by David Hewson
‘Jens would never dream of harming Gunnar Torpe. Hurting any of the men he served with.’ A bitter thought. ‘He was closer to them than his own family.’
The man was running out of questions.
‘If he contacts you again and you don’t tell us we will arrest you.’ He glanced at Jonas. ‘That wouldn’t be good for the kid.’
‘I’m so glad you’ve got our best interests at heart.’
The cop scowled.
‘I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.’
‘Four people my husband knew are dead. Jens is the only one in his squad still alive.’
The man looked at his colleague by the door. He was ready to leave.
‘What do you think?’ Louise Raben threw at him before he could go.
A moonlit night. Hareskoven, the Forest of Hares, north-west of the city. Nature trails and bike tracks, a fast road by the edge.
Raben behind the wheel. Gunnar Torpe in the passenger seat, the gun held low and as steady as the ride allowed.
‘Where are we going, Priest?’
‘To Heaven or Hell. I told you that often enough. Just drive, will you?’
The woodland was ahead. No traffic to speak of.
‘Your sermons were always a pile of shit. What did Dragsholm say? Why did she contact you?’
The silver crucifix was still hanging from the driver’s mirror, swinging with the motion of Torpe’s car. It had taunted him all the way back from Sweden after Lisbeth Thomsen died.
‘She was going to reopen the case,’ Raben said. ‘She knew we got stitched up . . .’
The gun rose above the dashboard. Torpe indicated a side road.
‘Turn left there.’
Raben kept driving.
‘Turn left, damn you!’
The cold barrel was against his temple. He slowed, braked, moved carefully onto the exit. Little more than a dirt track winding into a patch of tall, spare conifers.
Much like the island in Sweden where Thomsen died.
The lights of the city were gone. There was nothing but the dark, the slender trunks of the trees and the sparse winter vegetation between them. Torpe pointed to a parking space filled with wood chippings, slammed his hand on the dashboard, said, ‘There.’
Raben did as he was told then cut the engine.
‘Leave the keys in the ignition,’ Torpe ordered then waved him out.
Cold night, promise of rain. Owls hooting, animals scuttling through the ferns and bracken around them. Raben had learned the phases of the moon years ago during covert training. Had been deprived of the ability to see them locked in his cell in Herstedvester. Four nights of freedom . . . This was waxing gibbous, bright and getting brighter. He saw more than most men. More than Gunnar Torpe ever would.
‘Move away from the car.’
Raben took a step.
‘Further! Further!’ The priest was waving the gun like a child playing with a toy. ‘I know what you’re like. We all did. You stay clear of me. OK? Now walk.’
‘I was a soldier,’ Raben said slowly, edging into the wood. ‘That’s all.’
‘One of the best and one of the worst.’
‘Who said that?’
‘Søgaard. Everyone.’
‘What is this, Priest?’ Raben asked, half-turning. The gun kept bobbing behind him.
Torpe was a big man. He’d served. He’d fought. But he never spent time with the Jægerkorpset and it showed in his nervousness, the shaking fingers, the cracked tone in his booming voice.
A false, modern electronic sound rang out over the gentle noises of the forest. Raben glanced backwards. Torpe had his phone out, holding it with his gun hand, was clumsily punching the keys with his free fingers.
‘It’s all going to come out,’ Raben said. ‘Doesn’t matter how hard you try to hide it.’
‘All what?’ Torpe sneered. ‘You don’t even remember. You’re a crazy man.’
The phone went to his ear. The gun was back on Raben and steady.
‘Hello?’ Torpe said, back with that lilting priest’s voice he used in church. ‘Is that the police? My name’s Gunnar Torpe. I’m in Hareskoven. I want to report an assault.’
Raben stopped. They were maybe thirty metres from the car.
‘It concerns a former soldier you’re looking for. Jens Peter Raben. He drove me into the woods and threatened me with a pistol.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake . . .’ Raben began.
The gun was on him, straight and firmly held.
‘No,’ Torpe went on, in a voice that sounded scared and maybe was. ‘I don’t know where he is. I ran away. I’m waiting by the main path, near the nature trail signs. You can find me there.’
The phone went back in his pocket.
‘You should have shopped me in Vesterbro,’ Raben complained. ‘We didn’t have to come all this way—’
‘I know you!’ Gunnar Torpe roared. ‘I know how sly and hard and bitter you are, Raben. I don’t want that near my church. I’m going back to the city now and when they find me gone they’ll flood this place and flush you out like the animal you are.’
‘I never meant you harm.’
‘You don’t know what you’re doing.’ Torpe shook his grey head. ‘Go back to Herstedvester. Stay there till you’re well. Hope your wife still loves you . . .’
‘What did Dragsholm want?’
The black handgun pointed at a path into the trees.
‘Go that way,’ Torpe ordered. ‘Run!’
Raben looked at the narrow track, sniffed, took a step closer to the man in front of him.
‘I don’t know a thing,’ the priest cried. ‘Stay back!’
‘She saw Myg. Grüner. Thomsen . . .’
Raben kept walking. Torpe was edging backwards now, towards the car.
‘Get away from me.’
‘She wanted them to testify against the officer. Against Perk.’
‘I buried Perk three months before!’
Raben kept coming. The gun was up at his face. Torpe couldn’t see but he was backing straight into a tree.
‘Don’t make me do this.’
His back hit the trunk. Cornered.
‘Don’t make me!’ Gunnar Torpe bellowed.
The barrel was cold against Raben’s forehead.
‘Do it then, man of God,’ he said and laughed as Torpe pulled the trigger. Then clicked and clicked again.
Raben took a handful of shells out of his pocket and held them in front of the stupefied Torpe.
‘You don’t think I’d give a man a loaded gun, do you?’ Raben asked slowly, taking the weapon from the priest’s shaking fingers then feeding the shells into the empty magazine. ‘Even an idiot like you?’
The barrel rose again, straight in the terrified face of Gunnar Torpe.
‘I want to know what Dragsholm uncovered, Priest. I want to know why she reopened the case.’
Two hands on the weapon, feet splayed, ready to shoot. Torpe looked ready to piss himself.
‘She asked me to testify! I’d heard them talking about the officer. About Perk.’
‘You knew all this was wrong and still you left me rotting in that hole—’
‘What could I do? I was the chaplain. I didn’t know a damned thing.’
His hands went up. A gesture of surrender, not prayer.
‘I asked Søgaard what was going on,’ Torpe said.
Moonlight played along the barrel. The priest fell against the trunk, slumped to his knees.
‘What did he say?’
‘He said it was bullshit. Perk wasn’t there. The judge advocate’s report—’
‘He said I made it up.’
‘They investigated!’
‘I was locked up for two years. Filled with their stinking dope. Cut off from my family. I was a soldier. I fought for this country—’
‘Don’t blame me!’ Gunnar Torpe was a sorry heap at the foot of the tree. ‘Talk to Søgaard. Colonel Jarnvig. The others at the barracks. I didn’
t put you in that place.’
‘No.’ His boot came up, caught Torpe hard in the gut. The older man screamed like a hurt child. ‘But you left me there.’
Raben stepped back, glanced at the moon, listened. No cars yet. Only the owls and the night animals.
‘Forgive me.’ Torpe was on his hands and knees. The crucifix round his neck was loose and hanging down to the dank earth.
Raben kept the gun on him and it never shook.
‘Think of your wife. Think of your son.’
He laughed.
‘What about my soul, Priest? Shouldn’t I think about that?’
Raben lifted the gun. Looked around. Started to plan.
‘No need for an answer,’ he said and walked back to the car. One glance behind. Gunnar Torpe amid the pine needles and rotting leaves. Head to the ground. Bent as if in worship.
He was glad Torpe left the keys in the ignition. It made life easier. Not that he needed any help. Raben was relishing his freedom. Starting to follow strategies. Tricks designed to keep a man alive in a world that was hostile.
Søgaard.
An ambitious, ruthless officer intent on clawing his way to the top.
Raben remembered that much from Helmand. But not much else.
He needed answers and he knew where they lay.
Søgaard was in the interview room by the time Lund and Strange got back to the Politigården. Same uniform, same smug, arrogant face.
‘This will go further,’ he said before she could get out a word. ‘You’re in the way of an army mission.’
‘That’s terrible,’ Lund said. ‘You said you didn’t know any officer by the name of Perk.’
‘I didn’t,’ he said calmly. ‘I still don’t.’
‘Per Kristian Møller. Everyone called him Perk.’
‘Not me.’
‘He was on Team Ægir. As were you.’
‘We’ve got around seven hundred and fifty men and women scattered across Afghanistan. Some specialists too. Am I supposed to know them all?’
‘Oh come on, Søgaard,’ Lund said, laughing. ‘They made you a major. And that’s the best you can do?’
‘Perk was a nickname. I didn’t know the man personally . . .’
Strange sat to one side, hands clasped, watching.
‘But you and Torpe attended his funeral in Frederiksberg. Why?’
Søgaard’s blue eyes lit up with a sudden anger.
‘Because we were on that flight home from Helmand. It was our job.’
Lund nodded.
‘And you made damned sure no one saw his body.’
‘You bet,’ he agreed. ‘Møller died in an explosion.’ He leaned forward and stared into her face. ‘Ever seen one of those?’
‘Yes,’ she answered straight away. ‘In Sweden. I saw Lisbeth Thomsen cut to pieces, just a few minutes after I talked to her. I saw David Grüner burned to a cinder in his wheelchair too. Don’t give me this shit—’
‘Perk’s head was severed from what was left of his body!’ Søgaard yelled. ‘I’ve seen worse. I doubt the parents have. What’s this about?’
A knock on the door. An officer there calling for Strange. He walked out and left Lund on her own with Søgaard.
She wasn’t going to get anything out of this man and she knew it. That made it all the more important to try.
‘You must have been surprised when Raben and the others said they met a man called Perk. Given he’d been dead for three months.’
Søgaard shrugged.
‘Not really. The rest of their report was fantasy too. I buried Perk. How could—’
‘Who else saw him? Who declared him dead?’
Søgaard broke into a huge grin, looked at her, shook his head.
‘This is ridiculous! What are you playing at?’
‘Why was there no autopsy?’
‘We were at war. In Afghanistan. If you’d seen what was left of the man—’
‘There are rules in battle, aren’t there?’
He was still smiling.
‘That’s what you think when you’re here,’ he said in a quiet, steady voice. ‘It helps you sleep at night, I imagine. Don’t worry.’ He winked. ‘We won’t disturb you with the truth.’
‘You’re a Danish citizen. The law—’
‘Perk killed himself,’ Søgaard said. ‘Either that . . .’
He went quiet.
‘Either that or he was messing with an IED for some reason. Or making one for all I know. He’d been on duty with one of the covert teams. Gone a bit funny in the head they said. It happens. Sometimes we don’t notice till it’s too late. I don’t know what he was up to. That wasn’t my business.’
‘He was Jægerkorpset?’
‘You know I won’t answer that. My guess is suicide. We’ll never know. For the sake of the family—’
‘Don’t give me that. We’re about to open an empty coffin. Do yourself a favour and tell me the truth now.’
He didn’t speak for a second. Something in his eyes worried Lund.
‘You’re digging him up? You’re insane.’
The door again. Strange there.
‘Lund,’ he said. ‘We need to go back to the cemetery.’
The forensic team had taken the coffin into one of the outbuildings. The duty pathologist was the same bearded, middle-aged man she’d worked with on the Birk Larsen case. The one who gave her the recipe for cider she’d never get to make in Sweden.
‘Hi, Lund,’ he said, beaming as she came in. ‘Nice to see you again.’
The coffin was on a wooden trestle in the middle of the room surrounded by cops and forensic men treading on the earth fallen around it. The lid was open, the contents clearly visible.
‘Caucasian male. Late twenties I’d say. The femur indicates he was about six feet tall. He’s had some very rough treatment. Definitely consistent with an explosion. Bit of a mess really. Reminds me of when I was doing some work in the Balkans—’
‘No,’ Lund said. ‘You can’t be sure it’s Møller.’
‘We’ll need to run some tests, I agree.’
‘It’s not him! They could have put someone else’s body in his place. There’s no proper autopsy. No death certificate we’d recognize—’
‘What’s that?’ Strange said, pointing to something beneath the bones and the decaying flesh.
One of the assistants reached in and pulled out a piece of camouflaged fabric. It was ragged at the edges and burned. A piece of army uniform. A fragment of a stencil on the charred fabric, ‘369045–9 Per K’.
Lund waved it away.
‘That doesn’t mean a damned thing! We’ll have to take a DNA test. What about his teeth?’
She put her bare hands inside the coffin and started to look.
‘Cut it out!’ the pathologist yelled and snatched her fingers away.
Her eyes were ranging round the room so quickly she couldn’t focus on anything. Until she saw Brix and she knew that look, had seen it before.
‘This can’t be Møller,’ she insisted. ‘Søgaard and the chaplain wouldn’t let his own family see the body. Why would Raben know the name of a dead man three months on?’
Brix said nothing. Strange said nothing. The pathologist was staring at his feet.
‘I’m not crazy!’ Lund said in a shrill high voice that sounded too close to a shriek.
A good minute and no one spoke. Lund could see Hanne Møller hovering outside the door.
‘I want those forensic reports as quickly as possible,’ Brix said. ‘Do this quietly. We’ve caused enough trouble as it is.’
‘Brix!’
The expression on his craggy, unemotional face stopped her.
‘We’re going back to headquarters,’ he said. ‘You two can come in my car.’
One last story before bed. Jonas was on the sofa, head on her shoulder, listening to tales of warring dragons, unimpressed by her feeble jokes. She stroked his soft brown hair, reached for the duvet.
‘Time to
go to sleep. Soon we’ll have your bedroom finished. That will be nice, won’t it?’
He raised his small head and she found herself held by the force of his eyes. It was hard to deceive a child. Cruel somehow.
‘Why are they chasing Daddy?’
‘It’s a game.’ You had to lie, she thought. Especially when you didn’t know the truth yourself. ‘He’s playing hide-and-seek. Just like you do at kindergarten.’
The boy pulled himself from her and laid his head on the pillow by the sofa’s arm. He’d been sleeping here for almost a year since they returned to Ryvangen from the rented flat she could no longer afford on her nurse’s wages. Not for much longer.
‘Did he do something wrong?’
‘No. They just want to find him. And when they do we can visit him again.’
His blue and white cotton pyjamas were getting too small. He needed new ones. More expense, and she didn’t want to bother her father again. This limbo was squeezing the life out of them. It couldn’t go on.
‘Did you like that new scooter Major Søgaard bought you? Shall we try it out tomorrow?’
A scowl on his young, unformed face. Jonas said nothing.
‘Sleep tight, darling,’ Louise whispered, then kissed his warm forehead and tucked the duvet round his small body.
Her father was in the kitchen eating a sandwich. Combat dress, boots. Scanning some papers on the table.
‘They found the priest,’ he said as she came in. ‘He says Jens took him to some woods at gunpoint. Threatened him.’
She put an anxious finger to her lips then closed the doors that separated them from the room where Jonas was supposed to be going to sleep.
‘Torpe’s OK,’ Jarnvig added. ‘Jens beat him up a bit. Threatened him with the gun.’
‘Why would he do that?’
Her father stared at her, the way he did when she was a mildly rebellious teenager, unable to comprehend something he found so obvious.
‘Because he’s ill. Face it. I came back to check you were OK. It’s best you and Jonas don’t leave the barracks for now. Until they have him in custody.’
He dragged his beret out of his pocket, pulled it on his head.
‘Is that an order?’ she asked in a bitter, sarcastic voice.
‘It’s a father’s request to his daughter. I’m worried about you. About Jonas . . .’
‘I want to know what the hell’s going on, Dad. Myg, Grüner. Thomsen. That woman lawyer. These explosives getting stolen. You and Søgaard getting taken in for questioning.’