The Killing 3 (56 page)

‘Does the name John Lynge mean anything?’

Reinhardt didn’t bother to turn.

‘Should it?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Not that I can think of.’

‘Six years ago he was one of Hartmann’s drivers. He murdered the Birk Larsen girl.’

A long, thoughtful pause.

‘That was a nasty case,’ Reinhardt said. ‘From what I recall you thought Hartmann killed her for a while. And then . . . wasn’t it one of the family friends?’

‘That’s what went down on the records,’ Lund said. ‘But it wasn’t. It was John Lynge.’

He laughed.

‘You always seem to know more than everyone else. Why is that?’

‘Because I know how to look.’

He checked his watch. Outside Borch was still hunting for a way into the office.

‘Lynge had form for child abuse. Do you stick together?’ she asked. ‘Is it like a club or something? Do you do each other favours? When we tear apart your so-called gallery
will we find the membership records too?’

‘I really don’t know why you keep pursuing this.’

‘We checked John Lynge’s work history. Before he got a job with Hartmann he was employed by Zeeland. He was your driver for the children’s fund. That must have been convenient.
Did he watch? Help out from time to time?’

Reinhardt sighed.

‘Do you honestly think I remember all my staff? Is this relevant, Lund?’

Such a slim connection. But it was there. If Brix let her she could work on it.

‘Were you surprised when that lawyer came up with the alibi yesterday?’ she asked.

His head turned. No answer.

‘Someone from Zeeland made it look as if you stayed in room one eighteen. The computers are run from your Copenhagen office. They changed the data for the lock records so it seemed you
were in the clear.’

Borch had finally found a way inside. She could see him talking to someone there.

‘You never stay in room one eighteen. That’s for ordinary people. It’s always the suite in three twenty-two.’

She leaned forward from the back seat, got closer to him.

‘I know you killed Louise Hjelby. She wasn’t the first, was she?’

He took a deep breath, relaxed into the seat, yawned.

‘What’s Robert Zeuthen going to think when he realizes you’d have let his daughter die to keep that secret?’

Brief laughter, a shake of the head.

‘You might as well tell me. As soon as we get back the case is alive again. I’m going to put you in jail.’

Reinhardt reached up and adjusted the mirror so that all she could see were his eyes, grey, knowing, unworried.

‘I don’t think that’s going to happen,’ he said in a measured, easy tone. ‘We wouldn’t be having this conversation if that were the case.’

‘I’ll—’

‘No.’ His eyes were on her in the mirror. Reinhardt put a finger to his lips. ‘Listen to me for once. Let me make myself absolutely clear. I admire your tenacity. Your
precision. Your . . . correctness. I’m grateful you’ve reminded me how necessary these qualities are. You’ve taught me a lot.’

‘Don’t push it . . .’

He didn’t look directly at people often, she realized. And knew why too. In this full, frank gaze the friendly uncle vanished. In its place came the real Niels Reinhardt: cunning, intense,
determined.

‘I will, of course, take full note of this for the future, Lund. You’ve no need to worry. I won’t trouble you in Denmark again.’

He shuffled round in the seat then looked her up and down.

‘We must all know our place. When will you learn yours?’

Head spinning. Imagining. Searching for questions no one else would ask.

She took out her phone, looked at the pictures there.

Her mother, Mark, Eva. The baby in his arms.

Then she stepped outside, got the gun from its holster, racked it. Walked round to the front of the car.

Borch was out of the office. He saw, realized.

Shouted, ‘Sarah?’

Lund got to the passenger door. Reinhardt wound down the window.

‘Sarah!’ Borch yelled, racing towards her.

Gun up. Barrel to the grey head. Reinhardt turned and stared, a look of puzzlement, distaste on his face.

One shot.

Somewhere in the night birds rose on invisible wings.

Blood on the windscreen.

Borch shrieking.

A figure in a dark coat and suit slumped against the dashboard.

Lund stepped back, looked at the body. Borch was on it, checking, not that there was much point.

‘What the hell have you done?’

The gun dropped from her fingers, clattered on the ground.

‘Get in the car. Sarah! Get in the car, dammit.’

In the back, the smell of blood and munitions. Borch thinking.

‘Right. We’ll say he tried to grab your gun. You had no choice. If we can . . . Oh Christ!’

A long pained shriek. He stared at her, eyes full of pain.

‘He told me it was him,’ Lund said. ‘She wasn’t the only one. Any more than he was . . .’

Borch was barely listening.

‘OK. This is what we do. You take off your coat. Dry the blood.’

He reached over, rifled through Reinhardt’s jacket, retrieved a wallet, money, credit cards.

‘No one’s expecting us in Copenhagen for a couple of hours.’ He gave her the cash. ‘I’ll think of something to say here. The pilot’s booked. He can take you
to Reykjavik. Get the first flight out of there.’

He pulled out an ID card.

‘This will give you security clearance. Tell them your husband’s in PET.’ He closed his eyes, struggling. ‘You . . . you’re on your way to see a sick aunt.
You’d forgotten your passport. So they let you travel on my clearance. OK? Sarah? OK?’

The glass was smeared with blood and brain. Reinhardt’s body had somehow tipped half out of the car.

‘I can give you the girls’ medical cards. That’ll help. Tell them to call me if you like and . . .’

She didn’t move.

‘Get your damned coat off, will you?’

Nothing.

‘It’s not a great plan, love. But if you just sit here they’re going to come along soon. Then you’re going to jail for a long time. Doesn’t matter what you say.
What I say . . .’

He shook his head, punched the seat back.

‘Dammit, Sarah . . . why? We could have . . .’

Her hand went to his cheek. He looked close to tears.

‘Get out of here now,’ Borch pleaded. ‘We’ll work something out. We’ll . . .’

She leaned forward, kissed him. Bristly cheeks. Cold lips.

Fear and love. Regret and determination.

He was crying then, got out of the car, ran to the office.

The pilot was in a back room checking charts, looking at the weather, his watch.

‘I’ve got to stay here,’ Borch said. ‘Just one passenger. My colleague.’

‘Are you all right?’ the pilot asked and stubbed out his cigarette in the bin. ‘You don’t look too good.’

‘She’s not going to Copenhagen either. She has to go to Reykjavik.’

The man shook his head, laughed, said, ‘Really?’

‘Change of plan. Rey—’

‘You think we’re going single engine over water? At night? In this weather?’

‘Somewhere else then . . .’ Borch stuttered.

‘What is this?’

‘My colleague . . .’

He walked to the window. So did the pilot.

‘What colleague?’ the man asked. ‘There’s someone flat out in the car park. Looks hurt . . .’

Borch dashed out of the door. A body on the ground. Tyres squealing on wet asphalt. Red lights vanishing into the dark.

Brix got bored with the lazy, self-congratulatory chatter. Found he couldn’t stop thinking about Niels Reinhardt and a dead girl in Jutland with a name no one had uttered
all evening.

He avoided Ruth Hedeby’s glittering, come-on eyes. Found a quiet corner.

The watch. The dates. Reinhardt’s odd manner, both servile yet evasive. It wasn’t a lot to go on. They’d have to be quick. They’d need to break the alibi too.

But if anyone could do it . . .

He phoned Lund’s mobile, waited, wondering what to say.

Then something odd. An answer. The sound of a car driving at speed.

‘Lund?’ he said. ‘Can you hear me?’

A long silence. The line went dead. He tried again, got voicemail. Was thinking about how to proceed in the morning when Hedeby came round, took his arm, forced another glass on him.

‘Upstairs now, Lennart,’ she said with a broad, happy smile. ‘There are people you need to meet.’

On the damp Christiansborg cobbles Karen Nebel waited in vain. Hartmann was inside the party already, smiling at his happy followers, shaking hands, high-fiving those who wanted.

The flash of cameras. Morten Weber clapping. Rosa Lebech lurking, smiling hopefully.

Hartmann turned, waved, raised a toast, a smile, triumphant again.

Back in the game. Part of the rush.

On the stairs of the cold, grand mansion Robert Zeuthen sat with his family. One arm holding the silent Emilie. The other round Maja and Carl.

A single suitcase on the floor. That night they’d sleep in the little cottage in the grounds where the magic that was family first began. Then in the morning take the car to Kastrup. Fly
south. Somewhere warm beyond the wings of the Zeeland dragon. A place where they could discover what was lost. Then think about the future.

The little airport in Norway, Reinhardt’s corpse a crumpled bloody heap on the asphalt.

A sudden rustle of wings. A crow came out of nowhere, glossy in the harsh airport lights, waddled towards the shape on the ground. Black beak sharp. Ready to peck.

On the first Monday of December Brix sat down for breakfast as usual in the quiet, elegant cafe near Nyhavn, close to his flat. His former wife had discovered the place. Ruth
Hedeby had liked it too after she split up with her husband. That relationship was gone now, soured by work, by his need for distance.

So he ate alone most mornings and felt happy that way. A moment of solitary reflection before the working day began. He needed it now more than ever.

Coffee and orange juice. A pastry from the fancy selection cooked on the premises. He was about to start when a woman walked in and took the seat opposite. She had short, straight hair, dyed
somewhere between glossy copper and chestnut. The cut seemed considered, perhaps expensive, and out of place with her clothes: a cheap shiny black anorak, a sweatshirt bearing the name and logo
‘Cambridge University’, black jeans.

A joke, he thought. Unreal. Like the rest of her. He was about to say the seat wasn’t taken anyway when he looked at her pale, blank face and bright, large darting eyes.

‘Coffee, Lund,’ he said. ‘Something to eat . . .’

‘That would be good.’

‘Where’ve you been?’

‘Travelling. I’m amazed you couldn’t find me.’

Brix leaned back and stretched his long arms behind his head.

‘We’ve been busy. Didn’t you get the chance to read the papers?’

She was staring out of the window. Christmas lights and decorations in the street. A seasonal market not far away in Nytorv where Peter Schultz had fallen to his death only a few weeks before.
The city kept turning even if the country appeared to be living on the edge of a precipice.

‘Something to eat,’ he said, pointing to the counter and the rich range of pastries.

Lund called over the waitress and asked for ham and eggs and toast. White toast. And ketchup. The woman blinked, glanced at Brix. He nodded.

‘What’s happening?’

Lots, he thought, and told her. Reinhardt’s very public death had opened the floodgates. Complaints about sexual abuse in Zeeland’s homes had started as a trickle two days after he
was shot. Within a week the Politigården was inundated with them. Brix, now favourite to be next commissioner, had set up a dedicated investigation team, headed by Mathias Borch seconded from
PET.

‘I haven’t seen any arrests,’ she said.

‘We start this week. It’s a big job.’

The coffee turned up. The toast, ham and eggs. She started to tuck in, with a gusto that made him think she hadn’t eaten properly in days.

‘But that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? Why you shot him. So all those children would find the courage to come forward.’ He raised his cup. ‘Not that many are
children any more. We’ve got cases going back almost forty years.’

‘Anyone I know?’

He wondered whether to tell her, then decided she was owed.

And it wasn’t just the victims who came forward. There were other, innocent, decent people appalled by what had occurred. Robert Zeuthen had returned from Bali with his family three days
before and immediately asked for Borch to make a statement about undue influence within Zeeland. Hartmann’s spin doctor Karen Nebel had resigned and produced a series of incriminating photos
that had led to the suspension of Dyhring from PET and the resignation of Mogens Rank as Justice Minister.

‘The chances are Hartmann’s government won’t last till Christmas. Not that Anders Ussing’s going to benefit.’

‘He was in on it too?’ she asked.

‘I doubt that. But we’ve got his aide, Per Monrad, named in several accusations. I’m having Asbjørn pick him up later today. After that some people inside Zeeland. A few
other parliamentarians. Some men in industry. The media. Show business. You may know a few of the names. I doubt their wives are going to believe one word of what they’re about to
hear.’

‘Asbjørn’s got promise,’ she said then went back to eating.

‘True. Hartmann didn’t do anything wrong by the way. He’s as appalled as anyone.’

She jabbed a finger at him.

‘Troels Hartmann didn’t do anything. That’s the point. We don’t have a nice, comfortable place between right and wrong. There’s one or the other. Jan Meyer told me
that. I should have listened.’

‘You did, didn’t you? And now the government’s doomed. Zeeland looks as if it’s going to fall into the hands of the Chinese or the Koreans. Thousands of jobs gone . .
.’

‘They were kids! If we don’t protect them, who does?’

He pushed back what remained of his breakfast. Appetite gone.

‘You always were very Old Testament, Lund. Desperate to pull down the pillars of the temple. Perhaps that’s why I indulged you. I was fascinated to see what would happen. And here we
are.’