The Killing - 01 - The Killing (67 page)

‘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.