The Killing - 01 - The Killing (20 page)

‘Close.’

‘When did she stop seeing Oliver Schandorff ?’

‘Is he involved?’

A long, broad shadow fell across the table. Theis Birk Larsen turning to listen.

‘I’m just gathering information.’

‘Six months ago or so,’ Pernille said. ‘Oliver was a kind of boyfriend.’

‘Was she upset when it ended?’

‘No. He was.’

Lund watched her.

‘She wouldn’t talk to Oliver on the phone. Nanna . . .’ She leant forward, tried to hold Lund’s wide and ranging eyes. ‘If something was wrong she always told me. Didn’t she, Theis?’

The silent man stood at the window, a giant figure in his scarlet bib overalls and leather jacket.

Lund’s phone rang.

Meyer had something.

‘OK. I’ll come straight away.’

They stared at her, expectant.

‘I have to go now.’

‘What was that?’ he asked in a low, brutal voice.

‘Just a call. I saw a pair of boots in Nanna’s room. They look expensive. Did you give them to her?’

‘Expensive boots?’ he grunted.

‘Yes.’

Pernille said, ‘Why do you ask?’

A shrug.

‘I ask lots of questions. Maybe too many. I put my nose in where it’s not wanted.’ A pause. ‘That’s what I do.’

‘We didn’t buy her expensive boots,’ Pernille said.

Interview room. The lawyer was brisk and bald and built like a hockey player. When Lund walked in he was yelling at a bored-looking Meyer who sat on the table edge, chin on fist, smiling childishly.

‘You’ve ignored all my client’s rights. You questioned him without a lawyer present . . .’

‘Not my fault you wanted a lie-in. What’s the big deal? I took him on a tour. Bought him breakfast. I’ll change his stinking nappy if you want . . .’

‘Come with me, Meyer . . .’

‘There will be consequences,’ the lawyer bellowed as Lund took him into the next room.

Meyer sat down, looked at her.

‘They put Oliver Schandorff in the last free cell we had. So I drove Jeppe round a bit and dropped him off here at five.’

Wondering how bad this might turn out, Lund asked, ‘Did you question him?’

‘Have you seen his emails? Plenty. And he rang Nanna fifty-six times in one week. If you ask . . .’

‘Did you question him without a lawyer present?’

‘The lawyer said he would be here at seven. He didn’t turn up till nine.’ Meyer tried to look the picture of reasonableness. ‘Like I said, I couldn’t throw the little jerk into a cell. We just had breakfast together.’ A small boy’s gesture of guilt. ‘It would have been rude if I hadn’t talked to him, Lund.’

Buchard came through the door. Blue shirt. Grey face.

‘We didn’t have anywhere to hold the suspect last night,’ Lund said straight off. ‘The lawyer was two hours late. Meyer bought him breakfast.’

‘He wasn’t very hungry,’ Meyer broke in, ‘but it seemed the polite thing to do.’

‘Maybe the kid thought he was being interrogated but . . .’

Lund left it at that. Buchard was unimpressed.

‘Perhaps Meyer could explain this to me himself.’

‘What Lund said,’ Meyer told him.

‘Write that in a report. Bring it to my office. I’ll put it in your file with all the others.’ A studied pause. ‘After the hearing.’

When the chief left Lund got to her desk, started on the photos and the messages.

Meyer brightened.

‘I thought that went pretty well. Didn’t you?’

The press conference was packed. Cameras. Microphones everywhere. Troels Hartmann wore a tie this time, black. That morning he went to the barber that Rie Skovgaard chose, sat in the chair as she ordered the cut she wanted: short and severe, mournful.

Then the script.

‘It’s been a turbulent time. But I’ve been working closely with the police. The car was stolen. No staff were ever implicated. Our thoughts and sympathies go out to the girl’s parents. Our priority all along was to help the police. Nothing more.’

‘Is the driver a suspect?’ a woman asked.

‘The driver came from an agency. He’s been cleared.’

A sea of voices, the loudest shouting, ‘Is this the position of the police?’

Hartmann looked and saw the bald head and beaming smirk of Erik Salin.

‘I don’t speak for the Politigården. But I’ve discussed this with them. They’re happy I make it clear our involvement was an unfortunate coincidence. We’ve nothing to do with this case. Speak to them if you want any more.’

Still the questions rained down on him.

A politician picked the ones he answered. Carefully. Hartmann listened to the clamour, thought of Bremer, waited in silence until the right question came along.

‘Will you form an alliance with the Centre Party?’

A puzzled expression, bemused but knowing.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘the world of local politics is rarely as dramatic as you people would have your readers believe. Thank you.’

He rose to leave.

The woman reporter was on her feet.

‘You’re forming an alliance?’

Nothing.

The political editor from one of the dailies pounced.

‘Is Bremer wooing her too?’

There was the flash of a camera in his face. Stick to the script, Rie Skovgaard said.

‘He is.’ The room went silent, every eye upon him. ‘Personally though, I think he’s a bit old for her. Now . . .’

Sudden, raucous laughter.

A delicate balance, one that fell in his favour. The hacks hated Bremer as much as he did. At least that’s what they said in their cups.

Troels Hartmann retreated to his office next door.

There Rie Skovgaard fussed over him. Adjusted his tie, his jacket. Looked girlish and pleased.

One short ticking-off for the departure from the script at the end. But that worked. So she was happy.

‘I’m fine,’ Hartmann said, retreating from her hands. ‘Fine.’

‘Troels. You’ve got a bunch of meetings ahead. Then a school visit. The cameras will be there. They’ll want you.’

He stepped back to the window like a sullen child.

She played the same game. A pout. A practised one. She’d had her hair done before him. Black and sleek. Fitted dress hugging her slender body.

Weber rushed in brandishing papers. The draft of the alliance speech. He wanted it cleared with Eller.

‘We’ll read it in the car . . .’

‘Take Morten with you,’ Skovgaard said. ‘Then the two of you can talk. Go over the points . . .’

Weber shook his head.

‘There’s nothing new. You don’t need me. I’ve work here—’

‘I’ll hold the fort while you’re gone,’ she insisted. ‘Go.’ She waved at them. ‘Go.’ A smile. ‘And talk.’

Sometimes they played chess together. He usually won. Because she let him? Hartmann wondered that sometimes.

‘Go, boys!’ Rie Skovgaard shouted like a scolding mother, waving her thin hands, flashing her rings.

‘On Saturday night,’ Meyer said, ‘Jeppe Hald called Schandorff several times.’

‘What about the woman Oliver was with?’

‘Divorcee out for some fun. She said he was miserable and worried about something.’

Lund scowled at him.

‘That’s it?’

‘No.’

That petulant ring to his voice was back. The smoking ban she’d imposed in the office was getting to him.

‘What about the prints from the boiler room?’

‘Half the school was down there.’

‘What about DNA?’

‘Still waiting. Ready?’

She looked through the glass door at the interview room across the passage. Oliver Schandorff, head down at the table.

‘I want to be in there,’ Meyer said. ‘We’re supposed to be working on this together.’

This was true.

‘OK. You can come in. But leave the questions to me.’

He jumped to his feet. A short salute and click of the heels.

The moment they were through the door Schandorff, scruffy in a green polo shirt, pointed at Meyer.

‘I’m not talking to him.’

‘No,’ Lund announced. ‘You’re talking to me.’ Pause. ‘Good morning, Oliver. How are you?’

‘I feel like shit.’

She held out her hand. The kid took it. Then the bald lawyer they’d seen earlier did the same. Lund sat next to them. Meyer perched at the end of the room, on a stool in the light from the window.

‘All we want to do,’ Lund said, ‘is ask you a few questions. Then you can go home.’ No response. ‘Nanna told her parents she would be at Lisa’s. Was she meeting you?’

‘No. I told you.’

‘Do you know who she met?’

‘No.’

From her folder Lund pulled a couple of photos of the fancy leather boots from Nanna’s wardrobe.

‘Did you give her these?’

He looked as if he’d never seen them.

‘No.’

Meyer leaned back in his chair at the window, let loose a long yawn.

Lund ignored him.

‘Why were you so angry that you threw a chair?’

The bald lawyer beamed and said, ‘My client reserves the right not to answer.’

Lund ignored the man.

‘I’m trying to help you, Oliver. Tell us the truth and you’re gone from here. Hide behind this man and I promise—’

‘She said she’d found someone else!’

‘That’s enough,’ the lawyer said. ‘We’re going.’

Lund’s eyes never left the ginger-haired kid.

‘Did she say who?’

The lawyer was on his feet.

‘My client’s had a rough night—’

‘Did she say anything else?’

‘I said,’ the lawyer cut in. ‘No more questions.’

Schandorff shook his head.

‘All I did was ask her if she’d come to the basement and talk to me. But she wouldn’t—’

‘Oliver!’ the lawyer barked.

‘Kid,’ Meyer cut in. Schandorff glanced at him. ‘He’s not your dad. He won’t hit you. I won’t let him.’

‘She wouldn’t come with me.’

Lund nodded.

‘So what did you do?’

‘I called her a bunch of names. That was the last I saw of her.’

She picked up her papers.

‘Thanks. That’s all.’

Outside the room. Thinking.

‘Nanna had a date. She had expensive boots no one knew about.’

‘Oliver could have bought them,’ Meyer said. ‘He’s lying. Maybe she was going on a date with him.’

‘It feels wrong.’

‘It feels wrong,’ he muttered, reaching for a cigarette.

‘Don’t smoke in here,’ she ordered. ‘I told you that already.’

‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Lund. You. You’ve been here so long you’re part of the furniture. You think no one can ever replace you. That’s what’s wrong. You.’

Then he lit the cigarette anyway. Blew smoke in the air. Coughed. Said, ‘My office. Mine.’

Svendsen stuck his head through the door.

‘Forensics called. The samples from the boiler room were contaminated. There won’t be any DNA profiles today.’

Lund said nothing. Looked at the photos on her desk. The boots.

‘OK,’ Meyer told him. ‘We’ll go back to the boys’ flat.’

Svendsen sighed.

‘We were there all night.’

‘We didn’t look hard enough.’

They left. Lund kept staring at the boots. The phone rang. It was the medical examiner. Wanting to see her.

Pernille waited on her own in the apartment with the flowers, the police tags and Nanna’s clothes.

By midday she was ready to go crazy. So she drove to the school, saw an embarrassed Rektor Koch, then the charming, quiet, sad-eyed teacher Rama.

Learnt one thing only: the police held Oliver Schandorff and Jeppe Hald overnight.

Then she waited in an empty office, listening to the young voices outside in the corridor, dreaming she could hear Nanna’s bright tones among them. Waited until Lisa Rasmussen came crying, running, throwing herself into the wide open arms of Pernille’s gaberdine raincoat, shaking with emotion, sobbing like a little child.

Her hair was blonde like Nanna’s. Pernille kissed it and knew she shouldn’t. These two were friends. Sisters almost sometimes. These two were . . .

Pernille let go, smiled, stopped trying to rationalize something that was beyond comprehension. A child was a brief and blissful interlude of responsibility, not a thing to be owned. She’d no idea what Nanna did outside the little apartment above the garage. Didn’t ask. Struggled not to think about it.

But Lisa knew. This short, slightly tubby girl trying so hard to be as pretty and clever as Nanna, and never quite succeeding.