The Killing - 01 - The Killing (103 page)

A part of the mask fell. His eyes began to water. Voice crack.

‘We all loved her. But she didn’t care. Not Nanna. Not about you. Not about me. You know that’s right, don’t you? You know, Theis. Yeah.’

No words from the shambling man, blood congealing on his rigid face.

‘Theis . . .’

Voices getting closer. Flashing beams of torchlight on the silver tree trunks behind.

‘Sometimes things just happen. You can’t tell. You don’t know where they come from. They just do.’

The shotgun waved, pointed.

‘You know that. Don’t you?’

He looked around.

‘No explaining. No apologies. You just . . .’ Vagn Skærbæk wiped something from his eyes. ‘You just have to fix them. Do your best to make things right.’

He heaved the weapon to his shoulder, checked it had shells.

‘You understand what I’m saying?’

No answer.

The shotgun came down, indicated the ground.

‘We came here. This spot. She was scared. I knew you’d never understand.’

Young eyes, young voice, no silver chain, no red overalls any more.

‘I couldn’t kill her. I couldn’t.’

He sniffed. Shrugged.

‘So I carried her to the car and pushed it into the water.’

Gun up. Birk Larsen stared it.

‘Here.’

Vagn Skærbæk threw it. Watched the long barrel twist in the air between them. The stock fell straight into Birk Larsen’s massive hand. His fingers closed automatically around the wood.

The magic weapon. The gun that closed things.

Big man, black jacket, bleeding face.

‘Come on, you dumb bastard. Go on. Get it over with.’

Racing footsteps. Voices.

‘Do it!’

A woman’s voice broke from the night.

‘Theis Birk Larsen, put the weapon down.’

The two men turned and looked. Saw Sarah Lund beyond the tall dead grass. Weapon in hand. Ready. Next to her Pernille in her fawn coat.

Vagn Skærbæk opened his hands, smiled at the man with the shotgun.

The explosion tore through the dark. Lund firing into the sky.

‘Walk away from Skærbæk now,’ she ordered. ‘We know what happened, Theis. Drop the gun. Walk away.’

Skærbæk was laughing.

‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘You think they know, big man, huh? Or did I get it wrong?’

No words. Theis Birk Larsen was never good at those. But he could look.

‘You’ll never move into Humleby now,’ Skærbæk threw at him with that same sarcastic smile. ‘That’s where I did it. Can you imagine?’

‘Put down the weapon, Theis!’ Lund shrieked

She was beyond the grass. They could both see the black Glock in her hands. More bodies too. Lights behind her. Dark figures sweeping through the silver trees with their peeling bark. Dogs and torches, gathering round, encircling the two men in the bare patch where they stood.

Birk Larsen held the gun at his waist. Forty-five degrees.

‘Theis,’ Lund cried. ‘There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.’

Fawn coat striding through into the clearing.

‘It’s finished now,’ Pernille said. ‘Theis . . .’

For a brief moment he shifted his attention away from the man in the green hunting coat, saw her.

‘It’s over now.’

‘It’s not over,’ Skærbæk snarled. ‘Not yet. Even a big stupid lunk like you knows that. Don’t you? Come on. You’ll be out in a couple of years at most. What’s there to lose?’

A brief, hard laugh.

‘You’ll be a hero. Theis Birk Larsen. The avenging angel. You’ll like that, won’t you?’

From beyond the circle, fast approaching, Pernille’s soft and frightened voice pleaded, ‘Let’s go home, Theis. Let’s go home to the boys.’

The gun relaxed.

‘The boys. Look at me. Look at me. Step away from him.’

Birk Larsen took a stride back, let his eyes roam round the small circle in the Pentecost Forest. Torches and men ringed them on every side like a crowd for a spectacle. Like an audience for the arena.

Getting closer.

Lund’s hard, scared voice chanting, ‘Drop the gun, Theis. Drop the—’

‘I covered my ears,’ Skærbæk said suddenly. ‘Because I couldn’t stand the way she screamed. Can you imagine?’

Birk Larsen glared at him, heard nothing else.

Skærbæk’s face was different now. Scared and desperate. Still determined.

‘When I pushed her in the water. On and on it went . . . Christ! She begged and screamed and . . .’

Skærbæk’s high, weak voice broke. His head twisted from side to side, in fear, in agony.

‘Nanna just kept pleading for me to get her out of there.’

Gun rising, Skærbæk’s anxious eyes on the big man with the grizzled face.

‘She called for you and Pernille. Pathetic. I can still hear it.’

A shrug of the shoulders of the green hunting jacket.

‘But I mean really. It was too late then, wasn’t it? She could scream all she liked but what the fuck could I do . . . where are your balls now, you cowardly jerk?’

The gun rose, yellow fire in the night, smoke and a high-pitched shriek.

The man in the long coat flew back. Clutched his chest. Fell on a hummock of low rushes. Face up to the night sky.

Up to Theis Birk Larsen, ignoring the calls around him. The woman, Lund. Pernille. Ignoring the black figures racing towards them.

Sees nothing but the man on the ground.

Gun to shoulder. Face set. Blinking into Skærbæk’s scared eyes.

Someone screaming, not that it matters.

Blood on the green coat. Blood on Vagn Skærbæk’s open, gasping mouth. Still breathing. Still alive.

‘You owe me,’ the stricken man says, the words coming with scarlet bubbles as he fights to speak. ‘You owe me now, you big idiot—’

A second shot sends the night birds scuttling through the branches in the dark wood where the dead trees give no shelter.

Then Theis Birk Larsen stands back.

Throws the hunting gun on the ground. Stares at the broken, contorted shape at his feet.

Then retreats.

No words. No need for them.

Around him dark figures circling.

Barking orders. Holding steady weapons.

He rolls round his pained, confused head, like a cornered beast, looks about him and sees.

There is a woman in a black and white jumper and she’s weeping.

A woman in a fawn coat. And she’s not.

Friday, 21st November

Five in the morning. Brix was in his office.

Lund waited by a window in the circling corridor outside, staring down into the yard in front of the prison cells that now held Theis Birk Larsen on a charge of manslaughter.

Soon it would be daylight, and with it a need for explanations. Press conferences. The case of Nanna Birk Larsen would be closed for good.

Brix looked at the lonely woman by the glass, lost in her thoughts. Lost in everything except herself. He wished, against his own instincts, he’d got to work with her more. Not know her better. That was a challenge beyond him. Beyond most, he felt.

‘Lund!’ he called, and beckoned her in.

She was still in her blue anorak and woollen jumper, caked with mud from the Kalvebod Fælled.

‘Did you find the photo?’

‘No. Take a seat.’

‘Leon Frevert . . .’

‘Lund.’

He tried to smile.

‘Forensics have matched residue on Skærbæk’s sweatshirt. We know he was the one who shot Meyer.’

She stared at him with those large, all-seeing eyes.

‘Bülow still wants your blood. He’ll complete his report. You can expect consequences. Especially for what you did in the car.’

‘Svendsen wouldn’t listen.’

‘You pulled a gun on him.’

She repeated, very slowly, ‘He wouldn’t listen.’

Brix waited for a moment.

‘Bülow isn’t the only one involved. I have some say. They’ll take into consideration the nature of the case. And the investigation.’

She was looking round the office, eyeing the evidence bags.

‘Your situation’s very serious.’

He noticed the door was still ajar. Brix got up and closed it.

Came and stood over her.

‘I can present you with an opportunity. It won’t stay open for long. You need to think about it.’

She stared at her filthy hands.

‘This case has caused a lot of difficulties. Everyone wants them to go away. For good.’

Hands in pockets, speaking confidently.

‘Certain aspects of the investigation will be omitted from the reports. Your allegation that someone was protecting figures in the Rådhus. The idea that there are other missing-person cases connected to Skærbæk.’

He sat down again.

‘The Nanna Birk Larsen case is dead. It’s going to stay that way.’

No answer.

‘In my view this is a good solution for you. For all of us.’

Lund folded her arms, said nothing.

‘I advise you to accept it.’

No answer.

‘Sarah, you solved the case. That’s the only thing that matters. If you agree you can get a job somewhere else. I can give you a reference. You can start—’

She got up, walked to the door, opened it.

‘Lund?’

Carefully, slowly, she brushed some of the muck from the sleeve of her black and white jumper.

‘The people upstairs are waiting for an answer.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ she said, then walked down the black marble corridor, past the office with the toy police car and the basketball net, past Jansen, past the noisy room where the homicide men gathered to tell their dirty jokes.

Out into the dark, cold morning.

At six o’clock Troels Hartmann woke in his office. A winter wind was howling. The tape on the broken window had worked loose. The icy gale was working its way into the room.

Stinking head, stinking breath. The empty brandy decanter on the floor, along with the papers, the speeches, the posters. Pretty much everything he could throw around on that long and bitter night.

Crouched on the floor and aching he pulled out his phone, called Brix.

‘I’m busy,’ the cop said. ‘I’ll get back to you when I genuinely have nothing better to do.’

The tone of his voice rankled.

‘This is important. Don’t hang up on me!’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s about the Nanna case. I tried to get you at home last night. You weren’t there.’

‘Working.’

‘I’ve discovered something. You’re going to have to look into it. The flat—’

‘I’m pleased you’re suddenly so cooperative, Hartmann. But you’re too late. The case is closed. For good this time. We found him. Nothing to do with you or the Rådhus. This was a . . .’ The cop paused, as he found what he was about to say distasteful. ‘A family affair, you might say.’

Hartmann stopped and found himself staring in shame at the mess around him. The bottles. The rubbish on the floor.

Thick head, sore throat, he went to the desk, sat down.

‘Who—?’

‘You’ll be hearing about it on the news soon enough.’

The photo Weber had found was still there. Nanna, smiling, arm through his. Looking up into his face.

He never did get her name.

‘Hello?’ Brix said.

‘He’s dead?’

‘Didn’t I just say that? Listen, Hartmann. I’ve got a lot to do—’

‘There’s something else.’

He could hear the tall cop sigh down the phone.

‘Make it quick.’

The rich smell of mahogany. The gilt. The frescoes. The warm and comfortable cell that enclosed Troels Hartmann seemed to wrap itself around him, whisper like a seductive siren in his ear.

‘It’s just that . . .’

His croaky voice died. He couldn’t speak.

‘I’ll send someone over later in the week if you want,’ Brix broke in. ‘Good luck with the election. And by the way. Don’t ever think of trying to lean on us the way your predecessor did. That’s not happening again.’

The line went dead. Hartmann found the remote control. Turned on the TV. Listened to the news.

‘Poul Bremer had another stroke late last night. He’s withdrawn from the election for the next city council. Bremer has been Lord Mayor of Copenhagen for twelve years. Our political editor says his decision to pull out of the race makes the election of Troels Hartmann a certainty . . .’

A knock on the door. A smiling blonde woman in a green dress came through. She had newspapers in her hand and said, cheerily, ‘Good morning.’