The Killing 2 (29 page)

‘Like what? Tell me.’

Her eyes were wild with fear.

‘And end up dead? Like my buddies? Get me out of here!’

‘Did they tell you civilians were killed?’

‘Raben’s men didn’t do it.’

Nothing more.

‘Lisbeth. I’m trying to help.’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s the army,’ Thomsen said in a low, tense voice. ‘Sometimes you get men who drift in and out. You never speak to them. You never know who they are. They’re like
ghosts. They do things the rest of us can’t.’

‘Who killed those civilians?’

‘Some fucked-up Danish officer who went crazy. He was there. He called them in.’

‘No,’ Lund insisted. ‘I read the judge advocate’s report. There was no officer.’

She laughed in Lund’s face.

‘I said you wouldn’t understand. He was there. We all knew there were guys like that around.’

‘Doing what?’

Thomsen’s eyes stayed on her.

‘Whatever they wanted. We have rules. They don’t. They can go anywhere. Kill or bomb or bribe or . . . It’s war. It’s not us against them. It’s dirtier than
that.’

‘This man—’

‘They called him Perk. I don’t know if that was his real name or not. I never saw him.’

‘Perk?’

‘Myg Poulsen and Grüner told the judge. Raben couldn’t. He didn’t remember. It didn’t matter. Nobody believed them. It was just a whitewash. We all knew
it.’

‘The lawyer?’ Lund asked.

‘She believed them from the start. She came to see me a month ago, asking if I’d testify and help reopen the case. For God’s sake—’

A sound. A man’s voice. Angry, scared, she wasn’t sure which.

Strange was shouting warnings. Somewhere not far away in the wood.

‘Stay here,’ Lund told her and got out of the car.

The first shot sounded when she reached the trees.

It was dark beneath their cover. She remembered a night in Copenhagen. A warehouse. Jan Meyer bleeding, unconscious on the floor.

She’d left him too.

Another shot.

Lund ran.

After a minute there was a clearing. She didn’t take out her own gun. Never thought of that.

There was a canvas structure on stilts ahead. A watchtower.

A figure at the top of the ladder, moving down, hand over hand on the rungs so quickly.

‘Strange!
Strange! For God’s sake!
’

He got to the ground just as she turned up.

Someone had been there. Wrappers on the forest floor: muesli bars, an empty water bottle, some lingonberry branches.

‘Raben was here,’ he said. ‘Jægerkorpset. They can live off nothing and you never get to see them.’

‘Ulrik?’

He looked at her, puzzled.

‘What happened to “Strange”?’

‘Don’t you ever run off like that again.’

He grinned.

‘Sorry, Mummy,’ he said and gave her a little salute. ‘But I heard something. Where’s Thomsen?’

‘Don’t you ever . . .’ she repeated.

A car door slammed hard behind them.

Before she could say a word Ulrik Strange was running back to the blocked road, faster than Lund ever could.

Thomsen flew into the forest the minute Lund was out of sight. Ran the half kilometre to her bungalow in the woods.

She had the red Land Rover in the drive. A boat. Could get to the mainland easily if she needed. Stay out of sight until the storm – whatever it was – had blown over.

All her outdoor gear – food, a compass, more knives, a rifle – stayed in a cabinet by the sink. Thomsen raced to it, got the door half open.

Stopped.

Wires inside. They were never there before. A pack of stick explosives taped to the stock of the rifle.

Clumsy, she thought. Even the Taliban could do better than this.

A sound at the door. A tall figure. She shrieked, looked for a weapon and then he was on her, hand over her mouth.

Thomsen stared into his cold eyes.

Raben, hood down, breathless.

‘You scared the living crap out of me,’ she whispered. ‘Why in God’s name . . . ?’

‘I saw you running,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘What are you doing here? There are police from Copenhagen. They want to take me back. They say . . .’

He was staring at the half-open cupboard.

‘Have you been in here?’ Thomsen asked.

‘No.’

She gestured at the door. He knew about these things. Raben bent down, opened it very carefully.

The wire was a simple trigger, mechanical not electrical. It ran back to the explosives and ended in a physical detonator.

‘That’s a blind,’ he said. ‘Too easy. There’s got to be something else.’

He shoved a chair against the cupboard door to stop it moving, glanced around, took her arm.

‘Car keys?’

She nodded at the table. Raben took them.

‘Let’s go,’ he said.

They edged out of the cottage. Raben got down on his hands and knees, checked underneath the Land Rover, then opened the bonnet gingerly and looked there.

Nothing.

An engine was gunning somewhere. Fast and urgent.

‘Where . . . ?’ Thomsen asked.

He put a finger to his mouth, guided her into the shelter of the low conifers.

They watched. The black car with a Copenhagen plate slewed to a halt in the mud outside the bungalow door. The old Swedish cop climbed out, looked round. Two figures, Lund and the man she came
with, emerged from the other side and went straight through the door.

‘We’ve got to warn them,’ she whispered.

‘They can look after themselves,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘We need to get out of here.’

‘You don’t know—’

Finger to lips again. She went quiet. He was the boss in Helmand. The boss now.

The Swedish cop strolled leisurely inside too. He’d never see a bomb, not if it jumped up in the street and said hello.

‘I don’t like this . . .’

Raben ran, got into the battered red Land Rover, hit the ignition, beckoned.

Decisions
.

Back in the army they were easy. You did what you were told.

Lisbeth Thomsen dashed out from the trees, leapt through the passenger door he’d kicked open. Was struggling to hold on to the cold metal dashboard as Raben floored the accelerator. They
slid and swerved across the mud, headed back into the forest, over the roughest track he could find.

Twenty minutes later Skogö’s two police Volvos stood outside Thomsen’s cottage. Strange had retrieved the black squad car from the mud where it had stuck when
they tried to give chase. It was just before seven in the evening and Lund was furious.

‘Where could they go?’ she asked the Swedish cop again.

‘You keep asking me this. I’m telling you the same thing. This is a small island. Just forest and a few houses. And then the sea. They won’t get onto the ferry, I promise you
that. In the morning, when it’s light—’

‘The morning could be too late,’ she said.

‘We’ve got twenty thousand hectares of forest and Lisbeth Thomsen probably knows every tree. She’s been coming here since she was a little girl. A good kid. In the
morning—’

‘You told us Raben wasn’t here.’

‘And I was wrong,’ he said very patiently. ‘We’ve got Bertil and Ralle looking for them too.’

Lund wanted to scream.

‘I asked for backup.’

‘They’re on their way. From the mainland. A couple of hours maybe. I’ve asked my brother-in-law too.’

‘He’s police?’

‘No,’ he said as if puzzled by the question. ‘He’s a fisherman. How many policemen do you think we need on Skogö? If you’d told us you were going to let
Lisbeth go we’d be better prepared—’

‘She ran,’ Lund pointed out. ‘Raben’s here. Someone else maybe . . .’

Strange came out from the cottage, frowned when he saw her.

‘I don’t want anyone inside until bomb disposal turn up,’ he said.

‘If there’s a bomb why would we go inside?’ one of the men asked.

‘I’m going to go mad in a minute,’ Lund muttered just low enough so only Strange could hear. ‘What’s in there?’

‘Someone’s been having fun. The doors are flimsy. The windows were open—’

‘We don’t usually lock our doors in Skogö,’ the old cop butted in. ‘What’s the point?’

‘The point,’ Strange said, ‘is someone booby-trapped the place.’

‘No one from Skogö,’ the man replied. ‘I’m sure of that. This Raben character of yours, perhaps?’

‘He was in jail when the first two were murdered,’ Lund muttered.

Strange was looking at her.

‘What is it?’

‘Raben could rig up something like that. It’s crude but—’

‘You’re wrong.’

She started to walk round the cleared patch of ground beyond the cars. Strange followed, hands in pockets.

‘If Thomsen had gone for her rifle she’d have been blown to bits, Lund. There’s about a kilo of explosive stuck in there.’ He sighed. ‘Brix is going to be so pissed
off about this.’

‘Never mind Brix. I’m pissed off. Worry about that.’

‘What are you looking for?’

It wasn’t that he was slow. Strange was . . . not tuned right somehow.

‘He leaves a sign,’ she said. ‘Remember?’

They got to the end of the clearing. Lund got out her torch, shone it around. Eventually it fell on an outside tap near the vegetable patch. Something was dangling from the top.

Strange came and looked. Shining in the beam was a severed dog tag on a silver chain.

‘Maybe Raben made the roadblock,’ she said. ‘He didn’t booby-trap the cottage.’

‘Why . . . ?’

‘He’s their squad leader. He feels responsible. He wants to save the last one left. And himself. Where the hell are these Swedish hicks for God’s sake?’

She stomped round in the dark. Found nothing more. Then they heard the roar of an engine. Something stormed down the track, four bright lights on the grille, the same on the roof. A huge
all-terrain truck, open-backed for the forest.

‘This is my brother-in-law and his mates,’ the old cop said proudly. ‘Now we have the big Datsun we can go anywhere.’

‘Ja,’ the driver said, grinning as he hung out of the door. ‘We found Lisbeth’s little toy stuck in the mud. They must be on foot. So . . .’

He clapped his hands.

‘Anyone here want a ride?’

Lund climbed into the open back, Strange beside her, clung on to the rail, and they lurched into the dark forest.

Thomsen knew these woods, understood how few tracks crossed them, how easy they would be to find. So when they abandoned the Land Rover the two of them ran through the stark
upright trees, crossing the rough forest floor as best they could in the weak moonlight and steady rain.

She had a boat. It was the last option open.

They passed the spilled, felled trunks, passed the forest watch-tower. Thomsen screamed, went down hard on the ground.

‘Come on!’ Raben roared, and it was just like the old days. Them against the world.

When she didn’t move he came back. She was whimpering, clutching her ankle in pain.

Soldier down. The response was automatic.

He crouched next to her, lifted the leg of her khaki trousers. Brambles had torn the skin. A livid bruise was emerging.

Raben ripped the fabric with his knife, cut a strip, bandaged the wound.

‘How far to the boat?’

‘A few minutes. That’s all.’

‘Who was in your cottage, Lisbeth?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen anybody.’

She looked at him.

‘It wasn’t there when the police took me in. It can’t have been.’

He tied the makeshift bandage too tight. She put her hand on his, made him loosen it a little.

‘That woman came to see me, Jens. The lawyer. She asked me to testify again. She wanted to reopen the case.’

‘Why? What did she say?’

Thomsen got up, tested her leg.

‘She said she’d uncovered some new information. She wouldn’t say what.’ Thomsen held his arm and he didn’t know whether it was to steady herself or not. ‘What
happened in that village, Jens?’

‘I don’t really know. What else?’

‘Nothing. Did you do something wrong?’

His voice rose.

‘I can’t remember, dammit!’

‘Who was Perk?’ Lisbeth Thomsen asked in a quiet, scared voice he’d never heard before. ‘Was he real . . . or . . . ?’

‘Perk! Perk! I don’t know.’

He let go of her, squeezed his eyes tight shut.

‘I remember the screams. The stink of something burning. The kids trying to . . .’

He stopped.

‘To what, Jens?’

His mind had strayed somewhere it hadn’t been in a long time. A dark place, full of mysteries.

‘It was Perk. That was what he called himself. He murdered them. I remember that.’

She looked round the forest. No lights. No sound. Raben should have been doing that. But just then . . .

‘Did any of them survive? Is someone here, looking for revenge?’

Lights in the distance. A big vehicle, fast-moving.

He seized her arm.

‘They’ve found the Land Rover. They won’t be long. Come on.’

She tested the leg. Put weight on it. Didn’t wince at the pain.

‘Can you run?’ he asked.

‘I can try,’ Lisbeth Thomsen answered.

Louise Raben sat on the chair in her father’s office, Jarnvig and Christian Søgaard opposite, and wished she could find the will to laugh at their stiff pomposity.
It was ridiculous. She was a nurse, not a soldier. They’d no right to interrogate her like this.

But she went along with it because she had, in truth, little choice. It was close to nine in the evening. The barracks were on a high security alert. Jonas was at his friend’s house for
the night. Jens was God knew where.

And besides . . . she liked to watch Søgaard, wriggling by her father’s side, too scared to show any support, too interested to abandon her.

‘Why did he need these explosives, Louise?’

‘I told you. Jens never asked about explosives. He never came here—’

‘You used my computer. You got Thomsen’s file.’

‘Yes! I did!’

‘You took the codes to the ammunition depot.’

‘No, no, no.’ She shook her head. Wondered why she didn’t have the energy to cry. He could make her weep. He did it to her mother from time to time. ‘I never took any
codes. I wouldn’t know what they looked like.’