The Killing - 01 - The Killing (101 page)

‘Neither.’

‘Well then I’m sorry.’

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

‘He needs rest.’

Hartmann leaned on the desk and waited.

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

The nurse came back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hartmann stood by the IV stand, hands in pockets.

‘Maybe you still will.’

‘If only.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hartmann saw the expression of disgust.

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

‘You’re supposed to rest.’

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

‘Poul . . .’

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

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

The monitor by the bed bleeped and blinked.

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

He coughed, winced in pain.

‘Poul? What did you want to tell me?’

Bremer’s eyes rolled, trying to focus.

‘I know who’s been protecting you.’

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

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

‘I thought it was Rie but it wasn’t.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

There were tears and a sudden look of terror.

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

Voice high, trembling, frail. Hand on his.

‘Troels . . .’

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

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

Down the corridor, down to the exit.

Someone was causing an argument.

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

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

The bald hack was on him straight away.

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

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

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

Hartmann stopped.

‘What do you want?’

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

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

‘Goodnight, Erik,’ he said.

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

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

‘What did Sarah Lund say?’

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

‘Where were they going?’

‘To look for Theis and Vagn.’

‘Where?’ Brix asked.

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

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

A familiar voice on the radio.

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

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

‘Just put out a call, will you?’

Brix strode to the car.

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

‘Come in!’ control barked again.

He picked up the mike.

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

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

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

Hartmann’s blood froze.

Nanna Birk Larsen.

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

He got up, came to the desk, looked.

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

Weber took the seat opposite Hartmann.

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

Hartmann stared at the photo.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I’m serious.’

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

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

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

‘You . . . knew?’

‘What was I supposed to think?’

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

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

‘You thought me capable of—’

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

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

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

His face became stern.

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

‘If ?’

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

‘In principle?’

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

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

‘That’s your decision, is it?’

Weber scowled at him.

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

He took a swig of the brandy.

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

‘You disgust me . . .’

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

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

‘Are you mad, Morten?’

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

‘No. Just efficient.’

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

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

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

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

Hartmann stayed by the window.

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

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

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

He took some sheets from the desk.

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

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

Weber laughed.

‘Oh, right.’

‘If not I’ll tell them.’

‘Is that what you want? Fine.’

He pushed the phone across the desk.

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

Hartmann said nothing.

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

He pointed to his eyes, grinned.

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

‘What do you mean?’ Hartmann murmured.

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