The Killing 2 (19 page)

‘Why?’

‘He was invalided home. Everyone thought he’d be fine. What happened?’

The army man walked back to face her.

‘What have our private lives to do with you?’

‘There are some coincidences . . .’ Strange began.

‘I don’t give a damn about your coincidences. One of my men’s been murdered. We’ve got a terrorist threat to deal with. And you’re asking me about Raben?’

He was getting mad. Enjoying it. Lund wondered if this was part of the training. Just blank out the doubts with a sudden, all-consuming fury. Maybe that made life easier.

‘You do your job and we’ll do ours,’ Jarnvig barked, pointing a finger in her face. ‘I don’t want you wasting our time here any more.’

With that he walked straight into the gym.

Outside Strange called Operational Command, spent five minutes getting through to someone who could talk. They said Dragsholm was only at Oksbøl for a legal seminar.

‘Jarnvig could cause you a lot of problems for stealing that photo, you know,’ Strange added.

‘I’ll try not to let that keep me awake at night.’

‘Jesus!’ He was the one getting mad now. ‘Don’t you get it? Brix stuck his neck out for you. Hedeby could chop it off. So could that bastard König given half a
chance.’

They got back to the car. Strange put a hand on the roof, wiped his brow again.

‘Feeling better?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m so pleased.’

‘Can we go and pick on Kodmani now? You know, the one who had the dog tags? The one who hates us?’

Lund wasn’t listening. Louise Raben had walked out of the infirmary opposite. White nurse’s uniform, pale-grey sweater. Talking to one of the soldiers.

‘You do it,’ she said. ‘I’ll get a cab and catch up with you later.’

‘Lund? Where are you going?’

Louise Raben had gone back inside. Lund worked her way through the army vehicles, past the red and white Danish flags, and followed.

Erik König came to the Justice Ministry first thing.

‘Kodmani is behind a network called Ahl Al-Kahf,’ the PET man said. ‘It means the seven sleepers. It’s based on an old legend, about seven men oppressed by pagans who are
sent to sleep in a cave, waiting for the moment to wake and take vengeance on their enemies.’

Buch toyed with his coffee and pastry. He felt tired, grumpy, out of sorts. He missed home, his wife, the girls. The sky and fresh air. All his life now seemed bound up in the winding corridors
of Slotsholmen. And Grue Eriksen had been proved right. Later that day he was to be dragged in front of the Joint Council and asked to explain why a warning about a terrorist threat appeared to
have escaped him.

‘We have three suspects in custody. There are more to come.’

König seemed more a civil servant than a police officer. Quiet, calm, determined. Worried. Much like Carsten Plough who sat opposite him at the desk in Buch’s office. Buch was glad
Karina was around. She brought colour, life and a touch of rebellion to this dry, humourless place.

‘So you think the case is pretty much solved?’ Buch said.

‘Yes,’ König insisted. ‘The evidence is incriminating.’

‘And the threat?’ Plough asked.

König shrugged.

‘The threat’s always there. We’ll never lose it entirely. But with this we remove an entire level of their structure. It’ll take them years to rebuild. Give us a little
more time, Minister, and you can announce this.’ König paused, smiled. ‘I’m sure that will be helpful.’

Plough stared at him.

‘How did Birgitte Agger get hold of a confidential memo you wrote?’

The PET man bridled.

‘Not from us, that’s for sure. Have you looked for a leak here?’

‘For pity’s sake, man,’ Buch said with a long, deep sigh. ‘Why so touchy? I need to understand the course of events. What did my predecessor know? What action was taken?
And why?’

König was sweating.

‘The woman was in the army. The possibility of terrorism was apparent. So we sent Monberg a memo.’

Buch nodded.

‘And you didn’t think it sufficiently important to make sure I knew about it when I arrived here?’

‘It was in the file, wasn’t it?’ König said instantly. ‘I hardly think it’s our job to decide your reading list.’

‘Dammit,’ Buch roared. ‘I’m facing a Joint Council later. They’ll want to know why I was in the dark about a possible terrorist threat that you were aware of for
nearly two weeks. I would like some clarification. What did Monberg tell you?’

‘He was very concerned, naturally.’

‘So why didn’t PET inform the police?’

König bridled.

‘We were investigating terrorist activity. Domestic security is our responsibility. Not theirs.’

‘But murder is! Why keep them in the dark?’

König hesitated, glanced at Plough.

‘That was Monberg’s decision. He thought it was too . . . risky. He felt certain information might compromise national security.’

Buch’s walrus features creased in disbelief.

‘Here we go again.’ His fat forefinger jabbed across the desk. ‘If I find you’re lying to me, you will earn the privilege of being the first man I fire. What
information?’

König suddenly looked terrified.

‘It wasn’t my decision—’

‘What information?’ Buch demanded.

‘I don’t know,’ König said. ‘Monberg said he’d get back to me with an explanation. The next thing I know he’s in hospital. These are unusual
circumstances I’ll admit . . .’

Buch tapped his pen on the desk, exasperated.

König looked around the office.

‘I’d suggest, Minister, you’re more likely to find the answer here. Not with us. And I do not lie. To you or anyone.’

‘I’m glad about that,’ Buch said. ‘I had to fire fifty people in one day back home. It wasn’t pleasant.’ He put the cap back on his pen. ‘Though here .
. . in Slotsholmen . . .’

He gazed at the dry, humourless man in front of him.

‘Perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard after all.’

Twenty minutes later Plough had people dredging the email archives. Karina was going through the paper files.

Buch waited, bouncing his little rubber ball off the wall.

‘Monberg had a lot of the files shredded,’ Karina said. ‘I can only see two left.’

‘Birgitte Agger’s got a point,’ Buch said, and launched the ball at the wall again. ‘Monberg didn’t take the threat of terrorism seriously. Or at least if he did he
never told anyone. Just as no one told me.’

‘I was Monberg’s Permanent Secretary from the moment he came here,’ Plough complained, looking at another stack of Karina’s papers. ‘He was a very careful
man.’

‘He kept a terrorist threat to himself,’ Buch cried. His attention dropped. The ball flew off to one side, bounced off a portrait of a predecessor from the nineteenth century then
disappeared beneath the chairs.

‘Will you please stop doing that!’ Plough cried. ‘You’re damaging the walls. This is a historic building. It’s got protection.’

‘It’s a bloody ball,’ Buch muttered.

A lost ball now and he couldn’t be bothered to get on his hands and knees to find it.

‘Monberg must have had his reasons,’ Plough suggested.

‘Then tell me what they are . . .’

Karina had gone quiet as she read through something from the files. Both men stopped bickering, realizing this.

‘Perhaps I can,’ she said quietly.

Buch came over and looked at the papers in her hand.

‘This was listed for shredding too but the office hadn’t got round to it.’ Karina showed him. ‘Monberg requisitioned some records on Anne Dragsholm. From the Ministry of
Defence. He asked for personnel reports. Anything she’d written for them.’

Plough was fiddling with his glasses, fussily furious.

‘He couldn’t do that without my knowledge. All such requests must go through me. This is quite unheard of.’

‘Well he did,’ Buch pointed out. ‘Can you get me those reports? Could I kindly see what he saw?’

‘I’ll call someone in Defence. Karina? Get the minister ready for the Joint Council. Run through the possible questions.’

‘I can deal with questions any time,’ Buch snapped. ‘It’s answers I’m short of.’

Plough hurried through the door.

Karina stared at Thomas Buch.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I hate being in the dark. Was I a bit harsh with him?’

‘Plough’s quite a sensitive soul in some ways, I think.’

‘I’ll buy him a hot dog,’ Buch promised.

‘You need to practise these questions. If you don’t Birgitte Agger will rip you to pieces.’

The ball was under the sofa. Buch couldn’t take his eyes off it. She saw this too.

‘Not now,’ Karina said, getting up and kicking it out of sight.

A bearded man in a wheelchair pushed himself slowly up the aisle of Gunnar Torpe’s church. The morning sun streaming through the stained-glass windows was unforgiving.
His face was pasty, sick and sad. His green parka worn and dirty, his hair badly cut, not recently washed. But his face still seemed young, optimistic even. Naive.

He moved slowly through the gap between the pews, towards the figure in the Lutheran robes and ruff at the end.

‘Grüner,’ Torpe said. ‘Thanks for coming.’

‘That organ needs playing.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s the choir?’

‘The choir isn’t coming.’

‘Why not?’ David Grüner picked up the folder on his skinny, useless legs. ‘I brought my music.’

‘Someone’s here to see you.’

Torpe walked to the church doors and locked them. Raben emerged from behind the pulpit.

Grüner’s arms gripped the wheels of his chair, turned them slowly. Raben smiled, held out his hand, waited.

‘Stranger,’ the crippled man said.

‘We’re never strangers, David. We couldn’t be.’

Grüner laughed. So did Raben, though more easily. In the pale winter light under the dome their hands met.

A few minutes of small talk and silence. Raben sat on a pew. Grüner fidgeted in his wheelchair. His legs were so skinny. But there was life, a little laughter in his face.

‘The work’s boring,’ he said. ‘But it’s the best I can get. With these . . .’

He slapped his legs.

‘Beggars can’t be choosers. Or I’d be a real beggar. And that’s not on . . .’ His eyes went to the mosaics above the altar: a gold Christ with his disciples.
‘I’m a bit choosy. Priest lets me play the organ here. So he should. I’m good at it.’

‘How’s your wife?’

‘She’s fine with it now. Got a job in a supermarket. Between the two of us we’re doing all right.’

‘And the baby?’

Grüner laughed.

‘The baby? He’s two and a half. Not a baby any more.’ The smile disappeared. ‘Nothing stays the same. Except me.’

‘Don’t—’

‘You know the stupid thing, Raben? If I could walk I’d go straight back in there. Serve again. For all the shit and the pain. It’s what we do, isn’t it?’

‘I guess . . .’

‘When he grows up the kid wants to have a wheelchair.’ Grüner laughed again, spun round on the spot. ‘Just like Daddy. Got a beautiful boy. A loving wife. Got my music. A
crappy job. Could be worse.’

He leaned forward, put his arms on the pew.

‘When did they let you out?’

‘They didn’t. I walked.’

He got up, stood over the man in the wheelchair.

‘Did Myg look you up? There’s something happening.’

‘Jesus . . .’ Grüner wouldn’t look him in the eye. ‘They’ll lock you up for ever now.’

‘I was there for ever anyway.’

His voice was too loud. Raben could hear it echoing through the cold body of the church.

‘Raben—’

‘Myg’s dead. That lawyer woman too. Don’t you see the news?’

‘Yes. But Myg and me didn’t exactly exchange Christmas cards.’

Raben bent down, took hold of the arms of the wheelchair.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Who says anything’s going on? There are some terrorists—’

‘You believe that?’

Grüner looked at the mosaics.

‘I don’t know what to believe. Maybe it’s the will of God . . .’

Raben could feel his temper rising and couldn’t stop it. He bent down, spoke fiercely in Grüner’s ear.

‘God didn’t string Myg upside down and let him bleed to death. He visited me the day he was killed. He was worried about something—’

‘Don’t stir up that old shit!’ His voice was so loud it silenced Raben. ‘It’s dead. Keep it that way.’

His hands went to the wheels. Raben held them, locked them.

‘I don’t know what happened, Grüner. I don’t remember—’

‘Let me go, dammit.’

‘What do you know?’

He was still strong, fighting as hard as he could to get free.

‘I don’t know shit!’

The crippled man’s torso lurched forward. The wheelchair overbalanced. In one slow movement David Grüner tumbled face first onto the hard marble floor.

Raben tried to cushion the fall, caught most of it. Kicked the chair upright, struggled to drag Grüner back onto the seat.

‘Get your fucking hands off me!’

His voice was almost a falsetto. It rang shrill around the nave.

Raben stood back, held up his arms. Waited.

Something on the floor. Sheet music. He bent down, picked it up, placed it on the crippled man’s withered legs.

‘You’re crazy,’ Grüner grunted and started pushing himself towards the doors.

Raben strode past him, unlocked them.

‘If you want to talk to me call Priest. OK?’

No answer. He watched as the man who was once one of his strongest, bravest soldiers wheeled himself down the disabled ramp, moved off into the busy street.

Gunnar Torpe stayed behind in the nave.

‘What did he say?’ he asked when Grüner was out of sight.

‘Nothing. I need to get hold of the others.’

‘How can you do that? I don’t know where they are.’

‘You’ve got connections. Use them. Get me some addresses.’

The phone he’d taken from the kid at the petrol station was useless. They’d be listening.

‘I need a mobile. I’ve got to talk to Louise, tell her why I broke out.’

‘Tell me,’ Torpe said. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘In time . . .’

Still Torpe found him a spare phone. And a copy of the morning paper.