The Killing - 01 - The Killing (9 page)

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

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

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

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

‘No,’ Lund said. ‘He is.’

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

‘What the hell is this, Troels?’

‘Search me.’

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

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

‘They won’t care.’

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

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

Sharp eyes wide open, mouth agape.

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

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

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

‘Meaning what?’

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

A caustic look.

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

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

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

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

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

‘Such as?’

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

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

She wasn’t happy.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I’m telling you now.’

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

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

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

‘I could help.’

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

He looked out of the window into the square.

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

‘It’s not our fault, is it?’

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

‘No,’ he said. ‘It isn’t.’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Because we will.’ A pause. ‘I will.’

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

‘I’ve got my own book.’

‘So I noticed.’

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

She checked the address.

‘Turn here.’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Why?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Of course.’

‘Can we see it? Please.’

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

‘XU 24 919.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Meyer!’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Police!’ she called.

‘Lund!’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sometimes the rock shifted on unseen sand.

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

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

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

Birk Larsen tried to speak but stood there saying nothing.

Work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Birk Larsen looked at him, said nothing.

‘Do they have a clue who did it?’

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

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

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

The man with him waited.

‘I promised them a cherry-picker.’

‘It’s done,’ Vagn Skærbæk told him.

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

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

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

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

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

Lund stifled a laugh.

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

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

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

Mark was getting sulky.

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

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

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