by David Hewson
Meyer threw the nearest his hard hat.
‘You know what you need to do,’ he said.
‘Going somewhere?’ the man asked.
‘I’ll be back at headquarters if you need me.’
The days were shortening. It was dark just after four.
Pernille Birk Larsen found herself alone in the office, fending off phone calls from irate customers, the media, strangers with odd offers of help.
The bank manager had been on the phone asking for financial information. So she’d been forced to find the key to Theis’s private files to look for some missing bank statements. There was a picture in there: Theis and Nanna. Probably taken just a few weeks before, she guessed. He wore his black woollen hat and the guileless smile she loved. Nanna was beautiful, arm round her father’s shoulders as if protecting him. Not the other way round. The way it was supposed to be.
She turned it over. A scribble on the back in Nanna’s handwriting: Love you!
Pernille had never seen this photo. One more secret of Nanna’s. And her father’s. Nanna was always messing around in places she wasn’t allowed. She took Pernille’s clothes sometimes without asking. Hunted in other people’s drawers for things she might want. It caused an argument from time to time. Never a serious one. They didn’t have those. In some ways she wondered if they ever really connected with Nanna at all. Perhaps that was the inevitable distance brought about by her death. Perhaps . . .
Nanna was a curious kid, always looking for something new. Maybe she looked down here at Theis’s private things too.
He wouldn’t like that, Pernille thought. There was a side to him he wanted to keep to himself. She’d seen it the previous night. A huge, savage figure holding a sledgehammer over a bleeding figure on the floor of that distant warehouse. A man she loved, one she scarcely recognized at that moment.
A noise in the darkness of the garage made her jump. Vagn Skærbæk came out of the shadows. He looked guilty, furtive. There was a cut on his face and some bruising.
‘Hi,’ he said.
She put the photo away, looked up at him. Could think of nothing to say.
He stood hunched in his scarlet overalls, black woollen hat. The little brother. They’d known each other before she met Theis. Before she took the risk, felt the thrill of being with a man like him. The silver chain glittered at Skærbæk’s neck.
‘It was my idea,’ Skærbæk said. ‘Blame me. Not him.’
Pernille closed her eyes briefly, went back to the papers.
‘Is he still inside?’
There was a pile of invoices. Some statements in red. She opened a drawer and brushed them inside with her hand.
‘I can manage this, Pernille. Let me help you with the business. With the boys. I’ll do whatever I can. I just . . .’
More papers. More bills. They seemed to be growing in front of her.
‘I just want to help.’
Pernille strode up and slapped him on his cut, bruised face. As hard as she could.
He didn’t flinch. Just put a hand up to his cheek. The wound had reopened with the blow. He wiped the blood away.
‘How could you do that?’ she asked. ‘How could you?’
He swept away more blood with his hand, looked at her oddly.
‘Theis thought he was doing it for you.’
‘For me?’
‘If it had been him, Pernille. If it was the teacher. What would he be now? Your hero? Or an idiot?’
She drew back her hand again. He didn’t move.
‘I shouldn’t have told him,’ Skærbæk said. ‘I did my best to stop it. When I saw. Kemal would have been dead if I hadn’t.’
‘No. No more.’
He nodded. Went to the desk. Looked at the jobs for the following day.
She had to ask.
‘Vagn. Back then. Twenty years ago. Before I knew him.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What was he like?’
He thought about this.
‘Unfinished. Waiting. A kid. The way we all were.’
‘The police showed me some pictures.’
‘What pictures?’
‘Someone murdered. A man. A drug dealer.’
‘Oh.’
‘What happened? Tell me the truth.’
‘We all get stupid sometimes. Your parents thought that when you took up with Theis. Didn’t they?’
‘The police—’
‘The police are trying to trick you.’
He came and peered at her. These two were close before she knew him. Thick as thieves.
‘Theis didn’t do anything, Pernille. Not a thing. OK?’
Kirsten Eller stuck out a flabby, sweaty hand.
‘I’m so glad everything turned out well for you. All this unpleasantness was quite unwelcome.’
‘Yes. Sit down.’
She planted her full frame on the sofa in his office.
‘And you’ve sorted out your group. This is good.’
Hartmann took the chair opposite.
‘I didn’t have any choice, Kirsten. I had to do something.’
She had an image of a kind. Long coat to cover the weighty body. Permasmile. Owlish spectacles pushed back on a head of dyed brown hair as if she’d just come from a busy board meeting. Eller had been around City Hall for as long as he had. In a way she’d achieved more. By means he was beginning to appreciate.
‘At least it’s all over now,’ she said. ‘The polls are looking good. The media are starting to see which horse to back. So now we reap the benefits.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’
She took a folder out of her briefcase and opened it.
‘We have some suggestions for winning any floating voters out there. It’s the undecided who’ll put us in, Troels. Let’s not forget it.’
He grinned at her, shook his head. Genuinely amused.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘You’re a wonderful actor. Quite a talent.’
The smile stayed. No response.
‘Bigum would never have tried a trick like that without talking to you first. He went to Bremer. He came to you. And you gave him the nod.’
The smile went.
‘Troels—’
‘No. Please. Don’t insult my intelligence by trying to deny it.’
‘This is—’
‘The truth,’ he cut in. ‘I know my people, Kirsten. I know Bigum. He’s not big enough or brave enough to do this on his own. Maybe you went to him. I don’t care.’
This was clear in his head now. He wondered why it had taken so long to see it.
‘They were acting out of fear. Not strength. Not courage. Fear. I guess you could smell it.’
She held up her hands.
‘Troels. Before you say another word . . . understand this.’
‘I’m giving you two choices.’
Kirsten Eller fell quiet.
‘Either I inform the press and they paint you for the untrustworthy, disloyal, conniving bitch you are.’
He waited, head to one side, listening.
‘And the alternative?’
‘You step down. Let your deputy take over.’
Kirsten Eller turned to look at Rie Skovgaard happily making notes.
‘You need me, Troels. You all need me. Think of—’
‘No, Kirsten. I don’t need you at all.’
She waited. Not another word. Then Eller angrily gathered up her things, stormed to the door. There she turned and looked at him.
‘This was about winning. Not you. Don’t flatter yourself.’
‘I won’t,’ he promised.
She bustled into Morten Weber on the way out. He watched her go.
‘What happened there?’ Weber asked. ‘I thought we were having a meeting.’
Hartmann got to his feet.
‘Rie!’ Hartmann called. ‘Line up some press interviews for me. Pick friends.’
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Weber cried.
‘I was goi
ng to tell you. There wasn’t time. Kirsten’s resigning.’
‘Jesus, Troels! We’ve fought for this alliance—’
‘She put Bigum up to it. She wanted me out all along.’
‘You can’t keep rocking the boat like this.’
‘Morten.’ Hartmann took him by his frail shoulders. ‘Bremer’s been one step ahead of us every inch of this campaign. It’s time we set the agenda. It’s time we moved more boldly than him.’
‘By firing everyone in sight?’
Hartmann’s temper broke.
‘She went behind my back. She tried to cut deals with Bremer. Then with Bigum. You need to change your thinking. We can knock Bremer off his perch without those mealy-mouthed sons of bitches in the Centre Party.’
‘No, Troels! We can’t. On our own we don’t have the votes.’
Hartmann shook his head. Rie Skovgaard stayed silent, smiling.
‘How long have we played these games, Morten? Twenty years? Always the same rules. Theirs. From now on we play by mine. Call the minority leaders to a meeting tonight. Tell them I have an important proposition.’
‘Half of them hate you,’ Weber said.
‘No more than they hate each other.’
‘They’re with Bremer!’
‘Not if they’ve seen the polls. They’re with whoever’s going to win.’
He looked around the campaign office. There were posters everywhere, his own face. Modest smile. Blue eyes wide open. The new broom looking to sweep out the old.
Hartmann pointed to his portrait.
‘That’s me.’
‘He filled the car the night Nanna died, ten days ago,’ Meyer said.
They were in the office looking at the CCTV tapes. Black and white, split into four windows. Date and time in the corner of each grainy frame.
‘The tapes run twenty-four hours a day. The chances of finding it after all this time are pretty slim, Lund.’
She was closest to the screen, looking. The numbers. The shadowy figures moving between the pumps.
Everything.
‘Also,’ Meyer added, ‘all these people reuse the tapes. So if it’s that old—’
‘It’s not this one,’ Lund cut in, popping out the cassette.
‘We’ve only got one left.’
‘It’s always the last.’
He took a deep breath.
‘It’s rarely the last, Lund.’
‘Look at the screen. See something I can’t. Please.’
He picked up a banana in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Lit the cigarette.
The video started. The date in the corner of the frames said 7th November.
‘Shit,’ Meyer muttered. ‘It’s from last Friday. Like I said. They reuse the tapes. That’s why they’re so scratchy.’
She took a sip of tepid coffee. Everyone else had gone home. A cleaner was sweeping along the corridor outside.
‘Doesn’t mean the rest of it’s from the seventh, does it?’ she said. ‘When we had videotapes at home . . .’
Mark as a baby, back when she was married. They were all jumbled up together. Different months, different years. It was hard to keep track when you used the same cassettes over and over again.
‘Fast forward,’ she said.
Meyer worked the remote.
Black and white cars, hazy figures running around.
‘Stop there,’ Meyer said.
He clapped his hands and let out a whoop of joy. She looked at him. Big ears, big eyes. Big kid.
Meyer’s face fell.
‘I was trying to cheer you up.’
‘It’s the thirty-first,’ Lund said.
‘I know. That’s what I was saying.’
Around eight p.m. He rewound, went too far, started moving forward more slowly.
They came to seven seventeen p.m. Four frames. Only one car.
It was a white Beetle.
‘Shit,’ Meyer muttered again.
‘The clock’s wrong. Why would you keep it accurate to the minute? Keep going forward.’
The Beetle left. No cars at all. Just empty concrete and the lights above the pumps.
Then at twenty minutes and thirty-seven seconds past seven a black car pulled onto the forecourt, to the pump in the right-hand upper frame, arriving with the jerky motion of a kid’s stop-frame film.
Meyer squinted at the plate.
‘That’s the car,’ he said.
It was raining. She hadn’t seen that till now. Knew what it meant. Had to mean. It was that kind of case.
The door opened. The driver got out. He was dressed in a long dark winter anorak. The hood was pulled up over his head. He walked to the boot and the fuel cap.
His face didn’t show for a moment.
‘Sh . . .’ Meyer began.
She put her hand on his.
‘Patience.’
Round the boot to the pump. Face down every step.
‘Come on, for Christ’s sake,’ Meyer whispered then took an anxious pull on the cigarette.
It was a pump with a card slot by the handle. They saw his hand go out, insert something, take it out.
No face.
He finished, went round the back to the fuel cap, then made for the door.
‘Come on. Smile for the birdie. Just look at something, will you?’
Straight behind the wheel. Features hidden by the angle. The Ford drove off.
‘Shit, shit, shit,’ Meyer groaned.
‘Wait a minute.’
She pressed the back button. Looked at the man working the pump.
Looked at his left hand. The way it stretched out and up to his head then took hold of something when he went to read the card numbers.
‘I know who that is,’ Lund said.
Meyer looked nervous.
‘Don’t tell me.’
‘I’m going to City Hall. Want to come?’
Five minutes through the rain and the sparse night traffic. The security man was about to come off duty. He began squawking the moment Meyer waved the cuffs at him.
‘I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything.’
‘Good God,’ Meyer said. ‘I never heard that one before. You’re coming with us, mate.’
‘All I did was fill up the car.’
Lund followed as Meyer marched him to the door, thinking, listening.
‘Before or after you snatched Nanna Birk Larsen?’ Meyer asked.
The man in the blue city sweater looked at him aghast.
‘I’m sixty-four years old. What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t touch anyone.’
‘Sit him on that bench over there,’ Lund ordered.
‘We need to take him in.’
Lund looked the old man up and down. Bent back. Lousy eyesight. He didn’t seem to breathe too well.
‘Tell us the truth,’ Lund said. ‘Tell us what really happened. Then maybe you’ll keep your job.’
‘My job? My job? It’s because I was doing my job I’ve got you baboons in my face.’
Meyer shoved him onto the stone bench by the bike rack.
‘They’re never going to put you front of house are they, chum? Tell us what happened or you won’t see daylight for sixteen years.’
The security man stared at him with a mixture of fear and outrage.
‘Do I need to turn up your hearing aid, Grandad?’ Meyer yelled.
‘Where’s the charge card?’ Lund asked more gently.
He didn’t say a thing.
‘I’m trying to help,’ she told him. ‘If you don’t talk now we’re taking you in.’
‘I took the card with me. I was going to put it back when I came in to work on the Monday. But then . . .’
‘Then what?’ Meyer asked.
‘You people were here. Everywhere.’
‘Why did you go to the school?’
‘Why wouldn’t I? My flat’s round the corner. I walked home and saw the car there. One of our cars. Just left. I didn’t understand. I knew the schedules. The
y were all supposed to be back.’
‘And you had the keys?’ Meyer said.
‘No. They were still in the ignition. I guess the driver forgot them or something.’
He shook his head.
‘I couldn’t leave it there, could I? Keys in the ignition. Some thug would have had it before midnight.’
Lund was getting impatient.
‘No. This isn’t good enough. You could have called the campaign office. It was their car.’
‘I tried,’ he said very deliberately. ‘They said the secretary was in Oslo. It’s the city’s car, you know. Not theirs. We own it. Our taxes—’
‘You could drive me nuts,’ Meyer spat at him. ‘The girl—’
‘I didn’t know that girl. I didn’t do anything. Except a favour.’
‘What did you do with the car?’ Lund asked.
‘It belongs to Hartmann’s pool. He’s a flashy prick but that’s not my business. Maybe he needed it. So I drove it to the petrol station, filled it up, and drove it back. Put the keys back.’
‘Back? Back where?’
‘Back here. Where else? There’s a car park opposite. We keep the pool over there. So that’s where I left it.’
She waited.
‘I never gave it a second thought,’ he said. ‘Not until I read about the dead girl. And then . . .’
She sat down next to him.
‘Then you kept quiet.’
He was fiddling with his glasses again. Licking his lips nervously.
Meyer sat down on his other side, gave him an evil smile, asked, ‘Why?’
‘A city official needs to stay out of politics. It’s very important. We don’t take sides. We don’t get involved.’
‘You’re involved now,’ Lund said. ‘Very.’
‘I thought I’d check the tapes to see who’d taken the keys. It was only right.’
‘And?’
‘It wasn’t there.’ He looked baffled. ‘All I can think is whoever took the keys must have taken the tape too. How else—?’
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Meyer hissed.
‘It’s the truth. I’m telling you the truth. I’m sixty-four years old. Why would I lie? If they knew the tape was gone we’d all be in trouble. Those bastards upstairs can’t wait to kick our arses. I’ve got one year left. Why should I carry the can for someone else? I brought that car back when I wasn’t even on duty. And here you are treating me like I’m some criminal—’
‘You are a criminal,’ Meyer said. ‘We’ve wasted a week chasing ghosts. There’s a decent man in hospital and that kid’s father in jail. If we’d known this from the beginning . . . Lund? Lund?’
