by David Hewson
He pulled a chair from the table, sat down, briefly put his head in his hands. Gert Grue Eriksen looked old and tired for a moment, before the politician returned.
‘When I first became a minister I was like you. Keen as mustard. Determined to do the right thing. To see justice done. But God . . .’ His clenched fist hammered the polished wood. ‘Nothing’s as simple as that. It’s a dangerous, fractured world we live in. Serve here long enough and you’ll see it. One day someone will tell you there’s something bad round the corner. So bad you don’t want to hear.’
He opened his hands.
‘And then what do you do? You ask for a report and options. And they say . . .’ Grue Eriksen closed his eyes briefly. ‘They say it’s best you didn’t hear. As you once said to me . . .’
Buch recalled uttering those very words. It seemed a lifetime ago.
‘If we’re not responsible,’ he asked, ‘who is?’
‘Everybody,’ Grue Eriksen answered in a soft, damaged voice. ‘Nobody. You.’ A brief, humourless laugh. ‘Me, when it’s late at night and I can’t sleep. Conscience is a wonderful thing. Yours especially.’ His hand clutched at Buch’s arm. ‘We need it here. To remind us when we go too far—’
‘People died!’
‘I know. And sometimes you have to tell that virtuous, nagging voice to shut up. To put democracy aside in order to fight for democracy.’ The hand tightened on Buch’s arm. ‘I thought you of all people would understand that. If that brother of yours were here today—’
‘Don’t throw the dead at me,’ Buch yelled. ‘I’ve got enough of them in my head already.’
‘Not as many as I have,’ Grue Eriksen said in a voice close to a whisper. ‘And they all know me by name.’
He looked round the grand room.
‘We make a deal with the devil when we cross the bridge into Slotsholmen. You’re learning that the hard way. I need you, Thomas. I need your intelligence, your innocence.’ He laughed. ‘Your infuriating naivety too.’
The Prime Minister got up, placed a firm and insistent hand on Buch’s arm.
‘If I make mistakes, you must tell me. Help me govern better. Make sure—’
‘You must be out of your mind,’ Buch said, removing himself from the man’s grip. ‘When I tell Krabbe and Birgitte Agger you’re finished. You’ll be gone by the morning.’
‘Still not quite there, are we?’ Grue Eriksen smiled. ‘Still that childlike stubbornness holds you back—’
‘I’ve had enough of this . . .’
‘There’s nothing to tell and no one to hear it. This secret’s shared already. Come . . .’
Two large black double doors with star adornments stood at the side of the room. Grue Eriksen marched towards them like a little soldier himself.
‘Meet those who’ve heard my tale already, Thomas. And agreed that the most important thing of all is to continue the good fight.’
‘These games . . .’
‘No game,’ the Prime Minister said quickly. ‘No sides either. When it comes to war we’re as one. The way you always wanted it.’
The doors went back slowly. A gathering beyond. Buch came and stood to watch, breathless, sweating, knowing what he would see.
Erling Krabbe was there. Birgitte Agger too. The leaders of the minority partners. Every member of the cabinet. The political royalty of Slotsholmen, foes on paper, gathered together in unison.
Gert Grue Eriksen walked in, stood in their midst, turned, beckoned with a hand.
‘Thomas!’ shrieked a high-pitched voice from behind.
Buch didn’t move.
‘Thomas.’ Karina Jørgensen marched in and stood by him. She was the one tugging at his arm now. ‘The reporters are here. They need you. They’re waiting.’
He broke the passenger window on Strange’s car with his Neuhausen pistol, freed the lock, dragged out the handcuffed man inside. Took him through the shattered wooden door into the memorial park, back to the firing range and the stakes.
Two still bodies on the ground. He’d need the keys to the handcuffs. Strange would have them.
He’d need a plan, a story too, and that was halfway there already.
Raben rolled on the grass, cursing and shrieking.
A boot in the gut, another under the chin. Then the Neuhausen in the face. That silenced him.
‘Ungrateful piece of shit,’ he said, and fetched him another kick, hard in the groin this time.
Wiped the weapon with a cloth from his pocket, crouched down over the wheezing man, squeezed the gun into his fingers, fired two rapid shots into the body a couple of metres away.
Watched Strange’s corpse jump and twitch with the impact. The woman hadn’t moved since he shot her. Too far for this trick. She could stay where she was for now.
A plan.
He’d brought two guns. Threw the one he’d just fired into the grass by the stakes. Took out the second Neuhausen, stood over the gasping, choking shape on the ground.
‘You put him up to it,’ Raben muttered then wiped his blue sleeve across his mouth, cleared away some grass and blood. ‘They’ll find you . . .’
He laughed
‘No they won’t. Do you think shooting a worm like you counts for anything? Besides . . .’ The man above Raben relaxed for an instant. ‘You really don’t remember, do you? I thought it was an act. But it’s not . . .’
‘Remember what?’
He crouched down, looked.
‘You’re the one who started all this. You shot that first kid. Strange was a good officer. Sound man. He’d kill anyone but not without a reason.’ A shrug. ‘You never put it in your statement. But Strange told us. So did your own men. Why do you think they were so scared of you?’
He rolled back his head. Laughed at the moon.
‘All this time you spent chasing the monster, Raben. And you never knew. The monster’s you.’
‘Liar, liar . . .’ Raben’s voice was a low, frightened sound in his throat. ‘You fucking liar . . .’
Two steps closer. The black barrel of the Neuhausen to his temple.
‘Why would I lie? I’m about to shoot you. The way you shot her. The other kids. The mother.’ A glance at the body behind. ‘He got the father. But then the bastard was a friend of the Taliban so what the hell?’
‘Shut up—’
‘You started this. You and your fury. You murdered those kids because you just . . .’ Free hand to head, finger whirling. ‘. . . lost it. And everyone was to blame except you. Come on . . .’
The barrel prodded at Raben’s skull.
‘Remember now? You were a snivelling wreck afterwards. All grief and regret. The good men we lost—’
‘Arild—’
‘Call me “General”. For once in your sorry life act like a soldier.’
He went to Strange’s body, rifled through the jacket, got a set of keys that looked good for the handcuffs. Came back and waved them at the figure on the ground. Raben was starting to weep, to choke and shake.
‘Finally,’ the man with the gun said. ‘We’ve unlocked that memory, haven’t we? A little late I guess . . .’
He took out his phone, called the Politigården, got through to what sounded like a party.
‘Brix? Are you drinking?’
A caustic answer.
‘Well, you can stop,’ Arild said. ‘I got a call from Raben asking me to meet him at Mindelunden. He said one of your cops was trying to kill him.’
Arild let that sink in.
‘Raben’s got a weapon from somewhere. He’s shot them both. The lunatic’s loose here.’ A pause. ‘I think he wants me next.’
‘Stay where you are,’ Brix ordered.
He snapped the phone shut, looked at the trembling man on the ground. Raised the gun.
There was a noise from somewhere.
A dog maybe. An urban fox.
A train went past, lights flashing. Arild raised the gun. Then something hit.
She hurt.
&nbs
p; Hurt more when she crashed the police handgun hard into Jan Arild’s head, sent him grunting to the floor, his weapon scuttling into the grass.
Lund coughed.
Looked at the still, sad, familiar shape lying there.
No movement. No breathing. That was clear in the bright moonlight.
It felt as if a horse had kicked her in the chest. Sick of the thing, she undid her jacket, stripped off the body armour she’d taken out of her locker for the first time that night, on the way to the car with Strange, fixing in her mind what she’d say.
It isn’t magic.
She wondered when his gentle, inquisitive voice would leave her head.
Stopped when the man in the heavy military coat in front of her came to on the ground, began laughing, looking.
He had the face of a fox. Long sharp nose. Beady eyes. On her now.
‘Raben,’ she said quickly. ‘Find the bastard’s gun, will you? Raben?’
The figure in the blue prison suit was hunched up, a mess, drawn in on himself. Broken, maybe for ever.
Lund had heard every word of the exchange between these two, felt the fog clearing in her head as she did so. Strange was a special forces soldier. Capable of anything, provided duty and an officer above him called for it. But he didn’t kill kids for fun. Only the enemy. And anyone who merited the name stikke, a curse that was too close to home.
Still no movement.
‘Raben! There’s a gun here somewhere. I’m on my own. I’m not . . .’ What was the word? Her pained head hunted for it. ‘I’m not good at this. You’ve got to help—’
‘He can’t, you stupid bitch,’ Arild laughed back at her from the grass.
His fingers were probing the wound in his ginger hair. Blood, black in the moonlight. Not a lot.
‘Thanks for that,’ he said in his cruel, laughing voice. ‘It all adds to the story.’
His head was off the ground. Arild was looking round. Right hand out, grasping.
Raben’s moans were starting to get to her. The man was gone. Back in that room in Helmand, killing a kid because he felt like it, starting a bloodbath that would never leave him.
‘You won’t get away with this,’ Lund said. She held the gun in both hands. Kept it on him, not steady. That wasn’t possible. ‘Stay where you are.’
Arild grinned at her.
‘This is nothing. I’ve buried better before. Better than you.’ He wasn’t afraid. Not for a moment. ‘Who do you think you are? What? You’re like him . . .’ Arild nodded at Raben, rocking back and forth, eyes full of tears. ‘One more pawn getting shoved round a chessboard you can’t even see. I . . .’
He was on his knees, looking around him.
‘I push you. Like I pushed Strange. And somewhere else . . . someone I can’t see pushes me.’
A black shape glittered in the grass back towards the stakes. Within his reach. They both saw it. Arild watched her, head to one side.
‘Your fingers are unsteady, Lund. Your arms are shaking. You don’t even hold the gun right. You’re a disaster, woman. You have been from the very start.’
‘If you don’t stay where you are I swear . . .’
But he was on his way already, quick as a wild animal on the hunt, rolling towards the black gun, the talisman he owned.
Now she saw it, felt it. The red roar rising in her head until there was nothing there except fury and hate, savage and raw.
The first bullet caught him in the shoulder. Arild bellowed with pain, skewed to one side, lay back on the grass, clutching the wound, staring at her, furious.
The second hit him in the chest and Lund didn’t even know she’d pulled the trigger.
On the ground. Blood pumping from his gaping mouth.
She didn’t count the rest. Lund fired and fired until the gun clicked on empty. Listened to Raben’s howls then threw the hot, spent weapon into the damp thick grass.
Stood there, close to Strange’s body and Arild’s shattered, torn corpse. Sweat going cold beneath her jumper. Two bruises gathering where the bullets had smashed hard into Kevlar.
Sirens from somewhere. Blue lights on the distant road.
She walked towards them, eyes on the path. Out of Mindelunden not looking at the graves and the long lists of names. Or the mother with the dead son in her arms.
A shape ahead and she barely looked. Brix was there. Madsen too. Strange ought to be with them, face calm, eyes concerned, telling her to get in the car. To go home. To sleep. To forget.
To forget.
‘Lund,’ Brix said as she walked past, eyes on nothing but the night. ‘Lund?’
Torsten Jarnvig ignored Arild’s final order and was welcoming troops for the next dispatch. Watching them stand to attention outside the Ryvangen barracks hall. Drilling into them the rules and rigours of the army.
In a warm and comfortable family apartment at Horserød open prison, Louise Raben sat on a sofa, Jonas half asleep on her lap, wondering when her husband would get there. Stroking the child’s soft fair hair. Smiling at the thought of the future that lay ahead of them.
By the long line of marble slabs that listed the distant dead, Raben slumped in his grubby prison suit, mind gone, turned in on itself, capable only of tears, too afraid to go near the truth.
And on Absalon’s island of Slotsholmen Thomas Buch stood in front of an open room, Gert Grue Eriksen beckoning to him. Birgitte Agger too. Krabbe, Kahn and all the others. The king and all his princes, friend and foe, half-smiling, arms open with only Karina’s soft insistent fingers to hold him back.
He didn’t look at her as he removed her hand from his jacket. Didn’t look at her as Grue Eriksen closed the long black doors and led him into the crowd where glasses chinked, small talk ruled and no one spoke of a past that would soon be buried and forgotten.
There was nowhere else to go and now he knew it.
Coming soon . . .
THE KILLING III
The final novel featuring Sara Lund
ISBN 978-1-4472-4623-7
Maja Zeuthen had never liked Drekar. Before Robert’s father died they lived in a former workman’s cottage in the grounds, had the joy of bringing two beautiful children into the world in a small, tidy home meant for a lucky gardener.
There they’d loved one another deeply.
Then the weight of the company fell on his shoulders, and with it a growing sense of crisis. Not just Zeeland’s. The world’s. They moved into Drekar. Lived beneath the dragon. Got lost in its sprawling floors and cavernous, empty rooms.
Being the Zeuthen who ran Zeeland was a burden too heavy for him to share. She’d offered. Lost the battle. With that defeat love waned. The arguments began. As she drifted away he spent longer and longer in the black glass offices down at the harbour.
And when he was home they rowed. Two little faces watching from the door sometimes.
It was almost eight. The servants had put dinner on the table. She’d eaten with Emilie and Carl, trying to make small talk. Noticing the way they went quiet whenever she tried to introduce Carsten into the conversation.
He was younger. Struggling a little with his medical career. As Robert said they weren’t his kids either and sometimes that showed in an uncharacteristic coldness and ill temper.
They cleared away the dishes themselves. Told Reinhardt to go home. He had a wife. Grown-up children. A house near the Zeeland offices by the waterside. But still he stayed around the mansion, watching, worrying. Robert almost saw him as an uncle, a fixture in the house when he was a boy.
Emilie and Carl went upstairs. To play. To watch TV. Mess with their gadgets.
She sat alone on the gigantic sofa, staring at the huge painting on the wall: a grey, miserable canvas of the ocean in a deadly gale. When they were splitting up Emilie said she hated it. The thing made her think of where grandpa had gone. Had Maja stayed it would have vanished before long.
Emilie came down, dressed in her blue raincoat, pink wellies and a small rucksack with childish pony d
esigns on it.
‘Where are you going?’
She didn’t blink, looked straight at her mother.
‘To feed the hedgehog.’
‘The hedgehog? Now?’
‘Dad says it’s all right.’
‘Dad’s not here.’
‘I won’t be long.’
‘I’ll go and get Carl,’ Maja said. ‘He can come with us.’
Emilie sat down on the stairs. She was gone by the time Maja was back with her brother.
‘Emilie!’
She tried not to sound too cross.
Then Robert phoned.
‘Emilie’s gone off somewhere. She said to feed a baby hedgehog.’
He laughed and she liked that sound.
‘She’s been doing that every night lately. We’ve got to work out what kind of pet to give her. I don’t think she’ll settle for a stick insect.’
‘No.’
Did he realize he’d made her laugh too? Did she mind?
‘Reinhardt found out about the cat,’ she said. ‘The gardener said he’d seen one outside the fence. Near a brook somewhere. Emilie was hanging around there one time.’
‘Outside the fence?’
There was a brittle tension back in his voice then.
‘That’s what he thought. It’s no big deal, Robert. Carsten said if we keep using the cream she’ll be fine in a few days. I’m sorry I flew off the handle.’
‘She shouldn’t go out like that. We’ve got security for a reason.’
A short silence. Then he said, ‘I’m coming home.’
Maja walked to the front door and wondered how long she’d have to wait this time. It was a tall, elegant reception area. The only ugly thing was the block of blue flashing lights and small TV screens for the security system that ran round the house and out into the grounds.
Eight monitors in all, mostly looking out onto trees moving in the winter wind, bare branches shifting restlessly.
