The Killing - 01 - The Killing (12 page)

‘He hit me.’

With great care Vibeke placed the needle in the shiny satin fabric at the neckline.

‘Do you ever wonder if you asked for it?’

‘I didn’t ask for it. No one ever does.’

Lund’s mobile rang. It was Meyer: ‘I talked to the prison.’

‘And?’

‘He had three visitors in all. One’s dead. One’s moved. One’s not answering her phone.’

‘Come and get me,’ Lund said and gave him the address in Østerbro. ‘Twenty minutes.’

‘Blue light taxi’s on the way. I hope you tip well.’

The police people had left their marks and trails all over the apartment. Numbers and arrows. Puffs of dust where they’d looked for prints.

Anton, always the most inquisitive, stood outside her room and asked, ‘What’s that on Nanna’s door?’

‘Get away from there!’ Theis Birk Larsen barked at him. ‘Come to the table.’

The table.

Pernille and Nanna made it one empty distant summer three years before when there was nothing else to do but watch the rain. Cheap timber from the DIY store. Photos and school reports glued then lacquered onto the top. The Birk Larsen family frozen in time. Nanna turned sixteen, growing quickly. Anton and Emil so tiny. Faces captured in the place that was the heart of their small home. Smiling mostly.

Now the boys were six and seven, bright-eyed wondering. Curious, perhaps a little afraid.

Pernille sat down, looked at them, touched their knees, their hands, their cheeks and said, ‘There’s something we have to tell you.’

Birk Larsen stood behind. Until she turned to him. Then, slowly, he came and sat by her side.

‘Something’s happened to us,’ Pernille told them.

The boys shuffled, glanced at one another.

‘What?’ Emil, the elder, though in a way the slower, asked.

Beyond the window the traffic rumbled. There were voices in the street. It was always like this. For Theis Birk Larsen it always would be.

Together. A family. Complete.

His great chest heaved. Strong, scarred fingers ran through greying ginger hair. He felt old, impotent, stupid.

‘Boys,’ he said finally. ‘Nanna’s dead.’

Pernille waited.

‘She’s not coming back,’ he added.

Six and seven, bright eyes glittering beneath the lamp where they all ate supper. Static faces staring at them from the tabletop.

Emil said, ‘Why’s that, Dad?’

Thinking.

Struggling.

‘There was a time we saw a big tree out in Deer Park. Remember?’

Anton looked at Emil. Then both nodded.

‘Lightning struck it. Tore off a big . . .’

Was this real, he asked himself? Or imagined? Or a lie to let children sleep when the darkness came?

‘Tore off a big branch. Well . . .’

It didn’t matter, Birk Larsen thought. Lies could work too, as well as the truth. Better sometimes. Beautiful lies might let you sleep. Ugly truths never.

‘You could say lightning’s struck us now. It took Nanna away.’

They listened in silence.

‘But just like the tree in Deer Park keeps growing we do too.’

A good lie. It heartened him a little.

He squeezed Pernille’s hand beneath the table and said, ‘We have to.’

‘Where’s Nanna?’ asked Anton, younger, quicker.

‘Someone’s taking care of her,’ Pernille said. ‘In a few days everyone will go to church. Then we say goodbye.’

The boy’s smooth brow furrowed.

‘She won’t
ever
come back?’

Mother and father, their eyes briefly locked. These were children. Precious, still trapped in their own world, no need to escape it.

‘No,’ said Pernille. ‘An angel came and took her to heaven.’

Another good lie.

Six and seven, bright eyes glittering. Not a part of this nightmare. Not . . .

‘How did she die?’

Anton. Had to be.

The words fled them. Pernille walked to the corkboard, stared at photos, the timetables, the plans they’d all made.

‘How did she die, Dad?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Dad.’

‘It just . . . happens sometimes.’

The boys fell quiet. He held their hands. Wondered: have they ever seen me cry before? How long before they see it again?

‘It just happens.’

Lund and Meyer walked up the stairs, rang the bell, waited. The hallway was dark. Broken bulbs. It stank of cat piss.

‘So you’ve moved in with your mother instead of that Norwegian?’

‘Bengt’s Swedish.’

‘You can tell the difference?’

There was no answer from the address they had. Junk mail was piled up at the foot of the door.

Lund walked to the next apartment along. There was a light behind the frosted glass. The nameplate said Villadsen.

Meyer’s radio squawked. It was too loud. She glared at him and banged on the door.

Nothing.

Lund knocked again. Meyer stood to one side, fists on hips, silent. She almost laughed. Like most of the men in homicide he wore his 9-millimetre Glock handgun on his waistband in a holster. It made him look like a cartoon cowboy.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ She tried not to smile. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘At least I’ve got a gun. Where’s . . .?’

There was a rattle. The door opened just a couple of inches on the chain. An elderly woman’s face, not clear in the darkness.

‘I’m Vicekriminalkommissær Sarah Lund from the police,’ Lund said, showing her ID. ‘We need to speak to your neighbour, Geertsen.’

‘She’s away.’

Old people and strangers. Fear and suspicion.

‘Do you know where?’

‘Abroad.’

The woman moved as if to close the door. Lund put a hand out to stop her.

‘Did you see anything unusual around the block today?’

‘No.’

There was a sound from behind her in the apartment. The woman’s eyes wouldn’t leave Lund’s.

‘Do you have a visitor?’ Meyer asked.

‘It’s just my cat,’ she said then quickly slammed the door.

One minute later, back in her squad car, Lund on the radio, Meyer by her side. He was getting twitchy.

‘I need back-up. The suspect may be at this location.’

‘We’ll send a car,’ control replied.

They could see the apartment window from the street.

Meyer said, ‘The lights are out. He knows we’re here.’

‘They’re on their way.’

He took out the Glock and checked it.

‘We can’t wait. A man like that. An old woman. We’re going in.’

Lund shook her head.

‘To do what?’

‘Whatever we can. You heard the sister. He’s a lunatic. I’m not waiting till the old bird’s dead.’

Lund leaned over the seat, looked him in the eye, said, ‘We’re staying here.’

‘No.’

‘Meyer! There’s two of us. We can’t cover the exits . . .’

‘Where’s your gun?’

She was getting sick of this.

‘I don’t have one.’

It was the look she saw the day before when they talked about Sweden. Utter amazement.

‘What?’ Meyer asked.

‘We’re going nowhere. We’ll wait.’

A long moment. Meyer nodding.

‘You can wait if you want,’ he said then leapt out of the car.

Across the city, in a campaign car speeding through the night, Troels Hartmann took the last call he wanted. A news agency. Official this time. A journalist with a name he recalled.

The reporter said, ‘We know about the car, Hartmann. Nanna Birk Larsen was found in one of yours. You kept it quiet. Why is that exactly?’

In the apartment above the depot, while Pernille quietly wept, Theis Birk Larsen sat with Anton and Emil, one on each huge knee, telling more stories about angels and forests, watching their faces, hating his lies.

Sarah Lund bit on another piece of Nicotinell, thought about Jan Meyer, thought about the dead girl who came out of the water.

Then she pulled open the glove compartment by the wheel, sorted through the packs of gum, the dead lighter, the tissues, the tampons and took out her gun.

Halfway up the dark dank staircase she heard the sound of breaking glass.

Lund ran the rest of the way, took hold of Meyer’s arm as he smashed at the panel in the door with the grip of his gun.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘What does it look like?’

‘I told you to wait.’

He broke more glass, opened up the hole with his elbow, put a hand through, looked at her and winked.

‘You go left,’ Meyer said. ‘I go right.’

Hand through, searching. There was the sound of an old key turning an old lock. Then the door moved. Inside was as black as the night they’d just left. Meyer scuttled through and was gone in a stride. She went to the wall, edged forward, the Glock an unfamiliar shape in her right hand.

The place stank of mothballs and liniment, cat and washing.

Three steps and she bumped into a sideboard, nudged something with her arm, just managed to catch it before the thing fell to the floor. Lund could just see what she’d touched: a porcelain figurine, a country milkmaid grinning beneath her burden of buckets. Placed it back without a sound. Moved forward, stepped on something, heard a tinny mechanical voice break the silence.

‘Your weight is fifty-seven point two kilograms.’

She got off the scales wondering what Meyer was saying to himself.

‘Fifty-seven point two kilograms,’ the thing said again.

There was a pained sigh from somewhere ahead. Then footsteps. A silhouette. Meyer, trudging in front of her, gun out.

No other sound. Three more steps. A door on the right, ajar. Laboured, arrhythmic breathing. She pocketed the weapon, walked through, fumbled her fingers against the wall, found a light switch. Turned it on.

In the dim yellow bulb of a single wall-light the old woman struggled, trussed like a farmyard bird, wrists and ankles, a cloth rag round her mouth.

Lund got down, put a hand to her shoulder, pulled off the gag.

A long high wail of terror and pain burst from the old woman’s lips.

Meyer was close by, cursing.

‘Where is he?’ Lund asked. ‘Mrs Villadsen?’

‘What did she say?’ Meyer snapped.

The woman was panting, gasping for breath. Terrified.

‘What did she say?’

Lund looked at him. Listened. He got the message. Went back out in the dark apartment, feet tapping on the tiles.

She waited.

You take the left. I’ll take the right
.

Did that still apply? Yes, she guessed. Meyer was a little like her in some ways. There was one plan and one plan only. You stuck with it until something changed. He didn’t like working with someone else either.

She undid the woman’s ankles and wrists, told her to stay there, stay still.

A pair of scrawny hands clawed at her.

‘Don’t leave me.’

‘I’ll be right back. We’re here. You’re safe.’

‘Don’t leave me.’

‘It’s fine. Don’t worry.’

Still the wrinkled fingers clutched at her.

‘I need my cane.’

‘Where is it?’

She gasped, thought, said, ‘In the hallway.’

‘OK.’ Voice calm, steady. Which was how Lund felt. ‘Stay here.’

She got to the door, bore left.

Kitchen smells. Drains, food. The cat. Another old lamp, frilly shade, faded yellow. A chair, a small desk. Striped curtains running to the floor. Gently moving as if the window behind was open.

In November.

Lund folded her arms, thought, moved forward, gently pushed the fabric aside.

The pain bit at her arm like a wasp sting, rapid and savage.

There was a figure coming from behind the stripes, silhouetted against the faint lights behind the window. His right arm was flailing, right and left, up and down.

Another flash of agony.

Lund yelled, ‘Get back! Police! Get back.’

Fumbling like a fool for her gun.

The wall stopped her. He lunged forward. And now the light caught him. In his hand she saw a box cutter, short blade, sharp. Threatening.

He swore, slashed at her, so close she could feel the air move past her cheek.

A furious, insane face, mouth opening, yellow teeth grinning. He roared. One more cutting, sweeping slash . . .

Her fingers tightened on the gun butt. She raised it, pointed the barrel dead in his face.