The Killing

Four

Hartmann arrived at headquarters just after nine, came straight to Lund’s office. Sat in the bright winter sun streaming through the narrow window opposite her and Buchard. The sharp, severe Rie Skovgaard was next to him, following every word.

‘I could have avoided all this shit last night,’ he said. ‘If I’d done the right thing and put out a statement straight away. Before you people leaked.’

This was politics, a world Lund had managed to avoid before the Birk Larsen case. She felt out of her depth. But interested.

The chief bent forward, caught Hartmann’s eye, said, ‘There was no leak from here. I guarantee it.’

‘Has the driver confessed?’ Hartmann asked.

Lund shook her head.

‘No, and he won’t. He’s innocent.’

The face from the poster, handsome, thoughtful, benevolent, was gone. Now Troels Hartmann was getting mad.

‘Wait a minute. Yesterday you said—’

‘Yesterday I said he was a suspect. He was. He isn’t now. That’s the way it works. That’s why we asked you to keep quiet.’

‘But you’re still saying someone used our car?’

‘They did.’

‘Maybe it was stolen,’ Buchard added.

‘Stolen?’ He didn’t seem happy with that idea. ‘When are you making this public?’

‘Not yet,’ Lund said. ‘We need to wait.’

‘Wait for what?’ Skovgaard wanted to know.

Lund shrugged.

‘The driver was injured. We’ll talk to him today. See what he has to say—’

‘If our car was stolen,’ Skovgaard said, ‘the press must be told. The damage this is doing…’

Lund folded her arms, looked straight at Hartmann, not the woman.

‘It could help us if the man we’re looking for thinks we suspect someone else.’

‘We can’t keep playing this game,’ Hartmann said. ‘Rie can draft a release.’ He turned to Buchard. ‘You’ll see a copy. It’s going out. As soon as…’

Lund pulled her chair across the office, sat straight in front of him.

‘I would really appreciate it if you waited.’

‘I can’t help that.’

‘The damage this could do us…’

Hartmann’s eyes lit up.

‘What about the damage to me? It’s done already. It’s getting worse. Buchard…’

The chief nodded.

‘You’ll see a copy,’ Hartmann promised. ‘If you find an error tell us. I don’t want to hear about anything else.’

‘I appreciate that.’

‘That’s it.’ Hartmann got to his feet. ‘We’re done here. Goodbye.’

Lund wasn’t done at all. She got up and went into the corridor. Caught up with Hartmann and the Skovgaard woman as they walked towards the spiral stairs.

‘Hartmann! Hartmann!’

He stopped. No smile.

‘If you’ll just listen to me—’

‘The press are behaving as if I’m a suspect.’ Hartmann stabbed his chest with a finger. ‘As if I killed that kid.’

‘On TV you said you’d cooperate.’

‘We have cooperated,’ Skovgaard said. ‘Look where it got us.’

Lund stood in front of Hartmann, bright eyes shining, insistent.

‘I need your help.’

Skovgaard said, ‘We have to go.’

‘Lund?’

Svendsen, one of the homicide team, came out of the incident room, beckoned to her.

‘Your visitors are here.’

She touched Troels Hartmann’s arm.

‘Just a minute, please. We haven’t finished. One minute. Spare me that.’

Two figures at the end of the long corridor. A giant of a man, grizzled features, long sideburns, black leather jacket. A woman in a fawn gaberdine raincoat, chestnut hair, an attractive face that looked lost and afraid. He held a black hat in his fidgeting hands. Waiting, in anticipation of something they didn’t want to see. She stared at the shining black marble walls and clung on to his arm.

Lund strode towards them, businesslike, animated. Spoke briefly then they walked down the corridor, past Hartmann and Rie Skovgaard who stood to one side.

No words spoken. No words needed.

Briefly the woman turned and stared then walked on.

‘We’re late,’ Skovgaard told him. ‘Troels. We have to go.’

Lund watched. Hartmann was trapped by the sight of them.

‘Troels?’

Hartmann said, ‘Was that…?’

Lund nodded, looked at him, waited.

‘Will it make a difference?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know that?’ Skovgaard snarled.

‘I know that if you put out a statement we’ve lost an opportunity. An advantage maybe.’

Lund sighed, shrugged.

‘We’ve got so few. I’ll fight to keep any I can.’

‘OK.’ He didn’t look at Skovgaard glaring at him stony-eyed. ‘Only till tomorrow. Then… Lund…’

She listened.

‘Tomorrow,’ Hartmann said, ‘we make our position clear. Whatever you say.’

In Lund’s room, coffee sitting on the desk, untouched, Theis and Pernille Birk Larsen listening.

‘We’ve got a preliminary medical examiner’s report,’ Lund said. ‘But he’s not quite finished. A funeral—’

‘We need to get away,’ Birk Larsen broke in. ‘We’re going to the seaside this afternoon. All these damned reporters. The boys.’ He looked into her face. ‘You people coming round the apartment all the time. You can do what you like when we’re not there.’

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘What are they doing to her?’ Pernille asked.

‘Some more tests. I don’t know exactly.’ A lie, one she always used. ‘We’ll let you know when her body can be released.’

The mother was somewhere else, Lund thought. Lost in her memories. Or imagination.

The father again.

‘Where will Nanna go?’

‘Normally to a funeral director. It’s your choice.’

Pernille woke.

‘What happened to her?’ She sniffed. ‘What did he do?’

Lund opened her hands.

‘I have to wait for the full report. I understand you want to know. It’s…’

Theis Birk Larsen looked ready to put his big hands over his ears.

There was a knock at the door. An officer from the team. Said sorry, started asking for documents from her desk.

So many, and they said so little. Lund helped him. Got involved. Got lost for a moment. Never noticed the door was open.

But Pernille Birk Larsen did, and saw a chink, a brief shocking glimpse of the room beyond. The case office.

Photos on the wall. A pair of ankles bound with black plastic. Bruised legs on a silver table. A dead face, Nanna’s, covered in wounds, eyes closed, lips purple and swollen. A bloodied eye. A broken nail. The slip with a stab mark. A top ripped and torn.

Arrows pointed to details, to bloodstains and slashes. Circles marked stains, notes described lesions.

Her body, side on, hands tied, legs bound. Lying on a table still as could be.

Pernille rises.

Breath pumping, heart racing, Theis beside her, walking to the door.

One noise: a pencil falling as she passes.

The spell broke. Lund looked, fury rising, dragged the officer with her, pushed him through, cried, ‘Shut the door!’

She turned back to them.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

They stood in silence. The big man and his wife. Beyond tears, she thought. Beyond feeling.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lund said again and wanted to scream.

He was clutching the desk with one hand, his wife’s fingers with the other.

‘I think we should go now,’ Theis Birk Larsen said.

They walked down the corridor like two ghosts lost in limbo, hand in hand, not noticing where they were going.

‘Phone me any time,’ Lund called after them, wishing there was something else to say.

Rektor Koch was too busy for the police.

‘I need this school back to normal,’ she said. ‘We have a memorial service coming. I’ll make a speech.’

‘This isn’t about what you need,’ Lund told her.

They were in the corridor outside Nanna’s class. Kids coming and going. Oliver Schandorff, Lund saw, hanging round, trying to eavesdrop.

‘You can’t possibly think the school’s involved.’

Meyer came to the argument like a nail to a magnet.

‘You know what? If you let us do our job maybe we can answer that.’

He gave her his best filthy look. When she left he said, ‘Lynge arrived at noon and was told to leave his posters in the basement. Someone saw him hanging round the gym too.’

‘Why?’

‘No idea. Maybe he was feeling lazy. Or sick. Or liked seeing girls playing netball.’

‘Maybe he lost the car keys there.’

Meyer shrugged.

‘Who had PE afterwards?’ Lund asked.

‘No one. The next class was on Monday. No one reported any keys found. Surprise, surprise.’

They walked down the corridor towards the entrance hall.

‘What do we have on the girl?’

Meyer went through his notes.

‘Top pupil. Good marks. Popular. Good-looking. The teachers rated her. The boys wanted to sleep with her.’

‘Did she let them?’

‘Only Oliver Schandorff and she broke up with him six months ago.’

‘Drugs?’

‘Nothing. Didn’t drink usually either. I got a photo from the party. No one saw her after nine thirty.’

Lund looked at the print in Meyer’s fingers. Nanna in a shiny blue wig and a black witch’s hat, Lisa Rasmussen next to her. Both smiling, Lisa like a teenager, Nanna more…

‘She looks a very… grown-up kid,’ Meyer noted.

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning… she looks a very grown-up kid. Specially next to her friend.’

He turned up another photo. Nanna and Lisa again, maybe a moment before or after. Lisa with her arm round Nanna who was grinning, mouth open this time.

Lund looked at the wig and the hat.

‘She went to all this trouble for a costume and left early?’

‘Yes. Funny, huh?’

Lund looked down the corridor, looked at the lockers and the posters on the walls.

Meyer rattled his notebook at her.

‘Got some answers?’ she asked him.

‘Got questions, Lund. That’s a start.’

They took Lisa Rasmussen into an empty classroom.

Lund’s first question.

‘You never told us Oliver and Nanna fought on the dance floor. Why not?’

The teenage pout, then, ‘It wasn’t important.’

Meyer squinted at her.

‘Your best friend got raped and murdered and that wasn’t important?’

She wasn’t going to cry. Today was hostile-to-cops day.

‘We were dancing. Oliver came over. It wasn’t a big drama.’

Lund smiled at her.

‘Oliver threw a chair.’

Nothing.

‘Was Nanna drunk?’

In a rising, nasal petulant voice she said, ‘Nooooo.’

‘You were,’ Meyer said.

A roll of the shoulders.

‘A bit. So what?’

‘Why’d they break up?’ he asked.

‘I dunno.’

He leaned across the table, said very slowly, ‘Why… did… they…’

‘She told me he was immature! Just a kid.’

‘But you still thought she was with him?’

‘I couldn’t find her.’

Lund took over.

‘What was the argument about?’

‘Oliver wanted to talk to her. She didn’t want to talk to him.’

‘And then she left. Where was Oliver then?’

‘Behind the bar. It was his turn.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I saw him.’

Meyer pushed a piece of paper over the table, looking at Lisa Rasmussen all the time.

‘This is the bar schedule,’ Lund said. ‘His name’s not on it. No one else remembered him working that night.’

She didn’t look at the schedule. Just bit her lip like a little kid.

‘What was she wearing?’ Meyer asked.

A moment to think about it.

‘A witch’s hat with a buckle. A blue wig. She had a broom. Made out of twigs. Kind of this tatty party dress…’

‘It’s cold out there, Lisa,’ Meyer broke in. ‘Didn’t you think it was odd she had so little on?’

‘She had a jacket in the classroom, I guess.’

‘Then she’d have gone upstairs,’ said Lund.

‘But no.’ Meyer came in like a shot. ‘She went downstairs. Lisa told us earlier.’ He looked at her. ‘Downstairs right?’

‘Downstairs,’ the girl muttered.

‘Then how’d she get her jacket?’ Lund demanded.

‘Yeah.’ Meyer was on her now. ‘How?’

‘I don’t know she had a jacket. There were people. Lots of…’

Lisa Rasmussen stopped, face red, looking guilty.

Meyer peered at her.

‘I thought you weren’t going to cry today, Lisa. Why’s it so hard suddenly?’

‘You don’t know when she left or whether Oliver followed her,’ Lund said.

‘We know you’re lying to us!’ Meyer yelled. ‘Did Oliver find the car keys? Did he screw her in the car to prove what a man he was? Did you watch for fun?’

Lund intervened, put an arm round the girl. Floods of tears now.

‘It’s important you tell us what you know,’ she said.

In the squeaky frightened voice of a child Lisa Rasmussen whimpered, ‘I don’t know anything. Leave me alone.’

Meyer’s phone rang.

‘You need to tell us…’ Lund began.

‘No she doesn’t,’ Meyer said and got his jacket.

There was a warren of rooms making up the school’s basement floor. They’d had Svendsen going through each in turn, grumbling about being on his own.

He found the broom of twigs with some plastic bags in an area set aside for storing pushbikes.

Lund looked.

Metal doors in rows. Cell-like chambers beyond them.

The blue wig was in one of the plastic bags.

‘What about her bike?’

‘I’m on my own,’ Svendsen said for the fourth time that morning.

‘Seal off the area. Get a full forensic team down here,’ Lund ordered.

Weber was at his computer. Seemed to live there more with each passing day.

‘Seen the new polls?’ he asked.

‘It’s tomorrow’s polls that matter,’ Hartmann said. ‘When they see there’s an alliance…’

Morten Weber scowled.

‘Until Kirsten Eller’s name’s on a piece of paper let’s not count chickens.’

‘I talked to them last night. It’s done, Morten. Stop worrying.’

Skovgaard came off the phone. She didn’t look happy either.

‘You two seem close for a change,’ Hartmann said. ‘What have I done wrong now?’

‘Eller’s people think you’re being evasive,’ Skovgaard said. ‘So do some of our own.’

‘Tell them… tell them the car was stolen.’

Weber’s phone rang.

‘Why not tell them the truth?’ he said before answering it. ‘We’re assisting the police.’

‘The police have got their own agenda,’ Skovgaard said. ‘They don’t give a damn about us.’

Hartmann bristled. The Lund woman intrigued him. He was willing to give her a chance.

‘I’m not going to milk this, Rie. I’m not that kind of politician.’

Skovgaard said, ‘You make me want to scream sometimes. Carry on like this and you won’t be a politician at all.’

‘That was Kirsten Eller.’ Weber put down the phone. ‘She wants to see you. Straight away.’ Weber looked at Hartmann over his glasses. ‘I thought you had this fixed, Troels?’

‘What does she want?’

‘Wouldn’t tell a minion like me, would she? Pretty obvious, isn’t it?’

Hartmann didn’t speak.

‘She wants some wriggle room,’ Skovgaard said.

Both of them looked at him as if he should have known this.

‘Who wouldn’t?’ Weber asked.

Hartmann got up.

‘I’ll deal with Kirsten Eller.’

Fifteen minutes later, Hartmann was alone in a meeting room in the Centre Party offices. Eller didn’t smile.

‘I underestimated the feelings in the group,’ she said.

‘How?’

‘This mess with the police. It makes people talk about you. Bremer’s backers smell your blood.’

‘The car was stolen. The driver’s innocent.’

‘Why does no one know this, Troels?’

‘Because the police asked us to wait. It was the right thing to do. What difference does it make?’

‘A big difference. You could have warned me.’

‘No. I couldn’t. The police asked me to keep quiet.’

‘Bremer phoned me this morning. He’s offering to build ten thousand flats, social housing, minimal rents.’

‘You know him. It’ll come to nothing.’

‘I’m sorry, Troels. There won’t be an alliance. I can’t. In the circumstances…’

Hartmann floundered for a reply, found his temper rising.

‘Bremer’s stringing you along. He just wants you to dither until it’s too late for us to cut the deal. Then he’ll drop you like a stone. You won’t get the flats. You’ll be lucky to get a mayor’s seat.’

‘It’s the group’s decision. There’s nothing I can do.’

He was tempted to shout. To yell at her for being so stupid but he didn’t.

‘Unless, of course, you’ve got a better offer,’ Eller said.

Bremer was in his media studio getting ready for a TV slot. Lights and cameras. A make-up woman. Hangers on.

Fighting to restrain his fury, Troels Hartmann barged in, walked over, looked down at the laughing figure in the white shirt, powder on his cheeks, said, ‘You ruthless bastard.’

Bremer smiled and shook his grey head.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You heard.’

The make-up woman stopped padding at him with a brush. Stayed. Listened.

‘Bad timing for me, Troels,’ Bremer said with a genial sigh. ‘You too, I think. Later…’

‘I want an explanation.’

They went to the window, a semblance of privacy. Hartmann couldn’t help himself, was started before he got there.

‘First you steal our plan. Then you double it and propose an unrealistic number of flats you know you’ll never build.’

‘Ah,’ Bremer said, with a wave of his hand. ‘You spoke to Kirsten. A terrible blabbermouth. I did warn you.’

‘Then you exploit the death of a young girl and time it to aggravate the situation… precisely when we’re trying to help the police and the parents.’

Bremer’s face fell. He barged into Hartmann, wagged a finger in his face.

‘Who do you think you’re talking to? Am I supposed to time my proposals according to whatever mess you’ve got yourself into? Grow up, boy. You had nothing to do with the car yet still you chose not to announce it. I thought Rie Skovgaard had more sense than that.’

‘What I do is my business.’

The Lord Mayor laughed.

‘You’re an infant, Troels. I’d no idea it was this bad. A clumsy alliance with Kirsten’s clowns… what were you thinking?’

‘Don’t go lower than you are, Bremer. It’s hard I know…’

‘Oh dear. This is like dealing with your father all over again. The desperation. The paranoia. How very sad.’

‘I’m telling you—’

‘No!’

Poul Bremer’s voice boomed round the studio, loud enough to silence everyone, Hartmann too.

‘No,’ he repeated, more quietly. ‘You tell me nothing, Troels. Go find me a real man to fight. Not a tailor’s dummy in a flash suit.’

The church was plain and cold, the priest much the same. They sat as he listed the options. For prayers, for music, for flowers. For everything except the thing they needed most: understanding.

It was like a shopping list.

‘Can we have “A Spotless Rose is Growing”?’ Pernille asked as she and Theis held the hymn book between them.

The minister wore a brown jacket and grey polo sweater. He peered over the page and said, ‘That’s number hundred and seventeen. A lovely hymn. One of my favourites.’

‘I want it to be beautiful in here with plenty of flowers,’ she added.

‘That’s up to you. I can give you the name of some florists.’

‘She loves flowers.’

Next to her on the hard bench Theis Birk Larsen stared at the stone floor.

‘Blue irises. And roses.’

‘Is there anything else?’ Birk Larsen asked.

The minister checked his notes.

‘Nothing. Just the eulogy, but I suggest you write down some things. Do it at home. When you have the time.’

He checked his watch.

‘You mustn’t mention what happened to her,’ Pernille told him.

‘Only Nanna as you remember her. Of course.’

A long silence. Then she said, ‘Nanna was always happy. Always.’

He scribbled a note.

‘That’s a good thing for me to say.’

Birk Larsen got up. The priest did too. Shook his hand.

Pernille looked around the cold dark building. Tried to imagine a coffin there, saw the stiff, cold body inside.

‘If you need to talk to someone,’ the minister said, like a doctor offering an appointment. There was a look of studied, practised sympathy in his eyes. ‘Remember that all is well with her. Nanna’s with God now.’

The man nodded as if these were the wisest, most fitting words he could find.

‘With God,’ he repeated.

They walked to the door in silence.

She stopped after two steps, turned, looked at the priest in the brown jacket and dark trousers.

‘What good does that do me?’

He was taking back a chair. The notepad was in his pocket, like a carpenter’s measuring book. Probably working out the bill in his head.

‘What good?’ she cried.

‘Sweetheart,’ Birk Larsen said, trying to take her fingers.

She shook him free.

‘I want to know!’ Pernille roared at the man on the steps, frozen on the way to the altar, trapped by her fury. ‘What good does that do me? You with your sanctimonious words…’

He didn’t recoil. He found a kind of courage. Came back, faced her.

‘Sometimes life’s meaningless. Without pity. It’s a terrible thing to lose one’s daughter. Faith helps to give you hope. Strength.’

Her breath was short, her heart pounding.

‘To know that life isn’t without meaning—’

‘Don’t give me this shit!’ Pernille Birk Larsen screeched. ‘I don’t give a damn if she’s with God. Do you understand?’

Her hands clutched at her breast. Her voice began to break. The man stayed where he was in front of the altar. Theis Birk Larsen froze, buried his face in his hands.

‘Do you understand?’ Pernille wailed. ‘She’s supposed to be with…’ In the dark cold church a bird flapped somewhere, dry wings rustling in the eaves. ‘… with me.’

Lund was chewing Nicotinell. She looked at the ginger-haired kid, Oliver Schandorff. Screwed-up face, twitching fingers, seated in an empty classroom, nervous as hell.

‘You left school early yesterday, Oliver. You weren’t in class on Monday.’

‘I felt ill.’

‘Idleness isn’t a disease,’ Meyer said.

Schandorff scowled, looked ten years old.

‘You’ve got an absence rate of seventeen per cent,’ Lund added, looking at the records.

‘Class lout,’ Meyer chipped in with a wicked grin. ‘Rich kid. Dumb, forgiving parents. I know you.’

‘Look,’ Schandorff cried. ‘I had an argument with Nanna. That’s all.’

Lund and Meyer exchanged glances.

‘Lisa told you?’ Meyer said. ‘What else did she say?’

‘I didn’t do anything. I’d never hurt Nanna.’

‘Why did she dump you?’ Lund asked.

He shrugged.

‘One of those things. Like I care.’

Meyer leaned forward, sniffed Schandorff ’s expensive sky-blue sweater.

‘Guess she didn’t like you doing dope either.’

Schandorff ran his hand across his mouth.

‘Arrested for speed four months ago. Again two months later.’ Meyer sniffed again. ‘I’d say you’re into some kind of I dunno…’

He looked at the kid, puzzled, as if seeing something. Leaned forward, a couple of inches from his face, Schandorff recoiling, scared.

‘Wait,’ Meyer said urgently, peering into his eyes. ‘What’s that?’

‘What?’

‘There’s something. A tiny speck… I dunno. At the back of your eyes.’

Meyer reached out with a probing finger. Schandorff was at the back of his seat, couldn’t go any further.

‘Oh,’ Meyer said, with a sigh of relief. Retreated. ‘It’s nothing. Just your brain…’

‘Fuck you,’ Oliver Schandorff muttered.

‘Did you hand some of that shit to Nanna?’ Meyer roared. ‘Did you say… hey, let’s turn on… oh and it’s better with your pants down by the way.’

The ginger head went forward.

‘Nanna didn’t like it much.’

‘Which?’ Lund asked. ‘The dope or the…?’

‘Either.’

‘So you got punchy with her?’ Meyer had his chin on his hands. A pose that said: going nowhere. ‘On the dance floor. Threw a chair around. Yelled at her.’

‘I was drunk!’

‘Oh.’ Meyer brightened. ‘That’s OK then. So after nine thirty what did you do?’

‘I worked behind the bar.’

Lund pushed the sheet across the table.

‘You’re not on the schedule.’

‘I worked behind the bar.’

Meyer again.

‘Who saw you?’

‘Lots of people.’

‘Lisa?’

‘She saw me.’

‘No, she didn’t,’ Lund said.

‘I was walking round. Collecting glasses…’

‘Listen, brainiac.’ Meyer was loud again, in a different way. Cold and threatening. ‘Nobody saw you after nine thirty.’

Got up, pulled a chair next to Schandorff, sat so close they touched. Put an arm round his shoulder. Squeezed.

Lund took a deep breath.

‘What did you do, Oliver? Tell your uncle Jan. Before he gets cross. We both know you won’t like it if that happens.’

‘Nothing…’

‘Did you follow her outside?’ Another squeeze. ‘Hang around the basement?’

Schandorff wriggled out of his grip.

Meyer winked at him.

‘Nanna had someone else, didn’t she? You knew that. You were jealous as hell. I mean really.’ Meyer nodded. ‘Think about it. School rich kid. She was yours. How could some pretty chick from a dump like Vesterbro screw you around?’

Schandorff was up shouting, running his hands through his wild ginger hair.

‘I told you what happened.’

His voice was a couple of tones higher. Young again in an instant.

‘The car keys…’ Meyer began.

‘What…?’

‘You knew the car was there.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Nanna didn’t want you. So you raped her. Dumped her out in the canal. On your way home—’

‘Shut up!’

Meyer waited. Lund watched.

‘I loved her.’

‘Oliver!’ Meyer was beaming. ‘You just said you didn’t give a shit. You loved her but she thought you were a jerk. So you did the thing any no-good little dope-smoking shit would. You raped her. You tied her up. Stuck her in the boot of that black car…’

Back on the seat, ginger head shaking side to side.

‘Stuck her in there so no one could hear her scream then pushed her into the canal.’

Meyer slammed his fist so hard on the table the pens, the notebooks jumped. Oliver Schandorff was a crumpled heap on the chair, silent, shaking.

Lund waited. After a while she said very calmly, ‘Oliver. If you’ve got something to tell us it would be best to say it now.’

‘Let’s take him down the station,’ Meyer cut in, reaching for his phone. ‘Oliver and me need a quiet chat alone in a cell.’

The classroom door opened and two people walked in. A middle-aged man in an expensive-looking suit. A woman behind him looking worried.

‘I’m Oliver’s father,’ the man said. ‘I want a word with my son.’

‘We’re police officers,’ Lund said. ‘You’re interrupting our interview. Get out.’

The man didn’t move. The woman was watching him, expecting something.

‘Have you charged him with anything?’

Meyer waved a hand in his face and said, ‘Hello? Did you hear…?’

A wallet. A business card waved in their faces. Erik Schandorff. Big-shot lawyer from a big-shot firm.

‘Don’t talk to me like that,’ Erik Schandorff said.

‘Oliver’s helping—’ Lund began.

‘Dad?’

The cry of a frightened kid. No one could mistake that.

‘I want to talk to him,’ the father said.

Outside in the corridor, Meyer hissing and cursing beneath his breath, Lund watched through the window.

Father and son, Oliver head down, moving side to side.

Lifted it and then the father struck him full force across the face with the back of his hand.

‘Happy families,’ Meyer murmured, lighting a cigarette. ‘Now if I’d done that…’

One minute later, rich lawyer, rich kid, quiet wife walking out. Not a word.

‘See you soon, Oliver!’ Meyer called as they left.

Lund leaned back against the wall, folded her arms, closed her eyes.

He was watching her when she opened them.

‘I know what you’re thinking, Lund. That it’s vaguely possible I was a bit hard on him. But if that idiot hadn’t walked in…’

‘Fine.’

‘No really. I knew what I was doing. I was in control. All the time. Honest…’

‘Meyer,’ she said, coming up to him, peering up into his wide-open, staring eyes. ‘I said it was fine. Check downstairs again. Contact forensics. If Oliver drove the car they should know. Time the journey from here to the woods.’

She pulled the car keys out of her bag.

‘Anything else?’

‘You’ll think of something.’

‘And you, Lund?’

‘Me?’

‘Going to catch a movie or what?’

She nodded, left him, smiling when he couldn’t see.

There were flowers on the sideboard, on the small iron mantel above the fire. Flowers by the sink still wrapped in their paper, bouquets on the floor.

Some were blue irises. Some roses.

Pernille stood washing dishes, staring out of the window.

A woman from the forensic department sat with the boys at the table Pernille and Nanna made, smiling at them. Cotton sticks in her hand.

She looked no more than twenty-two or so. No older than Nanna when she went out for the night.

‘Is this really necessary?’ Theis Birk Larsen asked.

‘We need DNA,’ said the woman in the blue uniform. ‘For comparisons.’

Downstairs the car was packed. Suitcases with clothes. Boxes with kids’ things. Vagn Skærbæk helped as he always did.

He had new toys. Cars. Cheap and tinny but Vagn was bad with money and Pernille lacked the heart to scold him. The men in the depot were like everyone else. Like Theis. Like her. Desperate to do something, lost for what that might be.

‘OK?’ the woman asked and didn’t wait for an answer. Leaned over the table, got Anton first, then asked Emil to open his mouth.

Pernille watched from the sink, dishes in her hand.

They were back in Nanna’s bedroom. Two men in blue walking round, putting up more stickers, making notes.

Lotte her sister, younger, prettier, still single, did most of the packing. Now she came and hugged each of them in turn.

‘Take some flowers if you want,’ Theis said.

Lotte looked at him and shook her head.

‘Boys,’ Theis said. ‘Let’s go see Uncle Vagn. Help him finish up downstairs.’

Pernille promised she’d be there soon and watched them go.

Soon.

She left the sink when he was gone. Looked around the untidy room.

In this small warm place an unexpected miracle had emerged between them. The magic that was family. Shared lives. Shared love.

Now men in blue tramped through Nanna’s little bedroom, opening drawers they opened yesterday, talking in low tones, going quiet when they thought she could hear.

The boys rushed back up, snatched kites, snatched more toys. Showed her the tinny cars Vagn bought.

‘Watch those sharp edges,’ she said. ‘Watch…’

They were gone, not listening, one of the men from the bedroom following, taking some of Nanna’s books to the car in his blue gloved hands.

The cop who was left was old with a beard and a sad face. He looked uncomfortable. Couldn’t meet her eyes. Grey head down looking at Nanna’s bookcase once more.

She picked up her bag, ready to go.

The apartment was so full of the scent of flowers it made her head hurt.

Here we lived. Here we sat around the table, thinking this small, private bliss would never end.

And now we flee, we scuttle away in ignorance and fear as if the fault were our own.

Home. Covered in forensic stickers and their boot marks. Fingerprint dust on walls that still bore Nanna’s pretty face.

The bag went back on the old worn carpet. Pernille walked into her room, watched the man working. Sifting through the pieces of her daughter’s brief lost life.

She sat on the bed, waited until he had the courage to look at her.

‘I won’t be long. I’m sorry…’

‘What happened out in the woods?’ she asked and thought: I will not move, I will not leave until he speaks.

A father. She could see it in his face. He understood. He knew.

‘I’m not the one to talk to. Sorry.’ He fiddled with the drawer of Nanna’s desk. ‘I’m working. You have to leave.’

Pernille stayed on the sheets of Nanna’s tidy, made-up bed.

‘I need…’ His eyes were closed. She saw his pain, knew he saw hers too. ‘I need to know what happened. I’m her mother…’

The desk again. He was doing nothing and both knew it.

‘What happened to my daughter?’

‘I’m not allowed—’

‘There were photos. In your office. I saw…’ Words, she thought. The right ones now. ‘I see them in my head at night and I know… it can’t be worse than anything I imagine. Not worse.’

He stopped, head bowed.

‘It can’t be worse. But…’ She tapped her chestnut hair, her skull. Her voice was weak and faint, she made it so. ‘In my head I see…’

The cop bent stiffly over the desk, didn’t move.

‘I’m her mother. Do I have to beg?’

No answer.

‘Every day she dies in my head. Over and over and each time worse. We need to bury…’

He was shaking.

‘I need to know,’ she said again.

Then watched as he sighed.

Then, finally, listened.

Theis Birk Larsen looked round the depot. Helped Vagn Skærbæk move a cabinet to a truck. Watched as the boys played with their little tin cars. Checked their things in the back of the car: a family reduced to a set of luggage, ready to go.

‘Any news, Theis?’

Birk Larsen lit a cigarette, shook his head.

Anton and Emil ran up, clinging to Skærbæk’s red cotton legs. Begging for ice-cream money. Making him laugh.

‘Do I look like a piggybank?’ he said, taking out some coins. They scattered on the floor.

The old joke he always used with them: no beer now, boys.

‘Who was this driver they caught?’ Skærbæk asked. ‘The paper didn’t even print a name—’

‘I don’t know. They tell us nothing. Why would they?’

Birk Larsen stared around the depot trying to think the way he used to: of jobs and inventories, bills to be paid, invoices to be collected. Nothing worked. It was as if Nanna’s death had locked them in a never-ending present, a frozen point in time with no escape. No prospect of release.

‘We’re just little people,’ he murmured.

‘No you’re not.’

Vagn Skærbæk stood by him, ignoring the boys tugging at his overalls again.

‘Thanks for running things,’ Birk Larsen said. ‘I don’t know what…’

Too many words. He patted Skærbæk on the arm.

‘You saved my skin, Theis.’ Skærbæk’s face was hard with anger. The silver chain glittered round his neck. ‘I don’t forget. That bastard’s going to get what’s coming to him. You just tell me if you want something done.’

‘Like what?’

‘When he gets a piddling sentence. And they let him out on parole. You tell me Theis… I want to…’

‘Help?’ Birk Larsen shook his head.

‘If that’s what you want…’

‘She’s dead.’

Poor Vagn. Dumb Vagn. Loyal as a guard dog. No brighter either.

‘Dead.’ One cruel, short word. ‘Don’t you understand?’

Still the flame was lit and with it a sudden burst of rage. Theis Birk Larsen hammered his massive fist on a cabinet, set it shaking on its feet.

‘Where the hell’s Pernille?’

Upstairs in the kitchen, surrounded by the flowers, choking in their scent.

The cop was on the phone. And worried.

‘Pernille?’

He’d come up the stairs to look for her.

‘We’re not going.’

He rocked on his big feet the way he always did before an argument. Not that they had many, and those few he always won.

‘I told the boys. The place is booked—’

‘We’re not going.’

‘It’s arranged!’

It wasn’t that she lost. More that she never fought. That was over now. Lots of other things too. Things she hadn’t recognized yet. But would.

‘Nanna wasn’t dead when the car hit the water.’

Her voice was flat and calm, her face too.

‘What?’

‘She wasn’t dead. She was in the boot of the car. Trapped there. Drowning.’

Pernille walked into Nanna’s bedroom.

Clothes. Belongings. Scattered round, pleading to be tidied. A mother’s job…

She began to move the books, the clothes from one place to another, bright eyes shining, tears beginning to form.

Then she stopped, folded her arms.

‘We’re leaving now,’ Theis Birk Larsen said, standing in the doorway. ‘That’s that.’

He was next to the fish tank Nanna wanted. Pernille found herself captivated by the swimming golden shapes trapped inside it. Peering out, unable to comprehend anything beyond the glass.

‘No,’ she said. ‘We’re staying here. I want to watch them find him. I want to see his face.’

Round and round they swam, puzzled by their own reflections, thinking nothing, going nowhere.

‘They have to find him, Theis. They will.’

A moment pivoted between them. One that had never come before.

He fiddled with his woollen hat.

‘We’re staying here,’ Pernille Birk Larsen repeated. ‘I’ll get the boys. You bring the cases.’

Lynge was awake. A bandage round his head, drips in his arm. Fresh cuts and grazes covered the old scar on his cheek. Traces of blood still caked his grey moustache.

‘John?’ Lund said.

Movement. Breathing. Eyes half open. She’d no idea if he could hear this. Any more than the impatient doctor she’d bullied to let her in there.

‘I’m sorry this happened. Do you understand?’

The man’s eyebrows flickered.

‘I know you didn’t harm the girl.’

He was connected to a machine with flashing numbers and graphs.

‘I really need your help, John. I need to know what happened at the school. Who you met. Where you lost your keys.’

His eyes moved. Turned towards her.

‘You parked your car. You took the posters inside. You went to the gym. Is that when you felt sick?’

Lynge coughed, choked on something.

A noise, a word.

‘What? John?’

Another sound. An eye flicked wide open. A look there. Fear and pain.

‘Basement.’

‘You went there to deliver the posters. Is that where you lost the keys?’

‘The kid got angry. Said I wasn’t supposed to go near there.’

‘John.’ She got up, got close to his mouth, had to hear this. ‘Who got angry? What kid?’

That wheezing sound again. She could smell him.

‘Were there bikes there? Bikes?’

‘The next one.’

Lund tried to picture that dank warren.

‘The next room?’

‘The boiler.’

A sound. The door opened. The doctor was back and he didn’t look pleased.

‘Who did you meet in the boiler room? John?’

Lund took out the photos from her bag. School portraits. Pointed to Oliver Schandorff, said, ‘Did you see him? This one. Please. Look.’

The wheeze again. Then, ‘No.’

‘Are you sure? Take a good look.’

The doctor was with them, arms waving, saying, ‘OK. That’s it. You’ve got to stop. Leave now—’

‘One minute,’ Lund said, not budging. ‘Just…’

She pushed him back, held the school photo over the sick man in the bed.

‘I’m pointing my finger, John. One by one. Nod when I get to him. OK?’

One by one, kid by kid.

When she stopped on a tall dark-haired student, pleasant-looking, ordinary, John Lynge nodded.

‘You saw him in the boiler room…?’

‘That’s enough,’ the doctor told her, grabbing her arm.

‘John?’

The eye opened, caught her. His head moved, the slightest of nods.

Lund rose, threw the doctor’s hand off her.

Said, ‘Yes, it is.’

Meyer was smoking in the school playground when he answered her call.

‘I need you to go back to the basement again,’ Lund said.

A pause.

‘Please tell me that was a joke.’ He looked at the forensic men. He was hungry. So were they. And Svendsen was starting to get on his nerves.

‘Go back down there.’

‘Forensics are packing up. We’ve looked everywhere. How’s Lynge?’

‘He’ll be out in a week. Is there a boiler room?’

‘They keep it locked. No one can get in there except the janitor.’

‘I’m on my way.’

He could hear the sound of traffic. The black rain-soaked streets were empty. She’d be with him in a matter of minutes.

Meyer started walking back down the grimy concrete stairs.

‘It’s bad to talk and drive, you know.’

‘Are you in there yet?’

‘We’ve got the janitor here.’

‘I need to know what’s inside.’

‘All right, all right.’

He told the janitor to open the door.

‘Are you in?’

‘Yes! Just keep your pants on, will you?’

‘What can you see?’

A pause. Then Meyer said, ‘I can see the boiler. That’s a surprise.’

Then, ‘Just a bunch of old junk. Tables, chairs and books.’ He cleared his throat. ‘OK, Lund. So the kids could maybe get in here. But there’s nothing to see.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Hang on.’

‘Did you hear me?’

Meyer made a disgusting noise down the phone.

‘You’re breaking up on me, Lund.’

Then muttered, ‘For God’s sake…’

Slammed the phone into his pocket, walked ahead, shining the beam of the torch one side, the other side. Up, down.

He’d thought about this earlier. The janitor said the boiler took an oil feed from a tank outside. No one had to go in there except for maintenance once a week. Every Friday afternoon.

There was a second door at the end. No handle. Looked as if it hadn’t been used in years.

Meyer took out a handkerchief, edged the metal open. Peeked in, moved the torch around.

Kids had been here. At his feet the remains of a couple of joints were stamped into the ground. Beer cans. And…

Meyer whistled. The sleeve of a condom packet, foil torn, empty.

Noises behind. Something happening out in the main basement. Didn’t care.

Pulled out his phone, dialled her number. Didn’t wait before he said, ‘I think you’d better get here. Lund…?’

Deep in the concrete bowels of the school, there was no signal.

‘Really…’ Meyer whispered.

‘Really?’

The sound made him jump. A torch beam in his face. Then on the ground.

‘You must have been speeding. Admit it, Lund. You’re as bad as me.’

She didn’t answer. Just looked at the same thing that he did. A grubby mattress on the floor.

Bloodstains in the corner.

Bloodstains on the peeling grey wall.

Prints were appearing on the peeling plaster of the room in the school basement. Officers in white bunny suits tagging, drawing, taking photos. Lund on the phone to her mother’s, telling Mark to do his homework, practise his Swedish.

‘I could be here all night. Gran will help you.’

She’d gone back to the school hall to go through the flowers and photos on a small shrine set up for Nanna by the lockers.

‘That’s good,’ Lund said. ‘Bye.’

A picture there. Two girls dressed as angels. Nanna, maybe thirteen. Lisa Rasmussen.

A pair of red candles in front of it. A single flame flickering in the cold breeze running down the corridor.

‘Who lit the candle?’ Lund asked.

Meyer had been here five minutes before her. He looked young and guilty for a moment.

‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

‘You shouldn’t interfere with things, Meyer.’

‘Who said…?’

She waved at him.

‘Forget it.’

‘Shouldn’t we go and look in the basement?’

Lund straightened a photo of Nanna. Looked at the dead girl.

She held up a hand. Meyer shook his head, baffled.

‘Your lighter. I’m giving up. Remember?’

‘Oh.’

He threw her the silver Zippo. It looked expensive. She looked at the photos and the flowers, wished there was more she could offer than this. Knew that had to come. Then she lit the other candle and watched the tiny yellow flame flutter.

A small offering. Pathetic.

‘We should look at the basement,’ she said and followed him down.

Jansen, a ginger-haired officer from forensics, stood by the portable floodlights. Listed what they had so far. Blood on the mattress, the table, the floor. Some spots that could turn out to be semen. Hair.

A witch’s hat. Nanna’s it looked like.

And fingerprints. Lots of fingerprints.

‘Access?’ Meyer asked.

‘There’s the door from the basement,’ Jansen said. ‘And one from the school. Just needs a key for either.’

‘A…’

‘A different key,’ he said.

Everything was visible under the bright floodlights. On the low table stood empty bottles of Coke and vodka, a Chianti flask. Plates of food. And pills. Red, green, orange. All the colour of children’s sweets.

‘Joints,’ Meyer said. ‘Amphetamine. Coke.’

Thirty minutes later Rektor Koch arrived at the school. They kept her out of the location. Too many people in bunny suits. Too much to see.

In a classroom upstairs Lund asked, ‘What did you use that room for?’

‘Storing tables and chairs.’ Koch had brought her dog. A small brown terrier. Cuddled it for comfort. ‘Books and the like. Nothing…’

‘Nothing what?’

‘Nothing special. I didn’t know the pupils had access. They weren’t supposed to have.’

Meyer walked in and said, ‘Well they did. They had their own private party there. Right under your nose.’

‘What did you find?’

Lund didn’t answer. She said, ‘The party was planned by the student council. Is that right?’

‘It should have been locked,’ Koch insisted. She held the dog more tightly. ‘Is that where Nanna was?’

Lund took out her stack of school photos, pointed to the kid John Lynge had identified. Jeppe Hald. Nice-looking. Clean tidy black hair. Scholarly glasses.

‘Tell me about him.’

Koch smiled.

‘Jeppe’s wonderful. President of the student council. Star pupil. We’re proud of him. Fine parents…’

‘Where does wonderboy live?’ Meyer asked.

‘He shares a flat with Oliver.’

Meyer said, ‘Is Oliver a good pupil too?’

The smile again, less warm.

‘They come from good families. The law. Both of them. I’m sure they’ll follow their fathers into the same profession. Be a credit—’

‘Better than being the offspring of some sweaty removals man from Vesterbro?’ Meyer snapped.

The smile never cracked.

‘I didn’t say that. We’re not prejudiced here. Against anyone.’

‘So long as they pay the fees.’

Rector Koch glared at him.

‘Oops,’ Meyer said. ‘I think I just got detention.’

‘Thank you,’ Lund told her and got him out of the room.

Jeppe Hald strode up and down the window of the office, watching the blue lights flash outside, listening to the occasional wail of sirens.

Lund and Meyer walked briskly in, threw their folders on the table.

Tall and skinny. Thick glasses. Harry Potter’s taller geeky brother. Or that was the act.

‘Why am I here?’

‘Just routine,’ Lund said pleasantly. ‘Please sit down.’

‘But I’ve got a physics essay to do.’

The two cops looked at each other. Meyer buried his head in his hands and pretended to weep.

While Hald was taking a chair Lund said, ‘You met a man in the basement on Friday night. He was delivering election campaign material.’

Hald looked around at the empty chairs.

Meyer leaned forward, grinned cheerily.

‘We tried to call your daddy but he was out getting fitted for a wig. The man in the basement?’

‘I met him.’

‘Why didn’t you say so?’

Silence.

Lund said, ‘You knew we were looking for a driver.’

‘How was I to know he was a driver?’

Meyer raised his hands to his mouth, kissed his fingertips like a chef tasting the perfect dish.

‘Superb. You do Shakespeare too?’

‘Shakespeare?’

‘First,’ Meyer roared, ‘we kill all the fucking lawyers.’

Jeppe Hald went white.

Lund scowled at Meyer.

‘Shakespeare never said fucking. Don’t teach the boy wrong. Jeppe. Jeppe!’

‘What?’

‘The driver lost his car keys. Did you happen to see them?’

‘I’m here because of some missing keys?’

‘What were you doing in the basement?’ Lund asked.

‘Fetching… fetching things for the bar.’

Meyer started picking at his nails. Hand closed to a fist.

‘We found a room,’ he said. ‘Someone had a party. Do you know anything about that?’

Hald hesitated. Almost said no. Instead, ‘I think the organizers had a room where they kept beer and soft drinks. Is that the one?’

‘The one with beer and soft drinks, blood and drugs and condoms?’ Meyer replied, still looking at his nails. ‘That’s the one.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

Lund said nothing for a long while. Nor Meyer. They looked at their papers. Jeppe Hald sat at the table, barely moving, barely breathing.

Then she showed him a photo.

‘Nanna’s hat. We found it there. Did she go in that room?’

Shake of head. A shrug. No idea.

Meyer breathed a sigh so long it seemed to last a minute.

‘I came down for the last beer about nine o’clock. I didn’t see anyone.’

Slowly Meyer’s head fell to his arms, and he lay there staring at the kid in the chair through half-closed eyes.

‘You’re sure you didn’t go back later?’ Lund asked.

A moment, a pause to be convincing. Then, ‘I’m very sure.’

‘No one saw you after nine thirty. What did you do?’

‘Er…’

‘Think, Jeppe,’ Meyer said stifling a yawn. ‘Think before you answer.’

Hald bristled. Looked more confident.

‘The disco ball blew the fuses. I’d used the last one. So I went to buy more. I had to cycle a long way to get them.’

‘We’ll check,’ Meyer muttered not looking up from his arms.

‘When I got back Oliver was asleep in a classroom. He’d had too much to drink. I walked him home.’ Folded his arms, looked the model pupil. ‘We were there just before midnight. I put him to bed. Had to.’

‘That’s early!’ Lund said brightly.

‘I was going hunting the next morning.’

‘Hunting!’ Lund said, impressed.

Meyer grumbled something obscene into his sleeves.

‘On the Sonderris estate. Our hunting club was holding a big event. I spent the night there.’

‘I’m going to take up hunting in a minute,’ Meyer muttered.

Lund scribbled on her pad.

‘I’d really like to help,’ Hald pleaded.

In a high-pitched squeal Meyer whined, ‘I’d really like to help.’

‘But that’s all I know.’

Lund smiled at him. Said, ‘Fine.’ Wrote some more on her pad. ‘Well…’

She closed her pad, shrugged. Jeppe Hald smiled back at her.

‘That’s it,’ Lund said. ‘Unless…’

She prodded the near-comatose Meyer.

‘You want to ask something?’

Head straight up, face in the kid’s.

‘You won’t object if I take a blood sample?’ Meyer said very loudly. ‘And fingerprints?’

He touched Hald’s hand. The kid recoiled.

‘I’ll be as gentle as I can.’

Meyer waggled his big right ear at Jeppe Hald, listening, hearing nothing.

‘Otherwise,’ Lund added, ‘I’m going to arrest you and we’ll take them anyway.’

Jeppe Hald, the smart kid, star pupil, head boy, said in a young and petulant trembling voice, ‘I’m not saying any more. I want to see my lawyer.’

Lund nodded.

‘A lawyer. That’s fine. Meyer?’

‘Sure.’ He took hold of Hald’s arm. ‘First you get your phone call, wonderboy. Then let me introduce you to the concept of a cell.’

Thirty minutes later. Meyer had people working the phones.

‘I checked up on Oliver,’ he told Lund. ‘On Saturday he worked in a cafe. Met some woman. Went out and got drunk and took her to his parents’ house. The two of them hung out there till Monday.’

One of the cadets came back with a package. Meyer groaned with delight.

‘You’re an angel.’

He stripped the thing from its wrapping. Lund watched. Big hot dog in a roll. Crispy fried onions. Remoulade sauce. Sliced cucumber pickles on the top.

Lund said, ‘You sent a boy out to the pølsevogn and you didn’t tell me?’

‘I thought you only ate Swedish sausage.’

She stood there with her hands on her hips, big eyes boring into him. He took another quick bite of his food. Grimaced.

‘Bastard,’ Lund said. ‘Where’s the motive?’

‘I was hungry.’

Silence.

‘Oh. Right. Jeppe and Oliver. They’re lying. Find the lie first. The motive won’t be far away. Meyer Handbook of Detection. Page thirty-two.’

Lund still looked angry about the food and the sausage crack. The first mostly.

‘I’ll talk to Ginger and give you a call,’ Meyer said.

‘He’ll just scream for a lawyer like Jeppe.’

‘No,’ Meyer insisted. ‘Can’t demand that unless we arrest him. If I just talk to him as a witness… I know the law. Mostly I abide by it. Also…’

‘No.’

‘You’re a very negative woman sometimes. Just because I didn’t get you a hot dog…’

‘I want mouth swabs. I want blood samples.’ A quick decision. ‘Let’s arrest them now.’

Meyer looked torn.

‘Much as I adore that idea the lawyers won’t be here for hours. We’ll be sitting around on our hands until they turn up.’

‘No. We search the flat. Check their emails. Phone records. Find the woman Schandorff says he spent the weekend with.’

He was eating and cursing between mouthfuls.

‘Anything else?’

That tone of voice again. He had others. She’d heard them. Not often. But they were there.

‘Why are you so angry, Meyer?’

The rest of the sausage disappeared while he thought about this.

‘Because,’ he said, ‘I have feelings.’

Silence.

‘Anything else?’ he asked again.

‘No.’

She thought about it.

‘Yes.’ Lund came and stabbed a finger in his chest. ‘Next time you send a cadet out to the pølsevogn, get one for me.’

Lund decided to check with Buchard first. The chief was flicking through the morgue photos of the girl. Bloody eye, crouched, foetal corpse, lesions and wounds. Bruising. A violent, prolonged assault.

‘What do you have on the boys?’ he asked. ‘Physical evidence from the room?’

‘Nothing until the results come in. The DNA people are giving us priority.’

Buchard flicked through more photos.

‘You do realize who the parents are?’

Lund frowned.

‘Why should we care about that?’

He was in a foul mood for some reason.

‘We’ve caused enough trouble as it is. We need to tread carefully.’

Meyer stuck his head through the door and announced, ‘Hartmann wants a meeting.’

‘About what?’ she wanted to know.

‘He wouldn’t say. It sounded important.’

‘Hartmann can wait,’ Lund said. ‘We’re going to the flat.’

When she made for the door Buchard took her arm.

‘What were we just saying? Troels Hartmann might be the next Lord Mayor of Copenhagen. We don’t piss off people in the Rådhus without a reason.’

‘We’ve got a suspect’s flat to search…’

‘I can do that,’ Meyer cut in. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll keep you posted.’

Buchard nodded.

‘Good. That’s settled.’

The chief walked out.

‘Give Hartmann a ring,’ Meyer said, following him down the winding corridor. ‘It was you he asked for.’

Lund waited at the counter feeling awkward and uncomfortable. She didn’t go out much, even with Bengt. After the last few days this touristy restaurant in Nyhavn seemed too ordinary. Too warm and human.

Hartmann was five minutes late, making excuses. While they waited for a table he asked, ‘How are the girl’s parents?’

Was that the politician, she wondered? Or the man?

‘Is that why you asked me here? To talk about the parents?’

‘You really don’t do small talk, do you?’

‘Not in the middle of a case. One like this.’

‘I’ve got a press conference tomorrow. I want to say the right things.’

‘Right for who?’

‘For you. For me. Mostly for them.’

Men like this did sincerity so well. It was hard to see any cracks.

‘Say what you like,’ she told him.

‘There’ve been so many surprises. Will there be any more?’

Without a blink.

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Can I say you know there’s no connection between the crime and us?’

She nodded.

‘I suppose so.’ She watched him. ‘If you think that’s true.’

The waitress called. He’d booked a table.

‘Is that all?’

Lund got ready to go.

He put his hand to her arm, very gently.

‘I’m sorry. I know I made things difficult. There’s an election going on. Some odd things have been happening.’ Hartmann looked angry for a second. ‘I never expected any of this.’ He looked at her. ‘Are you hungry?’

A plate of food went past. Meatballs and pasta. It looked a lot better than the hot dog Meyer never got her.

‘I’ll have some of that,’ Lund said. Then, ‘Just a minute.’

She went to the lobby, called her mother’s. Got the loudest, friendliest greeting in months, then found out why. Bengt had arrived from Sweden, would be in Copenhagen for one night only.

‘You must talk,’ Vibeke crooned then handed the call over.

Don’t need this now, Lund thought, listening to him talk about Mark’s progress with his Swedish, the Sigtuna hockey shirt he’d found, the perfect wood for the perfect sauna.

She nodded all the while, seeing little in her head but a small and grubby room in the basement of a school, a mattress stained with blood, a table of drink and dope, a discarded witch’s hat and a shiny blue wig.

‘When will you be home?’ Bengt asked.

Back to the awkward present.

‘Soon,’ she promised. ‘Soon.’

A pause.

‘When?’

He never pressed her. Never sounded upset or angry or cold. His pleasant, pacific nature was one of the things she loved. Or maybe it just made life easier.

‘When I’m done. I’m sorry this came up. Truly. Let’s talk later. I’ve got to go.’

Back at the table she got stuck into the food. They talked again about press releases. About cooperation. Close up Hartmann interested her. There was a frail naivety to him that was absent from the face on the posters. He was a widower. She’d checked that in the press cuttings library already, at the same time she had checked on Jan Meyer. Hartmann’s wife died from cancer two years before. The loss had affected him. At one point it threatened to bring his political career — the only job he’d ever had — to a premature end.

She found he was staring at her, uncharacteristically shorn of the right words.

‘What is it?’

‘You’ve got…’ His hand waved in her direction. ‘You’ve got food on your face.’

Lund grabbed a napkin, wiped her mouth. Ate some more just as greedily.

It was a pleasant cafe. The kind of place couples went. Or men with their mistresses. If someone had walked in at that moment, seen her with this man…

‘We’re agreed then?’ he concluded.

‘You tell your story. We’ll tell ours. Such as it is.’

‘What about your life?’ He smiled. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I asked that. It’s none of my business.’

‘It’s good. I’m going to Sweden with my son. My boyfriend lives outside Stockholm. I’ve got a job there. Civilian with the police.’

She took a quick gulp of wine, wished there was more food.

‘Everything will be fine,’ Lund insisted.

‘How old’s your son?’

‘Twelve. And you?’

‘I’m a bit older than that.’

‘I meant…’

‘I know, I know. We didn’t get that far. My wife died. Mostly…’ He shrugged, looked a little ashamed. ‘I spend my time working. I’ve met someone though. Hopefully it’s not too late.’

‘The woman from your office,’ she said and it wasn’t a question. ‘Rie Skovgaard.’

Hartmann cocked his head and looked at her.

‘Can you see into my pockets too?’

He’d barely touched his food or drink. Hartmann looked as if he could stay there all night. Talking, talking.

‘My boyfriend’s over from Sweden,’ Lund said. ‘I have to go. Here…’

She took out some money for the bill.

‘No, no, no.’ He waved it away quickly. ‘You were my guest.’

‘So long as you pay. Not the taxpayer.’

‘I’ll pay, Sarah,’ Hartmann said, waving a credit card.

‘Thank you, Troels. Goodnight.’

Bengt went straight to sleep the way he always did. Lund got out of bed, pulled on a sweatshirt, went to the window, sat in the cane chair, called Meyer.

‘What did you find out?’ she whispered.

‘Not much.’

Meyer was talking in a hushed tone too. It sounded odd.

‘There’s got to be something.’

‘Forensics have taken a computer and samples.’

The dinner with Hartmann still intrigued her.

‘Was there anything in Nanna’s room that suggests she was going out to meet someone?’

‘Can’t this wait until tomorrow? I’m beat.’

‘She must have had a date.’

‘Yes, Lund. With Oliver. But you won’t let me talk to him.’ Noises behind his quiet voice. Movement. A baby crying. ‘There. Look. You’ve woken the whole house.’

She went out into the dining room, turned on a light, sat at the table.

‘Do the parents remember anything new?’

‘I’ll ask them tomorrow. OK?’ A grunt. ‘Some idiot on the team told the mother the girl had drowned in the boot. She’s going mad.’

Lund swore.

‘You don’t need to do that. I’ll talk to them.’

‘Can I go now?’

‘Yes,’ Lund said. ‘Of course.’

She walked past Mark’s room. He was still fast asleep. Bengt was awake but didn’t want to show it. Everyone here was fine, Lund thought. They didn’t need her at all.

The morning was dull and damp with drizzle. They ate breakfast together then Lund drove Bengt to the station. Talked about the weekend. Who they’d see in Sweden. What they’d do.

He listened in silence. Then she said, ‘The house-warming party…’

‘Forget about the party. I’ve cancelled it.’

She wondered: was that a stray note of displeasure in his voice? It was hard to tell. Anger was so foreign to him.

‘Let’s wait until your case is over, Sarah. Then…’

‘I don’t need to wait. I told you. We’re coming Saturday, whatever.’

He gazed out of the window at the traffic and the morning travellers.

‘I’m not inviting lots of people for you to call again and say you’re not coming.’

That was sharp. Unmistakable.

‘Of course I’ll turn up! I’m looking forward to seeing your parents. And…’ His little refrain of Swedish names from the other day came back to her. ‘Ole and Missan and Janne and Panne and Hasse and Basse and Lasse…’

He was laughing. She could still get that out of him.

‘It’s Bosse, not Basse.’

‘Sorry. Still learning.’

‘Well. If you’re sure…’

‘I’m sure! It’s a promise.’

She dropped him at Central Station then drove on to Vesterbro.

Lund sat on Nanna’s bed trying to remember what it was like to be a teenager. The room was small and bright, messy and chaotic. Bags from inexpensive clothing companies, scribbled notes from class, books and magazines, make-up and jewellery…

A reflection of Nanna Birk Larsen’s personality, her life.

She went through the diary, found nothing. Nothing in the school notebooks, the photos on the corkboard above her small desk.

Lund thought of herself at this age, an awkward, morose child. Her room was more untidy than this. But different somehow. It existed for her, an inward expression of her solitary, introverted nature. Here, she thought, Nanna had created a place for preparation. A private dressing room from which she would emerge to enchant the world outside, entrance it with her beauty, her clothes, her sparkling and obvious intelligence.

All the things the teenage Sarah Lund lacked this girl possessed in abundance. A loving mother too.

And now she was dead.

There was a path from this room to Nanna’s shocking end in the canal at the Kalvebod Fælled. There were reasons, and reasons left traces.

She looked in the wardrobe, sifted through the clothes. A few had scissored labels, bought from a budget store perhaps. A few didn’t. And…

Lund fought again to recall herself at this age. What did she wear? Much the same as now. Jeans, shirts, jumpers. Practical clothes for a practical life, not the attention of others. It was natural for an attractive teenager to dress to be seen. Lund herself was the exception. Yet the clothes she found sifting through Nanna’s coat hangers seemed too good, too adult, too… knowing.

Then she brushed the hangers to one side, looked at the back where a small mountain of shoes stood, pair upon discarded pair.

Behind them something glittered. Lund reached in, felt Nanna’s clothes fluttering against her cheeks like the wings of gigantic moths, retrieved what was there.

A pair of shiny brown cowboy boots decorated with coloured motifs, glitter, studs, tiny mirrors.

They shouted money.

No. They screamed it.

‘My wife’s here,’ said a brusque male voice behind her.

Lund jumped, banged her head on the hanger rail.

It was Theis Birk Larsen.

He watched her rub her hair.

‘Be careful what you tell her.’

Seated round the table, frozen faces captured in the surface.

‘I’m sorry you were told,’ Lund said.

The day had brightened. The flowers were fading. But still the place smelled of their sweet scent.

‘The officer shouldn’t have done that. He’s been transferred so you won’t see him again.’

Theis Birk Larsen, head down, eyes dead, muttered, ‘Well, that’s something.’

‘It’s nothing,’ Pernille said. ‘I want to know the truth. I want to know what happened. I’m her mother.’

Lund checked her notes.

‘No one saw Nanna after the party. She was probably driven away in the stolen car. The one we found her in.’

Lund looked out of the window, looked back at her.

‘She was raped.’

Pernille waited.

‘She was beaten.’

Pernille waited.

‘We think she fought back. That may be why he hit her.’

Nothing more.

‘In the woods?’ Pernille asked.

‘In the woods. We think so.’ Lund hesitated. ‘But maybe she was held captive somewhere else first. We just don’t know.’

The big man went to the sink, placed his fists knuckles down on the draining board, gazed out at the wan grey sky.

‘She told us she’d be at Lisa’s,’ Pernille said. ‘Nanna didn’t lie to me.’

‘Maybe she didn’t.’ A pause. ‘Do you have no idea?’ A glance at the shape at the window, the hunched back clad in black leather. ‘Did you remember anything else?’

‘If something was wrong Nanna would have told me,’ Pernille insisted. ‘She’d have told me. We’re… We were…’

Words proved a struggle.

‘Close.’

‘When did she stop seeing Oliver Schandorff?’

‘Is he involved?’

A long, broad shadow fell across the table. Theis Birk Larsen turning to listen.

‘I’m just gathering information.’

‘Six months ago or so,’ Pernille said. ‘Oliver was a kind of boyfriend.’

‘Was she upset when it ended?’

‘No. He was.’

Lund watched her.

‘She wouldn’t talk to Oliver on the phone. Nanna…’ She leant forward, tried to hold Lund’s wide and ranging eyes. ‘If something was wrong she always told me. Didn’t she, Theis?’

The silent man stood at the window, a giant figure in his scarlet bib overalls and leather jacket.

Lund’s phone rang.

Meyer had something.

‘OK. I’ll come straight away.’

They stared at her, expectant.

‘I have to go now.’

‘What was that?’ he asked in a low, brutal voice.

‘Just a call. I saw a pair of boots in Nanna’s room. They look expensive. Did you give them to her?’

‘Expensive boots?’ he grunted.

‘Yes.’

Pernille said, ‘Why do you ask?’

A shrug.

‘I ask lots of questions. Maybe too many. I put my nose in where it’s not wanted.’ A pause. ‘That’s what I do.’

‘We didn’t buy her expensive boots,’ Pernille said.

Interview room. The lawyer was brisk and bald and built like a hockey player. When Lund walked in he was yelling at a bored-looking Meyer who sat on the table edge, chin on fist, smiling childishly.

‘You’ve ignored all my client’s rights. You questioned him without a lawyer present…’

‘Not my fault you wanted a lie-in. What’s the big deal? I took him on a tour. Bought him breakfast. I’ll change his stinking nappy if you want…’

‘Come with me, Meyer…’

‘There will be consequences,’ the lawyer bellowed as Lund took him into the next room.

Meyer sat down, looked at her.

‘They put Oliver Schandorff in the last free cell we had. So I drove Jeppe round a bit and dropped him off here at five.’

Wondering how bad this might turn out, Lund asked, ‘Did you question him?’

‘Have you seen his emails? Plenty. And he rang Nanna fifty-six times in one week. If you ask…’

‘Did you question him without a lawyer present?’

‘The lawyer said he would be here at seven. He didn’t turn up till nine.’ Meyer tried to look the picture of reasonableness. ‘Like I said, I couldn’t throw the little jerk into a cell. We just had breakfast together.’ A small boy’s gesture of guilt. ‘It would have been rude if I hadn’t talked to him, Lund.’

Buchard came through the door. Blue shirt. Grey face.

‘We didn’t have anywhere to hold the suspect last night,’ Lund said straight off. ‘The lawyer was two hours late. Meyer bought him breakfast.’

‘He wasn’t very hungry,’ Meyer broke in, ‘but it seemed the polite thing to do.’

‘Maybe the kid thought he was being interrogated but…’

Lund left it at that. Buchard was unimpressed.

‘Perhaps Meyer could explain this to me himself.’

‘What Lund said,’ Meyer told him.

‘Write that in a report. Bring it to my office. I’ll put it in your file with all the others.’ A studied pause. ‘After the hearing.’

When the chief left Lund got to her desk, started on the photos and the messages.

Meyer brightened.

‘I thought that went pretty well. Didn’t you?’

The press conference was packed. Cameras. Microphones everywhere. Troels Hartmann wore a tie this time, black. That morning he went to the barber that Rie Skovgaard chose, sat in the chair as she ordered the cut she wanted: short and severe, mournful.

Then the script.

‘It’s been a turbulent time. But I’ve been working closely with the police. The car was stolen. No staff were ever implicated. Our thoughts and sympathies go out to the girl’s parents. Our priority all along was to help the police. Nothing more.’

‘Is the driver a suspect?’ a woman asked.

‘The driver came from an agency. He’s been cleared.’

A sea of voices, the loudest shouting, ‘Is this the position of the police?’

Hartmann looked and saw the bald head and beaming smirk of Erik Salin.

‘I don’t speak for the Politigården. But I’ve discussed this with them. They’re happy I make it clear our involvement was an unfortunate coincidence. We’ve nothing to do with this case. Speak to them if you want any more.’

Still the questions rained down on him.

A politician picked the ones he answered. Carefully. Hartmann listened to the clamour, thought of Bremer, waited in silence until the right question came along.

‘Will you form an alliance with the Centre Party?’

A puzzled expression, bemused but knowing.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘the world of local politics is rarely as dramatic as you people would have your readers believe. Thank you.’

He rose to leave.

The woman reporter was on her feet.

‘You’re forming an alliance?’

Nothing.

The political editor from one of the dailies pounced.

‘Is Bremer wooing her too?’

There was the flash of a camera in his face. Stick to the script, Rie Skovgaard said.

‘He is.’ The room went silent, every eye upon him. ‘Personally though, I think he’s a bit old for her. Now…’

Sudden, raucous laughter.

A delicate balance, one that fell in his favour. The hacks hated Bremer as much as he did. At least that’s what they said in their cups.

Troels Hartmann retreated to his office next door.

There Rie Skovgaard fussed over him. Adjusted his tie, his jacket. Looked girlish and pleased.

One short ticking-off for the departure from the script at the end. But that worked. So she was happy.

‘I’m fine,’ Hartmann said, retreating from her hands. ‘Fine.’

‘Troels. You’ve got a bunch of meetings ahead. Then a school visit. The cameras will be there. They’ll want you.’

He stepped back to the window like a sullen child.

She played the same game. A pout. A practised one. She’d had her hair done before him. Black and sleek. Fitted dress hugging her slender body.

Weber rushed in brandishing papers. The draft of the alliance speech. He wanted it cleared with Eller.

‘We’ll read it in the car…’

‘Take Morten with you,’ Skovgaard said. ‘Then the two of you can talk. Go over the points…’

Weber shook his head.

‘There’s nothing new. You don’t need me. I’ve work here—’

‘I’ll hold the fort while you’re gone,’ she insisted. ‘Go.’ She waved at them. ‘Go.’ A smile. ‘And talk.’

Sometimes they played chess together. He usually won. Because she let him? Hartmann wondered that sometimes.

‘Go, boys!’ Rie Skovgaard shouted like a scolding mother, waving her thin hands, flashing her rings.

‘On Saturday night,’ Meyer said, ‘Jeppe Hald called Schandorff several times.’

‘What about the woman Oliver was with?’

‘Divorcee out for some fun. She said he was miserable and worried about something.’

Lund scowled at him.

‘That’s it?’

‘No.’

That petulant ring to his voice was back. The smoking ban she’d imposed in the office was getting to him.

‘What about the prints from the boiler room?’

‘Half the school was down there.’

‘What about DNA?’

‘Still waiting. Ready?’

She looked through the glass door at the interview room across the passage. Oliver Schandorff, head down at the table.

‘I want to be in there,’ Meyer said. ‘We’re supposed to be working on this together.’

This was true.

‘OK. You can come in. But leave the questions to me.’

He jumped to his feet. A short salute and click of the heels.

The moment they were through the door Schandorff, scruffy in a green polo shirt, pointed at Meyer.

‘I’m not talking to him.’

‘No,’ Lund announced. ‘You’re talking to me.’ Pause. ‘Good morning, Oliver. How are you?’

‘I feel like shit.’

She held out her hand. The kid took it. Then the bald lawyer they’d seen earlier did the same. Lund sat next to them. Meyer perched at the end of the room, on a stool in the light from the window.

‘All we want to do,’ Lund said, ‘is ask you a few questions. Then you can go home.’ No response. ‘Nanna told her parents she would be at Lisa’s. Was she meeting you?’

‘No. I told you.’

‘Do you know who she met?’

‘No.’

From her folder Lund pulled a couple of photos of the fancy leather boots from Nanna’s wardrobe.

‘Did you give her these?’

He looked as if he’d never seen them.

‘No.’

Meyer leaned back in his chair at the window, let loose a long yawn.

Lund ignored him.

‘Why were you so angry that you threw a chair?’

The bald lawyer beamed and said, ‘My client reserves the right not to answer.’

Lund ignored the man.

‘I’m trying to help you, Oliver. Tell us the truth and you’re gone from here. Hide behind this man and I promise—’

‘She said she’d found someone else!’

‘That’s enough,’ the lawyer said. ‘We’re going.’

Lund’s eyes never left the ginger-haired kid.

‘Did she say who?’

The lawyer was on his feet.

‘My client’s had a rough night—’

‘Did she say anything else?’

‘I said,’ the lawyer cut in. ‘No more questions.’

Schandorff shook his head.

‘All I did was ask her if she’d come to the basement and talk to me. But she wouldn’t—’

‘Oliver!’ the lawyer barked.

‘Kid,’ Meyer cut in. Schandorff glanced at him. ‘He’s not your dad. He won’t hit you. I won’t let him.’

‘She wouldn’t come with me.’

Lund nodded.

‘So what did you do?’

‘I called her a bunch of names. That was the last I saw of her.’

She picked up her papers.

‘Thanks. That’s all.’

Outside the room. Thinking.

‘Nanna had a date. She had expensive boots no one knew about.’

‘Oliver could have bought them,’ Meyer said. ‘He’s lying. Maybe she was going on a date with him.’

‘It feels wrong.’

‘It feels wrong,’ he muttered, reaching for a cigarette.

‘Don’t smoke in here,’ she ordered. ‘I told you that already.’

‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Lund. You. You’ve been here so long you’re part of the furniture. You think no one can ever replace you. That’s what’s wrong. You.’

Then he lit the cigarette anyway. Blew smoke in the air. Coughed. Said, ‘My office. Mine.’

Svendsen stuck his head through the door.

‘Forensics called. The samples from the boiler room were contaminated. There won’t be any DNA profiles today.’

Lund said nothing. Looked at the photos on her desk. The boots.

‘OK,’ Meyer told him. ‘We’ll go back to the boys’ flat.’

Svendsen sighed.

‘We were there all night.’

‘We didn’t look hard enough.’

They left. Lund kept staring at the boots. The phone rang. It was the medical examiner. Wanting to see her.

Pernille waited on her own in the apartment with the flowers, the police tags and Nanna’s clothes.

By midday she was ready to go crazy. So she drove to the school, saw an embarrassed Rektor Koch, then the charming, quiet, sad-eyed teacher Rama.

Learnt one thing only: the police held Oliver Schandorff and Jeppe Hald overnight.

Then she waited in an empty office, listening to the young voices outside in the corridor, dreaming she could hear Nanna’s bright tones among them. Waited until Lisa Rasmussen came crying, running, throwing herself into the wide open arms of Pernille’s gaberdine raincoat, shaking with emotion, sobbing like a little child.

Her hair was blonde like Nanna’s. Pernille kissed it and knew she shouldn’t. These two were friends. Sisters almost sometimes. These two were…

Pernille let go, smiled, stopped trying to rationalize something that was beyond comprehension. A child was a brief and blissful interlude of responsibility, not a thing to be owned. She’d no idea what Nanna did outside the little apartment above the garage. Didn’t ask. Struggled not to think about it.

But Lisa knew. This short, slightly tubby girl trying so hard to be as pretty and clever as Nanna, and never quite succeeding.

Lisa dried her eyes, stood in front of her. Looking awkward. As if she’d like to go.

‘There are things…’ Pernille said. ‘I don’t understand.’

Silence. The little blonde girl shifted on her feet.

‘Was Nanna upset by something?’

Lisa shook her head.

‘What about Oliver? Was he involved?’

‘No.’

A petulant teenage note in the denial.

‘So why do the police keep asking about him, Lisa? Why?’

Her hands fidgeted behind her back, she leaned against the desk, said with a pout, ‘I don’t know.’

Pernille thought of the policewoman, Lund. Her quiet persistent manner. Her large and shining eyes that never seemed to stop looking.

‘But you went to the party together. Did she say anything? Did she seem…’ Words. Simple ones. Simple questions. Lund’s way. ‘Did she seem different?’

‘No. She didn’t say anything. She was just… Nanna.’

Don’t get angry, Pernille thought. Don’t say what you think… You’re a lying little cow and it’s written all over your plain fat face.

‘Why did she say she was staying with you?’

The girl shook her head, like a bad actress in a bad play.

‘I don’t know.’

‘But you’re friends,’ Pernille said, wondering…is this too much? Do I look hard? Do I look crazy?

Said anyway, ‘You’re friends. She would have told you her plans.’ Voice getting louder, chestnut hair waving. ‘She would have told you if there was something.’

‘Pernille. She didn’t. Honestly.’

Shake the child. Scream at it. Yell until she says… What?

‘Was she angry?’ Pernille asked. ‘With me?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You have to tell me!’ she cried, voice beginning to shatter. ‘It’s important.’

Lisa didn’t move, grew calmer and more sullen with every angry rising note she heard.

‘She… didn’t… say… anything.’

Hands on the girl’s shoulders, staring into those defiant stupid eyes.

‘Tell me!’

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ Lisa said in a voice flat and devoid of emotion. ‘She wasn’t angry with you. She really wasn’t.’

‘Then what happened?’ Pernille snarled.

Shake the child. Slap her cheek.

‘What happened?’

Lisa stood defiant. A look in her eyes that said: do it then. Hit me now. It won’t make a difference. Nanna’s still gone.

Pernille sniffed, wiped her nose, walked out into the corridor. Stopped at the flowers and photos by the lockers. Nanna’s shrine. Sat down among them. The third day. Petals falling. Notes slipped from their fastenings. Everything fading into a lost grey distance beyond her vision.

She picked up the nearest piece of paper. A childish scrawl.

It read, ‘We will never forget you.’

But you will, she thought. You all will. Even Lund after a while. Even Theis if he can manage it, placing his boundless, shapeless love in the boys, in Anton and Emil. Hoping their young faces will obliterate Nanna’s memory, supplant it with enough devotion to hide the pain.

Figures flitted quickly past lugging satchels, carrying papers, chatting in low tones.

She watched and listened. In these plain grey corridors her daughter once walked. Still did in a way, in Pernille’s imagination, which made the hurt more keen. Grief should be an absence, a void, not the physical thing she now felt. Nanna was lost to her. Stolen. Till the thief and the deed became clear her death would mark them all, like the tumour of some cruel disease.

They were locked in the present, no way out. She got to her feet, walked up the steps, stumbled, fell.

A hand reached out. She saw a face, dark and kind.

‘Are you all right?’

The teacher, Rama, again.

She took his arm, grabbed the handrail, got to her feet.

They all said that and never wanted the answer.

‘No,’ she murmured. ‘I’m not.’

She wondered what Nanna thought of this handsome, intelligent man. Whether she liked him. What they talked about.

‘Did Lisa say anything?’ Rama asked.

‘A little.’

‘If I can—’

‘Help?’

They all said that too. Reached for the same words. Perhaps he meant it. Perhaps it was one more trite sentiment, spoken automatically like a prayer.

Pernille Birk Larsen walked out of the school wondering if Theis was right. She was being stupid. The police were looking. Lund ought to know her job.

The woman from the estate agency gazed up at the scaffolding, the sheeted windows, the piles of material stacked by the door.

‘It’s got to be sold quickly. I want it gone.’

Theis Birk Larsen was in his black jacket, his hat, his rigger boots and red overalls. Work outfit, though work, the thing that seemed so important, now escaped him. The business was in Vagn Skærbæk’s hands. Vagn could do the job. There was no choice.

‘Of course,’ she agreed.

‘I’ll take what I paid. I just want rid of it.’

‘I understand.’

He kicked the scaffolding.

‘The materials are included.’

Children played in the street. Kicked footballs. Laughs and shouts.

He watched them, envious.

‘It’s a lovely house,’ the woman said. ‘Why not waita few months?’

‘No. It has to be now. Is that a problem?’

She hesitated.

‘Not really. You saw the survey?’

She pulled out a sheaf of documents. Birk Larsen hated paper. That was Pernille’s job.

‘The survey shows dry rot.’

He blinked, felt sick and powerless.

‘The insurance must cover that.’

She didn’t look at him, shook her head.

‘No. It doesn’t. Sorry.’

A breeze struck up. The sheets flapped in the wind. Two kids on bikes rode by trailing kites from their hands.

‘But…’

She pointed a manicured fingernail at the contract.

‘It says there. No cover for dry rot. I’m sorry.’ A deep and awkward breath. ‘If you sell now you’ll lose a lot of money. In this condition…’

He stared at the place, thought of all the lost dreams. The boys in their rooms. Nanna peering out of the top window now covered in black sheeting.

‘Sell the damned thing,’ Theis Birk Larsen said.

Troels Hartmann was on his hands and knees, painting with the toddlers in the kindergarten.

Morten Weber came to crouch beside him.

‘Troels,’ he said. ‘I hate to interrupt your fun but the photographers have left. You’ve other places to go.’

Hartmann drew a childish yellow chicken on the paper, got squeals of delight from the kids around him.

Smiled.

‘Are they fun too, Morten?’

‘They’re necessary.’

Hartmann pointed a finger at the young faces on the floor.

‘These are the voters of tomorrow.’

‘Well, let’s come back tomorrow then. I’m more interested in anyone who’s got a vote today.’

‘They made us a cake.’

Weber frowned.

‘A cake?’

Two minutes later they sat alone at a table away from the teachers and the kids.

‘Try the cake, Morten.’

‘Sorry. Can’t.’

‘The diabetes is a front. You wouldn’t touch it anyway. You’re so self-righteous.’

They were close enough for a crack like that, he thought.

‘What about this reporter?’ Hartmann asked.

‘You mean Erik Salin?’

‘He’s on my tail, Morten. Why? Who is he? How did he know about the car?’

‘He’s a sleazeball looking to make a bit of money. Take it as a compliment. He wouldn’t waste the time if you weren’t in with a chance.’

‘How did he know about the car?’

Weber squirmed.

‘You think someone in the office leaked it, don’t you?’ Weber asked.

‘Do you?’

‘It had crossed my mind. But I can’t imagine who.’

Hartmann pushed away the cake and his plastic cup of orange juice, listened to the kids giggling over their paintings.

‘I’ve every confidence in our team,’ Weber said a touch pompously. ‘All of them. Haven’t you?’

Hartmann was about to answer when his phone rang.

He listened, looked at Weber.

‘We’ve got to go.’

Striding through the long echoing halls, around the central court yard, Hartmann was livid.

‘Where the hell is she?’

‘She’s going to call in a minute.’

Rie Skovgaard met him at the front door, was struggling to keep up as he marched towards their office, Weber following on behind, silent, listening.

‘Eller says Poul Bremer made her a better offer. She’s not taken it yet. She wants to know our reaction.’

‘Our reaction is she can choke on it.’

Skovgaard sighed.

‘This is politics.’

‘No it’s not. It’s a beauty contest. And we’re not playing.’

‘Listen to her. Hear what she has to say. We could compromise on a few things…’

She stopped Hartmann outside the office door.

‘Troels. You have to calm down.’

He cast his eyes around the inside of the Rådhus. Sometimes it looked like a jail. A very comfortable prison.

Skovgaard’s phone rang.

‘Hi, Kirsten. Just a second. We’ll be with you soon.’

Call ended, she looked at Hartmann and said, ‘Be polite. Keep cool.’

He was walking already. She lost it. Slapped him on the shoulder, yelled, ‘Hey!’

Her voice was hard and shrill.

‘Shut up and listen to me for once, will you? If we have Eller on our side we win. If we don’t we’re one more tiny minority begging for crumbs at Poul Bremer’s table. Troels…’

Leaving again. Her hand gripped his blue lapels, dragged him back into the shadows.

‘Do you understand what I’m saying? You can’t get a majority on your own. You don’t have the support.’ She calmed down a little. ‘Nothing can change that now. It’s a fact.’

Hartmann held out his hand for the phone.

‘Be calm,’ she said and gave it him.

Hartmann called Eller. Small talk, then, ‘I heard about you and Bremer. Well, that’s the way it goes. There’s no point in getting upset about it.’

He closed his eyes and listened. Talk of doors remaining open, offers that weren’t quite final. The insistent, expectant tone never changed.

‘I guess there won’t be an alliance, after all,’ Hartmann said. ‘We should have coffee sometime. Take care. Bye.’

Skovgaard was white with fury. Weber was gone.

‘There. How calm was that?’

The medical examiner was a long-winded man with a tanned face and a white beard. All the way to the morgue he talked about making cider.

‘They’ve got good apples in Sweden. I’ll give you the recipe.’

‘That’s lovely.’

They walked in, both pulled on gloves, and went to the table.

‘This is an unusual case,’ he said, lifting the white sheet.

She looked at Nanna Birk Larsen’s body. Cleaned up now and showing the post-mortem marks.

‘The blood in her hair clotted long before she hit the water. There’s bruising on the arms and legs and down her right side.’

Lund looked. Thought she’d seen enough.

‘Come here,’ he ordered, pointing to the right thigh.

‘We’ve been through this.’

The leg was covered in cuts.

‘Abrasions?’

‘No. Feel her skin.’

Lund did. It felt like skin.

‘There’s redness around the wounds,’ he pointed out. ‘When a body’s been in the water that disappears. But it comes back after a few days.’

Lund shook her head.

‘They’re sores,’ he said. ‘She was kept on a rough surface. Maybe a concrete floor.’

‘The school basement has a concrete floor.’

She touched the lesions. Thought about the hidden room with the bloody mattress and the drugs.

‘How long was she like this?’

‘Fifteen to twenty hours.’

Lund struggled with this information, tried to picture what it meant.

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure. There was a series of rapes with several hours between them. But no DNA we can find so far. He must have used a condom. There’s nothing under her nails or anywhere else.’

‘Because of the water?’

He nodded.

‘That’s what I thought. But she was in the boot of the car. Look at her hands.’

He lifted up each one.

‘Someone cut her nails.’

He let the hands fall back onto the white sheet. Lund picked up each in turn, took a close look.

‘There are traces of ether in her liver and lungs,’ he said, reading from a report. ‘So she was drugged. Perhaps several times. This was all planned. He knew what he was doing. I wouldn’t…’

He paused, as if unsure of himself.

‘This isn’t my field but I wouldn’t be surprised if you found he’d done this before. There’s a… method to it.’

Lund took the report from him.

‘Does that help?’

She shrugged.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’ll send you anything else that comes along. Oh…’ He smiled. ‘And that recipe for cider.’

Lund went back to her office. Buchard was arguing with the bald lawyer outside the door. Struggling to keep hold of Oliver Schandorff and Jeppe Hald. The lawyer would be going in front of a judge to get them freed soon. From the look on Buchard’s face the chief didn’t have much hope of winning that particular argument.

Eller closed the door behind her. Sat down, placed her broad hands on her broad hips and said, ‘That was some trick you played I must say.’

‘No trick, Kirsten.’

‘I hope not.’

He waited.

‘I said no to Bremer. Don’t think that was an easy decision. It’s not a word he likes to hear.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘It wasn’t much of a choice really. We’re natural partners. He’s just…’ She smiled. ‘The bastard who pulls all the strings.’

Still he said nothing.

‘I hope you can live up to our expectations,’ Eller added. ‘My neck’s on the line.’

‘Your group…?’

‘… will do as I say. Now… shall we get down to business?’

Five minutes later, around the table in a meeting next to the campaign office, the negotiations began. Policies and appointments. Funding and media strategies. Rie Skovgaard took notes and made suggestions.

Hartmann and Eller cut the deal.

Meyer was back from searching the student flat again.

‘Did you release those kids?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘We’ll have to bring them back in.’

Lund scanned through some of the photos on the desk. Nanna’s wounds. The boots.

‘I don’t think they did it,’ she said.

‘I’m sure they did.’

He had a memory card reader with him. Meyer placed it on her desk and plugged the cable into the PC.

‘Take a look at this.’

The computer recognized what it was being given, fired up a window.

Shaky video came on the screen. The Halloween party. Kids in costume. Drinking beer. Screaming. Acting the way kids did when they knew no one was watching.

Lund watched. There was Jeppe Hald, bright, quiet Jeppe, star pupil, head boy. Screaming at the lens, drunk or doped or both.

Lisa Rasmussen in a short tight dress, sashaying, much the same.

‘Where’d you get this?’

‘Jeppe Hald’s room. He recorded it on his mobile phone then saved it on a memory card.’ Meyer looked at her. ‘So he could watch it on his computer.’

Lund nodded.

‘I don’t think he’s as bright as that school says,’ Meyer added.

‘Stop!’

Meyer froze the frame.

Nanna in her black witch’s hat. Nanna alive and breathing. Beautiful, so beautiful. So… old.

She didn’t look drunk. She wasn’t screaming. She looked… bemused. Like an adult suddenly surrounded by a bunch of infants.

‘Play,’ Lund said.

Meyer set it running slowly. The picture panned from Nanna to Oliver Schandorff, wild hair, wild eyes. Schandorff staring hungrily at Nanna as he swigged at a can of beer.

‘We didn’t have parties like that at my school,’ Meyer said. ‘Yours?’

‘They wouldn’t have invited me.’

‘I bet. Here we go.’ Meyer let out a long sad sigh and sat down next to her. ‘Show time.’

The picture changed. Somewhere else. Somewhere darker. A few lights. Drinks on the table. The place in the basement. Had to be.

Something moving in the background, getting bigger as the lens approached.

Lund leaned forward, looked at this carefully, felt her heart begin to race.

There was a sound. Panting, gasping. Oliver Schandorff naked, ginger head swaying as he writhed over the figure beneath him, naked too, legs splayed and not moving.

The contrast between him and the girl was striking. Schandorff all manic energy and desperation. She…

Drunk? Unconscious?

Couldn’t tell. But not right.

Closer.

Schandorff ’s hands came and grabbed her legs, made her grip him. Her fingers rose as if to beat him off. He was like a madman, pushed them down, grunted, screaming.

Lund watched.

The lens shifted behind them, to Schandorff ’s back. Her legs had locked round him. Sex the teenage way. As if a clock somewhere was running, saying, ‘Do it now and do it quickly, or you’ll never get the chance again.’

More grunts, more savage thrusts.

Closer. The black witch’s hat they saw earlier, down over the eyes, over the face. Blonde hair. The hat moves…

‘Shit,’ Lund said.

Something had happened. The camera was off the couple. They heard him, sneaking up on them. Curses and swift movements. The girl just visible, scuttling to cover herself. Blonde hair, witch’s hat, bare breasts. Not much more.

‘I think I’ll bring them in again,’ Meyer said.

On the steps of the City Hall Troels Hartmann and Kirsten Eller stood next to one another, blinking in the bright lights of the cameras, smiling, shaking hands.

Waiting for Meyer, Lund watched it all on the news channel on her computer. Then went back to the video. The school.

One segment she’d skipped through earlier.

Nanna in her party dress. Hat on. Beaming into Jeppe Hald’s phone. Raising a glass of what looked like Coke. Smiling. Sober. So elegant and natural. Not a kid at all. Not like the others.

And a few minutes later…

Naked in the basement, Oliver Schandorff thrusting at her like an animal.

‘Be right, Meyer,’ she whispered.

The caretaker was letting Lund into the school when Meyer called.

‘I’ve got them both.’

‘Don’t question them yet.’

A pause.

‘The last time I checked we had the same stripes.’

‘I need to see something first.’

A long sigh.

‘Don’t worry, Lund. You’ll get the credit.’

Her footsteps echoed down dark and empty corridors.

‘Wait twenty minutes,’ she said and cut the call.

The flowers on Nanna’s shrine beside the lockers looked dead, the candles burned to stumps. Lund walked down the cold stairs to the basement, shining her torch, fumbling for light switches she couldn’t find.

Past the Don’t Cross tape. Into the hidden room. Lines and markers everywhere. Empty bottles circled, dusty with print powder.

She looked at the bloodstained mattress. There was one single large stain at the foot, then a line of red on the piping at the edge. Not so much blood. And it wasn’t smeared.

Meyer didn’t wait, didn’t see why he should. He had Oliver Schandorff in Lund’s office, seated in front of the computer, forced to watch the video. The pumpkin head. The drunken kids. The dope. The booze.

On his own now, free to act as he pleased, Meyer was more relaxed. He sat next to the kid, watched him as he stared at the PC, ginger hair everywhere, face screwed up with fear and pain.

‘You’ve got two choices, Oliver,’ he said in a flat, calm voice. ‘Either you confess now…’

Nanna. In her witch’s hat. Smiling. Happy. Beautiful.

‘Or we watch the rest. And wait for your lawyer to come in the morning. If he can be bothered to get out of bed.’

The phone was moving, from the hall down the stairs. Into the basement. Towards the hidden room.

Two figures naked in the distance, beneath a single bulb, wrestling.

Schandorff couldn’t take his eyes off the screen.

‘I’ve got all night,’ Meyer told him. ‘But I know you two did it and so do you. So let’s get this over with, shall we?’

Silence.

Meyer felt the faint stirrings of anger, tried to quell it.

‘Oliver? Oliver?’

Lund took out the photos she’d brought. Close-ups of Nanna’s body. Details of the sores, the lesions on her back.

The power was off for some reason so she checked them in the light of her torch. Held them up as she looked at the mattress, the spots of blood on the floor.

Took out a photo of Nanna’s hands. Clipped fingernails.

Ran her torch around the room.

Checked the inventory.

No sign of scissors.

Took out her phone, looked at the screen. No signal in this underground tomb.

Oliver Schandorff sat rigid in front of the screen. Two bodies coupling. His own ginger hair bobbing up and down. He grabs her legs, makes her grip him. He pushes away her hands as they reach to claw at him.

The lens is up close behind. His back, his body pumping at her in a crazy, frenetic rhythm. Then confusion. Picture moving everywhere as he pulls himself away, confronts the intruder sneaking up on them.

Lips downturned like a naughty child, face full of shame and anger, Schandorff sat in the homicide office refusing to speak.

‘Maybe Jeppe will talk first,’ Meyer said.

There was Hald on the screen. Drunk. Out of control.

‘You know he might be next door.’ Meyer tapped Schandorff on the arm. ‘Could be saying it was all you. Just you. Wouldn’t be nice, would it?’

Meyer’s hand went to his shoulder.

‘He’s not your friend, Oliver. Think about it. I know I yelled at you, son. I’m sorry. It’s just…’

Schandorff sat there like a rock.

‘Those pictures of Nanna after we got her out of the water.’ Meyer watched him. ‘I can’t get them out of my head. Don’t make me show them to you. Best for both of us if I don’t do that.’

Lund wasn’t ready to go outside and find a signal. More to do here. She pulled out a pair of forensic gloves and picked up a broken beer glass sitting in a ring of chalk.

Shone the torch on it.

Lipstick along the edge. Bright orange. Gaudy.

Got the photo of Nanna from the school set, shot at the party.

Nanna in her witch’s hat, the only thing about her that seemed young.

Reached into the ashtray. Sifted through the cigarette ends and joint butts. Pulled out a rolled-up wad of tin foil. Pulled it open with her gloved fingers. Not dope. An earring.

In the light she saw three fake diamonds on a silver setting.

Back to the photos. Nanna and the other kids. Lisa Rasmussen.

It was four days now since they pulled Nanna Birk Larsen’s body out of the chill canal by the airport. In all that time they’d scarcely worked without a lead. Chasing shadows running from them. A puzzle promising answers. Yet…

This case was like none she’d ever worked. It had layers and texture. Mysteries. Riddles. Investigations were never black and white. But never had she met one quite so grey and insubstantial.

Lund stared at the photo, Nanna and Lisa, smiling, happy.

Then there was a sound above her. Footsteps in the dark.

‘Maybe it wasn’t your idea,’ Meyer said. ‘Jeppe thought of it and you came along for the ride.’

He leaned over, tried to get Schandorff ’s attention.

‘Oliver?’

Nothing. Just a miserable face locked on the computer.

‘That would make a difference. If you told us. So what’s it to be?’

Meyer leaned back in his chair, put his arms behind his head.

‘Do we sit here all night and go through some more pictures? Or get it over with?’

Nothing.

‘Fine.’ There was an edge in Meyer’s voice and he regretted that. ‘I’m feeling hungry. Don’t have money for two—’

‘It’s not her, you moron,’ Schandorff snarled.

Meyer blinked.

That petulant, tortured teenage voice again. But finally Oliver Schandorff looked at him.

‘The girl in the boiler room. It’s not Nanna.’

Upstairs in the corridor, in front of Nanna’s shrine. A stump of candle flickered in the dark.

Lund checked her phone. There was a signal.

Heard something, footsteps close to the door. Didn’t think of hiding. Turned her torch towards the source.

‘Lisa?’

The girl stood frozen in the bright white light, a glass vase with some roses in her hand.

‘How did you get in?’ Lund asked.

Lisa placed the flowers on the shrine.

‘They were getting old. People forget.’

‘How did you get in?’

‘The gym door’s open. The lock doesn’t work. Everyone knows that.’

She brushed back her long blonde hair, looked at the photos and the flowers.

‘When did you get to know Nanna?’

‘At primary school. In our last year. Nanna picked Frederiksholm so I did too.’ She moved the roses around. ‘I didn’t think I’d get in. Nanna’s clever. Her dad had to find the money. My dad’s got the money. But me… I’m stupid.’

‘When did you fall out?’

Lisa didn’t look at her.

‘We didn’t fall out.’

‘We’ve got Nanna’s phone. You never called her, texted her lately.’

Nothing.

‘Nanna called you.’

‘It wasn’t an argument. Not really.’

‘About Oliver?’

Straight away, ‘I don’t remember.’

‘I think it was about Oliver. Nanna didn’t care for him. You’re in love with him, right?’

Lisa laughed.

‘You ask some weird questions.’

‘So you went to the boiler room.’

‘Can I go now?’

Lund pulled out the earring.

‘You forgot something.’

The girl stared at the evidence bag, swore, turned to go.

‘We could waste a lot of time looking for the dress,’ Lund said to her back. ‘Or you could just tell me.’

Lisa Rasmussen stopped, hugged herself in her skimpy red coat.

‘This is important,’ Lund said. ‘Was Nanna in the room? Or were you and the boys alone?’

Caught between being a kid and an adult.

‘I was angry with her! OK?’

Lund folded her arms, waited.

‘Nanna made all the decisions. She treated me like I was a child. I was drunk. Then that creep Jeppe came in and started filming us. Oliver got mad. I tried to stop Jeppe. I tripped over some bottles.’

She rolled up her sleeve. Plasters and scratch marks. Long wounds, maybe stitches.

‘Cut myself.’

‘What happened?’

‘Oliver took me to the hospital. We were there all night.’

She sat on a windowsill, plain young face lit by the street lamps.

‘He was still mad about Nanna. I thought maybe I could…’

She rolled down her sleeve, hugged herself again.

‘Stupid. Nanna was right.’

‘Where was Nanna?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Lisa…’

‘I don’t know!’ she yelled. ‘Maybe half past nine… she came to the hall, put her hat on me. Gave me a hug. And said goodbye.’

She looked Lund in the face.

‘That was it. She left.’

Lund nodded.

‘Does my dad have to know? He’ll kill me.’

Hartmann and Rie Skovgaard listened to the radio on the way to the reception. The news was calling the election already. The alliance had altered the game. A change to the long-established political system wasn’t far off.

The Birk Larsen case seemed behind them. Ahead lay the hard work of the campaign. Meetings and press conferences. Shaking hands, winning votes.

And private conclaves of the inner circle of Danish politics, in the glittering rooms where right and left and centre gathered to spar gently with smiles and deft promises, trade polite insults, deliver discreet warnings disguised as advice.

Late that evening, exhausted, wishing for nothing more than to take Rie Skovgaard home to bed, Hartmann found himself faced with her father. A long-standing parliamentarian for the Liberal Party. Kim Skovgaard was a burly, genial man with clout. Not unlike Poul Bremer, who chatted amiably with his foes across the room.

The Lord Mayor’s raucous laughter boomed over the gathering.

‘I didn’t realize Bremer was on your party list,’ Hartmann said.

‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,’ Kim Skovgaard answered with a knowing grin. ‘In the end we’re all fighting for the same thing. A better life. We just disagree about the means.’

Hartmann smiled.

‘Are you still implicated in the case?’ Skovgaard asked.

‘You mean the girl’s murder?’

‘Are there others?’

‘We were never implicated. It was a coincidence. You’ll hear no more of that.’

Skovgaard raised his glass.

‘Good. It would have been hard to back you with those kind of headlines.’

‘Dad…’ his daughter intervened. ‘Not now.’

He carried on.

‘The Prime Minister… and a few others are wondering if you’re on top of everything.’

‘The campaign’s under control. We’ll win.’ A smile. Lost amidst a sea of others. ‘Excuse me…’

He walked through to the next room, took Poul Bremer’s arm, asked for a word. The two of them strode to an empty space near the fireplace.

‘So you won Madam Eller in the end, Troels,’ Bremer said. ‘Congratulations. I hope the price wasn’t too high.’

‘I know what you’re up to.’

Bremer blinked behind his owlish glasses, shook his head.

‘If I catch you playing any more games…’ Hartmann came close, spoke in a gruff, determined whisper. ‘I will take you to court. Do you understand?’

‘Not a bit of it,’ Bremer replied. ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’

‘Fine,’ Hartmann said, made to go. ‘You heard.’

‘Troels! Come back here.’

Bremer strolled to his side, peering into his face.

‘I’ve always liked you. Ever since you were a novice here, struggling to make your first speech. Today…’

Hartmann tried to judge him, to sift sincerity from the histrionics, and failed.

‘Today you defeated me. That doesn’t happen often. When it does… I don’t like it. Nor do I like it when in a fit of paranoia you accuse me of things of which I’m ignorant.’

Hartmann stood there, trying not to feel like a scolded schoolboy.

Bremer’s big hand came up, thumb and forefinger rubbing together.

‘If I’d wanted to crush you, don’t you think I would have done it long ago?’

He patted Hartmann’s shoulder.

‘Think about that.’ His smile turned to a scowl. ‘You’ve ruined my mood, Troels. I’m going now. I hope you feel guilty. ’

Bremer looked at him.

‘Guilty. Yes. That’s the word.’

They released Schandorff and Hald. Lund got Lisa Rasmussen to sign a statement, made sure she’d be taken safely home in a car.

On the way out she asked her again, ‘You really don’t know who she was going to meet?’

The girl looked exhausted. Relieved too. This secret had weighed upon her.

‘Nanna was happy. I saw that. As if she was looking forward to something. Something special.’

When she was gone Meyer marched in brandishing papers.

‘I’m charging them with perjury. Wasting police time.’

‘Is that worth it?’

‘Why didn’t you call and tell me, Lund? Why haven’t you said a word to me? I feel like a fool.’

She held up her phone.

‘Basement. No signal. I tried.’

‘No you didn’t.’

He sounded like one of the petulant kids.

‘You’re in your own little world. Lundland. Nothing else in it.’

‘OK. I’m sorry about that.’

‘And I mustn’t smoke. Or eat or yell at suspects.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll be gone soon.’

The pack of cigarettes came out. He brandished one, lit it, blew the smoke at her.

She sighed.

‘We don’t have a damned thing,’ Meyer grumbled.

‘Not true.’

‘Are you serious?’

She found her voice rising. Must have been the cigarette. She wanted one so badly.

‘We have plenty. If only you’d listen.’

He folded his arms, said, ‘I’m listening now.’

Five minutes later with Buchard, pug-faced and serious.

She went through the papers, the photos she’d assembled, patiently, one by one.

‘We know things about whoever did this. We know he drugged her with ether. He held her captive somewhere and abused her for fifteen to twenty hours. Afterwards…’

More shots of the body. Arms, hands, feet, thighs.

‘He bathed her. Cut her fingernails. Then drove her to the woods where he knew they wouldn’t be disturbed.’

Pictures of the track through the Pentecost Forest. Hair on the dead trees.

‘There he played a game. He toyed with her. He let her run away and then caught her. Maybe…’ She’d been thinking about this for a while. ‘Maybe more than once.’

‘Hide and seek,’ Meyer said, and drew on his cigarette.

‘We found designer boots in Nanna’s closet,’ Lund went on. ‘Her parents didn’t know about them.’

She passed round the photograph: brown leather and glittering metal.

‘Nanna couldn’t have bought them. Too expensive. The necklace…’

The black heart on a cheap gilt chain.

‘We still don’t know who this came from. Maybe a gift from whoever gave her the boots. Except it’s cheap. And old.’

Lund placed in front of them the photo of Nanna and Lisa at the Halloween party, Lisa looking drunk, a teenager. Nanna elegant and smiling, wearing the black witch’s hat as if it was an unwanted joke.

‘This is the most important thing. Nanna had a secret rendezvous. She changed out of her clothes and left her costume at school. She was going to meet someone. Even her best friend had no idea who.’

Buchard groaned.

‘You’re not going to tell me it was a teacher, are you?’

Lund looked at him, said nothing.

‘Right,’ Meyer said. ‘Tomorrow we start all over again.’

‘Listen to me!’ Buchard ordered. ‘The schools fall under the remit of Troels Hartmann. He has to know what we’re doing.’

‘Fine.’ Lund nodded. ‘I’ll call him tomorrow.’

‘And I need you to stay on a little longer,’ Buchard added.

Meyer closed his eyes, blew some smoke at the ceiling.

‘I’m here till Saturday. Mark starts school on Monday. I’ve done all I—’

‘With all respect,’ Meyer cut in. ‘I don’t think she should stay. I know the ropes. And…’ He frowned. ‘Let’s be honest. There hasn’t exactly been much teamwork between the two of us. I think Lund should stick to her plan.’

Then he got up and left.

She was looking at the photos. Nanna in the witch’s hat. Apart from the kids around her.

Buchard peered at her.

‘Meyer’s had nothing to eat,’ she said. ‘It makes him tetchy. No…’ She waved a finger, corrected herself. ‘Tetchier.’

‘The school…’

‘We have to look. We have to look very hard.’