Bengt was a criminal psychologist. That was how they met. Through a drug murder in Christiania. The victim was one of his patients.
‘What about Mark?’ he asked.
‘He’s with my mother.’
‘I mean tomorrow. He’s supposed to be starting Swedish lessons at school. In Sigtuna.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘I’ll tell them he’ll be there on Wednesday.’
‘We’ll book another flight. I’ll let you know the time.’
Buchard came over and asked, ‘Is the girl connected to Hartmann?’
‘I’ll check.’
‘If a candidate’s involved report back to me.’
‘I can’t do this, Buchard.’
A horn was sounding. It was Meyer, cigarette in mouth, calling her.
‘Use him,’ she said.
The chief came close.
‘This shouldn’t be Meyer’s first case. Don’t ask. I’ll call the Stockholm police and clear it.’
‘No,’ she insisted. ‘It’s not possible.’
Lund walked away, back towards Meyer and the car.
‘You found this kid.’ Buchard hurried behind her, talking to the back of her shiny wet blue cagoule. ‘Would Meyer have done that? All he dug up was a dead fox in the woods.’
She stopped, turned, glared at him.
He looked like an old grizzled pug dog, had the same importunate eyes sometimes.
‘Just one more day, Sarah.’
Silence.
‘Do you want Meyer to talk to the parents?’
‘I hate you. You know that?’
Buchard laughed and clapped his fat little hands.
‘I’ll work through the night,’ Lund said. ‘In the morning it’s down to you.’
The morgue was deserted. One echoing antiseptic corridor after another.
Still in the black leather jacket and woollen hat, the scarlet cotton overalls, Theis Birk Larsen clumped across the clean tiles towards the single door at the end.
An anteroom.
Pernille there in her fawn gaberdine coat, turning to look at him, wide-eyed, face full of questions. He stopped two paces from her, no idea what to say or do. Felt shapeless words rise to his mouth then stay there, unfinished and uncertain, afraid to breach the cold dry air.
A big man, powerful, forbidding sometimes, silent, his gleaming eyes now pools of tears.
Ashamed when that broke her, made Pernille come to him, place her gentle arms around his shoulders.
She held him, damp face against his bristled cheek. Together they stood, together they clung to one another in close silence. Together they walked into the white room of brilliant tiles and medical cabinets, of taps and sinks and shining concave silver tables, of surgical implements, all the tools that codified death.
The cops led the way, the woman with the staring eyes, the surly, big-eared man. Walking towards a clean white sheet then stopping, half-looking at them in expectation, waiting. From the corner came a man in a surgeon’s suit, blue mob cap, blue bib, blue gloves. There’d been doctors like this when Nanna was born. Theis Birk Larsen saw this picture clear in his head. The same colours, the same harsh chemical smells.
Without a word, without a glance, the man was beside them, lifting the white cotton.
Pernille edged forward, eyes widening.
All the while the woman cop watched, every gesture, every breath and move.
Birk Larsen removed his black hat, embarrassed that he still wore it. Looked at the bloodless, bruised face on the table, the dirty stained hair, the lifeless grey eyes.
Images filled his memory. Pictures, sounds, a touch, a word. A baby’s cry, a much-rued argument. A hot afternoon by the beach. A freezing morning in winter, out on a sledge. Nanna tiny in the red Christiania trike Vagn fixed and painted, stencilling the logo
Birk Larsen
on the side.
Nanna older, climbing into it when she was sixteen, seventeen, laughing at how small it seemed.
Distant moments never to be recovered, unspoken promises never to be made. All the small pieces that once seemed so humdrum now shrieked . . .
See! You never noticed. And now I’m gone
.
Now I’m gone.
Pernille turned, walked back to the anteroom, the gait of an old woman, broken and in pain.
‘Is this Nanna?’ the woman asked.
He glared at her. A stupid question and she didn’t seem a stupid woman.
No
, Birk Larsen wanted to say.
It was.
Instead he nodded, nothing more.
Four of them face to face across a plastic table.
Plain facts.
Birk Larsen, his wife and their two young sons left for the seaside on Friday, returned Sunday evening. Nanna was supposed to be staying with friends.
‘What sort of mood was she in?’ Lund asked.
‘Happy,’ Birk Larsen said. ‘She dressed up.’
‘As what?’
‘A witch.’
The mother sat there, mouth open, lost somewhere. Then she stared at Lund and asked, ‘What happened?’
Lund didn’t answer. Nor Meyer.
‘Will someone talk to me! What happened?’
In the cold empty room her shrill voice bounced off the bare white walls.
Meyer lit a cigarette.
‘The car was driven into the water,’ he said.
‘Was she interested in politics?’ Lund asked.
Birk Larsen shook his head.
‘Did she talk to anyone who was?’
‘No.’
‘At the Rådhus maybe?’ Meyer wondered.
He scowled at the lack of an answer, got up and walked to the back of the room, making a call.
‘Boyfriends . . .?’
‘Not lately.’
‘How did she die?’ Pernille asked.
‘We don’t know yet.’
‘Did she suffer?’
Lund hesitated and said, ‘We’re not sure what happened. We’re trying to understand. So you haven’t talked to her since Friday? No calls? No contact? Nothing out of the ordinary?’
Narrow eyes, a bitter scowl, a note of sarcasm as he snarled, ‘The ordinary?’
‘Things you’d expect. It could be anything unusual. A little thing.’
‘I got cross with her,’ Pernille said. ‘Is that ordinary? She was being too noisy. I shouted at her for running around with her brothers.’
She watched Lund.
‘I was doing the accounts. I was busy . . .’
Birk Larsen wound his big arm round her.
‘She just wanted to play with them. Just . . .’
More tears, Pernille shook beneath his grip.
‘Just what?’
‘Just wanted to play.’
‘I’ll have someone take you home now,’ Lund said. ‘We need to seal off Nanna’s room. It’s important no one goes in there.’
Lund and Meyer walked them to the door where the uniformed men with the car were waiting.
‘If you think of anything . . .’ Lund said and handed Birk Larsen a card.
The stocky father looked at it.
‘How much do you know?’
‘It’s too early to say.’
‘But you’ll find him?’
‘We’ll do everything we can.’
Birk Larsen didn’t move. There was a grim, hard set on his face when he asked again, more slowly, ‘But you will find him?’
‘Yes,’ Meyer snapped. ‘We will.’
The father stared hard at him then left for the car.
Lund watched them go.
‘They just lost their daughter. And you’re yelling at them?’
‘I didn’t yell.’
‘It sounded like—’
‘This is yelling!’ Meyer bawled.
His voice was so loud the pathologist put his head round the corner.
Then, more quietly, Meyer said, ‘I didn’t yell.’
His bleak and watchful eyes caught her.
‘He hates us, Lund. You saw that.’
‘We’re police. Lots of people hate us.’
‘Picked his moment, didn’t he?’
Half past two in the morning. Hartmann was there when they got to the Rådhus. Rie Skovgaard, the slick attractive woman they’d seen at the school, sat on his left. Hartmann’s awkward fidgety middle-aged campaign manager, Morten Weber, was on the other side.
‘Thanks for coming in,’ Lund said.
‘We didn’t,’ Hartmann answered. ‘We just stayed. There’s an election coming. We work late. Did you find the girl?’
‘Yes.’ Meyer stared at the politician in the blue shirt, blue trousers. ‘She was in your rental car.’
Lund wrote out the number, placed it on the table.
‘Who was the last person to drive it?’
Hartmann sat rigid in his leather seat.
‘Our car?’
Meyer pushed the note closer to him.
‘That’s what we said. Can we have a little action now?’
‘I’ll check,’ Morten Weber said. ‘It’ll take a while.’
‘Why?’ Meyer wanted to know.
‘We’ve lots of cars,’ Weber said. ‘Thirty drivers. It’s the middle of the night. We still have people working. Let me make some calls.’
He left the table and went off into a corner with his phone.
‘What do they do, these cars?’ Lund asked.
‘Deliver campaign material,’ Skovgaard said. ‘Put up posters. That kind of thing.’
‘When did you send a car to the school in Frederiksholm?’
‘Probably Friday I guess . . .’
Meyer snapped, put his hands palm down on the table, leaned over and said, ‘Guessing isn’t much good. The girl’s dead. We need to know—’
‘We’ve nothing to hide,’ Hartmann broke in. ‘We want to help. It’s past two in the morning. We can’t pull answers out of a hat.’
‘Was Nanna Birk Larsen connected to your political work?’
‘No,’ said Skovgaard straight away. ‘She’s not on any of our lists.’
‘That was quick,’ Meyer said.
‘I thought you wanted quick.’
Weber returned.
‘The campaign secretary’s in Oslo right now.’
‘Screw Oslo!’ Meyer cried. ‘This is a murder case. Get some answers.’
Weber sat down, raised an eyebrow at him, looked at Lund.
Checking the hierarchy, Lund thought. Smart man.
‘So I asked the security desk. The keys were collected by Rikke Nielsen on Friday.’
‘Who’s she?’ Lund asked.
‘Rikke’s in charge of our team of volunteers.’ Weber shrugged. ‘Anyone can volunteer. We use temps when there aren’t enough.’
He glanced at Meyer who was now pacing the room, hands in pockets, like a cockerel pushing for a fight.
‘You’ve phoned her?’ Meyer demanded.
‘Her phone’s off. She’s probably organizing the posters.’
Meyer nodded sarcastically.
‘Probably?’
‘Yes. Like I said. Thirty drivers to coordinate. It’s a lot of work.’
‘Stop!’ Meyer was back at the table again. ‘There’s a dead girl and you’re sitting here as if it’s beneath you.’
‘Meyer,’ Lund said.
‘I want answers,’ he barked.
‘Meyer!’
Loud enough. He stopped.
‘Call headquarters,’ she ordered. ‘Give Buchard an update. Tell him we’re going to interview the volunteers.’
He didn’t move.
‘It’s past Buchard’s bedtime . . .’
She locked eyes with him.
‘Just do it.’
He went off to the window.
‘Do you have any idea where this woman is now?’ Lund asked.
Weber looked at a piece of paper. He highlighted something with a green marker.
‘My best bet.’
Skovgaard took it, checked the names, then handed it on.
‘The press,’ she said. ‘There’s no need for them to know.’
Lund shook her head, puzzled.
‘A young girl’s been murdered. We can’t keep this secret.’
‘No,’ Hartmann said. ‘If it was our car we need to issue a statement. It’s important no one can accuse us of hiding anything.’
‘I don’t want you making details public,’ Lund insisted. ‘You talk to no one but me.’
Skovgaard stood up, arms waving.
‘There’s an election going on. We can’t afford to wait.’
Lund turned to Hartmann.
‘The information we just gave you was confidential. If you choose to make it public and jeopardize a murder inquiry that’s your choice. You can live with the consequences. And there will be consequences, Hartmann. That I promise.’
Weber coughed. Skovgaard went quiet. Meyer looked pleased.
‘Rie,’ Hartmann said. ‘I think we can wait a while. Provided . . .’
The briefest, pleading smile.
‘Provided what?’ Meyer asked.
‘Provided you tell us when you decide to go public. So we can work together. Make sure everything’s right.’