The Killing 3 (8 page)

Juncker was watching this avidly.

‘Not since you two . . .’ Vibeke added. ‘How long ago was that?’

‘A while,’ Borch said and made the kind of genteel small talk that had always infuriated Lund since it came so easily and with such obvious sincerity.

It was Vibeke who cut it short. She took Lund to one corner.

‘I’m sorry to barge in like this.’

‘This isn’t a good time, Mum.’

‘Here.’ She pulled something out of her bag. ‘I bought you a book on gardening. You don’t exactly have green fingers. That little place of yours could use some
flowers.’

Borch was eavesdropping. He looked amused. Lund dragged her further away.

Her mother couldn’t take her eyes off him.

‘I always thought Mathias was the one,’ she whispered. ‘Not that stuck-up creature you married.’

Lund pulled on her coat, ready to go.

‘We need to talk about Mark,’ Vibeke said quickly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t want things to get worse between the two of you.’

‘Things are fine. I invited him and his new girlfriend to dinner. They couldn’t make it. That’s all.’

Vibeke put a hand to Lund’s shoulder, came close.

‘He was really young when you two divorced. It was never easy afterwards. That horrible case. The one with the young girl . . .’

You’re only interested in dead people
.

A twelve-year-old Mark had spat those words at her during the Birk Larsen case and they haunted her still.

‘You’ve been so busy with work, Sarah . . .’

‘Why are you here?’ Lund demanded and the whole office heard that.

Vibeke rarely shrank from speaking her mind. But she looked reluctant then.

‘Mark asked me to say . . . he wants you to leave him alone. No phone calls. No contact.’

Lund felt cold. Stupid. Alone.

‘He’ll come to you when he’s ready,’ Vibeke added. ‘Give him time. I’ll talk to him.’ She kissed Lund’s cheek, smiled at Borch, looked at the
door. ‘It’ll work out. Just not now.’

Then she left.

Borch came over and said, ‘We could pop round the corner for a coffee if you like. I wouldn’t mind a break from—’

‘I’m going to the courthouse,’ Lund said and that was that.

Hartmann finished the first morning event, an address to an office group near Kastrup airport, then headed for his blue and white campaign coach. Karen Nebel said the press
were getting more aggressive over the story of the alliance with Rosa Lebech.

‘We can’t leave this festering all day. She’s got to stop sitting on the fence.’

‘She will,’ he said, getting sick of this conversation. ‘Give it time. Make sure Ussing gets some kind of report from PET. Anything. Write it yourself if you like.’

‘Little busy for that, Troels. Birgit Eggert wants to talk.’

Eggert was the Finance Minister. A busy, scheming woman who’d coveted the party leadership for years.

‘I can do without that, thanks.’

‘Too late,’ Nebel replied.

Eggert was by the coach dressed in a long blue wool coat, a campaign badge bearing Hartmann’s photo on her lapel. Tall, grey hair cut short, a mannish, domineering face, she was in her
mid-fifties, ten years older than Hartmann. But the ambition still burned.

She marched over, congratulated him on the campaign. Whispered in his ear, ‘We need to talk. Alone.’

On the way back into the city the coach pulled in where she asked. By a green field next to the road. The two of them got out and walked across the skimpy grass.

‘You remember this place, Troels?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘This was our business park. The one we set down in the manifesto for growth.’ She laughed. ‘I suppose that’s one of the positive things about recessions. You don’t
look back so much. Just a bunch of bright hopes and memories. No one holds us to our past promises any more, do they?’

‘They should,’ he said. ‘We’re going to make things better.’

‘And you’re the man for the job. You’ve resurrected the party. People love you.’ The smile. ‘Most of them anyway.’

‘I’m really busy, Birgit. What’s this about?’

‘We need to make sure we have Zeeland on board. Without them our economic strategy’s in ruins.’

He shook his head.

‘You read Zeuthen’s statement, didn’t you? The story was rubbish. Kornerup’s gone . . .’

‘Robert Zeuthen doesn’t own Zeeland. He can’t call all the shots. Kornerup didn’t hold down a job like that under Zeuthen’s father without having the stomach for a
fight. You’ve told Rosa Lebech we’ll drop cuts in social security . . .’

Eggert had opposed that from the start – and lost. He was surprised she wanted to bring up the subject and said so.

‘The point is, Troels, you’ve given her all these concessions and she’s still playing hard to get.’ A pause. ‘Politically anyway.’

Hartman thought about Morten Weber’s warning: if a coup was to come from inside the palace it would, he said, be led by this woman.

‘Ussing’s tricks are putting her under pressure from her own party. She’ll deal with it. Today.’

Eggert looked at the barren land, not at him.

‘Rumour has it you’re listening to more than Rosa’s policies. Is that true?’

Hartmann glowered at her.

‘Did you interrupt our election campaign to ask about my love life?’

‘I don’t give a damn about your love life,’ Eggert snapped. ‘I don’t want to see everything we’ve built destroyed for no good reason. Ussing’s not
playing tricks. He’s offered Lebech a deal. Full partnership in government if he wins. A senior ministerial post for her in return.’

No response.

‘So she didn’t tell you?’ Eggert asked with a smile. Hartmann was ostentatiously checking his watch. ‘Do you know the reason politics and love don’t mix,
Troels?’

‘I’m sure you’re about to tell me.’

‘Sooner or later you find yourself having to choose. One above the other. Which will it be?’

Hartmann laughed.

‘If you have to ask that you really don’t know me at all. How’s the economy, Birgit?’

‘It’s shit.’

‘Best go and do something about that, don’t you think?’

The courthouse was in Nytorv square, a grand building fronted by six Ionic columns supporting a classical portico. There was an inscription about justice on the facade and a
flagpole jutting out of the top. As a cadet she’d walked up the staircase behind to see the view from the roof. Of late she’d spent more time in the adjoining jail, reached by a couple
of sealed passageways across a line of grand arches.

Before she left the Politigården she’d gone through the Ministry of Justice staff database and looked at the deputy prosecutor’s records and ID photograph. Peter Schultz was a
middle-ranking official who’d worked for the ministry for ten years. He was forty, a thin, ascetic man with an artist’s beard.

Lund rarely got on well with lawyers. They only wanted to talk to the police on their own terms. She had no reason to think Schultz would be any different.

As luck would have it he was on the courthouse steps, beneath the portico, when she arrived, saying goodbye to another member of the legal team. Lund interrupted, explained that she was the one
who’d been leaving messages for him.

‘Busy day,’ Schultz said and eyed his colleague with an amused look. The other man walked into court, tapping his watch.

‘Me too. Like I said I need to talk to you about a mate from a Zeeland ship. The
Medea
. He was the one killed down by the docks . . .’

‘I got your message.’ He gestured at the building. ‘But I’m due in here and judges don’t wait.’

‘This is to do with the kidnapping of Emilie Zeuthen and three murders. I think the judge will understand.’

‘You don’t know him.’

She went and stood in front of the entrance to stop him.

‘You met the mate?’

‘Briefly.’ He looked a little nervous. ‘I don’t know why. He showed up and demanded to talk to me. He couldn’t speak Danish. His English wasn’t good. He
claimed he was owed money for a court appearance a while back. He was going home and he wanted it.’

Schultz waved to someone going inside, promised he wouldn’t be long.

‘The case in question never came to court. So there was no money.’

‘That wasn’t the reason he gave Zeeland. He wasn’t going home either.’

Schultz’s slight shoulders twitched for a moment.

‘That’s what he told me.’

The lawyer dodged round her and headed for the doors.

‘What case?’ she asked.

‘Can’t we do this later?’

‘You want me to tell the Zeuthen family that?’

‘A young girl had run away from home in Jutland somewhere. She committed suicide. The mate and a couple of others found the body in the sea near the dock. They were interviewed by the
local police.’

‘When was this?’

‘I have to go. Call me tomorrow.’

‘I need the names of the other men. Maybe they were the ones on the
Medea
. Schultz.
Schultz!
’

By then he was pushing at the green wooden doors, going into the building. One short smile and he was inside.

Lund’s phone rang, her own, not Emilie’s still safe in her pocket.

‘I think we’ve got something,’ Asbjørn Juncker said. ‘One of the hookers says she thought she heard a child crying in a block near where she was staying.
Industrial unit in Vasbygade.’

Her car was around the corner. The place was ten minutes away.

‘I’ll meet you there,’ she said.

Reinhardt had spoken to PET and Zeeland’s security people. Now he was briefing Robert and Maja Zeuthen in the executive offices.

‘They both want you to hold back on the money. Whatever you offer he’ll probably reject it. You need room to manoeuvre upwards.’

Maja scowled.

‘It’s not about money. It’s about getting Emilie back.’

Zeuthen, shirtsleeves, tie still firmly at his neck, nodded.

‘PET know that too,’ Reinhardt insisted. ‘They’re not trying to talk you out of offering a ransom.’ He looked at both of them. ‘I said that would be
pointless. They’re trying to keep the negotiation process as brief as possible. For that you need to make him think he’s won.’

‘How much?’ Zeuthen asked.

‘As little as possible. He wants you to make the offer. It’s just tactics. Go in low—’

‘It’s money that caused all this!’ Maja Zeuthen cried. ‘Don’t be so cheap with my daughter’s life.’

‘It’s money that’s going to get her out too,’ Zeuthen said.

‘The man asked for an offer. He wants to know what Emilie’s worth to us,’ she went on. ‘So tell me, Robert. How much?’

He went to the window, looked out at the docks and the city beyond.

‘I want her home,’ Maja insisted. ‘I don’t care how much it costs you.’

Zeuthen waited for her to say more. Then, when she stayed silent, said to Reinhardt, ‘Give him what we discussed. If it’s not enough then I’ll raise it. Use my personal funds.
This affects no one else.’

He got his jacket.

‘Tell PET and the police,’ he added. ‘And the bank.’

He walked out through the offices, aware that every eye was on him. Went to the lift, apologized as he brushed into someone on the way. Stood alone watching the lights flick over from floor to
floor. Got out in the car park.

Sat in his shiny Range Rover. Looked at himself in the mirror. An ordinary man, trapped inside a business suit, imprisoned by a pressed shirt, a staid tie, a set of values that had been
impressed upon him since birth.

All he wanted was family. A loving wife. Happy children. Not wealth, not power. And now he was on the brink of losing it all.

In the deserted underground car park, in the rank stink of petrol fumes, the bland, emotionless face in the mirror mocked him.

Something foreign rose in Zeuthen’s throat. Fury and temper. Sealed inside the vast car he ranted and screamed, hammered his fists on the leather wheel, stamped his handmade shoes in the
footwell.

Let all the anger out, ripped his tie from his neck. Became for one brief moment a different man.

But it didn’t last. And the world hadn’t changed when the sudden fury receded. He rolled back his head. Knotted his tie in place after a while. Then slowly, carefully, edged the
Range Rover out into the traffic and headed for the Politigården.

Lund was at the industrial unit in Amager when Brix called with the news of the Zeuthens’ ransom offer: ten million kroner.

‘What’s that in euros?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. About one point four million or something?’

‘It should have been in euros,’ Lund said. ‘He’ll want to get abroad easily. Anyone’s going to stick out a mile turning up in America or Italy or somewhere lugging
ten million kroner.’

‘Well that’s what’s on offer!’ Brix barked. ‘Sorry you weren’t in the conversation. Borch said you were out chasing some old court case.’

‘I’m in Vasbygade. Someone heard a child cry here last night.’

It was a grim place. She could scarcely believe even Serb traffickers would keep their slaves in a hovel like this. Bare industrial units, little more than concrete containers, set back from the
busy road towards the airport. Easy access to fast exit routes everywhere. She could see why the kidnapper used it.

Juncker was scrabbling around at the back of the building. A couple of other officers were checking outside.

‘Anything?’ Brix asked.

‘Not that I can see.’

‘Zeuthen’s coming in here to talk about the ransom. I want you there.’

‘Fine.’

The young cop was on his hands and knees, looking at some marks on the floor. They were by a large filing cabinet. It looked as if it had been moved recently. She was starting to like
Asbjørn Juncker. In spite of his boyish appearance he had a stubborn, awkward streak.

‘What is it?’ Lund asked.

He didn’t answer. Got to his feet. Dragged on the drawer handles.

‘There’s something behind here,’ he said and heaved the thing forwards.

It fell on the floor with a crash that echoed round the empty room. There was a narrow space behind. An iron grille over what looked like a low door.

‘Get some tools,’ Lund ordered.