The Killing 3 (49 page)

‘You have no right to subject an innocent man to any further questioning,’ Keldgård said. ‘I want Niels Reinhardt—’

‘Piss off,’ Borch snapped. ‘We’ve got a pile of evidence building against this bastard. He’s been stringing us along from the start.’

The man glared at Brix.

‘See! Just like I said. Your people keep insinuating that Zeuthen and Zeeland are somehow incriminated in this matter. That they pressured your prosecutor . . .’

‘We never said that,’ Lund pointed out.

‘What is it you’re after?’ the lawyer asked. ‘Good headlines? A multinational company picking on a penniless orphan from Jutland . . .’

Borch stuck a finger in his face.

‘This girl was raped and murdered . . .’

‘Not by Reinhardt,’ the man interjected. ‘Your conspiracy theories are ridiculous. It’s a scandal no one has stopped you before now.’

‘Peter Schultz . . .’ Lund started.

‘Was covering his own mistakes. Nothing more than that.’

Keldgård threw some documents on the desk.

‘We’ve been making our own inquiries. He was trying to nail the sailors for the crime. Then when he realized he’d screwed up he logged it as a suicide. He did that, Lund. No
one else.’

Her finger pointed back to the interview room.

‘Reinhardt has questions to answer . . .’

‘This kid’s notebook’s useless. We talked to him too. He only wrote down Danish licence plates. The road’s not far from the German border. Any tourists, any foreign
workers going home . . . he ignored them.’

He smiled.

‘You mean you didn’t know that?’

Keldgård turned to Dyhring.

‘Reinhardt was in his room at the Hotel Royal Prince when Louise Hjelby went missing.’

‘We confirmed this,’ Dyhring said. ‘We looked at the hotel registration records. The key logs. Reinhardt used his card to go in the room at twenty-five past three. He
didn’t leave until eight thirty the next morning.’

She tried to catch Brix’s eye.

‘We need to check this.’

‘Why?’ Dyhring asked. ‘Don’t you believe me? It wasn’t him, Lund.’

The lawyer retrieved his papers.

‘This is the last time you target Reinhardt and Zeeland with these ludicrous accusations. I can only pray you do a better job trying to find Emilie Zeuthen.’

Brix snapped his fingers. Reinhardt came out of the interview room, shook hands with the lawyer and his assistant. The three of them walked off. Dyhring followed.

‘If it’s not him then who the hell is it?’ Borch wondered.

Brix was staring at the documents on Lund’s desk.

‘Why are you still looking at the Birk Larsen files?’

‘I wasn’t. I just haven’t had time to put them back.’

He folded his arms, long face, disappointment written all over it.

‘The Justice Minister wants us to handle the interrogation from now on,’ Dyhring announced. ‘Understandable. Borch?’

‘What?’

‘We need to talk. In thirty minutes Rantzau’s ours.’

She got in there first, just as a warder was bringing some food. Lund took the tray off him, placed it on the bed. Rantzau was in a blue prisoner suit. He didn’t look
well.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

He said nothing, got the tray, put it on his lap, started to eat with a slow deliberate precision, as if to a steady rhythm.

Lund waited a while and then said, ‘It can’t be Reinhardt.’

The fork went up, went down.

‘We weren’t so smart with the notebook, Loke. The boy only made a note of Danish numbers. Reinhardt’s got an alibi.’

Nothing.

‘We’re reopening the investigation. Full staffing. Looking back at everything we have. Sending people out to Jutland again.’ A pause. He still didn’t look at her.
‘It’s going to take some time.’

Eyes on the tray. He kept eating.

‘I’m going to find out who killed your daughter. I promise.’ He picked up a yoghurt pot, sniffed at it. ‘Don’t make Emilie Zeuthen die for this.’

Spoon in the pot. He tasted it. Wrinkled his nose.

With the warder watching from the door she got up, knocked the tray off his lap, sent everything crashing to the hard stone floor. Thrust a sheaf of papers under his nose.

‘Read it for yourself. He was in his hotel room. All sorts of cars drove past that day.’

He took the papers, looked at them.

‘Maybe you’re the one who’s blind. You’re obsessed with Zeeland. Maybe you’re what they say . . . a crazy.’

Silence.

‘Oh fuck it,’ she snapped and turned to go.

‘There’s a wisdom in craziness, Lund,’ he said in the same flat, tired intelligent voice. ‘Sometimes. You have a son, right?’

‘I told you this . . .’

‘Then why’s Zeuthen’s little girl so important to you? Don’t you want to look after your own? You have your nice little house. The plants in the garden. A good
life.’

‘You don’t know my life! Whatever point you wanted to prove is made. If you want to give Louise justice—’

His fingers went up. The sign of a devil’s horns.

‘Justice . . .’ Rantzau hissed. ‘You talk of justice? It’s the only damn thing I can give her. I was working for those bastards night and day for years. Hardly came home.
Never knew I had a daughter. Trapped in some stinking Somalian hole getting kicked and tortured day in and day out. When I come out? Old man Zeuthen doesn’t want to know me.’

The hate in him diminished for a moment.

‘Monika . . . we broke up. She never told me she was pregnant. Then I get back and look for her. She’s dead. And she had a daughter . . .’

‘I talked to her foster parents, Loke. They said she was a sweet, bright girl. She wouldn’t want—’

‘Louise isn’t here. I am. I gave her nothing while she was alive. Zeeland . . .’ A hard stare full of hatred. ‘You ask me to show consideration for something you call
justice. My child was raped and thrown into the harbour. You had every chance to find out why. And what did you do?’

A prison guard came and said PET wanted to talk to him in the interview room. Bent down, started to unlock his shackles.

‘If Emilie dies,’ Lund said, ‘your daughter’s going to be forgotten. A record in a file no one opens. Not because I want that. I’d like anything but. Because you
stopped us, Loke. No one else. You.’

They took him away.

Lund sat on the bed in the empty cell. After a while Juncker came in.

‘I just took a call from the hospital. Your son’s girlfriend just had a baby.’

She got hold of the tray, started to pick the broken crockery and bits of food off the floor.

‘Did he say anything, Lund?’

‘No.’

She put the tray on the bed, stood up. The warder could do the rest.

‘So what do we do now?’

It was getting dark outside.

‘I’ve no idea, Asbjørn. Sorry.’

Hartmann didn’t talk much on the way back to Christiansborg. At six Weber called a briefing with Mogens Rank.

‘Lund’s colourful conspiracy theories have flown out of the window,’ he told them. ‘There’ll be a reckoning there. All this nonsense about business interests and
political interference has been laid to rest.’

‘So did Schultz act under pressure or not?’ Hartmann asked.

‘No,’ Rank insisted. ‘I’ve already said . . . when we met he simply wanted to close the case. I had him confirm Zeeland weren’t involved. After that he was trying
to hide his own incompetence. It was nothing to do with us. Nothing to do with Ussing. Just one small man and his blunders.’

Weber started to scribble something.

‘We need a press release. Before the debate.’

Rank nodded.

‘Agreed. If you want me to hold a conference I can make all this clear. Ussing’s accusations about us covering up for Zeeland have no basis in truth and we should say it. This is
good news . . .’

Hartmann shook his head.

‘Don’t start cheering until the girl’s found. Lean on PET all you can.’ He checked his watch. ‘I need to see someone.’

He went down the corridor to the media department. Found her collating papers by the photocopier.

Busy room. Boring work. Someone had to do it. Karen Nebel had given up a career on national TV. For this.

Hartmann looked round, gestured at the others in the room. Watched them leave.

Got a filthy look from her.

‘Karen. I had to pull you out of the team while everything was being checked out. We now know there’s nothing—’

‘I told you that. You didn’t believe me.’

He grabbed a chair, rolled it beside her, sat down.

‘You’ve every right to be angry. I was a fool. I should have been more trusting.’

‘True.’

‘I need you. More than ever now.’

The practised smile of a politician, importunate, knowing, expectant.

She groaned.

‘Oh for God’s sake don’t try that stunt on me. I’m not Rosa Lebech. You can’t screw your way out of this one.’

‘Can’t I?’

Nebel blinked. Then put a hand on his shoulder, stroked his cheek, briefly ran her fingers through his hair.

‘Not while I’m conscious, dear. Are you ready for the debate?’

‘I think so.’

‘In that case you’re not.’ She picked up a couple of sheets of paper. ‘Here’s what you’re going to say.’

He reached out. She pulled them back.

‘Don’t ever do that to me again. Understood?’

Morten Weber came round the corner with their coats.

‘Are we all comrades in arms again?’ he asked cheerily.

She laughed at that. He went over and to her surprise pecked her cheek.

‘I missed you, O wise one,’ Weber said. ‘And so did this idiot. Didn’t you . . . ?’

Hartmann was taking a phone call.

‘I’ll see you in the car,’ he said when it was done.

The girl was in the shadows near the steps. Black hat, hair hidden. Face without make-up this time.

Growing up, he thought. They all did it. Benjamin was just late. He would have got there one day.

Hartmann told the bodyguards to stay where they were and went over. She dropped a cigarette onto the Christiansborg cobbles, ground it with her heavy boot.

‘I lied about Benjamin. He didn’t hate you. He didn’t want to hurt you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘To be honest he was proud of you. He said you were a decent man. But the world you were in was like that. He didn’t want to be a part of it. I suppose . . .’

Someone walked past. She went quiet.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘I suppose we did use him. He was a nice bloke. He didn’t really belong with us.’

She reached out and pointed a finger at Hartmann’s chest.

‘But someone did put pressure on him. If it wasn’t you it was someone else. He was worried. He wanted us to get rid of the photos.’

‘Wait, wait, wait,’ Hartmann interrupted. ‘What photos?’

‘In Jutland he took a lot of pictures. He put them on his web account. He was going to publish them in
Frontal
.’

‘Photos of what?’

‘I never saw them. His account got deleted. Benjamin freaked out when it happened. He lost everything.’

Hartmann tried to think back to those last few days.

‘I don’t remember him mentioning anything like this.’

‘Well, he wouldn’t. He was using Delta for the web. They’re owned by Zeeland. He thought . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He was getting paranoid. He said
there was a backup somewhere.’

‘Where?’

‘He never told me.’ She pulled a set of keys out of her pocket. ‘He asked me to hold on to these. I don’t know what they’re for. I don’t know why he kept them
really.’ A pause. ‘Hartmann?’

He didn’t know what to say.

‘I’m sorry I made you feel bad. That was mean. Your brother was a nice guy. Bit too gentle to be hanging round with us. Maybe we’re the ones who should feel guilty.’ She
looked at the palace ahead. ‘I don’t know.’

The girl called Sally turned on her heels and was gone.

Hartmann looked at what she’d left him: two keys on a piece of string.

The Zeeland offices were emptying at the end of the day. Zeuthen was alone in his room, trying to think. Security had called with the latest news from the Politigården.
No new leads on Emilie. Nothing on the Jutland case.

He’d phoned Brix and asked for a personal meeting with the kidnapper. A chance to make a direct plea. The answer was noncommittal. But if Zeuthen turned up they could hardly refuse
him.

And face-to-face . . .

He had the silver handgun from the mansion. Took it out of his briefcase. Checked the magazine. Reminded himself how to use the thing. Security had taught him when he first succeeded his father
at the helm of the company. A precaution, nothing more.

A sound at the door. Zeuthen hastily stuffed the weapon into his jacket pocket. Maja came in, looked at him suspiciously.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m going to the Politigården. Maybe if I can persuade Brix to let me talk to him he’ll say something.’

She always had a way of seeing through him.

‘Let me come too. If we’re both there . . .’

‘It’s going to be hard enough to get Brix to let me in, love.’

Her curious eyes stayed on him.

‘It’ll be fine,’ he said, then came and quickly kissed her. ‘We’ll get her back.’

On the way out the PA caught him.

‘I checked Reinhardt’s records like you asked,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing here that connects him to the Jutland girl.’

‘Thought so,’ he said, waiting for the lift.

‘Right after he was with you at the crisis meeting.’

There was something she wanted to say.

‘It’s odd.’ The woman looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t really understand . . .’

‘Can this wait?’

She shook her head.

‘I think you ought to see it now.’

Back at the hospital, walking down the long corridor, headed for the room where she’d last seen Eva. The same doctor was on duty, standing by a wall phone, checking some
records.

‘I told you to call,’ Lund complained. ‘You could just leave a message or—’

‘We had to induce in a hurry,’ the woman said. ‘There wasn’t time.’

She had such a casual, relaxed manner. It was infuriating.

‘I didn’t want her to be on her own when it happened. That’s the worst . . .’