‘Out!’ Brix ordered, and watched him dragged from the room.
Next door Meyer was going through more reports from forensics. Brix walked in, saw the stamp on the cover, said, ‘I hope to God they’ve found some hard evidence Nanna Birk Larsen was in that cottage.’
Meyer shook his head.
‘Not a thing. Not a single head of hair. No evidence of sexual activity. No sign of violence. Lund said—’
Brix snatched the report from him, tore through the pages.
‘Forget Lund. There were traces of blood in the utility room.’
‘Yes. Fish blood. Very old.’ Meyer leaned back in his chair. ‘Is fishicide a crime? I don’t recall—’
Brix’s phone rang. He listened. Barked, ‘No, I damned well didn’t. Let me deal with it.’
He glared at Meyer.
‘Has Lund put out a call for Phillip Bressau’s car?’
‘You mean the white car he can’t account for? The white car he’s hiding from us? Yes. She has. Bressau’s probably the hit-and-run driver.’
‘Bressau’s wife and children are at Soro police station. They were stopped by a patrol. The car doesn’t have a scratch.’
‘It’s a white car from City Hall. I don’t believe it, Brix. The car that killed Olav Christensen came from there.’ Meyer was close to losing it. ‘Every time we step inside the Rådhus those bastards go out of their way to lie to us. Why doesn’t this bother you? Who did you just speak to?’
‘You’re a big disappointment to me sometimes. Where’s Lund?’
Meyer ran his finger down the address list and the tally of white cars. Life had been too busy to get far with them. He hadn’t even checked two thirds down the list. Until then.
‘Oh shit,’ he muttered then grabbed for the phone.
Lund didn’t answer Meyer’s call. She’d tracked down Jens Holck to a half-finished block of flats in Valby and was listening to him talk about the Latvia trip.
‘You saw Phillip Bressau?’
‘Only on the plane over and then back again. He doesn’t say much. Bremer and Bressau went to some meetings in Riga. The rest of us stayed in Saldus.’
Holck looked tired, unshaven. He might have been drinking.
‘Did Bressau make many calls?’
‘I don’t remember. I’ve got to go now.’
‘Do you still have the itinerary for the trip? Hotels. That kind of thing. It would be a big help.’
He looked at his watch.
‘I’ll have a look,’ Holck said. ‘Wait here.’
She watched him go back into the building. A light went on upstairs. Lund walked over to the garage, wandered down the ramp.
The place was a converted warehouse. The basement seemed big, probably had some industrial use once.
She pulled out a torch. Shone it into the black maw ahead.
Nothing.
Walked further.
At the very end stood a shape draped in a black tarpaulin.
Lund looked at her phone. No signal.
She walked up to the tarpaulin, dragged it off from the front.
Stood back and looked.
A white estate car. Windscreen smashed and smeared with blood. Front a wreck. Blood there too. Driver-side mirror hanging against the door.
Enough.
She cut the torch, marched back into the cold, gloomy night, went back to the unmarked police car.
No keys.
Lund checked the dashboard, the floor. Kept looking.
Went into the glovebox. Snatched the Glock from beneath the packs of Nicotinell and tissues.
Held it low. Looked around.
‘Holck?’ Lund called. ‘Holck?’
Meyer was driving like a lunatic, blue light flashing, alone. Fielding a stupid call from Brix in his ear.
‘Did Lund call?’ Meyer asked.
‘Don’t ever walk out on me,’ Brix bellowed. ‘Get back here.’
‘I’m going to Holck’s house. He had an affair with Nanna. He got the key to the flat from Olav.’
‘The accounts show Hartmann approved the money.’
‘Oh wake up, man! Holck doctored them. He’s been fitting up Hartmann all along. Holck’s got a white estate. No one’s seen it since Olav got killed.’
‘That doesn’t prove anything.’
‘I gave Lund Holck’s address! She’s there on her own. Send some patrol cars now.’
‘What about Hartmann?’
‘Hartmann’s nothing to do with it! We need to get to Lund now! You know what she’s like. She’ll walk in blind on her own.’
A long pause. Meyer threw the car round the side of a sluggish delivery van, slammed on the horn, forced a couple of vehicles coming the other way onto the kerb.
‘I’ll send one car,’ Brix said. ‘Keep me posted.’
Lennart Brix called Hartmann back to the interview room and ordered him to take a seat.
‘Have you heard from my lawyer?’
‘I want to ask you about Jens Holck.’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake. I’ve told you everything I know. There’s an important vote at—’
‘Could Holck have doctored your books?’
‘What are you talking about? What books?’
‘The accounts that show you authorized the money for Olav.’
‘So now you think Jens did it?’
‘Just answer the question.’
‘Maybe. I run the department. I don’t do book-keeping.’
A glance at his notes then Brix asked, ‘Has Holck been acting strangely?’
‘What kind of a question is that?’
Brix’s phone rang.
‘She’s not at the address I gave you,’ Meyer said. ‘The house was for sale.’
‘Is she at City Hall?’
‘No. I called. You’ve got to put out a call for her.’
‘It’s not the first time Lund’s gone off on her own.’
‘Listen to me, Brix! There’s something really wrong here. She’s on her own and I’m damned sure Holck’s our man.’
‘You’ve been sure in the past too.’
‘Are you going to help me or not?’
Brix took the phone away from his ear, looked at Hartmann.
‘Where’s Jen Holck living at the moment?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Holck isn’t at his house. Do you have another address for him?’
‘I don’t know. He got divorced a few months ago. I think he’s been living with relatives.’
‘What relatives?’
‘I don’t know. What’s going on?’
Brix picked up the phone.
‘Hartmann says he’s staying with relatives. He doesn’t know where.’
He cut the call. Hartmann was staring at the clock on the wall. Twenty past eight.
‘If you think Holck did it why am I here?’
Brix waved to one of the guards.
‘Take him back to his cell.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ Hartmann whined. ‘The meeting starts soon.’
He struggled as the guard grabbed his arm, fought a little, not much.
‘You know I didn’t do it. Do you think you can bury all this when I get free? Do you think that’s going to happen, Brix?’
The tall cop stopped by the door.
‘Here’s the deal,’ Hartmann said, leaning across the table. ‘I walk from here. I do nothing about the persecution. The false arrest. The illegal search and entry. The trouble I could cause you . . . I forget everything.’
Brix was listening.
‘In return you keep what I told you private. Truly private. No leaks to the press. No hints about a suicide attempt. Nothing. You say Hartmann was interviewed because of a misunderstanding. Found innocent, released. End of story.’
Brix took a deep breath, put a long finger to his cheek.
‘I could be Lord Mayor within a week. It’s best we have good relations. We should start that now.’ He held out his hand. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘Stay there,’ Brix ordered.
Then he walked out into the corridor and called control.
‘Put out a search for Lund.’
No sign of Holck anywhere. Lund walked down into the basement for a second look.
Torch in left hand, gun in her right, she moved ahead, searching, sweeping.
The place smelled of damp and dust and spilled oil. There were sets of tools in racks on the walls. A stack of wooden pallets. An engine in pieces. A half-built piece of furniture, a wardrobe maybe, bare wood with hammers, screwdrivers, nails and a saw by the side.
No sign of Holck.
She moved on, past bags of cement, past tiles and bricks.
The Glock trembled in her hand. She’d never fired it, not outside the practice range. The white beam of the torch shook with her movement. Caught nothing.
Stupid, she thought. Going in on her own. Not calling Meyer. Bringing in back-up, some help.
Why did she do this?
Lund had no idea. It was how she was. Who she was.
The woman who clawed her way to the rank of Vicekriminalkommissær in homicide. Kept her job through results, not politics or some concept of equality she privately despised.
She was a good cop. A good mother. Someone who cared.
But she was on her own, still. Maybe always would be. An outsider. An awkward fit, with her plain clothes, simple ponytail, her shining eyes that never ceased looking.
Lund went in alone because she felt like it. She wanted to be first. To see their faces when they came later, following.
Usually it worked.
One last flash of the beam into the corner. A row of ceramic shapes, baths and washbasins, toilets and bidets.
Lund swore, turned, was walking to the exit, determined to call Meyer, furious with herself for being so stupid, so impetuous.
A shape flitted through the dark, left to right.
The gun stayed where it was. Down. A weapon wasn’t her first natural response and never would be.
She wanted to talk first. She wanted to know.
‘Holck . . .’
The shape again. Something his hand. A wheel brace, four steel iron legs, like a weapon from the Middle Ages.
Closer.
Too close.
She could hear him. The sweep of his arm.
The gun moved but not much and not quickly.
He dodged to one side, was replaced by something flashing through the torch beam towards her.
The hard iron fell on Sarah Lund’s skull, sent her crashing to the hard floor.
It was a business hotel in Bredgade just off the shopping street of Strøget. A hundred kroner for a Scotch. Not much less for a beer.
Pernille sat at the bar, bag by her side. Third stop of the night. Hard spirits in every one.
The way it used to be when she was young and nothing really mattered. When she could sneak out past her parents, go down to the rough areas, the forbidden places, see where the night took her.
By her side was a man she’d have laughed at back then. Portly, self-satisfied, tanned, in a suit that was a touch too small for him. But he was buying.
‘I’ve got my own company,’ he said, ordering some more drinks. ‘I started it from scratch.’
It was a hotel bar. They were the only people there. The locals never came. Only visitors stranded in the city, lonely for the night.
‘It took me five years.’ He was Norwegian. ‘I’ve got thirty employees, a branch in Denmark, and production in Vietnam.’
The television was on. It was talking about a fresh turn in the City Hall elections.
He moved his seat closer, saw she was watching the TV.
‘A nasty case. It made the papers in Oslo.’
‘The council will vote on excluding Hartmann,’ the newsreader said. ‘He’s due to be charged, though we’re now hearing from sources this may not . . .’
He touched her arm.
‘Do you travel a lot?’ The man laughed. ‘They say life’s nothing without travel. They don’t do it for business. Twenty nights a month. . .’
He toasted her.
‘But sometimes you get to talk to a nice lady, in a nice bar. It’s not so bad.’
He was smiling and it was close to a leer.
She took a long swig of the drink. She didn’t much like it.
Didn’t much like anything any more. The boys. Lotte. Theis. Locked in this endless search, the hunt for an explanation, a reason, her life had entered a strange limbo. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t feel, couldn’t laugh, think straight.
Pernille thought of her old self, the pretty young girl, the one who flitted from bar to bar in dark and dirty Vesterbro, tempting the young blades till she found the right one.
Nothing mattered.
Then and now.
She looked at the man next to her. Wondered what he was like at that age. Cocky. Good-looking. Weak and obedient.
‘Let’s go to your room,’ she said.
The Norwegian stared at her, dumbstruck.
Pernille got up, picked her bag off the floor.
With anxious fingers he grabbed his key.