Trophy (5 page)

The song woke him. Or perhaps it was his hangover. Or his bladder, demanding to be emptied. Kim Andersen pulled himself up on his elbow and looked at the face of his new bride, fast asleep.

He sat up and fixed his gaze on the chest of drawers to stop the bedroom from spinning. His uniform jacket lay on the floor, but he was still wearing the pale blue, full dress uniform trousers of the Royal Life Guards, whose braces had got caught up between his legs. They had been driven back to their cottage at four o’clock in the morning after the wedding party. Drunk – extremely drunk – but happy.

He looked down at the lovely face once more. Louise had always been there for him. When he had returned from Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan; heaven after hell on earth. She was there when he felt lost and alienated, when he drank too much, when he had nightmares that drove him out of their bed and into the woods, walking until everything became bright and normal again. And now they were married. He was happy; it was a fresh start.

Kim Andersen looked at his face in the mirror while he relieved himself. His hair was damp from sweat, but newly cut, his chin unshaven and his eyes raw and bloodshot. It had been a great wedding and everyone had been there: their families, Louise’s colleagues from school, old army buddies, friends from the hunting syndicate, his colleagues from the carpentry firm, his boss and his wife.

The song.

He buttoned up his uniform trousers thinking that he must have been dreaming. It was strictly forbidden here. He went into the living room and looked out of the window. There wasn’t a sound to be heard. He breathed a sigh of relief – it was only a bad dream.

He hobbled into the kitchen, made himself a cup of Nescafé and looked out into the woods that bordered their property, an old forester’s cottage. The box van belonging to the carpentry firm was stationed at the far end of the drive and Louise’s new cream-coloured Alfa Romeo was parked close to the cottage with a blue silk ribbon around the body and a massive bow on the roof. He had woken her yesterday because he couldn’t wait any longer. He had made her close her eyes and had led her out into the garden while he walked behind her, guiding her with his hands on her shoulders. They were only two metres from the car when he told her to open her eyes. She was thrilled, she said – but could they afford it? They still had to pay for the wedding. He had been upset and they had argued a little.

Kim Andersen narrowed his eyes when he saw through the living-room window that the door of the Alfa Romeo was open. The dashboard glowed red inside the car. He took his mug of coffee outside and was walking up to the car when the song started playing again. He dropped the mug and started running, the braces slapping against his legs. The song filled his ears and his brain with nauseating fear. The key was in the ignition, the stereo was on and the volume turned right up. He fumbled with the controls and finally managed to eject the CD with Queen’s old rock number; a blank disc with no information or label.

Kim Andersen flung the disc into the grass, sat down in the driver’s seat with his feet on the gravel and his face in his hands. His stubble scratched his palms as he threw up.

Much later, he got up and walked back to the cottage, through the porch and into the hallway. He opened the door to the children’s bedroom; he had decorated it with lions, giraffes and zebras and a little girl and boy who were running through the tall grass of the savannah. The children were staying the night with Louise’s parents; their beds were neatly made, and on the smooth pillows lay a shiny, 9-mm bullet: one for the head of five-year-old Lucas and one for three-year-old Hanna.

Two hours later Kim Andersen’s new wife found him hanging from a rope tied to one of the lower branches of an oak tree. A white garden chair was lying under his dangling feet.

Three hours later Superintendent Lene Jensen’s mobile rang just as she had sat down outdoors at a café on Kultorvet in Copenhagen with her two best friends. Lene had been looking forward to this for ages. A good six months had passed since their last meeting. She looked at the display and groaned.

‘Now what?’ she exclaimed, pushing her spoon through the thick white foam on the caffé latte that had just been placed in front of her. Lene pulled an apologetic face to Marianne and Pia as the voice down the other end ruined everything.

A couple of hours ago, a thirty-one-year-old carpenter, Kim Andersen, had been cut down from a tree in his own garden in a forest south of Holbæk, the voice informed her. He had hanged himself.

The voice belonged to Chief Superintendent Charlotte Falster, Lene’s immediate superior in Denmark’s national police force, the Rigspolitiet. As usual, she spoke clearly, succinctly and a little too loud, as if deep down in her
managerial soul she regarded her subordinates as a little slow. Charlotte Falster disliked misunderstandings and favoured clear and concise communication. She had attended courses on it.

‘The poor sod probably just killed himself,’ Lene grunted. ‘Surely that’s his right.’

She spoke quietly and muffled her words deliberately, because Charlotte Falster hated muttering, but she knew perfectly well that the chief superintendent wouldn’t have interrupted her own body-flow class or museum weekend in Berlin to trouble herself with a simple suicide on west Sjælland.

‘His hands were handcuffed behind his back,’ the chief superintendent informed her. ‘Incidentally, he was married only yesterday, so his timing is rather odd. He’s a highly decorated war veteran, so we should expect considerable media interest. The public feels that the Armed Forces don’t do enough for veterans. That they’ve washed their hands of them, even though they’re traumatized and sick. Holbæk Police has requested assistance. Please would you take a look at it?’

Lene was tempted to ask if Charlotte Falster could call back tomorrow, but restrained herself.

‘What about Torsten?’ she asked.

‘Paternity leave.’

‘Jan?’

‘Knee injury. Football.’

‘Christian?’

‘On a course. You can bring Morten if you like,’ her boss said. ‘Technically, two of you should attend.’

Lene wouldn’t get out of a burning car if Morten Christensen asked her to, and Charlotte Falster knew it.

‘I’ll set off in half an hour,’ she said. ‘Is that okay?’

‘I’m delighted you can spare the time, Lene,’ her boss responded. ‘I’ll call Holbæk to let them know you’re on your way.’

Lene plopped the spoon into the cup. She no longer felt like drinking coffee. She felt like screaming. She leaned back with her hands in her lap and stared into space.

‘Your boss?’ Pia ventured.

‘The power bitch.’ Marianne nodded. There was only one person who could make Lene pull that face.

‘It’s your birthday,’ Pia fumed. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell her?’

‘She’s not a bitch,’ Lene said. ‘She’s all right, really … a bit uptight, possibly, but she’s all right …’

‘No, she bloody isn’t,’ Pia said.

*

Pia Holm was a psychiatric nurse, of Mediterranean ancestry, dark-haired and temperamental, and her love for Lene knew no bounds. They had met in a stairwell in Istedgade many years ago when Lene was still in uniform, driving patrol cars out of the old Station 1 in inner-city Copenhagen. Pia’s front door was being kicked in by an ex-boyfriend who had been
released on licence earlier that day. Her daughter, who was five years old at the time, had huddled up in a corner of the hallway in her nightdress with her hands pressed over her ears as Pia called the police. The other residents had turned up the volumes of their televisions, hoping that the man would get it over with and go away.

Pia had been in the process of pushing a chest of drawers in front of the door when she heard quick, light footsteps on the stairwell, an exclamation of surprise and a calmly admonishing female voice. When she opened the door an inch, a young woman with red hair in a police uniform was smiling at her. She had her foot placed firmly between the shoulder blades of the ex-boyfriend, who was lying on his stomach on the landing with his arms crossed in front of the officer’s black uniform shoes.

Her daughter had poked her small, serious face into the gap under Pia. The redheaded police officer broadened her smile, asked her what she was called and how old she was. Then she looked at Pia.

‘Do you know him?’

‘Yes, I mean no … I did. We had a thing once. He’s out on licence. He stalks me. I’ve tried moving.’

She started to cry.

The officer looked into Pia Holm’s eyes and said that he would never bother her again. She told them to go to bed and get the door fixed in the morning.

‘Promise?’ Pia asked.

‘Cross my heart,’ the officer said.

‘Fucking slags,’ the ex-boyfriend snarled from the floor.

Pia Holm closed the door and heard a noise like a dry twig snapping. The ex-boyfriend howled. Shortly afterwards she heard something heavy fall down the stairs.

She ran to the living room and looked into the street. The police officer’s red hair shone like copper under the street lamp as she dragged along a limp human shape by his feet. Her partner was leaning against the bonnet of the patrol car, smoking a cigarette. The car doors were open, the blue flashing light swept rhythmically across the front of the buildings, and Pia could hear the crackling of a police radio from inside the car. The police officer flicked aside his cigarette and proceeded to calmly help his colleague tip the remains of the ex-boyfriend into the back of the car. The doors slammed shut, the flashing light was turned off and the patrol car disappeared around the corner.

A couple of days later she happened to bump into the police officer, now dressed in civilian clothes, in a supermarket and asked if she fancied a cup of coffee. The rest was history.

*

Marianne, whom Lene had known ever since she sat down next to her on their first day at school, and was now living in the apartment block next to hers on Frederiksberg, put her hand on her arm.

‘Where are you going, darling?’

‘Holbæk.’

‘It’s not a kid, is it?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Lene took a deep breath and forced a smile. ‘Next weekend? Promise me! Both of you!’

‘Of course,’ they said.

She looked at the mobile on the table, pulling at her long red hair in anger.

‘Why the hell … Why the hell can’t people take a break, for once?’

‘Because then you would be out of a job, darling,’ said Marianne, always the voice of reason.

‘I could go back to Crete and rent out surfboards,’ Lene grumbled. ‘Or make jewellery to sell to tourists.’

‘You tried that twenty years ago,’ Pia pointed out. ‘Time for your presents!’

Her friends rummaged around their handbags. A gift card for Cinemateket – Lene loved movies – and a pair of beautiful silver earrings with pearls and dolphins. Lene was on the verge of tears.

‘You’re such nice people,’ she stammered.

‘Yes, we are, aren’t we,’ Marianne said. ‘Happy birthday!’

*

Lene found her little old Citroën in Nørre Voldgade and spent a moment studying her reflection in the visor. She stretched out the laughter lines around her eyes, refreshed her lipstick and heaved a sigh. The new earrings suited her. She found a
hairband and gathered up her hair in a thick ponytail. She was forty-three years old, but didn’t feel it. Her daughter Josefine was twenty-one and worked all the hours she could get at a café, in order to to save up enough money to backpack with a friend for six months around South America, where she would hopefully find out what she wanted to do with her life. Exactly as Lene herself had done after leaving school with – as her father had pointed out – a set of mediocre exam results. She had spent six months in Crete before returning home to Vordingborg and an uncertain future. She was the first person in her family for several generations not to enter higher education. Police College didn’t count, according to her father, who was a chemist, and her mother, who was a classical philologist.

She and Niels had divorced when she was thirty-nine and Josefine was seventeen. There had been no drama and they later agreed it was at least five years overdue. Niels had remarried while she drifted on, relatively content with her demanding job and single life. She hadn’t been seriously in love for years and she was hopeless at flirting.

She drove home to Kong Georgs Vej, parked and walked up to her third-floor flat. It was a lovely, bright, four-room, shared-ownership flat, which Lene had bought with the money she inherited from her father. She opened the door and shouted out that she was back.

She could smell popcorn. Her daughter and a friend, the potential South America travelling companion, were sitting
at the dining table in the living room, eating popcorn while studying maps and travel brochures.

‘How come you’re back?’ her daughter asked. Then she saw Lene’s face and no further questions were needed. She held up the bowl.

‘Popcorn?’

Lene grabbed a handful.

‘They’re lovely,’ Josefine said, pointing to her new earrings.

‘Thanks, sweetheart. I’m going out again straight away.’

‘Where are you off to?’ Josefine’s friend asked.

‘Holbæk.’ Lene scowled.

‘Well, it could be worse,’ Josefine said.

‘Really? Greenland?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Christ.’

Lene went into her bedroom and started hurling underwear, clothes and toiletries into a sports bag while she debated whether to pack her running shoes. She was in excellent physical shape. She did combat boxing two or three times a week in the Police Officers’ Athletics Club – mouthpiece, helmet; full contact – and she weighed the same as she did when she was twenty-five. She had never felt stronger, more supple, or been faster than she was right now. She opened the small steel cabinet built into the wall behind the wardrobe and went through the motions of unloading the service pistol that lived inside it; a grim looking 9-mm
Heckler & Koch pistol with eighteen bullets in the magazine. She put it in her bag, added a belt holster and two magazines, and zipped up the bag.

She was ready.