The Killing - 01 - The Killing (15 page)

One noise: a pencil falling as she passes.

The spell broke. Lund looked, fury rising, dragged the officer with her, pushed him through, cried, ‘Shut the door!’

She turned back to them.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

They stood in silence. The big man and his wife. Beyond tears, she thought. Beyond feeling.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lund said again and wanted to scream.

He was clutching the desk with one hand, his wife’s fingers with the other.

‘I think we should go now,’ Theis Birk Larsen said.

They walked down the corridor like two ghosts lost in limbo, hand in hand, not noticing where they were going.

‘Phone me any time,’ Lund called after them, wishing there was something else to say.

Rektor Koch was too busy for the police.

‘I need this school back to normal,’ she said. ‘We have a memorial service coming. I’ll make a speech.’

‘This isn’t about what you need,’ Lund told her.

They were in the corridor outside Nanna’s class. Kids coming and going. Oliver Schandorff, Lund saw, hanging round, trying to eavesdrop.

‘You can’t possibly think the school’s involved.’

Meyer came to the argument like a nail to a magnet.

‘You know what? If you let us do our job maybe we can answer that.’

He gave her his best filthy look. When she left he said, ‘Lynge arrived at noon and was told to leave his posters in the basement. Someone saw him hanging round the gym too.’

‘Why?’

‘No idea. Maybe he was feeling lazy. Or sick. Or liked seeing girls playing netball.’

‘Maybe he lost the car keys there.’

Meyer shrugged.

‘Who had PE afterwards?’ Lund asked.

‘No one. The next class was on Monday. No one reported any keys found. Surprise, surprise.’

They walked down the corridor towards the entrance hall.

‘What do we have on the girl?’

Meyer went through his notes.

‘Top pupil. Good marks. Popular. Good-looking. The teachers rated her. The boys wanted to sleep with her.’

‘Did she let them?’

‘Only Oliver Schandorff and she broke up with him six months ago.’

‘Drugs?’

‘Nothing. Didn’t drink usually either. I got a photo from the party. No one saw her after nine thirty.’

Lund looked at the print in Meyer’s fingers. Nanna in a shiny blue wig and a black witch’s hat, Lisa Rasmussen next to her. Both smiling, Lisa like a teenager, Nanna more . . .

‘She looks a very . . . grown-up kid,’ Meyer noted.

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning . . . she looks a very grown-up kid. Specially next to her friend.’

He turned up another photo. Nanna and Lisa again, maybe a moment before or after. Lisa with her arm round Nanna who was grinning, mouth open this time.

Lund looked at the wig and the hat.

‘She went to all this trouble for a costume and left early?’

‘Yes. Funny, huh?’

Lund looked down the corridor, looked at the lockers and the posters on the walls.

Meyer rattled his notebook at her.

‘Got some answers?’ she asked him.

‘Got questions, Lund. That’s a start.’

They took Lisa Rasmussen into an empty classroom.

Lund’s first question.

‘You never told us Oliver and Nanna fought on the dance floor. Why not?’

The teenage pout, then, ‘It wasn’t important.’

Meyer squinted at her.

‘Your best friend got raped and murdered and that wasn’t important?’

She wasn’t going to cry. Today was hostile-to-cops day.

‘We were dancing. Oliver came over. It wasn’t a big drama.’

Lund smiled at her.

‘Oliver threw a chair.’

Nothing.

‘Was Nanna drunk?’

In a rising, nasal petulant voice she said, ‘Nooooo.’

‘You were,’ Meyer said.

A roll of the shoulders.

‘A bit. So what?’

‘Why’d they break up?’ he asked.

‘I dunno.’

He leaned across the table, said very slowly, ‘Why . . . did . . . they . . .’

‘She told me he was immature! Just a kid.’

‘But you still thought she was with him?’

‘I couldn’t find her.’

Lund took over.

‘What was the argument about?’

‘Oliver wanted to talk to her. She didn’t want to talk to him.’

‘And then she left. Where was Oliver then?’

‘Behind the bar. It was his turn.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I saw him.’

Meyer pushed a piece of paper over the table, looking at Lisa Rasmussen all the time.

‘This is the bar schedule,’ Lund said. ‘His name’s not on it. No one else remembered him working that night.’

She didn’t look at the schedule. Just bit her lip like a little kid.

‘What was she wearing?’ Meyer asked.

A moment to think about it.

‘A witch’s hat with a buckle. A blue wig. She had a broom. Made out of twigs. Kind of this tatty party dress . . .’

‘It’s cold out there, Lisa,’ Meyer broke in. ‘Didn’t you think it was odd she had so little on?’

‘She had a jacket in the classroom, I guess.’

‘Then she’d have gone upstairs,’ said Lund.

‘But no.’ Meyer came in like a shot. ‘She went downstairs. Lisa told us earlier.’ He looked at her. ‘Downstairs right?’

‘Downstairs,’ the girl muttered.

‘Then how’d she get her jacket?’ Lund demanded.

‘Yeah.’ Meyer was on her now. ‘How?’

‘I don’t know she had a jacket. There were people. Lots of . . .’

Lisa Rasmussen stopped, face red, looking guilty.

Meyer peered at her.

‘I thought you weren’t going to cry today, Lisa. Why’s it so hard suddenly?’

‘You don’t know when she left or whether Oliver followed her,’ Lund said.

‘We know you’re lying to us!’ Meyer yelled. ‘Did Oliver find the car keys? Did he screw her in the car to prove what a man he was? Did you watch for fun?’

Lund intervened, put an arm round the girl. Floods of tears now.

‘It’s important you tell us what you know,’ she said.

In the squeaky frightened voice of a child Lisa Rasmussen whimpered, ‘I don’t know anything. Leave me alone.’

Meyer’s phone rang.

‘You need to tell us . . .’ Lund began.

‘No she doesn’t,’ Meyer said and got his jacket.

There was a warren of rooms making up the school’s basement floor. They’d had Svendsen going through each in turn, grumbling about being on his own.

He found the broom of twigs with some plastic bags in an area set aside for storing pushbikes.

Lund looked.

Metal doors in rows. Cell-like chambers beyond them.

The blue wig was in one of the plastic bags.

‘What about her bike?’

‘I’m on my own,’ Svendsen said for the fourth time that morning.

‘Seal off the area. Get a full forensic team down here,’ Lund ordered.

Weber was at his computer. Seemed to live there more with each passing day.

‘Seen the new polls?’ he asked.

‘It’s tomorrow’s polls that matter,’ Hartmann said. ‘When they see there’s an alliance . . .’

Morten Weber scowled.

‘Until Kirsten Eller’s name’s on a piece of paper let’s not count chickens.’

‘I talked to them last night. It’s done, Morten. Stop worrying.’

Skovgaard came off the phone. She didn’t look happy either.

‘You two seem close for a change,’ Hartmann said. ‘What have I done wrong now?’

‘Eller’s people think you’re being evasive,’ Skovgaard said. ‘So do some of our own.’

‘Tell them . . . tell them the car was stolen.’

Weber’s phone rang.

‘Why not tell them the truth?’ he said before answering it. ‘We’re assisting the police.’

‘The police have got their own agenda,’ Skovgaard said. ‘They don’t give a damn about us.’

Hartmann bristled. The Lund woman intrigued him. He was willing to give her a chance.

‘I’m not going to milk this, Rie. I’m not that kind of politician.’

Skovgaard said, ‘You make me want to scream sometimes. Carry on like this and you won’t be a politician at all.’

‘That was Kirsten Eller.’ Weber put down the phone. ‘She wants to see you. Straight away.’ Weber looked at Hartmann over his glasses. ‘I thought you had this fixed, Troels?’

‘What does she want?’

‘Wouldn’t tell a minion like me, would she? Pretty obvious, isn’t it?’

Hartmann didn’t speak.

‘She wants some wriggle room,’ Skovgaard said.

Both of them looked at him as if he should have known this.

‘Who wouldn’t?’ Weber asked.

Hartmann got up.

‘I’ll deal with Kirsten Eller.’

Fifteen minutes later, Hartmann was alone in a meeting room in the Centre Party offices. Eller didn’t smile.

‘I underestimated the feelings in the group,’ she said.

‘How?’

‘This mess with the police. It makes people talk about you. Bremer’s backers smell your blood.’

‘The car was stolen. The driver’s innocent.’

‘Why does no one know this, Troels?’

‘Because the police asked us to wait. It was the right thing to do. What difference does it make?’

‘A big difference. You could have warned me.’

‘No. I couldn’t. The police asked me to keep quiet.’

‘Bremer phoned me this morning. He’s offering to build ten thousand flats, social housing, minimal rents.’

‘You know him. It’ll come to nothing.’

‘I’m sorry, Troels. There won’t be an alliance. I can’t. In the circumstances . . .’

Hartmann floundered for a reply, found his temper rising.

‘Bremer’s stringing you along. He just wants you to dither until it’s too late for us to cut the deal. Then he’ll drop you like a stone. You won’t get the flats. You’ll be lucky to get a mayor’s seat.’

‘It’s the group’s decision. There’s nothing I can do.’

He was tempted to shout. To yell at her for being so stupid but he didn’t.

‘Unless, of course, you’ve got a better offer,’ Eller said.

Bremer was in his media studio getting ready for a TV slot. Lights and cameras. A make-up woman. Hangers on.

Fighting to restrain his fury, Troels Hartmann barged in, walked over, looked down at the laughing figure in the white shirt, powder on his cheeks, said, ‘You ruthless bastard.’

Bremer smiled and shook his grey head.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You heard.’

The make-up woman stopped padding at him with a brush. Stayed. Listened.

‘Bad timing for me, Troels,’ Bremer said with a genial sigh. ‘You too, I think. Later . . .’

‘I want an explanation.’

They went to the window, a semblance of privacy. Hartmann couldn’t help himself, was started before he got there.

‘First you steal our plan. Then you double it and propose an unrealistic number of flats you know you’ll never build.’

‘Ah,’ Bremer said, with a wave of his hand. ‘You spoke to Kirsten. A terrible blabbermouth. I did warn you.’

‘Then you exploit the death of a young girl and time it to aggravate the situation . . . precisely when we’re trying to help the police and the parents.’

Bremer’s face fell. He barged into Hartmann, wagged a finger in his face.

‘Who do you think you’re talking to? Am I supposed to time my proposals according to whatever mess you’ve got yourself into? Grow up, boy. You had nothing to do with the car yet still you chose not to announce it. I thought Rie Skovgaard had more sense than that.’

‘What I do is my business.’

The Lord Mayor laughed.

‘You’re an infant, Troels. I’d no idea it was this bad. A clumsy alliance with Kirsten’s clowns . . . what were you thinking?’

‘Don’t go lower than you are, Bremer. It’s hard I know . . .’

‘Oh dear. This is like dealing with your father all over again. The desperation. The paranoia. How very sad.’

‘I’m telling you—’

‘No!’

Poul Bremer’s voice boomed round the studio, loud enough to silence everyone, Hartmann too.

‘No,’ he repeated, more quietly. ‘You tell me nothing, Troels. Go find me a real man to fight. Not a tailor’s dummy in a flash suit.’

The church was plain and cold, the priest much the same. They sat as he listed the options. For prayers, for music, for flowers. For everything except the thing they needed most: understanding.