Life and Limb (35 page)

T
he church was fairly empty.

There was Winkler and his niece, Alice, to whom Dicte had been briefly introduced; the parish clerk; the sexton, and the detectives, Jan Hansen and Arne Petersen, who were sitting discreetly in the back pew. There were also a couple of right-wing extremists with bulging muscles, shaven heads and tattoos, dressed in short black nylon jackets, but they kept to themselves. And two other men were sitting on separate pews, although they were clearly together. PET had turned up, she guessed from the anonymous trenchcoats over their suits and Ecco-style shoes.

Dicte nodded to the two detectives and slipped into a middle pew. They had to attend the service. Killers had been known to attend the funerals of their victims, but in addition to that they had come out of respect and for propriety's sake. PET, however, was only there to monitor the right-wing extremists. They had no interest in waiting to see if the killer might show up.

While the vicar said something suitably anodyne, she thought about another funeral earlier that summer – that of Dorothea Svensson, when the stadium murder had set the ball rolling. It had been a very different farewell to life. The mood had been sad but also warm and beautiful. Tears had flowed.

This funeral was nothing like that. Here, faces showed only hard exteriors and indifference, with the exception of Winkler's, which she had seen when she shook his hand. He had thanked her for coming with watery eyes and a wistful smile.

The service proceeded in a calm, orderly manner. She stayed in the background. Afterwards the flowers were laid out on the unmarked grave where the urn would be interred after cremation.

She glanced around as they accompanied the coffin to the hearse, but there was nothing unusual to be seen, nor had she expected it. He wasn't that stupid.

‘Would you like to join us? We're having coffee at Alice's,' Winkler said when the hearse had left.

She almost didn't have the heart to decline his invitation but she did, with the excuse that she had to file a story. Then she watched as everyone hurried to their cars. That included PET and Hansen and Petersen. The police didn't have the resources, even if it had occurred to them to wait. Besides, Wagner had other plans for them. He had planned a raid where they would strike several locations at once, and she had arranged that Bo and Helle would be with them from the start. Bo had moaned about it and asked what she would be doing, then he had accepted her excuse of going to the funeral and an urgent deadline – and besides, he wasn't immune to Helle's charm and boundless admiration.

Dicte stared after the last mourners as the PET vehicle left the car park, a scrunch of gravel under the tyres. She looked at her watch. The time was four o'clock. She had a long wait ahead.

She went back to her car to fetch the things she had packed earlier: a small folding stool, a blanket and a bag with a flask of coffee, a flask of brandy and some sandwiches. In the car she changed from her skirt and heels into jeans and trainers. She had also packed a book, a flashlight and two knives that she had bought in a hunting-and-fishing shop. She slid one in its sheath onto her jeans belt. The other she strapped to her shin under her jeans. She put on a jumper and a dark wind jacket – the weather was grey, Danish summers were prone to showers – and walked across the cemetery looking for a place to hide.

Soon she found one in the middle of a large funeral plot where the shrubbery was dense and fairly high; from there she could make out a section of the unmarked grave area, the fresh flowers and a few final messages for Arne Bay. She set the stool behind a wide juniper bush, switched her phone to silent and sat down to wait.

She made short work of the first cup of coffee, unwrapped a sandwich and ate it. Then she took out the book and started reading
Enigma
by Robert Harris, about the British code-breakers at Bletchley Park during World War II.

While she sat there she kept an eye on the time and watched the sun traverse the sky, mostly behind cloud cover, but nevertheless it was still evident.

Three hours had passed, the clouds were building and a few drops of rain fell as doubts started to creep in, and Dicte wondered whether perhaps she should have covered the raids that might already be under way. Perhaps her instinct had failed her. Perhaps she had sat here in vain.

But, deep down, she knew she had made the right choice. He would come. At some point he would appear. They were brothers. ‘A love–hate relationship' was how Winkler had put it. The same as she had with her own family.

She had wondered how she would have reacted if it had been her sister's funeral. The sister who had shunned her, who had chosen a life with Jehovah. And this was the answer: she would wait. She would let the others say their goodbyes first. Then she would bide her time until she could be sure she wouldn't bump into anyone she knew. And then, possibly under cover of darkness, she would turn up and take her leave. She would stand there for a long time, look at the flowers and the fresh grave, and be consumed with sadness and grief that they had never loved each other the way sisters should – not since Jehovah had entered their childhood. She would let the tears flow freely, if she was able to cry, and find consolation that way. Then she would lay a flower or something symbolic and turn around to go.

It had started to rain; it wasn't just spitting now. The pages of her book were wet and she could barely make out the print. She didn't want to switch on the flashlight. Nearby she heard thunder and a few seconds later a flash of lightning tore across the sky.

She pulled up her hood and tied the strings. Finally she heard the sound. Tyres crunching on gravel. She looked at her watch. The time was 10:05 p.m.

T
ime had passed now and she was able to breathe freely.

Kiki inhaled as deeply as she could and felt the air reach all the way to the bottom of her lungs. She had had a fit when he had tried to put the gag back into her mouth. All the hours she had survived; all the time she had resisted the grip of claustrophobia and forced herself to breathe through her nose, and then suddenly panic overpowered her and mucus plugged her throat like a cork. She had gurgled and whimpered and blacked out several times until finally it had occurred to him to remove the gag.

‘I've got asthma,' she whispered. ‘I'm going to need my inhaler soon.'

He had returned her to the coffin without the gag and the ropes this time. Not that they were necessary. By now she was so weakened by blood loss and pain that she was barely conscious. Her thoughts merged into dreams and nightmares and then into nothingness, and in between she would wake up thinking she was dead. She certainly wished she was.

Then there was the tiny bell tinkling at the back of her head. She didn't know where it came from, but she knew what it wanted to tell her:
Don't give up. Don't give up.

She mouthed the words, although no sounds emerged. But they were inside her and she marvelled. What, ultimately, did she have to live for? What was her life worth with her shame and her guilt, and her lust always there like a deep black void that could never be filled, and the self-loathing that followed her like a shadow?

She thought about the swans. He had removed the blindfold from her eyes, but she could barely see anything. She could make out the holes he had drilled so that she could breathe and she dreamed about the swans and their chattering and the
whoosh
of their wings. She dreamed about freedom.

T
he figure moved in the twilight.

Dicte sat very still, watching the shadow as it walked restlessly around the cemetery – tall, thin and stooped. She thought about the ferryman, Charon. She also thought about death as represented by the man with the scythe, coming to reap his harvest. People had always given a body and a face to death. She saw Death riding a white horse; she saw him as a skeleton and as a human being with his guts spilling out, as in medieval paintings. Perhaps this was how he saw himself. As someone who reaps his just rewards.

At last he found what he was looking for: the fresh flowers and the ribbons with the final messages, which he squatted down to read. The rain was falling harder. Thunder was approaching. Every now and then Thor's hammer would strike above the arched sky and the crash would soon be followed by lightning ripping the clouds apart.

Under cover of thunder she carefully got up and crept between the bushes in the cemetery while he had his back to her. She walked across the graves in the lawn, avoiding the gravel and without making the tiniest sound, until she reached where his black van was parked.

Her car was parked on a side road nearby. She had weighed the pros and cons, but she didn't dare run the risk. She couldn't be sure she would be fast enough to tail him once he was ready to drive off. There was only one other option, and she had considered it so many times that she had lost count. She hated the idea of it, but ultimately it was the only option.

She patted her pockets. She had everything: the knives, her mobile, the flashlight. Even so, it could still go wrong. It could go very wrong indeed. But she dismissed the thought. She couldn't save Peter Boutrup; she was
unfit
. The word still stuck in her mind and flayed her vanity. She couldn't even donate a kidney if she wanted to. But
this
was something she could do.

She got hold of the sliding door at the side of the van and pulled it open. It was dark inside and at first she couldn't see a thing. She jumped in and closed the door behind her, striking something that felt and smelled like a sack of tools. And then she practically stumbled over what seemed like a rail. She touched it in the dark. On the rail was some sort of stand – no, it was something else. Her hands touched something soft – a blanket? It reminded her of a mattress. A bed. He had a bed in his van and it was attached to a rail. There were also straps so that someone could be tied to it.

Then she realised: the van was equipped like an ambulance. A stretcher that could easily be pushed into the back by just one man. She imagined that this was how he moved the dead bodies. On the rails. She imagined how Mette Mortensen and later Kiki Laursen had lain there, semiconscious, possibly anaesthetised by Flunitrazepam as they were transported to their fates.

She sat down, rested her head against the edge of the stretcher and waited.

J
ohn Wagner checked his watch – 10.30 p.m. He had an unpleasant feeling in his stomach that something was about to go terribly wrong. It sent signals all the way up to his throat. He caught himself thinking what a disaster it would be if he had a turn like the one he had in the bathroom, this time while in the car heading up an operation to raid five locations at the same time. It would be a real disaster.

The fear of heartburn was quickly replaced by adrenaline pumping when the voice of the head of the armed-response unit crackled through the radio to say that they were inside.

‘I'm bloody off, I am,' said Bo from the back seat where he and Helle, wearing bulletproof vests, had been ordered to remain until the signal was given.

‘You're not going anywhere,' Wagner said. ‘That's the deal. You'll do as you're told.'

Bo muttered something Wagner chose to ignore. Everyone's nerves were stretched to the limit.

Another message came in. It was from the officers who had been sent to Claes Bülow's home address in Skåde Bakker.

‘We went in but no one was there,' said the head of the raid. ‘The place is deserted.'

Wagner sighed and thanked him; it was what he had expected. They were too late and it was highly likely that Bülow was now safely with his family in Malaga. And he would be staying there for a very long time, because the Spanish authorities would refuse to extradite him. This was how it was with fraudsters: they nearly always walked free.

Wagner sighed into the stuffy air of the car.

It had taken too long to organise everything. Time had dragged while finding a judge to grant the necessary warrants and authorise the raid. Where was the evidence? They had only circumstantial evidence, the judge had said, until Wagner had banged the table and argued that Kiki Laursen might still be alive and being kept prisoner at one of the locations they intended to raid.

‘Have you heard from your girlfriend?'

He threw the question over his shoulder to Bo, who replied with a discontented grunt.

‘I keep texting her, she's not replying. Nothing new there.'

‘But she attended the funeral?'

Jan Hansen, next to him in the passenger seat, nodded.

‘She was there when we left.'

‘Do you know where she is?' Wagner asked Bo.

‘No. And I'm starting not to care, either,' Bo said, though sounding very much as if he did.

‘Wonder what she's up to,' Hansen said to no one in particular.

There was, however, no time for profound reflection because another message came in. No one had been found at Kim Deleuran's home address, a first-floor flat in Trøjborgvej. In fact, it didn't look as if anyone had been living there for a while. Nor had his colleagues at the hospital seen him for several days.

‘Ah, well, it was always a long shot,' Wagner said. ‘So where the hell is he?'

The radio crackled again. They heard fragments of indistinguishable voices. And then they heard something that made all of them sit up in their seats: two shots ringing out in quick succession and then the stunned voice of the unit leader.

‘We're being shot at.'

‘Where are you? How many of them are there?'

‘In the basement. Looks like a couple of them,' the voice said. ‘Permission to return fire.'

Wagner gave permission and soon they heard several more shots and what might have been close combat. On another frequency they were told that five officers had entered the private home of the undertaker Marius Jørgensen in Viby and detained him and his son. The house had been sealed and the business premises in Vestergade were also under police guard so that Forensics could start looking for evidence in the morning.

Wagner narrowed his eyes and looked at the StemBank building that was now bathed in light. He spoke into the microphone to the unit leader.

‘Do you require assistance?'

A short silence followed. His thoughts had time to twist and turn in every possible direction, to fall down every black hole imaginable, feeding on a police officer's worst fears. What if there were police losses? Had he made the right decision?

These thoughts were quickly followed by his suspicion that Kiki Laursen might be inside the building. It was likely, he concluded, since the building had armed security guards.

Finally the unit leader responded: ‘Two enemy guards and one of ours are down. We need three ambulances. The building is secured.'

‘Are they badly hurt?'

‘Difficult to say. Our officer was hit in the thigh. Bleeding heavily. We're applying pressure. The other two appear to have received only superficial injuries, one to his shoulder and the other his foot, I think. They have been handcuffed and rendered harmless. We've confiscated two firearms, four knives and a knuckleduster.'

Hansen called for three ambulances and soon they could hear the sirens from Ringgaden.

‘No one else in the building?' Wagner said, still hoping.

‘Nope.'

‘Found any hostages?'

‘No, none of those, either.'

‘May we come in?'

‘Yes. You're safe to enter,' the unit leader said. ‘We promise not to shoot.'

‘Thank you, much appreciated.'

At first glance the StemBank building was empty and ghostlike. Offices and labs stood open – the doors had been kicked in – and were gaping empty, except for equipment and furniture. The whole building was bathed in a cold fluorescent light.

They heard the sirens of the ambulances outside and soon the Falck crew came running with three stretchers.

‘Downstairs,' Hansen said, directing them.

Wagner and Hansen followed them with Bo and Helle at their heels. Bo took pictures of absolutely everything. Wagner wished he would pack it in.

Finally they reached the cold-storage facility that hummed and filled the large room. One white upright freezer after another generated heat which it discharged into the air. Some of the freezers weren't quite as pristine as others. Someone who had been injured and bleeding must have pressed against the doors and crawled along the panels; there were also blood trails on the floors. Two skinheads lay handcuffed and groaning. Wagner recognised one of them as Martin Brøgger, one of Arne Bay's three close friends. He had never seen the other man before.

The officer in charge of the raid had removed his helmet and was nodding to them. His officer was already on the stretcher and in the process of being carried upstairs. He was conscious and Wagner went over to him.

‘You did a good job tonight. Are you all right?'

The man nodded, mouth pursed and pale, teeth chattering.

‘I think so,' he said tightly. ‘At least we got them.'

Wagner nodded.

‘You certainly did.'

He looked around the room. He and Hansen exchanged looks. Then they started opening the freezers. Most of them were empty, which was exactly what he had expected.
So much for the 3,000 customers
, he thought.

‘Take a look at this.'

Hansen had reached one of the freezers. He took out a plastic bag.

‘Bone marrow,' he read out loud. ‘And there's something in Latin.'

He took another bag.

‘Skin. And again something in Latin.'

The third bag needed no introduction.

‘Thigh bones.'

And another one.

‘Corneas.'

The room fell silent. The ambulance crew had carried out the injured. Four police officers had escorted the two skinheads outside.

Wagner stared at the bags in Hansen's hand and dreaded to think how they had got there.

‘Seal off the whole building. I think we're done here,' he said and called the crime-scene investigators.