by David Hewson
She stared at him. Hands on hips. Bright wide eyes. Expectant. Dogged.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Meyer complained. ‘I don’t like it.’
She didn’t move an inch.
‘I’m not going to City Hall, Lund. That’s that. You do what you want. I am not going.’
He went back towards the corridor.
‘You told the father you’d find whoever did this, Meyer.’
He stopped, turned, scowled at her.
‘Was that just something to say?’
‘I also told my wife I’d hold down a job for more than three weeks. Which do you think matters most?’
She started saying something.
‘No,’ Meyer cut in. ‘Not a word. I know the answer. Really. No need.’
Same people, same room. Yet everything now was different. The group meeting was beginning and the tension of the night before had vanished. Smiling, joking, acting as if nothing had happened at all they sat waiting, Knud Padde beaming more broadly than the rest.
He’d been on the phone to Rie Skovgaard already. Wondering what the available committee places were. Angling for promotion.
Troels Hartmann sat at the head of the table next to Elisabet Hedegaard. The rest picked at croissants and pastries. He stuck to a single cup of coffee.
‘Good morning,’ Hartmann said and went through all the polite preliminaries. Thanks for their attendance. Apologies for the short notice.
Bigum sat at the far end of the table, slumped in his chair, trying to smile.
‘There’s no need for this to be long,’ Hartmann began.
‘Troels.’
It was Bigum. The smile looked ever more forced.
‘Please. I would like to speak for a moment.’
Hartmann acted surprised.
‘Of course, Henrik. If you wish.’
Bigum took a deep breath.
‘I owe you all an apology. For the unfortunate course of events.’
No one spoke.
‘It’s been difficult for all of us.’
Padde had seated himself next to Elisabet Hedegaard who stared at Bigum, hand on her chin.
‘I hope we all realize our disagreements only came about because of a mutual concern for the welfare of the party.’ Henrik Bigum glanced at Hartmann. ‘Nothing else, Troels. Nothing personal. So…’
An attempt at laughter. A deferential pass of the right hand.
‘I’d like us all to bury the hatchet and move forward.’
‘Thank you, Henrik,’ Hartmann said with good grace.
‘It’s a pleas—’
‘But you were right. This can’t go on.’
Bigum squirmed on his seat.
‘Troels. There’s really no reason for you to withdraw now. The constituency and the group are behind you. Your stand on the role model—’
‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Hartmann waved him down. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not withdrawing.’ He looked at each of them in turn, smile set to modest and self-effacing. ‘Don’t panic. Our common goal is to change the system here at City Hall. Right?’
They nodded, Bigum more vigorously than anyone else.
Hartmann rapped a finger on the table.
‘We can’t do this if we’re fighting amongst ourselves.’
An approving murmur.
Hartmann played the crowd.
‘I can’t hear you!’ He laughed. ‘Am I right?’
Louder this time, and Henrik Bigum laughed too, said, ‘You’re right, Troels. You were right all along.’
Hartmann gazed at him the length of the shiny committee table.
‘I know, Henrik. So I’m giving you the same choice you gave me yesterday.’
Bigum’s smile froze.
‘I’m sorry?’
Hartmann’s face had changed again. Serious. The expression he used when facing Bremer.
‘Either you step down…’ He paused. ‘Or we take a vote on it.’
Bigum shook his head.
‘What?’
The room was silent. Hartmann had kept Weber out of this. He never liked conflict. Rie Skovgaard, standing close to the table, smiling, expectant, had worked the phones from six that morning. They knew precisely where he stood.
Bigum was getting angry.
‘This is absurd. I’ve worked for this party for twenty years. As long as you, Troels. I was only acting in our best interest.’
‘You went to Bremer, Henrik. You offered him a pact.’
The lecturer’s bony, ascetic face flushed.
‘I wanted to gauge opinion. Nothing more. We won’t win outright. There are compromises to be made—’
‘What’s it to be, Henrik? Your resignation or a vote?’
Bigum looked at each of them. No one met his eyes. Not even Padde.
‘I see.’
He got up, leaned across the table, glowered at Hartmann, said, ‘Fuck you, Troels. You’ll never be Lord Mayor. You haven’t got the… the…’
‘Stomach?’ Hartmann asked.
Rie Skovgaard opened the door, smiling brightly.
‘Fuck you all,’ Bigum muttered and left.
Hartmann folded his arms and sat back in his chair.
Finally, Knud Padde said, ‘Well. That’s that. As chairman I will now give the floor to Troels.’
Hartmann got the coffee pot and poured himself another cup.
‘That goes for you too, Knud. On your way.’
Padde laughed like a nervous child.
‘Oh come on, Troels. I know I screwed up. But I worked hard for the party. I’m a loyal…’
Hartmann took a sip of his coffee.
‘You’re out,’ he said, nothing more.
No one looked at him. No one uttered a word.
Skovgaard had the door open again, still smiling.
‘That’s why you dragged me here?’ Padde said. ‘To humiliate me?’
‘Knud,’ Skovgaard called, knocking on the door with her knuckles. ‘We’ve a meeting to start. Please…’
He mumbled the first curse Hartmann had ever heard him utter then shambled out.
‘Good,’ Hartmann declared brightly. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
He beamed at the faces around the table. They were his now. No one else’s.
‘Elisabet. You’ll take over from Knud as chair. Is that OK?’
She nodded, smiled.
‘Now I’d like you to meet two new people.’
Skovgaard called out into the corridor.
‘Sanjay? Deepika? Will you come this way?’
A young man and a young woman. Asian. Smartly dressed, professional. Straight from the role model programme.
‘You may know Sanjay and Deepika from our youth organization,’ Hartmann announced. ‘Have a seat. Welcome. They’re our two new group committee members.’
He waited. Then asked, ‘Are there any questions?’
There were none.
Halfway through the meeting Hartmann came out to ask for some photocopies. Morten Weber and Rie Skovgaard were bickering over the machine.
‘You never told me the knives were coming out,’ Weber complained.
‘You wouldn’t have liked it.’
‘This isn’t a good time to start sacking people.’
‘They asked for it, Morten,’ Skovgaard said. ‘How can we have a snake like Bigum sitting amongst us?’
‘And Knud?’ Weber asked. ‘What did he do except behave the way he always did? Bending with the wind?’
‘Knud’s an example,’ Hartmann answered.
Weber opened his mouth, in mock amazement.
‘An example? Am I really hearing this from Saint Troels? Since when did you learn to wield daggers in the night?’
‘Since I wanted to bring down Poul Bremer. They’re gone. That’s it.’
He slapped some papers on the machine.
‘I want copies of these and some more coffee.’
‘Get your own damned coffee! Bigum won’t take this lying down. He’ll cause shit f
or you in the party.’
‘Listen, Morten,’ Hartmann told him. ‘We’ve been the nice guys too long. On the defensive. I had to act. I had to show I could be strong.’
‘You did that. I hope you talked it over with Kirsten Eller. Bigum was close to her in case you didn’t know.’
Nothing.
‘Oh,’ Weber snapped. ‘You didn’t. If you’d asked…’
Hartmann fought to keep his temper.
‘I’ll deal with Kirsten. You don’t need to worry about that.’
‘The problem,’ said the bank manager, ‘is you’re paying for two places.’
He’d come to the depot to see her. Sat in the office, face a mix of shame and anger. She wanted to ask him: why now? Didn’t he read the papers? Couldn’t he see this wasn’t the time?
But he was a bank manager. A man in a smart suit. Doubtless with a big house in one of the fancier suburbs. It was his job to chase small, struggling businesses in Vesterbro. Circumstances didn’t matter. Only kroner in the bank.
‘It won’t go on for long.’
‘It can’t. You don’t have the finances to sustain it. So…’
‘So what?’
‘When will you be able to sell the house?’
One of the men came through the door and said, ‘The tail lift on the big truck’s stuck.’
What would Theis do? What would Vagn say?
‘Make two trips with the little one. We can’t cancel.’
‘If we do that the next job’s late.’
She looked at him, said nothing. He left.
‘I can put your loan on hold,’ the bank manager said. ‘That means you skip this month’s payment. But…’
She was thinking about trucks and jobs and appointments. Work hard enough and the money came in. That was what Theis always said.
‘Pernille? You’ve got a big overdraft. There’s the cost of the funeral. We need some kind of—’
‘Money?’ she asked. ‘Collateral?’ She looked around at the office, the depot, the men outside. ‘All this is yours anyway. What else can I offer?’
‘You need a plan. Otherwise…’
‘Theis will be home soon,’ she said firmly. ‘He’ll find a solution. He always does.’
‘Pernille…’
‘You can wait till Theis comes, can’t you? Or do you want to serve papers at the cemetery when I put Nanna’s urn in the earth?’
He didn’t like that. It was, she thought, a cruel thing to say.
‘I’m trying to help.’
Her phone was ringing.
‘You’ll get your money. Excuse me. I have to take this.’
It was Theis, calling from the jail.
She went out into a quiet corner of the garage to talk.
‘Hi.’
‘Are you OK, Theis?’
‘Yeah.’
She tried to picture him there. Had they put him in uniform? Did he get enough to eat? Would there be an argument? His temper…
‘How are the boys?’
He sounded old and broken.
‘They’re fine. Waiting for you to come home.’
There was a long, asthmatic breath on the line, then he said, ‘I won’t be coming home today.’
‘When will they let you out?’
‘They want to keep me in custody.’
A couple of the workers were staring at one of the trucks. There was a problem there as well.
‘For how long?’
‘A week today I go back to court. Maybe then.’
She couldn’t think of a thing to say.
‘I’m sorry about…’
She’d never seen him cry. Not even when his mother died. Everything about Theis happened inside, hidden, trapped in silence. The emotions were there. She’d learned to feel them, to sense them. Never expected to see them made plain.
‘I have to go now, love,’ he said.
She was choking back the tears, for him, for her, for Nanna and the boys. For all the sad grey world.
Pernille had no words either and this seemed the worst thing, the greatest sin of all.
‘Bye,’ he said and then was gone.
Lund went to the brown-brick fortress that was the Rådhus, found the place in the basement that dealt with the cars. Stood there in her black coat, jeans and woollen sweater dealing with a tetchy old man in uniform who thought he had better things to do.
The parking garage was dealt with by a security office situated near the exit. There was a glass screen between the man and her, for reasons she couldn’t begin to fathom. CCTV screens covered the building, the prison-like halls of the council quarters, the civil servants’ offices, the basement, the garage.
‘We’re busy,’ the security man said.
‘This won’t take long. I need to understand how your system works.’
He looked as if he’d worked here since the place was built a century or so ago. An unsmiling man of about sixty-five, half-moon spectacles he liked to fiddle with, bald with a fringe of silver hair. Self-important in his official blue jumper as if the city crest, three gold towers rising from the water, were a badge of office. More interested in his keys and cameras and pigeonholes than looking at the people around him.
‘It’s a garage,’ he said. ‘What do you expect? They hand in the keys once they’ve parked. They pick them up when they leave.’
There was a board behind him. Full of key rings. A driver came and asked for a car. The man got up, stretched out the half-moon glasses with his left hand so he could read the numbers. A long way. To the end of his sharp nose.
‘You need to see an optician,’ she said trying to be friendly.
He handed the driver a set, glared at her, sat down, said nothing.
‘So the key to the stolen car should have been hanging there?’
‘If it hadn’t been stolen.’
‘Who’s responsible for filling up the cars?’
‘Whoever’s driving them, I guess. I don’t deal with that side of things.’
‘And is that always entered in the log?’
He didn’t like that question.
‘I can’t speak for the electoral candidates. Talk to them.’
Lund hesitated, looked at him. Stood where she was.
‘I’m talking to you.’
Then she walked into his office, placed the vehicle log in front of him.
‘This is the log we took from here. Explain it to me. Does it mean no one filled the car?’
‘You’re supposed to stay outside the glass.’
‘You’re a city employee. You’re supposed to help the police. Tell me about the log.’
‘Doesn’t mean a thing,’ the man said. ‘Drivers don’t fill them in straight away. They wait till they’ve got time. Sometimes they don’t fill them in at all.’
He peered at the entries.
‘This driver never came back here. So he never filled in the log. Where’s the surprise? Can I go back to my work now?’
He messed with his glasses again, peered at her.
‘Unless you have some more questions?’
She walked out of the office, went to the door. Looked outside at the monochrome winter day.
No one helped the police much. They were an enemy of a kind. Even in the bowels of City Hall.
Lund went back and stood outside the glass as she was supposed to. He was still fidgeting with his spectacles, nervously it seemed to her.
‘How do the drivers pay for petrol?’
He pressed the button for his mike.
‘What?’
‘How do the drivers pay for petrol?’
He thought about this.
‘There’s a charge card in the car. Look. This isn’t anything to do with us—’
‘We didn’t find any charge card. What kind is it?’
‘I don’t know. We’re security. We don’t handle money. Now if you’ll excuse—’
‘I understand that. But you can look it up. See which petrol stations they usually use.�
��
‘You want me to look it up?’
‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘And then I’ll let you get back to work.’
He sat on his little seat, miserable pale face, fingers playing with his glasses.
‘I promise,’ she said.
The details were in a book in front of him. He scribbled on a piece of paper and passed them under the glass.
‘Anything else?’ he asked.
‘Not right now, thanks.’
Meyer and his men were at the school wearing hard hats, looking at the building site that was to become the new wing.
‘Talk to all the workers,’ he ordered. ‘Find out what time they arrived. When they left. Anything they saw. When you’ve done that talk to the cleaners. After that—’
His phone rang.
Lund.
‘Are you coming to the school or what? We’ve got plenty to do here.’
‘There was a charge card for the car. I don’t have the card but I’ve got the number.’
A pause. The sound of traffic. He could see her juggling the phone, some papers, trying to drive, all at the same time.
‘That Friday it was used at seven twenty-one in the evening. Petrol station on Nyropsgade.’
‘Where?’
‘Two minutes from City Hall.’
Meyer said nothing.
‘We’ll get hold of the surveillance tapes,’ Lund said.
‘We should do what Buchard tells us.’
She didn’t answer.
‘Can’t you do this on your own?’ he asked, and felt bad the moment he’d said it.
‘Sure,’ she replied in that lilting sing-song tone she could turn on and off at will. ‘If you like.’
Then she was gone.
The men were looking at him.
Meyer threw the nearest his hard hat.
‘You know what you need to do,’ he said.
‘Going somewhere?’ the man asked.
‘I’ll be back at headquarters if you need me.’
The days were shortening. It was dark just after four.
Pernille Birk Larsen found herself alone in the office, fending off phone calls from irate customers, the media, strangers with odd offers of help.
The bank manager had been on the phone asking for financial information. So she’d been forced to find the key to Theis’s private files to look for some missing bank statements. There was a picture in there: Theis and Nanna. Probably taken just a few weeks before, she guessed. He wore his black woollen hat and the guileless smile she loved. Nanna was beautiful, arm round her father’s shoulders as if protecting him. Not the other way round. The way it was supposed to be.