The Killing

Three

Buchard arrived just after midnight. Then came the duty pathologist and his team. A huddle of forensic officers measuring tyre tracks, taking endless photographs, cordoning off the soaking muddy ground.

They trudged through the soaking rain leaving till last the bloodied, bruised corpse of a young girl still in her ragged slip, wrists and ankles tied with black plastic fasteners, dumped in the back of a shiny black Ford.

Lund talked to them all. She was officer in charge. No thoughts for Mark or Bengt or Sweden.

More camera flashes around the perimeter of the car. Then finally the team moved towards the open boot, starting to record details of the small, still body and its wounds, the dead face, the staring blank light-blue eyes.

Buchard asked, as he always did, about time of death. She told him what the pathologist said: no idea. Nothing had been reported over the weekend. It would take some time to establish.

The old man scowled.

‘What a godforsaken place…’

‘We don’t know she died here. He didn’t want her found. A day or two more, rain like this…’ She glanced at the activity around the car. They’d move her soon. Someone needed to think about the family. ‘The tyre tracks would have gone.’

Buchard waited.

‘He knew this place,’ Lund said. ‘He knew what he was doing.’

‘Cause of death?’

‘They don’t know yet. She was assaulted. Violent blows to the head. Signs of rape.’

‘And this car? It belongs to Hartmann’s team?’

‘It’s the best lead we have.’

Bengt Rosling rang. Lund walked away to take the call.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘We found a girl. I’ll tell you later. I’m sorry I didn’t make it.’

Bengt was a criminal psychologist. That was how they met. Through a drug murder in Christiania. The victim was one of his patients.

‘What about Mark?’ he asked.

‘He’s with my mother.’

‘I mean tomorrow. He’s supposed to be starting Swedish lessons at school. In Sigtuna.’

‘Oh. Right.’

‘I’ll tell them he’ll be there on Wednesday.’

‘We’ll book another flight. I’ll let you know the time.’

Buchard came over and asked, ‘Is the girl connected to Hartmann?’

‘I’ll check.’

‘If a candidate’s involved report back to me.’

‘I can’t do this, Buchard.’

A horn was sounding. It was Meyer, cigarette in mouth, calling her.

‘Use him,’ she said.

The chief came close.

‘This shouldn’t be Meyer’s first case. Don’t ask. I’ll call the Stockholm police and clear it.’

‘No,’ she insisted. ‘It’s not possible.’

Lund walked away, back towards Meyer and the car.

‘You found this kid.’ Buchard hurried behind her, talking to the back of her shiny wet blue cagoule. ‘Would Meyer have done that? All he dug up was a dead fox in the woods.’

She stopped, turned, glared at him.

He looked like an old grizzled pug dog, had the same importunate eyes sometimes.

‘Just one more day, Sarah.’

Silence.

‘Do you want Meyer to talk to the parents?’

‘I hate you. You know that?’

Buchard laughed and clapped his fat little hands.

‘I’ll work through the night,’ Lund said. ‘In the morning it’s down to you.’

The morgue was deserted. One echoing antiseptic corridor after another.

Still in the black leather jacket and woollen hat, the scarlet cotton overalls, Theis Birk Larsen clumped across the clean tiles towards the single door at the end.

An anteroom.

Pernille there in her fawn gaberdine coat, turning to look at him, wide-eyed, face full of questions. He stopped two paces from her, no idea what to say or do. Felt shapeless words rise to his mouth then stay there, unfinished and uncertain, afraid to breach the cold dry air.

A big man, powerful, forbidding sometimes, silent, his gleaming eyes now pools of tears.

Ashamed when that broke her, made Pernille come to him, place her gentle arms around his shoulders.

She held him, damp face against his bristled cheek. Together they stood, together they clung to one another in close silence. Together they walked into the white room of brilliant tiles and medical cabinets, of taps and sinks and shining concave silver tables, of surgical implements, all the tools that codified death.

The cops led the way, the woman with the staring eyes, the surly, big-eared man. Walking towards a clean white sheet then stopping, half-looking at them in expectation, waiting. From the corner came a man in a surgeon’s suit, blue mob cap, blue bib, blue gloves. There’d been doctors like this when Nanna was born. Theis Birk Larsen saw this picture clear in his head. The same colours, the same harsh chemical smells.

Without a word, without a glance, the man was beside them, lifting the white cotton.

Pernille edged forward, eyes widening.

All the while the woman cop watched, every gesture, every breath and move.

Birk Larsen removed his black hat, embarrassed that he still wore it. Looked at the bloodless, bruised face on the table, the dirty stained hair, the lifeless grey eyes.

Images filled his memory. Pictures, sounds, a touch, a word. A baby’s cry, a much-rued argument. A hot afternoon by the beach. A freezing morning in winter, out on a sledge. Nanna tiny in the red Christiania trike Vagn fixed and painted, stencilling the logo Birk Larsen on the side.

Nanna older, climbing into it when she was sixteen, seventeen, laughing at how small it seemed.

Distant moments never to be recovered, unspoken promises never to be made. All the small pieces that once seemed so humdrum now shrieked…

See! You never noticed. And now I’m gone.

Now I’m gone.

Pernille turned, walked back to the anteroom, the gait of an old woman, broken and in pain.

‘Is this Nanna?’ the woman asked.

He glared at her. A stupid question and she didn’t seem a stupid woman.

No, Birk Larsen wanted to say. It was.

Instead he nodded, nothing more.

Four of them face to face across a plastic table.

Plain facts.

Birk Larsen, his wife and their two young sons left for the seaside on Friday, returned Sunday evening. Nanna was supposed to be staying with friends.

‘What sort of mood was she in?’ Lund asked.

‘Happy,’ Birk Larsen said. ‘She dressed up.’

‘As what?’

‘A witch.’

The mother sat there, mouth open, lost somewhere. Then she stared at Lund and asked, ‘What happened?’

Lund didn’t answer. Nor Meyer.

‘Will someone talk to me! What happened?’

In the cold empty room her shrill voice bounced off the bare white walls.

Meyer lit a cigarette.

‘The car was driven into the water,’ he said.

‘Was she interested in politics?’ Lund asked.

Birk Larsen shook his head.

‘Did she talk to anyone who was?’

‘No.’

‘At the Rådhus maybe?’ Meyer wondered.

He scowled at the lack of an answer, got up and walked to the back of the room, making a call.

‘Boyfriends…?’

‘Not lately.’

‘How did she die?’ Pernille asked.

‘We don’t know yet.’

‘Did she suffer?’

Lund hesitated and said, ‘We’re not sure what happened. We’re trying to understand. So you haven’t talked to her since Friday? No calls? No contact? Nothing out of the ordinary?’

Narrow eyes, a bitter scowl, a note of sarcasm as he snarled, ‘The ordinary?’

‘Things you’d expect. It could be anything unusual. A little thing.’

‘I got cross with her,’ Pernille said. ‘Is that ordinary? She was being too noisy. I shouted at her for running around with her brothers.’

She watched Lund.

‘I was doing the accounts. I was busy…’

Birk Larsen wound his big arm round her.

‘She just wanted to play with them. Just…’

More tears, Pernille shook beneath his grip.

‘Just what?’

‘Just wanted to play.’

‘I’ll have someone take you home now,’ Lund said. ‘We need to seal off Nanna’s room. It’s important no one goes in there.’

Lund and Meyer walked them to the door where the uniformed men with the car were waiting.

‘If you think of anything…’ Lund said and handed Birk Larsen a card.

The stocky father looked at it.

‘How much do you know?’

‘It’s too early to say.’

‘But you’ll find him?’

‘We’ll do everything we can.’

Birk Larsen didn’t move. There was a grim, hard set on his face when he asked again, more slowly, ‘But you will find him?’

‘Yes,’ Meyer snapped. ‘We will.’

The father stared hard at him then left for the car.

Lund watched them go.

‘They just lost their daughter. And you’re yelling at them?’

‘I didn’t yell.’

‘It sounded like—’

‘This is yelling!’ Meyer bawled.

His voice was so loud the pathologist put his head round the corner.

Then, more quietly, Meyer said, ‘I didn’t yell.’

His bleak and watchful eyes caught her.

‘He hates us, Lund. You saw that.’

‘We’re police. Lots of people hate us.’

‘Picked his moment, didn’t he?’

Half past two in the morning. Hartmann was there when they got to the Rådhus. Rie Skovgaard, the slick attractive woman they’d seen at the school, sat on his left. Hartmann’s awkward fidgety middle-aged campaign manager, Morten Weber, was on the other side.

‘Thanks for coming in,’ Lund said.

‘We didn’t,’ Hartmann answered. ‘We just stayed. There’s an election coming. We work late. Did you find the girl?’

‘Yes.’ Meyer stared at the politician in the blue shirt, blue trousers. ‘She was in your rental car.’

Lund wrote out the number, placed it on the table.

‘Who was the last person to drive it?’

Hartmann sat rigid in his leather seat.

‘Our car?’

Meyer pushed the note closer to him.

‘That’s what we said. Can we have a little action now?’

‘I’ll check,’ Morten Weber said. ‘It’ll take a while.’

‘Why?’ Meyer wanted to know.

‘We’ve lots of cars,’ Weber said. ‘Thirty drivers. It’s the middle of the night. We still have people working. Let me make some calls.’

He left the table and went off into a corner with his phone.

‘What do they do, these cars?’ Lund asked.

‘Deliver campaign material,’ Skovgaard said. ‘Put up posters. That kind of thing.’

‘When did you send a car to the school in Frederiksholm?’

‘Probably Friday I guess…’

Meyer snapped, put his hands palm down on the table, leaned over and said, ‘Guessing isn’t much good. The girl’s dead. We need to know—’

‘We’ve nothing to hide,’ Hartmann broke in. ‘We want to help. It’s past two in the morning. We can’t pull answers out of a hat.’

‘Was Nanna Birk Larsen connected to your political work?’

‘No,’ said Skovgaard straight away. ‘She’s not on any of our lists.’

‘That was quick,’ Meyer said.

‘I thought you wanted quick.’

Weber returned.

‘The campaign secretary’s in Oslo right now.’

‘Screw Oslo!’ Meyer cried. ‘This is a murder case. Get some answers.’

Weber sat down, raised an eyebrow at him, looked at Lund.

Checking the hierarchy, Lund thought. Smart man.

‘So I asked the security desk. The keys were collected by Rikke Nielsen on Friday.’

‘Who’s she?’ Lund asked.

‘Rikke’s in charge of our team of volunteers.’ Weber shrugged. ‘Anyone can volunteer. We use temps when there aren’t enough.’

He glanced at Meyer who was now pacing the room, hands in pockets, like a cockerel pushing for a fight.

‘You’ve phoned her?’ Meyer demanded.

‘Her phone’s off. She’s probably organizing the posters.’

Meyer nodded sarcastically.

‘Probably?’

‘Yes. Like I said. Thirty drivers to coordinate. It’s a lot of work.’

‘Stop!’ Meyer was back at the table again. ‘There’s a dead girl and you’re sitting here as if it’s beneath you.’

‘Meyer,’ Lund said.

‘I want answers,’ he barked.

‘Meyer!’

Loud enough. He stopped.

‘Call headquarters,’ she ordered. ‘Give Buchard an update. Tell him we’re going to interview the volunteers.’

He didn’t move.

‘It’s past Buchard’s bedtime…’

She locked eyes with him.

‘Just do it.’

He went off to the window.

‘Do you have any idea where this woman is now?’ Lund asked.

Weber looked at a piece of paper. He highlighted something with a green marker.

‘My best bet.’

Skovgaard took it, checked the names, then handed it on.

‘The press,’ she said. ‘There’s no need for them to know.’

Lund shook her head, puzzled.

‘A young girl’s been murdered. We can’t keep this secret.’

‘No,’ Hartmann said. ‘If it was our car we need to issue a statement. It’s important no one can accuse us of hiding anything.’

‘I don’t want you making details public,’ Lund insisted. ‘You talk to no one but me.’

Skovgaard stood up, arms waving.

‘There’s an election going on. We can’t afford to wait.’

Lund turned to Hartmann.

‘The information we just gave you was confidential. If you choose to make it public and jeopardize a murder inquiry that’s your choice. You can live with the consequences. And there will be consequences, Hartmann. That I promise.’

Weber coughed. Skovgaard went quiet. Meyer looked pleased.

‘Rie,’ Hartmann said. ‘I think we can wait a while. Provided…’

The briefest, pleading smile.

‘Provided what?’ Meyer asked.

‘Provided you tell us when you decide to go public. So we can work together. Make sure everything’s right.’

He folded his arms. The shirt was the blue of the campaign poster above his head. Everything here was coordinated. Planned.

Lund took out her personal card, crossed out her name, wrote Meyer’s there instead.

‘Tomorrow morning ring Jan Meyer on this number,’ she said. ‘He’ll update you.’

‘You’re not on the case?’ Hartmann asked.

‘No,’ Lund said. ‘He is.’

Weber left with the cops. Skovgaard stayed with him, still smarting.

‘What the hell is this, Troels?’

‘Search me.’

‘If we agree to hide things the press could crucify us. They love the words cover-up. It gives them a hard-on.’

‘We’re not covering up. We’re doing what the police asked us.’

‘They won’t care.’

Hartmann put on his jacket, thinking, looked at her.

‘She didn’t leave us much choice. They’d crucify us for screwing up a murder inquiry too. Lund knew that. It’s nothing to do with us. Forget about it.’

Sharp eyes wide open, mouth agape.

‘A girl’s found dead in one of our cars? It’s nothing to do with us?’

‘Nothing. If you want something to worry about, take a look round this place.’

He pointed to the main office beyond the door. Eight, ten full-time staff working there during the day.

‘Meaning what?’

‘Meaning are we secure? The computers? Emails? Our reports?’

A caustic look.

‘You’re not getting paranoid about Bremer, are you?’

‘How did he come up with that trick about the school funding? How did he know about the twenty per cent?’

Hartmann thought about the conversation with Bremer, what the mayor said about his late father.

‘That cunning old bastard’s up to something.’

She came to him with his coat, helped him on with it, zipped it up against the cold night.

‘Such as?’

Hartmann told her a little about why Therese Kruse came to see him. About the reporter asking questions. He left out the personal details.

‘Some of that had to come from in here. Had to.’

She wasn’t happy.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I’m telling you now.’

He walked into the big office. Desks and computers. Filing cabinets, voicemail. All the private details of the campaign lived inside this room, deep in the heart of the Rådhus, locked securely every night.

‘Go home,’ she said. ‘I’ll take a look around.’

Hartmann came over, took her shoulders, kissed her tenderly.

‘I could help.’

‘Go home,’ she repeated. ‘You’ve got to cut the deal with Kirsten Eller first thing. I want you wide awake for that.’

He looked out of the window into the square.

‘They said she was nineteen. Just a kid.’

‘It’s not our fault, is it?’

Troels Hartmann stared at the blue hotel sign and the yellow lights in the square.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It isn’t.’

‘Why did you say we’d find him?’ Lund asked.

They were in her unmarked car, Meyer at the wheel.

‘You won’t pull a trick like that on me again,’ he said. ‘In front of those clowns. Of all the people…’

His anger was so open and puerile it was almost amusing.

‘I won’t need to. I’ll be gone. Why did you say that? To the father.’

‘Because we will.’ A pause. ‘I will.’

‘You don’t make promises,’ she threw at him. ‘Read the book. Page one.’

‘I’ve got my own book.’

‘So I noticed.’

Meyer turned on the radio. A deafening, all-night rock station. Lund leaned forward, switched it off.

She checked the address.

‘Turn here.’

A statue of a figure on horseback, sword raised. A grand illuminated building. A multi-storey parking garage. The place Hartmann’s campaign team assembled before going out to plaster the city with his posters, leaflets, badges, hats and Tshirts.

The cars were on the second level. Identical black Fords, just like the one they’d pulled from the canal. Lund and Meyer walked round, looking at the same photo of Troels Hartmann plastered to the windows. One back door was open. Three hours earlier, in a vehicle identical to this, she’d seen the scarred half-naked corpse of Nanna Birk Larsen frozen in death in a torn, stained slip. Here there were boxes and boxes of leaflets, and the same photo of Hartmann. That uncertain boyish smile, some pain behind his open, honest eyes.

A blonde woman walked round from the back, looked at her uncertainly. Lund showed her ID, asked, ‘Rikke Nielsen?’

She seemed exhausted. Nervous too when Meyer came from the other side of the car, folded his arms, sat in the open boot and watched her.

‘I need the name of a driver from the weekend,’ Lund said.

‘Why?’

‘The number plate is…’ Lund fumbled for her notebook.

‘XU 24 919,’ Meyer said unprompted. He got up, came close to the Nielsen woman. ‘Black Ford like this one. We’d like to know who drove it last.’

Then he smiled, in a way he probably thought pleasant.

There were men carrying placards of Hartmann’s beaming face to cars down the line.

‘This is quite an organization you’ve got. You must keep a logbook.’

‘Of course.’

‘Can we see it? Please.’

She nodded, walked off. Meyer winked at Lund. The Nielsen woman came back. ‘That was XU…?’

‘XU 24 919.’

Lund left him, watched the men with the placards and posters. It was cold in the parking garage. But not so cold.

One of the volunteers was a lanky figure in a worn and dirty anorak. He had the hood pulled up around his face. Put the posters in the back of the car. Turned. Grey sweatshirt. Face in shadow. Trying to hide.

Meyer’s strained nice-guy act was wearing thin.

‘I’m staying very calm here,’ she heard him say behind her. ‘So you stay calm too. I don’t want to hear any more “ifs” or “buts” or “let me ask Mr Weber”. Just give me the name of the damned driver.’

He was getting loud. The men stuffing the cars with Hartmann posters could hear. They were glancing at Rikke Nielsen. But not the one in the hood.

Lund turned to tell Meyer to cut the volume. When she looked again the figure in the grey sweatshirt and anorak wasn’t there.

A black Ford in the line burst into life, roared out of the parking spot, back door open, scattering the smiling face of Troels Hartmann everywhere.

‘Meyer!’

The driver had to get past her to reach the ramp.

Lund walked into the centre of the lane, stood there, stared through the oncoming windscreen.

Man in his late thirties, forties maybe. Stubbled, angry face, afraid, determined.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ Meyer screamed and flew at her, caught her shoulder with one hand, dragged Lund out of the way.

Still accelerating the Ford raced past them, no more than a metre away.

Lund watched it, barely conscious she was in Meyer’s arms and he was peering at her, breathless. Furious probably. She had that effect sometimes. The car turned the corner, headed up towards the roof. Meyer let go, set off for the ramp, arms pumping, handgun out, yelling. Lund went the other way, racing for the stairs, taking the concrete steps three at a time, up, up.

One floor, two. Three and there were no more. The roof was black and gleaming in the night rain. Ahead lay the grand baroque dome of the Marble Church softly lit against the city skyline. The car was parked by the far wall, headlamps blazing.

No gun. Still she walked towards it, trying to see.

‘Police!’ she called.

‘Lund!’

Meyer emerged from the ramp exit, panting, coughing, barely able to speak.

There was a sound from the far side. A door opening and closing on a floor below. Lund dashed over to look, Meyer followed. A second set of stairs ran down the building. He’d come here to lose them. Managed it too.

They watched a figure reach the ground floor then flee into the night and the vast dark city.

Meyer in his fury leapt up like an animal, swearing, shrieking so loud she covered her ears.

They slept in their clothes, wrapped in each other, his grief in hers, hers in his.

Waking. Theis Birk Larsen unwound his arms without disturbing her, sat by the bed, quietly got up.

Washed his face, ate some bread, sipped coffee as the boys and Pernille slept. Then went down to face the men.

Twelve on that shift. Vagn Skærbæk, pale-faced, damp-eyed, among them. Vagn. Part of the family. The first person he’d called at two that morning, holding a conversation Birk Larsen could scarcely recall so punctuated was it by tears and cries and fury.

Vagn was a good man for hard times. Times Birk Larsen thought would never come again. He had a family. A rock to lean on, as he was a rock to them.

Sometimes the rock shifted on unseen sand.

He went into the office, took his black coat off the hook, put it on carefully, as he’d done for years. Then went out and stood before them, the boss as always, laying down the orders for the day.

Most of these men had worked for him for years. They knew his family, watched the kids grow. Brought them birthday presents. Read their homework. Wiped their tears sometimes when he or Pernille weren’t there.

A couple were close to crying. Only Skærbæk could look him in the face.

Birk Larsen tried to speak but stood there saying nothing.

Work.

There was a clipboard. A list of jobs that defined the way the hours would pass. He took it, walked into the office. Went looking for something to do.

A long moment’s silence. Vagn Skærbæk called to the men by the vans, ‘Let’s get a move on, huh? I’m not your babysitter.’

Then he came and sat opposite Birk Larsen. A small, insignificant man. Stronger than his puny frame suggested. Face not much changed from when they were in their teens. Dark hair, blank eyes, cheap silver chain round his neck.

‘You do what you need to, Theis. I’ll deal with the rest.’

Birk Larsen lit a cigarette, looked at the office walls. Photos everywhere. Pernille. Nanna. The boys.

‘Some reporters called. I hung up on them. If they call back you give those bastards to me.’

Slowly the depot came to life. Cardboard cases moved beyond the window. Pallets got shifted. Vans went out into the street.

‘Theis, I don’t know what to say.’ Same woollen hat, same red bib overall. Big brother, little brother. ‘I want to help. Tell me…’

Birk Larsen looked at him, said nothing.

‘Do they have a clue who did it?’

Birk Larsen shook his head, drew on his cigarette, tried to think about the schedule, nothing else.

‘Let me know if there’s anything…’ Skærbæk began.

‘The delivery on Sturlasgade,’ Birk Larsen said, the first words he uttered that morning.

The man with him waited.

‘I promised them a cherry-picker.’

‘It’s done,’ Vagn Skærbæk told him.

Meyer waved a mugshot at the plain-clothes team in the briefing room. It was of an unremarkable man in a black T-shirt holding up a prison number. Balding, bruised, stubbly face, droopy grey hippie moustache. The long slash of what looked like an old knife wound scarring his right cheek. Staring at the camera, looking bored.

‘His name is John Lynge from Nørrebro. He’s not at home. He’s a known criminal and we…’ He pinned the photo to the notice-board. ‘… are going to put this bastard in jail. Talk to neighbours. People he worked with. Bars. Pawnshops. Dope dealers. Anyone who knows him. He’s forty-three. Sad, solitary bastard…’

Lund listened from the adjoining office, sipping at a coffee in between talking to her son. She’d caught three hours’ sleep in a spare room. Didn’t feel too bad.

‘He’s got no plan,’ Meyer announced as if this were a given. ‘No bolt-hole. Sometime he’s going to come up for air. And then…’

Meyer clapped his hands together so loudly the noise sounded like a gunshot.

Lund stifled a laugh.

‘You’re not getting out of Swedish lessons,’ she told Mark down the phone. ‘How can you? We’re going to live there. Bengt can explain to the teacher why you’re late. You won’t be in trouble.’

Meyer held up a new photo of Nanna. Still pretty. No make-up, no forced sexy smile. Not trying too hard.

‘We need to know everything about her. Text messages, voicemails, emails. Anything that connects her to Lynge.’

Mark was getting sulky.

‘We’ll fly out tonight,’ Lund said. ‘I’ll let you know when I’ve booked the plane.’

‘Let’s move,’ Meyer cried and did the handclap again.

Then, when the team had left, he came through and said, ‘Buchard wants a word before you go.’

The old man had Lynge’s mugshot in front of him on the desk that was once hers. Meyer was going through what he’d learned from the files.

‘Thirteen years ago he was caught flashing children in a playground. One year later he raped a girl. Fourteen.’

The chief listened. Lund stood in the door with her cold cup of coffee. She didn’t like the look on Buchard’s face.

‘Six years after that he was put in a psychiatric prison. Released eighteen months ago.’

All this Meyer recited from memory, from a single look at the case records. Impressive, she thought. In a way.

‘So why’s he out?’ Buchard asked.

Meyer shrugged.

‘Because he was deemed no longer dangerous?’ Lund suggested.

‘They always say that.’

‘Not always, Meyer,’ Buchard said. ‘Sarah?’

‘We have to talk to him.’

Meyer threw up his hands in mock glee.

‘That’s the understatement of the year.’

He was playing with the toy police car. Running it to make the blue light flash and the siren wail. Just like a kid.

Buchard said, ‘Cut that out. I’d like to talk to her alone.’

Meyer put the car back on the desk with exaggerated care.

‘If it’s about the case…’

Something in Buchard’s face stopped him. Meyer raised his palms and walked out.

The moment the door was closed Lund picked up her bag and said, ‘We’ve been through this. You know the answer.’

‘Things change.’

‘Chief! We don’t have anywhere to live. Bengt’s waiting for me in Sweden. Mark starts school tomorrow.’

She went for the door.

Buchard said, ‘I came from the lab. The girl was still alive when she went into the canal. It takes twenty minutes for a car like that to fill up. Add to that the time it takes to drown.’

He was pulling out a file of photos.

‘It’s not my case,’ Lund said, messing with her bag, rearranging the things she’d rearranged once before.

‘She was raped repeatedly. In the vagina. In the anus. He wore a condom and took his time.’

Lund watched him read this from the file and said, ‘Mark’s so excited about moving. No!’

‘She was abused like this for hours. All weekend probably. The bruises indicate she was held somewhere else before the woods.’

Lund got her coat.

‘And then there’s this,’ Buchard said, holding up a small plastic evidence bag.

Lund looked, couldn’t help it.

‘Meyer showed it to the mother. She says she’s never seen it before.’

Buchard cleared his throat.

‘The girl was clutching it in her right hand when she died. My guess is he made her wear it. She ripped it from her throat when she was drowning. I can’t think of any other explanation.’

Lund stood by the window, looking out at the bleak courtyard in front of the prison cells.

‘This isn’t the usual, Sarah. You know that. Rape a kid then kill her to shut her up.’ She couldn’t avoid those beady bright eyes. ‘Do you think we’d even know she was dead if we’d left it all to…’ He nodded at the door. ‘Our new friend Meyer?’

‘I’m not—’

‘I talked to Stockholm. They’ve agreed you can report there when the case is closed.’

Then he walked away, left the photos, the files, the small clear evidence bag on the table. Walked out and left Lund on her own.

She thought about Mark and Bengt. About Sweden and a new civilian job in Stockholm. But mostly about Nanna Birk Larsen, a broken body in the back of a black Ford car dumped in a dank canal.

Lund picked up the bag, held it to the light.

It was a pendant on a gold chain. Cheap glass. Tacky. Different.

A black heart.

Meyer came back in from the corridor. He looked red-faced. Buchard must have told him.

‘This is outrageous.’

‘Couldn’t agree more. We do things my way until the end of the week. If the case is still alive then you can have it.’

‘Fine.’

It didn’t look fine.

‘We go by my rules. We treat people with respect, whether we like them or not. In the car you won’t smoke, you won’t drive at more than thirty miles an hour…’

‘May I fart?’

‘No. And I don’t want cheese crisps or hot dogs everywhere either.’

‘Any particular kind of underwear you prefer?’

She thought for a moment.

‘How about clean?’

A school was a world in miniature, riven with gossip and rumour. When the teacher called Rama arrived that grey morning he felt the news flitting through the corridors like a mischievous ghost.

Then Rektor Koch told him, ‘I can do it if you wish.’

‘My pupil,’ he said. ‘My class.’

Five minutes later he walked into the room, no books in his hand, no smile on his face. Looked at them, all of them, not children, not adults. Oliver Schandorff with his wild ginger hair, his dope eyes, his sour face. Lisa Rasmussen, Nanna’s best friend, though never so pretty or smart.

What did you say except the obvious? What did you offer but the banal?

His dark face morose, Rama said, ‘It’s just been announced…’ He stopped, closed his eyes, heard the words’ harshness even before he spoke them. ‘The police say Nanna’s dead.’

A quick communal intake of breath. Tears and moans and whispers.

‘There’ll be no more lessons today. You’re free to go home. Or stay. The teachers will be here all day. We’ll have counsellors available.’

A hand went up at the back. Someone asked the inevitable.

What happened?

The man they knew as Rama thought of his own family’s journey, the difficult, perilous land they’d left behind. He was only a child then. But still he could sense from them how safe this city seemed by comparison.

‘I don’t know.’

Another hand.

‘Was she murdered?’

Lisa Rasmussen’s fingers flew to her face, a cry of grief and pain escaped them.

‘You’ve all got questions I know. Me too. There are no…’ A teacher was never lost for words. A teacher was always honest. ‘Sometimes there are no quick answers. We have to wait for them.’

He thought of what Koch had told him. Went straight to Lisa, put an arm round her bent back, tried to meet her eyes.

‘They need your help,’ he said. ‘Lisa?’

No answer.

‘The police want to see you.’

She buried her face in her arms.

‘You and Oliver.’

Rama looked up. He was there a minute ago. But now the seat was empty.

Lund showed Lisa Rasmussen a photo of the black Ford estate.

‘You’ve seen this car?’

Lisa nodded.

‘Maybe. One like it.’

‘When?’

She thought and said, ‘Friday. Before the party. I think they were dropping off some stuff.’

Lund held up the mugshot of John Lynge.

‘And him?’

The girl stared at the bald man with the staring eyes, the grey moustache and scarred cheek, the police number in front of him.

‘Did he do it?’

‘Just tell me if you’ve seen him.’

Lisa peered at the photo and said, ‘I don’t think so. What did he do to Nanna?’

‘Maybe he’s been in the school. Or somewhere you and Nanna went together.’

A long moment, then she shook her head.

‘No. I haven’t seen him before.’

Lund put the photo away.

‘Do you have any idea why Nanna said she was staying with you?’

‘No.’ The tears were back. She looked fifteen again. ‘I thought maybe she’d gone off with someone.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Lisa—’

‘I don’t know!’

Another tack. They talked about the party.

‘How was she?’ Lund asked.

‘Happy.’

‘In a good mood?’

‘Happy.’

‘And…?’

‘And she left. I thought it was a bit early. But—’

‘Why did she leave early?’

‘She didn’t say.’

‘Did she leave with someone?’

‘I didn’t…’

Her voice trailed off into silence.

Lund bent down and tried to catch her eyes.

‘I didn’t see! Why do you keep asking me questions? What am I supposed to know?’

Lund let the outburst die down, bit into a piece of Nicotinell.

‘Nanna was your best friend, wasn’t she? I thought you’d want to help.’

‘I don’t know anything.’

The pile of photos was sorted carefully. Nothing physical. Nothing disturbing. Lund took out the last shot and showed it to her.

‘Do you recognize this necklace?’

Black heart on a gold chain.

Lisa shook her head.

‘Looks old,’ she said.

‘You never saw Nanna wear it?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure…’

‘I’m sure, I’m sure, I’m sure, I’m sure!’ the girl screamed. ‘I saw her at the party. I hugged her. I didn’t know it was the last time…’

Lisa Rasmussen stared at the table, not at the photographs, never at Lund.

‘I didn’t know,’ she said again.

‘I checked,’ Rie Skovgaard said. ‘Lynge isn’t a party member. He was a temp from an agency we used a couple of times. Could have been working for anyone.’

They were outside the campaign office, in the corridor, speaking in whispers. Hartmann looked as if he’d hardly slept.

‘That’s good,’ he said.

‘Only if people know. If we don’t say something and the press get hold of this…’

‘What?’

‘They’ll say we hired a killer and covered for him. If Kirsten Eller hears we can kiss goodbye to your alliance. We’ve got to issue a statement. Make the position clear immediately.’

Hartmann hesitated.

‘I’m supposed to be your adviser, Troels. I’m telling you. We’re standing on the precipice here. You don’t wait until you’re falling…’

‘Fine, fine. Do it. But let the police know first.’

‘Eller and the party?’

‘Leave them to me.’

By midday the school was empty. Lund and Meyer were comparing notes in a deserted corridor, next to the lockers. On one side was a set of government health warnings about drugs and drink and sex. On the other a line of posters for movies and rock music.

Meyer had been busy. He had three witnesses who saw Lynge delivering campaign material to the school just after midday.

‘And in the evening?’

‘The car was here then too. Maybe he heard about the party and returned.’

‘Are we certain this was the car?’

Meyer slapped some photos in her hand and grinned.

‘They took pictures for the school website. Party time. Look in the background in the exterior shots. It was the car.’

His phone rang. While he talked she ran through the pictures. Behind kids in ghoulish costumes, masks and wigs, hideous monster outfits, was the black outline of the Ford.

Meyer was getting mad.

‘I told you before that’s out of the question,’ he barked into the phone.

An angry Jan Meyer. That was something new. She looked at more photos. They didn’t have Halloween like this when Lund was nineteen. Even if they had…

She wondered what her mother would have said.

‘I’m not telling you again,’ Meyer shouted. ‘The answer’s no.’

He stared at the phone. Swore.

‘I don’t believe it. She hung up on me.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Hartmann’s issuing a press statement. Trying to get his scrawny arse off the…’

Lund slapped the photos in his arms.

‘We’re going to the Rådhus. You drive.’

Birk Larsen went out to the job in a daze, got there only to be appalled by his own lack of consideration, came straight home, sat with Pernille in the kitchen, not talking just waiting, for what neither knew.

Then Lotte arrived, her sister. Eleven years younger, as close to Nanna as she was to Pernille. Birk Larsen sat mute and lethargic in the corner, watched them hug and cry, envying their open emotions.

‘What about the boys?’ Lotte asked.

‘We haven’t told them yet,’ Pernille said. ‘Theis?’

‘What?’

It was the first word he’d spoken in an hour.

Lotte sat at the table and sobbed. Pernille checked the school timetable, on the corkboard with the family photos.

‘We’ll pick up the boys after art. It ends at two.’

‘Yes.’

Lotte was in pieces.

‘What was she doing there? Nanna’d never get into a stranger’s car.’

More black coffee. It stopped him wanting to scream.

Pernille moved photos around the corkboard for no good reason.

‘We need to…’ She sniffed, took two long breaths. ‘We need to think about the boys.’

She was crying again but didn’t want to show it.

Birk Larsen longed to do something. To be out of this place so badly. Knew that unspoken thought was a kind of betrayal too.

‘We’ve got to tell them,’ he said.

Lund walked into the Liberal Party office. It smelled of sweat and polished wood and old leather. Skovgaard, Hartmann’s too-elegant too-confident political adviser, was on the phone talking about the press release.

‘I want to see him,’ Lund said when Skovgaard came off the phone.

‘He’s in a meeting.’

Lund said, ‘Oh.’

Watched her go back to the computer, typing standing up, the way busy people did.

‘Your statement’s going out?’ she asked.

Still typing.

‘Can’t wait any longer.’

‘It has to.’

Skovgaard glanced at the door behind her, said very slowly, as if talking to an idiot, ‘We can’t.’

Lund walked over, pushed Skovgaard away when she flew at her, screaming, opened the door.

Troels Hartmann looked bemused. So did the woman next to him.

Kirsten Eller. The plump woman from the election posters.

She wasn’t smiling. She didn’t like to be disturbed.

‘Sorry,’ Lund said to the man in the pressed blue shirt. ‘But we have to talk.’

One minute later by the window, Kirsten Eller out of earshot on the sofa.

Hartmann said, ‘If the media think I’m lying…’

‘This is a murder case. The details are confidential. You can’t jeopardize our chances…’

‘What about my chances?’

He was an unusual man. Blessed with a politician’s charisma. An aura of blithe candour. He managed to say that without any obvious shame.

Her phone rang, she snatched it out of her bag, sighed when she saw the number, answered anyway.

‘Bengt. Can I call you back?’

The sound of hammering. Distant.

‘I’m at the house. The carpenters are here. What kind of wood do we want for the sauna?’

Lund closed her eyes. Hartmann wasn’t walking away. That was something.

‘What kind usually goes in saunas?’

‘Pine.’

‘Pine is fine. That sounds good.’

‘But it depends on…’

‘Not now. I’ll phone you later.’

End of call.

Hartmann was walking back to the woman waiting patiently on his sofa.

Lund took his arm, looked into his eyes. There was something there…

‘We’re very close to catching him. Don’t get in our way.’

‘How close? Today?’

‘I hope so.’

Hartmann hesitated.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait for that. So long as it is today.’

‘Thanks,’ she said.

‘Polar pine.’

Lund stopped.

‘Polar pine. It’s better for saunas than ordinary. Has less resin.’

‘Oh.’

Meyer was at the door, back from hunting round the corridors.

Time to go.

Kirsten Eller was smiling when Hartmann came back.

‘Bad news, Troels?’

‘Not at all. It’s no bother.’

She watched him.

‘Really? You looked worried.’

‘I said it’s nothing.’

‘If I’m to divorce Bremer this must be a marriage. Not a fickle affair.’

‘Of course,’ he said, nodding vigorously.

‘Requiring frankness in all things.’

Hartmann smiled at her.

‘There’s no bad news, Kirsten. Can we get down to business?’

Just after two Pernille and Theis Birk Larsen waited on the grey pavement by the fountain, watched the kids come running from the playground, wrapped in warm coats, hats and gloves, backpacks on, brightly coloured kites waving in their hands.

Tuesday. They always made something.

Emil, seven, with his short fair hair, Anton six, ginger as his father once was. The boys came stumbling, trying to make their kites catch on the chill winter breeze.

Emil’s was red, Anton’s yellow.

‘Why’s Dad with you?’ Emil asked straight out.

Into the grey street, watching the traffic. Cross the road carefully. Small hands in theirs.

Anton wanted to know if they could go and fly the kites in the park. Sulked when his mother said no.

The sky loomed dark and heavy. They packed the boys’ things in the boot.

A call. Vagn Stærbæk anxious in Birk Larsen’s ear.

‘Don’t come home yet,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘The police are searching her room. Some photographers have arrived.’

Birk Larsen blinked, watched Pernille fasten the boys into their safety seats, buckles checked, a kiss on the forehead.

Not anger, he thought. Not now.

‘How long will they be?’

‘No idea. Should I get rid of them?’

Birk Larsen couldn’t think of a thing to say.

‘The boys, Theis. You don’t want them to see this.’

‘No. Call me when they’re gone.’

So they got in the car and he said, ‘Let’s fly those kites. Let’s do that.’

Two small cheers, fists punching the air in the back. Pernille looked at him.

No words needed. She knew.

Meyer was driving the way he usually did.

‘Did Poster Boy get your vote then?’

‘Meaning?’

‘You smiled at him, Lund.’

‘I smile at lots of people.’

‘He kept looking at your jumper.’

She still wore the black and white sweater from the Faroes. It was warm and comfy. Bought it on the holiday just after the divorce, with Mark, trying to ease him through the shock. She liked them so much she got some more. Different colours. Different patterns. There was a mail order place…

‘Last time I saw my granny she was wearing one like that,’ Meyer said.

‘That’s nice.’

‘Not really. She was in a box. I hate funerals. They seem so…’ He slammed the horn as a cyclist got in the way. ‘Final.’

‘You made that up,’ she said and he didn’t answer.

The Faroe Islands were green and peaceful. A quiet, sleepy world away from the grimy urban landscape of Copenhagen.

‘I’m sure he couldn’t be stealing a glance at your tits. I mean…’

She didn’t listen, let him ramble on. Get it out of his system.

In the green world of the Faroes nothing much happened. People got by. Seasons came and went. Cows farted. Just like Sigtuna.

‘Where are we going, Meyer?’

‘Lynge hasn’t been in his apartment since last night. He’s got a sister. She runs a hair salon in Christianshavn. He went to see her this morning. Turned ugly.’

Meyer grinned at her.

‘Some men are like that.’

Lynge’s sister was a good-looking woman with long straight hair and a mournful face.

‘Where is he?’ Meyer asked.

‘Haven’t a clue. He’s my brother. I didn’t pick him.’

Lynge was waiting down a side street when she opened up that morning. Forced his way in. Bad timing. All she had was five thousand kroner in the till. He took it, trashed the place a little. The sister was mopping up shampoo and conditioner from the floor as she spoke.

Lund walked round, leaving the questions to Meyer.

‘Where do you think he’s gone?’

‘I don’t know him any more. He’s sick.’

‘We know that.’

‘No.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘Not just there. He’s sick. Ill. He needs to be in hospital.’ She stopped mopping. ‘I’ve never seen him that bad. It was just money. Don’t put him back in jail. Not again. He’d get even crazier.’

‘Does he have anywhere to go? A girlfriend?’

‘No one wants to know him. Not after what he did.’ She hesitated. ‘There was a woman.’

‘What woman?’ Lund asked.

‘A prison visitor. A volunteer.’ The sister frowned. ‘You know the kind. Christian. Never gives up. She contacted me a few weeks back. Begged me to get back in touch with him. Said it would help.’

They waited.

‘It wouldn’t help. I know him. Besides…’She looked around the little salon. ‘I’ve got a life. A right to that. Haven’t I?’

Meyer picked up a hairbrush, played with it.

‘You’ve got a name for this woman?’

‘Sorry. She came from one of the prison charities I think.’

The sister looked at Lund.

‘He killed that girl on the TV, didn’t he? I knew it was going to happen. They shouldn’t have let him out. He was so scared.’

‘When I get hold of him he will be,’ Meyer murmured.

The woman didn’t say anything.

‘What?’ Lund asked.

‘This morning. He looked really scared. I mean… I don’t know.’

‘We need to find him. We need to talk.’

She started mopping again.

‘Good luck,’ the sister said.

Outside. Steady rain.

‘Take my car. Get someone onto the prison visitor,’ she told Meyer. ‘Then call me.’

‘Where are you going?’

Lund hailed a cab and was gone.

Mathilde Villadsen was seventy-six, half-blind, living in an old apartment block with her cat Samson and her second-best friend the radio. It was playing music from the Fifties, the decade she thought of as hers.

Then the swing band got interrupted by the news.

‘The police have imposed a news blackout…’ the reader began.

‘Samson?’

It was time to feed him. The tin was open. The food was in the dish.

‘… over the case of Nanna Birk Larsen who was found dead on Monday.’

She walked to the kitchen sink, turned off the radio. It was cold in the draughty flat. She wore what she did for most of the winter: a long blue woollen cardigan, a thick scarf round her wrinkled neck. The price of heating was terrible. She was a Fifties girl. A little hardship was a cross she could bear.

‘Samson?’

The cat was mewing outside the flap into the corridor. In her old, loose slippers she shuffled to the front door, undid the chain.

It was dark in the stairwell. The kids were always knocking out the lights. Mathilde Villadsen sighed, got down on her painful knees, wished the cat wouldn’t play these games.

In the gloom, feeling the cold stone through her stockings, she scrambled across the hall calling, ‘Samson, Samson. Naughty cat, naughty cat…’

Then she bumped into something. Struggling to see, she felt with her fingers. Dirty leather, denim trousers above it.

Glanced up. A bald head, a scarred face in the flickering flame of a cigarette lighter, close to the cat’s whiskers as it sat in the arms of a man above her.

He looked unhappy. Frightened.

‘My cat…’ she started to say.

The lighter got closer to Samson’s face. Samson mewed and tried to scramble free from his strong arms.

In a low hard voice he said, ‘Don’t squawk. Get inside.’

There was a wedding dress on the mannequin, white satin covered in embroidered cotton flowers. Lund’s mother, Vibeke, made them for a local shop. Not so much for money, more for something to do. Widowhood didn’t suit her. Not a lot did.

‘What does Bengt say about all this?’

She was a stiff-backed woman, always smart, always serious, with a brisk, sometimes caustic manner and a judgemental eye.

‘I’m going to call him.’

Vibeke stood back and considered the dress. Put a stitch in the breast, another in the arm. Lund thought she liked the idea of women getting married. It narrowed their options. Tied them down the way God meant.

‘So you haven’t even told him you’re not coming?’

‘No time.’

Her mother uttered that short brief sigh Lund had known since childhood. Even so she remained amazed how much distaste and disapproval could be compressed into a single breath.

‘I hope you don’t chase this one away too.’

‘I just said I would call!’

‘Carsten…’

‘Carsten hit me!’

The look, long and cold.

‘Once. That’s all. He was your husband. The father of your child.’

‘He—’

‘The way you behave. This obsession with your work. A man needs to know he’s wanted. Loved. If you don’t give them that…’

‘He hit me.’

With great care Vibeke placed the needle in the shiny satin fabric at the neckline.

‘Do you ever wonder if you asked for it?’

‘I didn’t ask for it. No one ever does.’

Lund’s mobile rang. It was Meyer: ‘I talked to the prison.’

‘And?’

‘He had three visitors in all. One’s dead. One’s moved. One’s not answering her phone.’

‘Come and get me,’ Lund said and gave him the address in Østerbro. ‘Twenty minutes.’

‘Blue light taxi’s on the way. I hope you tip well.’

The police people had left their marks and trails all over the apartment. Numbers and arrows. Puffs of dust where they’d looked for prints.

Anton, always the most inquisitive, stood outside her room and asked, ‘What’s that on Nanna’s door?’

‘Get away from there!’ Theis Birk Larsen barked at him. ‘Come to the table.’

The table.

Pernille and Nanna made it one empty distant summer three years before when there was nothing else to do but watch the rain. Cheap timber from the DIY store. Photos and school reports glued then lacquered onto the top. The Birk Larsen family frozen in time. Nanna turned sixteen, growing quickly. Anton and Emil so tiny. Faces captured in the place that was the heart of their small home. Smiling mostly.

Now the boys were six and seven, bright-eyed wondering. Curious, perhaps a little afraid.

Pernille sat down, looked at them, touched their knees, their hands, their cheeks and said, ‘There’s something we have to tell you.’

Birk Larsen stood behind. Until she turned to him. Then, slowly, he came and sat by her side.

‘Something’s happened to us,’ Pernille told them.

The boys shuffled, glanced at one another.

‘What?’ Emil, the elder, though in a way the slower, asked.

Beyond the window the traffic rumbled. There were voices in the street. It was always like this. For Theis Birk Larsen it always would be.

Together. A family. Complete.

His great chest heaved. Strong, scarred fingers ran through greying ginger hair. He felt old, impotent, stupid.

‘Boys,’ he said finally. ‘Nanna’s dead.’

Pernille waited.

‘She’s not coming back,’ he added.

Six and seven, bright eyes glittering beneath the lamp where they all ate supper. Static faces staring at them from the tabletop.

Emil said, ‘Why’s that, Dad?’

Thinking.

Struggling.

‘There was a time we saw a big tree out in Deer Park. Remember?’

Anton looked at Emil. Then both nodded.

‘Lightning struck it. Tore off a big…’

Was this real, he asked himself? Or imagined? Or a lie to let children sleep when the darkness came?

‘Tore off a big branch. Well…’

It didn’t matter, Birk Larsen thought. Lies could work too, as well as the truth. Better sometimes. Beautiful lies might let you sleep. Ugly truths never.

‘You could say lightning’s struck us now. It took Nanna away.’

They listened in silence.

‘But just like the tree in Deer Park keeps growing we do too.’

A good lie. It heartened him a little.

He squeezed Pernille’s hand beneath the table and said, ‘We have to.’

‘Where’s Nanna?’ asked Anton, younger, quicker.

‘Someone’s taking care of her,’ Pernille said. ‘In a few days everyone will go to church. Then we say goodbye.’

The boy’s smooth brow furrowed.

‘She won’t ever come back?’

Mother and father, their eyes briefly locked. These were children. Precious, still trapped in their own world, no need to escape it.

‘No,’ said Pernille. ‘An angel came and took her to heaven.’

Another good lie.

Six and seven, bright eyes glittering. Not a part of this nightmare. Not…

‘How did she die?’

Anton. Had to be.

The words fled them. Pernille walked to the corkboard, stared at photos, the timetables, the plans they’d all made.

‘How did she die, Dad?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Dad.’

‘It just… happens sometimes.’

The boys fell quiet. He held their hands. Wondered: have they ever seen me cry before? How long before they see it again?

‘It just happens.’

Lund and Meyer walked up the stairs, rang the bell, waited. The hallway was dark. Broken bulbs. It stank of cat piss.

‘So you’ve moved in with your mother instead of that Norwegian?’

‘Bengt’s Swedish.’

‘You can tell the difference?’

There was no answer from the address they had. Junk mail was piled up at the foot of the door.

Lund walked to the next apartment along. There was a light behind the frosted glass. The nameplate said Villadsen.

Meyer’s radio squawked. It was too loud. She glared at him and banged on the door.

Nothing.

Lund knocked again. Meyer stood to one side, fists on hips, silent. She almost laughed. Like most of the men in homicide he wore his 9-millimetre Glock handgun on his waistband in a holster. It made him look like a cartoon cowboy.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ She tried not to smile. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘At least I’ve got a gun. Where’s…?’

There was a rattle. The door opened just a couple of inches on the chain. An elderly woman’s face, not clear in the darkness.

‘I’m Vicekriminalkommissær Sarah Lund from the police,’ Lund said, showing her ID. ‘We need to speak to your neighbour, Geertsen.’

‘She’s away.’

Old people and strangers. Fear and suspicion.

‘Do you know where?’

‘Abroad.’

The woman moved as if to close the door. Lund put a hand out to stop her.

‘Did you see anything unusual around the block today?’

‘No.’

There was a sound from behind her in the apartment. The woman’s eyes wouldn’t leave Lund’s.

‘Do you have a visitor?’ Meyer asked.

‘It’s just my cat,’ she said then quickly slammed the door.

One minute later, back in her squad car, Lund on the radio, Meyer by her side. He was getting twitchy.

‘I need back-up. The suspect may be at this location.’

‘We’ll send a car,’ control replied.

They could see the apartment window from the street.

Meyer said, ‘The lights are out. He knows we’re here.’

‘They’re on their way.’

He took out the Glock and checked it.

‘We can’t wait. A man like that. An old woman. We’re going in.’

Lund shook her head.

‘To do what?’

‘Whatever we can. You heard the sister. He’s a lunatic. I’m not waiting till the old bird’s dead.’

Lund leaned over the seat, looked him in the eye, said, ‘We’re staying here.’

‘No.’

‘Meyer! There’s two of us. We can’t cover the exits…’

‘Where’s your gun?’

She was getting sick of this.

‘I don’t have one.’

It was the look she saw the day before when they talked about Sweden. Utter amazement.

‘What?’ Meyer asked.

‘We’re going nowhere. We’ll wait.’

A long moment. Meyer nodding.

‘You can wait if you want,’ he said then leapt out of the car.

Across the city, in a campaign car speeding through the night, Troels Hartmann took the last call he wanted. A news agency. Official this time. A journalist with a name he recalled.

The reporter said, ‘We know about the car, Hartmann. Nanna Birk Larsen was found in one of yours. You kept it quiet. Why is that exactly?’

In the apartment above the depot, while Pernille quietly wept, Theis Birk Larsen sat with Anton and Emil, one on each huge knee, telling more stories about angels and forests, watching their faces, hating his lies.

Sarah Lund bit on another piece of Nicotinell, thought about Jan Meyer, thought about the dead girl who came out of the water.

Then she pulled open the glove compartment by the wheel, sorted through the packs of gum, the dead lighter, the tissues, the tampons and took out her gun.

Halfway up the dark dank staircase she heard the sound of breaking glass.

Lund ran the rest of the way, took hold of Meyer’s arm as he smashed at the panel in the door with the grip of his gun.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘What does it look like?’

‘I told you to wait.’

He broke more glass, opened up the hole with his elbow, put a hand through, looked at her and winked.

‘You go left,’ Meyer said. ‘I go right.’

Hand through, searching. There was the sound of an old key turning an old lock. Then the door moved. Inside was as black as the night they’d just left. Meyer scuttled through and was gone in a stride. She went to the wall, edged forward, the Glock an unfamiliar shape in her right hand.

The place stank of mothballs and liniment, cat and washing.

Three steps and she bumped into a sideboard, nudged something with her arm, just managed to catch it before the thing fell to the floor. Lund could just see what she’d touched: a porcelain figurine, a country milkmaid grinning beneath her burden of buckets. Placed it back without a sound. Moved forward, stepped on something, heard a tinny mechanical voice break the silence.

‘Your weight is fifty-seven point two kilograms.’

She got off the scales wondering what Meyer was saying to himself.

‘Fifty-seven point two kilograms,’ the thing said again.

There was a pained sigh from somewhere ahead. Then footsteps. A silhouette. Meyer, trudging in front of her, gun out.

No other sound. Three more steps. A door on the right, ajar. Laboured, arrhythmic breathing. She pocketed the weapon, walked through, fumbled her fingers against the wall, found a light switch. Turned it on.

In the dim yellow bulb of a single wall-light the old woman struggled, trussed like a farmyard bird, wrists and ankles, a cloth rag round her mouth.

Lund got down, put a hand to her shoulder, pulled off the gag.

A long high wail of terror and pain burst from the old woman’s lips.

Meyer was close by, cursing.

‘Where is he?’ Lund asked. ‘Mrs Villadsen?’

‘What did she say?’ Meyer snapped.

The woman was panting, gasping for breath. Terrified.

‘What did she say?’

Lund looked at him. Listened. He got the message. Went back out in the dark apartment, feet tapping on the tiles.

She waited.

You take the left. I’ll take the right.

Did that still apply? Yes, she guessed. Meyer was a little like her in some ways. There was one plan and one plan only. You stuck with it until something changed. He didn’t like working with someone else either.

She undid the woman’s ankles and wrists, told her to stay there, stay still.

A pair of scrawny hands clawed at her.

‘Don’t leave me.’

‘I’ll be right back. We’re here. You’re safe.’

‘Don’t leave me.’

‘It’s fine. Don’t worry.’

Still the wrinkled fingers clutched at her.

‘I need my cane.’

‘Where is it?’

She gasped, thought, said, ‘In the hallway.’

‘OK.’ Voice calm, steady. Which was how Lund felt. ‘Stay here.’

She got to the door, bore left.

Kitchen smells. Drains, food. The cat. Another old lamp, frilly shade, faded yellow. A chair, a small desk. Striped curtains running to the floor. Gently moving as if the window behind was open.

In November.

Lund folded her arms, thought, moved forward, gently pushed the fabric aside.

The pain bit at her arm like a wasp sting, rapid and savage.

There was a figure coming from behind the stripes, silhouetted against the faint lights behind the window. His right arm was flailing, right and left, up and down.

Another flash of agony.

Lund yelled, ‘Get back! Police! Get back.’

Fumbling like a fool for her gun.

The wall stopped her. He lunged forward. And now the light caught him. In his hand she saw a box cutter, short blade, sharp. Threatening.

He swore, slashed at her, so close she could feel the air move past her cheek.

A furious, insane face, mouth opening, yellow teeth grinning. He roared. One more cutting, sweeping slash…

Her fingers tightened on the gun butt. She raised it, pointed the barrel dead in his face.

John Lynge’s eyes narrowed. He was sweating. Looked sick. Looked mad.

‘Calm down, John. I won’t hurt you.’ No sound from Meyer. She knew what he’d be doing.

Lynge retreated a step. Her eyes were getting used to this light. She saw his shoulders, his arms.

Kept the gun straight on him.

‘I didn’t do anything!’

Frightened, she thought. That was good.

‘I didn’t say you did, John.’

Keep using the name. Keep turning down the heat.

He started rocking backwards, forwards, sobbing, hands to his face.

The blade was still there. Did he know that?

‘You don’t believe me,’ Lynge grunted.

‘I’m listening. Put down the knife.’

He flashed the box cutter at her. Didn’t flinch at the gun.

‘You’re not putting me back in jail!’

Crazy voice. A man in agony.

‘We’re just talking, John. Let’s do that. OK? The school…’

Stiff and furious, shaking, close to the edge, Lynge bellowed, ‘I felt sick. I went to the hospital. I got back. The car was gone. Maybe, maybe…’

‘Maybe what?’

‘Maybe I dropped the keys when I was throwing up. I don’t know.’

‘What keys?’

‘The car keys! You’re not listening.’

He was getting madder all the time.

‘You were sick. I hear you, John.’

He moved a step to the left. She could see him in the orange light from the street.

‘You felt ill and you left the car. Put down the knife. Let’s talk.’

‘I’m not going back to that place. They’ll know—’

‘You won’t—’

‘John!’

A hard male voice from the hallway. Lund took a deep breath. Looked. Meyer was there. Gun up. Pointed straight at John Lynge’s head. Ready.

‘Drop the knife,’ he said in a slow threatening tone.

‘I have this, Meyer,’ she said. ‘It’s under control…’

Lynge was running already. Meyer after him. Two dark shapes crossing the floor.

A scream and shattering glass. A tumult of bitter curses. Then a hideous crash outside. The sickening sound of flesh and bone on pavement.

‘Meyer?’ she said.

There was a figure at the window.

Lund walked to it.

‘Meyer?’ she said again.

John Lynge was unconscious, strapped to a trolley, tubes and apparatus everywhere, getting rushed down a hospital corridor. It was ten in the evening. Lund asked, for the third time, ‘When can I speak to him?’

The surgeon didn’t break his pace, just stared at her then said, ‘Are you serious?’

‘Is he going to live?’ she asked when they got to the operating theatre doors.

Lund stopped, repeated the question at twice the volume.

No answer. Then John Lynge was gone.

‘We’ve got prints,’ Meyer told her. ‘Forensics have got his boots.’

‘And nothing to match them with. He says he went to the hospital!’

‘Puh!’

‘Have you ever heard someone say that, Meyer? Not I was screwing my girlfriend. I was in a bar. But I went to hospital?’

Nothing.

‘He told me he left the keys at the school. When he came back the car was gone.’

‘He was lying!’

Meyer looked at her and shook his head.

‘He cut you, Lund. He’d have cut you again.’ He came close. ‘Cut your face to ribbons. Doesn’t that bother you?’

‘It doesn’t mean he killed Nanna Birk Larsen. Check the hospital records.’

‘Oh come on. Do you really think—’

‘If he’s got an alibi I want to know. Find out.’

She shouted that last order. Which wasn’t like her. This man had got under her skin.

Lund took off her jacket, checked the sleeve of her black and white jumper. The thing was ruined. Lynge’s blade had slashed a cut through the wool, opened up a flesh wound across the top of her arm just below the shoulder.

‘You should get that seen—’

‘Yes! I should. What about the old lady?’

‘I called while you were yelling at the doctors. She’s going to stay with some relatives.’

Lund nodded. Calm now. The cut hurt, not that she was going to show it.

‘Go and get some sleep,’ she told him. ‘Tell them to let me know if his condition changes.’

He folded his arms, didn’t move.

‘What?’ Lund asked.

‘I’m not going anywhere until I see you talk to a nurse.’

The TV debate was over. A draw at best, Hartmann thought.

Outside, in the huddle waiting for their cars, he took Rie Skovgaard to one side, asked, ‘Have you heard from Lund?’

‘No.’

‘Did you call her?’

‘I can’t get through.’

It was raining. There was no sign of their driver.

‘We can’t afford to wait any longer. Put a statement together.’

‘Finally…’

‘Give it to the reporter who phoned. He’s legit. Tell him it’s an exclusive. Win us some breathing space…’

Bremer strode up, jacket over shoulder, glanced at the rain, stepped back beneath the shelter of the roof.

‘Crisis meeting?’

The two of them went quiet.

‘I thought you were a little rusty tonight,’ Poul Bremer said. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so.’

‘Really?’

No points scored on either side. No balls dropped. But the way Bremer smiled throughout gave Hartmann pause. Every issue, every question he forced round to the question of character. Hartmann’s lack of experience, of proven trust.

The old bastard knew something. He was waiting for the right moment to say it.

‘Rusty,’ Bremer repeated. ‘You’ll need to do better than that.’

‘Still three weeks to the election,’ Skovgaard said. ‘Lots of time—’

‘Pacing yourself. A wise move from what I hear. Goodnight!’

Hartmann watched him go.

‘One day I will tear that old dinosaur apart,’ he muttered.

‘You really have to work on your temper,’ Skovgaard said.

He turned his icy gaze on her.

‘Do I?’

‘Yes. It’s good to come across as passionate. Energetic. Commit ted. But not bad-tempered, Troels. People don’t like it.’

‘Thank you. I’ll try to remember that.’

‘Bremer’s looking for weak points. Don’t hand him one on a plate. Your temper leaves you vulnerable. He’s not the only one who’s noticed.’

She didn’t quite meet his eye.

‘I need you to work on this.’

Skovgaard held up her phone.

‘Ritzau news agency have heard about the car too. The story’s out there.’

The black saloon came and parked in front of them. The Rådhus driver got out and opened the doors.

‘I told you we needed to get this out early,’ she said. ‘Now we’re racing round trying to clean up something we should have killed at birth.’

‘Bremer’s behind this.’

‘Someone in the police more likely. How would he know?’

‘Twelve years on that burnished throne. Maybe the Politigården works for him too.’

A long limousine ran past. Bremer wound down the window, grinned at them, waved like a king hailing his subjects.

‘He’s got someone,’ Hartmann muttered. ‘We need to know who it is.’

Ten minutes later the car pulled into the Rådhus. A crowd of reporters and cameramen flocked around them.

‘Say what we agreed,’ Skovgaard said. ‘Be calm, be authoritative. Don’t get mad. Don’t go off script.’

‘Whose script?’ he said, and then they were in the middle of the mob, hands clawing at the doors to get them open.

The rain was heavy and constant. Hartmann pushed through the crowd to the steps of the building. Listening to the questions. Thinking about them.

‘Hartmann? What’s your connection to Nanna Birk Larsen?’

‘Where were you on Friday?’

‘What do you have to hide?’

A sea of hostile voices. When he got to the doors he stopped, watched the voice recorders come up ready to capture every word.

What he said would be on the radio in minutes. Captured for ever, repeated in newspapers, replayed on the web.

He waited till they listened then said, in as calm and statesmanlike a manner as he could manage, ‘A young woman was found dead in a car that my office rented. That’s all I can tell you. The police specifically asked us not to comment. But let me say something—’

‘When did you hear?’ a woman shouted.

‘Let me say… No one in the party or the organization is involved in this case. That’s as much as I can—’

‘Do you deny withholding information for the sake of the election?’

Hartmann looked. He was a stocky bald man of about thirty-five, cigarette in smirking mouth.

‘What?’

The hack pushed his way nearer.

‘This isn’t a tough one, Hartmann,’ the reporter bawled through the forest of voice recorders. ‘Do you deny you deliberately deceived the public to win some votes. Is this what we can expect of the Liberal Party?’

He didn’t stop to think about it. Was through the crowd so quickly Skovgaard couldn’t stop him, had the man by the collar.

The smirk never left the bald hack’s face.

‘Yes,’ Hartmann said close up. ‘I deny that.’ A pause. He let go, brushed the man’s collar as if this were a joke. ‘It’s nothing to do with politics. This girl…’

He was off script. He was drowning.

‘Troels?’ Skovgaard said.

‘The girl…’

Cameras flashed. A spiky crown of voice recorders bristled around him.

The hack he’d so nearly punched pulled out a card and thrust it into Hartmann’s fingers. Not thinking he took it.

‘Troels?’

Drowning.

She had his arm, quietly pulled him away, through the door, into the vestibule, through the inner courtyard and the gleaming silence of the Rådhus until they found safety behind its fortress walls.

Hartmann felt the paper in his hand. Looked.

It was a business card.

Just a mobile number. And a name.

Erik Salin.

All evening she’d sat in the dark front room watching TV, switching from news channel to news channel.

Now it was the main bulletin.

‘Troels Hartmann is cooperating with the police in solving the murder,’ the story said. ‘He denies any connection to the girl or the crime.’

She’d seen his posters everywhere. Striking, handsome, more like an actor than a politician. He always looked sad too, she thought.

A noise from behind. She didn’t turn.

He came and slumped by her side on the carpet.

‘The car belonged to that politician,’ Pernille said. ‘They’re looking for a driver.’

He had his head in his hands. Said nothing.

‘Why don’t they tell us what’s going on, Theis? It’s as if we don’t matter.’

‘They’ll tell us when they’ve got something to say.’

His lethargy infuriated her.

‘They know more than we do. Don’t you care?’

‘Stop this!’

‘Don’t you care?’

The TV was the brightest thing in the room.

‘How could Nanna know this driver? Someone in politics? How—?’

‘I don’t know!’

There was a gulf between them. A chasm that was new. His big and clumsy hand went out to touch her. Pernille shrank back.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I think it’s best we go away for a few days. Maybe rent the cottage from last weekend.’

In the semi-darkness, their faces lit by the news about their daughter, Pernille looked at him, astonished.

‘The police are here all the time,’ he said. ‘The boys keep seeing Nanna in the papers. On that damned thing. The kids talk to them at school.’

She started crying. His hand went to her damp face. This time she didn’t shrink from him.

‘And you,’ he said. ‘Watching it. Reliving it. Every minute of the day—’

‘You want me to run away from Vesterbro when my daughter needs a funeral?’

They hadn’t even used that word yet. Hadn’t faced the thought.

Birk Larsen ground his big hands together. Squeezed his narrow eyes tight shut.

‘Tomorrow we’ll talk to the minister,’ she said. ‘We’ll arrange everything. That’s what we’ll do.’

Silence in the wan kitchen light. The big man head in hands.

Pernille Birk Larsen picked up the remote, found another channel.

Watched it.

Carefully, trying not to make it hurt more, Lund took off the sweater from the Faroes. Looked at the bloody gash. Wondered if the jumper could be mended. Not by her. But…

The wedding dress was still on the mannequin, needles and thread in the sleeves and collars.

They were the only things her mother ever made. It was like a one-woman campaign to marry off the female population of the world.

She left the jumper by the sewing box anyway. Her mother came yawning, grumbling out of her room.

‘Do you know what time it is?’

‘Yes.’

Vibeke glowered at the table.

‘Please don’t throw your clothes everywhere. No wonder Mark’s such a messy boy.’

She saw the cut, naturally. Came, bent down, looked.

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing.’

‘There’s a cut on your arm.’

Meat stew and potatoes on the cooker. The gravy had congealed. The potato was dry. Lund spooned some of each onto a plate and shoved it in the microwave.

‘A cat scratched me.’

‘Don’t tell me a cat did that.’

‘It was a stray cat.’

They looked at each other. A kind of truce was called. On this anyway.

‘Why do you insist on going to work?’ Vibeke asked. ‘Now you can have a proper life?’

The microwave beeped. The food was lukewarm. Enough. She was hungry. Lund sat down, picked up a fork, began to eat.

‘I told you this morning. It’s just till Friday. If it’s a problem we can stay in a hotel.’

Her mother came to the table, a glass of water in her hand.

‘Why should it be a problem? Why…?’

Her mouth full, Lund said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m tired. Let’s not argue.’

‘We never argue. You always walk away.’

Lund smiled, picked up another forkful of meat and potato. She’d been eating this since she was a child. Nothing special. Sustenance. It never changed.

‘It’s delicious,’ she said. ‘I mean it.’

Her mother watched her.

‘Bengt asked if you’d come to the house-warming party on Saturday. We’re fixing up the spare room.’

She was watching the food, following how much got eaten, what got left.

‘Bengt called here,’ Vibeke said. ‘This afternoon. He was wondering where you were.’

Lund’s head fell. She swore.

‘You didn’t say I was here till Friday, did you?’

‘Of course I did! Am I supposed to lie?’

Lund pushed away the food, got a beer from the fridge, went into her bedroom and called.

Bengt Rosling didn’t get angry. Ever. It was beyond him. Or beneath. She never quite knew.

They spoke about parties and polar pine, made small talk, acted as if nothing had happened. Nothing was wrong.

He didn’t know she was watching the news on her computer as they talked. She kept the sound low. It was all about Hartmann.

Come Friday she’d be in Sweden. With Mark, with her mother too for a little while. The new life would start. The past would slip away. Copenhagen and Carsten. The Vicekriminalkommissær’s badge.

She felt better for speaking to him, put down the phone happy. Remembered straight away what she’d forgotten to say.

Before she could call back it rang.

Bengt, she knew. So she picked it up and, with a deliberate effort, found herself saying, ‘I love you.’

‘Wow! That just made my day.’

Meyer. The sound of him driving. She could picture the car going too fast through the black rain. Cheese crisps on the passenger seat. Chewing gum and tobacco.

‘What do you want?’

‘You told me to call about the hospital!’ He was playing hurt. ‘Lynge went in on Friday.’

‘For how long?’

‘He was there till seven the next morning. The idiot’s a heroin addict. He screwed up his methadone or something.’

Troels Hartmann was on TV. Almost swinging a punch at a mouthy reporter.

He’d lost it over a simple question: Do you deny withholding information for the sake of the election?

She’d thought Hartmann a calm and reasonable man.

‘Could Lynge have sneaked out?’

A noisy, chomping pause.

‘Not a chance. They had him in a public ward. Medicated. Was there all night.’

‘Will you leave those crisps alone? If they’re all over the car…’

‘I haven’t had anything to eat all day.’

‘Did you find Nanna’s bike?’

‘No.’

‘What about her mobile phone?’

That was in Hartmann’s car too. Which seemed odd.

‘The lab got it working,’ Meyer said. ‘Her last call was on Friday. Maybe made from school. They’re not sure.’

‘OK. We go back there in the morning.’

‘No, Lund. You’re not coming.’

He was still eating crisps. She could hear him crunching them in that frantic way he had, as if there’d never be another packet in the world.

‘Why not?’

‘I ran into Buchard. Hartmann wants a meeting. It’s about you.’

She thought about that.

‘Get some sleep. Write your report.’

‘Thank you. Sleep tight too, sweetheart.’

‘Ha, ha.’

‘Lund? Think about it. Hartmann didn’t call you asking for that meeting. He called Buchard. Or maybe someone above Buchard. Or maybe…’ The crunching could drive her crazy. ‘Someone above him. We’ve got politicians on our backs now. My bet is every last one of them’s calling upstairs trying to dump shit on our heads. Sleep on that.’

In the tiny bedroom, listening to her mother trawl around the kitchen tidying things, sweeping things, Sarah Lund followed the news on her computer. Watched Troels Hartmann carefully, second by second.