The Killing 2

by David Hewson

  The older Louise watched and felt a tear emerge, roll slowly down her cheek.

  She looked at the pile of letters. So many. When she thought about it she felt she could remember every last loving word he wrote, week in week out, however hard the fighting, however remote the place.

  A noise behind. She quickly wiped her face with her sleeve. Christian Søgaard was marching in with a box in his arms. More paint. She’d asked for it. He wore combat fatigues. Had that confident officer’s face. Nothing like Jens. Never would be.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late. They kept me at the Politigården all day. Idiots.’

  When she wiped away the tears more came. Too many to hide.

  ‘OK,’ Søgaard said softly. ‘Bad time. I’ll come back later.’

  ‘No. Stay.’

  She froze the video. It captured the two of them in each other’s arms, crackly lines running across the screen as if this love between them was already broken, gone for good.

  Søgaard glanced at the picture, looked away.

  She removed the cables and the cassette. Placed it in the box with the letters. Turned off the TV. Put the box on the floor then kicked it away with her foot.

  ‘Is Jonas at home?’ Søgaard asked.

  ‘No. He’s staying over with someone from kindergarten.’

  A friend she wanted to say. Except it wasn’t that. Jonas had none really.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the dead TV.

  Søgaard put down the paint, sat next to her, took her hand.

  ‘Louise. You didn’t let him down. You put up with more than most women would. You held out. You fought. I know. I watched.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Every minute.’

  He looked ready to leave. She didn’t want that. There was a break to be made. A decision to be faced.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ she asked.

  Hands in his pockets. He looked embarrassed. Hopeful.

  ‘Not much.’

  She laughed.

  ‘All alone?’

  ‘As usual.’

  ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘You want some wine?’

  ‘Wine’s good.’

  ‘And a bonfire?’

  He looked at her, baffled.

  Louise Raben picked up the box with the letters, the video, all the memories.

  ‘I want to burn some things. I want a witness.’

  She paused, felt a decision closing in on her.

  ‘I want it to be you.’

  The library was at the end of a dark cul-de-sac. Barely a light inside. Lund made Strange turn off the blue light and the siren then stop the car some way from the entrance. There were two vehicles out the front, both old and battered.

  She walked up, shone her torch through the windows of the first. An old Ford. Nothing. Then the second. In the footwell of the yellow Polo was a pile of manila folders. Army logo. Personnel records with the stamp of the Holmen office.

  Lund felt her gun tight against her waist in the holster on her belt.

  She called control, got them to run a check on the registration of the Ford. It took a minute.

  ‘Skåning’s car,’ she said when the operator got back to her. She looked at Strange. ‘Do we go in? Or do we wait?’

  He laughed.

  ‘You’re asking me now?’

  ‘Yes. I am.’

  ‘You did bring your weapon?’

  Lund slapped her jacket and nodded.

  ‘Well then you stay back, let me handle the front. We’ll take it from there.’

  She still wasn’t sure. The night Meyer got shot was rattling round in the back of her head.

  ‘We could wait for backup—’

  There was a sound from inside the library. A yell. A shout. A scream.

  ‘No,’ Strange said, and got out his Glock, checked it, went for the door.

  Raben had Skåning strapped to a chair, shirt dragged down to show the officer’s tattoo on his left shoulder. He’d punched the bearded man in the gut a couple of times, was getting madder with each failed blow.

  This ugly face was familiar. The bent, exaggerated features, the low brow, the broken nose.

  ‘Jesus . . .’ Skåning muttered through bleeding lips. ‘What do I have to do . . . ?’

  ‘Shut up and listen!’ Raben shouted, his voice echoing through the dark empty belly of the library. ‘You said your name was Perk. You stole his identity. You were with us in that house . . .’

  He whacked his fist into Skåning’s face again.

  ‘You had that dog tag. I saw it. I was there, remember? It was you.’

  ‘No, Raben! You didn’t—’

  Another punch. Blood spattered the blue tattoo on Skåning’s arm.

  ‘Admit it, dammit!’

  The man in the chair fell forward, retched blood and broken teeth onto his army trousers.

  ‘I know it was you,’ Raben snarled. ‘We came to your rescue.’ He brought up his knee, fetched it hard beneath Skåning’s chin.

  Another screech. Another howl.

  ‘Leave me alone, for fuck’s sake. I never fought in Helmand. I went crazy there. They discharged me.’

  A hand whipped round his cheeks.

  ‘I had a breakdown.’

  ‘I saw you—’

  ‘Yeah!’ Skåning cried in a high, pained voice close to falsetto. ‘And I saw you. On the plane home, with all the other wounded soldiers.’

  Raben stood back, felt a sudden, agonizing pang of doubt. A flash of unwanted memory.

  ‘What soldiers?’

  ‘Your soldiers! The men who were with you. Grüner and those other guys. They told me what happened. They said you were under siege in a village for two days.’

  ‘You were on that plane?’

  ‘With all of you! I remember seeing you strapped to a stretcher. You were awake, just. But you couldn’t talk. They didn’t think you’d live. I tried to speak to you. The others told the same story. About some guy called Perk . . .’

  One stride closer.

  ‘No!’ The bearded man looked terrified. ‘No more!’

  Raben sat on a chair. Looked at what he’d done. Put his head in his hands. Wanted to weep.

  A sound at the back of the library. He turned, reached automatically for the gun in his pocket.

  ‘Raben?’ Lund said, walking through the cold, dark hall of the library, seeing two figures silhouetted in the dim light ahead. Two men on chairs, both head down. One strapped, breathing heavily. The other . . .

  She wasn’t sure.

  ‘Raben!’

  She had the gun on him. Held it the way they taught on the range.

  ‘Just come with us. It’s all going to be fine.’

  Strange had disappeared the moment they came into the library, fallen into the shadows. She’d no idea where he was now.

  ‘You think?’ Raben asked, head cocked, beard rough and straggly, next to Skåning, wounded and bleeding.

  ‘Just get your hands up and walk towards . . .’

  He dashed for the stairs that rose at the end of the hall. Something in his right hand. A gun. No doubt about that.

  ‘Raben!’ Lund shouted again and followed him up the wooden staircase.

  It was an old library. Had the smell, the feel of a church. At the far end, beyond the tall bookcases, was a circular stained-glass window. Blue with pale figures, scriveners at their desks.

  Another shape there. A bedraggled man beneath its soft light, erect by the wall, holding a gun firmly beneath his chin, both hands to the grip.

  She put her own weapon back in the holster. Walked on. He was rocking backwards and forwards, eyes closed.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ Lund shouted. ‘You’ve got a wife and a kid. You’ve got a future.’

  A noise came from him and she wondered if it was wry laughter.

  ‘I need your help. We know Perk’s real. He’s behind this. We know you got framed.’

  Still the same motion, to and fro, the gun hard to his thro
at.

  ‘You’re so close to winning,’ she said, taking another step closer. ‘Do you give up now? You didn’t in the army.’

  No words.

  ‘Put the gun down,’ she ordered. ‘Drop it to the floor. Kick it towards me.’

  Eyes tight, face wracked with pain.

  ‘You’re the only one left! Think about it. If you’re dead he’s won. If you’re dead Louise and Jonas . . .’

  The weapon came away. Raben fell to his knees, stumbled forward gasping for breath.

  ‘Come on, Raben. It’s easy.’

  He looked at her. Blank, exhausted eyes. A man at the end of the road.

  ‘Put the gun down,’ she repeated and he did, very slowly, then raised his hands.

  A noise from the library below, big shoes on tiles. Raben stayed crouched, close to the weapon.

  Lund glanced. Strange was there, staying close to the walls. Gun raised, ready.

  ‘It’s just my partner. You’re safe with us. Walk away from the gun.’

  Strange’s footsteps got closer. His silhouette was emerging from the gloom.

  Raben could see the shape of him now. His fingers crept back to the weapon, clutched it, raised it.

  ‘Leave the gun alone!’ Lund barked at him. ‘Come over here.’

  Three more strides and Strange emerged from the darkness, stood on the floor beneath them, Weaver stance, Glock ready, pointing.

  ‘Put it on the floor,’ he ordered.

  She watched so closely. Couldn’t work out why this was going wrong. Raben was getting to his feet, the weapon in his right hand again, a look of astonishment and horror on his haggard, bearded face.

  ‘Perk . . .’ he murmured.

  ‘Put the gun down!’ Strange shouted. ‘Do as I say or I fire. Now!’

  Lund wondered if she’d heard right.

  ‘Do as he says,’ she said. ‘Please—’

  ‘Perk, you bastard!’ Jens Peter Raben roared, racing to the balustrade, weapon up, at the ready.

  She screamed something and wasn’t sure what. Saw the bright light burst out from beneath her, heard the single gunshot burst through the darkness, echoing off the old brick walls.

  Jens Peter Raben flew back, thrown hard against the wooden shelving, tumbled to the ground in a sea of falling books.

  She was there first, had a hand to his chest, feeling for breath.

  Torsten Jarnvig couldn’t get the conversation with Arild out of his head. Ryvangen was his dominion. What happened to the men there mattered. And now he felt he was in ignorance. Had been kept that way.

  Søgaard’s phone was off, the man was nowhere to be seen. Jarnvig pulled in Said Bilal and talked to him instead. Bilal was something of a mystery. A loner who didn’t mix much, didn’t drink, didn’t do anything except his job.

  Jarnvig had the papers from two years ago in front of him.

  ‘Raben said the officer they were relieving was called Perk. Yet Søgaard had attended Perk’s funeral three months earlier. Didn’t he think this was strange? There’s nothing in the report . . .’

  ‘It couldn’t be the same Perk,’ Bilal replied. ‘Why would Søgaard think anything of it?’

  ‘Because he was in charge.’ Jarnvig knew how he’d have approached such an investigation. There would have been questions. Plenty of them. ‘What about the radio call Raben said he received? He said it was from a Danish unit in trouble.’

  ‘We didn’t pick up any radio call.’

  ‘Would it have been in range from that village?’

  ‘We’re on a really tight schedule, sir. Could I suggest we postpone these questions—’

  ‘Do you? Till when? For ever?’

  ‘But there was no officer!’ It was the loudest he’d ever heard Bilal speak. ‘We had no troops in that area.’

  ‘True,’ Jarnvig. ‘We had no troops. It doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone there. Perk—’

  ‘Perk was a myth. An excuse.’

  ‘I want a transcript of all radio communications. Ours. Other Danish units. Any allied logs you can get hold of.’

  ‘And our schedule, sir?’ Bilal said wearily.

  ‘Ask Army Operational Command to send it. I want everything on my desk tomorrow.’

  The young officer said nothing, went for the door.

  ‘Oh, and Bilal?’

  He stopped.

  ‘Mum’s the word,’ Jarnvig ordered. ‘This is between the two of us. No one else.’

  A corridor in the surgical wing of the Rigshospitalet. Raben on a gurney. Oxygen mask, lines in his arm. Blood. A surgeon dictating to a nurse as they raced him towards the theatre.

  ‘Bullet wound, shoulder. If we’re lucky it hasn’t punctured the lung.’

  Lund followed, saw the wounded man open his eyes.

  ‘Has he eaten recently?’ the surgeon asked.

  ‘We don’t know. He’s been sleeping rough.’

  The surgeon wore a green mob cap, mask pulled down over his chin.

  ‘He’s lost a lot of blood. Do you know if he’s allergic to any drugs?’

  ‘We’ve sent through his medical records,’ Lund said. ‘The army had them on file.’ She hesitated. ‘He was badly wounded in Afghanistan two years ago.’

  ‘Well he’s badly wounded now,’ the man said in a curt, low voice. Then louder, ‘Get me a suction drain! Let’s get on with this!’

  The theatre doors opened. One of the nurses put a hand to Lund’s chest.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing? You can’t come in here.’

  She stood outside, watched the door close, wished she could still the furious thoughts in her head.

  Strange was a few steps behind, coming off the phone.

  ‘We’ve brought Skåning in for questioning,’ he said. ‘They want to know whether to start or wait for us.’

  Her wrist was still bandaged from the night before. Her head was starting to hurt. She couldn’t think straight and answer his question.

  ‘Is he going to be all right?’ Strange asked.

  ‘They didn’t say. He seemed pretty bad.’

  ‘I had to shoot. You saw that, didn’t you? He was waving that gun about. Looking crazy.’

  She flexed her fingers. They still hurt from the fall.

  ‘Why the hell didn’t he drop it?’ Strange went on. ‘If he’d done that we wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘He seemed scared, didn’t he?’

  Strange blinked.

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘I don’t know. He did put the gun down. Then he saw you approaching. And . . .’ She watched him closely. ‘He seemed to think you were Perk.’

  Ulrik Strange didn’t seem the same man at that moment. He looked angry, unpredictable.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake . . .’ he muttered.

  A voice from behind.

  ‘Where is he?’

  Brix in a damp raincoat. Unhappy.

  ‘In theatre,’ Lund said.

  ‘What the hell happened?’

  The three of them began to walk down the corridor, towards the waiting room. Strange first, silent and angry.

  ‘He took Skåning hostage,’ Lund said. ‘Beat him up. He had a gun. He took off and wouldn’t put down his weapon.’

  ‘Who shot him?’

  ‘I did.’ Strange shrugged. ‘I aimed for his arm as best I could. It was dark. He was upstairs.’ A glance at her. ‘So was Lund. I was worried.’

  ‘I want armed guards on the room. No one has access to him unless they come through us.’ He stared at Strange. ‘Well?’

  ‘OK.’

  He walked off to make the calls.

  ‘Is he going to pull through?’ Brix asked.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t he put the gun down?’

  A couple of nurses raced down the corridor pushing some equipment into the theatre. Strange was gone through the double doors. She was glad of that.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  It had been so long she’d almost f
orgotten what it was like to have a man, to take him to bed, to get so close she could taste his sweat and feel his strength inside. Christian Søgaard lay back grunting, eyes closed, face for once suffused with pleasure. Louise was above him, back arched, thrusting, not too quickly, trying to make it last.

  To make him happy the way she once did for Jens. He liked it this way too. Liked to give over some of his power, if only for a short time and then life could go back to normal.

  But Søgaard wasn’t Jens and it was more curiosity that drove her. Curiosity about herself.

  Another man, the first in thirteen years.

  How did she feel? Elated? Ashamed? Or just plain dead?

  He was getting there. She could sense it, hear it. And she felt nothing at all, but mirrored his growing rhythmic grunts and cries anyway because that was what you did.

  Too long? Too short?

  She didn’t know. Didn’t care. With Jens there was something else. Beyond the physical. A bond between them, a mutual shared mystery that bore the name of love. With Søgaard . . . nothing except his desperate need to have her. Which, like the good army woman she was supposed to be, she’d acknowledged, acceded to. Taken him to her lonely bed and given him what he wanted.

  He moaned. He thrust at her. A damp warm feeling.

  Louise Raben rolled off him, sweating, head spinning, wondering where the pleasure was and if it turned up whether it would outweigh the pain.

  She didn’t feel guilty. Jens had seen to that. But she did feel bad, and that somehow was worse.

  Sweating, gasping, his arm around her, clinging to his new possession, Christian Søgaard lay on her crumpled bed sheets, eyes closed, content.

  This was one more of his battles, she thought. Another victory. Another piece of the world claimed.

  Neither of them spoke. It seemed unnecessary. As she rolled from him there was a rap on the door. Loud and urgent.

  She dragged on her nightgown, the one she used to go to Jonas when he had the terrors, went to answer it.

  Her father was there. He could see inside she was sure. At that moment though he didn’t seem to care.

  ‘Something’s happened,’ he said in a nervous, worried voice. ‘The police called. I . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You need to go to the hospital now.’

  A sound behind her. Søgaard coming towards them. She moved the door to block the sight of him. A big man, with the officers’ tattoo on his arm.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.