The Killing - 01 - The Killing (102 page)

He leaned forward. Voice rising.

‘I
know
. You dream of the White House. And I just see Chappaquiddick. Pretty girl. A few beers. I saw you give her your number. I couldn’t work it out at the time. But, well . . .’

He shrugged.

‘Turns out she was screwing Jens Holck, wasn’t she? Maybe she wanted to try out someone new from the political classes. A different notch on her bedpost. I saw you—’

‘Morten—’

‘You gave her your number. You went round to Store Kongensgade. You waited. Got some good wine. Brought in some food. Was that how it worked?’

Hartmann was shaking his head.

‘I don’t remember . . .’

‘I took the kid to one side after you left for the flat. I ripped up the phone number. I scared the living daylights out of her. That’s why she never turned up. But I did. Just by accident. To make sure you really were on your own. Not screwing a schoolkid you bumped into at a prize-giving. Do you remember that?’

No answer.

‘So you see. When she was dead I had to ask myself. Did she get your number some other way? The pretty schoolgirl who looked so much older?’

‘I never killed that girl!’

‘I know you didn’t. Now. This is good. This we can live with. Had it been otherwise . . . I’d have faced some difficult decisions.’

He got up, put on his coat.

‘Any questions, Troels?’

The black phone stayed untouched.

‘Good. We have this conversation once only. Never again.’

Morten Weber looked at his watch.

‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ he said. ‘Don’t be late.’

On the long road that led from the city, Pernille wide-eyed and scared in the passenger seat, Lund behind the wheel.

Blustery rain came in through the shattered side window. There was glass on the floor, on the dashboard.

‘Can you think of any warehouses they might use?’ Lund asked.

‘We’ve got some in Sydhavnen.’

An industrial area, across the main road leading to the airport and Vestamager.

‘Lund?’ said the radio. ‘It’s Brix here.’

‘And?’

‘You were right about Skærbæk. The girl was held captive in the basement.’

Next to her Pernille Birk Larsen put a hand to her mouth.

‘So let’s find him,’ Lund said.

‘We will. You’ve got to come in.’

Straight away, ‘Not a chance.’

‘You don’t know where they are, Lund! You’re in the way of the operation. We’re alerting the border patrols—’

‘Vagn’s not skipping the country. It’s not about—’

‘We found shotgun cartridges in Skærbæk’s garage. He’s armed. I don’t want you out there. I don’t want Pernille either. There’s nothing you can do. Turn round and come back here.’

She looked at the woman next to her. Pernille shook her head.

‘What about the woods?’ Lund asked. ‘Pinseskoven.’

The Pentecost Forest.

‘Why the hell would he go there?’ Brix asked. ‘Middle of nowhere. A dead end.’

‘It started there. Somehow. Maybe he wants to finish it there too.’

‘Come in now. I’ll deal with this.’

She put down the mike, drove on, took the turn for Vestamager.

‘Why would they go to the woods?’ Pernille asked.

The traffic grew lighter as the night darkened. Soon they were beyond the street lamps and the dual carriageway, heading down the long damp road that led to the forest.

After a while the road narrowed to a single carriageway, then little more than a lane.

Dead end, Brix said. There anyway he was right.

Theis Birk Larsen nursed his third can of beer, not taking any notice where they were going. He was a little drunk, a lot happy. Reminiscing.

‘First dog I ever had was called Corfu. Remember that?’

‘Yeah,’ Vagn Skærbæk said, sounding bored.

‘Smuggled it home from Greece in a backpack. We learned a few things then, huh?’

‘I never knew a little dog could shit that much.’

Birk Larsen scowled at the beer.

‘Maybe we’ll be smuggling a few more things pretty soon. Got the house to pay for. If they put me inside for the damned teacher . . .’

He looked at the man at the wheel.

‘You’ll cope.’ Birk Larsen slapped his shoulder. ‘You’ll manage.’

He grabbed the remaining cans.

‘Want another beer?’

‘Nah.’

‘OK. I’ll have yours.’

They were on a lane. The van bounced and lurched on the rough track.

‘Where the hell are we going?’

‘Not far.’

‘Pernille’s going to kill us if we’re not back for cake.’

Birk Larsen raised his can.

‘Here’s to women.’

Then took a swig.

A distant roar above them. And lights. Birk Larsen watched as a passenger jet descended through the night sky.

‘We’re near the airport. What kind of idiot keeps dogs out here?’

‘There’s something I need to show you. It won’t take long. And then we’re done.’

‘Pernille . . .’

The van bounced. He looked at the lane in the headlights. Gravel. What looked like ditches by the side. In the grey light cast by a moon behind clouds the outline of a wood.

A dim memory, fuddled by beer.

Vagn Skærbæk interrupted it.

‘Do you remember when we used to go out fishing at night?’

‘Fuck fishing, Vagn. Where’s the damned dog?’

Trees now. Bare silver bark. Slender trunks rising like dead limbs from the earth.

‘It was always freezing. We never caught a damned thing.’

The van had slowed almost to walking pace. It kept running in and out of black potholes.

Birk Larsen felt slow and drunk and stupid.

‘You said Pernille would think we’d been drinking if we didn’t come back with some eels. You should have seen your face when I got some. You never asked where they came from.’

‘Vagn—’

‘I just went and stole them from someone’s trap.’

‘So what?’

Skærbæk nodded.

‘Yeah. So what? So long as things get fixed. Then they never come back to haunt you. What’s it matter?’

He found the place he was looking for. Stopped the van. Pulled on the brake.

Silver peeling trunks in the faint moonlight. Deep ditches both sides of the road. No sign of life.

Skærbæk leapt out, went to the back of the van, opened the doors.

Birk Larsen sighed. Took a swig of the beer. Decided he wanted a piss anyway.

Climbed out of the passenger side, walked round the side.

Vagn Skærbæk had dressed. He stood there in full hunting gear. Long black galoshes, long khaki coat. Over his shoulder was a shotgun on a strap.

He pulled another pair of rubber boots out of the back.

‘You need to put those on, Theis.’

‘What is this?’

‘Just put them on, will you?’

Then he picked up a heavy piece of timber, held it in both hands.

‘Let’s go home,’ Birk Larsen sighed. ‘Pernille . . .’

He didn’t see it coming. The lump of wood struck him on the temple, bloodied his eyes, sent him reeling against the van door, stumbling down to the ground.

Skærbæk prodded him with the barrel of the shotgun.

‘You’re OK. Get up.’

He pulled a big electric lantern out of the back, turned on the light. Closed the van doors.

‘Forget the boots,’ Skærbæk said. ‘Start moving.’

Then pushed him towards the trees.

Ten minutes later Lund parked by the bridge where Nanna’s body was found, walked towards the forest down a long straight path, Pernille striding beside her. Some way behind there were flashing lights. The sound of radios and men. A helicopter was sweeping overhead, its bright beam penetrating the darkness of the Pentecost Forest.

All she had was a single, weak torch and the wan moonlight that seeped through the thin cloud.

The phone rang.

‘I sent a couple of cars and a dog team from the airport,’ Brix said. ‘They’ve got the van. It’s empty.’

She remembered the woods from before. A maze of paths and tracks, criss-crossed with ditches, patches of swampy marsh, and canals. Logging piles blocked some forest roads. Others would be a quagmire from the recent rain.

‘The dogs . . .’ Lund started.

‘The dogs have got a scent. They’re onto it.’

‘How many people have you got?’

‘Five patrols now. Where are you?’

‘Inside the forest. Ahead of you I think. We need to hurry.’

She could hear the sound of barking. Make out torches. Waited. Saw a direction.

Pulled out the map she’d picked up from the boxes the nature reserve left everywhere.

Remembered Jan Meyer grinning with a dead animal beneath his arm, a wire round its neck and a cub scout scarf.

Lund walked.

Pernille followed.

Theis Birk Larsen stumbled.

Vagn Skærbæk, shotgun in hand, behind him.

‘Come on,’ he barked, watching the big man lurch against a silver trunk. ‘Move it.’

The trees grew thicker, spindlier. They marched through bracken and rotten leaves.

The sound of dogs. Men’s voices.

Birk Larsen lost his footing going over a puddle, fell to the wet earth, floundered in the mud.

‘Vagn . . .’

Skærbæk looked at the puzzled, damaged face of the man on the ground.

‘What is this, Vagn? What the fuck—?’

Skærbæk fired, put a shotgun blast into a bole of fungus and mildew a step from the hurt and wallowing figure in front of him, watched the yellow fire and flying mud.

Dogs barking. Voices getting louder, nearer.

‘Get up. Keep walking,’ he said. ‘Don’t stop now. Not far. Not long.’

Lund heard the shotgun. Pernille loosed a high, faint shriek.

No more shots.

‘Where are they?’ Pernille gasped. ‘Theis . . .’

A voice in Lund’s ear.

Brix said, ‘What’s going on?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How close are you?’

‘I don’t know. I—’

Jet engines drowned her words. Drowned her thoughts.

A ditch, green with algae. Birk Larsen stumbled, fell face in, got lifted by Skærbæk’s hands.

Stumbled through dead branches, through the mire. Climbed out of the other side, panting. Bleeding.

The trees got thicker.

The trees thinned out.

Lights nearby. The staccato sound of dogs anxious to follow a scent. Shouts of their handlers, cries in the dark.

A patch of clear ground ahead. Tall grass. Broken branches. A circle amidst the silver trees.

In his green hunting coat, Skærbæk looked around, said, ‘Stop here.’

Cast his eyes around the woods. The distant flicker of approaching torches.

Turned back to the big, stricken man with him. The blood ran down from Birk Larsen’s left temple, around his eye, around his nose and stubbled cheek like a gory mask.

‘Theis. In a while they’ll tell you all sorts of things.’

Birk Larsen stood hunched and stupid.

‘I want you to hear it from me.’

Torch in left hand, shotgun slung low in right, Vagn Skærbæk listened, again, shook his head, laughed for a moment.

‘Things just happen sometimes. You never know. You never see them. Then they’re there and nothing you can do can stop them. Nothing . . .’

The big man with the bloody face stared at him.

‘Leon called to tell you he’d picked up Nanna, dropped her at this flat in Store Kongensgade. I knew she was up to something. I saw them at the station. She was going away with that raghead. The stupid little Indian kid.’

Skærbæk waved the gun at him.

‘Going away. You get me?’

Birk Larsen grunted something wordless.

‘I knew what you’d say. But you weren’t there. So I went and found her.’

His voice rose.

‘I’m a reasonable man! You know it! I went to talk her out of it. To make her see sense. But not Nanna.’

He ripped off his hat, looked at Birk Larsen with pleading eyes.

‘Not Nanna. She’s got your blood in her, huh? She wouldn’t listen. She came at me screaming with her nails.’

Birk Larsen stood as still as any tree.

‘You know what she was like. Your blood. Me?’

Skærbæk shone the torch on his own face.

‘I thought about you and Pernille and the boys. What you’d think. How you’d feel. Abandoned like that.’