The Killing - 01 - The Killing

by David Hewson

  The classroom door opened and two people walked in. A middle-aged man in an expensive-looking suit. A woman behind him looking worried.

  ‘I’m Oliver’s father,’ the man said. ‘I want a word with my son.’

  ‘We’re police officers,’ Lund said. ‘You’re interrupting our interview. Get out.’

  The man didn’t move. The woman was watching him, expecting something.

  ‘Have you charged him with anything?’

  Meyer waved a hand in his face and said, ‘Hello? Did you hear . . .?’

  A wallet. A business card waved in their faces. Erik Schandorff. Big-shot lawyer from a big-shot firm.

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that,’ Erik Schandorff said.

  ‘Oliver’s helping—’ Lund began.

  ‘Dad?’

  The cry of a frightened kid. No one could mistake that.

  ‘I want to talk to him,’ the father said.

  Outside in the corridor, Meyer hissing and cursing beneath his breath, Lund watched through the window.

  Father and son, Oliver head down, moving side to side.

  Lifted it and then the father struck him full force across the face with the back of his hand.

  ‘Happy families,’ Meyer murmured, lighting a cigarette. ‘Now if I’d done that . . .’

  One minute later, rich lawyer, rich kid, quiet wife walking out. Not a word.

  ‘See you soon, Oliver!’ Meyer called as they left.

  Lund leaned back against the wall, folded her arms, closed her eyes.

  He was watching her when she opened them.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, Lund. That it’s vaguely possible I was a bit hard on him. But if that idiot hadn’t walked in . . .’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘No really. I knew what I was doing. I was in control. All the time. Honest . . .’

  ‘Meyer,’ she said, coming up to him, peering up into his wide-open, staring eyes. ‘I said it was fine. Check downstairs again. Contact forensics. If Oliver drove the car they should know. Time the journey from here to the woods.’

  She pulled the car keys out of her bag.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘You’ll think of something.’

  ‘And you, Lund?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Going to catch a movie or what?’

  She nodded, left him, smiling when he couldn’t see.

  There were flowers on the sideboard, on the small iron mantel above the fire. Flowers by the sink still wrapped in their paper, bouquets on the floor.

  Some were blue irises. Some roses.

  Pernille stood washing dishes, staring out of the window.

  A woman from the forensic department sat with the boys at the table Pernille and Nanna made, smiling at them. Cotton sticks in her hand.

  She looked no more than twenty-two or so. No older than Nanna when she went out for the night.

  ‘Is this really necessary?’ Theis Birk Larsen asked.

  ‘We need DNA,’ said the woman in the blue uniform. ‘For comparisons.’

  Downstairs the car was packed. Suitcases with clothes. Boxes with kids’ things. Vagn Skærbæk helped as he always did.

  He had new toys. Cars. Cheap and tinny but Vagn was bad with money and Pernille lacked the heart to scold him. The men in the depot were like everyone else. Like Theis. Like her. Desperate to do something, lost for what that might be.

  ‘OK?’ the woman asked and didn’t wait for an answer. Leaned over the table, got Anton first, then asked Emil to open his mouth.

  Pernille watched from the sink, dishes in her hand.

  They were back in Nanna’s bedroom. Two men in blue walking round, putting up more stickers, making notes.

  Lotte her sister, younger, prettier, still single, did most of the packing. Now she came and hugged each of them in turn.

  ‘Take some flowers if you want,’ Theis said.

  Lotte looked at him and shook her head.

  ‘Boys,’ Theis said. ‘Let’s go see Uncle Vagn. Help him finish up downstairs.’

  Pernille promised she’d be there soon and watched them go.

  Soon.

  She left the sink when he was gone. Looked around the untidy room.

  In this small warm place an unexpected miracle had emerged between them. The magic that was family. Shared lives. Shared love.

  Now men in blue tramped through Nanna’s little bedroom, opening drawers they opened yesterday, talking in low tones, going quiet when they thought she could hear.

  The boys rushed back up, snatched kites, snatched more toys. Showed her the tinny cars Vagn bought.

  ‘Watch those sharp edges,’ she said. ‘Watch . . .’

  They were gone, not listening, one of the men from the bedroom following, taking some of Nanna’s books to the car in his blue gloved hands.

  The cop who was left was old with a beard and a sad face. He looked uncomfortable. Couldn’t meet her eyes. Grey head down looking at Nanna’s bookcase once more.

  She picked up her bag, ready to go.

  The apartment was so full of the scent of flowers it made her head hurt.

  Here we lived. Here we sat around the table, thinking this small, private bliss would never end.

  And now we flee, we scuttle away in ignorance and fear as if the fault were our own.

  Home. Covered in forensic stickers and their boot marks. Fingerprint dust on walls that still bore Nanna’s pretty face.

  The bag went back on the old worn carpet. Pernille walked into her room, watched the man working. Sifting through the pieces of her daughter’s brief lost life.

  She sat on the bed, waited until he had the courage to look at her.

  ‘I won’t be long. I’m sorry . . .’

  ‘What happened out in the woods?’ she asked and thought: I will not move, I will not leave until he speaks.

  A father. She could see it in his face. He understood. He knew.

  ‘I’m not the one to talk to. Sorry.’ He fiddled with the drawer of Nanna’s desk. ‘I’m working. You have to leave.’

  Pernille stayed on the sheets of Nanna’s tidy, made-up bed.

  ‘I need . . .’ His eyes were closed. She saw his pain, knew he saw hers too. ‘I need to know what happened. I’m her mother . . .’

  The desk again. He was doing nothing and both knew it.

  ‘What happened to my daughter?’

  ‘I’m not allowed—’

  ‘There were photos. In your office. I saw . . .’ Words, she thought. The right ones now. ‘I see them in my head at night and I know . . . it can’t be worse than anything I imagine. Not worse.’

  He stopped, head bowed.

  ‘It can’t be worse. But . . .’ She tapped her chestnut hair, her skull. Her voice was weak and faint, she made it so. ‘In my head I see . . .’

  The cop bent stiffly over the desk, didn’t move.

  ‘I’m her mother. Do I have to beg?’

  No answer.

  ‘Every day she dies in my head. Over and over and each time worse. We need to bury . . .’

  He was shaking.

  ‘I need to know,’ she said again.

  Then watched as he sighed.

  Then, finally, listened.

  Theis Birk Larsen looked round the depot. Helped Vagn Skærbæk move a cabinet to a truck. Watched as the boys played with their little tin cars. Checked their things in the back of the car: a family reduced to a set of luggage, ready to go.

  ‘Any news, Theis?’

  Birk Larsen lit a cigarette, shook his head.

  Anton and Emil ran up, clinging to Skærbæk’s red cotton legs. Begging for ice-cream money. Making him laugh.

  ‘Do I look like a piggybank?’ he said, taking out some coins. They scattered on the floor.

  The old joke he always used with them: no beer now, boys.

  ‘Who was this driver they caught?’ Skærbæk asked. ‘The paper didn’t even print a name—’

  ‘I don’t know. They tell us nothing. Why w
ould they?’

  Birk Larsen stared around the depot trying to think the way he used to: of jobs and inventories, bills to be paid, invoices to be collected. Nothing worked. It was as if Nanna’s death had locked them in a never-ending present, a frozen point in time with no escape. No prospect of release.

  ‘We’re just little people,’ he murmured.

  ‘No you’re not.’

  Vagn Skærbæk stood by him, ignoring the boys tugging at his overalls again.

  ‘Thanks for running things,’ Birk Larsen said. ‘I don’t know what . . .’

  Too many words. He patted Skærbæk on the arm.

  ‘You saved my skin, Theis.’ Skærbæk’s face was hard with anger. The silver chain glittered round his neck. ‘I don’t forget. That bastard’s going to get what’s coming to him. You just tell me if you want something done.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘When he gets a piddling sentence. And they let him out on parole. You tell me Theis . . . I want to . . .’

  ‘Help?’ Birk Larsen shook his head.

  ‘If that’s what you want . . .’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  Poor Vagn. Dumb Vagn. Loyal as a guard dog. No brighter either.

  ‘Dead.’ One cruel, short word. ‘Don’t you understand?’

  Still the flame was lit and with it a sudden burst of rage. Theis Birk Larsen hammered his massive fist on a cabinet, set it shaking on its feet.

  ‘Where the hell’s Pernille?’

  Upstairs in the kitchen, surrounded by the flowers, choking in their scent.

  The cop was on the phone. And worried.

  ‘Pernille?’

  He’d come up the stairs to look for her.

  ‘We’re not going.’

  He rocked on his big feet the way he always did before an argument. Not that they had many, and those few he always won.

  ‘I told the boys. The place is booked—’

  ‘We’re not going.’

  ‘It’s arranged!’

  It wasn’t that she lost. More that she never fought. That was over now. Lots of other things too. Things she hadn’t recognized yet. But would.

  ‘Nanna wasn’t dead when the car hit the water.’

  Her voice was flat and calm, her face too.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She wasn’t dead. She was in the boot of the car. Trapped there. Drowning.’

  Pernille walked into Nanna’s bedroom.

  Clothes. Belongings. Scattered round, pleading to be tidied. A mother’s job . . .

  She began to move the books, the clothes from one place to another, bright eyes shining, tears beginning to form.

  Then she stopped, folded her arms.

  ‘We’re leaving now,’ Theis Birk Larsen said, standing in the doorway. ‘That’s that.’

  He was next to the fish tank Nanna wanted. Pernille found herself captivated by the swimming golden shapes trapped inside it. Peering out, unable to comprehend anything beyond the glass.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘We’re staying here. I want to watch them find him. I want to see his face.’

  Round and round they swam, puzzled by their own reflections, thinking nothing, going nowhere.

  ‘They have to find him, Theis. They will.’

  A moment pivoted between them. One that had never come before.

  He fiddled with his woollen hat.

  ‘We’re staying here,’ Pernille Birk Larsen repeated. ‘I’ll get the boys. You bring the cases.’

  Lynge was awake. A bandage round his head, drips in his arm. Fresh cuts and grazes covered the old scar on his cheek. Traces of blood still caked his grey moustache.

  ‘John?’ Lund said.

  Movement. Breathing. Eyes half open. She’d no idea if he could hear this. Any more than the impatient doctor she’d bullied to let her in there.

  ‘I’m sorry this happened. Do you understand?’

  The man’s eyebrows flickered.

  ‘I know you didn’t harm the girl.’

  He was connected to a machine with flashing numbers and graphs.

  ‘I really need your help, John. I need to know what happened at the school. Who you met. Where you lost your keys.’

  His eyes moved. Turned towards her.

  ‘You parked your car. You took the posters inside. You went to the gym. Is that when you felt sick?’

  Lynge coughed, choked on something.

  A noise, a word.

  ‘What? John?’

  Another sound. An eye flicked wide open. A look there. Fear and pain.

  ‘Basement.’

  ‘You went there to deliver the posters. Is that where you lost the keys?’

  ‘The kid got angry. Said I wasn’t supposed to go near there.’

  ‘John.’ She got up, got close to his mouth, had to hear this. ‘Who got angry? What kid?’

  That wheezing sound again. She could smell him.

  ‘Were there bikes there? Bikes?’

  ‘The next one.’

  Lund tried to picture that dank warren.

  ‘The next room?’

  ‘The boiler.’

  A sound. The door opened. The doctor was back and he didn’t look pleased.

  ‘Who did you meet in the boiler room? John?’

  Lund took out the photos from her bag. School portraits. Pointed to Oliver Schandorff, said, ‘Did you see him? This one. Please. Look.’

  The wheeze again. Then, ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure? Take a good look.’

  The doctor was with them, arms waving, saying, ‘OK. That’s it. You’ve got to stop. Leave now—’

  ‘One minute,’ Lund said, not budging. ‘Just . . .’

  She pushed him back, held the school photo over the sick man in the bed.

  ‘I’m pointing my finger, John. One by one. Nod when I get to him. OK?’

  One by one, kid by kid.

  When she stopped on a tall dark-haired student, pleasant-looking, ordinary, John Lynge nodded.

  ‘You saw him in the boiler room . . .?’

  ‘That’s enough,’ the doctor told her, grabbing her arm.

  ‘John?’

  The eye opened, caught her. His head moved, the slightest of nods.

  Lund rose, threw the doctor’s hand off her.

  Said, ‘Yes, it is.’

  Meyer was smoking in the school playground when he answered her call.

  ‘I need you to go back to the basement again,’ Lund said.

  A pause.

  ‘Please tell me that was a joke.’ He looked at the forensic men. He was hungry. So were they. And Svendsen was starting to get on his nerves.

  ‘Go back down there.’

  ‘Forensics are packing up. We’ve looked everywhere. How’s Lynge?’

  ‘He’ll be out in a week. Is there a boiler room?’

  ‘They keep it locked. No one can get in there except the janitor.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  He could hear the sound of traffic. The black rain-soaked streets were empty. She’d be with him in a matter of minutes.

  Meyer started walking back down the grimy concrete stairs.

  ‘It’s bad to talk and drive, you know.’

  ‘Are you in there yet?’

  ‘We’ve got the janitor here.’

  ‘I need to know what’s inside.’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  He told the janitor to open the door.

  ‘Are you in?’

  ‘Yes! Just keep your pants on, will you?’

  ‘What can you see?’

  A pause. Then Meyer said, ‘I can see the boiler. That’s a surprise.’

  Then, ‘Just a bunch of old junk. Tables, chairs and books.’ He cleared his throat. ‘OK, Lund. So the kids could maybe get in here. But there’s nothing to see.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Hang on.’

  ‘Did you hear me?’

  Meyer made a disgusting noise down the phone.

  ‘You’re breaking up on me
, Lund.’

  Then muttered, ‘For God’s sake . . .’

  Slammed the phone into his pocket, walked ahead, shining the beam of the torch one side, the other side. Up, down.

  He’d thought about this earlier. The janitor said the boiler took an oil feed from a tank outside. No one had to go in there except for maintenance once a week. Every Friday afternoon.

  There was a second door at the end. No handle. Looked as if it hadn’t been used in years.

  Meyer took out a handkerchief, edged the metal open. Peeked in, moved the torch around.

  Kids had been here. At his feet the remains of a couple of joints were stamped into the ground. Beer cans. And . . .

  Meyer whistled. The sleeve of a condom packet, foil torn, empty.

  Noises behind. Something happening out in the main basement. Didn’t care.

  Pulled out his phone, dialled her number. Didn’t wait before he said, ‘I think you’d better get here. Lund . . .?’

  Deep in the concrete bowels of the school, there was no signal.

  ‘Really . . .’ Meyer whispered.

  ‘Really?’

  The sound made him jump. A torch beam in his face. Then on the ground.

  ‘You must have been speeding. Admit it, Lund. You’re as bad as me.’

  She didn’t answer. Just looked at the same thing that he did. A grubby mattress on the floor.

  Bloodstains in the corner.

  Bloodstains on the peeling grey wall.

  Prints were appearing on the peeling plaster of the room in the school basement. Officers in white bunny suits tagging, drawing, taking photos. Lund on the phone to her mother’s, telling Mark to do his homework, practise his Swedish.

  ‘I could be here all night. Gran will help you.’

  She’d gone back to the school hall to go through the flowers and photos on a small shrine set up for Nanna by the lockers.

  ‘That’s good,’ Lund said. ‘Bye.’

  A picture there. Two girls dressed as angels. Nanna, maybe thirteen. Lisa Rasmussen.

  A pair of red candles in front of it. A single flame flickering in the cold breeze running down the corridor.

  ‘Who lit the candle?’ Lund asked.

  Meyer had been here five minutes before her. He looked young and guilty for a moment.

  ‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

  ‘You shouldn’t interfere with things, Meyer.’

  ‘Who said . . .?’

  She waved at him.

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we go and look in the basement?’