by David Hewson
‘You promised you’d keep me informed.’
‘I didn’t promise anything.’
She got a slice of bread, plastered on some butter and cheese, bit into it while he rambled angrily.
‘You’re looking at one of my teachers now. I had to hear about that from the school.’
Mouth half full, she asked him, ‘Why did you tell your people not to give us Kemal’s file? Where’s the cooperation there?’
He shook his head, said nothing.
‘We asked for all the files. On all the teachers, Hartmann. Why didn’t we get his?’
‘It’s the first I knew about it. Believe me.’
‘How come? You’re the boss, aren’t you?’
She finished the cheese, put the plate in the sink.
‘Yes, OK, it doesn’t look good. What do you want me to do?’
She raised an eyebrow, dried some dishes with a cloth.
‘Cooperate.’
‘I’m trying! I don’t know why I didn’t get his file.’ Then, a tone lower, ‘I don’t know what’s going on here. There’s something, someone, in my office…’
Lund looked interested.
‘Doing what?’
‘I don’t know,’ Hartmann said. ‘Snooping. Seeing things they shouldn’t. It’s an election. You expect dirt to fly. But not…’
He looked at her.
‘If someone’s broken into our system that’s a crime, right?’
‘If—’
‘There’s something going on. You could take a look—’
‘I’m a homicide detective,’ Lund cut in. ‘Trying to find who raped and murdered a young girl. I don’t do office work. And I want that file.’
‘Fine.’ He looked furious. Desperate too. ‘I’ll get it. There must be a duplicate. Somewhere.’
‘Is there something special about Kemal?’ she asked.
‘He’s one of our role models. He helps young immigrants who’ve got into trouble. I’ve got his party records for that. He’s—’
‘So if he did it you’ll look bad? Is that it?’
Hartmann scowled at her.
‘It damages your campaign.’ She picked up an apple, thought about it, grabbed a bag of potato crisps instead. ‘You lose votes.’
‘You don’t have a very high opinion of me, do you?’
Lund offered him a crisp.
‘If this is your man that’s all there is to it,’ Hartmann said. ‘No one in my office will stand in your way. I just want to know.’
‘Is that all?’
He brightened a little.
‘Yes. That’s all. Your turn now.’
She laughed.
‘What is this? A game? I’ve nothing to tell you. Kemal’s one line of inquiry. There are questions we need answered. Where he was…’
‘Fine. I’ll have him suspended.’
‘You can’t do that. We don’t have enough to arrest him.’
Lund got herself a bottle of milk from the fridge, sniffed it, poured herself a glass.
‘You can’t,’ she repeated. ‘I know you want a yes or no. I can’t say yet.’
‘When?’
Lund shrugged.
‘I’m handing the case over to a colleague tomorrow.’
‘Is he reliable?’
‘Unlike me?’
‘Unlike you.’
She toasted him.
‘He’s very reliable. You’re going to love him.’
Eleven in the evening in Hartmann’s private office. Under the blue light of the hotel sign he met Rie Skovgaard. She took one look at him and said, ‘It’s that bad?’
He threw his coat on the desk.
‘I don’t know exactly. Lund won’t tell me anything she doesn’t want to. They seem to think it’s him. She just won’t say it.’
Skovgaard checked her laptop.
‘The pictures they took tonight are going out. I can’t stop that. But no one knows he was a suspect, any more than you did when you shook his hand.’
‘Who kept back that file?’
‘I’m looking into it.’
She threw a set of dummy ads on the table. Foreign faces alongside white ones. Smiling. Together.
‘The next run of the campaign was all about integration. We pushed the role model idea a lot. I’m going to pull them. We’ll stop using the term. Focus on other issues till this blows over.’
‘The debate tomorrow—’
‘I’ll get you out of it. This is a gift to Bremer. Let me make some calls.’
Skovgaard walked to her desk, picked up the phone.
‘No.’ Hartmann watched her. Still dialling. He walked over, put the phone back on the hook. ‘I said no. The debate goes ahead.’
‘Troels—’
‘This is one man. A suspect. He hasn’t been found guilty and even if he is that doesn’t say anything about all the other role models. They’ve done plenty of good work. I won’t let them be slandered through this.’
‘Oh fine words!’ she yelled at him. ‘I hope they sound good when we lose.’
‘This is what we’re about. What I’m about. I have to stand by what I believe—’
‘You have to win, Troels. If you don’t it doesn’t matter a shit.’
He was getting mad now. Wished he’d expended some of this on Lund, watching him all the time with those glittering eyes while she munched on a sandwich and gulped at her milk.
‘We owe these people something. Day in, day out, they work with these kids. Do things you wouldn’t dream of. Me neither.’
He picked up a stash of papers, threw them at her.
‘We’ve got the statistics. The proof it works.’
‘The press…’ she began.
‘To hell with the press!’
‘They’ll crucify us if he did it!’ She got up, came to him, put her arms on his shoulders. ‘They’ll crucify you. Like they did your father. This is politics, Troels. Save your fine words for speeches. If I’ve got to go into the gutter to get you into that chair I’ll do it. That’s what you pay me for.’
Hartmann turned away, looked out at the night beyond the window.
Her hand came to his hair.
‘Come home with me, Troels. We can talk about it there.’
A moment of silence between them. An instant of indecision, of doubt.
Then Hartmann kissed her forehead.
‘There’s nothing to talk about. We’re going ahead as planned. Everything. The posters. The debate. Nothing changes.’
Eyes closed, fingers at her pale temple.
‘The civil servant who brought you the school files…’ Hartmann said.
‘What about him?’
‘Make some room in my schedule. Tomorrow. I want to see him.’
Saturday, 8th November
Lund was pinning pictures of Kemal on the board, listening to Meyer read out what he’d found. Ten officers in the room, Buchard on his feet at the head of the table.
‘Born in Syria. Damascus. Fled with his family when he was twelve. His father’s an imam and frequents the Copenhagen mosque.’
Meyer looked around them.
‘Apparently Kemal has severed ties with his family. They think he’s too Western. Danish wife. No religion. After school and national service he became a professional soldier.’
Pictures of him smiling in a blue beret.
‘Then he went to university and completed his Masters. Joined the school seven years ago. Two years ago he married a colleague. The school says he’s popular. Well-respected—’
Buchard cut in, shaking his head.
‘This doesn’t sound like the kind of man—’
‘He was accused of molesting a girl,’ Lund said. ‘No one wanted to believe it at the time.’
The chief still looked unconvinced.
‘What does the girl say?’
‘We can’t reach her. She’s backpacking in Asia.’
Meyer held up the evidence bag with the plastic tie.
‘Lund found
this in Kemal’s apartment. It matches the one used on the girl.’
‘And you’ve got ether too?’ Buchard asked. He scratched his pug head. ‘Lots of people use those ties. Ether… I don’t know. This isn’t enough.’
‘We’ll run through his alibi,’ Lund said. She unsealed the first of a set of envelopes. Photos of Nanna. ‘I want these pictures distributed around all the city hotels. She went somewhere.’
‘Put a team on Kemal,’ Buchard ordered. ‘So we know what he’s doing. Not too close. The funeral’s today. We don’t want to disturb the family.’
The chief cast his beady eyes around the table.
‘It’s bad enough as it is. Let’s not make things worse.’
Twenty minutes later Lund and Meyer sat down to interview Stefan Petersen, a podgy, retired plumber who had one of the little houses on the allotments on the edge of Dragør.
‘I’ve got number twelve. He’s got number fourteen. In a year’s time I’ll have been there long enough to live in it all year round,’ he said proudly. ‘Can’t choose your neighbours. But it’s a nice place all the same.’
Meyer asked, ‘On Friday? Did you see Kemal and his wife arrive?’
‘Oh yes.’ Petersen’s attention was fully on him, not Lund. He liked talking to a man. ‘About eight or nine I think. I saw something else later too.’
He looked pleased with himself.
‘It’s because I smoke cigarillos.’ Petersen pulled out a packet of small cigars. ‘Mind if I—?’
‘Damned right I mind,’ Meyer barked at him. ‘Put those things away. What did you see?’
‘Smoke if you want,’ Lund said, taking a lighter out of his bag, flicking it for him.
The fat plumber grinned and lit up.
‘Like I was saying… I’m a smoker. But the missus won’t let me have a cigarillo indoors. So I sit on the patio. Rain or shine. There’s a roof.’
Lund smiled at him.
‘The Arab came out of his house. And drove away.’
‘Kemal, you mean?’
He looked at Meyer as if she was being dim.
‘What time was that?’ Lund asked.
He thought about this, wreathed in a cloud of stinking fumes.
‘I watched the weather forecast afterwards so it must have been about half past nine.’
‘Did you see the car return?’
‘I don’t stay out all night. But it was there the next morning.’
She got up, shook his hand, said thanks.
When the plumber was gone Meyer marched up and down the office, as if claiming it for himself.
Lund leaned on the door, watching.
‘Why would Kemal’s wife lie about his whereabouts?’ she asked.
‘Let’s find out.’
‘We wait until after the funeral.’
‘Why? Do you want me to call Hartmann and ask his permission?’
Buchard was at the door.
‘Lund,’ he said, jerking his thumb towards his office.
‘What about me?’ Meyer asked.
‘What about you?’
She went to get away from the plumber’s cigarillo smoke.
‘The answer’s no,’ Lund said before Buchard got out a word.
‘Listen to me—’
‘I can help you by email. Or over the phone. Maybe pop over once in a while.’
‘Let me speak,’ the old man pleaded. ‘That’s not it. Did you check out the father?’
‘Of course I checked out the father!’
‘What did you find out?’
She frowned, trying to remember.
‘Not much. Nothing interesting. Minor offences. Stolen goods. Bar brawls. It was twenty years ago. Why?’
Buchard helped himself to some water. He looked tired and sick.
‘I got a call from a retired DCI. You know the kind. Nothing better to do than read the papers.’
He passed her a note.
‘He says Birk Larsen was dangerous. Really dangerous.’
‘Anything sexual?’
‘Not that he’d heard. But he said we didn’t know the half of it.’
‘So what? We checked. He’s got an alibi. It can’t be him.’
‘You’re sure?’
Sure.
There was a word. Everyone wanted to be sure. No one was really. Because people lied. To others. To themselves sometimes. She even did it herself.
‘I’m sure,’ she said.
In the kitchen the boys ran around, Vagn’s little cars in their hands. Theis Birk Larsen in black, ironed white shirt, funeral tie. Talking on the phone. Of Thermos flasks and tables, sandwiches and what to drink.
Anton stumbled, knocked a vase to the floor. The last of Nanna’s flowers. Pink roses, more stalk than petal.
Stood with his brother, both heads down. Waiting for the storm to break.
‘Go and wait in the garage,’ Birk Larsen said. Not severely.
‘I didn’t mean…’ the child started.
‘Go and wait in the garage!’ Their things were on the table. ‘And don’t forget your coats.’
When they left he heard the radio news. The first item: Nanna’s funeral at St John’s Church. As if she belonged to them all now. Not the family that used to eat around the table, in the bright light of the window, thinking nothing would ever change.
‘Many people have arrived to pay their respects,’ the announcer went on. ‘Outside there’s—’
He turned it off. Tried to still his thoughts. Called, ‘Sweetheart?’
An old word. One he’d used since she was a mouthy, pushy teenager looking for excitement. A glimpse of the rough world outside the middle classes where she belonged.
He remembered her clearly. Saw himself too. A thug, a thief. A villain. Getting tired of that life. Looking for a rock. Looking to be one himself.
‘Sweetheart?’
It was her from the start. She saved him. In return…
A family. A home. A small removals firm built from nothing, their name on the side. It seemed so much. All he could hope to offer. All he had to give.
Still she didn’t answer. He walked into the bedroom. Pernille sat naked and hunched on the bed. On her upper left arm, still vivid and blue as the day she got it, sat a tattooed rose. He remembered when she went down the hippie parlour in Christiania. They’d been smoking. He’d been dealing, not that she knew. It was Pernille’s way of saying, ‘I’m yours now. Part of that life you have. Part of you.’
He hated that rose and never said so. What he wanted of her were the very things she took for granted. Her decency, her honesty, her integrity. Her infinite capacity for blind, inexplicable love.
‘Are you coming?’
The black dress lay on the bed with her underwear. A black bag. Black tights.
‘I can’t decide what to wear.’
Birk Larsen stared at the clothes on the duvet.
‘I know…’ she began.
Voice cracked, tears starting.
He heard himself shrieking inside.
‘It doesn’t matter, does it, Theis? Nothing does.’
Her hands went to her brushed chestnut hair.
‘I can’t do this. I can’t go.’
He thought, as best he could.
‘Maybe Lotte can help.’
She didn’t hear. Pernille’s eyes were fixed on the mirror: a naked woman in middle age, body getting flabby, breasts loose. Stomach stretched by children. Marked by motherhood. How it should be.
‘The flowers should be right…’ she murmured.
‘They will be. We’ll get through this.’
Birk Larsen bent down, picked up the black dress, held it out.
‘We’ll get through this,’ he said. ‘OK?’
Downstairs Vagn Skærbæk sat with the boys. Out of his red overalls. Black shirt, silver chain, black jeans.
‘Anton. It was just a vase. Don’t worry.’
Birk Larsen heard this as he walked through the round tables and chairs, looked at the
white porcelain plates they’d rented, the glasses, the food under foil at the side.
‘I broke a bottle once,’ Skærbæk said. ‘I did lots of stupid things. We all do.’
‘We need to get in the car,’ Birk Larsen ordered. ‘We’re leaving.’
The boys moved quickly, heads down, not a word.
Skærbæk looked at him.
‘What about Pernille?’
‘Her sister’s going to take her.’
‘Isn’t Mum coming?’ Anton asked, climbing into the car.
‘Not with us.’
Skærbæk said, ‘Theis, I was thinking… The woman at the school. It’s best I don’t talk to her.’
‘Why not?’
Skærbæk shrugged.
‘You’ve got a lot on your plate. Maybe she doesn’t know a thing. Just gossip.’
‘That’s not what you said last night.’
‘I know but…’
Birk Larsen bristled, stared at Skærbæk, a smaller man. A weaker man. This was always their relationship. One cemented by violence, by fists in the early days.
Finger in Skærbæk’s face he said, ‘I want to know.’
The civil servant called Olav Christensen was in Hartmann’s office, looking at the campaign posters. About role models. Integration. The future.
Twenty-eight but he seemed younger. Fresh-faced. Biddable.
He was sweating.
‘We have a small problem,’ Hartmann said. ‘The files you gave us on the teachers.’
A baffled smile.
‘What about them?’
‘One was missing.’
A pause.
‘Missing?’
‘It doesn’t look good, does it, Olav? I mean we ask. You deliver.’ Hartmann stared at him. ‘That’s the way it works, doesn’t it?’
Christensen said nothing.
‘I’m going to be boss of you and everyone who owns you soon. How about an answer?’
‘Maybe it got lost when we moved the archives.’
‘Maybe?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘This is the Rådhus. We’ve got documents going back a century. All kept in locked cabinets.’
Hartmann waited.
‘They are,’ Christensen agreed.
‘There are no cabinets missing,’ Skovgaard chipped in. ‘Or reports of lost files. I asked your boss. He’s sure of it.’
‘Maybe there was an error made with the filing.’
The two of them waited.
‘We have these trainees. Kids. I’m sorry. Mistakes happen.’