The Killing

Twelve

Lund’s lawyer and Bengt Rosling began the meeting in Brix’s office at nine fifteen. She was still in her cell, still in the prison suit.

‘My client moves for her release,’ the lawyer said. ‘She’s willing to cooperate within reason. You have no proof against her. She denies the charges. Since the question of guilt’s undecided she shouldn’t be here.’

‘Tell that to the judge,’ Bülow said.

‘All the people you can interview have been interviewed,’ the lawyer retorted. ‘Lund is the last person to commit new crimes. She has a son—’

‘The son lives with her ex-husband.’

‘She’s been under great mental stress lately. She was a hostage and has been in two shooting incidents. Her record in the police is impeccable.’

Bülow laughed.

‘If you think you can get her out on the grounds that she’s crazy, forget it. She shot her partner. She’s going to court.’

He got up.

‘Release her,’ the lawyer added quickly, ‘and she’s willing to let you see her psychiatric file.’

Bengt Rosling, still in a sling from the accident, placed a folder on the desk.

‘What file?’ Brix asked. ‘She wasn’t getting any treatment from us.’

‘It wasn’t a police psychiatrist,’ Rosling replied. ‘There’s reason to believe she’s suffering from paranoia and anxiety attacks. She may be suicidal.’

Bülow grabbed the papers, read them, laughed.

‘Did you write this shit?’

‘She went on my advice,’ Rosling said. ‘The psychiatrist confirmed that she’s predisposed to depression and shouldn’t be left alone in a cell.’

‘Thanks,’ Bülow cut in, waving the papers. ‘I’ll use this in court. So why’s Lund telling us she’s crazy?’

‘Because she wants help!’ the lawyer said. ‘Is this your attitude towards the health of your officers? I’ll use that in court too. Let us take care of her. Then you’ve got some time to reconsider these ridiculous accusations which frankly I will tear to shreds if you’re ever stupid enough to proceed with them. Before launching a civil suit for punitive damages.’

‘You’re bluffing,’ Bülow grunted.

‘Try me.’

Thirty minutes later Lund picked up her things. Put the white and black jumper back on, her jeans, her boots.

She signed the release paper, watched by Brix.

‘You’re suspended,’ he said. ‘Your statement’s being investigated. You need to surrender your passport. Your flat’s being searched.’

She went through the contents of her handbag. Found the Nicotinell, popped a piece in her mouth.

‘I had some cigarettes in here.’

‘No one’s touched your cigarettes. Report here immediately if we ask you.’

She tied up her uncombed hair, put on the elastic band.

‘I need to see the storage box.’

Brix stared at her.

‘Goodbye, Lund,’ he said and made for the door.

‘Give me a list of the contents, Brix. Give me something. You’re not dumb. You know I didn’t shoot Meyer. You know Leon Frevert didn’t kill Nanna.’

He stopped.

‘I know your case doesn’t look good.’

‘A list of the contents. That’s all.’

He hesitated. Then he said, ‘Bengt Rosling’s waiting for you outside the building.’

He was in a silver rented Renault on a meter close to the front arcade.

Lund got in, didn’t look at him.

‘Did you talk to the pathologist like I asked?’

‘If Bülow gets to hear of this—’

‘He won’t.’

She went through the autopsy report on Leon Frevert. Chipped tooth, injured mouth.

‘It looks as if the injuries were caused by a gun barrel,’ he said.

‘Some suicide.’

‘Forget about Frevert. It won’t take them long to find out that file I gave them’s a forgery. I put it in the name of a colleague I know. Magnus. He’s away at a conference in Oslo right now. But maybe they’ll contact him. That Bülow guy is out to get you.’

‘Bülow’s a moron.’

There was a knock on the door. Jansen, the helpful ginger-haired forensic officer.

‘You wanted this,’ he said and gave Lund a sheet of paper. ‘Good luck.’

He was gone before she had the chance to say thanks.

‘What’s that?’ Rosling asked.

‘A list of the contents of Mette Hauge’s storage box from the warehouse.’ She went through it. ‘He must have known Mette somehow. There was something there that linked him to her. He took it.’

Rosling looked at his watch.

She got out her notepad.

‘We’ve an address for where Mette went to. It was a house share for students near Christiania. If I can find out who lived there twenty years ago…’

He didn’t take the papers when she tried to hand them over. Just looked out of the window. Not at her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t…’

She waited. Such a nice, weak man. He couldn’t even bring himself to say it.

‘You wrote that fake report very quickly, Bengt.’

‘It wasn’t hard. Most of it’s true. You need help, Sarah. I can suggest someone.’

‘I don’t need that kind.’

‘That’s just the kind. This impulsive behaviour. The way you relate to distant people but not those close to you. Go off on your own with no regard to the consequences—’

‘Enough, Bengt! What was I? Your lover or your patient?’

No answer.

‘It’s OK,’ she said, and pulled on her seat belt.

‘I’ll call you from Sweden,’ he said.

‘If you like.’

She started the car. He got out. Lund drove off alone into the pale day.

They took the boys round to Humleby. Almost all the men were working there, painting, plastering, labouring round the clock.

No one had found anything. Not a passport. Not a thing that was out of place.

Anton stood near the door, eyes on the floor, miserable.

Vagn Skærbæk came in, crouched down, said, ‘Happy birthday, buddy!’

Not a word.

‘I had to tell them, Anton.’

Skærbæk glanced at Pernille.

‘It was the right thing to do. Wasn’t it, Mum?’

She was looking at the room. Not listening.

Anton shook his head.

‘I’ve got a present for you, kid. You won’t get it till tonight. OK?’

Punched him lightly on the shoulder. Still didn’t get a smile.

‘Dammit,’ Birk Larsen said. ‘Let’s stop this now.’

He took Anton’s hand, led him down to the basement with Pernille following. Fresh paint and plaster. New floorboards almost done.

‘Where is it?’

‘In the cupboard,’ the boy said.

Birk Larsen pulled open the metal door.

No boiler. No pipes.

No passport.

Pernille ruffled his fair hair.

‘Maybe it was something else. It was dark down here.’

He looked at his father and said, ‘Can I go upstairs now?’

Birk Larsen leaned down, black jacket, black hat. Put his big face up to the boy’s.

‘Anton. Listen to me. I know it’s hard moving house.’ Narrow eyes open, straight at the child’s. ‘But you mustn’t make up stories like this. Do you understand?’

The young head went down, rested, chin on chest.

‘Do you?’ Birk Larsen asked, voice rising. ‘It upsets your mother. It upsets me. You can say whatever you want. But don’t lie about Nanna. Don’t ever—’

‘That’s enough, Theis,’ Pernille broke in.

Anton was close to tears. She put a hand round his shoulder, led him upstairs.

Vagn Skærbæk stayed on the steps. When the two of them were gone he said, ‘Was that really necessary?’

‘What do you know about kids?’

‘I used to be one. Did you find him a dog?’

‘As if I’ve time for that—’

‘I’ve got a friend who can’t get rid of some puppies, Theis. Maybe…’

Birk Larsen stared at him.

‘I don’t want to interfere,’ Skærbæk said quickly. ‘Just if it helps.’

‘I thought the boiler was supposed to be in by now.’

‘No problem,’ Vagn Skærbæk said. ‘I’ll fix that too.’

They were waiting vulture-like on the step of the Rådhus. Reporters, camera crews, sound men thrusting mikes at everyone who went inside.

Hartmann and Weber entered together, side by side.

The position was agreed. Hartmann stuck to it. In spite of all their differences, Bremer was a respected figure in Copenhagen politics. His sudden illness was a shock.

‘The election, Hartmann!’ someone yelled as he approached the door.

He turned, waited for the hubbub to fall silent.

‘This is a time to wish Poul Bremer well. Not to try to take political advantage.’

‘Convenient though, Troels!’ cried a familiar voice in their midst.

Erik Salin elbowed his way through, bald head gleaming, cigarette dangling from his mouth. Voice recorder shoved out like a weapon.

‘I don’t think a stroke’s convenient for anyone, is it?’ Hartmann said.

Salin found the lights on him for a change.

‘Bremer had proof that your office hindered the Nanna Birk Larsen murder investigation.’

‘What proof?’ Hartmann asked, hands in pockets, puzzled. ‘I’ve received no proof at all.’

‘Bremer has it.’

‘I can’t talk about what I’ve never seen.’

Be calm, be reasonable, Morten Weber said.

‘But let me make this perfectly clear. I would never accept such behaviour from anyone on my team.’

He turned from Salin, found the TV cameras.

‘It’s against everything I believe and stand for.’ Hand raised, finger to the sky, making a point. ‘If ever I have proof that one of our people has stooped to something like that I assure you I will tell the world. And…’ The slightest of self-deprecating smiles. ‘I will seriously consider my own future in politics.’

He left it there, strode to his office. Threw his jacket on a chair.

Went to stand by the window.

‘That was good,’ Morten Weber said. ‘Very.’

The Meyers’ place was in Nørrebro, semi-detached, a little run-down. Basketball net in the yard along with a bird table, a Christmas tree, kids’ scooters, a pram.

Lund parked the car in the street, stood in the drive for two long minutes. Asking herself why she was there. If it was the right thing.

She’d tried to get through to someone in the hospital. They were under orders not to talk to her. So, in all probability, was Hanne Meyer.

Shapes at the window. A blonde woman cuddling a crying child. An older girl, blonde hair too, staring mournfully from behind the glass.

Lund went and stood under the lean-to by the garage. The door was open. She could see more toys inside. A big motorbike. At the back a DJ’s deck.

After a minute Hanne Meyer walked out leaving the kids behind, came and stood in front of her with arms folded, eyes still pink. Face lined.

‘How is he?’

A stupid question. A necessary one.

Meyer’s wife shrugged. There were tears not far off.

‘Same as when he came out of the theatre. They say if things don’t change…’ A long look up at the grey sky. ‘If things don’t change soon we’ve got to talk about the life support. And… I don’t know.’

She didn’t cry. Lund had been close to situations like this so many times over the years. After a while a sense of the inevitable, of practicality, fell upon everyone.

‘I didn’t do what they say. I swear to you. When we got there…’

A sudden look of anger, of release.

‘Why couldn’t you leave him alone? You said the case was closed.’

‘It wasn’t. Jan knew it too.’

No response.

‘It’s not closed now,’ Lund said.

‘What’s that to me? Tomorrow I might have to go there and watch him die. Do I hold his hand? What words do I use for that? Do you know?’

Lund shook her head.

‘They told me he said something that sounded like Sarah.’

Hanne Meyer closed her eyes.

‘Jan said your name. Not mine.’

‘No he didn’t. He never called me Sarah. Not once. It was always Lund. You heard him. Did he call me Sarah to you?’

Arms folded, eyes half closed.

‘He was thinking of something else. Trying to say something important. Can you remember exactly what he said?’

‘Why did you come here?’

‘Because I want to find the man who shot him. The man who killed Nanna Birk Larsen. Other women too. I need your help. I want—’

‘He said your name. Sarah. That’s all.’ Her eyes opened a little. ‘And some numbers. I don’t know—’

‘What numbers?’

‘I couldn’t really hear.’

‘What did it sound like?’

‘Eight four.’

‘Eighty-four?’

The door opened behind her. Two girls walked out. Tearful. Lost.

‘Did he say anything else? Hanne?’

She stopped.

‘No. He didn’t. I don’t even know if he knew I was there. OK?’

She kissed the youngest, put a hand to the hair of the older girl. Ushered them into the house.

Lund stood in the lean-to, next to the Christmas tree and the yellow motorbike she’d never seen Meyer ride.

Her phone rang.

‘I made a call to a friend in Sweden,’ Bengt Rosling said. ‘They’ve got access to the Danish databases. I’ve got a name from the time Mette Hauge lived in that student house. A man called Paludan. He still lives at the same address.’

‘That’s good.’

‘It’s the only thing that is. Magnus called me. They tracked him down in Oslo. They know I lied about your file. Bülow has put out a call for you. The rental car’s in my name. They won’t have that. At least I don’t think so.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, and looked out of the windscreen, out into the street.

Wondered what it would feel like to be on the other side. Hunted not hunter.

Troels Hartmann and Morten Weber caught Lennart Brix in his office going through records.

‘I don’t have time to deal with you right now,’ Brix said, not looking up from the papers.

‘We’ve got the press hounding us again,’ Hartmann said. ‘I think this comes from you. I want to talk to Lund.’

Brix looked up.

‘Join the queue.’

Hartmann slammed his briefcase on the desk, glared at the tall cop.

‘I’m at the end of my patience with you people. I want some answers.’

‘You’ve already had them. If I could have pinned something on you I would have done. Instead you’re out there on TV begging for votes. Don’t play hurt with me. You’re a consenting adult.’

Brix got up.

‘Who sent Lund that tape?’

‘I don’t know. It’s possible someone from your office took it. If I knew who it was I’d charge them. But I don’t. I don’t understand why they did that then waited until you were cleared. Frankly at the moment I don’t much care. Do you think I should?’

‘Is it important?’ Weber asked.

Brix smiled.

‘Who knows?’

He held out his hand.

‘I assume you have votes to beg. Don’t let me keep you.’

In the car on the way back Hartmann called the office. Rie Skovgaard answered. She’d turned up for work anyway, was going through his speech for the following day.

They talked as if nothing had happened.

‘One of Bremer’s people phoned from the hospital. He wants to see you.’

‘Why? I thought he was supposed to be out of there by now.’

‘Some kind of complications. They want to keep him in overnight.’

‘What kind of complications?’

‘I’m not a doctor. I said you didn’t have time. What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

Weber sat silent, listening.

Hartmann finished the call.

‘When we get back I want you to find Rie’s contract,’ he said. ‘I want to read it.’

It wasn’t a student house any more. Mette Hauge’s old block was neatly painted, converted into pricey apartments. Christiania trikes for the kids. Cobblestones and privacy.

Paludan was a lean, athletic-looking man who turned up on a racing bike while she was parking.

He didn’t ask to see her police ID. He seemed more anxious that they talk outside, in the courtyard. Away from his wife.

Half a kilometre away was the so-called free state of Christiania. A kind of hippie commune gone bad. There’d been drug dealers in the city for as long as Lund could remember. Half of them were in the gangs run by Danish biker groups. The rest were Turks and other foreigners. There was a constant war between the two. Sometimes people got caught in the crossfire.

She asked about Mette Hauge.

He shrugged.

‘We shared the house. That was all. I didn’t know her.’

Lund looked at him. His nervousness. The way he got more anxious when she wanted to go inside.

‘You were students together. You must have talked. In the kitchen. At parties.’

‘I told everyone this twenty years ago. We were studying. I was busy. Not doing dope and all the other shit like…’

He left it there.

‘Did you sleep with her?’ Lund asked.

Paludan didn’t answer straight away.

Then, ‘What?’

‘Did you sleep with her?’

‘No! What makes you ask that?’

‘It’s my job.’

‘Is it? I want your name. Your department.’

‘Listen to me. This case is open again and active. If you know something now’s the time to say it.’

There were people coming and going in the courtyard.

‘Can you keep your voice down? I don’t know anything.’ He was sweating. Patches on the arms of his biking gear. ‘Everyone slept with her. OK?’

Lund listened.

‘Me. Just once or twice. She probably never even noticed.’

Lund waited.

‘We were young. Students. There were parties. You know what it’s like.’

‘Tell me.’

Footsteps across the courtyard. An old woman with a shopping cart. She called out a friendly hello.

When she was gone Paludan said, ‘Mette was a lovely kid. But crazy. She’d do… anything. When they said she killed herself…’

He shook his head.

‘It was ridiculous. Overdosed maybe—’

‘She didn’t overdose. Someone beat her to death. Why didn’t you say any of this at the time?’

He leaned the bike against the wall.

‘Because I was terrified.’

‘Of what?’

His eyes drifted to the arch that led out from the cobbled courtyard.

‘Of them. Mette used to hang round with some scary people. If you wanted dope she always had someone who could get it.’

‘From Christiania?’

‘I don’t think so. We all knew those people. These were guys… like gypsies. They hung around with the gangs. Maybe were in the gangs. I don’t know.’

‘Any names?’

He laughed.

‘I wouldn’t have dared ask. I think one of them was her boyfriend. Maybe…’ He coughed. ‘Maybe more than one. Who knows? Mette was Mette. I wasn’t telling anyone I’d slept with her.’

‘You met some of them?’

‘Years ago… I don’t remember. I just—’

‘We buried this case,’ Lund said. ‘We thought Mette was one more kid who’d gone missing. If you’d told us—’

‘I’d just got married. My wife was pregnant at the time. Is that good enough for you?’

‘I need a name.’

‘I don’t have one. They were serious guys. Someone was dead sweet on her.’

A memory.

‘She came back one time with this ugly necklace. A black heart on it. I guess the bikers like that kind of thing.’

A tall young man was walking across the cobblestones. He looked at them, waved, smiled, said, ‘Hi, Dad!’

Paludan tried to smile back.

‘We were all stupid back then. Mette was a sweet kid. When I think back… in some ways she had it coming. Jesus…’

He stared at Lund.

‘That’s a terrible thing to say, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know. Is it?’

‘What I mean is… something was going to happen. I don’t know what. But it was never going to be good.’

He bent down, lifted his bike onto the rack, chained it.

‘That’s why I never talked about it too, I guess. I could see it coming. And there was nothing I could do.’

Bülow was livid. He’d got the registration number for Bengt Rosling’s rental car, put out a general call to bring Lund into headquarters. No bail this time. No chance of release.

Now he stood outside Brix’s office, throwing out threats like a clown dispensing sweets at a birthday party.

‘If I find out you knew about this—’

‘I didn’t know,’ Brix said with a shrug. ‘How could I?’

His phone rang. He looked at the ID.

‘I’ve got to talk to my wife. We’re supposed to be going out tonight.’

The phone rang again. Bülow didn’t move.

‘Do you like ballet?’ Brix asked.

Bülow swore then strode down the black corridor.

When he was out of earshot Brix answered the call.

‘The list of contents says there was a photo album in the box,’ Lund said.

‘What have you been up to?’

‘Mette Hauge was a party girl. Sold dope. Had connections with gangs. Maybe in Christiania. Maybe not. One of the gang people was her boyfriend. Maybe more than one.’

‘Lund, you need to come here immediately.’

‘I need to see the photo album.’

‘We’ve done that already. Wait… I’ve got it here.’

He went back into his office, went through some of the material they’d recovered from the warehouse.

The album had a blue cover. School photos. Student shots. Trips to the beach. Parties.

‘There’s nothing in here.’

‘It’s either at the end or the beginning, Brix. That’s how people file photos. Look for the pictures closest to Mette’s disappearance.’

‘We found Nanna’s passport in Leon Frevert’s back yard.’

‘Where?’

‘In the rubbish bin.’

‘That doesn’t add up. He’d have got rid of it two weeks ago. It wouldn’t be in the bin any more. You need to find this photo, Brix.’

‘Maybe he kept hold of it. Frevert had her passport. He was the last person to see Nanna Birk Larsen alive. Five minutes after he dropped her off he left a message on the Birk Larsen office phone. Vagn Skærbæk’s confirmed to us he called in sick.’

She tried to think about this.

‘Take me through that again—’

‘Get the hell in here! Lund! Lund!’

Pernille Birk Larsen was in a flap. Anton’s birthday. The last they’d ever celebrate in the cramped little apartment above the garage. The place was a mess. Packed bags everywhere, ready to move.

Anton was at a party with some school friends. Pernille would pick him up. No talk of passports. No talk of anything but birthdays.

‘I need you to cook the roast, Theis,’ she said, scrubbing the sink clean. ‘I need you to hoover too.’

He was making some Nutella sandwiches for the kids.

‘Anything else?’

‘No.’ She caught his eye. He was in a good mood. ‘That’ll do.’

‘The place’ll be a mess in five minutes anyway.’

He slapped some of the sticky spread on a couple of slices of bread.

‘It’s just family.’

‘I want the place clean.’

He rubbed his forehead. She looked at him.

‘So long as the boys have a good time…’

She had her hand over her mouth. Stifling a giggle.

‘Oh. So I’m funny now, am I?’

Pernille walked up, ran a finger across his forehead. Picked up some of the spread he’d wiped there.

Showed him her finger.

‘Oh shit.’

But he laughed.

Bags covered the kitchen table with its lacquered pictures and memories frozen in time. She wouldn’t let them follow. The thing could go into storage. Maybe get looked at from time to time.

At some point they had to leave the past behind. She knew that now.

His big arm came round. He pulled her to him, kissed her cheek. Black leather and sweat, the rough touch of his beard.

She was still gazing round at the room, the walls that once bore photos, the missing plants, the blank, pale space that was the corkboard. Pernille Birk Larsen found herself crying and didn’t know why. Only that these weren’t bad tears, and they were temporary. The tight, cruel circle that had opened when Nanna died was beginning to close, hour by hour, day by day. It would always be there. But with time it would become a part of them, accepted, like a familiar scar, always acknowledged, no longer a source of constant hurt.

‘Will you miss this place?’ his low growl whispered in her ear.

‘Only the happiness. And we can make all that again.’

He wiped her cheeks with his fat, scarred fingers.

She held him tight. He held her.

‘I wish I could have made it better, sweetheart.’

‘I know you do. I know.’

Twenty minutes later she picked up Anton from the party. He didn’t look tired. He didn’t look happy.

‘Did you remember not to eat too much? Dad’s cooking.’

‘Didn’t eat much.’

‘Did you hand out the invitations to the house-warming next week?’

‘Yes.’

She looked at him in the mirror, smiled.

‘And the girls too?’

‘And the girls,’ he sighed.

He didn’t want to talk. She did.

‘They’re fixing up the basement last,’ Pernille said. ‘The house is going to be really nice.’

His head went from side to side. He looked out at Vesterbrogade in the rain.

‘Are you still mad at Uncle Vagn for telling us?’

For a second she turned and looked at him.

‘Now we know there was no passport it makes everything better, doesn’t it?’

‘Somebody got it first,’ he said in a sharp, young voice that took her breath away. ‘Somebody.’

‘No. They didn’t! Lord… Anton. Why must you make up these things?’

He buried his arms in his jacket, said nothing.

‘Nobody took it. Sometimes…’ She looked in the mirror again. At least he was listening. ‘Sometimes you see things that aren’t really there.’

His eyes were on the mirror now, trying to find hers.

‘That’s true, isn’t it? Anton?’

The boy sat in his safety seat, arms folded tight. Eyes on the mirror.

In a soft, scared voice she asked, ‘Why would someone take it?’

‘So you and Dad wouldn’t get upset.’

He was still staring at her reflection.

‘Who do you think took it?’

Silence.

‘Who?’

‘I don’t tell on people. Don’t ever tell.’

Face at the window, at the street again.

When they were home he ran straight upstairs. Pernille went to the office. Pulled out the schedules and the diaries. Found the work list for that weekend.

The name of the office company was there. And a number.

She called it, got voicemail.

‘My name’s Pernille Birk Larsen. We were meant to do a job for you. One of our employees cancelled it. Can you please call me back to discuss this? So we can clear up any misunderstanding? Thanks.’

Lund left the rental car two blocks from the Humleby house, down a dead-end alley, away from the street. Then she walked through the rain, hood up, to the narrow road. Birk Larsen’s house was on the corner shrouded in plastic sheeting and scaffolding. A red company van was parked at the front. Lights were on inside.

The door was open. She walked in without knocking. There was no one on the ground floor. Just pots of paint, stepladders, sheets, paintbrushes.

A sound.

Someone walking up from the cellar.

Lund stood in the room and waited. It was Vagn Skærbæk. He stayed at the top by the shadowy stairwell. She could just make out the black hat, a sweatshirt jumper spattered with paint, a box of tools in his hands.

‘I’m really sorry to bother you, Vagn…’

‘Oh Christ. Not you again.’

He brushed past her, walked to the back of the room, didn’t turn.

‘It’s about Leon Frevert. A couple of questions.’

‘Make it quick. I’m going to a birthday party.’

‘The message Leon left on the answering machine. Do you still have it?’

Skærbæk came and stood in the light, shaking his head.

‘The other guy asked me the same thing. Don’t you people talk to each other?’

‘Tell me.’

‘No. I deleted it. I didn’t know it was important. It was just some guy cancelling.’

He tidied the tools, put each back into its slot in the box.

‘What exactly did he say?’

‘This was three weeks ago. Can you remember a ten-second message from—?’

‘Bear with me.’

Skærbæk looked at the ceiling.

‘It was something about being sick. He couldn’t work that weekend.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No. And I didn’t call him back. Pisses me off when people cut out of work like that. We were lucky the customer cancelled.’

Lund paced the floor, one half-painted wall to the other.

‘How did he sound? Was he afraid? Did he sound strange? Did he say what—?’

‘It was a message on the answering machine. It sounded like Leon.’

She looked at him. Lined face still babyish. Silver chain. Sad, pained eyes.

‘Did he mention Nanna?’

‘Don’t you think I’d have mentioned that?’

He went and got a piece of rag, wiped his hands on it, looked at his watch, then a blue jacket thrown in the corner.

‘Why did he call the company? Not you?’

‘Everyone calls that line. If no one answers it redirects to me.’

‘Right.’

Thinking.

Imagining.

‘So Leon Frevert calls the company line thinking he’s going to get Theis or Pernille. Instead he gets you.’

He’d stopped rubbing his hands. Stopped everything. Was still. Very still. Staring at her.

‘No. He got my voicemail. I told you. I was with my uncle. I got the message the next morning when I went in to work.’

Thinking.

‘Is that all?’ Skærbæk asked. ‘I’d like to turn off the lights. It’s Anton’s birthday. I’m going to be there. You’re not stopping me.’

‘I’m not.’

He ran downstairs. She followed him into the basement. The door there was old. A lock on it, and a key.

‘Did Leon ever mention someone called Mette Hauge?’ she asked.

He was taking down some temporary lamps, winding up the cabling.

‘No.’

‘Was he in the gangs?’

‘I don’t know! Listen. We’re sick and tired of all your questions. OK?’

He walked to a stepladder, starting tying his shoes.

‘We want to put this all behind us.’

Lund looked around at the basement.

‘All that stuff about that bastard Frevert. What he did. We don’t want to think about it.’

New timber boards across the floor. Springy and shiny. Quickly laid. Fresh chipboard covered the entire back wall, none of the other three.

‘We’re not taking this shit any more.’

He was near the steps, putting on his jacket, getting ready to leave.

‘You’ve got to leave us alone. After what the family’s been through…’

Sarah Lund was revolving slowly round the room, three hundred and sixty degrees.

‘They need some peace.’

She stopped and looked at him.

Just the two of them there, in the empty house in Humleby. Something in Vagn Skærbæk’s eyes she’d never seen before. A hint of recognition. Of knowledge.

In her face too she guessed.

‘What’s wrong?’ Skærbæk asked.

All the tools, the hammers, the chisels, were near him.

She tried not to look. Not to seem scared.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked again.

He was a smart man. She’d known that all along. He looked at himself. At the jacket he’d just put on.

Old. Dark blue. The logo of the winter Olympics. And the words…

SARAJEVO 1984.

A car drove past outside. Dim street light through the stained-glass window. People walked down the street. She could hear the sound of pram wheels or maybe a Christiania trike. Laughter. A key in a lock. Steps on nearby stairs.

‘Anything else?’ Vagn Skærbæk asked.

It took a while but she said no in the end. Then walked towards the stairs and the hefty door with the lock and key.

Something was going on in his head. She didn’t want to know.

He stood in her way.

Smart man. Maybe as scared as she was. His throat was moving. There was a glistening sheen of sweat on his brow.

‘So we’re agreed then?’ Skærbæk asked. ‘It’s all done with. Finished.’

She couldn’t take her eyes off his too-young face. A sense of grief, of shame was there. A recognition of who and what he was.

Lund looked around and said, ‘I guess so, Vagn. You’re right.’

Then slowly, very deliberately, he stepped to one side.

She was shaking by the time she got to the street. Crossed the road, found another house that was empty, being rebuilt, four doors away. Leaned against the grimy wall in the side alley, clutching herself, teeth chattering.

Waited three or four minutes then saw the last light go off. Skærbæk came out, looked up, looked down the street. Climbed into his scarlet van. Chucked a colourful bag of something in the driver’s seat. Then left.

Lund looked at her phone. Thought better of it. Went back to the Birk Larsen house, found the back door.

She got a brick and broke the window. Removed the splinters and the shards piece by piece. Found the key in the other side and let herself in.

Lund called Jansen, the ginger-haired forensic officer Brix had entrusted with the Mette Hauge file.

A good man. Quiet to the point of taciturn. Told him to come in by the broken back door, and find her by the noise downstairs.

First she started on the wall. Chipboard. Easily removed with a pickaxe. If there was blood splatter she ought to see it. The floor was timber, nailed in tightly. She couldn’t do that on her own.

A third of the chipboard was off by the time he arrived. Smashed and splintered wood was scattered across the floor. There seemed nothing behind except plain plaster. Recently washed by the look of it.

‘I’m never inviting you to a DIY party,’ Jansen said. ‘They’ve got your registration plate. You’re supposed to be taken into custody on sight. Go straight to those funny bastards across the building.’

It was probably the longest sentence she’d ever heard him speak.

‘I’m having trouble with the floor,’ she said, handing him a crowbar. ‘Can you start there?’

Jansen had worked with her for years. He saw things. Like her.

‘My,’ he said, looking at the new timber boards. ‘Someone was in a hurry here.’

‘Did you tell anyone?’

‘Yeah. I told them I was going home.’

‘There are more tools upstairs if you need them.’

‘They’re going to find you, Lund.’

She tried to smile at him.

‘Thanks. I need your phone.’

He handed it over.

‘How much do you want me to remove?’

‘Enough for us to find something,’ she said, then walked upstairs to get a signal. ‘We don’t have a lot of time.’

Bülow was back in Brix’s office, lost for a lead.

‘If you know where Lund is I swear I’ll bring you down with her.’

Brix shook his head.

‘She phoned. She didn’t say where from.’

‘Did you trace the call?’

‘Lund doesn’t think Frevert killed the girl. Or shot Meyer.’

‘She shot Meyer.’

Brix stared at him.

‘It looks like Frevert was murdered.’

‘I want Lund! Trace the call.’

‘Her mobile’s off. She’s not stupid. She’s the best officer in the building when it comes to tracing people.’

‘She’s forged evidence, Brix. She’s gone missing. Gone crazy. And still…’ He lost it. Yelled the last. ‘Still someone here’s helping her. If I find it’s you—’

Brix’s phone rang.

He looked at the number, put it straight to his ear.

‘It’s Lund here. Can you talk?’

‘I don’t think I’ll make the concert. Give me a minute.’

‘What do you think the Ministry of Justice is going to say about this?’ Bülow barked at him.

Brix said nothing.

‘You’ll be watching ballet for the rest of your life,’ the squat man said, then stomped out.

‘Yes?’ he said when Bülow had gone.

‘Did you get the photo?’ Lund asked.

‘You’ve got to come in now.’

‘I know who it is, Brix. I know where Nanna was taken after the flat. Where she was assaulted and beaten. Vagn Skærbæk. Send me a team from forensics.’

‘We found the girl’s passport—’

‘Vagn planted it. We don’t have time for this. Send someone.’

Brix looked outside the window. Bülow was still haranguing the men out there.

‘Send him where?’

‘Küchlersgade in Humleby.’

‘That’s Birk Larsen’s house.’

‘Yes. We need to move. Vagn knows I’m onto him.’

Among the plastic bags, the cases, the cardboard packing boxes, Anton was opening his presents. A fishing rod. A toy boat. A magic set and some pens and books for school. Lotte was back in their midst, helping with the table. Theis Birk Larsen wore his chef ’s apron, handed out drinks, wine for the adults, orange squash for the two boys.

Scalloped potatoes. An expensive joint of pork.

He took the meat out of the oven, put it on the side.

‘I should let it rest.’ He looked at her. ‘Don’t you think?’

She glanced at the pork, watched him reach for some foil, start to wrap it.

‘I talked to Anton about the passport.’

His mood wavered.

‘What? The passport wasn’t there. We looked.’

‘Anton thinks Vagn took it.’

Still messing with the pork.

‘I thought we’d agreed not to talk about this nonsense.’

The boys were starting to squabble. Lotte tried to calm them down.

‘I left a message with the people Vagn cancelled. The office. That Saturday.’

He smoothed down the edges of the foil, barely looked at her.

‘Why would you do that? This is Anton’s birthday…’

Her wide eyes flared. She came close and peered into his face.

‘Because there’s something wrong, Theis! Can’t you feel it? Can’t you…?’

Quickly he kissed her.

Bristly cheeks. Beer on his breath. A lot, she thought.

Lotte was there asking if she could help. His phone rang.

‘Take a look at the potatoes, Lotte,’ she said.

He was laughing.

‘Where the hell are you?’ he asked.

Then listened, put a finger to his nose, said, ‘Ssshhh.’

And went downstairs.

The kennel was by the garage door. Brand new. With a price tag on it which Vagn Skærbæk quickly snatched away as Theis Birk Larsen approached.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

Skærbæk glared at him.

‘Don’t spoil it!’

He got a cover sheet, draped it over the kennel, grinned.

‘I was coming past this shop. They had this outside.’

Birk Larsen peered under the drape.

‘That must have cost a fortune.’

‘The boys’ll love a dog.’ He was smiling. Smartly dressed in a black jacket and white shirt. Looked different. Older. More serious somehow. ‘I always wanted one.’

An odd, uncharacteristic smile.

‘You never really get what you want, do you?’

‘For Christ’s sake. We don’t have a dog.’

‘I got one from Poland.’

Birk Larsen stood in his blue apron and best shirt, starting to lose patience.

‘You got a dog from Poland?’

‘Yeah. I can get anything you want, Theis. Remember? I know a guy who imports them…’

‘Vagn—’

‘Don’t get mad with me. It’s a great dog. Pedigree and all. Nice surprise.’

‘Big surprise,’ Birk Larsen grumbled. He looked around the garage. ‘So where the hell is it?’

‘We can pick it up tonight. The two of us. After dinner.’ He pointed to the kennel. ‘Let’s keep it covered up. Until we get the dog. OK?’

Birk Larsen shook his head. He thought he could hear something nearby, scratching. Time to put rat poison down again.

‘It’s like having another kid around here sometimes.’

‘Kids are magic,’ Skærbæk said. ‘Kids are everything. I need to write the card.’

‘And then they grow up. I’ve got to finish cooking.’

He looked at the office.

‘I forgot to put the calls upstairs.’

‘It’s a birthday, Theis.’

‘It’s business.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Skærbæk said. He waved the pen over the bright yellow birthday card. ‘When I’ve written this. You go and see the boys.’

Vagn Skærbæk watched him go. Scrawled happy birthday on Anton’s card.

Heard the familiar answering message greeting an incoming call on the speakerphone.

‘This is Birk Larsen Removals. Please leave a message.’

A beep.

‘Good evening,’ said a stiff and tetchy male voice. ‘Henrik Poulsen from HP Office Supplies.’

Skærbæk stopped writing, looked round, made sure he was alone, then walked into the office.

‘You called about the move we ordered for the first weekend in November,’ the voice said. ‘To be honest we were very disappointed. We’d planned it for weeks. And suddenly your man cancels at the very last minute. It was very unfortunate. If you need more information you can call me at home. The number is…’

He let it run, took the tape out of the machine, placed it in his jacket pocket. Then switched the calls to upstairs.

Rie Skovgaard was bright and cheerful again, showing him the private polls. It was going the way Weber had predicted. A two-horse race with him in the lead. Bremer’s illness provoked sympathy but not support. If anything it improved Hartmann’s chances, not diminished them.

‘I talked to a friend in the police,’ Skovgaard said. ‘There’s something going on. It doesn’t affect us.’

Hartmann got a decanter of brandy, poured himself a glass, said nothing.

‘There’s nothing to worry about. All this nonsense Erik Salin’s been peddling. It’s just…’

He was staring at her.

‘Hot air,’ she said in a voice close to a whisper. ‘Should this be in private, Troels?’

Weber started to get up.

‘Morten stays,’ Hartmann said.

The brandy was old and expensive. A fire in the throat, in the head.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘if you feel I let you down somehow.’

Hartmann sipped the strong liquor, thought of the night in Store Kongensgade. Had felt much the same way then. As if nothing really mattered. As if he were hurtling towards a fate over which he had no control.

‘I’ll give you a choice, Rie. Either tell me the truth about the video, about the flat, and we go to the police. Or you take the consequences.’

Skovgaard stared at him, shook her head.

Morten Weber squirmed at the table, said, ‘What the—?’

‘I’ll deal with this,’ she broke in. ‘What are you talking about, Troels?’

‘Don’t lie to me any more. I know. You went looking for me that night. You went to Store Kongensgade. When you saw the place you knew something was wrong. Come Monday when the police were sniffing around here you thought if you could keep people out of there for a few weeks it would all go away.’

She laughed.

‘You’re more ridiculous than that Lund woman. I was at the conference.’

‘Not till ten o’clock.’

‘If this is one more piece of shit from Bremer—’

‘Was it someone from Parliament? Your father? Did he order you to step in and cover for your little puppet?’

Rie Skovgaard’s mouth opened. No words.

‘Or was this your own career move?’

Bright wide eyes filling with tears.

‘How can you even think this?’

‘There’s a gross misconduct clause in your contract. Go home and read it. I want you out of here now. I don’t want to see you again. In this office. Or anywhere else. Is that understood?’

He got up and went to the window. Took the brandy with him. Sipped it in the light of the blue neon sign.

She followed him.

‘If I thought you’d killed that girl…’

Hartmann didn’t turn to look at her.

‘Do you think I’d have still stayed with you? I did this for us—’

Hartmann spun round, eyes wild, voice roaring.

‘I know why you did it! I know what I was! A step on the ladder. A means to an end.’

‘Troels—’

‘Get out!’

Weber was behind her. An arm on her shoulder. Easing her towards the door.

‘Get off me, Morten!’ she yelled at him, and broke free.

Hartmann went back to the window. Looked at the city beyond the glass.

‘They’re the only people that matter,’ Rie Skovgaard shot at him. ‘Aren’t they? You don’t want love. You want adulation. You want—’

‘Just go,’ he said, not looking at her, waving with a single hand.

Not listening either to her curses and her screams.

And then she really was gone. Along with his only chance to seize Copenhagen for himself. A battle lost. The only victory that mattered put beyond reach.

When he went back to the brandy and poured another big glass, he thought he was alone.

Then a sound.

Morten Weber.

‘Troels,’ he said. ‘We need to talk.’

‘Call for the car,’ Hartmann said. ‘I want to see Bremer in the hospital.’

‘We need to talk…’

There was a flame in his head and it wasn’t the booze.

Hartmann turned on the little man screaming, high-pitched, like a lunatic, out of himself, out of the tidy, manicured, manufactured mannequin he’d become.

‘Is there one fucking person in this office who will do as I say?’

He’d never seen Morten Weber look at him this way before.

‘Of course, Troels. I just wanted to—’

Hartmann smashed the brandy glass against the window. It shattered a pane. Cold winter air came through, whipped round him, chilled his skin.

There was a release for everything somewhere. In booze. In action. In the physical rush of love. And still it led to the same bleak place, to nothing.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said in his old, quiet voice. ‘I just thought she was…’

He kicked at the shards of broken glass with his shoe.

‘I thought it was me she wanted. Not…’He looked at the poster, his face young and smiling from the wall. ‘Not the other one.’

‘He’s the one they all want,’ Weber said in a low, sad voice. ‘This is politics. It’s not for real people. They want figureheads. Icons they can watch rise and fall and say… Hey, they’re all in it for themselves, aren’t they? Just like us. Frail and human and venal. That’s the game we’re in.’

‘Tell the police about the flat. About the video. We’ve been party to an obstruction of justice. Brix can work out what to do.’

‘Now? It’s late. And you’re seeing Bremer. Why not… I don’t know. Let me see if I can find some way we can make this work for all of us.’

‘It can’t work—’

‘Troels, if we go to the police you’re finished. It’s too late to be the comeback kid again. You’re dead.’

Hartmann glared at him.

‘Call the police,’ he ordered. ‘You’re not fixing this.’

Jansen had a third of the floorboards up. Lund was looking at the concrete floor beneath. The two of them were covered in sawdust, plaster, wood chips, broken board.

Lund got down on her knees, put her face against the cold floor below the boards.

‘Give me the inspection lamp.’

She placed the bright bulb next to the joist and peered beneath the section leading back from the wall.

‘I think they did this part first,’ she said into the dead space. ‘Where the hell’s Brix and some help?’

Held out a hand.

‘Hammer.’

Jansen put it in her fingers. She got the claw end lodged some way down the board, eased it up. He wound a crowbar in. Another line of Vagn Skærbæk’s carefully laid, brand-new flooring rose from its fastenings.

‘Can you see anything?’ he asked.

‘He won’t have laid it straight over. He’ll have cleaned the floor first. Bleach. I think it’s on the walls too.’

She stood up. White and black sweater filthy with wood dust and dirt.

A light outside. Headlamps coming through the narrow blue window.

‘About time,’ Lund said. ‘Pull up the rest and let’s see what we’ve got.’

She walked upstairs. Brix was by his black Volvo.

‘Have you picked up Skærbæk?’ she asked.

‘No.’

She put on her jacket. Looked round.

‘Where’s the new man?’

Bülow was walking towards her from the left. On the right Svendsen was getting out of his car. He looked happier than she’d ever seen him.

‘You stupid bastard,’ she hissed at Brix.

‘He’s doing his job,’ Bülow said. ‘You should have done yours.’

Brix looked at her, shrugged.

‘There’s nothing in the basement, Lund. We’ve been here before.’

‘You were looking for Frevert before. Not Nanna.’

Svendsen came up, grabbed her arm and said, ‘You’re under arrest.’

She dragged herself free, stood in front of Brix.

‘Frevert called Birk Larsen that night. He wanted to say he’d picked up Nanna and she was going somewhere. The call came through to Vagn Skærbæk instead.’

Svendsen began to grab at her arms.

‘Don’t touch me!’ Lund shrieked at him. ‘Brix! Listen. Skærbæk went to the flat. He took the keys to the car Hartmann used. He hid her in the basement here. If we look—’

‘You can rant all you like in headquarters,’ Bülow cut in.

She tried to dodge Svendsen’s flying arms.

‘Skærbæk shot Meyer. He didn’t say Sarah. He said Sarajevo. Eighty-four. Look at Skærbæk’s jacket. Shit!’

Svendsen had her arm in a lock, was twisting hard.

‘Tell them about the missing picture, Brix. Tell them!’

She was caught then. Dragged towards the car.

‘Skærbæk put in a new floor. Covered the walls. Check it out! Get him before he kills someone else…’

The cop’s right hand grabbed her long hair, dragged her to the door. Pushed her down into the back.

Then he got in the front next to another man in the passenger seat. Rear doors secured.

Jansen came out of the house, walked up to Brix.

‘Is there anything down there?’

‘Nothing I can see,’ the forensics man said. ‘That doesn’t mean—’

‘Get out of there,’ Bülow ordered. ‘I’ll send people to assess the damage Lund’s done. We’ll have to pay out for that too.’

He went back to his car.

‘Wait.’

The squat man from prosecutions turned and scowled.

‘It may be your job to prosecute Sarah Lund,’ Brix said. ‘But I run homicide.’

‘Your case is solved. Cut yourself loose from that mad bitch while you can.’

He started walking again.

‘Get a full lab team out here,’ Brix said to Jansen. ‘Everyone we have. I want the basement checked.’

Bülow turned, shook his head.

‘We leave when I say so,’ Brix insisted.

‘Done,’ Jansen said, reaching for his phone.

A birthday song. This is how we play the trumpets. Everyone standing round the table, making pretend instruments with their hands.

Party hats. Presents. Cake. Candles and little Danish flags.

A toast of wine and orange squash. Vagn Skærbæk in his smartest clothes, smiling like a proud uncle, beaming at the boys.

Pernille looked at him. So young sometimes, though there were bags beneath his eyes she hadn’t noticed much before. And maybe he was starting to dye the grey flecks in his hair.

Vagn had been a part of them for so long she couldn’t remember how it began. With Theis. Everything started with him. In that mad rush, when she was pregnant with Nanna, running away, getting married. Persuading him to give up the round of petty jobs and try to settle down. Start his own company.

The slight, diffident, sometimes frightened figure of Vagn was always there in the background. Always ready to help. To offer a kind word. To put the life of someone else before his own.

Now she watched him looking at the boys and felt with every passing second that something which once seemed so right, so natural, was deeply wrong. Not for any reason she could comprehend. Not through any single fact, more a line of circumstances and intuitions that still failed quite to connect.

‘The boys are beautiful,’ Vagn said, smiling in that unforced, genuine way she’d taken for granted.

Maybe he saw himself there. Or the boy he wished he’d been.

‘The food was really delicious.’

‘I’m glad, Vagn,’ she said quietly.

And wanted to ask: why?

Was about to when Theis stood up, cleared his throat, announced he wanted to say a few words.

Were there any others, she thought. She loved this man but knew that, in some ways, he was as much a mystery to himself as he was to her.

‘First of all,’ Theis Birk Larsen declared in a voice that was mock-serious, though perhaps he didn’t know it. ‘I would like to say happy birthday to Anton. I hope it’s been a nice day. A little bird told me…’

The man across the table put a hand over his mouth and giggled.

‘That Uncle Vagn has another surprise for you later.’

He stood next to her like the rock, like the great tree in the forest he always was. Swaying a little now. Not the arrogant young tough of old.

Bowing down, his hand reached to the table and gently covered hers.

‘Lotte,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘Anton. Emil. Vagn.’

He didn’t cry. He never had. Not when she was looking. But it was close now.

‘We couldn’t have got through this time without you.’

He squeezed her fingers with his own.

‘And I couldn’t have got through anything…’ Narrow eyes, impenetrable eyes, sly sometimes, fell on her. ‘Not a thing without my Pernille. My sweet Pernille…’

The arm of Birk Larsen’s clean shirt swept his face. No tears. Not quite.

‘Soon we’ll have a new house. And we’ll welcome you all there. A new start. A new…’

The great tree wavered. The table was silent.

‘Skål,’ Pernille said, raising her glass.

‘Skål,’ said Lotte and Theis.

‘Skål,’ said the boys with their orange juice.

Vagn gulped at his beer and roared, ‘Bunden i vejret eller resten i håret!’

The boys giggled. He put his hand over his mouth and blushed.

Bottoms up or the rest in your hair.

A drunken toast. Not for kids. But maybe Vagn didn’t know that. Maybe there was a line between the boy he wanted to be and the adult he became. One, the imaginary child, happy and free, becoming real. The other, the adult, poor, careworn, solitary, turning into fantasy.

In the morning she’d call Lund. Would talk to her. Knew that the woman would listen. Till then…

She saw him smiling at Anton and Emil.

Till then she’d keep her family close, would not let them out of her keen and eager sight.

The phone rang.

Vagn Stærbæk got straight up from the table, went for the phone barely able to keep his eyes off the boys.

Off Pernille too. She looked so… intense. Happy in a way. As if something, some hidden mystery, was becoming clear.

‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Birk Larsen residence.’

‘It’s Rudi. Is Theis there?’

Past the balloons, past the presents she was watching him.

Vagn Skærbæk smiled.

‘Hi.’

Brightly.

‘What’s up?’

‘I drove by the house. The police are there again.’

Still smiling.

‘What do you mean?’

‘They’re in and out of the basement. Lots of them. Is that OK? I thought…’

‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘That’s fine. We’ll come right over. Thanks for calling. Bye.’

Sat down. Shrugged.

‘Well,’ he said, looking round the table. ‘I think we have a change of plan.’

Birk Larsen’s heavy brow furrowed

‘The guy I told you about.’ Vagn winked. ‘You know? The one. He wants us to come out right now.’

‘What plan?’ Pernille asked, suddenly anxious. ‘What plan’s this?’

‘Vagn’s surprise,’ Theis said.

He winked too. This annoyed her.

She got up, stood behind Anton and Emil.

‘So how did he know to call here?’

‘My phone’s on the blink,’ Vagn said. ‘Didn’t I mention it?’

He looked at the boys. At Lotte and Pernille.

‘I don’t want to break up the party, Theis. But if we’re going to go we ought to get started. Sooner we leave the sooner we’re back with…’

He looked at the ceiling, rolled his eyes.

‘Can’t we wait till after the cake?’ Birk Larsen asked.

‘No. We have to go now. Half an hour. That’s all.’

A glance at the boys.

‘Save me some,’ he said, then got Birk Larsen’s black leather jacket, held it for him.

Downstairs.

She heard the garage doors getting rolled up. Caught up with Theis as Skærbæk walked to his van.

‘Don’t go,’ Pernille said.

‘Come on.’

‘Why can’t Vagn go alone?’

‘It’s about the dog,’ Birk Larsen whispered. ‘We’ll be back for cake. I promise.’

Then, a six-pack of Carlsberg in his hand, he walked outside.

She stood by the crates and the forklift. Cursing herself. Wondering why she let him ride over her this way.

A small, high voice from the shadows near the office said, ‘Mum? Is this for me?’

Anton, searching round the place, looking where he shouldn’t. He got that from Nanna.

‘Let’s go upstairs. Stop messing with things.’

‘I’m not messing. It’s got my name on it.’

She went over. A yellow envelope.

In Vagn’s scrawl: Anton.

It sat on a tarpaulin over something that hadn’t been there before. She dragged it off. There was a kennel underneath, shiny and new. And a cardboard box, old, half open, behind. A noise coming from it.

She pulled back the leaves of the lid.

Anton squealed. Shrieked. Screamed.

‘He’s cute, Mum! He’s cute! He’s mine.’

A black and white puppy.

Pernille looked, mind racing. Wondering.

Anton picked up the dog. Emil was running down the stairs.

Into the office, phone out. Called his number.

Waiting she heard an echo. Walked to the workbench, saw the red Nokia there, light flashing, tone trilling.

‘What’s his name, Mum?’ Anton yelled, following the puppy round the vans. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Lund,’ Pernille murmured.

Anton looked at her.

‘Lund?’ the small voice said.

Svendsen was driving. Lund didn’t know the other guy in the front. As they worked through the busy traffic in Vesterbrogade she said, ‘Send someone for Skærbæk, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Why don’t you shut up and enjoy the ride?’

‘He killed Nanna. He killed Frevert. He shot Meyer.’

Svendsen took his hand off the wheel, wound a finger in the air, made a childish sound.

‘Woo-woo-woo.’

Laughed.

‘Maybe I’ll come and visit you in the funny farm. Probably not though.’

‘We need to bring in Skærbæk—’

‘Tell Brix about it. You’re boring the living shit out of me.’

The radio snapped into life.

‘Twelve twenty-four, call in.’

Picked up the mike.

‘Twelve twenty-four. Over.’

‘Twelve twenty-four. Nanna’s mother called. She insists on talking to Lund.’

‘Lund’s in a straitjacket howling at the moon. What’s the problem?’

She wanted to shriek at him. Rip the mike from his hands. But she waited.

‘She wants us to track down her husband.’

‘Are we lost and found now?’

‘Dammit, Svendsen,’ Lund yelled.

‘Yeah, yeah.’ He waved. ‘What’s it about?’

‘He left with an employee. She doesn’t know where. She’s worried.’

‘What employee?’ Lund said. ‘Ask him that. Gimme the damned mike.’

As she reached over the one in the passenger seat slapped her hard in the face with the back of his fist.

‘Come on, Svendsen!’ she yelled. ‘Bring that lonely brain cell into action for once in your life. Ask who it was? Humour me.’

He looked at her in the driving mirror, shook his head, asked the question anyway.

A pause.

‘He went off with someone called Vagn Skærbæk. They were supposed to pick up a puppy. The wife says it’s not true.’

Lund leaned over the seat. The other one kept watching her.

‘We need to send a patrol car over there. Get the number of Skærbæk’s van.’

‘Copied that,’ Svendsen said and put down the mike.

She blinked, bright eyes gleaming.

‘What in God’s name are you doing? Put out a call on Skærbæk. He’s killed two people already. Svendsen!’

His big bull head rolled in anger.

‘You don’t know that, Lund! I can’t put out a call because someone’s gone out for a drive. It’s Friday night. They’re probably on the piss and don’t want the old woman to know.’

‘Skærbæk isn’t going for a drive. Do your job.’

He looked at her again.

‘My job’s to take you back to headquarters and throw you in a cell. You’ve no idea how pleasant this is going to be.’

Lund sat back on the hard seat. Lights flashing past in the black night. Time running out.

Two men from homicide. Typical male detectives. Glocks on their belts always, like a piece of jewellery, an icon of their manhood.

She looked towards the dashboard, then lower. Svendsen was right-handed. The other guy left. Their weapons sat between them. Grips out. Calling.

‘I did ask nicely,’ she whispered.

‘I’m sure the only cell left is the shittiest one,’ Svendsen began. ‘I so regret that, I—’

Reached forward, both hands. Flicked up the leather catches in one, grabbed the grips, dropped one gun in the footwell, pulled the slide to load on the second.

Held the barrel against Svendsen’s bull neck.

‘What is this crap?’

He sounded scared.

‘Pull in,’ she said. ‘Right now.’

‘Lund…’

She took the weapon away from his skin, edged it round his face, then for the first time outside the range fired.

The side window shattered in crazed glass. The car skidded and wheeled on the dark wet road.

By then Svendsen was on the brakes and the other guy was screaming. They came to a halt outside a gift shop. Red brick. Christmas trees in the window and decorations.

‘Get out of the car,’ Lund said. ‘Both of you. Stand against the window. Don’t piss me off.’

She watched them. Climbed over the seat, gun in one hand, eyes on Svendsen all the time.

Then turned the unmarked police car round in the broad road, back to Vesterbro.

Bülow refused to leave Humleby. He stood and watched as Brix’s men tried to find some logical way to examine the mess that was now the basement.

Two senior forensic officers in white suits and mob caps were spraying for bloodstains. Brix stood with Jansen by the stairs, Bülow baiting them all the time.

‘This isn’t easy,’ one of the men in white moaned. ‘All this sawdust and shit—’

‘You’re wasting police resources,’ Bülow cut in. ‘That’s an offence in itself, Brix.’

The men were using luminol. Any trace of blood would shine bright yellow under the ultra violet lights they’d brought.

‘Seen a single thing?’ Bülow asked.

‘Well, no,’ the forensic officer answered carefully. ‘That’s often the case before you look.’

‘Are all the people you employ smart-arses, Brix? Tell me. Truly. I’d like to know.’

‘We need to turn off the lights,’ Jansen said. ‘See if we’ve got any traces.’

He glared at the man from prosecutions.

‘Careful you don’t trip.’

Then it went dark.

The two men in white suits picked up a pair of long fluorescent tubes.

Blue.

They ran them up and down the stripped and sprayed walls.

‘I’m not seeing anything, Brix,’ Bülow crowed.

His phone rang.

They moved their lights to the skirting board, ran round every inch.

‘Right,’ Bülow said. ‘I’m on my way. Track down the car. Warn everyone she’s armed. Approach with caution.’

He cut the call, stood in front of Brix and Jansen.

‘Your colleague has just threatened two officers with their own firearms and hijacked a patrol car.’

Brix said, ‘What?’

‘You heard. I’m getting you suspended, Brix. You’ve been standing in our way all along. When I’m finished—’

A long whistle from one of the men in white.

‘And now,’ said a voice ahead in the strange blue light, ‘stand back in wonder.’

They looked at the floor. Bülow and Brix. Jansen and the men in white.

Between the centre set of floorboards patches of yellow had crept across the blue pool of light.

Puddles and splatters. Long running stains.

‘Raise your eyes, gentlemen,’ said the man from forensics. ‘This is something else.’

A yellow handprint on the wall. Fingers scraping at the plaster, like the shadows left behind by a vanished ghost.

It was coming to life everywhere. Strips and smears, scrawls and pools.

Like a room in a sick nightclub.

In the strange light Jansen looked around.

‘She was fighting for her life in here, Brix. This was a…’

Bülow’s mouth was half open, flapping, wordless.

Brix was getting out his phone.

‘Get me control,’ he said.

There was a solitary nurse at the desk of the private hospital wing.

‘Are you family or friends?’ she said when he asked to see Poul Bremer.

‘Neither.’

‘Well then I’m sorry.’

‘Tell him Hartmann’s here. He asked to see me.’

‘He needs rest.’

Hartmann leaned on the desk and waited.

She went off to a room a few doors down. Not long after four people came out. Hartmann recognized Bremer’s wife and sister. Both were weeping. They walked past him, down the corridor, towards the waiting room.

The nurse came back.

‘I don’t want him excited. If he becomes sick or agitated you need to let us know. There’s a bell push by the bed. We’ve just moved him into this room and we don’t have all the monitors working yet.’

‘Sure,’ Hartmann said with a shrug. ‘How is he?’

She didn’t say a word. Then showed him to the room and left.

Just a lamp over the bed. Bremer in a white gown lying on a white sheet. Drip feed into his nostrils. No spectacles. Unshaven.

He seemed younger like this. As if the small, solitary room had removed the cares of the outside world, burdens Poul Bremer carried with him every moment of the working day.

The Lord Mayor of Copenhagen looked up at him, squinted, laughed.

‘I would have beaten you easily on Tuesday, Troels,’ he said in a weak, faint voice. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

Hartmann stood by the IV stand, hands in pockets.

‘Maybe you still will.’

‘If only.’

‘You know maybe you should talk to the doctors, Poul. Your family. Not me.’

‘You’re my legacy,’ Bremer said with a feeble scowl. ‘You can damn well listen.’

There was a stool by the curtain. Hartmann pulled it to the side of the bed and sat down.

‘Oh please, Troels. Don’t look so sympathetic. It turns my stomach.’ That faint laugh again. ‘If I were you, thirty years ago, I’d be standing on that drip feed now. Sending me to hell and stealing the prize for myself.’

‘I don’t believe that for one moment,’ Hartmann said, surprised to find he was smiling.

‘No,’ Bremer agreed. ‘I liked to bluster back then. To threaten. That’s all it was. I was a lot like you. Wore my heart on my sleeve. Then you get the thing you dream of. And it’s…’

Hartmann saw the expression of disgust.

‘It’s a piece of shit. You don’t change anything. You’re lucky just to keep the wheels on the cart.’

‘You’re supposed to rest.’

‘Rest?’ The voice grew a little louder. ‘Rest? How can you rest? How can you do anything… change anything… if you don’t have the power?’

‘Poul…’

The old man’s eyes were glazed and unfocused. His breath came in shallow irregular wheezes.

Bremer’s hand came out and gripped Hartmann’s arm. It was the weak and trembling touch of a frail man.

The monitor by the bed bleeped and blinked.

‘You think you’re different,’ the old man groaned. ‘Maybe you are. Everything’s changed these days. There’s so much I don’t understand any more.’

He coughed, winced in pain.

‘Poul? What did you want to tell me?’

Bremer’s eyes rolled, trying to focus.

‘I know who’s been protecting you.’

The nurse came in quickly, looked at the monitor, said, ‘I’ve got to ask you to step outside now.’

Hartmann got up. Bremer’s weak hand still gripped him.

‘I thought it was Rie but it wasn’t.’

The old man gulped. In pain again. The nurse felt his forehead, checked the monitor again.

‘I sent something to your office. It’s up to you…’

The woman was calling for a doctor. He could hear footsteps down the corridor.

‘You have to leave now,’ she said firmly, pointing at the door.

Still Bremer’s arm held him, still there was the blank basilisk stare, eyes the colour of the bleak marble inside the Politigården.

‘Do the right thing, Troels. You have to live with it. No one else.’

There were tears and a sudden look of terror.

‘You think you’re the captain of this ship,’ Poul Bremer whispered. ‘But really… it’s the master of us all.’

Voice high, trembling, frail. Hand on his.

‘Troels…’

White-clad figures raced around him, pushing Hartmann out of the way. The monitor started shrieking. Doctors, nurses talking anxiously.

The grey eyes opened in stark fear then closed and Hartmann was manhandled out of the door.

Down the corridor, down to the exit.

Someone was causing an argument.

Yelling, ‘But he’s an old friend! He asked…’

Troels Hartmann reached the desk. It was as far as they’d allowed Erik Salin.

The bald hack was on him straight away.

‘Hartmann? What did Bremer say? Huh? Come on, Troels…’

He looked at the man in the black coat, smelled the tobacco on him and the anxiety.

‘Bremer gave you the proof, didn’t he? He wouldn’t have called you here for nothing. He had it. He told me.’

Hartmann stopped.

‘What do you want?’

‘Bremer told me he had something,’ Salin repeated. ‘So…?’ A look of defeat, of desperation. ‘What is it?’

He doesn’t know, Troels Hartmann thought. Any more than I do.

‘Goodnight, Erik,’ he said.

Brix went straight to the Birk Larsen house, talked to Lotte, looked at the puppy.

‘We tried to call them,’ she said. ‘Theis left his phone here. Vagn’s not answering.’

‘What did Sarah Lund say?’

‘She just came along and picked up my sister.’

‘Where were they going?’

‘To look for Theis and Vagn.’

‘Where?’ Brix asked.

She looked at the officers searching the garage, the blue flashing lights outside.

‘Lund’s police, isn’t she? Why the hell are you asking me?’

A familiar voice on the radio.

‘They’re in a red van with Birk Larsen on the side. Registration number UE 93 682.’

‘Lund,’ said a voice from control. ‘You’ve no authority. Come in now.’

‘Just put out a call, will you?’

Brix strode to the car.

‘The van was last seen going east on Vesterbrogade,’ Lund said.

‘Come in!’ control barked again.

He picked up the mike.

‘Brix here,’ he said. ‘I’ll deal with this.’

Back in the Rådhus Hartmann marched to his office. The broken window was taped up. On his desk was a Christmas bouquet, holly and poinsettias, with an envelope bearing his name.

Inside was a photo he struggled to recognize. From the summer maybe. It looked like a school party in a park. He was smiling among a group of older students. Next to him was a young blonde woman, arm linked through his, laughing as if he’d just made a joke.

Hartmann’s blood froze.

Nanna Birk Larsen.

A sound from the back of the office. In the shadows by the sofa Morten Weber sat, coat over his arm, scarf in hand.

He got up, came to the desk, looked.

‘I was about to leave when that turned up. I thought I’d got every copy. It seems Bremer found the last one. He must have been looking very hard. Even Erik Salin didn’t get that I gather.’

Weber took the seat opposite Hartmann.

‘It was last July. The Frederiksholm school fun run. Remember?’

Hartmann stared at the photo.

‘Arm in arm. Eye to eye. She doesn’t look like a schoolkid at all, does she? In a way I guess she wasn’t.’

Weber got up, went round the back of Hartmann, took the picture.

‘Thank God it was never published. Nanna won the bronze medal. You gave it to her. That could have killed us. And Bremer hands it away for nothing. There must be a God.’

He passed the photo back to Hartmann, returned to his seat.

‘I just heard he had another stroke. It looks serious. If he can’t take the job it’s yours. We need to think about how you play this…’

Troels Hartmann stared at the pretty blonde girl then looked at the Christmas bouquet, thought of the old man fighting for breath in the hospital.

‘What have you done to me? What in God’s name…?’

Weber shrugged, looked at him, asked, ‘Are you serious?’

‘I’m serious.’

‘You really must try to see things from the point of view of others sometimes. You’d been in the flat. You were dead drunk. When I found you in the cottage you were a stupid, incoherent mess.’

He shook his head, wouldn’t take his eyes off Hartmann.

‘You’d tried to kill yourself. I remembered that girl. I remembered that photo the moment the police said who it was. I had her name, Troels. I work. I keep records.’

‘You… knew?’

‘What was I supposed to think?’

‘I don’t know her,’ Hartmann insisted, putting the photo on the desk, refusing to look at it. ‘I don’t remember this…’

Weber leaned back on the sofa, closed his eyes and sighed.

‘You thought me capable of—’

‘I’ve worked for twenty years making you what you are!’ Weber cried. ‘Waiting for a chance to achieve something finally. I wasn’t having that go to waste.’

Voice quieter. Hartmann’s breath became shallow. The room swam.

‘Oh for pity’s sake, Troels. I went round to the flat that Sunday. The table was broken. I could see something had happened. The next day they say it’s her…’

His face became stern.

‘Of course I made sure they didn’t find it. As best I could. I got the security tape too. I thought maybe we could give it to the police once the election was over. Let them into the flat. When it was safe. If it was safe…’

‘If?’

‘Don’t push it. In principle I did nothing to interfere with the investigation. Just helped it—’

‘In principle?’

Weber got the brandy decanter, poured himself a drink, stood over Hartmann. Like a boss.

‘I’m sorry about Rie,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘But let’s face it. She wasn’t the right woman for you.’

‘That’s your decision, is it?’

Weber scowled at him.

‘After all the sweat I’ve put in you think I don’t deserve some say? You should have hooked up with that policewoman, Lund. More your type. I can see you now…’

He took a swig of the brandy.

‘In bed. You thinking of your next speech. Lund with those big wide eyes, wondering what’s in the room to look at, what’s next door.’

‘You disgust me…’

‘That’s fine, Troels. Be as disgusted as you want. Was I supposed to throw away two decades of my life just because somebody killed a girl from Vesterbro?’

Hartmann lost it, dashed the brandy glass from his hand, stood above him.

‘Are you mad, Morten?’

Weber didn’t retreat the way he used to do. He stayed there, defiant, smirking.

‘No. Just efficient.’

‘The police are going to find out. They’re in Store Kongensgade now.’

‘No, they’re not. I never called them.’

He got himself a new glass. Poured himself a second brandy. Took Hartmann’s seat. Looked up at him.

‘Sit, Troels? Sit. We’ve things to discuss.’

Hartmann stayed by the window.

‘Oh for pity’s sake,’ Weber groaned and got another glass, poured Hartmann a brandy. ‘If it makes a difference…’

He took the chair on the other side of the desk. Waited for Hartmann to fall into his own.

‘You’ve nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. This speech for tomorrow…’

He took some sheets from the desk.

‘I need to make a few changes. We have to insert some references to Bremer. Expressions of admiration. I’ll handle it.’

‘There isn’t going to be a speech tomorrow. When they find out what you’ve done…’

Weber laughed.

‘Oh, right.’

‘If not I’ll tell them.’

‘Is that what you want? Fine.’

He pushed the phone across the desk.

‘Go ahead. Call them.’ He tapped a finger on the photo again. ‘We can show them this. You can tell them what happened when you met her. Last July. Rie was on holiday with her father in Spain. Remember?’

Hartmann said nothing.

‘You do remember, don’t you? Fun run.’ Finger on the photo. ‘I was there. That’s me at the back of the group. Always at the back. I know my place and…’

He pointed to his eyes, grinned.

‘I watch. I have to. Had a few beers, didn’t you? Those wandering eyes. Lingered around afterwards. Tell me, Troels. I was never much good with women. Did you even remember her name? Does it matter?’

‘What do you mean?’ Hartmann murmured.

‘The thing is…’ Weber had dropped the picture of Nanna Birk Larsen, was playing with the photo of JFK and Jackie. ‘You just dream of the White House. And I know you. I see what you’re like. The way you were before you married. While you were married. After.’

He leaned forward. Voice rising.

‘I know. You dream of the White House. And I just see Chappaquiddick. Pretty girl. A few beers. I saw you give her your number. I couldn’t work it out at the time. But, well…’

He shrugged.

‘Turns out she was screwing Jens Holck, wasn’t she? Maybe she wanted to try out someone new from the political classes. A different notch on her bedpost. I saw you—’

‘Morten—’

‘You gave her your number. You went round to Store Kongensgade. You waited. Got some good wine. Brought in some food. Was that how it worked?’

Hartmann was shaking his head.

‘I don’t remember…’

‘I took the kid to one side after you left for the flat. I ripped up the phone number. I scared the living daylights out of her. That’s why she never turned up. But I did. Just by accident. To make sure you really were on your own. Not screwing a schoolkid you bumped into at a prize-giving. Do you remember that?’

No answer.

‘So you see. When she was dead I had to ask myself. Did she get your number some other way? The pretty schoolgirl who looked so much older?’

‘I never killed that girl!’

‘I know you didn’t. Now. This is good. This we can live with. Had it been otherwise… I’d have faced some difficult decisions.’

He got up, put on his coat.

‘Any questions, Troels?’

The black phone stayed untouched.

‘Good. We have this conversation once only. Never again.’

Morten Weber looked at his watch.

‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ he said. ‘Don’t be late.’

On the long road that led from the city, Pernille wide-eyed and scared in the passenger seat, Lund behind the wheel.

Blustery rain came in through the shattered side window. There was glass on the floor, on the dashboard.

‘Can you think of any warehouses they might use?’ Lund asked.

‘We’ve got some in Sydhavnen.’

An industrial area, across the main road leading to the airport and Vestamager.

‘Lund?’ said the radio. ‘It’s Brix here.’

‘And?’

‘You were right about Skærbæk. The girl was held captive in the basement.’

Next to her Pernille Birk Larsen put a hand to her mouth.

‘So let’s find him,’ Lund said.

‘We will. You’ve got to come in.’

Straight away, ‘Not a chance.’

‘You don’t know where they are, Lund! You’re in the way of the operation. We’re alerting the border patrols—’

‘Vagn’s not skipping the country. It’s not about—’

‘We found shotgun cartridges in Skærbæk’s garage. He’s armed. I don’t want you out there. I don’t want Pernille either. There’s nothing you can do. Turn round and come back here.’

She looked at the woman next to her. Pernille shook her head.

‘What about the woods?’ Lund asked. ‘Pinseskoven.’

The Pentecost Forest.

‘Why the hell would he go there?’ Brix asked. ‘Middle of nowhere. A dead end.’

‘It started there. Somehow. Maybe he wants to finish it there too.’

‘Come in now. I’ll deal with this.’

She put down the mike, drove on, took the turn for Vestamager.

‘Why would they go to the woods?’ Pernille asked.

The traffic grew lighter as the night darkened. Soon they were beyond the street lamps and the dual carriageway, heading down the long damp road that led to the forest.

After a while the road narrowed to a single carriageway, then little more than a lane.

Dead end, Brix said. There anyway he was right.

Theis Birk Larsen nursed his third can of beer, not taking any notice where they were going. He was a little drunk, a lot happy. Reminiscing.

‘First dog I ever had was called Corfu. Remember that?’

‘Yeah,’ Vagn Skærbæk said, sounding bored.

‘Smuggled it home from Greece in a backpack. We learned a few things then, huh?’

‘I never knew a little dog could shit that much.’

Birk Larsen scowled at the beer.

‘Maybe we’ll be smuggling a few more things pretty soon. Got the house to pay for. If they put me inside for the damned teacher…’

He looked at the man at the wheel.

‘You’ll cope.’ Birk Larsen slapped his shoulder. ‘You’ll manage.’

He grabbed the remaining cans.

‘Want another beer?’

‘Nah.’

‘OK. I’ll have yours.’

They were on a lane. The van bounced and lurched on the rough track.

‘Where the hell are we going?’

‘Not far.’

‘Pernille’s going to kill us if we’re not back for cake.’

Birk Larsen raised his can.

‘Here’s to women.’

Then took a swig.

A distant roar above them. And lights. Birk Larsen watched as a passenger jet descended through the night sky.

‘We’re near the airport. What kind of idiot keeps dogs out here?’

‘There’s something I need to show you. It won’t take long. And then we’re done.’

‘Pernille…’

The van bounced. He looked at the lane in the headlights. Gravel. What looked like ditches by the side. In the grey light cast by a moon behind clouds the outline of a wood.

A dim memory, fuddled by beer.

Vagn Skærbæk interrupted it.

‘Do you remember when we used to go out fishing at night?’

‘Fuck fishing, Vagn. Where’s the damned dog?’

Trees now. Bare silver bark. Slender trunks rising like dead limbs from the earth.

‘It was always freezing. We never caught a damned thing.’

The van had slowed almost to walking pace. It kept running in and out of black potholes.

Birk Larsen felt slow and drunk and stupid.

‘You said Pernille would think we’d been drinking if we didn’t come back with some eels. You should have seen your face when I got some. You never asked where they came from.’

‘Vagn—’

‘I just went and stole them from someone’s trap.’

‘So what?’

Skærbæk nodded.

‘Yeah. So what? So long as things get fixed. Then they never come back to haunt you. What’s it matter?’

He found the place he was looking for. Stopped the van. Pulled on the brake.

Silver peeling trunks in the faint moonlight. Deep ditches both sides of the road. No sign of life.

Skærbæk leapt out, went to the back of the van, opened the doors.

Birk Larsen sighed. Took a swig of the beer. Decided he wanted a piss anyway.

Climbed out of the passenger side, walked round the side.

Vagn Skærbæk had dressed. He stood there in full hunting gear. Long black galoshes, long khaki coat. Over his shoulder was a shotgun on a strap.

He pulled another pair of rubber boots out of the back.

‘You need to put those on, Theis.’

‘What is this?’

‘Just put them on, will you?’

Then he picked up a heavy piece of timber, held it in both hands.

‘Let’s go home,’ Birk Larsen sighed. ‘Pernille…’

He didn’t see it coming. The lump of wood struck him on the temple, bloodied his eyes, sent him reeling against the van door, stumbling down to the ground.

Skærbæk prodded him with the barrel of the shotgun.

‘You’re OK. Get up.’

He pulled a big electric lantern out of the back, turned on the light. Closed the van doors.

‘Forget the boots,’ Skærbæk said. ‘Start moving.’

Then pushed him towards the trees.

Ten minutes later Lund parked by the bridge where Nanna’s body was found, walked towards the forest down a long straight path, Pernille striding beside her. Some way behind there were flashing lights. The sound of radios and men. A helicopter was sweeping overhead, its bright beam penetrating the darkness of the Pentecost Forest.

All she had was a single, weak torch and the wan moonlight that seeped through the thin cloud.

The phone rang.

‘I sent a couple of cars and a dog team from the airport,’ Brix said. ‘They’ve got the van. It’s empty.’

She remembered the woods from before. A maze of paths and tracks, criss-crossed with ditches, patches of swampy marsh, and canals. Logging piles blocked some forest roads. Others would be a quagmire from the recent rain.

‘The dogs…’ Lund started.

‘The dogs have got a scent. They’re onto it.’

‘How many people have you got?’

‘Five patrols now. Where are you?’

‘Inside the forest. Ahead of you I think. We need to hurry.’

She could hear the sound of barking. Make out torches. Waited. Saw a direction.

Pulled out the map she’d picked up from the boxes the nature reserve left everywhere.

Remembered Jan Meyer grinning with a dead animal beneath his arm, a wire round its neck and a cub scout scarf.

Lund walked.

Pernille followed.

Theis Birk Larsen stumbled.

Vagn Skærbæk, shotgun in hand, behind him.

‘Come on,’ he barked, watching the big man lurch against a silver trunk. ‘Move it.’

The trees grew thicker, spindlier. They marched through bracken and rotten leaves.

The sound of dogs. Men’s voices.

Birk Larsen lost his footing going over a puddle, fell to the wet earth, floundered in the mud.

‘Vagn…’

Skærbæk looked at the puzzled, damaged face of the man on the ground.

‘What is this, Vagn? What the fuck—?’

Skærbæk fired, put a shotgun blast into a bole of fungus and mildew a step from the hurt and wallowing figure in front of him, watched the yellow fire and flying mud.

Dogs barking. Voices getting louder, nearer.

‘Get up. Keep walking,’ he said. ‘Don’t stop now. Not far. Not long.’

Lund heard the shotgun. Pernille loosed a high, faint shriek.

No more shots.

‘Where are they?’ Pernille gasped. ‘Theis…’

A voice in Lund’s ear.

Brix said, ‘What’s going on?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How close are you?’

‘I don’t know. I—’

Jet engines drowned her words. Drowned her thoughts.

A ditch, green with algae. Birk Larsen stumbled, fell face in, got lifted by Skærbæk’s hands.

Stumbled through dead branches, through the mire. Climbed out of the other side, panting. Bleeding.

The trees got thicker.

The trees thinned out.

Lights nearby. The staccato sound of dogs anxious to follow a scent. Shouts of their handlers, cries in the dark.

A patch of clear ground ahead. Tall grass. Broken branches. A circle amidst the silver trees.

In his green hunting coat, Skærbæk looked around, said, ‘Stop here.’

Cast his eyes around the woods. The distant flicker of approaching torches.

Turned back to the big, stricken man with him. The blood ran down from Birk Larsen’s left temple, around his eye, around his nose and stubbled cheek like a gory mask.

‘Theis. In a while they’ll tell you all sorts of things.’

Birk Larsen stood hunched and stupid.

‘I want you to hear it from me.’

Torch in left hand, shotgun slung low in right, Vagn Skærbæk listened, again, shook his head, laughed for a moment.

‘Things just happen sometimes. You never know. You never see them. Then they’re there and nothing you can do can stop them. Nothing…’

The big man with the bloody face stared at him.

‘Leon called to tell you he’d picked up Nanna, dropped her at this flat in Store Kongensgade. I knew she was up to something. I saw them at the station. She was going away with that raghead. The stupid little Indian kid.’

Skærbæk waved the gun at him.

‘Going away. You get me?’

Birk Larsen grunted something wordless.

‘I knew what you’d say. But you weren’t there. So I went and found her.’

His voice rose.

‘I’m a reasonable man! You know it! I went to talk her out of it. To make her see sense. But not Nanna.’

He ripped off his hat, looked at Birk Larsen with pleading eyes.

‘Not Nanna. She’s got your blood in her, huh? She wouldn’t listen. She came at me screaming with her nails.’

Birk Larsen stood as still as any tree.

‘You know what she was like. Your blood. Me?’

Skærbæk shone the torch on his own face.

‘I thought about you and Pernille and the boys. What you’d think. How you’d feel. Abandoned like that.’

A part of the mask fell. His eyes began to water. Voice crack.

‘We all loved her. But she didn’t care. Not Nanna. Not about you. Not about me. You know that’s right, don’t you? You know, Theis. Yeah.’

No words from the shambling man, blood congealing on his rigid face.

‘Theis…’

Voices getting closer. Flashing beams of torchlight on the silver tree trunks behind.

‘Sometimes things just happen. You can’t tell. You don’t know where they come from. They just do.’

The shotgun waved, pointed.

‘You know that. Don’t you?’

He looked around.

‘No explaining. No apologies. You just…’ Vagn Skærbæk wiped something from his eyes. ‘You just have to fix them. Do your best to make things right.’

He heaved the weapon to his shoulder, checked it had shells.

‘You understand what I’m saying?’

No answer.

The shotgun came down, indicated the ground.

‘We came here. This spot. She was scared. I knew you’d never understand.’

Young eyes, young voice, no silver chain, no red overalls any more.

‘I couldn’t kill her. I couldn’t.’

He sniffed. Shrugged.

‘So I carried her to the car and pushed it into the water.’

Gun up. Birk Larsen stared it.

‘Here.’

Vagn Skærbæk threw it. Watched the long barrel twist in the air between them. The stock fell straight into Birk Larsen’s massive hand. His fingers closed automatically around the wood.

The magic weapon. The gun that closed things.

Big man, black jacket, bleeding face.

‘Come on, you dumb bastard. Go on. Get it over with.’

Racing footsteps. Voices.

‘Do it!’

A woman’s voice broke from the night.

‘Theis Birk Larsen, put the weapon down.’

The two men turned and looked. Saw Sarah Lund beyond the tall dead grass. Weapon in hand. Ready. Next to her Pernille in her fawn coat.

Vagn Skærbæk opened his hands, smiled at the man with the shotgun.

The explosion tore through the dark. Lund firing into the sky.

‘Walk away from Skærbæk now,’ she ordered. ‘We know what happened, Theis. Drop the gun. Walk away.’

Skærbæk was laughing.

‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘You think they know, big man, huh? Or did I get it wrong?’

No words. Theis Birk Larsen was never good at those. But he could look.

‘You’ll never move into Humleby now,’ Skærbæk threw at him with that same sarcastic smile. ‘That’s where I did it. Can you imagine?’

‘Put down the weapon, Theis!’ Lund shrieked

She was beyond the grass. They could both see the black Glock in her hands. More bodies too. Lights behind her. Dark figures sweeping through the silver trees with their peeling bark. Dogs and torches, gathering round, encircling the two men in the bare patch where they stood.

Birk Larsen held the gun at his waist. Forty-five degrees.

‘Theis,’ Lund cried. ‘There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.’

Fawn coat striding through into the clearing.

‘It’s finished now,’ Pernille said. ‘Theis…’

For a brief moment he shifted his attention away from the man in the green hunting coat, saw her.

‘It’s over now.’

‘It’s not over,’ Skærbæk snarled. ‘Not yet. Even a big stupid lunk like you knows that. Don’t you? Come on. You’ll be out in a couple of years at most. What’s there to lose?’

A brief, hard laugh.

‘You’ll be a hero. Theis Birk Larsen. The avenging angel. You’ll like that, won’t you?’

From beyond the circle, fast approaching, Pernille’s soft and frightened voice pleaded, ‘Let’s go home, Theis. Let’s go home to the boys.’

The gun relaxed.

‘The boys. Look at me. Look at me. Step away from him.’

Birk Larsen took a stride back, let his eyes roam round the small circle in the Pentecost Forest. Torches and men ringed them on every side like a crowd for a spectacle. Like an audience for the arena.

Getting closer.

Lund’s hard, scared voice chanting, ‘Drop the gun, Theis. Drop the—’

‘I covered my ears,’ Skærbæk said suddenly. ‘Because I couldn’t stand the way she screamed. Can you imagine?’

Birk Larsen glared at him, heard nothing else.

Skærbæk’s face was different now. Scared and desperate. Still determined.

‘When I pushed her in the water. On and on it went… Christ! She begged and screamed and…’

Skærbæk’s high, weak voice broke. His head twisted from side to side, in fear, in agony.

‘Nanna just kept pleading for me to get her out of there.’

Gun rising, Skærbæk’s anxious eyes on the big man with the grizzled face.

‘She called for you and Pernille. Pathetic. I can still hear it.’

A shrug of the shoulders of the green hunting jacket.

‘But I mean really. It was too late then, wasn’t it? She could scream all she liked but what the fuck could I do… where are your balls now, you cowardly jerk?’

The gun rose, yellow fire in the night, smoke and a high-pitched shriek.

The man in the long coat flew back. Clutched his chest. Fell on a hummock of low rushes. Face up to the night sky.

Up to Theis Birk Larsen, ignoring the calls around him. The woman, Lund. Pernille. Ignoring the black figures racing towards them.

Sees nothing but the man on the ground.

Gun to shoulder. Face set. Blinking into Skærbæk’s scared eyes.

Someone screaming, not that it matters.

Blood on the green coat. Blood on Vagn Skærbæk’s open, gasping mouth. Still breathing. Still alive.

‘You owe me,’ the stricken man says, the words coming with scarlet bubbles as he fights to speak. ‘You owe me now, you big idiot—’

A second shot sends the night birds scuttling through the branches in the dark wood where the dead trees give no shelter.

Then Theis Birk Larsen stands back.

Throws the hunting gun on the ground. Stares at the broken, contorted shape at his feet.

Then retreats.

No words. No need for them.

Around him dark figures circling.

Barking orders. Holding steady weapons.

He rolls round his pained, confused head, like a cornered beast, looks about him and sees.

There is a woman in a black and white jumper and she’s weeping.

A woman in a fawn coat. And she’s not.