by David Hewson
‘Thomas,’ Karina went on. She always used his first name now, when they were on their own. He liked that. ‘It’ll take off some of the pressure. Krabbe’s getting impatient. He’s pestering Plough for an urgent meeting.’
‘Plough can tell Krabbe to go and sit outside the Prime Minister’s office, begging for an audience with him if he wants.’
‘An apology would go down well.’
Buch kept several packs of chocolate biscuits in the back of the car, in the small cabinet where others stored booze. He opened the nearest, offered it to Karina, took two when she shook her head.
‘How can I say sorry for something I never knew about?’
‘You’re the minister. It happens all the time.’
‘That doesn’t mean I like it. Whose idea was it to dig up this poor bastard anyway?’
‘A policewoman. She was fired.’
‘That was quick.’
‘She had history. Remember the Birk Larsen case a couple of years ago?’
Buch shuddered.
‘That was horrible.’
‘She solved it. Got fired after that too.’
Buch looked at her, interested.
‘There was a possibility a few local politicians were involved,’ Karina went on. ‘She wouldn’t let go of that either. If you put out a statement you could mention this wasn’t the first time she ran into disciplinary issues. Say something like . . . we expect all officers to uphold the fine traditions of the force.’
Buch stared at her.
‘OK,’ Karina agreed. ‘That’s not your style. I’ll leave the wording to you.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Sarah Lund.’
‘I want to talk to her.’
She burst out laughing. The thought that he could amuse this sharp, intelligent woman cheered him somehow.
‘You can’t possibly talk to her! She’s just been booted out of the force.’
‘I’m the Minister of Justice. I can talk to anyone I like. If this Lund woman solved the Birk Larsen case she can’t be stupid. Maybe she knows something.’
He offered her the biscuits again. This time she took one.
‘If you do that you’ll compromise your relations with the police.’
‘And haven’t they been forthcoming! No. If Monberg won’t speak to us we’ll have to try another avenue. Get me Sarah Lund, please.’
‘Thomas,’ she said, and her voice was that of a mother scolding a child. ‘If they find out you could be in big trouble.’
‘Oh for pity’s sake. If I don’t get to the bottom of this I’m out on my ear anyway. Let’s not pretend otherwise, shall we?’ He tapped her bag. ‘You’re very good on the phone. Find me this Sarah Lund please. We’ll go there straight away.’
A Danish working-class wedding. A hotel banqueting room full of friends and relatives. A happy couple. Soft music. A civilian registrar pronouncing the familiar refrain, ‘I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.’
Bjørn, a playful little man, full of good humour and mischief, grinned like a wicked pixie and did as he was told.
Lund was glad her cake hadn’t poisoned him much. He was nice and her mother was finally happy after so many years of solitary bitterness.
So she stood in the best dress she had, purple silk, applauded them both, smiled at Mark, tall and handsome beside her.
All the world moved on. Everything shifted with the times. But not her. She was in the same place she occupied two years before, after that black night when Meyer was shot and everything unravelled in her life. That was why she took so much awkward guilty comfort in the sight of her mother like this, consumed by the smothering bliss, the contentment that came from giving one’s life selflessly to another, burying an individual identity in a shared love that would whisper the perpetual lie ‘Now you’re safe for ever.’
This was a sacrifice she could never make and those who knew her understood. Mark was no longer the surly teenager who once snarled, ‘You’re only interested in dead people.’
He still thought that, she guessed. He was just too kind to say it.
It was a fine banqueting hall in Østerbro. Marble walls and the scent of too many bouquets. When the applause faded Bjørn clapped his hands and declared, ‘Now let’s have something to eat and drink, please. Then another drink! Then another!’
Her mother was in a green silk dress she’d made herself. She looked so perfect, so complete, Lund felt the tears start to well in her eyes.
‘You can tell Bjørn used to be in the Home Guard,’ Mark chuckled by her side.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, watching a couple of men in regimental blazers embrace the old man and slap him on the back.
Vibeke came over, hugged them both, kisses on the cheek, arms round each.
‘This idea about me making the toast . . .’ Lund began.
‘Nothing to it,’ Vibeke said quickly. ‘A short speech for your mother’s wedding. Small price to get rid of me.’
‘I’ve never been much good at speaking.’
‘All the more reason to keep it short. There has to be time for dancing. Next you’ll tell me you’re no good at dancing too. And I know that isn’t true.’ Vibeke’s joyful face became serious for a moment. ‘I remember you when you were Mark’s age. I know you can dance, Sarah.’
‘Wife! Wife!’ Bjørn’s squeaky voice rose above the hubbub. ‘We’ve got to have our pictures taken.’
Still she didn’t move. The two of them stayed where they were, mother and daughter. Mark retreated as if seeing something.
‘But I won’t make you,’ Vibeke said quietly. ‘I’ve tried so hard over the years to force you to be someone you’re not. I’m sorry. I just wanted . . .’
Lund threw her arms round her mother, brushed her lips against Vibeke’s warm and powdered cheeks.
‘You are who you are and I love you for that,’ her mother whispered into her ear, then fled back into the crowd as if terrified by this sudden outburst of intimate honesty.
A hotel worker in a white shirt appeared with a small bell in his hand.
‘You ring this for attention,’ he said, as if she’d never been to a wedding before. ‘The presents are on the table. Along with the flowers. Oh, and the bouquet that came for you.’
‘Who sent me a bouquet?’
‘Search me,’ he said, pointing at one particular bunch of flowers.
Three red roses in cellophane amidst the stacks of gaudy boxes.
‘Everybody . . .’ the photographer announced. ‘Take your places, please.’
Bjørn in the middle, Vibeke and Lund on either side. She remembered her own wedding, recalled how a nagging question had dogged her even as she posed for the pictures: could it last?
This one would. A peace had been declared. Vibeke’s long and sorrowful years of loneliness, a war of a kind, was over.
Mark knelt in front. Lund found her hand straying to his soft hair, stroking it, was pleased when he smiled, didn’t recoil as once he would.
Ten minutes later, everyone seated round the table, watching the first course come out from the kitchen, the singing began. Wedding tunes with ridiculous words, half chanted, half bellowed from the lyric sheets that sat next to the menu. The wine was white and lukewarm. She’d been deliberately seated next to a bachelor cousin of Bjørn’s, an accountant from Roskilde whose principal topic of conversation, between the choruses, concerned the future of double-entry bookkeeping.
Lund didn’t touch the drink. She felt heady enough as it was.
The man appeared sufficiently cognisant to notice the subject bored her.
‘You’re a police officer?’ he asked.
‘Sort of.’
‘I heard they dug up a dead soldier. It was in the papers.’
Lund changed her mind, gulped at the too-sweet white wine and said, ‘Really?’
Then, before he could utter another word, rang the bell.
Vibeke was on her feet. The hotel man was back by Lund’
s side.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Someone’s here to see you. She says it’s important.’
A blonde woman in smart office clothes was standing just outside the door. She nodded when Lund looked.
‘I’ve been looking forward to this speech,’ Vibeke declared, rising to her feet. ‘So . . .’
Lund slid back her chair and started to leave the table.
The woman at the door introduced herself as Karina Jørgensen from the Ministry of Justice.
‘A toast!’ Vibeke ad-libbed behind her. ‘Cheers!’
Lund followed into the serving area.
‘This conversation happened by accident,’ the woman said. ‘There’ll be no record of it. You won’t inform anyone in the Politigården.’
They went downstairs. White tiled corridors. The smell and noise of a kitchen nearby.
There was a large man at the end, next to a woman folding tablecloths. He had a phone in one hand and a chicken leg in the other. The half-gnawed leg got thrown into a bin as she approached. Then the phone went into his pocket.
He wiped his hands on the nearest napkin then shook hers.
‘I’m Thomas Buch. Minister of Justice. For now anyway.’
Lund said nothing.
‘Karina says we met here by coincidence.’ He had a genial face with an untidy brown beard. ‘Some coincidence, huh?’
‘My mother just got married upstairs.’
‘I know. The truth is I’m in dire need of some answers. And I think—’
‘Look. If it’s about the exhumation, I’m really sorry. It was my mistake. Don’t blame Brix or Strange . . .’
He waited until the waitress disappeared.
‘Do you know about the accusations against Danish troops in Helmand?’
‘A bit.’
‘Did you see any indication that civilians might have been murdered by our own soldiers? Any—’
‘Like I said. You should call Lennart Brix or Ruth Hedeby. They’re in charge now—’
‘I’m not sure about that. And I’m the Minister of Justice. There’s a suggestion an individual officer was involved in an atrocity. Do you know about this? Did you see evidence that someone was trying to cover it up?’
Lund shook her head.
‘That story came from a soldier who was mentally disturbed. There probably wasn’t any officer.’
The big man stuffed his fists into the pockets of his trousers and didn’t move.
‘So why did you go to all the trouble of digging up a soldier?’
‘Because I screwed up. I don’t know anything. I’ve got to get back to the wedding. I’m sorry.’
‘What about the squad leader, Jens Peter Raben?’
‘I thought he knew something but . . . he’s mentally ill. He had good reason to escape. He’d just been turned down for parole.’
‘By whom?’
‘By the Prison Service. The medical director said he was fit to go but . . .’
Buch glanced at the blonde woman.
‘Herstedvester gave him a clean bill of health?’ he asked. ‘And the Prison Service blocked his release?’
‘That’s right. He was desperate to get out. His marriage is falling apart. Probably has by now.’
Buch put a finger to his mouth, thinking.
‘Bear with me a moment.’
He turned to the woman.
‘Monberg was working on a bill about the Prison Service, wasn’t he? When was that abandoned?’
She thought for a moment.
‘Just after he met the Minister of Defence.’
‘Quite. Get Plough for me.’
A broad smile, the big hand again. Lund took it.
‘Thank you,’ Thomas Buch said. ‘And congratulations on your mother’s wedding.’
‘What’s this about exactly?’
His finger went to his bearded face again. Another wry smile. Then a wink.
‘Enjoy your day, Sarah Lund,’ Buch said as he waved goodbye.
Bjørn was in full flow by the time she got back to the wedding.
‘Vibeke,’ he said, standing next to her, reading from his notes. ‘You make me so happy. I just want to sing and dance and make speeches, all the time.’
Lund walked to her seat saying a silent prayer this wouldn’t happen.
Then thought about the man she’d just talked to. Thomas Buch was the Minister of Justice. And he was in the dark too, just like her.
‘Sometimes,’ Bjørn went on, ‘I wish we’d met earlier in life. But then we wouldn’t have been ready for one another. So I’m glad I walked into the second-hand shop that Tuesday in May. And walked out with the woman who would one day be my wife.’
Lund ignored the dubious jokes of the man next to her, stared at the presents and the three red roses.
No one sent flowers to a solitary daughter at her mother’s wedding. Even the cheapest bouquet a delivery company would handle.
The guests were getting up. Glasses in hand. Bjørn was making a toast.
‘Long live the bride!’
As Bjørn bent down to kiss Vibeke, Lund crossed the room, found the bouquet, picked out the white envelope tucked into the top.
She was aware of the silence, of the fact they were all watching.
The hotel man was going past with a fresh bottle of wine.
‘Who brought these flowers?’ she asked.
‘A courier,’ he said with the same dull tone he’d used before.
A scribbled message inside.
Tjek hundetegnet – Raben.
Check the dog tag.
Vibeke was watching her, smiling but tense. She rang her knife against her wine glass and stood up.
‘Now that we’re all gathered together I’d like to say my piece too. Before Sarah . . .’
Lund picked up her little toastmaster’s bell.
‘Dear Bjørn . . .’ Vibeke began, then stopped, watching as her daughter approached.
Lund came and stood by her. So many years of difficulties between them. So many arguments and tantrums. And now she would fail her mother one more time, on her wedding day.
Something changed in Vibeke’s face. She smiled. Lund placed the bell by her plate, embraced her, kissed her on both cheeks and got the same in return.
‘What is this?’ Bjørn asked, a faint note of outrage in his voice. ‘You can’t walk out on your mother’s speech! What kind of guest leaves before the wedding party has begun?’
Lund wiped something from her eye.
‘That’s exactly what my daughter’s doing, Bjørn,’ Vibeke said in a voice that was close to rebuke. ‘And it’s OK.’
‘OK?’ he asked, wide-eyed.
Lund said nothing, just started to slip from the room.
‘Yes!’ Vibeke said very brightly. ‘It’s very OK. The women in this family are busy and have minds of their own.’ She slapped him on the back. ‘Get used to it, boy. And try to keep up.’
Lund marched out of the room. There was laughter behind. Nervous, perhaps. Laughter all the same.
They’d talk about her but they always had.
Then her mother’s voice, strong and forceful boomed at her back.
‘Now, dear Bjørn. Where were we?’
She didn’t listen any more. She walked down the stairs, and knew exactly where she had to go.
Hanne Møller was clearing out her garage. She had a photograph in her hands, a wistful look in her eyes.
Lund walked in, a worn blue donkey jacket over her purple wedding dress.
‘I came to apologize. I know the police said sorry too. It’s not enough. I wanted you to hear it from me.’
She could see the photo. A handsome young man in an army beret, smiling for a standard portrait. Hanne Møller put it back in the box.
‘I realize I can’t put it right,’ Lund continued.
‘No,’ the woman said in a low and bitter voice. ‘You can’t.’
‘I need you to understand.’ One step closer. She wasn’t leaving until this
was said. ‘I had to be certain.’
‘And are you?’
She picked up some of her son’s clothes and placed them in a black rubbish bag.
‘I’m certain he’s dead. I’m sorry. But there’s something we still don’t know—’
‘Just go, will you?’
Lund looked around the garage. Wondered.
‘I need you to listen.’
Hanne Møller’s voice rose and it was full of pain and anger.
‘Why do you never leave when I ask? Why do you keep coming back here? Haunting me?’
‘Because something’s wrong. I think you know it too.’
‘Do I?’
She was holding a sweater. Blue military wool. Or part of a school uniform. They looked so similar.
‘It’s about your son’s dog tag. The chain the army gave him with the metal name tag on it.’
Lund found herself gesturing awkwardly with her hands to describe the thing. From the look on Hanne Møller’s face this wasn’t necessary.
‘Do you know where it is?’
‘Why’s a piece of metal important?’
‘They give the dog tag to the next of kin. Did you get it?’
‘I asked,’ the woman said, shaking her head. ‘They never found it.’
‘But you got his other possessions?’
The woman gestured at the box.
‘No. These were what he’d left at home. We got nothing. Just a body they wouldn’t let us see. Why do you keep asking these questions?’
Lund wondered whether to say it. But Hanne Møller was owed something after the debacle in the cemetery.
‘I think someone found your son’s dog tag. I think he used it to take on Per’s identity. And then cover up an atrocity.’
‘Per was a good boy,’ his mother said in a soft, hurt voice. ‘I never wanted him to go into the army. When he was little there were no wars. I thought he’d be a teacher. Or a doctor. But then he grew up and the world was different.’
She stared at Lund.
‘It was as if it was just another choice. Go to work in a school. Go to some country he’d barely heard of and fight a war none of us understood. I never imagined for one minute he’d wind up in a uniform. We need soldiers, I suppose. But not Per. He was too gentle for that.’
Lund stayed silent, thinking of Mark.
‘You think you can guide them towards something good,’ Hanne Møller added in that same soft, pained whisper. ‘But you never know what’s waiting out there. Not really.’