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‘How did it go?’ Charlotte Falster wanted to know.

‘Hang on.’

For once Lene was delighted that her boss had called. She had found it hard to move on from the press briefing and welcomed the interruption. She put the earphone in her ear, the jack in her mobile and rested the mobile in the car’s ashtray.

‘Are journalists even human?’ she wondered out loud.

‘Not if you ask me,’ the chief superintendent said. ‘What have you found out?’

‘Kim Andersen killed himself. His wife handcuffed him when she found him hanging from a tree. She was and still is worried about some trouble he appears to have got himself into.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Depression, insomnia, excess drinking … and an unknown sponsor who used Credit Suisse in Zurich to transfer a small fortune to Kim Andersen’s account. The wife says she has no idea who it came from and I believe her. All
that money spooked her.
She
proposed to him, and now she’s afraid she inadvertently pushed him into doing something criminal in return for money, so that he could give her a big wedding.’

‘How much money are we talking about?’

As always, Charlotte Falster sounded composed, but Lene thought she could detect a certain fatigue in her voice.

‘200,000 Swiss francs just over a month ago.’

‘Nice. Any ideas?’ the chief superintendent asked.

‘None, other than to get the public prosecutor and the COM Centre to request information from Zurich.’

There was a pregnant pause down the other end. Lene could sense that Charlotte Falster was intrigued.

‘You and I will be long gone before we ever get a reply,’ she said. ‘Why don’t I try?’

Lene smiled.

She had been hoping that her boss would make such an offer. Charlotte Falster’s husband was a permanent secretary in the Ministry for Justice and a member of the Danish Management Society, along with the governor of Danmarks Nationalbank and God himself. He could definitely pull a few strings completely beyond the reach of a humble superintendent.

‘Yes, please,’ she said. ‘I’d really appreciate that.’

‘What could he have done that was worth 200,000 Swiss francs?’ Falster mused. ‘It’s not likely he built someone a garage, is it?’

‘No, I don’t think so, but I would like to find out. I’ve spoken to an army psychologist who described him as completely normal. She was actually very surprised to hear that he had killed himself. As was his GP. He was sent home in the autumn of 2008, but didn’t develop depression that needed treatment until the summer of 2011, after a hunting trip to Sweden and learning that two of his closest friends had been killed in Afghanistan. He was never wounded in action himself, but sustained a serious leg injury in Sweden. The forensic examiner says it looks like an untreated gunshot wound. My problem is that I want to file the case as a simple suicide so the media will leave me alone, but carry on investigating it as if it were a murder. By the way, someone put a 9-mm bullet on each of the children’s pillows. Kim Andersen found them just before he hanged himself. I’d say that’s sending someone a clear message.’

‘You’re saying someone told Kim Andersen to kill himself and save them the trouble? And why didn’t you tell me about the bullets earlier?’

The professional sparring with Charlotte Falster was one of the aspects Lene liked most about her job, even though she didn’t particularly like the chief superintendent. Falster’s thinking was just as sharp as her words were direct, and few topics were off limits when the two of them discussed a case.

‘It must have slipped my mind,’ she said.

‘You don’t say,’ Charlotte Falster remarked drily. ‘This is highly unusual, Lene.’

‘It is. You’re right.’

Falster fell silent and Lene knew that her boss considered, assessed and dismissed possibilities and scenarios with the speed of a computer.

It was Charlotte Falster’s right and duty to allocate her scarce resources in an optimal manner in relation to the targets imposed on her from on high, and Lene was only too aware that the department was chronically understaffed and that there were other cases that could easily keep an experienced investigator busy. She accepted it and she rarely developed proprietorial feelings for her cases, but the Pavlovian response that was Kim Andersen’s suicide was too important to be left to others.

‘Okay,’ the chief superintendent said at last. ‘Stick with it and stay away from the press. If anyone asks, you’re taking the next few days off as leave. What are you going to do?’

‘If you deal with the money and the Swiss, I’ll look into the family’s finances and speak to Kim Andersen’s army mates and officers.’

‘And Sweden?’

‘And Sweden.’

‘And the person who left the bullet … Who is he or she? It doesn’t sound like someone you would want to meet in a dark alley.’

Lene thought about the man with the scorpion tattoo. The guarded smile. The small, but significant distance between him and the rest of the world.

‘I’ll find out.’

‘Take care of yourself,’ her boss said casually, and Lene nearly drove off the road. Concern? Charlotte Falster? All that was left now was for Brøndby to win the cup again.

‘I will,’ she said, and ended the call.

Then she tried the beekeeper’s landline once more. By now she had made at least a dozen calls without getting a reply and had left a similar number of messages on his answerphone, ranging from informal to borderline pleading. As far as she knew, Allan Lundkvist was no longer abroad with the Royal Life Guards and there could be a million other reasons why he didn’t answer his phone, but surely someone had to look after the damned bees? He lived on a farm in Ravnsholt, not far from the Royal Life Guards’ barracks in Høvelte.

Lene looked at the clock on her dashboard. She wondered whether to swing by Ravnsholt on her way home, but decided she would rather have an hour with Josefine before her daughter went to work. Allan Lundkvist would just have to wait.

On the way home she shopped for dinner in Copenhagen’s best foodie shopping street, Værnedamsvej. She bought a couple of delicious cheeses, French mineral water, grapes, artisan bread, big, fresh olives and Spanish ham. They would have time to eat together before Josefine had to go.

*

‘Jose?’

Lene put the shopping bags on the kitchen table. Her daughter mutilated a Shakira hit in the bathroom while Lene arranged the delicatessen food on a carving board, tipped the olives into a bowl and poured red wine for herself and a glass of mineral water for Josefine. She carried the plates and glasses into the living room and put on a Nina Simone CD.

‘Jose … Ham! … Olives! … Bread!’

A hairdryer started up and Lene knew that her daughter hadn’t heard a single word. Lene ate a couple of olives, dipped a chunk of bread in olive oil and sprinkled it with coarse sea salt. She realized that she was starving. And that she needed the lavatory. She went out into the passage and slammed the palm of her hand against the door to the bathroom.

‘What?’

‘I need the loo, Josefine. Now! Dinner is ready.’

‘I’m not hungry, Mum.’

‘Of course you are.’

Her daughter had the metabolism of an incinerator and when she was little she would consume her own body-weight every day. She could still eat whatever she liked without gaining weight.

Josefine emerged from the steaming bathroom, buttoning an indigo blue silk shirt over a white lace bra that Lene didn’t remember seeing before. She got a quick hug and was enveloped in a cloud of Chanel Mademoiselle. Her daughter’s face
was glowing after her bath and she had applied discreet make-up, while her lips were blood red.

‘Can I borrow your new pearl earrings, Mum?’

‘Is David Beckham in town?’

‘Too old for me. Can I?’

Lene sighed and pulled her birthday present out of her ear lobes. David Beckham … too old? Christ, he was still a boy.

‘Can I use the bathroom now?’

‘Of course.’

While Lene washed her hands, she noticed the exclamation marks, the zigzag lightning and the hearts drawn in the condensation on the mirror and felt a lump in her stomach. She took a deep breath and scolded herself. Get it into your skull, Lene! The girl is twenty-one … she’s an adult, for God’s sake! Though as far as Lene was concerned, Josefine would always be five years old.

She blew the hairs from her daughter’s eyebrow plucking off the bathroom shelf and put the mascara wand back in its tube. Contraceptive pills? She opened the medicine cupboard and checked Josefine’s blister pack. Well, at least it was up-to-date.

When she returned to the living room, Josefine was bent over the coffee table. She carefully popped olives and tiny pieces of ham into her mouth so as not to ruin her lipstick. She had pulled back her hair in a tight ponytail and the earrings suited her. Her black jeans fitted as if they were
painted onto her long legs, and she was wearing her new, hip-length suede jacket, an olive green scarf and her new, black boots.

Lene was proud of her daughter. And worried sick.

‘Will you be sleeping in your own bed tonight?’

‘I sincerely hope not! No, Mum, joke! … I think … yes, I will. See you later.’

‘Be safe,’ Lene said automatically, but her daughter was already gone.

Lene stood for a moment staring at the door.

Then she tried calling the elusive beekeeper, Allan Lundkvist, again, and for the umpteenth time heard his slow drawl on the answerphone. She left a new message and flung down her mobile in frustration.

Michael returned to the hotel in a terrible mood after interviewing Kasper Hansen’s mother. He cursed himself: he was a smooth-tongued fraudster. A snake. Poor woman. Now she was waiting for a call that would never come, a journalist who would never contact her again, a programme that would never be made.

In reception the porter handed him a thick, yellow envelope with no return address, sealed with several staples. He started opening it as soon as he reached his room and spread the photocopies of Flemming Caspersen’s medical records across his bed.

He started with a brief note from Næstved Central Hospital. Flemming Caspersen had been found in his bed at eight thirty in the morning on 14 January 2013 in the east wing of Pederslund. He appeared to be dead. An ambulance had arrived fifteen minutes later. Victor Schmidt and his wife had given Caspersen CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while they waited for it to come. On arrival the paramedics took over the resuscitation and continued during the journey
to the hospital. They administered adrenaline directly to his heart and made several attempts to shock it back to life. Flemming Caspersen had exhibited no vital signs. His pupils had been non-reactive during transport and it was presumed that his brain had been deprived of oxygen for a long time.

The duty doctor at Næstved Central Hospital had declared him dead on arrival. Time of death was called at 9.33 a.m., and the cause of death was attributed to
institutio cordis
, cardiac arrest – probably due to a massive, acute, myocardial infarction. The duty doctor and the medical officer who examined the body six hours later both agreed.

Michael assumed his favourite position at the balcony. Heart failure. Ultimately wasn’t that what we all died from? The post-mortem report was brief and cursory: the pathologist had discovered an unusual hardening of the arteries given the patient’s age and a coronary thrombosis which had caused a major part of the heart’s left side to die. Flemming Caspersen had passed away in his sleep. There were no outward signs of violence. His blood alcohol level was what one would expect to find in a man who had consumed a few drinks the night before. No toxin screens had been carried out and no one had examined the body for hidden needle marks between toes or fingers, under the tongue, in his scalp, in his ears or the mucous membrane of the anus.

Michael was far from impressed by the pathologist’s work. Hardening of the arteries, coronary thrombosis, dead, the end. There were literally hundreds of ways to make a murder
look like a natural death, but not one of them had been considered in the report.

And now Flemming Caspersen’s body had been cremated.

Michael had dissolved two Treo painkillers in a glass of water when his telephone rang.

He swallowed the bitter, white liquid.

‘Hello?’

‘You’re invited to dinner at Pederslund tonight,’ Elizabeth Caspersen said without introduction. ‘We both are. Victor almost had a fit when I told him about Miss Simpson in New York. Can you make it?’

‘Of course I can, Elizabeth. Great. Did you write the letter yourself?’

‘Yes. It was devastating.’

‘And the picture of the little one? Do you have one?’

‘One of my secretary’s grandchildren. Ugly little brat. He looks like Winston Churchill.’

‘With the cigar?’

‘Yes, Michael. I pretended one of my daughters needed it for some homework about overpopulation. I don’t think she believed me.’

‘When should I get there?’

‘Drinks are served at six o’clock, on the dot, and dinner is at six thirty. They eat early in the country. They’re all there. I can pick you up from your hotel at four thirty. That’s in one and a half hours. We can talk in the car. Any news?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But let’s save it for later. Dress code?’

‘I don’t think there is one, but if you’re out of clean shirts, perhaps you should invest in a new one.’

Michael closed the door to the balcony.

‘I will, and while we’re on the subject of money, I need to ask for you for an advance. I’ve already had some expenses and I’m about to incur a lot more. For starters, I need to charter a helicopter.’

‘A helicopter …?’

Elizabeth Caspersen sounded taken aback.

‘It’s just for a couple of days,’ he added.

‘A couple of days?’

Her voice faltered and Michael pulled a face.

‘Do I have to remind you that yesterday you were willing to spend all the money you have to get to the bottom of this? A case which might prove that your father was responsible for the murder of a random hiker in Norway. I can make do without the helicopter when I visit Finnmark, of course, but I think that the cost will be more or less the same. When you factor in my fee.’

Her silence was eminently expressive.

‘Of course …’ came the self-possessed response. ‘Of course, I am. And I apologize. I just have to … I just have to get used to this level of expenditure. I came to you and you’re doing an excellent job. How much?’

‘200,000 kroner should cover it for now.’

‘I’ll transfer the money immediately,’ she said in her newly humbled voice.

‘Thank you.’

He gave her the number of the client account with his accountant in Odense. He knew that Sara would be thrilled. Or she would be, until he started renting helicopters in Norway.

‘I’ll see you at four thirty,’ she said.

‘I look forward to it,’ he replied.

‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ she said and hung up.

*

Michael flicked through that day’s newspapers. The Rigspolitiet were still investigating the veteran’s apparent suicide in Holbæk. There was a new photograph of the deceased, surrounded by his army mates on the bonnet of an armoured personnel carrier outside Baghdad. Kim Andersen’s naked chest glistened beneath the Middle Eastern sky, a black-and-white-chequered partisan scarf tied around his neck. Michael smiled at the sight of all the tattoos that covered the soldier’s arms, shoulders and torso.

Michael himself had a single tattoo on his shoulder, which was more than enough. He had been blind drunk one night in Manila when Keith Mallory had dragged him into a small, unhygienic tattoo parlour.

Michael only discovered what had happened twenty-four hours later when, still somewhat under the influence, he was drying himself in front of the mirror after a shower. He had screamed when he noticed his right shoulder, where a big, orange Homer Simpson looked over his shoulder with
a smirk. The character had his trousers around his ankles and was baring his naked backside to anyone who cared to look. Sara hated it.

In another newspaper there was a new picture of Superintendent Lene Jensen in a car park outside Holbæk Police Station. She was photographed midstride and she was looking at the photographer. As always, her face was grave.

Lene Jensen was a doer, Michael concluded.

The journalist had spoken to Kim Andersen’s colleagues from the carpentry firm, a couple of old school friends and fellow hunters, and everyone expressed surprise. Coming home must have proved tougher for Kim than they had all realized. In the past year he had become introverted and morose. He had been limping, his leg was hurting and he could no longer climb scaffolding or roofs. Perhaps his suicide wasn’t so hard to understand after all.

Michael flicked through the other newspapers without finding anything except speculation and predictable coverage.

A dead, highly decorated veteran. With a limp. Just like one of the rhino horn thieves.

*

Elizabeth Caspersen’s black Opel Insignia pulled up in front of Admiral Hotel at exactly four thirty. Michael opened the passenger door and got in. He had managed to buy a clean shirt and the hotel had pressed the only suit he had packed.

She looked tired and stressed. The driver’s seat was pushed right back to make room for her long legs. She wore black,
perforated driving gloves and drove with skilful concentration. They crossed Langebro, passed the SAS Hotel and headed east down Ørestads Boulevard.

Neither of them spoke until they joined the motorway.

‘You look very nice, Michael.’

‘Thank you, so do you.’

She smiled feebly.

‘What have you discovered? You look terribly serious.’

Michael sighed and stared at his hands.

‘A young Danish-Norwegian couple disappeared on a hiking trip north of Lakselv around the 23 March 2011. Kasper Hansen and Ingrid Sundsbö,’ he said, without looking at her. ‘Thirty-one and twenty-nine years old. He was an engineer and she was a graphic designer. They arrived at Lakselv from Copenhagen via Oslo on the eve of 22 March and spent the night at Porsanger Vertshus. The following day they headed north and caught a lift with a Norwegian long-distance lorry driver. Since then no one has seen them, except their killers. They were experienced hikers with good equipment and the weather was fine and warm.’

The car swerved into the middle lane and she straightened it up with a jerk.

‘Two people …? Please, not two?’

‘I’m afraid so. Like I said, a young couple. She was probably killed the same day. Her body has never been found. Neither has his, obviously.’

‘Michael … Jesus Christ … oh, God.’

She leaned back and closed her eyes. Michael kept a nervous eye on a truck in the wing mirror.

‘Do you want me to drive?’ he offered, but Elizabeth Caspersen didn’t appear to have heard him. ‘Two …’ she whispered again in despair, and he felt genuinely sorry for her. ‘They didn’t have any children, did they? Michael … please tell me they didn’t have children …’

‘Two. Twins. A boy and a girl. Four years old now,’ he said mercilessly. ‘I’m sorry. Kasper Hansen’s sixty-five-year-old mother was granted custody of them. They live in a small house in Vangede. I visited her this morning, pretending to be a journalist interested in the case.’

‘Michael, that’s awful! What do I do? And it is them? You’re one hundred per cent sure?’

‘There is no doubt. Family and friends held a memorial service last autumn for two empty coffins in the Norwegian Seamen’s Church in Copenhagen. They were well-liked. Facebook is full of requests for information. Like you said, people want to know.’

‘Stop it … I get it, okay …’

Her eyes were blinded with tears; Michael put his hand on the handbrake.

‘No more details?’ he asked.

‘Not right now.’

‘I tried telling you, Elizabeth, I really did. Now they have a face and a name.’

‘I know, and I want to know everything, I just want you
to ration it. I didn’t know … It never even crossed my mind that there could be others. At the same time, I mean.’

‘Of course not, but you didn’t do anything wrong, Elizabeth. You’re doing the right thing now. Remember that.’

‘Yes, but it’s
my
insane, murderous father. I can’t help feeling responsible. I know perfectly well that it isn’t rational, but I do.’

She started crying again. ‘Those poor kids, I feel so sorry for them.’ She blinked away the tears on her eyelashes. ‘Do you have children of your own?’

‘A four-year-old and an eighteen-month-old,’ he said.

She nodded and stared straight ahead while her mind tried to process a storm of fresh horrors. Michael watched a tear make the journey from the corner of her eye; it fell from her jawbone and left a small, dark stain on her silk collar.

Eventually she regained control of her emotions – and the car – and he leaned back and noticed that his nails had left small, red crescents in the palms of his hands.

‘And the others?’ she asked. ‘The hunters. The murderers?’

‘Nothing yet.’

‘But you’ll find them?’

‘I think so.’

‘You have to find them, Michael!’

‘Of course.’

‘My father was a customer of Guns and Gents,’ she said a little later. ‘Their gunsmith looked after his weapons. They ordered the Mauser rifle for him in January 2011, and they
sighted it in for him with the telescopic sight it’s fitted with now. All the stamps, receipts and numbers match. You still don’t think it was him?’

Michael said nothing.

‘Sonartek’s Gulfstream flew my father to Stockholm on 20 March 2011 in the morning,’ she went on. ‘It returned without passengers in the afternoon, flew back to Stockholm on 27 March and returned with my father.’

‘I see,’ he said.

‘Is that all you have to say?’

‘It is for now.’

‘I can’t work out whether you’re listening to me and understand what I’m saying, or if you simply don’t want to believe that he did it,’ she exploded. ‘Seriously. It was just him and a bunch of crazed killers, not a conspiracy dreamt up by the CIA, or Victor, or anyone else, to blacken his name or cause me problems. They killed two innocent people, Michael!’

‘I hear you and I understand you, Elizabeth,’ he said. ‘But –’

‘But what?! Isn’t that enough, for God’s sake?’

He sighed and desperately wished that he could smoke.

‘Nothing.’

‘I’m not an idiot, Michael. What is it?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t, it’s just something I’ve learned along the way.’

‘What?’

‘Patterns, Elizabeth.’ Michael made a helpless gesture.
‘When something is too easy, when everything fits, it’s because it’s too good to be true. Always.’

‘If you say so,’ she mumbled. ‘I know it was him.’

He changed the subject: ‘What should I be expecting down at Pederslund?’

‘Victor will try to intimidate you. He’ll never trust you – or me, for that matter. No one, least of all him, likes outsiders prying into their private lives. He’ll resent it deeply. As far as his wife, Monika, goes, she’ll be a great hostess. Unless Victor has knocked her about recently.’

‘Recently?’

‘It happens,’ she said. ‘If you hear strange noises during the night, don’t open your door.’

‘Tonight?’

Michael stared at her.

‘It’ll be too late to drive home tonight. Victor won’t be satisfied until every stone has been turned. An illegitimate son of his business partner, a baby in the US, with
their
insane legal system? Forget it.’

‘I didn’t pack my toothbrush,’ he said.