The Killing 2

by David Hewson

  ‘I’m shocked by the loss of a good colleague,’ he said to the camera with a stony face. ‘Frode was a great political personality. A man who made an enormous personal contribution to Denmark. Above all, a very dear friend.’

  Buch turned up the volume to make sure the row between Karina and Plough didn’t catch fire again.

  ‘It’s a great loss,’ Rossing went on. ‘Especially at a time like this, when our country faces serious problems.’

  The ruse didn’t work. Plough was taking aim at Karina again.

  ‘Don’t defend Monberg!’ she yelled at him. ‘He doesn’t deserve it.’

  ‘I want to know what happened,’ Plough barked back. ‘You should know. All things taken into consideration—’

  ‘What happened?’ She slammed her fist on the table. ‘What happened is the damned coward killed himself because he couldn’t face the consequences of his own actions. Impeachment. Shame. Don’t blame me. Don’t dare blame Buch. Blame the man himself.’

  She pointed at the TV.

  ‘Blame Rossing. His fingerprints are all over this. For Christ’s sake, Plough. I’m sorry I offended your puritanical sensibilities by sleeping with the man. Doubly so now. But don’t make that more than it was. Nothing to me. Nothing to him either. It just happened. The way it does between normal human beings, not robots like you.’

  The pale civil servant looked dumbstruck. No words. No answer at all.

  Buch threw the ball away, turned off the TV and said to both of them, ‘I want you to call in the press. Straight away.’

  ‘The press?’ Plough gasped. ‘Please tell me this is a joke.’

  ‘Just do it,’ Buch ordered.

  The curtains were closed to keep out the black night. The Prime Minister, Flemming Rossing and Erling Krabbe alone. No civil servant to keep minutes. No pens, no notepads on the table.

  ‘Here’s the truth,’ Krabbe began. ‘You’ve got much better candidates than Buch. You should never have appointed him in the first place.’

  ‘He’s an honest man,’ Grue Eriksen noted. ‘Intelligent and hardworking. Lacking in experience. But . . .’ He smiled at the thin, dour man across the table. ‘We all are until it happens to us.’

  ‘He’s unfit for the job,’ Krabbe insisted. ‘Now there’s all this publicity about Monberg, too. What the hell is going on?’

  ‘Leave Monberg out of it,’ Grue Eriksen replied. ‘Buch’s my minister. Get off his back.’

  Krabbe bridled.

  ‘If you want my support you’re going to have to listen to me.’

  ‘We are,’ Rossing broke in. ‘I told you already. We can alter the anti-terror package to accommodate the People’s Party. We’ll proscribe the organizations you want—’

  ‘Buch must go,’ Krabbe insisted.

  ‘Will you listen for once?’ Grue Eriksen barked. ‘I decide the ministers in this government. Not you. Buch got the sharp end of the stick. There were irregularities on Monberg’s part he never knew about and neither did the rest of us.’

  ‘What irregularities?’ Krabbe demanded.

  ‘You don’t need to know. Now he’s dead . . .’

  Flemming Rossing coughed, glanced at Grue Eriksen, and said, ‘Frode wasn’t quite master of the situation. Let’s leave it at that.’

  Krabbe threw up his skinny arms in despair.

  ‘Every day there’s a new surprise. When’s it going to stop? Rumours about this. One of your ministers killing himself. Buch flapping around like the fat idiot he is . . .’

  A man in a grey suit walked in, whispered in Grue Eriksen’s ear.

  ‘And now!’ Krabbe’s whiny voice was approaching falsetto. ‘There’s talk about some old army case. What the hell’s that about? Did the Islamists do this or not?’

  Grue Eriksen got up and turned on the TV.

  ‘Let’s do the deal on the anti-terror package,’ Rossing went on. ‘Get that out of the way. It’ll bring you closer to government. You can learn from us. Things will settle down. I guarantee it.’

  The news came on, a caption: Live from the Folketinget. Buch on the screen, blue shirt open at the neck, looking tired but determined. A line of microphones pushed into his face.

  ‘These are very critical questions which must be faced,’ he was saying. ‘I will demand a report from the Defence Minister concerning a military case which may be connected to the recent murders.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Flemming Rossing murmured.

  ‘It seems,’ Buch went on, ‘the Defence Minister has withheld important information from the police in order to cover up his own negligence. My predecessor Frode Monberg confirmed my suspicions before he died. That’s all I can say at present.’

  A fusillade of questions shot from the unseen faces in front of him.

  Grue Eriksen watched the impromptu press conference end in chaos.

  ‘Is that what you mean by settling down?’ Erling Krabbe piped up.

  Madsen was in the first car to get to the meat-packing district. He briefed Brix as they walked through the nightclub full of sullen, puzzled people, then out to the roof.

  ‘Lund chased him through the warehouses, then the club, then out here,’ he explained. ‘She didn’t even have a gun. Crazy cow.’

  They stopped by a line of metal steps leading to a level below the roof.

  ‘As far as we can work out he hid behind the door and slugged her when she came out.’

  Brix stared at the drop.

  ‘Did Gunnar Torpe say anything?’ he asked.

  ‘He was unconscious by the time we got there. Really badly cut, like the others. With a dog tag by the looks of it.’

  Madsen looked at the crowds of clubbers getting ushered from the building.

  ‘He died in the ambulance. Never recovered consciousness.’

  Forensic officers were working the steps, brushing for evidence, taking photographs.

  ‘What did Lund say?’

  ‘She didn’t see his face. She wants us to look for the dog tag belonging to the soldier she exhumed. It’s missing.’ Madsen shrugged. ‘Seems crazy to me.’

  ‘Usually does. How is she?’

  ‘Stubborn.’

  The older man glared at him.

  ‘Tough as old boots. She wanted to walk to the ambulance. I think a stretcher was . . . beneath her.’ Madsen scratched his head. ‘She had some crazy idea that the guy was about to shoot her then changed his mind.’

  Brix looked interested.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Madsen went on. ‘There were people coming out of the club by then. They knew something was happening. He just legged it.’

  ‘And Møller’s missing dog tag?’

  Madsen stared at him.

  ‘What about it? We’ve got another murder. We’ve got an officer almost killed.’

  ‘Just look into it, will you?’ Brix ordered.

  A black car flew into the loading space below, blue light flashing. Strange was out of the driver’s door straight away.

  ‘Where’s Lund?’ he shouted.

  ‘On her way back to the Politigården from hospital,’ Brix called down to him.

  ‘Is she OK?’

  ‘Yes,’ Brix answered. ‘Shaken but . . .’

  Strange didn’t stop to listen. He got behind the wheel, slewed the car across the wet concrete, disappeared the way he came.

  Brix watched him go, nodded to Madsen to get on with it.

  Then called Ruth Hedeby.

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said.

  Half an hour in Casualty then back to an interview room in headquarters. A wound above her right eyebrow. Bruises. A thick head. And questions. Lots of questions, none of them the ones the young detective who was with her thought of asking.

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t see his face?’

  She sighed.

  ‘If I saw his face I’d tell you, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘There must have been something special about him. The way he dressed—’

  ‘Black anorak. Hood up. Is this
the best line of questioning you’ve got?’

  ‘I learned from you, Lund!’ he cried, a little hurt.

  She looked at him. A cadet she’d mentored a few years before.

  ‘You always said to keep asking.’

  ‘I did,’ she answered. ‘And you should. But sometimes there’s nothing to say.’

  ‘You told me,’ he said, pointing an accusing finger, ‘I was supposed to be part of a team.’

  She nodded.

  ‘You are.’

  ‘But not you?’

  Before she could answer the door opened and Strange strode in. He looked pale and worried.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Lund got up. Her hand went to the wound above her eye.

  ‘Fine.’

  Strange nodded at the officer. He left straight away. She went back to the seat, quietly cursing the bruises and the pain.

  ‘OK,’ Ulrik Strange declared. ‘You should not be here. I’m driving you home. Is there anyone I should call?’

  She sipped some of the lukewarm coffee they’d brought her.

  ‘No. I’m not going home.’

  ‘For God’s sake. Will you stop being the hero?’

  ‘I’m not! My mother’s getting married. Some wedding guests are staying over. I don’t want to see them like this.’

  She put her head on the table, closed her eyes.

  ‘I can sleep in one of the night rooms here. Get me a bed. Find me a cell if you like. Won’t be the first time.’

  ‘You’re a complete pain in the arse.’ He got up. Put a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘Come on. We’re going now.’

  Head on the table, eyes barely open, she glowered at him.

  ‘I used to pick up my kids and sling them over my shoulder when they did this shit to me,’ Strange said. ‘Don’t try it. You won’t win.’

  ‘Sleepy,’ she whispered.

  ‘You’re leaving this damned place. Even if I have to carry you.’

  Lund didn’t budge.

  He bent down, whispered in her ear. His breath was warm and smelled of liquorice.

  ‘Even if I have to carry you,’ Strange repeated.

  Madsen had contacted Møller’s mother by the time Brix got back to the Politigården. There was a message for him with one of the uniform men on the desk: someone had misused her son’s identity.

  ‘Also . . .’ Madsen went on.

  Ruth Hedeby was wandering down the corridor ahead, looking to avoid him.

  ‘Later,’ Brix ordered and followed her.

  ‘Ruth,’ he said when they got to her office.

  She turned on him, finger jabbing in his face.

  ‘What the hell was Lund doing in that church? If I find you’ve gone behind my back—’

  ‘I didn’t know she was there. She told Strange. Wanted him to look. He was in Helsingør—’

  ‘The woman’s a liability.’

  She walked off to her desk. Brix took her shoulder.

  ‘Lund’s the only one who’s seen this right from the start. It’s nothing to do with terrorism. We’ve got to get König in here and find out what he really knows.’

  She sat down. Brix took the seat opposite.

  ‘We need to start afresh—’

  ‘König’s got problems of his own,’ she broke in. ‘The Minister of Justice called a press conference this evening. He’s making accusations against the Defence Ministry and demanding PET look into them. Meanwhile Raben’s parked outside a hall in Østerbro where the Ryvangen cadets are having their ball. Do you feel a spectator in all this?’

  ‘Ruth—’

  ‘PET will decide what to do. We just sit back, listen and take orders.’ Her acute, dark eyes fixed on him. ‘That means you. That means me. That means Lund too.’

  He got up, closed the door.

  ‘We can’t go on like this.’

  That irked her.

  ‘There’s a dividing line, Lennart. Work and pleasure. We agreed that from the start. Don’t pretend otherwise.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘If you don’t trust me any more.’ He hesitated, made sure she understood. ‘After all we’ve done together.’

  Ruth Hedeby’s mouth dropped. She looked younger. Looked vulnerable, and a part of Brix said he shouldn’t pull a trick like this.

  ‘Then really,’ he added, ‘what’s the point?’

  ‘How can you use that against me?’

  ‘I’m not.’ He put his feet on her desk, leaned back, stifled a yawn. ‘I can work round König. We don’t have to sit here like junior partners waiting on their lead.’

  ‘Listen—’

  ‘König’s had us running all over Denmark chasing immigrants who don’t know the first thing about these murders. Was that out of incompetence? Or did he have a reason? I’m not asking you to step out of line. I’m demanding you do your duty. We do it.’

  She was wavering. Torn.

  ‘I want Lund back and I want a free hand,’ he said.

  ‘You’re a bastard.’

  He smiled.

  ‘Sometimes. But not now. They’re jerking us around. I know you hate that as much as I do. So . . .’

  ‘Let me think about it,’ she said.

  ‘Ruth . . .’

  ‘Enough. You’ve got work to do, haven’t you?’

  The cadets’ ball was in a whitewashed army hall close to the Kastellet fortification near the waterfront. Lights in every window, a string quartet, young men in fine uniforms, girlfriends on their arms.

  Torsten Jarnvig had an unexpected guest: Jan Arild. Once a fellow lieutenant in the Jægerkorpset in Aalborg, now a general at army headquarters. A short, stocky, sly-looking man a couple of years older than Jarnvig. With his fine ginger hair, ruddy complexion and sharp features he’d earned the nickname ‘Fox’ back then. Appropriately, Jarnvig thought. They’d served together, in hard times on occasion. Arild was a survivor. An important man now, in dress uniform covered with ribbons of service. He held divisional responsibilities over Ryvangen. It was important to cultivate him. And never call him Fox again.

  So Torsten Jarnvig smiled and laughed at his bad jokes. Didn’t complain when he smoked at the table even though it was frowned upon. Didn’t mention his poor manners, or the coarse way he’d whistle at anything, his own crass remarks or a woman walking past.

  Instead Jarnvig looked at his daughter and raised an eyebrow. He wanted her to know this offended him too. Wanted her to understand it was one of the burdens of being Colonel of Ryvangen.

  ‘I could tell you stories about me and your old man,’ Arild said and nudged Louise’s elbow. He didn’t notice when she shrank from him. ‘Places we were never supposed to be. Doing things they’d never want to hear about in Geneva . . .’

  ‘Jan,’ Jarnvig began.

  ‘See! I’m still Jan.’ He leaned forward. ‘Not so good here, you know.’

  ‘General . . .’ Jarnvig said with a sigh.

  ‘Things we never talk about,’ Arild repeated. ‘That’s the way of the army.’

  Arild admired the couples on the floor. Let loose a low wolf whistle at a woman in a low-cut red gown.

  ‘I gather the only surviving member of this renegade squad of yours is your own son-in-law,’ he said, still eyeing the dancer. Arild stubbed his cigarette into the smoked salmon on his plate, glanced at Louise. ‘Never works when men and officers meet outside duty. They know their place. We know ours. What do the police say he’s up to?’

  ‘I really don’t know much about it,’ Jarnvig replied. ‘We’ve more important things to focus on. How was . . . how was the hunting season?’

  Arild scowled.

  ‘I don’t have time for that. If Raben attacked the army chaplain he must be quite mad, don’t you think? A lunatic.’

  Louise stared at him.

  ‘What?’ Arild asked. ‘Did I say something out of place?’

  She was about to speak when Søgaard turned up at the tabl
e. A bright smile broke on Arild’s face. He got to his feet, shook the newcomer’s hand briskly.

  ‘Major Christian Søgaard,’ Arild cried. ‘Behold the future.’

  ‘I believe,’ Louise broke in, ‘Major Søgaard was about to ask me to dance.’

  She got up, took Søgaard’s arm and pushed, half-dragged Søgaard to the floor.

  Arild scowled at Jarnvig.

  ‘Spirited young woman. Do you think she’d feel the same if she knew about our little games together all those years ago?’

  ‘I did what I was told and so did you.’

  ‘A man should know his duty,’ Arild agreed and lit another cigarette. ‘Even better if he doesn’t need to be told. PET’s about to pick up that renegade of yours. They’ve been following him for a while.’ He tapped his sharp nose. ‘That’s confidential. Keep it to yourself.’

  ‘Why are they waiting?’

  ‘Because they hope to pick up the killers, of course. If he’s stupid enough for PET to track him down I can’t see a bunch of Muslim fanatics having much problem, can you?’

  Jarnvig’s phone rang. The music was too loud. He walked out, went down the hall, found an empty room. White walls, a glittering Murano chandelier.

  The call was from Bilal, on security duty outside the ball. Gunnar Torpe was dead. A policewoman had been attacked.

  Jarnvig leaned against a wall and closed his eyes.

  ‘What are the police telling you?’

  ‘Not much,’ the young officer said.

  ‘Leave it with me.’

  He pocketed the phone, wondered what to do. Looked up and saw Jens Peter Raben by the long curtains. He was as filthy as a tramp and had a pistol in his left hand, the barrel pointed at the floor.

  ‘Do as I say, tell the truth,’ Raben ordered. ‘That’s all I ask. Then you can go back to the ball and push Søgaard at my wife again.’

  ‘How the hell did you get in here?’

  ‘The way I was taught. Your security stinks.’

  ‘I just got a call to say Gunnar Torpe’s dead. They found him murdered in his church this evening. And someone attacked that policewoman, Lund.’

  Jarnvig watched him. He was used to judging soldiers. He knew when they were scared and lying. He knew when they were just scared.

  ‘Wasn’t me,’ Raben said.

  ‘Maybe not. I know you didn’t start this but by God you’re not helping yourself or Louise any more.’