The Killing 2 (23 page)

‘Did you find the others?’

‘What others? Don’t you remember? Myg’s gone. David now. Apart from you there’s only one left. Lisbeth Thomsen.’

That wasn’t right.

‘No. What about HC? He got back OK. I heard he was a bit crazy—’

‘HC died in a car crash last year. It’s just you and Thomsen.’

Raben swore, lifted his eyes to the altar. Looked at the figure on the cross, understood nothing.

‘Where’s Thomsen?’

‘I heard she left Copenhagen a while back. You know what she’s like. Never happy unless she’s on her own . . .’

There was a sound at the door. Someone rattling the handle. Raben was on his feet in an instant, fists ready.

‘No, no,’ Torpe assured him. ‘It’s Louise. She called when you were out. She said you gave her a sign. I told her I didn’t know where you were. It didn’t
matter. She wanted to come anyway.’

‘They’ll be following her.’

Torpe scowled at him.

‘Do you think she doesn’t know that?’ He beckoned to the side room. ‘Go in there. Let me check.’

Raben didn’t move.

‘I won’t let you down,’ Torpe said. ‘I never did that in Helmand, did I? Why would I start here?’

When Raben had gone Torpe went to the front door.

‘Jonas?’ She was on the phone, talking in a motherly voice bordering on the cross. The priest nodded towards the back of the church. ‘Do as the babysitter says. Go to bed.
I’ll be home soon.’

Torpe checked outside, saw no one, let her in then went into the rooms out the back.

When Raben came into the nave she didn’t rush towards him.

‘Who knows you’re here?’ he asked.

‘Nobody. I told the babysitter I was visiting a friend. They had a car follow me.’ She paused. ‘I went into a bar in Vesterbrogade. Got out the back.’

He came close. Wondered whether to try to hold her. Louise didn’t move, wasn’t smiling in the wan street light from the high church windows.

‘I’ve been phoning everyone trying to find you. The priest couldn’t lie to me.’ She seemed as stiff and cold as a stranger. ‘Why did you escape? Why couldn’t
you wait?’

‘Myg and Grüner have been murdered.’

She shook her head, retreated from him as he tried to touch her.

‘Grüner too?’

‘Tonight.’

‘Why—?’

‘I don’t know why! They were scared. They remembered something from Helmand. I can’t—’

‘What are you talking about, Jens?’

There was a note of anger in her voice he hadn’t heard before. Louise had always sided with him. That mattered.

‘Something happened out there—’

‘They went through all that when you came back. There was an inquiry. I know you were sick—’

‘Something happened. I never told you the truth. None of us talked about it.’

‘What?’

He shook his head, wished, more than anything, he could answer that question.

‘I don’t remember. It’s just a mess . . . We went into a local house. There was an officer there. We got hit. A bomb. Next thing I’m in an army hospital back home. But it
happened. It’s in . . .’ He tapped his skull. ‘It’s in here somewhere. Myg knew. I think Grüner did too. I could see it when I talked to him—’

‘You spoke to Grüner?’

‘I thought it was just something rotten in my mind. It was me somehow.’

He looked at her. Wondered about the expression on her face, where he’d seen it before. Remembered. She was a nurse. It was the way she looked at sick people.

‘I wasn’t dreaming,’ Raben said, trying to take her hands. ‘It was real. I wasn’t crazy. They knew that when they locked me up . . .’

She retreated from him.

‘Jens! You kidnapped a stranger in Vesterbro. You said he was an officer from the army. You threatened to kill him.’

Raben couldn’t think of a thing to say.

‘He was no one,’ Louise said, coming a little closer, but still not touching him. ‘Someone you saw on the street. You were ill. Maybe still—’

‘I’m not sick now,’ he insisted. ‘They’re not taking me. If I don’t find out what’s going on they’ll let me rot in Herstedvester for
ever.’

‘No . . .’ She took out her phone, held it out for him. ‘This has gone too far. I want you to call the police. Give yourself up. You do this.’ She waved the mobile.
‘Don’t make me.’

He closed his eyes, felt a bitter note of laughter rise in his throat.

‘We can explain it somehow,’ she went on. ‘All you need is time. Do what Toft says. Take your medication.’

He didn’t get mad. He wouldn’t allow that.

‘Louise,’ he said, and before she knew it, took her arms. ‘Don’t you see?’

Her eyes were glistening. He hated it when she cried.

‘I did all that. I did everything they wanted. They still didn’t let me out. They’ve got a reason.’

She snatched her hands from his, swore bitterly.

‘Two years I’ve waited for you. On my own. Talking to doctors and lawyers. I feel like a widow . . .’

‘I did what they asked,’ he said again very slowly.

‘You broke out of jail. You robbed a petrol station. What chance are we supposed to have?’

‘Someone killed Myg. Then Grüner.’

‘I want you home . . .’

The heat, the fury came anyway, unbidden.

‘Do I wait ten years in that cell then?’ Raben roared. ‘Let my son forget me? Wait until you run off with that slippery bastard Søgaard?’

Another curse, she turned away and walked towards the door.

They always talked, too much sometimes. Friends before they were lovers. She was the best companion he’d ever known. More than a wife. Always would be, or so he’d thought.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, catching up with her. ‘I’ll sort it out. I promise. I know what I’m doing.’

She didn’t walk off.

‘Help me, Louise,’ Raben pleaded. ‘There’s something wrong here. Really wrong.’

‘Jens. We’re little people—’

‘You’re not little to me. You’re the most important thing in the world. You and Jonas.’

Her bright eyes flared.

‘Then why—?’

‘Because I want to be home. With both of you. If I just sit back and wait . . .’

He’d got her attention, finally.

‘You’ll stay in jail,’ she said. ‘I get the message.’

‘No.’ He held her. ‘I’ll be like Myg and Grüner. Dead.’

She looked round the church, then at him.

‘There’s only two of us left,’ he said. ‘Lisbeth Thomsen’s the last. She’s left Copenhagen. There’ll be a personnel file in the barracks
database.’

‘Jens—’

‘I’ve got to warn her. Take this.’ He gave her Torpe’s spare phone. ‘I’ll get another from somewhere. I’ll call you tomorrow morning.’

He put a hand to her forehead. It was cold, like her.

‘I’ve got to go, love. They’ll be looking for me here.’

‘Go where?’

‘There’s a city out there,’ he said, nodding at the door. ‘A million places.’

‘Who are you?’ she whispered, stretching out of his grip as he tried to hold her.

‘I’m Jens. I’m who I always was.’

She stared at him and didn’t say a word.

‘Kiss Jonas for me.’

At that she let him come close and briefly plant his lips on her cheek.

This, he thought, was all the intimacy they had left. Everything else had been stripped from them.

Jens Peter Raben walked her to the church door, watched his wife leave. There’d be a doorway to sleep in somewhere. A place to hide in the dark.

Karina had been through more of the diary.

‘I can’t see any way Monberg and Dragsholm knew each other personally. PET don’t believe it either.’

‘König kept this whole case to himself for no good reason,’ Buch muttered. ‘Am I supposed to take his word on it?’

‘PET monitor ministers. You do know that?’

‘I’m sure they’ve got photos of me eating a hot dog. Listen. We know the two met at a hotel the weekend before she was killed. Why?’

She checked the diary. Monberg was speaking at a seminar on human rights. It was arranged by Amnesty. Dragsholm was on the organizing committee.

‘Did they spend the night together?’

She shook her head.

‘How would I know? I was there in the afternoon. I never saw her. I’m sure they weren’t having an affair. I think I’d have noticed.’

Plough came in looking glum. He had a fresh folder. More photos sent direct from the murder scene in Islands Brygge.

‘Who is it this time?’ Buch asked.

‘A former soldier from Ryvangen. He was an invalid who served with Myg Poulsen.’

The photographs were so disgusting Karina couldn’t look. A crippled man incinerated in his own wheelchair. Buch could just about make that out.

‘The Prime Minister wants a meeting with you and the Minister of Defence,’ Plough said.

Buch was barely listening.

‘We need to know what connects Monberg to Anne Dragsholm. We’ve got to find out if Monberg withheld information for personal reasons.’

Plough stared through the rainy windows. He seemed embarrassed.

‘There’s something you should know. I wouldn’t ordinarily intrude into the private lives of ministers.’

Silence.

‘Out with it,’ Buch ordered.

‘For the last few months Monberg acted strangely at times. He cancelled meetings where his presence was needed. It wasn’t like him. He always had a plausible excuse if I
asked—’

‘Get to the point,’ Buch ordered.

Plough took off his glasses.

‘I’m afraid he wasn’t always where he said. He lied . . .’ The civil servant looked visibly hurt. ‘To me. I wondered if he was seeing someone.’

He coughed.

‘Without his family’s knowledge as it were.’

‘You mean he had a bit on the side?’ Buch demanded.

‘If you wish to put it that way—’

‘And it was Dragsholm?’

‘I don’t know who it was. Sometimes he stayed at a hotel in Klampenborg. She didn’t live far away. He could get back into the city easily too I imagine.’

‘PET never reported any of this,’ Karina said. ‘Monberg was a responsible man. If any of this related to a case he was handling he would have mentioned it.’

Buch took a bar of chocolate out of his pocket and broke it over the photos from the crime scene. Karina declined his offer of a chunk.

‘Monberg was the Minister of Justice,’ he said. ‘If anyone knew how to avoid PET who better—?’

‘I think it’s best you don’t mention any of this when you meet the Prime Minister,’ Plough suggested. ‘Monberg has lots of friends in government. The Prime
Minister. Flemming Rossing, the Defence Minister, has been close to him for years as well. It’s a sensitive matter. We can’t just blurt this out.’

‘I’m not in the habit of blurting,’ Buch objected. The two of them were silent. ‘Am I?’ he asked.

Lund questioned Kodmani in the same interview room, taking control from the outset. Strange grabbed a chair in silence, pulled out a notebook and a pen.

Kodmani stared at him.

‘I said just the woman.’

‘It doesn’t work like that,’ Lund told him. ‘My colleague’s just going to . . .’

Strange bent over the notebook, pretended to lick the tip of the pencil.

‘Take notes,’ she added. Then to the man in blue, ‘You want to tell me something.’

Kodmani held his hands together, stroked his long black beard.

‘I want to tell you all I know about Faith Fellow. This is the truth.’

‘I hope so.’

‘It is the truth. Those people . . . those friends of mine you arrested. They’ve got nothing to do with this. You should let them go.’

Strange grunted. Lund kicked him under the table.

‘We don’t cut deals. We arrest who we suspect. If they’re innocent they’ll walk free.’

He seemed to accept that.

‘I know I made a mistake, lady. I know I’m going to pay for it. But it should just be me. No one else.’

‘What mistake?’

He leaned back, folded his arms in front of his chest.

‘Faith Fellow came to me through the website. I thought he was genuine but now . . .’ He sighed. ‘He played me like a fiddle. Told me what I wanted to hear. I was a fool. He
seemed to understand me. My faith, my politics, my hatred for—’

‘I’m not writing this bastard’s life story,’ Strange said and put down the pencil.

Lund picked it up and placed it back in his hand then put a finger to her lips. Kodmani watched. He seemed to like this.

‘I thought I could trust him,’ the Moroccan went on. ‘He seemed so . . . convincing. He asked me to set up a post office box for his donations. Then he wanted to know how he
could upload a video to my site.’

‘Did he ask you to kill a few people too?’ Strange said without taking his head up from the pad.

Lund glowered at him.

‘He never asked me to do anything that looked bad,’ Kodmani replied. ‘There was nothing like that. I’m not a warrior . . .’

He leaned forward, gazed at Lund.

‘My only crime is it made me feel good. At first. When I saw your people were dying too. It was like you were being punished for once. I felt vindicated . . .’

‘And then?’ she asked.

‘You showed me those photos. I knew we were going to pay for this.’

She shook her head.

‘What do you mean?’

He laughed.

‘I thought you were smarter than them. But you just see what you want to see. These murderers aren’t my people. They’re someone else. Someone who hates us.’

‘Who?’

‘You’re the police, aren’t you?’ he said with a sneer. ‘Go find out. I didn’t kill anyone. None of the people I know would. But this Faith Fellow . .
.’

‘What language did he write in?’

‘English mostly. Arabic sometimes.’

A sudden look of disgust.

‘That was to impress me. He wasn’t good at it. I think he knew that. I asked him one time where he came from.’ Kodmani shrugged. ‘He never answered.’

‘Did he write about an army squad? About Anne Dragsholm?’

‘No.’

He was drying up.

‘There must be more, Kodmani . . .’

‘He was a man who sent me emails. Got me worked up. He knew what he was doing. The words Faith Fellow used . . .’ Kodmani glanced at Strange. ‘They were very precise and brief.
Like a man in authority.’

He leaned forward again, anxious suddenly.

‘He sounded like a soldier. Yes. He was a soldier.’