The Killing - 01 - The Killing (107 page)

She reached into the blue cagoule. The drizzle was pondering whether to turn to snow, settling on her, freezing her cheeks, making her simple ponytail hang icily against her neck.

Lund took out the last photo. The one she never showed Meyer.

Twenty-one years before. A fading Kodacolor snapshot. Outside a hippie house in Christiania, gaudy with peace and love signs. Three people. In the middle Mette Hauge, hair long and greasy, face blank and stoned. An innocent wandering from the straightforward pathway, out of curiosity and a childlike sense of excitement. As Pernille did once. As Nanna strayed too.

On Mette’s left a long-haired man with a Zapata moustache, a furrowed forehead, dark, deep-set eyes, what looked like a fresh knife slash across his right cheek.

Take away the hair. Age the scar. Cut and grey the moustache. John Lynge.

On the other side the young Theis Birk Larsen, huge and brutally imposing. Ginger hair, ginger stubble. Grinning triumphantly at the camera, blue jeans, a denim waistcoat with gang colours. Possessive arm around her. King of the quarter. On his bulging right bicep, just visible, a line of tattoos. Among them what looked like – had to be – a small black heart.

There was only one answer to the riddle she’d refused to answer in the hospital. Racked by grief and guilt and shame, Vagn Skærbæk sacrificed his life to keep this other Theis hidden. Buried the truth about Nanna out of horror that a worse nightmare might rise from the bleak wasteland of the Kalvebod Fælled alongside John Lynge’s black Ford dripping stagnant water and fresh blood. And take with it the secret miracle he cherished – envied – most of all, the precious bond of family, the ties that kept Pernille, Theis and the boys together in the face of a bleak, uncaring world.

All the lines were joined, in Lund’s head if no one else’s.

The wind murmured in the bare silver trees of the Pentecost Forest. She heard the soft hoots of owls, the pained screeches of a fox, the world breathing, rustling, moving. In her imagination she saw all the dead faces John Lynge had left rotting beneath the scummy water, watched their mouths open, heard them scream.

It was their shrieks with Nanna’s that woke her that first morning, before the trip to Sweden, asleep in the arms of Bengt Rosling, a man she’d never see again.

Cries she’d never lose. A guilt she couldn’t evade.

Seated on the hard ground, legs over the edge, Sarah Lund stared at the grainy snapshot leeching out its colour with age. Three faces, two dead, one living, trapped inside his own inarticulate guilt.

Eighteen months and Theis Birk Larsen would be back in the world, trying to rebuild his business, his family, to find the man he wanted to be, to lose the creature he once was.

Mette Hauge’s murderer. The proof was in her hands.

Watching the icy rain fall on the old snapshot in her fingers, Sarah Lund leaned against the cold metal railings, wondering whether to let go.

Also by David Hewson

Nic Costa series

A Season for the Dead

The Villa of Mysteries

The Sacred Cut

The Lizard’s Bite

The Seventh Sacrament

The Garden of Evil

Dante’s Numbers

The Blue Demon

The Fallen Angel

Carnival for the Dead

Other titles

The Promised Land

The Cemetery of Secrets

(previously published as
Lucifer’s Shadow
)

Death in Seville

(previously published as
Semana Santa
)

Acknowledgements

Trying to turn an epic television crime tragedy into an epic crime book is no easy feat, especially with a story set in a country I’d never visited before, one that is a million miles from the warm, outgoing climate of Italy where most of my work is located. I couldn’t have embarked on this journey without a lot of selfless, dedicated work from people close to this project both in Denmark and the United Kingdom.

Søren Sveistrup, the creator of the original series, very kindly made time from shooting the third
Killing
series to brief me on his thoughts, and then generously advise me to make up my own mind when it came to moving the story from screen to page. Susanne Bent Andersen of my Danish publisher, Engstrom, helped me enormously with local insight into the city and culture of Copenhagen, as did Søren’s ever-obliging agent Lars Ringhof. I was also assisted by countless individuals, too many to name, inside Copenhagen Police Headquarters, the city Rådhus, and other local institutions.

In the UK, my editor Trisha Jackson and her colleagues at Pan Macmillan – all dedicated Sarah Lund fans to a man and woman – were a constant source of advice, opinion and encouragement, as were many ‘civilian’
Killing
fans. Among the latter I’m especially grateful to Keith Blount, not only for his own insights into this story, but also for writing a piece of writing software, Scrivener, that allowed me to capture and control the three threads of the narrative from beginning to end (without which I can’t imagine how this major project could have been undertaken).

That said, this reimagining of the original story – and it is necessarily a different take since books and TV are not the same – is mine and mine alone.

Tak
.

David Hewson

First published 2012 by Macmillan

This electronic edition published 2012 by Pan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-4472-1357-4 EPUB

Copyright © David Hewson 2012

The right of David Hewson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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