combing the badlands of Helmand. It didn’t surprise him to find her in the backwoods of Sweden living like a hermit.
There was a garden near the back door. No flowers, just tidy lines of winter vegetables. Raben wanted to walk straight in, grab her by the arm, tell her to run. Just two of them left now. If he could find her, so could someone else.
Instead he edged cautiously round towards the sound of the saw. She was there, in a khaki jacket and heavy trousers, knife on her belt, black hair still short and mannish. A powerfully built woman, capable and strong.
The chainsaw was tackling a pile of logs. Thomsen was slicing them the way another woman might slice bread.
Some things don’t change, Raben thought and wondered where to begin.
Was still wondering when a figure emerged from the road. Blue uniform, cap with a badge, white visibility markings on the jacket.
Swedish cop.
Raben fell back into the forest, watching every move.
Thomsen killed the saw. The man’s voice was loud and officious.
‘The Danish police have called about you, Lisbeth,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to come in for questioning.’
Thomsen uttered the kind of curse he’d often heard before, not usually from a woman.
‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ the cop asked as she walked back to the house.
She waved the saw at him.
‘Do you want me to bring this?’
Then she kept walking.
‘Now don’t you go running away,’ he shouted. ‘I’m not too good on my pins these days and I don’t want to be chasing you.’
She swore again. The cop did a passable impression of Munch’s Scream, his hands over his ears, mouth wide open.
‘You Danes have potty mouths,’ he said.
She almost laughed. That, Raben recalled, was as much as anyone got.
Then Lisbeth Thomsen stowed the chainsaw in an outside shed, and walked off with him.
A few seconds later a car marked ‘Polis’ went down the road.
She lived alone. The place was empty.
Raben got up, walked to the back door. Tried it.
Open.
A little island off the coast in Sweden. No one locked their homes. Why would you?
He stopped, forced himself to think.
Maybe they’d want to search her place.
Maybe she’d forget something and make the cop come back.
Maybe . . . someone else altogether would come along.
Stay hidden.
Observe.
Two perpetual commandments. But the first took precedence over the second, always.
Jens Peter Raben wasn’t ready to be seen yet. That could only mean capture or worse. So without looking back he took to his heels, fled back into the forest, determined to stay invisible for a while.
He’d time, for now anyway. Thomsen would return, he was sure of it. In an hour or two he’d feel safe enough to work his way to the cottage and wait for her. Until then . . .
In his jacket were a couple of muesli bars and a bottle of water. There were a few of the last tart autumn lingonberries among the vegetation on the forest floor. Some edible mushrooms if he felt desperate.
Survival was easy so long as you stayed on your own.
The police station looked like an ordinary residential home: whitewashed, two storeys, with a balcony at the front. Strange didn’t go in. He muttered something to Lund about bumpkins and checking out the island.
‘Not for bears, I hope?’ she said too loudly.
‘Bears?’ The old cop stood on the front step, stamping his feet. ‘We have no bears round here. This isn’t the north, you know.’
‘I want to see if they’ve really been looking for Raben,’ Strange said to Lund, ignoring the Swede. ‘He could have walked in here under their noses and they’d never know.’
‘OK,’ she agreed and gave him the car keys.
Thomsen was sitting at a desk in front of two very old portraits of the King and Queen of Sweden, a moose’s head and a stuffed salmon. She was a tall, athletic woman with short dark hair, an unsmiling though handsome face, a gruff manner.
‘I’ve got things to do,’ she said. ‘And this is Sweden. Why am I being summoned by the Danish police?’
Lund sat down. So did the chief of police, who then lit a foul-smelling pipe and listened.
‘Don’t you watch the news?’
‘No,’ Thomsen relented. ‘I just have a radio. I heard about Myg. And Grüner.’
She didn’t look Lund in the eye as she spoke.
‘Any idea what’s going on?’ Lund asked.
‘None.’
‘Have you received any threats?’
Thomsen laughed. Not for long.
‘Of course not. Why would someone threaten me?’
This was going to be slow and difficult.
‘
Have you had any recent contact with anyone from Ægir?’
‘I live in a shack in the woods. On my own. I like it that way. I haven’t seen anyone from the army in two years.’
‘It wasn’t just soldiers who died. Your lawyer was murdered. Anne Dragsholm.’
Lund placed the woman’s photo on the table.
‘Did she try to contact you?’
‘No,’ Thomsen said straight away and barely looked at the picture. ‘Can I go now? I’ve got work to do.’
‘What happened? In Helmand?’
‘You’ve come all the way from Copenhagen to ask me that? Why don’t you talk to someone at Ryvangen?’
‘I have. I want to hear it from you.’
‘We lost three good men. It’s all in the report.’
‘All of it?’
‘Yes!’
‘Whatever’s happening is connected to your squad. I’m trying to understand.’
The Swedish policeman took the pipe from his mouth and tapped out the stinking ashes into a tray on the desk.
‘I think you’d best answer, Lisbeth. Tell the lady what she wants to know. Then we can all go home.’
‘What’s there to tell? We were on a patrol. A long way from base. We stopped for a break. When we came back Raben said he’d got a call on the radio from another Danish squad. They were under fire. Trapped not far from the river. We knew we were the nearest team.’
For the first time Lund saw some emotion in her face. A nervous, twitchy fear.
‘They were in the Green Zone. Enemy territory. We couldn’t leave them there. So we tried to cross the river. The bridge was mined.’
Her eyes turned dark and distant.
‘Bo was sitting right across from me. Rifle between his legs. He got the barrel up his throat when the explosion hit us. We lost the armoured vehicle. We were cut off from the rest of the platoon.’
She was looking around the room, lost in the memories.
‘Couldn’t raise anyone on the radio. There was a village half a kilometre across the bridge. That was where the squad was. Raben decided to go there and help them. Wait together.’
‘And then?’
Thomsen sniffed, stared at Lund.
‘That was the last I saw of them. He wanted me to get Bo out somehow.’ A sour, sarcastic look marred her face for a moment. ‘I was the woman, wasn’t I?’
‘You did your best, Lisbeth,’ the cop said. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘Best wasn’t good enough. I carried Bo to the next valley. Five, six kilometres. He was dead by the time they picked us up.’
Lund said, ‘But you saw your team later? At base? They must have told you what happened.’
‘It’s in the report. They were hit by a suicide bomber. Two more died. Raben and Grüner were badly wounded.’
‘The local tribe said there were civilian casualties too. They accused Raben’s team of atrocities.’
Thomsen’s steely eyes fixed on her.
‘You believe that?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. I’m asking you.’
‘Half the people out there hated us. Half of them said they were on our side. The trouble was you never knew which half you were talking to. And they changed, one day to the next. I don’t know anything about atrocities.’
‘Someone’s mad enough about what happened to be killing members of your team.’
Lisbeth Thomsen’s fist thumped on the table.
‘I’m sick of this crap. We lost three soldiers. Friends of mine. Good men. Husbands and fathers. We were cleared!’
‘Thomsen—’
‘No! I won’t hear it. Raben, Myg, Grüner . . . they put their lives on the line. While people like you sat in your comfy offices in Copenhagen wondering what to have for lunch. Don’t talk ill of them. Don’t you dare.’
‘OK, OK.’ Lund closed her notebook, not that she’d finished with the questions.
‘No,’ Thomsen bawled. ‘It’s not OK. We risked our lives in that hellhole. And when we came back they wanted us to answer for it.’
‘Calm down, Lisbeth,’ the old cop advised. ‘The lady has to ask her questions . . .’
‘There was no patrol,’ Lund said.
Thomsen’s eyes narrowed.
‘What?’
‘The official report said there was no patrol under fire.’
‘Raben told us,’ Thomsen yelled, banging the table again. ‘He took a radio message—’
‘There’s no record of any Danish team, any NATO unit, in the area at the time,’ Lund insisted. ‘Apart from yours.’
‘Enough.’ Thomsen folded her arms. ‘Are we done now?’
‘This is for your own protection. I think you know it too. That’s why you’re hiding here.’
The Swedish cop was becoming ever more interested.
‘Hiding here?’ Thomsen cried. ‘It’s where I live.’
‘Skogö’s not much of a place for a handsome young woman,’ the Swede began.
‘It’s where I live, old man. I enjoy a little peace. At least I used to. Are . . . we . . . finished?’
Lund shook her head.
‘No. I’d like you to look at some other photos.’
She spread out the pictures on the desk. The Swede came over and looked hard at them. So did Lisbeth Thomsen.
Anne Dragsholm, slaughtered, tied to the stake in Mindelunden. Myg Poulsen upside down, cut to ribbons in the veterans’ club. David Grüner burnt to a cinder in his wheelchair.
Lisbeth Thomsen stared at the photos, was for once lost for something to say.
‘We don’t want anything like that in Skogö,’ the cop said. ‘You will help this young woman, Lisbeth. For the sake of your uncle, God rest him. Your own sake too.’
He shivered.
‘Now,’ he added, pointing at the pictures. ‘Put those away please.’
Ninety minutes to the press conference and Erling Krabbe was demanding another meeting. Buch remained in his office, dithering. Vacillation was out of character and he didn’t like it.
Phones ringing, he paced the floor. Another time he’d have got out the little rubber ball, bounced it around, trying to think.
But that was in the past. He could judge the way that little toy returned to him from the wall. Mostly anyway. The world of government had no such certainties. It was more grey, shifting and slippery than he’d ever guessed.
‘Krabbe’s getting impatient,’ Plough said, holding out the phone. ‘He’s every right to expect a briefing beforehand.’
Buch waved away the phone.
‘Not now.’
‘What am I supposed to tell him?’
‘Say I’m on the phone to PET.’
Karina walked in, a large white padded envelope in her hand.
‘What does König say?’ Buch asked.
‘I haven’t spoken to him.’
‘I asked! Give me his number.’
She was in a sober black business suit, long blonde hair carefully combed, no make-up, no smile on her face. Something was wrong.
‘Out with it,’ he said.
‘Dragsholm wasn’t having an affair with Monberg,’ Karina said.
A glance at Plough, something apologetic in her eyes.
‘I was.’
Carsten Plough groaned. Buch was lost for words.
She played nervously with her hair, took a seat at the desk.
‘The night he met Dragsholm I was in the same hotel. Monberg was giving a talk in the afternoon. He asked me to come to discuss some work.’
‘Karina,’ Plough intervened. ‘Before you go on. You have to understand this is now a disciplinary issue. You have rights—’
‘Oh don’t be so damned stuffy, Carsten! You want the truth, don’t you? We had a fling and then I finished with him. He asked me there. I thought he was trying to change my mind. It wasn’t that. We met in the bar, after he’d seen Dragsholm. He seemed very downcast. He was drinking too much. I was worried about him.’
Karina placed the white enve
lope on Buch’s desk.
‘He had this with him. I didn’t see what was in it. Then he left.’
‘Did you see Dragsholm?’ Buch asked.
‘No. He never mentioned her. I’d no idea he knew her.’
She hesitated, trying to find the right words.
‘Something was wrong. I thought at first he was miserable because I’d finished with him. It wasn’t that. He never came near me again, not until the night before his heart attack.’
Her pale finger tapped the envelope.
‘He wanted me to post this. So I did. That was the last time I saw him. Now it’s been returned. He sent it to a dead address. He must have known that would happen.’
Buch picked open the envelope and took out a blue folder.
‘He got that at the meeting with Dragsholm,’ she added. ‘I’m sure of it.’
Plough came to look over Buch’s shoulder.
‘It’s the judge advocate’s report into an incident in Afghanistan,’ Karina said. ‘Dragsholm must have given him a copy. There’s a list of the soldiers in the squad that was under investigation.’
‘Poulsen, Grüner . . . These are the men who were murdered,’ Plough said.
She got up and stood behind him, pulled out a single sheet.
‘If you look in the margin of the covering letter Monberg’s scribbled something. A request for the case to be reopened.’
Karina folded her arms.
‘You don’t need to go through the motions of a disciplinary inquiry. I’ll resign. I don’t want to make a fuss. Carsten . . . I’m really sorry I let you down.’ She tried to smile. ‘Things just happen sometimes. Slotsholmen’s like that for some of us. Not you, I know. But when you get so close to people all day, all night. It becomes . . . unreal.’
She murmured a second apology, turned and walked out of the office.
Plough’s phone was ringing again.
‘It’s Krabbe. The journalists are turning up. What should we do?’
Buch was scanning through the report.
‘Monberg left us this for a reason. We need to know what it is.’
‘The press conference! Monberg’s report can come later. You have to deal with this now.’
‘How?’ Buch asked, staring at the neatly typed sheets of the judge advocate’s report, and Monberg’s scrawl in the margin. ‘Without knowing . . .’
Bilal arrived in Jarnvig’s office to report back on the meeting with soldiers and relatives, stood rigid in front of the colonel’s desk as Jarnvig browsed through the messages on his computer.
