The Killing 2

by David Hewson

  ‘Nothing’s going on.’

  ‘And now Torpe tells this tale. I don’t believe it.’

  ‘You never do,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s the problem. It’s just a routine investigation—’

  ‘No!’ Her voice was loud, enough to wake Jonas but she didn’t care. ‘That’s not true. Jens told me. He said something bad happened in Afghanistan. It’s all come back somehow . . .’

  Jarnvig stood in the doorway, silent.

  ‘Tell me,’ she pleaded.

  ‘There’s nothing you want to hear.’

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘Three men died.’

  ‘It wasn’t that.’

  ‘Three men died because Jens screwed up. He was their leader. He got it wrong. I’d feel bad in the same situation. We all would.’

  ‘So that’s it? He’s doing all this because he feels guilty?’

  ‘It’s time you realized there are sides to your husband you don’t know,’ Jarnvig said simply. ‘Sides we see that you don’t. He’s not—’

  ‘Not what? The son-in-law you wanted? Just an ordinary boot soldier, not an officer you can take to the mess and get drunk with?’

  ‘There are things I can’t say—’

  ‘Or daren’t?’

  She turned her back on him. Looked at the packing cases for the move downstairs, to the basement Søgaard had so carefully worked on in his free time. Ryvangen was a prison, a pleasant one most of the time. And they were busily raising the walls.

  ‘I think you should leave now,’ Louise Raben said.

  Jarnvig was angry with her. That didn’t happen often. He walked into the room, took her by the shoulders, made her look him in the face.

  ‘You hit Mum once and she left,’ Louise said in a calm voice full of intent. ‘Same goes for me.’

  ‘I was a good husband! I didn’t choose to go to war one month after you were born.’

  ‘There weren’t wars then. And neither did Jens. You sent him.’

  ‘No! He had a choice. He volunteered.’

  Memories. A tearful farewell. Jonas tiny in her arms. The feeling of loneliness already starting to well up inside.

  ‘He wanted to go, Louise. He was desperate. He begged me. Begged me not to tell you too.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘Call me anything but that.’ He took his hands off her. ‘I’ve never lied to you. Jens wanted to go. I tried to dissuade him. He wouldn’t hear of it. He said it was . . . his duty.’

  The tears were coming and she always hated that.

  ‘Jens isn’t the man you think . . .’ he said, taking out a handkerchief, offering it to her.

  ‘Just go, will you?’

  Still he stood there.

  ‘Get out of here!’ she bellowed.

  Jonas was by the connecting door when Torsten Jarnvig walked out. Louise knew he’d be there somehow. That was the way things worked these days.

  The truce with Rossing hadn’t lasted. Just before nine the Defence Minister had called Buch demanding to know why the police were exhuming the coffin of an officer killed on service two years before.

  ‘There are eleven thousand police officers in Denmark,’ Buch replied. ‘I confess I cannot tell you what each and every one of them is doing at this moment.’

  The conversation went downhill from there.

  Afterwards, thinking logically, the way he did when he was deciding where the farm cooperative’s milk and pork and eggs would go to market, he tried to set down what they knew.

  ‘Rossing called a meeting with Monberg. We know that Jens Peter Raben was on the agenda.’

  Plough had been rummaging through the files. He had one piece of paper connected to the meeting.

  ‘According to this,’ he said, ‘the reason was to discuss the prevention of crime among demobilized soldiers.’

  ‘Why are there no minutes?’

  ‘They were alone. I was busy working on the detail of a bill that day.’

  ‘You weren’t invited. Admit it.’

  ‘No. But that’s not suspicious in itself. Also Monberg had a bee in his bonnet about cutting the cost of the Prison Service. I imagine having fewer soldiers . . .’

  Plough was starting to look agitated.

  ‘If Monberg knew about the military investigation and failed to inform the police when Dragsholm was killed,’ he said, wandering round the room, ‘this is most serious.’

  ‘Have the police and PET told us any more?’

  ‘At the moment they’re bickering over the exhumation of that soldier. Extraordinary! Digging him up like that. König’s furious. He says it was quite unnecessary . . .’

  ‘I want to know what Monberg was told. Every last detail. And talk to Karina. She’ll be outside. I asked her to pop in once the nanny had picked up Merle.’

  ‘You asked her to visit again?’ Plough said very slowly.

  ‘I did. To thank her. And to beg her to come back to work.’

  ‘No!’ Plough looked mortally offended. ‘She can’t do that. There are disciplinary proceedings. I’ve posted the vacancy.’

  ‘Well cancel it.’

  ‘She slept with the minister!’

  ‘Well she won’t sleep with me, will she?’ Buch passed over his own phone.

  ‘No.’ Plough shook his head. ‘I won’t. Even I have limits, Buch. You’ve transgressed them once too often.’

  Then he briskly walked out of the room.

  Karina was sitting primly in the lobby. Casual jeans she would never have worn to work. The same smart jacket though and pink scarf.

  Caught. Plough cursed his luck as he stomped out of Buch’s office.

  ‘Hi,’ she said and smiled as if nothing much had happened.

  He didn’t walk off. It would have been rude.

  ‘Thomas said you wanted to see me.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘No. It was his idea. He never told me until just now.’

  She stood up, gave him that little shrug and smile he’d come to know so well over the last few years.

  ‘OK. I get it,’ she said and started to walk for the stairs.

  Close by the banister she stopped.

  ‘Plough. I want you to know . . . I really enjoyed working here. I learned so much. From you mostly. I don’t think there’s anything you can’t untangle in this place. Drafts. Memorandums. Intergovernmental dialogues.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said with a smile.

  She laughed.

  ‘It’s a shame you’re such a pain in the arse when it comes to people. And going home at night.’ Karina folded her arms then came and stood in front of him. ‘I wore out three nannies because I had to be here every day meeting your . . . your impossible demands. And even that wasn’t enough, was it? No . . .’

  ‘This is government,’ he said, trying not to look offended. ‘The Ministry of Justice. Everything must be done properly.’

  ‘Plough’s way. The only way. I was never good enough. And just to rub it in I slept with Monberg. That must have hurt—’

  ‘It did!’ Plough retorted in a high voice close to falsetto.

  ‘I’d just been through a vile divorce. My personal life was hell. But you never asked, did you?’

  He stuttered for an answer, failed to find one. Karina was angry, upset, with him, no one else. She was voicing all the hidden thoughts people were supposed to keep locked inside them, and this naked act disquieted him deeply.

  ‘You never asked how I was and meant it. Never . . .’

  ‘This isn’t right,’ he muttered and marched back towards his office.

  To his dismay she followed, in full flow with no sign of the fury abating.

  ‘You’re so bloody prudish. So very proper. The moment something human happens, when there’s no rule, no regulation to run up against it, you’re floundering. Are you ashamed of me? Is that it?’

  ‘You deserved better!’ he cried and was glad he’d finally said it.

  That st
opped her.

  ‘So much better, Karina. There was a bright career ahead of you. I could see that so clearly. And you ruin it for . . . what? A creep like Monberg. After all we’ve worked for. After all I taught you. Gone for a moment of—’

  A clap of hands so loud it sounded like a small explosion. The two of them turned and saw the large, happy figure of Thomas Buch filling the door of his office.

  ‘Loud voices and frank exchanges!’ he declared with a grin. ‘I think I’m back in Jutland amid sanity. Thank God for that.’

  He marched straight up.

  ‘However there’s no time for this nonsense. Karina, you’re rehired. Plough. Fix it. I just called Monberg’s wife. Good news . . .’

  He raised a single finger to the ceiling.

  ‘Our dear friend, my predecessor, has today regained consciousness. His condition’s stable. With prior permission visitors are allowed.’

  Karina said something under her breath. Plough stayed silent.

  ‘We must talk with him as soon as possible,’ Buch added.

  ‘I’ll call the hospital,’ Plough said, taking out his phone.

  ‘Let’s make sure we get to him before Rossing. Karina? Get me an update on Raben from our system. And find out where the police and PET stand.’

  That deafening clap of his large hands again.

  ‘What are you hanging around for?’ Buch asked. ‘Hurry up!’

  Karina put a hand on his arm.

  ‘I didn’t say yes, Thomas.’

  He laughed, a booming noise that echoed off the white Ministry walls.

  ‘You didn’t say no either. Up Karina a grade, Plough. Give her a rise. Come on!’

  Then he was gone, a large man in a shapeless blue suit waddling down the corridor back to his office.

  The two of them stood in silence for a while.

  ‘You’ve a nanny?’ Plough asked eventually.

  ‘Yes!’ She didn’t meet his eyes and that was rare. ‘Carsten . . . I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just needed to say those things.’

  ‘You did. I understand that.’

  ‘Forget about the grading and the rise.’

  Plough gazed at her and fiddled with his glasses.

  ‘The minister asked for it. If the minister says—’

  ‘Fine, fine, fine.’ She patted his arm. ‘Let’s get on with it, shall we?’

  Brix’s office, close to midnight. The reports were in from forensic. Ruth Hedeby was going through them.

  ‘DNA will take a couple of days,’ Brix said.

  She gave him an incredulous stare.

  ‘Don’t waste money on those. The army gave us his dental records. The pathologist checked his teeth. It’s him. No question.’

  Brix knew that.

  ‘This is either going to be Lund’s funeral or yours.’

  He stood by the window saying nothing.

  ‘Is anything I said unclear?’ Hedeby asked.

  ‘How many mistakes are we allowed?’ he wondered. ‘If we get it right in the end?’

  She threw the report on the desk.

  ‘We’re not getting it right, are we?’

  Hedeby came and placed her hand on his arm, looked into his face.

  ‘PET have got sight of Raben.’

  Brix’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘You mean they’ve caught him?’

  ‘No. König wasn’t exactly forthcoming. We’re going to talk again tomorrow.’

  ‘If they know where Raben is . . .’

  Her fingers brushed dirt from his collar.

  ‘Don’t go too deep. Talk to König. Be cooperative.’

  Lund was silhouetted in the office opposite.

  ‘To think you could be so wrong,’ Hedeby said. ‘Does she interest you, Lennart? Is that it?’

  He wished he could find the energy to laugh.

  ‘She sees things we don’t. Even when we walk straight past them.’

  ‘It’s up to you,’ Ruth Hedeby murmured, then ran her fingers down his arm, briefly, lightly touched his hand. ‘But I think you’d best do it now.’

  Lund knew what was coming the moment Brix walked through the door. When he asked for her gun and ID she handed them over without a word. The weapon she didn’t miss. The Politigården card . . . was different.

  ‘I’ll tell Gedser you can resume your work there.’

  Strange was watching them.

  ‘Release Søgaard,’ Brix told him. ‘We don’t need him any more.’

  Lund watched him go out into the corridor and start the call. Strange came over, sat on the edge of the desk. She got her things. The bag. The dark jacket. The pack of chewing gum half-hidden among the strewn papers.

  ‘Do you want a ride home?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. It was hard to take her attention away from the pictures on the wall. There was something unfinished here and the incomplete always infuriated her.

  ‘Thanks for the help,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’

  She’d left his desk a mess. Lund kept finding stray packets of gum. She didn’t remember buying them all. Or scattering them round like this. Everything seemed so chaotic. Strange, a fastidious, careful man, did well to tolerate her.

  ‘You were good to work with,’ she said.

  ‘Shall I call you tomorrow?’

  She just smiled as she got up to go.

  ‘Give your mother my best wishes for the wedding.’

  ‘I will,’ she said and kept walking.

  ‘Lund!’

  He strode to the door, opened it, always polite, she thought. Nothing like Jan Meyer.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If it means anything I think you’re right. Not about the coffin. That was really stupid. But there’s something . . .’ He glanced down the corridor, towards Brix quiet on the phone. ‘Something stinks around here.’

  ‘No need to call,’ Lund said and briefly smiled. ‘I’ll be back in Gedser on Monday.’

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ Strange told her, with that look again, the one that made her feel awkward.

  She ducked under his arm and walked down the corridor, past Brix without a word, out to the spiral staircase, and then the rainy night.

  Seven

  Saturday 19th November

  9.03 a.m. Erik König looked more and more like a man under unbearable pressure. A man, Brix thought, with secrets too.

  ‘Raben abandoned the chaplain’s car two kilometres from Hareskoven. He stole an old Volvo nearby. We picked him up around two in the morning. Kept watch.’

  ‘Kept watch?’ Brix asked.

  ‘We were lucky to get sight of him. He’s tired. Desperate. Got his guard down. A good Jægerkorpset soldier would never—’

  ‘He wasn’t Jægerkorpset though, was he?’ Brix asked gently and enjoyed the PET man’s discomfort. König had kept them in the dark from the start. Brix wanted to let him know this was over.

  ‘Close enough. He slept for three hours in a lay-by. Now he’s near Ryvangen Barracks, in a side street on a housing estate.’

  ‘Bring him here when you pick him up.’

  Ruth Hedeby stared at the plain grey desk and said nothing.

  ‘Raben’s the last one in the squad,’ König replied. ‘We know where he is. We know we can stop him doing any further harm.’

  ‘Bring him in!’ Brix demanded.

  ‘No.’ König took off his wire-rimmed glasses. ‘If the Islamists have been tracking the squad he’s the next potential victim. Raben stays free, under surveillance.’

  ‘As bait?’ Brix asked.

  The PET man leaned back in his chair and frowned.

  ‘There’s a limit to how many religious lunatics we can arrest. Sooner or later one of them is going to put his head above the parapet.’

  ‘We can help with surveillance,’ Hedeby suggested.

  König had the coldest and most insincere of smiles.

  ‘We’re better equipped for this kind of work. Besides, after that farce with Lund—’
>
  ‘That’s dealt with,’ Hedeby said briskly.

  ‘I’m sure the Ministry will be pleased to hear that. They’re looking for scapegoats. I’d like you to look at these . . .’

  He pulled a sheaf of photos and identity documents from his briefcase and threw them on the table.

  ‘They’re refugees from Helmand, living in Denmark for the last couple of years. They might be after revenge.’

  Hedeby passed the pile to Brix.

  ‘I want them watched,’ König added. ‘A few questioned.’ A dry laugh. ‘No one need be exhumed.’

  Brix didn’t look at the photos.

  ‘How did a refugee from Helmand break into Ryvangen Barracks and steal explosives with a current security code?’ he asked. ‘How’s it possible they’ve access to military records—?’

  ‘Lennart.’

  There was a hard, scolding note to her voice, one that silenced him.

  ‘I’ll leave that to you to find out,’ König said. He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve got a meeting at the Ministry.’

  Then he was gone. Hedeby looked at Brix across the table.

  ‘I can’t protect you from yourself,’ she said quietly. ‘Someone’s going to pay. One way or another.’

  ‘König’s thrashing around in the dark trying to save his own skin.’

  ‘You dug up a dead soldier for no good reason. I’m struggling to make sure no one but Lund picks up the blame. Try and help me, will you?’

  In the adjoining office Strange was interviewing Gunnar Torpe. Brix leaned on a filing cabinet and listened. Lund had never said Strange was a poor cop. It wasn’t necessary. Brix could read the occasional impatience in her eyes.

  ‘Why did Raben take you to the woods at gunpoint?’ Strange asked.

  Torpe sat pale and tired in a chair.

  ‘How am I supposed to answer that? Maybe because he’s sick. Here . . .’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Crazy. Delusional.’

  ‘He must have had a reason.’

  ‘Crazy people don’t need them. I tried to reason with him. To get him to think about his wife and son.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘It was just . . .’ Torpe shrugged. ‘Crazy stuff. War does strange things to people. They don’t know the difference between right and wrong sometimes. Between what’s real and what’s not.’