The Killing - 01 - The Killing (82 page)

‘Go to your room,’ Edel Lonstrup ordered.

‘What things?’ Lund asked.

‘Dad’s things. Lots of them.’

‘They’re just old boxes!’ the mother bawled. ‘Go back to your room!’

‘We need to take a look,’ Meyer said. ‘Show us.’

Boxes of papers, no order, no logic in the dusty garage full of junk and cobwebs. A few crates had the company logo. The word Merkur in blocked blue type with a wing flying out from the left.

Lund sorted through ancient computer printouts. Meyer emptied box upon box onto the floor.

‘What exactly are we supposed to be looking for?’

‘A man.’

He kicked a crate. More papers flew around the room, more dust.

‘Nope,’ Meyer said. ‘Not there.’

The daughter stayed and watched from the shadows.

‘How old were you twenty-one years ago?’ Lund asked her.

‘Seventeen.’

‘What were they like? The men your father employed.’

‘Rough. Frightening. Big. Strong.’

She clutched her grubby cardigan as she spoke.

‘My mother said to stay away. They weren’t like us. They were . . .’

The daughter stopped.

‘They were what?’ Meyer asked.

‘They were moving men. All like that.’

‘All?’

Lund left the boxes and walked up to her.

‘The man we’re looking for might have been different. Not much older than you. Twenty, twenty-five. Perhaps he worked here part-time.’

‘They came and went . . .’

Lund was trying to imagine. If Bengt was right this man was organized, clever, persistent. He didn’t snatch women in the night. He hunted them, wound them in. Charmed them even.

‘He was probably different to the others. Better maybe. Smarter.’

She didn’t speak.

‘He’d like talking to girls. I think he’d talk with more respect than the others. More sympathy.’

A picture was starting to form in Lund’s head.

‘He’d be nice. Not rough. Not nasty. Next to them he’d seem charming, maybe. Was there anyone like that?’

Silence.

Lund took out a photo of the necklace with the black heart.

‘Have you seen this before?’

The woman came out of the darkness, into the light for the first time. She was, Lund thought, extraordinarily pretty, but damaged by something. The isolation. The loneliness.

Nothing.

‘Let’s go, Lund,’ Meyer said. ‘Is there somewhere I can wash this shit off my hands?’

The daughter pointed to the door. Waited till he was gone. Watched Lund.

When he was out of earshot she said, ‘There might be someone.’ Nervous, she turned her head, made sure Meyer wasn’t listening. ‘It won’t come from me, will it? My mother won’t—’

‘No one needs to know.’

‘They only want one thing. Men.’

‘Was he like that?’

She was remembering.

‘No. The others didn’t like him that much. They’d be messing round. Drinking. Smoking. Not doing a damned thing. He worked. He made sure they kept to the schedule if he could. They didn’t like that.’

‘What did he look like?’ Lund asked.

She shrugged.

‘Just ordinary. There was a picture of him with my father. But Mum threw it out. He was supposed to become the manager but I don’t know . . . something happened.’

‘What?’

‘I said. I don’t know. One day he was here. Then he never came back.’

Lund watched her face.

‘Did you miss him?’

Almost forty, dressed like a teenager, long hair turning grey. A life gone to waste.

Nothing.

‘If that was me,’ Lund added, ‘I wouldn’t have let anyone throw out that picture. I’d have gone back and got it. Kept it somewhere my mother didn’t know. That’s what pictures are for, aren’t they? Memories.’

Lund came closer. The daughter had the same fusty smell as the garage and the living quarters stuck onto the side. Damp and dust and cobwebs.

‘We need that picture . . .’

The long thin arms in the threadbare cardigan came out and gripped her tightly.

‘You mustn’t tell . . .’

The daughter glanced at the windows into the kitchen. There was no one there. Then she went to the back of the garage, carefully began to move sets of old shelves to one side.

Found something at the bottom. Began to sort through it.

Meyer had returned. He started towards the woman. Lund’s arm went out to stop him. Her thumb jerked at the door and she mouthed, ‘Out.’

She found the photo so quickly Lund wondered whether she looked at it every day. It was spotless, no dust. A good clear picture.

‘That’s my father. This is the man I was talking about.’

Lund examined the faces.

‘It was twenty years ago,’ the daughter said. ‘Why are you looking for him? What’s he done?’

Lund said nothing.

‘It can’t be anything bad,’ the woman with the greying pigtails added. ‘He wasn’t like that.’

Pernille sat at the kitchen table watching the video on Amir’s camera, trying to blink back the tears.

Theis was next to her, his hand on hers.

‘Was Amir involved?’ she asked after she watched Nanna blow them a farewell kiss.

‘No. The police said he waited for her at the airport in Malmö.’

She brushed her eyes, her cheeks with the sleeves of her shirt.

‘Why didn’t she tell us? Why keep it a secret?’

He kept staring at the last image of Amir and Nanna, frozen in time, all smiles. Couldn’t speak.

‘The Lund woman came and went through all her things again.’

She shook her head. Felt bleak and defeated again, just as she had before.

‘Something’s not right, Theis.’

His fingers left her hand.

‘Don’t start this again. They said the case was closed.’

‘So why did Lund come over?’

No answer.

‘They haven’t found him,’ she whispered. ‘You know that. They haven’t found him.’

A knock on the door. Leon Frevert stood at the threshold in his red overalls and black cap.

‘What?’ Birk Larsen asked.

‘Sorry but . . . Vagn wants you to come downstairs.’

‘Not now.’

The tall thin man looked scared, but he wasn’t moving.

‘I think you need to come, Theis. Please.’

Birk Larsen grunted and said, ‘OK.’

The men were all there, full-timers, part-timers, some he barely recognized. In their red uniforms, lined up in the office. Talking among themselves, not smiling, not looking at him as he came through the door.

Vagn Skærbæk stood at the front of the group, arms folded, talking and nodding.

The leader, always.

They had rows sometimes. People walked out. Didn’t always come back.

That, Birk Larsen thought, was the business.

His business.

So he walked straight in, said, ‘What the hell is this? Either work or go home, will you?’

Skærbæk turned and faced him. Shifty-looking, glancing at the floor.

‘Theis—’

‘Not now.’

‘Now, Theis. We have a problem.’

Skærbæk met his eyes finally. Silver necklace glittering. Face serious, resigned.

‘What’s that?’

‘This house of yours in Humleby. Don’t get us wrong. We’re glad it’s working out. We really do but . . .’

He frowned.

‘It’s getting in the way. We come here to work for customers. Instead we keep stopping to move bricks and wood and all that shit to Humleby. This can’t go on . . .’

Birk Larsen closed his eyes, tried to find the words.

‘Truth is, Theis, you won’t have that place fixed up by Christmas the way things are going. So we’ve decided. Sorry. But this is final . . .’

That nod of his little head.

‘We’re going to fix it for you.’

A warm roar of laughter, someone slapped his back. Birk Larsen looked at their beaming faces.

‘A couple of us are going to work each evening and a couple more at weekends.’

‘You bastards . . .’ Birk Larsen muttered, shaking his head, wiping his eyes.

‘The basement’s first. Then the kitchen and the bathroom.’

He pulled out a list of materials.

‘Rudi’s cousin’s a plumber so we get that stuff at cost and a little on the side. He needs moving soon so we can do a deal. The rest will cost you beer.’

He nudged Birk Larsen’s elbow.

‘Best start saving, Theis. These guys drink. And . . .’

Skærbæk fell silent. They all followed the direction of his puzzled gaze.

Lund and Meyer walked into the garage, were doing what they always did, looking around.

Birk Larsen swore then marched out to meet them.

‘We’ve got new information,’ Meyer said. ‘It changes things.’

Birk Larsen stood in front of his men outside the office.

‘Last time you told us this was done with.’

‘I know. I was wrong. We have to reopen the case.’

‘I want you to leave.’

‘We can’t do that.’

‘If you want to talk to me again, do it through the lawyer.’

‘It’s not you we want to talk to,’ Lund cut in. ‘It’s one of your men. Vagn Skærbæk.’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ Birk Larsen bellowed. ‘What?’

Lund walked past him, went to the office, noticed one lean figure scuttling to the back of the room, jerking his baseball cap over his face. Thought of what the daughter had said: they’re all footloose. Gypsies.

It wasn’t Skærbæk. He’d stayed where he was, glaring at her.

‘You should leave Theis alone,’ he said. ‘Hasn’t he been through enough?’

‘Can we have a word, Vagn?’

Wide eyes, silver neck chain glittering, he came out, stood next to Birk Larsen.

‘What is it, Theis?’

‘They want to speak to you.’

‘About what?’

Meyer said, ‘You’re coming with us.’

‘Why?’

‘Get in the car or we arrest you. What’s it going to be?’

Skærbæk looked at Birk Larsen, head to one side, bemused.

‘Is this a joke?’

‘No joke,’ Meyer said. He looked at his watch. ‘It’s ten thirty-seven. You’re under arrest.’

He reached into his back pocket, took out the handcuffs, waved them at Skærbæk.

‘Is that what you want?’

‘Take it easy, for Christ’s sake.’

Pernille was there now.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

‘Search me.’ Vagn Skærbæk saw the cuffs waved again and said, ‘I’m coming. I’m coming.’

The tall figure at the back of the office was still hiding in the shadows, pulling his baseball cap down over his eyes. Lund wanted to look but Meyer was getting impatient.

‘If there’s news,’ she told Pernille Birk Larsen, ‘we’ll call.’

Hartmann was in front of the press conference. Black suit, black shirt and tie.

‘The charge against the Lord Mayor could hardly be more serious. He knew about Jens Holck’s criminal activities. Gert Stokke wrote the minutes of the meeting.’

He held up the papers Skovgaard had found.

‘This is the proof. We’ll distribute copies. Because Bremer never came forward with this knowledge I was discredited. More importantly the city of Copenhagen was deceived by the man elected to lead it. Bremer deliberately misled the police and their inquiries. He wasted their time and our money to cover for a killer. All out of nothing more than his own political gain.’

Hartmann looked round the room.

‘We deserve better than this. We must get better. I’ve reported Poul Bremer to the police.’

‘What did the police say?’ one of the reporters called out.

‘They’ll investigate. I regret the focus of this election has shifted once again.’

‘Will he be charged?’

‘That’s up to the police.’

Erik Salin was in the front row. Bald head. Beaming smirk.

‘Five days left to the election, Hartmann. Aren’t you getting a bit desperate?’

They all waited.

‘I’ll let the people decide that,’ Hartmann said. ‘Thank you.’

Thirty minutes later he was back in his office watching Bremer respond live on the news.

He might have predicted the reaction.

‘This is all a lie,’ the Lord Mayor said. ‘I never had that conversation with Stokke. These so-called minutes are forged. Fabricated for the occasion.’

‘By Troels Hartmann?’ the interviewer asked.