by David Hewson
Uncle Vagn. No blood there. But love?
When everyone else walked away Vagn Skærbæk would be there till the last. He was a recluse of a kind, with no one but the Birk Larsens and his sick uncle to think about. A failure mostly. Nowhere else to go.
Birk Larsen snatched at the can, finished it, threw the thing out of the window.
He’d hated that last thought. It was part of the old him, the ungenerous, bullying thug that still lurked inside, grumbling to be let free.
That night in the warehouse with the teacher he’d had his moment. If it wasn’t for Vagn Skærbæk he’d have taken it too. Kemal would be dead. And he would be locked up in a cell in a blue prison suit facing years inside.
The old Theis still slumbered, talking in his sleep.
He didn’t know about generosity, about forgiveness, about grief. Only anger and violence and a fiery, urgent need to quench both.
The old Theis would stay buried. Had to. For Pernille’s sake. For the sake of the boys.
For him too. Even in the bad days, when things happened he didn’t care to remember, Theis Birk Larsen was aware of that nagging, awkward ghost in his head called conscience. Knew it picked at him, chipped at him, nagged him in the night.
Still did.
He looked at the three remaining beers, swore, threw them into the back of the van, wheeled round, then set off back into the city and the hospital.
The wing in Rigshospitalet was new and seemed to be made of glass. Its transparent walls amplified the anaemic November light until the day looked like summer. Bright, relentless, unforgiving.
Birk Larsen spoke to reception, waited as the woman made a call. Watched her face. Knew that she knew.
‘He’ll see you,’ she said finally.
Then glared at him. She was a foreigner. Middle Eastern. Lebanese. Turk. He’d no idea.
‘God knows why,’ the woman added.
Kemal was in a wheelchair in a day room one floor below. His face was covered in bruises, wounds and plasters. His right leg was in plaster, horizontal. His left arm sat in a cast too.
‘How are you?’ Theis Birk Larsen asked when he could think of nothing else to say.
The teacher stared at him, face expressionless. He didn’t look in pain.
‘I get discharged tomorrow.’
A long silence.
‘Can I get you something? A coffee? A sandwich?’
Kemal looked out of the glass window, looked back at him, said no.
‘Any news on the case?’ he asked.
Birk Larsen shook his head.
‘I don’t think so. They wouldn’t tell me anyway. Not now.’
Teachers never impressed him. They were too full of themselves. As if they knew something that was kept secret from everyone else. But they didn’t. They’d no idea about growing up in the Vesterbro of yesterday, walking to school among the hookers and the dope dealers and the leftover drunks. Trying to stay alive. Fighting to get to the top.
Fighting was Birk Larsen’s first skill and he had the strength for it. Later he thought he’d learned to fight in different, more subtle ways. For Pernille’s sake. For Nanna and the boys.
But there he was wrong. He was stupid.
Kemal watched him, didn’t flinch.
‘They said you won’t press charges.’
The teacher said nothing.
‘Why?’
‘Because I lied to you. Nanna did come over that night. Briefly. But she was there. I should have said.’
He glanced at his phone.
‘I’m waiting for the call. My wife’s due any day.’
Birk Larsen looked at the bare white wall then the man in the wheelchair.
‘I’m sorry.’
The teacher’s head moved. A nod. Painful maybe.
‘If there’s anything I can do, Kemal, please let me know.’
The man in the wheelchair still said nothing.
‘A baby changes you,’ Birk Larsen murmured. ‘Maybe you don’t need changing. With me . . .’
Kemal leaned forward.
‘There’s nothing you need do,’ he said.
They found the woman by the skating rink in Kongens Nytorv. Lots of middle-class homes, brown brick, four storeys. Lots of middle-class children in bright expensive clothes.
She was in the arms of a man who had to be her husband, laughing at a boy about Mark’s age larking about on the ice.
Good-looking woman. Thirty-five or so. Long curly hair, bright happy face. Grey-haired husband. Older. Not so happy.
The kid came off and the husband took him to a stand to buy coffee and biscuits.
An only child, Lund thought. Like Mark. It was obvious.
The woman was on her own. Meyer marched over and asked, ‘Nethe Stjernfeldt?’
They showed their IDs.
‘Your office told us we could find you here.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘We’d like to ask some questions about a contact of yours.’ He looked round. The husband had got the coffee. ‘From a dating site?’
She didn’t say anything. The man strode over.
‘I’m Nethe’s husband. What is this?’
Lund said, as pleasantly as she could, ‘We’re police officers. We need to talk to your wife.’
He bristled. Possessive type. Superior.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Lund said. ‘It’s not serious. She might have seen something that’s all.’
‘If you could stay here,’ Meyer added. ‘We need a private word.’
They walked her to the edge of the rink. Nethe Stjernfeldt didn’t look so happy.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said when Lund asked about the Heartbreak Club website.
‘You’ve never used a dating service?’
Her face coloured.
‘No. Why would I?’
‘You’ve never been in touch with a man called Faust?’ Meyer asked.
The boy was back on the ice. The woman looked at him, smiled, waved.
‘Someone called Fanny Hill dated Faust,’ Lund said. ‘She had your email address.’
Nethe Stjernfeldt was glancing at her husband as he watched the kid on his skates.
‘It’s not a crime,’ Meyer said. ‘We just need to know if it’s you.’
‘It’s not me. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’
Meyer’s mood was changing.
‘On the fourteenth of December Fanny wrote to Faust to say she wanted to go out with him. Same time, same place. What do you know about that?’
‘Nothing at all. This is my son’s birthday!’
She started to walk away. Lund followed.
‘Did you go to the flat on Store Kongensgade?’
Curly hair going from side to side as she shook her head.
‘I don’t know about any flat.’
Meyer got in front, put out a hand to stop her.
‘We need to know who Faust is,’ Lund said.
‘Is this what the police do? Hunt through people’s messages?’
‘If they’re not your messages, Nethe—’ Meyer began.
‘Leave me alone.’
She stormed off. The husband came over, glaring at them.
‘If you want to talk to her call my office first. You can’t just show up here and ruin a child’s birthday party. What kind of people are you?’
‘Busy people,’ Meyer said. ‘Busy getting lied to.’
He winked at the man.
‘I guess you know how it feels.’
A flurry of curses and then he left.
‘Have her followed,’ Lund said. ‘We need to talk to her when she’s alone.’
It was just after six when Theis Birk Larsen got back home. The garage was empty. Upstairs he found Pernille helping the boys pack their things.
‘Hi, Dad,’ Anton said. ‘You can’t come.’
‘Mum says you have to work,’ Emil added.
Pernille
was in her winter coat, suitcase by her side, watching them.
‘Make sure you have everything for school,’ she said.
Instead the boys ran to him. He picked them up in his arms. Small warm bodies in strong, old arms.
They smelled of soap and shampoo. Straight from the bath. Soon he ought to read them a story.
‘Why do you have to work?’ Anton asked.
‘Because I do.’
He put them down, ruffled their hair.
‘Can we talk, Pernille?’
‘We have to be at my parents’ for dinner.’
‘It won’t take long.’
Anton had a plastic sword, Emil a toy gun.
She took the things, pushed them into the bag.
‘Go and play,’ she said and off they ran.
In the kitchen, beneath the unlit chandelier, by the photographs, among the pot plants, next to the table Pernille and Nanna made.
‘Ever since I first saw you,’ Birk Larsen said slowly, hands in pockets, counting out every word in his head before he spoke. ‘I . . .’
They wouldn’t come. Not the way he hoped.
‘No one knows me like you do.’
‘Is that true, Theis? Do I know you?’
He sat down, began to knead his fists, not looking at her.
‘I know I fouled up. I know . . .’
She didn’t move, didn’t speak.
‘We have to try. We have to. We lost Nanna.’ His narrow eyes closed in pain. ‘I don’t want to lose more than that. Without you . . . Without the boys.’
Something came clear.
‘You make me . . . what I’m supposed to be. What I want to be. I’ll do anything if you’ll just stay.’
His eyes strayed nervously to hers.
‘Don’t leave me.’
His hand stretched out to hers, big and callused, rough and marked by years of labour.
‘Don’t leave me, Pernille,’ Theis Birk Larsen said again.
Meyer was filling the office with smoke once more.
‘We need to track down some other women who met Faust,’ Lund said. ‘Someone has to know who he is.’
A short figure went briskly down the corridor. Lund thought for a second then followed.
By the time she caught up he was beneath the colonnades of the circular courtyard, a box in his arms, fleeing for the exit.
‘Buchard!’ Lund called.
He kept walking towards the security office. She dashed across the central circle of marble slabs, grass poking between them. Stood in front and stopped him.
‘The phone company’s records are on your desk, Lund.’
He looked at her.
‘You’re in my way. Again.’
She stepped to one side, walked with him on the way out.
‘It’s a pre-paid phone card but the phone number’s no longer in use.’
‘And the name that was deleted?’
‘I never saw it.’
The old chief glanced at her. All the stubbornness, the temper, the arrogance had left him.
‘Believe that or not. It’s true.’
‘Why do you put up with this?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes.’
They walked past the Memorial Yard, beneath the tall yellow lights and the iron stars on the walls.
‘Either I get left holding the baby. Go count paper clips in some station in the sticks. Or I’m out. Forcibly retired. After thirty-six years they pin this shit on me.’
He turned to her.
‘Good luck, Lund.’
She watched him go. Called, ‘Who asked you to bury the information, Buchard?’
The old man didn’t look back.
In her office Lund checked what he’d left. Pages of calls. Nothing to indicate whose number had been erased.
‘What about the flat?’
‘Hartmann’s prints everywhere,’ Meyer said.
‘That fits with his story. Hartmann’s got an alibi. What else?’
‘We’ve got saliva, hair and fingerprints.’
‘DNA?’ she asked.
‘Nothing that matches any database records.’
Meyer shook his head.
‘There’s hardly any blood to speak of. It could have been an accident.’
Meyer shrugged. She watched. He was thinking in a way he didn’t when they first met. Not rushing to a conclusion. Now he was trying to see. To imagine.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘You know that smug bastard Olav Christensen? The smart-arse from City Hall?’
‘Yes?’
‘One piece of incriminating testimony.’
He threw Christensen’s file across the desk. She stared at the photo: young, thin face, staring eyes. Cocky.
‘Some time ago Hartmann refused to promote him. One of the campaign team told me he took the teacher’s file we asked for. He hates Hartmann. There’s going to be an inquiry. Christensen could lose his job.’
Meyer had brought in a loaf of bread, some butter and some ham. She got a plastic knife, slapped all three roughly together, made something that approximated to a sandwich, bit into it.
‘City Hall bitching,’ Lund said, mouth full. ‘It’s not him.’
Meyer grabbed the food, the knife, made a sandwich of his own. Lund looked at it. His seemed so much better.
‘Why not?’
‘Why would anyone delete calls from some pipsqueak civil servant? Christensen doesn’t have any class. Nanna met someone important through the Heartbreak Club. Not a pen-pusher.’
He sighed.
‘Maybe. I don’t know. When I talked to him he was squirming like a pig with piles. I was sure he was lying. If I’d had one thing to throw at him . . .’
‘But you didn’t.’
A rap on the door. One of the night team detectives.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘We looked at some cold cases like you asked.’
‘And?’
‘I’ve got some names . . .’
A woman was walking down the corridor. Full head of curly hair. Pretty face. Not smiling any more.
‘Let’s do this later,’ Lund said and walked out to meet her.
‘I love my husband.’
Lund and Meyer sat side by side. He didn’t smoke.
‘He was away on business for two hundred days last year. Just me and my son. Week after week.’
Lund pushed a printout of the Heartbreak site across the table.
‘You do have a profile, don’t you?’
Nethe Stjernfeldt looked at the logo. A heart torn in two by an arrow.
‘It was fun. That’s all. Nothing serious.’
A glance at Meyer’s notebook.
‘Do you have to write this down?’
He put aside the pen.
‘It was ridiculous. I put up this photograph.’ She primped her hair. ‘Half profile. You couldn’t tell it was me. Could have been anybody. It was like . . . a million lonely men appeared. All of them rich and handsome. All of them single. Supposedly.’
‘You checked?’ he asked.
‘No.’
There was a note of petulance in her voice. Lund kicked Meyer’s leg underneath the table.
‘Only one looked interesting. He was different.’
‘In what way?’ Lund asked.
‘He took notice. He was interested in me. When I wrote something he read it. We were on the same wavelength. I could tell. You couldn’t fake that.’
‘Then you met?’
‘I wasn’t looking for an affair. I was just lonely.’
‘You met him several times?’
She glared at them.
‘You want the details? Where and when?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘I thought I could control it. But . . .’
She smiled, remembering something.
‘For a while I felt I was . . . crazy. I thought I could give up everything. My husband. My son. My job. Just run to him. Be with him. H
e made it that way. Then . . .’
A flash of ugly bitterness.
‘I got too close. He didn’t want a relationship. Just names on a website. A night in a hotel. So he stopped answering my messages. I woke up I guess.’
Lund asked, ‘Have you seen him since?’
She was lost somewhere.
‘This sounds stupid but I think he saved my marriage. I realized what’s really important.’
‘OK, OK,’ Meyer snapped. ‘We don’t care if he ruins marriages or saves them. We just want to know who he is.’
‘I can see that.’ She watched them. ‘Why? Why do you need to know?’
Meyer growled.
‘This isn’t a flea market, sugar. Just tell us.’
‘I don’t want to bad-mouth him. He dumped me. But he was a good man. He cared.’
‘For God’s sake just tell us his bloody name. Before the Pope makes him a saint or something.’
Lund looked at her.
‘We need to know, Nethe. We will. One way or another.’
She looked at the door.
‘I don’t want to wait for your husband to turn up with a lawyer. But if I have to . . . Who’s Faust?’
An hour and ten minutes later Hartmann was in an interview room listening to the lawyer Rie Skovgaard had found. A severe, middle-aged woman from one of the big city practices. A party supporter. She’d donated. He ought to remember her name.
‘We’ve some time before they interview you,’ she said, taking off her coat, bidding him to sit down. ‘Let’s make the most of it.’
‘I’ve got to get out of here. This is ridiculous.’
‘You’re not going anywhere until they question you.’
‘But—’
‘They’ve got emails that can be traced back to you.’
‘What business do they have going through my emails?’
She looked at her notes.
‘A woman called Nethe Stjernfeldt has made a statement. She claims to have had sexual relations with you. She identified you as the man behind the profile Faust. The man who also met Nanna Birk Larsen.’
Hartmann got up, started walking up and down the room like a hungry cat.
‘Are you going to say something, Troels?’
‘I told them already. I’ve never met the Birk Larsen girl. I’ve got nothing to add. No statement to make.’