The Killing 2

by David Hewson

  If he saw the man he’d know him. Raben had told Torsten Jarnvig that and it was true.

  He reached down, found the wires, brought the ancient Polo back to life.

  Torben Skåning.

  A man much like himself. Consumed with rage and fury and violence.

  Raben turned the rusty VW back to the main road and trundled on towards the city.

  Plough had assembled what information he could glean from the Ministry of Defence. Karina was at her desk making calls. The Security Committee was less than an hour away. Buch had nothing new to tell it.

  ‘Three soldiers died on the mission. Afterwards the Ministry received accusations from a local Afghan warlord. He said a family in the village was executed by Danish soldiers.’

  ‘Was he the kind of man we’d believe?’ Buch asked.

  ‘It’s Afghanistan,’ Plough answered with a shrug. ‘Raben’s team said they answered a distress call from an officer. They came to relieve him, found themselves trapped. The officer killed the family. According to the judge advocate this was a propaganda effort by the Taliban. After they were questioned the soldiers withdrew their story. All except Raben . . .’

  ‘Why did they change their story?’ Buch asked.

  Plough frowned.

  ‘It seems no one pressed them on that point. And now they’re all dead. Save for Raben. PET seem to have lost him completely by the way. Idiots. König’s put up a bad show—’

  ‘Forget König for a moment,’ Buch cut in. ‘Rossing knew something was amiss. We’ve got to work on that.’

  ‘He’s hardly likely to admit it.’

  Karina came in.

  ‘There’s a journalist to see you.’

  Buch rolled his eyes.

  ‘I don’t have time for that.’

  She smiled.

  ‘Oh yes you do. I worked all night tracking this one down. She’s got an axe to grind with Flemming Rossing. I think you should hear what she has to say.’

  Plough took a deep breath and began to knead his brow.

  ‘She’s next door,’ Karina added. ‘Shall I ask her in?’

  Connie Vemmer was a tall, striking woman close to fifty, pearl necklace, long tidy blonde hair, elegant top, smart blue jeans, all a little too young for her. She smelled of cigarettes and the faintest whiff of booze.

  Buch got up when she entered the room, found her a chair and said, ‘Well?’

  The woman stretched her long legs.

  ‘I worked in Flemming Rossing’s press centre,’ she said. ‘I was legit before that, though. A real journalist. You can check.’

  ‘We will,’ Plough promised.

  ‘Your aide . . .’ She glanced at Karina. ‘She told me you were interested in the Helmand case two years ago. I was there. On the watch when the accusations came in. I killed them. That’s why they never made the papers.’

  ‘Should they have done?’

  ‘Depends on your point of view. On the day the soldiers were buried, when Rossing gave his speech, a fax came in.’

  She fumbled in her bag and came out with a packet of cigarettes, lit one.

  ‘It was from Afghanistan. Anonymous. That wasn’t so unusual. Do you mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Not in here!’ Plough cried. ‘It’s forbidden.’

  ‘Just the one,’ Buch said with a smile.

  She lit the cigarette, looked grateful. Karina fetched a saucer for an ashtray.

  ‘It was a medical report from the field hospital at Camp Viking,’ Vemmer said. ‘That’s the part of Camp Bastion we use under the wing of the British. The body parts didn’t match.’

  Buch’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A hand,’ she said with a shrug. ‘There was a hand too many. It wasn’t from any of the soldiers.’

  ‘You mean it was a civilian’s?’ Plough asked.

  ‘Seems a reasonable guess. So I passed on the fax to the Permanent Secretary thinking he’d want to look into it. After all it seemed to confirm the soldiers’ allegations. But . . .’

  A long drag of the cigarette, then she waved the smoke away from her own face, unaware that it was drifting straight towards the horrified Plough.

  ‘Nothing happened.’

  Connie Vemmer looked at each of them in turn.

  ‘I checked. No one acted on it. The fax didn’t even enter the file. The judge advocate never saw it.’

  ‘I need you to tell this to the Security Committee,’ Buch said. ‘We meet in half an hour.’

  She laughed.

  ‘Are you serious? I signed the Official Secrets Act. I could go to jail just for talking to you.’

  ‘I’m the Minister of Justice.’

  ‘And I’m a freelance hack trying to stay alive. Sorry. If I could go public with this do you think I’d be trying to get you interested? I’d have written the damned story myself.’

  Plough retrieved the dying cigarette from her shaky fingers and took it away with the saucer.

  ‘If it’s a deal you’re after . . .’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want a deal! What do you think I am? I want someone to look into this case. It stinks to high—’

  ‘If you won’t step forward there’s nothing I can do,’ Buch interrupted. ‘We can talk to our lawyers. I’m sure the Official Secrets Act doesn’t cover every eventuality. If there’s good reason—’

  ‘I doubt Flemming Rossing thinks there’s good reason, does he? And from what I read in the papers he’s likely to be around a lot longer than you, Buch.’

  He smiled at her, said nothing.

  She dug around in her bag.

  ‘You can have this,’ she said, retrieving some crumpled sheets of paper. ‘It’s a copy of the fax. I made one before passing it on. Seemed a good idea at the time.’

  Three pages. Highly detailed. Buch started to read.

  ‘That’s as far as I can go,’ Connie Vemmer said.

  She let herself out after that. The smell of tobacco hung in the air.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Plough moaned. ‘We don’t know that woman from Adam. She’s a journalist, for God’s sake. It gives me a bad feeling . . .’

  Buch kept reading.

  ‘You can’t possibly put that in front of the Security Committee,’ Plough insisted.

  ‘Do you have something else?’

  No answer.

  The Security Committee consisted of the Prime Minister, Flemming Rossing, Gitta Spalding, the Foreign Minister, and Kahn, the ambitious Interior Minister.

  Buch had Plough to back him up. That would have to do.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ he said with a smile when he entered Grue Eriksen’s office. ‘I was delayed.’

  No one spoke. Buch dragged two chairs from the side of Grue Eriksen’s desk, sat down with his papers on his knee, smiled again as Plough joined him.

  ‘This meeting,’ the Prime Minister dictated into a voice recorder, ‘has been called to discuss the accusations the Minister of Justice has made against the Minister of Defence concerning some recent past cases. Present are . . .’

  Rossing was drinking a cup of tea.

  When Grue Eriksen was finished Buch leapt straight in.

  ‘Let me begin two years ago,’ he said briskly. ‘When an incident in Afghanistan was reported to the Ministry of Defence. I will refer to it as the Helmand case.’

  Rossing raised his teacup.

  ‘Very melodramatic, Thomas.’

  But he listened all the same.

  The office looked like an outpost of Ryvangen itself now. It was full of soldiers dragged in by Strange on her instruction. Men in combat fatigues mainly, unhappy to be painted as anything but heroes.

  Madsen came in.

  ‘We’ve found someone interesting.’ He gave Lund a personnel file. ‘Peter Lænkholm. They had to pick him up. He didn’t come in for questioning like we asked. He was a lieutenant. Got kicked out once Ægir came back to Denmark. Bad apple.’

  Peter Lænkholm was in an interview roo
m. He looked a mess. Unshaven, ragged clothes. Dead, unfocused eyes. No money. No life. No hope. One step from the gutter, she thought.

  ‘Why are you bothering me?’ Lænkholm said when she started throwing questions at him. He had a droning, lazy voice. Scared too. ‘I’m not in the army any more.’

  Strange sat at the back of the room. Madsen left them to it.

  ‘You were part of Team Ægir,’ Lund said. ‘Tell us about Søgaard. Did you like him?’

  ‘Oh!’ Lænkholm put on the most artificial of smiles. ‘Very much so. Søgaard was great. He trained me at the officers’ academy. I learned a lot from him.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Strange asked.

  ‘Yeah. He was terrific. I asked to serve under his command. That’s how much I respected him.’

  Strange flipped through some records.

  ‘You didn’t serve very long.’

  ‘I got as far as Afghanistan. How much do you want?’

  Lund pushed a report across the table, tapped her finger on one of the passages.

  ‘It says here you were uncooperative. There were disciplinary problems. You and Søgaard don’t come across as buddies.’

  ‘I’m not here to slag him off.’

  ‘Listen, mate!’ Strange got to his feet, came to the table, planted his fists next to Lænkholm. ‘Let me tell you how it is. You’ve got enough weed in that squalid little pit of yours to put you in jail.’

  ‘It’s p-personal. I’m not a dealer.’

  ‘Pull the other one. Tell us about Søgaard.’

  ‘It’s personal.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake . . .’ Strange looked at his watch. ‘I can have you in court by two o’clock.’

  ‘Just tell us what went wrong, Peter,’ Lund broke in. ‘Do that and we’ll send you for counselling. Get you some help.’

  ‘Help?’ he laughed. ‘You believe that?’

  ‘I believe it’s better than jail . . . Søgaard?’

  He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his threadbare, grubby jacket.

  ‘It doesn’t come from me, right?’

  ‘It doesn’t come from you,’ Lund agreed.

  ‘He’s fine.’ Lænkholm stared at her, alert now, as if the memories brought back a trace of the officer he once was. ‘So long as you follow the rules. His rules. Do what he says and it’s cool. But . . .’

  ‘But you didn’t, did you?’ Strange asked.

  Peter Lænkholm stared at the table.

  ‘You can get weed out there. And worse if you want it. All I did was smoke one fucking joint, for God’s sake! I was no more high than the Taliban.’

  ‘And for that he kicked you out?’ Lund asked.

  He glared at her.

  ‘Søgaard doesn’t kick you out. If you fail him it’s like you’ve insulted him. You pay the price. I got the full treatment.’

  ‘What treatment?’

  Nothing.

  ‘What treatment?’ Strange bellowed in his ear.

  ‘They fetch you at night, when you’re asleep. You’ve no idea it’s going to happen. They’ve got hoods on. You don’t know who they really are.’

  His shaking hand went for the cold coffee cup on the table. But Lænkholm’s trembling fingers couldn’t hold it so he gave up.

  ‘They strip you naked and tie you up with cable binders and duct tape. Then they take you outside, shove a flare up your arse and string you up from a post.’

  ‘A flare?’ Lund asked.

  ‘A flare. That’s what I said. It’s not so great, I can tell you.’

  Strange was shaking his head, laughing. She scowled at him. He walked to the window.

  ‘Didn’t anyone help you?’

  ‘What? And get the same?’

  ‘Couldn’t you complain?’

  ‘Jesus. You don’t understand what it’s like, do you? Out there Søgaard’s God. Nobody moves, nobody breathes, nobody takes a shit without his say-so.’

  Strange came back, pulled up a chair.

  ‘What about Raben and his squad?’ Lund asked. ‘How did Søgaard like him?’

  No answer.

  ‘Come on,’ Strange cried.

  ‘Not a lot. Raben’s team used to get into some stuff the rest of us were never told about. There were people around sometimes . . . I don’t know what they did. I didn’t want to know.’

  His head went down again. Lund bent over and tried to look into his glassy, lost eyes.

  ‘Raben was one of them?’

  ‘We all heard the rumours after he was hit. Then this officer got discharged. Me they just let go. But discharged . . .’

  Lund shook her head.

  ‘You’re losing me.’

  ‘It didn’t happen often. You didn’t get a formal discharge for smoking a joint.’

  Strange pushed a pad onto the table, followed by a pen.

  ‘Name,’ he said.

  Nothing.

  ‘Peter? Hello? Is there anyone still awake in there?’

  ‘A name,’ Lund repeated. ‘Then you’re out of here. To counselling, not court.’

  ‘His name was Skåning.’

  She began to flick through the papers.

  ‘Anything else?’ Strange asked.

  ‘No.’

  Lund found the file. A photo of a bearded man in a beret. Torben Skåning.

  ‘Him?’ she asked.

  Lænkholm nodded.

  ‘Great,’ Strange said, slapping his shoulder. ‘Then we’re done, aren’t we?’

  He grabbed the personnel records off the table, ran his finger down his clipboard.

  ‘Skåning’s on the list of men to bring in. Shall we pay him an early visit?’

  Lund got up, followed Strange to the door, watched him walk to the circular stairs, never looking back.

  She hesitated. After so many days in the dark they seemed to be getting closer to something that might resemble the truth.

  That had happened towards the end of the Birk Larsen case too. She was still living with the consequences, and she wasn’t alone in that.

  You learn from your mistakes, she thought, hearing Jan Meyer’s voice in her head, and all the warnings he kept throwing at her, mostly unheeded.

  Lund walked to her private locker, undid the padlock, sorted through her things. Got out the 9-millimetre Glock in its leather and canvas holster. Looked it at. Knew she’d always hate the thing.

  Caught her reflection in the metal door. Cut over the eye. Bruises. Swelling. But she was still alive, not that she knew how or why.

  The gun went into her bag with the gum and the tissues.

  ‘Are you coming or not?’ Strange called up from the floor below.

  ‘On my way,’ she said and walked to the stairs.

  Thomas Buch had prepared what he wanted to say in his head. It didn’t change when he delivered his concise and simple speech to the Defence Committee. It couldn’t. That was all he had.

  ‘Why was the Folketinget not informed of the accusations? Why . . .?’

  ‘Oh come on, Buch,’ Rossing intervened. ‘I can hardly go running to Parliament every time the Taliban try to pull a publicity stunt on us.’

  ‘You saw no reason to investigate the alleged killing of civilians? By our own officers?’

  Kahn, who’d looked bored throughout, broke in.

  ‘The minister’s already answered the question. Whose side are you on?’

  ‘That,’ Buch said, ‘offends me.’

  ‘It offends me to sit here listening to you question the integrity of one of our most senior ministers. Five seconds in government and look at the mess you’ve created.’ Kahn swore under his breath, stared across the room. ‘Do you have anything to support these wild accusations?’

  Buch nodded at Plough. The civil servant got up, walked round the room, handed out copies of the fax Connie Vemmer had brought.

  Rossing laughed.

  ‘What the hell is this?’

  ‘It’s a report from the field hospital in Camp Viking. This fax was sent to you on t
he day of the soldiers’ funeral. Among the body parts was a hand too many. The hand of an Afghan.’

  ‘This is a Ministry of Defence document,’ Rossing complained. ‘I’d like to know where you got it.’

  ‘The doctors’ report concludes the alleged killing of civilians must be investigated. You buried this—’

  ‘No, no, no. I called a judge advocate’s inquiry. It’s all on the record. The case was investigated and to tell you the truth—’

  ‘The truth is you did bugger all!’ Buch cried, getting to his feet, a little unsteadily. ‘You knew something was wrong and you were determined it wasn’t going to get out. You made Monberg keep silent when he found out. And when Anne Dragsholm got wind of it and was murdered for her pains you didn’t do shit!’

  ‘You’re overwrought, Thomas,’ Rossing said idly.

  ‘Damned right I am! Five people are dead.’ Buch put up his hand, fingers spread. ‘Five lives that could have been spared if you’d done your duty. It makes me—’

  ‘You’ve made your point,’ Grue Eriksen broke in. ‘Take a seat. Calm down if you can.’ The Prime Minister turned to Rossing. ‘Do you have an explanation?’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  He went through the copied fax again.

  ‘I asked for this to be kept out of the case files because it was inaccurate.’

  ‘Oh no, Rossing!’ Buch bellowed. ‘You can’t get away with this nonsense. The time and place is on the fax. It all fits.’

  ‘I’m sorry you force me to go into such macabre details, Buch. It seems I have no alternative. When the medics in Afghanistan looked into the case further they realized the hand was that of the suicide bomber himself.’

  ‘Not good enough.’

  ‘It may not be good enough for you! But it’s in the corrected medical report which was placed on file later.’ Rossing glanced at Grue Eriksen. ‘I really don’t want to waste any more of your time with this. You’re all welcome to read the documents if you wish. Had Buch asked for it beforehand I would happily have supplied it. Instead he goes off half cock once more. Really . . .’

  Rossing wiped his forehead.

  ‘What with poor Frode’s death this has been quite an ordeal.’

  ‘That was all very quick,’ Buch snapped. ‘How did you know I was going to talk about that fax?’