The Killing - 01 - The Killing

by David Hewson

  Lund looked at her and said, ‘I can’t talk about the case. Sorry.’

  Then she walked inside.

  Lotte Holst was doing the washing. She looked as mutinous and unhelpful as her sister.

  ‘I’ve told you everything. What else is there to say?’

  ‘You’re the only one who knew about this affair. I still don’t understand—’

  ‘It was Hartmann, wasn’t it?’ Lotte asked as she ran through the boys’ clothes, stuffing them into the machine.

  ‘What happened over the summer?’

  The sister kept sorting the washing in silence.

  ‘I read the emails on the nightclub’s dating site,’ Lund said, taking the printouts from her bag.

  ‘I don’t work there any more.’

  ‘The emails are odd. He still wants to see her but her answers become more and more infrequent. Did she tell you it was over?’

  Lotte hesitated.

  ‘No. But she was going cold on him. I could see that. Maybe there was someone else. I don’t know.’

  She threw in some powder, closed the door, turned on the machine.

  ‘Nanna was a big romantic. The way teenagers are. Not that she thought she was a teenager. I think she maybe went from one big love to another. Probably in the space of a week.’

  ‘Did Hartmann meet her at the nightclub?’

  ‘I never saw him there.’

  ‘What about the first weekend of August? Lotte. This is important.’

  She walked back into the living room, said nothing.

  ‘On the Friday,’ Lund went on, ‘he writes that he’s leaving the next day. He’s desperate to see her. He called her. But—’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘We can’t trace any calls by Hartmann. He didn’t go anywhere that weekend.’

  Lotte got her bag, pulled out her diary, checked it.

  ‘We had a VIP event that day. You get big tips.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I do remember something. I had to ask her to put her phone onto silent. It was going all the time with the messages.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘I don’t know. She wouldn’t answer them.’

  Lotte went quiet.

  ‘What?’ Lund asked.

  ‘I remember she asked me to take her orders out for her. She had to talk to someone outside. I was pissed off. She was always asking me to cover. Sticking her nose into things. Taking my clothes.’

  A sudden flash of anger.

  ‘Nanna wasn’t an angel. I know I’m not supposed to say that—’

  ‘Did you see the man she met?’

  ‘There was a car. I went and looked. I wanted to know what was so important I had to do Nanna’s work for her.’

  ‘What kind of car?’

  ‘A car. I don’t know.’

  ‘Saloon? Estate? What colour?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did you see the driver?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The make? Anything distinctive. Any . . .’

  Lund’s voice was running away from her and she couldn’t stop it.

  Lotte was shaking her head.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ Lund said. ‘Are you sure?’

  One thought.

  ‘It was white, I think.’

  Rie Skovgaard read the letter and said, ‘That didn’t take long.’

  ‘What is it?’

  She showed Morten Weber. A formal note from the Rådhus secretariat demanding they vacate their office premises by the following morning.

  ‘They can’t do this.’ Weber waved the letter in the air. ‘They can’t do this! The Electoral Commission don’t even meet until tonight.’

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake. He’s in jail facing a murder charge. What do you expect?’

  ‘The lawyer’s going to talk to him. We’ll find a way out.’

  She looked ragged, at the end of her tether. Hair a mess. No make-up. Tired, angry eyes.

  ‘As long as Troels doesn’t talk there is no way out.’

  Two forensic officers in white suits knocked on the open door, walked in, began to look at the room. Skovgaard marched into Hartmann’s adjoining office. Weber followed.

  ‘Can’t you have a word with your father, Rie? He’s got connections.’

  ‘Connections?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell me what happened. What did Troels do that weekend?’

  ‘I don’t know—’

  ‘Don’t lie to me! I called you to say Troels was missing. I’d no idea where. You said he’d gone drinking.’

  ‘Rie—’

  ‘You weren’t worried because you knew where he was.’

  ‘It isn’t—’

  ‘He told you. He couldn’t tell me. Do you know how that feels?’

  He didn’t have an answer.

  ‘What was he doing?’ Skovgaard asked again.

  Weber sighed, sat down, looked old and tired.

  ‘Troels is my oldest friend.’

  ‘And what am I exactly?’

  ‘I promised him I’d never say a word!’ He looked at her. ‘To anyone.’

  ‘What’s the big secret then? Another woman? Are we going through all this because he can’t bring himself to tell me he’s screwing around again?’

  ‘No.’ Weber shook his head. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘So it was his wife then? Something to do with her?’

  He didn’t meet her furious eyes.

  ‘Answer me. I know it was their anniversary. What did he do?’

  Weber was shaking, sweating. He needed a shot. Needed a drink.

  ‘What,’ Rie Skovgaard asked again, ‘did he do?’

  Lund waited for Hartmann in the same visiting room Theis Birk Larsen had recently used. He arrived in a blue prison suit, was made to remove his shoes, watched carefully throughout by the guard.

  She sat, hands on her jeans, too hot in the woollen jumper. Black on white, a rolling pattern of snowflakes.

  He hadn’t shaved. Looked broken, a shadow of the bold and handsome politician of the Rådhus.

  It took a while but finally Troels Hartmann pulled up a chair.

  Eyes shining, desperate, Lund looked at him and said, ‘I really need your help. The night in the flat . . . did you notice a white estate car?’

  Hartmann stared at her, silent.

  ‘Was it in the courtyard when you left? Or in the street?’

  He looked out of the window at the thin winter sun. She didn’t know whether Hartmann was listening or not.

  ‘Does anyone at City Hall drive a white estate?’

  ‘As far as I know, Lund, I’ve been arrested for driving a black car. Why are you taunting me with this nonsense?’

  ‘It’s important.’

  ‘If you’re looking for a white car why the hell am I in jail?’

  ‘Because you put yourself here. We found your wife’s cottage. I know what you did that night.’

  Hartmann’s blue-clad arms closed round his chest.

  ‘Rolled-up towels under the door. Mattresses in front of the windows. Newspapers in all the cracks and an open gas oven.’

  He sat mute and sullen.

  ‘Maybe you were interrupted. Maybe you chickened out. I don’t know.’

  His face was back to the window.

  ‘Is it so demeaning for a man to say he got drunk and tried to kill himself? Would that lose you votes? Or Rie Skovgaard? Or just your own self-esteem?’

  The man in the blue prison suit was somewhere else.

  ‘Was it worth the price?’

  No answer.

  ‘I don’t really care, Hartmann. I want your help. Then you can get out of here and play your games in the Rådhus. While we try to work out who among you murdered Nanna Birk Larsen.’

  ‘You don’t know anything,’ he muttered.

  ‘Don’t I? It was in your diary. When your wife got sick the doctors told her she needed treatment. She refused. She was pregnant. She knew it could harm the
child. So . . .’

  He was looking at her now and for the first time she thought she saw Troels Hartmann frightened.

  ‘I think you feel guilty. I think it nags you every day. What if we’d said yes? She’d be alive. Maybe the child would be too. If not there’s always the chance of another.’

  His blue eyes shone with anger.

  ‘I think you feel guilty,’ she said again. ‘And that night you realized that, however hard you worked at your precious hollow world inside the Rådhus, your life, the one you loved, was never coming back. So you gave up.’

  Lund nodded.

  ‘Strong, fearless, decent Troels Hartmann let his demons win. And the memory of that frightens you so much you’d rather rot in jail than admit it. So . . .’

  She sat back, smiled at him. Relieved that finally, in this long tangle of lost threads, one stray line had finally reached some semblance of completion.

  ‘Are you going to help me?’

  She waited. Nothing.

  ‘You flatter yourself you’ve got so much to lose. You haven’t, Troels. Honestly.’

  Meyer had a list of white cars using the City Hall garage.

  Lund took some headache pills and didn’t look at it. She’d tried so hard with Hartmann. She’d joined the dots and let him know it. And still nothing changed. Still the route to Nanna’s killer lay hidden in the shadows.

  If he wasn’t going to talk he could damn well rot in a cell.

  ‘I checked the barrier,’ Meyer went on. ‘A car left the garage right after Olav talked to Bremer.’

  She reached for the paper.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Second from the bottom.’

  ‘Phillip Bressau. He’s Bremer’s private secretary. What do we know about him?’

  ‘Wife and two kids. Bremer’s right-hand man.’

  ‘And the car?’

  ‘Hasn’t been back to the garage since. He came to work in his wife’s yesterday.’

  ‘Bressau.’

  She got up, reached for her bag.

  Five figures by a hole in the ground, brown earth shovelled over green grass. A cold and sunny winter’s day. Pigeons flapping in the bare trees. Anton and Emil in their black warm clothes. Pernille pale and severe in the fawn raincoat. Lotte dressed too brightly.

  The cemetery superintendent wore a green industrial suit and galoshes. He held out the turquoise urn.

  So small, inside nothing but dust.

  ‘Do you want to place it?’ he asked.

  Pernille took the vase, bent down, lowered it into the ground with trembling fingers.

  Stood back. Looked. Felt as if she were in a dream.

  ‘Is it Nanna?’ Anton asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Lotte said. ‘She’s ashes now.’

  ‘Why?’

  Lotte hesitated.

  ‘So it’s easier to get to heaven.’

  The boys looked at each other and frowned. They never liked Lotte’s stories.

  ‘Isn’t that true, Pernille?’

  ‘What?’

  Lotte tried to smile at her.

  ‘Yes,’ Pernille said. ‘It’s true.’

  ‘When’s Dad coming?’ Emil asked.

  The cemetery man was carrying over a large wreath with a crown of roses.

  ‘He’ll be here later,’ Lotte said.

  ‘Why isn’t he here now?’

  Pernille was staring at the wreath.

  ‘What’s that? I didn’t ask for it.’

  He shrugged. Placed it by the hole for the urn.

  ‘It arrived this morning.’

  ‘Who sent it?’

  ‘I didn’t see a card.’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ Lotte butted in.

  Pernille was shaking her head.

  ‘You have to know where it came from.’

  Lotte had some single white roses. She handed one each to the boys and told them to place them by the urn. They obeyed. Small black figures in the sun. They might have been playing on a chilly beach by the Øresund.

  ‘Well done,’ she said when they had finished.

  Pernille stared around her. The small square lake full of rotting wood and algae. The monuments with their mould and fungus. The place stank of decay. She began to feel sick.

  Then she bent down, picked up the giant wreath, gave it to the cemetery man.

  ‘Take it away. I don’t want it here.’

  Lotte was staring at the grass. The boys looked scared.

  ‘I don’t want this plot,’ Pernille said. ‘I don’t like it. There must be another one.’

  With the wreath in his arms the man in the green suit looked embarrassed.

  ‘You chose this one.’

  ‘I don’t want to bury her here. Find another place.’

  ‘Pernille,’ Lotte said. ‘It’s lovely. We all agreed. It’s perfect.’

  Voice rising, Pernille Birk Larsen glared at them all.

  ‘I don’t want this wreath. I don’t want this plot.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do,’ the man said. ‘If you want somewhere else you have to talk to the office.’

  ‘You talk to the office! I paid you, didn’t I?’

  She walked away and stared at the small lake.

  The rotting wood. The algae.

  A figure in scarlet striding along the path.

  Vagn Skærbæk took one look at Pernille and marched straight up to Lotte.

  ‘Have you heard from him?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Where is he?’

  He glanced at the woman by the water.

  ‘A wreath arrived without a name,’ Lotte whispered. ‘She’s getting all sorts of ideas. I don’t know . . .’

  Skærbæk took the wreath, walked to the water’s edge.

  ‘Pernille. We bought it. Rudi and me had a collection at work. I’m sorry. We didn’t know what to write so we just asked them to deliver it.’

  She looked at him, expressionless.

  He held out the laurel wreath with its crown of roses.

  ‘It’s from us.’

  She shook her head and went back to looking at the dead water.

  ‘When’s Dad coming?’ Emil bleated.

  On the other side of Vesterbro, in one of the poorer, rougher, dirtier areas he used to frequent as a young ambitious thug, Theis Birk Larsen was drinking. Long glasses of strong lager from the Vesterbro Bryghus. A shot of akvavit.

  The way it was. The way the long days passed before Pernille. Chasing money on the street. Working with the dealers and the gangs. Snatching at whatever might be passing.

  There was a time he could have walked into this bar and silenced them all with a stare. But that was long gone. None knew him now. The thug of old had mutated into the industrious, decent father with a small business seven blocks away, one that kept him away from these old haunts and these old habits.

  His big hand gripped the cold glass. The beer went down to a rhythm. Blocking the pain not killing it. But that was enough.

  Behind he heard the clatter of billiard balls, the foul-mouthed chatter of the young kids doing what he once had.

  Maybe even worse.

  These were bad times even though he tried to pretend otherwise. The hunt for money and opportunity. The desperate business of staying alive. Life had never been harder and no shell a man might build could keep him safe from that fact. Or protect his family.

  Theis Birk Larsen smoked and drank and tried to still his thoughts, listening to the childish too-loud pop music on the radio and the clatter of billiard balls on the tables.

  Somewhere an urn with what was left of Nanna was disappearing into the earth.

  Nothing he could say or do would change that. He’d failed her. Failed them all.

  He finished the beer, head starting to spin. Looked round. Once he’d been king of these places. His voice, his fists had ruled. Another Theis. A different, harder man.

  Would he have saved her? Was that the lesson he was supposed to learn? That a man was what he was, however much he tried
to change, to conform, to obey, to be that shapeless, untouchable thing called good.

  The teacher, Kemal, had forgotten his roots too. And paid the price.

  If only . . .

  He lurched to his feet, staggered towards the exit, stumbling against a kid by the billiard table.

  Birk Larsen pushed him roughly to one side the way he always did once upon a time. With a warning and a curse.

  Stumbled on. Didn’t see the outstretched foot of the kid to follow. Fell hard and grunting to the floor.

  Memories.

  So many fights and none he lost. Some that went so far . . .

  He rolled through the muck and cigarette ends on the floor, listening to their laughter. Groaned as he got to his feet.

  Snatched the cue from the kid who’d tripped him, held it like a sword, a weapon. Like the sledgehammer he’d wielded above the shrieking, bleeding foreigner in the depot, Vagn Skærbæk whimpering all the while.

  The kid had a black jacket and a black woollen hat. An expression that was both scared and defiant.

  Theis Birk Larsen knew this face. He’d lived with him all his life.

  So he swore and threw the cue on the table, then staggered outside, wondering where to go.

  These streets, once home, were foreign to him now. He got to a deserted archway, started to take a piss. Had barely finished when they pounced. Five of them, heads in hoods, fists flying. A billiard cue thrashing him round the head.

  ‘Hold him,’ someone screamed, and two weak arms tried to pin Birk Larsen to the wall he’d pissed against. A boot flew at his groin.

  Kids.

  He threw off two, got the third by the scruff of the neck, launched himself across the narrow street, pinioned the weak and skinny figure against the crumbling plaster of the wall.

  Big fist pulled back, ready to strike. One hard, vicious punch and this was a day the kid would never forget, would leave enough damage to last the rest of his meagre life.

  Birk Larsen held back the blow and stared.

  The hood had fallen. The face that looked back at him, so full of hatred, was a girl’s. No more than sixteen. Ring through the nose, tattoos over the eyes.

  A girl.

  In that moment they fell on him with such a fury he knew he was lost to them.

  Boots and hands and knees. The cue and flailing fingers. They took his wallet, his keys. They swore at him, spat at him, pissed on him. Birk Larsen did what he’d never done before, rolled into a ball like a victim, cowered on the ground. A pose he’d seen so often, but never for himself.