The Killing 3 (30 page)

The door opened. She prayed to God it wasn’t him.

Asbjørn Juncker fell into the passenger seat.

‘I think I’ve got it,’ he said cheerily.

‘Got what?’

He looked at her.

‘You’ve got a mood on. I’ve been asking around the local men. I think I’ve got an explanation. A journalist rang the nick this morning asking questions about the Hjelby
case. The desk told him to call Borch in Copenhagen because he’d just been here.’

He pulled out his notebook.

‘I phoned the paper. They didn’t know anything about it. No one’s been calling here. He’s on the ball, isn’t he? Got to say that for him.’

On the ball.

Computers. Maps. Weapons. Now a glib phone call to steal a working officer’s identity. Couldn’t disagree. And she’d yelled at Borch for that. Brought something out of him she
hadn’t wanted to hear.

‘Well!’ Juncker waited for a response. Got none. ‘That’s me done.’

Climbed out of the car, back into the rain.

On a good day there was only one road ahead. Simple, clear, incontrovertible. That made life so much easier. Sparse, bare, lean. Lonely.

Lund put a hand to her mouth and checked her breath. Then sucked on a mint. Brushed down her coat for no good reason except prevarication.

Something else she loathed.

Got out. Walked through the busy ops room into the accommodation wing at the back.

Down the corridor. Room sixteen. Knocked on the door.

Borch was in shirt and jeans still. The bed was made. Double too.

‘Asbjørn just told me he probably called here this morning and the locals gave him your name.’

He still wore the hurt and boyish look that always amused her.

‘Did he?’

‘So it looks like I must have . . . sort of misunderstood really.’

He listened, nodded.

‘That’s an apology?’

Lund marched in, kicked the door shut behind her, threw off her coat.

Put her arms round his neck.

‘No. This is,’ she said and kissed him.

An embrace that was long years coming.

Her hands ripped at his shirt.

His fingers lifted her coarse wool jumper.

Back in the dead flat land outside the city Maja Zeuthen stumbled on through the dark. Torch beam flashing. Voice rising. Seeing nothing.

Finally she stopped. Didn’t know where she was. Carsten behind her. Sounding weary and cross.

The wrong voice.

She had to silence that weasel whisper. Too much pain to get here. The road back could only be worse.

‘Maja. For God’s sake . . .
Maja!
’

A handsome man and he knew it. So wanted to forget she had a life before.

He caught up. Stood in front of her. The rain came down. The icy wind began to howl. She could smell the river, the rank water, the marshy foetid land.

‘This is crazy.’ He took hold of her shoulders. Cold, insistent eyes in hers. ‘We need to go home now. She’s not here. You know that . . .’

He hugged her. Hard. As if he could squeeze the grief out of her with nothing but the strength of his arms.

Gentle.
That was the word she’d always associated with Robert. Too placid to rule over Zeeland. Too kind and caring for that world.

‘Maja . . .’

Another man’s voice in her ear.

‘Not now, Carsten,’ she said then shrank from him, walked back to the car.

Monday 14th November

The gentle wash of distant waves. Screams of bickering gulls. An unfamiliar bed. The insistent ringing of a phone.

Lund woke up naked beneath the cheap polyester sheets of the Gudbjerghavn boarding house. Alone. Not quite with it for a moment.

Clothes strewn across a too-bright orange carpet. The clock said eight thirty-one. It was her phone ringing in the bag by the bed.

She grabbed for it, grateful Borch was gone.

Brix shouted, ‘Where are you?’

‘I’m just . . .’

‘There’s been a break-in at the school. Borch’s running the show. He’s not mine. You are. Get there.’

The curtains were only half closed. She wondered who might have seen. Climbed out of bed, shut them completely. Scooped her clothes off the floor, went back to her own room. The quickest shower
possible. Then through the temporary desks, past watchful interested eyes, and out to the car.

Not long after Lund set off for the school Hartmann parked himself on a seat in the little cafe Morten Weber liked to use every morning before coming to work. It was near his
modest home not far from the central station. Weber had bought the place when he got his first job as a political researcher after university. They were in the same year together. Handsome,
articulate, charming, Hartmann was the public face of the partnership, Weber the backroom brains. Together they’d plotted and schemed, moving through the ranks of local politics, first into
Copenhagen City Hall, then on to the ultimate prize: the premiership.

Mostly they saw eye-to-eye. But the tensions were always there and sometimes they erupted.

‘You’re late,’ Hartmann said as he sat down and ordered a coffee. The ministerial car was outside, the bodyguards lounging in a brief patch of winter sun. Weber didn’t
look up. ‘Can I buy you breakfast?’

‘I can pay for my own breakfast. Piss off.’

‘Makes a change from a cheery good morning. Coming into the office by any chance?’

‘Hangings aren’t much fun, thanks.’

Hartmann nodded.

‘I didn’t resign, you know.’

Weber’s beady eyes turned on him.

‘You’re still thinking about it. We went through this six years ago. The last time Lund was hanging around. You’d have given up then if it wasn’t for me.’

That was true. But he didn’t need reminding.

‘I thought we had Ussing,’ Hartmann said. ‘Could be wrong. Maybe those pictures Karen found were too good to be true. Turns out Schultz and him were old friends. Used to play
squash together sometimes.’

‘Never trust a man who plays squash.’ Weber, a tubby man, was not given to exercise. ‘It’s unnatural.’

‘They’re still looking for Emilie Zeuthen. Brix is acting coy. I don’t think he’s a clue whether she’s dead or . . . if Lund’s on to something.’

Weber pushed away his coffee cup, looked at his watch, yawned.

‘I need you today, Morten.’

‘You always do.’

‘So are you coming?’

‘Going deaf?’

‘By the end of the day either I’ll be king of the castle or have Birgit Eggert standing over my cold, still corpse. Do you really want to miss this?’

Weber finished his coffee, lifted his cup, caught the eye of the pretty waitress behind the counter. Without a word she came over and filled it, beamed at Hartmann, got the smile back in
return.

‘Don’t even think about it, Troels,’ Weber hissed when she’d left. ‘That kid’s nineteen. Not a day more.’

‘Just being friendly. People expect it. You always think the worst of me.’

‘What do you think your chances are?’

‘Good question,’ Hartmann noted. ‘If I can throw a little dirt Ussing’s way and it sticks . . . good. Should God be kind and have Emilie Zeuthen turn up alive . . . who
knows?’

Weber closed his eyes.

‘You only worry about the things you can control. How many times do I have to say this?’

‘I can’t control anything if you’re not there. Is this the usual routine? We argue. You quit. A few hours later you turn up in the office as if nothing’s happened. We all
applaud. Good old Morten. He comes back in the end.’

They’d played out that scene many times.

‘Don’t be presumptuous.’

‘I’m not. I need you. Today more than ever. I’ll give you anything you want.’

The little man thought about that.

‘Well?’ Hartmann asked.

‘You don’t quit. You only go if you’re fired.’

‘Agreed.’

‘You listen to me more than Karen.’

He laughed.

‘I do that anyway. Didn’t you notice?’

Weber thought for a moment. Then said, ‘Very well. If I can I’ll get you back into office. Whatever it takes.’

Hartmann patted his hand.

‘And after that you’ll lean on the university. Tell them to throw a professorship my way. I want out of this. I’ve had enough.’

That was a shock.

‘Let’s talk about this later.’

‘No!’ Weber’s voice had moved up a tone, got louder. People were looking. ‘That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.’

‘I don’t like ultimatums. You always told me to reject them.’

‘I’m not God!’ Weber yelled. ‘I don’t know everything. Jesus . . .’

‘Later,’ Hartmann insisted.

‘You just don’t see it, do you?’ Morten Weber tapped his head. ‘Somewhere in there you still think you’re John F. Kennedy running the Copenhagen White House. And
I’m your clever kid brother Robert, whispering wise words in the background.’

‘I had a kid brother,’ Hartmann said with a sad air of resignation. ‘I loved him but he wasn’t so clever.’

Weber closed his eyes and murmured, ‘I didn’t mean it that way.’

‘Not a bad dream though, is it?’

‘It’s still just a dream. Want the truth? You’re Don Quixote and I’m your pathetic little sidekick Sancho Panza. All we do is tilt at windmills. Even now. When we were
young we thought we could make things better. Now we’re old we’re just struggling to stop them getting worse.’

There was despair in his face at that moment. Something Hartmann had never witnessed before.

‘I didn’t realize you’d come to feel that way. Is it me?’

‘No! Any more than it’s me. Or Karen. Or Ussing. Rosa Lebech. Or . . . anyone. Try to listen for once. It’s the world. We’ve fucked it. Right, left and centre.’

The Prime Minister of Denmark had no words at that moment.

‘There’s the deal,’ Weber said again.

‘Whatever you want,’ Hartmann agreed. He nodded at the car and the bodyguards outside. ‘If you’ve finished I can give you a lift.’

The school looked different in daylight. Children ran around under the bright winter sun, filling the playground with happy voices. Lund walked straight in, found Juncker in
the office she’d seen the night before.

Filing cabinets open. Papers scattered everywhere.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ he asked.

‘What happened?’

‘You never answer questions, do you?’

‘What happened, Asbjørn?’

‘The cleaners reported a break-in. Borch thinks that smashed window you saw was him trying it out. Maybe he hung around until you left.’

Borch was on the floor, cross-legged, sifting through papers. Didn’t so much as look at her.

‘I tried your room,’ Juncker said. ‘You weren’t there. I was worried.’

‘Big girl now,’ Lund told him. ‘You need a shave.’

He had the faintest of beards. It didn’t look right.

‘Did Borch find anything?’ she asked.

Juncker pointed at the man on the floor.

‘You mean . . .
that
Borch?’

He got to his feet, glanced at her, pointed to the school photos on the walls. Year after year. The procession of kids moving through the classes.

‘As far as I can work out he was looking for pupil records.’

‘So he was here last night?’ she said.

He grimaced.

‘Not when we were.’

‘He was in the vicinity then?’

‘The vicinity,’ Borch agreed testily. ‘Yes.’

Juncker looked at her, puzzled by his abruptness, and shrugged. A forensic officer was dusting for prints on the wall.

‘He took a photo of Louise Hjelby’s class,’ Juncker cut in. ‘I’ve asked for a copy from one of the other parents.’

She stared at him.

‘Other parents?’

Juncker nodded.

‘He’s either her dad or her uncle or something, isn’t he? Why else would he do all this? Mother left the bloke’s name off the birth certificate. We don’t even know
if he came near the kid. Knew she was alive. Lund . . .’ He touched his mouth. ‘You’ve got toothpaste. There. Bit of a hurry I guess . . .’

She licked a finger and got rid of it. Juncker found the photo. Form 7B. Louise was the saddest-looking kid in class. Dressed in black. But she was holding the hand of the girl next to her.

Lund took the picture over to the teacher, asked who she was.

‘Katja. The two of them always got on well. Sat next to each other.’

‘Is she here?’

The outraged look they’d seen the night before.

‘She said one of your men spoke to her yesterday. She’s upset enough.’

‘Yesterday?’ Lund demanded.

Borch shook his head. So did Juncker.

‘Where is she?’

The woman walked to the window. Pointed to a tall girl in jeans, a green wool hat, a cheap jacket.

‘Come,’ Lund ordered.

Outside with Juncker and Borch. Katja was reluctant to talk with the other pupils around. So they walked to some rough ground beyond the school. At four the previous day she’d been stopped
on her bike outside town by a man who said he was a police officer.

Juncker got a precise location, went to check it out. Borch showed the girl a photo of Emilie Zeuthen.

‘That’s the girl in the papers.’

‘Have you seen her?’

‘No.’

‘This man,’ Lund said. ‘What did he look like?’

She pointed at Borch.

‘Like him. Ordinary. Dark hair. He wanted to know if I was the one who saw Louise after school the day she went missing.’

‘And you did?’

‘Yeah.’ She pointed along the road. ‘By the town sign on the way in from Esbjerg. I was going to feed my horse.’

Lund pulled out a map, checked the exact place.

‘Why was she there? Didn’t she usually go back along the waterfront?’

‘She said there was something wrong with her bike. The gears I think. She was probably going to get it fixed. I think that’s why she got a lift.’

‘A lift?’

‘A man in a black car. I thought Louise must have known him. He picked up her bike and put it in the boot for her.’

‘What did he look like?’ Borch asked.

‘It was a long way. I didn’t really see. They drove off before I got there . . .’

‘What kind of car?’

‘Black. Big. Fancy . . . I don’t know.’

Lund was pushing for more. The girl started to cry. So she asked the same questions, again and again.