The Killing

Eight

Nine in the morning, outside Vibeke’s flat. Mark with his things. Skis and hockey gear. Sports bags and a small suitcase.

Hands in pockets, looking older. Lund couldn’t stop herself coming close to him, carefully running up his zip, straightening the collar of his jacket.

‘It’s all right, Mum.’

‘No it’s not. It’s cold.’

Winter coming on. A bite in the wind. Another year passing. Mark growing older, growing further away from her.

He didn’t shrink from her touch. She was grateful for that.

Eyes locked on the distance, impatient to go.

‘Dad’s coming.’

Shiny red Saab. Sports wheels. Darkened windows. Men’s toys.

Mark looked at it and smiled.

‘See you,’ he said, then picked up his things, threw them on the back seat, climbed into the front.

Carsten wound down the window. He looked good. Dark business coat, different glasses. Hair too long for the police, but the police he’d left long behind. Along with her. Carsten was ambitious in a way she never quite understood. It was about money and position. Not achievement, not how Lund measured it.

The man she once married, once slept with and loved, smiled at her briefly, a touch of regret, of shame even in his placid, managerial face.

And once you hit me, Lund recalled. Just once. And no, I never asked for it.

The shiny red Saab rolled across the cobbles.

Lund waved and smiled at both of them. Stopped the moment they were round the corner.

‘Hello?’

Meyer was behind her, his car a few feet away. She never noticed.

‘Is he moving out?’

‘Just for a few days,’ she said a little sharply.

‘First the Swede. Then junior. I hope your mother stays put.’

She stared at him. Cruelty wasn’t part of Meyer’s odd personality. He was both simple and complex at the same time. In a way she liked that.

‘Any news about the car?’

‘No.’

‘We need to check the Rådhus garage again.’

‘Maybe. Brix came up with something. I don’t know where.’

She said nothing.

‘He’s the chief, Lund. You’ve got to stop fighting him. He’s not taking orders.’

‘Brix doesn’t need to take orders. He knows what they want.’

The leather biker’s jacket again. It was getting scruffy.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It’s how it works. You don’t think Poul Bremer calls Brix and tells him what to do. He doesn’t have to. Brix knows.’

She knew too.

‘Fix Hartmann. Any way he can.’

She’d thought this through, tallied the idea with every small occurrence in headquarters that had puzzled her.

‘It’s called power. And all of us…’ Theis and Pernille Birk Larsen too. ‘We don’t really count.’

‘Brix found some information on a property Hartmann owns. He’s got a cottage he didn’t tell us about.’

A sheet of paper came out of his jacket pocket. Lund looked at it. Pointed at the stamp of the City Hall property register department at the top.

‘I wonder how we came to have that.’

‘We have to look. Brix is there already. Do you want to come?’

The cottage was ten kilometres from the city near Dragør, not far from Kemal’s more modest allotment. Six cars, two unmarked, stood around the drive. Red tape marked the garden boundary. A single-storey wooden bungalow, modest and run-down, almost engulfed by a ragged wood of conifers.

Svendsen was leading the team. Lund and Meyer walked in, listening to him.

‘Hartmann inherited the place from his wife. Looks like they started to spend money on it then gave up when she died.’

The kitchen was a mess. Dirty plates over a modern stove. The only light came from the open door and some floodlights the forensic team had assembled.

Lund looked at the windows. Every one was blocked. By sheets. By a duvet. By tablecloths.

‘The weekend Nanna disappeared two neighbours saw a black car in the driveway. This is where he was.’

In the living room two officers in white suits were tramping round marking items of interest, taking photos.

‘The description fits the campaign car Nanna was found in.’

The windows here had mattresses piled up against the glass.

‘Did anyone see him?’ Meyer asked.

‘No. But we’ve got fresh prints. They’re his. And there’s this.’

He picked up an evidence bag from the table. The evening newspaper from Friday, October the thirty-first.

‘It was taped over the broken window.’

Lund looked at the shattered glass at the top of one of the long frames by the sunny side of the bungalow. There was blood on some of the shards that lay scattered round the polished wooden floorboards.

Brix marched in.

‘Hartmann needed somewhere isolated,’ he said. ‘He got it. He didn’t have a key with him so he broke the window to get in.’

Lund took a cushion off the sofa, sniffed it. The place had a lingering, residual smell. It was stronger on the soft cotton of the cushion.

‘Then he covered the windows so no one could see what he was up to,’ Brix added.

Svendsen pointed back to the kitchen.

‘The utility room has a cement floor. That’s where he kept her tied up. There’s blood there.’

She walked through to the next room. A double bed. Crumpled sheets. Blood there too but not much of it.

‘What did you find here?’ she asked.

Svendsen glanced at Brix.

‘We’re still looking, Lund.’

Brix checked his watch.

‘I’m going back. When you get some hard evidence let me know. I’ll put it in front of the judge.’

He walked up to Lund, caught her eye as she scanned the room.

‘Can I count on you?’

‘Always,’ she said.

Then he left with Svendsen, the two of them talking in low, inaudible voices.

Meyer stayed, studying the room much as she had, following her lead.

There was a purple towel wrapped up tightly and stuffed beneath the bottom of the bathroom door.

Lund nodded at an air vent in the wall. A balled-up newspaper had been shoved into the grille.

‘Forensics didn’t mention gas,’ he said. ‘This place stinks of it. If Nanna was here there’d be traces.’

Lund shook her head.

‘Would you leave your car out in the drive where anyone could see it?’

‘This isn’t right,’ Meyer said. ‘I don’t give a shit what Brix thinks. We’ll check out the hit-and-run driver.’

She walked outside, took a deep breath. The woods reminded her of the Pentecost Forest not so far away.

‘What do we tell Brix?’ he asked.

‘He’s busy talking to the judge. Let’s not disturb him.’

Pernille Birk Larsen sat in the kitchen, fawn raincoat on, mind wandering, letting the phone ring.

It was Lotte who finally answered it.

‘The undertaker needs to talk to you, Pernille.’

She couldn’t take her eyes off the things around her. The table, the photos, the things on the wall. And through the door Nanna’s room, now back as it was. Empty yet preserved, like a shrine.

‘Tell him I’m on my way,’ she said, and went to the door.

Downstairs the men were working as always. Vagn Skærbæk supervising carts and slings, crates and boxes.

He followed her to the car.

‘Have you heard from Theis?’

‘No.’

‘So you don’t know what the hell…?’

His voice died under the force of her gaze.

‘There’s an office job from Brøndby to Enigheden. Is it being dealt with?’

‘I sent Franz and Rudi there.’

He held the door as she climbed into the car.

‘Maybe you should call him, Pernille.’

She placed her hands on the wheel, didn’t look at him.

‘I’m grateful you’re taking care of the business, Vagn. Stay out of this.’

That plaintive, pale face at the window. The silver chain. The too-young, eager worried look.

‘Yeah. Well. I’ll try to get hold of him. If the two of you…’

A car pulled in behind her. Pernille Birk Larsen’s head fell against the wheel.

It was Lund.

‘I was told your sister was here.’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I want to ask her some questions.’

She made for the garage and the apartment.

‘How sure are you it’s Hartmann?’

Lund didn’t answer.

‘The reward helped, didn’t it?’

There was a note of desperation, of guilt in Pernille Birk Larsen’s voice.

Lund looked at her and said, ‘I can’t talk about the case. Sorry.’

Then she walked inside.

Lotte Holst was doing the washing. She looked as mutinous and unhelpful as her sister.

‘I’ve told you everything. What else is there to say?’

‘You’re the only one who knew about this affair. I still don’t understand—’

‘It was Hartmann, wasn’t it?’ Lotte asked as she ran through the boys’ clothes, stuffing them into the machine.

‘What happened over the summer?’

The sister kept sorting the washing in silence.

‘I read the emails on the nightclub’s dating site,’ Lund said, taking the printouts from her bag.

‘I don’t work there any more.’

‘The emails are odd. He still wants to see her but her answers become more and more infrequent. Did she tell you it was over?’

Lotte hesitated.

‘No. But she was going cold on him. I could see that. Maybe there was someone else. I don’t know.’

She threw in some powder, closed the door, turned on the machine.

‘Nanna was a big romantic. The way teenagers are. Not that she thought she was a teenager. I think she maybe went from one big love to another. Probably in the space of a week.’

‘Did Hartmann meet her at the nightclub?’

‘I never saw him there.’

‘What about the first weekend of August? Lotte. This is important.’

She walked back into the living room, said nothing.

‘On the Friday,’ Lund went on, ‘he writes that he’s leaving the next day. He’s desperate to see her. He called her. But—’

‘But what?’

‘We can’t trace any calls by Hartmann. He didn’t go anywhere that weekend.’

Lotte got her bag, pulled out her diary, checked it.

‘We had a VIP event that day. You get big tips.’

‘What happened?’

‘I do remember something. I had to ask her to put her phone onto silent. It was going all the time with the messages.’

‘Who from?’

‘I don’t know. She wouldn’t answer them.’

Lotte went quiet.

‘What?’ Lund asked.

‘I remember she asked me to take her orders out for her. She had to talk to someone outside. I was pissed off. She was always asking me to cover. Sticking her nose into things. Taking my clothes.’

A sudden flash of anger.

‘Nanna wasn’t an angel. I know I’m not supposed to say that—’

‘Did you see the man she met?’

‘There was a car. I went and looked. I wanted to know what was so important I had to do Nanna’s work for her.’

‘What kind of car?’

‘A car. I don’t know.’

‘Saloon? Estate? What colour?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you see the driver?’

‘No.’

‘The make? Anything distinctive. Any…’

Lund’s voice was running away from her and she couldn’t stop it.

Lotte was shaking her head.

‘Nothing at all,’ Lund said. ‘Are you sure?’

One thought.

‘It was white, I think.’

Rie Skovgaard read the letter and said, ‘That didn’t take long.’

‘What is it?’

She showed Morten Weber. A formal note from the Rådhus secretariat demanding they vacate their office premises by the following morning.

‘They can’t do this.’ Weber waved the letter in the air. ‘They can’t do this! The Electoral Commission don’t even meet until tonight.’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake. He’s in jail facing a murder charge. What do you expect?’

‘The lawyer’s going to talk to him. We’ll find a way out.’

She looked ragged, at the end of her tether. Hair a mess. No make-up. Tired, angry eyes.

‘As long as Troels doesn’t talk there is no way out.’

Two forensic officers in white suits knocked on the open door, walked in, began to look at the room. Skovgaard marched into Hartmann’s adjoining office. Weber followed.

‘Can’t you have a word with your father, Rie? He’s got connections.’

‘Connections?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me what happened. What did Troels do that weekend?’

‘I don’t know—’

‘Don’t lie to me! I called you to say Troels was missing. I’d no idea where. You said he’d gone drinking.’

‘Rie—’

‘You weren’t worried because you knew where he was.’

‘It isn’t—’

‘He told you. He couldn’t tell me. Do you know how that feels?’

He didn’t have an answer.

‘What was he doing?’ Skovgaard asked again.

Weber sighed, sat down, looked old and tired.

‘Troels is my oldest friend.’

‘And what am I exactly?’

‘I promised him I’d never say a word!’ He looked at her. ‘To anyone.’

‘What’s the big secret then? Another woman? Are we going through all this because he can’t bring himself to tell me he’s screwing around again?’

‘No.’ Weber shook his head. ‘Of course not.’

‘So it was his wife then? Something to do with her?’

He didn’t meet her furious eyes.

‘Answer me. I know it was their anniversary. What did he do?’

Weber was shaking, sweating. He needed a shot. Needed a drink.

‘What,’ Rie Skovgaard asked again, ‘did he do?’

Lund waited for Hartmann in the same visiting room Theis Birk Larsen had recently used. He arrived in a blue prison suit, was made to remove his shoes, watched carefully throughout by the guard.

She sat, hands on her jeans, too hot in the woollen jumper. Black on white, a rolling pattern of snowflakes.

He hadn’t shaved. Looked broken, a shadow of the bold and handsome politician of the Rådhus.

It took a while but finally Troels Hartmann pulled up a chair.

Eyes shining, desperate, Lund looked at him and said, ‘I really need your help. The night in the flat… did you notice a white estate car?’

Hartmann stared at her, silent.

‘Was it in the courtyard when you left? Or in the street?’

He looked out of the window at the thin winter sun. She didn’t know whether Hartmann was listening or not.

‘Does anyone at City Hall drive a white estate?’

‘As far as I know, Lund, I’ve been arrested for driving a black car. Why are you taunting me with this nonsense?’

‘It’s important.’

‘If you’re looking for a white car why the hell am I in jail?’

‘Because you put yourself here. We found your wife’s cottage. I know what you did that night.’

Hartmann’s blue-clad arms closed round his chest.

‘Rolled-up towels under the door. Mattresses in front of the windows. Newspapers in all the cracks and an open gas oven.’

He sat mute and sullen.

‘Maybe you were interrupted. Maybe you chickened out. I don’t know.’

His face was back to the window.

‘Is it so demeaning for a man to say he got drunk and tried to kill himself? Would that lose you votes? Or Rie Skovgaard? Or just your own self-esteem?’

The man in the blue prison suit was somewhere else.

‘Was it worth the price?’

No answer.

‘I don’t really care, Hartmann. I want your help. Then you can get out of here and play your games in the Rådhus. While we try to work out who among you murdered Nanna Birk Larsen.’

‘You don’t know anything,’ he muttered.

‘Don’t I? It was in your diary. When your wife got sick the doctors told her she needed treatment. She refused. She was pregnant. She knew it could harm the child. So…’

He was looking at her now and for the first time she thought she saw Troels Hartmann frightened.

‘I think you feel guilty. I think it nags you every day. What if we’d said yes? She’d be alive. Maybe the child would be too. If not there’s always the chance of another.’

His blue eyes shone with anger.

‘I think you feel guilty,’ she said again. ‘And that night you realized that, however hard you worked at your precious hollow world inside the Rådhus, your life, the one you loved, was never coming back. So you gave up.’

Lund nodded.

‘Strong, fearless, decent Troels Hartmann let his demons win. And the memory of that frightens you so much you’d rather rot in jail than admit it. So…’

She sat back, smiled at him. Relieved that finally, in this long tangle of lost threads, one stray line had finally reached some semblance of completion.

‘Are you going to help me?’

She waited. Nothing.

‘You flatter yourself you’ve got so much to lose. You haven’t, Troels. Honestly.’

Meyer had a list of white cars using the City Hall garage.

Lund took some headache pills and didn’t look at it. She’d tried so hard with Hartmann. She’d joined the dots and let him know it. And still nothing changed. Still the route to Nanna’s killer lay hidden in the shadows.

If he wasn’t going to talk he could damn well rot in a cell.

‘I checked the barrier,’ Meyer went on. ‘A car left the garage right after Olav talked to Bremer.’

She reached for the paper.

‘Which one?’

‘Second from the bottom.’

‘Phillip Bressau. He’s Bremer’s private secretary. What do we know about him?’

‘Wife and two kids. Bremer’s right-hand man.’

‘And the car?’

‘Hasn’t been back to the garage since. He came to work in his wife’s yesterday.’

‘Bressau.’

She got up, reached for her bag.

Five figures by a hole in the ground, brown earth shovelled over green grass. A cold and sunny winter’s day. Pigeons flapping in the bare trees. Anton and Emil in their black warm clothes. Pernille pale and severe in the fawn raincoat. Lotte dressed too brightly.

The cemetery superintendent wore a green industrial suit and galoshes. He held out the turquoise urn.

So small, inside nothing but dust.

‘Do you want to place it?’ he asked.

Pernille took the vase, bent down, lowered it into the ground with trembling fingers.

Stood back. Looked. Felt as if she were in a dream.

‘Is it Nanna?’ Anton asked.

‘Yes,’ Lotte said. ‘She’s ashes now.’

‘Why?’

Lotte hesitated.

‘So it’s easier to get to heaven.’

The boys looked at each other and frowned. They never liked Lotte’s stories.

‘Isn’t that true, Pernille?’

‘What?’

Lotte tried to smile at her.

‘Yes,’ Pernille said. ‘It’s true.’

‘When’s Dad coming?’ Emil asked.

The cemetery man was carrying over a large wreath with a crown of roses.

‘He’ll be here later,’ Lotte said.

‘Why isn’t he here now?’

Pernille was staring at the wreath.

‘What’s that? I didn’t ask for it.’

He shrugged. Placed it by the hole for the urn.

‘It arrived this morning.’

‘Who sent it?’

‘I didn’t see a card.’

‘It’s lovely,’ Lotte butted in.

Pernille was shaking her head.

‘You have to know where it came from.’

Lotte had some single white roses. She handed one each to the boys and told them to place them by the urn. They obeyed. Small black figures in the sun. They might have been playing on a chilly beach by the Øresund.

‘Well done,’ she said when they had finished.

Pernille stared around her. The small square lake full of rotting wood and algae. The monuments with their mould and fungus. The place stank of decay. She began to feel sick.

Then she bent down, picked up the giant wreath, gave it to the cemetery man.

‘Take it away. I don’t want it here.’

Lotte was staring at the grass. The boys looked scared.

‘I don’t want this plot,’ Pernille said. ‘I don’t like it. There must be another one.’

With the wreath in his arms the man in the green suit looked embarrassed.

‘You chose this one.’

‘I don’t want to bury her here. Find another place.’

‘Pernille,’ Lotte said. ‘It’s lovely. We all agreed. It’s perfect.’

Voice rising, Pernille Birk Larsen glared at them all.

‘I don’t want this wreath. I don’t want this plot.’

‘There’s nothing I can do,’ the man said. ‘If you want somewhere else you have to talk to the office.’

‘You talk to the office! I paid you, didn’t I?’

She walked away and stared at the small lake.

The rotting wood. The algae.

A figure in scarlet striding along the path.

Vagn Skærbæk took one look at Pernille and marched straight up to Lotte.

‘Have you heard from him?’ he asked.

‘No. Where is he?’

He glanced at the woman by the water.

‘A wreath arrived without a name,’ Lotte whispered. ‘She’s getting all sorts of ideas. I don’t know…’

Skærbæk took the wreath, walked to the water’s edge.

‘Pernille. We bought it. Rudi and me had a collection at work. I’m sorry. We didn’t know what to write so we just asked them to deliver it.’

She looked at him, expressionless.

He held out the laurel wreath with its crown of roses.

‘It’s from us.’

She shook her head and went back to looking at the dead water.

‘When’s Dad coming?’ Emil bleated.

On the other side of Vesterbro, in one of the poorer, rougher, dirtier areas he used to frequent as a young ambitious thug, Theis Birk Larsen was drinking. Long glasses of strong lager from the Vesterbro Bryghus. A shot of akvavit.

The way it was. The way the long days passed before Pernille. Chasing money on the street. Working with the dealers and the gangs. Snatching at whatever might be passing.

There was a time he could have walked into this bar and silenced them all with a stare. But that was long gone. None knew him now. The thug of old had mutated into the industrious, decent father with a small business seven blocks away, one that kept him away from these old haunts and these old habits.

His big hand gripped the cold glass. The beer went down to a rhythm. Blocking the pain not killing it. But that was enough.

Behind he heard the clatter of billiard balls, the foul-mouthed chatter of the young kids doing what he once had.

Maybe even worse.

These were bad times even though he tried to pretend otherwise. The hunt for money and opportunity. The desperate business of staying alive. Life had never been harder and no shell a man might build could keep him safe from that fact. Or protect his family.

Theis Birk Larsen smoked and drank and tried to still his thoughts, listening to the childish too-loud pop music on the radio and the clatter of billiard balls on the tables.

Somewhere an urn with what was left of Nanna was disappearing into the earth.

Nothing he could say or do would change that. He’d failed her. Failed them all.

He finished the beer, head starting to spin. Looked round. Once he’d been king of these places. His voice, his fists had ruled. Another Theis. A different, harder man.

Would he have saved her? Was that the lesson he was supposed to learn? That a man was what he was, however much he tried to change, to conform, to obey, to be that shapeless, untouchable thing called good.

The teacher, Kemal, had forgotten his roots too. And paid the price.

If only…

He lurched to his feet, staggered towards the exit, stumbling against a kid by the billiard table.

Birk Larsen pushed him roughly to one side the way he always did once upon a time. With a warning and a curse.

Stumbled on. Didn’t see the outstretched foot of the kid to follow. Fell hard and grunting to the floor.

Memories.

So many fights and none he lost. Some that went so far…

He rolled through the muck and cigarette ends on the floor, listening to their laughter. Groaned as he got to his feet.

Snatched the cue from the kid who’d tripped him, held it like a sword, a weapon. Like the sledgehammer he’d wielded above the shrieking, bleeding foreigner in the depot, Vagn Skærbæk whimpering all the while.

The kid had a black jacket and a black woollen hat. An expression that was both scared and defiant.

Theis Birk Larsen knew this face. He’d lived with him all his life.

So he swore and threw the cue on the table, then staggered outside, wondering where to go.

These streets, once home, were foreign to him now. He got to a deserted archway, started to take a piss. Had barely finished when they pounced. Five of them, heads in hoods, fists flying. A billiard cue thrashing him round the head.

‘Hold him,’ someone screamed, and two weak arms tried to pin Birk Larsen to the wall he’d pissed against. A boot flew at his groin.

Kids.

He threw off two, got the third by the scruff of the neck, launched himself across the narrow street, pinioned the weak and skinny figure against the crumbling plaster of the wall.

Big fist pulled back, ready to strike. One hard, vicious punch and this was a day the kid would never forget, would leave enough damage to last the rest of his meagre life.

Birk Larsen held back the blow and stared.

The hood had fallen. The face that looked back at him, so full of hatred, was a girl’s. No more than sixteen. Ring through the nose, tattoos over the eyes.

A girl.

In that moment they fell on him with such a fury he knew he was lost to them.

Boots and hands and knees. The cue and flailing fingers. They took his wallet, his keys. They swore at him, spat at him, pissed on him. Birk Larsen did what he’d never done before, rolled into a ball like a victim, cowered on the ground. A pose he’d seen so often, but never for himself.

One hard blow to the head and the day grew dark.

Then a voice, older, angrier, crying.

‘What are you doing? What the…?’

He lay in the gutter, drunk and hurting.

And they were gone.

A bleeding hand went to the wall. He staggered to his feet.

A woman. Middle-aged. Holding a bike.

‘Are you all right?’

Head against the cold brickwork Theis Birk Larsen started to throw up. Blood and beer. Some of the blackness inside him.

‘I’m calling the police,’ the woman said.

He vomited some more. Put a hand to her shoulder. She shied away from him, wriggled out of his grasp.

‘No police,’ he muttered, coughing, then stumbled out towards the light.

She left him. Alone again he found he couldn’t stand. Like a felled tree Theis Birk Larsen tumbled slowly onto the broken stones of Vesterbro, knelt there, knelt then keeled over, letting the darkness roll over him like the black swampy waters of the Kalvebod Fælled.

Back in the interview room, Hartmann faced his lawyer.

‘The evidence is circumstantial, Troels. On this I wouldn’t expect the judge to extend your custody. But if they find something in your cottage…’

He sat in his blue prison suit, silent and miserable.

‘The more you tell me, the more I can help you.’

Nothing.

‘Do you understand?’

Nothing.

She tidied her papers, uttered a small dyspeptic sigh of disapproval.

‘Well then. I’ll come back tomorrow. Perhaps you’ll be of a mind to talk to me then.’

He watched her sort the documents into a pile and place them in her briefcase.

‘What’s going on at City Hall?’

She stopped and gazed at him.

‘What do you think? The Electoral Commission has gone along with Bremer’s wishes. They’ve made their final decision.’

‘Final? You’re sure about that?’

She had a hard-set face.

‘I’m a criminal lawyer. Not a political one. As I understand it the decision is made. It simply needs to be approved by the council tonight.’

The lawyer stared at him.

‘Then you’re gone, Troels. Shame. I put money into your campaign. What on earth was I thinking?’

He was barely listening.

‘What time’s the meeting?’

The woman folded her arms.

‘I’m glad you’ve decided to talk to me. Perhaps we could discuss your defence?’

‘Can you get me a copy of the council constitution?’

A pause, then, ‘Why?’

‘I need to know something about the Electoral Commission. I need the detail—’

‘Troels! You’re facing a murder charge! Have you lost your mind?’

A grim smile, a second long, no more.

‘No. I haven’t. Get me Brix. Tell him I’m ready to talk. I’ll let him know what I did that weekend.’

She reached into her bag and retrieved her notepad.

‘Finally. Let’s hear it.’

The smile again. Longer this time, and more confident.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t have time.’

He snatched the pad from her and started writing.

‘I want you to contact the prosecutor. Ensure we have a meeting as soon as possible. It’s important the police drop the charges before the end of the afternoon.’

‘You can’t get out of here for another day at least.’

He finished the note.

‘Give this to Morten.’

‘I can’t.’

‘All it says is that he should tell the truth. That’s what they want, isn’t it? That’s what you want.’

She hesitated.

‘I have to get out of here by tonight. Please help me.’ He held the note across the table. ‘And thanks for the contribution.’

Phillip Bressau was on the phone when Meyer and Lund walked into his office.

He put his hand over the receiver.

‘The mayor’s not here.’

‘No problem,’ Meyer said. ‘We came for you.’

‘Can’t this wait until tomorrow?’

‘Five minutes. Then you’re done.’

They sat around a coffee table, Lund taking notes, meek and obedient like a secretary.

‘Before the poster party that Friday,’ Meyer said. ‘There was a gathering in Hartmann’s office. You went along?’

Bressau was neatly dressed for a Saturday. Well-pressed suit, blue shirt, tie.

‘Yes. For a while.’

‘Did you see Hartmann there?’

‘No. I didn’t stay. Work to do. What is this?’

‘Just routine,’ Lund said. ‘When you met with Hartmann on the third of August…’

‘What?’

‘Hartmann says you met that weekend.’

‘I didn’t meet Hartmann.’

Meyer looked at Lund.

‘Are you sure?’ Lund asked.

‘Absolutely. Is that what he said?’

‘Yes.’

‘It can’t be right.’

Bressau pulled a diary out of his jacket.

‘No. August the third I was in Latvia on an official visit with the mayor. We left on Saturday morning. Hartmann wasn’t a member of the delegation.’

‘Well, there you go,’ Lund said and scribbled something.

‘Is that it?’

Bressau got up from the table.

‘Not quite,’ Meyer said. ‘Can I have your car keys?’

‘What?’

‘We’ll sort out a loan.’

‘It’s not here.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Why do you need my car?’

‘I’m nosy like that,’ Meyer told him.

Footsteps at the door. Poul Bremer marched in, glared at them, said, ‘What the hell’s going on here?’

Bressau shrugged.

‘They’re questioning me now.’

Jan Meyer laughed.

‘You people. You’re so sensitive. We just have some problems with Hartmann’s movements. That’s all. Really—’

‘Is that why you’ve been questioning the security staff about Bressau’s car?’

Poul Bremer looked furious. The two cops fell silent.

‘Nothing happens here without me knowing,’ the old man said. ‘Looks like I’m going to be talking to your boss again.’

Bremer nodded at the door.

‘Close it behind you, please.’

On the way back to headquarters Lund put out a call for Bressau’s car. A white estate, registration number YJ 23 585.

‘I want the car taken in for forensic investigation.’

Meyer was driving. Not so fast any more. No cigarettes. No banana.

‘If he called Nanna twenty-one times from Latvia someone must have noticed,’ Lund said.

Meyer nodded.

‘There were ten people on that little jamboree,’ he said. ‘Seven were businessmen.’

‘Anyone who wasn’t in Bremer’s camp?’

‘Just the one. Jens Holck from the Moderates.’

She remembered the figure in black, scuttling out of Hartmann’s poster party in the TV reporter’s video.

‘Let’s get his address,’ Lund said.

When Theis Birk Larsen came to he was in a hard single bunk bed in a small whitewashed room that stank of stale booze, men and sweat. Bedrolls and backpacks littered the floor. There were others around him. Half-naked men under thin sheets, snoring and groaning.

His limbs ached. He was covered in cuts and bruises.

The door opened. Someone walked through and said, ‘I see you’re awake.’

A light came on. The man crouched by the side of the bunk. He had an ancient brown cardigan and long white hair. The lined and whiskery face of a fallen saint.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Where are my things?’

‘You got beaten up. They took most of your stuff.’

He half-sat up in the bed. The bunk above was so low he could go no further.

‘Where am I?’

‘The Holy Cross hostel. I’m the duty warden. You were lying in a doorway in Skydebanegade. You didn’t want to go to the hospital. You didn’t want to call home. So we brought you here. Nothing broken. We checked.’

He tried to struggle out of the bed but couldn’t.

‘You talked about your daughter.’

Back on the hard mattress, staring at the iron frame, thinking, hurting.

‘You’re Theis Birk Larsen,’ the warden said. ‘Some of the Vesterbro men know you. You had a reputation I gather.’

Birk Larsen wiped his hand across his face, looked at the blood.

‘It’s OK. Stay where you are. I’ll get you some soup.’

One last effort. He took hold of the iron frame.

‘No. I can’t stay.’

On the edge of the bed. No boots. No coat. Nothing of his he could see. Just a damaged man of middle age, once king of the quarter, now an old and bloody fool.

‘A night here would be for the best,’ the man said.

Birk Larsen tried to move and couldn’t. With a long, pained groan he fell back on the sheets.

‘Maybe we can help, Theis.’

‘No you can’t,’ he said straight off.

‘Maybe…’

‘I said you can’t.’

Birk Larsen’s powerful hand, cuts on the knuckles, bruises on the wrist, rose, pointed to a crucifix in the corner.

‘You can’t help and he can’t either.’

A fleeting expression on the man’s grey and bloodless face. It wasn’t pleasant.

‘I’ll get you some soup then,’ he said.

The arguments at the cemetery went on and on, and were never resolved. It was dark by the time they left. Lotte drove. The boys sat silent and scared in the back.

Pernille watched the city lights as they threaded through the Saturday traffic. She hadn’t spoken since the blazing row in the cemetery office. Vagn had returned to the depot to work on some orders. Lotte felt left in charge.

‘What do two hungry boys want for dinner?’ she asked as brightly as she could.

They’d pass Tivoli on the way. The fairground would be lit. If she’d had the money she’d have taken them there out of desperation.

‘I don’t know,’ Emil said in a slow, bored, lilting voice.

‘Dad’s big pancakes and jam!’ Anton cried.

Emil hit him for that. Lotte heard it.

Pernille sat in the passenger seat still crazy from the argument.

‘OK,’ Lotte said. ‘Pancakes it is.’

Traffic lights. Groups of men and women heading off to the bars. Saturday night in the city.

‘In that case,’ Lotte added, smiling at them in the mirror, ‘we’re going to need some milk and eggs.’

She turned to her sister.

‘Pernille?’

That wild-eyed look Lotte hated.

‘It’s OK,’ she added quickly. ‘I can make them.’

‘Lotte.’

Pernille’s hand was on the door. It looked as if she was ready to step out into the moving traffic.

‘Can you watch the boys tonight?’

‘Sure. If you want. Why?’

Pernille didn’t answer. She turned and said, ‘You go to Auntie Lotte’s house tonight and eat pancakes. OK?’

Not a word, then Anton asked, ‘Aren’t you coming?’

She was back looking through the traffic again, at the lights and the people on the street.

‘No.’

A junction. Bars. Neon. People. Anonymity in the night.

‘Let me out here.’

Lotte kept driving.

‘Let’s go home. I’m sure Vagn’s found Theis by now.’

Pernille picked up her bag.

‘Let me out here,’ she said again.

The car kept on.

She was screaming now.

‘I said let me out here! Let me, let me, let me…’

Eyes clouding over, heart beating, Lotte pulled in to the side of the road.

Her sister was gone in an instant without another word.

Hartmann was back in the interview room with his lawyer and a prison guard, facing Brix across the table.

Calm now. Something of his old self. Talking about that Friday, the party, the round of meetings, of get-togethers in the winding, labyrinthine corridors of the Rådhus.

‘Do you believe in God?’ he asked Brix.

‘I came here for this?’ the lean policeman grumbled.

‘No. You came for your own enjoyment. To see me squirm.’

‘Troels…’ The woman lawyer was looking worried. ‘Brix is doing you a favour.’

‘A favour,’ Hartmann murmured.

Brix sighed and looked at his watch.

‘I don’t believe in God,’ Hartmann said. ‘Never did. But sometimes I wonder if that’s just a kind of… cowardice. Because the worst thing of all would be believing, putting everything you have in that simple faith. Then waking up one morning and discovering it was all one big, cruel joke.’

‘Troels…’ the woman said again.

‘Don’t you understand?’

The question was aimed at Brix, not her.

‘That night in the Rådhus. It was our anniversary. I was surrounded by all these smiling, glittering people. I had my face on the posters. Everyone loved Troels Hartmann.’

A cold and incisive glance across the table.

‘The man who would bring the Bremer years to an end.’

Hartmann laughed, at himself, at his own stupidity.

‘And it didn’t mean a damned thing. I knew it right then. All the champagne, all the food and congratulations. I just thought of her. Of how much I missed her. Of what I’d lost. For good…’

Eyes closed, remembering.

‘They didn’t see a thing. Just Troels Hartmann, going about his business. Laughing, joking, smiling. And all the while I was asking… why?’

Hartmann’s fingers tapped at his chest.

‘What did I do to deserve all this? All this… meaningless… shit.’

He shrugged.

‘I was the priest who got a letter from God and it read… well more fool you. So I did what a good brave man does. I slunk off and got stinking drunk. There…’ He nodded at Brix. ‘A confession.’

‘And then?’

‘I couldn’t face Rie. So I got a cab and went to the cottage.’

His eyes drifted to the window and the dark night outside.

‘My wife always loved that place. It was hers.’

‘The window?’ Brix asked.

‘When I got there I realized I didn’t have a key. So I smashed it. Cut myself a little. Drunks do.’

‘And you were alone?’

‘With a lot of memories.’

‘Hartmann…’

‘Don’t ask me how it happened. I can’t explain. I’ve tried. Believe me. Maybe because I was drunk and stupid and pitiful. And weak.’

He tapped the table and said more loudly, ‘Weak. The weak man said that if I was to put an end to this shit it was best it happened in our cottage.’

Dry, hollow laughter.

‘Can you imagine how idiotic that is? She loved that place.’ His eyes closed in pain. ‘What she would have thought…’

Brix and the lawyer waited.

‘So I stuffed mattresses over the windows, towels under the doors. Then I turned on the gas, got on the bed and waited.’

There was a knock at the door. Meyer walked in, looked at Brix, said, ‘Got a minute?’

‘Not now.’

‘It’s important.’

‘Not now!’

Meyer grunted and left.

When he was gone, Hartmann continued.

‘When I woke up the next morning the door had blown open. I never closed it properly I guess. Or maybe I was a clumsy drunk. Or perhaps… she’d come along and said, no more of this, Troels. No more. I can’t explain it so don’t ask. Then Morten came and found me and drove me home.’

‘Morten Weber will corroborate this story,’ the woman added quickly.

Brix was silent.

‘That’s it,’ Hartmann concluded.

‘And you didn’t tell us any of this because of the election? You were worried about your reputation?’

Troels Hartmann met his gaze.

‘There’s nothing I’ve said to you in confidence that didn’t make it into the papers the next day. That worried me, I admit. I was concerned for Rie as well. I wanted to keep her out of it.’

A long breath, a long look.

‘But mostly I was ashamed. Afraid. I thought that by admitting it I might let that black thing back into my life. Which makes me a bigger fool than even I appreciated. Because really…’

Hartmann laughed.

‘I just set it free.’ He watched Brix’s eyes. ‘Can you understand that?’

‘Yes,’ the policeman said. ‘I can.’

‘Well, that’s it.’

He hesitated.

‘Are you going to plaster that all over the papers now?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Brix said.

He nodded to the guard.

‘Take him back to the cell.’

The man in uniform moved. Hartmann evaded his arms.

‘I told you the truth! What is this?’

The lawyer was agitated.

‘This is the truth,’ she said. ‘Morten Weber confirms his story.’

‘I’m sure he does,’ Brix said. ‘Perhaps I’ll charge him as an accomplice.’

He gestured to the guard.

Hartmann was on his feet, arms up, still resisting.

‘I need to be in the Rådhus. Now!’

The guard grabbed him. Hartmann held up his hands.

‘Call Morten! Is this Bremer again?’

‘Out!’ Brix ordered, and watched him dragged from the room.

Next door Meyer was going through more reports from forensics. Brix walked in, saw the stamp on the cover, said, ‘I hope to God they’ve found some hard evidence Nanna Birk Larsen was in that cottage.’

Meyer shook his head.

‘Not a thing. Not a single head of hair. No evidence of sexual activity. No sign of violence. Lund said—’

Brix snatched the report from him, tore through the pages.

‘Forget Lund. There were traces of blood in the utility room.’

‘Yes. Fish blood. Very old.’ Meyer leaned back in his chair. ‘Is fishicide a crime? I don’t recall—’

Brix’s phone rang. He listened. Barked, ‘No, I damned well didn’t. Let me deal with it.’

He glared at Meyer.

‘Has Lund put out a call for Phillip Bressau’s car?’

‘You mean the white car he can’t account for? The white car he’s hiding from us? Yes. She has. Bressau’s probably the hit-and-run driver.’

‘Bressau’s wife and children are at Soro police station. They were stopped by a patrol. The car doesn’t have a scratch.’

‘It’s a white car from City Hall. I don’t believe it, Brix. The car that killed Olav Christensen came from there.’ Meyer was close to losing it. ‘Every time we step inside the Rådhus those bastards go out of their way to lie to us. Why doesn’t this bother you? Who did you just speak to?’

‘You’re a big disappointment to me sometimes. Where’s Lund?’

Meyer ran his finger down the address list and the tally of white cars. Life had been too busy to get far with them. He hadn’t even checked two thirds down the list. Until then.

‘Oh shit,’ he muttered then grabbed for the phone.

Lund didn’t answer Meyer’s call. She’d tracked down Jens Holck to a half-finished block of flats in Valby and was listening to him talk about the Latvia trip.

‘You saw Phillip Bressau?’

‘Only on the plane over and then back again. He doesn’t say much. Bremer and Bressau went to some meetings in Riga. The rest of us stayed in Saldus.’

Holck looked tired, unshaven. He might have been drinking.

‘Did Bressau make many calls?’

‘I don’t remember. I’ve got to go now.’

‘Do you still have the itinerary for the trip? Hotels. That kind of thing. It would be a big help.’

He looked at his watch.

‘I’ll have a look,’ Holck said. ‘Wait here.’

She watched him go back into the building. A light went on upstairs. Lund walked over to the garage, wandered down the ramp.

The place was a converted warehouse. The basement seemed big, probably had some industrial use once.

She pulled out a torch. Shone it into the black maw ahead.

Nothing.

Walked further.

At the very end stood a shape draped in a black tarpaulin.

Lund looked at her phone. No signal.

She walked up to the tarpaulin, dragged it off from the front.

Stood back and looked.

A white estate car. Windscreen smashed and smeared with blood. Front a wreck. Blood there too. Driver-side mirror hanging against the door.

Enough.

She cut the torch, marched back into the cold, gloomy night, went back to the unmarked police car.

No keys.

Lund checked the dashboard, the floor. Kept looking.

Went into the glovebox. Snatched the Glock from beneath the packs of Nicotinell and tissues.

Held it low. Looked around.

‘Holck?’ Lund called. ‘Holck?’

Meyer was driving like a lunatic, blue light flashing, alone. Fielding a stupid call from Brix in his ear.

‘Did Lund call?’ Meyer asked.

‘Don’t ever walk out on me,’ Brix bellowed. ‘Get back here.’

‘I’m going to Holck’s house. He had an affair with Nanna. He got the key to the flat from Olav.’

‘The accounts show Hartmann approved the money.’

‘Oh wake up, man! Holck doctored them. He’s been fitting up Hartmann all along. Holck’s got a white estate. No one’s seen it since Olav got killed.’

‘That doesn’t prove anything.’

‘I gave Lund Holck’s address! She’s there on her own. Send some patrol cars now.’

‘What about Hartmann?’

‘Hartmann’s nothing to do with it! We need to get to Lund now! You know what she’s like. She’ll walk in blind on her own.’

A long pause. Meyer threw the car round the side of a sluggish delivery van, slammed on the horn, forced a couple of vehicles coming the other way onto the kerb.

‘I’ll send one car,’ Brix said. ‘Keep me posted.’

Lennart Brix called Hartmann back to the interview room and ordered him to take a seat.

‘Have you heard from my lawyer?’

‘I want to ask you about Jens Holck.’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake. I’ve told you everything I know. There’s an important vote at—’

‘Could Holck have doctored your books?’

‘What are you talking about? What books?’

‘The accounts that show you authorized the money for Olav.’

‘So now you think Jens did it?’

‘Just answer the question.’

‘Maybe. I run the department. I don’t do book-keeping.’

A glance at his notes then Brix asked, ‘Has Holck been acting strangely?’

‘What kind of a question is that?’

Brix’s phone rang.

‘She’s not at the address I gave you,’ Meyer said. ‘The house was for sale.’

‘Is she at City Hall?’

‘No. I called. You’ve got to put out a call for her.’

‘It’s not the first time Lund’s gone off on her own.’

‘Listen to me, Brix! There’s something really wrong here. She’s on her own and I’m damned sure Holck’s our man.’

‘You’ve been sure in the past too.’

‘Are you going to help me or not?’

Brix took the phone away from his ear, looked at Hartmann.

‘Where’s Jen Holck living at the moment?’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Holck isn’t at his house. Do you have another address for him?’

‘I don’t know. He got divorced a few months ago. I think he’s been living with relatives.’

‘What relatives?’

‘I don’t know. What’s going on?’

Brix picked up the phone.

‘Hartmann says he’s staying with relatives. He doesn’t know where.’

He cut the call. Hartmann was staring at the clock on the wall. Twenty past eight.

‘If you think Holck did it why am I here?’

Brix waved to one of the guards.

‘Take him back to his cell.’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ Hartmann whined. ‘The meeting starts soon.’

He struggled as the guard grabbed his arm, fought a little, not much.

‘You know I didn’t do it. Do you think you can bury all this when I get free? Do you think that’s going to happen, Brix?’

The tall cop stopped by the door.

‘Here’s the deal,’ Hartmann said, leaning across the table. ‘I walk from here. I do nothing about the persecution. The false arrest. The illegal search and entry. The trouble I could cause you… I forget everything.’

Brix was listening.

‘In return you keep what I told you private. Truly private. No leaks to the press. No hints about a suicide attempt. Nothing. You say Hartmann was interviewed because of a misunderstanding. Found innocent, released. End of story.’

Brix took a deep breath, put a long finger to his cheek.

‘I could be Lord Mayor within a week. It’s best we have good relations. We should start that now.’ He held out his hand. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘Stay there,’ Brix ordered.

Then he walked out into the corridor and called control.

‘Put out a search for Lund.’

No sign of Holck anywhere. Lund walked down into the basement for a second look.

Torch in left hand, gun in her right, she moved ahead, searching, sweeping.

The place smelled of damp and dust and spilled oil. There were sets of tools in racks on the walls. A stack of wooden pallets. An engine in pieces. A half-built piece of furniture, a wardrobe maybe, bare wood with hammers, screwdrivers, nails and a saw by the side.

No sign of Holck.

She moved on, past bags of cement, past tiles and bricks.

The Glock trembled in her hand. She’d never fired it, not outside the practice range. The white beam of the torch shook with her movement. Caught nothing.

Stupid, she thought. Going in on her own. Not calling Meyer. Bringing in back-up, some help.

Why did she do this?

Lund had no idea. It was how she was. Who she was.

The woman who clawed her way to the rank of Vicekriminalkommissær in homicide. Kept her job through results, not politics or some concept of equality she privately despised.

She was a good cop. A good mother. Someone who cared.

But she was on her own, still. Maybe always would be. An outsider. An awkward fit, with her plain clothes, simple ponytail, her shining eyes that never ceased looking.

Lund went in alone because she felt like it. She wanted to be first. To see their faces when they came later, following.

Usually it worked.

One last flash of the beam into the corner. A row of ceramic shapes, baths and washbasins, toilets and bidets.

Lund swore, turned, was walking to the exit, determined to call Meyer, furious with herself for being so stupid, so impetuous.

A shape flitted through the dark, left to right.

The gun stayed where it was. Down. A weapon wasn’t her first natural response and never would be.

She wanted to talk first. She wanted to know.

‘Holck…’

The shape again. Something his hand. A wheel brace, four steel iron legs, like a weapon from the Middle Ages.

Closer.

Too close.

She could hear him. The sweep of his arm.

The gun moved but not much and not quickly.

He dodged to one side, was replaced by something flashing through the torch beam towards her.

The hard iron fell on Sarah Lund’s skull, sent her crashing to the hard floor.

It was a business hotel in Bredgade just off the shopping street of Strøget. A hundred kroner for a Scotch. Not much less for a beer.

Pernille sat at the bar, bag by her side. Third stop of the night. Hard spirits in every one.

The way it used to be when she was young and nothing really mattered. When she could sneak out past her parents, go down to the rough areas, the forbidden places, see where the night took her.

By her side was a man she’d have laughed at back then. Portly, self-satisfied, tanned, in a suit that was a touch too small for him. But he was buying.

‘I’ve got my own company,’ he said, ordering some more drinks. ‘I started it from scratch.’

It was a hotel bar. They were the only people there. The locals never came. Only visitors stranded in the city, lonely for the night.

‘It took me five years.’ He was Norwegian. ‘I’ve got thirty employees, a branch in Denmark, and production in Vietnam.’

The television was on. It was talking about a fresh turn in the City Hall elections.

He moved his seat closer, saw she was watching the TV.

‘A nasty case. It made the papers in Oslo.’

‘The council will vote on excluding Hartmann,’ the newsreader said. ‘He’s due to be charged, though we’re now hearing from sources this may not…’

He touched her arm.

‘Do you travel a lot?’ The man laughed. ‘They say life’s nothing without travel. They don’t do it for business. Twenty nights a month…’

He toasted her.

‘But sometimes you get to talk to a nice lady, in a nice bar. It’s not so bad.’

He was smiling and it was close to a leer.

She took a long swig of the drink. She didn’t much like it.

Didn’t much like anything any more. The boys. Lotte. Theis. Locked in this endless search, the hunt for an explanation, a reason, her life had entered a strange limbo. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t feel, couldn’t laugh, think straight.

Pernille thought of her old self, the pretty young girl, the one who flitted from bar to bar in dark and dirty Vesterbro, tempting the young blades till she found the right one.

Nothing mattered.

Then and now.

She looked at the man next to her. Wondered what he was like at that age. Cocky. Good-looking. Weak and obedient.

‘Let’s go to your room,’ she said.

The Norwegian stared at her, dumbstruck.

Pernille got up, picked her bag off the floor.

With anxious fingers he grabbed his key.

‘Put it on the tab,’ he said to the barman then followed her to the door.

The room wasn’t big. Double bed. Shiny table. Laptop on a desk. The kind of bad-taste furnishing no one bought but a hotel.

He was flustered, nervous, fumbling with the key, slapping the wall for the light switch.

There were clothes on the bed. A shirt. Underpants.

He grabbed them off the sheets, threw them into a cupboard.

‘I didn’t know I’d have company. Do you want a drink?’

It was the size of Nanna’s room. Nothing personal here. Nothing she would remember.

‘When I was a student I worked as a barman at the Grand Hotel in Oslo.’

He said this as if it was one of his great achievements. Like starting his own company and having a factory in Vietnam.

Two gins from the minibar. A single bottle of tonic. He bounced the bottles on the tiny tabletop, splashed the spirit into the glasses.

‘Ha! See! I still have it.’

No, smaller than Nanna’s she thought. A box for a faceless man. A place outside the life she knew.

‘Gin and tonic. No ice. No lemon.’

He shrugged. He was drunker than she had realized. So, perhaps, was she, though there was a sense of clarity here. Of purpose even.

The drink was in her hand. She didn’t touch it, didn’t want it.

She thought of Theis. Rough, coarse Theis. No manners, no fine words.

No delicate thoughtful touches, only a direct and physical embrace.

Yet there was something sensitive, even tender in him. Had to be. Why else did she love him, marry him, bear him three children?

The Norwegian was different.

Drink in hand, drink on breath, he stood next to her, brushed aside her long chestnut hair, damp from the rain. Stroked her cheek with his pale fingers.

Tried to kiss her.

The glass fell from her fingers. Bounced booze on the plush hotel carpet.

‘I’m sorry.’ He sounded concerned more than disappointed. ‘I’m not much good at this.’

It was a lie, she thought.

‘I thought…’He shrugged. ‘No matter.’

He picked up the glass, put it on the minibar. When he turned she was on the bed.

Puzzlement and hope in his face. A nice-looking man. No name.

Not at all like Theis, who could only dream of going to a place like Vietnam. Who struggled to pay ten workers let alone fifty.

‘Another drink?’ he asked.

She said words she’d not uttered in years, and then to one man only.

‘Take my clothes off.’

He laughed, looked foolish.

‘Are you sure? I mean… you seem a bit…’

She closed her eyes. She let her head roll back, mouth half open.

She smiled.

A kiss then. He was on her. Fumbling, feeling. Boozy lips against her neck. Panting too quickly, as if trying to convince himself.

Pernille lay back on the hard double bed, let his arms engulf her, as he writhed and tugged desperately at the dark blue dress.

These clothes she wore when she placed Nanna’s urn in the brown earth. She didn’t want them any more, or anything to do with them.

Theis Birk Larsen drank his soup, found what things he still had left, checked his cuts, begged plasters. Got dressed in his scarlet work suit, his black leather jacket.

The white-haired man from the hostel watched him.

‘You’re sure you don’t want to stay? It’s not the Radisson I know…’

‘Thanks for your help. I have to go.’

Handshake. A firm, determined grip.

‘You’re welcome. Any time.’

He tidied away the bedclothes.

‘I lost something that mattered once,’ the man said. ‘How and why doesn’t matter. But that’s what happened.’

It was nearly nine in the evening. He pulled on his black woollen hat.

‘Life wasn’t worth living. And all the guilt made me do awful things. I hated myself. What I’d become.’

He handed Birk Larsen a lighter and a pack of cigarettes.

‘Keep them. I hated life itself. But today I see there’s a plan behind everything.’

He said this as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Birk Larsen lit a cigarette.

‘What seemed like the end turned out to be a beginning.’

Smoke in the little room that smelled of booze and sweat and men.

‘God gives us hardship for a reason. Not that we understand that when we’re up to our necks in shit.’

‘A plan?’ Birk Larsen said and couldn’t stop the sneer.

‘Oh yes. There’s a plan, Theis. For you. For me. For everyone. We’re walking down the road that’s given us whether we know it or not. What’s waiting at the end…’

Birk Larsen took a deep pull on the cigarette. He didn’t want to see this man again. Didn’t like the way he looked at him, demanding answers.

‘Say something, Theis.’

‘Say what?’ Birk Larsen snapped and felt ashamed at the sudden fierceness in his voice. ‘Before I met my wife, before the kids I did a lot of bad things.’

He glared at the man.

‘Not your kind. Beyond your league. I hurt people because I thought they earned it. I did…’

His narrow eyes closed in pain.

‘Enough of this shit.’

There was a crucifix on every wall, a slender broken figure staring down at each shambling body that passed through the door.

‘It was a long time ago.’ He pointed at the figure of Christ in his agony. ‘But I don’t think that guy’s quite forgotten. So all I got was parole. A little time with my family. And now that’s done.’

Too many words. He was back to the cigarette, sly eyes stinging in the smoke, watching the man from the hostel.

‘I’m sure there’s something, Theis. Some help, some comfort that gives you and your family hope.’

‘Yeah,’ Birk Larsen said. ‘There could be.’

He looked at the man.

‘I just don’t think you’d find it very Christian.’

Finally the white-haired man seemed out of words.

‘Goodnight,’ Birk Larsen mumbled then walked outside into the damp cold street.

A sudden start, a bright red pain at the back of her skull. Lund came to on the floor of the basement garage, tried to stand, could barely move. Her hands were tied, her ankles too. The place was lit now. She was by the white estate car. Not far from the half-made wardrobe and the tools.

Scrabbled on the floor, breathing in the dust, the oil fumes, the smell of sawdust.

And cigarette smoke.

She managed to work herself round until she saw the tiny red fire flickering in the corner.

Eyes adjusting.

Holck sat on what looked like an oil barrel, puffing on a cigarette. A man deciding what to do.

You talk, Lund thought. The gun was gone. Nothing left.

‘Untie me, Holck. You know this can’t work.’

He didn’t answer.

‘Come on.’

Silence.

‘We can work something out.’

She sounded pathetic, wrong.

‘How about it?’

He kept smoking, looking at her. Looking round the garage.

‘Headquarters can trace me.’

Holck threw something through the shadows. It landed in front of her. Phone, smashed and cracked.

‘I suppose you want to know,’ he said.

‘Untie me.’

He laughed.

‘Which way’s it supposed to be? If I tell you…’

She didn’t speak.

‘No, really.’ He sounded coldly amused. ‘I’m interested. If I tell you I kill you. If I don’t…’

He tossed the cigarette towards her. It spun fizzling into a pool of oil.

‘Oh. I still kill you. In that case…’

‘Untie me, Holck.’

He cocked his head as if listening for something.

‘So quiet out here. Don’t you love it?’

‘Holck…’

He got up, came to her.

‘I told headquarters where I was going,’ Lund said quickly. ‘They’re on their way.’

He had his wallet out, was looking at something.

‘Do you have children?’

She was shaking. The cold. The fear.

He came close, crouched down, showed her his wallet.

‘You got kids? These are mine.’

A girl and a boy, laughing with a woman who smiled at the camera.

Holck’s fingers ran over each figure.

‘My wife.’ He shook his head. ‘My ex-wife. She won’t let them see me much.’

‘Holck—’

‘You wanted to know. You never stopped asking. Now look where you are.’

He tapped his own chest.

‘And you’re blaming me now? Me? I never wanted to kill anyone. Who does? Never. Not even that filthy little whore.’

‘Jens—’

‘That slimy bastard Christensen wouldn’t let it go. He wanted money. A job. He wanted…’

A fierce, crazed anger contorted Holck’s miserable grey features.

‘This shit’s cost me too much already.’

‘I know,’ she said, trying to bring down the temperature. ‘That’s why we need to talk. You’ve got to untie me. We can sort this out.’

‘Yes.’

Hope.

‘I’d really like to.’

‘Let’s do it then. Untie me.’

‘But it’s not that simple, is it?’

‘Holck…’

He stood up, looked around.

‘I knew you’d understand.’

Walked over, lifted the rear door of the white estate.

Lund struggled, got nowhere, tried to think.

Then he was back, hand on her jacket, dragging her across the filthy floor.

Shattered handset on the ground.

‘That’s my phone, Holck!’ she cried.

They were at the back of the car. He was looking for something. A weapon. Beat her unconscious. In the boot. In the river. Just like Nanna.

‘It’s my phone. Not the police one.’

He stopped.

‘I told you. They’re on their way. The police phone’s in the car.’

‘Where?’

She didn’t speak.

He went and got the wheel brace, held it over her, said again, more loudly, ‘Where?’

‘In my bag.’

‘Don’t go away,’ Holck said and laughed.

One minute, maybe two. Lund shuffled back across the floor, towards the half-made wardrobe and the tools.

There was no second phone. No magic beacon that would bring the police to this lost, dark semi-industrial part of the city where Holck lived alone, in a half-finished warehouse block owned by relatives who’d decamped to Cape Town for the winter.

Only a handbag full of chewing gum and tissues, mints and rubbish.

He started sifting through it. Got angrier with each failed second. Ripped open the glovebox. Saw nothing there but Nicotinell packets and parking receipts.

He didn’t know why he showed her the photo of his wife and kids. Didn’t know why he didn’t kill her straight off, shove her bleeding corpse into the back of the white car, drive out into the distant woods, find a river, a canal. Push Lund and the white estate into the dank waters where they’d stay for ever.

Lost. Unseen. Forgotten.

Holck took one last look.

He hadn’t wanted to run down Olav Christensen. The creep had left him no choice. That was life. No choices anywhere. Just a long road that kept getting bleaker, narrower with every passing day.

‘Bitch,’ Holck spat as he slammed the car door shut then went back to the black hole that led to the garage and Lund.

Scrabbling on the floor, towards the sawdust and the tools, the crooked shape of the half-finished wardrobe.

A hammer. A chisel. Some nails and screws and dowels.

And a saw.

Hands tied, fingers trembling, she closed on the handle, got it to her legs, trapped the blade between her knees. Began to work at the plastic tie that bound her.

A noise. He was back. Scrabbling somewhere in the pool of darkness by the entrance.

Pictures in Lund’s head.

A man who thinks ahead. Needs things. Plans things.

A sound, rustling plastic.

A black bag to hide a body in the boot.

Metal clattering, blade against blade.

Knives or scythes or something else that cuts, a weapon to pair with the wheel brace, tools for the task.

Footsteps.

When he came into the light Holck had the black bin liner beneath his right arm and was stretching out a line of industrial tape between his hands.

Nanna went into the river alive, but at least she had her mouth free and could scream.

Holck strode forward, to the space behind the car.

Looked round.

Shouted, ‘Bitch!’

Looked round again, not believing he could be so stupid.

Got a torch from the car boot, flicked it on.

A bright monocular beam seeking her. Like a hunter after a wounded deer. Its white beam ranged, a single blazing ray of light.

Five minutes, ten.

In the basement garage there was no thing called time. Only a man and a weapon, and a woman he sought in the shadows.

Behind a concrete pillar Lund lurked, trying to still her breathing, to make no sound.

Trying to convince herself the threats she’d made were not as idle as they seemed. That someone was coming. Even though she drove here alone. Told nobody. Not even Meyer.

They’d find her somehow.

Maybe.

Maybe.

He was close to the piles of cement sacks, torch ranging across the floor. Then she saw it. The Glock lay where it fell when Holck clubbed her with the wheel brace. A grey shape dimly shining, not far from the white estate.

Wait and hope.

Or act and win.

She wondered why she asked the question. There really was no choice.

He was down the far side of the basement. The gun four strides away, no more. Maybe he hadn’t seen it. Maybe he felt so powerful, so in control, he’d no need of any other weapon but his strength.

Lund ran.

Not four strides, five. She was leaping for the weapon when she saw him. Tall in the darkness, waiting all the time.

The gun was a lure for fools, she thought, as Holck snatched it from the floor with his left hand, punched her in the head with his right, sent her shrieking down to the stone floor.

Dust in the mouth. Bitterness and fear. She scrambled, crawled, half-kneeled before him.

Looked up, saw the Glock pointing straight in her face.

A second sound, another direction.

Another beam of light.

‘Hold it, Holck!’

Another voice, one she recognized.

She tried to move. Holck’s boot came out and kicked her in the gut.

Winded, aching.

Turning she saw him. Doing what he was taught for once.

Weaver Stance. Two hands, main elbow straight, support just bent. Gun steady, aim deliberate.

‘Put down the gun,’ Meyer ordered.

Holck stood unsteadily above her, the weapon at Lund’s head.

‘Drop it, Holck. For Christ’s sake.’

Lund crouched, didn’t look at the man. Thought about Mark. And Bengt. And Nanna Birk Larsen.

‘Put the fucking gun down!’ Meyer bellowed.

Holck wasn’t moving. Wasn’t going to. Death by cop. And sometimes they took one with them.

‘Come on, Holck! Gun down. You. On the ground. Now.’

He was staring at her and she knew it somehow. So Lund looked at him.

The Glock slipped down to the side of Holck’s legs. He was shaking. Eyes wide and terrified. Lost.

‘Tell my kids…’ he said and slowly, with an ambiguous intent, brought the weapon up to her scalp.

Three rapid explosions echoing round the empty, dusty garage.

She saw him jump with each, saw the pain and shock in his eyes.

The force took him backwards, sent him crumpling into a broken heap on the floor.

She hugged herself and waited.

Meyer was approaching. Regulations. Torch on the man, gun ready.

Lund looked at the still shape beyond her.

Watched for movement. Saw none.

Ten minutes later, medics putting clips in the wound in the back of Lund’s head. A corpse in a body bag, blood seeping through the seams.

In a flood tide of blue flashing lights, amidst the cacophony of sirens, Jan Meyer leaned against his car, smoking furiously with a shaking hand.

Watching Lund. Thinking. Wondering how many different outcomes there might have been. Were there other words? Other stratagems? Or did the road lead one way only, straight to the inevitable end?

Lennart Brix walked over. Blue raincoat. Burberry scarf tied carefully at his neck. He might have come from the opera.

Looked around then said, ‘How did you know where to go?’

Meyer watched her sitting in the ambulance, expressionless, letting the medics do their work.

‘The same way Lund did. I called his ex-wife.’

Brix held out his right hand, palm open, upwards. His leather gloves would have suited the opera too.

Meyer finished the cigarette, dispatched it into the dark, stood up and took the gun out of his holster. Checked the magazine, removed it. Held the gun by the grip, barrel down and placed it in Brix’s gloved hand. Then the magazine.

‘There’ll be an investigation. There has to be.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’ll be informed. The girl’s parents need to be told.’

He patted Meyer on the back.

‘Well done,’ Brix said. ‘Now get some sleep.’

They let Hartmann go at ten. Lund was across the corridor, getting looked at again, as he collected his things.

‘Don’t you owe me an explanation?’ Hartmann asked Brix.

‘I don’t think so. Do you want to sign for your things or not?’

Hartmann picked up his tie and watch. Put a signature to the form.

‘Do we have a deal?’ he asked tentatively.

‘About what?’

‘About… what I told you.’

Not a flicker of emotion on Brix’s grey immobile face.

‘We only disclose statements to the public if a case comes to court,’ he said. ‘Since it won’t…’

‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t thank me.’

Hartmann was staring at the watch. The time.

‘No need,’ Brix added with a smile.

Another torch. This time that of a police doctor, shining it in her eyes.

‘You’ve got minor concussion. Go home and relax.’

‘I’m fine,’ Lund said, carefully pulling the black and white sweater back over her head, noting the tears that wouldn’t mend, realizing she needed to buy another.

The door opened. Bengt came in. Arm in sling. He looked more shocked than after the car crash.

‘I’m not done yet,’ the doctor said.

Bengt took no notice.

‘If the stitches come undone you’ll have to get new ones.’

He came and held her.

Still Lund looked out into the corridor, saw Hartmann putting on his grey coat, walking for the door.

The doctor coughed.

‘I said I hadn’t finished.’

Lund gently stepped back from Bengt. Looked at the corridor again.

‘I said I’m fine.’

But Hartmann was gone.

Morten Weber had the car outside.

‘It was Holck. He took Sarah Lund prisoner. She’s lucky to be alive.’

Hartmann watched the city lights, thinking ahead.

‘Who told you that?’

‘Your lawyer. All charges have been dropped. She says you could sue the living daylights out of them.’

‘I’m not suing anybody. Where’s Rie?’

A pause.

‘It was too late to help, Troels. They voted. You’re excluded from the election. I’m sorry.’

‘We’ll see about that. Where is she?’

‘Bremer’s called a press conference.’

Hartmann looked out of the window. Winter night. Someone he knew, not liked but knew, was dead. Another man on the city council with a life that was withheld from those around him.

Troels Hartmann realized he wasn’t alone. Wasn’t afraid any more. Wasn’t bound by the demons that once haunted him.

‘No one’s ever going to know about the cottage,’ he said.

‘You confessed to the police.’

‘No one’s ever going to know about that. We’re back in business, Morten.’

‘Troels!’

‘I’m a wronged man!’ Hartmann roared. ‘Don’t you understand?’

Weber was silent.

‘I’m the victim here. As much as that Birk Larsen girl—’

‘Not as much,’ Morten Weber pointed out. ‘If you’re going to play the sympathy card, best play it carefully.’

‘Good point.’ Hartmann took out his phone, wondered who to call first. ‘Let’s work on it.’

The hotel room was wrecked. Smashed mirrors. Bad paintings on the floor. Vagn Skærbæk looked at Pernille, silent on the bed, half-dressed.

The drunk Norwegian was scared.

‘I didn’t know she’d go crazy! I got a number off her phone. It was me who called you.’

Skærbæk was still in his work clothes. Hands in pockets. Black hat. He bent down, looked into her face.

‘Pernille.’

She stared at him and said nothing.

‘Is it OK?’ the Norwegian pleaded. ‘I didn’t do anything. Nothing happened. I thought she wanted it and…’

He looked at Skærbæk. It was supposed to be man-to-man.

‘She went berserk. I mean… I didn’t know she was married. I thought she wanted a little company—’

‘Piss off out of here,’ Skærbæk yelled then bundled him out of the door.

Went back to her. Knelt by the bed.

‘Pernille. I think you should get dressed.’

He set a chair upright. Got her tights off the bed.

She wouldn’t take them.

‘Oh for God’s sake.’

He struggled to get them on her feet. Gave up.

‘Where are your shoes?’

No answer. He looked around. Found the black boots.

‘I’ve been trying to get you. The police called.’

The boots weren’t easier.

‘Pernille! I can’t dress you.’

She looked at him. Said nothing.

‘They found who killed her.’

Wouldn’t move. Wouldn’t help him. The boots again.

‘Do you get what I’m saying? They caught him. He’s dead.’

Nothing on her blank face. Not a word.

‘He’s dead,’ Skærbæk repeated.

She took the boots off him, slowly pulled them on. Vagn Skærbæk looked round the room. Did what he had to sometimes. Cleaned up a little. Straightened the flowers, the broken lamp.

Got her out of the hotel.

He’d brought a small works van. It smelled of fusty carpets.

‘Lotte’s with the boys at your parents’. Have you heard from Theis?’

Nothing but lights and traffic. Not a word.

‘For God’s sake, Pernille! Will you say something?’

Past the Rådhus, past the station, down the long straight drag of Vesterbrogade. Into Vesterbro, past cafes and bars, past the side streets with their drug dens, past the hookers and the partygoers, the people of the night.

‘One day,’ she said, ‘we went to the beach and I wanted to teach Nanna to swim.’

Past the school where the boys went and the church where her white coffin rested.

‘We stood out in the sea. I said… first you have to learn to float.’

Towards home.

‘Nanna was scared. But I said I’d hold on to her. Always. No matter what. I’d hold her.’

Her hand went to her mouth. Tears. A sudden convulsion of grief.

‘Never let go,’ she sobbed. ‘Never.’

Back in Vibeke’s apartment Lund watched the evening news. Her head didn’t hurt too much. The beer helped.

Brix stood outside the warehouse block, looking serious for the camera. He liked being on the TV.

‘Jens Holck was shot in self-defence after threatening an officer with a firearm. He was killed by another officer on the scene. Evidence points to Holck being the man we were looking for in the Birk Larsen case.’

The reporter tackled him about Hartmann. Brix was unmoved.

Bengt came into the room and sat beside her.

‘We had strong reasons to believe there was a link with the Rådhus. Unfortunately Holck appears to have doctored some records to make it appear Troels Hartmann was responsible. I’m happy to say Hartmann was an innocent victim in all of this and has gone out of his way to help the police throughout.’

‘Sarah…’

‘A minute,’ she said.

He reached over, took the remote, turned off the TV.

‘You should talk,’ he said.

‘About what?’

‘About how you feel?’

‘How do I feel?’

‘Guilty.’

‘No,’ she said immediately.

‘Frightened?’

She stared at the dead screen and shook her head. Then she took a swig of the beer.

‘You will have a reaction,’ he insisted.

Still watching the dead screen.

‘Is that a professional diagnosis?’

‘If you like.’

‘That’s not the problem.’

More beer.

‘What is?’

She looked at him and said nothing.

Bengt sighed.

‘OK. I know what I said about the profile. That there could be more victims.’

‘Not likely if it was Holck. He couldn’t lead the life he did if he had that behind him.’

‘So there you have it. I was wrong. It happens.’

She looked at him again, was silent.

‘I’m not as smart as you, Sarah.’

He squeezed her hand. She didn’t respond.

‘I don’t see things. Imagine things. I can’t.’

Not a word.

‘I wish you couldn’t sometimes too. Don’t you?’

Lund finished the beer, thought about another.

‘We don’t get to choose who we are, do we?’ she said.

‘In some ways. Be glad that it’s over.’

He reached out and gently stroked the hair from her forehead.

‘Be glad you don’t need it all in there any more.’

She was staring at the blank TV. Hand reaching for the remote.

‘Come to bed, Sarah. For God’s sake, let it go.’